Remember David, you put all that anger to good use. You used your anger to spread sunshine on all the pain and suffering those people were feeling. You use your anger to expose the dreadful things they were doing, the harm they were causing.
You enable people to get out from underneath the control of that church .
By expressing your anger and keeping alive the memory of what happened and the story you brought out helps to prevent other people being sucked in to organisations that harm people.
Harnessing anger can do a lot of good . We appreciate you, David.
It’s the argument used by oppressors when we fight against racism and sexism too - ‘we won’t listen because you are too angry and you are not telling us nicely, so go away and do all this work to become superhuman at emotional control then come back and we might listen to your point (that we are sexist/racist/otherwise oppressing people). It makes me so angry I can’t contain myself.
I can’t believe this! The only thing that I can think is he’s a narcissist. I know that term gets really overused but I think it fits John Cameron. “It can’t possibly be me that’s the problem. Therefore it’s them”. The scary part is that if he can’t see what he did was wrong he is doomed to repeat it. That means more vulnerable people are at risk. I say vulnerable because that’s who people like him seek out. I mentioned the programme called Testify in the comments earlier this week. I reckon it’s an excellent watch - it’s on TVNZ. It’s “fiction”. The church in it is called Avow….
I’ve watched the first three episodes of Testify after seeing it mentioned in earlier Webworm comments, and I can also confirm that it’s an excellent home-grown series. Craig Hall does a fantastic job embodying a manipulative megachurch pastor with plenty of skeletons that he’s desperate to keep hidden, although I can understand if it’s provably not David’s idea of fun entertainment given the real-life shit he’s had to deal with regarding Arise & others.
I'm postmenopausal. I'm angry a lot (and now drug assisted). For women, being angry is often a social taboo. We're expected to be accommodating and always pleasant. When I was younger I used to worry about coming across as too "aggressive", now I'm older I don't give a fuck.
John Cameron is a gaslighting piece of shit. But if he had ANY insight, then he wouldn't have perpetuated the abuse. Your reporting shone a light and hopefully gave those affected comfort that they were believed and not alone. Being angry at injustice is a sane response. If we didn't get angry at the shitty stuff, how do would feel joy at one-day-only blooms and pink hair?
Loved your comment Katita. Am postmenopausal too with a bit of anxiety & insomnia thrown in! Never used to get angry, too much of a people pleaser...I have changed!
That pastor is indeed a gaslighting piece of shit. Watched a series called The Vow about an American culture run by a guy called Keith Reniere... super intelligent & wealthy but ...what a nightmare! He eventually was taken to court by ex-members and was charged for multiple crimes, will remain there for the rest of his natural. A pity no-one has the stamina to do the same with this guy, which is what he banks on!
Anger lets us know when we are not being treated with respect or when someone or something we value is not being treated with respect. It's easy to see why that would be the response to the interview you posted, and the ongoing saga of churches treating people poorly. I'm clergy in one where we at least have systems and processes for when it goes awry (the Ministry Standards Commission) and compulsory "Healthy Boundaries for Ministry" education for clergy and lay leaders. But the reason we have those things - because churches are full of vulnerable people who get hurt when leaders behave badly and/or abusively (and in some cases, criminally badly). And there's been far too much of that in our history.
One of the most empowering things I ever heard was when a psychologist said one of the hallmarks of being a healthy adult is being able to access the full range of human emotions. That includes anger. My take: when you can access the full range, you may have anger (or whatever else) at times, but it won't have you.
You have not just navigated outlets to feel your own negative emotions but created a space where we can safely do that too. Thank you. Webworm is my favourite place to get angry and ranty :)
FUCK JOHN
What a lame fucking life constantly gaslighting yourself and everyone around you.
I am entirely confident that if Jesus is real he would think John was a loser.
Just to anyone out there who was abused by that shitty church set up or by anyone else, please remember that what you experienced is not negated by denial and you are so brave and deserve space and respect for your truth ❤
Anger is just a mechanism. And like a lot of mechanisms it can be used or misused, it can be overfed or undernourished. But properly directed, it can be claringfying and protective.
I like to joke that I have a "reverse anger problem". It's very hard for me to get angry, and then it's almost impossible for me to stay angry. I mainly just end up sad. I've worried this has lead to me letting people walk all over me. I'm lucky to have a few people in my life who push me to stand up for myself, but not everyone has that. Sometimes it takes an outsider to really put things in perspective.
So if it takes a little anger to keep the John Camerons of this world on their toes, than I say stay angry.
It’s a little known fact* that Jesus, ragged and bleeding on the cross, with one of he few remaining breaths croaked out one of his final thoughts to Mary of Clopas and Joseph of Arimathea, saying: “At the end of the day the challenge we have is that the church is full of people.”
Some of the apocrypha include this passage in their texts, with Biblical Scholars disputing its accuracy for a literal millennia with The Council of Trent only settling on its exclusion from the books of John and Mark in 1563, with one Bishop making the very valid point that it would be unbecoming of Jesus to blame his congregation for the crucifixion, as a) it wasn’t very Jesus-like to blame his people, and b) it was very obviously his own fault (him being (part of) God and all).
But in all seriousness: John Cameron is a complete and utter cunt. I’m more Christian than him by mere virtue of not being a greasy grifter and having a vague sense of right and wrong. What a pathetic horrible little man and what outright terrible smudges of people who support him.
Speaking of ick, add that down-low, un-stabilised, horseshit camera angle to that list. I only saw 35s of that production and wished there was an audio and visual mute button.
Every single abuser employs the DARVO method I.e. Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim Offender. Reversing their offending to become the abused is their MO. That way, they never have to face the impact of their abuse or even that they have abused and so they will never apologise, and given they have ‘God’ on their side, they can never be wrong. I love your hopeful idealism that abusers like Cameron et al have some shred of decency and humanity, they just don’t. The rage that you feel is justified but it isn’t impotent rage, you have made it work and had an impact, which is more than many of us have had. I just feel impotent and yet people like you give me hope that there are still many decent humans amongst us. Thank you for what you do and I will do what I can to support you in your efforts. Never lose your idealism, it is the disappointment of it that propels your very potent and justified anger.
I am always stunned by the seeming ability of people to disconnect an organization from the people that contribute to it. In John Cameron’s case, he thinks that “the church” should prevail, even if people got hurt “by it”. But it’s not “the church” that hurt people - it’s people in the church that did that (particularly himself). An organization is only as good as the people that run it/support it.
What gets me most is that John Cameron doesn’t acknowledge that he was “the church” in this case and is therefore responsible. This compartmentalization he applies to his life is mind blowing to me.
You were right to shine a light on the abuse then just as you are right to shine a light on his unapologetic behaviour now.
My mum used to refuse to clap her hands if she wasn't feeling happy when we sang "if you're happy and you know it" at Sunday School.
My brother was told by his Pentecostal youth leader that our parents must be possessed because they experienced depression. That shit is dangerous. He was in a psychotic episode at the time so he believed it.
I remember that same youth leader saying something about people murmuring (quoting from one of the epistles I think) and I suspect he was aiming that at my family because my parents were not Pentecostal and weren't happy with the theology coming out of that particular church. I got out a few months before my brother's psychotic episode and found the local Anglican church so much saner.
Dunno if this applies but I had an epiphany this week about narcissism, though I don't think it only applies to narcissism. It's generally understood that narcissism develops in childhood, perhaps due to neglect or abuse (not sure on the stats of this, but I've heard it said multiple times). Maybe when the narcissist is an adult they've spent their life identifying strongly with the idea of being a victim, so they can't allow themselves to see that sometimes they are the one inflicting pain on others. They're not always the victim, they're not always powerless, but that don't see that. Maybe he hasn't yet figured out how to separate inner shitty feelings from the identity of being a victim. So "shitty feeling = victimhood" is a complete equation...?
Thank you David for always shining light on this crap. We hate to hear about it but it's important.
The Dunedin longitude nonstudy says we have a genetic make up that creates tendencies . For these tendencies to become active they often needs to be a triggering event. It may be small. It may be large. Sometimes people are just narcissistic because nobody has bothered to teach them how to moderate their tendencies or held them to account.
Yes. And 20 years of being in charge of hundreds, then thousands of people, and treating them poorly but thinking you’re doing “the Lord’s work” bc you’ve seen other men you look up to doing the same thing… yeah, sounds like someone created themselves the right kind of conditions for this kind of behaviour.
Anger and frustration are very valid emotions. It’s what you do with them that defines you. Thanks for shining the light on these abuses of power. The problem with these so- called Christian churches is they can’t see the truth beyond the ‘truth’ that suits them and allows them to fuck with peoples lives. It’s pathological and I despair that they can never see the actual truth ( devastating harm) of what they’re doing. By shining a light maybe you can prevent other people falling into their egotistical ungodly trap.
I can't even begin to tell you how much I am with you on this response, David (including the hate-watching thing).
It is absolutely vile to have someone who incited so much hurt to HUNDREDS of people having a pathetic poor-me moan about the "pain" those people are supposedly causing by talking about what he and his ilk did.
FAFO is real - although he might know it better as the law of sowing and reaping. If only he actually believed what his god says about leaders in the church who harm others...
David, you are a warm and loving person with a huge heart for people and this is why it hurts. When you’re dealing with psychopaths and waiting for them to see the error of their ways, it’s an exercise in futility. They don’t see the world the same way we do. They don’t value people other than a means to advance themselves. To them, other people are the ants scurrying away frantically from the obliterating focus of their magnifying glass.
Because you are a good person who empathizes with others it’s a dissonance in your head and heart that other people could exist who are just incapable of caring about the carnage they cause.
I speak from experience, my father was a narcissistic psychopath and a mean drunk, as was my stepmom. My brother and I suffered greatly not only as children under their rule but also as adults dealing with the aftermath. My father’s own magnifying glass of destruction was far reaching. He died a few years ago. His newspaper lady found me on Facebook to tell me he was dying. He didn’t ask to see either of his children, and he died alone in the hospital not five minutes from my house from sepsis due to raging colon cancer. He never apologized. He never even admitted what he did. To hear him tell it, my brother and I were ungrateful, awful people. To the very end.
All this to say David, it’s never going to make sense. People like him don’t see or feel the same way we do, they never will. They’re either incapable or they just choose not to. You keep doing you and being glorious and a ray of warming sunshine to everyone in your life. Your legacy will far outlast and outreach theirs. ❤️
Remember David, you put all that anger to good use. You used your anger to spread sunshine on all the pain and suffering those people were feeling. You use your anger to expose the dreadful things they were doing, the harm they were causing.
You enable people to get out from underneath the control of that church .
By expressing your anger and keeping alive the memory of what happened and the story you brought out helps to prevent other people being sucked in to organisations that harm people.
Harnessing anger can do a lot of good . We appreciate you, David.
It’s the argument used by oppressors when we fight against racism and sexism too - ‘we won’t listen because you are too angry and you are not telling us nicely, so go away and do all this work to become superhuman at emotional control then come back and we might listen to your point (that we are sexist/racist/otherwise oppressing people). It makes me so angry I can’t contain myself.
Thank you, TLS. It was hard to articulate but this makes so much sense. And of course, it reinforces their desired power structure.
So messed up. And so terribly sad.
I can’t believe this! The only thing that I can think is he’s a narcissist. I know that term gets really overused but I think it fits John Cameron. “It can’t possibly be me that’s the problem. Therefore it’s them”. The scary part is that if he can’t see what he did was wrong he is doomed to repeat it. That means more vulnerable people are at risk. I say vulnerable because that’s who people like him seek out. I mentioned the programme called Testify in the comments earlier this week. I reckon it’s an excellent watch - it’s on TVNZ. It’s “fiction”. The church in it is called Avow….
I’ve watched the first three episodes of Testify after seeing it mentioned in earlier Webworm comments, and I can also confirm that it’s an excellent home-grown series. Craig Hall does a fantastic job embodying a manipulative megachurch pastor with plenty of skeletons that he’s desperate to keep hidden, although I can understand if it’s provably not David’s idea of fun entertainment given the real-life shit he’s had to deal with regarding Arise & others.
I agree it's a good watch, though I'm confused about the mystery seventh episode. The ending of ep 6 was very abrupt
I can’t find anywhere on line that says the number of episodes. It does seem a very abrupt ending.
I'm postmenopausal. I'm angry a lot (and now drug assisted). For women, being angry is often a social taboo. We're expected to be accommodating and always pleasant. When I was younger I used to worry about coming across as too "aggressive", now I'm older I don't give a fuck.
John Cameron is a gaslighting piece of shit. But if he had ANY insight, then he wouldn't have perpetuated the abuse. Your reporting shone a light and hopefully gave those affected comfort that they were believed and not alone. Being angry at injustice is a sane response. If we didn't get angry at the shitty stuff, how do would feel joy at one-day-only blooms and pink hair?
Loved your comment Katita. Am postmenopausal too with a bit of anxiety & insomnia thrown in! Never used to get angry, too much of a people pleaser...I have changed!
That pastor is indeed a gaslighting piece of shit. Watched a series called The Vow about an American culture run by a guy called Keith Reniere... super intelligent & wealthy but ...what a nightmare! He eventually was taken to court by ex-members and was charged for multiple crimes, will remain there for the rest of his natural. A pity no-one has the stamina to do the same with this guy, which is what he banks on!
Anger lets us know when we are not being treated with respect or when someone or something we value is not being treated with respect. It's easy to see why that would be the response to the interview you posted, and the ongoing saga of churches treating people poorly. I'm clergy in one where we at least have systems and processes for when it goes awry (the Ministry Standards Commission) and compulsory "Healthy Boundaries for Ministry" education for clergy and lay leaders. But the reason we have those things - because churches are full of vulnerable people who get hurt when leaders behave badly and/or abusively (and in some cases, criminally badly). And there's been far too much of that in our history.
I love that, 'Anger let's us know when we are not being treated with respect...' what a wonderful sentence
One of the most empowering things I ever heard was when a psychologist said one of the hallmarks of being a healthy adult is being able to access the full range of human emotions. That includes anger. My take: when you can access the full range, you may have anger (or whatever else) at times, but it won't have you.
You have not just navigated outlets to feel your own negative emotions but created a space where we can safely do that too. Thank you. Webworm is my favourite place to get angry and ranty :)
FUCK JOHN
What a lame fucking life constantly gaslighting yourself and everyone around you.
I am entirely confident that if Jesus is real he would think John was a loser.
Just to anyone out there who was abused by that shitty church set up or by anyone else, please remember that what you experienced is not negated by denial and you are so brave and deserve space and respect for your truth ❤
Anger is just a mechanism. And like a lot of mechanisms it can be used or misused, it can be overfed or undernourished. But properly directed, it can be claringfying and protective.
I like to joke that I have a "reverse anger problem". It's very hard for me to get angry, and then it's almost impossible for me to stay angry. I mainly just end up sad. I've worried this has lead to me letting people walk all over me. I'm lucky to have a few people in my life who push me to stand up for myself, but not everyone has that. Sometimes it takes an outsider to really put things in perspective.
So if it takes a little anger to keep the John Camerons of this world on their toes, than I say stay angry.
It’s a little known fact* that Jesus, ragged and bleeding on the cross, with one of he few remaining breaths croaked out one of his final thoughts to Mary of Clopas and Joseph of Arimathea, saying: “At the end of the day the challenge we have is that the church is full of people.”
Some of the apocrypha include this passage in their texts, with Biblical Scholars disputing its accuracy for a literal millennia with The Council of Trent only settling on its exclusion from the books of John and Mark in 1563, with one Bishop making the very valid point that it would be unbecoming of Jesus to blame his congregation for the crucifixion, as a) it wasn’t very Jesus-like to blame his people, and b) it was very obviously his own fault (him being (part of) God and all).
But in all seriousness: John Cameron is a complete and utter cunt. I’m more Christian than him by mere virtue of not being a greasy grifter and having a vague sense of right and wrong. What a pathetic horrible little man and what outright terrible smudges of people who support him.
Ick ick ick.
*Fact in the sense that I just made it up.
Speaking of ick, add that down-low, un-stabilised, horseshit camera angle to that list. I only saw 35s of that production and wished there was an audio and visual mute button.
I did not feel the need to click play, so I’ll take your word for it.
Every single abuser employs the DARVO method I.e. Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim Offender. Reversing their offending to become the abused is their MO. That way, they never have to face the impact of their abuse or even that they have abused and so they will never apologise, and given they have ‘God’ on their side, they can never be wrong. I love your hopeful idealism that abusers like Cameron et al have some shred of decency and humanity, they just don’t. The rage that you feel is justified but it isn’t impotent rage, you have made it work and had an impact, which is more than many of us have had. I just feel impotent and yet people like you give me hope that there are still many decent humans amongst us. Thank you for what you do and I will do what I can to support you in your efforts. Never lose your idealism, it is the disappointment of it that propels your very potent and justified anger.
I am always stunned by the seeming ability of people to disconnect an organization from the people that contribute to it. In John Cameron’s case, he thinks that “the church” should prevail, even if people got hurt “by it”. But it’s not “the church” that hurt people - it’s people in the church that did that (particularly himself). An organization is only as good as the people that run it/support it.
What gets me most is that John Cameron doesn’t acknowledge that he was “the church” in this case and is therefore responsible. This compartmentalization he applies to his life is mind blowing to me.
👏👏👏
You were right to shine a light on the abuse then just as you are right to shine a light on his unapologetic behaviour now.
My mum used to refuse to clap her hands if she wasn't feeling happy when we sang "if you're happy and you know it" at Sunday School.
My brother was told by his Pentecostal youth leader that our parents must be possessed because they experienced depression. That shit is dangerous. He was in a psychotic episode at the time so he believed it.
I remember that same youth leader saying something about people murmuring (quoting from one of the epistles I think) and I suspect he was aiming that at my family because my parents were not Pentecostal and weren't happy with the theology coming out of that particular church. I got out a few months before my brother's psychotic episode and found the local Anglican church so much saner.
Dunno if this applies but I had an epiphany this week about narcissism, though I don't think it only applies to narcissism. It's generally understood that narcissism develops in childhood, perhaps due to neglect or abuse (not sure on the stats of this, but I've heard it said multiple times). Maybe when the narcissist is an adult they've spent their life identifying strongly with the idea of being a victim, so they can't allow themselves to see that sometimes they are the one inflicting pain on others. They're not always the victim, they're not always powerless, but that don't see that. Maybe he hasn't yet figured out how to separate inner shitty feelings from the identity of being a victim. So "shitty feeling = victimhood" is a complete equation...?
Thank you David for always shining light on this crap. We hate to hear about it but it's important.
The Dunedin longitude nonstudy says we have a genetic make up that creates tendencies . For these tendencies to become active they often needs to be a triggering event. It may be small. It may be large. Sometimes people are just narcissistic because nobody has bothered to teach them how to moderate their tendencies or held them to account.
Yes. And 20 years of being in charge of hundreds, then thousands of people, and treating them poorly but thinking you’re doing “the Lord’s work” bc you’ve seen other men you look up to doing the same thing… yeah, sounds like someone created themselves the right kind of conditions for this kind of behaviour.
Anger and frustration are very valid emotions. It’s what you do with them that defines you. Thanks for shining the light on these abuses of power. The problem with these so- called Christian churches is they can’t see the truth beyond the ‘truth’ that suits them and allows them to fuck with peoples lives. It’s pathological and I despair that they can never see the actual truth ( devastating harm) of what they’re doing. By shining a light maybe you can prevent other people falling into their egotistical ungodly trap.
I can't even begin to tell you how much I am with you on this response, David (including the hate-watching thing).
It is absolutely vile to have someone who incited so much hurt to HUNDREDS of people having a pathetic poor-me moan about the "pain" those people are supposedly causing by talking about what he and his ilk did.
FAFO is real - although he might know it better as the law of sowing and reaping. If only he actually believed what his god says about leaders in the church who harm others...
David, you are a warm and loving person with a huge heart for people and this is why it hurts. When you’re dealing with psychopaths and waiting for them to see the error of their ways, it’s an exercise in futility. They don’t see the world the same way we do. They don’t value people other than a means to advance themselves. To them, other people are the ants scurrying away frantically from the obliterating focus of their magnifying glass.
Because you are a good person who empathizes with others it’s a dissonance in your head and heart that other people could exist who are just incapable of caring about the carnage they cause.
I speak from experience, my father was a narcissistic psychopath and a mean drunk, as was my stepmom. My brother and I suffered greatly not only as children under their rule but also as adults dealing with the aftermath. My father’s own magnifying glass of destruction was far reaching. He died a few years ago. His newspaper lady found me on Facebook to tell me he was dying. He didn’t ask to see either of his children, and he died alone in the hospital not five minutes from my house from sepsis due to raging colon cancer. He never apologized. He never even admitted what he did. To hear him tell it, my brother and I were ungrateful, awful people. To the very end.
All this to say David, it’s never going to make sense. People like him don’t see or feel the same way we do, they never will. They’re either incapable or they just choose not to. You keep doing you and being glorious and a ray of warming sunshine to everyone in your life. Your legacy will far outlast and outreach theirs. ❤️