Ex-Church of Christ Support Board

For those of you were raised in the COC, do you ever look back at some of the things you thought or believed when you were a kid and wonder how you could have ever been that way? I think back to how I was in the COC as a kid and I am convinced that I was brainwashed from a very young age, and am incredibly thankful to have changed and not stayed that way as I grew older.

I remember being at a restaurant that had a bar area. I would look at the people there and automatically assume they were all bad people and going to hell. Why? Because I was raised to believe that alcohol of any and all kinds was bad. People that drank were bad people, and people who associated with people who drank were also bad people. It didn't matter if it was a single beer with dinner, it was a slippery slope that could lead that person down a destructive path. One little sip was all it took to go into a drunken rage and everyone who even just casually drank was a ticking time bomb just waiting to blow up.

When we would be driving to church, I would see someone on a morning run or walking into a store wearing jeans and a t-shirt, obviously not going to church that morning. I would make some condescending remark about how I guess they're going to hell, hope that run or shopping trip was worth it! My parents would make those comments all the time on the way to church, and as I was growing up as a child I would begin to make comments like that too. Looking back I realize that the COC made me an incredibly judgmental person at a very young age. There was hardly a person that I would walk by without judging negatively, even though I didn't know a single thing about them. That's what happens when almost every sermon you revolves around condemning the world to hell and talking about how everyone except the people in the pews at that church are evil people and going to hell.

I used to think that people who didn't go to church were bad people. I knew some of my friends at school and their families didn't go to church. Although they seemed like good people, I knew this couldn't be so. I mean, how could you possibly be a good person and have any kind of morals when you don't even go to church? Of course according to sermons I heard growing up, we shouldn't associate with those people. They know we're right and they're wrong, but they love Satan and love evil and want to bring us down with them. Anyone who doesn't go to church and is nice to you is just being fake...or so I was taught to believe, and did believe it for many years.

I remember many Sunday mornings sitting in the pew and listening to yet another denomination-bashing sermon, and thinking, "How in the world can anyone read the bible and NOT be a member of the Church of Christ? It's so clear and obvious that we're right on all of these things and they're wrong. How can they not see it!?" As I got older of course I began to realize that the majority of their teachings are ridiculous, and I was ashamed for being so judgmental and arrogant about how right we were on everything and how wrong every other denomination was. It makes me mad thinking about how I know I wasn't alone in thinking these things and how the COC brainwashes kids at a young age and makes them arrogant and judgmental towards everyone who isn't just like them. Thankfully me and most of the people my age at the church I went to growing up (as far as I know) escaped the toxic COC culture and have become a much better person for it.

I could not agree more with what you say!

Ditto and ditto.

This is embarrassing - but I was in GRADUATE SCHOOL before it dawned on me that some of the people I knew who didn't go to church on Sunday morning, were not 'forsaking the assembly' of their denomination, but they didn't even belong to a church to stay away FROM!
I was so brainwashed into thinking that ALL people were church members. That there were people who weren't just didn't appear on my radar at all.

I don't think it was just me or the coc, either. I think it is a Southern Bible Belt thing. So very often, when meeting new people, the very first thing asked is 'what are you' and that was not some kind of comment about your profession, it is a question about what denomination you are a member of - or at least that was what it meant when I was younger.

All you folks still living in TN/AR/AL/GA etc - is that still a thing? Is 'what are you' supposed to get an answer like 'Methodist' or 'Baptist' or Presbyterian'?
(out here in the west, it gets answers like 'lawyer, rancher, teacher' although it is usually 'what is it you do' instead of 'what ARE you').

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I was just discussing this with my husband this morning. I was thinking about how my mother frightened me about my friends who belonged to other denominations. I had a friend in the 2nd grade who was a Catholic and my mother said that Catholics pray using beads, like that was really horrible thing. (I guess she was referring to rosary beads). Later, I had a good friend who was a Baptist and she wanted me to ask her why they voted on things because that was not scriptural. I also told the little girl next door who was a Baptist that her church was wrong. I remember being in a restaurant one time and they had prayers on the tables for Catholics and Protestants and she said we were none of those. I remember one time saying that I felt like people in other churches would go to heaven, and she said they would not because everybody can't be right. The thing that really bothered me the most is one time I said I thought that if someone was killed on the way to the baptistry, they would still go to heaven. Both my parents said they would not. I said I had a right to my opinion and my mother said I did not.

I said I had a right to my opinion and my mother said I did not.

Dear me.

My mother was apparently cloned....

Excellent post MusicMan826. The CoC kool-aid was strong! At one point, I kept the infamous tracts (http://ex-churchofchrist.com/5acts.htm) in my glove box! I thought it was a no brainer, all churches were false and mine was the only right one. I never fully understood whey people didn't see the CoC as the one true church until I started doing some research along with reading the Bible and it became easy to see the CoC is wrong. They program us in the best way possible, using repetition. Think about it, they state the same things over and over again and if you question a rule or regulation they will twist scripture to get you back on the wrong track. They overwhelm you with proof texts in order to discourage challenging their doctrine. They quote a ton of scriptures when answering a question in writing and in person, when they don't need that many at all.
As far as being judgemental, I was very good at that. Driving in the car on the way to hear the plan of salvation , I remember passing a large Baptist church every Sunday. When we were coming home, they were just getting out and we would say they are lost, false teachers, etc.

My folks would swing from a really mean-spirited smugness on the one hand, to deep insecurity accompanied by a groveling faux humility on the other. There's probably a psychological term for that, but it (predictably) left me a mean and scared kid.

Thank God for adolescent rebellion, or I might still be there.

HighLiter871 wrote:My folks would swing from a really mean-spirited smugness on the one hand, to deep insecurity accompanied by a groveling faux humility on the other. There's probably a psychological term for that, but it (predictably) left me a mean and scared kid.

Thank God for adolescent rebellion, or I might still be there.

That's interesting - I hadn't really thought of it, but that's exactly what mine were like, too. Mother was heavy on the mean-spirited bit but definitely with a side of deep insecurity. Daddy was not nearly as bad - but he wasn't raised in the coc, either.

I was vaguely aware of this attitude as a child, but my immediate family was not so judgmental. My mother was religious, but not like some of the "church-harpies" that I would overhear from time to time. Scary stuff!

Most of my close friends (from my formative years in Hendersonville, TN) were not really "churchy-type" folks. It was later on, when we moved to Nashville and I attended "David Lipscomb High School", that I really had to deal with these attitudes. Still, the people were basically pretty decent. But it is sad when people go through life like that, with such a "high'n'mighty" attitude that fundamentalism seems to produce. Never imagine that they might be wrong about anything!