How To Recognize That You Are A Zombie

"Spiritual abuse is the mistreatment of a person who is in need of help, support or greater spiritual empowerment, with the result of weakening, undermining or decreasing that person's spiritual empowerment." 
From: The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse, by David Johnson & Jeff Van Vonderen http://www.amazon.com/The-Subtle-Power-Spiritual-Abuse/dp/0764201379/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1406580950&sr=8-1&keywords=the+subtle+power+of+spiritual+abuse)

Dear Reader!

It took about a year after leaving/being kicked out of my small Evangelical Christian fellowship to recognize that I was indeed in a full-fledged cult, and had been turned into a zombie. 

Welcome to my new blog "Church Of The Living Dead?!"! 

I hope you find challenging thoughts, truth, wisdom, and freedom as I take you on the many stations of my journey to overcoming and being healed from Spiritual Abuse. I hope to reach believers that are seeking information on spiritual abuse, or that are currently in cults or find themselves entangled in spiritually abusive dynamics, and also victims that have left the church, never to return. This is a safe zone and I will not put any new law on you. I'll be sharing experiences and revelations with you. I'll be presenting a healthy and authentic expressing of the Christian faith as I have found it with the help of the Holy Spirit working through many other believers from many denominations. I'll be quoting from different books that made a strong impact on me and post, if applicable, an amazon.com link when I mention them for the first time. 

Me, a zombie?

A zombie, depending on the movie you are thinking of, is fairly dumb, slow, and only wants to eat brains. When I think of zombies I have a picture in mind of a falling apart body, stretched out arms, "uuuuuhhhh" vocalizing, and ready-to-bite-ya attitude displaying shell of a former person, cursed to exist like this until someone decapitates them. They often still wear the clothing they had on when they were bitten, reminding us that they were once human.

The zombie comparison is fitting with my old self back then as a self-proclaimed "Forefront forerunner, remnant Soldier-Warrior of God". Me and my other cult member brothers and sisters, we truly learned to function and think in uniformity. We had the mob-mentality perfected to trying to wear the same clothes (my cult leader was into the business world, so our uniform was to try to look like business people), we spoke the same christianese/psychology infused language, and single-mindedly looked for potential new members to woo by getting into their heads with a display of our spiritual gifts, or the forcing on of them, and ability to appear like real, free and happy humans that just want to help the lost. 

Quietly, when the idea started to slowly spread in my heart that the "Good News" of Jesus honestly wasn't good news for me anymore, I felt increasingly more like a hypocrite that was trying to turn others into what I knew was a miserable existence. But, I had no right no leave. To leave the group would have been like smacking God in the face and tell Him: "Well, thanks for thinking me worthy for this radical life of obedience, in your intimate presence, and saving the world every day and night, but I just think it's not for me anymore. I'd rather have some peace and well, a life I actually like." That is how I was taught to think. So, like a zombie, I couldn't change a thing because I had turned of my own ability to reason, discern, think or feel, trapped by a system of lies and manipulations put up by a mastermind leader (that I will discuss in detail in future posts). 

9 Questions A Zombie Would Answer With "Yes":

1. Do you think that your church/group is probably the best, if not the only, haven for new believers?

2. Do you feel like deep down you single-handedly need to save, baptize, and disciple every person you meet?

3. Do you think your pastor/leader is the only Christian authority you can really trust and you are also a little scared of him as he has a biblically backed up system of authority over the congregation?

4. Do you live in fear of making mistakes, upsetting God, missing what the Holy Spirit wants to do through you, failing to save the number of people you were supposed to? 

5. Do you secretly or openly judge other believers for not following the expectations and rules that your church/group has established?

6. Do you feel pressure to make specific choices put on you by your spiritual leadership, that had earned your trust before, even though God has not confirmed it to you personally?

7. Do you feel like you cannot trust that God speaks clearly to you, therefore your leaders are right to expect you to run every detail of your life by them?

8. Do you believe that every sentence in the Bible could potentially be exactly what God wants to say to you right now and the way of knowing that is how much the sentence implements the FEAR of God in you?

9. Do you have to daily think/repent of your habitual sins or character shortcomings or even keep a list so you can stop committing them?

If you answered with "yes" to any of these questions, or even a "maybe a little", I invite you to go to our Father in heaven and talk to Him about it. I will address my thoughts on all of these points in future posts, but I think you would benefit from allowing the Holy Spirit to speak to you about how good the Good News is. If there is a reason for you to honestly call something bad a Christian presents to you as part of the Good News, you are either not ready to receive it or they are bluntly wrong. In either case you can always seek council with our Father and/or a few trusted believers. Just an fyi; If anyone in our group brought up doubts or questions to another believer, the questioned one had a great chance to display his/her loyalty to the leadership, so you may want to consider asking people that are not part of your group. 

Lasting physical fear, anxiety or condemnation are not from God if you are truthfully sharing your heart with Him. If Jesus Christ is your savior and you have surrendered to him, no one can deny you to be a new creation. It is not by looking into darkness that we learn what light is, but by looking into the light. Remember that the truth of Jesus Christ sets us free from the accusation of having broken the law. 

To discovering that the Good News is much better than we thought!

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