Blake’s Story: David Hasz was my High School Teacher

I wanted to thank you for your blog. I found it just a few days ago and I have been reading it a little bit each day since. I have to admit that I was reluctant at first to visit the site because I thought it was a bash David Hasz site. However, it is clear to me from what I have read that you have presented thoughtful, insightful, and well founded criticisms of both TM and David.

I suppose I’m not quite the target audience for your blog as I was never at the Honor Academy. I know David from my high school were he taught before joining TM full time. David was my Bible teacher, coach, and informal mentor. I also went on a TM mission trip with him and attended a couple of ATFs. While I didn’t experience any of the blatant abuse described by so many of the Honor Academy alumni, most of the teachers at my high school believed a similar performance based theology taught by TM. I heard many of the teachings described on your site from David although I think many were in an embryonic state when I heard them.

Many of the feelings that you described in your story resonate with me: the dry times, the guilt for not being good enough, and despair. I tried so hard to do the things that David and TM taught. When I graduated and attended college (a genuinely Christian college), I felt like my whole world was falling apart. No one at college seemed to be a real Christian because they were not constantly floating on an emotional high. I tried “tithing” my quiet times my first semester as David had once suggested (I could only manage 2 hours and I was barely awake anyway) and quickly began to burn out. I refused to listen to secular music, and I even plugged my ears with my fingers for two hours in a friend’s car as I rode back from my first Christmas break! I could go on, but I think that paints a good picture how I was thinking and living. Throughout this time I felt God had forgotten me, but he hadn’t. At least two times during college I felt his presence. I expected condemnation and anger, but what I felt was love and acceptance. Ultimately I couldn’t believe it, and returned to my performance “gospel” shortly after each encounter trying harder than before to please him – to foolishly show him I deserved a second chance.

God blessed me after college with a wonderful wife, children, and a career. All the time I was still attempting to achieve my identity and acceptance through my own performance. Ultimately for me, it took an incredibly embarrassing bout with addiction to hit bottom. I could no longer pretend that I could earn acceptance from God. I have since found a group where I am experiencing real healing based on the finished work of Christ. It’s amazing to see how God pursues us even when we ignore him and attempt to do things our own way. I thought that I had moved past the hurts from high school until I came upon your blog. I wasn’t expecting the emotional response I had after reading just the first entry. For the first time, I connected the dots between my performance based living and the things I learned in high school. Thank-you again for sharing your story so openly.

In addition, after seeing David’s appalling behavior in some of the videos, I feel betrayed. I had thought that he really cared about me and all his students. It seems to me now that anything he did was suspect. The things he is doing are so incredibly wrong, and you are right in establishing a forum to expose them.