The sect I grew up in--realization

I often tell people, when they are discussing elements of popular culture of which I lack knowledge, specifically popular music or movies, that I grew up in a box. The box was largely associated with a sect--to use their own language, an "indepedend fundamental Bible believing church". Not that we were ever educated in what these words might mean, except for the "Bible believing".

One thing that was often repeated at the sect was that it was important not to take an "ark" mentality. By this, it was meant that, unlike many of "those churches" (and by implication all those wrong, unsafe churches), we must not not think and act as if the whole world is going to hell in a handbasket (not that anyone in the sect would have so casually and profanely used the word "hell"), and the only safe thing to do is to "circle the wagons", "come inside the four walls of the church", and be safe, like Noah and co. did with the Ark, while the rest of the world drownded (I think "drownded" just works a lot better than "drowned".) Instead, we must "go outside the church" into "the marketplace of ideas" and "engage the culture!". We must not have a "hold the fort" mentality! The Bible says of the church "The gates of hell shall not prevail against it", and that means the church is on the attack, because, of course, gates are *defensive* hardware. And so forth.

So my realization this week is that in spite of all this ... ongoing talking along these lines, the sect was by and large doing exactly what it was saying we must not do. And so I grew up in a box, or an ark, if you will. Here's item one from the sect's statement of faith, pulled today from their web site. This is the item which perhaps strikes me as the strangest of the eight tenets in said statement, and perhaps also most represents the relative smallness of the ark/box.

We believe in the verbal plenary inspiration of the scriptures, and that the Bible is the absolute authority in all matters of doctrine and practice. We believe the King James Version is an accurate and trustworthy English translation of the original text

I can see now that in many (and toxic) ways, the main guy in charge at the sect thought of and acted towards the members, both children and adults, as if they were children, and they in turn acted toward him as if they were children, so that no one ever really made much progress toward ... maturity.