Honor Thy Mother and Father

Before I begin to tell you about the next in a long line of abusive phrases pounded into our heads by the Move of God cult, I want you, reader, to do something:

Think for a moment of someone you know personally who you consider to be an excellent parent.

Think about the qualities that cause them to be such a great parent.

I am betting you listed qualities such as:

Patient, wise, loving, kind, accountable, firm, present, consistent, humble, honest, and industrious.

Think about the kind of parent who would have been your dream parent when you were a child and the kind of parent you aim to be. Keep those qualities that you believe make a good parent in mind as you read this blog post.

Several years ago, while the petitioner in the heat of a highly contested adult guardianship case, I received an email that served as a veiled threat. It was from a Move of God cult member and said simply that since I was not honoring my mother and father, my days would be short. I can only assume that the individual was attempting to (very poorly) apply Ephesians 6:2-3 to what they thought they knew about my life and court case.

You see, I was fighting in court to have my brother who experiences disabilities live with me and no longer be subjected to the daily abuse he was experiencing in our parent’s home (which was located on a Move of God cult compound). I was fighting for his safety and well-being, as he was non-verbal and could not effectively speak for himself. In order to accomplish this, I had to tell the court the truth about the abuse that has been going on, not only in my parents’ home, but also in the cult worldwide for decades. Abuse that I had experienced, seen my siblings and other children experience, and heard preached as a “foundational truth” for years in the Move. This truth was not convenient to the Move leaders or members. Truth always makes perpetrators uncomfortable, and often their un-comfortability causes them to lash out with threats, misplaced blame, and lies. 

Over my ten years out of the Move of God cult, I have gotten used to cult members and apologists coming at me with accusations of being a terrible person because I don’t “honor my mother and father”. Their guilt trips have no effect on me, and really highlight their brainwashed and judgmental thought patterns. Because this is something that comes up so often, and appears to be one of the cornerstones of the cult’s belief system, I think it is worth a closer look.

Growing up, I remember talking to the elder in charge of supervising youth functions. I told him about the physical and verbal abuse that happened daily in the cabin in which I was raised. I still remember the way he looked at me judgmentally and said, “You need to honor your mother and father. They are doing their best.” In that moment I thought to myself, “Honor my parents really just means keep it to myself.” And that is exactly what it means. Keep it to yourself that your mother told you that she wishes you had never been born. Keep it to yourself that your dad beat you so badly with a 2×4 or belt that you had bruises for days from the back of your knees to the middle of your back. Keep it to yourself that your mom slammed you against the wall so hard that your head left an imprint in the drywall. Keep it to yourself that at night when you are trying to sleep you can’t get your brother’s screams of agony out of your head from his beatings that routinely happened several times a day. Keep it to yourself that you were raped and that the adults who knew about it did nothing except to tell you that “You should be ashamed”. Just keep it to yourself.

Honor your parents leaves no room for believing trauma survivors. It leaves no room for empathy for what they have experienced at the hands of their parents. It leaves no room for the parents to improve the ways in which they parent, and it definitely leaves no room for accountability for having made parenting mistakes.

Let’s go back to our exceptional parent list: Accountable. Honest. Wise. Humble. Loving. These qualities are absent in parent/child relationships where the parents demand that their children honor the dishonorable. They are instead replaced with dishonesty, gas lighting, pride, blame, and the tendency to guilt trip their children. This is not loving or kind and results in children who are very detached emotionally from their parents. Rather than being humble enough to hear the hard truths about the ways in which they are making mistakes that cause pain and distress and being willing to put in the hard work to fix it, the parents are lazy and deny reality.

There are many other phrases that the Move cult frequently uses that go hand in hand with their “honor your mother and father” teaching:

“Don’t dwell on the past.”

“Forgive and forget.”

“What happens here stays here.”

All of these phrases are intended to gas light and guilt the person who has been brave enough to shine light on the abuse. When I lived at John Hinson’s cult group in Immokalee, FL at 18 years old, I remember telling John and his wife about all of the ways in which my parents had abused me and were continuing to abuse my younger brother. They would not even hear me out. John interrupted and said that I needed to stop looking backwards and not dwell on the past. I was told that if they ever heard me speak of my childhood abuse or concern for my brother again, then they would make me get up in front of the entire congregation and tell them every “bad” thing that they were aware that I had ever done. Some of these “bad” things were true. Some were not. They were all things that my parents had told them about me. This threat made me very angry, but it worked to keep me quiet for the remainder of my time there. John Hinson is what the Move cult calls a Father Ministry, placing him among the top leaders in this cult. This is what they do. They are themselves predators and abusers, and they protect other predators and abusers.

Denial is not healing. Anything that has caused pain or damage needs to be exposed, owned and resolved. I know of no other way to heal than to speak the truth. Their attempts to scare, gas light, or guilt me will only result in the light being shone on them. If they wanted me to write nicer things about them, then they should have behaved better and taken accountability for their hurtful mistakes.

To my fellow survivors who are reading this, please know that you are not alone in dealing with pain caused by your family of origin. It is your parents’ bad behavior to own and resolve. It is not your job to try to make them feel better about the ways in which they abused and broke you. If you are being told to honor your abusers, please know that that is a cult teaching that only serves to protect your abuser and shut you up. Speak your truth! You are brave and strong, and I see you.

Death to Self – A Damaging Belief

Someone asked recently what cult teaching has had the most long lasting negative effects on me. I had to really think about that, and ironically it was not the teaching that children are born with the “beast nature” and need to have it beaten out of them to attain salvation or the teaching that if I didn’t live life the way that my parents and the cult leaders wanted me to then I was going to a terrifying place called hell. It wasn’t even the “perfection message” which taught me that I was expected to be perfect all of the time. The cult teaching that has had the longest lasting negative effects on me has been their teaching that I need to prefer my brother. Put myself last. Always, no matter what. To die to self and to what I want and what is best for me.

The Move cult begins indoctrinating children at a very young age with all of these damaging teachings. I remember being 4 years old and learning this song in the cult’s preschool:

“Jesus and others and you,

What a wonderful way to spell joy.

Jesus and others and you,

In the life of each girl and each boy.

J is for Jesus, for he has first place.

O is for others we meet face to face.

Y is for you and whatever you do.

Put yourself last and spell joy.”

This year marks 10 years since I left the Move of God cult, and it has been a long journey of learning how to put healthy boundaries in place in order to do what is best for my mental and physical health. 10 years of learning that I need to fill my cup first before I am able to help anyone else. Years of therapy where I was told that I am worth protecting and investing in and should stop putting myself last…but didn’t really believe it. Years of marriage where I put my now ex-spouse first, and spent years paying the price for that. But the biggest costs were the absence of self-esteem and self-confidence. Their death to self/prefer your brother teachings that were pounded into my head since birth caused me to believe for 3 decades that I wasn’t worth loving. Because, you see, while I was busy putting so many others ahead of myself and preferring my brother, no one was putting me first. My cup was oh so empty, and I kept trying to pour from my empty cup. It led to exhaustion and eventually to the slippery slope of depression and suicidal ideations.

Then I discovered healthy boundaries, which were never allowed or even discussed in the cult. I discovered that I am allowed to say no when something is not what is best for me and my health. I realized that being mentally healthy is every bit as important as being physically healthy. And, most importantly, I realized that I am worth investing in and loving. Self love – another foreign concept, as it was labeled as pride and selfishness by the cult. I began investing in myself by loving myself and learning how to self-care, and over time I have slowly gained my confidence and self-esteem. At first, I felt guilty for spending time on me and loving me. I would be trying to take a relaxing bath, but the whole time be thinking, “I should be spending time with my family.” or “I should be cleaning the house.” Now, I relax more often during self care, and feel guilt only rarely. It is a journey, not an instant fix. It is messy and far from perfect, but it is worth it. It is worth investing in myself, placing healthy boundaries, and putting my health first, because it not only benefits me, it helps me be able to help others.

Racial Discrimination In The Move of God Cult

In a world where many claim that “white people” are at the root of the racial discrimination in the United States, my world view is that often white people are the ones who are racially discriminated against. Allow me to share my experiences with you.

I was born into and raised in an extremely abusive religious cult, called The Move of God. From age 4 to 18 I lived at the Sapa Christian Center cult compound in Kenny Lake, Alaska, which was comprised mostly of cult members and elders who moved there from Colombia, South America. Most of these individuals were of Hispanic descent, and they both treated those who were not Hispanic badly and were treated better by the leaders than those of us who are not Hispanic. The Hispanics were the only cult members of color at Sapa, until I was about 12. There were a select few white cult members who were welcome into the Hispanic circle of favoritism because they had either been in Colombia as cult members in the group there or because they married Colombians.

The Move cult operates within a class system that includes the Father Ministry at the top, then the traveling ministry, the elders who govern each cult compound, and finally, the worker bee members. At Sapa, within the worker bee faction, there was another hierarchy which placed the Hispanic cult members at the top and Caucasian cult members at the bottom. Some of the ways that I could tell this even as a small child were that those of us who were not Hispanic were treated like we were less important, were given the more dirty and less appealing jobs on the compound, were not invited to the seemingly lavish parties that the Hispanics organized and attended, and were not allowed to break the cult rules and get away with it like many of the Hispanic cult members did.

As a child, I grew up with 3 girls and 1 guy who were all Hispanic. There were no other kids around my age, and in common kid fashion, the 2 ways that I noticed that I was treated differently were that I was not welcome at the parties my friends were allowed to attend and that I was not allowed to break the dress code rules and rules about socializing with the opposite sex and get away with it like they did.

Parties – we rarely had parties or really good food growing up, so when the Hispanic members would throw parties with games and fun and good food, it was a bigger deal not to be invited than it would have been in the normal, non-cult world. I remember seeing them making trays of cookies, cheese and crackers, brownies, and store bought goodies and wondering why they got special treatment. And I remember my “friends” coming to school or work schedule the next day and bragging about the fun they had at a party they knew I was not allowed to go to because I was white and non Spanish speaking. I even heard their parents brag about the parties to their white friends, showing that they wanted us white folk to know that they were treated better than we were by the leaders.

There were 2 Hispanic families in particular at Sapa who allowed their daughters to dress in a way that was contrary to the cult dress code. Because they were Hispanic the leaders looked the other way. They wore pants, shorts, very low cut shirts showing off their cleavage, wore shorter skirts than were allowed, and their clothing was often extremely tight and form fitting. But then there was me. If my skirt went even slightly above my knee when I sat down or if the slit in my skirt showed above my knee when sitting, an elder would command me to go change immediately.

The other way in which the Hispanics were treated better is that they got the easier and more sought after jobs on the compound. Examples include the Hispanic women rarely having to slave over a hot wood cook stove, but rather spending most of their days either landscaping, doing greenhouse work, or working on their personal sewing and knitting projects in the Projects Room. Meanwhile, non Hispanic women would be cooking on a hot wood cook stove for hours, working in the garden whether rain or shine, etc. For the Hispanic men, I noticed that they were not expected to work as hard, and often were assigned to work at the Sawmill or wood shop, while the other men worked hard at the barn or did harder jobs at the sawmill or in the hay fields.

As is the case with most kids, I wanted to be liked and popular like my Hispanic friends were. I figured out at a very young age that certain things would give me cool points and increase my chances of being treated better. I could not change my skin color or country of origin, but I could (and did) take 4 years of Spanish in high school. By my senior year of school, I was nearly fluent in Spanish and could then understand the negative statements that the Hispanic cult members made about the other cult members, such as my family. This made me finally realize that no matter what I did, I was still non-Hispanic and would always be treated as such by the Hispanic cult members.

I vividly remember sitting at the dining table one Sunday listening to one of the Hispanic cult members read a paper she had written about Rosa Parks. She was crying as she read it aloud in front of everyone at Sapa, and stated at the end that she understands how Rose Parks felt that day on the bus because she and her family are often treated badly because of their race as well. (insert eye roll here) I remember wanting to laugh because that statement was so absolutely ludicrous. And then I felt angry as I remembered the many times that she and her family had treated my family and I like dirt because of our race.

The purpose of this blog post is to shed light on the truth about the way many of us were treated in the Move cult, and the way in which one’s race and country of origin played into whether he/she was favored or discriminated against. For those readers who will no doubt try to make this blog post about my supposed hatred of Hispanics…I now have several friends who identify as Hispanic who are loving, industrious people of integrity. They have shown me and my family nothing but love and acceptance, and I am grateful that each of them are a part of our lives.