(note: 3 blog posts in 1 day just means Im finally posting all the stuff I had sitting in my word processor program.)
My intention with this site is mostly to go thru my experiences with Charity and IBLP in a logical way, either by topic or chronologically as the subject demands. However, since its also my “therapy” blog, Im going to take a step back from that and write about 2 (other) things that Ive been turning over in my head for a while.
The first came from a magazine article, I don’t know if it was tips for less stress or to like yourself better or what other nonsense, but it said, “Assume people like you.” This hit me like a ton of bricks! I realize I have been going around my whole life assuming people don’t like me unless I do something to make myself likeable to them. Even then, I feel like they will stop liking me just as soon as I stop making myself likeable (or worse, do something unlikeable!) The very idea that people could be liking me, just for who I am, regardless of what I do or fail to do, is almost impossible to grasp.
Now, obviously, it doesn’t matter a whole lot if most of the people in the world like me or not. However, I think I could be free from a huge amount of stress and worry if I wasn’t constantly trying to stay on top of making people (co-workers, friends, family) like me. I say “I think I could be free” because Im pretty sure Im no where close to experiencing what that would be like.
This has a spiritual application, too, because grace is basically God liking us just the way we are. (admittedly theres a whole lot more in there, about Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross, our sinlessness in Him, and all that.) I mentioned in the last post that I grew up with a definition of grace as “power and desire to do God’s will.” For so long, grace for me has been about doing and not being, about my work rather than my receiving - the idea isnt any easier to grasp if I say “GOD could be liking me, just for who I am, regardless of what I do or fail to do.”
The second thing that’s been bouncing off the inner walls of my head came from my recent realization that I think Im “bad” unless Ive been “good.” (sort of related.) I know on a theological level I am hopelessly sinful apart for Jesus but in Him I am totally righteous. But I don’t really know what that feels or looks like. Now don’t get me wrong, I think most people who looked at my life would say Im a “good” person. However, I am constantly burdened with the feeling that its not good enough.
Ive noticed this especially in relation to my husband; I find myself saying several times a week, “Im sorry Im not a good wife. Im sorry Im not a better wife. Im sorry Im not as good as you deserve.” The truth is, tho, Im not a “bad” wife. Ive only been married 4 years, so I know I have a lot to learn, but Im certainly doing my best. There are times he wants a particular thing, like for me to bring him a drink when Im busy, and I don’t do it - but I don’t think that actually makes me a “bad” wife.
I guess what I feel is that the bar is set so high that “normal” requires a whole lot of effort just to maintain; if I slip at all, then Im “bad” and actually being “good” requires something spectacular. Now, that may be accurate in my job, but should it be that way in my life?
Im gonna point the finger at my parents a bit here; all my life they set the bar very high. They were partly justified in doing this, because by setting the bar high, they drove me to achieve a lot of things. We had a lot of fights about this when I was in high school and after, tho, because I felt the minute I had reached a goal, the bar was raised again. I ended up with the perpetual feeling that even my best was never good enough.
I realize, tho, maybe its my fault, not theirs. They tell me they tried to get the message across that they were pleased with me - maybe there was already something inside of me going “not good enough, never good enough.” At any rate, it didn’t take long for it to become a toxic cycle.
What Im working on right now is telling myself, if I fail or slip up or have a bad day, is that Im not “bad.” “Bad” is just a slip-up from my normally maintained good enough. In my mind, tho, it feels like “bad” is my normal state - that unless Im constantly striving to do something really good, Im not good enough.
Plese dont think its my husband's fault, either - he tells me all the time Im a good wife and how happy he is with me! Its just that, at this point in my life anyway, I feel like that only applies when Im doing well. If dont do every single thing spectacularly, or have a bad day, or am lazy, or cant buy his favorite food at the store ... I feel like Im back to bad again.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
cult or not??
Both these organizations have already been the topic of much debate over the last 30-odd years as to whether they are cults or not. Smarter minds than mine have done more thinking and research then I ever could, and have come to differing conclusions. Im not really here to take up that debate, or to try to convince you one way or another. Im just writing to share my experience - mostly as therapy for me, and also perhaps to encourages others at different points on the same journey.
Since my first post stated, “I grew up in a cult,” you already know what conclusion I eventually reached. In this post, Im going to explore a little bit more about how I got there.
I once heard a pastor define a cult as “any church with teachings different from mine.” Obviously, he was kidding, but on a functional level, that’s what a lot of people think.
I didn’t get a lot of clarity on the issue until I was in college, in World Religions class. What the professor taught there (and I don’t remember if this came from the textbook, sorry) was that there are 2 key points which distinguish a cult from a sect (a sect is really what you could call a “church with teachings different from mine.”)
1. extra-scriptural teachings
(Obviously in the case of a Christian cult, this would be extra-Biblical teachings, but there are cults in other religions too.) This can include alternate interpretations of scripture, over-emphasis on passages generally regarded as minor, or teaching that flat-out don’t come from scripture. If you’ve been in church for any time at all, you know that Christians have been disagreeing on the teachings of the Bible basically from the moment Christ disappeared in the clouds. However, there are some things thru the ages that we’ve mostly come to agree on that are necessary to be saved or to follow God - but a cult teaches there is more needed.
2. authoritarian leadership
In a cult (as opposed to a sect) the leader or group of leaders have an excessive amount of control over their followers. Often, theirs are the teachings that are emphasized in place of Scripture. Now clearly, a pastor in a healthy church has a leadership role, but in a cult, the leader oversteps the healthy boundaries and takes away the choices of families and individuals.
Sitting in that class, when the professor said that, I felt like a light bulb came on in my head. I realized that both Charity and IBLP really were cults, at least at the level which my parents had gotten our family involved.
Charity
1. extra-Biblical teaching
Unlike some historic cults, Charity did not have a book of teachings which they regarded as sacred or important. Mostly, this applies in that they elevated their (alternate) interpretations of (minor) Biblical teachings to the level of requirements for salvation. One example that comes to mind right away is the teaching of head covering. Certainly, there are and always have been churches which taught that Paul’s message in 1 Corinthians 11 was meant to be followed in all churches, rather than just addressing a cultural issue of the time. Again, Im not here to convince anyone either way. But at the very least, I think we can all agree that head covering has never been part of the core message of salvation. At Charity, tho, it was equated with salvation (at least for women. There was no comparable outward symbol for men.) As a young girl, I remember seeing my friends 1 by 1 begin to cover their heads, and we would all run to ask them, “When did you get saved?” I also remember a few times when a girl or woman would choose to stop wearing her head covering, and word would spread that she had lost her salvation (or maybe never been saved in the first place.) Some of my friends slept with their heads covered “in case Jesus came in the night.”
There was also a strict, unspoken system detailing which head coverings were acceptable. Charity women prided themselves on not wearing the mesh head coverings of their Mennonite and Amish neighbors (because the net did not cover and the cap style was not really a veil.) Also cause for suspicion were coverings that were colored, black, edged with lace, too long, too short, etc. (Basically the style worn by Denny Kenaston’s family was the standard.) My guess is, if you contacted Charity leadership and pressed the point, they would not tell you that a head covering was necessary to be saved, but they certainly practiced that way. The veil is just one example; basically their teaching was that if you did not follow their whole lifestyle, your faith and salvation was suspect. Some of the teachings did come from Scripture - altho usually an extreme minority interpretation - while others were basically cultural or from the teachings of Denny Kenaston in the “Godly Home” sermon series.
2. authoritarian leadership
The whole basis for the congregation of Charity Christian Fellowship was that if you were serious about your faith, you would uproot your family and move there to be under the teaching of Godly leaders (attendance at church plants around the country was also acceptable but regarded as not quite as good.) Once you moved there, you did what the leaders said the way they said if (more on the conformity issue in another post, but it does pop up here.) Questioning was regarded as a mark of a rebellious spirit or lack of faith. The #1 leader was obviously Denny Kenaston, followed by Mose Stoltzfus - but there was a small inner circle of “elders” that also had a lot of power.
Most of the pulpit teachings of the leaders focused on spiritual issues like prayer, Bible reading, personal growth, missions, etc. Away from the pulpit, tho, they did not hesitate to rule on every aspect of people’s lives. Telling families to move to the church (and then where they should live, where the father should work, etc) is just a large example. They went so far as to say striped shirts were ok but plaid shirts were “too worldly.” They told people when they needed to have more kids (apart from the usual, you know, all the time - because birth control was wrong), who to marry, what medical treatments to take, etc.
One of the ironies of this authoritarian/controlling leadership is that, while they preached the authority of fathers over their families, they also happily overstepped that boundary whenever it suited them. Because they believed that divorce was a sin, they mandated that remarried couples had to live apart but the fathers still had to support their children. They also removed teens from their homes at times and sent them to live with more “Godly” families. There were cases where this protected them from an abusive parent, but there were also many times when this allowed the leadership to gain more control over a teen whos parents were not following Charity teachings (and conveniently supplied the more powerful families with live-in help.)
The worst abuse of authority at Charity, tho, was the fact that the leadership believed it was up to them to determine who was genuinely saved and going to Heaven. If they did not feel someone was sincere or their life strict enough, the leaders could renounce their salvation. They would tell people, in effect, “You are not saved until you do what we say, and you will loose your salvation unless you continue to do what we say.” Again the question of if salvation can be “lost” is one for far wiser minds than mine, but at any rate, it cant be taken from you by a preacher. This practice/teaching was the single greatest source of control that Denny Kenaston and others had over the people who attended Charity - the nightmarish fear that they would loose their faith if they ever left, that there was no other way to follow God but that way.
I believe that Charity qualifies as a cult, based on both these points. People can argue over whether their teachings were extra-Biblical or just a different interpretation, but certainly they are a church with abusive authority.
IBLP
1. extra-Biblical teaching
Bill Gothard and any of his followers would tell you that all of his teachings are based on truths that God has revealed to him in Scripture. However, even among conservative evangelical students of Scripture, many of his interpretations are unorthodox, often stretching the point, and sometimes have nothing to do with Scripture at all. Many of the teachings he started with I have no problem with (even if I may disagree): large families, sexual purity, prayer and discipline, etc. As he got older, tho, his teachings got farther from the Biblical base. In his eagerness to get all there was to get out of a passage of the Bible, he sometimes started reading things into it that most people would agree were not there. For example, the difference between 2 Greek words which both meant “word”: logos and rhema. From 1 or 2 lines in a concordance, he extrapolated a teaching that bordered on magical: waiting for the Bible to “jump out of the page at you.“ When he had a “rhema”, he applied it indiscriminately to his life and the lives of those around him. Eventually, even some of his personal preferences became raised to the same level as religious teachings. For example, he told people that curly hair was “not as spiritual” as straight hair.
Some of the stranger teachings of IBLP came from Bill Gothard temporarily adopting the teaching of someone else, and promoting them enthusiastically, without bothering to thoroughly research them. Often those in his inner circle were able to quash these ideas before they got too far, but not always. He has an almost obsessive interest in alternative medicine, and sometimes advocated things that didn’t have much basis in either the Bible or science, but would present them as a “revelation from God” (examples from the last few years include drinking ion balanced water and sleeping with a box under your bed which emitted magnetic signals to revitalize you.)
Within IBLP, there was also a significant amount of what George Orwell’s 1984 called “double-speak” - words and phrases which have taken on new meanings only known to those within the group. One great example is the word “grace”, which most theologians thru the ages have defined along the lines of “Gods unmerited favor towards us.” Bill Gothard’s official definition, tho, was “the power and desire to do God’s will.” The implications of the difference in everyday Christian life are huge! IBLP churned out a huge amount of printed material each year, not only in the homeschool curriculum but also seminar teaching, devotionals, books, and writings of Bill Gothard - which made this sort of double-speak almost universal within the organization. Even now, writing about it, I have to consciously avoid the words and abbreviations I was used to using. 2. authoritarian leadership
Since I just got done detailing how people would change their diets and hair at the behest of Bill Gothard, I feel I hardly need to make this point. However, in such a large organization, there were many more people in positions of power - leaders of individual programs and those who ran “training centers” (physical locations where followers of Bill Gothard, especially young people, could gather for teaching and training.) The official rules in these places were extremely strict, and covered things like diet, dress, music and reading, contact with friends and members of the opposite gender, etc. At home, few people involved in IBLP actually followed these guidelines, altho plenty of parents threw out certain toys, books, or music based on the teaching of Bill Gothard.
The issue of whether or not IBLP is a cult is not as clear as with Charity, partly because there are so many levels to it. If you simply attended a Basic Life Principles seminar, I don’t think you joined a cult. Merely using the ATI homeschooling program doesn’t make you part of a cult. However, my parents were involved much more deeply than that. In time, they left churches because their teaching differed from that of IBLP. They recruited others to join IBLP. Eventually, they even moved into a “training center” where IBLP had a huge amount of control over their lives. At that point, Im not sure what to call it other than a cult.
Since my first post stated, “I grew up in a cult,” you already know what conclusion I eventually reached. In this post, Im going to explore a little bit more about how I got there.
I once heard a pastor define a cult as “any church with teachings different from mine.” Obviously, he was kidding, but on a functional level, that’s what a lot of people think.
I didn’t get a lot of clarity on the issue until I was in college, in World Religions class. What the professor taught there (and I don’t remember if this came from the textbook, sorry) was that there are 2 key points which distinguish a cult from a sect (a sect is really what you could call a “church with teachings different from mine.”)
1. extra-scriptural teachings
(Obviously in the case of a Christian cult, this would be extra-Biblical teachings, but there are cults in other religions too.) This can include alternate interpretations of scripture, over-emphasis on passages generally regarded as minor, or teaching that flat-out don’t come from scripture. If you’ve been in church for any time at all, you know that Christians have been disagreeing on the teachings of the Bible basically from the moment Christ disappeared in the clouds. However, there are some things thru the ages that we’ve mostly come to agree on that are necessary to be saved or to follow God - but a cult teaches there is more needed.
2. authoritarian leadership
In a cult (as opposed to a sect) the leader or group of leaders have an excessive amount of control over their followers. Often, theirs are the teachings that are emphasized in place of Scripture. Now clearly, a pastor in a healthy church has a leadership role, but in a cult, the leader oversteps the healthy boundaries and takes away the choices of families and individuals.
Sitting in that class, when the professor said that, I felt like a light bulb came on in my head. I realized that both Charity and IBLP really were cults, at least at the level which my parents had gotten our family involved.
Charity
1. extra-Biblical teaching
Unlike some historic cults, Charity did not have a book of teachings which they regarded as sacred or important. Mostly, this applies in that they elevated their (alternate) interpretations of (minor) Biblical teachings to the level of requirements for salvation. One example that comes to mind right away is the teaching of head covering. Certainly, there are and always have been churches which taught that Paul’s message in 1 Corinthians 11 was meant to be followed in all churches, rather than just addressing a cultural issue of the time. Again, Im not here to convince anyone either way. But at the very least, I think we can all agree that head covering has never been part of the core message of salvation. At Charity, tho, it was equated with salvation (at least for women. There was no comparable outward symbol for men.) As a young girl, I remember seeing my friends 1 by 1 begin to cover their heads, and we would all run to ask them, “When did you get saved?” I also remember a few times when a girl or woman would choose to stop wearing her head covering, and word would spread that she had lost her salvation (or maybe never been saved in the first place.) Some of my friends slept with their heads covered “in case Jesus came in the night.”
There was also a strict, unspoken system detailing which head coverings were acceptable. Charity women prided themselves on not wearing the mesh head coverings of their Mennonite and Amish neighbors (because the net did not cover and the cap style was not really a veil.) Also cause for suspicion were coverings that were colored, black, edged with lace, too long, too short, etc. (Basically the style worn by Denny Kenaston’s family was the standard.) My guess is, if you contacted Charity leadership and pressed the point, they would not tell you that a head covering was necessary to be saved, but they certainly practiced that way. The veil is just one example; basically their teaching was that if you did not follow their whole lifestyle, your faith and salvation was suspect. Some of the teachings did come from Scripture - altho usually an extreme minority interpretation - while others were basically cultural or from the teachings of Denny Kenaston in the “Godly Home” sermon series.
2. authoritarian leadership
The whole basis for the congregation of Charity Christian Fellowship was that if you were serious about your faith, you would uproot your family and move there to be under the teaching of Godly leaders (attendance at church plants around the country was also acceptable but regarded as not quite as good.) Once you moved there, you did what the leaders said the way they said if (more on the conformity issue in another post, but it does pop up here.) Questioning was regarded as a mark of a rebellious spirit or lack of faith. The #1 leader was obviously Denny Kenaston, followed by Mose Stoltzfus - but there was a small inner circle of “elders” that also had a lot of power.
Most of the pulpit teachings of the leaders focused on spiritual issues like prayer, Bible reading, personal growth, missions, etc. Away from the pulpit, tho, they did not hesitate to rule on every aspect of people’s lives. Telling families to move to the church (and then where they should live, where the father should work, etc) is just a large example. They went so far as to say striped shirts were ok but plaid shirts were “too worldly.” They told people when they needed to have more kids (apart from the usual, you know, all the time - because birth control was wrong), who to marry, what medical treatments to take, etc.
One of the ironies of this authoritarian/controlling leadership is that, while they preached the authority of fathers over their families, they also happily overstepped that boundary whenever it suited them. Because they believed that divorce was a sin, they mandated that remarried couples had to live apart but the fathers still had to support their children. They also removed teens from their homes at times and sent them to live with more “Godly” families. There were cases where this protected them from an abusive parent, but there were also many times when this allowed the leadership to gain more control over a teen whos parents were not following Charity teachings (and conveniently supplied the more powerful families with live-in help.)
The worst abuse of authority at Charity, tho, was the fact that the leadership believed it was up to them to determine who was genuinely saved and going to Heaven. If they did not feel someone was sincere or their life strict enough, the leaders could renounce their salvation. They would tell people, in effect, “You are not saved until you do what we say, and you will loose your salvation unless you continue to do what we say.” Again the question of if salvation can be “lost” is one for far wiser minds than mine, but at any rate, it cant be taken from you by a preacher. This practice/teaching was the single greatest source of control that Denny Kenaston and others had over the people who attended Charity - the nightmarish fear that they would loose their faith if they ever left, that there was no other way to follow God but that way.
I believe that Charity qualifies as a cult, based on both these points. People can argue over whether their teachings were extra-Biblical or just a different interpretation, but certainly they are a church with abusive authority.
IBLP
1. extra-Biblical teaching
Bill Gothard and any of his followers would tell you that all of his teachings are based on truths that God has revealed to him in Scripture. However, even among conservative evangelical students of Scripture, many of his interpretations are unorthodox, often stretching the point, and sometimes have nothing to do with Scripture at all. Many of the teachings he started with I have no problem with (even if I may disagree): large families, sexual purity, prayer and discipline, etc. As he got older, tho, his teachings got farther from the Biblical base. In his eagerness to get all there was to get out of a passage of the Bible, he sometimes started reading things into it that most people would agree were not there. For example, the difference between 2 Greek words which both meant “word”: logos and rhema. From 1 or 2 lines in a concordance, he extrapolated a teaching that bordered on magical: waiting for the Bible to “jump out of the page at you.“ When he had a “rhema”, he applied it indiscriminately to his life and the lives of those around him. Eventually, even some of his personal preferences became raised to the same level as religious teachings. For example, he told people that curly hair was “not as spiritual” as straight hair.
Some of the stranger teachings of IBLP came from Bill Gothard temporarily adopting the teaching of someone else, and promoting them enthusiastically, without bothering to thoroughly research them. Often those in his inner circle were able to quash these ideas before they got too far, but not always. He has an almost obsessive interest in alternative medicine, and sometimes advocated things that didn’t have much basis in either the Bible or science, but would present them as a “revelation from God” (examples from the last few years include drinking ion balanced water and sleeping with a box under your bed which emitted magnetic signals to revitalize you.)
Within IBLP, there was also a significant amount of what George Orwell’s 1984 called “double-speak” - words and phrases which have taken on new meanings only known to those within the group. One great example is the word “grace”, which most theologians thru the ages have defined along the lines of “Gods unmerited favor towards us.” Bill Gothard’s official definition, tho, was “the power and desire to do God’s will.” The implications of the difference in everyday Christian life are huge! IBLP churned out a huge amount of printed material each year, not only in the homeschool curriculum but also seminar teaching, devotionals, books, and writings of Bill Gothard - which made this sort of double-speak almost universal within the organization. Even now, writing about it, I have to consciously avoid the words and abbreviations I was used to using. 2. authoritarian leadership
Since I just got done detailing how people would change their diets and hair at the behest of Bill Gothard, I feel I hardly need to make this point. However, in such a large organization, there were many more people in positions of power - leaders of individual programs and those who ran “training centers” (physical locations where followers of Bill Gothard, especially young people, could gather for teaching and training.) The official rules in these places were extremely strict, and covered things like diet, dress, music and reading, contact with friends and members of the opposite gender, etc. At home, few people involved in IBLP actually followed these guidelines, altho plenty of parents threw out certain toys, books, or music based on the teaching of Bill Gothard.
The issue of whether or not IBLP is a cult is not as clear as with Charity, partly because there are so many levels to it. If you simply attended a Basic Life Principles seminar, I don’t think you joined a cult. Merely using the ATI homeschooling program doesn’t make you part of a cult. However, my parents were involved much more deeply than that. In time, they left churches because their teaching differed from that of IBLP. They recruited others to join IBLP. Eventually, they even moved into a “training center” where IBLP had a huge amount of control over their lives. At that point, Im not sure what to call it other than a cult.
naming names
I know that there are other bloggers with experiences similar to mine who have opted not to identify specific churches or organizations, and I respect that choice. However, Im going to be naming them, for a couple of reasons.
The first is that, if you were ever involved with these groups, you will know who I am talking about even if I use a pseudonym; if you were not involved, it wont matter what name I use - so theres not really a point in my playing coy.
The second reason is that I think people deserve to know what these groups are really like. Perhaps someone who is considering involvement with them could come across this site, and think twice. Or maybe someone who is coming out of them could benefit from hearing about my experience in the same way I have been blessed by reading other blogs.
Finally, naming the organizations gives me freedom to provide links to their own sites or other sites about them. If youre really curious, you can read other perspectives besides mine.
but first, a note on “quiverfull”
Both the groups Im about to talk about can be considered part of the “quiverfull” movement, which started in the late 70s, as many Christians began to see that American Christians didn’t seem to be living any differently from those who were unsaved, and they began to seek what they considered a more Biblical form of Christianity. They ended up leaving a main-stream lifestyle and adopting pioneer virtues, simple living, homeschooling, radical Christianity, and conservative dress. “Quiverull” takes its name from a verse in the Psalms which says that children are like arrows in the hands of a mighty man; that a man is happy when his quiver is full. This is one of the foundational verses for the belief these families adopt, that parents should have as many kids as possible.
There’s more to the movement than that, of course, but Im not intending a treatise on the quiverfull movement as a whole. Certainly my parents were part of this movement, and both these organizations can be viewed as part of it.
Charity Christian Fellowship
In the late 70’s a man called Denny Kenaston was saved out of the hippie lifestyle. His faith started with “Jesus people” outreach but he and his wife began to look for more. They were drawn to lifestyles of conservative Mennonites and Amish, who live simple lifestyles separate from “the world.” It wasn’t long before they got connected with Mose Stoltzfus, a recent escapee from the Amish church. They started a church in their basement which has grown to a large congregation. Their core beliefs are simple, “separate” living and radical obedience to the Bible.
Their influence has spread widely thru a series of sermons preached by Denny and distributed on cassette tape called “The Godly Home.” People hear the tapes and then begin to gather in groups of others who wanted to follow their teachings, creating church plants around the country. Followers of Denny’s teaching adopt a manner of dress that is sort of a blend of stereotypical conservative homeschoolers, Mennonites, and Little House on the Prairie. The women and girls wear distinctive white veil-style headcoverings. A couple of times a year, Charity holds gatherings that provide an opportunity for followers to gather with others like them. Revival meetings are held for a week every summer. Youth Bible School (YBS) is not only an opportunity for youth to gather but also to scout prospective spouses, as well as for leaders to proselytize to seeking youth and draw them away from their parents into the Charity lifestyle.
Charity has become sort of an extreme group on the fringe of what is now caled the “quiverfull” movement. I think Denny Kenaston started in the same place as a lot of other “quiverfull” leaders - seeing that American Christians were basically indistinguishable from anyone else, and wanting something different. However, I think his teachings became more strict because of the extremely conservative influence of the Mennonites and Amish in the community. (Did he settle there because of them? Or just happen there and then adopt their lifestyle? I don’t actually know.)
For more information (and to get a look at the clothing!), you can view their website: http://www.charityministries.org/ Denny’s own version of his testimony is on there, as well as back issues of their semi-monthly magazine.
Institute in Basic Life Principles
Around the same time as Denny Kenaston was beginning his journey from “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll” to the life of a conservative modern puritan, a young man called Bill Gothard was attending Wheaton Bible College to become a youth minister. He soon had the revelation that the best way to reach young people was to reach their parents and families. He started a discipleship organization that grew into the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), and drew thousands of followers. He is perhaps most well-known for his Basic Life Principles Seminars, which in the 80’s packed arenas with people eager to hear the keys to “a new approach to life.” He also founded a homeschool program, technically known as the Advanced Training Institute (ATI) but also called “Wisdom Booklets” (after the unit studies.) His teachings are especially known for their emphasis on character, which he codified into 49 qualities (with corresponding fruits of the Spirit, spiritual gifts, Bible verses, etc.)
Along the way, IBLP adapted and adopted the teachings of many leaders of the quiverfull movement (generally promoting them until they deviated from the party line, at which point they were never heard from again - at least in IBLP.) A number of IBLP leaders started a host of programs, some of which have lasted longer than others. Most of them had names that were either virtues or acronyms - or better yet, acronyms and virtues! A number of them have gotten media coverage at times, including Character First! (a Bible-free character program for public schools) and ALERT (a paramilitary program for men.)
Unlike Charity, IBLP is larger and more diverse. Strict adherence to all the teachings of leadership is not required for everyone who uses any aspect of the program. There’s also no strict dress code for every-day life, altho certainly many people in the program look like what you think of when you think of homeschoolers. Like Charity, they had annual gatherings, most notably the Knoxville conference for homeschoolers (which was phased out a few years ago.)
Bill Gothard has a website http://www.billgothard.com/bill/ and there is also http://iblp.org/iblp/ and http://ati.iblp.org/ati/ Many of the individual programs have their own sites, as well.
For the sake of simplicity, from now on, Im going to use the term "IBLP" to refer to the whole organization and the teaching of Bill Gothard.
fun trivia
Denny Kenaston and his family were, for a time, enrolled in the ATI homeschool program! They dropped out when they felt IBLP was becoming “too wordly,” altho some of the teachings and materials stayed around and were incorporated into Charity teaching.
Note: In these summaries, as well as everything else on this blog, I am going based on my own knowledge and experience. Other’s knowledge and experience may be different from mine. Certainly, those still involved might have a different perspective (altho in this particular post I have tried to be more objective.) Also please keep in mind that time has passed since my experience in both these organizations, so what was true in my experience may no longer be the case.
The first is that, if you were ever involved with these groups, you will know who I am talking about even if I use a pseudonym; if you were not involved, it wont matter what name I use - so theres not really a point in my playing coy.
The second reason is that I think people deserve to know what these groups are really like. Perhaps someone who is considering involvement with them could come across this site, and think twice. Or maybe someone who is coming out of them could benefit from hearing about my experience in the same way I have been blessed by reading other blogs.
Finally, naming the organizations gives me freedom to provide links to their own sites or other sites about them. If youre really curious, you can read other perspectives besides mine.
but first, a note on “quiverfull”
Both the groups Im about to talk about can be considered part of the “quiverfull” movement, which started in the late 70s, as many Christians began to see that American Christians didn’t seem to be living any differently from those who were unsaved, and they began to seek what they considered a more Biblical form of Christianity. They ended up leaving a main-stream lifestyle and adopting pioneer virtues, simple living, homeschooling, radical Christianity, and conservative dress. “Quiverull” takes its name from a verse in the Psalms which says that children are like arrows in the hands of a mighty man; that a man is happy when his quiver is full. This is one of the foundational verses for the belief these families adopt, that parents should have as many kids as possible.
There’s more to the movement than that, of course, but Im not intending a treatise on the quiverfull movement as a whole. Certainly my parents were part of this movement, and both these organizations can be viewed as part of it.
Charity Christian Fellowship
In the late 70’s a man called Denny Kenaston was saved out of the hippie lifestyle. His faith started with “Jesus people” outreach but he and his wife began to look for more. They were drawn to lifestyles of conservative Mennonites and Amish, who live simple lifestyles separate from “the world.” It wasn’t long before they got connected with Mose Stoltzfus, a recent escapee from the Amish church. They started a church in their basement which has grown to a large congregation. Their core beliefs are simple, “separate” living and radical obedience to the Bible.
Their influence has spread widely thru a series of sermons preached by Denny and distributed on cassette tape called “The Godly Home.” People hear the tapes and then begin to gather in groups of others who wanted to follow their teachings, creating church plants around the country. Followers of Denny’s teaching adopt a manner of dress that is sort of a blend of stereotypical conservative homeschoolers, Mennonites, and Little House on the Prairie. The women and girls wear distinctive white veil-style headcoverings. A couple of times a year, Charity holds gatherings that provide an opportunity for followers to gather with others like them. Revival meetings are held for a week every summer. Youth Bible School (YBS) is not only an opportunity for youth to gather but also to scout prospective spouses, as well as for leaders to proselytize to seeking youth and draw them away from their parents into the Charity lifestyle.
Charity has become sort of an extreme group on the fringe of what is now caled the “quiverfull” movement. I think Denny Kenaston started in the same place as a lot of other “quiverfull” leaders - seeing that American Christians were basically indistinguishable from anyone else, and wanting something different. However, I think his teachings became more strict because of the extremely conservative influence of the Mennonites and Amish in the community. (Did he settle there because of them? Or just happen there and then adopt their lifestyle? I don’t actually know.)
For more information (and to get a look at the clothing!), you can view their website: http://www.charityministries.org/ Denny’s own version of his testimony is on there, as well as back issues of their semi-monthly magazine.
Institute in Basic Life Principles
Around the same time as Denny Kenaston was beginning his journey from “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll” to the life of a conservative modern puritan, a young man called Bill Gothard was attending Wheaton Bible College to become a youth minister. He soon had the revelation that the best way to reach young people was to reach their parents and families. He started a discipleship organization that grew into the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), and drew thousands of followers. He is perhaps most well-known for his Basic Life Principles Seminars, which in the 80’s packed arenas with people eager to hear the keys to “a new approach to life.” He also founded a homeschool program, technically known as the Advanced Training Institute (ATI) but also called “Wisdom Booklets” (after the unit studies.) His teachings are especially known for their emphasis on character, which he codified into 49 qualities (with corresponding fruits of the Spirit, spiritual gifts, Bible verses, etc.)
Along the way, IBLP adapted and adopted the teachings of many leaders of the quiverfull movement (generally promoting them until they deviated from the party line, at which point they were never heard from again - at least in IBLP.) A number of IBLP leaders started a host of programs, some of which have lasted longer than others. Most of them had names that were either virtues or acronyms - or better yet, acronyms and virtues! A number of them have gotten media coverage at times, including Character First! (a Bible-free character program for public schools) and ALERT (a paramilitary program for men.)
Unlike Charity, IBLP is larger and more diverse. Strict adherence to all the teachings of leadership is not required for everyone who uses any aspect of the program. There’s also no strict dress code for every-day life, altho certainly many people in the program look like what you think of when you think of homeschoolers. Like Charity, they had annual gatherings, most notably the Knoxville conference for homeschoolers (which was phased out a few years ago.)
Bill Gothard has a website http://www.billgothard.com/bill/ and there is also http://iblp.org/iblp/ and http://ati.iblp.org/ati/ Many of the individual programs have their own sites, as well.
For the sake of simplicity, from now on, Im going to use the term "IBLP" to refer to the whole organization and the teaching of Bill Gothard.
fun trivia
Denny Kenaston and his family were, for a time, enrolled in the ATI homeschool program! They dropped out when they felt IBLP was becoming “too wordly,” altho some of the teachings and materials stayed around and were incorporated into Charity teaching.
Note: In these summaries, as well as everything else on this blog, I am going based on my own knowledge and experience. Other’s knowledge and experience may be different from mine. Certainly, those still involved might have a different perspective (altho in this particular post I have tried to be more objective.) Also please keep in mind that time has passed since my experience in both these organizations, so what was true in my experience may no longer be the case.
Monday, September 20, 2010
church, home schooling
Before I go any farther, Id like to talk about 2 things which, given my experience, you might expect me to be against. In fact, plenty of people who have been thru some of the things I have been thru have ended up both of these things completely: church, and home schooling.
church
My experiences in the cult-churches were bad enough to turn anybody off church forever. I know people who have said, “If this is what church/Christianity/God is, I don’t want anything to do with it.” Certainly, if those people and organizations really represented what God was about, I would want no part in it either.Fortunately, in with the bad experiences, I had some good ones. There is one church in particular which my family attended immediately after our first cult experience - while it realize it was ultimately the grace of God which stepped in, it was those people He used to show my family that there was true community and true Godly love out there. Certainly both the church as an organization, and the people, had their own issues. They were willing to accept us - broken as we were - and walk beside us, and that helped keep me on the path of following Jesus.
I also give credit to my parents, who have always had a heart to follow after God. They didn’t always make the best choices in whose teachings they would follow, but they consistently read their Bibles, prayed every day - and did their utmost to pass that love and hunger on to us kids.
Ultimately, tho, it has been a personal choice - made first when I was 9 years old, and then confirmed at various points on my journey - to follow God. I have decided to accept love and goodness where I find it as expressions of His heart, and reject abuses as ungodly, even when they are made in His name.
home schooling
For me, home schooling was an excellent educational experience. I even hope that, if I have my own kids someday, I am able to teach them at home for at least a few years. Even as I say this, tho, I am aware that my home schooling experience was not necessarily a common one. The issues I hear most with home schooling are these two:
1. quality of education
One main reason parents (like mine) choose home schooling is to pass on their religious values. Another reason, tho, is to provide a personalized education. My parents did an excellent job with this. Both of my parents have college degrees (my dad even has a post-grad degree.)While they used a unit study program, they supplemented all the core subjects with the same textbooks that the local private/Christian schools were using. From the beginning, my siblings and I scored well above average on standardized achievement tests, and the way my parents taught us allowed us to maximize our potential, rather than learning at the average pace of a classroom.
We were also fortunate enough to be in an area with many other home school families and support groups, so there was an abundance of classes and activities available. My parents preferred to teach at home as much as possible, but also took advantage of opportunities that we didn’t have at home. For example, in high school, I took my science classes with a group at the local private school, in their labs, with one of their professors, after-hours. My brothers played sports in competitive home school leagues.
There is a home school joke that goes like this: “Well, we baked a cake today, that used fractions, so that was math class.” That sort of thing didn’t fly with my parents! Sadly, tho, I know its too close to the truth for many people. Many parents lack the educational background, resources, organization or skills to give their own kids even a decent education. Particularly moms, overwhelmed by popping out kids year after year and trying to live the “simple life” on very little money, are not equipped to teach on top of everything else.
2. “socialization”
When people ask home schoolers, “What about socialization??” they usually mean a social life. All those home school groups provided plenty of opportunities for us to be with kids our own age (and who had values at least similar to ours.) We also usually attended church at least twice a week - often with the same people who were in our home school groups.
Of course, in movement from church to church, there were times when I was unhappy in a particular group. I struggled with being the new kid and adjusting to different variations in church culture. But I don’t think at all that attending a public or private school would have prevented that.
From an anthropological standpoint, tho, “socialization” is more than just a social life. It refers to educating a generation in the values of their culture. I understand that my parents feel the values of this current culture are pretty much diametrically opposed to their own, and home schooling was a way for them to raise us with their values. People say, “Well, your parents sheltered you” but Im ok with that. I think too many kids are exposed too young to things they are in no way ready to handle. Even as a teen, I was grateful not to be exposed to some of the things that have plagued my generation, like sex, drug use, and school shootings. Being ignorant of pop music and TV shows seemed like a fair trade-off to me.
Of course I don’t think that home schooling is the only way for parents to pass their values on to their kids. Plenty of kids went to public school, stayed out of trouble, and grew up as solid Christians. On the flip-side, I know plenty of kids who were raised in very conservative home schooling families who got involved in all kinds of trouble as soon as possible.
Id also like to say, here, that some who grew up in home schooling were done such a great disservice that they feel it should be illegal. Let me explain why I disagree. The sort of people who are determined to home school will not be dissuaded by legal measures because they will just see themselves as martyrs for a cause. By keeping home schooling legal, tho, it can be regulated. The state in which I grew up had fairly strict requirements with which home schooling parents had to comply. It didn’t guarantee a good education for everyone, by a long shot, but it drew some basic lines.
Part of my faith is that I still believe Jesus is the only way, truth, and life.
I don’t feel that way about home schooling, tho. In my case, the way my parents did it provided me with some incredible advantages. I hope that I could provide the same advantages to kids I might have in the future. But I understand that every family is different, and private or public school is a better option for some of them.
church
My experiences in the cult-churches were bad enough to turn anybody off church forever. I know people who have said, “If this is what church/Christianity/God is, I don’t want anything to do with it.” Certainly, if those people and organizations really represented what God was about, I would want no part in it either.Fortunately, in with the bad experiences, I had some good ones. There is one church in particular which my family attended immediately after our first cult experience - while it realize it was ultimately the grace of God which stepped in, it was those people He used to show my family that there was true community and true Godly love out there. Certainly both the church as an organization, and the people, had their own issues. They were willing to accept us - broken as we were - and walk beside us, and that helped keep me on the path of following Jesus.
I also give credit to my parents, who have always had a heart to follow after God. They didn’t always make the best choices in whose teachings they would follow, but they consistently read their Bibles, prayed every day - and did their utmost to pass that love and hunger on to us kids.
Ultimately, tho, it has been a personal choice - made first when I was 9 years old, and then confirmed at various points on my journey - to follow God. I have decided to accept love and goodness where I find it as expressions of His heart, and reject abuses as ungodly, even when they are made in His name.
home schooling
For me, home schooling was an excellent educational experience. I even hope that, if I have my own kids someday, I am able to teach them at home for at least a few years. Even as I say this, tho, I am aware that my home schooling experience was not necessarily a common one. The issues I hear most with home schooling are these two:
1. quality of education
One main reason parents (like mine) choose home schooling is to pass on their religious values. Another reason, tho, is to provide a personalized education. My parents did an excellent job with this. Both of my parents have college degrees (my dad even has a post-grad degree.)While they used a unit study program, they supplemented all the core subjects with the same textbooks that the local private/Christian schools were using. From the beginning, my siblings and I scored well above average on standardized achievement tests, and the way my parents taught us allowed us to maximize our potential, rather than learning at the average pace of a classroom.
We were also fortunate enough to be in an area with many other home school families and support groups, so there was an abundance of classes and activities available. My parents preferred to teach at home as much as possible, but also took advantage of opportunities that we didn’t have at home. For example, in high school, I took my science classes with a group at the local private school, in their labs, with one of their professors, after-hours. My brothers played sports in competitive home school leagues.
There is a home school joke that goes like this: “Well, we baked a cake today, that used fractions, so that was math class.” That sort of thing didn’t fly with my parents! Sadly, tho, I know its too close to the truth for many people. Many parents lack the educational background, resources, organization or skills to give their own kids even a decent education. Particularly moms, overwhelmed by popping out kids year after year and trying to live the “simple life” on very little money, are not equipped to teach on top of everything else.
2. “socialization”
When people ask home schoolers, “What about socialization??” they usually mean a social life. All those home school groups provided plenty of opportunities for us to be with kids our own age (and who had values at least similar to ours.) We also usually attended church at least twice a week - often with the same people who were in our home school groups.
Of course, in movement from church to church, there were times when I was unhappy in a particular group. I struggled with being the new kid and adjusting to different variations in church culture. But I don’t think at all that attending a public or private school would have prevented that.
From an anthropological standpoint, tho, “socialization” is more than just a social life. It refers to educating a generation in the values of their culture. I understand that my parents feel the values of this current culture are pretty much diametrically opposed to their own, and home schooling was a way for them to raise us with their values. People say, “Well, your parents sheltered you” but Im ok with that. I think too many kids are exposed too young to things they are in no way ready to handle. Even as a teen, I was grateful not to be exposed to some of the things that have plagued my generation, like sex, drug use, and school shootings. Being ignorant of pop music and TV shows seemed like a fair trade-off to me.
Of course I don’t think that home schooling is the only way for parents to pass their values on to their kids. Plenty of kids went to public school, stayed out of trouble, and grew up as solid Christians. On the flip-side, I know plenty of kids who were raised in very conservative home schooling families who got involved in all kinds of trouble as soon as possible.
Id also like to say, here, that some who grew up in home schooling were done such a great disservice that they feel it should be illegal. Let me explain why I disagree. The sort of people who are determined to home school will not be dissuaded by legal measures because they will just see themselves as martyrs for a cause. By keeping home schooling legal, tho, it can be regulated. The state in which I grew up had fairly strict requirements with which home schooling parents had to comply. It didn’t guarantee a good education for everyone, by a long shot, but it drew some basic lines.
Part of my faith is that I still believe Jesus is the only way, truth, and life.
I don’t feel that way about home schooling, tho. In my case, the way my parents did it provided me with some incredible advantages. I hope that I could provide the same advantages to kids I might have in the future. But I understand that every family is different, and private or public school is a better option for some of them.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
without charity
I grew up in a cult.
It has taken me years to even be able to say those words. Even now I rush to qualify, "Well, mostly a cult. A quasi-cult. And not my whole life. Well, most of my life, but in 2 different cults." I have thought over and over about going into counseling to discuss this very issue, but so far I cant bring myself to admit that I need it.
Instead, Im going to turn to my old stand-by therapy, writing. If it doesnt eleminate the need for counseling - well, at least my thoughts will be nicely ordered by the time I get there.
In both the cults where I spent my growing up years, the KJV Bible was believed to be the only true holy translation of God's Word. In that translation, the opening verses of 1 Corinthians 13 read:
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing."
Those verses aptly describe the experience of my years in cults that lacked a true understanding of Christian charity/love.
(theres also some irony involved, because one of those cults happened to be named "Charity." more on that later.)
my family
I am opting not to name the members of my family. This is going to be my best shot at an honest recount of some very painful experiences, and I dont feel its fair or necessary to identify my family members to the whole world here. On the other hand, Im not changing anyones gender, age or birth order to hide their identity either. If you know my family in real life, you'll know who Im talking about.
I am the oldest of 8 childern (more on that later, too) and here's our birth order:
myself
Brother 1
Brother 2
Brother 3
Brother 4
Sister 1
Sister 2
Brother 5
my parents
Im sure there will be many, many more posts about my relationship with my parents. One of the questions I struggle with is: Were they victims of the abuse in the cults? Or were they enablers for it?
Let me say first of all I do believe my parents absolutely made the choices they did with good intentions. I believe they genuniely love their children and wanted us to grow up in the best environment possible. I know they made financial sacrifices to raise us the way they wanted. I dont take that for granted.
I know they were deeply hurt by some of the things that went down in both of the cults. They were lied to and manipulated just like we kids were.
On the other hand, I believe in both cases, they stayed in the situations after they were aware of the problems. They failed to protect their kids from the emotional, physical and spiritual abuses of corrupt leadership. After escaping from 1 cult-church, they wound up very shortly more involved in another one, and actually would have gotten into a third (had it not imploded at just about the time they showed up.)
To this day I have not heard my parents acknowledge that the organizations they were involved in qualify as cults. I do understand how that can be debated (thats another post.) They have said they were "cult-like" or that outsiders may have viewed them as cults. I can understand how it might be difficult to acknowledges the degree to which those places were messed up. To admit that those places were cults would be to admit how misguided they were in becoming involved, and that would take a great deal of humility. After all, I have a hard time say it, and I wasnt even responsible for being there!
There will probably be posts where I am angry at my parents, and others I have sympathy for them. Our relationship to this day is very complicated. I do think some of those issues stem from our family's time in the cults. I am hoping that one of the things to come out of this writing will be an untangling of some of those threads, or at least uncovering their root so I can deal directly with them.
Ive opted to leave off a traditional introduction of myself because I think most of what I would say will become apparent as I blog. For now let me say I am a woman in my mid-20s, a college graduate, and married. When you look at me I generally appear normal. Even when I talk about my childhood you would not know how unusual it was. I have figured out ways to talk about it so some of the more difficult subjects dont come up. Sure, it comes out pretty quickly that I have a lot of siblings and didnt watch much TV, but only people that have known me for a long time could tell you about some of the other stuff.
It has taken me years to even be able to say those words. Even now I rush to qualify, "Well, mostly a cult. A quasi-cult. And not my whole life. Well, most of my life, but in 2 different cults." I have thought over and over about going into counseling to discuss this very issue, but so far I cant bring myself to admit that I need it.
Instead, Im going to turn to my old stand-by therapy, writing. If it doesnt eleminate the need for counseling - well, at least my thoughts will be nicely ordered by the time I get there.
In both the cults where I spent my growing up years, the KJV Bible was believed to be the only true holy translation of God's Word. In that translation, the opening verses of 1 Corinthians 13 read:
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing."
Those verses aptly describe the experience of my years in cults that lacked a true understanding of Christian charity/love.
(theres also some irony involved, because one of those cults happened to be named "Charity." more on that later.)
my family
I am opting not to name the members of my family. This is going to be my best shot at an honest recount of some very painful experiences, and I dont feel its fair or necessary to identify my family members to the whole world here. On the other hand, Im not changing anyones gender, age or birth order to hide their identity either. If you know my family in real life, you'll know who Im talking about.
I am the oldest of 8 childern (more on that later, too) and here's our birth order:
myself
Brother 1
Brother 2
Brother 3
Brother 4
Sister 1
Sister 2
Brother 5
my parents
Im sure there will be many, many more posts about my relationship with my parents. One of the questions I struggle with is: Were they victims of the abuse in the cults? Or were they enablers for it?
Let me say first of all I do believe my parents absolutely made the choices they did with good intentions. I believe they genuniely love their children and wanted us to grow up in the best environment possible. I know they made financial sacrifices to raise us the way they wanted. I dont take that for granted.
I know they were deeply hurt by some of the things that went down in both of the cults. They were lied to and manipulated just like we kids were.
On the other hand, I believe in both cases, they stayed in the situations after they were aware of the problems. They failed to protect their kids from the emotional, physical and spiritual abuses of corrupt leadership. After escaping from 1 cult-church, they wound up very shortly more involved in another one, and actually would have gotten into a third (had it not imploded at just about the time they showed up.)
To this day I have not heard my parents acknowledge that the organizations they were involved in qualify as cults. I do understand how that can be debated (thats another post.) They have said they were "cult-like" or that outsiders may have viewed them as cults. I can understand how it might be difficult to acknowledges the degree to which those places were messed up. To admit that those places were cults would be to admit how misguided they were in becoming involved, and that would take a great deal of humility. After all, I have a hard time say it, and I wasnt even responsible for being there!
There will probably be posts where I am angry at my parents, and others I have sympathy for them. Our relationship to this day is very complicated. I do think some of those issues stem from our family's time in the cults. I am hoping that one of the things to come out of this writing will be an untangling of some of those threads, or at least uncovering their root so I can deal directly with them.
Ive opted to leave off a traditional introduction of myself because I think most of what I would say will become apparent as I blog. For now let me say I am a woman in my mid-20s, a college graduate, and married. When you look at me I generally appear normal. Even when I talk about my childhood you would not know how unusual it was. I have figured out ways to talk about it so some of the more difficult subjects dont come up. Sure, it comes out pretty quickly that I have a lot of siblings and didnt watch much TV, but only people that have known me for a long time could tell you about some of the other stuff.
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