rape – Homeschoolers Anonymous

10 Surprising Revelations in the Lawsuit Against Bill Gothard and IBLP

January 14, 2016May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team7 Comments

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Libby Anne’s blog Love Joy Feminism. It was originally published on Patheos on January 11, 2016.

Last week, I published a summary of the allegations included in an ongoing lawsuit against fundamentalist guru Bill Gothard and the Institute for Basic Life Principles, which he founded in the 1980s and spent three decades running. The lawsuit focuses on Bill Gothard and IBLP’s negligence in failing to report abuse and failing to train their employees to recognize and report abuse, and at its center are allegations that Bill Gothard spent decades grooming, sexually harassing, and molesting teenage girls he employed at his organization’s headquarters.

Having read through the lawsuit in full, I want to take a moment to mention ten things even I found surprising. Many of the allegations included in the lawsuit have been common knowledge since being posted in 2013 and 2014 by Recovering Grace, a website run by graduates of IBLP programs critical of Gothard and his teachings. However, the lawsuit also includes information I had not seen before. I want to focus on these points because of the questions they raise about why Gothard’s abuse was not recognized and addressed earlier.

As a quick note, I would appreciate it if you would keep down the snark in the comments section out of respect for the survivors who are bringing this suit. Their suit isn’t some sort of “gotcha” against Christians or against fundamentalists or even against Gothard himself, it’s an attempt to bring justice to Gothard and ensure that IBLP actually fixes the problems that allowed Gothard’s abuse to go unaddressed.

I want to throw into stark relief the extreme predatory nature of Gothard’s actions. I want us to look at these points and ask how this could have gone on for so long.

1. Gothard once gave his credit card to a girl he was grooming and told her to “fix” her clothes. When she expressed confusion, one of his assistants explained to her that Gothard was unhappy with her ankle length skirts and would like her to buy some that were calf length.

2. Gothard paid for a young woman he was grooming and sexually harassing to have cosmetic surgery to remove two skin blemishes which he called “a distraction.” The lawsuit positions this move as part of the increasing control Gothard was assuming over the young woman’s body.

3. Gothard told an 18-year-old girl who rebuffed his advances that if she had still been 17, he would have called social services and gotten her taken away from her parents.

4. Gothard tried to convince a woman to divorce her husband and take a job at headquarters because he wanted to groom and molest her daughter, who had told him she would not be without her mother. See also above.

5. Gothard once had a girl he was grooming placed in a bedroom opposite his office window “so he would know when she could come to his office, after everyone else had left.”

6. Gothard preyed on girls as young as 13, had parents send girls as young as 14 to his headquarters at his request, and assigned girls as young as 15 to be his personal assistants.

7. In the early 1990s, Gothard asked the IBLP Board of Directors for permission to marry Rachel Lees, a young woman he was grooming. At the time, he was nearly 60 and she was around 20. Gothard did not mention the subject to Rachel herself. It was not until Rachel learned two decades later that Gothard had asked the board’s permission to marry her that she recognized Gothard’s behavior as predatory.

8. Gothard told a victim of childhood abuse “that parents were to be believed over children and that children were to obey their parents no matter what, even if they were being sexually abused.” When Jane Doe II reported her father’s sexual abuse to Gothard, he immediately called her father on speakerphone and asked him if the allegations were true (not surprisingly, her father said they were not).

9. Gothard made a habit of having teenage girls come to his office alone late at night under the guise of “Bible study” or “mentoring.” This isn’t technically a new revelation, but it is striking how many of the plaintiffs refer to these late-night one-on-one sessions. For an organization that teaches that people of opposite genders should never be alone together, it is startling that this practice was allowed to continue for so many years without raising an eyebrow.

10. It was common knowledge at IBLP that Gothard took teenage girls as “pets.” It was also common knowledge that Gothard’s behavior with regard to these girls was not appropriate. At one point in the early 1990s, after Gothard asked the IBLP Board of Directors for permission to marry Rachel Lees, the board barred Gothard from having female personal assistants. This ban was never enforced, and Gothard continued his pattern.

I’m sitting here trying to come up with some explanation for how this went on for as long as it did. People knew this was going on. The IBLP Board of Directors knew, the personal assistant who told Jane Doe III to buy shorter skirts knew, the employee who arranged the room assignment for Jamie Deering knew. People knew something was off. We’re talking about an organization that sent teenage boys home for merely talking to girls, while its leader held late night one-on-one “mentoring” sessions in his office with teenage girls.

Well sure, you say, it was a cult. That’s how cults work. But I want to stress just how widespread IBLP’s influence was within the Christian homeschooling world throughout my entire childhood and beyond. There were hundreds and thousands of families involved who had no idea that anything untoward was happening. This wasn’t so much an insular group like we’re used to thinking about, with its members cut off from contact with the outside. Rather, it was one that faced outward and led wide swaths people across the country to trust it its leadership and its “godly” mission and methods.

I am filled with sudden respect for one of my younger brothers, who approached me five years ago at age 17, worried. He told me that our parents wanted to send him away to a program in Texas, but that he was worried that it was a cult and wanted my advice. (It was Gothard’s ban on rock music that worried him—he played the drums and loved Christian rock music, which my parents grudgingly allowed.) At this point, I hadn’t given Gothard’s name a second thought. I grew up learning about the “umbrella of authority” and I attended a COMMIT Bible study for teenage girls, but my family had never been an ATI family, and I’d paid little attention to his name.

I texted my brother this morning. I wanted to let him know about the lawsuit. I wanted to make sure he knew just how right he had been, five years ago. What made the difference, exactly? How could he see it while so many others—including my own parents—did not? My brother told me, actually, that he and my dad had visited Gothard’s ALERT program headquarters in Texas, in anticipation of sending him there. Apparently my dad was a bit worried there might be something “off” about Gothard’s ministry—my dad by nature is antiauthoritarian, except in his parenting, and I think the focus on a single leader threw him off—but the visit assured him that all was fine, and that the ministry was godly and sound, one he could get behind.

And perhaps that is the problem. For whatever reason, my 17-year-old brother was already starting to push back and ask questions, but to those predisposed to see anything with a “godly” image as de facto good—well, you can see how that might prime people to accept Gothard’s ministry without asking too many questions, especially when so many others were already supporting it—after all, could they really be all wrong? And yet they were. And perhaps that is the biggest lesson for anyone—don’t assume that a leader or organization is legit just because it has a lot of followers, or projects a certain image.

Also, don’t create authoritarian power structures focused on a single leader.

I keep coming back to the fact that there were people close to the situation who knew these things were going on and did nothing. I can better understand people following the ministry without any knowledge that something was “off,” but once you’re in the organization and you see what’s going on—it’s boggling. There are, of course, explanations. Someone who said something might not be believed, or might be kicked out or shunned. Some might have doubted what they were seeing, given Gothard’s godly extra-human reputation. And some, too, might have assumed that if something was actually wrong, someone would surely have spoken up, so it must not be. And then, too, there’s the fact that obedience was central to Gothard’s teachings.

And so, in the end, we have a cautionary tale. This isn’t simply about one more Christian organization beset with sexual scandal, it’s about power structures and beliefs that create a situation where numerous people let significant warning signs go by, either unrecognized or ignored, but unaddressed either way. No more.

Some of my readers may be wondering what came of my brother, and what I told him when he came to me for advice. To tell the story briefly, I googled Bill Gothard’s name to assess my brother’s concerns and quickly came upon blogs written by homeschool graduates raised in ATI voicing their concerns and processing their experiences. It was those blogs that inspired me to start this blog, and it was those blogs that informed the response I gave to my brother. Over the next year I helped him wade through his options and find ways to make his own choices. He never did go to ALERT, and for that I am thankful. And so perhaps, in some small way, the voices of survivors can serve as an antidote to Gothard’s abuses.

A Summary of Allegations against Bill Gothard and IBLP

January 9, 2016May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team7 Comments

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Libby Anne’s blog Love Joy Feminism. It was originally published on Patheos on January 7, 2016.

CW: Descriptions of child sexual abuse, rape, and sexual harassment

It has been nearly two years since Bill Gothard stepped down from leadership at his ministry, the Institute for Basic Life Principles (IBLP), amid a growing number of accusations that he sexually harassed and molested girls and young women in his employ. This past October, a group of individuals filed a negligence lawsuit against IBLP. This lawsuit has been amended, and Bill Gothard is now named as well.

This week, Homeschoolers Anonymous obtained the text of the lawsuit, which involves complaints made by ten women, seven named and three Jane Does. This document is over 100 pages long. In the interest of improving accessibility, I have read through the entire document and am listing a summary of each woman’s allegations below. But first, some general thoughts.

Some of the allegations listed in the document were previously published at Recovering Grace, a website run by graduates of Gothard’s programs to express criticism of Gothard and his teachings, and others are similar in content to these allegations. In sum, Bill Gothard selected girls as young as 13 from the audiences at his conferences and invited them to come work at headquarters. Once there, he groomed them sexually and molested them. It was common knowledge at IBLP that Gothard took “pets,” and yet his behavior was allowed to continue unchecked.

Other allegations included in the lawsuit are new, though not surprising. One plaintiff discloses that Gothard raped her, including full intercourse. In addition, we learn that Gothard and his employees failed to report disclosures of physical abuse, sexual abuse, and human trafficking as required by law for organizations working with children, and that this was true not only for allegations made against Gothard but also for disclosures that involved sexual abuse conducted by other IBLP employees or by children’s parents.

In several cases Gothard responded to teenagers’ disclosures of parental abuse by calling the parents, sometimes in front of the teen, to ask them whether the allegations were true. At one point he told an individual that children must obey their parents even in cases involving sexual abuse. However, when an 18-year-old girl Gothard was pursuing rebuffed him, he told her that if she were 17 he would have called social services and had her removed from her parents’ home.

We also learn more, in the allegations, about Gothard’s grooming and the extent to which he would latch onto a specific girl as his “pet.” The plaintiffs allege that Gothard told them he loved them, that they were special to him, that they were his “energy giver,” and more. He dictated where these girls lived, what clothes they wore, how the wore their hair, and even paid for them to undergo cosmetic surgery. That all of this was taking place and was common knowledge and nothing was done attests to the abusive power cult leaders wield over their followers.

Also of note, the lawsuit makes it clear that Gothard continued his predatory behavior all the way up to the point he stepped down from IBLP in 2013. Two of the plaintiffs, Melody Fedoriw and Jane Doe III, describe abuse that occurred in 2011 and 2012. This is especially appalling to me, given that I had friends from growing up who worked for IBLP and at headquarters during this period and in the years immediately before it. I’ll be honest—when I first opened the document I scanned the list quickly, worried that I was see a familiar name.

For most of the women listed in the lawsuit, the statute of limitations for the sexual abuse they suffered at Gothard’s hands have passed. For this reason, the lawsuit focuses not so much on the abuse itself as on the failure of both Gothard and IBLP to handle the abuse as required by law and on the damage caused through the sham investigation conducted by the Christian Law Association (CLA) in 2014.

According to the lawsuit, Gothard himself chose the CLA to conduct IBLP’s internal investigation into the allegations of sexual misconduct. CLA is a fundamentalist Independent Baptist organization run by David Gibbs, Jr., a personal friend of Gothard’s and a frequent speaker at IBLP conferences. CLA has no staff qualified for investigating abuse allegations, and the organization failed to contact or interview the individuals named in the lawsuit, in spite of the fact that many of them had already published their allegations and that it was these allegations that had triggered the internal investigation.

The lawsuit also claims that IBLP has made moves to sell its holdings in Illinois in order to avoid being sued there, where the majority of the abuse occurred.

These women—both the plaintiffs and those who have not been in positions to come forward—deserved better. They were failed on multiple levels. My heart goes out to the ten women serving as plaintiffs on this lawsuit, and with every survivor of Gothard’s abuse who has had to put one foot in front of another day after day. One of the women, Jane Doe III, describes the personal harassment and verbal assault she faced from Gothard after publishing her accusations in the comment section of Recovering Grace in 2012. To my knowledge, this is the first time any of Gothard’s survivors have come forward under their own names. Many of these women will lose family members or friends for what they are doing. They and the other survivors supporting them from behind the scenes are to be commended for their efforts to bring Gothard and IBLP to justice and help protect future young people from facing similar pain.

I am going to summarize the allegations of each woman below, with quotes from the lawsuit. I am doing so in order to get this information out there. Remember, there are still individuals out there defending Bill Gothard. I don’t want them to have any excuse—including the excuse that the information is buried in a 100+ page document full of legalese—not to view and learn the allegations involved in this current website.

First, a very brief summary:

Gretchen Wilkinson was groomed and molested by Gothard during counseling from 1991 to 1993 while was still a minor.

Jane Doe was severely abused by her adoptive parents. When she reported this to Gothard as a young teenager, he blamed her and failed to notify the authorities.

Jane Doe II was sexually abused and trafficked by her father. When she told IBLP staff they failed to notify the authorities. She was also raped as a child by IBLP employee Kenneth Copley while at the Indianapolis Training Center. She reported this, but the other IBLP employees did not believe her.

Melody Fedoriw was groomed and molested by Gothard while working at headquarters in 2012 at age 15.

Charis Barker was groomed and sexually harassed by Gothard while working at headquarters in the late 1990s, beginning at age 18.

Rachel Frost was groomed and sexually harassed by Gothard while working at headquarters in the early to mid-1990s, beginning at age 15.

Rachel Lees was groomed and sexually harassed by Gothard while working at headquarters in the early 1990s, beginning at age 19 or 20.

Jane Doe III was groomed by Gothard in the late 2010s beginning at age 13.

Jamie Deering was groomed and molested by Gothard while working at headquarters in the early to mid-1990s, beginning at age 14.

Ruth Copley Burger was sexually abused by her father, Kenneth Copley, while the family lived at the Indianapolis Training Center in the mid-1990s when she was 11 or 12.

Now a more detailed summary. As you read this, if you choose to do so, please remember that these women have come forward not to give people more fodder to use to mock “fundies” but rather to bring accountability to IBLP and bring Gothard to justice. They are have told their stories not to initiate a snark fest but rather to bring change. Many of the women involved in this lawsuit are still strong believers in God and the Bible. This isn’t about making a strike against religion, it’s about making a strike against abuse and bringing meaningful change.

Gretchen Wilkinson

Gretchen was an IBLP participant and employee as a minor from 1991 to 1993. She was molested by Bill Gothard while being counseled in his home office. According to the lawsuit:

45. The molestation included Bill Gothard placing his hands on Ms. Wilkinson’s breasts and on her thighs—up to her genitals, while she was clothed.

Gretchen was a minor at this time. Gretchen published her account with Recovering Grace under the name “Charlotte.”

Jane Doe

Jane Doe attended IBLP conferences from 1982 to 1988. Jane Doe was abused and neglected by her adoptive family, including sexual abuse by multiple male relatives and severe physical abuse. According to the lawsuit, “she was beaten so severely by her adoptive family that she would duck and flinch anytime someone came near.” When Jane Doe told Gothard about her abuse as a teenager, he not only failed to report it but also blamed her for her own abuse.

80. On several occasions—including when JANE DOE was 14, 15, and 16 years old, JANE DOE informed Bill Gothard of her physical, psychological, and sexual abuse. Bill Gothard’s response was to advise her to ‘let go of her bitterness,’ and to ‘let go of her rights,’ and to ‘stop being rebellious.’ Bill Gothard always made the abuse JANE DOE’s fault.

Gothard also sought to cast demons out of Jane Doe.

82. When she was approximately 15 years old, JANE DOE became aware of Bill Gothard’s teaching that adopted children should be ‘given back’ to their biological parents or to the state. Bill Gothard taught that due to the ‘curse of the sins of the forefathers’ adopted children were doomed to repeat the evils of their biological parents. Bill Gothard also taught that adoptive children tainted a family’s biological children. Thus the reason they should be given back.

83. Bill Gothard attributed his teachings about adopted children to ‘demonic forces’ that he claims affect these children. He taught that if adoptive children were not ‘returned,’ they should at least be ordered to ‘earn their keep’ in the family home. It was his teaching that they should be treated more like slaves than children.

Under the influence of Gothard’s teachings, Jane Doe’s parents ultimately kicked her out of the house and disowned her. Her mother beat her again the day she was kicked out.

At around this time Jane Doe spoke again with Bill Gothard, expressing concern that her siblings, too, were being abused. Gothard never reported anything to social services. Jane Doe wrote to the IBLP Board, letting them know what she had told Gothard, and they, too, failed to report anything.

Jane Doe II

From 1991 (when she was four) through 2009, Jane Doe II participated in IBLP programs and served as an IBLP volunteer. She was physically, emotionally, and sexually abused in her home, as were her siblings. According to the lawsuit, she was “raped by her father and other relatives” and “sold for sex by her father through commercial sexual exploitation and human trafficking.” Jane Doe II reported both the severe sexual abuse and the human trafficking to IBLP staff, but those staff members did not contact authorities.

As a child, Jane Doe II was raped by Kenneth Copley, a counselor at ATI’s Indianapolis training center. Jane Doe II reported this rape to IBLP staff, but nothing was done and nothing was reported to authorities.

Jane Doe II later told Gothard about her abuse.

128. On at least five occasions, JANE DOE II told Bill Gothard that she was being sexually abused by her father and that her younger siblings were also being abused. Bill Gothard took pleasure in the details presented and kept pressuring JANE DOE II for more explicit details of the abuse that took place.

129. On one occasion, when JANE DOE II disclosed details about her abuse and the abuse of her siblings, Bill Gothard called JANE DOE II’s father on a speakerphone and asked if the allegations were true. JANE DOE II’s father denied the allegations. JANE DOE II was humiliated by this process. The last time JANE DOE II tried to disclose abuse, Bill Gothard personally threatened her. Bill Gothard taught that parents were to be believed over children and that children were to obey their parents no matter what, even if they were being sexually abused.

A short time later, Bill Gothard took Jane Doe II to his “private suite” and raped her.

During this entire time, neither Gothard nor any of the numerous other IBLP staff members who also knew of Jane Doe II’s accusations against her father and against Kenneth Copley notified authorities.

Melody Fedoriw

Melody attended IBLP’s Journey to the Heart in 2011 and worked at IBLP headquarters during much of 2012. During her time as an employee at headquarters, Melody, only 15 years old, was groomed and molested by Gothard.

169. Bill Gothard would call Ms. Fedoriw into his office late at night for Bible study and to mentor her. During this time, Bill Gothard would always want to sit on the couch with Ms. Fedoriw.

170. During the Bible study and mentoring process, Ms. Fedoriw reported the fact that she was being abused by a parent to Bill Gothard.

171. Bill Gothard then called Ms. Fedoriw’s parents and disclosed the abuse information that she had disclosed in confidence to her abuser.

172. By the second instance of late night Bible study/mentoring, Bill Gothard was putting his arms round Ms. Fedoriw and pulling her closer to him.

173. Despite the fact that Ms. Fedoriw confronted Bill Gothard about his conduct, it continued.

174. Bill Gothard continued to touch Ms. Fedoriw in ways that made her uncomfortable, including rubbing her back and legs. While Bill Gothard was rubbing Ms. Fedoriw’s legs, he would move his hands to her upper thigh. Bill Gothard was touching Ms. Fedoriw very close to her vaginal area, when he rubbed her upper thighs.

The above quote is long, so let me summarize. Gothard had one-one-one late night mentoring sessions with Melody, who was then 15 and living at headquarters. When Melody disclosed abuse she had suffered at her parent’s hands, he called her parent and reported what she had said. He also sexually molested her during these mentoring sessions despite her attempts to get him to stop.

In March 2014, after Gothard stepped down from his position, Melody reported Gothard’s conduct to the local police department. The police department classified Gothard’s actions as criminal but did not prosecute because they had passed the statute of limitations.

Charis Barker

Charis Barker’s involvement with IBLP began in 1986, when her family enrolled in the ATI program when she was six, and continued through 2000. In 1997, when she was 17, Gothard singled her out at an IBLP seminar and invited her to come work at headquarters. When she was 18, she left home for headquarters, first as a volunteer and then as an employee. While there, Gothard groomed and sexually harassed her.

211. At lunch, at times in his office, while riding in his van, while sitting on his couch, whoever possible, Gothard’s feet would touch Ms. Barker’s feet, whenever her had the opportunity.

212. Gothard’s sexual harassment of Ms. Barker got to the point that the only way she was able to prevent Gothard from touching her feet, while riding in his van, was for Ms. Barker to sit on her feet.

213. Whenever she sat on the couch in his office, he would sit very close to her and put his hands on her knee.

214. During church he would lay his head on her shoulder and he would at least pretend to fall asleep.

Over time, Charis became more and more uncomfortable, and ultimately contacted her parents, who “assured her that Bill Gothard would never inappropriately touch anyone.” Gothard’s behavior continued for the 18 months Charis spent at headquarters. Charis stayed to complete her year-long employment contract (after six months of volunteering). Her parents told her that if she was kicked out of headquarters, she should consider herself kicked out at home, too.

Charis published her story with Recovering Grace under the pseudonym “Grace.”

Rachel Frost

Rachel Frost was a volunteer and employee at IBLP headquarters from 1992 to 1995. Gothard singled Rachel out at an ATI conference when she was 15 and asked her to come work at headquarters. Rachel initially demurred, saying that she was too young, but Gothard hounded her and wore her down, paying for her plane ticket and handing her cash to attend to her needs once she arrived. Gothard then groomed and sexually harassed her.

259. Gothard told Ms. Frost that he wanted to keep her close to him, so she started her work at headquarters as one of his personal assistants (secretaries). However, at the age of fifteen (15), she had poor secretarial skills and no understanding of how the organization ran or who was important. After a week in his office, Ms. Frost was moved to the ATI Department.

Gothard paid Rachel special attention and would touch her feet with is during lunch; she eventually learned to keep her feet back behind her chair to prevent this. Gothard sent a 17-year-old boy home for talking and flirting with Rachel.

265. Gothard advised Ms. Frost that she had a special place in his heart and advised her that he wanted her to remain at headquarters indefinitely.

Rachel returned home after three weeks because of family issues, but Gothard called her soon afterward to ask her to travel with him on a trip to Australia and then to come to headquarters permanently. He offered to pay all of her expenses. Rachel’s parents wanted her to stay at home and finish her education, but were worn down by Gothard’s constant requests. At age 15, Rachel took the GED and headed to headquarters to work for Gothard’s ministry “indefinitely.”

Once she was back at headquarters, Gothard continued to single Rachel out, and gradually initiated further inappropriate physical contact. He sexually harassed Rachel during van trips, pushing his thighs against hers, grabbing her hair, and touching her legs with his fingers and her feet with his feet.

274. As a result of the special treatment and physical attention she received from Gothard, Ms. Frost was referred to as Gothard’s “pet,” his “type,” his “favorite,” or a “Gothard girl.” The sexual harassment, and special attention were no secret. Gothard’s conduct was common knowledge to the IBLP staff.

Rachel began looking for excuses to avoid Gothard, and ultimately left for a job as a nanny. Rachel published her story on the Recovering Grace website.

Rachel Lees

Rachel Lees served as Gothard’s secretary from 1992 to 1993, during the same time Rachel Frost was at headquarters, and had many similar experiences. Rachel was 19 or 20 when Gothard met her at a seminar in New Zealand and asked her to come work at headquarters. He assigned her to himself personally. When she was running low on money, he gave her cash. He quizzed her about former boyfriends and wanted to hear the details of any moral failings she may have had.

312. Approximately six to eight weeks after Ms. Lees began working for Gothard, she noticed that he found reasons to touch her. The touching consisted of sitting so close to her that they were touching. He would sit close, so that his arm or hand would brush against hers. It progressed from there to other physical contact, which made Ms. Lees uncomfortable. The other physical contact included lingering hugs and holding hands. Gothard also began to find reasons to be alone with Ms. Lees.

313. Gothard told Ms. Lees that it was fun. He liked being with her, “just you and me.”

At one point, while on a trip to Dallas, Gothard called Rachel to his hotel room alone, and embraced her as they sat on the couch. At another point, Gothard embraced her and whispered in her ear, telling her that she was his “jewel” and his “energy-giver.”

317. On a long drive to Detroit, Ms Lees felt Gothard put his hands on hers. Later, she felt his foot brush up against her leg. When she first felt his foot run up the back of her leg, she was startled. He locked his leg under hers, and she felt his foot rubbing against hers. He was playing “footsie” with her. But Ms. Lees describes Gothard’s actions as more intimate than that. His foot stroked the back of her leg, played with her toes, explored her leg all the way up her calf muscle and back down over and over again, while he was tripping her hand in between them. When Ms. Lees lifted her hand to intentionally break his hold, Gothard pulled her hand over his thigh. When she resisted, he held her hand and rested it on his thigh, covering her hand with his. He patted her hand, massaged it, rubbed her fingers with his dumb, running his dumb slowly up and down between her fingers, over and over. Gothard would frequently hold hands with Ms. Lees during travel.

And once again, this attention was not secret.

318. Gothard’s emotional and physical attraction to Ms. Lees was no secret at IBLP. On one occasion, the wife of an IBLP Board member approached Ms. Lees and told her that people had expressed concern about “the attachment between you and [Gothard].” “People are starting to notice that he is paying you special attention.”

At one point, one of Gothard’s sisters accused Rachel of wanting to marry Gothard, and was angry with her. Gothard pushed his control further, arranging for a doctor to remove Rachel’s small skin blemishes, which he called “a distraction.” In 1993 Rachel was forced to leave IBLP headquarters due to immigration issues.

Years later, Rachel learned that Gothard had sought permission from the IBLP Board to marry her. She was horrified at this information, finally recognizing him as a predator. She learned that the board denied Gothard permission to marry her. At this time, Bill Gothard was nearly 60 years old. Rachel was 20. The board also reportedly told Gothard that they were not going to allow him to have female personal assistants in the future, but they never enforced this rule.

Rachel published her story with Recovering Grace under the name “Meg.”

Jane Doe III

Jane Doe III participated in ATI from 2003 through 2012. In 2006, Gothard approached Jane Doe III at a seminar and asked her to join a missions opportunity on his staff as soon as she turned 14. Jane Doe III declined the invitation because of a medical condition, and Gothard spent the following five years badgering her.

352. . . . Gothard frequently used the stress in JANE DOE III’s home as a reason that she should come to headquarters.

353. In 2011, at the age of 18, Bill Gothard aggressively pursued JANE DOE III at a conference in Indianapolis. At 11:00 PM one night, he called JANE DOE III’s father to ask permission for her “to come to headquarters for 3-4 weeks” to “learn how to respect him.”

354. Gothard did not want JANE DOE III to work. He just wanted her to come counsel with him personally to learn how to deal with the stress of her strained relationship with her father.

When Jane Doe III’s parents finally agreed to let her come to headquarters for several weeks, Gothard wanted to come pick her up in his van immediately. Her mother refused, insisting on driving her to headquarters herself the following week.

356. When JANE DOE III arrived at headquarters, Gothard announced: “the day I have been waiting for for six years—you are finally here.”

357. Gothard then informed JANE DOE III, that her “[f]ather has lost his authority over [her], because of his behavior. We are your family now.” He made an analogy to Jesus on the cross telling John to care for Mary, her mother.

Rather than counseling her, Gothard focused on convincing Jane Doe III to stay at headquarters permanently. He attempted to turn her against her mother, and to convince her to send her mother away. When Jane Doe III refused, and explained that her mother was her “best friend” and that she would not be separated from her, Gothard commented efforts to convince Jane’s mother to divorce her father and stay and work at headquarters.

361. Gothard would hold JANE DOE III’s hand, touch her hair, carries her, wink at her, whisper in her ear, kick her feet under the table, place his shoes on top of hers when sitting on the couch, and be very flirtatious with her. Frequently, he would press his thigh against hers while sitting together, place his arm along the top / back of the sofa or chair. He would complement her hair, smile and laugh several times per day. He directed her never to cut her hair. He would say to her: “[JANE DOE III] come over here.” “You belong here. Perfect Angel. Beautiful. Amazing.” He said to her: “I love you, you know that, right?” “Maybe you dad doesn’t love you, but I do.” “God has put a special love in my heart to you.” “You are my energy giver.” “I love being around you.” She felt that other people knew that she was one of “Gothard’s pets.” This made her uncomfortable and she would shake her head and with a stern look would frown and correct Gothard and tell him: “No, I’m not perfect.” Despite JANE DOE III’s clear disapproval, the unwelcome complements kept coming.

Gothard gave Jane Doe III his credit card to buy new clothes and had his assistant tell her that he was unhappy that her skirts were ankle length rather than calf length.

364. After ten days, JANE DOE III and her mother decided to leave. After Gothard tried another failed attempt to convince JANE DOE III’s mother to separate from / divorce her husband, Gothard attempted to have JANE DOE III stay by trying to get her to say that her mother was abusing her. Gothard asked: “How old are you again?” When JANE DOE III said: “18,” Gothard replied: “Well, if you were 17 we wouldn’t even be having this conversation, because I would call up DFS immediately and tell them you are being abused and have you taken away from home. After all, emotional stress is just as bad as physical abuse.”

In 2012, both Jane Doe III and her mother wrote about their experiences in comments on the Recovering Grace website. Gothard saw the posts and personally contacted Jane Doe III, verbally besetting her and accusing her of being a liar and of “trying to viciously destroy his life’s work and his entire organization.” Gothard continued to harass and verbally assault Jane Doe III until she removed her comments.

In 2014, Jane Doe III contacted IBLP headquarters hoping to talk to the IBLP Board of Directors about what had happened, but she was refused access. She managed to get in contact with the director of ATI, who told her the Christian Legal Association (CLA), which was conducting a review of the accusations, would be in contact with her. When she failed to hear from CLA, she contacted the group directly, leaving a detailed message. She never received a return call.

Jamie Deering

Jamie Deering was involved in IBLP’s ATI program beginning in 1992. In 1994, when she was 14, Gothard personally invited her to come to headquarters. Jamie’s story is much like those of Rachel Frost and Rachel Lees, with one exception. During a trip to Russia, something “very bad” occurred in the middle of the night that left Jamie sleeping on the couch in another couple’s room and led to Gothard being sent home. Jamie has not recovered full memory of the event, and has other memory gaps as well.

Beyond this, her experiences mirror those of other girls sexually abused by Gothard during these same years, with the same process of groom and the same “pet” status.

404. Gothard went so far as to make sure Ms. Deering’s bedroom was directly across form his office window, so he would know when she could come to his office, after everyone else had left.

. . .

407. As part of his sexual abuse of Ms. Deering, Gothard would tell her where to sit. Gothard would then sit across from her, with his legs spread wide apart. Gothard would frequently have an erection and he wanted Ms. Deering to know it.

408. On airplanes Gothard would have Ms. Deering sit next to him, and—under a blanket—he would touch her thighs and her hand. Ms. Deering was very uncomfortable with this and was afraid people would know what was occurring.

. . .

412. On one occasion, Gothard required Ms. Deering to touch his groin area on top of his clothing.

. . .

414. As a result of the special treatment and physical attention she received from Gothard, Ms. Deering was referred to as Gothard’s “pet,” his “type,” his “favorite,” or a “Gothard girl.” The sexual harassment and special attention were no secret. Gothard’s conduct was common knowledge to the IBLP staff.

At one point when Jamie was back at home, her father physically abused her. At a loss for what to do, Jamie called Gothard for help. Gothard refused to help in any way and did not report the incident to the authorities.

Ruth Copley Burger

Ruth is the adopted daughter of Kenneth Copley and lived at the Indianapolis Training Center from 1994 to 1995. Her father had already been forced out of a previous ministry due to sexual misconduct, and was forced to leave IBLP in 1995 due to “sexual misconduct involving other IBLP staff in the age range of 14 to 20 years old.” In 1994, when Ruth was 11 or 12 years old, Copley began sexually abusing Ruth. Copley used the IBLP facilities to conduct this abuse, which I will not describe.

Ruth has suffered PTSD and has been suicidal on multiple occasions, leading to two hospitalizations, as a result of the abuse she faced at the hands of her adoptive father. Ruth published an account of her abuse in 2010 or 2011 and added more details in 2012. Her allegations came to the attention of the IBLP Board of Directors, and were badly mishandled during the sham 2014 CLA investigation.

Conclusion

Over the past two years, multiple Gothard defenders have asked why, if all of this did happen, no one had had attempted a lawsuit. It’s ironic, really, because these are the same people who argue that Christians should not sue Christians, and should instead settle disputes within the church, and here the were, using the lack of a lawsuit as proof that there was nothing to the allegations. There were, of course, multiple barriers to starting a lawsuit, including the statute of limitations and the personal costs involved in doing so.

Still, I am glad to see that there is now a lawsuit, and I would like to hope that it will help put remaining objections to rest, bring justice for survivors, and save future young people from similar predation. I’ve said it before and I know I’ll say it again—evangelical Christians need to clean up their act when it comes to abuse. Between blaming victims for what happened to them, elevating religious leaders beyond question, and sweeping problems under the rug because they might detract from an organization’s “godly witness,” there are some serious problems that need addressing.

We can only hope that this lawsuit will prod others to clean their houses.

Amended Lawsuit Against Bill Gothard: Text

January 6, 2016May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team18 Comments

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinaor

Today, ten women filed an amended lawsuit against Bill Gothard, the former director of the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP) and creator of IBLP’s immensely popular homeschool program, the Advanced Training Institute (ATI). The women accuse Gothard of not only sexual harassment and abuse (as the original lawsuit with five women alleged), but also of rape. They also are suing IBLP for negligence in responding to reports of abuse.

Sarah Pulliam Bailey interviewed Gothard for the Washington Post concerning the lawsuit on Wednesday. Gothard denied the charges, telling Bailey, “Never in my life have I touched a girl sexually. I’m shocked to even hear that.”

HA has obtained a copy of the text of the lawsuit, which is now public record. You can read the lawsuit in is entirety here. Content warning for the lawsuit text: the text contains detailed descriptions of sexual abuse and rape, including child sexual abuse.

Forest For The Trees: J’s Story

August 26, 2015May 11, 2020HA Editorial TeamLeave a comment

CC image courtesy of Flickr, Jens Schott Knudsen.

HA Note: “J” is a pseudonym. The following is reprinted with permission from J’s blog Teapots and Tesseracts. It was originally published as “Lightbulb Moment: Forest for the Trees” on June 30, 2014 and slightly modified for HA.

Crowded into a packed auditorium at the local bastion for Christian education, the “go to” first choice for homeschool graduates and members of my youth group, I considered where I should sit and rapidly selected the seat next to my brother and his wife. Squeezed in between mom, dad, the oldest brother and the littlest brother, I shrank into my seat to avoid my dad’s snide remarks. I had ducked into a stairwell before the ceremony and lit up a cigarette on a tobacco free campus and could suddenly smell the burning garbage scent on my nice lavender shirt.

Turning red and feeling the anxiety grip my chest, I steeled myself for the shaming remarks encased as jokes directed at me by my father.

A golden child who presented with mom at homeschool conferences (a la Josh Harris), enrolled in a local community college at 15, coached debate my first year after graduating high school, and active in ministry at my church, who answered the altar call to missions abroad at 18, my life had taken a very sharp turn shortly after I stood on the dais at another church with ten other graduates of our homeschool association.

“Now, please, bow your heads with me as we ask for His blessing on these proceedings.”

Accepted to a top ten university at 17 halfway across the country, I was on my way to becoming a biomedical engineer, dreaming of my senior research project, graduate school, becoming a doctor. I continued to be lauded for my intelligence, motivation and godliness for seeking to study medicine so I could serve the Lord in a third world country.

“Father God.”

After admitting I had a boyfriend at 18, after being caught in a lie, when I had just stuttered out the truth to my mother’s glaring and wounded face about who exactly “Michael” was, I was summarily lectured about my moral failings, threatened with permanent separation from God, and eventually thrown out of my house two hours later when I defiantly refused to repent.

“Our Father, thank you for shining your light on these young excellent minds, your servants”

The golden child status was gone, overnight. A cold reversal of the invitation to coach debate, ugly stares and plaintive tear-soaked pleads from members of church I ran into at the grocery store, multiple comparisons by haughty homeschool mothers I saw out and about (who just six months before, and even my entire twelve grades of homeschooling, said they wished their children were like me) of my “lifestyle” to sins like alcoholism and pedophilia, all made it clear the penny had dropped.

“All rise”.

Taking deep breaths, I stood up and watched yet another brother and sister ascend the dais as we rose to “Pomp and Circumstance” and clapped and called out their names. With fifty-four graduates, they were the largest class in six counties. The brother next to me was in the very first fifteen years ago, and there were only six graduates then.

The commencement speaker was new…the same one for years was a local conservative Republican sheriff who talked about how integrity was a gift from God. This one was a Republican politician, aiming for Congress.

“God will protect you from this day before and cover you in His blessings if you follow in the way He has set in His Holy Word”.

The anxiety rapidly turned to rage and my stomach churned. Abandoned by family, church and homeschool association, my only networks during eighteen very sheltered years, I wanted to scream and cry simultaneously at the speaker for his lies.

“Observe those who have honored God, their fathers and their mothers by making the journey to receiving their high school diploma.”

Three years later after my summary dismissal from home, a phone call turned my world upside down.

Sniffling, my mother, who I had little to no contact with besides three intrusive appearances at a table in my section at area restaurants I served at, and my father, who had completely pretended I didn’t exist (seeing my face caused him “such pain and grief” explained my mother, that I should feel bad for inflicting him with such Job-like woes), passed the phone back and forth to beg me to come home, and hatch a plan to rescue me from an abusive relationship.

Three years with Stephen, and I was an emotionally and mentally unstable survivor of his abuse. My realization that I was no longer allowed to talk to once-close friends or even to know my neighbors had sunk in just the day before.

“Our graduates have gone on to become homemakers, mothers, fathers, missionaries, military service members, scientists, teachers, and many continue the homeschooling tradition with the next generation.”

“We wish God’s blessings on these students as they go forth into the world, using their God given talents to embark on new careers.”

Mandatory church attendance was required, at 21, after my return and I was once again hailed and praised, this time for becoming saved and healed from drug addiction and the homosexual lifestyle.

I had moved out on my own after two years stuck with no car or license due to a DUI in my patriarch’s house, stuffed the memories of a traumatizing rape and Stephen’s abuse, I could only feel the rage and sorrow and shrieking in my nightmares.

“Ladies in the graduating class, I urge you to remember such qualities as modesty, of headship of your father, the Lord, and your future husband as you embark into the world.”

My sister on my left couldn’t cut her hair or wear pants until age ten. We were all beaten viciously by a mentally ill, narcissist patriarch until our tenth birthday. Graduating today, she wanted to be a flight nurse in the Army. A year later I would find out my parents were seeking to marry her to a much older man so my father, in his words, would be rid of her and have some much needed peace and quiet, and room to focus on his hobbies.

Several of the women graduating weren’t old enough to vote, but ecstatically planned quiet weddings and bought white simple sundresses for early fall weddings, just months after graduating.

“Now let us bow our heads and pray for these graduates”.

“This is a Christian nation….look at those who serve His Holy Name”.

I wanted to shriek, so very loudly, at him, because most of what I heard in the ceremony made no sense, was so erasing of my existence. I did everything right until after graduation, and then I voiced my own opinion and everything fell apart.

Run away, I wanted to say, Run away. Grab that diploma and run as fast as you can. Because everything you remembered today will be shown as nothing but lies years from now. You will one day realize how the real world was sold as a carnal zoo filled with sin-flame breathing monsters.

I had made it a cumulative zero steps in five years, right back where I started.

Someone lied somewhere, and seeing how I got erased from my family and communities for several years, I don’t think it was me. I was truthful once about how I felt and lost everything. The gilded words of the charismatic speaker infuriated me.

Turning to my brother on my right, I whispered: “I don’t remember my graduation ceremony being this creepy. Or yours, for that matter.”

Thrown out of the house six years before me for rebellion, to bounce aimlessly between London and Pittsburgh with his absentee birth father, I could see his jaw set and eyes glare. He felt the same way I did.

Slightly tilting his head towards me he whispered back:

“Perhaps you couldn’t see the forest for the trees.”

Bill Gothard Explains Road Safety (aka How Not to Get Raped)

August 17, 2015May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team5 Comments

CC image courtesy of Flickr, Mik Scheper.

HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Libby Anne’s blog Love Joy Feminism. It was originally published on Patheos on August 17, 2015

Do you remember when that Saudi historian said that western women drive because they don’t mind getting raped? He used the danger that occurs when a woman’s car breaks down, leaving her open to sexual assault by any passerby, as a rationale for maintaining the Saudi ban on women driving. Well. Watch as this road safety module produced by Bill Gothard’s Advanced Training Institute (a program for fundamentalist homeschoolers) takes a weird turn.

(I was sent this module via Wende Benner of Homeschoolers Anonymous. You can read her story here. She filled out this module herself while attending Gothard’s EXCEL training program for girls.)

The module is titled “Road Safety: Survival Road Skills And Wise Responses to Danger.” Since the responses to danger bit falls under the road safety heading, we can assume it’s about things like changing a tire safely, or knowing how to drive around a car that isn’t signaling or staying in its lane, yes?

I actually would have found this page very helpful when I was a teen. If I’d read the bit about warning lights and overheating, I might not have totaled my mom’s car as a teen by melting her engine. (Seriously, this is one memory I’d really like to forget!) On the other hand, filling out a sheet like this does exactly squat to tell you where to put the brake fluid, or where the best jack points are, etc. So there’s that.

Hang on, are these meant to be the warning lights? Because if so, my experience suggests that different cars have different warning lights. In fact, we recently got a new (to us) car, and I’ve found that the manual is my friend because when the warning lights come on I have absolutely no idea what they mean, because they look totally different from my other car.

That last chart bit would be more helpful on a small notepad in the glove compartment, because I’m pretty sure most people aren’t going to be stuffing this entire module in there. But maybe it’s just meant to give the student experience with how these numbers should be written down?

This is actually fairly comprehensive. Most people probably don’t pray before a trip, but mine always did, so it doesn’t seem weird to me. And the list of things to bring (and do before leaving) is quite thorough.

While not getting to close to the car in front of you is important, one car length per 10 miles per hour isn’t going to serve you well when driving in congested cities. People will keep pulling into your lane in front of you, and then you’ll have to slow down to increase the distance. Also, the “what to do if there’s an accident” section says not to leave until an officer dismisses you, but it doesn’t say to call the police in the first place, which makes it feel slightly disjointed.

Of course, I’m just nit-picking here. We’re six pages into the module, and it’s mostly pretty standard stuff. Remember that these modules are designed for homeschooled students, many of whom (myself included) will never take driver’s ed, so it’s good that they’ll get any information at all, although obviously this module would be best accompanied with some hands-on training.

But let’s look at what comes next.

Yes, we’re still in the same “Road Safety” module! All we did was turn a page, and hey, would you look at that? Suddenly it’s all about responding to attackers . . . because it’s totes common for women to be assaulted while driving.

What “provokes” an attack, according to Gothard? How you dress and the sort of friends you chose. Lovely. Just lovely. Hello, slut shaming and victim blaming! And what should you do if you are attacked? Well, resist, of course, but also present the gospel and pray for your attacker. Because converting a man who is trying to rape you while fending him off to protect your virginity is pretty much the epitome of godliness.

This goes on for six full pages. Yes, you read that right—a full half of Gothard’s “Road Safety” module deals with what to do if you are attacked or assaulted while driving somewhere, because if you are a woman, leaving your father’s house is dangerous dangerous dangerous!

Yes, you read those first sentences correctly: “God has established some very strict guidelines of responsibility for a woman who is attacked. She is to cry out for help. The victim who fails to do this is equally guilty with the attacker.” Yes, really. A victim of sexual assault who does not cry out—who remains silent for whatever reason—is equally guilty with her attacker.

Think for a moment about the Duggar girls. They did not cry out for help when they were sexually assaulted by their older brother. How might studying from a module like this (and remember that the family centered their curriculum and Bible study on Gothard materials) affect one of them, or anyone else who has ever been sexually assaulted but kept silent? Remember that it is very common for a victim of child sexual abuse not to cry out, because they are first groomed to ensure that they won’t.

Okay, first of all, let’s be clear that “morally attack” means sexual assault. And second, let’s be clear that in the story presented on this page, the “I hope I got here in time” and “Sir, you did, you just barely did” exchange means the girl’s virginity was still intact, which is of course what really matters to Gothard. But the thing is, she was still sexually assaulted. She is still going to have to work through the trauma of that. And I actually get the feeling that Gothard isn’t aware of that. It’s like the fact that her hymen is still intact means no harm was done. Except that that’s not how it works.

But you know what I really want to know? How the blazes Gothard thinks this one example is evidence that it’s always safer for a woman to cry out when being assaulted than it is for her to remain silent. Look, this is going to vary! In some situations, screaming may alert someone that you need help or scare away the attacker. In other cases, screaming may just make the attacker become more violent. In some situations, a woman may be so shocked by what is happening (especially when the perpetrator is a friend or significant other) that she is stunned into silence. There is no one correct way to respond to being sexually assaulted, and saying there is will only lead victims to blame themselves more than they already do.

Of course, what really matters to Gothard is that if a victim of sexual assault does not scream for help, she violates scripture. It’s not really about what’s most affective, it’s about what the Bible says. But of course, now that he has said the Bible mandates it, he is going to explain that it is in fact effective by offering five more anecdotes (none of which involve rape or sexual assault, I might add).

Here are two anecdotes in which crying out to Jesus caused attackers to reconsider! Clearly this means it always works! If you try it and it doesn’t work, you must not have enough faith! /sarcasm

Actually, wait a minute. That second example might not even have been an attack. Perhaps the “strange man” who approached the woman was just going to ask for directions, and when she began shouting to God to save her from him, he backed up with raised eyebrows like anyone else would do in that situation.

Here are two more examples of cases where witnessing to an attacker caused the attacker to repent and apologize. Ignore the fact that neither of these cases involved sexual assault, because that totally doesn’t matter. If you have enough faith, witnessing to your rapist while he’s raping you will totally make him stop. /sarcasm

That bit about having enough faith that I keep repeating? That’s not in the text, but it’s sure as hell implied. If you’re “godly” enough, God will save you from being raped . . . and thus it follows that if you’re not saved from being raped you must not be godly enough. This is not a good message to be giving teenage girls, especially homeschooled teenage girls who almost certainly will not receive more accurate information elsewhere!

And then we’ll add one more anecdote for good measure. In case you haven’t noticed, Gothard is really big on anecdotes. His textbooks are absolutely chock full of them, from cover to cover.

I do want to note that none of these last five examples actually deals with rape. Only the first example—the girl in the alleyway—had to do with sexual assault. Granted, getting robbed or mugged or held at gunpoint is pretty bad, but encouraging teenage girls (the main target of this workbook) who are sexually assaulted to witness to their attacker somehow seems worse than encouraging them to witness to an attacker who is asking them to hand over whatever cash they have on them.

So, let’s see. Out of twelve pages of Gothard’s “Road Safety” module, six are about car maintenance and contingencies and six are about what to do if you’re sexually assaulted while out driving.

You can probably see, now, why I drew a connection between this and the Saudi historian’s opposition to women driving, because their car might break down and they might be raped at the side of the road. Gothard is positioning driving as something that is fundamentally dangerous for a woman. While it is true that women face a greater risk of sexual assault than men, women are far more likely to be sexually assaulted by someone they know than by a stranger at the side of the road. Portraying driving as fundamentally dangerous for a woman may discourage girls who take this module from achieving the independence that comes with the mobility driving offers.

Wanting to Date, Being Told to Wait: Adah’s Story, Part Three

March 11, 2015May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team3 Comments

HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Pearl” is a pseudonym. Other names have been changed to obscure identities.

Content Warning: Descriptions of emotional, physical, sexual, and religious abuse.

< Part Two

Part Three: Me and My Dearling

I am one of the fortunate females in the fundamentalist/patriarchal culture to have attended college, albeit under my parents’ watchful eye.

In school I had caught the attention of one of my classmates who refused to leave me alone. Despite giving him the cold shoulder, Dearling decided to be my friend, no matter what it took. He was irresistible, and in a good way. He understood me and my background, and he had the most enduring patience I have ever encountered. I didn’t want to have a romantic relationship with him though. I was deathly afraid of what my parents would do this time. I had met the man of my dreams, but I was paralyzed.

Slowly but surely, Dearling melted my heart from the inside out. I tried to break up with him preemptively multiple times, but we couldn’t stay away from each other. I told my parents he was just a friend. They made it clear that he better remain that way. When they realized that we were more than friends they tried to break us up. They put impossible rules on us that even by courtship standards would be seen as ridiculous. I was their daughter, and they were not about to let me be wooed by my Dearling.

We tried to keep the rules to show a spirit of cooperation. Instead, seeing that the rules were failing to make us hate each other, my parents made them worse. So we got engaged. But we kept it a secret because I was still afraid, living under my parents’ constant scrutiny. I lost weight and became borderline anorexic. I lied to be with my Dearling but I was dying inside.

I had to choose between my parents and my Dearling.

I thought choosing my parents was they only way to obey God. I had been guilted into obeying my parents by a fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible so many times that I didn’t know I had true choices as an autonomous adult. I was at a breaking point. I tried to give the ring back, by my Dearling’s love for me overcame my fear. We told my parents. They played nice for a while, but then things started getting much, much worse. After a few more months of hell—verbal, physical, emotional, and spiritual abuse, I moved out. Not with my Dearling, because that would be wrong, according to what I believed at the time.

Finally, we could date and love each other they way we had been longing to for months. And then we eloped.

My Dearling and I have been married for a while now. I don’t talk to my family anymore. I can’t do it without extreme anxiety and panic attacks. We tried to reconcile with my parents but they never could see what they did wrong. They just tried to manipulate us more and more. So we had to close the door.

Maybe one day they’ll see that they didn’t fail in raising their children just because they rejected their version of “right.” Maybe they’ll learn, like I have, that consent is important, that individuals have autonomy and are not owned by anyone else, that love is a choice and cannot be stopped or force, that feminism and birth control are not inherent evils, that it’s okay to ascribe to different brands of religion, and that at the bottom of good relationships is one thing: respect. My Dearling and I respect each other and we are happy. We dated, wouldn’t be forced into courtship, and we are okay.

In fact, we are more than okay, we are ecstatically happy.

End of series.

Wanting to Date, Being Told to Wait: Adah’s Story, Part Two

March 10, 2015May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team2 Comments

HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Pearl” is a pseudonym. Other names have been changed to obscure identities.

Content Warning: Descriptions of emotional, physical, sexual, and religious abuse.

< Part One

Part Two: Failures—Mark, Elisha, and Brent

I met a guy in NCFCA. Let’s call him Mark.

He was a bit older than I was and his family was in ATI too. He was cute, but the best part for me was that he was “sooo godly.” We chatted online a lot, and I developed a crush on him. In other words, I didn’t “guard my heart” like I was supposed to. I went on a Journey to the Heart (IBLP speak for going to the woods and learning how depraved you are and what you need to do to be acceptable before God for ten straight days). I convinced myself that this crush was wrong and I need to stop talking to Mark. I took a “vow” of single service for a year, until I was 18. Then I would be “old enough” to get married and it would be okay to have feelings for a guy.

Of course, Mark, who still had a crush on me, didn’t take this very well and we still ended up talking a lot. He wanted to come to visit and meet my family. They told him no. He was going to ask to court me.

Eventually I got over him, but not before he called my dad and apologized for “stealing my heart.” That just proved to me how perfect he was. Now I realize if I had married him I would probably have several children by now and would still be part of everything that I now eschew.

I guess I have my parents to thank for that.

A couple years passed. I had a few crushes but nothing substantive, and I had yet to hold a guy’s hand. Then I met Elisha. I dated him for six months behind my parents’ backs. As soon as they found out, they forced us to break up. I was heartbroken, so we kept in contact…a little here, a little there. In reality, even though he said he loved me, he just wanted to see what he could get out of me. He preyed off my innocence.

A few months after the forced break-up, I went back to him, and he raped me.

He raped me, and I didn’t know it was rape because he used his finger. I bled for days and I didn’t know it was a crime. He told me never to come back because I’d refused what he wanted. I didn’t realize that I shouldn’t feel guilty. I thought it was all my fault, so I suffered the trauma in silence.

A few months later I found out Elisha was a pimp. He was a pimp who abused and manipulated me, and I had no idea. I thought it was all my fault. I felt guilty for something that would never have happened if I’d been taught to recognize abuse instead of living in it. I felt guilty when I should have been feeling free for finally being away from him. I was drowning in despair because I thought I was worthless to any other man because of what I’d done with Elisha, even though I had never consented to any of it.

But I wasn’t taught consent, so I didn’t know any better.

After Elisha I met Brent. Ours was a long-distance relationship and my parents controlled every second. They wanted to know about every text and phone call so that things wouldn’t “move too fast.” But then when I wanted to go visit him, they insisted on meeting him too. Instead they scared him off by their intensity and he broke up with me in an email. My parents had interfered with my past three relationships.

Surely once I turned 21 they would let me be an adult and make my own decisions.

Part Three >

Hurts Me More Than You: Dom and Scout’s Stories

October 1, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team3 Comments

*****

Trigger warning for Hurts Me More Than You series: posts in this series may include detailed descriptions of corporal punishment and physical abuse and violence towards children.

*****

Dom’s Story

They did everything right.

It was never in anger. We were told exactly why it was happening. They made us hug them afterwards. They said “I love you” during the act. My parents abused us exactly the way they were told to. You’d never guess. We were well-behaved, happy kids. My parents are loving and supportive.

And yet, they spanked me. And though they did everything “right,” though they did exactly what the Christian leaders told them to do, they did abuse us. To admit that to myself is jarring.

Most of my adult life I’ve been a spanking apologist. After all, look at me. I am okay. I don’t hate my parents. I am a well-reasoned adult. But that was before my life fell apart. Before my psyche imploded. Some mental breakdowns, suicide attempts and ideation, panic attacks, psychotic breaks, and a PTSD diagnosis later, I’m wiser now and have been able to admit to myself the damage that has been done to me. Not all of my problems are due to spanking. But the fact of the matter is, no matter how much my parents said they loved me, no matter how “right” they did it, spanking broke me.

They claimed that was never the goal. But that’s what it did.

I didn’t realize it was abuse until I let myself remember. When I remembered through the lens of absue, memories that had not made sense fell into place. I’d had homicidal thoughts towards my parents while I listened to the cries of my siblings. Fear gripped me physically in what I now realize was probably a panic attack. Perhaps the most confusing part is that my parents weren’t abusive otherwise. They occasionally yelled. But mostly they listened and loved us well.

Most of my childhood memories are happy ones. Perhaps that is why when they hit us, it broke me. The incongruity scarred the deepest levels of my soul. One of my closest friends recently admonished me that not everyone in my life is trying to hurt me. It hit me then that I live like that, without even realizing it. I let people get closer than they ought to and yet am constantly expecting them to hurt me – especially the people I let in the farthest. Not all of my problems are from spanking.

But I was spanked the “right” way. And it still broke me.

*****

Scout’s Story

Additional trigger warning: sexual abuse

My parents did spanking “right.”

They never spanked in anger, never with excessive force, and always explained what I had done wrong. I didn’t feel traumatized by spanking, because I knew I deserved it. When I was 3 or 4 years old, I remember my mother spanking me for some childish infraction. She had tears streaming down her face, as she told me how she hated to do this, but she had to, because she loved me. By the time my little sister came along, she was able to hit us ten or more times, without a twinge of emotion on her face. She had finally learned to love us correctly.

But it didn’t work–sure we got complimented on being well behaved kids, but most of our behavior revolved around not getting hit. Not being humiliated, naked and crying, in front of that increasingly cold face. We got better at it, and more creative. We coped by becoming skilled hiders and liars. We knew how sinful we were–how many more times we deserved to be hit, then we actually were.

By the time I was 12, I snapped. I realized that the person designated by God to dole out the punishment was given the job, not by virtue of their goodness, but by virtue of being bigger and more powerful. I was strong and nearly as tall as my punishers, now. The day I wrestled the wooden paddle out of my mother’s grasp, and told her, voice quivering in anger, that if she ever hit me again, I would beat her without mercy, I became a monster–but at least I was my own monster. Heavenly retribution came however, several years later, in the form of the middle aged man, pinning my teenage body onto the bed, telling me that I deserved this, because I dressed like a whore and wore too much makeup. And I didn’t scream, because I knew I deserved it.

God surely didn’t enjoy this, but he must hurt me, because he loves me.

Spanking teaches children that it is ok for someone to violate their body and hurt them, if that person truly loves them. It teaches them that they are evil, and worthy of abuse.

Spanking teaches children that violence is love.

Love Jesus, All Else Be Damned: Sophia’s Story

August 7, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team3 Comments

HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Sophia” is a pseudonym specifically chosen by the author.

My parents are very well meaning people.

They didn’t go to college, and they didn’t grow up religious. Just before they started a family together, they came to Christianity. For them, it meant safety. It was a formula for doing things correctly and for protecting their children from the hurt that they experienced in their own lives, hurt for which Christianity offered an explanation (sin). They homeschooled us to “protect us from the world.”

Growing up, though, I didn’t feel protected.

Instead, the most vivid memories I have from my childhood are of fear and loneliness. Fear that, at any moment, I was transgressing one of my parent’s constantly changing rules. Loneliness that came from sitting at home most days, with nothing to keep me company but my family and my books. Patrick Henry College seemed like a perfect escape. It was on the other side of the country, their rules seemed lenient to the sheltered 16-year-old filling out her college application, and best of all, I would constantly be around other people my age.

In reality, attending Patrick Henry College (PHC) was an extension of all the worst parts of my childhood. Again, I stepped into an atmosphere full of suffocating rules. All of our time was spent in rigidly structured and overbearingly supervised social interactions. When there was no rule in place, the college administration (really, disciplinary watchdogs), would remind us that we should abide by the “spirit,” not just the “letter” of the law.

If no rule existed, you weren’t safe. Instead, you needed to invent one.

We had mandatory chapel where we (or at least, I, doubting my faith even as a freshman) had to feign enthusiasm while singing worship songs. After that, we would listen to various speakers tell us of the evils of liberalism and homosexuality, or perhaps give a lengthy digression on some portion of the Bible. We spent the rest of our time in classes all day, then studying at night, all while conforming to a rigid dress code and rigid conduct rules (and many informal social sanctions). My four years at PHC were filled with incredible loneliness.

Within a few weeks, the excitement of leaving home faded, and the nature of my new prison became increasingly clear. I came to PHC the semester after the “schism.” My friends were all people who had been deeply affected by the ousting of multiple professors, and were generally “anti-administration.” At PHC, a school filled with students who’d spent their lives trying to understand reality in an us-versus-them (conservatives-versus-liberals, Christians-versus-nonbelievers, etc.) framework, it seemed natural to view the student body of PHC (a, mind you, very conservative school) with a liberal-versus-conservative, bad Christian-versus-good-Christian rubric.

My friends were the “liberals”, and by associating with them, dressing somewhat normally, and having career aspirations as a female, I too was branded as a liberal. Once, after attending a concert in DC with some older students, two members of the administration called me in to question me (probably thinking they could scare me, a freshman, more easily than they could an older student) about the purported use of alcohol, tobacco, and drugs by students at the concert. I managed to say something about how I thought gossip was a sin, and they let me go. It was clear, though, that I had been branded, and was being watched.

College, a place where I was supposed to finally have friends, became a place where I felt lonelier than ever.

I didn’t know whom to trust. I felt that anyone around me was possibly watching for me to transgress a rule so they could report me to the administration. And if not that, anyone around me was probably judging me:

“You’re eating that much food?”

“You’re wearing that dress?”

“Your attitude toward that boy seemed flirtatious.”

“That comment was too assertive.”

Of course, coming from where I came from, I didn’t think this was wrong, or a problem with the college. I thought that there was something wrong with me. I simply wasn’t trying hard enough to be godly or pure enough.

That was just the tip of the iceberg. I now teach college students at a much more prestigious research institution, and I know that even at major Universities, freshmen confront some of the biggest blows to their egos of their lives. Students who were at the top of their class at prep school find themselves grade-grubbing at their TA’s office hours when they receive their first B- (or worse) on an essay. At PHC, we were learning how to write and think like all college students, and that involved many ego-bruisings. But there were also a few more nefarious subtexts.

We had to excel, because this was our Christian duty. Failure was somehow sinful. But in exceling, we couldn’t be too prideful. Especially as a female, this attitude could be seen as inappropriate. In one instance, after a particularly contentious student senate meeting where I’d spoken against the “conservative” wing of the senate, a fellow student senator (a “mature Christian” male) came to me and said:

“You know, everyone hates you. You’re too assertive, and it’s not a godly or womanly attitude.”

What really broke me, though, was something that happened freshman year. I was on the college debate team, which was one of PHC’s main selling points (“See, we have this activity where our students sometimes do ok against people at normal schools! We’re awesome!”). I’d won my first tournament. At my second tournament, my partner and I won enough rounds to advance as first seed, which meant we had the best performance in preliminary rounds. Our coach (another student), thinking that I needed to learn humility, held us back from advancing, and sent another team ahead of us. I couldn’t understand it. I thought I’d done everything I needed to do, but somehow there was this deeper logic of being ambiguously “Christian enough” that I was failing to follow. After that, part of me stopped trying. I didn’t know where the lines were anymore. I just knew that I was somehow spiritually inadequate, and I didn’t know how to fix it.

I started to go deeper and deeper inside myself in the quest to be good enough. Like so many perfectionist girls, even in less restrictive environments, I decided I needed more rigid self-discipline. So I stopped eating, both because this felt like some form of success or control, and because I felt that I needed punishment for my inadequacies. As my eating disorder continued to develop, I continued to withdraw. The only way to stay safe from the onslaught of judgment was not to let anyone in, ever. One by one, my friends started to slip away from me. I still don’t really blame them. As an 18, 19, or 20 year old, dealing with your 18 year old friend’s anorexia is a pretty tall order, especially if you think it’s a sin (which she can just stop committing) instead of a disease (for which she might need professional help). I never got that help. The campus administration, who cared so deeply about whether our skirts were 2 or 3 inches above our knees (the latter was a serious infraction) or whether we imbibed alcohol (for which you could be expelled), didn’t seem to care at all about the fact that I (and many other students) developed life threatening self-harm disorders.

At the worst of the eating disorder, when I could hardly walk and just wanted to die and make it all go away, many people questioned my “walk with the Lord,” but not a single person asked me if I was ok.

This, to me, is what PHC stood for. Love Jesus, all else be damned.

Every time someone told me they “just couldn’t deal with me anymore,” or I “needed to get right with the Lord,” I dealt with it by closing up a little bit inside, and eating a little bit less (650 calories today, only 600 tomorrow, oh, I didn’t deserve that salad, I should throw it up, etc). When an older classmate, someone I trusted, took advantage of that trust to force himself on me, I didn’t really resist. I was just a worthless shell, after all. Who was I to say no? It didn’t even seem worth reporting.

After all, it was (as I was later told by another male student) probably because my skirts were a “stumbling block”.

My parents, of course, didn’t know what to do.

They knew something was wrong when I came home for Christmas break my freshman year, 30 pounds underweight, withdrawn, and sad. I didn’t have the words to articulate what was happening to me, or how things were going at PHC, which they interpreted as standoffish. Even if I had articulated a cry for help, their backgrounds and religion didn’t provide them with the tools to help me. They tried various tactics, including denial, anger, and threats. But eventually it was them, in a fumbling but heartfelt attempt, as well as the kind attention of a wonderful professor, that finally tipped the balance.

After my freshman year, when I was exhausted, waif-like, and contemplating giving up on it all, my mom called me. She didn’t tell me I was sinning. She didn’t yell. She didn’t judge.

She just told me how she loved me.

How when she was pregnant they told her I might not make it, and how she cried and prayed and hoped every day that I would, and how it felt to hold me for the first time, and how all she’d ever tried for in life was to protect me in pain, and how she felt like she failed, and please, please not to give up.

Her words were filled with love, and in that love was a kind of freedom. It was also the freedom I found in the classes of one particularly gifted professor, who transported us away from the rigid confines of religious rules to questions about existence, knowledge, and politics.

These glimpses of freedom helped me make it through. Eventually, I recovered from anorexia (without any professional help, which is a different story). I made it through the rest of the PHC (not happily, but again, that’s another story), and I made it out to go to graduate school in a big city with no one to answer to but myself. Now, many years later, I still get nauseous anytime I get near Purcellville, Virginia. Sometimes I’m still bitter and angry, but mostly I’m grateful for my freedom.

Last year, I came back for homecoming to speak on an alumni roundtable about graduate school. The students expressed concerns about what it would be like to be surrounded by “non-believers”, who might keep them from vocalizing a “Christian worldview” in the classroom. I’m afraid that my attempts to explain the glories of academic freedom or the wonders of objective scholarship fell on deaf ears.

What I was trying to tell them was something I wish someone had told me:

Outside of that overly stylized colonial campus, there are places where you have the freedom to say what you think, and no one’s going to report you for it.

PHC Independent Review Committee Releases Final Report and Recommendations on Campus Sexual Assault

August 5, 2014May 11, 2020HA Editorial Team5 Comments

By R.L. Stollar, HA Community Coordinator

Earlier this year, on February 17, Kiera Feldman wrote a revelatory piece for The New Republic detailing how Patrick Henry College (PHC) has handled sexual assault cases. Feldman’s story, entitled “Sexual Assault at Patrick Henry College, God’s Harvard,” caused an uproar among homeschool alumni, PHC graduates, and others. (Though it was not the first time someone publicly mentioned sexual assault at the so-called “God’s Harvard.” PHC alumnus David Sessions had already mentioned the fact the previous year, saying “Girls have been raped while attending Patrick Henry College: girls who I sat next to in class, by men who I sat next to in class. Other women I know were at different times mercilessly harassed, stalked and frightened—all on the campus of Patrick Henry College.”)

A day after Kiera Feldman’s piece was published, PHC fired back with a “Statement by Patrick Henry College to concerned alumni and students about article in The New Republic.” The college’s statement was disseminated that same day to alumni and a day later to PHC’s general student body (where it was met with student applause). The statement, which you can read here, claimed that, “PHC earnestly sought to do the right thing in each instance, did not attempt to cover-up any sexual crimes, and did not seek to blame women for the improper behavior of male students.”

PHC also stated that it had “commissioned a specialized legal firm to undertake an audit of our sexual harassment policy and procedures, both to review past events and to recommend further improvements.” In response to both the New Republic story as well as PHC’s statement, the college’s official alumni organization — Patrick Henry College’s Alumni Association (PHCAA) — issued their own statement to the college’s Board, Faculty, and Staff. As I reported at the time, “PHCAA said it condemned all acts of sexual abuse and harassment and ‘categorically rejected’ any form of victim-blaming. Without commenting on the particulars of the recently publicized sexual assault cases in Kiera Feldman’s piece in the New Republic, PHCAA stated that (1) it is a fact that students have experienced sexual mistreatment and (2) the college needs to provide better victim care.”

PHCAA also requested the college be “far beyond reproach” by allowing “an independent review of the New Republic incidents, and those propounded by any other past allegations of sexual assault, either in this audit or a separate one.” The college agreed to this request; on February 19 the PHC Independent Review Committee (IRC) was commissioned. The IRC consisted of 8 PHC alumni: Chair Megan Kirkpatrick, Jenna Lorence, Daniel Noa, Matthew Roche, Lindsay See, Holly Vradenburgh, Brian Wright, and one additional member “whose employment prohibits disclosure” (according to the IRC). The IRC later added one final member, Jordan Wood Benavidez.

Several days ago, on August 1, the IRC privately released their final report and recommendations. Today that report and recommendations were distributed to the PHC alumni community. You can view the “Final Report” here and the “Recommended Sexual Misconduct Policy” here.

The final report — addressed and sent directly to PHC Chancellor Michael Farris — reveals disturbing facts. Some of these facts include:

• The college administration tried to stonewall the IRC’s investigation:

“In early March, the Chair asked to interview College officials about past policies and instances of alleged sexual misconduct. On March 26, the Chair received an email from Dr. Walker directing theChair to abide by certain guidelines for the interviews. The same day, the Chair objected via email and provided a list of possible parameters for the interviews. According to Dr. Walker, College staff refused to be interviewed unless the Chair agreed to refrain from asking questions about the New Republic article and the incidents detailed therein.”

• There are serious discrepancies between the administration’s claims about the number of reported assaults and the students’ own claims:

“Dean Corbitt responded in writing on May 1, indicating that there had been only four (possibly five) instances of alleged sexual misconduct at PHC between 2006 and the present, along with brief answers to the other questions. On April 23, the Chair sent the College a survey for distribution to current students… The survey responses revealed a radical difference between the allegations of sexual misconduct that students and alumni claimed to have reported and the small number reported by Dean Corbitt on May 1.”

• The majority of the current PHC student body, as surveyed by the IRC, does not understand sexual assault:

“50.5% of respondents agreed or were neutral to the statement that someone has to fight back or tell someone to stop for a sexual encounter to be non-consensual.”

• At least 28 alumni — 2 of which were minors at the time — have been sexually assaulted or harassed during their time at Patrick Henry College. (Furthermore, this number only includes incidents from 2006 on. The college was founded in 2000.)

“28 respondents said that during their time at PHC, they were sexually assaulted or harassed in some way (including but not limited to stalking, harassing emails/phone calls, inappropriate touching, groping, being recorded/photographed without consent, and rape), and 2 respondents said at least one of the persons involved were under the age of 18.”

Again, you can view the “Final Report” here and the “Recommended Sexual Misconduct Policy” here in entirety.

Update, 08/06/2014: You can read PHC Chancellor Michael Farris’s response to the report and recommendations here.