I Fired God: My Life Inside—and Escape From—the Secret World of the Independent Fundamental Baptist Cult

by Jocelyn R. Zichterman

Courage cannot be manufactured. It is cultivated.

believe that they alone are God’s elite “chosen” people,

raging against God in private. I blamed Him for everything that had happened

Fire that false god and hire the God who does nothing but love and care for you and want the best for you.”

“You have a hyper-sensitive conscience,” he told him. “What they drilled into you has warped your view of God and robbed you of any peace. Now you think this god that they created is unreasonable and ready to exact punishment on you the minute you do the slightest thing wrong.

instilling an irrational fear of an unreasonable God in them.

advocate for the restorative justice model,

Having been raised under a punitive justice model,

Jesus did not mandate people follow him. He wooed them.