Because of faith-based support and resources, people are leaving hyper fundamentalism for Christ!
Our supporters make it possible for those who are harmed by hyper fundamentalism to be provided with free, faith-based resources through Berean Holiness—one-on-one support, community groups, in-depth articles, videos, and podcasts, social media content, private online community, in-person events, and more. By the grace of God, these resources are changing lives—see their stories below!
“When I left an unhealthy church, I was carrying deep confusion and pain. The environment I was in had twisted my view of God and left me with a lot of fear and shame. I didn’t know who to trust, and for a while I felt completely lost in my faith.
The Berean Holiness group gave me language for what I had experienced and helped me realize that I wasn’t alone. The resources, teaching, and community here helped me separate God’s truth from man-made control. I began to see the difference between toxic patterns and the real gospel of Jesus Christ. That gave me the courage to fully walk away and the hope that a healthy community does exist.
Now, I’m beginning to plant myself in a new, life-giving church where I can grow in faith and build real relationships. The peace and freedom I’ve found would not have been possible without first being reminded of who God really is through Berean Holiness. This group has been a lifeline, showing me that healing, hope, and genuine faith are possible.”
– Brianna
“When my family made the difficult decision to leave the church organization we had been part of, it was after sustained experiences of spiritual abuse, authoritarian leadership, and the protection of those who caused harm. Concerns about misconduct and mistreatment were dismissed, minimized, or reframed as rebellion, and biblical language was used to silence questions and discourage accountability. When abuse was disclosed, the focus shifted to managing appearances rather than protecting the vulnerable. Leaving meant grieving the loss of our church, community, and sense of spiritual safety.
Berean Holiness met us with compassion, clarity, and courage. They listened carefully, affirmed that what we experienced was not biblical or healthy, and provided counsel grounded in Scripture without excusing harm. When I was suddenly faced with a meeting involving my abuser, I reached out to Berean Holiness and they immediately set up time to speak with me, helping me navigate that moment with wisdom and support. Their guidance helped our family take faithful next steps rooted in truth, safety, and healing.”
– Viki
“When I was a minister in the Independent Pentecostal Holiness Movement, I refused to read your content because I considered it harmful and a waste of my time. I tried to defend Holiness standards against what I perceived as the onslaught being fomented by Berean Holiness. When I began to study the scriptures to defend Holiness standards and teachings, I realized that the Bible did not say the same things that the Independent Holiness preachers (myself included) were saying. I summarize my experience in these words: I realized that what I sought to defend, was indefensible.
Through listening to expository preaching and teaching of scripture and being involved in ministry where I had to distinguish what the Gospel was, God brought me out of legalism and bad theology. Your articles and videos helped me disentangle a number of questions that I was wrestling with. Thank you.”
– Anonymous
“Berean Holiness has been there for most of my journey coming out of the CHM [Conservative Holiness Movement]. When I first came across Berean Holiness and read their articles, it was reassuring to see my inner thoughts about the holiness church and its views on standards stated in a very clear manner.
It was still years before I left the church as it was one of the hardest decisions I’d ever have to make. By the time I left, I had taken part in small groups and had been able to connect with other people who have gone through this journey before. That little bit of community was so helpful and encouraging especially in the days leading up to and following my exit out of the church.
Berean Holiness has been so instrumental as I processed my views on standards, but most especially on salvation and entire sanctification.
Now that I’ve left, it seems each day I come to a deeper understanding of God’s grace and how really there is nothing I can do to earn my salvation. And praise God for that!”
– Anonymous
“Searching for a healthy church is no small task when you’ve only known extremes and dysfunction. I am so grateful for resources like Berean Holiness and the community group for providing biblical support and encouragement during such a vulnerable time in my faith journey. This ministry is so unique in its mission to walk alongside the weary and point the way back towards Christ. As someone that once embraced the emptiness of deconstruction, it’s more common to find voices in support of leaving the faith altogether than those that champion rebuilding from a healthier understanding of the gospel…
When I left Oneness Pentecostalism, I didn’t have any solid Christian friends outside of that type of system. Natalie actually connected me to another family on a similar journey one town over. The search for finding a healthy church and building new community seemed so daunting back then. Now both our families have found a wonderful little church with a plurality of leaders that teaches verse by verse. God has been faithful throughout the entire process, providing new connections at just the right time.”
– Amanda
“Being part of a hyper-fundamentalist group had a profound and devastating impact on me. It completely distorted how I viewed God and Christianity. I saw God as harsh, impossible to please, and more focused on punishment than love. The gospel felt like a crushing set of rules rather than a message of grace and freedom.
It wasn’t just mental anguish—it was hell on earth. I developed a suicidal spirit and often fantasized about ending my life just to escape the misery. I even turned to self-harm, desperate to find relief from the constant pain. I would dream about being free, about finally being away from the suffocating fear and control.
There were occasional good moments, but they couldn’t outweigh the deep emotional scars I was left with—PTSD, depression, and so much more. I’m still working on healing and rediscovering who God truly is, and I’m learning that His love isn’t about fear or control. It’s a process, but I’m holding on to hope that freedom and healing are possible…
Discovering Berean Holiness has been a lifeline for me in my journey of leaving hyper-fundamentalism and rebuilding my faith. The resources, compassionate support, and emphasis on God’s grace helped me navigate the pain and confusion of unlearning harmful teachings.
What I love most about Berean Holiness is its focus on truth and freedom. Through their content and community, I’ve felt seen, heard, and reminded that my worth isn’t tied to rigid rules but to God’s unconditional love. Their stories of hope and practical guidance gave me the courage to take steps toward healing and rediscover a faith that brings peace and joy.
Berean Holiness has been a source of encouragement and renewal in one of the hardest seasons of my life. I’m so grateful for this ministry and its commitment to helping people like me find freedom in Christ.”
– Anonymous
“Growing up in the Holiness movement, my relationship with Christ was one built strictly on fear and adherence to the rules. Everything and everyone else was worldly and not true believers or Christian. We were subliminally taught to judge others, almost never did the church group actually act as the hands and feet of God. Newcomers were shunned if they didn’t fall in line with the standards by their second visit. I actually cannot convey in words how much theological and psychological damage this caused. I was apart of a cult, and there’s no way of mining those words. Almost my entire generation left the church, some all together left Christianity. I’ve seen it destroy families, friendships etc.. just through church splits alone, which are more common in the HM than actually winning new souls for the kingdom. As soon as I turned 17, I left and never looked back. I lived a wicked life and I was so disenfranchised, so many delusions about faith in general, that at some points I felt almost agnostic. My family started going to an Assembly of God church, and I saw the changes in my own parents. I started to attend church occasionally again, I started seeking Christ myself and began a relationship with him.
I cannot convey how much Berean Holiness has helped me disentangle my own faith. Y’all may never know the impact you have made on countless people, bringing them back and biblically showing the fallacy of hyper-fundamentalism. Even as an adult long after I left church, I was still struggling with my inability to remain perfect, to obtain the seemingly impossible status I needed to be saved (so I thought), which caused a cycle of shame and failure, blocking me from the love of God and the reality of who He is. BH has tremendously helped me in this journey and I can’t thank y’all enough for obeying God and starting this ministry, which is exactly what this is.”
– Justin
“I left the [Oneness] Pentecostal organization when I was 18, and was convinced for 21 years that I was going to hell because i had no understanding of the gospel. What i knew were standards and as i couldnt live by them because they didnt make sense, well…that was it. Coming into contact with Berean in 2022 changed my life. I started reading the biblical answers to the standards, and learning how to read the Bible in context and it was amazing. It was amazing to find out that all of those ‘christians’ we couldnt fellowship with because they didnt have the ‘truth’ had more Truth than I ever understood. There is a whole Church that has nothing to do with the weird business of the UPC. There is safety, and comfort, and grace beyond measure that I never knew about because that doesnt fit the rigid legalistic practices of the UPC. I am beyond thankful to have finally give my life to Christ in a real way, and to have (though I still struggle with this idea , and probably will for life, such is the conditioning of the UPC) confidence in my salvation.”
– Priscilla
“I was warned about Berean Holiness before I really had a chance to look at it very closely. I was searching for answers that I wasn’t getting at my home church. I had resigned myself to the idea that I was destined to live in a church that I disagreed with for the rest of my life. I had always been taught that once you are “enlightened” to the “truth “ of Holiness, then any standard of living “less than that” was sin. When I would ask about why we did certain things or didn’t do certain things, it was normally answered by either a Scripture taken out of context or simply put, that it’s better to be safe than sorry.
I remember hearing Bro. Todd Sloggett (I hope I spelled his name right) talking in his podcast about a particular Scripture that I had always heard quoted. And in this podcast, he quoted it like I had always heard it and proceeded to explain why it was interpreted so incorrectly. This piqued my interest and I started listening to more of his podcasts. This propelled me to find out if he was alone in his philosophy. Once I opened that door, I began to realize how many people around me also had problems with a lot of the Bible being taken out of context. Most of them just kept their opinions to themselves.
Sometime during all this , I realized that I wanted my kids in a church that taught the Bible accurately and began my walk away from hyper-fundamentalism. During this time, I started watching some of the ‘forbidden’ Berean Holiness material on YouTube.
I have been very blessed to have this source of help during these times. I have talked to both Bro. Nathan and Sis. Natalie about various topics and have never felt the ‘hate and bitterness’ that I had been told this was founded on. I hope to see this grow and multiply for the generations that are following. Biblical truth is what we must stand on. Anything more and anything less will be detrimental to all who follow. I can say this from personal experience. God Bless the great team and efforts of Berean Holiness.”
– Anonymous
“When I first became aware of Berean Holiness, I was entrenched in an ideology that caused me to see any critics of my group as the enemy. After carefully considering the information shared by Berean Holiness, and seeing my group’s response, I eventually came to realize that the arguments made by Berean Holiness and similar groups were more consistent with Scripture than the response of the leaders within the movement of which I was a member. This along with a careful study of Scripture led me to see many errors within our movement. Eventually these errors became too much for me to ignore, which led to my departure.”
– Cody
“Berean Holiness came into our lives via Facebook right before we started really evaluating our lives. Ironically someone in the Holiness movement commented on a Berean Holiness post (Facebook showed it to me since a friend commented) because they didn’t agree with it, but it made sense to me! My husband and I had been having questions for a while, but we always just shoved them aside because they weren’t important enough. We were ok to just turn a blind eye for a while. Then something came up that just kinda tipped the scale. We then took a step back and tried reading the Bible without our Holiness glasses on. Berean Holiness really helped me a lot through their studies and let me know that we weren’t alone.”
– Sarah
“I was in the holiness movement for 22 years and had completely lost who God made me to be. I was miserable and had a heavy desire to break free from the mindset of the holiness movement. I only wanted to love God, love others, and love myself again. All of the years I was in the movement, there was so much confusion with the teachings. I was struggling with what I was being told was ‘right’ even if God’s word stated otherwise. When I asked questions, I got vague answers such as ‘that’s how we’ve always done things’. The pieces of my religion that were falling apart were the pieces that Berean Holiness helped me to understand. BH was a huge help in finally letting go of my man-made traditions and letting God really instill what He says – not what somebody else told me He said.”
– Crystal
“I am the daughter of a pastor of an independent holiness church. For most of my life I grew up thinking that Christians who didn’t wear long skirts, cut their hair, painted their nails, used makeup, etc. were not of God, that they were separated from His grace and were instead tools of the enemy to confuse others.
That marked my life so much that I began to hate everyone who called themselves Christian and did not look like me (with a skirt, without earrings, without makeup…) But my hatred was mainly because I felt betrayed. I suffered a lot of bullying at school because of the way I dressed and I thought that this suffering was for the cause of Christ or at least that was what my parents told me. So when I saw a person calling themselves a Christian and not suffering the same as me, I was jealous of them and that turned into hatred.
I got to the point of feeling alone, as if no one else was going through the same thing I was going through and it was in one of those moments, where I found a reel on Instagram by Berean Hollines.
Watching that video was like a flash of light and hope in the midst of my darkness. When I discovered Berean Holliness I realized that I was not alone in my struggle to discover the truth and that I was not the only one questioning those rules and traditions that made no sense.
At the moment I have not been able to leave the church where I currently attend (which is a holiness church where my father is the pastor) and to be honest I am very afraid to do so for the simple fact that I am the pastor’s daughter and I am afraid of ruining his testimony and that the parishioners will think badly of me. But Berean Hollines has filled me with hope and courage, and I know that at some point I will be able to leave all these doctrines that have done so much harm to me, and not only to me, but to many other young people.”
– Anonymous
“I grew up in a very strong church that was very conservative. I remember as a child I was allowed to wear short sleeves. Women did not wear pants, wear jewelry, or use makeup. One day I was told that I could no longer wear short sleeves; they had to be 3/4 or longer. I couldn’t understand why one day short sleeves were ok and the very next day they weren’t. I was always very obedient so I didn’t question. I didn’t question until I was in my 50s. My husband died and I could finally have some freedom to be myself. The first thing I did was cut my hair shorter and give myself drapery bangs. My brother in law said I was starting down a very dangerous path and I was turning towards the world. When I asked him to show me in the Bible where it said I couldn’t cut my hair I was again attacked…
I knew that most of the outward rules that I had been taught did not make sense. I am a very conscientious and obedient individual so I thought I was rebelling whenever I would think that things did not make sense. I thought that the devil was tricking me by using logic against my religious beliefs. I first started utilizing BH with their class on holiness and what it truly was. I saw other women who did not have the strict outward appearance but their spirit was so pure and their attitudes were so Christ like. This started me down the path of all of BH’s podcasts and resources. You have given me so many biblical reasons to help me disentangle without feeling like I was turning my back on God. I have reasoning and Scripture to go with my beliefs rather than emotional fear. I am still afraid to fully disentangle because of the major repercussions I will have. I am currently getting to a safe place so I can be me.”
– Anonymous
“I believed in salvation by grace through faith since my childhood, but in practice I absolutely lived as if my works, service at church, and external standards proved how sanctified I was as a Christian. It formed me into an ever fearful people pleaser, obsessive over what people thought of me and terrified of doing anything that even could appear to be wrong. I eventually realized that all my life I had been trying to convince others, myself, and even God that I was truly saved. Then I was able to place all my faith in Him, repent of my pride and sin, and be truly saved. It was another 5 years before I realized just how much hyper-fundamentalism continued to rule my thinking and identity as a Christian…
I am so thankful for Berean Holiness’ ministry.It helps those like myself, who have left unhealthy or cultish church environments, feel seen. It helps to know you’re not alone in this experience, not crazy, not backslidden and rebellious for asking questions! It’s refreshing to have voices of truth in the midst of chaos. People in similar situations that are determined to hold fast to Biblical truth rather than throw the baby out with the bathwater. This ministry has helped my to grow in grace and walk courageously in Christian liberty.”
– Anonymous
“I believe that assurance of Salvation was something I struggled with because I lived with the shadow of accidentally doing something that was against the Bible and missing heaven. I have served God since I was 9, but there was so much talk in the hyper-fundamental groups of things we had to do to please God. When I started to study on my own and read BH posts, I realized my salvation wasn’t based on anything other than salvation by grace through faith.”
– Sherilyn
“When I first ‘learned’ about God through the UPCI I was taught that real salvation was to repent, be baptized and receive the Holy Ghost. After I completed this process, I thought I’d feel a sense of security in my salvation but instead I felt like I could lose my salvation at any minute. I thought I was told I wasn’t saved before, but now here I am learning I can still lose my salvation? I learned there were other things I needed to do to which seemed like an endless impossible list to keep. I kept being told if my heart was in a real relationship with Christ then I could ‘endure to the end to be saved.’
Well, I made it to the end all right, but to the end of the rope of man made doctrine. I was at the end and I was tired, exhausted, spiritually fatigued and more confused than ever before. What was wrong with me? This is when I found Berean Holiness and realized I wasn’t alone, that countless others felt like me who still believed in God but needed direction. If it wasn’t for this lifesaving ministry I might have believed I was beyond saving and spiraled into unbelief. I know now and am still learning that God STILL loves me and has a plan for my life.”
– Cindy
“Like many others, I felt that salvation was tied directly to holiness. Not REAL holiness, but abiding by the standards of the church organization. It was like I had blinders on. BH has helped to clear my vision and now I see clearly what God meant by all those scriptures that were used out of context or cherry picked to push their narrative. I was very bitter for a long time after leaving the church, because of how they treated us (some are family members!). I couldn’t understand why some people were so ugly and still ‘anointed’. I thought I must have been doing something wrong. Now I feel at peace and know that leaving was the best decision we could have made! I’ve even shared BH and helped a close friend who left about the same time I did. We both feel so free and happy now that we understand we’re not going to hell because we didn’t do EXACTLY what the pastor said! We understand the TRUE meaning of holiness and the love of Jesus.”
– Shelly
“I feared God, as in I was terrified of upsetting Him. With all of the rules my church taught I had great anxiety, which I am still healing from today. My anxiety of angering God grew so bad that I only went to church, home, and work. Even at work I distanced myself from everyone and grew lonely. I believed that breaking any rule would mean that I would have to repent multiple times to assure God knew I meant it. Even after repenting, I still felt inadequate. Salvation was something you earned, and the gospel was a complicated web that only few could navigate. Feeling inadequate meant I had to keep my head down, mouth shut, and follow those who understood the gospel better than I. It wasn’t until boundaries were broken and I received an injury at church that required surgeries, PT, and month of healing that I opened my eyes. They told me ‘that’s what happens when you run from God.’ That’s when I realized I was running from God because of them. Berean Holiness helped me put into words the feelings I had in my heart. I felt inadequate to speak out on my own, but using BH’s blog helped me gain confidence to speak the truth. I am no longer scared of God, but I love Him deeply. Understanding His gift of salvation helps me walk peacefully throughout my life. Knowing His gospel was as simple as He designed washes away my doubt. I’m forever grateful for Berean Holiness.”
– Joanna
“Berean Holiness was very fundamental in my journey of disentangling from hyper fundamentalist holiness.
After graduating from seminary, I moved to India to work in a ministry attached to the Holiness Church I attended in the states.
This was where my questions truly began. Everything I had been taught about Holiness was not able to translate into this culture seamlessly.
I can remember the very moment I realized that Holiness was niche American church culture and not a broader biblical culture.
I had purchased a traditional Indian anarkali complete with chudra (wide legged leggings that are worn under the full flowing skirt for modesty). I was ecstatic to surprise my youth pastor, missions board director, and a visiting minister by wearing this traditional dress to pick them up from the airport. And as you can imagine our Indian host family was equally excited. Imagine my surprise when I and my missions partner were pulled aside and asked why we would wear the ‘pants’ under our dresses? We explained the cultural context and also how it was considered indecent to expose the ankle in this society. That was followed up by, ‘well here in India that is fine, but when you return to the states, you can’t wear the leggings in the churches you visit. People won’t understand. And you will want to crop your photos so they can’t see those in any of the slideshows you may present.’
That’s when my entire worldview crumbled. Why was this an issue firstly? Secondly why was it ok here in India but not in an America? Did holiness not translate?
That was the summer of 2013, and then began nearly a decade of disentangling.
It took me until 2019 to really push outside of my comfort zone and start questioning (with scripture and the resources of Berean Holiness and another popular Podcast) every Holiness doctrine.
Many times I’d be in a quandary or state of distress, and just logging into the private groups helped me find calm, and the realization I want crazy, I wasn’t alone.
This resource was extremely valuable during a very unstable and chaotic period in my life.
Reading the articles and talking personally to Natalie and others, was life changing in a good way. I was able to match everything being shared with scripture.
I am forever grateful to this resource and the community it has brought me! There is life outside of hyper-fundamental churches.”
– Charity
“After my first husband passed away, I did a lot of soul searching. I drew closer to God than ever before in my grief and began to really study the Word. Some scriptures grabbed my attention about jewelry in Ezekiel and I started searching for answers. Why would God give the Israelites all of the jewelry and call them beautiful if He hated it? Then I realized it wasn’t the jewelry He hated, but their PRIDE. I began to see how prideful I had been all those years of my long hair and dress. How I looked down on others who didn’t dress holiness. How I had talked about ‘so&so’ because she had a split in her skirt, or it looked like she had trimmed her hair, etc. Shortly after I was already drawing my own conclusions on the matter, I stumbled upon Berean Holiness and many of the articles written went right along with what I had been researching myself. I loved all of the sources and history that was included to better understand the scriptures and I applauded the fact that Berean wasn’t afraid to have a healthy debate on the topics. It was refreshing after having questions growing up and being told I shouldn’t ask them because I was only ‘allowing the devil to plant doubt in my mind.’ I appreciate Berean for calling out the hypocrisy and encouraging people to study it for themselves: that walking away from the movement doesn’t mean you are walking away from God or that you have to. You can draw closer to God and find a healthy church and believers who are trying to grow in God and better understand the scriptures in full context.”
– Brittany
“One of the biggest challenges for believers when leaving hyper-fundamentalism are the seeds of doubt that are planted by those closest to them. You know what God has revealed to you through His word and lots of studying and praying, but for a while after leaving, the ‘what-ifs’ can be very overwhelming. It’s so important for those leaving hyper-fundamentalism to find groups like Berean Holiness, so they continue to learn and see that they are not alone in the conclusions that they have been led to in regards to extra biblical standards…
Berean Holiness validated the concerns that I had about the Holiness movement. There have been so many times where I’ve felt isolated in what I experienced while in hyper-fundamentalism. It’s hard for people who haven’t been in these environments to truly understand the spiritual trauma that we’re left with when we leave. But Berean Holiness is a reminder that we’re not alone and that our concerns are valid and worth looking into. The sense of community that Berean Holiness has given me in my most vulnerable time is priceless.”
– Ashleigh
“I didn’t grow up in hyper-fundamentalism but I joined the movement when I was around 13 years old. While I was in it, I thought I had understood the gospel. Jesus died for our sins and the way we could receive Him was through repentance, baptism in Jesus’ name and receiving the Holy Spirt with evidence of speaking in tongues. The way we could keep him was by living a holy lifestyle which I understood as loving God and others, yes, but a big part of it was focused on my outward appearance (not wearing makeup or jewelry and wearing skirts to the knee only). I thought I had the truth and all the other groups who didn’t believe like me were lost. They had partial truth and if they didn’t get the ‘full truth’, they were destined for hell. I started questioning the outward holiness standards about two years ago and that’s when I began my journey of disentangling. It was then that I started to see how I truly viewed God and Christianity. Other than having an “us vs. them” mentality with the rest of the Christian world, I also had a distorted view of God. I viewed Him as a taskmaster who was constantly keeping score to see if I was living right and if I was doing all the things (which included keeping up with the holiness standards). It is now I’m realizing I was mostly living from a place of rules and legalism and I was constantly worried if I was going to make the cut if I didn’t follow all the rules of my hyper-fundamentalist group. Questioning the standards soon turned into questioning their doctrine of salvation, and that’s when I realized I was living in a works-based religion. It was not about what Jesus did for me, but instead what I was doing for Jesus. Now have been removed from hyper-fundamentalism for a few months, I’m starting to understand the gospel as defined in the Bible and not by my hyper-fundamentalist group. It is not Jesus + what I can do for Him, but Jesus, period. The work is already done and what He did for me is enough. Now, I’m learning to live from a place of grace and love for Him for what He did for me. It’s not about keeping up and striving, but rather resting in Him and what He’s done…
Berean Holiness has played such a crucial part in my disentangling journey. Without their private facebook groups, I wouldn’t have anywhere to go to ask my questions. Through Berean Holiness, I have found community and support. I have also found helpful resources for disentangling through their social media posts and blogs. I truly believe this ministry was God-sent. I’m so thankful for Natalie and her team.”
– Kimoya
“I became aware of BH one night on Instagram. My husband and I were newly married and on the way home from church, when I saw a mutual friend had posted on his story about one of your posts. He was very involved in our church and therefore very upset with what you had said – I think it was the hair one. I was curious, but I didn’t read it. I think I was scared to. I had another friend who came to our church for a few months and left right after finishing our churches delegated Bible study group. He started posting your articles regularly, and finally I had the courage to read one.
I had always believed standards were not a heaven or hell issue – my grandparents were independent holiness evangelists, and so I traveled the US with them to all of the churches they would preach at, and so many of them had a different set of standards and core beliefs. My grandparents loved them all and believed they were all true Christian and people of God. It desensitized me in a way to the exclusivity of oneness Pentecostalism when I was a teenager. I had really gotten back involved though in my early 20s, and fell into the mindset of ‘we are better because we have the whole truth.’
Once my husband and I were married, a few things had transpired that made me question our leadership. I had been reading the Word and remembering how it wasn’t my clothes that showed others I was a true Christian, but my fruit. My husband and I agreed we were not seeing fruit from our leadership. Just destruction and pain. So many things, one right after the other! Then I started noticing all of the sermons, specifically from guest speakers. Fear mongering, emotional manipulation… promises that God was going to do something RIGHT THEN but only if we surrendered to him and to our pastor. I started noticing that nothing ever happened or changed. We’d cry and scream in the altar but gossip on our way out of the door. It was like this every time.
Once I started reading BH articles and listening to the podcasts, I couldnt stop. I was soaking in the information like a sponge. I knew I didn’t believe in standards as part of salvation, but I didn’t understand just how unbiblical they were. I was even more scared to look at the apostolics resources page – I was convinced we had the true “core” doctrine. I’d say, everything else isn’t true, but this part is. One of your quotes made me rethink my whole life and I’ll paraphrase, roughly: “Several have asked us to find them a church with no standards but believe in one God and Jesus name baptism. We ask them why there are not many, if any, churches like this and they never know how to answer.” It was something like that, and it got me thinking. I only know of one church like that, and it was a family who left the UPCI and started their own. My whole system was crumbling and I was putting on a smile every time I served at church. It was killing me.
When we finally left, God had swung the door open. It was obvious that it was time, and I’m so thankful. I’m still unlearning so many things and trying to build up my strength. I feel like a new Christian, learning the history of the church and the world outside the movement I was born into.
Without BH, idk if I’d be here. Your articles opened the door for me and I’m so grateful!”
– Meleah
“[Hyper fundamentalism] caused me to view the approval of the group as the approval of God. what mattered more was that I fit in or was united with the standards. It also cut me off or cause me to never pursue really understanding the truth of God’s word because it had already been discerned before me. my only responsibility was to trust in faith what I didn’t understand and perform according to knowledge and the standards. Submitting under that was my highest goal.
Now what I am discovering newly is Who God is, and who I am as a child of his. The presence of Holy Spirit and to trust in faith in its counsel and understanding of the Word. To sum it up: I am growing inside of a genuine relationship with The Father…
The resources that the team at Berean Holiness have put together have been a huge influence for me to disentangle my faith without loosing God. Because of these resources I did not ‘throw the baby out with the bathwater’
I discovered how to effectively and truthfully study and learn the Word of God.”
– Brad
“The teaching at church caused me to put man (the pastor, church leaders, and my mom) in the place of God. My whole life was fear. In escaping the abuse, I worked hard to be a ‘perfect pentecostal’ still living in fear for my salvation. But after finding Berean Holiness, Cultish, and others online, who had left the hyperfundamentalism, I began to see behind the curtian…
Through my internal debate on doctrine, salvation and true holiness I would listen, relisten, watch and rewatch the information provided by Berean Holiness.
It helped me to realize that there was an option other than ‘backsliding’ or deconstructing. I could get out from under the thumb of man and have a direct relationship with Jesus!”
– Jenny
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“Being a free resource is SO SO beneficial. I would have never paid for anything while starting out on this journey, timid, scared, and so unsure of everything. Being able to read or watch others stories, the research in legalistic topics, and biblical doctrine was so enlightening. I dug deeper, and I made connections with others who were on the same journey in a time where we felt alone because we had lost our community. A random Facebook post appeared on my feed, and it was from there that I began to follow Berean.”
– Victoria
