[There are some pretty terrible stories associated with the ICC. For some reason, this one grabbed me especially. If you've ever been a parent or lost a child you loved, I suspect it will affect you the same way. -- Catherine Hampton, original REVEAL webmaster]
While a certain post http://forums.delphiforums.com/ICCdiscussion/messages?msg=18385.71 spread a rumor that Mark stretched the truth, Mark has emailed me and confirmed that he hasn't. -- Chris
I found this group [the Usenet newsgroup alt.religion.christian.boston-church] by accident - but I am very glad to see this forum. I believe the Boston Church is patently evil and I pray that the Lord will help it's members. Here is my story.
In 1987 I was a student at Georgia State University. In my world history class was a freshman girl named Jenny. She was pretty, witty, smart, and as I spent time with her I grew very attracted to her. Not long after that we began to date.
Jenny never wanted me to meet her parents. She said they belonged to a very strict church and that they wouldn't approve of her dating someone outside the church. Well, my grandmother is the same way about Catholicism, so I really didn't worry about it. I thought that Jenny was old enough to make up her own mind about who she went out with.
About three months went by and one night we went to the movies. I kissed her in the lobby. She looked up and past me and then turned white as a ghost. Hurredly, she told me that there were three girls from her church at the theater and begged me to please act like we were friends from school who were meeting a big group. I did as she asked, but the whole scene gave me the creeps and sent shivers up my spine.
On the way home we had a fight. I knew there was more to this church thing than she was telling me. It was all starting to add up. She explained that if her parents caught her they would throw her out of the house. I said that if they were that extreme she ought to leave anyway and that she could come and live with me if she wanted. It was the beginning of the end.
A couple of days later she gave me some really weird note about repenting of her sins and how we had to break up but that she still wanted to be friends. A couple of days after that we found out she was pregnant.
She wanted, no she DEMANDED an abortion. I was opposed to it due to personal convictions, but also because I KNEW that she was too! We had discussed it before. She was so terrified of this church that she was willing to kill the baby to keep them from finding out she was pregnant. I couldn't believe it. Well, without fully understanding the tiger I was about to grab by the tail - I gave her an ultimatum. I told her that she had to tell her parents she was pregnant or I would. I told her she was just upset, but that she shouldn't worry, everything would be all right. I told her I loved her and that I wanted to marry her and be a good loving husband and father to our child and that if her parents couldn't understand that I'd take her away and elope.
A couple of days went by. I told my parents -- they were shocked but supportive. We all piled into the car and went to see her father. I sat down, looked him straight in the eye, told him I was sorry about the situation and sorry to meet him under such bad circumstances, but that I loved his daughter and wanted to marry her. He said they had a lot to talk about and that they would contact me.
For three months they wouldn't even let Jenny speak to me. I would try to talk to her at school and she would refuse to speak to me like a wasn't even there. It was a nightmare. The full impact of just how brainwashed she was began to hit home. Her father told my dad they were going to pack her off to some baby farm in Florida to have the baby and give it up for adoption. There was no way I was going to stand for that.
My dad is a lawyer. Together we devized a plan to block the adoption. I wore a wire and went to a meeting with Jenny and the leader of her church. In the meeting I got all the evidence I needed to block the adoption and I got permission to meet with Jenny once a week as long as I was attending their church.
It was obvious from early on in this thing that I was dealing with a cult. I didn't care. I loved Jenny and besides, I'm one of those people who are pretty close to impossible to brainwash. I walked the walk and talked the talk for a few months while Jenny got rounder - all the while I was looking for even the tiniest little opening in her head that I could shine a little light into - but it never came.
Finally, I realized the situation was hopeless. She was never going to come around, and I could never REALLY join the church, they were just too crazy. I can't even pretend to be that crazy.
I could block the adoption and legally legitimate the child, but that would be terrible. I could never have gotten custody. In Georgia you can't claim a woman is unfit for being too religeous. Her family had vowed to move around the country if necessary to keep the baby away from it's evil father -- me. Plus, the baby would grow up as "Jenny's little sin" -- or I could allow the adoption. At least the child would go to two loving parents and there was always the possibility that they might leave the church. It was clear that if I wanted my son to have a father, I would have to agree not to be that father.
The day my son was born they didn't even call me. Luckily, the adoption agency did. When I got to the hospital her father wouldn't let me see the baby and wouldn't even point out which one he was in the nursery. Finally, late that night the nurses took pity on me and showed him to me when nobody was around. All I could do was stand at the window and cry.
Since the church doesn't have it's own agency, they used a Lutheran agency. These were real christians. They let me see the baby several times in spite of the other church. Still, I adamantly refused to sign the papers without meeting the family, anonymously of course. They were good people (if you look past the brainwashing) and they promised to write through the agency in Cincinnatti every year and send a picture. They quit writing after the first year.
I actually handed my son to those people. It was like ripping off my arm. It was an emotional and spiritual torture like you can't even imagine. I would have fought chain saws to keep him - I loved him that much. Any so called church that would take a child away from his father is evil - pure unadulterated evil.
****IF THOSE PEOPLE ARE CHRISTIANS THEN I DON'T WANT TO BE ONE!****
He is seven now -- I think about him all the time. I hope and pray that he is okay. He's in God's hands no matter what.
I've had a very difficult time spiritually since then. But the Lord has helped me. He sent me a true love -- her name is Jill and we married and now we have a little girl named Linley. He has blessed us with great careers, financial success, a wonderful home, and in general -- a great life together. For years I couldn't go near a church without wanting to puke, but now I have been led through Jill and her family to a Baptist church where I am comfortable.
I pray that the Lord will help those people. I pray that he will look out for Jenny and help her to deal with what she's done and if the fog ever lifts from her eyes I hope the Lord will help her to deal with what those people did to her. They made her give away her own child - and the ONLY reson for it was religeous intolerance. Both her parents and mine were quite well off and could easily have helped us to care for the baby until we were older. If it weren't for the church the baby could have stayed with one of us and the other could have - and would have been closely involved in his life.
Someday I hope I hear from him. I hope that I get the chance to tell him how hard I fought for him -- I did all I could. I hope one day he'll forgive me for letting those people take him and forgive his mother for giving him up when she didn't have to. I hope someday I'll just get the chance to see him again.
Good job people. I hope your efforts here will help in your fight against this evil. I probably won't hang around here much, it's too painful to think about a lot so I don't think I'll put myself through it all the time. I wish you the best of luck and I will visit here from time to time.
Mark Davis <mark.home@dataproductions.com>
©1995 by Mark Davis. All rights reserved.