The level of degradation that MCF reached 1994-2016
Posted: Fri Jun 23, 2017 11:14 am
PART 1. INTRODUCTION
I'm going to summarize the degrading, oppressive, destructive and pointless life we experienced at MCF (Melbourne Christian Fellowship) 1993-2016 in a series of posts in this topic.
In short, they butchered our lives and left us to rot. I lost the best 25 years of my life from age 25-49.
From experience I can testify that Melbourne Christian Fellowship is one of the most abusive non-violent cults I have ever heard about.
Feel free to reply in-between.
I want the world to know 8 things:
1. How disgustingly oppressive MCF & BCF got 1993-2010 amounting to psychological, spiritual and financial abuses
2. How MCF & BCF tried to cover it up 2014-2016 and further demeaned us and lied about us. I was betrayed by friends.
3. Why it happened IMO
4. That MCF had been a good place and its teachings on the Body of Christ are still correctly restorationist and edifying (despite serious fallings during that period too).
5. We got out in Nov 2016 and are very happy in a new church!
6. The origin of the abominable teachings is BCF and Vic Hall.
7. The origin of the delinquent, anti-scholarly, idiotic, careless, gutless and covering-up culture at MCF is MCF itself and its earlier incarnations.
8. That, yes, God knows all this, and vengeance is His, but, nevertheless:
(i) I warn EVERYONE not to be sucked in by the good elements of MCF today and
(ii) To MCF & BCF:
(a) You owe my family restitution as per Scripture and as per Vic Hall's direct request to the perpetrators
(b) You should mourn, repent and make restitution for the sin you have committed against 100s of families around the country
(c) Then you should change your name and join the rest of Christendom in the true Body of Christ. Your online reputation is FULLY deserved. No one in their right mind would ever enter your door after checking you out online. That is why only 2 families joined in 25 years 1993-2016!
PART 2. WHAT THEY DID TO US
You need to understand that during 1993-2016 the good teachings on the Body of Christ and multiple eldership and priesthood of all believers very GRADUALLY began to be overtaken by BCF Vic Hall controlling teachings on the messenger, elders as the face of Christ, self-naming, emptying, piercing in the hands of friends, family order, submission, suffering, (guru) headship etc.
Because it was SO GRADUAL, the occasional non-Scriptural aspects were forgiven by us initially because everything else had been so good. It was also very hard to fact check anything because of the intentional obfuscation (ie purposeful unintelligibility) of the new theology in the writings from BCF.
We were like lobsters boiling in a pot. It was GRADUAL.
Eventually the teachings on headship got so crazy that we were taught that:
1. Elders had 'sight' for every man's life choices and we had to offer ourselves before them because they were the 'human face of Christ' to us (I call this 'guru' headship)
2. If we disobeyed their edicts we would go to hell
3. If women disobeyed husbands we could divorce them on those grounds
4. Men were no longer allowed to start businesses without being asked to by elders
5. Some men were masters (business owners) and some were slaves (employees)
6. Almost anything you wanted to do was probably a self-named idol or 'projection'
7. If you ever wanted to do something in ministry it must be laid down and probably be given to someone else to implement
8. If you did something against the leaders advice you were declared 'unworthy'
In short everything was so black and white. In retrospect these delinquent and wolf leaders of ours were like nasty, self-obsessed children in preaching, life & pastorally.
What happened to us was that the elders insisted - AT THREAT OF MY GOING TO HELL - that I, as a PhD scientist/software engineer had to essentially ANTI-steward my hard-won career (despite being a 99.95 ATAR equivalent and uni and research award medal winner in my CSIRO work):
1. I was not allowed to do an ESSENTIAL OS internship (postdoc)
2. I had to stay in a dead-end job I hated for 5 years (and then they forgot they told me!)
3. All of my interests were declared idols
4. I was not allowed to start a business (just as the internet was exploding around me). This delayed the commercialization of my software 7 FULL YEARS which made my work pointless and when I did commercialize it, I was competing with FREE versions put out by Microsoft and Google!
5. I was told not to even think about technology or inventing
6. They refused to look at my prototypes
7. When they, without apology or announcement, backed off from such control around 2006-2010, they never told me their pronouncements on me were no longer binding SO I HELD MYSELF TO THEM UNTIL 2016!
They told me:
1. We've spoken to your father and he didn't sufficiently discipline you
2. No one can start a business unless an elder asks them to (meaning I knew it could never happen)
3. All the good things lining up for me were tricks from the devil
4. All my plans were trophies I was trying to build up
5. While watching me crying in one of their sessions, the senior elder pointed at me and told his two assistants: 'That is a man with blocked goals'
6. I needed to learn how to 'impute' and not trust the ways of the world when I asked why they were doing this
7. A senior member of the presbytery grabbed my arm and quoted Prov 14: 'There is a way that seems right, and it leads to death'. 'You can't do it' (commercialize my software). So it was known at the highest level what was happening to me and I was threatened with eternal damnation if I disobeyed
They were heartless in CREATING crosses for me and lost all sense of love and common decency.
These men were:
David Bonham
Laurie Holland
Steve Anderson
Steve Holland
What it essentially meant was that these primary school and TAFE teachers and two high school dropouts were directing the carefully nuanced career plans of an award winning PHD PARTICLE PHYSICIST purely based on their psyching-out sessions and judgements. It was INSANITY.
Through this entire time I had to live with these men as if they were friends and laugh and joke with them as they lorded over us. But at a football match the truth came to the top: we could not talk about ONE THING the entire match because everything was taboo: my interests, my work, their work, my projects, my direction, my plans, their plans. What is left to talk about? Everything was off the table. We sat next to each other like dummies. I knew they were wrong but I accepted their word that it was still good for me to obey 'marred headship'. Essentially these sick teachings destroyed any chance of us having a friendship entirely. How could that possibly be godly? In fact, talking to anybody at MCF became incredibly limited unless you were one of the special few free ones (essentially elder's children). These people had businesses and ministries and plans. MCF turned partiality into an art form.
This lead to the complete loss of my confidence, sanity, joy in life, hope for the future and earning capacity. Within 5 years I was unemployable. We later lost everything, our house and finances and now I and my wife and 4 teenage children only have our clothes, a $7K car and $40K in credit cards DEBTS.
That is after I was Dux of my school, won numerous uni awards, got my PhD, was Young Biophysicist of the Year 1997 and published 25 highly cited peer-reviewed papers as a CSIRO Project Leader. I was cutting edge and looking to do an OS postdoc or start an internet and/or biotech business to bring funds in for my family and the Body of Christ.
Next I will tell you about the MCF & BCF denials, cover-ups and what they did to my wife and our serving of the Lord.
I'm going to summarize the degrading, oppressive, destructive and pointless life we experienced at MCF (Melbourne Christian Fellowship) 1993-2016 in a series of posts in this topic.
In short, they butchered our lives and left us to rot. I lost the best 25 years of my life from age 25-49.
From experience I can testify that Melbourne Christian Fellowship is one of the most abusive non-violent cults I have ever heard about.
Feel free to reply in-between.
I want the world to know 8 things:
1. How disgustingly oppressive MCF & BCF got 1993-2010 amounting to psychological, spiritual and financial abuses
2. How MCF & BCF tried to cover it up 2014-2016 and further demeaned us and lied about us. I was betrayed by friends.
3. Why it happened IMO
4. That MCF had been a good place and its teachings on the Body of Christ are still correctly restorationist and edifying (despite serious fallings during that period too).
5. We got out in Nov 2016 and are very happy in a new church!
6. The origin of the abominable teachings is BCF and Vic Hall.
7. The origin of the delinquent, anti-scholarly, idiotic, careless, gutless and covering-up culture at MCF is MCF itself and its earlier incarnations.
8. That, yes, God knows all this, and vengeance is His, but, nevertheless:
(i) I warn EVERYONE not to be sucked in by the good elements of MCF today and
(ii) To MCF & BCF:
(a) You owe my family restitution as per Scripture and as per Vic Hall's direct request to the perpetrators
(b) You should mourn, repent and make restitution for the sin you have committed against 100s of families around the country
(c) Then you should change your name and join the rest of Christendom in the true Body of Christ. Your online reputation is FULLY deserved. No one in their right mind would ever enter your door after checking you out online. That is why only 2 families joined in 25 years 1993-2016!
PART 2. WHAT THEY DID TO US
You need to understand that during 1993-2016 the good teachings on the Body of Christ and multiple eldership and priesthood of all believers very GRADUALLY began to be overtaken by BCF Vic Hall controlling teachings on the messenger, elders as the face of Christ, self-naming, emptying, piercing in the hands of friends, family order, submission, suffering, (guru) headship etc.
Because it was SO GRADUAL, the occasional non-Scriptural aspects were forgiven by us initially because everything else had been so good. It was also very hard to fact check anything because of the intentional obfuscation (ie purposeful unintelligibility) of the new theology in the writings from BCF.
We were like lobsters boiling in a pot. It was GRADUAL.
Eventually the teachings on headship got so crazy that we were taught that:
1. Elders had 'sight' for every man's life choices and we had to offer ourselves before them because they were the 'human face of Christ' to us (I call this 'guru' headship)
2. If we disobeyed their edicts we would go to hell
3. If women disobeyed husbands we could divorce them on those grounds
4. Men were no longer allowed to start businesses without being asked to by elders
5. Some men were masters (business owners) and some were slaves (employees)
6. Almost anything you wanted to do was probably a self-named idol or 'projection'
7. If you ever wanted to do something in ministry it must be laid down and probably be given to someone else to implement
8. If you did something against the leaders advice you were declared 'unworthy'
In short everything was so black and white. In retrospect these delinquent and wolf leaders of ours were like nasty, self-obsessed children in preaching, life & pastorally.
What happened to us was that the elders insisted - AT THREAT OF MY GOING TO HELL - that I, as a PhD scientist/software engineer had to essentially ANTI-steward my hard-won career (despite being a 99.95 ATAR equivalent and uni and research award medal winner in my CSIRO work):
1. I was not allowed to do an ESSENTIAL OS internship (postdoc)
2. I had to stay in a dead-end job I hated for 5 years (and then they forgot they told me!)
3. All of my interests were declared idols
4. I was not allowed to start a business (just as the internet was exploding around me). This delayed the commercialization of my software 7 FULL YEARS which made my work pointless and when I did commercialize it, I was competing with FREE versions put out by Microsoft and Google!
5. I was told not to even think about technology or inventing
6. They refused to look at my prototypes
7. When they, without apology or announcement, backed off from such control around 2006-2010, they never told me their pronouncements on me were no longer binding SO I HELD MYSELF TO THEM UNTIL 2016!
They told me:
1. We've spoken to your father and he didn't sufficiently discipline you
2. No one can start a business unless an elder asks them to (meaning I knew it could never happen)
3. All the good things lining up for me were tricks from the devil
4. All my plans were trophies I was trying to build up
5. While watching me crying in one of their sessions, the senior elder pointed at me and told his two assistants: 'That is a man with blocked goals'
6. I needed to learn how to 'impute' and not trust the ways of the world when I asked why they were doing this
7. A senior member of the presbytery grabbed my arm and quoted Prov 14: 'There is a way that seems right, and it leads to death'. 'You can't do it' (commercialize my software). So it was known at the highest level what was happening to me and I was threatened with eternal damnation if I disobeyed
They were heartless in CREATING crosses for me and lost all sense of love and common decency.
These men were:
David Bonham
Laurie Holland
Steve Anderson
Steve Holland
What it essentially meant was that these primary school and TAFE teachers and two high school dropouts were directing the carefully nuanced career plans of an award winning PHD PARTICLE PHYSICIST purely based on their psyching-out sessions and judgements. It was INSANITY.
Through this entire time I had to live with these men as if they were friends and laugh and joke with them as they lorded over us. But at a football match the truth came to the top: we could not talk about ONE THING the entire match because everything was taboo: my interests, my work, their work, my projects, my direction, my plans, their plans. What is left to talk about? Everything was off the table. We sat next to each other like dummies. I knew they were wrong but I accepted their word that it was still good for me to obey 'marred headship'. Essentially these sick teachings destroyed any chance of us having a friendship entirely. How could that possibly be godly? In fact, talking to anybody at MCF became incredibly limited unless you were one of the special few free ones (essentially elder's children). These people had businesses and ministries and plans. MCF turned partiality into an art form.
This lead to the complete loss of my confidence, sanity, joy in life, hope for the future and earning capacity. Within 5 years I was unemployable. We later lost everything, our house and finances and now I and my wife and 4 teenage children only have our clothes, a $7K car and $40K in credit cards DEBTS.
That is after I was Dux of my school, won numerous uni awards, got my PhD, was Young Biophysicist of the Year 1997 and published 25 highly cited peer-reviewed papers as a CSIRO Project Leader. I was cutting edge and looking to do an OS postdoc or start an internet and/or biotech business to bring funds in for my family and the Body of Christ.
Next I will tell you about the MCF & BCF denials, cover-ups and what they did to my wife and our serving of the Lord.