Shortly after the trial, the news spread about Tina’s successful prosecution of her abuser and another round of vicious attacks hit the Internet. Tina had won her case, so they left her alone. This time, Melissa and I were in the crosshairs. Our enemies knew we were the ringleaders, the driving force behind survivors’ newfound resolve to fight back, and they redoubled their efforts to destroy our credibility. IFB insiders created bogus profiles and sent out messages saying I was “mentally ill” and “unstable.”
Three dear friends, Laurie Moody, Hannah Matteson, and Vyckie Garrison stepped up to defend me, but that just brought the cult’s wrath down on them. The attacks were relentless, cruel, and exhausting for all of us. Laurie has a held a position in politics for over a decade, and she said it was worse than any attack she had seen on her GOP boss in all the years she’s worked on his campaign. I finally took a six-week break and went back to therapy.
It took some intense soul searching, but ultimately I decided other people’s opinions of me no longer mattered. I was proud of the work I had done, proud that I had taken a stand. I was going to own my role in the exposure the cult was getting, regardless of how many ugly slurs and threats came my way. For a people pleaser like me, who had spent a lifetime trying to be liked, it was a major turning point.
CNN’s Ungodly Discipline
By August 2011, Gary Tuchman was ready to start working on a series for CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 titled “Ungodly Discipline.” Gary did a phenomenal job exposing physical abuse in the IFB, combining his own exhaustive research with insights he had gained from our conversations over the past four years. He put Michael Pearl’s spare-not-the-rod childrearing philosophy on display and highlighted the beating deaths of Lydia Schatz and Hana Grace-Rose Williams. Survivors of the brutal approach to discipline that killed Lydia and Hana stepped forward to talk about their abuse in IFB Christian schools, colleges, churches, group homes, and in homeschooling families. Two brothers, Doug and Scott Bicknell, bravely described the abuse they endured. I flew to Wisconsin to meet them and felt the same close rapport I had shared with Tina; I now refer to them as my “brothers.”
Doug Bicknell reported being beaten so severely at Calvary Baptist School in Wisconsin that he has suffered lasting physical and emotional problems. In one spanking session, during which school principal Marvin Munyon, now a political lobbyist for private schools with an office in the capitol building in Madison, hit Doug fifty-three times using a wooden paddle with holes drilled in it. Munyon has made it his mission to keep spanking legal in private schools in Wisconsin. He’s one of many IFB men to insinuate himself into a government position in order to preserve laws that protect child abusers from accountability. Doug’s mother, Nancy Bicknell, by contrast, has become an advocate for survivors and has done a remarkable job exposing abuse in the IFB.
Gary and I finally met in person in Seattle and went to dinner, along with his producers, at the Seattle Space Needle. It felt like I was meeting an old friend. There are no words to express how grateful I have been for his efforts in getting the IFB exposed. Without his encouragement and support from the beginning, we would have never seen thousands of survivors speaking out on the Internet, finding freedom from decades of abuse.
Moving Forward
On April 8 2011, 20/20 highlighted the arrest of pastor Phil Caminiti and twelve other church members in Wisconsin featured in the documentary “Shattered Faith.” I had flown out to Wisconsin that summer and given law enforcement all the information I could on IFB ideology. They were stunned by the prolific abuse within the group. The professionals working with the families in this case did a tremendous job documenting every detail of the systematic brainwashing—in an attempt to help future cases. Then finally, in the summer of 2012 another significant milestone when Pastor Caminiti was found guilty on eight counts of conspiracy to commit child abuse and sentenced to two years in prison for encouraging his congregation members to use the rod on children as young as infants in his sermons. It was a precedent-setting case—the first time a pastor had been convicted for simply telling church members to abuse their kids rather than committing the act himself. The judge said she was using him as an example to send a message to other pastors that the U.S. legal system would not tolerate advocating child abuse. According to the criminal complaint filed against him and the prosecutor’s evidence in the trial, Caminiti encouraged his flock to spank two-month-old children for crying. This strikes me as particularly tragic, given the fact that crying is an infant’s primary means of communicating. Babies cry when they’re hungry, hot, cold, wet, frightened, or have some other urgent need—not because they’re selfish or spoiled.
Full Circle
Another big assault to the IFB structure came when two survivors contacted me to tell me that megachurch pastor “Dr.” Jack Schaap of First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana, was being accused of having a physical relationship with an underage girl. He had been exposed for misogyny on 20/20 and his tirade after the program convinced many survivors that something was seriously wrong with the man. The survivors who contacted me said the rumor was circulating among church members that he was on “sick leave,” but was really in hiding. Upon hearing that, I was sure the church had contacted the police about the incident, since the IFB exposure was so widespread now. But just to be sure, on July 30, 2012, I called the police department and the FBI and spoke to Agent Matthew Chicantek. I was shocked to find out that neither had a report on file about Schaap. Once again, we were facing a scandal on the scale of Tina’s. The next morning the police and FBI launched an investigation at the church. To my surprise, men on the church staff told the media that they had known about the relationship for a week, even holding picture evidence against Schaap. Based on all I knew about the IFB’s protocol for protecting abusers, I wondered if the girl had been harassed during that long delay. Had Jack told her to keep quiet, having already been confronted by the church? Had church members been told by Jack to keep mum too? Had they been told that their jobs would be in jeopardy if they spoke up about what they knew? Had any evidence been destroyed? If not, why hadn’t anybody called the police to report the crime? “Dr.” Jack Schaap has now plead guilty to having a sexual relationship with a minor, as well as crossing state lines for the intent of sexual conduct with a minor. As of the time of this writing, he is awaiting sentencing.
What pushed me over the edge emotionally was hearing that David Gibbs from the Christian Law Association had flown to the church and announced that he was doing an “internal investigation.” IFB leaders are notorious for claiming they will do their own internal investigations, even though they have no law-enforcement training. He encouraged all the cult members to go to him if they had any information about abuse in the church. I was appalled. David Gibbs has frequently defended IFB churches accused of cover-ups, and he is a master of PR spin. But this was a bold move even for him. Insiders reacted with the same outrage and started sending tips my way, including one about four men in law enforcement who were allegedly either members of Schaap’s church or had direct connections to him, information that I quickly passed on to the FBI. Just about every IFB college has been known to have graduates in their local police departments, so they have someone to call when they need a favor.
Social media and law enforcement working together is a relatively new experience for both and it brings its own positives and negatives. On one hand, civilians who understand the cult culture can rally more people to speak out than what would happen normally—as we put their fears about the “evil” law enforcement to rest. On the other hand, using social media enables anyone (even from within the cult) to step up and claim those who are trying to help law enforcement are lying or doing something “wrong” or “unethical.” We had our fair share of controversy as we worked to get victims to come forward, but we pressed on and made significant headway in the two weeks following the start of the investigation and, as I write this book, the case is well under way.
Life
as a Whistleblower
The IFB never stops its campaign to silence me. In recent months, BJU graduate Jon Ensminger, one of my husband’s former deans at Northland, wrote to Joseph’s boss at the university, using the old familiar cult lingo that still sends chills down my spine:
This has become an extremely ugly and public conflagration.… All I want to see is a God-honoring resolution to this conflict, and obviously a public Facebook page is not the place to do it. All I ask is that someone from [your university], or someone in the Zichtermans’ circle whom they would respect and trust, step in and try to mediate this thing.
We knew from painful experience that the IFB’s private mediations were little more than strong-arming sessions meant to force troublesome people like me to knuckle under. It seemed strange to all of us who read the e-mail that Jon hadn’t written to Matt Olson, insisting that he contact us to pursue a “God-honoring resolution to this conflict.” But neither Matt nor any of the other Northland administrators involved in any of the atrocious attacks on our family has tried to contact us in more than six years. Needless to say, Jon received no reply from Joseph’s employers.
On several occasions, IFB members have come to Joseph’s workplace to track him down and he has had to put university officials and campus security on alert. Though Northland has stayed conspicuously silent, even after all these years, someone from the cult still contacts Joseph almost every week with either a “hug” or a “slug.” We’ve seen them use every angle imaginable to attempt to insert themselves back into our lives.
Lou Martuneac, who hosts a prominent IFB blog entitled “In Defense of the Gospel,” posted the following about the Christian university where my husband teaches on the theology faculty: “[This university] is a sad and tragic example of an allegedly Christian-based school having gone over to the world. I’d suggest they drop any reference to ‘Christian’ or ‘Bible’ in its literature.… [Their] testimony … is a blight and open sore on the name of Christ and His church.”
Needless to say, Joseph never responds to any of the IFB’s attempts to contact him. And with their covert maneuvers and power plays exposed by the social media spotlight, many of the old tactics are much less effective in the lives of countless other survivors too.
After six years, we have still been unable to sell our home back in that tiny, tight-knit IFB community in Wisconsin. We have lowered the price over and over, to the bare minimum of what we need to pay off our debt, but it remains unsold. So though we’ve been able to extract ourselves from the clutches of the IFB leaders in every other way, they have still managed to create a seemingly unbreakable financial tie with us.
Joseph and I have consistently worked extra jobs since moving to Portland just to cover payments on the long empty house, losing countless hours we could have spent with our children. After this very long journey, we have concluded that there is simply no easy or amicable way to leave a cult. We’ve been attacked emotionally, financially, relationally, and spiritually—and the attacks show no signs of abating. Carolyn Jessop was right. They try to take everything from you—and they stop at nothing.
That’s why I’m telling my story in this book. Our family’s heart-wrenching journey out of the IFB is an object lesson for just about everything that’s wrong with their ideology. My goal is to shine the light as brightly as possible on all the manipulative tactics of the leaders so they can no longer use them to control others. And until everyone in the IFB is forced to fully and publicly own what they have become, just as we have had to do over the past six years, they will all still have too much to lose to stop hurting people.
17
TRACS* AND ACADEMIC FRAUD
Accrediting associations will not approve our educational process if it does not include the worship of their gods. All education is brainwashing. We wash with the pure water of God’s Word, and they wash with the polluted waters of the New Age.
—Bob Jones III
We’ve made great strides in bringing the clandestine subculture of the IFB out of the shadows and into the public eye through survivor forums, legal action, and national media attention. But we’ve still got a long, long way to go. The cult is working hard to keep the skeletons in the closet and to present the distorted “pure and Christlike” image it always strove to show the outside world. IFB organizations have spent the last four years wiping the Internet clean of sermons, audio files, and other information that could incriminate its members. Many churches have scrubbed their Web sites to hide any ties to the IFB, in an attempt to conceal who and what they really are. All this makes it harder to expose the cult.
At the Heart of IFB Abuse and Indoctrination: Bob Jones University
Even after all the breaking news stories involving inappropriate and illegal acts by Bob Jones University graduates, the school has managed to avoid the spotlight. Fortunately, numerous BJU graduates see through the spin doctors’ attempts to manipulate the facts and refuse to let the school off the hook.
When the university allowed Chuck Phelps—the man who played such an instrumental role in humiliating Tina Anderson and in effect covering up her rape—to remain on its board even after his lies on the witness stand during Tina’s case came out, cult survivors were livid. The prosecution team in New Hampshire told me that they wanted to press charges against Phelps, but the seven-year statute of limitations for obstruction of justice had elapsed. Once again, the university was backing an abuser and throwing a victim to the wolves. Finally, after months of protest by BJU graduates, Phelps was pressured into resigning.
As another slap in the face to victims, BJU continued to invite Matt Olson, a graduate of BJU, to speak at the university despite his role in taking Tina into his Colorado IFB church, which kept her from the police.
My brother Jason has been an adjunct professor at BJU, teaching students preparing for youth ministry. He holds nothing more than an unaccredited undergraduate degree from Northland International University. And even after Jason plead the fifth to abusing me, BJU has still endorsed his ministry by publishing his book, Alone with God, and they continue to sell his book in the Bob Jones University bookstore.
Now with the IFB controversy garnering national media exposure, BJU added a new rule to its 2012–2013 handbook: “Students should keep in mind that it is not acceptable to disparage BJU through media. Any attempt to do so will not be tolerated and is grounds for dismissal as a student.” BJU is sending a clear message: “Speak against us, and we’ll find a way to punish you.”
Promoting Discrimination
Bob Jones University has subtly continued its racist positions. Most recently, survivors protested one of their dorms’ names that was a dedication to the exalted Cyclops chapter president (KKK), Bibb Graves. After two years of raising awareness on the Internet, the school finally removed his name in 2011.
Its homophobic ideology is a constant assault on students. BJU has even gone so far as to tell LGBT alumni they can no longer come on the campus of their alma mater. The only place they are allowed to visit is their art gallery—that is nonprofit and available to the public.
As well, BJU continues their oppression of women, by maintaining women must be in subjugation to men. The female employees must adhere to exceptionally strict regulations on clothing, hairstyles, where they work, and where they attend church—keeping them bound to IFB patriarchal ideology—along with a myriad of other oppressive requirements. A woman’s social structure in the IFB is predetermined and decided by the university.
Curriculum Problems
Matt Olson not only believes he did right by Tina, he also continues using his influence as a university president to promote radical positions. In 2006, in a Doctor of Sacred Ministry class at Northland International University, Olson said, “I found this with all three of my kids—this may not be the way it is with yours, but if I get in their face—like this. And I’ve had to do that. I’m not saying that’s always wrong to do. Um, I spanked my daughter when she was seventeen [laugh] … and
she’ll tell you, she needed it [laugh].”
As of fall 2012, BJU’s online bookstore still advertised and promoted books by spanking gurus including Richard Fugate, the man who tells parents not to be concerned if their children end up with welts and bruises after a beating because “it is perfectly normal.”
In most IFB families, attendance at BJU or another IFB college is the only option for graduating seniors. But even students whose parents are broadminded enough to let them consider other schools can be in for a rude awakening. Some IFB high school students have discovered that their credits don’t transfer to non-IFB colleges and have been forced to go back to the drawing board to earn a GED (general equivalency diploma).
In 2008, the Association of Christian Schools International; the Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta, California; and six students sued the University of California system for violating their constitutional rights because UC deemed their high school biology coursework based on BJU and A Beka textbooks inadequate preparation for its college courses. The plaintiffs alleged that the policy set Christian school grads up for discrimination when they applied to UC. A district court in Los Angeles granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. A court of appeals upheld it, and the Supreme Court refused to review the case. In other words, the courts agreed that textbooks telling you no more than “God created many different and beautiful ferns” probably don’t prepare you for college-level botany courses at a non-IFB university.
Lacking Proper Academic Credentials and Misrepresenting Their Accreditation
Endorsing physical abuse while repressing free speech is bad enough, but BJU’s greatest Achilles’ heel is its lack of regional accreditation, the academic world’s gold standard for higher education. In the past BJU had never explained the difference between national and regional accreditation to its students. In our country, national accreditation was designed to evaluate specific types of schools and colleges. Schools apply for national accreditation when their course work is different from traditional degree programs. BJU is promoting itself to its students as a liberal arts school—offering legitimate degrees in every field of study—even though it holds only national accreditation through a Christian agency.
I Fired God Page 31