Petitor

You have got very confused by your assumptions. The house in the accounts is not the house you refer to as "the commune". Whether or not this house you consider to be a "commune" or not is irrelevant because it is a house owned by private individuals and nothing to do with SMC. The house in the accounts is not a commune. It was used by SMC to rent out to other private individuals. Nothing unusual in that. If SMC wants to make strategic investments what's the problem?

Hi folks

Long time no speak. Just to clarify a point cheerylizard made, as a regular attender at Struthers, I was advised that I would not be welcome at the AGM.

Other than that, much had changed for me. I am no longer a Christian. My experience at Struthers has no doubt played a role in that, although it was not wholly the reason, it was just a platform for me to question things in general.

I assume that any SMC leaders will see this as "proof" that I am a rebellious limb of Satan. However, I simply don't care what they think about me. Christian or not, they dismissed me as bitter, twisted and evil.

I am glad to see this forum is still on the first page of Google. Even though I am no longer a Christian, I have many friends who are. I know the majority are decent people and I hope that anyone considering joining a church; specifically Struthers Memorial Church, is fully aware of what they are being into before they do.

Love CovLass

CovLass

If you are a member of a charity you can attend the AGM. Some would say SMC have been quite devious about the definition of "membership" over the years.

Your rejection of Christianity: is it because of SMC?

I thought that readers of this forum might be interested in a TED talk I have just been listening to. It is called "I grew up in Westbro Baptist Church. Here's why I left". I won't try to summarise the content here, as the speaker Megan Phelps-Roper does it much better than I would, but I will say it os only 15 minutes, so well worth a look.

I think this Forum has done not too bad a job of following the recommendations she makes towards the end of the video.

I joined this disgustingly manipulative group led by the bully Hugh Black in 1984, by 1996 I realised how dishonest they really were. They tell you God does not want you he wants your funeral, just to emphasis how worthless you are to the. Then, when you ask for prayer to be delivered from you weakness they remind you how you failed in the past and say it is up to you. So, if it is God who gets the glory when my will succeeds, and my failure when I fail, where does that leave their doctrine???

Nah, they are just full of the usual bull about taking the credit when it goes right and passing the buck when it goes wrong. Never believe them, never let them tell you God is made perfect in weakness , they clearly do not believe a word of that themselves, just like standing on a platform pretending to be spiritual when they are nothing.

It all finally unravelled at a camp convention in South Lanarkshire in July 1996, but of course there was also Gillian Beath telling the youth wing that she needed retail therapy to clear her head in order to be spiritually cleansed at church on Saturday night. How deluded do you have to be to believe that? Or just a liar who thinks who thinks her audience are so desperate they will take any old rubbish.
They all queued up at Christmas in 1996 to tell me how stupid I was to miss an interview which required money and a passport. That finally convinced me they are all bullies, manipulators and not to ever be trusted.

These people do not believe in a God. They believe in their own power to dominate and manipulate people to make themselves look terribly spiritual and very righteous. Gillian Beath, who was prominent in the Sunday School in Falkirk in 97 even suggested to the youth meeting that retail therapy was good preparation for spiritual cleansing at night.
I can't believe anyone would still believe in God after being exposed to these charlatans and their manipulative lying ways. Susie Anderson, one of their self appointed counsellors even told me I could walk away from a prayer session and fail. They don't even believe their own lies, just like to convince people it is God's glory when they succeed and man's failure when it all goes wrong without ever bothering to find out what went wrong last time or get come down from their ivory towers long enough to get to know the individual human beings they are actually preaching to.

Rob alba

Welcome to the forum!

Can't help but agree with your analysis. If they had a leak in the bathroom, they would not pray until it want away, they would get a plumber. Same if their car breaks down.

But if they are talking about anything that cannot be evidenced - people falling out with each other, talking rubbish about retail therapy, being 'anointed' etc, they will not try to listen or learn from others in any way. You suddenly find God tells them exactly what to do. Really? When is the last time God told them how to fix a leaking roof or how to cure an illness?

Of course they will say God can cure illnesses. Sure, that might be, but in 99% or the cases that there is something OBSERVABLE (leaky roof, illness) they go to a professional, but in 99% of the cases where there is no objective evidence (relationship issues, life decisions) then they despise professional advice and say God will solve it all.

Just rubbish once you see through it.

I've never posted here before and don't know how old the thread is but i'd like to mention a couple of things:

1. I used to go to struthers but don't anymore, for my own reasons.

2. Having read these posts it worries me a little that because the posters are anonymous but give some scattered details about when they were there etc, the result is that SMC people (and they do read these by the way) will speculate who the poster is and come to the wrong conclusion. Some posts I've read I've thought, that could be me. Just from the timeline i mean. That creates a lot of distrust and suspicion. I could go to a SMC meeting, or meet a member in the future and they could be thinking, did you write about us on that forum? I'll put a wall up just in case = division in the church.

3. I've seen mention several times that SMC members have to consult a leader when making any decision - where to live, what job to do, if they can go on holiday...
This simply isn't true. People do that, but not because they have to. It's because they are not mature enough spiritually to make a decision for themselves. I've heard many SMC leaders say Christians shouldn't have to be spoon fed their entire lives. There comes a point where they should be standing on their own feet and know God's leading in their own lives. This is what the leaders want. Every decision I made for my life while I was at SMC was never raised with a leader first. I would have thought that a strange thing to do.

I'm not an apologist for SMC. They are not perfect by any means and they know that. But no church is. There are some lovely Godly people there. It is not easy to steer such a large entity as SMC over many years and keep to their vision of holiness and separation to God. Dilution of the vision and compromise can sneak in so subtly that while hardly noticing, it ends up looking like something that bears no resemblance to it's beginnings.
That is why SMC is not a democracy and has never claimed to be.

I know there are issues. I've experienced them first-hand.
SMC is not for everyone. It is rather insular. I'd rather be out winning souls for Christ than sitting in a pew 5 nights a week for 20 years, fat and comfortable (spiritually speaking). We won't be victorious in battle if we're never actually in the battle.

The good thing is, we can find the depths and mysteries of God without being in SMC. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar.

One last thing. I read on here that the SMC leaders talk about Benny Hinn's ministry, support his healing ministry and tell the congregation that whenever he is in town they must go to his crusades. (When is he ever in town!).
I understand that there are people here who are hurting and I hope they find peace. I feel sorry for what happened to you and I don't attempt to excuse it.
But false statements like that above don't help matters. The only time ive heard any SMC leader or member mention Benny Hinn was in private, lamenting how far he has wandered from the truth.
To say SMC endorses Benny Hinn is a falsehood.

Hi Henri, and welcome to the forum.


You make some valid points, but not really sure what the alternatives are.

In terms of the anonymous postings, yes, I am sure that you are right that both former and current members will speculate about who is posting. Not sure that the anonymous posters can be blamed for creating division in the church however. For a start, why would anyone in Struthers act any differently even if they knew you had posted messages on the forum? I would not act any differently if I knew you or someone from SMC was in a group I was talking to. What is it that members would talk about in secret (only in front of other members) and not talk about in public (for example, in front of people who post in this forum)?

Surely they should be gracious and honest whoever they are speaking to. Is that not basic integrity?


The one statement you make that I cannot agree with is, "they are not perfect by any means and they know that". Sorry, but there is absolutely clear evidence that is on record saying that they think they are perfect. A quick glance at things like the article about the last online sermon on the latigo site (www.latigo214.info) makes it totally clear that the leaders "only move on the explicit instruction of the Lord God of Hosts" and that to criticise them is to criticise God. Until they publicly retract that statement, they are on record as saying they are perfect (which is in my view the single biggest problem, and the cause of much of the trauma recorded on this site).

The question of the "dilution of the message" is one that intrigues me. When I have spoken to members, they have suggested that the current approach is the right one and the previous approach was wrong - that the behaviour is now less exclusive and insular, and that is better. I don't know whether it is or not, but I think it is interesting that you see this as a dilution of the message, while other seem to see it as a correction of an inappropriate message. I am not really sure whether one is better or worse than the other, but I do think there is perhaps a bit of confusion about these things. Even things as simple as whether women have to wear hats seems to be a point of controversy, as women wearing hats was Mr Black's key argument for allowing them to preach. Do you know if SMC now think they got this wrong in the past?

That is the kind of practical issue that reinforces their message that they are perfect. They will admit to a theoretical ability to fail, but they will never actually say, "we got that wrong" on any specific issue. They would rather take a Trump approach - anyone who criticises them will in turn be criticised twice as much. As the policy on hat-wearing has changed, should they not issue a correction to the doctrine included in Mr Black's books? If you read the books (still available in the SMC bookshops) you will see that current practice does not reflect the position outlined in Mr Black's books. If as you suggest, the leaders know they are not perfect, they simply have to admit that one or the other is wrong - either Mr Black was wrong at the time, or the current practice is wrong. They will not do this however, as they cannot bring themselves to admit they are not perfect. That is exactly the kind of religious arrogance that Jesus spoke strongly against.

The best example of this arrogance is of course the lack of any action in response to the hurt expressed in this forum. As you correctly point out, there will be speculation about who some of the posters are. Some may be quite difficult to identify, but others will be quite easy, and some have quite clearly identified themselves. In spite of that, no-one in SMC has taken any action to approach these people to apologise, see what they can do to help, or even say - "look, I am human and sometimes make mistakes - I was doing my best, but sorry if some of my actions caused hurt". Any person who believed they were capable of making a mistake would do that, but the leaders of SMC cannot bring themselves to truly believe they have ever made a mistake, so sit in their ivory tower doing the Trump thing of "doubling down" on any criticism, and equating honest questions and personal pain with criticising God.