Recovery From Undue Influence & Coercive Control
God is love and He loves you. Not all humans are like God in that way, and unfortunately there is much masquerading as religion that is coercive undue influence where people or a group of people want to use you for their gain. Along with the challenge of extricating yourself from religious people who don't love and respect you and won't treat you as equals or allow your "yes" to be yes, and "no" to be no, there are the effects of living in such an environment. In addition, others who have exited similar situations may choose a route that rejects or eschews everything religious, thinking that Christianity itself is the problem. It is not easy to find, even in educational communities, support for continuing faith based living without being pressured into recovery support that is historically or functionally anti-Christian or dominated by those who have a bias against Christianity.
You can take the same critical thinking skills to those people, methods and examine what influences them, as you partake in helpful education about recovering from coercive people and groups. There are many well meaning people who do not see that they are faith-based in secular recovery methods, processes, inventories, and prescriptions for what constitutes recovery from the effects of coercive control. It's okay to keep your wits about you, and just because someone can identify and describe a problem, does not mean that their solutions, in actual practice, are research based or evidence based. These resources are shared because there is some really helpful information, but you don't have to keep all the bathwater with the baby.
Retaining your faith may be seen as remaining under the influence of coercion by people who are not faith based or who do not understand your faith and practice in Christianity. For that reason, the prevailing socio-political values may be attributed to you in seeing you as less intelligent, less legitimate, gullible, under coercion, even in those areas of solid faith that you have. You may be seen as someone who is in need of intervention because you do not match another's definition of "mainstream." If you are prepared that some -- not all -- can be biased, it will not be as shocking when you encounter it.
You can take the same critical thinking skills to those people, methods and examine what influences them, as you partake in helpful education about recovering from coercive people and groups. There are many well meaning people who do not see that they are faith-based in secular recovery methods, processes, inventories, and prescriptions for what constitutes recovery from the effects of coercive control. It's okay to keep your wits about you, and just because someone can identify and describe a problem, does not mean that their solutions, in actual practice, are research based or evidence based. These resources are shared because there is some really helpful information, but you don't have to keep all the bathwater with the baby.
Retaining your faith may be seen as remaining under the influence of coercion by people who are not faith based or who do not understand your faith and practice in Christianity. For that reason, the prevailing socio-political values may be attributed to you in seeing you as less intelligent, less legitimate, gullible, under coercion, even in those areas of solid faith that you have. You may be seen as someone who is in need of intervention because you do not match another's definition of "mainstream." If you are prepared that some -- not all -- can be biased, it will not be as shocking when you encounter it.
An introduction to groups that use coercive control (it's okay they use the word "cult." Your group may not be a "cult" per se, but there could be undue influence about which you can educate yourself:
Carol Giambalvo
Ted Talk on Experiencing Sects
Teds Talk on How To Help Those Recovering - note we're not promoting each individual's beliefs or what they don't believe in, but bringing to light the undue influence in rules.