Busyness kept me from writing my February and March blogs, but this month I wanted to write about all the deep connections I’ve made as an author at book fairs and conferences with people whose interest has been piqued by my book title Fighting for Justice: Religious Fraud, Mental Illness, and the Collapse of Law & Order. In the three plus years I’ve been selling my book, I’m very grateful for the good sales I’ve made among those who have connected with all that I detail and discuss in my book, but I’m even more grateful for the opportunity to answer people’s questions about how in the world I’ve been able to maintain my mental and spiritual sanity.
My online book sales started soon after I published my book in late 2021. In early 2022, I started selling my book at book fair events and at conferences which address the interconnected problem of cults and criminals, lack of mental health laws and services, and sweeping government corruption. I can see on the faces of many who walk near my booth space at book fairs and conferences that my book title catches their attention. Clearly, my book continues to strike a chord in many people who have either experienced spiritual abuse and injustice, or they know at least one person who has. My written and verbal description of my book that I share with the general public at book fairs and conferences has resulted in complete strangers feeling safe enough to describe their own absolutely gut-wrenching life stories with me of their encounters with injustice, spiritual abuse, and the lack of mental health laws and services for either family members or for cult leaders and their followers who exhibit severe and even dangerous mental health issues. Most interestingly, some of my interactions are with attorneys, judges, and mental health counselors, who concur that law enforcement and the courts are severely lacking in dealing appropriately with cults and the mental instability — and often criminal behavior — of cult leaders.
When I discuss the details of the last chapter of my book — Solutions — with the general public and even more importantly with attorneys, judges, and mental health counselors, we are, by and large, in agreement on many of my proposed solutions. Political leanings invariably surface, but I’ve found that overall there is surprising consensus that I, as a political conservative, have with those who lean centrist or even left of center on the topics of much needed mental health commitment laws, the creation of much needed privately-owned, state-monitored mental health facilities (much like nursing homes) that offer long-term and permanent housing and focused treatment for the mentally ill, and a state licensing process for anyone using a religious title, requiring accompanying degrees from an accredited religious institution. If our states can require healthcare workers (including mental healthcare workers), dentists, plumbers, electricians, etc., to have certifiable training and licensing, then our states also need to require the same safe standards when it comes to those who claim to be spiritual leaders and who are very often privy to people’s most private and sensitive personal issues.
Some of the people with whom I have interacted on the issues covered in my book have themselves written books about their own hellish experience with cult figures, and the apathy and corruption of various law enforcement entities (police, prosecutors, and judges, for example). My account of abuse from my cult leader brother Ken “Pastor Max” Parks, and from my three other brothers, pales in comparison to some of the truly gruesome experiences of people I’ve interacted with at book fairs and especially at the conferences on cults that I’ve attended. For those people who haven’t published their accounts of spiritual abuse and injustice, many of them have nonetheless either embarked on a career to help others trying to recover from the damage done to them by cult figures or they volunteer to help people in other ways not directly related to cults. This is the healthy way we who have been impacted by cults or crimes (especially when they go hand-in-hand) have responded positively to our very negative experiences.
Invariably, the issue of religious or spiritual beliefs arises in many of the conversations I have with people about my book, and that’s completely understandable. Sadly, I’ve met a number of people who have had God very badly misrepresented to them by psychopath religious leaders (in cults and in mainline Christian denominations), and after experiencing horrific accounts of spiritual, mental, and sometimes physical and sexual abuse, they have chosen to no longer believe that a good, just, loving God exists. Having struggled through my own abysmal depths of the dark night of the soul due to decades of aggressive, pervasive, and persistent stalking, death threats, and other forms of abuse from my brother Ken and his cult followers, and only slightly less abuse from my three other brothers, I have a greater understanding and compassion for those whose image of God has been so badly damaged to the point of choosing ongoing anger at God or outright atheism. I’ve chosen a different response to abuse, but nevertheless I understand and have compassion for people who’ve forsaken any religious ideas and beliefs. Loss of faith, or fragile remnants of faith, are the grim results of what soul raping and soul slaughtering “pastards” can do to people.
So then, of course, questions about my religious beliefs often arise in my conversations with people at book fairs and conferences, and sometimes during podcast interviews. I readily inform people that I do not have the answer to the age-old perplexity of why a good God allows so much extensive, long-term evil. But the only answers I do have from my own Job-like raging at and wrestling with the Almighty is the unavoidable truth that there is more to life than just this life, and that our relatively short existences are by and large a purgation as we encounter one evil after another in this sinful fallen world. We have never been promised paradise on this very imperfect earth, and we are all born to die at some point in our lives, but we have a spirit that continues to exist. We all make our choices as to how we respond to inevitable evil in this world, and choices do have consequences — sometimes in this life but certainly after this life. We are informed by Scripture to prepare ourselves to share in Jesus’ unjust, cruel, painful suffering, to take up our cross (or in modern lingo, our electric chair, our hangman’s noose, our bullet to the head) and follow Him. No other religious belief system other than authentic Christianity demands of us to believe in and act on this difficult reality.
I can sincerely and affirmatively state that without the lifetime of evil I’ve experienced from my own flesh and blood brothers’ betrayal and abuse, I would not have so painfully acquired the understanding, empathy, and depth of compassion I can now give to other people who have experienced similar and worse abusive situations. I’ve also surprised myself over the past few decades with how composed, steely-eyed, and courageous I’ve become when I’ve had to confront spiritual abusers, and other types of abusive personalities, to their face, having learned long ago how to detect their manipulative charm and deflection ploys and responding with zero patience for any of their bullying intimidation tactics.
As long as I walk this earth I will carry the scars of my own abuse but I can point to Jesus’ scars, still visible and tangible after His resurrection, with the message that I know there is, in fact, more to life than just this life and, because God is good, just, and loving, that there will be ultimate justice at the end of this life. It’s just not a healthy mindset to use the excuse of other people’s evil choices to justify willing blindness to the reality beyond what I can only see in this life. In conjunction with Scripture, I’ve read enough of irrefutable Near Death Experiences (NDEs) to know that our spirits continue on after death, that God is indeed loving and just, and that He walks along with us in this world and He feels even more intensely the deep pain and anger caused by others’ evil choices. I can personally point to situations which have no other explanation than miraculous that directly thwarted the evil intentions of my brothers and of other mean-spirited people. As much as I’ve despised these seemingly pointless sufferings, I cannot deny that, in retrospect, the point of these sufferings has gifted (yes, gifted) me with a depth of understanding about the nature of evil, about myself and my own limitations, and the need to give understanding and compassion to others who continue to suffer from the evil choices other people make. I’ll never understand everything on this side of eternity, and that’s okay. I still at times have my wrestling matches with God, and will no doubt have them until I’m no longer on this earth, and that’s okay too. But I still make the choice to put my eyes beyond what I can see and experience in this life. Focusing on that reality is the only way I can keep my spiritual and mental sanity.
That is the year ‘round Resurrection Day message I give to people who ask me how in the world I can maintain any faith in a good, just, and loving God after all I and other people have been put through by spiritual abusers. From my earliest memories, having been raised with Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant influences, I have by God’s grace maintained and grown in my belief through thick and thin in all that’s been recorded of Jesus’ life and words, and by His grace I will continue to maintain that belief. And as a side note, this year witnesses the rare occasion when the Orthodox and Western Church (Catholic and Protestant) celebrate Holy Week, Good Friday, and Resurrection Day on the exact same dates. I will take joy in that shared celebration of faith, despite all the various and tragic differences within Christendom, and I will continue sharing the Resurrection Day message with people I encounter at book fairs, conferences, and any place else in this world, in the hope that this message will resonate with them and resurrect their own battered souls.