Further disturbing info on "Honor Academy"

What if I love Buddha?  Am I damned?  What If I believe something different?  What if when you die nothing happens and your life is just over.  My brother-in-law is in this program and all he seems to get from it is the ability to have no shame in asking all of his relatives for money all the time.  He earned $4500 at least in the last month and is still asking for money to finish 4 months of school.  That is a bit ludacris considering he doesn't get any REAL creidts for them.  After he is all said and done he will be 22 years old and have to enroll in a real school and start all over.  Does he think he can just mooch off of people his entire life?  Then when and if he does come home to visit he doesn't have ANY normal conversations with people.  He's not normal and he is definately brain washed.  He can't even watch Rent because it deals with homosexuals, transgenders, and drug addicts.  Doesn't "God" love them too?  He went to Africa for over a year to "convert" people and spread the "good news'...here's my "good news":  I was surprised my Brother in law was not taken prisinor and tortured for trying to change people.  Why do you guys insist on Everyone being Christian.??  It is so ridiculous. 

So i know this is a ridiculously old post, but honestly?  I think before you make a point defending an institution you should not make stupid comments about information that is wrong.  "All in all, please don't believe everything you read in magazine
articles and also in the news because a lot of times the people doing
the article will put their own perspective and tell the story all
wrong, especially when it's from a magazine named after a rock band."  The magazine was not named after the band you illeducated child.  it was named after the common phrase "like a rolling stone" it refers to someone or something that moves from place to place without being noticed.  Before you try to make any reference tying the band and the magazine together, you might want to look in on the history.  Oh wait, from what I hear the "sadistic" magazine is "sacreligious" and you would probably get in a whole lot of trouble from "God" for looking into information.  Maybe you should wiki the word "cult" and see what comes up.  Apparently you don't know what one is.  They say ESOAL is simily to army/navy training?  That's complete bullshit.  I have never heard of the army/navy or any of the armed forces going through ridiculous training without sleep.  I doubt that "God" would ever actually force that upon anyone anyways.  Well Peace be with you and I hope you grow a pair soon.

Hello.

I've had more than 3 years of experience with Teen Mania, including one on campus (in the HA program), one on the road, and one partnering with them while on the road.

Teen Mania has a lot of problems, and I and several of my collegues are attempting to address them and present viable solutions, but ESOAL is not one of those problems.

Again... and to stress this QUITE clearly, it is COMPLETELY and TOTALLY VOLUNTARY. There's no pressure to do it, and even if you do join the TEMPORARY, FEW DAY program of ESOAL, you can literally walk away at ANY time no matter what. I know people who finished it. I know people who have not finished. I know people who hated it and cried. I know people who laughed almost the entire time - I'm being serious. I also know people who thought it was one of the best experiences in their lives and have even COME BACK SEVERAL YEARS in a row to continue to push themselves and discipline their bodies.

The Honor Academy, like ANY program or study ANYWHERE - formal or non - is NOT PERFECT, nor is what it offers as education/training bulletproof. Find me any institution (including West Point or Harvard) that has a 100% FAIL proof system that guarantees the absolutely happiness and success of ALL participants, and I'll gladly be proven wrong.

Just because organizations are "Christian" or "church" oriented does not make them Heaven on earth, nor does it mean that anyone - including myself, who has FAAAR more reason to take offense from Teen Mania (3 years can do that to anyone, anywhere... sorry) - should be bashing EVERYTHING that comes out of one institution or organization. That's just ludicrous and extremely shallow minded. GET OVER IT.

This is not my defense of Teen Mania (or Teenage Maniac, as I refer to it)... this is my attempt to defend reason and logic at all. None of you doing any bashing (including Rolling Stone) have actually been through these programs yourselves, so stop voicing opinions about things that you haven't actually experienced, but have only heard "this or that" about.

Remember: ESOAL = VOLUNTARY!!!

Remember: humanity (INCLUDING you) = IMPERFECT!!!

I mean, gosh... if people bash everything they don't even know about, how the heck do they live with themselves? They must either loathe their very existence, or they secretly or publicly believe themselves to be God's gift to the world.

Enough said. God Loves Everyone, including people who go to places like Teen Mania, including people who don't like places like Teen Mania. What's the difference?

Stop all the hating, people.

And as for the guy who "lost his faith." As if that is anyone's responsibility but his and God's. Not even his parents (even if they're the most loving people on the earth) are responsible for another person's decisions, let alone perspectives.

LOVE GOD. LOVE PEOPLE. That's what the Book says - it says if we're truly doing that, ALL the rest of the Laws and Truths are fulfilled. So for the rest (like picking on each other or worrying up a storm)... let's get over it.

I should add that another friend who had very strong faith going into HA was completely destroyed by it. He seemed to be doing fine when he came out of the program. But then he said that if that's what Christianity was, he couldn't be a Christian anymore. It was very sad, since he'd had a strongly, healthy faith before going in.

Another friend says he doesn't regret it because he learned things, but he now thinks it was kinda silly. Suffering for your faith and suffering because you choose to are two different things and he doesn't see the latter as noble anymore, just self-centered. But he said that his emotions were constantly manipulated and revved up, he was sleep deprived, he was often fasting, so he wasn't able to take a clear view much. Fortunately, his faith wasn't hurt.

Anyway, I'd known about the former friend before LBIL went but not about the latter. I regret now that I didn't talk to them more about their experiences. While they were there, it was all so exciting to them, but after the manipulation wore off...

Actually, he said ESOAL was the most horrible experience of his life, very cult-like, and verging on abusive. Being able to opt-out doesn't actually make it non-cultish (all cults say that people are free to leave/opt-out, but they put tremendous pressure on people to participate through subtle and not-so-subtle guilt, etc). And that the overall "Honor Academy" experience was terrible and he's glad that he chose to leave mid-year instead of waiting it out. He stayed for half a year to give it a chance, but it only got worse.

From his descriptions, it sounds like Rolling Stone was on the right track, though they were talking about a different year so things were slightly different.

He also believes that he was misled about what Teen Mania/Honor Academy were offering.

Fortunately, he's much happier now that he's out and has had some time to get past it.

I've had a number of people with similar experiences share comments on my blog or e-mail me personally to affirm that he's not alone and Honor Academy/ESOAL were some of the worst experiences they've ever had...which is pretty sad.

So, I just completed ESOAL Sunday afternoon at 3:00 pm. I spent 87 hours participating in this event. Trust me when I tell you this, Ron Luce and the leaders of the Honor Academy have nothing in mind other than building up, teaching, and furthering the relationship of their students with God. Rolling Stone took everything they saw and heard and sadistically twisted it into fabricated stretches of the truth. Most of the stuff they said were straight up lies. Now, after going through 87 hours of this event. There was nothing that they asked us to do that was forced upon us. Everything we did was voluntary and we could quit at anytime that we wished to. Also, everything that we did was for our benifit. They were trying to get us to realize what was holding us back from God, whether it be pride, anger, insecurities, or what ever and realize that we need to rely on God and not on ourselves. They always had our best interests in mind and would not let us continue if they thought that we would physically endanger ourselves. They were never putting us down with their words, in actuallity there were countless times when one of the men that was "facilitating" (they were the staff that were assisting with the progress of the participants, the sergeants or majors) were telling me to continue to encourage the rest of the people in my group and they were telling us how great of a job we were doing. All in all, please don't believe everything you read in magazine articles and also in the news because a lot of times the people doing the article will put their own perspective and tell the story all wrong, especially when it's from a magazine named after a rock band. Also I would advize you ask your LBIL because I'm sure he'll have some great stuff to tell you about what he learned from the experience.

I understand how this makes it sound but honestly you shouldn't believe everything you read. I don't 100% agree with everything that Teen Mania does but I know for a fact that there are a lot of lies or "stretched truths" in this article. I am very familiar with ESOAL and while it is a very intense event and definitely is emotionally and physically stretching, it is a very good event. It is structured after a Navy Seals/Army type training in which their identities are put away for the weekend and they are put in an environment that they cannot control to break them into realizing that they have to rely on others and that they need God in their life. It is by no means an opportunity to be made fun of or brought down in any way.

Anyway, just some random thoughts for you......if you have any questions or other thoughts I'd be happy to hear them

Oh my, that is awful. Most definitely a cult.