[caww]

They have been convinced that to question is to commit a sin and since only their leaders can forgive their sin and get them all the way to Heaven, they have been controlled by fear and dread of what can be done to them at the whims of this hierarchy.

This is eerily exactly the same with islam, lds, and other religions who abuse Christian verbiage or twist it to substantiate what they want their followers to "submit" to. It makes it difficult at best for people who want to leave to do that...to them it would be unimaginable to even consider as we have seen here on FR.

We as Protestants have great freedom to choose where we go...if the wrong people obtain leadership in a church we are free to leave at any time, generally after all efforts to dislodge the hold on leadership and the wrong dire ction that leadership is taking the church.

Frankly in todays church climate I see a great deal of sifting...as churches not only drift away from solid teaching, but worse are incorporting other paractices and beliefs of a pagan nature within it's walls and which Jesus would have never allowed within His church.

[boatbums]

This is eerily exactly the same with islam, lds, and other religions who abuse Christian verbiage or twist it to substantiate what they want their followers to "submit" to. It makes it difficult at best for people who want to leave to do that...to them it would be unimaginable to even consider as we have seen here on FR.

Thanks for your comment. I never mentioned that I was targeting any one religion and agree with you that this kind of spiritual "blackmail" is one of the telling signs of a cult. In some of them, the person who decides to step away is very often ostracized from all their friends and even their own families.