GAYDAR: My Life With The Thrill Kill Cult
BY AARON STELLA This week, Imma gonna tell ya a little somethin’ about me, a.k.a I’m going to start prattling on like a drunk blonde at a frat party, with a whole bunch of “No one understands me!” and “Oh my God, I love this song!” OK, not really, but what I’m about to tell you about my life usually redirects whatever the present conversation is to a relentless onslaught of who, what, where, when, why, and “what the fuck?” If you missed last week’s edition, check it out and get yourself up to speed. Alright, let’s get this show on the road.
I was born August 5th in 1985 in Augusta, GA. I’m the oldest of three. My father is from Chicago, was raised Catholic, ended up in Georgia during his stay at the medical college of Oxford-Emery. My Mother is from the Bronx, was raised Jewish. After her father died, she lived a very “shower with a friend” existence until Jesus revealed himself to her while she was studying art in Italy. She worked at the Savannah River plant in Georgia; later some friends of hers introduced her to my father.
The cult calls itself the Alleluia Community. There are thousands of these Post-Vatican II Neo-Evangelist cults
scattered throughout the states disguised as innocent suburbanite communes, where plastic smiles hide the sorrows: theocracies such as these are magnets for the codependent, the socially outcast, and the zealous biblethumper , or as I like to call them, “Taliban Christians.” Usually, the more sensationalized breeds hog most of the attention (people just eat up stories about moonlight orgies a thousand polygamists strong and fruit punch suicides), however, the Alleluia community is relatively tame in comparison.
Still, it was hardly the real world. It is a closed society. Only community members could attend community meetings, and only kids of community members could attend the community school. Those looking to join took the pledge of loyalty at an induction GCG –community meetings, basically–where they were bestowed cult garments to symbolize membership. The women were given white veils, and the men, cream-colored tallits– a shawl traditionally worn by Jewish men at prayer. Children of community members could join when they were four. It was customary for the the youngsters to say something or do a song and dance at their induction GCC. I recited a fire and brimstone chapter from the bible, which was a real crowd pleaser, and made my father beam with pride.
How did my family wind up joining a cult, you ask? Well, my mom joined first because she wanted to live a more Christian life and felt she need to surround herself by other Christians. But my father (ugh), he was befriended by one of the church Elders — basically the founders elected themselves Church Elders For Life and oversaw all aspects of the cult. Everyone paid a tithe–about 10 percent of your income–to help fund community programs and upkeep the school and retreat households and other things. They must have licked their chops when they heard that my dad was an obscenely over-paid ER physician. A little cajoling was all it took, and a feigned interest in my father’s incessant pontifications on religion — one of his favorite past-times. My father’s the kind of Christian who extols God for his wrath rather than his mercy, and he found like-minded company in the ranks of the community. Long story short, he joined, married my mom, had us kids, blah blah blah we lived in a cult. Until one day my mom noticed something fishy. You know that tithe everyone has to pay? The money was supposed to be for community collective funds, to improve the school, fund programs, and all that? My mom didn’t realize it until one day when she was walking past anelder’s house. He was out in his front lawn, watering his plants. At that moment, she wondered to herself how he managed to pay his water bill without working. My mom became a stay-at-home mom when she had us kids, so she knew who was around during the work day and who wasn’t. Well, this guy was never away, nor was his wife or 13-something kids, some of them, far past due to the workforce. Well, she put two and two together and it became apparent where the tithe dough was really going: landing right into the the elders bank account. Just your typical cash scam folks. Of course, none of her friends believed her.
And then there was the sex thing. Between October 3rd to the 8th, the parents would go away on retreats. In their absence, the teenagers were left in charge to take care of the younger kids, which at the time included me and my sisters. The funny thing is is that after a while the parents started taking the whole family on these retreats. Hmm , I wonder why? Let’s see: what happens when you leave, say, a little over a 300 raging hormonal teenagers who’ve been told to “sit still or else god will smite you” their whole lives? They smoke, fuck, drink, fuck some more, and in a matter of hours, transform quietol ’ Faith Village—the neighborhood in which most the members lived—into iniquitous Sodom and Gomorrah. During this time, I survived on burnt banana pancakes and fought for possession of my Nintendo Entertainment System. Jerome, who took care of and my sister (a.k.a the burnt banana pancake extraordinaire), used let all the kids who bullied me at school into our house to play with my things. Not to mention, people having sex all over the place, all over our house, which was the biggest house in the community. So much shit happened. I remember waking up one day finding two complete strangers pulling each other’s hair and licking each other’s faces. Obviously, my protests went unhonored; most of those days, I stayed outside, wandering to parts of the village I wasn’t allowed to go, and into the forests surrounding. Faith Village used to be a pecan orchard. Later, the land was tilled and low-income suburban housing spurng up, but not in blocks, in circles , with the house situated along the perimeter. And in the center, no fences were erected, just wide open communal space open to anyone who wised to graze, or, when the parents are gone, island-hop for booze and drugs. They traveled in groups–rogue bands of adolescents gallivanting through Christendom guided by the wind of their whimsy. At night, the only light one could find other than from the houses was from cigarettes, joints, and the distant sounds of squelching noises.
Oh yeah, I still don’t really know what all went on at those parent retreats; however, I do know that the elders taught our parents the “holier than thou” way to have sex (something tells me God probably frowns on double-sided dildos and cock-rings). On a final note (cause I could on forever), something I learned about organized religion and cult life while in the mix was of the terrifying power humans have to say “no: to ignore blatantly obvious realities; to reject facts of science; to assume a pejorative, natural hierarchy among humankind; to oppress out of fear rather than accept with love; to blame rather than admit error. (Oh god, now I sound like one of the elders. I’m still trying to work this shit out of my system. Ex-cult members who befriended my family after we left the cult told us that of the amount of years one spends in the cult equals the time it takes one to fully recover from all the bullshit. I’ll leave it at that, for now)
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July 25th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Great reading. Keep it up!
July 25th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Aaron – I lived in Alleluia. As a child, I attended your parents’ wedding. I remember the announcement of your birth. I always loved your mother’s wild curly hair (like mine) and was impressed by her remarkable intellect. You make some very good and valid points, and there is truth in your words. My parents also left Alleluia, but not until after my family experienced sexual abuse and financial rape, the effects of which are still being dealt. My family’s experience in Alleluia tore apart our familial foundation and we have never recovered. It took me YEARS to get over what happened there. I wish you much peace. Do not be afraid to speak the truth. It’s all you have that is real. Sue
July 25th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
PS – and those uniforms! Stylin’ huh?
July 28th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Very colorful! Most of it quite true too! I must comment however that there were and, no doubt, still are many people there who attempt to live good Christian lives, as did your family. I particularly know of some children of members who are away at colleges around the country and are doing all they can to lead true Christian lives. They don’t have a clue about any ulterior motives, hidden agendas, or misguidance in the community and might be shocked and hurt by what you have written. That community began with genuine Christian motives. But, gradually, as they distanced themselves from Church guidance and began to disdain the Church (as weak and misguided) and to look to themselves for wisdom, things started to go sour. That community, as many others (some of which have been disbanded by Bishops and Archbishops), was a magnet for codependents. Unfortunately, it still manages to “fly below the radar” of most church officials, and, so operates unhindered even today. I, too, could go on forever, but I have a life to live. So, I’ll just remind you of something about The Alleluia Community you neglected to mention: the only graceful way to leave The Alleluia Community is death. Anyone who leaves in any other way, prepare yourself for shunning. And anyone who publicly says anything negative about the community will become the subject of the most awful rumors. Keep writing, honey! But keep a tough skin!
November 9th, 2008 at 9:42 am
Excerpts from a paper by Dr. Phillip Zimbardo, (written a few years before he was elected president of the American Psychological Assoc.).
How do we make sense of (people involved in cults)? Typical explanations of all such strange, unexpected behavior involve a “rush to the dispositional”, locating the problem in defective personalities of the actors. Those whose behavior violates our expectations about what is normal and appropriate are dismissed as kooks, weirdoes, gullible, stupid, evil or masochistic deviants.
Such pseudo-explanations are really moralistic judgments; framed with the wisdom of hindsight, they miss the mark. They start at the wrong end of the inquiry. Instead, our search for meaning should begin at the beginning: “What was so appealing about this group that so many people were recruited/seduced into joining it voluntarily?” We want to know also, “What needs was this group fulfilling that were not being met by ‘traditional’ society?”
Such alternative framings shift the analytical focus from condemning the actors, mindlessly blaming the victims, defining them as different from us, to searching for a common ground in the forces that shape all human behavior. By acknowledging our own vulnerability to the operation of the powerful, often subtle situational forces that controlled their actions, we can begin to find ways to prevent or combat that power from exerting its similar, sometimes sinister, influence on us and our kin.
No one ever joins a “cult”. People join interesting groups that promise to fulfill their pressing needs…
….Whatever any member of a cult has done, you and I could be recruited or seduced into doing–under the right or wrong conditions. The majority of “normal, average, intelligent” individuals can be led to engage in immoral, illegal, irrational, aggressive and self-destructive actions that are contrary to their values or personality–when manipulated situational conditions exert their power over individual dispositions.
Cult methods of recruiting, indoctrinating and influencing their members are not exotic forms of mind control, but only more intensely applied mundane tactics of social influence practiced daily by all compliance professionals and societal agents of influence.
…In general, cult leaders offer simple solutions to the increasingly complex world problems we all face daily…Ultimately, each new member contributes to the power of the leader by trading his or her freedom for the illusion of security and reflected glory that group membership holds out.
…A remarkable thing about cult mind control is that it’s so ordinary in the tactics and strategies of social influence employed…variants of (those)…used on all of us daily to entice us: to buy, to try, to donate, to vote, to join, to change, to believe, to love, to hate the enemy….but (differs) in its greater intensity, persistence, duration and scope. One difference is in its greater efforts to block quitting the group, by imposing high exit costs, replete with induced phobias of harm, failure, and personal isolation.
(This was published in the American Psychological Association Monitor, May 1997, page 14)
January 8th, 2009 at 4:03 am
Very colorful! I just happened to google alleluia community after all these years to see what happened to it. I was in YWAM (Youth With A Mission) on an outreach and we met Yes Lord folks at a Vineyard Bible study that we were doing dramas in. I was from a Lutheran evangelical church and encountered ‘charismatic’ people for the first time in YWAM. Needless to say I really did become a disciple of Jesus and remain that today, just older and wiser about the fake and weird aspects of much of the institutions surrounding Christ and the Bible.
Anyhoo. We stayed in AC for a couple days or so doing dramas etc. But after a word from the elders, each of our team members were taken into seperate rooms near 10pm and subjected to severe spiritual aggression… casting out of demons, whatever. I was sprinkled with holy water, prayed for and told to repent… then since no manifestation (the bucket was ready and there for vomiting) I was spoken of in the third person, ‘see how IT doesn’t look at us, it’s in there’… so I voluntarily locked my eyes on the speaker, which was only playing into their hands… Now YWAM itself gets a bad rep in some circles but I was never subjected to anything I didn’t want to be a part of and free to leave, call my pastor, folks whoever, or even just start living somewhere else and get a job… i digress… since nothign came out I needed to ‘blow’ it out… so trying not to laugh (which had been deemed as a ‘mocking spirit’ earlier since I had said ‘laughing, come on guys really no demons here!’ … so I guess I blew it out and they prayed and were satisfied. All us YWAM students confided in eachother and found out in different houses the same thing went down. We contacted our group leader and got outta Dodge!
Obviously you had some rough times and quite a bit of fun, with all the dope and sex. Hope you recover and find rest in life. Christ is really quite the opposite of all this and loves you. Peace.
January 24th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
SHAME ON YOU, Sylvia! “Aaron” was just a child when he left Alleluia and I can understand his twisted thinking, but your comments fall in a different category. For any readers out there, I also attended Aaron’s parents wedding and his mother was my roommate before marriage and a close friend for many, many years. And I’m willing to admit that Alleluia isn’t perfect. WOW! Imagine that! Not perfect! Made up of human beings and imperfect. How can that be? The difference between Alleluia and a Cult is that a Cult is easy to join and difficult to leave. Alleluia is difficult to join and easy to leave. Many have chosen to walk away and still find that they can live in the same town and have a good life. Where’s the hounding and ostracizing? Non-existant. They are free to make their choice.
September 15th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
http://covenantcommunities.blogspot.com/2007/01/covenant-communities-caritas.html?showComment=1207438740000#c2574066451239989109
October 8th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
i’m sure your memories of many things in alleluia are not great. the one who destroyed your family and your memories of the past is your dad. does it give you satisfaction to write slanderous, untrue, malicious things. no group or association, or school or anything else is perfect. but folks wanting to lead good lives, with others who believe the same does not make a cult. you also slander your mom in this piece. she doesn’t deserve that, adam. she was royally screwed over by your dad in his lies and deceit, not by alleluia, no matter who says what.I will pray for you
October 8th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
if you moderate my comment it is only because you are embarrassed by what i say. be brave and let it be published
October 27th, 2009 at 2:59 am
Aaron. I knew you as a little baby, before I moved on.
Aaron. Has anyone ever apologized to you? I mean really. Not the year 2000 form letter, either.
I have heard a few shame on you’s, jutifications, “xyz isnt perfect”s. My concern is no one ever ever ever has really apologized to you, except probably your mom. Your mother had a special quality. She was someone who could be respected, and I still do. Sounds like she made corrections when it cost her. She could take a few spitwads when she had to do the right thing, among which must have included doing the right thing by her children, even if it meant admitting painful costly mistakes on her part as a mother. Imagine that. respecting someone who could admit they were not perfect, and who allowed hurt, and who could decide it was worth it to face a weeny little spitball or two.
Who was responsible for you when you were subjected to the adolescent pack, with all their natural relentless adolescent ability to sniff out any flaw, any inequity, any hypocrisy, and bring all their leveling down on you? About how old were you when you were left practically alone, displaced from your home to pay for others’ faults and inconsistencies and wishful thinkings? Maybe 8? a year younger? a year older?
I do not hear your mom denying anything now, and I dont hear you blaming her…I like to imagine she paid for a correction a little late to fix some hurts, and at least she took reponsibility and apologized to you, and you forgave her. Beyond that , then, there is the issue of the community. How was “IT” responsible there and how?
I also wonder, as bad as that was for you…what did it mean to “the pack?” I can hear it now “I got soooo wasted!” Knowing some of them…I really wonder, besides of course you being told to shush…did any of them ever have the chance to realize the consequences of their attitudes and behaviors? I would like to beleive some of them would really be sorry and apologize…but that of course would mean your story would have to be heard. A formletter is so much more tidy.
As a parent now, its heartwrenching, the idea of leaving any child to what I can easily beleive you were left to.
The question surfaces, what is it that would leave a child not only unprotected, but so exposed?
I am not assuming any physical abuse, and you did not describe any or allude to any, (as horribly shamefully slanderous as you have been) Does it really take someone who was young in the community to visualize what you do describe?
Maybe. again I wonder has anyone ever really apologized to you. Aaron?
lets take a slander tally instead:
2 busts on writers dad:
name calling on the community: post vatican 2 neo whatever whatever (ooh that hurts-wassa matta big strong group cant handle it?)
2 shames on mom for affirming son and his experiences.
So the writer is not supposed to express his experiences and feelings on them because there are still nice people doing nice things in this group. But not allowed, or less important than the great hurts of namecalling, is the description that what happened to young Aaron was not nice.
So, Aaron, I have to write you. In contrast to the other person who knew you as a baby, I do not think you should be embarrassed by what you wrote, or what anyone standing up for you wrote. Keeping up appearances, not tolerating “slander” and being too darn invested in being perfect and important is what exposed this child in the first place.
But no. The message from “back there and then”, still, is “Shame on you” and shush. And you caught that live on Blog.
Is there anything more important than raising a child? no.
Is there an easy way to sit back and sign kids up to the ivory tower of perfection? no.
I beleive there are good people in the community. I never firsthand experienced any really scandalous stuff. I did encounter at times patterns I have names for now in my life of trying to figure out, on my own, as you say: “WTF WAS all that???
Some names of some patterns include perfectionism, and what I have learned is sometimes called the seductive relatonship style. Acedia also, which includes escapist inaction, carelessness and blindness that can happen with a highfalutin perfectionism. These patterns were present in the community, as they can be present everywhere from classrooms to politics. Also, the definition of cult (not so nefarious, but distinct) in Digby Baltzell’s Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia was very helpful in my efforts to find resolution. Also, its illustrations of the unintended consequences of high idealism, particularly in the case of the Quakers of Philly.
As kids in the community, we bore the entire brunt of some very zealous idealists. As progeny, either familial or institutional, our successes, failures, projections, futures were all in close range of several hundreds of people’s casting calls to fill key characters in whatever grandiose self- justification morality play certain people, to various degrees, needed to run. So naturally if something bad happened to a kid, it was something or someone else’s fault…not the community’s. Not surprisingly some blindness to faults, needs, and exposures to children were going to happen in this charged status.
You know, Aaron, what happens to a kid the younger the age the more significant. I am not a shrink, but what happened as your parents were on the mountaintop was not small beans .You could read some of the developmental stages of the psychologist Erikson. Messing with these stages is a lot more damaging and in need of resolution than any spitwad stuck on an ivory tower.
Aaron, lately I am beleiving much of the time the good actually infiltrates the bad of this world, not the other way around…Sure we have to have a basic sense of our own dignity and we are all equaly good and all that first, but this whole world is pretty far from what we ought to agree it ought to be.
Is a bubble of goodness possible? Even as I beleive it is…that bubble ought to recognize what rooks the rest of us. There is a need for a goodness bubble to keep focused on the good, and recognize the Source of Good, and at times not try to get good out of bad. But Good Bubbles are susceptible to the same things, there is no escape, there is no higher ground.
I found that when I began to see some of these problems as garden variety plagues, I found it to help. That not to say there aren’t spots that can focus, entrench, and dogpile a passel of these garden variety plagues, but evil is not as strange or unique as it likes to let on.
Another reading I found searching for my own answers on my community experience caught my attention: “there is no one more perfectionist than someone who has rejected a perfectionist community.”
I sure hope that’s not true for me, but I do consider it a warning: If I continue so hurt that that perfectionism was so wrong…do I end up running to an opposite perfection? (Perfectionism, by the way, besides being a garden variety fault, is also patently nonChristian.)
Were they (the community) that cosmically-scaled wholistically wrong, or did someone or a few someones or a lot of someones just royally screw up? What will it take for me to really beleive that there really is no perfect? What does Good and Bad look like when there is no perfect? Will I always be needing that cosmic justification of myself that I failed to provide those within that group who can still so stridently demand it?
After all, we are supposed to be ashamed that things werent perfect for us.
Anyone who hasn’t experienced the village may not “get” a lot of this…but they can see how “shameful” some think it to fail to give homage to the perfectionist Beast.
That Beast that can really bite; that beast that, neither itself nor its adolescent mirror image, best not be left in charge of little kids…
I always preferred to babysit tiny babies, so I do think I babysat you before I went off, because I remember you did have a nice house. I would always babysit little babies because I would love singing them to sleep even when they could be so upset. Remembering that, and now as a parent, I hope youll not mind me going back in time with my feelings on all this.
I am so, so sorry what happened to you, Aaron. It was not right.
Now I wish I could tell you, As Bono sang last night, we can never get enough of what we dont really need.
But you do need, and deserve, peace, Aaron.
Best to you and your mom.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:16 am
Everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. But based on what I observed over 22 years as an adult member of that community and what I experienced, the only graceful way to leave the Alleluia Community, at least between 1973 and the late 1990s, was death. There are many, many people who left Alleluia and other similar communities during that time period who have participated in support groups to help them heal from the manipulation while they were in community, the shunning they experienced when they left, and to learn to ignore all the bad rumors spread about them by community members, post-community.
We lived in Faith Village for several months after we left membership in the Alleluia Community. The other parents in our “circle” would not let their children play with ours and their children often called us names. Only one person ever did anything to try to stop it (on one occasion) and he also apologized to us for the terrible behavior of the others. People who were my “friends” for years dropped me like a hot potato, even turning around and going down a different aisle in the market if they saw me coming toward them. As long as you play along with the leadership, you are safe. If you cross them- look out! Those who have not crossed them remain unaware of the extremes to which they will go to silence any dissent or discord. Interestingly, it was the honesty of Patty’s (who posted previously) own father that revealed to me some of the dirty work that had gone on, though he didn’t realize that he was telling me a part of the story I had not known. Moreover, he hadn’t known my part of the story.
Anyhow, regardless of our various experiences in the Alleluia Community, Adam is entitled to his take on things and he is entitled to write about it. Yes, his dad had problems. Yet the Alleluia Community did nothing to help him (and his “head”, a psychiatrist, should have known better). They just kept him around, taking advantage of his obsessive compulsivity to pay his tithe without fail every month, as the largest wage earner by several times over in the community until I contacted the Bishop about financial improprieties of which I became aware and then the elders decided that he (we) were too much of a liability to keep around, money notwithstanding. Even our pastor, who mediated in a meeting between the elders and us, was appalled at the things the elders said and the ways they handled things. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Those elders had absolute power. No one questioned them. I hope (against hope) that things have changed for the better. But our experience in the Alleluia Community is similar to the experiences of many others from there and similar communities, and that is all I can comment on.
Adam was mistreated by many children in the community and this was condoned by adults (e.g. the scout troop). I am aware of several incidents. I am sure there must be plenty more of which I am unaware. But realizing, now, the type of people who were in charge of some of the children’s groups, I know things went on that never should have been allowed. And those retreats during which the teens held reign over Faith Village- well, back then I had hoped “our community teens” were different. But, now I hear from my own children and from others that it was worse than Pollyanna-thinking to believe we could leave our little ones with ANY teens if there was absolutely no adult supervision. I had my doubts back then about so doing. But I just went along with what I was told, believing the elders, who had trained me so well to doubt myself.
Thank God I have been freed from that bondage! Where there is life there is hope. I pray for healing for all who experienced poor formation and bad examples and unfortunate experiences in such communities. And I applaud my son for not being afraid to write about things as he sees them. And hooray for me for remaining an honest person and a mother who loves and supports her son!
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Anyone wanting to understand more about these communities, of which the one Aaron mentions is only one of many in the world, might want to read this:
http://www.nd.edu/~areimers/Reliable.pdf.prn
November 22nd, 2009 at 1:38 am
Please contact me. It is very important. Thank you.
CJ Mouser
February 8th, 2010 at 11:35 am
This is so sad a statement on the world. How has life outside Alleluia and the church altogether worked for you? You seem filled with hate, condemnation and pervetedness.
I am a member of Alleluia, came to it as an adult who “knew the world” and was not going to be decieved. There are few institutions as open and in the light as Alleluia, which is why it is recognized and respected by the local bishops, priests and even the Pope knows of us and praises our work.
The only shunning that was spoken of is exactly the same as what happens in a divorce. When that break is bitter, such as someone who made a covenant “freely and in faith” and lived it for 22 years leaves and becomes hateful and spiteful, of course members are not going to treat you like everything is fine. YOU broke the relationship and then your complaint is that the relationship was no longer there.
The families who leave community do so with no other repercussions other than they decided to not be in community, therefore they lose that relationship. The percentage of people who leave after making a lifetime commitment (to which they have years to decide on with little commitment at all) is almost as low as the divorce rate and addiction rate is in community; the suicide rate is zero. I will take the statistics of that life over the depressed, bitter statistics of what you now consider “freedom” in your life.
I am happily a slave to Christ and Alleluia is the way God has called me to live out that joyful life.
The statistics are stacked against you, as the vast majority of our alumni, kids raised in community, many of whom choose not to join and are wished well in life, go on to lead productive, godly lives, often in ministry and in the church.
Sadly, your family’s problems, deeply rooted and vast, have little to do with Alleluia Community – that is just your excuse. Face the truth, be healed in the name of Christ and move on while you have life left. Alleluia has. We only wish you well.
March 19th, 2010 at 12:28 am
“Aaron”, I knew you as a child too. We were classmates and what I thought to be good friends. We were classmates and I have many memories of you and your family. You left at a young age. Your claims are completely false. I played daily in the circle you claim to be full of cigarettes and joints. Dont get me wrong, I am not, nor have I ever wanted to be, a member of the Alleluia Community. I dont necessarily agree with the way they live. However, I can understand where their intentions lie. I am a fan of speaking your mind, but I am a bigger fan of speaking the truth which you have not done. Your experience with the community ended when you were what 11? 12? I finished high school at Alleluia and I can assure you, there were no orgies. There was no pot smoking sessions in the circles. Were there cigarettes? Absolutely. I smoked as well as some of my friends. Was there drinking? Again I did but it was not popular among the high school kids and there were very few who involved themselves with these activities. What high school does not have these event? NONE of these decisions were made under any influence of the Alleluia Community. I applaud your courage to speak out but laugh at your lack of knowledge on the topic of discussion. I would encourage readers to understand that this author left the “cult” at a very young age. His experience are extremely limited. As a person who grew up in the community and has no desire to join, I would like to say that these are GOOD people who are trying to do something good. Do they have their own faults. ABSOLUTELY. Who does not? But the bottom line is that there is no Kool-aid drinking going on. I have never been put up on stage at a “GCG” and been “inducted” into the cult. No one was. You did that because your parents wanted you to. Don’t waste your time slinging mud when it isnt necessary. Had you stayed through your teenage years you would be able to see the good in this organization. Or at least have had a real knowledge of the community. You definately would have had good friends. I hope the best for you and would like to end on one note. When you and your family left my parents never once told me I could not talk, play, or hang out with you and I am sorry that you did not get to form the friendships like I have with these people. To readers, do not blindly bite this nonsensical article. “Aaron” makes claims that are almost humerous to those of us that know the truth.
April 21st, 2010 at 12:31 am
I just happened onto this site because I was looking for the official Alleluia Community website. I must say I was overwhelmed with what I read. I can hardly respond. I am so sad after reading this blog and some of it’s responses. Sylvia, I am sorry if you felt shunned and I am sure there were some who did in fact avoid you but not out of malice but out of a lack of ability as how to respond. Aaron, I did not know you but I remember you. You were a beautiful, sensitive child. I am very sad and sorry that your perception of what was going on around you were was so horrible. Your family has been through a crisis but not because of the Alleluia Community. I need not say more.
May 2nd, 2010 at 5:20 pm
Adam, I was heartbroken to hear you suffered such pain. I know you and my son were friends during elementary school. I know that your family went through a rough time and I was very close to the situation at that time. It tore all of us up since we loved your family. i tend to hold onto the good memories and turn the bad ones over to Jesus. I’m sure if the individuals who hurt you knew your pain and their wrongdoing they would quickly apologize. It was a very complex situation and difficult to sort through and handle. I know that there were problems with the retreats; and we now have learned from our mistakes. Retreats are held in town now and parents do what is best for their kids. I don’t know of any more problem with drugs although each family is different and many come here with their problems. Jesus meets us where we are at. We do not claim to “fix” problems but to love one another in a way that will heal hurts. Most of our children have grown with a love for Jesus and a desire to build the Church, no matter what their denomination. They live strong Christian lives. I wish you knew them now. This Alleluia Community that you are talking about is no where close to what you experienced. I almost grew up here and I did experience some pain and hurt in those early days as we tried to figure out how God wanted us to live. Mistakes were made but I know that God looks at our hearts and I know for a fact that most of the members are trying to follow Jesus and do his will the best they know how. Those of us who are Catholics have grown in our faith. I do not hear anyone being critical of the Church. God tells us that if we judge we will so be judged. When your parents left, it was VERY HARD for us, especially as so many of us were close to you all. I hope that God heals the pain and hurt anyone has experienced as we have made mistakes. We are trying to actually live out God’s Word in a tangible way. This place isn’t for everyone as we are only a small part of what God is doing.
May 3rd, 2010 at 6:19 pm
Hello Everyone.
Thank you all for taking the time to read and comment on this article. Many of you feel strongly about the topics reported, particularly my rendering of the Alleluia Community, (aka “the cult”). To get right down to it, these articles are not meant to defame anyone, but to help me, along with many other curious readers, make sense of the existence of cults and closed societies such as the Alleluia community. At least, that is the purpose I have elected for myself.
To Joe J: When I saw your comment, I flipped through a few family photo albums. I think I know who you are now. We indeed were friends. You knew me as Adam (my middle name) at that time. I would love to speak with you on the phone in or person sometime; however, I regret to admit that I do not remember much of you. As for your comment, you are absolutely right that I was only in the cult until I was a little older than 12-years-old; however, that fact alone affords no grounds for you to discredit my perspective. At the same time, I understand where you’re coming from; the above article is obscenely short compared to all I could’ve written. I hope to elaborate on my experiences someday so as to capture to true nature, flavor, and worth garnered from life in Faith Village, and in—yes I must say—what I to this day remember being a destructive, manipulative system of cult life. The elders employed a fair deal of chicanery during my family’s membership. That is indisputable, as well as the shunning my family experienced.
But I should thank you. I mean that sincerely. You’re comment has enlightened me to the way cult members perhaps read this article. About halfway through reading, cult members seem to fall into a very collected ire, inclining them to pigeonhole my thoughts and intentions so they can safely deploy their defenses. Sorry, I know that’s mordant, but it perturbs me when people twist the words of others in blog comments, especially when those words lie a few mouse scroll away from said comment. I never said that drugged-addled orgies and KOOL-AID drinking beset the circle we all played in. I said when the parents left for retreats the drugs and debauchery surfaced. My family owned the wealthiest and most commodious house in the cult. Throw in an insouciant baby-sitter and it’s no wonder my house was used the way it was. Also, I said it was customary for kids to say something up on stage for their induction—not mandatory. Lastly, I have corroborated my information with ex-cult and family members. I wouldn’t be so careless as to post this information without checking my sources. I don’t write any of this out of hate, or just to get my rocks off. I write this all out of a sense of duty. The world is filled with closed societies. And I abhor them all. Not the people, necessarily, but the society itself—the system—and those who perpetuate them. I feel I must expose the hypocrisy and dereliction inherent within closed societies so to free those compelled to stick to the pack rather than think for themselves. You obviously think for yourself, and I applaud you for that. But many do not, and suffer from terrible, sometimes not life-long bouts of codependency. My family and I are not exception; though I fight it.
To you, Joe, and to everyone else who questions the validity of my claims: I was privileged to witness these events and be known to these truths, as it was, from a very early age, what nurtured my skeptical eye. I saw a great deal of injustice and manipulation present in the Alleluia Community; and now I see it everyday, as we all do to some degree or another. Perhaps you are right, Joe: perhaps Alleluia has changed. If so, wonderful. But that doesn’t summarily bar me from expounding on its past, nor using Alleluia as a paradigm for other cults and closed societies.
Again, I encourage you to reread the article and provide defense for your claims, so that dialogue can ensue. I value your statements a lot, but I don’t want this devolve into a “he said they said” argument. Quote me. Address concrete claims I make and criticize them directly. I want the truth just as much as you. I believe I have spoken it, but if you feel differently, enlighten the readers with more than just vast counter-arguments against the author. To you, Joe, and to the rest of you, in the tradition of your kind spirits, I wish you well. Tell me your thoughts.
P.S. if any of you wish to email me, my email is aaronphawker@gmail.com.
June 17th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
Aaron. Alleluia is not a closed society.If anything it is wide open. Hope you are doing well.
July 18th, 2010 at 12:25 am
I had an up close and personal year long experience with Alleluia… I want to know the truth about it … which you appear to speak … I would like to see more of your thoughts, Aaron … do you publish on other sites, your Alleluia experience?
July 22nd, 2010 at 10:05 pm
Joanne: Sorry it took so long for my to respond. Haven’t heard from you in a while. Can’t say i remember you, which, take no offense, is the case for many of the cult member’s who’ve commented on the site.
Again, people seemed to get hung up on the elusive definition surrounding the community. Allow me to once again clear the air with a simple questionnaire:
1. Does the community articulate conditions for joining and leaving its ranks
2. Does the community articulate conditions for being and staying part of it’s ranks?
3. Do you or do you not have to be one of the many Christian denominations to even be considered eligible for joining?
Joanne, it give me no great pleasure to say that the answer to all of these questions is a big fat unfortunate “YES”. Please feel free to elaborate or prove me wrong if I am. Afterall, that is the point of blog commenting-to form a dialogue via the exchange of defensible ideas. I am very interested to hear yours, and everyone elses’, for that matter.
I hope you are well, as well. Peace. -Aaron
September 2nd, 2010 at 6:29 pm
I think Patti, unfortunately, is wrong to say that it’s easy to leave Alleluia. Since, i’ve left I’ve found the most hatred from those who called themselves friends of mine. So many families, and those you are close with Patti, have decided to not communicate with me for unknown reasons. I’m happy to have left the CULT because I am finally free to live my life the way God truly intended it. I can finally breath the fresh air of not being a member of the Alleluia Community. I wasted so many years of my life there. And from the behavior from you and others since i’ve left, it’s evident that you are all truly confused people, seeking some sort of touchy-feely sense of community. I was thrilled to read the accurate account that this blogger gave about the Alleluia Cult. And I felt he did leave one thing out, the CONTROL issue. In that as a member of the Alleluia community, you are not permitted to have your own thoughts, each decision must be passed through “headship”. And it is taught that “headship” is from God and you better believe them or else. Gosh, so many wrong turns I made because I trusted these idiots.
I’m just thrilled to have focus back in my life and not be weighed down by some CULT.
-You know who I am, You just pretended that I was just in the wrong to leave Community. Who made you God anyway?
September 2nd, 2010 at 6:53 pm
By the way, Paulos.. Community is a closed society. To the blogger, isn’t it incredible that the community members own words have been put into mind by their headship. They truly, have no thoughts created on their own.
September 10th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
Aaron, It seems to me you would have suffered trials and tribulations no matter where you were raised. Its clear your immediate family suffers from some deep seated problems. A lot of the subject matter seems to be exaggerated. If it was so bad, move on. Why dwell on this topic for so long. I think you are well past the cathardic stage in your writing about “the cult”.
September 21st, 2010 at 12:55 am
To anon: Thank you so much for the encouragement. Cult life, or co-dependency, if I may be forthright, is a hard thing to overcome. It is activities like these that help give us perspective, and to heal, and well as uplift the common good of humanity. You can always reach me at astella@phillybroadcaster.com if you ever want to chat.
To casual observer: I’m inclined to believe that you are a community member. Whether you are or not, doesn’t make a difference. But, I’m always glad to have comments, and I think you bring up a good point.
I am in the process of overcoming these issues. I am not exaggerating anything. If you are a community, well, then, I retract my previous statement, and I’ll say that it makes sense that you turn a blind eye to the transgressions of the cult, because either you live a comfortable live within, or (what I hope to be the case) you are not aware of the inherent and pervasive treachery of cult life.
I must say, if you are in fact not a cult member, then your comment is pretty darn presumptive. You are presuming that my accounts are all artifice, in fact, some product of unrelated problems to my experiences. What you’re basically saying is that you know more than I. Perfectly fine. It’s just not a very good foundation for an argument. Also, if it’s clear that my family suffers from other “deep seated problems” perhaps a little evidence of that would be nice. I’m not disagreeing that we have our problems; but other external circumstances can exacerbate those; although, you seem to believe that that makes no difference.
I have moved past these topics. But my accounts have inspired dialogue (read above…did you read the other comments?) That’s objectively good in my book, and is the reason I post these accounts. Better to talk things out then bottle them up and wait for them to explode, or for them to develop into a neuroses.
In all honestly, I really think you should have titled yourself, “casual thinker”, since you really didn’t seem to put much thought into what you said. Do me and the rest of the web a favor, and, have some respect, both for the person on whom you comment, and for what you say. Makes for better dialogue, dontcha think? I’m always open for more thoughts.
January 17th, 2011 at 4:23 am
I’m so sorry for all you’ve been through. I had a much shorter experience in the community and was much older than you at the time. I’m still dealing with the aftermath and don’t even know what to do with the feelings and thoughts I have. I hope and pray you find (or have found) peace and stability in your life outside the “cult’. It pains me to call it that even after a quarter of a century on the outside; but it is what it is. it meets every definition of cult and i’ve looked in multiple dictionaries. so many wonderful people are there but that doesn’t change the facts. i wish you the best and i thank you for sharing. i only wish more people would tell the truth about it.
February 13th, 2012 at 11:35 pm
Aaron or any other previous member of this cult….How would a concerned family member get through to a loved one who has joined this cult? A friends mother just joined and she is heartbroken. Her mom has changed drastically in the last few years (not in a good way) and she said it’s almost like she is brainwashed. There is a child involved and my friend is very worried for her mother and little sibling. Any help? Please!
February 20th, 2012 at 11:25 pm
wow. i am quite shocked at this article and your blatant nievete (as well as some of the comments following). i am a current senior at the Alleluia Community School and i find this quite shocking that i dont even know where to start. to begin, you said we are “innocent suburbanite communes, where plastic smiles hide the sorrows”; well, i can tell you right off the bat that you are dead wrong. i’ve made countless friends outside the community and i have to say that the community people have the most genuine, loving smiles i have seen anywhere else. also, about the whole “i dont know whats going on during the retreats, but i bet it’s raging sex”, you are horribly mistaken. i have played music, catered food, and done fundraiser work at these retreats (in otherwords, i have attended them many times) and i honestly have to laugh at your juvenile response to your lack of knowledge. you wanna know what they do? they pray. they pray and pray for their children (such as yourself and I), then they have talks about troubling issues involving tough decision-making, financial concern, emotional trouble, and they talk and pray in a genuinely honest, loving way. as for the elders pocketing the money, that’s also incorrect. the community is surprisingly open with its financial state and i highly doubt the elders are using the community as a “get-rich-quick” scheme, and if they are, it is a quite elaborate one that really doesnt pay out well. also, anyone is allowed to attend the community meetings (thursday prayer meetings) and the community has done nothing but welcomed new people to these meetings to sing and pray. and no – we dont tie them up and force them to sign a blood-seal after a few fire dances. at the end of the meeting, they are free to leave, or free to stay and talk to people about the community life (which everyone is open to talking to; it’s not exactly a secret organization). thirdly, we are not a church and we are not a cult. we are a group of people living life in a very simple, holy way and the church acknowledges us simply as such. i am sorry that you are too blinded to see this and the good that comes of community, but i find it surprising that someone can be so juvenile and simply spurt out ridiculous slander at something he doesnt even know or understand. it is strangely reminiscent of middle school girls chattering gossip at those who dont agree with them. i dont mean to offend, im simply stating that it is wrong to assume. a wise community man once told me “you know what ASSUME does right? it makes and ASS out of U and ME” (in case you dont get it, put the capitalized letters together and it spells out “assume”. i could honestly take almost every point you make in this article and question your “knowledge” of reaching that conclusion and maybe even offer an explanation. i wish you the best and i hope you are enlightened and that the truth reveals itself to you.
-Kiko Salazar, Class of 2012