“Cult Leaders Served Food In Diapers”: Former Cult Members Share Their Twisted Stories, And Oh My God

20.

“I was a part of Teen Mania Ministries. Now defunct, but at one point, there were over 1,000 people there. At the time, it didn’t feel like a cult, but there were a few ‘life-transforming events’ they held that made me feel iffy about it. One was to give up food for a weekend in prayer, not too bad, but mandatory? That seemed a bit much. They made everyone train to run a 6k (again, not so bad, but still). Why is that useful to everyone? Other shocking things that happened were ‘unreached people group’ where people were divided into ‘missionary’ and ‘tribal’ groups, and played out essentially a Stanford prison experiment type deal where the missionaries were trying to convert tribesmen to follow certain ‘customs.’ It’s a fun Christian larp and all until some ‘tribes’ were trading people and wives with the missionaries as part of the customs. It was creepy.”

“The worst was an advertised equivalent where everyone was subjected to severe physical, psychological, and emotional stress. The purpose was to find one’s breaking point. It seemed safe because anyone could ring a bell, tap out, and be done at any time. But some of the things were plain inappropriate. You’d be drenched with hoses in the middle of the night for sleep deprivation and elemental exposure. ‘Facilitators’ would order exercises until people passed out. They were barely fed, and most of the food was presented in a disgusting way, like beans in diapers. 

A lot of people rang out after a few days, but my buddy, a really good guy, went for the whole week. When it was over, he had to go to the hospital because he had gangrene on his heel. This happy, kind guy was kind of psychologically broken after that — he was never the same. I don’t know what emotional stuff they tried with him one-on-one, but by that end, it was tailored to the person. He spent the following few weeks just hobbling around on his crutches, barely speaking to anyone.

I was lucky to avoid it because that week I was part of the ministry media team designated to film everything because we wanted to turn it into a documentary, but Jesus Camp came out the same year, so they realized it might not be good timing to get a positive reception of what they were doing. After seeing what happened to my friend, I couldn’t believe I was just following directions and standing behind the camera and not speaking up about how shocking that all was. I was trying to finish their program at least, but I lost interest and realized we were PAYING for this experience, so I stopped paying, and they found a reason to kick me out around the time they noticed I stopped paying.”

—u/geoffbowman