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In Reply to: Re: Trust and Trained Liars posted by Questions on July 22, 2002 at 16:23:01:
There is a lot of truth to the cliché that when you lie, most of all you are lying to yourself. I know that was true for me. By living a lie and preaching a gospel based on covering up stark naked truths and ignoring discrepancies, I was part of the big bad lying machine, lying first to myself and then others. In my experience, when I knew I was supposed to leave but was waiting for the right time to do it (years before I knew I could leave with my loved ones and family intact), I did become much less of a liar. In fact I can honestly say that I spoke with a clear conscience.
Once we were having one of these follow up meetings, and everyone was going on about how great the Family was and trying to pull in disciples, and some critical thinkers questioned the same-ishness of the testimonies and if we were aware we might be brainwashed in some way. Well, I said out loud to all of them, "Listen, I am in The Family because it's a daily choice I make. If I decide I cannot be here one day, I will leave." I remember the strange looks I got from all the Family members and especially the shepherds. But it was innocent enough and they related it to, "oh he means he's making a daily sacrifice for God's highest". But it was coded enough so that the same critical thinkers understood exactly what I meant and never joined. Years later, I ran into them and they thanked me for my coded message. Wow, it actually worked! :-)
Another time, I had arrived on a "field" and right away was taught phrases in the local language to get donations for the crap we passed out. I found out that they translated to "we are asking for donations for some poor orphans we are trying to help." I remember reacting strongly and saying, but that's not true. We aren't collecting this for orphans. We intend to use the money and the provisions you give for our own needs. SO with some pestering, I learned from some locals how to say "we are volunteer workers trying to help others, this donation is for us." I made a fuss over anyone caught on my team not being up front with what we were doing with the donations.
Thing is, these lying phrases came straight from the top, from the national area leaders. They started a trend, and thought nothing of it. So I brought it up during a fellowship meeting, and asked if it wasn't better to use my phrase instead when collecting donations. Nobody took me seriously, and later a big leader came over and said, "who do you think you are? We are the Children of God, doing His will, we can do no wrong - as long as they are giving to God's work it is fine!" Well, I made a strategic decision to shut up rather than blow my cover.
So all this to say, I think if you are lying to yourself, you become a part of the lying machine. If you are in The Family like I was but not a part of it in heart like I was, I'd say the chances of your perpetuating that lying machine are slim. Seeing as how deceived Family people are about so many things, despite their sincerity, (hey they are or at least were mostly a collection of wonderful dedicated sacrifical people) they are part probably of the lying machine.
That's my take on it.
