Tag: child abuse | Page 3 | Spiritual Abuse Blogs

The UnBoxing Project: Racquel’s story

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on March 7, 2015 as part of a series.

Continued from Why did you call it the UnBoxing Project?

Content Note: religious manipulation, forced starvation

*Eleanor and Racquel hiking the Incline near Colorado Springs in fall 2013. | Photo: Eleanor Skelton*

Racquel grew up attending the First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs, now known as Heritage Pentecostal Church. This is Racquel’s story, in her own words.

Somehow I never imagined that the inner peace and joy I felt as a 5-year-old girl after being filled with the Holy Ghost would later disgust and scare me.

I am writing this because I believe my voice should be heard. I hope that by telling my story it will help my healing and others with similar stories as well as prevent more stories like mine from happening.

The music was loud, and the atmosphere was pulsing with energy.

I wanted to show how much I loved God, so I went up to the front of the sanctuary and danced with all my might, letting my tears flow. I had been taught that I should dance before the Lord and not let anyone’s opinion stop me.

Often, I was the first one or the only one at the front of the church.

This was good. It meant I was a leader, and that I was fighting spiritual warfare. It would also show my pastor, who was God’s voice in my life, how my walk with God was and what a good apostolic young person I was.

I remember night after night where this was my mindset.

*Racquel (far left, wearing an orange dress) speaks in tongues on the front row during Heritage Youth Conference, fall 2011. | Photo: First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs*

I was isolated from other members of the youth group because I would refuse to do things that the pastor had commanded us not to, like riding in a car with a guy unless it was approved or unless a married approved chaperone was in the car.

However, there were also the many, many times where I sat or knelt at the altar, weeping and feeling the guilt of my many sins when I simply failed to uphold the standards because I had listened to unchristian music, watched a TV show, or could not stick to a daily prayer life.

For years, I went through a cycle of getting in trouble with my best friend, Ashley, for questioning the pastoral authority and why we held to some of our standards, sometimes completely disregarding the rules, and then being told that my best friend and I should not talk or hang out because our personalities did not complement each other.

Meanwhile, I stood by as she was abused in so many ways by both the pastoral authority and her parents. The only thing I could do was be there for her.

In January 2013, my best friend and I had come to the conclusion that we did not and could not agree with the church. However, we were discovered yet again and ripped apart.

This time, the pastor lied to both of us, trying to turn us against each other by saying that the other one had ratted us out.

At the direction and guidance of the pastor, Ashley’s parents were punishing her for not losing weight because it was said that God could not use her unless she lost the weight. Because of her inability to meet their demands, she had begun starving herself.

I texted her one night in compassion and frustration that she should “F*** (written politely as $@##) what they think” to drive home to Ashley that starving herself was not the answer, and that her parents and pastor were wrong.

During one of the long sessions in the pastor’s office after getting caught, I discovered the pastor had hacked into my best friend’s phone and found my text.

I was questioned about my lack of respect for authority.

My hands were tied as I seethed in anger not able to tell the pastor the context of the text, lest the abuse she suffered would increase, because the pastor was part the abuse.

Back then, Ashley was too scared of losing her parents and being kicked out to do anything other than play along with them. When she was 19 years old, her parents and the pastor stripped every form of communication, transportation and even her ability to go to college from her.

She was not even allowed to be alone in her own home at any time.

Racquel (far right) singing in the choir. Apostolic churches consider leading worship to be a privilege called being “on the platform.” Anyone who questions authority or church beliefs may be removed from the platform as form of social shaming. | *Photo: First United Pentecostal Church of Colorado Springs*

In March, the deception worked, and the pressure finally broke me to the point that I gave in and did exactly as the church and the pastor wanted me to do. I felt helpless and that the reason for these crazy feelings must be because I was not submitted to them.

I continued to not talk to my best friend and tried to force myself into the mold they had created for me with my approved Christian friends and guilt-ridden prayer life.

I still had all of the same questions.

Why must a man my pastor dictate to me what God wants and God not talk to me directly? Why must I not be allowed to talk to my best friend who was still the most important person in my life?

How could so many injustices and abuse be what a loving god wanted?

So when my little sister decided to leave suddenly and move in with a guy I had never met, and I had no idea were she was or if she was safe, when my approved friends failed, I reached out to the one person I knew who would be there: Ashley.

Within two weeks of resuming secret communication, we had both discussed in detail what we saw wrong with the church, and had stated that no matter what we were going to keep communicating, even if it had to be hidden.

10553500_802766489755823_1022764128682957679_n — Ashley, Eleanor and Racquel in August 2013 | Photo: Eleanor Skelton

Almost immediately, she started to date a coworker.

On December 15, 2013, her dad followed her to her boyfriend’s house, and that night he kicked her out.

I received a text that said: “They know everything can you come and get me.” I immediately drove to her house and picked her up.

After that, we stayed in Eleanor’s apartment. She had also recently escaped an abusive fundamentalist home.

There has been a lot of healing and learning since then and now. Learning to live outside of the box has not been easy, nor do I think it ever will.

I now have the wonderful freedom of choice, and with that comes what I would describe as both the beauty of a rainbow and the burden of the rain cloud.

Making these choices is the scariest and most exhilarating thing that I have ever done. I have learned and accepted more of who I am.

I can only hope that healing will come in time, and the scars will become less painful.

Racquel graduated with a bachelor’s in psychology from the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs in May 2014. She struggled with undereducation from inadequate homeschooling and Christian private education in her church throughout her time in college. Racquel hopes to pursue a graduate degree in counseling and mental health, and her current job involves assisting troubled teens.

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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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When Forgiveness Becomes Dangerous (And Morally Wrong)

Forgiveness, Mercy and Grace are the cornerstones of the Christian message. However, forgiveness becomes dangerous when gross, moral sin has taken place and forgiveness is used as a weapon for silencing victims and a cloak to coverup suspicion, unwanted attention and accountability.

This is my first step of exposing such dangerous practices, dangerous forgiveness and coverup, and I hope this gains traction, attention and spreads like wild fire.

We are seeing an onslaught of sexual impurity in churches around the globe. We in America see it daily in the news. In my anecdotal studies I have found that nearly 30%+ of sexual abuse/assault involving a minor comes from Christian leaders with authority over that minor, or in Christian homes with fundamental, authoritarian beliefs. As someone who claims the Christian Faith, this is something I don’t take lightly or with joy.

Jesus Christ was quick to forgive. To show mercy, and grace, and inspire change in his followers. As Christians, we also believe that change cannot take place without the grace and power of the Holy Spirit. To point, Christ is quoted in Matthew 6:14 as saying, “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly father will also forgive you.”

This is a beautiful quote and is seen again with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well in John 4, and the adulteress in John 8. But even in these encounters, Jesus never silenced a victim or whitewashed over sin. The Samaritan woman was commanded to Worship and follow Christ and the adulteress was told to sin no more. We are commanded to forgive, and we should be fast and free to forgive, But…

When Forgiveness Becomes Dangerous

In recent news, the hall of fame family of the United Pentecostal Church, International, the Ensey family has been shaken. The son, Jonathan R. Ensey was recently sentenced to eight to twelve years in a federal penitentiary for sexual misconduct with a minor in his church.

The crux of the story, in all it’s gruesome twists, is that the father, Pastor of Living Way Church in Conroe, Texas, Randy Ensey covered up the story. The parents of the victim alerted Randy Ensey to the inappropriate behavior and he did nothing. It wasn’t until the parents, and bless them for having the courage, took it to the police that things unfolded from there.

In the news story linked here, you’ll read, as you do in almost all of these cases, how the congregation of the Living Way Church packed the courtroom in defense of this man.

I’ve seen this type of behavior, multiple times, first hand. And in the past 30 days, this type of dangerous forgiveness has sprung up in another Pentecostal church. My old home town church. Abundant Life Pentecostal Church.

Abundant Life Pentecostal Church, located in McMinnville, Oregon has a long history of cover ups. During my 15 years there I saw the pastors ‘pray’ over child abuse instead of reporting it authorities. I’ve been made aware of the private school supervisor checking the under garments of under-age girls attending school to make sure they were ‘approved’.

While that was second hand information, I sat through years of their required ‘Family Class’ as my child was in the same school. In that class they taught at what ages your female child could wear certain kinds of underwear and they took that very seriously.

I’ve seen the leadership secret in a man through the back doors and have him sit in the ‘upper room’, above the baptistry, who had a restraining order against him for domestic abuse, while his victim sat in the congregation, just to make sure he was in church.

The then pastor, William “Bill” Davies and his son (now the pastor) Matthew Davies were found guilty of violating child labor laws by using church youth in their commercial landscaping business without pay and were ordered by the Bureau of Labor and Industries to pay restitution.

When William Davies demonstrably defamed the man responsible for reporting their acts during a church service, a service in which he demanded the entire congregation to turn off their phones and to not record what he was about to say, they were sued for defamation and paid an undisclosed amount to settle. All thanks to a few brave souls who saw the red-flag of the pastoral demands and recorded the service.

During this trial and to this day, members of the congregation blamed ‘Satan’ for attacking their man of God and still defend his innocence in all cases, just as we saw in the Ensey case and many more like it. And now, this forgiveness becomes dangerous again.

A Predator in the Classroom

About 30 days ago I found out that a young man who had been suspected, charged, and convicted of sexually assaulting his young sister (circa 2013-2015) is now an appointed (by the Davies) Sunday School Teacher at Abundant Life Pentecostal Church, in McMinnville, Oregon, for the 9-12 year old class, called the Amplified Class. You can see the churches website here: www.alpcministries.org. (2023 Edit: That website is no longer in operation, so an archived link is given. The new link is https://alpc.church.)

This young man was 15-16 at the time the abuse started and the sister was 7. By public accounts, the abuse spanned about two years until the young man was finally arrested, tried and then sent away. The victim, and her family, still attend Abundant Life Pentecostal.

I can’t speak to all the details and dates as I don’t want anything quoted to be found untrue. What is true, is that this young man was forgiven, and welcomed back in to the church with open arms upon his release.

His victim is now a silenced member of the church. He was given a fancy church wedding while she is told to keep things to herself and forgive. And he is now a Sunday School teacher, overseeing children the same age that his victim was.

Forgiveness Or Moral Failure?

Is this forgiveness, or a stumbling block? Is this tempting the Lord, thy God, or restoration?

The reason I am not naming the young man is because in this instance, the moral failure is on the now pastor of Abundant Life Pentecostal Church, Matthew Davies and the churches ‘board of elders’. Should the young man distance himself from such a thing? Absolutely. And if he was to harm another child, he should be held accountable.

Yet and more-so, in these fundamental church systems such as Oneness Pentecostalism, and in the United Pentecostal Church, they have such a delusional view of forgiveness that they would believe it safe to put a young man who molested a little girl, in a classroom of little girls, the age of his previous victim, so long as he obeys them.

And should another child be hurt, I believe the moral failure, and legal ramifications, should fall on the leadership of the church for making this bad of a decision, every bit as much as on the young man, should he recidivate.

There is a deep rooted command in Christian faith to forgive, but not to tempt. To restore, but not to make a room for evil. Equal to forgiveness is the command to not put a stumbling block before your brother. For me now, being knowledgeable of this circumstance, as much as I forgive the previous trespass, I cannot ignore the potential for harm and be silent.

If any harm comes to another child, I equally feel I would be morally responsible should I not speak out. Furthermore, this was the classroom that my 9 year old daughter was attending. How dare they, the leadership of that church, put my own daughter at great risk to satisfy their twisted ideals?

They truly believe if you shout enough, speak in tongues enough, and attend enough, you are ‘Ok’. Did that save Jonathan Ensey and his victim? It did not, and I’ll not sit idly by watching and waiting for another news story to pop up.

Men and Brethren, What Should We Do?

I do not want to be seen as inciting hate mail, hate speech, defamation, or any other inappropriate behavior. If any feel so inclined to contact this church and demand answers or tell them how terrible of a choice this is, you are free to do so. I will personally be publishing more information as I cannot sit idly by while children are put in harms way but I can only share factual information.

My family no longer attends this church, I pulled that plug after they wantonly endangered my daughter. But there are dozens, potentially hundreds of other children, both members of the church and bused in ‘bus kids’ in the Sunday school at risk.

I also feel inclined to say that it is possible that this young man’s record is expunged. He may have been tried as a child and not as an adult and thus, legally, there is no law being violated. And if that is the case, I would forgive, but never trust him again. No way should he be attending the same church as his victim.

There is tremendous boundaries of trust, responsibility, wisdom and discernment being recklessly abandoned for the sake of their precious doctrines even if not legal boundaries.

I want to ask the pastor, Matthew Davies, “What would you do if it was your daughter?” and other members of the McMinnville, OR community should be asking him the same thing.

Abundant Life Pentecostal Church
1145 SW Wallace Road
McMinnville, OR 97128
503-472-1585

Pastor Matthew Davies
matt@alpcministries.org

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The UnBoxing Project: Being an angel with a shotgun

Editorial Note: The following is reprinted with permission from Eleanor Skelton’s blog. It was originally published on March 4, 2015 as part of a series.

Get out your guns, battle’s begun,
are you a saint, or a sinner?
If love’s a fight, then I shall die,
with my heart on a trigger. – The Cab, Angel with a Shotgun (Nightcore remix)

These are the stories they told me.

“Eleanor, my best friend’s parents told her she can’t drive the car unless she loses weight consistently every week.

I’m really worried about her. Yeah, she could lose some weight, but it’s not that bad, and I don’t think that’s healthy. What do you think I should do?”

My insides went cold, feeling the familiar rigidity and control descend, but this time for someone else.

They say before you start a war,
you better know what you’re fighting for…
if love is what you need, a soldier I will be.

“Eleanor, I’m 26 years old and my mom wants me to get married. She says she’ll send out the word among the [Indian] community to find a man for me. But I don’t want an arranged marriage.”

My friend already had a bachelor’s degree from an ivy league college, wasn’t enjoying her post-baccalaureate pre-med classes, and knew her parents wouldn’t understand her adoption of American culture.

She asked for help in moving her things out of her parents’ house. I rounded up a few friends and she got out.

I’m an angel with a shotgun,
fighting ’til the war’s won,
I don’t care if heaven won’t take me back.
I’ll throw away my faith … just to keep you safe…
and I wanna live not just survive tonight.

“Did you know Mike died?”

“No, I just talked to him last week. He was trying to start a chapter of the F.A.S.T. club at his graduate school.”

The coroner ruled Mike’s death a suicide. Mike grew up in the Colorado Springs homeschool community, although I didn’t meet him until college.

Questions about his death still linger with me and my friends.

Sometimes to win, you’ve got to sin,
don’t mean I’m not a believer...
Yeah, they still say I’m a dreamer.

Text messages from Cynthia Jeub, September 2, 2013:

“I need help. My dad is angry because he’s not making enough money. Can you help Lydia and me get out and find a place to sleep until our apartment paperwork goes through?”

“Dad was yelling at me when you tried to call. I never thought this would happen. We have a friend who will help, we might need help from you when we get back.”

“Dad says he might turn off my phone and Internet. Tell [a friend] to come if you don’t hear back again.”

I was five hours away up in the mountains and couldn’t come get her on the day that they were kicked out.

They say before you start a war,
you better know what you’re fighting for…
if love is what you need, a soldier I will be.

Google chat conversation, June 2013:

“I just want to go Home and be with Him. It’d be so easy… one bullet, one noose, two cuts, but I can’t bear to think of facing Him when I got there… For being a coward. For not trusting him enough… I really just want to escape. Wouldn’t you eventually get over it [grieving for me]. Death is a natural part of this life.”

A younger friend was suicidal again. She’d done this off and on since she was 13, and a couple of friends and I had talked her out of it, over and over.

“As long as I’m in class, getting A’s and studying all the time without a boyfriend or any other distractions, no one really pays me much mind. A fight’s brewing. So I’ll let you know after it happens if it does happen.”

Once again, her parents crushed her with unrealistic expectations.

I’m an angel with a shotgun,
fighting ’til the war’s won,
I don’t care if heaven won’t take me back
...and I wanna live not just survive tonight.

I didn’t become an activist because it was another hobby. Friends came to me with their wounds, their struggles. And I couldn’t just let them keep bleeding.

This is a series on helping isolated homeschoolers and religiously oppressed young adults escape cults and abusive households.

These are the ones I fight for.

…and I’m gonna hide, hide, hide my wings tonight.

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