What None of Us Knew

About the Panel: Overcoming the Baptist Myth of Family

Welcome to the resource page that accompanies the discussion:

From Demanding Duggar Cradle to Troubled Teen Home:  

Overcoming the Baptist Myth of Family

ICSA Annual Meeting 2016

Friday, July 1st, Dallas, TX

View the slides here, and visit Slideshare's website for download.

Demanding Duggar Cradle to Troubled Teen Home: Overcoming the Baptist Myth of Family from Cynthia Kunsman

Please use the tabs at the top of this information blog

for further research (or use the links also listed below)

~ something of a dynamic bibliography introducing topics relevant to the subject including

• Independent Fundamental Baptist history and beliefs (IFB)
• The Duggar Family
• Duggar Family Sex Scandals
• Bill Gothard 
• Bill Gothard's Sex Scandals
•  **WHAT THEY TELL THE SEXUALLY ABUSED**
• The Quiverfull Movement
• The Purity Culture
• Religious Child Maltreatment (website)
• 'Blanket Training' and Corporal Punishment
• Troubled Teen Industry
• Hephzibah House
• New Bethany Home for Girls

Abstract

Cable television's Learning Channel publicizes the wholesome facade of family through the Duggar Family's "19 Kids and Counting" show, but few viewers understand the dark underbelly of their formulaic, high demand ideology.  Considering this reality show family as a prototype and their deep roots in the Independent Baptist movement, this presentation will delve into the variety of extreme measures used to enforce their panacea of a mythical family ideal.

With a special focus on corporal punishment and the incarceration of children in "troubled teen industry" homes, two Second Generation Adult survivors of this system will recount their experiences within this religious movement.  This presentation specifically endeavors to highlight the unique recovery needs of those who have endured the profound trauma of the Baptist residential teen home experience.  Janet Heimlich will explore the challenges of addressing and preventing this variety of Religious Child Maltreatment.

Panel Participants

• Cynthia Kunsman
• bio
• Under Much Grace
• Overcoming Botkin Syndrome
• Janet Hemlich
• bio
• Breaking their Will (book)
• Child Friendly Faith Project
• Jo Wright
• bio appears below
• Camp Beulah
• New Bethany Info (documentation blog)
• 2014 Grand Jury witness
• Susan Grotte
• bio appears below
• Hephzibah Girls
• Cindy Foster
• bio
• Finding Fundamental
• Sunny Linkfield
• bio appears below
• Special thanks to Sunny for helping with Q&A following the panel

          Jo Wright. Raised in the jungles of Paraguay, Joanna Wright grew up in James Saint John's pseudo-Christian cult compound of 76 people known as Beulah Land. Her father, an Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) minister, was eventually imprisoned there after a civil uprising created by "the Group" (as they chose to be called). She escaped the abusiveness of the IFB system and a violent marriage in early adulthood with an infant and no preparation for living in the outside world. Therapy and growth enabled her to raise three children into independent, educated, and kind-to-the-core adulthood. She also completed two college degrees, studying both criminology (A.S.) and psychology (B.S.). In 1998, Ms. Wright founded Hope4Kidz, Inc. with a focus on foster children placed in Residential Treatment Centers and worked with the Texas State Comptroller to expose and address problems with institutional warehousing of children in foster care. Ms. Wright provided valuable input to The Forgotten Children’s Report in 2004 that resulted in numerous policy changes. After retiring from Hope4Kidz, Ms. Wright now works as both book editor and author while encouraging others in their writing.

          Susan Grotte.  As a teenager in the 1980s, Susan endured 29 months at Hephzibah House, a troubled teen residential home for girls operated by an Independent Fundamental Baptist affiliate in Winona Lake, IN. She has contributed vital information about life within the walls of religious teen homes through many media interviews and documentaries. Her website, HephzibahGirls.com, documents the testimonies of her former sister residents and workers at the "boarding home" which continues to operate today. She resides happily in the Midwest with husband and family.

          Sunny Linkfield is a survivor of Straight Incorporated. This abusive teen rehab center, convinced thousands of parents that normal behavior was a sign of druggie behavior. Sunny was an over achiever but became a moody teenager, experimenting with pot, alcohol and a few other drugs. After her parents read an article in Reader's Digest, they dropped her off in a warehouse called Straight Inc. Sunny is now a make-up artist/esthetician and a trainer in retail cosmetics. She was recently interviewed in the new documentary, Fix My Kid, and was also the lead make-up artist for the film. Ms. Linkfield is active with the International Cultic Studies Association. She has been interviewed for NBC Nightly News and has spoken at Columbia University about the troubled teen industry. In April, 2013, Sunny spoke with Congressman Miller's office to modify the bill: Stop Abuse in Residential Treatment Centers for Teens Act. She also organized a seminar in DC on The Abuses in the Troubled Teen Industry. Sunny is active in raising awareness abroad on these abusive teen programs and is fighting for the US to ratify the United Nations Convention for the Rights of a Child. Currently, the US and Somalia are the only two countries who have not ratified the treaty.

From Demanding Duggar Cradle to Troubled Teen Home

Cindy Kunsman & Jan Heimlich, ICSA Montreal 2012

ICSA Annual Meeting 2016 

Dallas, TX

Friday, July 1, 2016

Panel:  Overcoming the Baptist Myth of Family

Cynthia Kunsman:  Moderator/Interviewer
Cindy Foster, Susan Grotte, Joanna Wright:  Discussants

Janet Heimlich:  Summary and Discussion

     Cable television's Learning Channel publicizes the wholesome facade of family through the Duggar Family's "19 Kids and Counting" show, but few viewers understand the dark underbelly of their formulaic, high demand ideology.  Considering this reality show family as a prototype and their deep roots in the Independent Baptist movement, this presentation will delve into the variety of extreme measures used to enforce their panacea of a mythical family ideal.

     With a special focus on corporal punishment and the incarceration of children in "troubled teen industry" homes, two Second Generation Adult survivors of this system will recount their experiences within this religious movement.  This presentation specifically endeavors to highlight the unique recovery needs of those who have endured the profound trauma of the Baptist residential teen home experience.  Janet Heimlich will explore the challenges of addressing and preventing this variety of Religious Child Maltreatment.

For more information about attending, 
visit the ICSA Website.

The High Priests of the IFB Using Judaic Texts to “Lord it Over” their Sheep, RCC Style

Blog commentary concerning

on No Longer Quivering

in response to

Gothard and Williams Draw their Cultic Hatred of Dinah

from the Hebrew Midrash

[Blog Host Commentary noted in brackets] and “unique” formatting added to help convey the concepts as clearly as possible.

~ ~ ~

Bekabot writes in an astute comment:

About these guys and their penchant for trespassing outside their own KJB reservation:

I suspect that some Protestant sects are going the way of the Catholic Church...

• by which I don't mean that they're going the way the Catholic Church is going now
  
• but the way the Catholic Church was going back in the 17th century
  
  • when the Protestant communities split off from it.

Revisiting the Disapperance of Carol Anne Cole (A New Bethany Mystery)

A new series at No Longer Quivering

by Suzanne Titkemeyer

 

I

In the last three years or so both NLQ (No Longer Quivering) and NLQ SASBN member Bruce Gerencser have written about the disappearance of Carol Ann Cole, her eventual identification as the Louisiana murder victim known only as Bossier Doe and the possible links between Carol Ann and troubled teen home New Bethany.

(NLQ stands for No Longer Quivering, 

and the SASBN refers to the Spiritual Abuse Survivor Blogs Network.)

It was only last year when DNA analysis confirmed what many thought, that Bossier Doe was Carol Ann Cole. Many breathed a sigh of relief, thought that the case was mostly closed and moved on to fresher news. But the sad fact remains that the 35 year old murder of Carol Ann Cole and the mystery of her disappearance is still unsolved.

A few months ago I spoke with someone who had been a resident at New Bethany who has been instrumental in keeping up with the years of information on the disappearance and murder of Carol Ann. There are literally thousands of documents and sources that I’ve been combing through, reading and making notes, trying to make sense of this. It is a large confusing mess, with the case considered closed years ago with the false confession of serial killer Henry Lee Lucas and what seems to be people desperate to make the public think that Carol Ann Cole was never at New Bethany Home for Girls. The more people I talk to involved in this, and the more legal documents I view, the more questions come up.

READ the rest of the post HERE.

Gothard and Williams Draw their Cultic Hatred of Dinah from the Hebrew Midrash

When I became involved in a church that followed the teachings of Bill Gothard, and as I spent more time with my same-aged peers who were involved in the Evangelical Christian homeschooling movement, I was surprised by the way they characterized certain women in the Bible. The teachings of many ministers within Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) church does not differ from what I heard – which all stems back to Gothard.

Here, I hope to highlight the identical teachings found in Ron Williams' sermon about “strange women,” the way that the King James Version of the Bible translates the term for “prostitute.” Anyone, including the youngest of children, who gets sexually molested/raped is said to bear a burden of sin in their own assault. The root of the teaching seems not to be based in the Bible but in rabbinical commentaries.

Please also take note that I make note of the King James text because the IFB capitalizes on the idea that only the KJV of the Bible is accurate and inspired or "God-breathed."  Only it contains the true interpretation of Scripture.  In other instances, they reject outside commentary and information, so the fact that they draw information from Jews who reject Jesus Christ in addition to the fact that they've gone outside of their own belief system to find material to preach is beyond hypocrisy.  In all other instances, the IFB rejects hermeneutics (a method of faithful study of a text) that rely on historical documentation to put Scripture into perspective.

Christian Evangelicals who Vilify Women and Children

The Popularity of Evangelical Christian Patriarchy in the US:

The Vilification and Abuse of Women and Children

(Presentation at the 2012 International Cultic Studies Association Conference in Montreal)
Addendum:  Original link broken.  View presentation citation at ICSA here.

The popularity of Christian evangelical patriarchy in the US and the resultant vilification and abuse of women and children

 

In response to a wide array of societal changes and the open acceptance of less traditional and more liberal lifestyles within the overall culture, a growing and significant number of vocal Protestant Christians within the United States have sought to influence society to return to an idealized version of traditional, conservative religious practices.  Issues concerning gender and trends that are believed to threaten the institution of the traditional, nuclear family provoke negative emotion among religious conservatives, ranging from general anxiety to specific fears of a perceived and seemingly inevitable apocalyptic demise of the Christian faith and of the nation.