The self-implosion of the CoG-PKG did one thing that Weinland never anticipated: It brought to the forefront those of us who really are the second- and third-generation survivors of the cult of Herbie. More blogs, discussion boards, and general cooperation ensued in the wake of wacky Weinland, than any other Church of God leader before him has (with the possible exception of Wade Cox, but that was before my time).

I have been exited completely from the church for almost twelve years now, but it is only in the last year-and-a-half, two years, that I have really started lurking around the ex-member boards. It has only been in the last six months that I started actively participating. It started out with the Purple Hymnal and then the PKG thing hit, and the PH got sidetracked in favour of the WW. All good things must come to an end, however, and the “If by Pentecost….” quote seems to have ended Weinland’s self-professed witnessing career.

I usually try and practice moderation on the Internet; that is, I won’t say anything unless I feel I have something to add to the discussion or the topic. Sometimes I say too much, or stray from the topic as it was started. (I am certain many would say I do that more often than not!) For the most part I tend to keep my fat yap shut unless I have something (that I feel is) useful to add.

This is what I have to add to the discussion here: We are all children of the church. Like it or lump it, get over it or can’t handle it, even Weinland and his wife are children of the church. If Loma Armstrong had never joined the Church of God 7th Day, and if her husband Herbert had never taken it as an opportunity to start a business that would keep him wealthy for the rest of his long and well-heeled life, none of us would be where we are today.

Even the most diehard of the splinter leaders are children of the church; we make jokes about Spanky Meredith, but he was the first one to be completely indoctrinated by AC. What he has done with it subsequently should be, and is rightfully, questioned. And yet. He is a child of the church, as much as are we. He cannot act any differently than he has, or believe any differently than he does, because the indoctrination has been complete.

My indoctrination was complete as well, but thanks to “unconverted” family members who decided to take the opportunity to dump the church as a result of the changes, I quickly lost faith in all religion. If the changes had not happened, if the church had kept on going the way it had, there is no doubt in my mind I would still be sitting in a rented union hall every Saturday, singing the British-Israel hymns to an Old Testament god that I would still “worship in thy fear towards Thy holy place”.

If I had been a little older, and a little more independent, no doubt I would have gone with one of the splinters. And I would be the same self-righteous, judgemental, horrid person today that I was back then.

There were abuses that went on in the church. There is no disputing that. Physical, financial, emotional abuses. Such abuses continue on, in the various splinters and splits. Second- and third-generation members who just carried on with one of the splinters or, god hasn’t helped them, “found Jebus”, they don’t have to face facts, they can carry on in their happy little la-la-land of religious delusion, where they never have to examine the things they do and say, or themselves. Or what happened to them when they were too young to make a choice, if they had even been given that choice in the first place.

Exit recovery counselling sites talk about the ex-cult member returning to their “pre-cult personality” once they have exited. That is very true, and my family did that, in spades. Like flipping a switch. They went back to what they had known before.

What about me? I hadn’t known anything else before. I couldn’t just flip a switch and gamely sing Christmas carols or exclaim over the beauty of the Christmas lights or be as normal as my parents suddenly were. I never knew normal. I never believed in “normal”. “Normal” to me meant “worldly”, and to be worldly was the kiss of death, if you were a truly converted child of the church.

Over a decade since I’ve exited, and I only realized a few months ago that I still separated people in my mind. Only before, it was “the brethren” and “the world”, for the past twelve years, it has been “me” and “the world”. I would often get upset, when people would accuse me, “Oh you think you’re so much better than everyone don’t you?!”

Uh, no, I don’t. I’m not better than everyone, I’m still trying to play a lifetime of catch-up with TV shows I never saw, music I never listened to, pop culture books I never read (with the exception of SF), and an entire generation of the world that completely passed me by.

In truth though, I did still think I was better than “them”. Set apart, different, called out of the world. Oh, not consciously, but down deep. Where I couldn’t even see. Self-righteous and judgemental, especially of the overtly religious. I don’t speak to strangers, and I have an inherent distrust of any who choose to speak to me. Still do. Even now.

I am recognizing more and more, now that I have realized what is happening, when I do this. I haven’t quite reached the stage where I can stop it. Maybe I never will be able to stop it. Far easier to stay wrapped up in my comfortable little bubble, and not have to deal with “the world”. Even though the world is no longer “the world” and I am supposed to be fully a part of it. I am fully a part of the world, whether my subconscious brain likes it or not.

I get glimpses of what it might be like to be normal, sometimes, on the rare occasion when I am engaged in a social interaction by someone who is not trying to get something from me, or sell something to me, or make me for a mark. Most times I come away from those interactions with a retrospective regret of how I should have or could have acted, that might have been better, might have been “normal”……..might have been more “worldly”.

Fuck this. It’s just too hard. Easier to be the one on the subway with my head buried in a book.