The Credibility of Bitter Gracepoint Leavers

Jan 11, 2010 11:13 AM
The Credibility of Bitter Gracepoint Leavers
by makestraight

First of all, I suppose I need to qualify myself and say that yes, I am writing again in spite of me stating in my last post about ministry that it would be my last.

Why?

Because some topics have been pressing upon my heart, and I have been refusing to write them because I wanted to keep to my word. But then I thought about this whole effort again, and about doing things for the gospel in general.

My life is not entirely up to me to decide what I will do and what I will not. Following God as my Lord and Savior is about listening to his promptings and obeying, while also doing his general will of preaching the Word of God, and loving God and others.

With that in mind, I did have some other topics which have been pressing upon me, which I will post. How often will I post? I don’t know. Just as time allows and what topics I feel compelled to write about.

I wanted to write today about one major way in which Gracepoint Berkeley’s leaders dismiss the criticisms of its leavers. These are topics already somewhat addressed in this post about the Difficulty of Challenging a Cult or Spiritually Abusive Organization. However, I wanted to be more specific to Gracepoint.


When you leave Gracepoint on a “bad note”, you get labelled and judged as I’ve stated before. The general, usual angle is that you “could not hack it” and that you were “seeking comfort” or “the world” in some way. Or they might say you were just too rebellious.

Once you leave, it’s almost like the scales fall from your eyes, and you are able to see how legalistic, oppressive and abusive Gracepoint’s structure is. Then you can start coming up with criticisms, and often, they are laced with a lot of anger and bitterness, as evidenced by many of the comments in the Toxic Faith Gracepoint site by 1vois.

Often, Gracepoint leaders will dismiss these criticism as being invalid because they are laced with such bitterness. These people with complaints and feelings of intense anger are dubbed as somehow tremendously petty, oversensitive people who have complaints about stupid issues. As Gracepoint leaders tell their members this kind of framed, warped perspective, the members will often blindly accept that as truth.

Consider the following story:

A woman was jogging outside in an urban area in the evening. As she cuts across a rather empty parking lot, she is attacked by a stranger, and then raped. She cries out for help but to no avail. The man quickly flees and leaves her lying there in tears.

The woman gathers herself after a few minutes and then manages to get herself to the nearest police station. On the walk over, as she thinks about what happened, she feels robbed and violated. Her tears turn into anger and bitterness and she wishes somehow she could avenge what has happened to her.

She walks into the police station, and then two police officers come and listen to her story. They sit her down, and she tells them what happened to her. She is an emotional wreck, recounting her story in tears, anger and bitterness. She looks up after she’s done telling her story.

The two police officers look at each other, and tell her:

“I’m sorry ma’am, but we don’t believe you. You are obviously very negative and bitter and you can’t seem to tell your story objectively. We think your story is invalid and that no such rape has occurred. Please go home, we can give you a ride back if you’d like.”

Of course, this story is a fictional account to prove a point. [and yes, it's a hyperbole. I am not equating what happens to people there with rape]

Do negative emotions such as bitterness detract from the truth here? Or does it rather validate what has happened?

I ask you Gracepoint Berkeley member to try to absorb critical comments of GP with this in mind.

Also, if you have not already, please read my post on the Perspective of the Truth-Gathering Process.

Thank you.