If it didn’t, my life would be boring, anticlimactic … normal. All my favorite songs and stories ended with some powerful, and in many cases tragic, moment of catharsis. I was lonely and bored, and I wanted to experience something extraordinary before I left school: a mystery to solve, a battle to fight, a romantic quest, like the heroes in the stories I had read. It was discouraging to see some of my best and only friends at Southwestern sharing an experience from which I was excluded I wanted to belong to their group. When I found out that he and Bethany were meeting every night for prayer with their two roommates, June and Justin*, I begged them to let me join. He claimed he could tell what we were thinking, when we were sinning he said he could feel in his own body what God felt about us. He could describe conversations he wasn’t involved in that were taking place on the other side of campus. He had always been extraordinarily perceptive, but now this ability had reached uncanny levels. Those of us who knew him well were surprised by the changes in his personality. Two years later, in the summer of 2007, Tyler returned from a trip to Pakistan and announced that God was going to launch a spiritual revolution on our campus. Our prayer group became an enchanted sphere where supernatural things seemed to happen all the time. Inspired by his sensitivity toward others and bravery in confronting his personal demons, I learned to ignore my initial reservations and trust him. Early on, I felt as though Tyler often tried to manipulate people into doing what he wanted, but he was also a committed Christian, zealous and humble. A few months later I would work up the courage to ask him the question offended him so much that I didn’t bring it up again until the end of that year, when he conceded that he had been “struggling with same-sex attraction” for years. Something about the nasally pitch of his voice made me wonder whether he was gay. I feel like I’m moving to the rhythm of your graceĪt the end of the song, he came over and introduced himself. Several years ago, the founder of IHOP, Mike Bickle, created a list of seven ways to recognize the difference between a religious community and a cult. Looking in from the outside, we both saw the group differently than we had when we were part of it: We saw it as a cult. In February, I had been formally excommunicated, and Hannah had left in June. I had felt like she would always be part of my life.įor three weeks, Hannah and I had been trying to contact leaders at IHOP about a prayer group that we, Bethany, and many of our friends had been part of-a small, independent community that drew on IHOP’s teachings. She was 27, newly married she had just completed her nursing degree. For seven years, I had spent hours every day with Bethany, eating and talking and praying. “Bethany Leidlein committed suicide on Tuesday.” I didn’t want to tell you this way, but I want you to know,” she said. “I found out something that’s truly devastating. At about 6 p.m., I got a call from my friend Hannah*. I had spent the afternoon reading in the library at an unaccredited college affiliated with the International House of Prayer, an evangelical Christian organization commonly referred to as IHOP ( no relation to the restaurant). November 2, 2012, was a beautiful Friday in Kansas City-clear and cool and sunny.
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