Hi RedRoad I completely understand your point about the childhood trauma.
In my initial post (p211 within Al Duff’s page) I pointed out I’d left partly with consideration for our children and due to the bizarre treatment of my nephews. I came to understand that while we had sought out this type of experience and church, our kids hadn’t and I’d prefer them to have their own desire to do so, rather than to be forced, under duress to comply.
I cannot imagine the kind of lives you all had, kept captive within that narrowness in all aspects of your lives. And for the Cedars school generation, including their school lives.

Hi
Just testing as impossible to post my latest contuibution

Greetings to all,

@Blackwatch: In your latest post you mentioned that: “Breaking free requires a safe environment, critical thinking and sometimes therapy to process the manipulation”.
I couldn’t agree more and it is totally in line with my current thought process (provoked by a discussion with a friend) that it is therapeutic to reminisce about the past and share our experiences (I am the first to reminisce on this forum, so I permit my next comment), However just as importantly (or more importantly?) it is necessary also to share:-

1) What initiated our departure, ie. how we got out and
2) How we coped initially in the period just after our departure and
3) How we’ve managed to construct our lives since then

Would appreciate any thoughts on this one. I am aware totally that everyone’s path / situation is personal to them and totally different, however this type of post could help people going forward. As I mentioned in my earlier posts as Wistongirl, the past is the past, it’s over but the future is the most important – we only live once. So to practice what I just suggested I will start:

- As mentioned in previous posts, I left from one day to the next – like a “divine knowledge” that this was my last night in SMC

- As so many people say in their posts: I have never been back – never even driven in Jamaica Street again

- Actually, I’ve never been to a church again (apart from my Dad’s when I came on holidays) although I wouldn’t say I don’t believe in anything – I try to live by basic human values: kindness, empathy, integrity, honesty etc. (I try)

- Initially I was in limbo – my whole life was in that church, my social life, my “friends”, my family etc.

- When I left, I was in a safe environment with my colleagues at that time, who took care of me, invited me after work and were very kind & inclusive to me.

- I then had the opportunity to transfer with my job to Europe for two years initially, then I met my future husband and have been in Europe now since 01.01.1991 – this definitely helps.

- When my second child was born, somehow the floodgates opened and everything came out – I guess I had been suppressing everything and perhaps the hormones helped I don’t know, but anyways it happened like this for me.

- I have been through (of my own initiative)two different 2-3 year therapies in the last 36 years which helped me work my way through to understand what had happened to me and improve the quality of my life going forward

- I have also quite simply enjoyed life: sports (skiing, running - ran NYC Marathon in 2005, walking in mountains), having a great loving husband and wonderful kids, travelling to many places in the world, forging a nice little career and valuing myself as a person. I say all this not to show off as I have nothing to show off about, but to say I would never have done ANY of these things had I stayed in SMC. I would still be making sandwiches and washing dishes and praying to my toes and be even more dowdy than I already was then – sorry!

Everyone’s “list” would be different as we all have unique lives & therefore unique stories to tell. This is mine.

I must say that for me personally on this forum my aim is to share, to help people if I can, and to find help through others, however I am not on this forum to bring SMC to accountability. It is not a concept that they know, encourage or practice so for me it is a cause “perdu à l’avance”, ie. not under any illusion that this would ever happen and it’s not a priority for me – the priority being to live, help others and look forward. This, I hasten to add, is my point of view while I fully respect the views of others who had different experiences from myself and have different reasons for being on this forum.

@Rensil – I hope you are well and thanks for the welcome back :-) If you don’t mind I just need to rectify that Miss Taylor did not frighten me, she liked me and I had no reason to be scared of her, but others have indeed mentioned (and I know that) many were scared of her. If I am completely honest, she is the only Leader in whom I had complete trust at the time. I was of no interest to Mr Black, not being an intellectual myself. This declaration may come as a shock to some, however she was my pastor in Greenock, she was very reassuring and for some weird reason she liked me. I am not taking away from the fact that things then changed dramatically from the early 80s onwards until she had her stroke, but in the early days in Greenock, I had trust in her as did my whole family. On another note, yes I also remember dear Miss Jennings – many a laugh we had in the wee back kitchen in Greenock with her Yorkshire humour, while cooking for the conferences and making heaps of sandwiches (hence my husband’s name for SMC being: the Sandwich Makers :-)). I think she was still there when I left and I lost touch – I am sure she has passed on now, bless.

@Amazing Grace & Phoebe 2 – I remember well the group who regularly came to conferences / camps from Ireland and absolutely loved the ministry of Rosemary McCauley before she never came back either …. As a child I was enthralled with (Uncle) John Hamilton and his ministry too – both were really a breath of fresh air each time they came – then they came no more …. Oh the highlights of my youth :-) :-)

Wishing a great weekend ahead to all,

I also remember the meetings of Johnny Hamilton and Rosemary MacAulay. They were great people, full of life and of the spirit but they weren’t of the Struthers mould and therefore their ministries didn’t last long. I also remember that meeting of Miss Taylor’s at camp when she invited those who desired to go deeper with God to attend a meeting and then she showed abject horror when we all showed up! Oh what an encouragement that was to us….NOT.
For my own life, although I left Struthers, I do still have an active Christian faith (in spite of everything that happened). I had to actively choose to reject all the wrong and the abusive behaviour but to keep what I found to be real of God and move forward to find him in a real way in others churches of which there are many I might add that are good, biblical and care for the flock. I’m sure there will still be good sincere people in Struthers and I do pray that they will find the courage and the strength to break free. There are so many of us that can say there is definitely life after SMC so don’t be afraid to step out and find a new life for yourself.

GirlWiston, first of all apologies. I had got your story mixed up with RedRoad’s and hadn’t double-checked that it was RedRoad who had written about being terrified of Miss Taylor. I’m glad that she liked you and was helpful to you. Would this be because she felt that you’d been set apart, as you said in a previous post, and were to be trained for future leadership?
I very rarely had one to one dealings with Miss T because you had to make an appointment to see her privately and that put me off. But I was sufficiently in awe of her that she seemed to cause fear in my soul even while she was up preaching on the platform, partly because I thought she must be able to know what my sins were. Silly really.

Yes, Miss Jennings passed away a number of years ago: I think she lived into her 90s. I know she stood up to Hugh Black at times and wasn’t afraid to express her views on church matters.

West of East, I don’t think that Miss Taylor suffered from mental illness. If the leaders had thought that she had, I think they would have stopped her from preaching. You have to realise that they saw her as a very godly woman, chosen and anointed by God to lead a church. They believed She had a hotline to God. That’s what they believed and is what most of us who attended believed too. We were blinded and didn’t realise that we were being brainwashed. We thought we were following God and were trying to grow as Christians. Miss T did suffer from various physical maladies and my memory tells me that Hugh Black and his daughters were always very solicitous in their care for her at these times and after she suffered from the stroke, which weakened her considerably and removed her from regular ministry at church. So, to my mind, her behaviour on the platform did not indicate unrecognised mental illness. Just extreme and maybe narcissistic behaviour in a normally very shy person.

I’ll write more next time, re your list of points, GirlWiston.
All the best to everyone.

Good evening all,

I note, with interest and gratitude, the stories and detailed information about Miss Taylor. As I read the stories, good and bad, I am reminded of my own thinking about her around the time I was involved with SMC. This was the early to mid 1980s. I remember there being a reverence at even the mention of her name. If it was ever whispered that she might be at a meeting the excitement was tangible beforehand. I referenced previously that I only ever had one dealing with her. Please excuse my vague memory but here is the gist of our one and only encounter with a preparatory preamble.

When I joined SMC I was already in a relationship with a young woman. It was a physical relationship and we had been seeing each other for a few years. She agreed to come with me to the meetings at Knightswood and you can imagine the shock for someone from a Church of Scotland background seeing the goings on within the church at that time. At this time I make no critique of the validity of what went on regarding the laying on of hands, speaking in tongues and prayer for demon exorcism. I simply record that my friend was not prepared for the intensity of such meetings and it fell outwith her experience. In spite of that she agreed to stay with me and continue our relationship. However, as has recently been stated, being part of the CofS was not considered a "real christian" and it was made clear to me that this girl was not suitable. To my eternal shame*, I was so wrapped up in doing the "right thing" as detailed by the leaders and, to my thinking at the time, therefore by God, that I let her go. That is a whole other story with a happy ending for the girl in question and I have since apologised and sought forgiveness for the way I treated her at that time. After that I met someone who attended a church who acknowledged, believed in and practiced the gifts of the spirit. The church was also very evangelical in it's outlook. This seemed like a better fit so, similarly, she came along to a meeting. So far, so good I hear you say......not so. At this time, it was brought to my attention that Miss Taylor, the very one who was practically worshipped and who had never spoken with me, acknowledged my presence within the church or had anything to do with me, had received a vision from the God of the universe regarding my life choice; in particular my choice of girlfriend. I was told that she wanted to meet with me to relay God's message to me. In all truth, now that I try and recall the meeting, I cannot be 100% sure it was her who delivered the information/vision details to me but it was at the Greenock church on a Saturday evening meeting.The information was delivered as having been a vision, given by God, specifically to Miss Taylor for my life. That format of delivery is designed to add credibility to any information that follows. Added to the way Miss Taylor was viewed as practically sitting at God's right hand, the information was not to be taken lightly, quite the contrary. The vision was of a fruit being eaten ( the girl) by me and the outcome would be my poisoning (figurative) followed by my spiritual death (literal). I was told that God's plan for me did not involve her and that God had chosen someone in the congregation for me already but I was not being told who, simply that they did exist and it was a spiritual match. This occurred very close to me moving away up north so I did not feel like I had to choose at that time but you can imagine how that might have influenced my thinking had I stayed. To those girls who were around at that time, let me just say that you had a lucky escape!;-). Mary Black was also there and, in truth, by then, I think I had lost a bit of respect for her having seen her deal with people in a way that I would not have considered kind. The current leaders who may be reading this and who know me will be shouting at the screen right now saying......Miss Taylor was right! Her vision was true! The irony is not lost on me nor the humour surrounding this. It is true that any spirituality I possessed back then and for 20 years afterwards is now gone but I cannot and will not place any blame (for suredly that was the meaning of the vision) on the girl involved whom I subsequently married. She was blameless and remains a believer to this day.

That's my Miss Taylor story and it seemed right to share it now during the many messages referring to her ministry, attitude and presence within SMC that have surfaced recently. My thinking about her urgency to talk with someone she had never shown an interest in was probably precipitated by Mary Black's anxiety around my situation. I now think, certainly on that occasion, that the use of Miss Taylor's "status" as almost tangential to God and the methodology of the vision can only be considered as forms of coercion to attempt to control my life as well as the life of some other young woman within the congregation whom they had in mind for me. Until very recently, I was the only SMC member I had ever known who had married outwith SMC itself. Years later as I was pondering this fact I wondered how God limited himself, having a world population of 7 billion and perhaps 3.5 billion options, to choosing someone who happened to be sitting 2 pews down and 3 seats along! If it happened once, sure, but every member? Hmmm.

Anyway, thanks for reading and once again I hope anyone who has undergone such manipulation and coercion can relate and realise they are not alone.

* Please excuse my use of hyperbole here! It seemed fitting.

101



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/15/2025 09:38AM by A Theist 101.

A Theist I read that last entry of yours with horror. I knew of 3 other cases where the relationship was banned and at least 2 of these, to me, seemed entirely appropriate.
These type of reasons are why so many lovely women remained single.
Thank you for sharing this so fully.

And yes, Miss Jennings! I loved her but do remember one occasion when she was getting a lift home with someone and told me she didn’t have a car or a mortgage as she’d need a car loan and didn’t believe in having anything if she couldn’t pay it outright. She was letting me know I was wrong to have a car loan as that’s where the conversation had started.
It is my understanding that she lived in a church flat? So didn’t have to pay rent? And that she got a lift back and forward to church by people possibly paying car loans. Did she refuse to get in the car if she knew it wasn’t paid outright? I did not feel bad when she presented the statement.Like A Theist, I’m seeing the funny side of this!!

Your post , Atheist 101 , brings back so many memories of how genuine relationships were badly affected by the " control " of "leaders " . We also knew that wrong " match making " was going on .

I , too , was an in - comer and I will never forget my own experience(previously posted)
It is therapeutic , in a sense , to know that we weren't alone in how we were treated .

Thanks A101 for that very personal account. And like Liz25, I know of 2 other relationships that were stopped by leadership.

re Miss Jennings
My understanding was that she "worked" for Struthers, coming there from an organisation called The Faith Mission. The way she had been trained there underpinned all her life-style choices.
See [faithmission.org] and [www.fmbiblecollege.org.uk] No salary, ever. Totally dependent to live true to "my God will supply all your needs thro JC". Philippians ch4 v19.
Interesting to read the whole chapter that that phrase comes from. Lots of quite apt phrases that Miss Jennings would have totally believed to be true, the best way for the Christian community to operate, and it was the model expected by The Faith Mission of it workers. eg:

[*] v 2 " I urge you also, true companion, help these women who laboured with me in the gospel"
[*] v6 "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God"
[*] v11-13 "I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
[*] v15 "in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church shared with me concerning giving and receiving but you only"

I do not know who legally owned the flat at Castle Mansions, Gourock. But now that I look back, I suppose it was assumed that the church owned it. There was no Charities accounting legislation (per Google, came in in 1992).The truth of the legal ownership may remain unknown.

Would be great if anyone knows more about what she actually did as a Struthers church worker. She would come back to Greenock maybe twice a year and give a "report" on Sunday Night. My memory is that she mostly worked in England. And Mr B would go and do weekends in some of the places she had been working. She definitely had a car. So again, looking back, it must have been a car supplied by the church. She was always travelling. Where did she stay in England? Was there a church flat in England also? No memory of any. Was accommodation and meals always provided by whatever person had invited her? But where would she stay between locations, meetings? Come on Pudsey, London - tell us what you remember.

She was a very independent, strong woman, from another era. Land-army style. Feeding the nation ... in this case, the church camp and conference. At conference weekends, some of us church kids were roped into peeling infinite quantities of potatoes, making vast quantities of scones from cash n carry scone mix bags, huge cauldrons of Maggi powder soup mixes, and as GirlWiston say, sandwiches forever. I suspect Mrs McC doing the mass Wiston cooking, with no free feeding for the family, was done because of that Faith Mission perspective. You worked for nothing, providing for the needs of others. This also fitted the elevation and romanticism of the evangelical missionaries that were often quoted by Mr B: Hudson Taylor, CT Studd, Gladys Aylward. "Living by faith".

At the risk of overposting I’ll amplify my earlier entry of this morning’s -the cogs having turned in my brain!
My point about Miss Jennings: I understand her stance was that of a Faith Mission person but it none-the-less typifies some of the stupidity echoed within Struthers itself.
With regard to relationships, the person I mentioned in an earlier post from Radical Alternative who said that her generation was more spiritual than ours, hence they were marrying earlier and more of them, I’m not too critical of her for saying that because she would be unaware of the type of thing, written by A Theist this morning, having happened to us! A Theist, I can only hope that you were not plagued with anxiety or concerns about the spiritual negatives declared to you throughout your successful marriage.