Listening to them, I could never quite figure out if I was really supposed to love America or despise it. On one hand, ours was the best country, and we were the best people. On the other, God was going to destroy the U.S. for its wickedness—and that destruction could happen any day now. Our pastors continually contradicted themselves, which made it impossible to figure out what was truly “right” and “wrong.” Like so much of the teaching I received as a child, it was a recipe for emotional imbalance. Our cult leaders knew exactly what they were doing; they knew that confused, unstable people
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