Category: Independent Fundamental Baptist | Page 4

The UnBoxing Project: Homeschool, the perfect hiding place

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on March 5, 2015 as part of a series.

Continued from Gissel’s story

I met our friend Shelby Shively while working for the campus newspaper, The Scribe. Shelby was earning a master’s degree in sociology, and she mentioned that the homeschooling population seemed to be understudied in academic literature.

Here is her perspective on Christian fundamentalist, Quiverfull children we were helping to leave their abusive households, in her own words.

I, personally, have come into contact with a handful of homeschooling experiences in my lifetime.

I had three friends who had been homeschooled, two of whom entered semi-public high schools for reasons I do not know.

My friend Mary took a GED test and attempted to take a few online college courses, essentially continuing the homeschool experience as a college student, before realizing she would be better off on an actual college campus. I also had six cousins from my aunt on my father’s side, most of whom she homeschooled.

Mary’s parents were incredibly controlling.

Her older sister used her body for her rebellion: she got her belly button pierced, got haircuts her parents considered strange, and dyed her hair unnatural colors. Mary rebelled in other ways, and she eventually moved out, although she is currently living with her parents again.

My aunt had four boys and adopted a young boy and girl from Russia. She homeschooled her four birth children and the girl she had adopted, but the boy was born with fetal alcohol syndrome. My aunt did not bother to try to understand his learning needs, and rather than alter her own teaching, she sent him to public school.

She was very abusive. She eventually kicked him out, and he tells stories of eating rats at the park when he was homeless. He is now in a transitional program.

I got my bachelor’s degree in sociology and women’s and ethnic studies, and I spent a lot of time learning about domestic violence because I had experienced it from a boyfriend in high school.

It was not until recently that I realized how common my cousin’s story is.

While the details of the situation vary, abuse seems to be common in families that homeschool.

When researching domestic violence and volunteering at a local shelter, I have found very little about children, even adult children, escaping abusive homes and even less about children of homeschool families. One of the only things I have heard is that the majority of homeless teens are escaping abusive homes, though this tells us little about the circumstances surrounding these escapes.

Little academic research has been conducted about abuse in homeschool environments, and the research that has occurred is necessarily incomplete.

Even surveys like the annual survey (part 1 and part 2 and part 3) conducted by the Homeschool Alumni Reaching Out (HARO) group rely on a volunteer sample from the Internet, although it gathers much data that other organizations have not yet attempted to collect and analyzed. Informal surveys are not accessible to people without Internet access, and rely on snowballing (people take it and share it with others from the same population), which tends to yield a more homogenous sample.

Further academic research is needed to determine risk factors for homeschool environments.

Part of the reason so little research has been conducted is because it is simply difficult to properly conduct. Homeschool policies differ based on the state and sometimes even the school district, and record-keeping may also look very different on a state-by-state basis.

It is impossible for a researcher to gather demographics of the homeschool population with inconsistent records or use these records to gather a good, random sample.

Without resources like time and money, a researcher will have difficulty conducting research with homeschool families, especially if these families are reluctant to allow a person to question their motives, tactics, and overall situations.

There are increased difficulties in trying to conduct research with minors; for example, parents who homeschool their children are under no obligation to provide consent for their children to participate in a research project, even if said children would like to participate.

Many, though certainly not all, homeschool families are connected to a church, and the church may be involved in hiding abuse occurring within these families. Many families feel deep paranoia and are not willing to participate in research if they do not perceive the researcher as an ally in some way, such as a member of their church or at least the larger denomination.

The homeschool population is not easy for researchers to access, which is likely one of the primary reasons there is so little research about this population.

It is also possible that researchers lack awareness of the problem. They must be made aware that there is abuse in the homeschool population before they can consider researching it.

My recent awareness of the abuse in the homeschool population has sparked my interest in researching it, but I know there are many struggles to overcome in attempting to reach this population. I also know there are only so many resources available to a person with my current education level, and I may have to set aside this potential research project until I am further educated and perhaps even employed in a university or other research institution.

I can only hope by the time I am fully equipped to conduct this research, others have already done so.

Shelby Shively is a sociology graduate student at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, and former columnist for the student newspaper, The Scribe.

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The UnBoxing Project: Options, not ultimatums

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on March 11, 2015 as part of a series.

Continued from Cynthia Jeub’s story.

Several friends were part of our network that helped Ashley move out of her parents’ house. This is another person’s part of the story, in their own words.

It’s hard when someone you care about is stuck in an abusive environment. It’s worse when you feel like you could and should be helping them to get out of said abusive environment.

Unfortunately, that’s often not up to you.

Fundamentalist cults use brainwashing techniques to make people think there is no way out. Effectively, they remove their members’ autonomy and consent.

When you’re trying to get someone out of a cult, the temptation is to pressure them into it — after all, they’re stuck there, right? They need your help to get out!

Doing that will only make things worse. You’re emulating the same techniques as the cult, which means your “convincing” is only going to last as long as you’re around. It also destroys trust — how can someone who has been abused using brainwashing and consent-destroying abuse trust someone who uses the same techniques?

And before the cries of “But we’re doing it for their own good!” begin, the cult leaders say the exact same thing. They’re just trying to save the person’s soul, after all.

So what are we to do? It’s the hardest thing — you have to let the person make their own decision.

As people, we tend to think our decisions are just a little bit better than anyone else’s — after all, we don’t let our judgement get clouded, amirite? But for someone to successfully get out of a cult, and stay out, they have to know their support system isn’t just more of the same brainwashing, only from the other side.

We’re talking about informed consent here. So let your friend know you’re there for them. Let them know what options are available. The cult tells them no one outside the cult will help them; you need to show them that’s a lie. The cult tells them they’re all alone outside the cult — show them they’re not.

Notice it’s show them, not tell them. Cults love to change the meanings of words: It’s not abuse, it’s “discipline” because we “love” you. You aren’t a “captive,” we’re holding you here out of “love.” There has to be action with this, and it has to be action that is diametrically opposed to the actions of the cult.

It’s difficult — you’ll be stuck just waiting sometimes, feeling like you can’t do anything for your friend. And yes, sometimes people will choose the cult, and choose the abuse. But if those helping them are taking away their consent, how are we any different than the people currently oppressing them? We have to be different, as different as it is possible to be. Otherwise they’ll be exchanging one oppression for another.

There’s a caveat, though: If there is physical or sexual abuse happening, especially if the person in question is under 18, absolutely call the authorities (Child Protective Services or the police). That may cause them to lose trust in you for a time — but it’s better than them dying from the abuse.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you that everything will work out, that everyone chooses to leave abusive and manipulative situations. It’s just not true. Sometimes, the person chooses the cult. And that sucks.

But sometimes people shake off the manipulation, the brainwashing, and the abuse. And that is the reward.

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The UnBoxing Project: Cynthia Jeub’s story

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on March 10, 2015 as part of a series.

Continued from Ashley’s story.

I introduced Racquel and Ashley to Cynthia Jeub (now known as Artemis Stardust) shortly before they left their church, the First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs.

We had both been homeschooled and raised in a Christian fundamentalist, Quiverfull environment. We went to college together and were both editors for our college’s newspaper. Here is their part of the story, in their own words.

Mouth shut like a locket
Like you’ve nothing to say
Speak your mind up,
Come on, baby, free yourself…
Don’t let nobody try and take your soul
You’re the original. – Switchfoot

I met Racquel over the phone.

She explained that her best friend, Ashley, was being kept from attending her college classes, and her parents had taken away all contact to the outside world — no Internet, no cell phone, and she couldn’t drive.

“We can get her a cheap cellphone,” I said. “One she can hide, and use in case of an emergency. It’s dangerous if she won’t be able to contact anyone.”

Racquel hesitated.

“I’m not sure if it’s really that big of a deal,” she said. “They’ve only done it a few times, and it made her get behind at school, but I really trust our pastor.”

It would be several weeks before we met in person. We had an argument. Her church was a large congregation of Protestants who spent most of their Sunday meeting time meditating and speaking in tongues.

She told me that the pastor could always tell if your spirit was in the right place or not, based on his communication with the Holy Spirit. I asked if the pastor had any accountability, but she found it unthinkable that he’d say anything that wasn’t true.

Racquel said that though she loved horses, she wasn’t allowed to enter any competitions. She agreed with the church doctrine, she said, because it kept people humble.

Winning competitions, or even trying to be good at something or to look good, was distracting from drawing attention toward God and away from oneself.

That conversation bothered me because it was so backwards: I was taught to pursue excellence, because it brought glory to God, and I was a living sacrifice.

We lived on two sides of the same self-deception.

// // //

It was early 2013, and I drove an hour to the airport to pick up my dad from one of his events. He asked about school and life, and I confided about the exciting things going on: I was rescuing abused adults from cult-like fundamentalist families.

The first person who got out was Eleanor.

I wasn’t there when they moved into their first apartment, but I was part of the group of friends that gave them support as they adjusted to life away from home for the first time in their early twenties.

After that, Eleanor did most of the networking.

They didn’t go looking for these people, they just found them everywhere — in their classes and at work, they found people in the many cult-like churches of Colorado Springs, adults still living at home, adults with weakened self-confidence, adults with limited skills and resources, all trying to get out, all trapped and afraid.

In our little group, I earned the title of “the logical one.”

Eleanor and our other friend, Cynthia Barram, turned to me as the no-nonsense anchor. When Eleanor found someone who was in a bad situation with their church or family, they’d connect them with me, and I’d check the facts. Then we’d find small solutions — things like helping people get a car, cellphone, job, or place to live.

Several people were trapped because their parents wouldn’t even let them get a driver’s license.

I networked with the homeschool families I already knew, and asked them if they could provide safe houses for these young adults. I wanted parents who were good homeschoolers, not abusive, who could demonstrate that homeschooling could be done in a way that wasn’t harmful.

If such parents had a guest bedroom, we could send homeschooled alumni there to pay rent, while still having parental figures who could provide support without the intense control their own parents used.

The homeschooling community could respond, I thought. They could prove to those who’d been abused that it wasn’t all this bad.

It surprised me to find so few homeschooling parents who were willing to help.

I related all of this to my dad, and he quickly shut me down.

“Don’t get between rebellious kids and their parents,” he said. “I do not support this. You don’t know the families and the full stories. You shouldn’t get involved with this at all.”

“Daddy, I think these situations are… different. There are some rebellious kids…”

I didn’t say Alicia, because my older sister’s name was so taboo in our family that it was always implied, and I didn’t want to hurt my father’s feelings.

“But there are also some very controlling churches and families, and they don’t ever let their kids, especially daughters, grow up. Even if they’re adults.”

He grunted severe disapproval, signaling that the conversation was over. That was the most we ever argued, because I always succumbed. I turned up some of the classic rock music he’d introduced me to, and let it drown out any awkwardness in the car.

I decided I cared too much for those girls I’d met to just leave them in those suffocating situations. This was just one more thing I’d stop talking to my dad about.

// // //

Eleanor and our little crew kept working to help people.

We helped one young woman escape from an arranged marriage, and gave resources to people whose parents kept them from contact with the outside world.

Mostly, we talked to our friends who were in cults about their aspirations and personalities, and helped them see their controlling churches as obstacles to what they wanted out of life.

The common theme was that we all had our own problems to sort. I thought there weren’t any problems with my family, but then I needed to fall back on our group more than once. Our friend Suzana supported me when I got drunk for the first time in my life, a few days after my parents kicked me out.

Eleanor was frustrated with how Racquel and Ashley couldn’t see that their church was a cult, but they still kept in touch with her own overbearing parents.

We’d all lost the trusted older-generation adults in our lives, so we leaned on each other, but we were still young and inexperienced and unstable.

I posted an article on the Huffington Post about my frustration with freeing people. I couldn’t control them, but I also knew they wouldn’t stand up for themselves. I was tired of waiting.

I found out later that Ashley used a code name when she talked about me to her mother, because she was afraid her parents might find my writings and deduce that she was planning to leave.

In December, Eleanor sent out a distress signal to the group.

Ashley’s father discovered she was dating a guy outside the church and said he was kicking her out.

Around 6 a.m. on December 16, 2013, Ashley’s father texted her that he was dumping her possessions outside their apartment at 3 p.m.

Eleanor and Racquel left with Ashley to collect her things in Cynthia Barram’s van while her parents were at work.

When Suzana and I arrived, her bedroom furnishings were strewn about.

Racquel drew our attention to the picture frames.

Ashley’s father had removed the family photos with Ashley from the walls and laid them face down in a corner, a symbol that her family had already disowned her for rebelling against the church.

Her father had also damaged the car she drove by tearing off the rubber lining in the door. And dumped out her purse in the car.

Racquel’s parents were less strict, and she moved out on slightly less dramatic terms.

Eleanor was living in a two-bedroom apartment with a roommate who had also left fundamentalist Christianity, and they now housed three extra refugees there, including another girl who worked with us at the school newspaper.

It was too small for all of them, so they moved into a house together, sharing the costs.

Cynthia Jeub writes about philosophy, religion, and growing up in a Quiverfull homeschool family of 16 and being on their television show Kids By The Dozen at cynthiajeub.com. They studied communication and theater at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, where they were a reporter and culture editor at the campus newspaper, The Scribe.

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Why did you call it the UnBoxing Project?

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on March 6, 2015 as part of a series.

Continued from The Trouble With Freeing People.

Editorial Note: I re-wrote this post in January 2024 to better reflect what I now know about social justice and systemic oppression in the last decade since I left fundamentalism.

When I moved out of my restrictive home environment and was kicked out of the cult my family was in, other friends in similar circumstances told me what they were dealing with.

I realized I wasn’t alone in my experience.

Unfortunately, there were many other young adults and college students in their early 20s from Christian fundamentalist or other religious backgrounds in Colorado Springs who lived with their families in high-control situations, just like I did.

I would alert the same network of friends who supported me, enlisting their aid. We offered them emotional support and resources or actually organized a plan to help them move out on their own.

My best friend in college, Cynthia Barram, who is black, said our network of friends helping friends to escape abusive situations was like an “underground railroad.”

However, we did not want to appropriate that name from the BlPOC community, although we shared a deep admiration for people from marginalized communities who risked everything to find their own freedom.

Our experiences were definitely not the same as those whose ancestors experienced enslavement and the generational trauma of racism.

Although ex-fundamentalist Christian homeschool alumni may experience the marginalization of disability, neurodivergence or chronic illness as the result of childhood toxic stress from living with long-term abuse and having a high score of adverse childhood experiences (ACE), we wouldn’t want to compare our experiences to other marginalized groups.

Homeschool kids often read a lot of history.

Unfortunately, we often were taught incorrect or biased history, but we also grow up resonating with historical figures like Harriet Tubman or Corrie Ten Boom or other people that we are told are heroes of our faith. People who made brave choices against all odds. My siblings and I often pretend re-enacted scenes from history that we read about. This experience I’ve found is common among those who grew up homeschooled.

Before bedtime, my mom used to read us Laura Ingalls Wilder books (yes, we now know these books have issues) and Christian historical fiction set during the Civil War like the Between Two Flags series. I read biographies about Corrie Ten Boom and the Hiding Place, did a research project on Underground Railroad in 6th grade, and devoured historical fiction like the deeply problematic and patriarchal Elsie Dinsmore series.

Two of my homeschooled friends at the Independent Fundamental Baptist church that my family attended in Dallas wrote their own Civil War historical fiction novel during our early teen years, distributing serialized chapters after church each Sunday.

I grew up wanting to lead people to freedom like Harriet Tubman or hide people in my own home like Corrie Ten Boom. None of us faced oppression like the enslavement or massacre of an entire people group.

But I had always connected with these narratives, and my friends did, too.

We weren’t immersed in popular culture, so we felt closer to people we read about from long ago more than our own time.

We liked the idea of people who couldn’t tolerate the injustices they observed and helped other regardless of the cost or risks involved.

In dealing with the abuses in our own community, we wanted to give shelter to those who needed it, until they found their own freedom.

My friend Kyle, who worked at a non-profit to prevent human trafficking called The Exodus Road, said that the number of young adults from this type of background being denied agency by overbearing parents is troubling.

We ended up calling our network The UnBoxing Project because my friends and I nicknamed the Christian fundamentalist homeschooling cult environment that we left behind “the box.”

Sometimes I’ll say things like, “back when we were in the box, they used to say that any music with a syncopated beat was demonic” or “People in the box think that Cabbage Patch dolls are evil,” and my friends know exactly what I’m talking about.

It’s a convenient way to refer to cult-speak and teachings of the cults that we escaped.

Helping others to leave abusive fundamentalist Christian environments is undoing what “the box” did to them.

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The UnBoxing Project: The trouble with freeing people

My friends and I often felt like Katniss in the Hunger Games as we left behind the high control churches we were raised in and rebelled against those systems. | Source: Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1.

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on March 5, 2015 as part of a series.

Continued from Being an angel with a shotgun.

Content Note: suicidal ideation, pastoral authority doctrine

“Eleanor, does your church teach the doctrine of pastoral authority?” my friend Racquel asked.

She was waiting with me in our college’s main auditorium and we were talking before the review session for my Organic Chemistry class started.

“What is that exactly?”

Racquel attended an apostolic Pentecostal church in Colorado Springs that told her that a person wasn’t “saved” unless they had been baptized and spoken in tongues at that particular church, not any other Pentecostal churches in the area.

A long list of offenses that are part of everyday life for most people, like watching movies and television or wearing short skirts and jewelry, could grieve the Holy Spirit, she said, and then you’d lose your salvation and have to “pray through at the altar” again.

Although I also grew up fundamentalist in the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement, we believed in “once saved, always saved,” meaning that if you messed up bad enough, you must never have been a real Christian to begin with and your salvation was fake somehow.

We’d been taught two different theology systems, but both churches taught us to be constantly afraid of hell.

“Pastoral authority means that our pastor, Brother Burgess, prays and decides if it’s God’s will for us to talk to a guy in the church, date him, get engaged, or marry,” she said. “And whether or not we can move out of town and attend another apostolic church.”

“Other apostolic churches allow social media and let their young people listen to CCM [contemporary Christian music], but our pastor has decided it’s not spiritually good for our congregation.”

Racquel didn’t see the harm in what her church banned, and she believed her pastor had good intentions.

“I can tell my pastor cares about the people in the church, the way he walks around and prays for us during the service.”

I hadn’t moved out of my parents’ house or begun dealing with the unhealthy cycles in my own life, but I knew something wasn’t right. A church community should support my friend, not make her miserable.

Over the next few months, Racquel and I had many theological discussions, and I argued that Jesus was about freedom and grace, not rules.

I said her church had the tendencies of a cult. But she couldn’t see it yet.

// // //

I’d started texting Racquel’s best friend Ashley. She’d just gotten permission from her parents to own a cellphone and drive the car again, even though she was nearly 20 years old and attending massage therapy school full-time as well as a part-time job.

I had moved out in August 2012, and felt even more strongly that Ashley’s family situation was toxic since my escape from fundamentalism.

In January 2013, I lost contact with Ashley when her parents and Brother and Sister Burgess (the pastor of their church and his wife) discovered she and Racquel had watched movies again and listened to rock music, including Skillet. Brother Burgess declared Skillet was demonic after listening to their song “Monster.”

Ashley was finally allowed to buy her own iPhone with parental and pastoral permission eight months later. (Yes, this is a real thing in Pentecostal churches. I realize how wild it sounds to people who didn’t grow up this way.)

Now it was late October. Ashley and I were meeting for coffee that evening. She showed me Search for Truth Pentecostal Bible study lessons, intended to recruit potential converts to the UPC church, as an excuse so her parents would allow us to hang out.

I was driving down towards the Starbucks where we would meet on the south end of town when I got a text message from her.

“I’m sorry, Eleanor. I can’t come meet u. My parents are now not letting me use their car for anything.”

“Stay calm, see if I can pick you up in a bit,” I replied.

“I’ll try. Don’t know if I can last that long. Cya.”

“You can make it. I believe in you. You still ok?”

“No I’m not. I’m done Eleanor, I’m sick and tired of this. I can’t do it anymore. I’m too tired and can’t keep this facade up. I’ve fought for 13 years against this and am too tired to continue fighting this. I have no control and no choice. I’m fed up and there’s no way out. I realize that now. I just don’t know what to do now.”

“Do you want out? Do you want to make the jump?”

“Yes I do. But I can’t.”

// // //

The church and Brother and Sister Burgess trapped both girls in an awful double bind, using manipulation and lies. I knew they needed out.

I organized a network of friends to be prepared when they asked for help.

But when would they be ready?

One of our friends at the time, Cynthia Jeub, wrote an article called The Trouble with Freeing People for the Huffington Post describing Ashley’s situation and how we couldn’t force them to leave.

“Helping her feel ready to take freedom for herself is the only way to make her free,” Cynthia wrote.

Only they could decide.

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