Actress Calls Relationship With God Her ‘Safe Space’ After Cult Escape

Published: November 7, 2024

Actress Calls Relationship With God Her ‘Safe Space’ After Cult Escape

By Movieguide® Contributor

ONE TREE HILL star Bethany Joy Lenz is discovering a new relationship with faith after escaping a cult.

“I got involved in something that seemed very rote,” she explained in an interview with Variety. “I grew up in a Christian home where Wednesday night Bible studies were very common. I think that there’s a lot of people that can resonate with that. And I just went to another one. I moved to a new state, moved to a new city, and I went to another Wednesday night Bible study and that’s all it was to me.”

The cult, called the Big House Family, began controlling every component of Lenz’s life, from what roles she could take to how her money was being spent.

She eventually escaped the group, a process she details in her new book, Dinner For Vampires.

“In my personal life, I made a lot of mistakes and I became okay with making mistakes — and really not just okay with it, but I really embraced the mess,” she explained. “What is grace worth if I’m not willing to show up in my full, authentic mess and let God guide me, heal me, grow me in that place?”

Lenz said that she made a “deal” with God as she started to navigate life and faith after the cult: “If you speak to me, then I will listen. I don’t know how to trust myself, but I know you care about me, I know you’re there.”

“I couldn’t walk away from God,” she said.

“God’s grace is there in multiple different ways, but it’s a long process,” Lenz concluded. “It just doesn’t happen overnight, and so I think we really have to become okay with making mistakes and living in the mess and just expecting that we need the gospel, because what else is it for?”

Lenz has been open about her faith journey and where she is today in her relationship with God.

“[My relationship with God is] better than it ever has been, that’s for sure,” she told Variety. “What I realized was that I had been approaching my faith and my idea of God, with a sense of duty, activity, learning. Like, if I do all the things on the checklist, then I get a great life, right? Isn’t that the deal? I do all the right things, and you give me a nice life? Is that not the arrangement? And what I found was something so much more complex, so much more freeing, actually, that I got to a point where I started to live in the openness of humanity and I don’t have all the answers. I don’t know what the right decision is to make on any given day. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t, and that’s OK.”

Lenz concluded, “As my relationship with God develops on a daily basis, that is my safe place. It’s not the things that I’m doing and it just feels a lot more freeing. It’s so much easier to make mistakes. I don’t beat myself up as much anymore. It feels so much easier to let go. I don’t feel so much shame. I still feel a little, but I don’t live with the shame of my past so much, because I know that there’s a plan B, C, D, E. It’s all just gonna work out. It’s OK.”