Escaping From Christian Fundamentalism

Escaping From Christian Fundamentalism

MY STORY

A BRIEF INTRODUCTION

     Hi and welcome to my blog.

     The focus of this blog is not primarily to discuss the practical consequences of leaving a Christian fundamentalist church but more to relate something of the profound effects that such a faith can have on one’s make up – especially when subjected to it from a very early age – and, more so, the subconscious harm it can induce.
     Since leaving the church, my journey has been one of on going psychological recovery coupled with a developing sense of self-awareness. It has not been an easy path but it is certainly one along which I have felt compelled.
     There is little point penning this blog if I cannot be open and truthful about my experiences. Some things I am a little embarrassed to discuss, others are very personal but because I am primarily writing in the hope that this may engender healing for others as well as for my self I want to be as open as I can.
     I would like to begin with a poem which I wrote some years ago.

SOMETIMES

Sometimes our lives take paths we do not understand
But Love in Her wisdom knows.
Sometimes our faith begins to show the cracks,
But something new is being born.
Sometimes the day is as black as the night,
But angels are all around
In a verse, or a friend, or some kindly word or deed.

Sometimes our hearts collapse, we’re frail.
But Love will never fail
Sometimes, oh sometimes, we scream in pain,
Our lives will never be the same.
All hell’s let loose, we’re torn apart,
But from some recess in our heart
New life takes hold, we learn to know
That through the torment we can grow
To something different, hallowed, true.

Let go and rest.

Undying Love, the centre of all being,
The One who fashions, shapes and forms,
The One in whom knowing, knowing begins.
Trust in this, that Love will never fail
Trust in this, that Love will bring you through.

‘My peace I give to you’
The peace of Love.
‘God is Love’
Love is eternal
Love is God.

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EARLY YEARS

YES...THIS IS REALLY ME AT A TENDER AGE -
AND I STILL HAVE MY TEDDY BEAR!!!!

     For the first twenty eight years of my life I was deep in the influence of Christian fundamentalism. I have spent many years since trying to come to terms with the hugely damaging effect that this influence has had on me.
     Now, I have arrived at a place where I feel I would like to share my ongoing personal journey through the medium of the internet in the hope that it may offer some encouragement to others who may be experiencing similar issues to those I have had to faced – and continue to face – and because I believe that such an exercise provides its own form of therapy.

     When I was born my parents were fervent Christians attending a Brethren church but by the time I was two years old, after a sudden and explosive ‘Baptism in the Spirit’, they had become very involved with Assemblies of God Pentecostalism.
     My mother and father had both attended bible college before my birth (my father had studied at an Holiness college) and were intent on becoming missionaries in the Far East. As things turned out this was not to be. Instead they cemented their commitment to their Pentecostal beliefs through keen church attendance; evening waiting meetings in their own home; general witnessing and, later, Sunday school and young people’s work. In time, my father was to become a deacon and then an elder in our church. Eventually, their passion for their faith led my parents to pioneering a Pentecostal church in a village local to where we lived.
     I can recall being taken to Sunday school at the tender age of two, being deposited in a small hall with lots of other children while my father joined the men’s bible study elsewhere in the church complex. In time, I was made to attend evening services on Saturdays, Tuesdays and Thursdays; a youth group on Wednesday evenings; Communion on Sunday mornings; Sunday school in the afternoons and the Full Gospel service in the evenings. Accompanying all this was the regular pattern of personal prayer and bible reading at home – ‘quiet times’ – and a general sense of doing the will of God in my ‘Bible centred’ everyday life. This was the pattern of things for many years until I was nineteen and attending university.

UNIVERSITY

     As you can imagine, long before I went off to university I had been well and truly grounded in the ‘faith’, firmly moulded into being ‘an upstanding young Christian’. I was clued up about the Scriptures and knew my doctrine. My sins were forgiven and I was very confident and absolute in my faith. I remember being quite awestruck at just how lucky I was to have been born into such a Christian home and having such a wonderful access to this amazing salvation. But it wasn’t to be too long before the first line of the above poem would begin to take effect.

     As for many young people leaving school, university was my first time away from home. I was looking forward to my Theological studies and was not going to be easily dissuaded of my faith by the modernists and biblical critics, about whom I had been warned by stalwarts in my church. Unbeknown to me though at that time was the fact that a very lonely young man who knew far less about his real self than he thought was stepping out towards the unknown.

     University was a fascinating experience which I very much enjoyed. I lapped up the academic life and generally felt reasonably confident in the positions I adopted when in discourse with others. I found a good Pentecostal church which I visited as often as I could, regularly cycling the ten or twelve miles on Sundays and on week nights, sometimes in the cold and rain, to go to the services. Life was good. I was saved and right with God and that, so I thought, was pretty much all that mattered. God had a plan for my life which he would make plain as I continued to serve him with all my heart.
     Little did I realise at that time, however, was that the real me, somehow managing to cling on beneath years of indoctrination and suppression, was an incredibly lonely and helpless little child.

RELATIONSHIP ISSUES

     Despite the outward expressions of confidence and happiness, developed over twenty years of learning to be someone that I was not, subconsciously, I was lonely and depressed. In addition, out of the contorted conditions of my up bringing irrational fears had developed along with their particular defence mechanisms which were to cause me problems in my relationships with others, primarily with young women.
     One particular problem was both subtle and profound and it was not until late in my twenties that I became properly conscious of it. It has taken many hours of therapy since then to weed out its causes and purpose but it took the form of looking for physical perfection when considering a possible relationship with members of the opposite sex.
     I would meet attractive young women (many of them Christians) but would always very quickly find some imperfection about them, often relating to very minor details. It was as if a scanner, over which I had no control, activated automatically to search out physical and character flaws, encouraging me to avoid potential relationships thinking it better to wait until I met a more perfect woman with whom to fall in love. Of course, I now see the futility and absurdity of this behaviour but that is how it was.
     My hope was that I would meet a lovely Christian girl at university and have a college romance to beat all others – no sex, mind you, this was strictly for when we would be married. God, I believed, had someone special for me and University was the likely place where I would meet her. There were indeed many lovely young ladies and one in particular I found to be very attractive but the self-defeating mechanism by which I considered all eligible young women (and the incredible naivety of my approach to relationships in general born out of my suppressed up bringing – over which I cringe now when looking back) meant that the hope would always remain a fantasy.
     One consequence of this behaviour was loneliness and another frustration which, in turn reinforced the hidden loneliness. It wasn’t long before things took a significant change for the worse.

'ALL HELL'S LET LOOSE'

     I’d only ever had one 'serious' girl friend before going to university and, initially, I was very much in love with her. One morning, however, I awoke with a real sense of fear and foreboding and a keen urgency to get out of the relationship. The love and affection I had for her had gone only to be replaced with panic and dread.
     It was in my second year at university that I was to experience something like this foreboding again but this time to a far more intense degree.

     If I am to be perfectly honest, the loneliness that I was feeling in not being able to find the warmth of a close relationship led me, in a moment of temptation, to purchase a girlie magazine. Not a great transgression really and one which I have come to see as being of no great consequence now but a transgression which at that particular time in my life triggered a massive depression the likes of which I had never experienced before. In my world view I had committed a serious sin and the guilt and sense of falling were palpable. I needed to ask for God’s forgiveness and be cleansed. Somehow, in my mind sexual sins had taken on a gravity way beyond their real significance and the apparent guilt was unbearable.
     Initially, I had real feelings of suicide. The bottom had completely fallen out of my world. The despair was terrifying. Utterly strange and menacing feelings tormented me. Relief was seldom and short-lived and only in sleep could I find some escape. I cannot emphasise strongly enough just how scared I felt! The happy, optimistic person that I was, at least on the surface, had gone and in place of the positive feelings poured in the severest black depression.
     Totally confused by this awful experience and very perplexed by its failure to disappear completely after tearful repentance and prayer, I became very concerned that I may have become demon possessed. My parents assured me otherwise but this seemed to be the only way I could explain what was happening to me and it was something I could not get out of my head. My mind was in turmoil. I was petrified at the thought that this could be the reason for my dilemma and yet, to all around me I managed to maintain my regular façade.

     For the following three to four years I grappled with the depression and the possession issues on an almost daily basis. Eager to convince myself that I was actually forgiven and that there were no evil spirits tormenting my soul I took every opportunity to test the matter always seeking for reassurance. Consequently, I became more and more involved in the pioneer work that my parents had begun.
     Eventually, experience, time and reason began to procure a remedy but it was not until much later that I discovered what had really been going on for me during what were the most frightening years of my life.
     Strangely, I never at any time interpreted how I was feeling then as being a medical condition and neither did my parents. I could have received help through drugs or counselling or both and yet my automatic response (formulated through years of programming from a very early age) had been to see the whole issue as something spiritual.

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MY MOTHER'S DEATH

      After completing my degree I did some postgraduate studies, began a career in teaching and got on with the usual things that one does. I became a youth leader and deacon in the pioneer church, led services and did some preaching and outreach work. Time went on and yet still I remained single without even an attempt at a relationship, much of the time believing that perhaps it was not quite God’s time for me to meet my intended partner.
     When I was twenty-six, my mother died. She had been suffering for a long time with a serious illness and in the last few days leading up to her death I had time to nurse and care for her. I knew her death was imminent. I was grief-stricken at the thought that she would be taken away from me. It felt so wrong to enjoy sleep while she was suffering. When I was not looking after her I was on my knees praying for her recovery. But this was not to be and she passed away at home. What I am about to relate now may appear callous to some but at the very moment at which she died I experienced a momentary and much unexpected sense of relief.
     Years of being in an all-encompassing Christian fundamentalist environment reinforced from the pulpit – and from the kitchen table – have caused enormous unconscious damage. The grip of one of these ‘controllers’ had slipped and something inside me felt the release.
     I believed that I loved my mother with all my heart and that I would have done anything to prevent her untimely passing but I did experience that fleeting moment of relief and – more significantly –  never, to this day, have I been able to bereave her passing!

     I am what I am but what I am is not who I am. Those of you reading this blog who have passed this way will know what I mean.

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BEGINNING TO DOUBT

      My post-graduate studies leading up to and during this period focused on the science and religion debate in Victorian England and particularly, of course, on Darwinism. By my mid twenties I was already making the intellectual leap away from literalism and creationism (beliefs which I once held very dear) in favour of a more pro-evolution approach. I didn’t feel that this compromised my faith in Christ and the central doctrines of Christianity but it was, of course, part of an emerging and gradual shift away from fundamentalism.
     At the same time, my involvement in the pioneer church as a deacon and the closer access this office allowed me to the various pastors with whom I was involved and to the general workings of the AOG had in fact spawned in me a sense of disillusionment with the whole system which I came to consider as being shallow and inept.
     When my mother died, one thing I was not expecting was the almost total lack of any meaningful sympathy and support through the subsequent weeks and months from the members of the very church she had founded with my father. Given how my mother had always been there for others, this was something I found very hard to accept.
     With all these factors pressing in it was not surprising that very soon after my mother’s passing I left Pentecostalism for good. It was not the place for me any more. I felt I had out grown it.
     Partly in search of a church with some credibility where my faith could have room to develop but mostly, I must admit, in search of the beautiful (mythical) Christian girl friend, I spent the next few months visiting Protestant churches of all denominations. This was an enriching time in many ways but eventually I settled with my local Anglican church.
     By now I was twenty-eight; I was attending a friendly Anglican fellowship; I had a good job, good health and my post-graduate studies were progressing. What was about to occur next threw me into real turmoil as the excruciating throes of a contorted inner self screamed out for recognition.

THE TORMENT RETURNS

     There is today, I am so very pleased to report, a really special woman in my life. I owe this lady a very serious debt of gratitude as it was her abiding love for me which helped me so much over what was about to happen. For reasons of anonymity I shall call her Sally.
     Sally had been a friend of mine for some time before I asked her out. Our initial date had been a success and we were both looking forward eagerly to our next time together. It was on the evening of our first date, however, that things started to go badly wrong for me.
     I wasn’t ambivalent about Sally. We were both keen about each other and I knew I wanted to see her again.
     We were entering a restaurant, looking forward to a nice evening meal to round off what had been a really great day when I began to experience a prickly fear rising up the back of my neck and what I can only describe as an acute sense of nausea – which was hard to mask! As you will probably guess, though, having had a lifetime of being someone I was not, I did manage to conceal from Sally the feelings of panic that were emerging with force that night.
     Our next date was the following day and I dully drove the sixty miles or so to Sally’s home, as arranged, to spend the day with her. The previous day I had been so excited. Now I was panicky and full of dread. My stomach was unsettled and there was a distinctly nervous edge to me. Those old feelings of foreboding evidenced ten years before with my first girlfriend had struck again but this time almost immediately on our initial date. Despite my keen anxiety the day went well. Somehow, I managed to hide how I was feeling.
     The feelings I experienced were so intense and emotionally crippling that I knew they were not just a normal sudden change of heart about Sally. I did not want to break off the relationship but the panic attacks, the deep foreboding and the daily sense of anxiety only intensified. I knew that if I did stop seeing Sally the problem would go away (at least until the next relationship) but having experienced something similar before I sensed this time that something was wrong. Of course, I prayed and pleaded with God to help me but my prayers fell on deaf ears and it became evident that the urgency of my need could not wait. It was vital I secured help immediately.  There was a definite sense that if I were to get over this crisis then I had to leave the church.
     Later I realised that the very system I was looking to for help was the very cause of my calamity – no wonder my prayers went unanswered!
     Gritting my teeth and facing the fact full on that there was something about me that needed sorting out, I determined to stand and fight and not to give in and run away.

COUNSELLING AND PSYCHOTHERAPY

'DECIPHERING THE CODES IN YOU...'

     To gather some understanding of what the hell was going on (and it was like hell for me – remember the opening poem …’all hell’s let loose, we’re torn apart’), I began to read self-help books – ‘Men Who Can’t Love’, ‘If I’m so wonderful Why an I Still Single’ among many. Some were very useful and enabled me to begin to piece together something of my dilemma. Eventually, my GP referred me for psychotherapy.
     No doubt those of you reading this who share a similar background to me in which Christ is the all-sufficient healer will sense the gravity of the shift represented here. No longer did I believe that my faith had the answers and instead I began to look elsewhere. The edifice that had been my creed was steadily crumbling into dust – and not because of any sustained attack from the outside but simply because when it came to the desperate crunch it failed to provide the answers I needed.

     It is not guaranteed that the first therapist will be the right therapist for anyone’s particular circumstances. The listening therapies rely on far more than technical expertise and a thorough knowledge of the theories to do their work. Intuition and human connection can be significant parts of the professionals' repertoire and so it is not surprising to have to visit more than one such helper in the course of one’s journey if fuller healing is to be attained.
     As it was, my first therapist – an NHS psychologist – asserted that it was ‘as plain as a barn door’ to him that I had an aversion to sex. Of course, for a while I believed him and followed his advice. Unfortunately, (or perhaps fortunately for me – as I later discovered his diagnosis was questionable), he lost his job rather suddenly and I was left in the lurch. Not one to give up easily I contacted Relate to see if they could help. Eventually, I began a weekly series of counselling sessions with a Relate therapist (who, interestingly, was a priest) which were to last for about one year. It was under this man’s skill that I really began to get some insight as to the true nature of my problem.

FACING GOLLUM

     There’s no real need to go into lots of detail about my visits to the Relate counsellor but I would like to describe one pivotal moment. During a particular session the therapist was exploring issues with me when, in my mind’s eye, a distinct picture began to emerge of layers like those of an onion being peeled away. Layer after layer was removed and when all the layers had gone I saw a cage of black iron bars. There was a warm fleshy hue to the scene, as if in a womb, but inside the cage was a black, angry Gollum like figure. He was gripping onto the bars, looking out desiring release. His anger was tangible. I seemed to know instinctively that somehow I was looking at my inner self. For the first time in my life I believe I had in this strange way come face to face with the real me. I was imprisoned and wanted to be free.

     This moment brought enormous realisation. I knew I had to cherish what I had found and from that moment on I held to one belief and one belief only – that my spirit must remain free. Never again would I submit to man-made systems. I travelled home that night with tears running down my face shouting ‘you bastard!’ at the mental picture I was carrying of a pastor perched up high in a pulpit. There was a profound sense of the enforcement, the manipulation, the control, the suppression, the damage that had been going on all my life up to that point – and it really hurt!

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THREE PRAYERS AND THE BEGINNING OF A NEW AWARENESS

     Although I had left the church completely and let go of my faith. I had not become an atheist. Probably my studies in oriental religion at university had allowed me a wider appreciation of the notion of God than perhaps may be available to those with only a purely fundamentalist concept to their experience. I still held to some vague sense of the Divine, a benevolent but nondescript Divine force but that was all. I was not going to begin to place constructs around this. If it were real then it would have to prove itself to me.
     Reading the Bible had become very difficult. All the old indoctrinated teachings that I was brought up with just came flooding into my attempts at new interpretations. I found it easier not to read the Bible at all. Prayer had been so formulated in the past that this too was difficult. But I did make three specific prayers during this time which I feel were answered in remarkable ways.
     By the time I was visiting the Relate counsellor I was living on my own in my own place. This was great as it gave me space to begin exploring who I really was and what it meant to be me. Of course, this was not as easy as it sounds because there had been so much conditioning. It takes time (years in my case) to learn how the conditioning operates on different levels and how to uncouple from it. Anyway, at some point I made the first of those specific prayers. It was a simple prayer but one which threw down the gauntlet. ‘God,’ I said. ‘If you really exist, then you’ve got to show yourself to me. I’m fed up of looking for you!’ That was it, as simple as that. No long build up to the punch line. It was short and pithy. I left it at that.
     Over the weeks and months which followed things began to happen. These were nothing dramatic but quiet, subtle, momentary things often to do with nature and the inter-connectedness of being. These moments occurred occasionally and often carried glimpses into another way of perceiving reality. My intuitive side was beginning to awaken. There was a tangible sense of the oneness of all things. Eventually, it was possible to weave a tentative thread of connectedness between these experiences. Something was coming to birth. A new pathway was opening up, one which I was excited to travel. However, I needed to be sure that I wasn’t just making it all up. This led to my second prayer: ‘God, if all that I am seeing and experiencing is true then please give me some confirmation.’
     Looking back I can see how much the pattern of the fundamentalist was still at work in my approach to prayer. Of course, this would be so as it was all I knew but the heart behind the prayer was changing. Confirmation soon came in the form of a wonderful book which I read with tears of happiness and immense joy. The book was Peter Spinks’ ‘Beyond Belief’ which I very heartily recommend. Every page was a profoundly felt confirmation that I was on the right path.

     (The third prayer, by the way, was answered equally remarkably. While travelling home one day after some success with something, I was thinking about my frustrations with my job and the hopes and plans that I had for the future. Aware of the practical difficulties of leaving my job and becoming self-employed I just offered up a sincere prayer about my future while driving. I didn’t think much more about it but twenty miles down the road I passed a disused armoured vehicle sitting in someone’s back garden close to the road. On the side of this vehicle were painted the words ‘TRUST ME’. The words appeared to me as large as the letters on a car number plate and they were oscillating and seemed in some way alive! I tell no lie. Immediately, I was mindful of the prayer I had made only twenty minutes before. The next time I passed that vehicle I looked to see the words again. They were definitely there but this time at their normal size – which I could hardly read!)

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GETTING MARRIED

     During all this time, my relationship with Sally was continuing though it was very hard for us at times, especially for Sally. One thing in particular which had been a real bar to our future happiness was my pure fear of getting married. I was terrified of the prospect and simply couldn’t do it. Understandably, Sally could take only so much but the thought of her leaving me broke my heart. It really was a catch 22 situation. To alleviate the tension we decided to take a break from each other after which, if I still felt unable to get married, then we would part company. It was at this time when I actually left the church with a real determination and, to my surprise my fear of getting married resolved itself! I believe that in making a definite stand about not going to church any more I had denied so many controlling influences still at work on a sub-conscious level. I had denied that other ‘controller’ and taken hold of the reins of my life. I likened leaving the church to a divorce. U2’s song ‘One’ was in the charts then and the words of that song came to mean a great deal to me.
     Sally and I got back together, made plans to get married and I remained calm. Now, more than two decades on, we are still happily married and have two wonderful adult children.

PROFOUND LONELINESS

     But the road to healing did not stop at getting married. Years of indoctrination and religious abuse were not going to be resolved within fifty hours or so of counselling. I was happier and freer and felt generally much better with myself but all was far from over.
     There were other, shorter sessions with counsellors as new issues arose and old ones continued. More books were read but life went on. One evening, however, Sally and I were reading. I was completing a self-awareness exercise in a particular text which triggered a sudden, intense sensation of acute loneliness. From somewhere really deep within me an overwhelming sense of isolation forced its way out and had me broken and weeping within seconds. It took me completely by surprise. For minutes I wept, sobbing uncontrollably, aware of an desperate sensation of being so vitally alone.
     In my efforts to understand this experience I came across John Bradshaw’s book ‘Homecoming’. What a book! Studying this volume introduced me to the concept of the wounded inner child and how it may be helped towards healing. Bradshaw’s book provided me with an incredible insight into the nature of my problems for which I am profoundly grateful to the author.
It was about this time that I wrote the following poem:

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IMAGE OF A CHILD

Image of a child
Forlorn and still
Denied his ‘self’
By another’s will

Vulnerable, sad expression
Motionless of face
But eyes betray a depth
Others cannot trace

Staring outward, inward
I catch his lonely gaze
Somehow reaching to me
Through time’s haze

Familiarity is there
Though the connection seems lost
Too much over-care
And with it the cost

I pause and in the moment
Something deep awakes
Clarity of knowing
Clear memory forsakes

Solitude and sadness
Filter through the door
Sense of separation
Presses me for more

* * *

Let it flow
Attend to it with care
Expel all the clatter and focus there.
Approach with compassion
Be open to your ‘self’
Embrace the tender child
Emerging from within

Take those little hands in yours
Draw them close to you
Nothing now to bar the way
Accept and be true

Mirror, mirror comes at last
Recognition dawning
Murky ice of years past
Slowly thawing

Disclosing scars and torment
Acknowledging pain
Limping towards loving
Moving to reclaim
That precious thing once lost.

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YOGA AND MEDITATION

     A little later I also began studying some of Eckhart Tolle's works. Two in particular were ‘The Power of Now’ and ‘A New Earth’. Both are excellent books!
     After working through Bradshaw’s book there was a definite compulsion to explore meditation. For a long time I had suffered with lower back issues which I was coming to understand as being related to sub-conscious tensions probably to do with repressed rage. Yoga began to appeal to me as a way of not only gently exercising my back into fitness but also as supplying a means whereby I could begin to explore some of these deeper themes.
     To many Christian fundamentalists yoga is a ‘thing of the devil’. There are numerous Christian fundamentalist web sites warning about opening oneself up to demonic influences when practising yoga. I knew of these notions and, initially, they troubled me but I believed I had to go in that direction. The old programming did make me panic when I decided to do it for real but I persisted. At the time it felt as if I were walking through a wall of fire, but it was essential that I denied those voices of the past and discovered my own voice. The heat was intense but I did not burn.
     I found a very focused and gentle yoga therapist with whom I got on well and worked with on a one to one basis for a number of years. Yoga proved to be a very satisfying experience. The exercises and the philosophy continue to be most valuable but, unfortunately, I simply could not get into the meditation at all. Whenever I tried to meditate I was regularly overwhelmed with intense feelings of uselessness which made me depressed and left my self-esteem feeling at rock bottom.
     As much as I really wanted to move forward with meditation and yoga there came a point where I needed to take some time out. A lot had been learned, however, which has stood me in good stead and I may well return to yoga at a later date. However, the continuing blockages in my make up needed addressing from a different angle.
     With the regular practise of yoga my back had become fairly stable but it was not as well as I should have liked. By this time I had read John Sarno’s books on chronic back pain and its connection with repressed feelings and so the next step was to seek out a counsellor who could help me with this approach.

FURTHER COUNSELLING

     For the last few years I have been privileged to enjoy the wisdom of a very special counsellor who I was very fortunate to find. Healing of the kind dealt with here takes time and patience. There is a process at work within each of us, when we are open to it, which cannot be hurried no matter how impatient we may be for change and development. It is an evolutionary process and being in harmony with the process, as opposed to its outcome, is as much a part of the healing as anything else.
     Since engaging with my current counsellor I have witnessed not only deeper self-awareness but also a drawing together of much of what has gone before. It has been wonderful to sense a thread of connectedness between those initial discoveries when I first left the church; between the insights gained in earlier counselling and reading and in the values learned in yoga. The process never really ends. One can go as far along the path as one wishes. There is always more to be discovered on the road towards wholeness – the return to the centre – and that is really what drives me on.
     Christian fundamentalism did a great deal of damage to a little boy who grew up to be a man under its powerful influence before he became aware that there was any problem at all. Now that man is able to help the little boy who he once was. Becoming acquainted with my wounded inner child has been an enormous step forward toward inner harmony and greater well-being. I will always have further to go but I sense that wonderful feeling of calm and assurance knowing that what ever ‘hell’ breaks out in our individual lives there is a deep abiding presence in all things which, if we open ourselves to it, will nourish and guide us. For me this presence is the presence of Love.

     There is a beautiful text in The Rig Veda which reads:

     “There was not then what is nor what is not. There was no sky, and no heaven beyond the sky. What power was there? Where? Who was that power? Was there an abyss of fathomless waters?
      “There was neither death nor immortality then. No signs were there of night or day. The ONE was breathing by its own power, in deep peace. Only the ONE was: there was nothing beyond.
      “Darkness was hidden in darkness. The all was fluid and formless. Therein in the void, by the fire of fervour arose the ONE.
      “And in the ONE arose love. Love the first seed of the soul. The truth of this the sages found in their hearts: seeking in their hearts with wisdom, the sages found that bond of union between being and non-being.”

                                                                                                         Rig Veda X.129.


     My spiritual journey is unique to me but is at the same time so similar to that of many others. My sincere intention in presenting something of it here is that it may provide help for those harmed by Christian fundamentalism who may be struggling to come to terms with that harm.
     It is also my sincere hope that in being open about my experiences this may allow for a forum for discussion and support. To this end I would welcome comment and enquiry either through the pages of this blog or via e-mail, if preferred. My e-mail address is - returntothecentre@gmail.com
    In addition, I intend to add to this blog as my wider journey continues.

     I look forward to hearing from you.

     Namaste.

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Evaluating the Real Cost (To Me) of Being Raised a Pentecostal

A Special Word:

     This post provides a sometimes detailed insight into my life as I was growing up in a Pentecostal Family. Inevitably, it is going to refer to members of my family and I fully appreciate that some of the things related are sensitive. For this reason I have deliberately avoided the use of any names of people and places and kept the content strictly anonymous - as is the case with all my posts.
     I strongly believe that my life story during those early years very adequately demononstrates the kinds of issues that can arise in Pentcostal (and/or other religious) families when the salient underlying psychological needs of some of those family members are left unattended to or are, perhaps, never allowed to be revealed and the consequences that this can have for all involved. My primary objective, therefore, is to use my experiences as an example in the hope that they will allow some degree of clarity and release to others who have suffered a similar fate.
     This account is my experience. It is how years of trying to come to terms with my past have revealed the true nature of what was going on while I was growing up. I understand that many may not agree with my insights but I would ask, please, that you would respect that this my story and I feel that I need to express it.   

 Setting the Scene

     Time and distance are probably the best  friends of perspective. The more one becomes the outsider the more one can look in and see the truth. The isolation and detachment which arise from being apart from that of which we were once very much a part allows for the underlying reality to emerge through the superficial and the illusory.

      My parents were two of the most fervent Christians I know. Their whole lives were determined by their beliefs. My father had been brought up with strong Brethren and Methodist influences. My mother had come to her faith in her late teens. Both became Pentecostal believers in their early to mid 20s. I can recall clearly my mother's passion for her beliefs. My father, on the other hand, though not displaying the same level of outward emotion for his faith as my mother, held rock-like to what he believed. They complemented each other: one was the driving force, the other the stability behind that force.

 

     Just after I was born, my parents were going through a period of intense religious experiences. 'Sudden outpourings of the Holy Spirit' during their personal devotions would lead them fairly promptly from their then Brethren fold to that of the local Pentecostal church. Waiting meetings among friends in their own home soon followed. As a very young boy I can remember seeing and hearing all the strange goings on downstairs as I peered from the landing above. I can even remember the names and faces of some of my parents' friends who attended those fairly regular occasions.

 
       Frustration at not being able to go to the far east as missionaries, due to underlying health problems, led my parents to focus their attention on activities nearer to home. It wasn't too long before my father became a Sunday School superintendent – a position he held for many years. During his time in this office he developed the outreach to include mid-week children's meetings and a Junior Church for older children to attend, which operated along side the Sunday School. Junior Church was really a stepping stone from which young teenagers were encouraged to attend the Sunday Gospel services at the local Pentecostal church. My parents were not unsuccessful in this endeavour. Many youngsters attended the Gospel services on a regular basis for a number of years. Not all followed through to a full commitment to Christ but one or two did, one of whom became a pastor's wife! For the remainder, my parents believed that the influence they had received would bear fruit in due course.

      Long after my father's role as a Sunday School superintendent had ended he and

my mother continued to emphasise children's work in the various activities in which they

engaged – and they enrolled me in these programmes too! I did my fair stint as a Sunday

School teacher when I was older and as a youth leader. I just followed on automatically

without much thought being given to what I may or may not have felt was right for me.

Looking back, I was living out the continuation of their dream. Even as a student at

university my mother would write to me encouraging me to pray for certain named children

that she was keen to 'win for the Lord'!

      My parents did well, despite my father's chronic illness, at projecting to all around them an image of the model Christian family. Their devotion to their God and their commitment to their church were unquestionable – and my brother and I were given no other option than to follow their example. We were moulded in that frame that our parents thought was best for us. This came to include full attendance at church; a disciplined daily devotional habit; an encouragement to seek out opportunities to witness to all with whom we mixed; a life on guard from the 'wiles of the Devil' and the development of a fervent, on-going desire for more of the fullness of God. People often commented on what a good job my mum and dad had made of bringing us up. 

      This was the outward appearance but what lay on the inside? What were the real driving

forces behind my parents' absorption in their faith and how has my parents' ignorance of

these forces played out in ensuring the enormous damage inflicted on my brother and me as

we grew up – innocents under the rule of profoundly unaware and sadly misguided

guardians?

Delving Deeper

      To attempt to shed some light on thesequestions I feel it necessary to take a step or two backwards through the generations. Of course, the causal sequence can retreat ad infinitum but one or two generations will suffice for my purposes here.

     I don't know a great deal about my father'sgrand parents. My father's father died when he was only 14 years of age and, to some extent, it appears as though my dad, being the eldest son, had to take on some, if not most, of the responsibilities of looking after his mother and four siblings – at least for a while. (From things my dad told me about that time in his life, I’m not sure that he readily welcomed having to take up that particular mantle).

     From about that age on my father worked as a farm labourer, a coal miner and a window cleaner. His mother did re-marry at some point. Though my grandmother was from a Methodist background (I believe she had taken the 'Pledge') my step-granddad was of Brethren heritage and he seems to have exerted some influence over my father's religiousperspective. My father appears to have been a keen believer by his late teens.

      I cannot say, in all honesty, that my own relationship with my grandmother and step-

granddad as a child was in any way warm or even that welcoming. I don't recall my

grandmother demonstrating much love and my step-granddad was quite distant and remote

– though the relationship did improve for a while as I grew older. How this apparent lack of

expression of fondness and love played out in my father's own relationship, if at all, with

his mother I don't know but I strongly suspect that both this and the loss of his father at such

a pivotal age – and, perhaps, the subsequent requirement for him to buckle down and 

assume new responsibilities after this loss - had a large part to play in restricting his own 

ability to express his emotions. He said to me once, in later life, when talking about his 

illness, ‘What’s the point in getting angry. It wont change anything.’ This statement is quite

revealing, I feel, on two points. First, my father did not deny the presence of anger but,

secondly, neither could he appreciate the value of fully acknowledging and accepting this.

His seems to have been a defeatist response.

      On my mother's side, the history is a little better defined. It is enough, I feel, to go back

only one generation and to a particular determining event – namely, the suicide of her

grandmother. The whys and wherefores as to the reason my great grandmother took this

course of action are not important here. What is significant is the effect that her action had

on her six year old son at the time and how that trauma played out in his life and, in

particular, later on in his relationship with my mother.

     My mother's mother also knew trauma in her young life, in the form of a cruel and
violent father. Prior to the Great War my maternal great grandad is said to have been a model husband and father. Quite a dapper chap, too, by all accounts. On his return from France, though, he was a changed man who took to physically assaulting his wife and, at times, showing very scant regard for his children. It has been interesting for me over the years to discover first hand the distinctly different accounts of their father from my nanna and from her brother. A distinctly Oedipal complex seems obvious. My great uncle often spoke of his intense dislike of his father and of his love for his mother – and he had good reason to do so, being badly neglected by his father as a four year old, reportedly running off to a neighbour's house for shelter after being thrown across the floor while trying to protect his mother during one of his father's outbursts. According to my great uncle's report, it was a day or so before he returned home but his father didn't care to look for him. Eventually, years later, he was told to find his own way in life when he was turfed out of the family home as a young adult, preference being given to his step-brother. My nanna, on the other hand, who seldom, if ever, mentioned her mother, spoke differently of her father and kept his photograph in her living room for years. She spoke of his political and business exploits, of his successes in life. When talking about her father he always came over as being someone in whom she was very proud. Did she align herself to him so strongly as a child as a way of ensuring her own security? Could any hint of affection towards her mother have, in her young mind, been construed as a threat to that security? She would not be unaware of her father's darker side but chose never to emphasise this in the ways that her brother did. Children have an obvious and innate need for security and will develop a variety of ways of securing this in the face of threatening circumstances. Such patterns carry consequences for those adhering to them.

      Of all my grand parents, my nanna was, actually, the one who demonstrated her affection

for my brother and me the most, though we had to watch that we didn't cross her. Even as

children she could take offence easily. My grandpa (her husband) could not really engage

with either my brother or me on any meaningful level. I believe his childhood trauma made

him very timorous, a characteristic which manifest itself through him being very possessive

where money was concerned. Any monetary gifts supplied from our nanna were done so in

the strictest secrecy – the implication being that if our grandpa had found out then he would

give my nanna a bit of an hard time about it. She would stand her ground with him but it

wasn't worth the hassle so he was best left uninformed. 

     When I was older I tried to get along side my grandpa on a few occasions but he couldn't handle the closeness and soon brought such occasions to a close. He taught me to swim when I was a youngster but this never seemed to establish any kind of fledgling bond with him. When I was perhaps 10 or 11 years old I met him by chance outside a model shop in our local town. I enthused greatly about a small model aircraft kit on display in the window. It was only a few pence. I hadn't got the money but the grand-child in me hoped that my grandpa may treat me. He didn't and eventually walked away to catch his bus. How subtly we are taught by the unconscious errors of others that we are not of any real value.      
     As time went on my grandpa's insecurity led him into manipulating wills and thereby cheating my mother and my brother and me from certain inheritances. The obvious dishonesty that stemmed from this kind of behaviour only compounded the problems which continued to develop for my family relations over time. My mother struggled greatly to both comprehend and accommodate her father's meanness and their relationship often failed. I can recall her in tears and broken fury at the way her father had treated her over the years – the lack of love cut deeply. Her mother, too, could be hard and unfeeling towards her, even jealous!

     The child and young woman who was my mother had a natural happiness and love of

life. She was an artist. She had some intelligence and did well at school but as her life

unfolded the support and love that anyone would rightly expect from one's parents was not

forthcoming in the ways that she needed it.

     Her relationship with her parents was difficult. At some point she was told by them that

she was 'an accident'! My grandpa even admitted to me, more as a statement, an excuse for

his own inadequacies, than an apology, long after my mum had died, that 'we couldn't love

her as she wanted.'

      That lack of love, that deep need for acceptance, I believe, drove my mother into the

arms of religion. God the father became the substitute for the father she never really

enjoyed. Her zeal for Christ - and for the salvation of children in particular - became the

outward manifestation of her inner child's profound need for recognition. She desperately

craved the enfolding, reassuring arms of love about her and found that support in her later

teenage years in the faith that she was to throw herself into wholeheartedly and which was

to become the defining influence in her life.

      My mother was damaged by her upbringing, my father limited by his and the forces at work in bringing about these deep flaws in their make up continued to be at work as my parents embraced a life of faith together. My mother's need was constant: that need was her driver. Whatever life style she had chosen for herself that unfulfilled yearning, formed through her broken relationship with her parents, would continue to determine her behaviour. It was an unconscious urge, a constant thirst for something she could never really have – the unconditional love and acceptance of her parents. Not being able to recognise this for what it was she could not learn to let it go. Consequently, it coloured the rest of her life.

      On the other hand, my father's experience was that of one 'brought up in the faith'. He

knew his bible well and lived out his Christian commitment with conviction. He was

grounded in his faith – but he was not one to explore ideas, concepts and beliefs. In fact, as

far as I can tell, he believed much the same things when he died as he did at the beginning

of his life. There was no growth. His was invariably a black and white outlook on life. He

didn't really have the inclination to take on board any fair consideration of alternative views.

There wasn't with him a desire for knowledge and understanding. He knew what he believe

and little was going to make him believe otherwise. I think he probably saw this as a badge

of honour. His siblings have a very similar outlook today. Quite uninterested in anything

other than what they believe.

      Not long after my mum and dad married, my father was diagnosed with a chronic

disease that was to gradually take over his body and severely limit his physical ability. Over

time, this was to have a significant effect on his relations with his immediate family which,

it seems to me, acted itself out unchecked in the main.

      This has been a lengthy introduction but one which is necessary, I feel, in order to lay

out those salient points that were to become the keys to understanding the shaping of my

own upbringing. These forces carry through from one generation to another until they are

recognised for what they are and arrested.

Corporal Punishment

    I think I must have been about nine years

old when I saw my brother curled like a foetus sobbing and shaking, on our parents' bed writhing in pain. About his thighs were fresh bruises intense, loud and painful, testifying clearly, together with several red welts, to the thrashing he had just received from our father, who had set about him
with a stick! For what, I have no idea but how could such a young boy have come to

deserve such punishment? What would prompt a man in his mid thirties to set about a 6 

year old boy – and that boy his son - in such a way? Did my father feel any remorse for 

what he had done?

     I don’t remember there being an apology. How was my brother’s relationship with his 

parents, affected by that particular incident, especially with his father? I can’t recall clearly

how I felt on witnessing the aftermath. I think it likely that I was relieved that it was not me 

lying there on the bed suffering. No doubt it made me more fearful of my father’s ire – and

so more desirous to keep him on side in order to guarantee, as best I could, that such never

came to be my lot. Did I accept it as being what happened when one crossed certain lines?

Probably. At nine years old I had no frame of reference with which to compare. My

experience of growing up with my parents was my only frame of reference and though this

specific case was the worse of its kind that I can recollect, physical punishments were the

norm for my brother and me. We were no strangers to being smacked, strapped or hit with a

stick or slipper. Never had I seen my dad inflict such a beating as he did on that occasion.

(Even my mother commented that he may ‘have gone too far’ as she tried to comfort her

son). Nonetheless, some kind of corporal punishment for relatively minor misdemeanours

was not uncommon. I don’t believe that I was ever beaten so badly as my brother was on

that day but I clearly recall thinking when I was in my early teens (when I had become taller

and probably stronger than my dad) that I didn’t seem to be getting smacked as often as I

used to. For myself, I cannot remember specific incidents – my counsellors over the years

believe that I may well have pushed them out of memory – but I can recall going to bed at

night crying, sometimes, I believe, without any supper. Despite the vagueness of my

memory in some quarters, that powerful image of my brother’s wounds on that particular

occasion has remained with me. 

       Why would a devout Christian man who engaged so much with other people’s children in a deliberate effort to bring them to a knowledge of his god; who had gained the respect of his peers at church as being a sanctified, godly person choose to vent such fury on his own son(s)? What deeply seated force was really at work here? My father would sometimes justify his actions with the well worn phrase, ‘spare the rod and spoil the child.’ But this act was manifestly disproportionate to anything a 6 year old boy could have deserved. I’m curious as to how my father would have processed what he had done and why he had done it. How did that experience make him feel? How was it for him to wield such overbearing power? Did he experience some kind of inverted control over his own life which, as hinted at above, was being increasingly affected by an illness over which he knew he had no control? How much had the certain threat of that illness already compounded pre-existing and undealt with feelings of anger and rage? Did he really believe that he could justify his actions through the Bible? Where is the love?
     Years later, when living with his step family, my father, who by now was at an advanced age, once reported to me with some determination in his voice that, ‘what she needs is a real good thrashing!’ He was referring to an adopted young teenage girl with considerable learning difficulties whose somewhat loud and disruptive behaviour had been an irritation to him.
      If we don’t live in our authentic life we are not living by our true self but instead live out whatever masquerade we have come to adopt as being our true self.

     In the army my father had taken up boxing alongside regular bible studies with his CO – which on occasions, I understand, allowed him to skip sentry duties. I find this to be something of a curious contrast. On the one hand here was a young man (he’d be about 18 or 19 years old) pursuing intently a personal faith in a religion of love and compassion for others and yet, simultaneously, he wanted to fight - and even won medals for doing so!

      Did my father have an unconscious need to rail against the loss of his father at a time in

his life when he needed him most? How did my dad process the loss of his father? (Come to

think of it, how did he process the loss of my mother? I can't recall anything specific here

and yet I lived through this loss with him). Did he ever really properly process either loss -

did he know how to - or was it just accepted, buried and moved on from – as, especially

with his father - was much the required attitude in those days. What was his relationship like

with his own mother? He used to quote her as threatening the use of a ‘copper stick’ on her

children but I don’t know if it were ever more than a threat. Was he beaten as a child? His

father was very ill and feeble. If he were beaten then did such come from his mother?

      I don’t know enough of my father’s early life and of his real relationship with his parents

and grand parents to say more. He never really spoke of them in much detail. However,

whatever the nature of the causal chain here, it would seem that something had gone wrong

for him that he could venture such anger on his children. 

      My brother and I grew through infancy into boyhood with a strict diet of religious practice and belief in the home. Much was expected of us. There was no genuine freedom of choice. We had to accept what our parents wanted us to believe. As soon as we were deemed old enough to attend the church services we did so. We had our regular places for each service. I think the one thing I watched more than anything else in those mid-week and weekend services would have been the clock on the wall. How time seemed to drag!

Faith v Feelings 

      Looking back over those formative years, I don’t recall very much genuine intimacy

with my father. I can just about remember being carried on his shoulders from the bus stop

to the church on the other side of town to attend Sunday School when I was about two or

three years old. I can recall him arriving home from a spell in a specialist hospital in

London when I was very young and not being sure of who he was for a while on his return

and I can recollect parts of our visits to Manchester on the train where he attended what I

believe were sessions of acupuncture. But I don’t have any particular memories of that day

by day closeness that is so important for a son to have with his father – and which I now

enjoy with my sons. I can't recall any regular engagement with me in my hobbies and

interests.
 

      Actually, as time went on I developed into something of a loner. I liked my own

company and enjoyed doing what I wanted to do but things were happening as a result of

my circumstances to which I was too close to see any harm and too young to understand the

dynamics. As my father’s illness progressed and my physical ability developed so increased

his reliance upon me to help him with the daily tasks of life. My mum’s health was never

robust. She was frequently under a lot of strain with her own health issues; with those of my

father and with the never quite healed relations with her parents. My brother and I grew up

in a household that was no stranger to an underlying sense of stress, pain and suffering. Of

course, we were only too willing to help our parents and wanted to look after them in every

way possible but things were not right. The family nucleus was not healthy.

      This mix of illness and our parents increasing reliance on their children for support,

coupled with the controlling religious expectations which pervaded our relations made for a

pretty damning cocktail for my brother and me. Illness only fuelled my parents’ zeal for

Christ, as they submitted themselves to his will while simultaneously searching for healing.

They interpreted their day by day experiences through the lens of their faith which only

served to compound the real issues at play here. As a little lad I followed my father to the

front of the church on more than one occasion to see him being ‘slain in the spirit’ as,

almost lifeless, he fell backwards into the caring catch of a trusted aide hoping that this

would be the moment!

      But healing did not come his way (neither physical nor psychological) and neither did it for my mother. Those dominating forces, hidden from their view, prevailed time after time and yet still the real picture continued to evade them.

      My father’s illness, forcing greater and greater disability upon him as the years went by,

played a key part, I believe, in stifling any potential for a meaningful and deeply connected

relationship with his son. Of course, I don’t blame him for being ill – far from it! I loved

him dearly and would have done anything for him but, looking back, I can’t help wondering

how things may have been between the two of us if that illness had not been there or had

been dealt with differently. And yet, I also wonder if anything would have been really all

that different, illness or no, given my dad’s seeming inability to express his emotions, to live

through his feelings instead of living through his religious mind set. One victim of

circumstance unconsciously inflicting the sorrow of his past upon his own.

      It’s not untrue, but it is very sad, to admit that my father came to see people not as

individuals in their own right with whom he could enjoy genuine and unique relations but in

terms of their usefulness to him. He had an habit of picking fault with people who had been

very kind to him behind their backs. I’m not unaware that in referring to events in my past,

invariably his comments would carry a negative tinge. By my early thirties I was looking

back and noticing just how much I had become expendable to him – and, at the same time,

sensed a growing favouritism from him towards my brother – upon whom he had come

more to rely than on myself and, perhaps, towards whom he still felt some sense of guilt

from the past.

The Cracks Begin to Show 

      I was 26 when my mother died. My brother and I were still living at home. Neither of us

had a girl friend. So closely had we been involved in our parents lives; so dependent had

they become on us; so limited had been our experience of life as a result that this was the

immediate consequence.

      Regular patterns of co-existence began to fracture after our mother’s death: the old

drivers began to poke through the cracks. Of course, these were not immediately self

evident but now, when I look back, I can see the edifice that was our parents’ dream for

themselves and their children beginning to fall apart. The deeper truth was, at last,

beginning to show! The controlling influence of our mother over our lives as both

individuals and as a family had been removed. There was now room for the possibility of

change. Don’t you just love the phrase, ‘the truth will always out’!

      I can see now that by my mid to late twenties cracks were beginning in my relationship

with my brother. We were becoming more distant. To my mind he was certainly becoming

less trusting of me and more easily offended by me. There was less regard shown. As I was

planning to leave the family home for a place of my own my brother was finding his place,

whether by default or design, to be along side our father in the family home.

      Big differences developed between my brother and me. He had had it hard after leaving

school finding a steady job and securing a regular income. In fact, he never did find that

steady job but came to discover self-employment to be his forte – something with which he

has enjoyed a degree of success. By contrast, life seemed to just open up for me as I went

through university and straight into a reasonably well paid job. I wonder now how this may

have made my brother feel? Was I ever sensitive to his feelings? Did he ever express them?

Was there ever any resentment? Were either of us ever really encouraged to consider our

feelings? I’ve often pondered if something like this was fuelling the growing chasm that

was developing between us at that time. How was he dealing with the fallout of his mother’s passing? What dark drivers were starting to surface for him? All this would have been unfamiliar territory for both of us back then. We would be faced with strange feelings which we would not really know how to deal with except to, perhaps, ignore them or to revert to prayer and Scripture for answers, if we paid them any serious heed at all. Our parents didn’t do feelings, remember. My father once retorted, ‘you live by faith, not feelings!’ In this statement alone one can see, no doubt, how he had sought to deal with his own very real and painful experiences of life. My brother and I have been made all the worse for this! 

       In addition to the above, it has to be said that my brother was also in the peculiar

position of having not two role models in the home but three. As his older brother, I too

would have been someone up to whom he would have looked for example and security. But

what example had I set? What security could I have provided? As a young nine year old I

certainly had no way of protecting him from our father. Neither did our mother step in to

prevent the mayhem that was inflicted upon him. He must have felt very much alone and so

very much scared at that particular time. I’m confident that this incident alone would carry

powerful but subtle influences well into the rest of his life. Certainly, in the time leading on

from our mother’s death the bond between my brother and father seemed to develop further.

Once I had moved out of the family home my brother and father lived together for some

time. Does the aggrieved and wounded child cling closely to the perpetrator of those

wounds in order to ensure that there is no repeat of the violence? Does some form of

appeasement take place between the two parties where the victim seeks to secure the favour

of the culprit? Psychological theory would suggest so. The advantages are obvious.

A New Family and a New Focus

      One would imagine that in living together for some time a close bond would have

developed between my father and brother. I think my brother thought so but when my father

decided to remarry and move in with his new wife, my brother experienced the awful pain

of being ‘dropped’ for another. I spoke to my father about this, at my brother’s behest, and

his simple reply was, ‘well, I’m married to … now. My life is with her.’ Do I need to

explain here the resoundingly self-evident limitations of my father’s seemingly profound

inability to connect with his children?

       That must have been an extremely hard time for my brother. I know he had problems being accepted by his new step family, mainly, I believe because by then he did not profess the faith of his childhood. What made matters worse was that he was dating a divorcee. There were times when he was made to feel unwelcome (even by his father) at step family occasions because of this – despite some of those occasions taking place at his family home!
      I often found myself during this time pleading my brother’s corner with my dad, trying to get him to understand how things were for my brother. I’m not sure what success I had, really, but I tried to be there for my brother endeavouring to help in whatever ways I could.

      As the years went by my father immersed himself in his new family. They, too, were

Pentecostal believers. My father now had not only a new wife but three step-daughters and a

step-son. He was well looked after by them and enjoyed a period of relatively stable health.

During this period in his life he spent a lot of time going out with his wife and being

involved in her church.

     It was during this time that relations between my brother and me really hit a nadir. I have

never fully understood why but my brother chose to distance himself and his family (he was

now married and had two children) from me completely. Perhaps, unconsciously, he was

retreating into himself, becoming less and less trusting of those around him. He moved

house twice never telling me on either occasion of his new address. At one time, he cut off

contact with me for over seven years. Sometimes the situation would thaw and we’d be in

touch with each other again but not for very long. Then would follow further blocks of years

where I was ignored by him.

      At the same time, my father showed less interest in my family and me. I had two beautiful young sons but he never really bothered with either of them. He allowed himself to be subject to the whims of others at the expense of his own kin. Increasingly I felt that old feeling of being expendable, that underlying sense of rejection, as if I didn’t really matter to him. Was my brother experiencing the same feelings? I recall visiting my dad in hospital during this time. I’d travelled about 80 miles, round trip, just to sit with him to pass the time of day while he waited for a long blood transfusion to complete. While there he got talking to his nurse about one of his step-daughters. He spoke with enthusiasm and delight about how good she was to him, how she was "more like a real daughter than a step-daughter" to him, creating a very positive impression of what he thought about her. I don’t think he even troubled himself to introduce me to the nurse. 

      The years rolled by and the separation between the three of us grew broader. The more I began to understand what had really been going on under the surface in my family the more I was determined not to allow my father to control any further part of my life. I felt abused. I had given such a great deal to him over the years in terms of love, care and support and miss-guided expectation. I had lost an enormous amount as a consequence of his particular brand of religious parenting - which I can never retrieve! Now I was being side-lined, pushed into the edges of his life. I had had enough. I had to protect myself, my integrity. If I were ever to survive the effects of my past then I had to stand my ground. He could lean on me no more. This didn’t mean that I wasn’t there for him. Not at all. I would be there for him but on my terms, not his.

      On the other hand, from what I could tell, despite everything, my brother continued to

make himself available to his dad. I’m not suggesting that he should not have done so but it

would have been useful, I feel, if my brother could have explored the real motivations

behind his behaviour. He may have done so and concluded that he wanted to maintain his

relationship with his father as he did. One could say it was love that drove him. Perhaps it

was. Maybe my brother really did love his dad to the point where he would do anything for

him however unfairly he may have been treated. To my mind, though, love is a two way

thing which requires itself in return from another to flourish and blossom. Given all that had

transpired over the years I feel that love was probably the least of my brother’s motivations.

There’s so much other baggage here that I don’t feel that anything positive could thrive as it

should. I think the more likely explanation is an unrecognised longing for acceptance; a

need for reassurance; a wounded child’s distorted desire to please; perhaps a feeling that

without his father, he would be lost. Who really knows the goings on of the human psyche.

What I do know, though, is that in the events leading up to the end of my father’s life there

was neither love nor understanding emanating towards me from either my father or my

brother.

My Great Uncle

      I mentioned at the beginning of this article that I had a great uncle. He lived a long way

away from me so I didn’t get to see him much at all as I grew up. There had been an heated

quarrel between my mum’s parents and my great uncle when I was in my early twenties

and for a good few years no contact was made between either party. The feud made it

awkward for my parents to remain in contact with my uncle so things were just left to drift

with no attempt at any reconciliation. At the root of this fallout was my grandpa’s greed but

that’s another story. 

     In my late twenties I decided that this discord was not of my making and so I was not

going to be held by it. I had always got on really well with my uncle. He was that very

special type of uncle that every child should have in his or her life. Why should I lose out in

this relationship as well? My girlfriend and I were holidaying in the area where my uncle

and aunt lived so we decided to call in on them, unannounced. When they opened the door

my uncle welcomed us with open arms. Then began, (or rather continued after a long,

unwanted break), for me a wonderful relationship with a man who eschewed religion as ‘the

greatest con ever’ and loved me for who I was. For the next twenty years or so that

relationship really blossomed. I felt accepted for who I was. He made no demands of me

and I loved him for who he was. He was a very kind and loving man who embraced life and

enjoyed sharing his life with others. He was astute and entertaining. He had class and a

myriad of fascinating stories to tell.

      I can see now that the connection I had for so long sought with my father but which had

not been forthcoming, I had found in my great uncle. He lived to be 101. I was blessed to

have been able to share with him so happily the last 20 years of his life.

 Guilty as Charged    

     In this time, my relations with my brother and my father continued to deteriorate and for

reasons which I really don’t know for certain. I was prepared to be there for my father but

my offers of help, often with big practical tasks, were invariably requested and then

rejected. My brother maintained his distance. I had a sense that secrets were being kept

between my dad and my brother. I felt increasingly pushed out to the perimeters of their

lives. My family and I felt no longer important to either.

      Suspicion and spite were afoot. Miss-placed jealousy was to split apart completely what little family connection remained. A little while after my uncle’s death, my father ‘phoned me. His tone was somewhat challenging. He accused me of various things concerning my uncle and my uncle's will and went on to support his accusations with a number of supposed events that had been related to him by my brother. (For some time before my uncle died my brother had made contact with my uncle and, to my mind at least, appeared at times to want to interfere and take over my special relationship with him. I'm not sure if my brother was envious of my closeness to my uncle or was driven by other motives but, whatever his reasons, the manner of his interference was unwelcome). I found myself having to defend myself against my father over what were, at best, miss-construed notions and at worst out and out lies. In the course of the conversation I discovered that my father had a little time before removed me as an executor of his will in favour of my brother's wife. 

      After the call, I sat back in complete bewilderment. How could such an innocent and loving relationship that I had with my uncle be turned into the cause of so much miss-trust and vindictiveness? Why would my brother automatically suspect me of meddling with my uncle’s will? Why would he create such malicious stories about me and then relate them to my sick father in such a way as, effectively, to manipulate him? What baffled me the most was why my father would so readily believe such tales? Neither my brother nor my father thought to ask of me if such things were true. They played judge and jury and came up with the desired verdict which was served to me after the event with no right of redress.

      I wrote to my father a number of letters trying to get things sorted out but I never

received any replies. Nor was the subject ever discussed again. From then on my

communications with him were laboured and effectively meaningless. Oh, he was chatty

and jolly, to a point, but it continued to be glaringly evident as time passed that things were

increasingly not right between us and he didn't seemed to show any concern about the fact.

In our conversations he never veered from the superficial and the mundane. As he

approached the final years of his life, as his health began to deteriorate further, he never

discussed with me those things that a father might be expected to discuss with his eldest

son. I felt well and truly excluded, cast out to the margins of his life. My father was holding

things against me but to my face pretending that nothing was wrong.

Being Disinherited      

     Eventually, my father died. Nothing had been resolved between us and I came to discover

something of just what had been going on behind my back in the last few years of his life.

     In a nutshell, I had been virtually disinherited. By the time he died my father had already

given away most of his wealth to my brother. In an earlier will which, I am given to

understand was made out some years prior to my father’s death and about the time just after

of my uncle's passing, I was to inherit nothing. However, a few months before his own death

my father changed his will to allow me a minority amount of what was left – it wasn’t

much! With that will came a letter berating me for my supposed lack of care towards him –

written by my brother and signed by my dad! My meagre inheritance was intended as a

punishment!

      What kind of a man was my father? Did he ever deal with his demons? How could a

father leave his son such a legacy as that left to me? The last thing he said, in effect, through

his letter, was that I was not good enough to receive more. He disapproved. Why did he

automatically think so badly of me? Why could he never allow himself to see my very real

needs and the impact of his life on mine? Why could he not acknowledge his own failings?

Why could he not accept the ramifications of his illness (and of his faith) on his children?

Many a son would have washed his hands of my father a long time ago after the way he had

been treated but I didn’t. I sought to find a way forward with him. Why the consistent

refusal to go where he needed to go to find clarity and release? Is this the behaviour of a

supposedly ‘saved and sanctified’ life surrendered to the God of love?

      What does this all really mean? When my father died, apart from the token nod in my

direction, my brother inherited everything. My step-sister and her husband who had

tirelessly looked after my severely disabled father for many years were left nothing. My

brother got it all. Everything. How could my father use people in the way that he did?

People who had been so kind and loving to him over the years. People who deserved to be

treated far better.

      I think it is clear to see what were the real prime movers in my father’s life. When the

veneer is stripped away, he did not really live by the creed he confessed. That was just

superficial lip service. He professed an undying faith in and love for his god; he claimed a

life lived in the spirit; he proclaimed the love of Christ but when it comes down to the gritty

reality my father was driven by forces not of heaven but by those of a very different kind.

Forces which he never got to grips with and which he allowed to destroy him and his family

and to leave a bitter memory in the minds of those he hurt. I come back to the question:

where is the love?

       My parents' failure to recognise these salient drivers and to do something about them led

them to lean more and more of their faith as a way to interpret the world around them. But

their perceptions were skewed. It was not a safe interpretation. Consequently, they ploughed

a continual and ever intensifying furrow of pain and angst for both of their children. It is my

estimation that as a result of this my brother went on to develop some form of paranoia. I

feel that his insecurities run very deeply. I’m aware of a distinct ‘victim’ mentality on his

part – and who can blame him for that after what had happened to him. He appears at times

to have idolised his father. And yet once, he reported to me that he gauged the depth of his

father’s love for him by how much he gave him in monetary terms!

       For myself, as the real picture began to emerge, I began to pull back and find my own way of securing some detachment from all this while trying as best I could to still be there for my father – I had my own demons to deal with and he had many hands looking after him – but I suspect the deep seated needs of my brother in relation to my father did not allow him this kind of luxury. He still had to have someone to blame but it was too much of an inner conflict for him to blame his father so I became the scapegoat. Transference is what they call it. This is my only explanation for what has happened. I became the bogey man onto whom was heaped all the fury that he held, unconsciously, for his father (and probably his mother). Other than this, I have absolutely no explanation as to why all this has come my way.

      Why my father despised me so much says more about him than it does about me, I feel.

Was he jealous of my relationship with my uncle? Did he feel that I showed more interest in

my uncle than I did in him? If so, did he ever ask himself why? For how long had he held

these dark feelings against me? I still don’t know the answers to these questions and

probably never will. My brother once hinted that my father had said something to him about

me but he would not repeat it. Some have suggested that my father was angry with me for

leaving the church, for abandoning the way in which he had raised me. But when I spoke to

my father about this he replied, rather casually, that it was my choice. A choice, I hasten to

add, which he never allowed me to make when I was growing up!

      Throughout my blog, I have tried to draw the reader’s attention to this theme of the

underlying reality which inhabits all our lives and how, in the case of those involved with

Christian fundamentalism, it can wreak havoc on people's lives if it is allowed to run

unchecked. This article is not about blame. The sole purpose of this exercise is to show how,

in my particular family’s case, this problem was allowed to take root and spread its poison

through the entire 60 years of my life. In so many ways the cost to me has been

extortionate! Facing the painful and oft times ugly truth and trying as best I could to do

something about it has been my salvation. But this salvation has not come from some divine

saviour figure. It has come from a determined willingness to face the pain and to work

through it. My guides have not been angels, gods or other ethereal beings but the hard facts,

the willingness for introspection, the witness and testimony of others who have gone before

me along the hard road of human experience.

      Where does my parents’ faith leave them when it makes them so blind that it costs them

their children?

      Jesus said, ‘the truth will set you free.’ I ask my readers, where, in what I relate, does the

real truth lie?