Jo Ann's Story Part 1

This blog is for the silenced, the marginalized, and the victims of the many types of abuse that the leadership and members of Liberty Church in O'Fallon Missouri have inflicted on their members and any who opposed their love for control. These are the stories of the witnesses:

*Jo Ann's husband, Denis, got his doctorate from an accredited university. David Vaughan and Mike Bond both received their "doctorates" from the same non-accredited school. Their credentials are just as authentic as any religious doctorate you can purchase online. They use their "doctorates" to insinuate status and knowledge, but would not be accepted by most organizations.

Jo Ann's Story Part 1

"-A Foreword:

When I was 19 years old, I was raped by a high school acquaintance.  Earlier that evening, my then boyfriend of a year, had asked to not see me anymore.  My heart was broken, but I chose to move forward believing in the best.  I went out that night, and was approached by my perpetrator, being told that he understood why the man I loved no longer wanted to see me.  I was vulnerable.  I agreed to leave the party to hear why this could be.  It was January, January 9^th, 1980 to be exact.  He told me to get into his car, and he would turn the heat on.  The next thing I knew, he was driving, and I was captive.  We ended up 18 miles from the party, alone. He threatened to kill me, as he raped me.  I managed to get out of the car, and in the dark of the night, hid from his headlights, and found my way to a friend’s home, over 4 miles away.  After a week of not telling anyone but my friend, I told my parents what had happened.  I was frightened for my life.  My father called the police, and before I knew it, I was pressing charges, and was knee deep in the legal system.  After waiting a year and a half, with three postponements on the trial date, the trial was held.  It lasted two days.  My perpetrator showed up in a baby blue polyester suit, bouncing his newly born (out of wedlock) boy on his knee.  The jury found him innocent, based on the evidence that I got into the car with him willingly.  It was devastating.  My community looked at me differently.  By the action of the jury, I was a liar.  He won.  He grew power.  The story didn’t end here.  Five years later, he killed the assistant manager of the restaurant that he worked at, to hide the burglary of $3000.00.  He took him to the community park, undressed him, slit his throat and dumped him in a lake.  I have always felt like the blood of Kevin Miller, the assistant manager, is on my hands, for not speaking up sooner, and creating clear evidence to commit a guilty decision by the jury at the rape trial.  My perpetrator is now serving a life sentence in the Kentucky Penitentiary.   But one life too late, and that’s why I speak today.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”  Charles Dickens

This is the only way I can describe my ten years at Liberty.  And with this statement I shed a veil over why others choose to stay there.  The same reason I chose to stay for so long, dragging my children through the teachings.  Because you become blinded by “the best of times.”

My story is filled with many small moments that point to the bigger picture.  I call these ‘red flags’ and they appeared slowly and scattered at first, where very little attention was given to them. Collectively, they are symptomatic of a leader who commands control, to the level described in the article, Dangerous Cult Leaders (https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/spycatcher/201208/dangerous-cult-leaders), written by Joe Navarro, MA.  (https://www.psychologytoday.com/experts/joe-navarro-ma).  According to this list, David J. Vaughan meets well over 30 of 50 of the criteria sited.  

We joined Liberty about a year after the church had formed as fairly new Christians.  Upon our first visit, David J. Vaughan was drawn toward my husband, who had a PhD in Medical BioChemistry.  He treated him with high esteem, and we found our families quickly spending time together.  Our children became friends.  My husband was flattered by the attention and charisma of David and soon became an avid friend and follower of DJV.  Clearly, the attraction was due to my husband’s higher education.  No doubt in my mind, my husband offered status by association to the then Mr. Vaughan.  This newly formed friendship, with time, brought us close, if not at times into the inner circle of the Liberty Leadership.

Liberty Christian Church offered a fresh, spontaneous, bold, and very family friendly and homeschooling friendly climate.   We were introduced to the concept of courtship, and thus began the father/child workshops on this method of ‘protecting our children’s hearts’.  We were taught the value of teaching a Biblical Worldview and the value of children and large families, and the importance of male leadership within the family.  It was at Liberty that we expanded our family from two children to five children, with great celebration and community of love from the congregation.  We were extremely active with the church, receiving their acceptance of us into their inner circle, even vacationing with David and Diane Vaughan on two separate occasions.  We loved everything about Liberty.  

The first rite of passage that I remember was being invited by Diane Vaughan to share my testimony at the women’s retreat.  This request, along with my husband’s newly formed friendship with DJV, played straight into my ego.  I obviously had learned and gained wisdom that would be a benefit to this fabulous group of ladies.  I remembered my mantra was to be transparent so I shared a lot.  In hindsight, this ‘sharing’ offered a platform for the Vaughan’s to have insight into me, my family, and my relationship with my husband.  I spent 10 years watching as every new woman in the congregation was asked to participate in this open ‘sharing’.

In the early years, there were comments made toward my husband, by DJV and another deacon, to suggest that my husband should be made a deacon.  Nothing ever became of it, but it registered in my mind as a strange comment.   The congregation voted for the deacons of the church.  I’m not sure who counted the votes, but I was amazed how most of the men who made the grade were ‘yes’ men to David."

The concept of a learning institution to support homeschooling families teach the high school curriculum courses was birthed during my husband’s friendship with David Vaughan, thus Liberty Classical School was created.  It is currently being referred to as Liberty Classical Center.  My husband was on the founding Board, and taught the higher science courses, Biology and Chemistry.  During the beginning years, David spoke of a University in O’Fallon that followed the model of New Saint Andrews College, founded by Doug Wilson.  He had grand ideas of creating an academic legacy.  My husband served on the LCS board for approximately 7 years.  

Our personal relationship with the Vaughan family allowed us to glimpse into David’s world outside of the Church pulpit.   Our oldest daughters were good friends, our next oldest grew up together catching lizards, frogs, and exploring the woods, Diane and I had children within three months of each other. Our lives were intertwined.  We adored David Vaughan and his family.  We drank the Kool-Aid, and as a result often declared our allegiance to him in the face of adversity.  He would challenge, specifically me, on my obedience to his teachings.  If he felt not respected, he would look at me, as though I was a child being punished by my parent.  I would quickly acquiesce, so as to keep myself in his favor.  When we would go out to dinner with David, he would often find fault with his dinner and send it back.  This is a small point, except it happened regularly, and was a indicator of his need to exercise his sense of empowerment, expecting to be treated special at all times. 

His preaching style and moments leading worship presented red flags.  Specifically, when he led worship, he would demand everyone to raise his or her hands to the Lord, ridiculing us if we chose not to do so.  It very much felt like we were being called to obey David Vaughan, not to freely worship the Lord.  It felt controlling, and as though David required it to fortify the wonderful job he did in leading the worship.  He further did gestures during his preaching, such as saying, “Can I get an AMEN?” , “Say ‘YES’” or “Are you listening?” to command reaction and attention from the congregation.  By this simple act, he got the congregation to agree to the point he was preaching about, before they were able to fully process the direction of the message.  Another subtle characteristic of DJV, was his manner of preaching from the pulpit on topics that the congregation was showing disobedience.  I remember joking that one particular sermon was designed for me, as it put me in my place.  The interesting point to this strategy, is that the entire room was in sync, agreeing with the valid points, as David led them with his gestures of “Can I get an AMEN?”. It was a powerful way to keep the sheep in line. Another powerful way to keep the sheep believing in you, is to say the right thing before the congregation.  Unfortunately, that did not keep the wrong thing from happening in private.  It did keep us covering up for David, because we simply did not know what we did not know."

Do you have a story to tell? Has Liberty Church hurt you? Email your story to petertkintz@gmail.com and I will have it posted! 

Hollie's Story Continued

This blog is for the silenced, the marginalized, and the victims of the many types of abuse that the leadership and members of Liberty Church in O'Fallon Missouri have inflicted on their members and any who opposed their love for control. These are the stories of the witnesses:

*I took a brief break from posting stories because of all of the people who have come to me asking questions and telling me their stories about how Liberty has hurt them. NONE of the leadership or those who are in sin have contacted any of us. Here is Hollie's recap of our protest. I also had to allow some people more time to write their stories since they were so difficult for them to write. The stories of the abuse continue now.

Hollie's Story Continued

"It's been ??? days since I decided to picket Liberty Church to warn the community that it was unsafe and that pastor was spiritually abusive--the same pastor who sat with my dad while my mom lay dying 5 years earlier almost to the day.  

I barely slept the night before the demonstration, 4 hours, maybe 3.  Anything below 5 and you kind of stop counting.  Just after sunrise Sunday morning we grabbed McDs on our way out of town and started on the 2-hour trek to O’Fallon with the 4 kids quietly zoning out.  Before we got to the church, Jon stopped at QT.  He got some kind of cinnamon donut thing and offered me some.  The smell of the truck from the donut made my bacon, egg and cheese biscuit come back up, and at that moment I regretted that I had eaten anything at all.  

Jared’s big smile greeted us in the parking lot near our demonstration site.  His positive energy diffused my sickness, at least temporarily, lol.  Though I had been briefed on our legal rights, having a possible run-in with Liberty’s head of security (a retired? north county police officer) still made my knees buckle.  Those first few steps toward the sidewalk with my sign in hand felt about as steady as my first steps to the bathroom after giving birth.  

God spared me lingering anguish, for the two people I was absolutely avoiding the most—scary cop and the pastor—drove by as I was just getting to the intersection.  I smiled and waved mechanically.  Every voice save one screamed in my head a battery of things: “What are you doing??”  “This is insane!” “You’re picketing a church—YOUR old church.”  “There must be a special place in hell for people who picket churches.”  “Just stop right now.  Call this whole thing off before any more people see you.”

The quietest voice said to take a deep breath.  “I know everything inside of you feels backward right now.  Sometimes it does Hollie.”  I took another deep breath and pulled myself up.  I clutched my sign with both hands.  The shaking was almost visible.  I quickly realized it bothered me less if one hand was waving, so I waved like crazy.  And smiled.  

Confusion or smiles and waves is what most of my old church gave me as they turned in.  This wasn’t so bad.  We had great exposure to a busy overpass and several in the community stopped to ask what was going on.  I handed them my 4-page explanation.  

As we stood on the sidewalk, people began telling their stories.  “Liberty protected my abuser” was the sign two older women held.  And as they spoke, it was clear they had processed the abuse they experienced at Liberty and not only forgiven their abusers but loved their current non-abusive churches.  Yet they stood just as resolutely as those of us whose abuse was still fresh and raw.  

You can love someone in Christ and still call for him to step down.  You can forgive your abuser and still warn those who will come into contact with him.  This is a loving thing to do.  These women weren’t bitter or out for vengeance.  They were protecting others.  Had they spoken up louder when they went through it themselves, perhaps more people would’ve been spared the devastation David’s abuse caused since them.  It was a solidifying moment for me."

Do you have a story to tell? Has Liberty Church hurt you? Email your story to petertkintz@gmail.com and I will have it posted! 

Mona's Story Part 3

This blog is for the silenced, the marginalized, and the victims of the many types of abuse that the leadership and members of Liberty Church in O'Fallon Missouri have inflicted on their members and any who opposed their love for control. These are the stories of the witnesses:

Mona's Story Part 3

"When I’ve researched abusive churches, one common idea presented is that the leadership did not set out to be abusive. I believe that to be the case with Liberty. I think David Vaughan and the people around him want(ed) to glorify God. I hope, with the history I’ve provided in parts one and two, show that David Vaughan – like everyone else – is gifted and flawed. He is good intentioned but reluctant to accept constructive criticism, an inspirational speaker and accomplished writer, but lacks training in counseling. He can be empathetic, but he can also be narcissistic.

I also think that the abuses that have happened at Liberty are not just because of one person. The structure of the church and theological and cultural influences have contributed as well. The strong patriarchal beliefs that developed over time became misogyny. The lack of oversight has allowed abuses to go unchecked.

To continue my story, the day that David was confronted at Christ Community Church was pretty much the end of that church. CCC did hold services for months afterwards, but dwindled in size and finally closed their doors. Those of us who sided with David met together at people’s homes and then in a rented facility. We became Liberty Christian Church. One thing that many of us felt was important in the church structure was to have a lead pastor as opposed to a plurality of elders and that was written into the bylaws.

Those early days were exhilarating. To me it seemed like all things spiritual took on a crystal clarity. We were united in our stance against the folks who had (seemingly) falsely accused David. We were obviously on the right side. Our time of worship was passionate and sweet. The music was amazing. The sermons were powerful. Many people shared scriptures and insights in the services. It was a fresh start and we were going to really get it right this time.

I became more extreme in my beliefs. Rah rah for homeschooling, large families, patriarchy, purity, bible memorization, conservative values, etc.

Early on, David asked me to be the secretary. By then we had a church treasurer, Dave Wilson. At the time Dave had a computer business and we were purchasing a computer from him. When I was at his shop, I asked him about the payment structure for my secretary position and he was completely shocked as he did not know anything about me being the church secretary. Awkward. Again. I guess it worked out because I was the office administrator at Liberty for seven years. I worked as an independent contractor.

At the same time, John and I were growing further apart. He had health issues and he was emotionally and verbally abusive. He would compare me to other women in the church asking why I didn’t keep as clean of a house as so and so. He’d often refuse to eat the meals I prepared if they weren’t to his liking. On the rare occasions that we were intimate he looked at me with disgust and loathing. He complained about our lack of sex (to me and to others in the church) but rarely showed me any kindness and almost never attempted to initiate anything. We fought often, never seeming to resolve anything. It was as if we pulled argument #37 out of the card file to replay. Then argument #24, etc. He was became increasingly harsh with our children and I was pushing back (code phrase: being unsubmissive).

John was miserable with himself and finally confessed to being unfaithful to me. It had gone on while I was pregnant with Jimmy.

I reluctantly share these very personal details because I feel they are important in this story. I am a private person so this is hard. Also, as much as John and I had our differences, I feel that his side should also be heard. It would be great if he would share his story as well. It takes two to build a good marriage and it takes two to destroy it. I was far from perfect.

When John confessed I was devastated. He actually confessed to Marty Kinsey first. Marty brought in his wife, Tami, and David and Diane and they arranged for childcare for our kids so John could privately tell me. This was on a Saturday when I had “Sunday” school duty at church that night. It was horrible.

So John met with David and other men in the church for counseling and prayer. David and I had one “session” when we discussed this when I picked him up and drove him out to our place to meet with John. I expressed my outrage and he seemed surprised by my anger but also said it was healthy. After that, only Diane met with me. I expected us to have at least some joint sessions. I expected we would go through what had led up to the affair. I thought we would discuss tools to have healthy and productive conflict resolution. None of that ever happened. I don’t know what John’s sessions were like or what they discussed. I know that Diane had me read books on wifely submission and later asked me to teach about it at a woman’s conference. I also remember that I told her that now I had my biblical “out” of the marriage. According to Jesus, I had a legit reason to leave the marriage and I really really wanted to. But Diane put a damper on that thought by saying, “Have you talked to David about that?” The very strong implication was that I should stay in the marriage and I never did talk to David about it.

While going through this I did not talk to my family or other church members about the affair. I don’t think anyone told me I couldn’t talk, but we had had some very strong anti-gossip sermons and I felt I would be going against the leadership if I did. There were those who were concerned and pressed me for details, but I held firm. John’s mother finally guessed it and asked me directly and I told her it was true. Wow was John ever angry with me for letting that out – but his actions were actually what told her. Having to attempt process my pain without being able to talk about it was awful. I felt so wretched and alone and isolated.

So I sort of shoved the problems from my mind and went on with my life. I tried to forgive him. I think in time I did. It was a mistake and he was truly sorry. We did grow closer again for a while but the affair was always between us. John’s health problems got worse and he went on full time disability and was always at home. He was bitter and angry and depressed and on lots of painkillers and became very difficult to be around. I started taking my kids with me when I worked at Liberty so that they could be away from him. If I didn’t have them with me, I would come home to complaints about how they disrespected John and how he was disciplining them for it. If I questioned or wanted to hear their side of the story he would become enraged because I wasn’t submitting to him.

John and I went to the church for counseling instead of going to professionals because we didn’t want to seek ungodly secular counseling. From my past experience with “counseling” I had an unwavering trust in David to fix things. I share responsibility in the fact that going to the church only – and not seeking impartial professional counseling – contributed to the demise of our marriage.

Our house had some leaks and we found out we needed to replace the roof – an expense that we couldn’t afford. I think Liberty paid for tiles and a bunch of men from Liberty came out and replaced our roof. That was kind and generous.

While I was the Office Administrator at Liberty, I sometimes had occasion to observe things. One time I was asked to photocopy a large amount of material on wifely submission from Bill Gothard. In the late 70s I had attended one of his Basic Youth Conflicts seminars and always had an uneasy feeling about his teachings. He extracted “life principles” from the scriptures and was pretty dogmatic that they must be followed. Very legalistic and repressive. In recent years Gothard has had sexual harassment allegations filed against him. Google him if you are interested. I was actually pretty surprised we were using Gothard materials – to me they seemed to go beyond the bible and I thought David Vaughan had more sense than that. I was also bothered that I was asked to photocopy copyrighted material. These materials were for the wife of an abusive alcoholic husband. I hope she will one day share her story.

Liberty decided to start an adjunct to homeschooling for high school aged students. Thus Liberty Classical School was born. I had a lot of thoughts and ideas about this at the beginning which I had emailed to David Vaughan. So he asked me to serve on the board for the school. I accepted. As a board, we sometimes met in area restaurants as we ordered a meal. I observed David’s old flirtatiousness with the waitresses.

During one of our board meetings, David told me they needed to find a man to replace me on the board as a woman shouldn’t be serving on the school board. I think I resigned soon after that meeting.

My son Jimmy was on a little league baseball team with some church members’ kids. David’s son, Ethan, was one of them. One of the mothers of a teammate was an attractive, curvy, long-legged woman who usually wore very short shorts. When David was there without Diane, he and this woman had long conversations, went to the concession stand together, sat on the bleachers together. When Diane was with David, he barely acknowledged this woman. I make no accusation here, I am just reporting what I observed. No embracing. I never heard the conversations. It just felt a little off and didn’t seem an entirely appropriate example to be set by a pastor in a church where purity was preached.

I had a close relationship with the wife of one of the families in the church. Her husband had a wandering eye and also beat her. When they met with Liberty leadership, she was told she just needed to stop provoking her husband. I hope she will share her story.

John and I served on the worship team. He played bass and I played violin and sang. I loved the music there. Contemporary and well done. It seemed that many were blessed by it. But we did have issues. One thing is that people often told me they could not hear my violin or my singing. I am self-absorbed enough for that to have bothered me. I was a busy person. I had better things to do than put in the time and expense and not be heard. We knew that sometimes the sound techs deliberately turned us down or off or ignored us.

The situation came to a head one evening when I was playing my new electric violin. I felt like the holy spirit was playing through me that evening and an old friend was visiting and I hoped she was touched. But when I asked her she just told me she couldn’t hear me. John and I decided to talk to the worship team leadership and the meeting quickly turned ugly. One of the members told John they just liked him there with them even if he couldn’t be heard. John got mad and was told he was off the worship team. He then got up to leave, saying to me, “Come on Mona, we’re done.” I knew, from our personal conversations, that there were things he really wanted expressed, and I knew he didn’t REALLY mean for me to leave the meeting. So I stayed, hoping to reason with them, but they refused to listen and I was told I needed to obey my husband. As we left, John muttered to me that sometimes Liberty took the submission stuff too far.

The next day I got an email telling me that since John was no longer on the worship team that I was no longer on the team as well.

John quit going soon after that. I held on for a while. It was hard. Especially when one of the wives from one of the newer families asked me if I were married. The way she said it, it seemed she was bothered to see a seemingly single mother serving in the church as the secretary.

Just like at CCC, when people left it was like they had never been there. But this time, since our kids were in various things together – like homeschool choir or classes at the Pillar – I kept a little better in contact. And I heard stories. Hopefully some of those people will share their stories.

I knew when they did church discipline on Linda Kintz that it was completely bogus. What a whack mess of things. How far were they going to take this patriarchy bs?

I received so many calls from in the church office from folks trying to reach David repeatedly. A lot of complaints they wanted addressed. I always brought them up to David, and I think he grew weary of me being the messenger. He usually wanted everything to be discussed with the men of the church, but when I followed up it usually hadn’t been discussed and the calls often remained unanswered. I never knew when David might be in the office and he even went out of town without letting me know. A lot of my calls and emails to him were also unanswered.

I gradually stopped going to Liberty and began to half-heartedly look for a new church. I still worked there and gave violin lessons there. It was still a place I could bring my kids while I worked. But the joy was gone for me.

One day, David set up a time for me to meet with him later in the week. It was an unusual request and I felt pretty apprehensive. When I went to his office he was there with the interim (?) assistant pastor, David Volz. I had a little pocket pc and I recorded the meeting. They told me they were letting me go. The rationale was that they wanted to groom Mike Bond as a pastor and could not afford to have an office admin and a pastor intern on staff so they were firing me. Mike would take over as office administrator while he studied and trained to be a pastor. David told me that they couldn’t keep me because I was a woman and a woman can’t be a pastor. They wanted me to stay on for another month to finish a policy manual project I had been working on, but I packed up my office the next day and was out of there. David told me the women of the church wanted to hold a luncheon in my honor. I told him it was a nice gesture but no thanks. This was in the spring of 2003.

Now I was unemployed with a disabled husband. I had to find another job and I knew finding a job with the flexibility I had enjoyed at Liberty was nearly impossible. And the exit from Liberty was not swift and clean. John left first. Then I did. But my kids were still in Liberty Classical School and Teens For Christ. For a few years they continued to go to camp at El Shaddai Ranch. At these camps Kim Ward told my daughter Mary not to hug her brother Matthew. Diane Vaughan discouraged the younger girls from holding hands or linking arms as that behavior would lead to lesbianism. I already didn’t agree with making girls wear huge dark tee shirts when they swam as I felt it was ridiculous and added extra weight, making swimming harder.

I was appalled that my daughters were rebuked for just being who they were – girls. That they were shamed for being kind and affectionate with each other.

I feel I’m beginning to ramble. Many many “little” things do add up. As the years wore on I became increasingly agnostic. And full disclosure here, I was – after 11 years of no sex – eventually unfaithful to John. I reconnected with my highschool sweetheart, Dan, to whom I had once been engaged. After the first episode, I immediately went to a lawyer and filed for divorce. I had tried to leave John about five years prior to this – going so far as to put a deposit down on an apartment – but backed out when his mother passed away. I just couldn’t do it to him when he was already in so much pain. We had been living very separate lives for years. Dan and I have now been married nearly 5 years and are very happy. Dan loves me for who I am and admires that I am strong and make up my own mind on things. Wow. I love him so much.

I also drifted away from church – even though I’ve continued to work for churches. I’m sort of an agnostic Christian now. I take the bible seriously but not necessarily literally and I’m pretty unsure about who or what God is – although I still believe there is a god. I honestly don’t have a grudge anymore, but I feel the practices at Liberty are harmful to families and that to not speak out would be to silently give assent to them. I wish everyone there the best. I hope everyone involved can find healing and wholeness.

Thanks for reading and considering my story."

Do you have a story to tell? Has Liberty Church hurt you? Email your story to petertkintz@gmail.com and I will have it posted! 

Mona's Story Part 2

This blog is for the silenced, the marginalized, and the victims of the many types of abuse that the leadership and members of Liberty Church in O'Fallon Missouri have inflicted on their members and any who opposed their love for control. These are the stories of the witnesses:

Mona's Story Part 2

"So after John and I got married we continued to attend North County Community Church for a couple of years. My oldest son, Matthew, was born while we were members there. During that time David Vaughan went on their paid staff part time (as an elder? I don’t remember his title) and occasionally preached. At the time he preached Jesus. Inspiring sermons. Somewhere I still have notes from his sermons, filled with great quotes. I remember he wanted to be in full time ministry and once from the pulpit he said, “Give me 40 hours and I’ll give you Chuck Swindall.” (Swindall was a popular Christian author at the time.)

John and I struggled in our marriage from the start. We were not a good match. I went through a dark time and did some things that I’m really ashamed of. I confessed and sought counseling from David Vaughan. We only had a couple of sessions and although we did not take steps that would be taken in professional therapy, I truly repented of my behavior and never got involved in those things again. David kept what I had done confidential and I am grateful for that.

The drive from O’Fallon, where we were living, to Berkeley where the church was, became an issue. We found a church closer to home in St Peters that we liked and went there for a while. However, the pastor retired and several of our friends left and it just didn’t seem like the same church anymore. And then we found out that North County Community Church was planting a church in St Peters: Christ Community Church, pastored by David Vaughan and Guy Sargent. One thing that was important in the church structure of CCC was the concept of a plurality of elders (pastor = elder in their belief system) to provide checks and balances – and to share the work load. So David and Guy were co-pastors. But David had an office in the building and Guy did not. David preached most of the time. David was full time, while Guy had a different job. It FELT like David was the Senior or Lead Pastor. I think most people viewed him that way. There were also men from the Moriah days as deacons and the music leader.

John and I quickly joined CCC and the music team. By this time, my second child, Mary had been born. The first day we attended, I ran into an old friend (my dad had baptized him years before) who wanted me to meet someone, the pastor. Something about the way he said it to me indicated that there was this deep admiration and that he had a special relationship with David. Yes, I read a lot into it, but still feel I discerned it correctly. I had seen this before and would see it again. People, including and especially me, often idolized David.

We loved CCC: the people, the preaching, the music. Mindy and Jimmy (child 3 & 4) were both born while we were there. We became friends with the Cummings, the Fisters, the Feils, the Wilsons, the Jaegers, the Kinseys, the Wards, the Kotyks and many others that became a part of Liberty Church later on. We reunited with many old friends from the Moriah days as well. When we went to the leadership with a huge financial crisis, they gave us a substantial sum of money to help.

After being there a few years we started noticing people leaving but no one said anything. It was like Cowslip’s Warren in Watership Down. You just didn’t talk about it – like they had never existed in the first place. It felt weird. I also began to notice that people were feeling let down by the actions of David Vaughan. Sometimes it just seemed their expectations were so high that they were bound to be disappointed. David did not necessarily go to the hospital if you were ill. That went so against the grain of the expectations of a pastor to many. I found myself defending his (lack of) actions to family and friends.

We largely had a 20-30 something demographic and most of us started homeschooling around the same time. There are a lot of great things about homeschooling, but there were/are also some dogmatic – even cultish – things in the movement as well. There is a culture, a belief system, that came along with those of us that homeschool(ed): large families (Quiverfull Movement), a distrust/fear) of the state (public schools and child protective services especially), patriarchy (even though some major influences were women), homesteading, denim jumpers, women with long hair, family business, living off the grid, food co-ops, courtship rather than dating, etc. These things influenced CCC even if they weren’t all fully embraced. I was the leader of the CCC homeschoolers.

David’s sermons became more stern. More reconstructionist. He preached some pro-life sermons which some felt were political and not appropriate. David also began to focus more on writing. He was working on his first book, Give Me Liberty, about Patrick Henry. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but I guess a philosophical divide was developing. There seemed to be an increasing emphasis on authority and hierarchy in the church. What I was aware of was that people were hurting and feeling like their needs were unmet. I remember in my devotion time, being struck by the passage from Ezekial 34 about false shepherds and feeling like it described CCC to chilling perfection.

So, one Sunday I was there, working in the nursery. John had stayed home. I had my baby, Jimmy, with me. The nursery shift was VERY long. Finally, one of the teen girls in the church came to relieve me so that I could be in the service and know what was going on. One of the deacons (maybe an elder by then, not sure) was behind the pulpit moderating a conversation. David was standing up in the front row talking about how they were threatening his career and ability to provide for his family. People were shouting out accusations and defenses. I remember Todd Jaeger yelling, “Let’s get to the part where we can the Pastor.”

There were quite a few things shared that indicated that David had a pattern of being manipulative, dishonest and not respectful of the process when attempting to get things done. The leadership wanted David to have some counseling. They said they were not trying to fire him, just to help him.

At the time, being mostly unaware of what they were talking about, I felt like they were attacking David with petty and trumped up issues. How dare they attack God’s anointed! They said there was a pattern that we needed to see. I wrote them a stinging letter defending David and calling them out for not strictly following the Matthew 18 process. (I’ve since learned that Mt 18 is not the one size fits all solution for everything.) John and I talked to David and Diane, but we really didn’t try to hear the “other side” – some of whom were our closest friends. I guess we didn’t want to be confused with the facts. So we certainly didn’t follow Matthew 18! In fact, I did some impassioned pleading with people that were on the fence and at least a couple of families ended up and Liberty that were initially very unsure of the right course to take.

I wish that I had heeded that pattern the CCC leadership alluded to. A pattern that went unchecked and has now contributed to many broken relationships. I regret that I never made an attempt to listen impartially to everyone involved. I had to compartmentalize the fact that I knew there were deep problems into separate recesses of my mind from my loyalty and unquestioning following of DJV. Something I’ve noticed is that most of DJV’s older friends (except John & I) did not continue the journey with him to Liberty Church.

Many years later, I apologized to several of these people. And for anyone else that I’ve harmed but not asked forgiveness, please know that I am deeply sorry and ask your forgiveness now."

Do you have a story to tell? Has Liberty Church hurt you? Email your story to petertkintz@gmail.com and I will have it posted! 

Mona's Story Part 1

This blog is for the silenced, the marginalized, and the victims of the many types of abuse that the leadership and members of Liberty Church in O'Fallon Missouri have inflicted on their members and any who opposed their love for control. These are the stories of the witnesses:

Mona's Story Part 1

"So, my story will be in pieces. It's long because I've known DJV since 1978 when I was 19 and he was in his mid 20s. We met at a staff Christmas party. I worked for Zondervan Family Bookstore in Chesterfield Mall and he worked for the same bookstore in Jamestown Mall. David was clean shaven at the time and sort of looked like Charles Nelson Rielly. I was put off a bit because David seemed really nosey - asking me a lot of questions about what I believed. But we eventually became friends and even dated in a casual platonic way. I actually developed a huge crush on him but that never worked out. David was leading a bible study group called Moriah which I started attending. I loved the close-knit group. I loved David's teaching. I loved playing violin in the group. I loved the fellowship after the study at Panterra's Pizza. So it was a natural move to begin attending North County Community Church where David led worship and where many Moriah members attended.
There seemed to be an underlying legalism (Florida Bible College influence in the leadership) at North County that made me uncomfortable, but I was young and loved the people and didn’t think it was a big deal. Because there also seemed to be an openness to differing views. For some of that time David and I were occasionally casually dating. (To give you a better idea – we went to dinner and sometimes movies together. We never so much as kissed or held hands.) David suggested that we have dinner with his brother and sister-in-law to which I agreed. A few weeks went by and we talked about it a few times. So, at church, I brought it up with Paula (DJV’s sister in law), asking what she would like me to bring to the dinner. She was polite, but sort of taken aback as she had not heard about this plan. I had actually thought it was their idea rather than David’s. Awkward. And similar kinds of things happened again at Liberty. David also rarely sat through an entire sermon. He’d lead the music, sit down in congregation and then usually disappear until the end. David was fairly flirty with the girls. Always with waitresses (even later in his Liberty days). Not sexually suggestive. Just acting like there was a special connection going on. He had a way of making a person feel special. Men and women. And I think they even felt like they had a special, exclusive sort of relationship with him. Like most pastors I know, David has charm and charisma. These are gifts to be used carefully. I met the man who was to become my first husband and North County – John Maynard. John had recently left a very legalistic bible church and I was working my way through the influences of some cultish charismatic churches. John was handsome, an awesome bassist and looked a bit like DJV. I took note! We started dating and soon became engaged. We found people split on the idea of our engagement. Some of our friends felt we were jumping into things too soon and urged us to be cautious and patient. My boss at Zondervan was one who was concerned. Others were simply very happy for us and that included my parents and John’s parents and David Vaughan. (I suspect David was a bit relieved that I was no longer mooning after him.) However, when we asked the pastor at North County to officiate our wedding, he wouldn’t agree with the date we set, because he also thought it was too soon and that we needed a series of counseling appointments. We found another pastor who wasn’t quite as rigid and were married after a three month engagement. Two things I remember during this engagement time. One was at a worship team rehearsal when a church member stopped by and was talking to me during a break. He was telling me that marriage is hard and not something to jump into. Before I could even respond, David came from behind me, grabbed my arm and pulled me (gently but firmly) away from this church member, whispering in my ear: “Leave the presence of a fool.” The second was a Moriah camping trip over the July 4 weekend in 1985. I gave a ride to Jim Farmer who asked me to talk to the sisters about their swimwear – stating that when girls get cold sometimes their nipples show though their suit and that causes the brothers to stumble. I was pretty embarrassed by the conversation, but pointed out that it was a little late for this lecture when everyone was already on their way or already there with their swim attire. This was just an inkling of a glimpse into the hyper-modesty and body shaming that was a part of Liberty and the associated youth group and camps at El-Shadai Ranch. It was also the first time that the concept of my clothing being responsible for a man’s actions was introduced to me. At this same camp David Vaughan and his girlfriend Diane Eckart (now Diane Vaughan) slept together in the bed of a pickup truck. I’m not suggesting they had sex – I’m sure they did not. It wasn’t an enclosed bed and they both had high moral standards. But, wow, what an example to set for a youth group. And as far as I know, no one said a word about it. These are actually little things I think. And at the time they didn’t change my opinion of David Vaughan. I thought he was an extraordinarily gifted teacher, a kind person, a fantastic and insightful listener and someone who really wanted to glorify God. I STILL think those things about him. I don’t ever for a second think he intended to be a spiritually abusive leader. But I do think he got lost somewhere."

Do you have a story to tell? Has Liberty Church hurt you? Email your story to petertkintz@gmail.com and I will have it posted! 

Nick's Story

This blog is for the silenced, the marginalized, and the victims of the many types of abuse that the leadership and members of Liberty Church in O'Fallon Missouri have inflicted on their members and any who opposed their love for control. These are the stories of the witnesses:
*Not everyone that Liberty has hurt has found a new church home. Some of us have left our former faith and beliefs behind because of the actions and thinking of Liberty and others like them.

Nick's Story


"-Liberty Church and TFC
I attended Liberty Christian Church (LCC) and its associated youth ministry, Teens for Christ (TFC) in my teens and early twenties. LCC is the last church I attended as a Christian.
I am now thirty-four years of age and have been an atheist for eleven years.
I do not necessarily consider myself any more abused by LCC and TFC staff and doctrine than I would have been in many other churches. There are many close to me who experienced things much worse than I, and their testimony stands on its own merits. Here I merely wish to catalog a few distinct memories that have stuck with through the years -- things that formed the general milieu of control and manipulation that LCC and TFC radiated.

"-Worship" as emotional manipulation
Though LCC and TFC aligned with Reformed Calvinist Protestantism, the "worship" time at every meeting followed the path of modern Evangelicalism, with simplified, repetitive songs -- easy to memorize, catchy choruses, delivered by a rock band -- rather than the traditional mode of hymns accompanied by organs and pianos.

The style of music is important insofar as it was used as a tool of emotional manipulation. "Worship" time would often run long -- over an hour of singing songs, sometimes longer -- but the song selection was often small while individual songs would be repeated over and over and over, often escalating into that musical point of bliss where a single keyboard would ping out the chorus in slow, painful, agony as everyone wept or swayed, frequently with closed eyes, and always with the disposition of a junkie on a binge.

When I was younger I understood this to be the "movement of the holy spirit", filling people with its mighty presence in the face of god. Indeed, there would often be droning prayers, or cries from attendees, for the spirit to come and "fill this place". Odd, since the Bible clearly states that a gathering of two or more people by itself performs that function. But the point of the music was never to conjure the spirit, it was always to prime the emotions to be played. Which is why worship time always preceded the sermon, or any call to the alter (and on occasion would also follow the sermon to further stroke the flames of irrational commitment). I cannot recall a single meeting where music did not take precedence.

-Don't talk to girls, it makes them pregnant

There is nothing a horny teenage boy wants more than the attention of pretty teenage girls. This is biology. This is how the species survives. The sexual impulse forms the motivation for, and sociological conditions of, most human relationships. And I was certainly not immune to it. So how does one corral the budding sexual interests of both young men and women within the authoritarian construct of Christianity? Teach biblical courtship, of course.

The TFC youth ministry of LCC used to hold annual seminars called "The Heart's Desire Conference" where young people (middle school and high school, mostly) were directly discouraged from forming "inappropriate" relationships with members of the opposite sex. In this context "inappropriate" meant: any physical or emotional relationship not directly sanctioned by each individual's family and the LCC and TFC church leaders.

The justification for this oversight springs from three sources: first, the desire to cultivate "biblical character" in young people before they become intimate; second, overprotection as insurance against divorce (a grievous sin in the church), as if the personality and character of young people will stratify at some point and never change after marriage; and third, the plain allure of power over others.

Normal, sexual interest became something to fear. "Unapproved" relationships led to chastisement from parents and church leadership, and ostracization from "friends" who were all trying to prove themselves worthy and pure in hopes of securing the eventual blessings of the church for their own sexual interests.

I recall a very specific evening at a TFC group meeting where I sat very close to a girl in which I had an obvious interest. After the meeting we were both ushered into separate rooms and grilled by group leaders as to our intentions with one another, level of intimacy, etc., in manner that Orwell would painfully recognize. We were ordered not to sit together in the future.
And so while LCC and TFC preached that sex per se was not a sin, any practical expression of sexual interest was, more often than not, treated as such, and any dissent or defiance in the face of this condemnation were grounds for emotional abuse and disassociation. In my own experience and that of others with whom I've talked, the damages wrought by this twisted control mechanism in the lives of young men and women who have come and gone through LCC and TFC is legion.

-Same prayers, same responses
That prayer doesn't convert more people to atheism surprises me. I recall many evenings at LCC and TFC listening to the same people pray for the same things and get the same results, which were inevitably not the answers they sought. So-and-so is dying of some disease, or has some physical ailment, or needs some financial support, ad infinitum. These prayers repeated endlessly, week after week, and never got answered.

On an individual level it's easy to buy the bromides that "god works in mysterious ways" and "god works in his own time", but at scale, when you stand in a sanctuary full of people begging a deity for relief from some of the most painful things life has to offer, it becomes uncomfortable, and sad.

Help did come, sometimes; from people in the church who, through pity, took up the mantle of aid. And god received the credit, because the doctrine of sin categorically excludes human beings from genuinely good, self- generated actions. So not only did prayer offer false comfort to those engaged, it robbed those who acted with genuine kindness of their due recognition and gratitude.

-Pastor as rainmaker
Do the clergy need money? Of course, they're human and need to survive in a culture where money is a medium of exchange for goods and services. Volumes could be written about the validity of exchanging lies (comforting or not) for money, but whatever those moral implications might be there is certainly nothing illegal about a pastor taking money from church members as salary, or for tithes being used to build and maintain church facilities. LCC is not a "prosperity gospel" church, so it never used the promise of worldly riches to convince members to give. And I certainly never thought church staff lived luxuriously at the expense of members. But it became painfully obvious that god's provisions for his own house were directly contingent on how many consecutive sermons could be delivered on the duty to tithe.

I recently shredded some old tax returns that were over a decade old, in which I found a worksheet of charitable donations. While I was at the very beginning of my career -- making minimum wage, driving a junker, and living in an apartment with no window blinds -- I still managed to carve out ten+ percent of my earnings, an amount of interest the IRS. So it may come as no surprise when I found weeks of sermons on tithing to be a bit tedious. And certainly it spoke little to me of god's ability to provide. If I could scrape the pennies from my paycheck why couldn't the almighty move others to do the same so we could get on with it? For all the emphasis on individualism, Protestantism still relies on the engine of guilt that fuels collectivism to fund itself, and that is just dumb. Biblical, but dumb.

-The after
My experiences aren't unique -- I know many share them. I know many have worse. I know some have better. But they tainted my formative years and it has only been with great effort and much self-repair that I've mitigated the damage. Some of the broken pieces can't be fixed, but they can be managed. To an extent this is just life anyway, and to claim special status or victimhood or pity would be an insult to the human spirit's capacity to triumph in spite of circumstance.
I am relieved that some of those who experienced abuses at LCC and TFC found their way to healthier communities and better lives, and it is my sincere wish that those who are still in the throes of indecision find the strength and courage to do the same." 

Do you have a story to tell? Has Liberty Church hurt you? Email your story to petertkintz@gmail.com and I will have it posted! 

Natalie's Story

*UPDATE: Yesterday a man called, threatened me, and had a list of ultimatums including erasing my blog and apologizing. I refused. He threatened to sue me. We have lawyers too and are only striving to get the truth out there, never to hurt people. Those from Liberty do not want these stories getting out, claiming that this should all be handled in private. But this is the only way we have gotten their attention at all and they still will not contact us. We will not back down to people who think they can scare us, who think they can bark at us and get us to jump. We are getting the truth out there one blog post, one status update, and one conversation at a time.

This blog is for the silenced, the marginalized, and the victims of the many types of abuse that the leadership and members of Liberty Church in O'Fallon Missouri have inflicted on their members and any who opposed their love for control. These are the stories of the witnesses:

Natalie's Story

"My first encounter with Liberty was in 2006. I had some friends that went to Liberty Church and had invited me to be their guest to a retreat to Logan Valley. I was about 13 at the time. My first views of everyone and the church were really great. I thought they were very nice, welcoming, warm, friendly, genuine, and very loving. That summer, I attended TFC every week.  I started to notice there was a lot of weirdness about girls and boys interacting with each other. Mike Bond noticed that my friend and I (that I invited, who happened to be a guy) were apparently spending too much talking together. He brought us aside and told us that what we were doing was inappropriate and that we needed to hang out in separate groups, him with just guys and I with just girls. Mind you, we happened to be sitting talking around the other TFC people. Not off secluded by ourselves. The following week after one of the outside games, we came in and were about to have worship. I happened to sit between two of my fellow youth group friends (two guys) and was moved later to a different seat and was told " a girl cannot sit between two guys. If there are two girls sitting between two guys, it was fine, or if one boy was sitting between two girls, thats fine as well." ..? Okay, that makes perfect sense. Now, these rules only seemed to apply to some of us. When it came to Pastor Vaughan's kids or any other pastors kids, they were not obligated to follow these same "rules". Were Vaughan's daughters not in a band and doing worship with all or majority of males? I witnessed them at camps as well being able to go off with male friends and able to sit with them or between them. I kinda got the impression that the pastor's children were an exception and were perfect in the congregation's eyes. When we had talks and debriefings with Mike Bond, there seemed to be a lot of "If you are not with us, you are against us". I kept going to youth group, church, and retreats for 3 years. In all of those three years, I witnessed a lot cliques being made, gossiping between the groups, and the church shunning certain people and their families and encouraging others to do the same. At one point there was a young lady who was un married and became pregnant that was a member of the church, and they wanted everyone to shun her and her family, so they did. Not exactly what Jesus would do now would he? I do not understand why a church that proclaimed so much love and mercy act this way towards people. The family I started going with to the church with stopped going because of some confrontation between them and David Vaughan. They had gone to him about a concern on how he said we should act and how they thought god would want us to act, All Pastor Vaughan had to say about that was basically along the lines of, " How dare you question me and this church?!" he did not want to hear a word about it and didn't take the time to help them understand where he might have been coming from in his sermon. Because of this, a lot of really nice families left Liberty Church, as did I. I don't hate or dislike any of the Liberty members, but I don't find this church or a lot of its members to be the most godly, loving, or christ like as they try to make themselves out to be."

Do you have a story to tell? Has Liberty Church hurt you? Email your story to petertkintz@gmail.com and I will have it posted! 

Peter's Story

This blog is for the silenced, the marginalized, and the victims of the many types of abuse that the leadership and members of Liberty Church in O'Fallon Missouri have inflicted on their members and any who opposed their love for control. These are the stories of the witnesses:

Peter's Story

"This is going to be long, so I apologize. Despite the length, I have to leave out so much to highlight the most important facts. I welcome anyone to call me if they want to talk to me directly about this.

I started going to Liberty when I was 4. I attended until I was 20. To say that I know that church and that group of people intimately would be an understatement. My dad was an authoritarian, abusive, patriarchal sort of man, and he took out his anger on my mom, and my three older siblings. My mom, in turn, took out her anger and frustration on us as well. Needless to say, life was hell growing up. The physical, verbal, emotional, and spiritual abuse was constant, and quite frankly, unbelievable. Although my dad was the origin and instigator of the abuse, and although my mom looked for help from those at our church, the leadership affirmed what they called my dad's "right" to "discipline" and "govern" his family as he saw necessary.

It was then that I learned that parental abuse was not only normal, but also considered sanctioned by god.

When they eventually forced my mother out, including helping my dad win full custody of us children (despite his abuse), I really was completely alone. Eventually when my oldest sister was also forced out of the church because she decided to date against my father's wishes (when she was 20), I learned once again that women were always going to take a back seat to the men. To cross the leadership was, in their view, the same as crossing god himself. After all, they consider themselves god's direct representatives to us.

When my dad's paranoia led him to believe that the entire church was now conspiring against him the way they had against my mother and sister, he eventually left. But I stayed.

Towards the end of my dad's membership, I became one of the founding members of Liberty's youth group, IGY. I went to their summer camp, I had a grand "come to Jesus" moment, and I became deeply involved in all of their Bible studies, youth groups, and church activities. I spent every minute of my free time with the pastor's son Ethan Vaughan, eating lunch with the youth pastor Justus Witty, and every other group or individual from that church that would get coffee or spend time to share a meal.

Shortly after my "come to Jesus" moment at summer camp, I was encouraged by Justus to break up with my girlfriend, Brianna. I had known the policy at Liberty against dating (and pretty much any physical contact with the opposite sex), and since I was a new convert, I trusted Justus' wisdom since he was "obviously" a representative of god himself. He went so far as to tell me that I should make a vow to not get in a relationship for 2 years, so as to completely devote myself to Jesus. The fear of idols (aka, anything that we paid attention to more than god) was seen as the greatest fear. Therefore relationships were especially dangerous in the eyes of everyone at Liberty.

Two interesting points here: One, it's amazing that Justus thought he could give any relationship advice at all, considering the only relationship he was in before his wife, messed him up so badly that he was suicidal for a long time. One successful relationship after the first made him suicidal does not mean you're qualified to give relationship advice to others. Two, this shows one of the favorite manipulation tactics of the Liberty leadership: they will "strongly encourage" you to take their advice, making it very clear that you are solely responsible for your decision. But if you do not take their advice, you are distrusted, potentially kept from helping out in ministries, and what is worse, separated from the good will of the other members. Anyone who has gone to Liberty for any length of time can tell you of the almost surreal yet incredibly palpable sense of goodwill amongst the members there. As long as you are obedient and follow the advice of those around you blindly, you will never find a more supportive group. But if you disagree, although they will never tell you straight out, you will find yourself slowly ostracized and limited and an invisible wall will go up between you and the obedient. Thus they coerce many.

Liberty has a tendency to inspire great loyalty among the incredibly insecure. They find people with bad home lives, people who have been alcoholics, people without friends. They offer them fellowship and family for the price of blind obedience. Anyone who disagrees with the leadership, since they are god's representatives to us, is seen to be in sin. If you directly oppose them you are often said to be doing Satan's work.

A few months after making my vow I became fully in love with "F", another girl who attended Liberty. She was very insecure, told me she had a bad home life, said she viewed Justus as her dad, and was one of the most honest and naive believers I have ever met. Although I had made my vow to God, I could not fight my nature. And I'm a terrible liar, so our feelings for each other became painfully obvious. We had one of those incredibly awkward "homeschool" relationships, where everyone knows you're together, but it's not "Facebook official."

The more our innocent love for each other became apparent, the more concerned the leadership and other Liberty members became. Both her and I had made vows not to be in any relationship for 2 years, so naturally any love between us must be wrong. A sin. Making each other an idol in front of god. We were constantly harassed, being met with privately by both friends and leadership, telling us we were in sin. To me, it was love. Pure and simple. How could love be wrong? How could admiring and loving a beautiful woman of god who loved kids and helping out at church be turning her into an idol? The vow we had both made, we made when we were young and ignorant. It became incredibly apparent to me that such vows were mistakes and the encouragement of such was merely a manipulation tactic by the leadership justified by saying they did so out of love for us. The more "F"and I tried to not love each other or be in relationship, the closer we became. I have always been a physical person. As a personal trainer now, as one of my love languages, the physical has always been paramount to me. "F" was also very physical. We hugged, we kissed. Even spending time sitting at her work just being near her to spend as much time with her as possible was all I wanted. But none of this was good enough for a jealous god and a group of Christians who demanded our full attention, despite how much we volunteered at church.

During this time I was helping out at Liberty as much as I could. I was a counselor at their summer camp, where I was instructed that any contact with "F" would be strictly monitored. I helped out at VBS where they made sure to keep us apart. I helped out at the backyard Bible camps, where they also made sure we were on different teams. Going to the college retreat, every time we would sit next to each other or try to talk we were watched. Andrea Bond even told us that she could tell us what to do because she was the pastor's wife. "F" was incredibly conflicted throughout all of this. She loved me and wanted to be near me, but she was constantly told that such a relationship was threatening her position in ministries and hurting her relationship with god. She would go from wanting to spend time with me, being almost like Romeo and Juliet in our love for each other, to demanding written down "rules" between us and a strict code of conduct. The hot and cold part of our relationship was hard. Justus and Mike Bond kept putting me on "probation," saying that I needed to prove myself to be allowed to help out in their ministries. They said I didn't pray out loud enough. That if any kid saw me sitting at "F"'s work that it was being a bad example to them and would disqualify me from helping. That I needed to be more obedient, which meant having a mentor (Dan Benson). No matter how much I obeyed, it was never good enough. They claimed I was too distracted, and the only ministry they would let me do anymore would be to hold the door open on Sunday mornings. They kept me from counseling at camp, and from going to Belize on a mission trip. Being physically minded always made me feel awful. My natural desires (not animalistic, merely to be close to another human) were demonized. When "F" wanted to get off, she was all over me. But whenever I wanted attention, it was a sin. The more I refused to not spend time with her, the more I was ostracized. They made claims that I had threatened someone with a knife, to which even Ethan Vaughan went to Mike Bond telling him it was ridiculous. But the leadership, who found it acceptable to let my dad abuse my mother, siblings, and I, thought it of incredible importance to micromanage my relationship with "F" and believe any rumor against me.

There are only two types of people who can fit in at Liberty: Those who think they have a right to authority and think they are wise and those who think it is godly to follow the wise authorities. Anyone who thinks that life is about adapting and becoming the best you can be using your free will does not fit in. Even though Liberty claims that you make your decisions of your own free will, you will find that there are consequences and repercussions for not following their advice. So those who do not rock the boat will never find an issue with the church, but those of us who believe we are all different and should not have every decision from what music we listen to or how we drive micromanaged in the name of "love" will not fit in.

Eventually after a year they convinced "F" to break up with me. Several times, she came back, wanting a relationship, always to break up with me again. Eventually I could no longer take the roller coaster of emotions and walked away from the relationship myself. I had gotten to know her family intimately, I had let everyone in the church dive into our personal lives. And I let my heart get broken many times. I simply could not keep this up.

A week later a friend of hers attempted to force me to have sex with her. When I told the leadership at Liberty, they did nothing except judge me. They would not believe me or listen. But they did use the incident against me even though I was wronged.

The more I studied the Bible, the more questions I asked, the more I was told I was asking too many questions and needed to be quiet. The more I read the more I saw their focus was on "keep your vow" and "are you obeying?", not basic love or basic humility. It was focused on the hierarchy and their own value system, and not what the Bible actually teaches.

5 months later, when I finally got in a relationship with my wife, I decided to keep this relationship completely private. This annoyed Liberty leadership, and they again reminded me of my two year vow, which this time I formally reneged (again). This time they started pulling people aside at Change The Globe and telling them "the truth" about us. They told me I should be counseled by them, even though they don't have any counseling credentials between them. My now wife Amanda, a nurse, took me to a doctor where I was diagnosed with PTSD from my abusive past and the doctor gave me a prescription for pills.

This led to a 3 1/2 hour exorcism from Dan Benson because my PTSD-induced anxiety meant that I wasn't trusting God enough and pills would allow demons to come in. The constant messing with my mind of having idols and depression and them declaring it sinful made me feel awful about myself, which made them think it was getting worse. They were creating the problem they were trying to save me from. They called my frustrations at their need to micromanage and constantly monitor me anger. They labeled and labeled and when you would react to their constant labeling and diagnosing in any way other than gratitude they would see it as proof that they were right. Again, no one there is certified to counsel or diagnose at all.

When I would not let them monitor and control my new relationship with my wife they assumed the worst. I found myself pushed further away and accused of many things. The solution? I had to let them know everything or I was proving their fears were justified. They said we could not be getting marriage counseling unless it was through them (we used a neutral third party). They said we had to be having premarital sex (we weren't). They said me not asking their advice and seeking their approval was me proving I was definitely on the wrong path (even though they never met with me until after I was planning my wedding and even though they had already proven they sucked at giving relationship advice).

I tried many times to contact the people at Liberty, but they never answered my emails, texts, calls, or messages. They accepted me renouncing my membership though. Eventually the only answers I got were from the leadership telling me that they would let me back if I would repent, meet with them alone without witnesses, and not speak, only listen. I was told that they would only hear my concerns if I was a member of another church, brought my pastor, met them on their ground, and let them all decide for me whether they were in sin. They might post about how they know so much about love, Jesus, and peace, but apparently talking to me goes against their religion. I heard they had a meeting where they declared me insane, that I make up lies and believe them. They have to demonize people like me to protect themselves from the truth they have tried to suppress for close to twenty years: that their control is not of their god. It might come from some good intentions, but it is not good or justified. That we should all have the freedom to make our own choices and mistakes. That they should be held accountable to the same rules. That they have no more right to control or tell others what they should do than I do. There is no true freedom at Liberty, only an outward show of true free will. They add extra biblical rules and justify them because of their position and intentions. I have never met a group who will so quickly abandon you unless you do as they say."

"*update: a friend just talked to me and said that if "F" were to read this she might see this as me looking down on her. I want to make it clear that I think she was a victim as well to the control and manipulation at Liberty. She still goes there and undoubtedly disagrees with me though. I do not hate her or look down at her. I still very much care about her and miss her friendship. My methods have never been seen as correct by Liberty, but they are true to my conscience."

Do you have a story to tell? Has Liberty Church hurt you? Email your story to petertkintz@gmail.com and I will have it posted!