Many people upon learning that 2x2ism is comprised of a lot of lies and falsehoods, become angry. They feel duped. They are angry at 2x2 ministers. They are angry at themselves. They are ashamed of themselves for being duped. They feel guilty. They want to leave 2x2ism, but they don't want to lose their family or friends. They are confused. They feel lost outside of 2x2ism.
These are all normal natural thoughts and emotions. But if these thoughts and emotions aren't directed in the right direction, unhealthy things can happen. It is tempting to just go along with the status quo - go to meetings, play nice, keep your thoughts to yourself, etc. This is called Denial, and it is extremely unhealthy. Perhaps you will hear people tell you to 'just get over it' or 'move on' or 'forgive' - all of this is bad advice. Anger left unexpressed, held in, turns against you and becomes depression. Shame becomes insecurity and self-loathing. Not only will you suffer psychologically, but your physical body will also suffer. It's very important to deal with these things properly. Left untreated, it can potentially metastasize into very serious mental illnesses and personality disorders. Coming to grips with the problems of 2x2ism is very similar to the Five Stages of Grief: Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. A lot of people get stuck in the bargaining stage thinking that if they write enough letters to 2x2 ministers, then reforms will happen. There has been no reforms and there will be no reforms, because reforms will destroy the entire 2x2 system. Yes, that's a depressing thought, but you have to accept it and begin the next stages of the recovery process. The very first thing to understand is that you have been spiritually abused. 2x2ism is an Exclusivist, Fundamentalist, Calvinist sect. The very nature of the exclusivity doctrine of 2x2ism makes it spiritually abusive. Are you familiar with what spiritual abuse is? Examples of it, I mean? It's important that you understand exactly what events you experienced were spiritually abusive. There are excellent write ups here and here about 2x2 specific spiritual abuse. Spiritual abuse, like any other type of abuse, is trauma. It will cause various forms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). It is far more common than people realize. PTSD takes on many different forms of symptoms (depression, anger, anxiety, etc) but at the root of it is trauma. In other words there is anger because of a hurt because of an injustice done to the victim. It's very important to get to the root of this injustice and figure out how to deal with it. Many of you, in addition to being spiritually abused, might also have been emotionally, physically, or sexually abused by your parents, siblings, spouse, other family members, 2x2 ministers, etc. Perhaps you don't even know that you were abused, it was passed off as 'discipline'. It was commonly preached by the 2x2 ministers that parents were to beat the children to make them submissive before the age of three so that the children would not have any memory of the conditioning. Maybe you were in a bad accident of some kind, maybe you lost a loved one, maybe you suffered from a painful sickness, etc. All of this is trauma, and all of it needs to be treated so that you can avoid becoming very psychologically and physically unhealthy. When people suffer from PTSD, they develop coping strategies to help them get through life - most of these coping strategies are not healthy, things like drinking, smoking, illegal drugs, legal drugs, sexual promiscuity, same-sex attraction, workaholic, obsessions, raging, lying, abusive behavior, emotional deadness, overeating, eating disorders, etc. If you have any of these coping strategies, perhaps you didn't even realize that you were doing these things, you will need to recognize this and treat it as well. The healing process has quite a few steps: 1) You must first educate yourself as to what sorts of trauma exist because at this stage you don't know what is normal and what is not. You can do this by reading books about trauma/abuse. I recommend: 'Toxic Parents', "Healing the Scars of of Emotional Abuse", "Soul Survivors", "The Body Keeps the Score", "Why Does He Do That","The Verbally Abusive Relationship", "The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse ", "Churches that Abuse", "Redeeming Power: Understanding Authority and Abuse in the Church". There are also some excellent write ups about spiritual abuse on this site with good recommendations for books. 2) As you read through the books about abuse, you will start to piece together how your background might be similar - what was abusive and what was normal. Nearly everyone raised in 2x2ism has been conditioned into a fundamentalist high-control understanding of life, which is by definition abusive. As a 2x2, part of the spiritual abuse was isolation from the normal society (this is called neglect). You will have also been robbed of a sense of identity other than being a 2x2 - you probably do not embrace your National identity or your Western Civilizational identity. As you explore your background and the way it made you feel at the time, you will be able to identify the trauma. For myself the 2x2 specific trauma was the following:
3) Now that you have a framework of what is 'normal' and what is not (abuse), write down all the things which you think were a problem in your background . Write your autobiography about your experiences of the abuse and how it made you feel/think. You can post it online if you want or not. The writing process will help you to organize your thoughts, to stop you from second guessing yourself about the past. Combined with what you learned from the books about abuse, you can now see the links between events in your past and current thoughts and behaviors you have. 4) Now it's time to find a therapist who specializes in trauma. Perhaps even a Christian one. A good type of therapy for PTSD is EMDR, so try to find a therapist in your region that is trained in EMDR. You will focus on the feelings you had during the trauma events and EMDR will 're-program' your thoughts and feelings about those events. You should also read as much as you can about EMDR so that you can understand how it works. Some other type of therapy are Cognitive Behavior Therapy, Internal Family Systems, Dialectical Behavior Therapy. You should also watch some of the interviews with Christian therapist Patrick Doyle. You may even use group therapy, such as ASCA. 5) As you use therapy to heal those open wounds, you will start to lose the need to use your old mal-adaptive coping strategies. The faster you get rid of those things the better, because they are crutches that have terrible side-effects. If you are a substance abuser (alcohol, drugs, etc), get enrolled in a 12 step program such as AA. You will also need a lot of physical exercise, 30 mins of cardio 4 times a week. Exercise is a huge part of recovery. I recommend the very simple and can be done indoors with very little space, 30 Day Shred. Yoga has proven to have both exercise and therapy benefits. In addition, you need to start eating healthy foods - go see a nutritionist or search the web. If you have chronic body pains, there is a good chance it is from the PTSD. Here is a great book about how to get rid of those chronic pains. 6) Get yourself as far away from 2x2s, 2x2ism, talk of 2x2s, etc as possible. You will feel drawn to social media websites about (ex)2x2s, try to stay away. There are many people who wasted decades on those sites enmeshed in a reliving their past. It is not healthy. If you suffered abuse from other people (family members, etc), also get away from them. All of those things are a trigger for you, they will just re-traumatize you. You need to heal. If you discover that your parents or siblings were causes of your trauma, you need to have no contact with them until you are healed and they have changed behavior. If they do not change behavior, you cannot be around them. 7) Surround yourself with loving normal people. As you leave 2x2ism, you have lost your old 2x2 social network and so you desperately need a new one. Here is where the danger lies. Many people who leave 2x2ism do terribly at the transition process - because they don't know how to navigate the situation. Some ex-2x2s try to replicate their former 2x2 social network among other ex-2x2s (from online communities to in-person ex-2x2 home meetings!). Other ex-2x2s try to replicate the 2x2 social network by joining another fundamentalist sect (JWs, Church of God, Pentecostals, etc). A third group of ex-2x2s go straight to "if 2x2ism isn't true, then Christianity is false" and become atheists while throwing themselves deep into popular culture, with little to no social network other than people they might know from work. Recently, many young ex-2x2s have even become attached to bizarre subgroups such as furies. The most healthy transition process when leaving 2x2ism is to join a normal church as quickly as possible, because this will give you the quickest way to a healthy new social network. Humans are social animals, so messing up this step of the process can create another trauma event all of its own. So join a church - a normal mainline one such as Episcopal/Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, United Church of Canada/Australia, Eastern Orthodox, Dutch Reform, or Roman Catholic. If you are curious why these and not others, here is a short write up why. Avoid fundamentalist churches, avoid hyper-liberal churches (Unitarian, etc), avoid mega-churches, and avoid entertainment-churches (Hillsong, etc). Become involved in the church committees and groups - this is how you get to know people the quickest. If you are inclined to be a non-believer, join a church anyways - you need the community, the loving people. Joining a church is the best and easiest way to create the new social network you desperately need. 8) Combined with finding a new church, you also need to educate yourself about what Christianity actually is, because 2x2ism definitely did not teach you that. If you have wisely chosen your new church, it should have adult theology programs for you to enroll in. The biggest mistake ex-2x2s make is in thinking that they can understand the Bible all by themselves, without ever considering the opinions of others who have spent their entire lives learning about the Bible. You need help, don't be a prideful ignoramus! Join a bible study group. Listen to Bible in a Year podcast. Watch or listen to A History of Christian Theology or American Religious History. 2x2ism is a Fundamentalist sect, so it's very important to understand why Fundamentalism is fringe extremist ideas. Perhaps, enroll in a Roman Catholic RCIA course. Start reading the Daily Office (or here) as it methodically goes through all the OT and NT readings over a 3 year period. Perhaps try the book, You Can Understand the Bible. Read CS Lewis Mere Christianity. Listen to great works of sacred music. Here is a list of essential Christian books. Try watching some of the Journey Home series from EWTN. Watch some of Bishop Robert Barron's lectures or books or sign up for daily Gospel Reflections. How about watching or listening to Fulton Sheen? Perhaps listen to a Christian service webcast everyday. Join a online Bible Study Group. Dig deep, there is a lot to learn. 9) Educate yourself about the history of your civilization so that you don't feel so adrift identity-wise. You can start by taking a course in the Foundations of Western Civilization at a local college or online. Watch Kenneth Clark's BBC Civilisation (Youtube here). Take a course on How to Look at Great Art and How to Listen to Great Music. Read the Western Canon of the Great Books or at least get a survey education There are hundreds of wonderful courses you can watch or listen to in your home/car/etc from The Great Courses, courses which will give you a classical education. Including many courses about religion and Christianity. There are online Great Books programs, homeschooling programs, podcasts, etc. 10) Take control of your own life. It's your life to live, not someone else's. Live it the way you want to, and tell the rest of them to go pound sand. Focus on the 5 key aspects to a healthy life: Deep Relationships, Parenting/Mentoring, Meaningful Work, Lifelong Learning, and Spirituality. 11) If you have a spouse in 2x2ism and you don't want to be in 2x2ism, please read How to Deal with a Divided Home. If you have relationship or parenting trouble, there is a lot of great books to help out! Start with the basics, How to Win Friends. Try Parenting With Grace. Here is a great website for moms with many books and readings for how to parent properly in a Christian way. If you are a child living with your parents and want to get out of 2x2ism, please read Helping 2x2 Kids. If you are a 2x2 minister and need help getting out of 2x2ism because of lack of support, please visit this site or this site. Addendum 1 - 2x2 Ministers: For folks who are 2x2 ministers or have been 2x2 ministers, the recovery process has some additional steps which are not so necessary for 2x2 laity. The problem on the face of it seems to be about housing and money, but actually most 2x2 ministers have enough contacts to have a place to stay and someone to feed them. No, the bigger problem is a mental problem, about how to reconcile their 'calling' with reality. The thing is that their calling to preach the Gospel was probably quite real, and the calling probably is still active, but the trouble is that they are not in the best group to live out their calling. It's likely they still want to do ministry or spiritual direction, but are not 'plugged in' with an institution that can properly train them and make them most effective in the process. God certainly doesn't call us to minister in ineffective ways. What am I getting at? They need to consider being a pastor at another church. Obviously they would need to get some training (bible school or seminary) to qualify for that, but the training would likely be very helpful. There are 'union seminaries' which are denomination agnostic - you pick your denomination after graduation. Most seminaries charge a tuition, which might be very difficult for ex-2x2 ministers to pay, since they usually have very limited financial resources. There are scholarships from some seminaries. Also, if you are a member in good standing in a particular Christian denomination, the local dioceses may sponsor and pay for your seminary training. There are also special seminaries for mature (middle-aged) folks. Another option is the Religious Orders. Normally folks think of these as nuns and monks in monasteries, but actually most folks in Religious Orders not cloistered up in a monastery instead they are active daily out in the world. The beauty of the Religious Orders is that you don't have to pay anything, just your time. They will train you theologically, pastorally, and even technically (medicine, education, etc), in some of the best universities in the world. There are hundreds of different types of Religious Orders, each focused on a particular charism (goal or mission). They run K-12 schools, parishes, hospitals, universities, crisis centers, etc, etc. These are celibate lives, but you are given training how to be celibate, and you live with same-sex folks who are living the same vocation as you. Some well known orders are: Francisicans, Dominicans, Salesians, Vincentians, Jesuits, Benedictans, Augustinians, Sisters of Life, etc, etc. There are religious orders in all of the liturgical denominations (Anglican, Lutheran, Orthodox, and Roman Catholic), though the Roman Catholic religious orders are by far the largest. There are also 3rd Order religious orders which have married members. Based on conversations with ex-workers, I have noticed that the biggest obstacle for ex-workers is to understand what exactly 2x2ism is, and how it compares and contrasts with Christian orthodoxy. It is important to understand that 2x2ism is an Exclusivist Fundamentalist Restorative Anti-liturgical Anti-Catholic sect. Each of those layers must be unpeeled. If they are not unpeeled, then other ministry career paths are closed off for them. Roman Catholics are 50% of the world's Christians. Add to that the other liturgical denominations (Anglican, Orthodox, Lutheran, etc), and the total is 75% of the world's Christians. Add to that the remaining non-Fundamentalist groups (Methodists, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, some Baptists), and it is more than 95% of the world's Christians are outside your scope. Thus, the secret to successful transition out of 2x2 ministry is to unpeel all these layers so that all possible ministerial careers are open to you, and then your calling can be fulfilled in the most effective way. I believe that the anti-liturgical and anti-catholic strains among ex-2x2s is kneecapping workers and ex-workers from exploring career options which are best suited for them. They do have different paths out of 2x2ism than regular lay people do, and so pushing secular careers for them is not the best option. Some resources to unpeel the onion: Religious Orders presentation Boston College, History of Fundamentalism, Catholicism and Fundamentalism, Early Church Fathers, Apostolic Fathers, Union Theological Seminary, PSJS Seminary for Older Vocations, Nashota House Seminary, Lutheran Seminaries, Roman Catholic Seminaries, Reformed Church Seminaries, Presbyterian Seminaries, All Accredited Seminaries. Anglican Religious Orders, Lutheran Religious Orders, Orthodox Religious Orders, and Roman Catholic Religious Orders. Life of a Franciscan Friar, Testimony of Mormon who become a nun, Testimony of Baptist who became a RC priest, Testimony of Pentecostal pastor who became Catholic, Sisters of Life. Addendum 2 - LGBT: I have noticed that there are a significant number of young 2x2s and ex2x2s who are homosexual or transgender. It's a very sensitive subject since these young people feel very isolated by the 2x2 community (homosexuality is forbidden). In fact, 2x2ism treats homosexuality and transgenderism as abominations. These folks are in a very fragile situation, and are likely to be exploited, and perhaps groomed into very unhealthy lives. The decrease of 2x2 restrictions has seen a blooming of homosexuality and transgenderism among the 2x2 population, and they struggle to find a way to reconcile the 2x2 view on the matter with the secular view on the matter. Obviously these people need to be treated with care, the issue is 'what kind of care?' I firmly believe in the Christian ethic of Love, which means to Will the Good of the Other, regardless of the pain it causes oneself. You may notice that is what Jesus did for his friends when he died on the cross. I know I am going to take a lot of flack for what you are about to read, but in all humility please read it carefully. Ok, I firmly believe that LGBT folks did not choose their situation, but I also believe that their situation is not genetic in the sense that it was hardwired that they would be LGBT. I believe, and the medical literature supports this, that certain folks who have certain dispositions when placed in certain circumstances during childhood development will become LGBT. That is, LGBT is primarily the result of environmental causes, events during childhood development that have to do with the child's relationship with the parents, siblings, and peers, yet that another child with these same events might not become LGBT because that second child has a different type of disposition for which those events didn't have the intensity or magnitude of impact. For example, studies have shown that about 50% of adult male homosexuals in the USA were sexually assaulted in their childhood, while only 7% of heterosexual males were sexually assaulted as children. So clearly there is not a one-to-one link between being sexually assaulted during childhood and becoming LGBT, but the probabilities are much higher, especially if the events happened in confluence with other conditioning. I highly encourage you to read the autobiography of Joseph Sciambra entitled Disordered, in which he explains how this happened to him and led to this life as a homosexual male in San Francisco. If you want to learn more about it from a psychologist, look up the books and lectures of Joseph Nicolosi. He has passed away now, but there are many psychologists who continue his work and therapy practices. This is not 'Conversion Therapy' (which is mostly a hoax), this is serious trauma therapy that gets to the underlying traumas which are triggering the disorder. It's the same sort of therapy that is used to treat depression, anxiety, etc, but tailored for this particular disorder. The therapy doesn't try to change the sexual orientation of the client, it only focuses on the trauma, and when the trauma is sufficiently processed then the disorder mitigates to a large degree. Success rates are about 1/3 'cured', 1/3 moderate reduction, and 1/3 minimal reduction - which is exceptionally successful compared to similar rates for treating depression and such.
1 Comment
Ben Colder
10/24/2021 12:33:12 pm
I grew up in that outfit left on my own accord but most of the people I knew inthat bunch acted like they didn't know who I was I thought it was funny.I still have a lot of relation that belong to the outfit they don't seem to hold it against me and my brothers that also got out I don't know that it hurt me any.The workers were a constant threat they would give you a good talking to used to bother me but i got so I argued with them they were not used to that they make me nervous to this day.
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