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Question:
Finally,
what struggles have you seen from the women who leave QF? Do they
have PTSD? And are/were any of them in danger from the people they
have left behind?
Every
pocket of QF/P tends to operate differently, and husbands often
attempt to intimidate wives to return to them after they leave, often
using children as a weapon to threaten them. I have seen pastors
defend guilty men against women who seek only safety and justice. I
have known fellow church members who were reported to child
protective services to keep them entrenched in their abusive
marriages out of fear that if they left, the false charges of child
abuse would prevent them from gaining custody. To remain with their
children, they must remain in their marriages and suffer abuse which
is thought to work godly character.
I have also gone with mothers
who were falsely reported to be a harm to themselves and to others to
support them as they presented themselves willingly for psychological
evaluations. That can also be used as a means of controlling and
manipulating members. But these are generally desperate attempts to
prevent a woman from leaving as opposed to threatening her after
escaping. These situations are limited to domestic abuse and not to
united families who leave a group together.
As an
informal collection of “likeminded people” as they often like to
refer to themselves, individual families that are often connected
through associations and parachurch groups, the dangers vary greatly.
I have known pastors and homeschooling association presidents to
phone one another to “alert” others about shunned members to
prevent them from enjoying a new, fresh start in another group or
church.
After leaving my own cultic QF/P church that I had attended
for four years, a church member bent the “Sold” sign that hung
below the “For Sale” sign in front of my house. My husband had
already moved to a new locale, and I felt threatened but doubted that
I was in real danger. None the less, I contacted the police and
filed a report which allowed the realtor to recover the cost of
replacing the sign.
~
Cynthia Kunsman
The
view of Quiverfull from my vantage
August
2015
