My Story: Introducing The Church
Part one of a look at the general culture and trajectory of the group
I will have multiple parts to setting the stage of the culture of The Church, and this post is what I have time for today. I have decided that for now, I will not be revealing the name of The Wolf or The Church for a few reasons. If this cult had new people attending regularly that should be warned, that would be different, but to my knowledge, they have no new people interested (especially not people who would read this) and are continuing to shrink. Anyone who would like to know this information, may email or message me, and I will tell you, especially if you live in North Carolina because as the story will unfold to reveal, that is where the church is now.
I only have one memory that predates my family being a part of The Church. I remember it snowing quite a bit where we lived in Rutherford County, North Carolina. It’s one very short memory, like a clip of a movie, of my dad telling me to be careful not to go into the road because the snow was piled up too high for me. You may or may not believe me because I would have been under 2 years old at the time, wearing a red coat and Tweety Bird mittens. (I still love snow, so maybe that’s why that memory stuck with me!)
After that, all my memories are of living in the Charleston area of South Carolina, and most had to do with or were influenced by The Wolf and The Church. We first moved to Goose Creek, South Carolina from our rural home in North Carolina. I don’t remember anything of that time very specifically until I was about 3 years old and my sister was born. Six weeks after she was born, Hurricane Hugo ripped up the coastline, and we stayed through the storm. I remember that night in bits and pieces, too, because it was so scary! About this time is when I my more consistent memories were beginning to form. I felt the influence of The Wolf in the way my parents disciplined me, and in the way I was required to do certain things well in school because of how The Wolf told my mom that I was “slow” and that if I did not do well he would force her to send me to public school. From a young age performing well in school became a huge part of my beliefs of what it meant to be good and obedient.
The Church was nomadic most of the time. We bounced back and forth between renting office buildings that we used as our own, or borrowing spaces in the National Guard Armory, meeting in other church buildings between their services, setting up in schools, or renting other spaces in shopping centers. We were used to setting up and taking down often for church. We never really had our own space for more than a year or two at a time. And, we were always in a financial crisis, but The Wolf was always well taken care of. (Much more on that later!)
Gradually, every family transitioned to home schooling their children. I can’t say for sure if it was a required, but I think it was for a time. (I’ll have to ask my parents!) The rules were always changing, but for the purposes of my schooling years, everyone was homeschooled, and we considered it to be the only way, so I was homeschooled K-12.
Being homeschooled, being different than everyone else in “the world”, and being a part of our church’s homeschool group, was a big part of my identity as a child. I was taught to fear the outside world and its influence on me. In earlier years, I had some neighborhood friends that I played with during the week, but even that changed and for the most part, I only socialized with my friends from The Church.
I think that many can remember the 90s was a big time for homeschooling and pushing a lot of problematic ideals. When you picture long skirts and big collared shirts, and “Shiny Happy People” you would be correct about us, but only for a time. In The Church our rules were constantly changing. What never changed, though, was that we had to follow whatever rules The Wolf decided to give us, or we would be in danger of discipline.
We took field trips together, did craft days, children’s choir, even had PE class on Friday afternoons. Eventually, once those of us first born children got into the more difficult days of high school, our moms pooled their resources and formed our “Classes” as we called it, and it was like homeschool co-ops you see today, except for they were only for our church people. I loved classes, and excitedly learned Latin, Spanish, and Biology with my friends.
In The Church we did not celebrate holidays with our own families, but we always had to attend the church potlucks. Although at one point, we were not allowed to call them potlucks anymore because luck was a worldly concept, so we pivoted to calling them fellowships. Thanksgiving, Christmas, Fourth of July, etc… we were always together. Each family had to bring food, and some point, even the menu was dictated to us, with each lady being told even which recipe she could make. As a child, I had fun being with my friends, and I didn’t know any better, but looking back, I realize that we didn’t get the chance to choose what we wanted to do as a family, and there was incredible pressure on our mom especially to cook and perform well for these big fellowships.
Although in my earliest memories, things in The Church were more “normal” compared to how they eventually changed, we were always under The Wolf’s scrutiny and increasingly everything we did had to be run by him. Rules developed with criteria for why we were allowed to miss church, and it was only that we had a fever or were vomiting. We attended Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday nights, plus whatever extra events we had going on, like PE, fellowships, home school classes, “Cooking Club” (aka home economics), literary days, and then just spending time together for dinner, or birthday parties, and everything in between. We lived our lives almost exclusively with this group.
I think that there’s something beautiful about spending time with fellow believers, and having strong community with your own church, but what we had was not natural and free. It was forced, and over time, The Church was exclusive and closed to outsiders. As a child, though, I formed strong bonds with the other children, and we were like siblings, and I am still quite close with some of them to this day. (Once we all got out and were allowed to see each other again!) While our parents were navigating the ever-changing turbulent waters of being members of The Church, we were busy in our childhoods growing up together, and along with traumatizing memories, I also have very sweet memories with friends.
To be continued…