PreMaranathaMSIEN dysfunctional backgrounds

[straussguy]

I'm curious, too, about how many people were "sucked into" Maranatha because the organization offered a refuge from dysfunctional circumstances in which people were caught.

In my case, my parents were both alcoholics--highly educated, opinionated alcoholics. I had been adopted, so I brought a radically different set of personality traits from them. My adoptive parents used to belittle and humiliate me in front of other people. My adoptive mother used to call me a "zilch" (that was great for my self-esteem). Often my adoptive father would "pull the rug out from under me," so to speak. For example, I had been meeting with a professor in my father's department for private tutorial sessions in an area that I had shown promise. Suddenly, the tutorial sessions stopped. My father's explanation to me was that the professor just didn't have time for me. Years later, however, I found out that he had told the professor that I had decided to quite because I had lost interest. This was a lie.

One of my best friends (pre-Maranatha) and the one who invited me to my first meeting also came from a dysfunctional background. I suspect, then, that there's a pattern of MCM attracting just such people.

Incidentally, I'm not angry any more about how any of this affected me personally. I want, rather, to understand a little better what happened.

the StraussGuy}

[osakadan]

You are probably correct. Without going into details, this was the case for me.

[ginger1]

97% of the people have dysfunctional families. EN leaders like to show that they are perfect family and they got it all together, the truth is, they are far worse than most unbelievers.

What attract people most is that they all thought that we can achieve a perfect family being in EN.

Here is a food for thought, some of the EN Board members, their Daughters who have grown up have refused to go to their Dad's churches.
My guess = they saw the real hypocritical dad and does not want to be part of it.

[annelewis]

My childhood was pretty happy and healthy. No abuse, no alcoholism, no chaotic lurching from crisis to crisis. However, my parents were imperfect and fallible just as I am. The idea that I would have to be "delivered" from their parenting is ridiculous to me now.

[matt_hatter]

I think that 97% is a little high, at least from my friends in the Auburn fellowship. My experience growing up was pure Leave it To Beaver. I think Tik's was similar, knowing his parents. Another young couple, and good friends, were also Army brats, both from solid homes.

The appeal to me was partly the 70's. A time where "helping folks, being sold out to something" etc was the norm. Maranatha just appealed to us as no-nonsense Christianity. Naive, yes, not realizing that it was all nonsense.

[lablady2]

I've posted about my dysfunctional predisposition on several other threads. In short and in my case, chaotic childhood = need for boundaries and absolutes. At the time, MCM seemed like the perfect solution.

[ulyankee]

I know that the idea of EN being fathers to a fatherless generation, starting with the "lost" people they attract, has become embedded in their working theology - I have SEVERAL EN teachings on this issue, both written (including VLI/ENLI) and oral/recorded. This includes some current EN leaders who state that other leaders in EN have become the fathers and family they never had before. Leading/discipling others is viewed as parenthood. Loyalty to "spiritual family" (which is EN, not the entire body of Christ) is considered a lifelong covenant (well, at least in their teachings - recent events show that they're not doing so well in practice). Someone into psychology might see this as a reaction to separation anxiety or something like that.

I personally grew up in an alcoholic family but by the time I came to EN that wasn't really an issue anymore b/c I had been saved for several years and my relationships with my parents had been restored. (As I've said before the #1 reason we were attracted to EN in the first place was the music. Sad but true--certainly a lesson learned there.) It also helped that my mother stopped drinking when I was 12. My mother died several years ago of cancer but we had a close relationship from the time I was in my mid-teens or so. I had a more difficult relationship with my dad especially into my mid-20s but with age both of us have mellowed--he's less ornery and I no longer expect him to be anyone other than who he is which isn't all that bad. My hubby also had good relationships with his parents and was extremely close to his dad, who died this past year and who he misses terribly. I'm fairly sure that leaving EN would have been MUCH MUCH harder if my father in law had been sick or gone at the time, since he fully supported our leaving not just as a parent but also on Biblical grounds (he was a CoG-Cleveland minister), and my hubby's relationship with his dad wouldn't be, er, competition if you know what I mean. One of the issues that we were seen to have when we left EN was that we seemed somewhat "isolated" in that we had stronger relationships with our own families (not in EN, but mostly also born again Christians esp. on my hubby's side) than with those in the church.

(Message edited by ulyankee on December 07, 2006)

[mcmstaff78]

I would agree with Matt. While I wouldn't call my home life "idyllic", neither would I say it was dysfunctional. Army brat, parents who are still married after 54 years or so, middle child of five boys (okay, so maybe that makes me a touch dysfunctional).

But consider those days. The idealism of the secular sixties had died out but the Jesus movement was in full swing. Along with it was a huge eschatological expectation that kind of dove tailed in to the whole "age of aquarius" thing in the hippie movement. So you get a bunch of folks who "came of age" after the sixties, in the midst of the 70s turning into the "Me generation" and with all the Jesus movement and "Late Great Planet Earth" stuff going on. If the world was ending, it was time to be sold out for something. How many of you use to sit at the dinner table in your teens, look around and think "life must be about something more than this", i.e. more than marriage, a house, two cars and 2.5 kids and a 9 to 5 job?

From dysfunctional families or not, we were a product of our times and culture and it was a weird time to say the least.

[out_of_hiding]

True. However, it does not matter what generation you are in (i.e. growing up in the 80's and 90's), you still look around and think "there has to be something more than this." That is the strongest selling point of EN; all youth no matter what generation, want to have something to stand for. But....when you sign up for EN, you are getting a whole bunch of other stuff that was not advertised on the original packaging.

[lablady2]

I've posted about my dysfunctional predisposition on several other threads. In short and in my case, chaotic childhood = need for boundaries and absolutes. At the time, MCM seemed like the perfect solution.

[coppertree]

<font face="arial,helvetica"></font> Hi All
I agree with a idea of a youth , starting out, college students, high school students, etc. That was the ideal target for the group. This age is very tender. I think that dysfunctional families play a part also. The pressure of starting out, being in control of their own time now , some money, being on their own, so to speak etc. These element s can add to critical mass at times, and here is this perfect church with an excellent music group and the show begins.}

[freedom43]

My personal experience is that my family life was fairly chaotic growing up -- six kids and alcoholic parents (at the time). I was a young, lonely, confused college kid -- vulnerable and ripe for a cult. Maranatha offered me the perfect family with unconditional love for life. They gave me a roadmap and told me how to live. It was easy. I didn't have to make any more decisions --where to live, how to spend my time or money, how to vote, etc. I voluntarily gave up control of my life to them.

Of course, we all know that it was all an illusion and that we were being controlled and used to further the purposes of the leadership. Now, I know what the true "dysfunctional family" is.

I'll take my biological family -- with all it's flaws -- over Maranatha/MSI/EN any day. They have shown me true unconditinal love.

(Message edited by freedom43 on December 07, 2006)

[matt_hatter]

we all know that it was all an illusion and that we were being controlled and used to further the purposes of the leadership.

Exactly! So unlike Christ! I cannot pull away from the Samaritan woman at the well, so many things that Christ showed us as far as treating people. No "leadership' motive with this woman, by the customs of the day, he should have shunned her. The only control going on here was the love of Christ!

Paul figured it out:
"For the love of Christ controls us..." 2Cor5:14

[wwjdwwjd]

Maranatha was a tool of Satan. I was in the so ministry for 4 years. People's background is not the issue. The lack of leadership (Weiner) was the issue.

[wwjdwwjd]

Maranatha was a tool of Satan. I was in the so called ministry for 4 years. People's background is not the issue. The lack of leadership (Weiner) was the issue.

[sameo]

hi wwjd....welcome.

[maranatha1984]

Tikie: Well for me it was a combination of things: a very dynamic youth leader in Highschool who got some of us on fire- yet we could not stand the hypocrisy we saw. Yes I as I have said it was sin that led us in...well led me in.

I wanted to be special and to be a leader...

Weiner et all bear a very heavy burden...but in the end I convinced myself to be convinced per my blog and earlier threads

[osakadan]

I don't think the original starter of the thread was transferring blame to individual members but posing the question about were some more susceptible than others. I believe it is true but not necessarily because of a dysfunctional background.

[sunshinesaint]

HI there,
aren't we all "dysfunctional"?
I certainly don't function the way I wish I could...mentally, physically and spiritually.
HOw I wish I was "perfect"...that is why EN appealed to me...I thought they were the ideal "perfect christians...thank goodnesss I now understand that without Christ i will never be perfect..in fact it does not matter that I am dysfunctional...'cos He did all the functioning for me http://www.factnet.org/discus/clipart/happy.gifhttp://www.factnet.org/discus/clipart/happy.gif