Hi Night Owl,
You are the kind of reader that this BB can really help. The sources that Brent mentioned you will find helpful as well.
I agree with Brent that we must make a difference between the groups who still associate with GG and those who have excommunicated him. If he's with the "7th day creation group" (incredible
) chances are you will not be able to have any kind of inroad to entreat him. Prayer and hoping he comes out are your only recourse.
The groups that no longer associate with GG, but still carry on his "vision", can do damage to your family member as well. Bad religion, though not a full blown Jonestown, has a subtle destructive power upon a soul as well. But, you probably have a better chance at having access to him.
I would like to recommend that you read, "The Subtle Power Of Spiritual Abuse" which was not written about cults, but about your local bible believing church on the corner. This is the best book I have ever read in giving a deeper understanding of what is going on to your family member in this group. The book was written by a Pastor and professional counselor who inherited an abusive church.
However, there are some former leaders who have left the group and now attend local evangelical churches! They refuse to associate with "dissaffected" former members and blame their members for the collaspe of their local groups! They take their poison with them into the local Christian community. Leaving is not a guarantee that they have faced what was formed in their soul from being in the group, and especially as a leader in it.
You have probably noticed when trying to talk to him that he will not accept any "negative" discussion, because he has been programmed to reject anything not supportive of the group as being "of the devil."
Since the discussion of erroneous teaching and practices of the group are the key for his deliverance this creates a problem. One family hired a deprogrammer to get their son back from the Santa Barbara Asssembly----
he was successfully delivered ---and he has visited this BB to tell his story.
The important thing for you to try is to keep up some kind of relationship with him. Even if you don't bring up the Assembly at all, it provides an opportunity for him to see an alternative to what he's seeing in the group. Brent's advice about doing something fun with him, and outside of a religious context, is a good idea.
As most of us look back on our time in the group we all had little wake-up calls that caused us to think. He may seem like a lost cause, but the time that you spend with him can make a big difference, even if you're just playing golf.
Yes, it is sad but very true, that leaving the group is a very dangerous moment for members, but of course staying in the group is worse. Sometimes the departing member discovers that they really had no personal faith in Christ at all, and just drift away into the world.
Others have a great deal of confusion because they thought God was leading them in the Assembly, and don't understand how they could have been deceived. They have difficulty trusting their own, and others, convictions as to what God would have them do. If I was tricked once I could be again", is their fear!
This is where you will be the most help to him, and it could well be that your participation here will help you in that effort. I pray that there will be a happy outcome to your Family Quandry and that we can be a help to you.
God Bless, Mark C.
