Shunning

[guest]

"When someone constantly puts you down,
it leaves you feeling like you can't do anything right,
Or makes you feel worthless and bad about yourself in general
- just know you did nothing wrong and that this isn't love,
it's emotional abuse"

[BreakFree]

If scripture is something that resonates with you look at the gospels. Look at the example of Jesus. and draw strength from that.
Some helpful passages. John 10 (the Sheppard passage) and Ezekiel 34.

If scripture is something that doesn't resonate draw strength from people you have come into contact with in your life. Someone has valued you for being you. Even though I was born into CF I found people from my past who truly valued me, their memory got me through some dark times.

Key to working through the shunning and isolation is to reconnect with new people. I was fortunate to inherit a group of friends because of my wife. A good place to start is Cult Information Family Services https://www.cifs.org.au/. Connect with other cult survivors. I was very daunted at first but found this to be healing, knowing that I am not alone and we are not the only people coming from a cults.
Another important thing to consider is you have to allow yourself to be loved, allow people into you life. This is not easy and it takes a lot of work to trust people again but once you do and see that not everyone is bad you are on your path to healing.

[Hope4]

Thank you BreakFree.

Recovery is complex. It’s a long journey but there will be times when you’ll stop and thank God for His deliverance. How many times in our lives have we prayed The Lord’s Prayer?

Remember the words…Our Father in heaven … deliver us from evil.

One thing we can be absolutely sure about is that God will deliver His people.

If you are still trapped may I encourage you to pray for deliverance. It may come in a way you least expect it.
Be confident that God wants His people removed from bondage and bought into His glorious light and love.

There’s more to share but these few thoughts I leave with you today. Know this, you are not alone! We are praying for you!!!!!!
God bless you and yours.

[Faith Hopegood]

Sadly the BCF Leopard has not changed its spots with respect to shunning and they are just as vicious and nasty and vindictive (and blind) as ever. Specifically the leadership couples of the Christian Fellowship and their treatment of family who are no longer part of the Christian Fellowship. I heard an absolutely appalling report over the weekend (mid-July 2023) which shows that the Christian Fellowship beliefs and practices are plain evil in their outworking. They are so blinded by the "we are religiously right" spirit, that their hearts and minds are so seared, they are unable to even respond in the smallest amount of gracious love to a family member without using the occasion to be vindictive and stick the knife in.

This wicked religious spirit which drives all the teachings and social interactions within the Christian Fellowship has long ago lost all connection to love, compassion, gentleness and kindness. They are so spiritually and socially blinded they can't even read the room temperature when someone is trying to tell them that they love them. They have become like the modern day Pharisees.

They are blind like the Pharisees in John 9: 30-34. Jesus had compassionately healed a blind man, yet the Pharisees would not believe, and even threw the blind man out of the Synagogue!

30 The man answered, “Now that is remarkable! You don’t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31 We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. 32Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. 33 If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.” 34 To this they replied, “You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!” And they threw him out.

Just like the Pharisees, the leadership at all levels within the Christian Fellowship, both husbands and wives, are so blinded and their consciences so seared, they can not even see love when it is in front of them.

The faulty teaching philosophy and twisted theology which underpins the Christian Fellowship beliefs and actions, is so fractured that they have completely lost sight Christianity 101.

For those who might be new to this forum and are reading this, essentially, the Christian Fellowship group believes that they, and they alone, have the special revealed word from God. That they and they alone have the truth and that they are the only one true church. Both in their teachings and in their personal discussions and heart attitudes, they believe that they have a superior word/revelation, and because of this, all other people who profess Christ as their Saviour are either a lessor lower level form of Christian, or more likely the CF believe that all other non-CF christians are not even christians at all and will not be saved. The CF believe that you MUST be fellowshipping with the CF in order to be saved. If you don't fellowship with them, then they believe you are not saved and they will just cut you off and actively shun you. They believe that if you formerly fellowshipped with them and have left the CF, then you have lost your salvation (I was told this personally by CF elders). They might not preach this belief actively from the pulpit today but they absolutely certainly speak about this in private and counselling conversations. This belief has been going on for at least 45 years that I know of and shows no signs of changing.

This type of belief structure puts the Christian Fellowship squarely into the group of cultish churches which include: the Exclusive Brethren, The Jehovahs Witnesses etc. The fruit and actions are all the same, they just dress it up slightly differently. All believe they have a special revealed word and they alone have the single source of truth.

However the fruits they exhibit to others clearly signals which camp they actually belong to. They are absolute hypocrits and liars. They will be nice as pie to some people in their circle and group, but as mean and nasty and actively vindictive to people who are not fellowshipping with them.

If you in the Christian Fellowship and are reading this, please pray and ensure you read your bible. In fact read your bible more than you read Vic Halls latest pamphlet or booklet with the latest "present word". The scriptures in the bible are unchanging present word. The other thing I would urge people in the Christian Fellowship is this. If you feel what you are being told, or see things that are going on that just jar you soul and spirit a little bit, if you read the bible in context and then feel something is slightly off in what you are being taught, or what some elder or leader has told you, then that is a little spiritual radar deep inside you going off saying "all is not right". If a Christian Fellowship leader says something in conversation that seems a bit off and doesn't quite fit with what you read in the bible, particularly in the areas of love, compassion, gentleness, kindness and forgiveness, then please listen to that little voice inside of you saying "this doesn't feel or sound right, this doesn't really fit with the scriptures of Jesus teachings". If you hear a leader speaking in a negative slightly scoffing dismissive way about someone who has left the Christian Fellowship then please listen to the little spiritual radar. Thousands of people have left the fellowship over the decades. The CF leaders will always say that the person who left was "unsubmissive, rebellious, independent etc etc". They always use negative labels against others to try and keep justifying themselves.

Please listen to that little voice, and pray to your Father in Heaven that He can reveal His loving truth and His compassionate and forgiving ways to you.

[Helen Pomery]

Thank you Faith.

Many will know who I am. I am writing on this forum under my own name because of my love and care for those who are still trapped within the bondage of BCF’s deception, control and fear.

I know many people are questioning the doctrines and revelations of Victor Hall.

Thank God for His word and for our internal conscience which He offers us, to guide us in our relationship with Him.

Faith is quite correct. The internal radar / conscience/ inner conviction is how God speaks to us to know His truth from false teaching.

Long before I was kicked out and excommunicated, I heard God prompting my conscience saying, “What is happening here, IS NOT LOVE.

I saw first hand the shameful treatment and discipline of Gladys Barlow and many other men and women in leadership. It was NOT Christian!!!

Please know we have not forgotten you or forsaken you. We are praying for you all.

[Dexter]

Hello Helen,

Thank God for His word and for our internal conscience which He offers us, to guide us in our relationship with Him.

Faith is quite correct. The internal radar / conscience/ inner conviction is how God speaks to us to know His truth from false teaching.

Thank you! The whole time I was in the RFI churches I thought I was supposed to suppress that “internal radar / conscience/ inner conviction”, because muting it was the only way I could obey the elders’ inane edicts. I used to wonder how my life became a daisy chain of miniature disasters. Now I have a clue.

[Helen Pomery]

Thank you Dexter for your honesty and openness. It takes a lot of courage to face how we were fooled and deceived. I remember the shame of seeing my own blindness and culpability and repenting with such grief. I was a parent who took children into that place, so I needed to face the horror.

The wonderful blessing of knowing what Jesus has done for each of us, is that He offers us freedom from sin and we are redeemed.

When I was under severe discipline/ bullying, within BCF, Ian Barlow told me I didn’t know the true God. He said I worshipped ‘the god of my own imagination’! He then claimed that they (the elders) knew the true God.

This was Ian Barlow’s reaction to me when I said the treatment the elders were administering here, there and everywhere was not the love of God as I had experienced it.

Ian Barlow undermined who I was, my own identity in Christ, my whole personhood and caste aspersions that I only believed in the god of my own imagination.

Those of us who have escaped or been excommunicated have a lot of healing to seek after such lies and cruelty.

Thank God for His grace, mercy, forgiveness and gentleness because He leads us toward wholeness and healing with such love. We can trust Him.

[Dexter]

When I was under severe discipline/ bullying, within BCF, Ian Barlow told me I didn’t know the true God. He said I worshipped ‘the god of my own imagination’! He then claimed that they (the elders) knew the true God.

...

Ian Barlow undermined who I was, my own identity in Christ, my whole personhood and caste aspersions that I only believed in the god of my own imagination.

The whole thing is insidious. It's like being locked in a cell with the key, but you've been convinced that if you touch the key, you'll die. I'm not a psychologist but I'm sure it's a textbook example of gaslighting.

Here's an amazing thing I've realised though, after all the gaslighting: The Lord never leaves us or forsakes us [Joshua 1:5; Hebrews 13:5]. That "still, small voice" is still there, even after decades of foolishly ignoring it. Sure, it's hard work reversing the 'muscle memory' but I'm hopeful for genuine restoration, "...being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ." [Philippians 1:6 NKJV]

[Lillith]

When you believe in a vicious, retributive, petulant, genocidal, harsh God because of a literalistic reading of the OT narrative, then that same behavior is justified as being godly.
THEY (CF leaders) are worshipping the God of their imagination!!

My lens is that Jesus is what God has to say about himself -
He is the same yesterday today and tomorrow.
If we truly believe that God is love, and is that God is fully revealed in Jesus, then we will focus on those loving qualities of Jesus, mentioned above.

I too loved Gladys Barlow.
She had that wonderful sense of humour and sparkle in her eye to the end. She was not enamored with leaving Wavell Heights Presbyterian and joining with Vic’s church and was not under Vic’s spell as Ian was and is.
Her submission to the abuse meted out to her says so much to me about her love for her family - the price to be paid to stay close to her family, as she had all 3 daughters entrenched in the church.
I did not read “Apostles of Fear” until I was out.
(Got it from the local library!)
Even tho it’s about the RFI/CFs and not primarily about individual members, I read it out of love and respect for Helen.
The treatment of Helen, and Gladys made it a harrowing read!

Yes, follow that internal radar, confirmed by Gods revelation that his very nature is LOVE.
It is a wonderful journey to get to know God as revealed in Jesus.