This is the third post in a series on how I learned to turn from fear and shame to experience grace. Click to read Part 1: Shame and Part 2: Fear.
A big part of breaking away from shame and fear was identifying false beliefs I held about God, others, and myself.
Theology is one of those words that doesn't excite most people. But let me tell you: Theology matters. Good theology can be the difference between life-giving joy and soul-crushing death. In my case, it was the latter. And it nearly destroyed my idea of who God is.
This post is about the things I learned at Ellerslie, a 9-week discipleship program in Colorado started by Eric and Leslie Ludy (known for their books on relationships, purity, and holiness). Some of you will remember me spending Summer 2011 there. Some of you were there with me. Because of that, I know this will be hard to read. What follows is addressing theology, not people. I dearly love everyone I know from Ellerslie and my intent is not to criticize their hearts. What I am addressing is the teachings. The theology I learned there created much confusion, fear, and pain in my understanding of who God is and the Gospel. Because of this, and because I publicly recommended their program, resources, sermons, and books for many years, it's time for me to publicly address why I can no longer do so. I have also discovered many other people hurting since their time at Ellerslie (there's even a support group!) so I hope that this post will help clarify what is wrong, and let other Ellerslie alumni who are struggling know that they are not alone.
I will be covering a wide variety of concerns and, due to length, I will not be able to go as in-depth on these as I would like. If there is a particular topic you have questions about or would like to know where I am basing it, please feel free to talk to me (if I had the time and space, I would give an in-depth, Biblical analysis of each point! As it is, I am mainly telling a story of the teachings that were wrong and how they affected me. But I truly am open to discussing particular points if anyone would like to do so).
Where It Began:
I had been reading the Ludy's books since I was 15 and decided to go to their discipleship program the summer after my freshman year in college. There was much I enjoyed about my time at Ellerslie - a summer in the beauty of Colorado, reading my Bible, praying, and talking to people about Jesus all day long - but my concerns for the content of their teachings mean that I cannot recommend this program to anyone and would, in fact, discourage others from attending.
It is difficult to know where to begin because there is so much to be said. One of the main difficulties in knowing how to explain this, is that there is a disconnect between what was said ("We will never be perfect.") and what was communicated (perfectionism) through what was modeled, practiced, and encouraged (That alone is something I find concerning). There are also many things they said that were true, but subtle differences or deviations that made it difficult to separate what was true from what was not.
After spending 9 weeks in Ellerslie's discipleship program, I was completely in love with everything I heard there. I felt as though I had finally gone somewhere that I could 100% say I agreed. I was sad to leave and hoped to return after college for their year-long Advanced Program.
However, over the months that followed, something wasn't sitting right. It nagged at me that there was something very wrong with something I'd heard there, yet I could never articulate what it was. So, I dismissed those concerns as being fleshly - mere doubts not to be entertained. It took 3 years after I left Ellerslie for me to finally articulate what was wrong, just last summer as I sat in bed with my foot in a cast and finally had time to go through their materials and find some quotes that were nagging at me. And then the floodgates opened.
A turning point:
This is the quote I found that started everything. It came from their book called Wrestling Prayer. They were talking about a miscarriage they had, that ultimately led them to start Ellesrlie. Eric writes about the miscarriage,
God gently opened our eyes to see areas of sin and compromise that we'd allowed into our lives that were opening an access point for the enemy to hit us... Leslie and I hadn't been resisting the enemy's blows because we had assumed they were coming from God - or at least being allowed by God for the purpose of discipline. And yet, when we thought about it, we had to admit that the result in our spiritual lives wasn't the life giving victory that God's loving discipline brings. Rather, it was the hopeless despair and discouragement that the enemy brings. (pg. 16, Wrestling Prayer)When I read this, it was like the blinders fell off and all the things that had been nagging at me over the last three years - fueling the shame and fear I wrote about previously - fell into place. In reading that quote, I realized they believed sin in their lives had resulted in the death of their child because it created a breach that the enemy could then have the power to access their lives (though they were Christians), resulting in the death of the child. They blamed their child's death on themselves. What's more, the quote suggested that perhaps God had not even allowed this to occur, as though the enemy had usurped God's power. Yet the entire book of Job seems to proclaim otherwise - Job suffered, not because of his sinfulness, but for the very reason that he was blameless!
[I have other concerns about their relationship to the enemy beyond this idea of breaches, which is woven throughout their teachings. For example, their Gospel video states that the enemy will come to finish us off, but that Jesus comes in and stands between us and the accuser to take the blow meant for us. However, the Bible is clear that God is the one who punishes us for sin, not the enemy. It is because we fall under the wrath of God that we need Jesus as an intercessor, and it is from the wrath of God that Jesus took the blow.]
That began me on a journey of going back through my notes, journal, and other resources. Here's an overview of my concerns:
Perfectionism & Fear of God Leaving:
In one of her books, Leslie tells a parable of sorts about our relationship with Christ and sin in our lives. She describes the scene of your wedding night, at last going to be with your groom (Jesus). When you get to the room, you find it filled with stinking garbage and past boyfriends (representative of sin in our lives). She writes,
You glance over at your groom. He is hanging his head mournfully and making his way dejectedly back down the hall.
"Wait!" you call out. "Where are you going?"
"I'm sorry," he says, shaking his head sadly, "I just can't be with you tonight - not like this." His face is overcome with agony and sorrow as he stumbles out the door. You chase after him in your wedding dress, which is now stained with a blob of spaghetti sauce that dripped out of one of the trash bags. But your groom is gone. Your wedding night has been completely and utterly ruined. (pg. 58, Authentic Beauty)And there the story ends. Reading it now, it makes me want to weep as I remember how long I feared Jesus was like that. For so long, I felt as though I were running after Him and feared that He would walk away from me if I could not get my life cleaned up enough for Him to accept me. But the Jesus I know now does not walk away when my life gets messy - instead, He takes me by the hand, and bends down to clean up the garbage with me. He does not leave me standing alone, wondering how I'll ever get Him to come back.
At Ellerslie, they told us we would never be perfect. And yet, I remember at the time thinking many of the messages communicated that we should be. Because this concerned me and I knew passages like 1 John 1 make it clear that we do still sin, I was somewhat troubled. I talked to one of the staff members and asked her if they were teaching that we would be perfect. She was very hesitant to answer my question, but finally admitted, no, we would not be perfect in this lifetime. At the time, I was relieved they did not believe in perfectionism. But in retrospect, I wondered why it was so hard for her to admit that? Again, it goes back to the disconnect between what is said and what is communicated. They often said the right things, but the message sent told a different story. For example, I remember in one of the talks, they said how Romans 8 includes the list of things that could not separate us from the love of God, but Eric passingly remarked that sin was not included in that list. In another morning devotion, another staff member said "If we constantly allow surrender to Christ, we will walk free from sin." These things imply perfection.
Many of the ideas regarding perfectionism seem to be strongly influenced by the Kewsick movement. Although Ellerslie's FAQ page says they do not agree with everything in that movement, the biographies they endorse, much of the language they use, and even the format of their program closely mirror this movement. For those not familiar with it, I recommend Andy Naselli' article. In a brief summary of the article, the Keswick movement was based on the belief that many Christians were living in defeat. Day 1 of the Keswick conventions focused on sin, and how when he Holy Spirit comes into believer lives, they can live without "known sin." Day 2 addressed the "cure" - victorious Christian living. It involved a "crisis of sanctification" where you are sanctified by faith and victory of sin. Day 3 is about consecration - the crisis point where you "let go" (wholly surrender) and "let God" (faith) [at Ellerslie, this crisis was known as "the dark night of the soul"]. Day 4 was about being filled with the Spirit, including certain conditions to receive that filling. Day 5 focused on the outcome of all this: powerful Christian service in missions to the weak (This 5-day format is very, very similar to the format of Ellerslie's 9-week program). A few concerns Naselli raises mainly address their views on sanctification: Having two categories of Christians (those living in defeat with "Christ as their savior" and those living in victory with "Christ as their Lord"). They also promote a form of perfectionism and instantaneous sanctification (when you reach the crisis point, you are meant to surrender all at in a single moment, rather than a lifelong process).
Full Surrender:
The idea of full surrender was a big struggle for me. During one of the talks at Ellerslie, the speaker said if we had not truly surrendered to Christ, we should leave the session because it would be better for us to spend the next two hours praying than to listen to him speak. I looked around the room, thinking he couldn't be serious because everyone struggles to surrender in different areas and none of us can honestly say that we are fully surrendered. We all battle sin. But while a couple of students stood to leave, in a room of 100 people, most stayed seated. And he was serious. He insisted we should leave. As I sat there squirming in my chair, painfully aware of ways I fell short of Christ's perfect standard, I stood and I left (probably thinking everyone else sitting understood something about surrender I didn't - that they had somehow attained something I couldn't). And I prayed and prayed and prayed. Yet I could not seem to make this moment happen where I suddenly was fully surrendered and abiding in Christ in the way they described. I wanted it. I wanted so badly to obey Him. Yet as much as I prayed, I could not attain it. Even to take communion, they said it was a picture of Christ being in us and we should only take communion if we truly meant it when we said we would fully surrender. I wondered if I should participate - I knew I was a Christian, but was I a fully surrendered Christian?
They emphasized a lot the idea of being "in Christ." I can best articulate it through a quote from a biography we read on Rees Howells as part of our required reading. On being in Christ, the biographer wrote of Howells:
He saw that if he could get this one visible proof of the devil's defeat, the Holy Ghost could apply the victory through him on a larger scale. To do this, the Spirit gave him John 15:7: "If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be done unto you." It would all depend on his abiding... the promise is unlimited, but its fulfillment depends on the abiding. [Emphasis mine]Reading this quote now, I realized that therein lay the disconnect - yes, it was all possible through Christ and therefore not our own works - if we abided. All the promises of Christ they affirmed - if we abided. It meant we had to do all the right things and then Christ would abide in me. That was why it felt like I was relying on my works. Because I was! I was relying on my works to abide! Because if I didn't obey God perfectly, I lost the abiding. And yet, when I read John 15 and Jesus says to obey all His commandments, He goes on in verse 12 to say, "And this is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you..." What's more, there is a promise contained in the command "abide in me" - Jesus says "Abide in me and I in you." It's a two-way relationship. At Ellerslie, we focused so much on our need to abide in Christ, I forgot that He is abiding in me so that even when I fall short, there is grace because He is sustaining me, transforming me into His image! He has perfected me (past tense, completed), but I am still being sanctified (present tense, ongoing) (Hebrews 10:14).
Continuing to look through the Rees Howells book, I found many disturbing descriptions of what it meant to abide to him. This was a man highly esteemed by Ellerslie and someone we were encouraged to model. There were many points in the book that I was intensely uncomfortable, but far too often, I discounted that discomfort as being fleshly, rather than being from God's Spirit within me.
For example, continuing on after talking about abiding, the biographer wrote of Howells,
Any command the Spirit gave him, he must fulfill, because the way of abiding is the keeping of His commandments... Any transgression was never to be repeated, but specific obedience on that point would be called for until a radical inward change was effected... He could never come into God's presence unless he had obeyed all that had been given him on the previous day. [Emphasis mine]How often I took this same attitude into my relationship with Christ! I believed I must perfectly obey Him and therefore felt as though I could not come to God when I messed up. I felt so much shame and guilt when I couldn't measure up and it was difficult to pray because all I could do was say, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry." Again, I feel grief as I remember these times, knowing how deeply I felt that shame and remembering how many burdens I was trying to carry. It was not the light yoke the Lord had promised!
In reference to a time Howells failed to complete his fasting by eating lunch at his mother's pressures, Howells wrote,
"I wept many tears and it seemed as if He would never allow me to come back into His presence, till He said, 'I will forgive you, but you are not to go unpunished. You hold up your hands while you pray from 6 to 9 o'clock."I remembered thinking at the time that this seemed wrong - God's grace is offered freely. We don't need to punish ourselves to receive it. But when another student mentioned how much they admired Howells for taking his sin so seriously in that instance, I discounted my own concerns because I respected this other student's judgment more than my own (that was a big lesson from my Ellerslie experience - no matter how much we respect someone, they can still be wrong. We need to check what we hear against the Word!).
I never finished the Rees Howells biography because I got so uncomfortable, I couldn't bring myself to finish it. I felt shame because I thought I was not spiritually mature enough to handle the book. But the point I finally put it down was addressing what he believed to be his role as an intercessor. He was praying for a woman who was dying from consumption. Howells believed he was to take on the illness and death in her place, but could not bring himself to accept that. As a result, when she died, he wrote:
"So far as the case of healing was concerned, I was to walk it as a failure and not make a word of defense. All the district knew I was praying for this woman's healing, and now I had failed openly."The woman's very life depended on Howells' perfect obedience and intercession. She died because he failed. At least, that is what Howells believed. What a burden to carry!
Struggles with Sin:
There are other examples I could point to of instances where we needed to have immediate change. For example, they made space for anyone struggling to surrender something to Christ to stay back in the chapel and ask for help. They ended up having us "reckon with truth" while others students "prayed us through." What this meant is that the entire student body (about 80-100 students) gathered to pray in the chapel while those of us struggling with surrender went in the back room with the staff so they could talk with us. I went with a group of 4 other girls. The staff were loving and gentle, but none of us would be leaving the room until we had each surrendered our particular struggle and decided to let it go. They did not keep us there by force (I don't want to suggest that!) but the problem is that it assumes that these struggles can be laid down in a single moment or afternoon. For me, it was my desire for marriage. I wanted to be married one day so badly that I feared it was a distraction and an idol. So I wanted to let go of even the hope of getting married. They spent maybe 3 hours talking with us 5 girls as we each decided to surrender our dreams. Since then, I've realized that true change does not happen in an instant in a back room experience! It happens over time, with many conversations and prayers as we live life together and lovingly point each other to Christ. (I've also realized that the desire for marriage is good and while I do not want it to be an idol in my life, there is nothing wrong with hope for God's work in that area).
Another example was when they gathered all the girls together (about 50 of us) to sit in a circle in the chapel. The staff member had a microphone and went around to each of us to have us individually declare that we are in Christ and wholly surrendered to Him in front of all the other girls. I remember one or two girls who struggled because they were not ready to say it. The staff member stood there in front of each girl, waiting. I think she went on to some other girls, but then came back until these girls were ready to declare it. Again, the trouble is assuming that we can immediately change beliefs, struggles, or any sinful patterns in our lives, so not changing must be a result of stubbornness or sinful refusal. There is also a huge amount of peer pressure to say you are "in Christ" in a situation like that. True change, as I said before, takes time. And when you know that you're not perfect, it is okay that it takes time. It is okay to wait for God's timing and trust Him that He will transform us into His image when He knows the timing is right. We can seek Him and seek others for help, but we cannot force it on the spot.
Holy Lives:
Not only did I believe I was to be fully surrendered, perfect, and instantly leaving behind sins, but I had a lot of confusion as to what sin even was. Things that I was free to do as Christian suddenly seemed sinful to me and I could no longer tell what was living for myself or when I was relying on something other that Christ. A few examples:
- Personality. I struggled with feeling like if people saw anything of me, it was drawing attention to me instead of Christ. It could be the way I talk, the way I laugh, my excitement for life. If it wasn't making them think about Jesus, then it meant they were thinking of me and that was therefore self-centered. As a result, I became withdrawn relationally, afraid to raise my voice in groups for fear of all eyes being on me (and not Christ). My notes from one session read: "We have to give up our self-centered focus. They no longer should see you. It doesn't matter if or what they see of you. They don't see you. They see God - the whole picture. You are not what matters." Couple that with my tenancy toward shyness and I lived with so much fear that I was drawing too much attention to myself through my personality because expressing myself meant being seen. Other students coming from Ellerslie have struggled with this as well - and this was a huge thing for me to overcome and realize that I have been fearfully and wonderfully made and that even my personality can be a means of glorifying Him!
- Testimonies. I loved to tell people about ways I'd seen God move in my life. But then, in an afternoon session with the girls, Leslie said how she received many letters from young women telling her about mission trips they'd taken and how, in reality, the letters were pretty self-centered because they only talked about how God had moved in their own lives and not in the lives of other people. I felt crestfallen, especially since I had once sent Leslie a letter like that myself! I thought these stories were ways of glorifying God and certainly wasn't seeking to glorify myself. So, coupling that with the personality struggles, it felt like even telling stories related to my own experience (or maybe even asking for personal prayer requests) was drawing eyes to me. Once again, I had to learn that God uses these experiences and stories to glorify His name and bless others! There is wisdom in when to share them, but done with there right heart, there is nothing self-centered about it.
- Rest & Sleep. I struggled a lot with feeling like rest was bad. They talked a lot about Isaiah 40:31 - "They shall run and not be weary..." In their reasoning, we should not grow tired or need to take naps. When I did grow tired, I felt like I wasn't relying on God for strength, and I often ran myself into the ground trying to work too hard because I felt like rest was selfish and that I should use all my time to serve others. Rest was seen as stopping to take time to be filled by Christ - to pray, to read the Bible. But while that rest is certainly important, other kinds of rest are also a gift from God! It is okay to take a nap, sit down, enjoy a quiet evening. These things, in their proper place, are not sinful or selfish. They are rejuvenating.
- Life Boats & Alarm Clocks. In addition to confusion of being self-centered, I was confused about when I was relying on something other than Christ. In one session, Eric talked about how Paul had them cut away the lifeboats in Acts and how we needed to get rid of the lifeboats in our lives, using things like savings accounts and retirement funds as examples. To clarify, Ellerslie is not an organization out to take people's money. He was not saying we should give Ellerslie that money, but rather, that it displayed a lack of trust in God to prepare for the future in that way because it's a "backup" plan in case we end up being in need (the reasoning being that if God will provide for all our needs, we shouldn't feel like we have to have a savings account). In a similar line of thought, one girl I knew decided to stop using an alarm clock because she felt that by needing to rely on an alarm to wake up, she was relying on something other than God.
- Medication. This was a big one for me. Although they did not explicitly tell us not to take medication, they talked a lot about healing. Tied into the concept of breaches, sickness should not get through to a Christian because it does not get through to Christ. Eric mentioned a couple of times in talks on healing that he personally did not like to take medicine. While he mentioned that Leslie disagreed, the trouble is that when someone you look up to as an example of faith says something like that, you want to emulate it. So I stopped taking allergy medicine. Coming home, when I'd get sick, I would pray and fight through it. Eventually, I got so sick from a cold that I ended up getting bronchitis and was on so many prescriptions I nearly lost count! There is great danger in tying medication into faith. Medicine is a gift and should not be seen as displacing our trust in God.
- Community. Similarly, I feared that community could be a substitute for going to Christ. If I shared my problems with others, was I relying on them instead of Jesus? But over the past couple of years, I have learned the sweetness of community and friendships that draw me near to Jesus and how often community is His very means of showing us His love, grace, and healing!
- Guy friendships. I struggled a lot with this. I was so shy growing up, and guys were particularly hard for me. Freshman year, I had a lot of good guy friendships, but going to Ellerslie, guy-girl friendships were mostly very restricted. We weren't allowed to date each other during our times as students - I understand that, since the purpose was to focus on Christ. However, to help maintain that rule, we were not allowed to spend more than 30 minutes with the opposite gender, even in group situations, such as playing a game. I remember I tried to get some students together to help weed the area around the bridge. It was me and one or two other girls, and then a couple of the guys joined us. We were in a pretty public place in the middle of campus. This wasn't something we had to do, but something we wanted to do to serve the staff - as one of the staff walked by, he briskly said, "30 minutes, guys." Immediately, what I was doing out of joy and a heart of service made me feel embarrassed, as though we were doing something wrong. But when 30 minutes were up, the girls left and the guys kept working. These sort of limits were unhelpful because it made us shy away from relationships with each other, rather than learning to interact with each other as brothers and sisters in Christ. I constantly second-guessed myself in my interactions with guys and there was a lot of distance between me and guys I knew back home upon my return. Since then, God has taught me to love them as brothers and treat them as friends - and I have found so many good, healthy male friendships since then - friends who help me love Jesus more, who love me as a sister, and who bring a lot of joy to my life. I am very grateful for them!
Differing Opinions:
There were many times I felt uncomfortable, but time and time again, I decided that my concerns were fleshly, rather than being from God. Why did I discount my concerns so many times? Part of that is because of how the Ellerslie environment is set up.
At Ellerslie, they told us that we would experience a lot of resistance - that our flesh and the enemy would not want us to surrender so we would hear a lot of lies, doubts, and spiritual attacks. Because of this, one of the rules was that we were not allowed to express any doubts to others students because they did not want the enemy to be able to "plant doubt" in other people's minds through our words. The problem is that the very premise of this rule holds the assumption that our questions are errant and that the problem resides within us, not with what's being taught. If we have concerns about a particular talk, it is then automatically assumed to be from the enemy, not from God.
Although they told us to check the Word against what they teach, this rule already sets up anything we find to the contrary to not be from God. What's more, we could only talk to staff about our questions, who would further endorse what is being taught. However, in any other Christian community, the hard questions are asked without fear because we know that the Word can stand up to it and that together we'll grow in faith as we dig for answers! (We were also not allowed to talk about more controversial doctrines, like pre-destination or tongues - a lot more could be said for their ideology of "Simplitism" - focusing on Jesus rather than other "distracting" doctrines - but I won't go into that since it has been addressed by others elsewhere)
This was most strongly illustrated to me in a quote I found from an Ellerslie student on a forum discussing Ellerslie. In defense of Ellerslie's teachings, he wrote:
"His [Eric's] primary authority is the Bible. So, in order to prove him wrong you must somehow prove the Bible is wrong."This statement is alarming to me as it leaves no room for the possibility that Eric's interpretation of Scripture might be wrong. This was huge for me. When I started to question Ellerslie's teachings, for a long time I feared I was doubting Christianity and the Bible itself. That is a big problem! By not allowing doubts to be expressed, it made it very difficult for me to get help when I came home and started to struggle. The lines were blurred between doubting Christianity and doubting Ellerslie's interpretation because Ellerslie was set up as the standard to follow.
The other issue with how they handle doubt is that as we got ready to go home, they warned us that many of our peers and churches back home would not accept what we learned there (because they had not experienced surrender and because of the flesh in their lives). As another person wrote, it transfers students loyalties from their churches to instead be loyal to Ellerslie/Eric Ludy. Their home church and Christian community are viewed with suspicion (especially if those people raise concerns about Ellerslie teaching!) because of the belief that there are different categories of Christians (fleshly and surrendered). This sets up students to check everything, not against the Bible, but against Ellerslie. That is exactly what I did. I looked to see if things matched up with what I heard at Ellerslie. When something did not match up, for a long time, I viewed it with suspicion.
Conclusion:
There is much I could say. But for the sake of time, I will stop here. There is a lot God taught me through the struggles after leaving Ellerslie. He taught me about being wise in what we listen to and how readily we believe. It taught me to go to the Scriptures to check what I'm hearing. It taught me about the importance of sound doctrine, community, rest, leaving behind works, and countless other things. And it taught me about grace. It is true that those who have been forgiven much, love much. I had to walk through some dark places to find that, but if God can use this story to help others heal from their own battles, then I am happy to be used by Him!
Over the past year, God has been teaching me a lot about Grace. His Grace. And how free it truly is. But it took a long journey of trying to earn it for me to really get how great Grace is.
So this is my story. But it's really His story. It's the story of the God who loves. The God who came. The God who saves. And the God who transforms.
I hope to tell this story in a series of snapshots into significant moments as God began transforming my understanding of Grace, sanctification, and our identity in Him.
Soli Deo Gloria
