The irony wasn’t lost on Joseph. Before the return of my repressed memory, he had tried for more than a year to get my father to meet with us to clear offenses related to his past physical and emotional abuse of me. However Bart insisted, “The only thing I will ever apologize for in respect to Jocelyn is that I never taught her how to respond properly to authority!” Since Bart was denying every accusation I made, Joseph suggested a private family meeting with all the siblings present to verify what really happened in our home when we were children. That’s when Bart lost it. “I will never get my pants pulled down in front of my family!” he roared.
My father was bent on “resolving the conflict,” surrounded by men of his choosing. It was like rigging a jury. I was convinced that these men would back Bart no matter what he did because they needed to destroy our credibility when we left the IFB. And Von, the man Jeremy had poured his heart out to about molesting me so many years earlier, was, in my view, the worst of the lot. Suggesting to my husband that I had confided anything about my father in him was a bold-faced lie. Though Von taught a large portion of the counseling classes at Northland and insisted his students call him “Dr.” (just as honorary “Dr.” Les Ollila did), he held nothing more than an honorary doctorate and he had no credentials to counsel someone about sexual abuse. Besides, he was the last man I wanted privy to anything about my private life. He had harassed me shamelessly, insinuating himself into my conversations at college events, standing too close, and slipping his arm around me. He had even leaned over and kissed me at an IFB wedding in front of my friend Dee Dee, to our mutual shock because touching was never permissible under the IFB’s rigid social code. Of course the IFB never ran seminars on sexual harassment in the workplace, so we had no words to codify his inappropriate behavior. The thought of “Dr.” Marty Von hearing the sordid details of my childhood was more than I could bear.
“Dr.” Marty Von: Mission Almost Accomplished
Though my husband and I had been working as a team for more than four months by this point, “Dr.” Marty Von’s plan worked precisely as the IFB leaders had hoped. Joseph finally snapped and became completely irrational, insisting that we meet with Von first thing in the morning. I went into hysterics and begged Joseph to change his mind. But he just lay on the couch, arms folded, eyes closed, not making a sound. He seemed to be refusing to cave in to what he viewed as a six-year-old temper tantrum thrown by an unsubmissive grown woman. I ran to our walk-in closet and lay on the floor crying for hours. How could a man who had promised to love and honor me until death, a man with a master’s degree in counseling, expect me to walk into a room full of male-chauvinist IFB hard-liners and describe the most degrading abuse I had ever suffered? In hindsight, I realize Joseph had been enduring profound psychic trauma for months and wasn’t cognizant of what he was doing. But I was still at my wits’ end and devastated by the whole ordeal.
To an outsider, the whole scenario probably sounds absurd and cruel. There would be no rape crisis counselor present, no other woman in the room to balance the numbers. In the cult, offense-clearing sessions like this are deliberately designed to intimidate and shame the victim, especially when she’s female. Pressuring abuse victims into “talking to” their abusers to offer the abusers forgiveness is standard operating procedure in the IFB. The leaders tout it as the biblical way to handle being wronged.
Rand Hummel: Speaks in Chapel at BJU
The prominent IFB preacher and youth counselor “Dr.” Rand Hummel, program director at the popular IFB camp The Wilds, and adjunct professor at BJU, shared one such incident in a sermon he gave for university students at a chapel service:
I was preaching at another camp and a girl responded and I went to the counseling room. She was weeping … the longest time. And finally she looked up at me—she said, “God hates me.… I don’t even know who my real parents are. They dumped me off at an orphanage.… From the time I was 13 to 15, my stepdad took physical liberties with me. Mom found out and divorced him. God hates me.” I said, “Young lady, you’ve lived a very difficult life—very hard life. But, let’s look at your sin in this situation.” When I said that, she lost it! She said, “My sin?! It wasn’t me. My mom, my dad, my stepdad.” I said, “Yeah, you’ve allowed the sin of these folks to create such anger and hatred and bitterness in your heart.” … If you’re bitter, if you’re angry, it’s not God’s fault, okay? He offered the grace to get you through this.… Finally, God broke her heart and she got on her knees and asked God to forgive her. When she got off her knees, I said, that’s the first part in handling this bitterness and anger. Now you need to go home and ask your mom, your dad, and your stepdad for forgiveness for your hatred toward them.
After I left the cult, I told my psychologist about the IFB’s standard protocol for handling abuses this way, and he was appalled. He explained that statements like Hummel’s give abusers an incredible amount of power and control over their victims. Not only are victims made to feel shame for anger and “bitterness” that are natural by-products of abuse, but by forcing victims to talk to their abusers before meeting with law enforcement, the abusers get a heads-up whenever a victim starts to break their silence. Perpetrators are master manipulators, so this enables them to mastermind a preemptive attack to discredit the victim, as well as to take measures to silence any other victims. It puts the victim at a tremendous disadvantage and heightens the danger they face in coming forward.
It’s also less risky for a pastor, especially one untrained in sexual abuse, to come down on the side of an alleged abuser because the perpetrator tends to have a lot more social power in the church than a child does. That’s one of the many reasons most states deem pastors and teachers “mandatory reporters” when it comes to sex abuse allegations. Most members of law enforcement are trained professionals and many police departments have sex crimes units, which enables them to conduct unbiased investigations when accusations arise. My psychologist’s explanation was a profound revelation to me, one I wish I had known before leaving the IFB.
Joseph Comes to His Senses
I’m not sure what clicked during those long hours of pleading, but Joseph finally came to his senses, took pity on me, and relented. We would decline to meet with my father and “Dr.” Marty Von. Instead, the day before college graduation, we agreed to meet with Northland president Matt Olson and “Dr.” Les Ollila (now the chancellor of Northland). Joseph always referred to Ollila as a “spiritual father in the faith.” He had taken Joseph to breakfast regularly for years and candidly shared his “secrets of effective ministry” with my husband. Joseph felt certain he could get his mentor to understand our side of the story.
In spite of Joseph’s confidence, the night before the meeting, I was scared to death, so I decided to share everything with Tami Herron. By this time she and Marty had taken a new job in Guam, but they had flown back in for graduation. Tami told me that after working as the dean of women at the college for many years during her husband’s tenure as a vice president, she estimated that seven out of ten female students came to Northland already having been sexually abused. This was a shocking revelation for me, since the girls who attended our college were from what we considered some of the “godliest” homes in the IFB. Tami also confided that she had tried to deal with several sensitive issues involving “Dr.” Marty Von being too “touchy-feely,” only to be quietly removed from her position as a result. “These men will probably not respond well to what you have to tell them,” she cautioned me gently. “Just brace yourself.”
“We Are in a Cult!”
As we entered Matt Olson’s office the next afternoon, the hostility in the room was palpable. Within five minutes Les Ollila laced into me, hurling insults. “You’re a liar and a deceiver!” he yelled.
My whole body seemed to be boiling, as if I had a raging fever, but I hung my head and waited until Ollila calmed slightly. Taking a deep breath, I finally decided to tell them. “I have memories of him sexually abusing me,” I mutte
red.
This sent Ollila over the edge. He leapt out of his seat and pointed his finger at me as I sank lower in my chair, cowering like a whipped puppy. “If what you are saying about your father is true, we will fly him here from Denver! The two of you can stand before the entire faculty and staff while you tell your side of the story,” he raged. “We’ll let them decide if you are telling the truth!”
Joseph was flabbergasted. He had always been a member of the boys’ club and had never seen these men act this venomous. “I don’t think my wife should have to talk about this with anyone she doesn’t feel comfortable with,” he said, trying to bring a note of rationality to the proceedings.
Ignoring Joseph, Ollila shouted at me, “Do you want me to mediate this conflict?”
“I don’t know. I … I…” I stammered.
Now hovering directly over me, Ollila screamed at the top of his lungs, “Do you or do you not want me to mediate this conflict between you and your father? Yes or no?”
For the first time in my life, I stood up to a man of power in the IFB. “No,” I said quietly but firmly. I didn’t dare look up to see his reaction. Staring at my shoes, I braced for another verbal onslaught.
Ollila threw up his hands. “Then I’m done with you! This meeting is over!”
We sat in stunned silence for a few seconds, but once it was clear that we were not going to cave in to his manipulative tactics, instead of storming out, Ollila tried a new tack. “You need to be willing to meet with your father,” he said in a calm voice. “What about Les Heinze in Denver and your brother Jason? Would you meet with them?” At least he was talking instead of yelling.
It wasn’t the most palatable solution, but it would get us out of this room and remove the Northland administration from the equation, so I agreed. We would meet with them in Denver to discuss my allegations of physical and sexual abuse. Ollila rose from his chair and strode to the office door. Before he left, he turned to Joseph.
“You know we love you,” he said, reaching out to embrace my husband. It was the classic IFB hug-slug—punching you one moment, praising you the next—to keep you reeling emotionally. I’m convinced Ollila knew that if he lost Joseph’s confidence, he could lose control of me. I could see the disillusionment in Joseph’s eyes as we left the office. I believe Ollila had orchestrated this entire event to shake Joseph up, but instead his cruelty and dishonesty finally opened Joseph’s eyes to the hypocrisy I had seen in this IFB icon for more than a decade.
We found out later that numerous former employees of Northland had gone through similar ordeals. Ollila had summoned them in for final meetings, during which he hurled accusations at them about previous “wrongdoings.” Now I understand that it was a tactical maneuver meant to terrify them into remaining loyal or to rattle them enough that they would stumble into a useful confession he could file away to discredit them in the future if it proved necessary.
Bobby Wood had told us that when he first left BJU and became an administrator at Northland, he questioned whether he should go into the president’s office and confront Les about this kind of behavior. He asked Vice President Sam Horn what he thought and Sam stopped him dead in his tracks. “Don’t you dare go in his office, Bobby,” Sam said. “You don’t confront Les Ollila—nobody confronts Les Ollila.” Even Bobby, with all his family’s political influence in the IFB, decided to back down and “let God deal with it.” Les truly was untouchable in our world—a man with absolute power.
As we hurried down the steps of the administration building a few minutes later, I whispered, “We are in a cult!”
“Shhh!” Joseph whispered back. “Wait until we get in the car.”
I had hinted at my fears several times in the past few weeks, but he had dismissed them as an exaggeration. Now he slammed the van door shut and turned to me wide-eyed. “You were right,” he said. “This is a cult!”
I felt a rush of relief. Somehow I knew that if we worked together, we would be able to find a way to get out and get our children to a safe place.
Our Trip to Colorado: The Statement of Silence
The day after the confrontation with Olson and Ollila, Joseph and I flew to Denver to meet with Bart, Jason, and Les Heinze. Looking back, we were in no mental or emotional condition to have the meeting and should never have agreed to it. However, we felt obligated to try to make peace and we naively hoped that we could get Bart out of our lives once and for all. Without realizing it, we had fallen prey to the IFB leaders’ backup plan to regain control over us.
Jason asked us to have lunch with him beforehand because, as he explained it, “I don’t want you pulling out anything new. I want everything to be known to both parties, no hidden agendas. And, Jocelyn, you need to admit to doing something wrong in this meeting.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong in this,” I said, starting to cry. “He molested me and beat me. He showed up at our house without warning, in spite of Joseph’s repeated insistence that he stay away. He made threatening phone calls over and over again. He came to my husband’s workplace, even after Joseph threatened a restraining order, forcing us to make this conflict public. I’m just trying to get away from him and he won’t let me go.”
“You should admit some part in all of it,” Jason insisted. “Do whatever you can to make peace and move on. You are responsible for that much.” Before I had time to respond he concluded with, “And you should be kind enough to give Dad a hug at the end of the meeting.”
A burst of anger surged through me. “I will NEVER hug that man ever again!” The fact that Jason would ask such a thing showed how little sensitivity he had for me. Ironically, after I refused, Jason broke down and admitted that he had wanted to confront Bart for a long time about hugging his own wife in a way that made them both profoundly uncomfortable.
That afternoon, as soon as we sat down at a table in the church Les Heinze pastored, Heinze said, “Jocelyn and Joseph, we have this meeting all set up for recording. Jason has the computer ready. Are you okay with that? Of course, we will give you a copy too.”
My mind started racing. I thought there weren’t supposed to be any surprises. Now they tell me they want to record this? I felt coerced, but in order to keep the peace, I agreed.
“We are here to talk about the abuse from Jocelyn’s childhood and to hear about these new memories that have returned,” Heinze stated. I had written out a number of things for Joseph to say on my behalf in the meeting because I wasn’t sure I could handle talking through it myself. He started with the physical abuse, but when he got to my new memories of sexual abuse, I told him I would elaborate. No sooner had I opened my mouth than my father turned to Heinze and blurted out, “I’m not going to sit here and listen to that!”
“But, Bart, isn’t that why we’re here?” Heinze asked. “To sort this out?”
“That’s disgusting!” Bart said. “I won’t even hear it!”
He grabbed a stack of papers from my mother and rifled through them, quoting passages the two of them had evidently collected online and printed out about false repressed memories. He didn’t realize all the research he had collected was about victims whose “memories” had been coaxed out or coerced by others, through hypnosis or therapy. Mine had returned spontaneously. He insisted that my memories couldn’t possibly be true. Then he produced a paper he had typed up for me to sign and the others to witness, which said:
My claim of sexual molestation is erroneous and groundless. I withdraw all my allegations toward you, my father. I am confident that you have never touched me sexually or inappropriately at any time.
“I will not sign that,” I protested. “I’m not lying! These memories are there. I don’t understand them yet, but I’m telling the truth.” It was obvious to me that they had planned a number of surprises to spring on me. I felt horribly betrayed.
“You withdraw this allegation tonight because this is the only chance you’re going to have!” Bart shouted.
Heinze was shocked. “Bart,
that sounds a little bit like a threat.” I looked at Heinze dumbfounded. A little bit like a threat? Just like every other IFB leader, he was downplaying my father’s behavior.
Bart’s black eyes were fixated on my every move, and I knew him well enough to grasp the underlying message: This was my last chance to agree to stay quiet—or else.
In an attempt to diffuse the rising tide of animosity in the room, Jason took the paper from my father and looked over it. “What if I rewrote this in a different way?” he asked. “Would you sign it then?”
Nothing mattered more to me in that moment than getting out of that room. So, when Jason revised my father’s letter, turning it into a “statement of silence,” I agreed to sign it, just so we could leave. (Only later, understanding that it had been procured from me under duress, did I disavow the statement.) His revision read:
After careful evaluation of the unproven results of repressed memory studies, I have come to a solid conclusion. Due to the fact that my claims are tenuous, I withdraw my former allegation toward you, my father, regarding sexual molestation. I will never revisit this issue again.
Bart also agreed never to contact us again under any circumstances, unless we initiated it. Shortly thereafter, we closed the meeting. We felt as if we had run a marathon, drained emotionally and physically. I later learned from our lawyer that this agreement had no legal binding, since I signed it under emotional duress. Still, I thought I had finally been set free—all I had wanted from day one.
I Fired God Page 23