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!