Dragged to the Altar: When Exploitation Masquerades as Ministry

I saw this picture while scrolling.

It was meant to be funny, and in its posted context, I suppose it was slightly humorous.

I couldn’t help but be reminded of a youth camp I attended as a teenager though.

For a minute, it took me back to the experientialism, the pressure to perform, and the exploitation that often takes place in such settings.

At 13, I was the “black sheep” at a Pentecostal youth camp. Most of the kids present were cookie-cutter “Holiness.” (By “Holiness,” I mean they belonged to the Holiness Movement.) I didn’t come from a “Holiness” home, so I had bangs and the ends of my hair were straight—a clear sign I hadn’t grown my hair out my entire life. My ears had been pierced, and I hid under a hood in the middle of summer.

I didn’t quite blend in with this crowd.

I’m sure that it was for this reason that the preachers singled me out and hyper-fixated on me in that setting. All week, I was prodded and pressured to “get in.” They called me out from the pulpit; they pleaded with me to come to the altar.

I couldn’t do it.

I wasn’t trying to be stubborn—I was just paralyzed by the expectations.

I was shy. I didn’t like attention being drawn to me.

I didn’t know how I felt about what was going on all around me.

Let’s be honest—there is a lot to take in at a Pentecostal church service.

Two years before this (as a very normal, happy, healthy 11-year-old), a friend and I were in a similar setting, surrounded by a crew of zealous women who determined that because we were shy, we were demon-possessed.

Yes… you read that right… shy.

They then attempted to cast these demons out of us.

They pressed our heads backward to knock us to the ground, and when we simultaneously resisted, their suspicions were “confirmed.” This wasn’t two little girls trying not to fall on the floor. This was demons fighting back against the anointing. The women quickly escalated their efforts and overpowered us—pushing us down to the floor. When I heard the language of their prayers—commands for devils to come out, rebuking of Satan, etc.—I was so overcome with terror that I started sobbing uncontrollably. This, in turn, generated extreme amounts of mucus. (Sorry if that’s TMI, but it’s relevant) Mucus was often deemed as “evidence” of demons coming out, so the confidence of these individuals compounded. Because I was pinned down on my back, and this mucus began blocking my airways, I couldn’t breathe. I started fighting and thrashing for air—my fighting was deemed even further evidence of their conclusion.

It’s hard to put into words what an experience like this does to the mind of a child. In these settings, it was normalized—“Oh—we’ve got the anointing! We cast devils out all the time!”

But I walked away from that experience with indelible impressions etched into my mind.

Adults think something is terribly wrong with me.

Being shy (aka an introvert) must be a spiritual problem. My personality is evil. (Which incidentally, I believed and battled ferociously for the next 20 years. 🫠)

Even though it was ultimately a load of utter hogwash, I believed them—that I must have been demon-possessed. Enter: childhood depression.

The whole thing was traumatizing, but here I was, all over again, in a setting primed for something like that to happen again.

I didn’t want people to focus on me.

I wanted to be invisible.

I was desperate to evade notice.

Please… please leave me alone.

But the nature of these settings is often exploitive.

Getting the kid who sits on the back pew with a hoodie pulled over her head to walk to the altar would be a feather in the cap of a preacher who makes a name for himself as “anointed.”

Of course, my worst nightmare unfolded.

Instead of respecting my decision not to get involved they eventually rushed in like vultures. When emotions were high and spiritual hysteria reached a feverish pitch, a man ran back to my pew, pulled me up out of my seat by the arm, and dragged me down to the altar at a jogging pace.

Of course, the place erupted.

Woo! She’s at the altar! GLORY!

I didn’t know what to do.

What do you do in this situation?

You just… go along with it and hope you get out unscathed.

I raised my hands and prayed… of course I cried, because there was way too much going on to process… the tears were real, but they were from overwhelm and confusion.

That wasn’t enough.

Someone ran and got the anointing oil.

It felt like the whole jar had been dumped over my head.

Another eruption of shouting and whooping and dancing.

These people literally made a spectacle of me.

People ran the aisles while someone shouted a “prophecy” over me.

I don’t even remember what it was entirely.

Something about a mantle and a torch.

A promise that God would use me for a mighty purpose.

I didn’t even understand salvation at that point. It had never been explained to me.

All I knew is that adults believed there was something deeply wrong with me. I didn’t understand why that was, but the rejection was incredibly painful.

I wanted to be accepted by them…loved by them.

What do I do to change their opinion of me?

I did the only thing I knew how.

I decided to be incredibly perfectly good.

I had no concept of what my crime was—other than existing—but I asked God for forgiveness, and I made a resolute determination to be sooooo good that no one in church would ever feel compelled to treat me like this again.

I would wear skirts and stop cutting my hair and throw away my earrings… and I would be just like them.

I believed that was salvation.

I went home from that youth camp a different person.

A moral person.

A cookie-cutter holiness teenager.

One week later, I was sexually abused by a member of my home church.

That’s another story for another time, but it wasn’t handled well.

When I reached out for help, I was threatened. When I wouldn’t retract my statement, I was vilified. Different ones used the “gifts of the Spirit” to change the narrative—to paint a picture that I was evil, but he was righteous. The church rallied behind the abuser. Emboldened by their support, this man continued to abuse me for 3 more years.

I felt powerless.

No one believed me.

Week after week, I went to a church where I was spiritually bullied. Where “God” was weaponized against me and the “Holy Spirit” was a tool to manipulate and torment me.

Month after month, I suffered in silence while that man abused me.

But I looked for hope.

I searched for a way out.

And I suppose—grasping at straw—I reached back to that “prophecy” when the oil was dumped over my head. What had he said? That God would use me? That God had a mighty work for me?

I clung to that.

It became the seed of a new identity.

A person I would strive to become—to cancel out the stigma and shame that particular church and those affiliated with it had heaped upon me.

I would become something entirely different.

So spiritual, so good, so ambitious—

Looking back, it makes my heart heavy.

That oil-dump “prophecy” planted a warped sense of hope—one that wasn’t rooted in truth, but in theatrics. It wasn’t the voice of God. It was the performance of men.

Men who stood in pulpits and presumed to speak for God.

Men who used spiritual language to validate their control, their emotion, their ego.

Men who proclaimed callings and destinies like carnival barkers handing out roles in a sideshow.

It was exploitation dressed up as anointing.

A false word that became a false identity.

A twisting of vulnerability into religious bondage.

Accepting it—believing it—was my first step down a long road of labyrinthine deception.

But what was it, truly?

Not a prophecy.

Not a calling.

Not a word from the Lord.

Just the presumptuous words of men performing spirituality.

By the grace of God alone, I now see it for what it was.

And by His grace, I’ve come to know the true Gospel that sets captives free.

“Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, declares the Lord, and who tell them and lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness, when I did not send them or charge them. So they do not profit this people at all, declares the Lord.” – Jeremiah 23:32

“And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.” – 2 Peter 2:3

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” – Isaiah 5:20

“And the Lord said to me: “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds.” – Jeremiah 14:14