Education from an early age

“I was born into a Catholic family, then became a practicing Jehovah’s Witness before becoming a Born Again Christian, and I want to share my story as I was among the first to join the movement when it came to Malta, which led to other movements, like River of Love… I’m not pointing fingers at anyone, but I know there are more victims out there in Malta,” Julian Townsend told Lovin Malta.

“Due to the hate and mistrust they instilled in me, I live like a hermit today.”

Townsend spent his formative years in these organisations, placing faith in his pastors and religious leaders – faith that he’s now totally lost. “After it was all done, I lost my faith in everything, stopped believing in religion and developed a major drug problem. However, I’ve now been clean from drugs for six years.”

Tearing families apart

“When my dad was dying of cancer, I would be scared to speak about it with the pastors because my mom is a smoker, and also a Catholic. I had to lie about my home situation, even though I was told I’d go to hell for my sins if I’m not honest, but they would always tell me my mom has the devil in her, and I needed to rid the world of that kind of evil… they implanted that in my head from a young age.”

“When he turned up at the funeral my mum was shocked that he would even enter a Catholic church.”

“Eventually, when my father passed away and the funeral was done, they visited our home and my mother was still carrying the crucifix from his coffin. The pastor came up to me and told me that was demonology, and I remember that really offended me. He came with another pastor who began trying to chat up my mum. My mother was feeling very vulnerable at the time and I felt unable to stop them.”

Regular physical beatings

“The paster would tell us regular stories – one time, he told us of a boy who stole three matchsticks, and God told his father to spank his son to get rid of the devil.”

“I was spanked; once I was spanked because I walked through Paceville in the day with schoolmates on a Saturday… he needed to take the devil out of me so he spanked me hard.”

“He said: ‘God told me you must be spanked’, and he took me upstairs to a room and bent me over his knee, took his belt in hand and started spanking me… very hard, about 13 times, all while shouting out ‘Lord take the devil out of him!'”

“I was crying my eyes out, not understanding why this was happening, why my mother would put me in here… that’s all I could think at that time.”

A different approach to sexuality 

“At school, we would have storytime, and our pastor would speak about how he made love to his wife, praying before for what they wanted out of it. They would then say that sex was only for having children, that was the Christian way.”

“He would talk to my mum, who felt really embarrassed, about making love to his wife, and it was not about making babies. This is the ideology they teach to the flock and anything else is evil. And once you are accepted into the flock, you are promoted to being a soldier of god, this will save you from your addiction and anything else is the work of the devil.”

Foot soldiers following members 

“They have foot soldiers, people who would follow you around to see if we ever broke any rules.”

“One time, when I had a girlfriend, they sent foot soldiers to follow me to her house. Now, she was not a member of their church, so they began to tell her mum and her brother things about me so they would stop me from seeing this girl again.”

“Another time, I saw them break up a family belonging to a man who was half Maltese. He was a Catholic evangelist and had a media platform, his wife joined the community and they began to pressure her to get her husband to join – they told her he was teaching his family badly.”

“He came to a few functions, but that was it. But they kept the pressure up, and she eventually left him as it was becoming too much trouble to stay with him.”

“Most probably, these foot soldiers will be slandering.”

“Just a word of caution if their food soldiers knew it was me writing this they would send their soldiers of god after me they will do everything to slander me and will try to persuade my employer and my landlord that I am a bad influence and untrustworthy person I could lose my home and my job I know what they are capable off and as you know I have a bit of a past of which I still have the scars.”

Outsiders 

“Sometimes, missionaries from places like Canada would come and they’d take us out, but they were soon stopped because my school didn’t like them, they were too open, and the pastor told us the devil was playing with their minds. They would often separate people when they wanted to – I saw marriages broken because the mother gave her son sweets, or entire families in exile just because they were too down to earth.”

Dealing with problems through physicality 

“Later on, I had visited a church in Qawra once run by another pastor to seek help for my drug use. They would pin me up against the wall and place their hands on my head, pushing against the wall, shouting and telling me I was possessed by the devil.”

“When they saw the crucifix I was wearing, they started yelling again, telling me that it was untrue, Jesus Christ is not on the cross and it was idol worship. After this, I walked out and never went back.”

Have you or a loved one ever experienced anything like this? Contact Lovin Malta in confidence via email at johnathan@lovinmalta or [email protected]

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