Ken Ham: The Evolution of a Bully

Last week, in an approach founder Ken Ham described as "cordial and engaging", the creationist organization Answers In Genesis sponsored billboards like this one in several major cities. I can't help wondering who Ham's atheist friends are, and how long they will remain his friends with engaging expressions of cordiality like these.

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I first encountered Ken Ham at an ICR conference in Michigan. I was a young homeschooled kid and adored Ken Ham from the first time he opened his mouth. I loved his Aussie accent, his beard, his jokes. I retold his story about "nursing the baby" way too many times. Science was my least favorite subject, but I liked history and social studies and I believed his every word. It never occurred to me then that Ham might be wrong about fossils, Cain's wife, homosexuality, or the book of Genesis itself. 

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In 1974, Ken Ham himself was searching for answers. Ham taught science in a public high school in Australia, but apparently, teaching about evolution and millions of years presented a challenge to his faith. A church friend directed him to the book The Genesis Flood by Henry Morris (a hydrologist and founder of the Institute of Creation Research in California) and John Whitcomb (a theologian).

Morris viewed the Bible as a history book and was excited to share his notions of catastrophism and how a global flood a few thousands years ago could have shaped all the geological forms we see today. Morris was greatly influenced by a Seventh-Day Adventist named George McCready Price, who went searching for geological evidence to support the visions of Ellen White, who proclaimed that the fossils were "thus preserved as an evidence to later generations that the antediluvians perished by a flood. God designed that the discovery of these things should establish faith in inspired history".

Morris, a Baptist, read Price's book on "flood geology" in 1943, then quietly repackaged this novel approach to geology in his 1961 book The Genesis Flood. A decade later, Ken Ham was thrilled with Morris' solutions that could simply do away with the "millions of years" question. He felt compelled to tell as many people as he could about these new answers.

Ham quit his teaching job in 1979 to start Australia's Creation Science Foundation (CSF) with fellow schoolteacher and fundamentalist John Mackay. At first, CSF operated out of the Hams' home. Ken Ham later wrote that Mackay had suggested on multiple occasions that he (Mackay) and Ham could be the two witnesses described in Revelation 11 (an idea Ham says he could not accept).

Dr. Carl Wieland, a medical doctor and former atheist, believed he had encountered the supernatural while playing at card tricks with his wife. Recognizing that modern science and telepathy were incompatible, Wieland became a creationist and even founded a creationist magazine Ex Nihilo. When Wieland joined forces with the fledgling CSF, the young magazine's name was changed to Creation.

In 1987, Ham moved to America with his wife Mally and their five children, first to work with Films for Christ on a creationist documentary, then to work for the Institute of Creation Research as a traveling speaker to popularize ICR's creationist message. Ham continued to direct CSF from across the Pacific until 2004. Carl Wieland, still recovering from a near-fatal car accident that took his sight in one eye, served as CSF managing director in Australia. But the Creation Science Foundation was about to rip wide open.

Margaret Buchanan, a widow, and her disabled daughter, Debbie, joined the CSF staff in 1984. Margaret served as Ham's personal secretary. Shortly after the Hams left Australia, John Mackay, angry about being replaced as editor of Creation magazine, called Buchanan at her home, told her not to come in to work, and made bizarre accusations. Mackay claimed Buchanan practiced witchcraft and necrophilia and was a tool of the devil. (Mackay told Ham that he had had to cast demons out of his dog and a black cat because of Buchanan's satanic influence.) Another staff member then sprinkled Buchanan's office space with grape juice to cleanse it of evil spirits. Buchanan agreed to take a four-week leave of absence while staff considered the whole affair.

When the board finally decided Buchanan was innocent, Mackay laid down an ultimatum. He would not stay unless she was dismissed. So Mackay left, with a handful of followers, to lead his own creationism organization. When Margaret and two other staff members tried to meet with Mackay at his home, he threatened them with police action if they did not leave his property. Mackay was later excommunicated from his Baptist church. CMI's website includes more than 63 sordid pages of documents dealing with the allegations, investigations, witnesses, diary accounts, signed letters, and more.

In the stormy aftermath of Mackay's departure, Dr. Andrew Snelling, a CSF scientist who later followed Ken Ham to ICR, admitted to having had concerns about Mackay's "extremely sloppy research":

I worked alongside Mr. John Mackay for some years when he was with the Foundation...

As a Christian and a scientist, I have become more and more concerned with some of the claims he has been making, particularly in the area of geology. Instances have come to my attention that are either totally untrue, or misleading, even to the point of deception. Even while working with him I was concerned about an emerging pattern of extremely sloppy research, coupled with a tendency to gloss over opposing facts, even when they were graciously brought to his attention by myself and others, which drew progressively closer to the borderline between honesty and dishonesty. My concern, then as now, was his growing potential for bringing discredit to the whole creation movement.

Warnings such as these are difficult to give about someone professing to exercise Christian ministry. Undoubtedly, if past experience is any guide, Mr. Mackay will skillfully seek to have them interpreted as further 'persecution'.

(Meanwhile, Dr. Wieland ended up divorcing his wife and marrying Margaret Buchanan. Of course, this added to the tension within the organization as some staff members believed the Bible forbade remarriage after divorce.)

In 1994, the Hams left ICR to found their own layperson-oriented creation ministry (CSM), and moved to Kentucky with the Creation subscriber list. CSM (USA) and CSF (Australia) were closely tied and their leadership overlapped significantly. Before long, "the board decided to change the organization’s name to “Answers in Genesis,” to reflect the fact that the ministry was not just about “creation,” but the authority of all of Scripture—as well as about evangelism and equipping believers to build a biblical worldview."

According to Ham, the Australian and American AiG organizations made a "mutual" decision to separate in 2005 over differences of philosophy and organization and met "cordially" to iron out the details. Other sources describe the split much less pleasantly, writing of a years-long "bitter power struggle", "domination", taped phone calls, and accusations "of deceptive conduct". The Australian organization rebranded as Creation Ministries International (CMI). Still more friction arose over printing and distributing Creation in the U.S., with AiG introducing its own Answers magazine sometime after the Creation Museum opened in 2007.

Today, creationism has become a multi-million industry with AiG strongly dominating the market. AiG materials are available in 77 languages. The organization conducts evangelistic campaigns and literature distribution at the Olympic Games. Plans are in place for the construction of an amusement park around a "replica" of Noah's ark, partly to serve as a warning of God's judgment for tolerating homosexuality.

Ken Ham and his brother Steve authored the parenting study Genesis of a Legacy, in which they teach that children are foolish sinners who are actually disobeying God when they disobey a parent. Instead of "reasoning" or allowing "questioning" or "delay", the Hams advocate John MacArthur's approach: "short, stinging strokes to the backside", "painful enough to make the consequences of disobedience... unforgettable". 

Based on the story of Adam of Eve, Ham is a staunch opponent of gay marriage. He has written an article suggesting that if homosexuality is to be deemed morally acceptable, then child sacrifice should have an equal status. He also opposes efforts by schools to accommodate transgender students. His suggestion that transgender students are disguising their real motives betrays a truly painful ignorance of gender issues:

Sadly, these school authorities don’t recognize the sinful heart of man and what can come out from it. Surely schools officials have thought about the potential for high school boys to pretend to “identify” as a female just so they can have access to the girls’ restroom and, maybe, to their locker room—winking to their friends as they do it?   

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AIG prayed for my request :)

For years, I read Ham's books, got his newsletter, sent him my money and my prayer requests. I was excited about the progress of the creation museum as they overcame the opposition of the community to build a temple to unchanging Truth.

Then, I had kids of my own. Before I knew it, they started to gravitate toward picture books about dinosaurs and stars at the library. My parents had always rejected books that mentioned "millions of years" or talked too much about biological "adaptations". I didn't want to discourage my kids with unnecessary censorship, and I didn't want them to grow up feeling as uneasy around science as I was. So I started researching. As a homeschooling mom, it was important to me to be able to teach them accurately about dinosaurs and astronomy and geology. And as a Christian, I looked for trustworthy sources who shared my belief in the inspired truth of the Bible. 

But what I learned shocked me, and sparked new questions. The next time I visited my parents' house, I pored over the latest book from AiG, studying their answers. And I felt lied to. AiG isn't about the data, or the scientific method. AiG doesn't offer scientific responses to questions about the rock strata or the age of the earth or fossils of whales with hips. They can't offer plausible explanations for day and night and light and vegetation on Earth before the Sun appeared on the fourth day of creation. Most of their "answers" can be summarized as "Well, a global flood could have caused..." And they pretend there is no contradiction in the two Genesis creation accounts. 

AiG is about one specific religious agenda--a fundamentalist approach to Biblical doctrine that assigns everyone who is "wrong" to hell. Suddenly Ken Ham, my former idol, looked more like a bully.

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In 2010, Rachel Held Evans rocked many in the evangelical world with her book Evolving in Monkey Town, in which she considered the scientific validity of theistic evolution. When Ham shook his head sadly over the "indoctrination of our age" and "compromising church leaders", dismissing the faith of Christians who also embrace modern science, Evans posted an articulate and heartfelt response on her blog:

"We are tired of fighting. We are tired of drawing lines in the sand. We are tired of Christianity being cast as a position in a debate when it is supposed to be a way of life.

"What we are searching for is a community of faith in which it is safe to ask tough questions, to think critically, and to be honest with ourselves. Unfortunately, a lot of young evangelicals grew up with the assumption that Christianity and evolution cannot mix, that we have to choose between our faith in Jesus and accepted science. I’ve watched in growing frustration as this false dichotomy has convinced my friends to leave the faith altogether when they examine the science and find it incompatible with a 6,000-year-old earth. Sensing that Christianity required abandoning their intellectual integrity, some of the best and brightest of the next generation made a choice they didn’t have to make....

"Ken likes to frame his position as an unwavering commitment to the authority of Scripture, but in reality his is an unwavering commitment to one interpretation of Scripture."

The following year, Ham was banned from speaking at a homeschool convention in Cincinnati after making "mean-spirited" remarks about another speaker, a Bible scholar and theologian who approaches the Old Testament very differently than Ham does. AiG also used its deep pockets and legal staff to bully a smaller Christian ministry with a similar name, threatening them with charges of trademark infringement.

And this month, AiG's billboards appeared. Responding to criticism over his message to his "atheist friends", Ham both defended and reiterated his satisfaction with his own belief that atheists will spend eternity in hell, while mocking the notion that dead people cease to exist. He described atheism as "sad" and "purposeless".

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exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science

Many, many followers of Jesus doubt Young Earth Creationism, and even St. Augustine considered the Creation account to be allegorical. But no one told me that. I swallowed the whole Ham sandwich: you couldn't have faith, or sin, or Jesus, or heaven, or God... without Adam, Eve, Eden, a global flood, and less than 10,000 years. The only problem was, when I could no longer believe in a young earth, the rest of the story disintegrated, too. 

Once upon a time, my meager tithe checks helped build Ken's creation museum. Today I am one of his "atheist friends", taking my kids to see dinosaur footprints and ancient rocks. Ham's cartoons (the red "Abortion" balloons flown from the castle founded on Evolution) and his jokes ("God didn't make Adam and Steve", "fossils don't come with labels!") led directly to my atheism. 

My life is neither sad nor purposeless. But if it makes him feel better, Ham can thank his God that I'm finally wrong. 

How God Gave Us Peanut Butter. And Granola.

Among my favorite picture books as a child was the happy little story How God Gives Us Peanut Butter. With vivid, cheerful illustrations it followed the trail from the sun on the farmer's fields to the jars of creamy or crunchy jars on the grocery shelf. But that was only part of the story.

Our peanut butter came fresh-ground from the health food store, or in large plastic pails from Country Life, a whole foods distributor downstate. Mom studied nutrition in nursing school and took our diet quite seriously. Twice a year she placed an order for staples in bulk. A truck would show up at our door, delivering heavy sacks of rolled oats, cracked wheat, graham flour, cornmeal and brown rice. There would be packages of dried fruit, carob morsels, shredded coconut, or soy spaghetti; bottles of fragrant honey, pungent blackstrap molasses, golden safflower oil, and cloudy unfiltered apple juice; and bags of raw almonds, walnuts, cashews, and sunflower seeds.

We stored this bounty in our bulging pantry and in the deep freezer, alongside the ice cream, the homemade jam, the veggies from our garden, and the neat packages of the side of the beef we'd bought in the fall. All year long the food would nourish us, transformed into aromatic sandwich breads, hearty cakes and cookies, muffins and pancakes, warm breakfast porridge, sustaining trail mix, and granola. My brothers were especially delighted when Mom added peanut butter to the granola recipe.

Some of the Country Life food labels had Bible verses on them, but we didn't usually notice them. They simply identified the folks at Country Life as part of our tribe. We had a hand-painted "Jesus is Lord" sign hanging prominently over our garage, after all.

But the tale of how God gave us peanut butter granola is far more fascinating than that. It started when Jesus stood up his waiting bride in 1844--a cosmic miscommunication that came to be known as "The Great Disappointment"--and ended up sending us granola instead.

The Harmon family of Maine were among the disappointed. They had followed William Miller's predictions of Christ's second coming since 1840 and even been "disfellowshipped" by their Methodist church for their Adventist loyalties. Jesus' failure to materialize on October 22 was a cruel blow.

The Harmons had eight children, including twin girls, Ellen and Elizabeth. At nine years old, Ellen had been hit in the head with a rock and was out cold for three weeks. Not only did this abruptly end her education, she would suffer lifelong health problems as well. Nevertheless, Ellen made a considerable recovery and as a teen became an ardent believer and evangelist in the Adventist cause. The Disappointment hit her hard, but she refused to be discouraged.

At a prayer meeting a few months afterward, still reeling from the shock and trying to make sense of it all, 17-year-old Ellen had a "vision" involving God's plan for the now desperate Adventists. She felt surrounded by light, and had a sensation of rising higher and higher. When the vision ended, Ellen was weepy and depressed to be sitting in prayer meeting, but her religious friends embraced her account as a sign that they had not been forgotten, that their faith had not been in vain.

Ellen had another "vision" the next week. That was followed by an experience like "a ball of fire" hitting her on the chest and knocking her to the floor. One time she saw texts in golden letters and was unable to speak for hours afterward; another time she saw other planets. In 1846, Ellen married fellow Adventist James White. That same year, while visiting an Adventist who held the belief that Saturday was the "true Sabbath", Ellen had a surprising revelation:

"When the foundations of the earth were laid, then was also laid the foundation of the Sabbath. I was shown that if the true Sabbath had been kept, there would never have been an infidel or an atheist. The observance of the Sabbath would have preserved the world from idolatry."

So what about the granola? Be patient; it's coming.

Ellen and James White traveled all over New England, sharing her revelations and correcting the errors of fanatical post-Disappointment doctrines. This work took a toll on both their finances and their health, so they when followers in Battle Creek, Michigan urged them to settle there and open a publishing house, the Whites were persuaded. They spent the next several years in a flurry of business, family, and advancing the Seventh-Day Adventist movement. The pace was frantic and many zealous church leaders fell victim to physical or mental exhaustion.

Then one Sabbath morning in 1863, Ellen White envisioned a connection between health and spirituality, a picture "of the importance of following right principles in diet and in the care of the body, and of the benefits of nature's remedies--clean air, sunshine, exercise, and pure water." Health reform was the new watchword, health guidelines were distributed in pamphlet form, and in 1866 the Seventh-Day Adventists opened a health reform institute in Battle Creek. What the institute lacked, however, was credibility. Ellen White looked around the Adventist community. A teenage apprentice in the publishing house caught her eye; he was bright and disciplined, his parents pillars in the young church. Yes, John Harvey Kellogg was her man.

Realizing that credentials would boost the prestige of the Western Health Reform Institute, the Whites helped sponsor John Harvey's college education. After completing medical school, Kellogg returned to Battle Creek to take over. Under his leadership, WHRI became the Battle Creek Sanitarium, a world-class medical resort, a clinic-spa where thousands of the rich and famous flocked from the cities to be cured of dyspepsia, malaise, and more serious health problems. 

As a Seventh-Day Adventist institution, "the San" promoted strict principles of what Kellogg rebranded "biologic living": fresh air and exercise; a vegetarian diet; no alcohol, caffeine, chocolate, sugar, fried foods; no cinnamon, cloves, ginger, peppermint, black pepper, or pickles! Kellogg also pioneered all the latest new and alternative therapies: probiotics, massage, hydrotherapy, light baths, yogurt enemas, static electricity treatments, and more. 

Whole grains were in vogue, thanks to Sylvester Graham, Presbyterian minister turned temperance lecturer, who was convinced that sexual urges could be reduced by avoiding "flesh-meat" and other stimulating foods. Graham vilified white bread and chemical additives and advocated a diet of whole, natural plant-based foods. His recommended brown whole wheat flour was termed "Graham flour" and his name lives on in the crispy wafers we use today to support cheesecake and hold s'mores together. Ellen White was actually late to the health nut party; Oberlin College in Ohio had enforced the Graham diet on its campus during the 1830's--until students and faculty alike rebelled.

Kellogg was a Grahamite with a special fixation on colon health. He blamed masturbation on constipation, among other things, and was a proponent of circumcision (or undiluted carbolic acid applied to the clitoris) to discourage "self-abuse". An outspoken proponent of celibacy, Kellogg was proud of never consummating his marriage. Instead of sharing a room with his wife, he wrote a book about the health risks of too much sex. Instead of siring children, he adopted some of the forty-two they fostered. To ensure physical and moral health, the good doctor recommended cleansing the colon daily. His own routine included use of a super enema machine he designed himself: fifteen gallons of water in sixty seconds, followed by a yogurt flush!

With the help of his little brother Will, Kellogg developed Sanitarium menus that fit the "bland, boring, but edible" formula. Soups, salads, and legumes were fine for dinner menus, but breakfast foods were a challenge. A Dr. Caleb Jackson in New York was serving patients at his sanitarium baked nuggets made of crumbled graham biscuits--a food he called Granula. (Ellen White spent three weeks at Dr. Jackson's clinic in 1864, observing and imbibing his views on health reform.) Dr. Kellogg adapted the Granula recipe, using rolled oats instead. Following a trademark dispute with Dr. Jackson, Kellogg renamed his version Granola. 

A need for nutritious meat substitutes led the Kelloggs to nut butter. Kellogg patented a process for making peanut butter around 1895. He was soon selling his product (made from steamed peanuts, not roasted) along with granola, corn flakes, and other Sanitarium specialties under his own label: the Sanitas Nut Food Company. Now former patients, even those with dentures, could conveniently continue "biologic living" from their own homes.

Dr. Kellogg eventually removed the Sanitarium from the oversight of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church and the church disfellowshipped him in 1907. His brother Will took over the cereal manufacturing business, adding public-pleasing sugar to boost sales. These changes didn't stop the Adventists from hanging onto granola, however. In Australia, the Seventh-Day Adventist Church trademarked the name "Granola" in 1921. Just last year the church's cereal manufacturing company, Sanitarium Foods, lost their legal battle to prevent Aussie restaurants and bakeries from using the term "granola".

Country Life, the co-op that delivered our peanut butter and granola ingredients, is a ministry of the Seventh-Day Adventist church, just a stone's throw from Battle Creek and the Sanitarium. The vegetarian cookbook my mom once added to her order contained lengthy quotations from Ellen White and unappealing photographs. We wondered why the editors featured such unpalatable dishes, but Dr. Kellogg would doubtless have approved. 

And that, children, is how God gave us peanut butter. And granola. Which more than makes up for the Great Disappointment. 

Chapter 4: The Lord's Song in a Strange Land

Continued from Chapter 3: Discord.

IBLP distributed a letter, supposedly signed by Peter Peters, pleading with American churches not to export Christian rock music. Below are some excerpts from the letter:

For thirty years we have suffered intense persecution. Now freedom is bringing another great harm to our churches. This damage is coming from Christians in America who are sending rock music and evangelists accompanied by rock bands. 

We abhor all Christian rock music coming to our country. Rock music has nothing in common with ministry or the service to God.

We were in prison for fifteen years for Christ’s sake. We were not allowed to have Christian music, but ROCK MUSIC was used as a weapon against us day and night to destroy our souls.

Now it is Christians from America who damage our souls. We do not allow this music in our church, but these “evangelists” rent big stadiums and infect teenagers and adults with their rock music. We, the leadership and congregations of the Unregistered churches urge you to join with us, and we advise you to remove rock music from America.

We call this music, “music from hell.” We urge all Americans to stop giving money for the organizations of such concerts in Russia. We only want traditional Christian music in our churches. This is the unanimous decision of all our leaders.

Peter Peters and Vasilij Ryzhuk, Unregistered Union of Churches, Moscow, Russia, April 15, 1992

I had grown up on Iron Curtain stories. Nothing motivated me like a martyr! In solidarity with the suffering of the unregistered church of the former Soviet Union, I was determined to stand against this soul-destroying music, alone if necessary.

And it was necessary, at Drivers' Ed. My parents sent me to the public high school for driver training and I was immediately on guard. I hadn't been inside a state school since second grade and I was uncomfortable in a group of my worldly peers. On campus in my long skirts and prairie dresses, I definitely stood out. Since this was my first encounter with the "unsaved" in a long while, I brought a few tracts to distribute to my classmates. And I tried to control my laughter at the jokes that seemed risque but still struck me as funny.

I had no trouble learning the highway signs and proper following distance, but a problem arose when the instructor popped in a videotape. The overhead lights were switched off and the intro music swirled through the room. In no time, my heart was racing and I was suffocating. I left my seat and walked out to the hall, warm, still, and empty on a summer morning. During the next break, I explained to the instructor that my faith in Jesus Christ did not allow me to sit through the training videos. Whenever he played one after that, I would wander the campus outside or diligently study my book. My parents were proud when I reported back on my time out in "the world". Heck, I was proud! My convictions had been tested, and I had stood firm.

A few weeks after my driver's license arrived, I boarded an Aeroflot jet to Moscow with a group of bright-faced, homeschooled kids dressed neatly in matching white and navy blue. Our parents were followers of Bill Gothard and we shared a common coded vocabulary from his seminars: "motivational gifts", "birth order", Wisdom Booklets, "clear conscience", "umbrella of authority", Wisdom Search, "courtship", and "Godly music".

Rock music was very much in vogue in the post-Soviet era of glasnost and perestroika. Eurodisco and technopop blared from kiosks everywhere, as ubiquitous as stumbling drunks and softcore porn posters, as we traversed the city making presentations in the schools. Often the schoolchildren would have cultural presentations prepared for us, as well, and we would thank them graciously. We were there to teach them good character: truthfulness and attentiveness and obedience and gratefulness, with a smattering of American history and Bible stories thrown in by way of illustration.

During my 10-week stay, I was taken to several different Russian evangelical churches. The ones our group attended used fairly traditional hymns, but one Sunday there was another American group visiting the same service. They presented a special musical performance that I found rather appalling--"Listen to the Hammer Ring!", in English. Disturbing lyrics aside, I felt uncomfortable. Was not this the sound Pastor Peters had denounced, the beat we had been trained to resist? My instinct was to flee, yet as a foreign female minor representing "the Institute" in a school building I didn't know, it hardly seemed appropriate to leave. Feeling like a caged animal, I tried to distract myself by focusing on the interpreter signing the lyrics for the deaf (pause here to savor the irony!).

Back at the ship, our floating hotel, leadership piped soothing or inspirational instrumental albums from Majesty Music over the sound system into our rooms and we felt cleansed. The closest any of the approved recordings came to syncopation was an Easter album with a choral cover of Annie Herring's "Easter Song". This very slight variation of timing lifted our spirits in the same way that Bill Gothard's arrival with a Snickers bar for each of us cheered us like Christmas. We prayed, we fasted, we had hymnsings on the upper deck, we learned to sing hymns in Russian, we rehearsed testimonies and prepared evangelistic skits and practiced Gospel piano duets, we invited teachers and students to our weekly evangelistic meetings. We were there to do spiritual battle in a formerly atheistic communist nation, after all.

We were not there to find spouses, as the leadership reminded us often. Though most of us were high school age, and we lived and worked in very close proximity to one another, dating was strictly forbidden. Dress was professional, never less than semi-casual, and girls and boys maintained a physical and emotional buffer at all times. If a boy asked us to as much as sew a button on his shirt, we were instructed to refuse and direct him to one of the married chaperones instead.

IBLP Russia Team, 1993

IBLP was officially working under the Russian Department of Education, so we were sometimes asked to participate in special events. That spring our group was "invited" to attend an inter-school performance in a crowded arts center auditorium. Even the Patriarch of Moscow was in attendance. The lights beyond the stage were dimmed and the show began. Children in colorful costumes and bright hair ribbons danced and sang and performed puppet shows. Then a teenage couple took the stage. A rock song began to throb through the auditorium and they danced--a beautiful but intense and [to me] sensual dance.

I was agitated. I looked around to see how the others in my group were responding. Some seemed as uncomfortable as I was. I thought about Pastor Peters' letter and I felt terribly, terribly guilty. I leaned over to the Russian interpreter beside me, "We did this to your country, Sveta," I whispered. "I'm so sorry." Then I began shaking in my seat, my heart was racing, a full fight-or-flight response. I felt sure I was feeling demonic oppression. How long could I resist? I left my seat and fled for the outer concourse where I found the matrons of our group trying to calm several other girls who were in similar states. Twenty years later, I realize I was simply having my first real panic attack.

I had been conditioned to fear a certain beat, and I developed a fear response. It was as simple as that.

My experience with the outside world was fraught with unseen dangers. By now, I only really felt safe within the safe bounds of ATI and those who shared my beliefs about music. It would take years, rejection by Bill Gothard, and another missionary venture to free me from the legalistic bondage.

Continued at Part 5: Cognitive Dissonance

Film Favorites: The Village

An isolated community.

An older generation hiding from past pain and present fear.

A younger generation raised in ignorance and taught superstition.

Trusting children exploited, sacrificed to appease their parents' anxieties, reared in a tiny culture bubble, guarded against outside influences that would endanger or enlighten them. All significant choices made for them by their authorities.

Secrets. Control. Manipulation. Lies. Fear. Facades. All in the guise of protection and love.

But ultimately, the same evil that lurked outside the borders could not be kept out. It arises from within, threatening the security the community "authorities" had labored so hard to create.

M. Night Shyamalan's "The Village".

I don't watch horror films. But this didn't seem at all like horror to me in 2004; it seemed terrifyingly true to life. And when my husband and I first watched The Village, we wanted to shout from the rooftops. 

Finally, I had an image I could refer people to! Just as the Duggars' 19 Kids and Counting offers a narrow glimpse into the world of Quiverfull homeschooling, this film illustrates the emotional experience of growing up in an isolated Christian fundamentalist subculture: "Have you seen The Village? It's like I grew up there."

And like Ivy Walker, I walked away with fear and trembling, only to be amazed at the world outside that was so very different than I'd been told.

"There is kindness in your voice. I did not expect that."

Spiritual Abuse Survivors: Paradise Recovered

I love this piece, penned by Andie Redwine. It did me good to reread it today and realize how much progress I've made since last year!

We Are Spiritual Abuse Survivors

...Sometimes when people are vulnerable and need answers, someone pretends to give support by exploiting the needs of hurting people, using their ‘answers’ as a recruitment tool to get people to do their bidding in the name of God.

This is what happened to us.

We aren’t crazy, naïve, foolish, stupid, or lazy. We are human, like you. We have needs, like you. And, unfortunately for us, someone took advantage of our human needs for their personal gain.

We thought we were specially called by God. We learned later that we were just a means to an end, with the end being the elevation of our leader. 

Or we were rigidly raised to believe that everything on the outside of our group was bad. That only our group alone understood God, salvation, and the keys to living rightly.

We were taught or reconditioned to fear everything that contradicted our leaders’ edicts. We believed dissent to be wicked, evil, and Satanic.

And then we learned something about our leaders that made us question all that we built our lives upon.

. . .

We learned that some of our phobias have been granted to us by leaders who manipulated us into believing that the world is really a terrible, horrible place.

Of course, our leader’s group is wonderful and the only good to be found in the world.
Or is it?

And then we learned that asking these questions makes us expendable to the leader and the rest of the group.

. . . 

But one day, we noticed that many around us were genuinely happy. Even the ones that were supposed to be ‘really bad.’ They laughed, smiled, and were kind.

Some had faith, some didn’t. All were free to believe as they wished.

We were supposed to fear them. And yet they didn’t seem all that scary.

We didn’t know this worldly culture very well. Their music, their movies, their celebrations, their workplaces, their books, their relationships. And they scared us a little. Or a lot.

They also intrigued us a little. Or a lot.

And we confused the heck out of these people. They had no idea where we were coming from, and we were too ashamed and embarrassed to tell them that we had been in what they called ‘a cult’.  That we ‘drank the Kool-Aid’.  That we were ‘mind-numbed robots’ that had been ‘brainwashed.’

There was a lot of shame. So we didn’t say a word about our experience. We did the best we could to assimilate.

You may have known us for years and never known our stories. We can bury them pretty deep.

Because of the Internet and our Googling late into the night when we can’t sleep, we’re learning that we aren’t the only ones. Because of the anonymity that the Internet affords, we’re getting braver. We’re telling our stories.

We’re speaking out.

. . .

There's a lot more, including suggestions for how to relate to a spiritual abuse survivor. I am so grateful for those friends, old and new, who have been patient and accepting as I find my way, sometimes flying, sometimes just muddling along. 

If Andie's writing strikes a chord with you, check out this film she wrote and produced: Paradise Recovered. It is touching and funny; how you feel about the ending will depend on where your own journey has taken you. 

Ryan McIlvain

Though I am working on several new posts, none are ready yet. But I heard a thoughtful interview on NPR tonight and wanted to share Ryan's story here.

Ryan McIlvain grew up Mormon, doing his mission in South America. He resigned from the church in his mid-twenties. I loved his admission of making decisions by asking, "What is the secular thing to do?" You can read excerpts and listen to the entire interview on the NPR website.

Now he's drawn on his own experience and his own doubts to create a novel depicting a pair of Mormon missionaries. Jasmine Elist's article for the L.A. Times is part book review and part interview.

"And I thought: Jesus Christ, if you knew the small, daily inner turmoils that these young men — or young women, as the case may be — were confronting, you wouldn’t kick them off campus. You would offer to buy them an ice cream cone, or something."  --Ryan McIlvain, on Mormon missionaries

I love that Ryan's speech is still unapologetically peppered with Bible phrases and lines from hymns. It's nice to think that all the years spent absorbing ancient prose and 19th-century poetry were not a waste, but an investment that might one day produce uniquely rare and delicate fruit.

Brave New Thoughts

Another courageous testimony for this Tuesday!

Megan Phelps-Roper is a brave woman who dared to think for herself.

“For nearly all of her twenty-seven years, Megan believed it: believed what her grandfather Fred Phelps preached from the pulpit; believed what her dad Brent and her mom Shirley taught during the family’s daily Bible studies…”

I remember feeling personally affronted when Phelps' Westboro Baptist picketed my friend's funeral. They didn't know him; their protests were steeped in the deepest ignorance.

Now, Megan's story is one of questions and library books, love and loss, tears and exploration, support and accusation. I find I can identify with Megan, especially with her insistence that she really did want to do good, even when she was part of her family's cult. Eventually those good intentions drove her to look outward and discover a whole new world.

Good luck on your journey, Megan and Grace!

Library Shelf: Triumph

When Texas raided the Yearning for Zion Ranch in 2008, I followed the news stories for months. I felt an emotional connection with the secluded FLDS children who had been suddenly thrust into an environment they had been taught would threaten their eternal souls, separated from their families, faced with unfamiliar food and clothing, trying to make sense of a culture foreign to them. Having grown up in a cult myself, I was ready and willing to be a foster parent to any of those kids, had it been possible!

So I was thrilled to discover this book by Carolyn Jessop, an ex-wife of the YFZ cult leader. During the proceedings in Texas, she became an adviser to state authorities about what they were dealing with in the FLDS. And by the end of the first chapter of this book, she became one of my favorite heroines.

I cannot recommend Triumph highly enough. This is the story of a brave woman's determination to leave the patriarchal, abusive, totalitarian Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints cult and her struggle to create a brand-new life for herself and her eight children. Read an excerpt here.

I love that Carolyn takes the time to recount how her mind slowly changed along the way, the radio programs that gave her a new perspective on healthy relationships, the secret trips to work out at Curves,  how she experimented and waited until she was ready to thoroughly leave patriarchy behind. Hers was no sudden decision but a methodical plan based on new beliefs and thought patterns that gradually overwrote the old.

Carolyn with her sister-wives

"But the men were onto something: exercise is dangerous. Once women start getting control over their bodies, they think about getting control over their lives. After a woman loses fifteen pounds and likes the way she looks, having that ninth or tenth child is less appealing. Getting in touch with her body puts her in touch with other areas of her life, like sexuality. Women who claimed sexual power were as threatening to the FLDS as women who claimed any other power. We weren’t supposed to have sexual needs; we were merely the breeding stock that kept the cult replenished."

Carolyn's story has its disappointments and setbacks (her oldest daughter later returned to the cult), but it is overwhelmingly inspiring. And the chapter on homeschooling should be required reading for every state legislator.