Escaping Egypt: Leaving a Cult and Finding Jesus

By Joel Silva

GUADALAJARA, MEXICO — The stranger walked me beyond the point my father forbade me to cross. Something felt off from the beginning. As soon as he dropped his guard, I jumped on my bicycle and peddled left, right, left, right — fast for a 9-year-old! He chased after me, grasping for my shirt but I made it home, heart pounding, locked the door, and called my father on the landline.

“Help! Someone just tried to kidnap me!”

At that moment, my father realized that what we thought was the safest place on earth actually was the center point of a malicious religion. The next thing I knew, I was boarding an airplane to Los Angeles with a backpack full of my favorite toys, never to return.

“What just happened?” you may ask. The answer: the beginning of my family’s exodus from one of the largest and most dangerous cults in Latin America, La Luz del Mundo (LLDM). As soon as my father began subversively speaking against the apostle, the veiled threats against our family began. My family was five generations steeped into the history of the church, going as far back to my great-great-grandparents. As new converts in rural Mexico in the 1940s, my grandparents soon became traveling missionaries who established nearly 30 churches throughout the country. They served the founding apostle and then his son (we are currently on apostle number three).

At my grandfather’s funeral, my father was forcibly ordained by the second apostle to take the mantle of his father’s ministry, and he became a pastor. My father’s role in the church soon grew in influence and popularity as he was made the project manager for the construction of the church’s headquarters, one of the largest cathedrals in Latin America. Moreover, when the second apostle was accused of sexually abusing minors in 1998, my father defended him as the church’s official spokesperson in every media outlet imaginable.

Cult Characteristics

With so many cults around us, you may ask yourself, “What makes a cult, a cult?” Here are a few characteristics based on my intimate knowledge of this cult:

• Authoritarian leadership: Charismatic, unquestionable, sole messenger of God. LLDM also adds the requirement of believing in their living, breathing apostle for salvation.
• Unorthodox beliefs: Embraces doctrines that have historically been refuted or develops new doctrines. LLDM denies the Trinity, the deity of Christ, and salvation by grace through faith.
• Social manipulation: Most life decisions are approved by the leaders. LLDM approves who you marry, how you vacation, what media you consume, how you use your time.
• Isolation from others: Separation from unbelieving family, friends, and strangers is intentionally designed. LLDM does this by creating a false gentiles/believers split and by demanding daily church attendance.

Miraculous Exodus

The “right hand of God” was with us all along. Moses uses this powerful metaphor to describe God’s salvific and miraculous Exodus of his people. I write to testify that the same God of Moses whose hand led Israel out of Egypt led my family, and He is leading many others out of the cult today; only God could have orchestrated such a miracle! Micah 7:15 says, “As in the days when you came out of Egypt, I will show them my wonders.”

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“‘My father chose truth over denial and courageously led our family through our own exodus.”

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While it took us about 10 years to begin placing our faith in Jesus, God’s grace was evidently at work long before our salvation. It was through the death of my mother that my father began dating my stepmother — she was the one who revealed to my father that the allegations he was defending in 1998 were, in fact, true. She knew because she was a firsthand witness. At that moment, God opened my father’s eyes, and his scales were removed. Defying his family’s legacy, relinquishing his position of great influence, and facing the inevitable loss of everything he held dear, my father chose truth over denial and courageously led our family through our own exodus.

In the Wilderness

There’s almost always a season in the wilderness. I wish I could tell you that we got to the Promised Land right away. Instead my family walked through a wilderness for a decade. Yet all along, the hand of God hemmed us in — a Christian boss for my father, a pastoral family moving into our street, and many Christian friends who modeled Jesus for me.

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“‘We trust that more justice and exposure are soon to come for the countless crimes the church’s leadership has committed.”

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God’s hand led me to UC Santa Barbara and a worship service with Cru where I placed my faith in Jesus. Upon graduation, I moved to Long Beach to intern with Cru. This is where in 2013 I met Light & Life Christian Fellowship and Larry Walkemeyer whom God used to shed my skepticism about organized religion, to discover my pastoral calling, and to open doors I never knew existed.

For 20 years, my parents remained silent and protective until the opportunity to help expose the works of darkness was presented to them. At that point, my father became deeply and publicly involved in the California state attorney general’s criminal case against LLDM’s third apostle who is currently serving an underwhelming 16-year sentence in state prison. We trust that more justice and exposure are soon to come for the countless crimes the church’s leadership has committed.

Culty Churches

Some churches can be a little bit culty. I am praying for a cult-ure shift, and I believe we are seeing its genesis. Although this is my story and I don’t bring you research, we are witnessing the downfall and diminishment of many cults through scandals, legal actions, and societal awareness. God is still doing wonders!

We should be asking two questions: What can we do for cults? And how do we ensure our churches are not culty?

What can we do for cults?

1. Commit to pray for their eyes to be opened. Paul says they have been blinded by Satan (2 Corinthians 4:4). Someone was surely praying for my family; I just didn’t know who that was yet!
2. Be prepared to give an answer. Peter encourages believers to be ready to explain why you have hope in Jesus (1 Peter 3:15). Get to know the answers to the main theological issues of cults to which your friends, families, and neighbors belong.
3. Love them genuinely. Jesus teaches us to pray for our enemies. Those who embrace cults are enemies of the truth (Matthew 5:44). Our Christlike love can show them that there is truth outside of all they know.

How can we make our churches less culty?

• Servant leadership. This is Jesus’ antidote to authoritarian leadership. When I initially met with Pastor Larry he asked me, “How may I serve you?” I knew I was home.
• Gospel faithfulness. Majoring on the gospel (and not secondary issues) keeps us centered on Christ and not “new teachings” you can only receive at your church.
• Freedom in Christ. Rather than dictating every person’s life decisions, we teach people to know the Scriptures and develop a Scripture-based conscience.
• Loving community. Create lots of spaces for the believers and newcomers to develop interdependence with people who love them just as they are, but too much to let them stay that way!

Augustine of Hippo saw the Promised Land as a symbol of the eternal rest and communion with God that the church anticipates. We all have our Egypt from which we need rescue (hopefully it’s not a cult) and our wilderness to endure. We are like pilgrims, journeying through the wilderness of this world toward the true Promised Land.

As we anticipate what is to come, let us build the church together as an imperishable and impenetrable tabernacle, so that both the saved and the lost may find uninhibited rest and communion with God.

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