Tag Archives: Truth Seekers

The Dark Side of Religion and Its Leadership

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“But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” 1 Peter 2:9 NIV

I did not grow up in church, and had no requirements to attend church on Sundays. There was no Bible or spiritual literature in my home to nurture my faith at an early age. I did not have a real encounter with the presence of God until the age of twenty-six. At that time, my mind was changed. It was as if there was such a shift in my thinking that it almost seemed unreal. Darkness lifted off of my mind in such a way that it appeared like I could see the dark shadows leaving, like in the movie “Ghost” starring Patrick Swayze, Demi Moore and Whoopi Goldberg. I had been living with tremendous internal pain.

I was led to purchase my first Bible ever, a concordance, and a Bible Dictionary. I devoured this material like food that I could not stop eating. There was insight and revelation that came. Visions were opened up to me; I could see things in the heavenly realm. These spiritual insights opened me up to the light of God’s presence, and how this presence should manifest in the world as light. I was having real encounters with God, and learning the way to access real light, truth, holiness, peace, joy and righteousness. 

I submitted my life in a spiritual house of worship under spiritual leaders and teachers who guided me and helped me to grow spiritually. They taught me how to take hold of faith and prayer to experience the supernatural power of God. I discovered purpose and the plan of God for my life in the world. There was such freedom and wholeness in my being. I was healed from emotional sickness and brokenness. My spirit was free and excited about life, and wanting to see others get whole. I experienced no controlling factors in the spiritual house that I got nurtured in; no fear, no dark persuasion, no manipulation. It was indescribable. If I could sum up these basic lessons of light that I learned in my early spiritual formation, it would be these:  

Lesson One: Faith is our compass. It is the way to please God. Faith demonstrates that we trust God to fulfill his word.

Lesson Two: Love is our guiding principle as we encounter every human being on the face of the earth.

Lesson Three: Touch others with love in our family and the world.

Lesson Four:  Use our gifts and resources to benefit others so that they, too, can discover faith, love, hope, purpose and destiny. 

Lesson Five:  Do no harm to any soul on the earth because that soul belongs to God. When we harm others, we harm God.

Lesson Six: Keep our lives clean and pure from wickedness. Manage our appetites with contentment. Live in light. 

Lesson Seven: God can see and know all things. There is no hiding place from the Holy Spirit. We need the Holy Spirit to partner with us in the work of service to the world and for all that we do.

As I experienced these lessons and sought to walk them out in life, I had visions of light. I was taken in my encounters with God to a heavenly realm, and was shown how light and darkness would operate in the world. I was given an understanding of the workings of the mind, and how it can be influenced for light or darkness. I was able to see light and darkness operating through people. I could see when darkness would appear like light. 

I witnessed people with more than one face. I could read the energy of environments and could smell disease and death, even when people looked well. For many of these things, as they would appear in the natural, I was not given release by the presence of God to share these insights. I had to ponder them in my heart for a season. I heard the voice of God say during one of these visions, “I am going to teach you to see the darkness of people’s minds and teach you to help people to be aware of it and to get them free.” This understanding led me into the world of psychology and working with minds that went to dark places in their life experiences, families and the world. My interest has been uncovering the darkness of religion on the mind, and the leadership of religious systems who practice darkness.

God is leading me to uncover the darkness of religion, its leaders, and the impact on the minds of people, to bring healing to individuals, families, cities and world. Understand this: God did not create religion. Religion is an ego-driven human attempt to understand God by categorizing God in rites, rituals and rules. Religion in its purity is supposed to bring the real light of God to the mind and elevate people to a higher state of consciousness. Religion at its best will bring human beings in alignment with the presence of God, and help them live out the nature of God in the world. 

What is God’s nature? Love, peace, joy, mercy, forgiveness, kindness, gentleness, meekness, faithfulness, patience, justice, righteousness and more. God’s nature is not dark, contradictory, controlling, manipulative, exploitive, conniving, greedy, arrogant, prideful, rude, abusive, hurtful, discriminatory, prejudice, deceptive, perverted or hateful. When these characteristics operate in religion and its leaders, this is not the mind and presence of God. This is darkness working at its worst!

The dark side of religion, and its leaders will manifest in these traits with no real moral conviction of the impact that these behaviors have on human society. There are leaders who can ignore the candle of God’s presence, and engage in dark thinking and behaving without thought. It has become a part of their lives. It has even become a part of many religious systems, and many personalities hide in the pretense of light, but live with two faces or multiple personalities. God is moving in the earth with such vast power that many religions, and their leaders who have been corrupted by darkness, are going to crumble. Some religious systems never started out for the purpose of bringing light. The intent of their formation was darkness appearing as light. Some that started out in light, have grown in darkness as they begin to get out of alignment with the presence of God.

When we as a people do not deal with the broken places in our soul, this brokenness becomes an avenue for darkness to express itself. When there are compromised moral standards, the doorway of darkness is opened up, and it never wants to be exposed to bring healing in the system. Darkness always looks for broken personalities in order to infiltrate into a religious system. I will start uncovering some of these traits so that we will know what to look for, and make a determination about our religious affiliations.

When darkness has permeated the system, and there is a vacillation between dark and light behaviors, we will witness this same spirit operating through many others in the system. There is a door that is opened in the hearts of those who are in the highest levels of leadership that gets filtered down. This spirit is manipulative and controlling. The modus operandi is to control people for its own selfish agenda and lead them down a compromised path. It is always to contaminate the true light of God.

In a religious system that has opened the door to darkness, people are merely used for the purpose of the system, not for the righteous standards of God. Anyone who can see these discrepancies and speaks to them, this person or persons will be a threat and a target to discredit, ostracize, ignore and destroy. When we operate in true light, and dark areas are pointed out in the system, those who are at the highest levels of the system who want light will move to bring about healing and change in the system, so that God’s light can come forth. The opposite will be experienced when the system and its leaders want to remain in darkness; it will move to destroy the bearers of light.

There are three broken personality types in a religious system at high levels of leadership that, when operating in darkness, will have an effect on the whole system at every level. In some systems, all of these personality traits can operate through one personality. The way that we are going to recognize and detect this darkness is through the eyes, behaviors and speech (words).

  1. Machiavellian- This dark personality trait will manifest in leaders that focus on self-interest as the prime motivation. Image, superficial appearances, cruelty and ruthlessness with no real mercy is the way they operate. Everything that they do is strategic. All actions are well thought out and planned in advance. They will use whatever is necessary to get their way. They will even create disorder in their own house or team. Every action is calculated by this dominate thought: “What is in this for me and how will my public image be impacted by my actions” 
  1. Narcissistic -This dark personality trait is a challenging leader to work with. They have an obsessively inflated ego, self-worth and importance. They believe that they are super special creations of God, and no one is more special than they are. Their status is above normal. They are not comfortable with the ideals and gifts of others. They only pretend to be interested. They will sabotage their own team to get their way. Discord is a strategy of their leadership. They struggle to accept criticism, or disagreements to what they desire to do. There is an insatiable need to be flattered, approved and praised. They love the spotlight, and will find one, steal one, or create one every chance that they get. They only want to be surrounded by people who will fulfill their ego needs. Yes, voices only please is their motto!
  1. Psychopathic- This dark personality is a charismatic and charming leader. Charm is one of their most powerful traits. However, the charm is superficial and not genuine. Their actions are calculated and they have no real depth of feeling. They experience no empathy or pain for their actions committed against others. As a matter of fact, they are incapable of real empathy. They can destroy a life or situation with no mercy. Lying, secrets, obsessions, and illicit appetites are some of their most dominate behaviors. They even know how to act humble while working their deeds with secret and danger.

The commonality of all of these dark leadership types in any religious organizations is that they have a desire to control the gifts and resources of people for their own interest and the interest of the system. Their behaviors can be passive or aggressive. Manipulation and control are always at the forefront of how these personalities lead. They play with darkness because they have no revelation or conviction about the all- seeing eye of God! (Proverbs 15:3, Ecclesiastes 12:13-14)

I offer this writing to help us to first gain an awareness and understanding that can help us to recognize these traits, not for judgement, but for prayer, healing, and to determine how to work with, and or to come out from under these leaders and systems. When we see leaders with these traits, and systems under their influence, we are looking at broken souls and broken religious systems that need God’s intervention!

Peace,

A Call For Justice In the House of God

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“But let justice run down like water, And righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Amos 5:24 NKJV

To the Church of the Living God Throughout  America and the World, 

In these critical hours of the church there are times that we are compelled by the Holy Spirit to share a message from the Lord. What is the responsibility of the Church? It is written, “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.” Ephesians 4:11-15 NIV

Today I bring concerns from the Holy Spirit regarding the state of the church that must be addressed. 

The United Nations gives this definition in its charter of Crimes Against Humanity: Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (Article 7 ) Crimes Against Humanity

  1. For the purpose of this Statute, ‘crime against humanity’ means any of the following acts when committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack:

A physical element, which includes the commission of “any of the following acts”:

  • Murder;
  • Extermination;
  • Enslavement;
  • Deportation or forcible transfer of population;
  • Imprisonment;
  • Torture;
  • Grave forms of sexual violence;
  • Persecution;
  • Enforced disappearance of persons;
  • The crime of apartheid;
  • Other inhumane acts.

On this week, September 23, 2020 our hearts have been saddened by the decision of the court regarding no real justice for Breonna Taylor who was fatally shot by Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) officers Brett Hankison, Jonathan Mattingly, and Myles Cosgrove, on March 13, 2020. A state grand jury indicted Hankison not for Brenna Taylor’s death, but on three counts of wanton endangerment for endangering a neighbor with his shots.

We witness daily the criminal acts of those who took an oath to protect and to serve our communities against criminal violations. We know that there are many good police officers in this country; but for those who have been done wrong, justice ought to be the order of the day. We stand and believe that there is a higher court of law and a higher authority who sits high but looks low, and justice will be served. It will be served in a way that only God can do it. We can trust this. We can trust the sovereignty of the Supreme Justice. 

Breonna Taylor was our daughter. She is a reflection in the mirror of every Black Woman, young and old, in this country, because it could have been any of our daughters or nieces. Her senseless death, along with the deaths of other black and brown Americans, ought to be taken to the World Court as crimes against humanity. 

We are on the verge of one of the most critical elections in America, to cast our vote to oust one of the most irresponsible presidents in our modern-day history. The highest office of the land has perpetrated so many violations against humanity that we are appalled by it to the point that we share our discontent through social media, over coffee and even at the dinner table; we shout the affirmation, “Trump must go!”

It is interesting that we can see clearly the behavior and mindset of an autocratic leader, President Donald Trump. While I am not a Trump supporter, I am challenged by our insightful assessment of the psychology of President Donald Trump, but we fail to see the sick psychology of the church who will not acknowledge and repent of its sins. We find it easy to call out Trump, but we can’t see the mind and behavior of the church to the point that we will call out its crimes against the people of God and his church. Let’s look really closely and perform this little exercise. Let’s close our eyes for a minute. Look closely at President Donald Trump.  Do we see him? Now, let’s open our eyes.  What do we see? President Donald Trump is a mirror reflection of the state of the church. President Donald Trump is a lesson for the church and its behaviors: egoistical, narcissistic, ruthless, manic, schizophrenic, insecure, greedy, conniving, secretive, exploitative, neurotic, and psychotic — not to mention being abusive to women, young girls and boys, the disabled and the aged. 

It is interesting that we call for justice against police brutality (and we should) and bring them to the court of justice, but we do not call for the brutality that gets perpetrated in the church of God. Now we reward criminal behavior. We reward ballers and shot callers, quiet con artists who get people to do their dirty work while they sit back in the cut and appear innocent, and then we come up with a planned narrative to protect them. We allow them to do whatever they want to do with no checks and balances or discipline. 

We don’t call for justice against the brutality against woman, children, the aged and young boys and girls in the church. Many of us are witnesses to the secret plots and plans of leaders who masquerade in hypocrisy and use their office to try to manipulate, control, force, and enslave others who will not bow down to their tyranny. Many are persecuted and ostracized who will not become complicit to unrighteousness. 

Are we now training new generations of leaders that we are turning into vipers and more of the sons and daughters of hell than the previous generation before them to be loyal to unrighteousness? Is this the sick psychology and state of affairs that we want to pass on as the legacy of the church of the living God? 

Today, I call the church not to the World Court, but to the Court that is higher than all Nations. I call the church to the Court of the Most-High God, ruler of all nations, judge of all humanity, and I file charges on His behalf against the church for crimes against God’s people and God’s house. I call it to criminality for these acts:

  • Character assassination;
  • Sex crimes against youth, children and young boys;
  • Persecution for being obedient to the Word of God;
  • Manipulation of the minds of the young to play on their naivety;
  • Sexual brutality of woman in churches;
  • Exploitation of the gifts of God in others;
  • Emotional trauma;
  • Psychological torture, brainwashing and control;
  • Spiritual abuse of authority;
  • Breaking pastoral ethics among colleagues 
  • Aggressive and shaming language;
  • Extortion of God’s property; 
  • Ostracizing for nonconformity to wrong;
  • Robbing the poor to get rich;
  • Nepotism at the exclusion of others;
  • Age discrimination and exclusion from service without adequate preparation and restorative council;
  • Fear mongering;
  • Spiritual slavery and corruption;

To the people of God, it is time to hold the church responsible for crimes against the children of the living God and His church. It is time to call the church to order and confront its sins. I CALL FOR JUSTICE in the house of God. I call for holding leadership at every level accountable to the Word of God. I call for confronting the spirits of greed and pride that leaves God’s people financially depleted, broken, disillusioned, perplexed and trampled over with no real vision, treated like second-class citizens and provided no real care for its spiritual and emotional well-being. There are fellowships whose trust has been shattered, but they are expected to pick up the pieces and start over again to build trust that may never be fully regained. I Call For Justice. I Call For Justice in the House of God! 

Prophecy given to me (Sharon S. Cheek) on September 27, 2020. Here is a word from the Lord: “I have seen the hands of your leaders. I have witnessed their conspired story to cover up crimes against my people and my house. Tell them this is what the Lord says: What they plan in secret, I will reveal openly. My way is that they teach the sinner to return to me in brokenness for their sins. The sinner who plots to protect another sinner, and does not call that sinner to me, what they think is hidden from me planned in the night, I will uncover their sin in the broad day light. For three sins and for four, I will not relent from holding leaders responsible for its crimes against my people and my house,” says the Lord.

“Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture!” declares the Lord. Therefore this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people: “Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done,” declares the Lord. “I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and increase in number. I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing,” declares the Lord.” Jeremiah 23:1-4 NIV

It is time to make demands for protecting God’s children and God’s house from the tyranny of spiritual, psychological, physical, emotional, social, political and economic crimes. It Is Time To Call The Church To Justice!