Melbourne Christian Fellowship – Why I Left It. Part 2

This special three-part testimony is posted to share my experiences within a church organization whose teaching and practice I discovered to be more in line with that of a cult than an ordinary church group as one should expect to find such.

It is not, “The writings of a deeply hurt man,” as is the accusation from people within, (a common cultist-mentality accusation) Revelation 12:10b. It is the writings of a deeply concerned man.

The testimony is posted to inform and encourage any person who believes him or herself to be in a similar situation.

To give you some background to this testimony I recommend you first read my post:  I failed to study that word “free.” 

 

Melbourne Christian Fellowship – Why I Left It. Part 2.

Continuing on from Part 1. …………..

• Apparent devaluation, and disregard for the Person, work, and anointing of God the Holy Spirit. No teaching on the spiritual revelation, inspiration and demonstration gifts of the Holy Spirit, as according to 1 Corinthians 12:4-31.  No emphasis on “the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ” Ephesians 4:11-16.  The body did not (in my time) function as a body, only the mouth (leaders up the front) and the ears (the vast, passive majority in the seats).

• De facto legalism, or works mentality with regards the sanctification (or as the leadership put it, “perfection”) process, resulting in the loss of visible joy of salvation among some people.  In my private conversations with them I never heard/don’t hear of anyone joyously talking of the personal love, liberty or power of the Lord Jesus Christ alone, or the continuing work that His blood avails for us moment by moment, setting the captives free.  They will talk of their doctrines, but not Jesus.  

Jesus’ name was/is used among the Fellowship, but I had/have no evidence that the true Lord Jesus Christ is truly Lord of the Fellowship.  Their doctrine and indoctrination gets in the way.  In my time there I had to exercise much spiritual warfare to hold on in faith that I was free to boldly enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus by that new and living way in which He consecrated for me, that my heart was true before God, that I could draw near to Him in full assurance of faith, having my heart continually sprinkled from an evil (guilty) conscience etc. as according to Hebrews 10:19-22.

If I had to give just a few words as to why I left the Fellowship, it was because as a leadership they sought to draw me away from my personal daily fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ and onto themselves as mediators, “speaking perverse (distorted, misinterpreted) things, to draw away disciples after themselves” Acts 20:30.

They were/are most effective with this “drawing away”, particularly as they ignore 1 Timothy 2:5 and (mis)interpret 1 Corinthians 11:1-16.  This passage of Scripture, I believe, relates to the husband/wife order, but they apply it to church headship order, making the elders the “human face of Christ”.    Often I would hear something like, “Unless you are in submission to the leadership you are not in submission to Jesus Christ.”  That is spiritual abuse.  They are competing with Christ.  When I turned to the Lord in June 1985, one of the first things He confirmed to me was, He has no popes.

• Corporate isolationism – especially with respect to outside ministry sources. Only once or twice in the early days did I experience some ministry from outside.  Even today when I chat with someone from the group about other teachers/teachings, or what God has done, is doing or saying around the world, it’s as though I have spoken blasphemy.  They quickly walk away.

 

• Apparent devaluation, suppression, and non-recognition of members’ bona fide God-given gifts, talents, abilities, callings, and anointing.  I don’t believe I went “looking for ministry” in the local fellowship, (in fact, there was ridicule to personal “my ministry” by some), but not once did anybody ask me what God ever personally said or revealed to me regarding His gifts and calling for my life.

 

• Frequent preaching from the pulpit and home-groups regarding the need to stay under the spiritual covering or headship order of the leadership.  One time in the Sunbury fellowship, a special prophecy was brought to two young ladies with strong implications that they dare not leave the church or they would come under God’s displeasure.  Loss of salvation was implied.  They did leave but it seemed most everybody else believed the message to be true.  Loss of salvation was frequently implied in the Fellowship, and as a result it was grieving to observe fear on some faces, even if they were smiling or laughing.

 

• Members departing from the Fellowship without apparent blessing from the leadership left the Fellowship under a cloud of suspicion as to what happened.  Nobody talked, but some “knew.”

 

• Public and private put-down of other churches in Christendom.  There were strong implications from both leadership and the people that all mainline churches were failing at leading people to the Lord Jesus correctly and had not caused true spiritual growth in believer’s lives.  Geoff Anson went so far as to tell me my baptism was invalid because I was not baptized “in the name of Jesus,” therefore, I should be baptized again.  Being baptized “In the Name” became the issue, not what was “in the heart” of the one baptized.  He couldn’t tell me whose name I was baptized in, even after I gave him a copy of my baptism study.  I was deeply disturbed and under much condemnation for some months after that experience.  Now I know it to be spiritual abuse. 

 

• Independent and individual thinking discouraged and frowned upon. Often I experienced disapproval about such matters from some men and one woman in leadership.  When I left, a couple of people said something like, “Well you came in among us, but you were never really part of us.”  I remember thinking, “What does the Lord Jesus, say about that?  Am I in Him, but not part of Him?  Will we say that about each other when we’re with the Lord?”

It seemed to me to be a statement under-pinned by pride, deception, elitism, sectarianism, smugness and self-satisfaction; not to be unexpected perhaps, given the atmosphere or the spirit the people are under.  I don’t know all the “principalities and powers” that rule in the Fellowship, but in my opinion that’s a few of them.  If I was going to “cast out devils,” Mark 16:17, I would start with those.      

• Special truths.  Special teaching.  No allowance for development in other theological beliefs to bring balance.  It appeared to me that the Fellowship measured and evaluated all forms of Christian spirituality according to their own carefully prescribed system.  They spiritualized and allegorized the Scriptures to make them fit the doctrines taught.  Often in private or home-group discussions I attempted to rightly divide Scripture that had nothing to do with the topic, or, was being used out of context.

But I experienced intolerance to any belief system other than their own.  If one didn’t know otherwise, one could be forgiven for developing the impression that they had a mandate to express spiritual superiority over all other Christian groups.  Everybody seemed to be so proud to have this special teaching that no one else had.  Example:  “We really are a very privileged people to be getting this word at this time. Others would give anything to come into this word.  Some people would break the doors down to hear what we have.  We truly are a blessed people.”  How often did I hear that cultish language, or similar!?

• Special people.  Because the leader was God’s voice to the group, I discerned that these attitudes and beliefs became almost everyone else’s in the Fellowship.  To me, the Fellowship spent an unhealthy amount of time in studying Vic Hall’s books – hanging off every word, to the point where they continually interpreted Scripture in the light of those books.  Well, that’s what every other Scriptural and spiritually abusive group does, as well the Fellowship knows.  Because of this very same practice, there’s not one of them who would disagree that the major “Christian” cults are deceived to a point almost beyond hope, but for the mercy of God.  But my question was and still is; what makes the Fellowship think they are any different?

 

• Special books.  The Hall/Wylie books (and the offshoots from other leaders giving their interpretation of Hall/Wylie’s interpretation) were in my experience the most difficult, confusing and convoluted I have ever laid eyes on. I mentioned that to a couple of leaders but I received little help in response, other than excuses for Vic Hall.  Many people I spoke with in the Fellowship seemed to agree with me privately, but not openly.  I know at least one leader had difficulties understanding them.

In my 23 years (at the time of writing this post) as a Christian I have read literally hundreds of books and studies and could sense the Holy Spirit teaching me word for word, page to page, book to book on 99.9% of them.  Each book flowed with ease for the most part.  Not so for me reading those books from the Fellowship.  They were in a class of their own.  That’s a major reason why, in my opinion, the Fellowship believes itself to be in a class of its own.

Continued Part 3 

Related Posts for additional reading and study:

• Watch Out For Charlatans and Wolves
• Manipulative Practices in The Church
• It Is Not Only Rome That Has Its Pope!
• The TRUE One True Church.
• The Spirit of Cultism Entices People.
• They Were Made God-dependant Not Man-dependant.
• I failed to study that word “free”