Teen Challenge

[Anonymous]

I’m putting this here b/c yes I do think this is a form of spiritual abuse.  Unfortunately this Sunday our church hosts Teen Challenge, as they do every year.  We went to one presentation about 3 years ago and haven’t been back because hubby & I do not agree with anything in their philosophy (i.e. all addiction is caused by sin) and will not present them w/ one thin dime or give them the time of day.

Anyways I’d be interested to hear others perspective on this.  I do not think people at Teen Challenge have the resources, training or education to truly deal with addiction or the root cause of it which is not sin, but pain.

[RevOxleyParticipant]

One of my first preludes into the ministry was performing an exorcism at Teen Challenge. It was my first exorcism (of hundreds) – and I was only there for one night as part of a musical ministry team when I was very young.  What I noticed was how strict the rules were, how grown men were given such explicit – prison like instructions and how they seemed to only comply because they feared the consequences if they didn’t.

 

I know that they use the men in the program as money raising tools – the men perform odd jobs, contract construction, etc and give all the proceeds to the ministry. The men are generally just playing the part of Christian to stay out of trouble and out of jail or they are genuinely so entrenched in the fear culture of  modern Christianity that they learn to hate themselves and their sin rather than learn to love themselves and hate what their addiction does to them.

[WadeParticipant]

I’d never heard of Teen Challenge. Fortunately, Wikipedia has a page.

I wouldn’t participate either. It sounds like the designers of this program have chosen one thing as the root of all problems. That’s wrong: everything is interconnected. Genuine therapy with a trained professional teases all the connections out and shows the participant how they interact and why they are interacting the way they are. Then they teach ways to alter these interactions. Pain and fear are hiding behind a lot of them, but you have to address what is causing the pain and what is causing the fear. Focussing on “sin” encourages a list-based mentality of do’s and don’t’s. Which is not terribly Christian.

Wade.

 

[AmyParticipant]

I was at a church many years ago where people from Teen Challenge occasionally came to speak.  But I honestly haven’t thought of them in years.  I didn’t know they were still around.  Nor did I have much of an idea what their teaching was.  That’s quite disturbing.

Obviously, I don’t agree with their philosophy.  But that raises a larger question: To what extent are, say, 12-step programs beneficial?  Because those aren’t trained professionals leading the groups either.  I’m not sure what I think, since I’ve never been involved with any of those programs.

[Author]

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