u/HalfDeadBatteries

If anyone didnt get a chance to read my original story, here it is. this is a follow up to what happened.

TLDR of the original story, I was an associate pastor in a NAR church for 2 years and one of the board members for 6. I began to burnout hard, almost destroyed my marriage and was ignored and berrated by the lead pastor for quitting. what followed was a year of confusion and heartache, filled with arguments, questions and what we thought was some level of catharsis.

We were looking for a more solid church we could attend but in the mean time we stayed as members of the NAR church. Which I will fully own as a horrible idea, We should have left immidiately, but those of you who have been in these churches long term understand how culty they can be, and how difficult it is to remove yourself from them.

So as time has gone on, we have had a hard time finding where to go next, on sundays we would attend the NAR church, and leave and discuss what we heard, what was truth, and what was nonsense. This lead to a few weeks ago, there was a trainwreck of a sermon by the lead pastor.

for context, I have a masters of divinity in Theology, and I am currently doing post-graduate research in church history and theology and I am a former professor of hermeneutics. I had some major problems with the sermon, there was some flat out unbiblical language, eisegetical interpretations, and novel revelations. All of it hinged on a word study of a two greek and hebrew words that was worse than some of the freshman papers i read while teaching.

I wrote an 8 page refute of the sermon, and gave it to a board memeber. He and I met and discussed what would follow. He said he would talk to the lead pastor but he encouraged me to do so. EDIT: He also said he would not share anything until I explicitly gave him permission or talked to the pastor first. I was clear that I am not this man's accountability, it is the boards job to deal with that, but I have many other concerns with the structure of the church and the theology so I will meet with the lead pastor.

in the time that lead up to this meeting, my wife confided in another board member with our concerns, and this board member went behind our back and told the Lead pastor.

So when i met with him, I said "i have some questions about one of your sermons" to which he replied "Oh I heard from X andY about that" and then proceeded to launch into a defensive diatribe about how he builds sermons and all that the Lord is calling him to do.

I want to share some direct quotes from the sermon so you can see the level of narcissistic control these people try to assume over church members.

______________________________
"I am teaching because you need a greater revelation"

"my preaching gets dull, I just start quoting Bible verses and not feeling them"

"I refuse to argue with them (people who are very studious of the Bible but are "dwelling not abiding"), I'm a man of conviction, once I get it solid with God you cannot sway me once I get an agreement between me and the Holy Spirit."

"How many want to hear from the Holy Spirit? There a promise that the religious spirit will say cant happen"

" Once I create an agreement with God I dont care who comes against me, I dont care about pedigree, I dont care how many letters they have after their name, if it goes against the word of God and what ive come into agreement (with God) with, you will not move me"

"If you dont believe the revelation Im giving you today, you are not fit to carry the glory of God."

"I love you but its not about you, I will use you for the glory of God"

______________________________

Now it should be clear to anyone with a brain that these words are so damaging and dangerous. This pastor places himself as an "apostle" and preaches things that sound closer to 2nd century Gnosticism than the gospel.

So in the meeting, he talked for the majority of it, and when I called out his poor exegetical work of the Psalm he was "preaching" on, He said "well I did the wordy study so Im solid in what I preached, I think its correct"

He proceeded to quote II Corinthians 13:1 that all matters should be established by two or three witnesses and said that his study and the confirmation of the Spirit are his "witnesses" that prove he is correct.

Furthermore, He said "I preach so much I dont remember everything I preach" huge red flag

He also said "was it weak? probably, but the Spirit gave it to me" ...Holy f*ckin airball dude.

The meeting went on for 90 minutes of him dodging and deflecting and changing the topic. in the end I walked out with more questions than answers.

The next day we (my wife and I) texted the two board members who we had shared with, and found out that one went behind our back, and the other was then cornered by the lead pastor to find out what He knew.

The board member who betrayed our trust said " How could I know youre having these issues and NOT tell the pastor? Its when we keep these things hidden that they become a bigger problem, nothing wrong with having questions but it cant just be left to become something bigger."

her words make it sound like critical thinking is dangerous

To which My wife firmly told her, It was our conversation to have, and we WERE engaging leadership about it, but on our terms. She told her not to do it again and she had no right to betray our trust like that.

no response.

SO here we are, standing at the end. Not sure of what comes next, but I know the time to move on came long ago and We cannot stay. The people in leadership of these churches think they have all the zeal and Spirit in the world.

With narcissistic cults of personality within Christianity, there is always an abundance of Scripture used to justify actions ,the problem is every bit of it is out of context,

for anyone considering walking away from the NAR, do it, do it now, and do NOT look back. Learn from my mistakes and dont hang around the fence, just go.