LAY MINISTER CLAIMED EARTH HAD AN INVISIBLE TWIN

I certainly learned many bizarre doctrines while at an aberrant house church. In fact, I wrote down as many as I could remember in How I Was Razed: A Journey from Cultism to Christianity. One of Brother Herald's craziest ideas escaped my attention until the book was published. Here's what he said at one Wednesday meeting.

As Sister Roberta, her daughter, and I listened attentively to Brother Herald's message about aliens, he startled us with a "revelation" of our world's hidden twin planet. "These space people who watch the sons of God on earth do so from an invisible world that orbits between the earth and the moon," he announced. "The reason people can't see it is because the planet is protected by a field which bends light around it so that nobody down here can see it."

After a dramatic pause, he continued, "Scientists have detected an unexplained wobble in the earth's rotation. This is due to the hidden world's gravitational pull on our planet."

Brother Herald went on to explain that the light-bending field would be turned off during the great tribulation mentioned in Revelation. "From the point of view of people on earth, the sun will appear to turn black and the moon will turn the colour of blood," he explained. "The reason the moon will become the colour of blood is because of this hidden world's atmosphere. It's the same effect that happens during a lunar eclipse."

After the closing prayer, I asked, "Can I go to that world someday? I sure would love to visit it."

"You may visit it, Bruce, but only in the spirit. I'll arrange for you to be able to travel there. You're spirit will leave your body and a good spirit will take your  place while you travel to that planet."

For weeks afterward, I wondered if I had visited that world or not. I couldn't remember doing so but, as Brother herald warned, the aliens could have erased my memory of the visit.

Forty years later, I still feel astonished that I could have believed such errant nonsense. Empirical science alone should have shown me that another body added to the earth-moon system would have created huge tides far greater than what we experience. Unless those imaginary space people could have hidden all traces of their presence, it would have been noticed by people long ago.

Being a naive Christian, I had no idea of what a cult was or that I was actually in one. The church considered Brother Herald's pseudo-revelations to be on par with the Bible and nobody had the right to question them. Thanks to good apologetics teachers, I now know  how to discern truth from lies.

In addition to showing how badly deceived I had been, I provide tips in my testimony regarding how to understand scripture. You can find more information about How I Was Razed at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Virtual Bookworm Publishers.