HA note: The following is reprinted with permission from Libby Anne’s blog Love Joy Feminism. It was originally published on Patheos on May 21, 2015.
When I first saw rumors circulating yesterday I didn’t pay any attention, because the accusations were vague and felt rehashed. Remember when the tabloids reported that Jessa Duggar had sex at the church immediately after her wedding, based on a word of an obviously satirical blogger who claimed to have been there? Yeah, I remember that too. There have been rumors circulating for years about Jim Bob blaming Josh for the loss of a political campaign, based on “sin in the camp,” so I thought it was probably just those rumors being rehashed in the way tabloids do.
What happened exactly? Answering this question is sensitive because of the need to protect the identity Josh’s victims. According to TMZ, one of Josh’s victims has asked to have the unredacted police documents destroyed to protect her identity—and even the redacted police report gives more than enough information to guess at the victims’ identities. This is a problem.
I’ve gone back and forth about whether I should blog about this. This is not a gossip blog. I blog about weighty issues, and when I do blog about scandals like this I try to do so in a way that makes larger points, rather than just scoring cheap shots. That said, I’ve decided to go ahead and blog about this for several reasons. For one thing, I want you to have a reliable place to get good information (there’s still incorrect information circling out there). For another thing, I do think there are larger points to be made here. I’ll start by summarizing the police report.
HA note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “Sarai” is a pseudonym.
Though she can quote entire books of the bible and finds hidden pearls in every wisdom search, but does not know God’s enduring and unchanging love, it is worthless —
And though she knows her spiritual gift and receives rhemas and knows all 49 commands of Christ and spends hours working on her faith journals —
Though she knows 3/4 + 3/4 = 1 1/2 cups so that she can easily double recipes for her large family (this is where her education will end because there is no need for her to know more in order for her to care for her family one day. She has been told that an education could even tempt her in to the terrible sin of perusing a career! She knows she should be grateful to her parents for protecting her from the possibility of this temptation), but knows not the freely given love of God, all her knowledge is worthless —
And though she joyfully rises at 5 A.M., to make homemade bread and spends so many hours faithfully serving her family —
And though her body has been violated countless times by a sex offender, she joyfully bears and surrenders her personal rights, knowing it is part of a gods plan for her life… Or maybe it was not that bad to start with… Or maybe it was punishment for some unknown sin… Or maybe she did not cry out loud enough… And though she cheerfully receives her spankings and humbly bares her purple and blue stripes as a reminder of her parents love yet she feels no love…. Well it is sad. So very sad —
And though she never wears pants or listens to rock music and avoids all friendships with other foolish children (foolishness is bond in the heart of a child after all) and though she made a commitment to courtship and her father holds the “key to her heart” and though her cabbage patch doll has been burned and every sin confessed —
And though she stays under her umbrella, it does her no good. She does not know God’s love —
Love quietly obeys; love never questions authority; is not vain (let’s not forget Jezebel who was eaten by dog for her vanity. Let’s avoid purple nail polish and flashy jewelry and heavens forbid you ever wear a low cut shirt); Love summits personal rights and always forgives and forgets; love deliverers no bad reports; love bares all pain, sorrow and suffering knowing it is a gift from god to save her from her sinfulness… Or so her mama told her —
When she was a child she saw God through a Gothard tainted screen from inside her little box. She believed the lies. They where all she knew. She trusted a sin filled man named Gothard who promised a better way.
But now she is grown and has throw away the Gothard tainted screen.
She has come out of her little box and into the brightness of God’s unearned, unending, free, abiding, enduring love. She now places her faith in God alone knowing his grace, that is, his unmerited favor, is all sufficient.
Now abideth her faith, her hope and the Love of Christ in her life and the greatest of these is the love of Christ.
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.
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.
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: Background
I am the youngest daughter of a homeschooling family.
Somewhere around my tenth birthday, my parents joined ATI. Up until that point, we were a pretty typical evangelical family. However, in the last few years, my parents had seen their older children rebel and walk away, and they didn’t want that to happen to the younger ones. They wanted guaranteed success stories, and they fell hook, line and sinker for the polished picture of bright-eyed obedient children becoming perfect adults. What my parents didn’t realize was that none of us would ever turn out like they wanted. Their dream family has fallen apart.
I’m not blaming them for how things turned out, but at the same time, they do bear responsibility for what happened under their roof.
I had a special relationship with one of my brothers. We were pretty young, so everything that happened was pretty innocent. I loved my brother and wanted to marry him and do what married people do. I found comfort hugging him for long periods of time. I liked to hid in the pantry or the attic and fondle his private parts. One day my mom found us hugging in the laundry room and, after much prying, convinced us to tell her everything we had done together. She put all the responsibility on my brother and wouldn’t let us near each other. She made me feel ashamed of what I had done and afraid of my brother. Not once in all this time did I realize that it was impossible for either of us to feel any sort of sexual pleasure because we were both prepubescent.
I simply wanted love and was desperate to feel close to someone.
My mom stayed at home and homeschooled us, but much of the time we were left by ourselves. My dad was a workaholic, and my mom, still undiagnosed, suffers from major depressive disorder and is possibly bipolar. She was emotionally manipulative, and would proclaim her love, feign sadness, or even disappear for hours or days in order to get what she wanted. In our house, it was always about making mom happy.
Another one of my brothers would act out so severely that even as a teenager my dad would whip him with a belt. I don’t know how severe it was because I usually managed to avoid whippings, although the wooden spoon still got used with frequency until I was thirteen. So, my brother, who was constantly angry, would often be left in charge whenever my mom went out. Then the brother I loved and I would be the subject of his abuse. My brother and I still have scars from what he did to us. We never said exactly what happened to us when my parents were gone, but we did tell them that we didn’t want him in charge because we were afraid of him.
I always wonder why they never pursued finding out what he had done, but I suppose it’s just their way.
And so, my abusive upbringing continued. I got a purity ring when I was sixteen, but never received sex education. I read all the “right” books: I Kissed Dating Goodbye, Passion and Purity, The Bride Wore White, Before You Meet Prince Charming, Captivating, etc. I was told to “stay pure,” whatever the hell that meant.
Pseudonym note: The author’s name has been changed to ensure anonymity. “LJ Lamb” is the pseudonym chosen by the author.
Content warning: descriptions of physical and sexual sibling abuse.
Mum had these weird beliefs about Christianity. She believed that when you became a Christian you gave up your human rights. I’m going to let you think about that. Stop, re-read that, and let it sink in. My mother believes that no Christian has any human rights. None, zero, zilch, nuda. Feel free to grab your spew bag now.
One of my older brothers had a particular thing for beating, bullying, destroying, and even killing anything and everything he could get his hands on. Everyone younger than him was petrified of him. It only got worse as he got older.
I remember telling one of my younger brothers off – I think for making a mess in the kitchen and not wanting to clean it up. My older brother, hearing the argument between my younger brother and I, suddenly entered the room. He cracked his belt and threatened to whip my younger brother because our fight had disturbed his afternoon nap.
I pleaded with him to let me deal with it and not hurt our younger brother.
Another time he took some things that belonged to me. I ascertained to the family members there that taking something from someone without permission was stealing. Mum agreed, until she heard that it was her little ‘angel’ who did it. Allegedly she prayed about it, and God told her that I needed to learn to give up my rights.
It shouldn’t come as any surprise, then, when he worked out how to get into my bedroom and my bed so that I couldn’t kick him out without making a fuss to mother (who would of course side with him all my experience told me) despite me feeling desperately frightened and dirty. I was certain I must be displeasing God, but believed with all my heart that if I went to mum she would punish me and turn me over to the wolf.
So I didn’t scream.
I didn’t fight.
I did the best I could. I tried to amuse him every other way under the sun. I knew he wanted sex. I was so frightened of him. What he would do to me if I as much made a peep. I kept putting my clothes back on. When at the end of the day mum finally came to put me to bed that night and found him in bed with me, his instant reaction was to blame me.
It was my idea. My fault.
By this stage I had already started blocking memories, so I couldn’t even remember what happened earlier that day. I was too frightened to speak. But I felt so dirty. I have no idea what he told my parents later, as I begged out. I pleaded to be smacked instead. After all, we were taught that beating makes atonement for wrong. Beatings were the only way to be worthy of God’s forgiveness. I intended to later get a belt and whip myself or get my younger sister to do it as a favour to me. It still makes me sick to think of it.
I knew what happened that day wasn’t right. I just didn’t realise for years that I had been conditioned to it and groomed for abuse. I didn’t realize it wasn’t my fault. God wasn’t choosing not to forgive me because I was too evil. He didn’t see me as having sinned in the first place. He saw me as the hurt, not the hurter. And He loves the scarred and hurt girls as much as the ones who weren’t abused.
Several weeks after that, the family was at the beach (minus dad). My brother tried to murder me by drowning me when no-one was looking. I couldn’t understand his behaviour and asked him why he was doing this to me. I will never forget the dark look in his eyes when he told me he was going to kill me, because he hated me.
I desperately tried to swim away, but I was quite young still, and couldn’t swim very well. In moments he was on top of me again, holding me under, willing me to drown.
I wasn’t sure why he let go.
Maybe I struggled too much at first. Maybe the waves knocked him about, because it was choppy. But I remember looking up at one stage realising the shore was too far away, and there was no way I could get back in because I was losing my strength to fight. And when I went back I can still hear that little girl’s desperate screams for help, realising she was about to drown at the hands of her own brother, and no-one would know why.
Then there was the terrible moment when I realised that nobody heard, because the wind dragged my voice away.
We were too far from the shore. Nobody saw us, and in my heart I knew that nobody was coming to my rescue.
My brother again grabbed me and held me under (over 8 times now), but this time something happened. Mum suddenly saw what happened, and called for him to come to her. (I didn’t see this of course, I heard about it afterward.) All I knew was that he let go of me, as a waves went over me, and I popped up into glorious air. And he was somewhere else, out of reach of me, and mum was calling him. He was in big trouble. I was much closer to shore than I was before he pushed me under the last time and I was able to catch a wave in.
He ended up being barely punished for the incident, because mother felt sorry for him. I should have told her what happened, but I didn’t. She wouldn’t have believed me over him. She never did.
It was only recently I was able to go back and unpack that memory in counselling. One thing it confirmed for me was that God did hear that little girl’s screams for help, and He didn’t abandon me in my darkest moment. As petrifying as it was to go back, I was comforted by that. Because God still loved me and was looking out for me, even then.
To this day I know the only reason I am still alive is because God spared my life that day.
CC image “Magnifying Glass” courtesy of Flickr, Auntie P.
About the author: Kathi is a Bible-belt midwest transplant to the beautiful Pacific northwest. After homeschooling her kids for 10 years (she decided that high school math and science were not her strongest subjects), both kids are in public school. She is a former church goer and finds herself in that unstudied demographic of middle-aged Nones. She has a B.A. in Urban Ministry and a M.S.W. (Master of Social Work). Her goal is to work with children who have been abused or are in foster care. She loves to knit, cook and read (not in any particular order). The following was originally published on Kathi’s blog Moving Beyond Absolutes on November 4, 2014 and is reprinted with permission. Also by Kathi on HA: “Kevin Swanson, Child Abuse, and Dead Little Bunnies”.
I first heard of Lisa Cherry when R.L. Stollar at Homeschoolers Anonymous did a series about Lisa Cherry’s Frontline Family Ministry’s Child Abuse Prevention Week. While reading this series, I happened upon thatmom.com, Karen Campbell’s, first podcast with Lisa Cherry. I thought this first podcast was decent. It mostly addressed Cherry’s experience with her daughter when she was lured into a sexual abuse situation with an older man at church. She also addressed that homeschoolers face some distinctive vulnerabilities when it comes to abuse. The kicker, though, was that she did not address the fact that homeschooled kids may be abused by their parents until the end of the conversation.
This is my main frustration with homeschooling leaders.
I have yet to hear from one homeschool leader that homeschooled kids can be abused by their homeschooling parents. Karen Campbell’s second podcast with Lisa Cherry lived up to this.
Karen starts off her podcast by saying:
“The protection of homeschooling children from the ravages of sexual abuse is one of the hot topics within homeschooling circles, and for good reason. As much as we would love to be able to say this never happens in homeschooling families, sometimes it does.”
Okay. Good start. At least she’s admitting that “sometimes” child abuse happens in homeschooling families. However, further on in her podcast, Karen states:
“One of the concerns that I have had is that there seems to be an agenda on the part of some people that the parents are the perpetrators of abuse towards children. Now you and I both know that there are times when that is true. We watched in horror the reports of what happened with people who had used the Pearl’s “To Train Up a Child” book. We have heard these abusive stories, we’re talking about physical abuse. We’ve, we’ve seen and I’ve heard and I know people personally who have been through very spiritually abusive homes where legalism rules and there is no desire for relationship with children. So we know those kind of things do happen. But I do not believe that parents for the most part are the perpetrators of this kind of situation with their children. And I also believe that sometimes when those things have happened it is not because you have parents who desire to be abusive, it’s because they have been subjected to teaching that tells them that this is the only Godly way.”
This is the point at which I think I spit my coffee out on my laptop. Really, “But I do not believe that parents for the most part are the perpetrators of this kind of situation with their children.” And this “agenda?” Really?
And, even later:
“And I’m not convinced what they think is a problem actually is a problem.”
Let’s look at some facts from Children’s Bureau, an Office of the Administration of Children and Families. Every year they post child abuse statistics. The most current listing regarding child maltreatment is for the year 2012.
Four-fifths (80.3%) of perpetrators were parents
6.1% of perpetrators were relatives other than parents
4.2% of perpetrators were unmarried partners of parents
4.6% of perpetrators were an other relationship to the victim
3.1% of perpetrators were an “unknown” relationship to the victim
These statistics are consistent with all of the statistics that I have ever read about child abuse. When it comes to child abuse, the only grace that I will give Karen Campbell and Lisa Cherry is that in the area of child sexual abuse, it is difficult to find information regarding the breakdown of the relationship of the perpetrator to the victim. Most statistics note that a “very high percentage” of victims of child sexual abuse “know” the perpetrator.
Lisa Cherry continues the train of thought:
“To think, to think that, you know, we’ve got a few cases here in homeschooling. Well, I open my, my email feed just constantly and I find, you know, the, the two women that went after the teenage boy in the high school just a few weeks ago. You know, you find just case after case after case.”
It’s as though child sexual abuse is committed by the bogeyman or some other government sponsored officials.
The continued denial of child abuse happening within Christian homeschooling families does not help victims. It is time for Christian homeschooling leaders to tear down the pedestal of the perfect Christian homeschooling family and admit that child abuse does happen.
The other point which stood out to me was this part of the conversation:
Lisa: “Now I know that there’s some places online that are saying we need the government to step in, we need more regulation, we need to protect our kids, we need to have more rules, we need to have more laws. Karen, I don’t believe that’s the answer.”
Karen: “No.”
Lisa: “I don’t believe the government will be able to protect from these kinds of very sensitive things. I think, I believe that God placed families together to provide protection for children.”
I would agree that the government is not the best parent of a child. I have been working with a kid in the foster care system due to child abuse and it is frustrating to get her the help that she needs. However, I believe that DHS is an avenue that attempts to help kids who have been abused. And to say that God provided families to protect kids? What about the kids who are being abused by their family members? Who is protecting them?
As far as Lisa’s concern about government’s regulation over homeschooling, I would agree with “some places online” that think there should be some regulation. Having been a homeschooler for 10 years and interacted with some in my state’s Christian homeschool association, I understand the concern for having more regulation to protect children. Campbell and Cherry’s defense that the government does not help protect public schooled kids is not helpful. First of all, let’s consider the fact that there are far more children schooled in the public school setting than in the homeschool or private school setting. Secondly, consider the fact that at least public schooled kids have mandated reporters that are able to see any potential child abuse problems and report them. Homeschooled children do not have this extra attention from mandated reporters who may advocate on their behalf.
But it was this additional statement that made me almost spew my coffee a second time:
“We’ve seen HSLDA try to help us with them.”
HSLDA? Honestly, I have not seen much by them for supporting victims of abuse. ThinkProgress.org has a good article about how HSLDA has lobbied for laws against making “false reports.” It is my opinion that HSLDA’s main goal is to protect the rights of homeschooling and parental rights. While HSLDA does not condone child abuse, I think that they really do not know how to handle a case of an abusing homeschooling parent unless it directly relates to homeschooling. In that case, I think that HSLDA will fight for the right of the parent to homeschool and not for the child victim.
All in all, this second podcast by Karen Campbell with Lisa Cherry left me very angry and frustrated. It seems that we will continue to wait for homeschool leaders to admit the fact that child abuse does in fact happen within homeschooling families. Until they are willing to accept this fact, child abuse “may” happen in homeschool families, but most likely it will be perpetrated by someone outside of the family.
When it comes to educating people about issues like child abuse and mental health, I truly do not care if you are Christian, atheist, Muslim, conservative, liberal, moderate, gay, straight, bi, or whatever you may be. What I care about is that you actually understand child abuse and mental health. If you’re going to set yourself as an educator and leader about a topic, I expect you to do your homework.
That’s what I care about.
I understand that we live in a diverse world. And I understand that many Christian homeschool communities and organizations are politically and religiously conservative. That’s life. I haven’t even found someone in the HA community that I agree with on everything. I am willing to support and work with people I disagree with on many issues provided that on the issues we all care about — like child abuse and mental health — we are moving forward in productive and helpful ways.
Honestly, I was looking forward to supporting Frontline Family Ministries’s National Sexual Abuse Prevention Week. A national ministry creating a week of awareness for an issue I have cared deeply about for over a decade? What is not to like?
Turns out, a lot.
But I didn’t start from a place of antagonism. In fact, it has made me sick to my stomach over the last few months as I realized just how counter-productive and damaging this ministry’s teachings are. This isn’t what I hoped for. It’s the exact opposite.
Throughout this last week I have explained in great detail why I ended up deciding I couldn’t support Frontline Family Ministries. Some of you may thought it was overkill. But I went into that much detail because I take seriously the decision that I cannot support a National Sexual Abuse Prevention Week for Homeschoolers. And I needed to make as clear as possible why I made that decision. It wasn’t made because Lisa Cherry is a Christian, or conservative, or charismatic, or because she’s a homeschool mom, or any personal reasons. As I said in the very beginning of this series, my heart goes out to her and her family and I wish them nothing but continued hope and healing.
I made the decision because I believe homeschooling communities desperately need to educate themselves about child abuse and mental health — and I believe that education must be done correctly. Not perfectly. But at least correctly. All my life energy, nearly every waking hour, has been invested for over a year and a half to homeschooling issues because I care about homeschooling. I want to see it flourish. I want to see it be a safe and nurturing movement for children everywhere. But until we come to our senses and start taking seriously the tears and cries of the alumni and children of homeschooling, the movement is going to suffer.
The question I wrestled most with, after doing all this research, was this: Can I declare a lack of support for Frontline Family Ministries but still declare support for the National Sexual Abuse Prevention Week?
Ultimately, I decided no. I decided this for two reasons:
First, Frontline Family Ministries is not simply presenting insufficient information. The information they are promoting is actively damaging. It encourages victim-blaming, it sanctions fear-based authoritarian parenting, it sets up abusers’ most vulnerable targets as abusers themselves, it distracts people from who abusers usually are, and it teaches people to guilt and shame those who suffer from abuse and mental illness.
It’s one thing if I simply disagreed with the ministry on political and religious doctrines.
It’s a whole different situation when I know from firsthand experience that the “awareness” they promote are the exact same messages that got the Christian Homeschool Movement into the mess we are in today.
Second, I simply cannot separate supporting the week itself from supporting the ministry. Frontline Family Ministries has been steadily positioning themselves as the new authority on sexual abuse prevention within homeschooling — and some of the most important gatekeepers in Christian homeschooling have fallen for it — hook, line, and sinker. You see the Great Homeschool Conventions, the National Center for Life and Liberty, HEDUA, even an anti-Bill Gothard person like Karen Campbell, all rushing to heap praise upon them.
Yet apparently none of these people or organizations either (1) bothered to read the ministry’s books or (2) find such damaging teachings to be a problem.
This is flagrantly irresponsible. This is, again, exactly the sort of attitude that got the Christian Homeschool Movement into the mess we are in today.
To support this week would be a stamp of approval on the ministry’s positioning as educators and leaders in homeschool sexual abuse prevention. I cannot give that stamp of approval with a good conscience, and it saddens me that others have so quickly decided to give that stamp themselves.
We’re at a moment in the history of the Christian Homeschool Movement where we need to wake up and treat these issues with urgency and sobriety. We do not need any more snake oil. We need to start listening to children and alumni and centering their voices in these conversations.
Until we do that, we’ll just be traveling in circles.
It’s for all these reasons that I cannot support Frontline Family Ministries’ Abuse Prevention Week.
Today I am going to examine the “Recommended Reading” and “Helpful Ministries and Websites” contained both at the end of Kalyn’s Secret and online at Frontline Family Ministries’s website. A few things to note: (1) Both sets of resources have been identical up until several months ago; the resources listed at the end of Kalyn’s Secret were the exact same resources on the website. (2) These resources, ministries, and websites are specifically intended for sexual abuse prevention. Kalyn’s Secret, of course, is about sexual abuse prevention. And on FFM’s website, these resources — as you can see in the images below — are listed under the “sexual abuse” tab:
Before getting into my analysis, I should also mention that — in Part One of this series — I said I had “poured over the Cherry family’s ministry website, including all of its manifestations from the last few years via the Wayback Machine.” In fact, I had been using the Wayback Machine up until the release of Part One (this last Monday).
Curiously, as of yesterday, FFM is now blocking the Wayback Machine from archiving their website:
Fortunately, I made archived copies of everything. So I can commence with today’s analysis despite the removal of all the source material. Without further ado, here are Lisa Cherry and Frontline Family Ministries’s “recommended resources” and “helpful ministries and websites” (and why they are troubling):
1. Bill Gothard and the Institute in Basic Life Principles
Despite the fact that Bill Gothard and his Institute in Basic Life Principles have been (1) covering up sexual abuse since the 1980’s, (2) accused by over 30 women in the last few years (since 2012) of continuing to cover-up sexual harassment and abuse, and (3) promoting horribly abusive teachings regarding counseling survivors of abuse, Lisa and FFM encouraged abuse victims, survivors, and their families to consult Gothard and IBLP. And note that this was not just encouragement; it was encouragement in the context of sexual abuse prevention.
If you’re up on your homeschool news, you will know that it was in February that news about IBLP putting Bill Gothard on administrative leave went national. So it makes perfect sense that Lisa and FFM would finally distance themselves. To do otherwise would be a PR disaster. In fact, Lisa even wrote an article for WorldNetDaily in April denouncing Gothard for exhibiting the warning signs of abusive grooming tactics. However, she never mentions in that article that she was promoting him a mere 2 months prior. Nor has she ever publicly denounced his teachings. Rather, she “grant[s] his request for forgiveness” (even though it’s not hers to give) and bemoans not his abusive teachings but rather that his actions conflicted with his teachings.
It’s good that she came out against his alleged actions; however, his teachings are just as abusive. And Lisa was directing abuse victims, survivors, and their families towards his and his ministry’s teachings just a few months ago.
Those are the teachings that enabled the abuse in the first place.
2. Nancy Alcorn and Mercy Ministries
Unlike Bill Gothard and IBLP, Nancy Alcorn and her organization Mercy Ministries continue to be recommend by FFM to this day. On the current “Recommended Reading” list, you will find numerous books by Alcorn, including Violated: Mercy for Sexual Abuse. And on the “Helpful Ministries and Websites” list, you will find Mercy Ministries.
So let’s talk about Nancy Alcorn and Mercy Ministries.
Founded in 1983 by Nancy Alcorn, the FFM-recommended Mercy Ministries is a fundamentalist, charismatic Christian organization that offers 6-month residential programs to young women dealing with abuse and mental health issues. Their programs in Australia were closed several years ago after reports that they prevented residents, “many of whom had serious psychiatric conditions,” from “gaining access to psychiatric care,” and instead used “exorcisms to ‘expel demons’ from the young women.” The ministry also engaged in welfare fraud. Those programs were sponsored and led by Hillsong Church, the very same church organization that Boz Tchividjian wrote about last week due to their failure to report child sexual abuse.
Women that enrolled in Mercy’s Australia program said they “left the Mercy centre suicidal, after being told they were possessed by demons.” A woman that attended a U.S. program called it a “cult” and said, “When I first got out I was very depressed and thought about suicide which I hadn’t done in 9 months prior to the program.” These are common complaints by attendees, who have formed websites to expose alleged abuses, including Mercy Survivors and Mercy Ministries Exposed.
This is the exact same message Mercy residents hear. Residents are given “a binder called Restoring the Foundations (RTF), a scripture-based doctrine associated with charismatic Pentecostalism… According to RTF, a lapse in conduct, such as premarital sex, could invite in an evil spirit that might curse a bloodline for generations.” This is an extraordinarily dangerous and damaging message to send to abuse survivors.
As seen above, both Nancy Alcorn’s teachings as well as Mercy Ministries are well-documented to exacerbate abuse, mental illness, and victim-shaming. Yet they continue to be recommended by Lisa Cherry and FFM.
3. Eric and Leslie Ludy
Like Nancy Alcorn and Mercy Ministries, the teachings of Eric and Leslie Ludy continue to be recommend by FFM in the context of sexual abuse prevention. I discussed one problem with this recommendation in my last post, but it is worth reviewing:
“In one of the final chapters of [Eric and Leslie Ludy’s book ‘When God Writes Your Love Story’], entitled ‘Too Late?’, Leslie Ludy discusses ‘sexual sin’ and ‘moral compromise’ — in other words, ‘lost virginity.’ …Leslie tells about a 12-year-old girl named Rebecca. Leslie says that Rebecca — again, a 12-year-old — was lured by a 16-year-old boy from a church youth group into his house one day. Leslie says that Rebecca ‘left as a used and defiled sex toy’ and was ‘forced from childhood into womanhood.’
“From Leslie’s description alone, Rebecca’s story reads as a straightforward account of a 12-year-old girl being raped. The words ‘used’ and ‘forced’ indicate a lack of consent. Yet Leslie puts Rebecca’s story in the same chapter as stories of willing sexual encounters of individuals who chose to have sex before marriage. All these stories are then discussed as ‘sexual sin’ and ‘moral compromise.’ At no point does Leslie identify Rebecca’s story as a story of child sexual abuse, sexual assault, and/or rape — and at no point does Leslie then relate it to the importance of children and teenagers learning sexual consent and safety. The message to young women reading this would be and has been clear: you being ‘forced from childhood into womanhood’ is you sexually sinning, even if you were ‘forced.’”
This is the very last book you should recommend to abuse survivors. Yet this is the book Lisa recommends to young people to learn about purity in the context of sexual abuse prevention.
The Ludys’ equivocation between “sexual sin” and sexual abuse continues to this day. In the September/October 2013 edition of Leslie Ludy’s magazine Set Apart Girl, Leslie wrote an article entitled, “White As Snow: Experiencing God’s Restoration from Sexual Sin and Abuse”:
Note that the very title of the article is this “sin and abuse” equivocation. Nowhere in the article does Leslie address sexual abuse as a criminal action for which the victim has no responsibility. Rather, the entire article just addresses how girls “could be set free” if only they were “willing to repent” from “sexual sin.” If you’re going to say your article addresses “sexual abuse” and then only talk about the necessity of repentance, you are communicating nothing but guilt and shame to the abused.
I already mentioned that Luce and Teen Mania teach the concept of soul ties. Beyond that there are many other deeply concerning elements of Luce and Teen Mania. They have been featured in an MSNBC documentary where their high control, cult-like tactics resulted in immense emotional, physical, and spiritual damage to attendees. Teen Mania alumni have banded together and created a website called “Recovering Alumni,” where they detail accusations including: labor violations, hazardous working conditions, pushing people with serious mental health problems to quit medication, using exorcisms to “cure” attendee problems, covering up sexual harassment, and knowingly employing sexual predators. Several of their programs have been disbanded recently due to attendees’ serious injuries and abuse and financial corruption.
That Lisa Cherry and FFM would continue to partner with and recommend this organization, not to mention recommend such an organization to abuse victims and survivors, is inexcusable.
5. Family Life
Family Life was founded through Bill Bright’s Campus Crusade in 1976. Their mission is “To effectively develop godly marriages and families who change the world one home at a time.” They provide resources “that help people build stronger homes and communities.” FFM recommends Family Life to abuse survivors and their families.
Why is this troubling? Well, because Family Life does not take domestic violence seriously. In an article on their website entitled, “Does a Good God Want Me in a Bad Marriage?”, Family Life states that the only reasons justifying a woman leaving her husband are “unrepentant adultery, abandonment, or repeated physical abuse” (emphasis added). So apparently some physical abuse is tolerable in a marriage. In fact, Family Life says that suffering such things in marriage can be good:
“God also calls us to righteousness, and often that requires giving up our personal happiness for the greater good. This is referred to as sacrifice, and it’s never easy, fun, or ‘happy.’ The apostle Paul reminds us that part of the Christian life is suffering for the sake of the cross.”
Family Life later issued an editorial statement that reiterated repeated physical abuse justifies divorce. And by later, I mean much later. As in, the original piece was published in 2006 and their editorial statement was released in 2014. The problem, though, is that (1) this organization that is counseling individuals about marriage and family issues took nearly a decade to realize how damaging their advice could be and (2) they still are tolerating some physical abuse in a marriage by continuing to emphasize “repeated.”
6. Neil Anderson
One of the resources FFM recommends on the “spiritual warfare” front of sexual abuse prevention is Neil Anderson and his book The Bondage Breaker. This book has long been a staple of Bill Gothard and the Institute in Basic Life Principles. It is also fundamentally flawed and includes heretical teachings such as the idea that saved believers can be possessed by demonic forces. Midwest Christian Outreach, which has long been critical of the unbiblical teachings of Gothard and IBLP, has also harshly criticized Anderson. They declared that, “If the average pastor claimed to believe these things he would be looking for a job or given medication.” Ironically, Anderson’s work relies heavily on secular positivism and Freudian psychology.
One can see the influence of Anderson on Lisa Cherry when, in both Kalyn’s Secret and Unmask the Predators, Lisa describes her daughter — supposedly a model Christian — in demon-possessed terminology and suggests the “soul tie” with her abuser is responsible. As I have said before, this is the best way to terrorize an abuse survivor, not help a survivor.
7. Shannon Etheridge
Shannon Etheridge is a popular author and speaker on the subject of women’s purity. She is most known for her book Every Young Woman’s Battle: Guarding Your Mind, Heart, and Body in a Sex-Saturated World — one of the books Lisa and FFM recommend. This book promotes ideas that are harmful to people of all genders, including the idea that men are sex-driven robots and women are emotion-hungry machines. It also blames “homosexual desires and tendencies” on “dysfunctional family relationships” or because “maybe Dad wasn’t there for you” — which is not helpful language in the least.
Etheridge, like many of the other people on this list, also believes in soul ties, and has repeatedly told women that they must cut their soul ties or face drastic consequences. 2 examples include:
“Over and over I failed to sever the soul ties that connected me to every man that I had had sex with” (source).
“As I entered counseling several years into our marriage, my main goals were to get the scarlet letter off my sweater, cut the soul ties that had bound me for too long, and rid my mind of the relational ghosts that continued to haunt me” (source).
In her book The Sexually Confident Wife, Etheridge goes so far as to say soul ties “bind” you to the other person and “allow [your] bodies to be possessed”:
8. James Dobson and Reb Bradley
FFM highly recommends child training as a part of sexual abuse prevention. And the resources they point abuse survivors and their families to for child training are Reb Bradley and James Dobson. Lisa Cherry encourages people to buy Dobson’s “helpful resources” (167), even though Dobson’s book on discipline, The Strong-Willed Child, compares child training with cruelly beating a dog. HA’s Nicholas Ducote recently reviewed Dobson’s book and was “shocked by the dehumanizing themes of control and projection of power as well as the animal-like dominance by fathers.” Ducote said,
“There was a disturbing amount of violence justified throughout the volume. Dobson seemed to model his training methods after a wolf-pack and a wolf-pack’s ‘Alpha Male.’ …Dobson made it clear that being strong-willed is not a good quality and must be driven out of children (and dogs). This is virtually identical to the teachings of Michael and Debi Pearl, except the Pearls use Amish horse training as a model.”
“Reb Bradley views spanking not as one of many parenting tools, but as the only tool… If the child doesn’t appear broken, doesn’t want to be hugged right after being hit, cries in the wrong way, or doesn’t seem sorry enough in prayer to God, then ‘the chastisement obviously did not work, and should be repeated a second time,’ or perhaps even a third time… Reb Bradley also seems to believe that a parent can and should beat their child into demonstrating love through a hug, which is an absolutely disgusting attitude for a parent to have.”
Furthermore, considering the context of sexual abuse prevention that we’re discussing, it is even more troubling that Bradley’s methods actively discourage abuse prevention: “Reb Bradley also takes away the child’s only remaining defense against predators: parents who are open for communication. ‘Unless it is an emergency,’ he says, ‘children should never be permitted to criticize those over them in authority’ (p. 124).” Fear- and authoritarian-based discipline systems like this a recipe for abuse, not abuse prevention.
9. Final Thoughts
There are many, many other individuals and organizations recommended by Lisa Cherry and FFM that are similarly troubling. These include: spiritual authoritarians like Watchman Nee and John Bevere, nouthetic counselors like Lou Priolo, and other harsh disciplinarians like Ted Tripp and IBLP’s S.M. Davis. However, if I detailed everyone, this post would go on far too long.
I understand that no one is perfect and sometimes people make the wrong recommendations because of ignorance or not doing sufficient research (or not having time to do sufficient research). However, the fact that the majority of the authors and ministries recommended by Lisa Cherry and Frontline Family Ministries are peddling inaccurate information about abuse and mental health sets off too many alarms. That fact tells me that they do not truly understand the dynamics and nature of abuse and mental health nor how to help those who suffer.
And the fact that many of their recommendations — such as IBLP, Mercy Ministries, and Teen Mania — have been documented as emotionally, physically, sexually, and spiritually abusive is the biggest red flag of all.
In the next and final part of this series I will present some concluding remarks.
I need to note at the outset that Unmask the Predators, published in 2012,is simply an updated version of 2009’s Kalyn’s Secret. The Cherry family never mentions this online, so at first I felt this was deceptive. However, I am glad I purchased both books because how Lisa updated Kalyn’s Secret to become Unmask the Predators is very telling.
Most elements of Kalyn’s Secret remain the same in Unmask the Predators: there is still the advocacy of first-time obedience, patriarchy, demonology, Word of Faith theology, distrust of non-Christian counseling, and so forth. A few things are toned down, probably since FFM wants to reach a more mainstream audience. For example, they removed any reference to believing in the Azusa Street Revival. They also removed all the “Tools” and “Recommended Resources” (they moved the latter to their website) and replaced them with sections on “Sexual Abuse 101” and “Twenty-Six Keys for Protecting Your Child from Sexual Predators” (both of which, for the most part, have legitimate advice). I already provided analysis of the elements that remain the same, so I will today focus on problems unique to Unmask the Predators.
a. Blaming children for their own abuse
At the end of Unmask the Predators is a “Sexual Abuse 101” chapter. Most of this chapter has helpful advice. Lisa Cherry rightly points out that, “Abuse is never the fault of the victim.” But then in the very next sentence she says, “Victims put themselves in a position of risk due to wrong choices” (160). This is the equivalent of saying, “A woman never deserves to be raped while drunk, but if she’s drunk, I mean, she bears some responsibility.” But the worst part is that, despite saying victims are never at fault, Lisa directly blames children for their own abuse earlier in the book. In Chapter 6, “The Parent’s Place of Authority,” Lisa says that if children leave their parents’ “shield of protection” (a concept remarkably similar to Bill Gothard’s umbrella of protection), they cause predators to exist. In case you think I am exaggerating (or think I cannot be trusted to simply review a book), here is an image from page 91:
There you have it: Lisa Cherry believes that rebellious children cause predators to abuse them.
This is absolutely not the person who should be leading a National Sexual Abuse Prevention Week for homeschoolers.
b. Redefining sexual predators
The most irresponsible aspect of Unmask the Predators is that Lisa Cherry redefines the meaning of “sexual predator” in the context of teaching sexual abuse prevention. The following image (which Libby Anne discussed yesterday) from page 2 demonstrates this:
Text is,
The predators are not just the psychiatrically diagnosed pedophiles. The middle-school sex-education health teacher, the friendly cohabitating young couple next door that your daughter babysits for, and the clean-cut homosexual teller at your bank who just adopted a baby from Africa are chipping away at our core values and beliefs while we naively think our kids are still with us in the Sunday school. Until we mask the spiritual forces working behind those “nice people” and dismantle their spiritual weapons, we will continue to lose our children.
What is vital to note here is that Lisa is not saying that these people could be predators — in the sense that anyone can be a predator because predators transcend any particular demographic group. If that was the message, I would agree. Predators can be heterosexual, homosexual, bisexual, white, black, young, old, Christian, atheist, Buddhist, and so forth. But that’s not what Lisa is saying.
On the first page of the book, Lisa says a “sexual predator” nearly destroyed their daughter’s life. She warns there are other predators threatening children as well. She then gives the examples above. The predators “are” (not “could be”):
The middle-school sex-education health teacher
The friendly cohabitating young couple next door
The clean-cut homosexual teller at your bank
Now you might wonder, how on earth are these people categorically defined as “predators”?
The answer is, disturbingly, that Lisa is redefining what “sexual predator” means. You can see the beginnings of this in the above citation, where Lisa says they are predators because they are “chipping away at our core values and beliefs.” On page 3, she elaborates on this:
“Sexual predators are not new. Their stories fill chapters of our Old Testament history books; their names were called harlot and adulterer in Proverbs” (3).
But still, you might ask, how are these people “predators”? The answer is that Lisa has redefined “sexual predator” by spiritualizing the concept. In her worldview, predators are anyone and everyone who (1) act in a way that Lisa believes is sexually immoral and/or (2) teaches people sexual morality in a way Lisa believes is sexually immoral. Thus anything or anyone hinting of non-Christian “culture war” is predatory. As Lisa explains, “Predator forces can attack our children through sexual molesters or through a host of cultural invaders” (13, emphasis added).
“I sat down the other day for a rare moment of relaxation with my new issue of Country Living. It’s the one women’s magazine I subscribe to.
I looked forward to dreaming up some unachievable new interior design as I flipped my mind over to unwind mode.
Featured on page 92 and 93 was a quaint 19th century house in upstate New York. But I had trouble figuring out the heading…
My mind did a double take as I re-read the article’s opening line… Jesse and Gus have forged a surprisingly modern home…. I turned the page to find a picture of this “couple”—two men and their five-year-old daughter.
What?! I was accidentally taking a tour of a homosexual couple’s house? I dropped the issue on the floor in disgust.”
Yes, Lisa dropped an issue of Country Living on the ground “in disgust” because it featured a gay couple. Now, ignoring for the time being the message communicated to LGBT* people by this, note again the title of the article: “Predator Calling Cards, Part 1: Found One in My Mailbox.” In other words, just the image of a gay couple is a “predator calling card” to Lisa.
She received pushback on this article from people saying that it’s irresponsible to say this because not all LGBT* people are child molesters (e.g., the actual definition of sexual predator!). Lisa responds to this in the second article:
“In the world today we have Micro-predators (actual persons) and Macro-predators (global thoughts and forces). They are very much inter-related. Think about it. A child “macro-groomed” may more easily be “micro-groomed.””
In other words, LGBT* people — simply by being LGBT* — are predators in Lisa’s worldview. Their very existence is a perpetual state of “macro-grooming” children for abuse. In fact, anything and anyone that is sexually immoral is a “macro-predator.” This is why the list from page 3 of Unmask the Predators says that: people living together before marriage are predators, sex education teachers are predators, and LGBT* couples are predators. They aren’t necessarily child molesters; they’re spiritual sexual predators. So, I guess, they kind of are child molesters, but rather spiritual child molesters.
In fact, nearly every single passage in Kalyn’s Secret that referred to something like “spiritual forces of darkness” is changed in Unmask the Predators to be called “predators.”
Which just blows my mind.
We live in a world where 1 in 3 girls and 1 in 7 boys will sexually abused. We also live in a world where sexual abuse prevention is sorely lacking. The last thing we need, when teaching about prevention, is someone redefining the word and teaching families to fear the wrong people. Teaching families to fear non-predators — in the context of teaching about predators — is the most irresponsible thing I’ve seen in a long time. There is no excuse for Lisa’s dangerous and sloppy irresponsibility here.
c. Throwing LGBT* people under the bus
As I just pointed out, Lisa calls gay people “sexual predators” on the very second page of Unmask the Predators. She continues to do this throughout the book — as well as in Not Open, where she refers to LGBT* people as “sexual offenders.” She even pulls out the tired trope of LGBT* people wanting to legalize child rape, saying “the homosexual lobby want[s] to see the age [of consent] lowered” (161) — which is particularly ironic in this context, considering that conservative Christian leaders have been the ones most recently advocating for child marriage. In fact, at one point in the book Lisa herself mentions that Kalyn throws this fact in her face (184-5) by pointing out that popular homeschool fiction character Elsie Dinsmore was a young bride married to a much older man:
Remember the problem with this sort of language? I mentioned this yesterday, but it’s worth reviewing the facts:
• First, and most importantly, children who will later identify as LGBT* are at a higher risk for sexual abuse: “Children who grow up later to identify as LGBT are more at risk of sexual abuse as children… LGBT adults report that their behavior and interaction with others was often atypical in childhood when compared to their peers. Being or feeling ‘different’ can result in social isolation / exclusion, which in turn can lead to a child being more vulnerable to the instigation and continuation of abuse.”
• Third, LGBT* youth are far more likely to be rejected by their families: “Highly religious parents are significantly more likely than their less-religious counterparts to reject their children for being gay – a finding that social-service workers believe goes a long way toward explaining why LGBT people make up roughly five percent of the youth population overall, but an estimated 40 percent of the homeless-youth population. The Center for American Progress has reported that there are between 320,000 and 400,000 homeless LGBT youths in the United States.”
• Fourth, numerous studies indicate that LGBT* individuals “are likely to be at higher risk for depression, anxiety, and substance use disorders. One study found that GLB groups are about two-and-one-half times more likely than heterosexual men and women to have had a mental health disorder.”
• Fifth, supporting LGBT* individuals reduces the risk of mental illness. According to the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, “Specific parental behaviors, such as advocating for their children when they are mistreated due to their LGBT identity and supporting their teen’s gender expression, were linked to a lower likelihood of depression, substance abuse, suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts.”
Now let’s add a few more facts:
• Sixth, people who sexually abuse children are more likely to be fixated on children than any given gender identity: “Many child molesters cannot be characterized as having an adult sexual orientation at all; they are fixated on children.”
• Seventh, people who sexually abuse children not only fixate on children, but specific children: those in their personal networks. The Child Molestation Research and Prevention Institute has noted that, “90% of child molesters target children in their network of family and friends.”
• Eighth, among child sexual abusers who do appear to have an adult sexual orientation, heterosexuality is far more common: “A child’s risk of being molested by his or her relative’s heterosexual partner is 100 times greater than by someone who might be identified as homosexual.”
So let’s put these above points together:
By teaching homeschool parents and families that LGBT* people are inherently predators, Lisa Cherry is isolating and targeting the group more at risk of being the target of abusers and ignoring groups of people who are more likely to be abusers. This is completely backwards. This is fundamentally flawed sexual abuse prevention.
“What the data shows us indisputably is that people who will later identify as LGBT have disproportionate rates of having been victims of child sexual abuse. So there are two ways to think of that — one of which I completely disagree with and one I agree more with.
“On the one end, the abuse is making these young people LGBT. The science for that is completely flimsy. I completely disagree with that idea. On the other side … children who will eventually identify as LGBT are more likely to be targets of sexual predators. If you think of it that way, it changes our concept of how we need to nurture and care for children who are different.”
“It changes our concept of how we need to nurture and care for children we are different.” This is true, and some Christian homeschooling communities must begin to understand. We are setting children up for abuse by how we are treating LGBT* people — and we are ignoring the actual abusers in our midst.
c. Soul ties
I mentioned in Part 3 of this series that Kalyn discusses her own abuse in Kalyn’s Secret in demonological terms. She sees her relationship with her abuser as a spiritual one: “My desire to please him, impress him, and be loyal to him dominated my life. I know that this devastating connection must been constructed on a spiritual level because the tie was so strange and strong it could not have simply occurred in the natural realm” (39-40). Kalyn comes to believe this “devastating connection,” or the “so strange and strong tie,” is the result of demonic forces: “Was it only a man controlling me? No, the force that held me no man could establish or break in his own strength. I had opened the door for principalities and powers of darkness [see Eph. 6:12], and I would pay dearly” (44).
In Unmask the Predators, it is clear why Kalyn has this belief: Lisa believes in the concept of soul ties. She argues that Kalyn became “soul tied” to her abuser:
Text is,
“Kalyn had been ‘soul tied’ to a man steeped in the dark world of pornography and perversion. The battle for her life was a battle in the heavenlies. My busy bluster of motherly activity highlighted by my angry yells of correction did no good” (60).
The concept of soul ties is one of the most damaging messages given to abuse victims and survivors. It is the idea that abusers infest their abuse victims with their sexual demons. Not only does Lisa promote this concept, but so do many of her “recommended resources.” For example:
Nancy Alcorn (the following is from Alcorn’s book Violated: Mercy for Sexual Abuse, which isone of the books Lisa Cherry recommends to abuse survivors); note the phrase “your soul has been…mysteriously knit with the soul of your abuser”:
Ron Luce and Teen Mania (who even throw in a “half-eaten candy bar” analogy just to make abuse survivors feel even worse):
“If the sins were sensual or sexual, we asked God to break any soul ties that we had created with another person.”
I cannot even begin to describe how emotionally and spiritually abusive this teaching is. So I’d rather just let an abuse survivor explain it with firsthand knowledge:
“Personally this is one of the most damaging lies I was ever told by the church. Ungodly sex included any sexual act outside marriage. Therefore rape and sexual abuse counted. In fact I even heard it taught that because of the demon activity in an abused person they will attract abuse again and again as like (as in demons in an abused person) attracts like (as in the demons in an abuser). Believing that I had this spiritual tie to the man who raped me was for me absolutely terrifying. It added to the guilt, shame, fear and sense of being dirty that I already had and caused me a great deal of anxiety. During the course of several ministry sessions I had to take part in they were ‘cut’ through prayer but this did little to diminish my anxiety and as I was still suffering from symptoms of PTSD this was seen as proof that I Was still choosing to live with demons in my life. It took a long time to shake the sense that the church gave me of being connected to my abuser in this way but through therapy I slowly managed to see this doctrine for the terrible nonsense that it was.”
I am horrified that Lisa Cherry would teach this in the first place. But I am even more horrified that she is teaching this to Christian homeschool communities under the guise of sexual abuse prevention.
d. Bad reporting advice
In my critique of Kalyn’s Secret, I said that regarding abuse reporting, it isn’t what Lisa says that’s the problem. Rather, it’s what she doesn’t say. At no point in that book did Lisa encourage families to report abuse. Rather, she leaves it open-ended about whether or not they should do so because she focuses on her husband praying about it. What if “the Lord’s direction” had been otherwise?
In Unmask the Predators, Lisa actually discourages families from reporting abuse in certain circumstances. First, in the “Sexual Abuse 101” chapter, Lisa says that — while “reporting illegal activity is our civil responsibility” — “how, when, and where to report predatory behaviors requires the wisdom of the Lord” (168).
In other words, Lisa believes there are circumstances where you should not report predatory behaviors. What circumstances are these? Well, in the next chapter (“Twenty-Six Keys for Protecting Your Child from Sexual Predators”), Lisa claims that, “because of the modern ‘liberation’ views of children and the international discussions on the rights of the child,” “our legal rights as parents are in question.” She then cautions parents that, “The very agencies and government departments designed to protect our children may not, in fact, protect your parental role!” (188).
So basically, despite first seeming like Lisa Cherry is a breath of fresh air from the CPS paranoia that has gripped homeschooling communities for decades and kept child abuse covered-up, she actually is promoting the exact same paranoia. In fact, she even says she “would never call a hotline or agency for help” unless she knew “the exact ramifications.” She warns families that calling such hotlines or agencies “leave incredible room for false accusation” (189).
If you keep in mind just how anti-CPS Lisa’s audience is, you must realize that this is all the encouragement to not report abuse that audience needs.
e. Dangerous “purity” teachings
One of Lisa’s “Twenty-Six Keys for Protecting Your Child from Sexual Predators” is to “install a dating/courtship model” to “help our kids to guard and defend their purity as something of high value and worth” (182). Emphasizing the “high value and worth” of purity is essential to Lisa’s abuse prevention program, which is why in Kalyn’s Secret she recommended purity books by Shannon Etheridge, Joshua Harris, and Eric and Leslie Ludy.
The problem here is not an individual wanting to save sex for marriage. I completely respect such decisions. The problem is the relationship between purity teachings (especially in the books Lisa recommends) and sexual abuse (see the “Modesty and Purity” section here). This relationship is particularly amplified because Lisa directly recommends that abuse survivors and their families read Eric and Leslie Ludy’s When God Writes Your Love Story. In my recent presentation “Facing Our Fears,” I explained how troubling the Ludy book is:
“In one of the final chapters of the book, entitled ‘Too Late?’, Leslie Ludy discusses ‘sexual sin’ and ‘moral compromise’ — in other words, ‘lost virginity.’ …Leslie tells about a 12-year-old girl named Rebecca. Leslie says that Rebecca — again, a 12-year-old — was lured by a 16-year-old boy from a church youth group into his house one day. Leslie says that Rebecca ‘left as a used and defiled sex toy’ and was ‘forced from childhood into womanhood.’
“From Leslie’s description alone, Rebecca’s story reads as a straightforward account of a 12-year-old girl being raped. The words ‘used’ and ‘forced’ indicate a lack of consent. Yet Leslie puts Rebecca’s story in the same chapter as stories of willing sexual encounters of individuals who chose to have sex before marriage. All these stories are then discussed as ‘sexual sin’ and ‘moral compromise.’ At no point does Leslie identify Rebecca’s story as a story of child sexual abuse, sexual assault, and/or rape — and at no point does Leslie then relate it to the importance of children and teenagers learning sexual consent and safety. The message to young women reading this would be and has been clear: you being ‘forced from childhood into womanhood’ is you sexually sinning, even if you were ‘forced.'”
This is the very last book you should recommend to abuse survivors. Yet this is the book Lisa recommends to young people to learn about purity in the context of sexual abuse prevention.
Final Thoughts
I said previously that, based on Kalyn’s Secret alone, I would highly discourage people from consulting Lisa Cherry and Frontline Family Ministries for advice on sexual abuse prevention.
But based on Unmask the Predators (which is the newer version of Kalyn’s Secret), I would argue that the teachings of Lisa Cherry and Frontline Family Ministries are a direct threat to children’s safety. The above passages disturb me to my core and make me feel nauseous. These teachings are putting children at risk. They are alienating the very people who are most at risk of abuse. They are teaching families to be scared of those people most at risk. And they are distracting families from understanding who the real predators are.
In the next part of this series I will examine the recommended resources on Frontline Family Ministries’s website, both past and present.
Homeschoolers Anonymous 