I grew up in a church that had what many would describe as some 'culty' thinking and God has brought some scriptures to my attention regarding it that might be of help you.
Matt 12:46-49 While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you." He replied to him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers.
And also in conjunction with Matt 10:35-37 For I have come to turn " 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law- "Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
One of the attributes that people often use to describe 'cults' is a structure set up that causes people to 'follow' christ through them. That they alone know how to interpret the bible 'correctly' before God, and if you don't agree with their interpretation, you're a heretic and rejected by God himself.
That's a very dangerous attitude to have as a christian, and yet a suprising amount of christian groups carry it to some degree or other. It comes from submitting to an authority figure before submitting to God himself. So someone has placed themselves directly between you and God to interpret him to you (and consequently sort of 'own' you in the process.)
The bible also says in Matt 23:8-10 "But you are not to be called 'Rabbi,' for you have only one Master and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth 'father,' for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called 'teacher,' for you have one Teacher, the Christ.
In otherwords don't do this. Don't allow a human being to be between you and God in a spiritual teacher/master/father sense (the word Rabbi in the original means master/great one.)
So no one is supposed to have that place in our life - only God himself.
There definatly is a place for authority, spiritual teaching and fathering/mentoring within christianity, but it is never BETWEEN God and us.
And to be honest I've struggled over where the line is on this one myself for years.
I think the problem behind it all, is that the modern day church at large isn't based on the structure given in the new testament. Whenever people choose to ignore Gods instructions and example in a matter, theres going to be consequences.
Hope that helps.
God also challenged me recently (that's the beauty of making God alone your master and giving him your life to follow him directly - you get a two-way relationship with him through his holy spirit that you cant' get any other way) on my loyalty to family over loyalty to my spiritual family. The example christ gave us was that our loyalty to God himself and his family comes first. However when you've been told that one group and one group alone are that spiritual family then this sort of thing can become confusing. But that isn't what God himself says in the bible. And his opinion is the only one that matters in the end. To reject that is to disobey him.
Love him first and you can't go wrong. But forgiveness is essential in getting free from any hold and emotional damage done to us through other christians and family (again speaking from my own experience) - and that's regardless of how genuine and well meaning they might have been.
We all sin and we all make mistakes. If someone runs over you with a truck, you're still dead whether they meant to do it or not. We need to forgive everyone who's hurt us, in any way, shape or form or the bible tells us that God won't forgive us our own sins (Matt 18)
And also - something I've also gotten revelation on recently, is that following a human being before God through our own fear or desire for love and acceptance is actually idolatry (and something I've certainly been very guilty of in my life at times).
God isn't a hard taskmaster, he tells us that his 'yoke is easy and his burden is light' and it truly is. But he does have to be first in our lives and we need to be following him personally before we truly are a 'christian'.
God bless and all the best with your journey into healing. No christian group is perfect, but the more one ignores the actual instructions given in the bible, the more twisted and damaging it can be - even when it's filled with some of the most genuine, and well meaning people you know.
People can be genuine but still genuinely wrong. Realising that really helped me in my healing process.
All the best with it
Sherri
PS. Another scripture I found really helpful in understanding 'culty' sort of thinking is 'all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved'. Acts 2:21 Cults don't believe that.
