Download or read book Escaping Church written by Tim Mather and published by BCR Press. This book was released on 2018-04-20 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Saints are escaping . . . Through holes in the wall, open windows, or right out the front door, they are leaving the institutional church in staggering numbers. It is not an organized, unified exodus, nevertheless, millions of true believers have given up on the traditional church system and are simply leaving. Escaping Church is a guide to help these Escapees make sense of their journey into the new world of life as kings and priests of the Most High, out from under the control of clergy-dominated living. Discover how this new life, though challenging, can be filled with adventure and joy. If you get the feeling that the church system is irrelevant to your life, Escaping Church is for you.
Download or read book Escaping the Maze of Spiritual Abuse written by Lisa Oakley and published by SPCK. This book was released on 2019-06-20 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'Authority and rigour ... great generosity and gentleness. The authors diagnose a critical problem in the church and offer practical advice on how to fix it.' Andrew Graystone, theologian, broadcaster and communications consultant ‘Every time he wanted me to do something, he would quote scripture... I couldn’t argue with scripture, it was like arguing with God.’ The term ‘spiritual abuse’ is widely used across the Christian community. But what is it? Sometimes spiritual abuse involves leaders misusing their position, but ministers can also be the victims. Common factors include control through misuse of scripture, claims to divine authority, pressure to conform, and enforced accountability. Individuals may be isolated, and compelled to secrecy and silence. Drawing on a combination of extensive research, individual testimonies, and years of hands-on experience, Lisa Oakley and Justin Humphreys describe clearly the nature of spiritual abuse, and the best ways of countering it. Recovery is possible. But – how do we prevent spiritual abuse in the first place? What can leaders do to create safer places? Is there a link between theological ideas and harmful behaviours? How can leaders create opportunities for spiritual and emotional flourishing? Dr Lisa Oakley has researched spiritual abuse in the Christian faith in the UK since 2003. Justin Humphreys is chief executive of the safeguarding charity thirtyone: eight.
Download or read book How to Quit Church Without Quitting God written by Martin Zender and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Escaping the Beast written by Michael Burns and published by . This book was released on 2020-07 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The intersection of Christians and Politics.
Download or read book Unfollow written by Megan Phelps-Roper and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2019-10-08 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The activist and TED speaker Megan Phelps-Roper reveals her life growing up in the most hated family in America At the age of five, Megan Phelps-Roper began protesting homosexuality and other alleged vices alongside fellow members of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas. Founded by her grandfather and consisting almost entirely of her extended family, the tiny group would gain worldwide notoriety for its pickets at military funerals and celebrations of death and tragedy. As Phelps-Roper grew up, she saw that church members were close companions and accomplished debaters, applying the logic of predestination and the language of the King James Bible to everyday life with aplomb—which, as the church’s Twitter spokeswoman, she learned to do with great skill. Soon, however, dialogue on Twitter caused her to begin doubting the church’s leaders and message: If humans were sinful and fallible, how could the church itself be so confident about its beliefs? As she digitally jousted with critics, she started to wonder if sometimes they had a point—and then she began exchanging messages with a man who would help change her life. A gripping memoir of escaping extremism and falling in love, Unfollow relates Phelps-Roper’s moral awakening, her departure from the church, and how she exchanged the absolutes she grew up with for new forms of warmth and community. Rich with suspense and thoughtful reflection, Phelps-Roper’s life story exposes the dangers of black-and-white thinking and the need for true humility in a time of angry polarization.
Download or read book Escape from Church Inc written by E. Glenn Wagner and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2011-05-03 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A call for pastors to return to their biblical calling as shepherds. Escape from Church, Inc. calls pastor-leaders away from the business executive model of doing church and back to the model of a caring shepherd who tends his sheep. Wagner offers a practical and biblically sound view of how pastors can become all God intended them to be and guides them into new vision, new values, and a new way of pastoring that begins not with doing, but with seeing and being.
Download or read book Escape written by Carolyn Jessop and published by Crown. This book was released on 2007-10-16 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The dramatic true story of one woman’s life inside the ultra-fundamentalist American religious sect featured in Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey—and her courageous flight to freedom with her eight children With a new epilogue by the author • “Escape provides an astonishing look behind the tightly drawn curtains of the FLDS church, one of the most secretive religious groups in the United States. A courageous, heart-wrenching account.”—Jon Krakauer When she was eighteen years old, Carolyn Jessop was coerced into an arranged marriage with a total stranger: a man thirty-two years her senior. Merril Jessop already had three wives. But arranged plural marriages were an integral part of Carolyn’s heritage: She was born into and raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), the radical offshoot of the Mormon Church. Over the next fifteen years, Carolyn had eight children and withstood her husband’s psychological abuse and the watchful eyes of his other wives, who were locked in a constant battle for supremacy. Carolyn was miserable for years and wanted out, but she knew that if she tried to leave and got caught, her children would be taken away from her. In 2003, Carolyn chose freedom over fear and fled her home with her eight children. She had $20 to her name. Escape exposes a world tantamount to a prison camp, created by religious fanatics who, in the name of God, deprive the followers the right to make choices, brainwash children in church-run schools, and force women to be totally subservient to men. Against this background, Carolyn’s flight takes on an extraordinary, inspiring power. Not only did Carolyn manage a daring escape from a brutal environment, she became the first woman ever granted full custody of her children in a contested suit involving the FLDS. And in 2006, her reports to the Utah attorney general on church abuses formed a crucial part of the case that led to the arrest, and later the conviction and sentence, of their notorious leader, Warren Jeffs.
Download or read book Escaping Religion written by Vaughn Martin and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Escaping the Matrix written by Gregory A. Boyd and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2005-04-01 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In some way or another most of us are "stuck"-in a secret sin we can't control or maybe by an inability to stand up for ourselves. In Escaping the Matrix, authors Gregory A. Boyd and Al Larson use the vehicle of The Matrix film trilogy to argue that our struggles with habitual sin, thought patterns, damaged emotions, and phobias happen because we do not know how to take charge of the way we experience reality. The authors draw on biblical and psychological insights to provide practical resources for helping believers escape the matrix of the world system that ensnares them. While this book is aimed at the newest generation of Christian readers, all ages will be inspired by the book's innovative strategies for experiencing a deeper life in Christ.
Download or read book Escaping the Potter s House written by Joel E. Crosby and published by Joel E. Crosby. This book was released on 2024-05-01 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Escaping the Potter’s House, ten brave individuals tell their own personal stories of attending the Potter’s House. They share how they came to join the cult, whether by birth or later in life; their extensive involvement; their realization of the problems with the church; and finally, their journey as they left. While each person’s journey is unique, very similar threads run through their stories: control, manipulation, legalism with many rules, absolute obedience to leaders, the twisting of Scripture, and more. Readers will empathize with each person who courageously escaped the Potter’s House, sometimes leaving family and dear friends. If you have ever been involved with The Potter’s House or any cult or even wondered about what it is like to be in a cult, this is just the book for you. Grab a cup of coffee and settle in as you immerse yourself in these true stories.
Download or read book The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse written by David Johnson and published by Baker Books. This book was released on 2005-10-01 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a breakthrough book first published in 1991, the authors address the dynamics in churches that can ensnare people in legalism, guilt, and begrudging service, keeping them from the grace and joy of God's kingdom.Written for both those who feel abused and those who may be causing it, The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse shows how people get hooked into abusive systems, the impact of controlling leadership on a congregation, and how the abused believer can find rest and recovery.
Download or read book Winning the War in Your Mind written by Craig Groeschel and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 2021-02-16 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: MORE THAN 500,000 COPIES SOLD! Are your thoughts out of control--just like your life? Do you long to break free from the spiral of destructive thinking? Let God's truth become your battle plan to win the war in your mind! We've all tried to think our way out of bad habits and unhealthy thought patterns, only to find ourselves stuck with an out-of-control mind and off-track daily life. Pastor and New York Times bestselling author Craig Groeschel understands deeply this daily battle against self-doubt and negative thinking, and in this powerful new book he reveals the strategies he's discovered to change your mind and your life for the long-term. Drawing upon Scripture and the latest findings of brain science, Groeschel lays out practical strategies that will free you from the grip of harmful, destructive thinking and enable you to live the life of joy and peace that God intends you to live. Winning the War in Your Mind will help you: Learn how your brain works and see how to rewire it Identify the lies your enemy wants you to believe Recognize and short-circuit your mental triggers for destructive thinking See how prayer and praise will transform your mind Develop practices that allow God's thoughts to become your thoughts God has something better for your life than your old ways of thinking. It's time to change your mind so God can change your life.
Download or read book Escaping Tragedy written by Maxine Evans Gray and published by Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 127 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Escaping Tragedy: The Power to Forgive highlights the gruesome generational curse that thrust the Evans family into tragedy after tragedy until the power of forgiveness was discovered and applied against the dark, merciless familiar spirit. Now the family is slowly healing, yet the road ahead is long.
Download or read book Escaping North Korea written by Mike Kim and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2008 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The first of its kind, this book provides a unique inside look into the hidden world of ordinary North Koreans. Mike Kim, who worked with refugees on the Chinese border for four years, recounts their experiences of enduring famine, sex-trafficking, and torture, as well as the inspirational stories of those who overcame tremendous adversity to escape the repressive regime of their homeland and make new lives."--BOOK JACKET.
Download or read book Escape from Portugal the Church in Action written by Harper, Charles R. and published by Lucas Park Books. This book was released on 2015-03-30 with total page 97 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the story of the dramatic clandestine escape, in June of 1961, of sixty African students from Portugal across Spain and into France. Most were Angolan intellectuals. Some were from Mozambique and others from Guinea-Bissau, the Cape Verde Islands, and São Tomé-and-Principe. Soon after the first anti-colonial armed rebellions broke out in Angola (March 1961), the student community in Portugal suffered increasing harassment by the Portuguese political police. Passports were confiscated and some arrests of suspected student leaders occurred. Many students - men and women - decided to flee Portugal illegally. It was risky business. False passports from friendly African countries had to be found, contacts set up for night border crossings into Franco’s Spain, and then overland transportation to France. Some of the students, graduates of North American and British missionary schools in Africa, appealed to the World Council of Churches in Geneva to help them escape. The challenge was accepted by the French Protestant service agency CIMADE. The successful operation makes for exciting reading.
Download or read book Escaping Utopia written by Janja Lalich and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-09-01 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We think of cults as bizarre, inexplicable, or otherworldly places that only strange people inhabit, but cults and other abusive and high-demand groups (and relationships) are actually quite commonplace. In fact, the behaviors, social pressures, and authoritarian structures that create cults exist to a greater or lesser extent in every human relationship and every human group. In the first in-depth research of its kind, the author interviewed sixty-five people who were born in or grew up in thirty-nine different cultic groups spanning more than a dozen countries. What’s especially interesting about these individuals is that they each left the cult on their own, without outside help or internal support. In Escaping Utopia: Growing Up in a Cult, Getting Out, and Starting Over, the authors craft Lalich’s original and groundbreaking research into an accessible and engaging book, the first of its kind focusing on this particular population.
Download or read book I Fired God written by Jocelyn Zichterman and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-05-14 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling memoir and investigation into the Independent Fundamental Baptist church and its shocking history of religious abuse. With written documentation and sources, Zichterman exposes the IFB with new revelations.
