WHAT HARM COULD A PEACE SYMBOL DO?

Remember when people drew peace symbols in the sixties? Believe it or not, certain superstitious Christians believed that drawing one was an evil act. Moreover, they taught this superstitious nonsense to impressionable disciples as if it was some sort of commandment from God Almighty.

This was one of many ridiculous doctrines that I learned at a cultic house church. Being new to the faith, I didn't know what was biblical and what was bologna. Wanting with all of my heart to please God, I obeyed these sometimes painful injunctions.

Here's an excerpt from my upcoming How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity memoir that shows not only how credulous I was but how misguided those church members were.

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Because nobody discipled me until I joined Thee Church, the Christian faith seemed to consist of many arbitrary customs and prohibitions. One of these was the drawing of certain symbols.

A few years previously, a cereal company offered free booklets depicting famous scenes from N.H.L. hockey games in each box. When the pages were flipped, the players seemed to move. Though I hated sports, I became enamoured with the concept of still pictures being arranged to produce a short animation.

During my first month at Jay and Linda's home, I realized that I too could make my own animated booklets. Whenever I had an evening with no homework to do, I sat at the kitchen table and drew each frame of my short animations. One of them displayed a peace symbol rolling like a wheel.

"Look at this, Jay. Isn't it cool?" I said after showing him how to animate the pictures.

He frowned at the booklet and then at me.

"You shouldn't draw this. Peace symbols are evil."

"Evil? How come?"

"It's an ancient pagan fertility sign. Christians should have nothing to do with it because it's of the Devil."

Not knowing any better, I sighed as I dropped my creation into the garbage and refrained from drawing peace symbols.

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How I Was Razed is my testimony of how charismatic house church elders misled me for more than fifteen years. After leaving that congregation and turning my back on God for almost a decade, due to the lies that the cult taught about him, he revealed his true nature to me. I now realize how blasphemous that house church's doctrines were.