Surviving a Religious Cult – Peter Young

Episode 42
Peter, author of Stop the Tall Man, Save the Tiger, describes his journey through a small Christian religious cult. Getting drawn in was not his intention, and he believes that no one knows they’re in a cult, just that they were in a cult. For Peter, the group was an unavoidable aspect of marrying the love of his life. Neither the cult nor his experience in the cult is what you would expect. The particularities of his faith story open the mysterious world of a cult, the common characteristics of the leader – narcissistic, charismatic, and manipulative – and the journey of survival. As Peter describes his long process regaining sanity and custody of his children, there is redemption in surviving, for which he is grateful.   

Highlights:
·      Peter Young’s life, work, and faith
·      The danger of the leader’s slow deceit and twisting of biblical text
·      Understanding that salvation stories are unique to each individual
·      The leader, Uncle Robert, influenced Peter’s marriage and family
·      Distinguishing a cult from a strong culture
·      Importance of faith in getting through tough times and not putting identity solely in a profession

References:
New Yorker, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/07/12/what-makes-a-cult-a-cult

Social Media links for Peter:   
Website – https://www.authorpeteryoung.com
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterbyoung/
Facebook – @Peteryoung32 
YouTube – @authorpeteryoung 
Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/Stop-Tall-Man-Save-Tiger-ebook/

Social Media links for Méli:
Talking with God Project – https://www.talkingwithgodproject.org
LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/melisolomon/
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100066435622271


Transcript:    https://www.buzzsprout.com/1851013/episodes/13056749


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The Living Our Beliefs podcast offers a place to learn about other religions and faith practices. When you hear about how observant Christians, Jews and Muslims live their faith, new ideas and questions arise:  Is your way similar or different?  Is there an idea or practice that you want to explore?  Understanding how other people live opens your mind and heart to new people you meet. 

Comments?  Email  Méli – info@talkingwithgodproject.org

The Living Our Beliefs podcast is part of the Talking with God Project – https://www.talkingwithgodproject.org/

Transcript

Peter Young transcript

Surviving a Religious Cult

[Music]

Méli [00:00:05]:

Hello and welcome to Living Our Beliefs, a home for open conversations with fellow Christians, Jews and Muslims. Through personal stories and reflection, we will explore how our religious traditions show up in daily life at work, at home, in the community, in good times and in bad. There is no one size fits all, right answer, just a way to move forward. For you, for here. For now, I am your host, Méli Solomon. So glad you could join us. 

[Music]

This is episode 42, and my guest today is Peter Young A Storyteller. First and foremost. Peter is the author of two books, the Amazon bestseller Stop the Tall Man, Save the Tiger, which tells the story of his escape from a tiny religious cult, and The Blue Team, his novel about faith and basketball. Prior to his writing career, peter was a sports broadcaster for over 20 years, telling the stories of great athletes all over the world, working for CBS, ESPN, OLN and other networks. He has also spoken publicly about the principles in his books in the US. And abroad. He lives in Montana with his children and is working on the sequel to The Blue Team. Links to his social media handles are listed in the show notes. Hello, Peter. Welcome to my living our beliefs, podcast. I'm so pleased to have you on today Méli.

Peter [00:01:42]:

Hi, thanks for having me on. It's an honor.

Méli [00:01:45]:

We are going to focus on your experience, getting into a cult and then getting out and your life beyond that. You've done many other things with sports and all that, but we are focusing on your religious experience. I've just noted in the bio that you have written a book, Stop the Tall Man, Save the Tiger. And before we get into your story, I just want to ask, what is the meaning of the title?

Peter [00:02:15]:

When I met my ex-wife at the time, going back like 25 years ago, she had had a very prophetic dream that was very important to her. She shared the dream with me shortly after we met, and it revolved around the family guru, a guy everybody called Uncle Robert. And in the dream, she's trying to avoid a tiger that's there to kill her. And then the door opens and a tall man walks in. I'm 6’-5”, and Uncle Robert is like, 5’-6”, and she can't see the face of the tall man because she hadn't met me yet. And the tall man was there to get rid of the tiger. And again, this was a very important dream for her. And Méli it took about 20 years for me to finally figure out the true meaning of it, which was it was a warning, I believe, from the Lord that Paige missed, and so did I, and we suffered the consequences.

Méli [00:03:13]:

Wow. Golly. Wasn't expecting that. Thank you for that explanation. Okay, so let's get into your story, beginning with the basic question of what is your religious and cultural identity?

Peter [00:03:29]:

I'm a Christian. I grew up in a nondenominational church. I think if you were to walk in there, it would have looked and sounded probably Presbyterian. That's still the same case for me today. Born and raised in northeast New Jersey to a loving home, Christian home. And so I would still identify myself as nondenominational, although I do believe in Preterism. If you were going to talk about eschatology and Preterism is the belief that the things that Christ said would one day happen back then in that first century. So in other words, I would not be someone that would be looking towards a second coming or a rapture, et cetera.

Méli [00:04:09]:

Oh, interesting. Wasn't expecting that answer either. And thank you for explaining Preterism. Since this is not a theology program, I'm going to sidestep going deeper into that, although it's really tempting to do it, I'd like to stay quite close to your experience. Tell me about meeting Paige and getting into the cult.

Peter [00:04:34]:

I met Paige when I was living in Pocatello, Idaho. I was a sports broadcaster at the time, and I had seen her around town. You couldn't miss her. Six foot one, tall, absolutely stunningly beautiful, long blonde hair. Finally met her at a singles Bible study. We started dating fairly quickly, and mainly within about a week to ten days. I was 90% sure I wanted to marry her, but I had to meet two people her father and this mysterious Uncle Robert, who I'd heard about before I ever met her. He was the weird family guru of the Clawsons. So I met the father after maybe a month of dating, read the really weird letter regarding that tiger dream. Finally met Uncle Robert a few months later. Thought he was kind of odd, charismatic, but somewhat harmless. Then we got married. Month later, she was pregnant, and so I really married into the cult. Had no idea I was marrying into a cult. I was marrying the love of my life. Many years later did I realize what I had married into.

Méli [00:05:36]:

And when you think about a cult, how do you define a cult, not just with Uncle Robert, but generally, what is your definition?

Peter [00:05:47]:

Another great question. So when I started doing research, after my eyes and ears were opened that I was in one, I was curious, well, how do other people label it? And I would say they come in all different shapes and sizes, but for me, they always have at least a leader. It's usually a man, but it's a leader. Very narcissistic, charismatic, makes all the rules, but the rules don't apply to him or her and has a grandiose sense of self. And Uncle Robert had all of that. So we didn't shave our heads, we didn't commit suicide, we didn't have a sexual commune or anything like that. But in effect, we did, metaphorically speaking, drink the Kool Aid because a cult is at its foundation. Mind control. Undue mind control.

Méli [00:06:33]:

In preparation for our conversation, I did some reading about cults, and what you just said is what I read, plus some information about when you say mind control, the word that I was reading was brainwashing. I would say those are basically the same things. And the elements of that that I picked up was isolation from friends and family, environmental control, and a submission to a higher authority. Would you agree with those elements?

Peter [00:07:05]:

I would agree with them wholeheartedly, because that's exactly what I experienced. So it's very hard to have undue mind control if you don't have the environment conducive to it. So that is, you have secrecy and paranoia. You remove the person from their longtime friends and family. You induce this paranoia of, well, don't tell anybody because they wouldn't understand Uncle Robert. You do, but nobody else would, so they're all a threat. We're all going to keep it here tight and secret and, oh, yeah, Uncle Robert knows everything, so we're going to go to him for all of our questions. And why would you need to go to somebody else? You don't need to anymore.

Méli [00:07:44]:

Right. I can see how the separating and the isolating from friends and family can seep in. Did you feel that it was a sudden or a gradual process?

Peter [00:07:58]:

For me, it was very gradual. If I cult just backtrack a little bit. For Paige, she knew no other life when she was born, her parents were already under the spell or the undue mind control or brainwashing of Uncle Robert, so she grew up with it. For me, I knew of him when we got married. We lived a long way away. We were in Idaho. He was in Southern California. So I really didn't know those first two or three years of our marriage how much control he had over her heart and mind. But it became pretty obvious. And so as the years went on, it was a very antagonistic relationship because I really want him around, but I was the frog in the proverbial hot water, and I eventually got boiled until I came around, but it took a long time.

Méli [00:08:42]:

We'll get to that issue of how you got out in a moment, but I want to just sit in this hot water, as it were, for just a bit. You've alluded to the effect on your marriage, and then quite quickly, you had a child, and I understand you had then more children, five altogether. Can you describe the effect of being in this group on your marriage and the effect on the kids?

Peter [00:09:09]:

Well, it was painful, caused a lot of cognitive dissonance in me. I wanted to tell other people about it. What do you think? This seems so wrong to me. Uncle Robert would know all the intimate details of what Paige was thinking oftentimes before I did. He certainly heard everything. He often would hear it before I did. And then he assumed control over so many aspects of our relationship and our marriage. He was right in the center of our marriage, and many years into it, I realized that she honored, revered, and adored him and respected him far more than me. And so it was miserable. It was very difficult. This was the love of my life. I could not picture my mind a more perfect wife for me. I loved this woman. And so then, knowing that this guy wasn't going to go away, I'm trying really hard to like him, to see him as the authority in my life, because he's the authority in hers. And so she believed everything. My kids believed everything, and I was constantly asking questions. It was hard. It was miserable.

Méli [00:10:15]:

Yeah, it sounds very difficult, but it also sounds like there was development over time. You were very much in love with her. You described her as the perfect woman for you. And then as you got to better understand Uncle Robert and the dynamics, then it was problematic. It became problematic, yes.

Peter [00:10:42]:

Yes. So let's say two, three years in, he made some statements about 9/11, which I know is going to open up another can of worms, but I found out that he was a raving antisemite, and I had no idea. And I'll spare you the details, but it was horrible. I was shocked. And so I would ask questions about this. And Paige and her parents believed everything he said. So over the course of years, I was slowly eroded by his words. Méli the analogy I give would be, let's say if you mishit a golf ball by about a quarter inch, 100 yards down the fairway, the golf ball is going to be way off to the left or way off to the right. Well, Uncle Robert would tee up, so to speak, the right golf ball. He would read from the Bible. But then he had a very unique, perverse ability to take every verse and give it his twist, which is often very dark. So that 5-10 years down the road, we were way off base. The point to make, though, is that when you first hear him, he's not going to just start spouting lies. No cult leader does that. They start with the truth and then they twist it. And then if you have the ability to look back 5-10 years, you say, oh, my goodness, how did I get here?

Méli [00:11:47]:

It sounds like Uncle Robert's beliefs and convictions were somewhat biblically based, but then it was also infused with raging anti Semitism. Is that reasonable?

Peter [00:12:04]:

It is. And the anti Semitism was only kind of one part of his theology. But yes, you are on the right track. He would read from the Bible. If he were to listen in on our podcast, he would say that you and I are both swine. Right. Biblically. The verses about don't throw your pearls before the swine. You and I and the vast majority of the humans on the face of the earth would be swine. And he, because of his brilliance and closeness to God and all of his followers, would know the true Gospel. There's a germ of truth in everything that he would share with us, but then he would take it off on this one path to the right or the left, and it was bizarre. I will add that in terms of his knowledge of, like, well, why is he the authority on the Bible? Mainly, he thought, seriously thought, and told our family, my kids, that he sinned once in his life, only one time his entire life, that he sinned. That's it. And he believed it.

Méli [00:13:02]:

So the logic is that by sinning only once, where the vast majority of people sin many times, therefore he is an authority on the Bible. Is that the thinking?

Peter [00:13:16]:

Not only the authority on the Bible, but he is the moral authority in our little cult. So, in other words, me, Paige, Paige's parents, we would be sinning on a daily basis, and, oh, by the way, he would point it out every time we did the slightest thing wrong. And of course, we would never argue with him. You could never doubt him. So here it is. He would control us with guilt and shame. He would point out every single thing we did wrong, and we could never say, Boy, what about Uncle Robert? Because he only sinned once in his life. So he was untouchable, unapproachable. Unassailable.

Méli [00:13:50]:

Yeah. It's interesting that untouchable aspect. Sounds like that needs to be added to the list of qualities of a cult leader.

Peter [00:14:00]:

Yes. You are not allowed to doubt or question the cult leader. So, of course, then, he is seen as pretty darn close to perfect and sinless. Yeah.

Méli [00:14:10]:

Given that you're a Christian, I am guessing, but don't want to presume too much, that you take Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

Peter [00:14:18]:

Yes, absolutely.

Méli [00:14:19]:

Have you always?

Peter [00:14:21]:

Well, I grew up in a Christian home where I would have never doubted it. But in my Christian faith, I do believe that there is a moment in your life where you realize, wow, I've heard this story in church and in Sunday school and at Christian summer camps, but now it's really hit home. And I do believe that I am someone that needs to be saved. So that point for me was when I was 13 years old.

Méli [00:14:42]:

This is your moment of being born again?

Peter [00:14:45]:

Yes, it's the moment where I would recognize myself as a sinner that needs to be saved. And so, yes, at that point, I would say, yes, I was born again is the correct phrase.

Méli [00:14:56]:

I raised that, Peter, because we were talking about Uncle Robert and his perfection or near perfection. Well, isn't that what Christ is for Christians?

Peter [00:15:07]:

Yes. In other words, the foundation, I believe, of the Christian message is that we don't need to be perfect because we can't be. No one is. So therefore we have a perfect savior who died for our sins on the cross. So we don't need to try and live a perfect life doesn't mean we have the authority to do whatever we want, but he has paid the price for us so that we don't have the, let's say, guilt and shame hanging over us, that we aren't perfect because no one is. Okay, but then Uncle Robert kind of takes it a step further in that he barely needed Jesus sacrifice on the cross because he only sinned one time.

Méli [00:15:45]:

So was there much talk about Christ in the cult?

Peter [00:15:50]:

Very much so. Again, I'll go back to the golf ball analogy. He read from the Bible. He talked about Christ often. You could at times sit in on our conferences. So again, he lived far away. We would meet once or twice a year and they would call Him these conferences, which was a glorified way of sitting. We sat in the living room, listened and talk for hours. And you could sit in for 5, 10, 15 minutes, maybe half an hour, and it would sound great. Sit in for three days, and then you would see all the red flags. The biggest red flag melee would be that when we would share our testimony. The testimony for a Christian is, what has the Lord done for you? How did you become a Christian? Okay, well, in Pai

ge's testimony, which she gave many years on to our marriage, it's very close to a testimony of her faith in Robert Booty, uncle Robert, not in Christ. It's very close, and it was scary when I saw that.

Méli [00:16:42]:

Okay, so we've just talked about a lot of dark elements of this situation, and I'm taking you at your word, it does seem, taking two steps back. And as someone who, at least to my knowledge, has never been in a cult, I have a sense that the attraction is that it's a safe haven during uncertain times and or the attraction of idealism for a better world. Did you have that sense? Were those elements in the group?

Peter [00:17:18]:

I would say close mainly, but here's how I would describe it. It's more of joining a special group, however big or small it is, that makes you special and unique. Because you have cornered the market on truth, the true, gospel truth about what's happening, what has happened. Whereas all the other people in churches, no matter what denomination it is on a given Sunday, they don't know what we do. We're special, we're unique. We have Uncle Robert. They don't they're missing it, and they don't know what they're missing.

Méli [00:17:54]:

Having the corner on the market of whatever belief is, for me, a big red flag right there, it's problematic. And was the idea that you would try to convert the rest of the world or that you wanted to remain exclusive and your little group is going to remain, I don't know, be saved or whatever.

Peter [00:18:22]:

That's the million dollar question, the one that drove me nuts. Méli because if Uncle Robert was so sublime, so brilliant, right, he had the market cornered on morality and truth. Why weren't we sharing this with other people? Why weren't our conferences filled with all of our neighbors, all of my distant relatives, all of the young family from California and back east in the Midwest where everybody lived? Why weren't we sharing all this with everybody else if he is so brilliant? And of course, to look back now, the answer is obvious. Well, he wasn't brilliant. He was kind of crazy. But at the moment, I couldn't make that connection. At the moment, it was going back to what I said earlier. They're all swine. They wouldn't understand Uncle Robert. So thus, we have to protect him because he would be at danger from everybody else, who would then try and point out his flaws. So there was no push to evangelize and bring others into the cult. And it always bothered me and confused me. I didn't get it.

Méli [00:19:22]:

Yeah, that's so interesting. It really is a way of kind of squaring the circle there. Had you earlier, before you got into a cult, and you were in your church. Were you evangelizing? Was that an aspect of your Christian experience?

Peter [00:19:38]:

Yes, it was off and on. I was never in the ministry, as a Christian would call it full time, where this was my living in college. I spent two summers with an organization called Athletes in Action. So the idea was I played basketball in college. We would go overseas and we would play basketball. So I went to Poland, Greece, Brazil. It was fascinating. And then at halftime, when everybody's sitting around, nothing to do, you grab a mic, an interpreter, and you share the gospel of Jesus Christ. So I had done that, and I really enjoyed it. Other than that, a few times I had gone into prisons. The Bible does talk about visiting people in prison. We would have Bible studies. So over the years, I did a little bit of that.

Méli [00:20:16]:

Okay, before we move on, I just want to ask one last question about your experience in the cult. Was there anything positive about that experience?

Peter [00:20:27]:

Yes. What we're doing right now, what I went through was horrible. I wouldn't recommend it, and I wouldn't want my worst enemy to go through it. What happened to my kids and my marriage was awful. But you take that experience, and you basically bounce off the bottom, right? You hit rock bottom. When my wife left me, took the kids, I now became the devil and a sperm donor and a bloodline. And so now I'm a million times stronger than I ever was. And so that if my experience, as awful as it was, can help others either avoid being in a cult, help a family member get out of a cult, et cetera, then, yeah, that's the positive.

Méli [00:21:04]:

So let's talk about your leaving. You just mentioned your wife left you. So if you can briefly explain to the audience how you got out, what prompted the getting out?

Peter [00:21:16]:

Well, my experience, I think, is interesting in that you will often read, as I have, about people being rescued from a cult or a family member friend gets them out of a cult. I was effectively kicked out of a cult, and I didn't want to. When my wife left me, it was because she really still adored and loved Uncle Robert more than me. She saw me as a danger to him, to his ministry, and then thus to our kids and our family. So she left. We have five kids. She took the three youngest, and then within a month or two, after it had been somewhat of a cordial breakup, it got really bad really fast, and again, I was the devil. And Uncle Robert backed up Paige on all of this, and that I was to stay as far away from the kids as physically possible was what they told me at the time. I believed it. I still believed Uncle Robert and Paige. And I was wrong. It was all my fault. It was finally, after several months, to really, one year, when I finally was able to break free of the mind control, to see him who he was, as an evil person and with my faith, my family and friends, they helped me get out of it. But it took a year, a good, solid year.

Méli [00:22:21]:

Yeah. So you went in for love, you got stuck in the mud, and then you got kicked out. It really is an unusual path, really. Most of the stories I've heard is this kind of rescue mission.

Peter [00:22:33]:

Well, Maley, if I can say two things on what you just said. Number one, it is a love story. It was a love story that started with Paige. And really, if I look back now after 25 years, it's the love that the Lord had for me, where he rescued me from a cult. The Lord loved me so much that he made sure that I did not have this define my life and have my life ruined. And then number two, i, in a way, was kicked out at first when my wife left me, but then the rescuing was not just, like, physically rescuing me from an environment, from a commune, but it was the rescue of my mind, because even when I got kicked out, my mind still didn't want to let go. And so it was my friends, family, my faith that, in effect, rescued my heart and soul.

Méli [00:23:24]:

Yeah, interesting. One of the things that I read was a really wonderful New Yorker magazine article that I would recommend. I'll put it in the show notes. It's called ‘What Makes a Cult a Cult’. And here's a little quote. “The good news is that rational objections to flaws in cult doctrine or to hypocrisies on the part of a cult leader do have a powerful impact if and when they occur to the cult members themselves. The analytical mind may be quietened by cult-think, but it is rarely deadened altogether, especially if cult life is proving unpleasant. The capacity for critical thought can reassert itself.”

Peter [00:24:10]:

Fascinating. Here's what I would say to that. I had Uncle Robert in my life for over 20 years, but I was really only brainwashed, I would say, as I look back, for about two and a half years, and yet mainly it took me a year, a year to recover. So now I think about my ex-wife, I think about her parents. They have been under his spell for 50 plus years. What will happen to them if they do one day have what I call a road to Damascus type moment where the Lord opens her eyes and ears? I can't imagine what that would be like, because, like you said, thankfully, my capacity, my heart and mind to finally see the truth had not been destroyed. Deadened. Yes, but not completely.

Méli [00:24:56]:

Yeah. Well, that is a blessing. And it's interesting that you feel that the Lord opened your mind or heart to the craziness, shall we say?

Peter [00:25:09]:

Yes. I believe that the Lord is sovereign, which means he governs our day-to-day activities and life. And so he's god, he can do whatever he wants. Right. So he can take anything that we do to mess it up and turn it into good. Romans 8:28. He can turn anything that we do that is wrong, like getting a divorce and use it for good. And so, yes, absolutely. Did I have a voice from on high speaking to me? No. I had friends and family speaking into my life and I was constantly praying and reading the word of God. So, yeah, I believe he directed all that.

Méli [00:25:40]:

So you believe that God's actions came through your friends and family?

Peter [00:25:45]:

Yes.

Méli [00:25:46]:

Do you believe that God has a plan for you?

Peter [00:25:49]:

I do, absolutely. When it goes to I think it's either Psalms or Proverbs where it talks about he knits us in our mother's womb. In other words, he knows us even before we are born. And I find it not logical to think that he would know us before we are born and then just kind of toss us out into the world and not have a plan for our lives. So I do believe he has a plan for our lives that he does. Direct my steps.

Méli [00:26:11]:

Yeah. I always hesitate to bring logic into discussions of faith and religion, but I really feel compelled to. So by that thinking, then, part of God's plan for you was to spend 20 years in the cult, right?

Peter [00:26:28]:

That's the great question. Did the Lord plan for Paige and I to get divorced? Did the Lord plan for all of these horrible things to happen? The answer to that is I don't know. All I know is that he can use every single thing that did happen in our lives for good if we allow it. So in other words, I don't think he intended for us to get divorced. And that's exactly what I told Paige when she filed for divorce. I said, Listen, look at what's happened to us. We had two children almost die at birth, but they were miraculously saved and now they're adults. Do you really think this is what I told her? Do you really think the Lord had us go through all of this over 20 years just to get divorced? I don't think the answer is yes, but we did. Okay, so now how can the Lord redeem this time? And I believe he can redeem the mistakes that we made and use this.

Méli [00:27:20]:

Experience for good related to God having a plan, then I want to address the correlate issue of free will, your free will. What I'm wondering is, considering this long experience with many dark times, has your sense of having free will and your own agency, has that changed? Did it change during the cult experience and then through getting out and now passed?

Peter [00:27:56]:

It did change. What happened during the cult experience is I started to doubt everything. And that's what a cult leader can do to you. So I would doubt because of Uncle Robert, every single thought that would ever go through my mind for a couple of years, everything I said, everything I thought, everything I did, I had to kind of weigh it with the scales of Uncle Robert's justice versus the other word of God. I mean, he was the authority and everything. So I started doubting everything. As I come out of it, I realized that I'm not perfect. I never will be, I never was. And that the Lord did have a plan for me. And a friend of mine told me, said, listen Peter, you were saved on the cross 2000 years ago. In other words, when Christ died, he knew I was coming. 2000 years later, he knew me. He knew Peter Young. And so when it comes to free will, first of all, I don't think I've ever read it in the Bible. I honestly believe that I have free will in pretty much every decision I make, except and for some people, this might be hard to take, except the decision to choose Christ. If I truly belong to Jesus Christ, he knew I was going to be saved. And so I honestly feel like now that later in life I feel like I've got free will in everything but that one decision because I mattered to the Lord and he was going to make sure that I was his child, a child of God.

Méli [00:29:14]:

I've never heard anyone say that before. So that's really interesting.

Peter [00:29:18]:

And I don't know if I've ever heard anyone say that. Either, but that's my experience in the Christian circles. We talk about free will a lot, and I'm like, I see the concept, but I don't see those words in the Bible. I see constantly in the Bible about how we were chosen predestined. Well, that means it was his choice to draw me to him, and I believe that.

Méli [00:29:41]:

Okay, so following that thinking, Peter, if you as a Christian were chosen, what does that mean for me as a Jew?

Peter [00:29:52]:

Well, the opposite would be if you're not chosen. Right. If somebody's chosen, then someone is not chosen. Now, that may say, oh, my gosh, how could you say that? Well, listen, there's a lot of beliefs that we have in the Christian faith that are biblical, and they might not be popular. So then it's not my choice. It's not my belief. My belief is in the word of God. So I am not here to determine who is or who is not saved. Going a level deeper, I don't know who was chosen and who wasn't chosen. Maybe your life will change in five to ten years. I don't know. But clearly, if some people are chosen, some are not. And again, when people hear that, they might be a little offended by that. And I say, well, listen, it's God. He can do what he wants, and my job is just to simply obey.

Méli [00:30:44]:

Okay, so what is then the relationship between chosenness and witnessing or proselytizing?

Peter [00:30:54]:

Another good question. I guess the way I'll answer that is a buddy of mine. His name is Dan. He's Jewish. And I was in his wedding. He was in my wedding. We went to high school and college together, and we're still buddies after all these years. In one of my really dark times, he flew out from Pennsylvania to be with me for on my 50th birthday because no one else was else around. And yet Dan knows where I stand. I kind of have an idea where Dan stands. I don't push it on Dan, but Dan knows. So if he has questions for me, he could ask me. I still love him. He's a friend of mine, but it's out of my hands. I feel like I've done enough to where I've lived my life, and I've shared enough with him that he knows where I stand. Again, I'm not going to save anybody, nor is like a Robert going to save anybody. I don't have that power. I live my life the way I'm supposed to, to the best of my abilities, and then I model the Christian faith. Certainly I'm available to answer questions, but again, it's the Lord who is going to do it, and I never know which person he's going to open the door for me to share my faith with. I just have to be ready and available to share it.

Méli [00:32:01]:

Okay, fair enough. Let's go back to your storyline. So it took a year to really disentangle your mind from the cult. How long has it been since you felt you were really free from the cult?

Peter [00:32:19]:

About five years. So she left in January 2017. It was about a year around 2018. Yeah. That I was finally healthy to stand on my own two feet and defend my position as father to my kids.

Méli [00:32:32]:

You've spoken of one of the aspects of being in the cult is that Uncle Robert was really standing in the middle of your marriage and for all intents and purposes, supplanting your role as a husband and father, thankfully not physically or sexually, but in terms of a relationship and a role model. How has it been in these five years since you've really gotten clear of it in terms of readjusting of the family and reestablishing your place as a father?

Peter [00:33:06]:

Well, it's been a long journey. Clearly I was not able to reestablish my position as husband. That's gone. We unfortunately been divorced for almost three years, so the three youngest children do live with me full time. And it was very rocky when they came back to live with me because they had gone away for about a year and a half. But then the youngest one a month later said, I love you, and then the next one said, I love you. And I know they do. And one of them apologized. I said, well, for what? He said, I'm sorry for saying the awful things I said about you. And I said, I forgive you. I said, you were just listening to the adults in your life. They were telling you those things. And he nodded. And it's true. His Uncle Robert, his grandparents and mom were telling him, your dad's the devil, he's a sorcerer, he's a snake, satan, liar. What's a ten-year-old supposed to do? Argue with them, right?

Méli [00:33:57]:

Yeah. I know several people who have had awful contentious divorces with kids in the middle, and I have heard that doesn't matter what the religion is or no religion, that is unfortunately what happens and it's awful for the kids. So the three that are with you, how are they doing and how old are they?

Peter [00:34:20]:

Well, they're still teenagers or a pre-teen, so of course, every day there's issues. Right. So and so doesn't like me and, you know, I didn't have a good time in the track meet, et cetera, et cetera. Right. But they're 18, 15 and 12. And so in regards to their recovery from the undue mind control, they're doing great, like, they still love their mom, as they should. I try to be very clear and concise that your mom is a victim, just like we were, because of what Uncle Robert did to us. He did the same thing to her. So they still love their mom, they still see her on occasion, and the kids really understand now what they went through. So in that regard, they have been healed. Do they still have scars? Yeah, we all do, and they'll probably never go away.

Méli [00:35:02]:

Yeah, that's a long road of recovery. Let's turn back to the issue of your faith and your Christian life. You're back in a church. You mentioned at the top that you are again in a nondenominational church, is that correct?

Peter [00:35:20]:

Well, they would call themselves Christian Reform. It would have been a very Dutch Christian Reform. We live in a community that's very Dutch. We're not. But to me it feels nondenominational, but it is Christian Reform.

Méli [00:35:31]:

Okay, I've never heard that term. I don't know what Christian Reform means.

Peter [00:35:35]:

I don't know if I could give a good definition for it either. It's just a place where I feel like I'm being fed the gospel, the Bible, without any kind of undue, let's say, filter on it. And I believe that the people there that I'm fellowshipping with are true believers that are encouraging me in the faith. So it feels like a good home for me and my children.

Méli [00:35:56]:

And that is the important aspect. How does this church compare to the nondenominational church you were in pre-Paige.

Peter [00:36:08]:

Well, so pre-Paige. Growing up again would be very similar. I don't think I could even really point out any kind of big difference. And I should say that Paige and I for a year or two went to a Baptist church. Now, it wasn't Southern Baptist, so it didn't sound all that different. I for a time attended a Methodist church, so I've been in other different denominations, and I have seldom been there on a Sunday or any other, like, Bible study and thought, wow, because of this particular denomination, I need to leave. I don't agree. I've very seldom felt that way. And I'll add that even in my current church, let's say my belief on Eschatology, which is predators, I've talked with my pastor and we disagree, but we agree to disagree, and it's okay.

Méli [00:36:52]:

As a Jew, I look at Christianity with its panoply of denominations. I continue to struggle to understand what these differences are. The part that I care about is your experience. And what I'm hearing you say, Peter, is that as an experience, you have not sensed much of a difference in these different church environments. Is that correct?

Peter [00:37:21]:

That would be safe to say. There would be a few little doctrinal issues, like, again, eschatology I'm predators. Most people are not, but they're not going to kick me out of the church and say, you can't come. And that is what I would like to highlight was the biggest difference, because with Uncle Robert, you weren't allowed to disagree on anything. You had to agree, and he set all the rules on doctrine and belief, and you had to agree or else he would grind you down until you did. Versus the church I'm going to now and others, the idea of like in the Bible talks about iron sharpening iron. Okay, we disagree. Well, then learn to get along, learn to love the person. Anyway, let's talk about it, and maybe I'll see your way, maybe you'll see mine. But we can still fellowship together, right?

Méli [00:38:05]:

Yeah, amen to that. That is at the core of all of my work. So I'm always happy to hear that. And I would acknowledge also that that is not always such a simple thing to do. It can be simple to say, oh, we fellowship together, we talk it out, we have differences, we let it be. But to actually be in community with people whose beliefs or practice or points of view, politically or socially, are divergent can be very difficult.

Peter [00:38:41]:

Absolutely. And all of recorded history will point that out. I think for me, as I think about it, for everybody, no matter your faith, there's a point where going along to getting along, we might have a difference with our doctrine, et cetera, gets to a point where it's heresy, right. To where you would say, no, I disagree. You are completely with a different faith or a different page at this point. Okay. And it's like, well, how do you get to that point? You can still work within your faith. We can have disagreements, we can argue, we can debate. But at a certain point, you'll say, that's too far. That's a bridge too far. And now for me, that is heresy. We're talking about a different faith. I think we probably spend much of our lives wondering where that is.

Méli [00:39:22]:

Yeah. And it's quite like what you've said about the cult experience. You don't know where that line is until after you've crossed it. And I would say that that is the history of religion, right. New denominations, or for Muslims, they say sects, and Christians and Jews say denominations. There are so many because that process happened. They were in agreement, and then there was an opening, and it got to a breaking point and there was a split.

Peter [00:39:59]:

So, for instance, take what happened with me. For the Christian faith. The foundation is Jesus Christ, right? God in the flesh, comes to earth, dies for my sins. He is my savior. Right? That's the foundation. That's important line for me. Right. And all of these years, as I'm listening to Uncle Robert sitting at the feet of the Master, I'm thinking like, yeah, we're there. Well, now I look back and I realize that he tried to play gatekeeper to God. Like, you were not allowed the benefit of being saved by Jesus unless he said you were, unless you went through these certain hoops and did these certain things that he said you had to do, which is totally unbiblical and against the foundational principle in Christianity, which is it's a free gift. Well, Robert Booty made me pay for it.

Méli [00:40:45]:

Yeah, it's kind of a crazy timeline. You said you became born again at 13, so by the time you were in the cult, you'd already been saved. You were probably baptized as a child. Right. So really, you've done this a couple of times, and then you were considered not saved. So how do you see that now? Have you felt that you needed to become Born Again again?

Peter [00:41:14]:

Well, no. For a short time, when I was brainwashed, I did. I went through this process with Uncle Robert five times, because every time I would do it Paige, and he would doubt it. Oh, you were negotiating with God. You weren't sincere. See, you were a liar. You keep doing it wrong, on and on. It was miserable. Now, as I look back, I realized it was all fraudulent, unnecessary, and quite evil. And I used to be mainly jealous of people when they would give their testimony of how they came to know the Lord or were saved or surrendered their life to the Lord, whatever you want to call it, as a Christian. And it would be a dramatic moment, and my tears are flowing, and I was always kind of jealous of that because I didn't really have that. But now I look back and I see it's not necessary. It's my story. And this is the journey that the Lord has me on. And it just goes to show you that I'm not perfect. And my salvation story is not perfect. It simply points out rather clearly that I was in need of a perfect savior, and I have one, and he saved me. And my story is really messy and odd and bizarre, but in the end, it's victorious. And so the path to get there for my life has been torturous. It's been really odd, but I know I'm saved. I know it as sure as I know I'm sitting here talking to you.

Méli [00:42:33]:

How would you describe the role of faith in daily life at this point?

Peter [00:42:39]:

Well, it is the most important thing for me with what I have been through. I don't know how I could have gotten to this point without it. So it did get me through those dark moments. It still gets me through every day. I'm a single parent with three kids, a lot of challenges. So every day I'm praying, asking for patience and wisdom and energy to get through the day. But to answer the question more, let's say thoroughly, and to dig a little deeper, I'll go back to the first book that I wrote, the Blue Team, and the idea behind it was that we often are tempted to put our identity into what we do. So back then, I was a basketball player. You as maybe a podcaster or someone else as a singer, a songwriter, an actor, banker, butcher, baker. Right. Well, my identity is in Christ. I believe it's important to have our identity is in something greater than ourselves. Basketball is what I did. So right now, I write, I tell stories, but that's not my identity. My identity isn't in christ. What's the importance of that? It gives me the freedom to do what I love to do. And let's say I miss the game winning shot or I write a bad book. Whatever it is, life's not going to end. I can try again because my identity is in something greater than myself.

Méli [00:43:49]:

As we close, I just have two more questions I want to ask with the view of reflecting on this long experience of yours and kind of lessons learned. One of them is about the boundary line of control and submission. So when I was thinking earlier about this boundary line of control and submission and I'm saying this in the sense of you as a Christian believing really in your soul that Christ died for your sins and you are following God and God has a plan for you, all of that. The expression that came to mind was Reynold Niebuhr's Serenity Prayer, which all of the AA and related programs use. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. How does that ring for you now?

Peter [00:44:54]:

It's beautiful. But when I was under the spell of Uncle Robert and his undue mind control, statements like that, that are beautiful, that are true, that should be comforting, were not just like wonderful Bible verses that I would have read over the years and memorized because they really speak to me. So phrases like that, bible verses were difficult for me during that season of my life because I doubted everything and I felt like I was missing something. So like with that phrase or a verse, why does this not apply to my life? Why? Am I missing something? Which of course I look back now and realize I wasn't missing anything other than the fact that Uncle Robert was wrong and fraudulent and wicked and the one thing I was missing was I needed to kick him out of my life.

Méli [00:45:41]:

So he had too much control and you had submitted too much is what I'm hearing.

Peter [00:45:47]:

Precisely.

Méli [00:45:48]:

Another thing I was thinking about was where is the line between commitment to a community and a cult? So you're a member of a church, have been for a long time. I'm a member of a synagogue, have been for a long time. My membership is really important. That community is super important. And I am guessing that your church community is very important for you. Having had these two different experiences, how do you see the difference?

Peter [00:46:19]:

Great question. And as an author, I love to read. And I read a book recently called Uncultured by Daniella Young and just briefly, she grew up in a cult, was an awful cult, and then she joined the army. She escaped and joined the army and like her first day in at boot camp, she's wondering, did I just join another cult? And she explains in her book that, no, there's a difference between cult and a very strong culture, even if the culture might be dysfunctional, there's a difference. I loved her ability to explain that difference because I think oftentimes the word cult is bandied about a bit too much. I do sincerely believe I was in one. It was tiny. And I think, again, you don't know it when you're in it, but when you get out of it, it's really clear and you can have strong culture and not be in a cult. And for me, I guess, where the red flags come up, I tell people, hey, if you're thinking, how can I be on the lookout for someone who might be an occult? Do all of the long standing relationships with friends and family that they've been in touch with this person, either email or phone or in person, and all of a sudden they vanish. So they have left behind the greater community, and now they're only listening to one voice and one voice only. And that's the cult. That is the problem. Whereas in my church, if the pastor will leave, well, guess what? The leader of the church didn't leave. The leader of the church is Jesus. He's just the guy in the pulpit every Sunday. Right? That's the difference. I'm not led by any man. I'm led by God. And so if you're just listening to one person who is fallible, just like you and I are, there's the problem. That's where you get into a cult, and that is a problem.

Méli [00:48:09]:

So in closing, is there anything that we didn't touch on that's really important and you want to add?

Peter [00:48:16]:

There is. In my experience, there was no physical abuse. Paige and I were faithful in our marriage. There wasn't a lot of arguing. There wasn't a lot of the horrible things that when cults implode, you hear about the news, suicide, et cetera. We didn't have any of that. So for anybody who's listening or is thinking to himself, well, come on, you know, it's a free society. You can have odd thoughts. That's okay. The undue mind control that Uncle Robert exercised on adults, which then went unfiltered into children, is abuse of children living in a cult like situation like that, where that one person had that much emotional and mental control over little kids, that is emotional abuse. And don't ever think that because nobody committed suicide because there was not any sexual perversion, don't think that. It's not abuse. It was. And kids in that situation need to be rescued.

Méli [00:49:15]:

Important point. Thank you.

Peter [00:49:17]:

Thank you.

Méli [00:49:18]:

Okay, so as we close, how can people find your book?

Peter [00:49:25]:

You can find stop the Tall Man, Save the Tiger on Amazon. And I always tell people that block off some time because as soon as you start it, it's hard to put down.

Méli [00:49:35]:

Great. So I encourage everyone to buy a copy and read his book. Thank you so much, Peter, for being on my Living Our Beliefs podcast. This has really been a delightful conversation and I so appreciate your time.

Peter [00:49:50]:

Méli. I've enjoyed it very much. Thanks again for having me.

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Méli [00:49:56]:

Thank you for listening. If you'd like to get notified when new episodes are released, hit the subscribe button. Questions and comments are welcome and can be sent directly to info@talkingwithgodproject.org. A link is in the show. Notes transcripts are available a few weeks after airing. This podcast is an outgrowth of my Talking With God project. For more information about that research, including workshop and presentation options, go to my website, www.talkingwithgodproject.org. Thank you so much. Till next time. Bye.

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