Why Cultic Churches Love to Cry Wolf

I spent nearly 14 years in a missionary church in Kenya (where I was born and raised.)

The church was led (and still is) by an American missionary couple.

When I first joined, the pastor joked about how some ex-members said the church was a cult.

If I knew what I know now, I’d have perked up and paid attention. Not clutched my African beads.

But back then, I was vulnerable to high control and demanding people and systems.

So instead of pausing or even freaking out, I laughed and clapped with everyone else, cheering for our pastor and “thanking God” for “fighting that battle.” (And inwardly detesting those who dared label our “great” church and pastor a cult.)

Here’s what I know now.

Cultic churches love to cry wolf. They love to talk about how others view them, creating a “We” vs. “Them” storyline and painting themselves as both heroes and victims.

Why Cultic Churches Love to Cry Wolf: It’s Preparation

Cultic churches crying wolf is all part of a grooming and indoctrination process.

It is prepping for the time when they will be called out (for they indeed will be called out, however long that takes) for their using, abusing, and discarding people. 

It’s sowing seed in people’s minds for when the stuff hits the wall: they’ll have a readily available band of protectors: people in the building who are already brainwashed to see everyone out there as an enemy. 

And nobody listens or explores, or tries to engage their brain and body when “the enemy” is talking.

In my book Courage: Reflections and Liberation for the Hurting Soul, which came out a few weeks ago, I reflect on religious abuse and trauma in a poem titled “True Freedom.”

Isn’t it soul-shredding to hear the shouts of

“Liberation” while living in controlled,

orchestrated reality.

To hear “God’s people are free”

while the crack of shackles rings in your ears.

To sit under words, habits, and systems

designed to keep you hindered.

God’s people walking on earth, thinking they are free,

imprisoned in a version of reality far from real.

To question the thundering shepherd—treated as

highest sin. To listen to your body, which knows

how freedom feels seen as rebellion—apostasy

and unbelief…

When The Joke is Not a Joke

When pastors make light of weighty matters, remember you have permission to err on the side of caution.

Contrary to their fear-mongering version of Christianity that cautions against “questioning authority,” aka them, you have permission from God Himself to orient your mind towards questions and curiosity.

(God gave you a brain that thinks and a body that feels and a heart that comprehends for a reason.)

You can hold this truth close: sometimes a “joke” is just someone telling the truth about themselves. Crying wolf is an attempt to sneak into your brain, rearrange the furniture and then cover up their tracks so you never know they were there in the first place.

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Courage Reviews