Of the three major legacies being children of the church have left us with, physical, psychological, and financial, I have recently come to realize just how devastating the financial part of it is, and continues to be, over a decade and a half later.

I know, there’s nothing like reading Herbvert apologetics on AW to get your morning started off on the wrong foot, right? Anyway, there’s a comment over there now, trying to whitewash the fact that our Pontiff Without Portfolio had hundreds of thousands of dollars of gold-plated cutlery, fine crystal, mansion beyond compare, etc. (at a time when, roughly compared to today, those things would have been worth millions), was not the issue. The issue was that, when Senior and Junior seized power and did an abrupt aboutface to get the Christianizing cult-watch groups off their backs, they didn’t “give the money [from the sale of church properties] to the poor”.

Excuse me? We still don’t even know how much money Junior pocketed, from the sales of Pasadena and Big Sandy. Given the multiple cruises he takes every year, and the extravagant lifestyle he still leads, I’m also inclined to think there’s probably not much (if any) of that money left. As I responded on AW, the only “poor” the church should give that money to, are those of us still suffering thanks to the legacy of first, second, and third tithes (that’s not even to mention the holy days and special offerings), taken out over the space of (in some cases) a lifetime. Or our parents’ lifetimes, leaving nothing for us.

There’s not a lot left hanging on from my childhood in the church that makes my blood boil. The ongoing and continual misappropriation of funds still makes me madder than hell. The ORM wants  to “apologize” to people the church has never even offended (You ask me, Ron (the snake) Kelly should try offering an apology to some of the “non-Israelites” who were actually members of the church, back in the day.), and all of the Christianizing “cult-watch” groups Junior’s bedded down with are patting the church on the back for how they’re making right what once went wrong.

You want to know what went wrong? Let me tell you what went wrong. If my family had not had to send in first, second, and third tithes to the church, plus every time a “special offering” was called, along with the usual holy days offerings, this is what would have been different in my life:

• I would have always had new clothes, instead of getting one new outfit specifically for the Feast, and shopping at Sally Ann the rest of the year.
• This would have allowed me to move ahead further in the public education system, and I would not have dropped out when I was in junior high.
• My parents would have been able to afford university tuition.
• I likely would have immediately gotten started in a stable, steady career after finishing school, instead of the hodgepodge my working life to date has been comprised of, in between grabbing a course here, and a course there, whenever I have both time and money. (Both of which are always in extremely short supply.)
• Financial and professional stability would have allowed me to settle in one place, probably in a new house, without the constant relocations I have made, since I started my working life. (Three provinces and counting, and several relocations in each province besides.)
• Financial and professional stability would have allowed me to save more for my retirement than I have (even when I do manage to save a little, the instability of my life usually ends up blowing through whatever “cushion money” I accumulate). Right now, I’m extremely lucky there’s not (much of) a negative balance. I am at an age where I should already have at least half of my retirement savings accumulated, by now. No such luck.
• I would be in a position to help provide for my formerly-unconverted parent, who now has nothing, especially not a retirement plan to draw from, except a measly government pension that might, some months, put gas in the car, OR food on the table. (Certainly not both at the same time.) Both of us now fall under the category of “the working poor”.

I should still have the papers with our church serial numbers on them, somewhere. I bet you any money the records at Headquarters corresponding to those numbers have been shredded. The paper trail was probably destroyed as soon as Junior took the reins of power, so the church can’t be held accountable for the millions of dollars they’ve bilked out of our parents. In the meantime, the WCG pension fund which all of my former pastards are still covered under, is making a mint.

That doesn’t sound right, does it?

I’ve been reading through the Herbvert apologetic Facebook discussion boards. (That was a mistake.) Notably, the bulk of the successful, well-educated, and financially stable individuals of my generation who I remember from my days in the church….are the former ministry’s kids.

Ordained members, you will recall, were exempt from tithing. I think the deacons may still have had to tithe, but once you hit elder or preaching elder (I forget which) you were on solid financial ground again. Which is more than could be said for those under the Gestapo’s dominion.

Oh, it wasn’t so bad, oh we benefited from our childhood in the church, oh those who are bitter just need to get over it. Thus sprach the ex-ministry kids on the Facebook discussion boards.

Yeah. Sure. You never spent every third year of seven living on Kraft Dinner and National Franks. Or, during particularly tight months (usually one with a holy day/special offering/building/emergency fund offering called for), refried rice and eggs. You ate meat and bread that was fresh, not “special price” or a couple days old. You never had parents who “embraced the health benefits of the vegetarian lifestyle” because they didn’t want to tell you the family was too broke to buy meat.

You never spent your life moving through a parade of cheap, old, “fixer-upper” houses, because “time was short” (and money was shorter). You actually grew up in the same house you were born in (you may even have been, horror of horrors, born in a hospital instead of at home), in the same neighbourhood, and you attended the same school for the entirety of your childhood education.

You take the purchase of frivolous items completely for granted, because it was never a big fight, just to buy something you didn’t absolutely require or need.

We are the children of the church, those of us who are still feeling the effects of three tithes, seven holy day offerings, and whatever “special offerings” were called (usually between three and five times a year), for all the years of our childhoods, and in some cases, right up to when we were adults.

We are the children of the church. And we are still paying for it. Literally.