A Rant about Teen Challenge
By paganvegan ~
I attended Teen Challenge for five months. If you are a person who responds well in situations where you are continuously inundated with dogma, never resting or being given time to reflect or experience time away from anything which does not involve being in the midst of people, sounds and never ending activities while being repeatedly subjected to the same rhetoric over and over while simultaneously losing your ability to think and reason for yourself, then TC is for you. They break you down, attempt to strip you of your identity and then substitute it with their own.
It is a typical dick move cult brainwash tactic. They also claim a 90% success rate year after year after year. Here's how that works...100 people show up and 90 drop out. 10 remain and 9 of them actually succeed. Voila! 90% success rate.
There is also a veiled not so subtly veiled threat of something to the effect of a chain letter type manipulation tactic which promises "great rewards and God will open doors type promises for those who remain, but whoa to those who defy the will of God and choose otherwise by leaving. Are you sure you are willing to take that risk?"
Also, I was told to consider that I was wrong for taking anti-psychotics which I need to manage symptoms of schizophrenia. They did not prevent me from taking these but they did, however, use guilt tactics which led me to do so anyway telling me that I was relying on the wisdom of man and science instead of trusting in God to heal me.
After awhile I began to wax psychotic believing that the voices I was hearing were either from God or Satan depending on how I was able to match the nature of their content with whether or not it was congruous with what I was being taught. "Hmm, what would Jesus say?" Good voices are from God. Bad voices are from the Devil. The bad voices are telling me that this is a bunch of shit and that I need to get the f*ck out of here now because he wants to f*ck with me now that he is aware of my awareness of Jesus.
The battle ensued.
I must therefore be very special to God because the Mr. Meany has decided to take an interest in me. How very intense and special is this? Obviously, was because of "hidden sin." Enter another dick move cult tactic. I must now, therefore confess everything with a counselor. "Have you ever sucked a dick or meditated and shit like that?" (I'm paraphrasing) "Why yes, yes I have. That's it! I'm sorry God. Things will be much better now, I'm sure, since I got that horrible demon off my che.
F*ck you Teen Challenge.
Then, there was the revival service. people rolling around and gibbering like lunatics in the name of Jesus and just having a grand ol' cathartic enjoyment of mass hysteria. These people are so repressed, it's probably actually healthy to cut loose now and again, but call it for what it is. Preferably, I'd rather dance naked and drink beer around a bon-fire beating a bongo drum with my engorged throbbing penis.
It is a typical dick move cult brainwash tactic. They also claim a 90% success rate year after year after year. Here's how that works...100 people show up and 90 drop out. 10 remain and 9 of them actually succeed. Voila! 90% success rate.
There is also a veiled not so subtly veiled threat of something to the effect of a chain letter type manipulation tactic which promises "great rewards and God will open doors type promises for those who remain, but whoa to those who defy the will of God and choose otherwise by leaving. Are you sure you are willing to take that risk?"
Also, I was told to consider that I was wrong for taking anti-psychotics which I need to manage symptoms of schizophrenia. They did not prevent me from taking these but they did, however, use guilt tactics which led me to do so anyway telling me that I was relying on the wisdom of man and science instead of trusting in God to heal me.
After awhile I began to wax psychotic believing that the voices I was hearing were either from God or Satan depending on how I was able to match the nature of their content with whether or not it was congruous with what I was being taught. "Hmm, what would Jesus say?" Good voices are from God. Bad voices are from the Devil. The bad voices are telling me that this is a bunch of shit and that I need to get the f*ck out of here now because he wants to f*ck with me now that he is aware of my awareness of Jesus.
The battle ensued.
I must therefore be very special to God because the Mr. Meany has decided to take an interest in me. How very intense and special is this? Obviously, was because of "hidden sin." Enter another dick move cult tactic. I must now, therefore confess everything with a counselor. "Have you ever sucked a dick or meditated and shit like that?" (I'm paraphrasing) "Why yes, yes I have. That's it! I'm sorry God. Things will be much better now, I'm sure, since I got that horrible demon off my che.
F*ck you Teen Challenge.
Then, there was the revival service. people rolling around and gibbering like lunatics in the name of Jesus and just having a grand ol' cathartic enjoyment of mass hysteria. These people are so repressed, it's probably actually healthy to cut loose now and again, but call it for what it is. Preferably, I'd rather dance naked and drink beer around a bon-fire beating a bongo drum with my engorged throbbing penis.