September 24, 2025 • 73 mins
Journalist Sarah Stankorb comes on the show to talk about her book, Disobedient Women, and the deep dive she did on why a series of evangelical women in America began to leave their communities as the internet came into prominence. They discuss patriarchal teachings within cultures like the Quiverfull movement, including stories like Vyckie Garrison’s, who was pressured into having repeated pregnancies that defied her doctors and put her life at risk.
They also dive into figures like Bill Gothard, who built the IBLP curricula and created a system of mini-cults across the country, the many stories of sexual abuse that were covered up by various religious organizations, and how online communities helped women share stories, band together, and begin to speak out. Plus: how figures like Doug Wilson helped push Christian nationalism from the fringes into the political mainstream.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Trust me? Do you trust me? Where I ever lead
you astray? Trust? This is the truth, the only truth.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
If anybody ever tells you to just trust them, don't
welcome to trust me. The podcast about Colt's extreme belief
and of course, manipulation from two disobedient podcasters who've actually
experienced it, and I am Lola Blanc and I'm Megan Elizabeth.
This week our guest is Sarah stan Korb, author of
Disobedient Women, a book about how women across America began
(00:32):
speaking out about abuse and evangelical communities. She's going to
talk to us about the quiverful ideology, which is the
idea of having as many children as possible to populate
the earth with patriarchal Christians, evangelical propaganda from the eighties
and nineties that encouraged women to submit to their fathers
even as adults, and then their husbands, and of course
Bill Gothard and IBLP.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
We'll discuss the patterns she's observed among these women that
have spoken out, whether this kind of SoC stemic abuse
and covering up of abuse is inherent to evangelical culture,
and the connections between some of these fundamentalist figures and
our current political system.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Fine, fine, before we talk about that, Megan, what's your
cultia thing this week?
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Okay, so most of you have probably watched unknown number
the High School Catfish on Netflix.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I have not.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
If you are one who has not, then this is
a spoiler and skip it. But oh you can't. You're
gonna spoil it for me. Okay, you're gonna get it.
And if you don't want to watch it and are
just like, what is it, here's a quick cliff notes. Basically,
a girl in a small Michigan town starts getting cyberbullied, Okay,
very very badly.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
The fifty to sixty messages a day.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Things like your boyfriend doesn't love you, your body's disgusting,
you should kill yourself. The whole community gets pulled in
because the FBI is like investigating those like kids are getting,
you know, accused, Like it's a whole ass thing, and
the families of these two kids at the center of it,
it's a girl and her boyfriend, are so concerned and
you're just like, wow, this is actually ruining these people's lives.
(02:11):
And then the reveal they follow the digital footprint. It's
very hard because this person has some sort of knowledge
because they're actually able to kind of hide it. And
it is the girl's breaking mother.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Her mother who's been interviewed this.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Entire first half and is like and I didn't know
what to do, and like and she's at the principal's
office all the time crying, and you're like.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
A good, good, oh my jaws hanging open for those
who can't see me, which is everyone.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
So there's so many things that are you know, alleged
to be true through conversations on the internet and using
her own brain while yer watching it. There's theories out
there like, well, she's a pedophile allegedly, and she was
obsessed with the daughter's boyfriend, and you know she kind
of seems to be and was sending them very graphic
sexual descriptions and her mom yeah, yeah. And then that's like, well,
(03:06):
perhaps she was an alcoholic. There was like a thousand
bottles on the table when they the police cam footage
captured her. Perhaps she's a narcissist. You know, there's people
in her family saying she always had to be the
center of attention, and it's like, all of those things
can be true. But one of the things that struck
me the most was the principle was like, this is
the principal at the school who got pulled into this
as well. I was like, this is digital Munchausen. I
(03:29):
was gonna say that, Oh, yes, so it is digital
munch House. Munchhausen is one of these really interesting yeah
dynamics that we talk about a lot on this podcast
because it is that cult of too, you know, it
is like how many people does it take to make
a cult?
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Too?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
But in this case, but she didn't even know she
was in a culture to her mom just loved the
attention because her daughter was getting victimized, and.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
So her mom loved being number one at the center
of the like, oh my god, your poor daughter. You
can see in the beginning half of the documentary she's
like glowing with all the attention something. But and like
people are like, no, the daughter must have been in
on it, because the mom was like, you should kill yourself,
you should actually actually kill yourself immediately, and it's like no,
(04:17):
a lot of moms with Munchausen will kill their child,
Like that's the ultimate yeah, that's the ultimate poor you
attention thing. And then there's the Stockholm thing at play,
where the daughter is like I can't wait for my
mom and I to have a normal relationship again. And
you're like, what the fah, Yeah, so I think we
(04:40):
will see a lot more of this.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
What's the term that they are using. Oh, it's like,
uh use factitious disorder imposed on another fdiatitious not And
then some people, I believe we're all also calling it
like medical child abuse or something. Okay, but anyway, different
terms for Munchausen by proxy. Yes, yes, but that totally
(05:06):
makes sense in a way. I'm like, well, at least
they're not physically killing the child. But then it's like, okay,
but if you're emotionally destroying the child and or putting
them in harm's way by encouraging who is that?
Speaker 5 (05:19):
You know?
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Like, yeah, that's not better.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
And like basically, you know, the the text are like
a molesting of sort.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
So yeah, yeah, horrible, horrible.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
I'm so glad I don't have to watch these documentaries
because you do all the watchable for me, the watching
for you. And indeed, I've done a rewatch, so are
you already? Yeah, I just.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Wants the And you know what, WELLA I knew the
twist because I'd read it in the news, but I
still was like, surely they're going to pull that twist
where it's like an actor playing the mom and she's
gonna be like, I'm not actually Lauren's. But this woman
was like, I am the mom. We all make mistakes
and you're like, oh.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
My god, oh no, yeah, wow, yeah that I mean,
I think you're right. I think that is probably going
to become more common, which is horrifying.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Like, be careful out there, guys. What's your cultiest thing
of the week.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Just another just another culty person on the internet claiming
to have special powers.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
I don't even think I should say their name because
I feel like it gives them attention, So I'm not
going to.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
I'm just going to describe them. This is in itself
very interesting the description.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Okay, so this person I believe is a man but
describes themself but I don't know what pronouns are using
because they purposely make it ambiguous because they claim to
be an alien and the way that they present themselves
is completely shaved head, completely shaved eyebrows.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
He looks exactly like the guy from Barry.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Oh my god, yes oh he does, yeah, yes, and
his eyes are so blue. I'm wondering if it's contacts,
there's earrings, there's like there's like a uniform. And he
does this thing where he's so strange looking. He does
this thing where he like stares into camera and kind
of like he's a lot like Benton Home.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Masorrow or whatever.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, Like he stares into camera and tells you about
his special powers and about how stuff is happening on
Earth and he's been sent here to do something or
other with some kind of mission. And it's so silly
looking that like I first saw this person. I don't
even remember how they came up on my feet. I
first saw this person and I was like, well, this
(07:39):
is obviously like everybody on this page knows that this
is insane. Yeah, but then of course you look and
I'm like two people I know follow them on ironically,
and the comments are all like like six hundred comments.
We are locked in time for the unseen to be
seen is about time and to the matrix. Welcome the
New Earth and all species. We out here anchoring the
(08:03):
frequencies and it's just over and overget and love you, bro.
We in this spiritual battle together as a team. Always
it's always there's like a battle happening on Earth, and
this alien ass dude is gonna give us all the answers.
It's endlessly fascinating to me that when these people come
up and so many people are like, no, for sure, no,
(08:25):
that seems true.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
You're an alien?
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Definitely, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean at least levite or something.
If something shape shift in front of my eyes.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
So if you just.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Shave your head and eyebrows and you look a little weird,
m blue contacts, blue contract boom, that's what aliens look like.
And that really does bring into question, you know, like
is this somebody having a like an episode or is
this just somebody who's a grifter. But I look at
their other posts and I'm like, I think definitely grifter.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Because the other posts are like just basically.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Trying to be a regular ass influencer, Like look at
my outfit, love, my I found true love, you know,
my alien spiritual partner whatever. Like they're all like buying
for attention, just in every other possible way you could
do that as an influencer, except that they're also an
alien who's saving the world.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Is their partner in alien?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
I didn't go deep enough to know, but she doesn't
have shaved anything.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Okay, so then she must be from Earth. Goron is
the character he looks like from Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
It's really funny actually, I mean it's a great look.
Like you know, if you were playing on stage and
you look like that, I'd be like, hell, yah, you
look cool.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Yeah. It's a cool striking yeah, very memorable.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Yeah, but it.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Is a little bit scary how you really can just
kind of say anything, you can kind of.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
See anything, and if you like, look the part and
say it with confidence.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
Boom.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
And it's online and people share it boom boom.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
Oh so many of these people. Now, it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Technology has done wonders for aspiring cult leaders, true narcissists
in general.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah, I feel I should add here really quickly that
my debut album, Crowd Pleaser is out now.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
It is available wherever you get.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Your music, and I did it completely independently, no label,
no management, and I'm really really proud of it.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
And there are culty themes on it.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
There are songs about belief and Charlatan's billionaire greed as
well as just love and loss.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
And I would really.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Appreciate it if you would give it a listen, a stream,
a download, a share, a save, a like, a whatever.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
It would mean so much to me.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Okay, well, shall we talk to Sarah and get to
the bottom of her book, Disobedient Women.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
Let's get to the bottom of it.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Some of the content in today's episode could be triggering,
so please take care listening.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Welcome Sarah stan Korb to trust Me. Thanks for joining
us today.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Thank you, Oh so excited to be.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Here, excited to have you. So your book Disobedient Women.
We have both been reading it. It is jam packed
with these incredible stories. And before we kind of start
to get into the stories, I would love to know
what brought you to this and if you could talk
a little bit about that journey all.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Do you want the short version or the long version.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Of maybe the long version, what's maybe a medium media version.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Yeah. So I was a really religious kid. I was
a very Christian kid. I lost my faith in my
twenties and then the year's zeros on list working as
a reporter has sort of stumbled into a story about Oh,
(11:59):
thank you here, and she's in chapter one and I
learned about this woman and who is part of something
called the Quiverle movement and learned about her life, how
many kids she had, how restrictive her life had been,
and she was just kind of sharing about her life
(12:20):
on the internet. And then I found other women sharing
about their lives in these extreme Christian cultures. Yeah, this
has been a rabbit a hole that I started falling
down probably in twenty fourteen, and I'm still in it.
And I feel like now the country's waking up to
(12:41):
see just how unfortunately relevant Christian patriarchy is to our
current situation.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
I mean, although maybe there's a backlash to that happening already,
which we can talk about later. But how did you
lose your faith? I mean, can you just tell a
little bit about that journey?
Speaker 1 (13:02):
So it was probably a mix of a couple of things. First,
I was a Methodist kid, and my best friend and
became very evangelical started to take me to a I
Will study and I was presented with this very literalist
version of the Bible, which I had never encountered before,
(13:24):
and I think in a lot of ways I had
damage things for me. And later when I went on
to study religion and realized, well, this thing can't possibly
be literal. It's drawn from so many different groups and
cultures and time periods. It just wouldn't stay together. That
I was part of it. And then as a very
(13:45):
Methodist youth, I went to the youth anual Conference, which
is a very Methodist sort of representative group that you
get sent off to for a long weekend. And this
was right when the United Methodist Church was first starting
to grapple with being accepting a crew people. And there
(14:08):
was a very small minority of us in the room
that we're hoping we could be accepting. And I just
remember sitting in this room and seeing someone in my
age quoting the Bible, or at least what he thought
the Bible said, an actual spit coming out of his mouth,
and so much anger, and we can vote either to
(14:30):
support queer people or not. In this room, like the
vast majority of the room stood up against loving our
friends and neighbors, and that I was one of very
few who stood up to support folks. And I just
I thought, if this is if this is Christianity, I
don't know.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Yeah, it makes sense, makes sense.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
You write really beautifully about the grief that comes with
losing your faith, and yeah, I think that's just an
important thing to note it's a very painful process too.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
It's almost like a breakup. Yeah, no, it is. And
so I actually just turned in the manuscript for my
second book, which is about women leaving the church. So
I've spent in years and then especially this last year,
talking to women about what we left. And it's a
(15:27):
break up. It's peeling off part of your identity and
it is usually very, very painful. You don't do that.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Lately, yeah, I mean it's such a big part of
your life and your sense of self and your community
and just like everything about you. I mean, yeah, we
talk about it a lot on this podcast, how much
our belief systems are a part of our identity, and
we don't realize how painful it is to lose a
chunk of who you believe that you are and how
you believe that the world works. I mean it's really yeah,
(15:58):
a grief process for sure. Yeah. So we've talked about
the Quiverbile movement on this podcast a little bit, but
reading your book, I got a lot more insight into
the details, some of which were just so crazy.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
Can you just tell us a little bit about what
that is?
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Yes, So this is an idea that was popularized by
peopil like the Gothard. If you're a listeners are familiar
with happy, shiny people, but are also some female figures
that sort of have not been the future of a
series yet late is Campbell and Mary Pride. So it
(16:41):
was this idea that it is Christian's duty to create
an army for God. That you are filling your quiver
and our armist children, and this will help populate the
country with Christians, this will help politically. There are there
a lot of reasons why you would do this. For
(17:04):
the women, though it's sold as being in Christian servants,
you use your body. God gave you this womb. If
you do not accept every child God could give you,
you're going against God's well. So breath control bad of course,
no abortion. And also part of this, and this is
(17:28):
a vaky story, was this idea that well, not everyone
can be a missionary who goes abroad, but you can
be a missionary at home. Yeah, and even if it
puts your own life at risk, well then you become
a murder for God. Shoot.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Yeah, the martyr thing starts to come into play. Can
you tell us a little bit more about Vicky Garrison.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
So she had child all the after child. And I
think the way she describes her period of having baby
after a baby, I've heard from a lot of women,
either as mothers themselves or the oldest daughter who ended
up taking care of all these subsequent children. Right, because
(18:14):
the mother's exhausted, she's pregnant, she's a nurse, saying her
body never heals, and so in Vickie's case, she had
need to re rupture. She also thought she needed to
have these babies at home with the a medal engine.
So she was just so thin, so depleted. She had
a doctor's telling her like, this is not safe, and
(18:37):
her midiwife telling her to, you know, go ahead, keep
doing it.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
So the doctor's like, literally, it will. It is dangerous
to you. You're putting yourself in danger by having more children.
But everything in her community is saying, no, this is
your duty.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
You have to do that.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Also in her community people, but correct me if I'm wrong,
because this might be a different story. But we're saying, like,
when you're breastfeeding, your body is going to protect you
from becoming pregnant immediately, so it's going to give you
this like grace period. And that's simply not true. So
that was just a dangerous propaganda lie that tricked people
(19:11):
into having more children.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah, so in her case, she nearly died
mm hmm. And like what would what would have happened
to all of these children? Right? So, And the other
side of this is like you're having all these kids,
you're also supposed to be submissive to your husband. And
(19:34):
if you are in a bad situation where that power
goes to the man's head or he was already inclined
to be abusive anyway, there's no escape. They can't work.
That's in their minds against God as well, and there's
no time because they're constantly having babies, right, So it's
(19:56):
it's related.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
It's very sad, yeah, because with in this belief system,
the husband is the authority within the family, so you
must listen to the husband in order to.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Be obedient to God, right Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I do hear stories like this a lot in various
kinds of fundamentalist communities where if the husband is abusive,
Like it's not like these systems are always telling the
men to be abusive, but if the man is abusive, exactly,
he's the one in charge and there's really no recourse
because the women are supposed to listen to the husband.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yes, yes, and often like as you get deep from
the book. This sentence of elevated authority also exists within
their churches. Right, so when they even if they do
report abuse, the pastor feels empowered to be the one
to deal with it. Right, so it's handled in house
(20:52):
and making quotes, which means it's not handled, it's not reported, right, right.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I think there was a number regarding the amount of
children that Christians should have to alter, like the percentage
of Christians in the population was it?
Speaker 4 (21:20):
Was it eighty? What was the goal?
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Can you tell me again? So this comes from Mary Pride,
the anti feminist I mentioned. So her formula was eight
Christians or twenty percent of the population. The each Christian
family had six children, and the humanists of feminists, now
they kept on having an average one. Then in twenty
(21:42):
years there would be sixty of us for every forty
of them. In forty years, ninety percent of America would
be Christians. Right, So I like that pro natalist thing
that we're seeing now, it's not new.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Yeah, it makes me want to become a pro natalist
for feminists, because I'm like, well.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
They can't outnumber us.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Nola's gonna have six children.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, that idea of this like Christian supremacy, we have
to take over. You know, the country's only virtuous if
it's all Christian. I mean, it's so scary to me, Like, sure,
have babies, if you want to have babies, but like, why,
what's the goal? The goal is to take over the
nation and the government. And you know, like there's just
(22:27):
this like nefarious undertone to all of that that I
find alarming. I also wrote down some names of some
of the books and movies that you wrote about in
your book, because I am not familiar with this culture,
and I find it absolutely fascinating.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
And absolutely fascinating that it was like one of the
highest grossing movies I know.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Okay, yeah, so here, I'm just gonna list them off,
and if if you have anything particular to say about
any of them, please But the way home beyond feminism,
back to reality at home, there was a DVD called
Training Dominion Oriented Daughters Horrifying. There was a film called
(23:08):
The Monstrous Regiment of Women and in it Jenny Chancey
is that who was Jenny Chancey? I think so explains
that quote. God created men for leadership, and he clearly
tells us in his word that when women are in leadership,
it's a sign of a curse upon a nation. Wow,
(23:29):
how big is the market for these types of materials?
Speaker 1 (23:33):
So, okay, this is one of these things. I get
very nerdy. So this is there. So a lot of
those that media was funneled through something called Vision Forum,
which was I feel find amalast in the nineties. So
(23:54):
this is like a pre internet, early internet, people would
get a physical catalog in the mail and if you
Google you can still find some of these catalogs. So
it's just page after page basically anti woman, biblical generals propaganda.
So books, films, toys like the toys crack me up.
(24:18):
What are the toys? They're warlike for the boys? Basically
the girls get dolls. That's what you do for a
roll because you're gonna become a mother and have all
these kids. Right, So that that was the stream back then.
Then the Phillips fell all due to a sex handle. Now,
if you've been if you've been on the internet and
(24:41):
seen the CNN interview with Douglas Wilson recently, it's had
a few things to say about women voting spree any bells, Yes, yeah,
So he I think is the inheritor of the desire
for these sort of media properties. He is a pastor
(25:03):
out in Moscow, Idaho, who started a christ church there,
started a Keith through twelve school called Logos. He started
a college called New Sandie Andrews. He started a seminary
program called Grave Ores. He started to published a house
called Can't Impress, which has produced books such as the
(25:25):
Case for Christian Nationalism. So there's also streaming service. There
are a lot of entities attached to Wilson. He most
recently was on CNN, where he was intributed by his
views concerting in Christian nationalism and women. Some of his
accolades talked about, how you know, householder voting is probably
(25:50):
the way in a Christian nation we should go, Oh
that it is usually the mayan votes for the whole family,
and maybe the nineteenth Amendment should be a repeal. That's
that's that's the world in which that Wilson exists. He's
extremely attractive to a certain type of listener. He has
(26:12):
this kind of like philosopher King error. Every November on
his blog he does something he calls no quarter November
where he writes mean blog posts about people for a
month and then packages it and sells it as an anthology.
What Yes. The lead up to that he they produce
(26:37):
video trailers where he sets fire to something, So the
idea is that he is in Syndi here. So he
set fire to a trunk, a boat. A couple of
years ago, he had a flanthrower. The ed he set
fire to cut out of a couple of Disney princesses. Wow.
(26:58):
And then they sell the flamethrower through cannon breath. This
whole thing's a huge moneymaker. Yeah, but it also inductions
people and is attractive to certain type of families, a
certain type of man. And within this he also teaches
(27:20):
women it must be submissive to their husbands. And within
the book there are stories about how the up plays out. Again,
these are women, some who are never taught that they
were able to say no. So when you're put into
a situation where you are obligated to submit, it can
(27:44):
be awful. And I'll give you the length to the
vice story. There are a number of alarming stories attached
to Wilson, but right now he is mostly the news
because christ Church has planted a church in Washington, DC,
which haig Seth is attending, and it's creating a lot
(28:07):
of you, Pete haig Seth, Yeah, and it's creating a
lot of ruts.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
And for those who are bad at history, like me,
the Nineteenth Amendment is what gave women the right to vote,
and he is trying to repeal that so that women
cannot vote anymore, so that their fathers or husbands decide
for them.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah. On CNN, it was one of the other pastors
who brought who talked about the nineteenth Amendment. But yes,
in this world, there are plenty of pastors who are
if you searched their names, they would like to reveal
the Nineteenth Amendment. They say that women having the right
(28:44):
to vote has adam eyed the American family. Basically, women
can have a view separate from their husbands and that
it's a problem. So he has his own published house
treetening service. They have documentaries about how to raise is
it in a world that he's meant to be more
(29:06):
mainly it is the next generation. But you don't have
to buy DD now. You can just subscribe to the
streaming service and get your propaganda.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
That one well, and and or just go on social
media and go on yeah, TikTok, right, I imagine. I mean
that's not what my algorithm shows me, but I imagine
there are quite a few people who are getting that
kind of content in their algorithm.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Yes, is there one of these like evangelical books or
films that really stands out to you as like, whoa,
that's the craziest I'm.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Trying to remember if it's the book or there was
a book and a film. So Return of the Daughters
something that was very meaningful for some women. Any Yeah,
and this was at the time fringe, but it completely
changed the way people approach raising their girls into grown women.
(30:05):
And the idea is, until you come of age and
are married, you are to be a stay at home daughter,
so you're under your father's authority. When you do get
married to a man that your father has approved of,
then you move under your husband's authority. So this created
(30:26):
lots of andy excuses for not educating girls and not
sending them off to college where they learn about feminism
and Marxism and all of the scary things that are
out there. Instead, keep them home, keeps them safe, keeps
them from being exposed. To an external world that may
teach them there are some other value. And I think
(30:51):
for the families that will watch that film, it just
it changes the structure of their daughter's lot.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Wait, what was called return a return of the daughters's
book or that there was a part of book and film.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
They basically said the same thing.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
It sounds like a sequel to a horror film or something.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Yes, it does. And stay at home daughter? That is diabolical.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah, how prevalent is that idea in evangelical culture? Now, so,
wholl have you heard of childwives?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
So I did an article. I wrote an article for
l that I think published in May. And in the
article I interviewed a group of women and then a
woman who's like standalone former child wives. So they were
not necessarily raised with the terms stay at home daughter.
(31:51):
Some were familiar with it, some of their families got
these catalogs. But they were raised to believe they need
to be some miss to their father until they got
married and that would be submissive to husband. And what
they weren't on TikTok, they weren't on Instagram. They what
(32:12):
it was like to be a submissive woman. They just
lived it. So there's probably a gradient skill of what
that submission looks like. The more extreme end is this
model where we actually use the terms home daughter, but
the idea that you have to submit to your father
(32:34):
until you submit your husband. That's baked into a lot
of the Christian rite.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Which brings me to Bill Gothard and the IBLP. We've
talked about them a bit, but can you give us
a refresher on who he is and what that was.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
So they'll goth I hate to call people's teachers like
they talked about their teachings. It was a nineteen seventies, eighties,
nineties Christian influencer, so he also had his own publishing house.
He opened training centers all over the country a few
(33:13):
other places around the world. He was the head of
a parachurch organization, so he did not lead a church. Instead,
he offered his teachings by way of books or lecturesey
he get as a DVD and chows your church, and
he also hosted conferences. One of his big moneymakers was
(33:35):
his role with homeschool movement, so he was publishing house
created curricula that basically did not educate these kids, but
purported to be biblical and in this way he was elevated,
as some people have called it, an evangelical pope. People
(33:58):
outside this world had no idea who this man was.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
How convenient for him? Right right? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Yeah, But then when the duggers ended up on KLC,
we had handy poster children for what it is to
be a quippable woman, what it's like to impose obedience
on many many children, dress conservatively, live in the way
(34:27):
that he had been teaching families to do for years.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
I hadn't heard about the vast sectomy reversal thing.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
Can you talk about that?
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Yeah? So this is along that same logic that you
should not block God's blessings. God there encourage people to
either reverse having their tubes side or usually if it's
at me of reversals, and then these kids, these reversal
(34:59):
be babies will be paraded across the stage at his conferences.
At times there were enough to a whole hires of
versiectory reversal children who owed their lives to bothered frequencing
their parents to keep having these babies.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Just for reference, can you tell us how many people
are at these conferences?
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Thousands?
Speaker 3 (35:22):
It's like a stadium full of like it's a rock concert.
But and then there's like a choir full of vasectomy
reversal babies. Like, let's really take a beat and think
about how many people that is and how crazy it is.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
It's so crazy.
Speaker 5 (35:45):
Why these were like people who had in many cases
already had a good number of children and were like, whoa,
we did that, And then their you know, belief system
is telling them, no, you have to keep going.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Doesn't matter if you're it doesn't matter if you've reached
your capacity or if you're in pain or whatever, like.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
No more money.
Speaker 4 (36:06):
Yeah, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
There's no consideration for like the quality of life of
the children as well. They're just that's never a part
of the equation, like if you can afford it, if
you're going to be healthy, if you're gonna be able
to take care of them, Like that's never doesn't matter.
We don't care about how the children actually are. We
just as long as there's souls on the earth.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Also, how you point out in the book that they
have all this propaganda about like there's plenty of room
in the world from our children, Like you could fit
the whole wide world into Jacksonville, Florida with everybody having
a foot of space, and it's like, who wants that?
What are you talking about? Like you need resources and stuff.
It's just the logic is so circular and flawed and
(36:45):
annoying and yeah, annoying and like but in a way
that makes me annoying is not the correct No, but
I understand.
Speaker 4 (36:57):
It's it's fucked up, fucked up.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Yeah. Well, and just like talking to these folks, the
things they miss, just like even just educationally, like forget
that not having access to health care, forget the poverty,
forget all of that. Many lived through educational neglecte. They
had these wisdom booklets. It supposedly can hate everything you'd
(37:24):
ever need to learn from the sermon on the Mound.
But I didn't learn science or I didn't learn bad
and the trajetary. When you meet a girl who was told, well,
you're going to be a mommy, and maybe you need
to learn just enough that you can present homeschool curricula,
(37:45):
maybe by video. That's that's your potential, even when they
get away from it. And I've interviewed women who thought
tooth and nail to get out and get an education.
The amount of time and energy they have to spendfully
in holes they didn't even know they had history.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
Yeah, about science, it's very no, every person deserves the
right to know that they're horrible at mouth.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
I was gonna say I got gaps in history too,
and that's just because of my own brain.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
But yeah, no, it's so true, and just setting them
up for a life where it's just circular.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
You know, what else can you do? How can you leave?
Speaker 4 (38:35):
It's a closed system.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
There's no understanding of how anything works outside of your system,
So why would you even know to question it and
question that authority like it's a perfect way to keep
people controlled and powerless, to prevent them from getting educated
violently angry.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
When I was reading your book and reading some of
the stories you wrote about Bill Gothard's victims, for a
second I thought that it was one of our former guests,
Lindsay Williams, because it was so similar, and then realized, oh, right,
they're just he just did this to so many girls
like this. It is the same story over and over
again because he did it to so many girls. And
(39:13):
for those who don't know what I'm referencing, do you
want to just explain what I'm talking about?
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Yeah, so part of Goth's influence was that he would
he would tell people eat it, how to dress, and
his description of how to dress was supposedly what was godly,
so long hair short and cut to the skirt. And
then years later, as people started to share stories of
(39:40):
harassment and assault within his training centers where these young
young kids were sent to work for free with Gothard,
it seems he had a type and he had these
patterns of behavior that just the grooming process is repeated
(40:02):
over and over, and it was chilling to me. You're
reporting on this, realizing that the foot as people gave
me photos of what they look like, then that they
fit how he was telling women to dress themselves like
he had a type, and even his books, even the
(40:25):
way he asked people telling them this is godly.
Speaker 5 (40:30):
Like.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
The grooming didn't start at the training center. The grooming
started way way back when their parents were the church
basement watching his babyds.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
So this is like a pervert who decided to start
an army of girls that were his type for.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
Him to sectually harass and inappropriately touched.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
And whether that was his initial motive, that is what
the allegation show happened.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Right, allegedly, yes, right, what is your take on how
much of these kinds the stories of chronic abuse is
endemic to evangelical Christianity versus just oh, this is just
how humans are. Sometimes there'll be people who abuse their power,
Like how much of it do you think comes from
the actual system and belief?
Speaker 1 (41:15):
That is a question no one has asked me. So.
Within American evangelicalism, the process for becoming a leader is
usually something based upon charisma. It's a tangible gifts of
(41:35):
personality that people can point to and say, oh, God
gave you that. I'm going to follow you because of
these gifts. So it does not necessarily mean any theological background, certainly,
no bichronity counseling. So yeah. End of the people of
a certain personality type often rather a narcissista. Often, how
(42:04):
should I put this, they too believe God put them
in this position.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
Right, a little bit of megalomania going on?
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Yeah, so, and that's your sture. And then within it
you have people who truly, truly want to be good
for God. They're so desperate to be good in the
eyes of God they will follow a person that they
think has this bit of God's blessing, right, and so
(42:34):
that I creates a huge vulnerability, and then you have
someone who's been elevated. Whenever there are other credentials, they
are elevated. And I think it's it's a situation that
at like the husbands who you know, maybe they're abusive,
maybe they're not. But if you're gonna be abusive and
you end up in this situation, the abuse magnifies. If
(42:57):
you're gonna be your presator in your a physician that
you seem to be the mouth piece for God, the
fdation expans all sorts of directions. And then I think
like the additional layer is a fear of exposing the
wrongdoing of these people that so many people have put
(43:19):
trust into because well, you'll crush their faith, right, Well,
well there's the cause for the church. And so even
when there is evidence, people don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
Yeah, and that's something I think you can probably speak
to Megan with the two White twos. My thought is that,
like I think you know that charisma elevates people in
all spheres of life because I think we as humans
are just drawn to someone who has that special thing
and is acting with confidence and seems to know what
(43:52):
they're talking about. Like, I don't necessarily think that that
is exclusive to Christianity or anything, but it does seem
that like one within any blue system where you believe
that one person is talking directly to God. I mean,
that's going to just like it's ripe for someone to
just step in and begin abusing people because they immediately
(44:13):
have this mystical level of authority.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
And even just like anyone who has special knowledge of anything,
like we're in Los Angeles, the acting teachers are like
some of the most abusive people on the planet in
this totally because I have the secret of how to act.
And it's like, bitch, now you don't.
Speaker 4 (44:31):
Yeah, I mean, Keith Vaniery, you have special knowledge.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
Yeah yeah, but that like special knowledge person seems to
be such a crucial thing.
Speaker 4 (44:42):
And yeah, this world is just rife.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
With not only people with special knowledge, but men with
special knowledge who tend to take.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
It up a notch.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
And I think I'm sorry to interrupt, Lolla, please go ahead,
but I think a really good rate on that is
a well trained wife, remember Tarah Lovings. Yes, yeah, so anyway, yeah, continue, No,
I was just.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
Saying, I like, what does seem unique to me is
maybe the like inherent patriarchal structure where women aren't allowed
to have authority and just statistically abuses much more often
committed by men. And then when women are not allowed
to speak up and not allowed to have you know,
like they don't have any authority within this system, that
(45:24):
I guess is, yeah, it makes it more likely that
it will happen or it will go un addressed.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
One other element I was listening to an old interview
with Martin E. Marty the Theology any Studio Angelicals for
Yours and he said something like evangelicals present into the
world that they are trying to turn us back to traditions.
(45:53):
But they are usually better than the people around them
at using the new media of their time. Someone that's
Billy Graham on the radio, or it's it's on Instagram,
or it's Phil Cloth, or back when it was you
know Aki DVDs.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
Or it's Amy, Yes, what's her name, Amy's simple mccherson.
Go listen to that episode y'all with Claire Hoffman. But yeah,
they're so smart at using the newest media.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
And so this scale will expand.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Yeah, the newest media while keeping you in the oldest
timey clothes.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Yeah, repackaging oppressive tradition and making it seem shiny and
new and.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
Exciting, and it's really weird.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
Why do you think so many women started talking about
how abusive this was at the same time.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Uh, the Internet. Yeah, honestly it was the Internet. Yes,
it's like what we saw all with me too and
church too. It was happening years before on these blogs.
Like for sure, abuse has been happening within churches for generations.
(47:07):
It happens all sorts of places. But in this case,
people who left came of age, and many of them
were just the right age to be a little pissed
off at their parents and I want to open up,
and maybe they needed a community or maybe they just
needed to tell someone what happened to them. And then
(47:30):
these networks of some people's similar experiences started to pop up,
and so they saw it. It wasn't just me. It
wasn't just me who got the ship be out of me,
because James Dobson said, that's how you're going to save
my soul. Not just me who is trapped with my
(47:51):
abusive families, Not just me who wasn't allowed to date.
So not just me, if he carries so much shame
around my body. So all these not just means came
together and then they were able to create a vocabulary
around what happened to them. And that's when they started
to say this is systemic, Like these laws are not
(48:14):
just my one pastor in my one church. It's this
narrative that was through all these books that our parents
were reading. And then they're able to pointing out like
Christian patriarchy is the problem, purity culture is one of
the problems. Cover up of abuse is one of these problems.
(48:36):
And don't I don't know if I don't think people
would have been able to create those then diagrams without
each of them stepping up and sharing their stories.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
Yeah, I definitely experienced the like women's Facebook group era,
but you talk about some women who it was blogs,
it was like what were some of the different formats
where these women started to share their stories with each other.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
So a big one for the younger folks was homeschoolers anonymous,
So that it was and like that's super relevant now
as we see these attacks on public education. But these
were the kids were raised to be the cultural warriors,
like their generation was supposed to be the Joshua generation
(49:26):
and take over the country. And like once they we
should adulthood answered a question what they had been taught,
then they were able to start taking through like huh,
what did you learn of us slavery? Because when I
learn of US slavery was pretty messed off them. So
that was one recovering grace is where the allegations against
(49:51):
bilkgthored bubbled up. And I mean that was initially a
website where people just talked about a being an ATI kid,
an Advanced Training Institute kid. No one really expected that
these allegations were going to service, let alone that it
would have this quality where it was. I saw similar
(50:15):
one story after another, I think another one which was
bless of you know, a agamation of many voices. Kristaph Brown,
who was to be a survivor within the Southern Baptist Convention.
Once she came forward, she started to be overwhelmed by
(50:38):
a number of other people's stories and SBC would not
share our internal list, at least within Texas that she
knew existed.
Speaker 4 (50:48):
That's the church network that she.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Was sorry, the Southern Baptist Convention, So the largest evangelical
body in the country, okay, had a list of incredibly
accused predator pastors within the state of Texas that she
knew existed, and they would not open up so that
churches could not so parents could know. So she wrote
(51:13):
an off ahead saying this isn't right. And then people
started to email her and call her saying this happened
to me. And so over the years, as she got
these stories, she collected publicly available documents and just listed
them because SBC still has not created the database. Incredibly,
(51:37):
these pastors, they're members voted for the most comprehensive list
we have from the internal investigation about Honestly, that's based
on what Krista Brown spend years of her life compiled.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
And when women like her do come forward and say,
here are all these people who've been abusing women or
girls or children, whatever, what are the patterns in terms
of how some of these organizations respond.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
Uh. Well, Either if it's a single abuse victim, it's
her fault. If it's a group of survivors or their
families coming forward, there are a threat to the institution.
There may be some satanic influence that's driving them. That's
(52:30):
what they're used. With Christa when she was first coming
forward with laughed at in a meeting with Baptist leaders
like it's this Isabelle mentality. And I think many of these,
especially the sexual assault victims, maybe we're teenagers when this happened,
(52:56):
and somehow that equates with it having been her fault,
so excuse after excuse. There are cases a Jules Woodson
when she came forward the pastor who had assaulted her
confessed in front of his church. And there's a pattern
(53:18):
because when the pastor confesses, so many times are you
give in a standing ovation? Wow, good for you for confessing. Wow,
yeah wow, I get this redemption.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
And I would assume many of those same people continue
to reoffend.
Speaker 3 (53:34):
Yeah, I will say in the two by two church,
there's this very kind of way about it where it'll
be like, yeah, that happened to you. We believe, we
completely believe you, but shut up because you're going to
ruin the one true way from spreading, so like, suck
it up, forgive them they were wrong, You're not lying,
(53:58):
but shut up. And that is equally as say.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that seems like a really common
response or just this idea that like, well, we can't
let the world know what's going on, because we.
Speaker 3 (54:12):
Can't tarnish the truth of Gods and the gospel spread. Yeah,
so just like, shut up it happened, set it up,
move it along.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
Right.
Speaker 3 (54:25):
There was one girl that was like so abused in
the two by two church. He he like choked her
for so long that she can barely walk now.
Speaker 4 (54:38):
Because she got an oxic brain injury.
Speaker 3 (54:40):
Yes, and she has still been called upon to forgive him.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (54:47):
Yeah, so it doesn't end. There is no point where
the man is beyond forgivable. You're always expected to forgive.
They're always repentable, right.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
I guess when you're when the belief system like tells
you that sins can all be absolved through repentance and
forgiveness and forgiveness, then it doesn't leave room for the
reality that people who are sexual predators don't just stop
being sexual predators and need to be kept from doing
(55:25):
that physically prevented from continuing to harm people. I mean
that those just those ideas just are incompatible. So I
guess it makes sense if that's your belief system, that
you would think, well, God will just remove that sin
from him and then he won't do it anymore.
Speaker 1 (55:40):
Yeah. Yeah, and there is that also.
Speaker 3 (55:43):
Sorry, we're just having a little discussion, but yeah, there
is that also, just like and this life doesn't really
like matter. It's really short, it's fleeting. It's all about eternity.
So like, just chill out. It's not a big deal. Life.
Speaker 4 (55:56):
Heaven's on its ways.
Speaker 3 (55:58):
Like just let's keep marching forward for truth in God's
perfect way and.
Speaker 4 (56:04):
The end right, ramble over.
Speaker 1 (56:10):
It's not leo like the number of There's a story
from Sovereign Grace Ministries last year with a mother whose
child like toddler, was molested by a teenager within the
(56:30):
church and she was pressured to meet with and for
him this young man. And I mean, I have a
catalog of horrible stories people have told me, but this
mother talking about her baby's reaction to seeing him, and
(56:51):
her scrambling around like hiding under the chair, for pulling
this kid up, because there's still that part of her
like she's still really in the church, she still wants
don't do the right thing. Yeah, this is what I
have to do. And then years later, living with him
memory and breaking down telling me like I can't believe
(57:13):
I did this, that she put her kids. Really she
went through it too that I have pressure to reconcile,
Like I mean, maybe if you sin, you need to
see God's forgiveness, But I do not think it is
appropriate to demand forgiveness anyone, right, let alone a child
(57:36):
and their mother.
Speaker 4 (57:38):
No, that is so sad.
Speaker 3 (57:41):
And one of the points that I think you made
really well in this book is just that like a
lot of the people who are abused are not sexually educated,
so they don't even know that they're abused until much
later in life when somebody else is like Bill Gothard
was praying by me, touching my hair and stroking my
shoulder and blah blah blah blah blah and stroking my breast,
(58:01):
and they're like, he did that to me too. I
thought it was like grandfatherly because I didn't even My
brain wasn't even attuned to that being inappropriate.
Speaker 1 (58:10):
And then suddenly they have a new.
Speaker 3 (58:13):
Narrative about what happened to them, and people are like, well,
why didn't you say it sooner?
Speaker 1 (58:19):
It's just like, yeah, yeah, they don't have the vocabulary.
And I think a lot of that is intentional, of course,
like for the young people whose families really beat them
with felts, or Dell rods or any number of implements,
(58:39):
because that is how you deal with a quote unquote
strong will child. When they had to wear long sleeves
to hide the bruises, and it was for the best
that they were homeschooled, so you know, there wouldn't be
a teacher who could report it. And they have these
childhoods of repeated trauma with the people they love and
(59:02):
trust the most who are hitting them over and over
because the parents think that that's what God requires of them. Yes, right,
And no one knows how to talk about chield abuse
since that now you get rheta right now that it's
like drag queen brunches or whatever.
Speaker 2 (59:20):
That's what the abuse of children is. Yeah, like a
drag man existing you're a child.
Speaker 1 (59:24):
Yeah yeah. And so to have ongoing perpetual physical right punishment.
Speaker 2 (59:30):
Right, What have you noticed in terms of patterns about like,
and I guess we kind of touched on it a
little bit, but like, what has it taken for many
of these women to come forward against these communities that
they've been so much a part of, just like hearing
other women's stories and feeling supported, Like, what are the commonalities.
Speaker 1 (59:52):
I think some of it is finding other people realizing
this has happened to other peop people. For an alarming number,
it's witnessing the self harm or suicide of friends who
had a similar upbreaking, like they know how much they hurt,
(01:00:17):
but to see someone you care about gone do to
all of this, that can be a real motivating force.
For some it's they're the oldest sister, or they got out,
but their little sister is still there and their family
(01:00:37):
won't talk to them, they're her uncle, whatever. But if
they can have a place for the kids to land,
if they can warn not other people. I think mostly
what I'm seeing now, when I'm hearing now is a
lot of people saying I feel like I love the
(01:01:00):
cult and all my country has joined it. They're seeing
the rise of Christian nationalism. They're seeing this draw of figures.
There's so much like the ones that their parents followed,
and it scares the hell out of them. They know
(01:01:21):
what they lost getting out, and they don't want that
future for our country.
Speaker 4 (01:01:28):
Yeah, yeah, nor do we?
Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
Nor do we? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
I mean what I guess maybe this is a different conversation,
but do you have any like cliff notes version of
the way that Christian nationalism is becoming such a mainstream
part of American politics right now.
Speaker 4 (01:01:55):
I mean, I know it's for reaching and widespread.
Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
I think guilt want just given the recent awareness of
Doug Wilson and that our Secretary of Defense is part
of his church network, that he that Hagsath has his
children in the classical Christian in school, that that layer
(01:02:20):
of influence, and then seeing Wilson draw up a church
plan in Washington, d C. Like he is the inheritor
of your Bill author James Dobson. So I think seeing
what's happening with his movement is something to watch. Wilson
(01:02:44):
has said himself he used to be fringe. I've heard
of pullet and TV evangelicles say he used to be
the crazy uncle. Wow. And now he Wilson himself has
this like the country moved him Wow. He is open
about being a Christian nationalist. I wrote a story, if
(01:03:08):
you want, only add a note years ago about the
abuse perpetuated within his church and school system for vice.
That model is what he's hoping to see nationally. He
wants to make his hometown a Christian town, make America
Christian nation in this model, and then a Christian world.
(01:03:29):
All that said, his town is still not a Christian
town that he's been really his version of Christianity. Well,
give it a couple of years, and he's trying, and
there's a stuff going on with real estate. There's been
plenty of attempts, but I think for those who want
to resist this a single mode of thought being the
(01:03:50):
motivating factor for us moving forward. There's a small town
called Moscow, oh Idaho that has been resisting Wilson all along.
So all is lost, but his type of influence is
certainly spreading and is now normalized within are government officials.
Speaker 4 (01:04:16):
Which is so crazy to me.
Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
Like, I know that ideas conflicting with other ideas does
not deter people from still holding them, but this idea
that this is like somehow American to do this when
literally the First Amendment is the freedom of religion.
Speaker 4 (01:04:34):
The fact that there are.
Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
So many people and it is now becoming more and
more mainstream to try to convert America into a theocracy
is the most Unamerican thing I can possibly imagine.
Speaker 4 (01:04:43):
I mean, it's literally not the point of the place.
So it always terrifies me.
Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
But I'm glad we are having conversations like these to
remind people to fight back.
Speaker 4 (01:04:58):
And I'm also.
Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
Curious on all of these incredible survivors and warriors that
you've talked to who have come out against systems that
are much bigger than them, to varying degrees of success,
of course, but for a listener who maybe see something
happening in their own community that has not been addressed,
(01:05:19):
are there any words of wisdom or things you've learned
from hearing these stories that you would say to.
Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
Them, so icummit and like keep your receipts, it will say.
Homeschoolers are the most amazing sources a reporter can find
because they keep everything. They've been shot everything, And I
think a lot of these communities that results from people
(01:05:48):
not believing them. Wow, so they keep their evidence. So like,
start accumulating your evidence, and then you don't have to
go to your pastoral authority that is not your authority.
If they are not protecting you or the people you love,
that is not your authority, go to the police. If
(01:06:12):
that doesn't worry, find a reporter or start a website
like many many many of these folks shared information anonymously.
There is now a means to expoose wrongdoing and I mean,
I talk about this a little bit in the book.
(01:06:33):
There's an ecosystem of bloggers work bro watch as we
go and watch keep I don't know what they've closed,
but they break a lot of these stories. And because
they break the stories, then reporters, instead of taking on
a liability, which can share a lot of editors off,
(01:06:55):
they can refer to the blog post and say local
has recorded online on this blog, and then I get
some information out. If your goal is truth telling, there
is a way, but like get your evidence squared away,
(01:07:15):
because people will not want to believe you. But there's
a tipping point where if you can show what actually
has happened, you can get most people there. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:07:29):
Wow, that's really helpful. It's really impractical advice.
Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
Thank you, Yeah, thank you for this book and all
of the work you've done. It's so comprehensive, it's so important,
and it really sheds light on a lot of the
things that we need to keep working on.
Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
Indeed, do you have anything else you'd like to add?
Is there anything we missed?
Speaker 1 (01:07:51):
I feel like be a cover or to be covered
the book if you want, I can send some links
to it's just like magazine and stories. If people want
bits and pieces of some of this, that'd be great
because it's in years of covering these types of stories.
(01:08:11):
So you can either see in the book or if
you just need a quick kind of tutorial, it's out there.
Speaker 2 (01:08:18):
Yeah, and can you remind us the name of your
book and where people can find it?
Speaker 1 (01:08:22):
Disobedient Women is it should be everywhere still anywhere you
buy books. A few weeks ago bookshop it was I
was sold out.
Speaker 4 (01:08:34):
Wow, amazing.
Speaker 1 (01:08:37):
Yeah, this new awareness of Dougalls and seems to have
gotten people interested in the book, which is good because
it's not just him. I feel like the more we
can understand all of this is interconnected, the better. But
take bookshop, like, go to your indie bookstore.
Speaker 3 (01:08:58):
Totally can be Follow you on Instagram or online? Is
there do you share?
Speaker 1 (01:09:03):
Yeah? Yeah, I'm on install, I'm sort of on TikTok Okay,
what's your Name's how we follow you? Stay in corb.
I'm easy to find. I'm the only one.
Speaker 4 (01:09:16):
Thank you so much, Sarah. It was so nice to
talk to you.
Speaker 1 (01:09:19):
So great talking to you.
Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
Thanks well, thanks to Sarah for coming on. Indeed, Megan,
here's the part where I ask you, would you join
the quiver full movement?
Speaker 1 (01:09:31):
Hell? No, I won't even have one kid.
Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
Yeah, you don't want kids at all? Oh oh my god.
Imagine if you thought you had to, I would not
be okay.
Speaker 3 (01:09:42):
In fact, I would not do it even if I
was a part of the movement.
Speaker 2 (01:09:46):
Do you think, Yeah, if you had that belief system though,
and you felt like you thought you had to, I have.
Speaker 4 (01:09:52):
A lot of like phobia around it.
Speaker 3 (01:09:55):
Oh really, I was just in a lot of like
people giving birth spaces.
Speaker 1 (01:10:02):
Oh my god, I was not. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:10:04):
So and I do want children, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm good. Yeah,
of course if i'm if my brain is telling me
that something is right, I'm not like too smart to
do it or anything. So maybe I would just get
over it and have a bunch of children. But I'm
so grateful that wasn't part of my story because.
Speaker 4 (01:10:23):
Which it feels so adjacent, Like do the two by
twos believe that?
Speaker 3 (01:10:26):
No, It's just interesting how the two by twos were
able to keep some sense of like normality and the
mix where you know, there there wasn't, as far as
I know, an encouragement to have a million children.
Speaker 4 (01:10:38):
I would so assume that that would be the goal.
Speaker 3 (01:10:41):
Yeah, No, homeschooling really like kind of whip mainstream.
Speaker 2 (01:10:45):
I actually don't really have a sense of how true
this is these days. But when I was growing up,
the joke about Mormons was they had a million children.
All Mormons had so many kids. Not nearly as many
as like polygamous Mormons, obviously or mental, but you know,
that was like the joke in school. Everyone would be like, Oh,
does your family have seven kids or whatever?
Speaker 4 (01:11:05):
Right?
Speaker 3 (01:11:06):
I mean seven kids still as moderate compared to these
Quaverble movements, where I'd be like, you have seven kids
and then get your vasectomy and done and have seven more.
Speaker 4 (01:11:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:11:15):
Yeah. So I don't know.
Speaker 3 (01:11:18):
I don't want to sound like I'm looking down upon
it or anything like that, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (01:11:22):
Obviously it's not right or fair.
Speaker 2 (01:11:25):
It wouldn't be the indoctrination that would appeal to you uniquely,
not sigh.
Speaker 4 (01:11:29):
I think that I don't.
Speaker 1 (01:11:31):
I don't want to.
Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
I'm very very anti patriarchal values, but I do want
to be a mother, and I think the thing that
appeals to me, which maybe you can hear, I think
I say something like this in the interview is the
idea that, like, well, if people with the wrong ideas
about the world are having a million children, then to
combat that, yes, we should also be putting lots of
(01:11:55):
children on the earth who can stand for what.
Speaker 1 (01:11:58):
Is right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (01:11:59):
Like, I could see myself, yes, falling into that. But
I also do not want that many kids. I mean,
I'd like a few kids. Yeah, that seems nice. Yeah,
I'm good.
Speaker 4 (01:12:06):
On more than that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
Yeah, although that's a households with the huge families bustling around.
As long as there's enough help and enough money, I
don't know, it could be fun.
Speaker 3 (01:12:15):
Who knows, We'll see, who knows exactly. The environment's kind
of a thing in my mind, but that's fine. Adoption, adoption, adoption.
Speaker 1 (01:12:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:12:25):
Thank you guys so much for listening to another episode
of Trust Me. We cannot wait to see you again
next week. Go leave the episode five stars the podcast,
not the episode, the podcast in general. And uh, you know,
if you don't want to write a five stars, I
always say, then.
Speaker 1 (01:12:40):
Just don't write it at all.
Speaker 3 (01:12:42):
Yeah yeah, yeah, And as always, remember to follow your gut,
watch out for red flags.
Speaker 4 (01:12:47):
And never ever trust me.
Speaker 2 (01:12:49):
Bang goodbye this has been an Exactly Right production hosted
by me Lola Blanc and.
Speaker 3 (01:12:56):
Me Megan Elizabeth. Our senior producer is Gee Holli. This
episode was mixed by John Bradley. Our associate producer is
Christina Chamberlain, and our guest booker is Patrick Kottner.
Speaker 2 (01:13:06):
Our theme song was composed by Holly Ambert Church.
Speaker 3 (01:13:09):
Trust Me as executive produced by Karen Kilgareth Georgia Hardstark
and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 2 (01:13:14):
You can find us on Instagram at trust Me podcast
or on TikTok at trust Me coult podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:13:19):
Got your own story about cults, extreme belief, our manipulation,
Shoot us an email at trustmepod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:13:25):
Listen to trust Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts,
Trust me? Do you trust me? Where I ever lead
you astray? Trust? This is the truth, the only truth.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
If anybody ever tells you to just trust them, don't
welcome to trust me. The podcast about Colt's extreme belief
and of course, manipulation from two disobedient podcasters who've actually
experienced it, and I am Lola Blanc and I'm Megan Elizabeth.
This week our guest is Sarah stan Korb, author of
Disobedient Women, a book about how women across America began
(00:32):
speaking out about abuse and evangelical communities. She's going to
talk to us about the quiverful ideology, which is the
idea of having as many children as possible to populate
the earth with patriarchal Christians, evangelical propaganda from the eighties
and nineties that encouraged women to submit to their fathers
even as adults, and then their husbands, and of course
Bill Gothard and IBLP.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
We'll discuss the patterns she's observed among these women that
have spoken out, whether this kind of SoC stemic abuse
and covering up of abuse is inherent to evangelical culture,
and the connections between some of these fundamentalist figures and
our current political system.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Fine, fine, before we talk about that, Megan, what's your
cultia thing this week?
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Okay, so most of you have probably watched unknown number
the High School Catfish on Netflix.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
I have not.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
If you are one who has not, then this is
a spoiler and skip it. But oh you can't. You're
gonna spoil it for me. Okay, you're gonna get it.
And if you don't want to watch it and are
just like, what is it, here's a quick cliff notes. Basically,
a girl in a small Michigan town starts getting cyberbullied, Okay,
very very badly.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
The fifty to sixty messages a day.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Things like your boyfriend doesn't love you, your body's disgusting,
you should kill yourself. The whole community gets pulled in
because the FBI is like investigating those like kids are getting,
you know, accused, Like it's a whole ass thing, and
the families of these two kids at the center of it,
it's a girl and her boyfriend, are so concerned and
you're just like, wow, this is actually ruining these people's lives.
(02:11):
And then the reveal they follow the digital footprint. It's
very hard because this person has some sort of knowledge
because they're actually able to kind of hide it. And
it is the girl's breaking mother.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Her mother who's been interviewed this.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
Entire first half and is like and I didn't know
what to do, and like and she's at the principal's
office all the time crying, and you're like.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
A good, good, oh my jaws hanging open for those
who can't see me, which is everyone.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
So there's so many things that are you know, alleged
to be true through conversations on the internet and using
her own brain while yer watching it. There's theories out
there like, well, she's a pedophile allegedly, and she was
obsessed with the daughter's boyfriend, and you know she kind
of seems to be and was sending them very graphic
sexual descriptions and her mom yeah, yeah. And then that's like, well,
(03:06):
perhaps she was an alcoholic. There was like a thousand
bottles on the table when they the police cam footage
captured her. Perhaps she's a narcissist. You know, there's people
in her family saying she always had to be the
center of attention, and it's like, all of those things
can be true. But one of the things that struck
me the most was the principle was like, this is
the principal at the school who got pulled into this
as well. I was like, this is digital Munchausen. I
(03:29):
was gonna say that, Oh, yes, so it is digital
munch House. Munchhausen is one of these really interesting yeah
dynamics that we talk about a lot on this podcast
because it is that cult of too, you know, it
is like how many people does it take to make
a cult?
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Too?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
But in this case, but she didn't even know she
was in a culture to her mom just loved the
attention because her daughter was getting victimized, and.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
So her mom loved being number one at the center
of the like, oh my god, your poor daughter. You
can see in the beginning half of the documentary she's
like glowing with all the attention something. But and like
people are like, no, the daughter must have been in
on it, because the mom was like, you should kill yourself,
you should actually actually kill yourself immediately, and it's like no,
(04:17):
a lot of moms with Munchausen will kill their child,
Like that's the ultimate yeah, that's the ultimate poor you
attention thing. And then there's the Stockholm thing at play,
where the daughter is like I can't wait for my
mom and I to have a normal relationship again. And
you're like, what the fah, Yeah, so I think we
(04:40):
will see a lot more of this.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
What's the term that they are using. Oh, it's like,
uh use factitious disorder imposed on another fdiatitious not And
then some people, I believe we're all also calling it
like medical child abuse or something. Okay, but anyway, different
terms for Munchausen by proxy. Yes, yes, but that totally
(05:06):
makes sense in a way. I'm like, well, at least
they're not physically killing the child. But then it's like, okay,
but if you're emotionally destroying the child and or putting
them in harm's way by encouraging who is that?
Speaker 5 (05:19):
You know?
Speaker 4 (05:20):
Like, yeah, that's not better.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
And like basically, you know, the the text are like
a molesting of sort.
Speaker 4 (05:28):
So yeah, yeah, horrible, horrible.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
I'm so glad I don't have to watch these documentaries
because you do all the watchable for me, the watching
for you. And indeed, I've done a rewatch, so are
you already? Yeah, I just.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Wants the And you know what, WELLA I knew the
twist because I'd read it in the news, but I
still was like, surely they're going to pull that twist
where it's like an actor playing the mom and she's
gonna be like, I'm not actually Lauren's. But this woman
was like, I am the mom. We all make mistakes
and you're like, oh.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
My god, oh no, yeah, wow, yeah that I mean,
I think you're right. I think that is probably going
to become more common, which is horrifying.
Speaker 3 (06:10):
Like, be careful out there, guys. What's your cultiest thing
of the week.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Just another just another culty person on the internet claiming
to have special powers.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
I don't even think I should say their name because
I feel like it gives them attention, So I'm not
going to.
Speaker 3 (06:26):
I'm just going to describe them. This is in itself
very interesting the description.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Okay, so this person I believe is a man but
describes themself but I don't know what pronouns are using
because they purposely make it ambiguous because they claim to
be an alien and the way that they present themselves
is completely shaved head, completely shaved eyebrows.
Speaker 4 (06:56):
He looks exactly like the guy from Barry.
Speaker 2 (06:58):
Oh my god, yes oh he does, yeah, yes, and
his eyes are so blue. I'm wondering if it's contacts,
there's earrings, there's like there's like a uniform. And he
does this thing where he's so strange looking. He does
this thing where he like stares into camera and kind
of like he's a lot like Benton Home.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Masorrow or whatever.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Yeah, Like he stares into camera and tells you about
his special powers and about how stuff is happening on
Earth and he's been sent here to do something or
other with some kind of mission. And it's so silly
looking that like I first saw this person. I don't
even remember how they came up on my feet. I
first saw this person and I was like, well, this
(07:39):
is obviously like everybody on this page knows that this
is insane. Yeah, but then of course you look and
I'm like two people I know follow them on ironically,
and the comments are all like like six hundred comments.
We are locked in time for the unseen to be
seen is about time and to the matrix. Welcome the
New Earth and all species. We out here anchoring the
(08:03):
frequencies and it's just over and overget and love you, bro.
We in this spiritual battle together as a team. Always
it's always there's like a battle happening on Earth, and
this alien ass dude is gonna give us all the answers.
It's endlessly fascinating to me that when these people come
up and so many people are like, no, for sure, no,
(08:25):
that seems true.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
You're an alien?
Speaker 3 (08:26):
Definitely, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean at least levite or something.
If something shape shift in front of my eyes.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
So if you just.
Speaker 2 (08:34):
Shave your head and eyebrows and you look a little weird,
m blue contacts, blue contract boom, that's what aliens look like.
And that really does bring into question, you know, like
is this somebody having a like an episode or is
this just somebody who's a grifter. But I look at
their other posts and I'm like, I think definitely grifter.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Because the other posts are like just basically.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Trying to be a regular ass influencer, Like look at
my outfit, love, my I found true love, you know,
my alien spiritual partner whatever. Like they're all like buying
for attention, just in every other possible way you could
do that as an influencer, except that they're also an
alien who's saving the world.
Speaker 1 (09:14):
Is their partner in alien?
Speaker 2 (09:16):
I didn't go deep enough to know, but she doesn't
have shaved anything.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Okay, so then she must be from Earth. Goron is
the character he looks like from Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
It's really funny actually, I mean it's a great look.
Like you know, if you were playing on stage and
you look like that, I'd be like, hell, yah, you
look cool.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Yeah. It's a cool striking yeah, very memorable.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Yeah, but it.
Speaker 3 (09:44):
Is a little bit scary how you really can just
kind of say anything, you can kind of.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
See anything, and if you like, look the part and
say it with confidence.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
Boom.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
And it's online and people share it boom boom.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
Oh so many of these people. Now, it's crazy.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Technology has done wonders for aspiring cult leaders, true narcissists
in general.
Speaker 3 (10:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah, I feel I should add here really quickly that
my debut album, Crowd Pleaser is out now.
Speaker 4 (10:14):
It is available wherever you get.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Your music, and I did it completely independently, no label,
no management, and I'm really really proud of it.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
And there are culty themes on it.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
There are songs about belief and Charlatan's billionaire greed as
well as just love and loss.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
And I would really.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Appreciate it if you would give it a listen, a stream,
a download, a share, a save, a like, a whatever.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
It would mean so much to me.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Okay, well, shall we talk to Sarah and get to
the bottom of her book, Disobedient Women.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
Let's get to the bottom of it.
Speaker 3 (10:48):
Some of the content in today's episode could be triggering,
so please take care listening.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Welcome Sarah stan Korb to trust Me. Thanks for joining
us today.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Thank you, Oh so excited to be.
Speaker 2 (11:11):
Here, excited to have you. So your book Disobedient Women.
We have both been reading it. It is jam packed
with these incredible stories. And before we kind of start
to get into the stories, I would love to know
what brought you to this and if you could talk
a little bit about that journey all.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
Do you want the short version or the long version.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Of maybe the long version, what's maybe a medium media version.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
Yeah. So I was a really religious kid. I was
a very Christian kid. I lost my faith in my
twenties and then the year's zeros on list working as
a reporter has sort of stumbled into a story about Oh,
(11:59):
thank you here, and she's in chapter one and I
learned about this woman and who is part of something
called the Quiverle movement and learned about her life, how
many kids she had, how restrictive her life had been,
and she was just kind of sharing about her life
(12:20):
on the internet. And then I found other women sharing
about their lives in these extreme Christian cultures. Yeah, this
has been a rabbit a hole that I started falling
down probably in twenty fourteen, and I'm still in it.
And I feel like now the country's waking up to
(12:41):
see just how unfortunately relevant Christian patriarchy is to our
current situation.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:50):
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 (12:51):
I mean, although maybe there's a backlash to that happening already,
which we can talk about later. But how did you
lose your faith? I mean, can you just tell a
little bit about that journey?
Speaker 1 (13:02):
So it was probably a mix of a couple of things. First,
I was a Methodist kid, and my best friend and
became very evangelical started to take me to a I
Will study and I was presented with this very literalist
version of the Bible, which I had never encountered before,
(13:24):
and I think in a lot of ways I had
damage things for me. And later when I went on
to study religion and realized, well, this thing can't possibly
be literal. It's drawn from so many different groups and
cultures and time periods. It just wouldn't stay together. That
I was part of it. And then as a very
(13:45):
Methodist youth, I went to the youth anual Conference, which
is a very Methodist sort of representative group that you
get sent off to for a long weekend. And this
was right when the United Methodist Church was first starting
to grapple with being accepting a crew people. And there
(14:08):
was a very small minority of us in the room
that we're hoping we could be accepting. And I just
remember sitting in this room and seeing someone in my
age quoting the Bible, or at least what he thought
the Bible said, an actual spit coming out of his mouth,
and so much anger, and we can vote either to
(14:30):
support queer people or not. In this room, like the
vast majority of the room stood up against loving our
friends and neighbors, and that I was one of very
few who stood up to support folks. And I just
I thought, if this is if this is Christianity, I
don't know.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
Yeah, it makes sense, makes sense.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
You write really beautifully about the grief that comes with
losing your faith, and yeah, I think that's just an
important thing to note it's a very painful process too.
Speaker 1 (15:06):
It's almost like a breakup. Yeah, no, it is. And
so I actually just turned in the manuscript for my
second book, which is about women leaving the church. So
I've spent in years and then especially this last year,
talking to women about what we left. And it's a
(15:27):
break up. It's peeling off part of your identity and
it is usually very, very painful. You don't do that.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
Lately, yeah, I mean it's such a big part of
your life and your sense of self and your community
and just like everything about you. I mean, yeah, we
talk about it a lot on this podcast, how much
our belief systems are a part of our identity, and
we don't realize how painful it is to lose a
chunk of who you believe that you are and how
you believe that the world works. I mean it's really yeah,
(15:58):
a grief process for sure. Yeah. So we've talked about
the Quiverbile movement on this podcast a little bit, but
reading your book, I got a lot more insight into
the details, some of which were just so crazy.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
Can you just tell us a little bit about what
that is?
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Yes, So this is an idea that was popularized by
peopil like the Gothard. If you're a listeners are familiar
with happy, shiny people, but are also some female figures
that sort of have not been the future of a
series yet late is Campbell and Mary Pride. So it
(16:41):
was this idea that it is Christian's duty to create
an army for God. That you are filling your quiver
and our armist children, and this will help populate the
country with Christians, this will help politically. There are there
a lot of reasons why you would do this. For
(17:04):
the women, though it's sold as being in Christian servants,
you use your body. God gave you this womb. If
you do not accept every child God could give you,
you're going against God's well. So breath control bad of course,
no abortion. And also part of this, and this is
(17:28):
a vaky story, was this idea that well, not everyone
can be a missionary who goes abroad, but you can
be a missionary at home. Yeah, and even if it
puts your own life at risk, well then you become
a murder for God. Shoot.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Yeah, the martyr thing starts to come into play. Can
you tell us a little bit more about Vicky Garrison.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
So she had child all the after child. And I
think the way she describes her period of having baby
after a baby, I've heard from a lot of women,
either as mothers themselves or the oldest daughter who ended
up taking care of all these subsequent children. Right, because
(18:14):
the mother's exhausted, she's pregnant, she's a nurse, saying her
body never heals, and so in Vickie's case, she had
need to re rupture. She also thought she needed to
have these babies at home with the a medal engine.
So she was just so thin, so depleted. She had
a doctor's telling her like, this is not safe, and
(18:37):
her midiwife telling her to, you know, go ahead, keep
doing it.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
So the doctor's like, literally, it will. It is dangerous
to you. You're putting yourself in danger by having more children.
But everything in her community is saying, no, this is
your duty.
Speaker 1 (18:49):
You have to do that.
Speaker 3 (18:50):
Also in her community people, but correct me if I'm wrong,
because this might be a different story. But we're saying, like,
when you're breastfeeding, your body is going to protect you
from becoming pregnant immediately, so it's going to give you
this like grace period. And that's simply not true. So
that was just a dangerous propaganda lie that tricked people
(19:11):
into having more children.
Speaker 1 (19:13):
Unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah, so in her case, she nearly died
mm hmm. And like what would what would have happened
to all of these children? Right? So, And the other
side of this is like you're having all these kids,
you're also supposed to be submissive to your husband. And
(19:34):
if you are in a bad situation where that power
goes to the man's head or he was already inclined
to be abusive anyway, there's no escape. They can't work.
That's in their minds against God as well, and there's
no time because they're constantly having babies, right, So it's
(19:56):
it's related.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
It's very sad, yeah, because with in this belief system,
the husband is the authority within the family, so you
must listen to the husband in order to.
Speaker 1 (20:09):
Be obedient to God, right Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:12):
I do hear stories like this a lot in various
kinds of fundamentalist communities where if the husband is abusive,
Like it's not like these systems are always telling the
men to be abusive, but if the man is abusive, exactly,
he's the one in charge and there's really no recourse
because the women are supposed to listen to the husband.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yes, yes, and often like as you get deep from
the book. This sentence of elevated authority also exists within
their churches. Right, so when they even if they do
report abuse, the pastor feels empowered to be the one
to deal with it. Right, so it's handled in house
(20:52):
and making quotes, which means it's not handled, it's not reported, right, right.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I think there was a number regarding the amount of
children that Christians should have to alter, like the percentage
of Christians in the population was it?
Speaker 4 (21:20):
Was it eighty? What was the goal?
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Can you tell me again? So this comes from Mary Pride,
the anti feminist I mentioned. So her formula was eight
Christians or twenty percent of the population. The each Christian
family had six children, and the humanists of feminists, now
they kept on having an average one. Then in twenty
(21:42):
years there would be sixty of us for every forty
of them. In forty years, ninety percent of America would
be Christians. Right, So I like that pro natalist thing
that we're seeing now, it's not new.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Yeah, it makes me want to become a pro natalist
for feminists, because I'm like, well.
Speaker 4 (22:01):
They can't outnumber us.
Speaker 1 (22:03):
Nola's gonna have six children.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, that idea of this like Christian supremacy, we have
to take over. You know, the country's only virtuous if
it's all Christian. I mean, it's so scary to me, Like, sure,
have babies, if you want to have babies, but like, why,
what's the goal? The goal is to take over the
nation and the government. And you know, like there's just
(22:27):
this like nefarious undertone to all of that that I
find alarming. I also wrote down some names of some
of the books and movies that you wrote about in
your book, because I am not familiar with this culture,
and I find it absolutely fascinating.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
And absolutely fascinating that it was like one of the
highest grossing movies I know.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Okay, yeah, so here, I'm just gonna list them off,
and if if you have anything particular to say about
any of them, please But the way home beyond feminism,
back to reality at home, there was a DVD called
Training Dominion Oriented Daughters Horrifying. There was a film called
(23:08):
The Monstrous Regiment of Women and in it Jenny Chancey
is that who was Jenny Chancey? I think so explains
that quote. God created men for leadership, and he clearly
tells us in his word that when women are in leadership,
it's a sign of a curse upon a nation. Wow,
(23:29):
how big is the market for these types of materials?
Speaker 1 (23:33):
So, okay, this is one of these things. I get
very nerdy. So this is there. So a lot of
those that media was funneled through something called Vision Forum,
which was I feel find amalast in the nineties. So
(23:54):
this is like a pre internet, early internet, people would
get a physical catalog in the mail and if you
Google you can still find some of these catalogs. So
it's just page after page basically anti woman, biblical generals propaganda.
So books, films, toys like the toys crack me up.
(24:18):
What are the toys? They're warlike for the boys? Basically
the girls get dolls. That's what you do for a
roll because you're gonna become a mother and have all
these kids. Right, So that that was the stream back then.
Then the Phillips fell all due to a sex handle. Now,
if you've been if you've been on the internet and
(24:41):
seen the CNN interview with Douglas Wilson recently, it's had
a few things to say about women voting spree any bells, Yes, yeah,
So he I think is the inheritor of the desire
for these sort of media properties. He is a pastor
(25:03):
out in Moscow, Idaho, who started a christ church there,
started a Keith through twelve school called Logos. He started
a college called New Sandie Andrews. He started a seminary
program called Grave Ores. He started to published a house
called Can't Impress, which has produced books such as the
(25:25):
Case for Christian Nationalism. So there's also streaming service. There
are a lot of entities attached to Wilson. He most
recently was on CNN, where he was intributed by his
views concerting in Christian nationalism and women. Some of his
accolades talked about, how you know, householder voting is probably
(25:50):
the way in a Christian nation we should go, Oh
that it is usually the mayan votes for the whole family,
and maybe the nineteenth Amendment should be a repeal. That's
that's that's the world in which that Wilson exists. He's
extremely attractive to a certain type of listener. He has
(26:12):
this kind of like philosopher King error. Every November on
his blog he does something he calls no quarter November
where he writes mean blog posts about people for a
month and then packages it and sells it as an anthology.
What Yes. The lead up to that he they produce
(26:37):
video trailers where he sets fire to something, So the
idea is that he is in Syndi here. So he
set fire to a trunk, a boat. A couple of
years ago, he had a flanthrower. The ed he set
fire to cut out of a couple of Disney princesses. Wow.
(26:58):
And then they sell the flamethrower through cannon breath. This
whole thing's a huge moneymaker. Yeah, but it also inductions
people and is attractive to certain type of families, a
certain type of man. And within this he also teaches
(27:20):
women it must be submissive to their husbands. And within
the book there are stories about how the up plays out. Again,
these are women, some who are never taught that they
were able to say no. So when you're put into
a situation where you are obligated to submit, it can
(27:44):
be awful. And I'll give you the length to the
vice story. There are a number of alarming stories attached
to Wilson, but right now he is mostly the news
because christ Church has planted a church in Washington, DC,
which haig Seth is attending, and it's creating a lot
(28:07):
of you, Pete haig Seth, Yeah, and it's creating a
lot of ruts.
Speaker 2 (28:11):
And for those who are bad at history, like me,
the Nineteenth Amendment is what gave women the right to vote,
and he is trying to repeal that so that women
cannot vote anymore, so that their fathers or husbands decide
for them.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah. On CNN, it was one of the other pastors
who brought who talked about the nineteenth Amendment. But yes,
in this world, there are plenty of pastors who are
if you searched their names, they would like to reveal
the Nineteenth Amendment. They say that women having the right
(28:44):
to vote has adam eyed the American family. Basically, women
can have a view separate from their husbands and that
it's a problem. So he has his own published house
treetening service. They have documentaries about how to raise is
it in a world that he's meant to be more
(29:06):
mainly it is the next generation. But you don't have
to buy DD now. You can just subscribe to the
streaming service and get your propaganda.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
That one well, and and or just go on social
media and go on yeah, TikTok, right, I imagine. I mean
that's not what my algorithm shows me, but I imagine
there are quite a few people who are getting that
kind of content in their algorithm.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Yes, is there one of these like evangelical books or
films that really stands out to you as like, whoa,
that's the craziest I'm.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
Trying to remember if it's the book or there was
a book and a film. So Return of the Daughters
something that was very meaningful for some women. Any Yeah,
and this was at the time fringe, but it completely
changed the way people approach raising their girls into grown women.
(30:05):
And the idea is, until you come of age and
are married, you are to be a stay at home daughter,
so you're under your father's authority. When you do get
married to a man that your father has approved of,
then you move under your husband's authority. So this created
(30:26):
lots of andy excuses for not educating girls and not
sending them off to college where they learn about feminism
and Marxism and all of the scary things that are
out there. Instead, keep them home, keeps them safe, keeps
them from being exposed. To an external world that may
teach them there are some other value. And I think
(30:51):
for the families that will watch that film, it just
it changes the structure of their daughter's lot.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
Wait, what was called return a return of the daughters's
book or that there was a part of book and film.
Speaker 1 (31:07):
They basically said the same thing.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
It sounds like a sequel to a horror film or something.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Yes, it does. And stay at home daughter? That is diabolical.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah, how prevalent is that idea in evangelical culture? Now, so,
wholl have you heard of childwives?
Speaker 1 (31:30):
So I did an article. I wrote an article for
l that I think published in May. And in the
article I interviewed a group of women and then a
woman who's like standalone former child wives. So they were
not necessarily raised with the terms stay at home daughter.
(31:51):
Some were familiar with it, some of their families got
these catalogs. But they were raised to believe they need
to be some miss to their father until they got
married and that would be submissive to husband. And what
they weren't on TikTok, they weren't on Instagram. They what
(32:12):
it was like to be a submissive woman. They just
lived it. So there's probably a gradient skill of what
that submission looks like. The more extreme end is this
model where we actually use the terms home daughter, but
the idea that you have to submit to your father
(32:34):
until you submit your husband. That's baked into a lot
of the Christian rite.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Which brings me to Bill Gothard and the IBLP. We've
talked about them a bit, but can you give us
a refresher on who he is and what that was.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
So they'll goth I hate to call people's teachers like
they talked about their teachings. It was a nineteen seventies, eighties,
nineties Christian influencer, so he also had his own publishing house.
He opened training centers all over the country a few
(33:13):
other places around the world. He was the head of
a parachurch organization, so he did not lead a church. Instead,
he offered his teachings by way of books or lecturesey
he get as a DVD and chows your church, and
he also hosted conferences. One of his big moneymakers was
(33:35):
his role with homeschool movement, so he was publishing house
created curricula that basically did not educate these kids, but
purported to be biblical and in this way he was elevated,
as some people have called it, an evangelical pope. People
(33:58):
outside this world had no idea who this man was.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
How convenient for him? Right right? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (34:05):
Yeah, But then when the duggers ended up on KLC,
we had handy poster children for what it is to
be a quippable woman, what it's like to impose obedience
on many many children, dress conservatively, live in the way
(34:27):
that he had been teaching families to do for years.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
I hadn't heard about the vast sectomy reversal thing.
Speaker 4 (34:36):
Can you talk about that?
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Yeah? So this is along that same logic that you
should not block God's blessings. God there encourage people to
either reverse having their tubes side or usually if it's
at me of reversals, and then these kids, these reversal
(34:59):
be babies will be paraded across the stage at his conferences.
At times there were enough to a whole hires of
versiectory reversal children who owed their lives to bothered frequencing
their parents to keep having these babies.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Just for reference, can you tell us how many people
are at these conferences?
Speaker 1 (35:21):
Thousands?
Speaker 3 (35:22):
It's like a stadium full of like it's a rock concert.
But and then there's like a choir full of vasectomy
reversal babies. Like, let's really take a beat and think
about how many people that is and how crazy it is.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
It's so crazy.
Speaker 5 (35:45):
Why these were like people who had in many cases
already had a good number of children and were like, whoa,
we did that, And then their you know, belief system
is telling them, no, you have to keep going.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Doesn't matter if you're it doesn't matter if you've reached
your capacity or if you're in pain or whatever, like.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
No more money.
Speaker 4 (36:06):
Yeah, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2 (36:08):
There's no consideration for like the quality of life of
the children as well. They're just that's never a part
of the equation, like if you can afford it, if
you're going to be healthy, if you're gonna be able
to take care of them, Like that's never doesn't matter.
We don't care about how the children actually are. We
just as long as there's souls on the earth.
Speaker 1 (36:23):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:23):
Also, how you point out in the book that they
have all this propaganda about like there's plenty of room
in the world from our children, Like you could fit
the whole wide world into Jacksonville, Florida with everybody having
a foot of space, and it's like, who wants that?
What are you talking about? Like you need resources and stuff.
It's just the logic is so circular and flawed and
(36:45):
annoying and yeah, annoying and like but in a way
that makes me annoying is not the correct No, but
I understand.
Speaker 4 (36:57):
It's it's fucked up, fucked up.
Speaker 1 (37:00):
Yeah. Well, and just like talking to these folks, the
things they miss, just like even just educationally, like forget
that not having access to health care, forget the poverty,
forget all of that. Many lived through educational neglecte. They
had these wisdom booklets. It supposedly can hate everything you'd
(37:24):
ever need to learn from the sermon on the Mound.
But I didn't learn science or I didn't learn bad
and the trajetary. When you meet a girl who was told, well,
you're going to be a mommy, and maybe you need
to learn just enough that you can present homeschool curricula,
(37:45):
maybe by video. That's that's your potential, even when they
get away from it. And I've interviewed women who thought
tooth and nail to get out and get an education.
The amount of time and energy they have to spendfully
in holes they didn't even know they had history.
Speaker 3 (38:05):
Yeah, about science, it's very no, every person deserves the
right to know that they're horrible at mouth.
Speaker 2 (38:20):
I was gonna say I got gaps in history too,
and that's just because of my own brain.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
But yeah, no, it's so true, and just setting them
up for a life where it's just circular.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
You know, what else can you do? How can you leave?
Speaker 4 (38:35):
It's a closed system.
Speaker 2 (38:36):
There's no understanding of how anything works outside of your system,
So why would you even know to question it and
question that authority like it's a perfect way to keep
people controlled and powerless, to prevent them from getting educated
violently angry.
Speaker 4 (38:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
When I was reading your book and reading some of
the stories you wrote about Bill Gothard's victims, for a
second I thought that it was one of our former guests,
Lindsay Williams, because it was so similar, and then realized, oh, right,
they're just he just did this to so many girls
like this. It is the same story over and over
again because he did it to so many girls. And
(39:13):
for those who don't know what I'm referencing, do you
want to just explain what I'm talking about?
Speaker 1 (39:17):
Yeah, so part of Goth's influence was that he would
he would tell people eat it, how to dress, and
his description of how to dress was supposedly what was godly,
so long hair short and cut to the skirt. And
then years later, as people started to share stories of
(39:40):
harassment and assault within his training centers where these young
young kids were sent to work for free with Gothard,
it seems he had a type and he had these
patterns of behavior that just the grooming process is repeated
(40:02):
over and over, and it was chilling to me. You're
reporting on this, realizing that the foot as people gave
me photos of what they look like, then that they
fit how he was telling women to dress themselves like
he had a type, and even his books, even the
(40:25):
way he asked people telling them this is godly.
Speaker 5 (40:30):
Like.
Speaker 1 (40:30):
The grooming didn't start at the training center. The grooming
started way way back when their parents were the church
basement watching his babyds.
Speaker 3 (40:38):
So this is like a pervert who decided to start
an army of girls that were his type for.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
Him to sectually harass and inappropriately touched.
Speaker 1 (40:46):
And whether that was his initial motive, that is what
the allegation show happened.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
Right, allegedly, yes, right, what is your take on how
much of these kinds the stories of chronic abuse is
endemic to evangelical Christianity versus just oh, this is just
how humans are. Sometimes there'll be people who abuse their power,
Like how much of it do you think comes from
the actual system and belief?
Speaker 1 (41:15):
That is a question no one has asked me. So.
Within American evangelicalism, the process for becoming a leader is
usually something based upon charisma. It's a tangible gifts of
(41:35):
personality that people can point to and say, oh, God
gave you that. I'm going to follow you because of
these gifts. So it does not necessarily mean any theological background, certainly,
no bichronity counseling. So yeah. End of the people of
a certain personality type often rather a narcissista. Often, how
(42:04):
should I put this, they too believe God put them
in this position.
Speaker 2 (42:09):
Right, a little bit of megalomania going on?
Speaker 1 (42:12):
Yeah, so, and that's your sture. And then within it
you have people who truly, truly want to be good
for God. They're so desperate to be good in the
eyes of God they will follow a person that they
think has this bit of God's blessing, right, and so
(42:34):
that I creates a huge vulnerability, and then you have
someone who's been elevated. Whenever there are other credentials, they
are elevated. And I think it's it's a situation that
at like the husbands who you know, maybe they're abusive,
maybe they're not. But if you're gonna be abusive and
you end up in this situation, the abuse magnifies. If
(42:57):
you're gonna be your presator in your a physician that
you seem to be the mouth piece for God, the
fdation expans all sorts of directions. And then I think
like the additional layer is a fear of exposing the
wrongdoing of these people that so many people have put
(43:19):
trust into because well, you'll crush their faith, right, Well,
well there's the cause for the church. And so even
when there is evidence, people don't want to talk about it.
Speaker 2 (43:32):
Yeah, and that's something I think you can probably speak
to Megan with the two White twos. My thought is that,
like I think you know that charisma elevates people in
all spheres of life because I think we as humans
are just drawn to someone who has that special thing
and is acting with confidence and seems to know what
(43:52):
they're talking about. Like, I don't necessarily think that that
is exclusive to Christianity or anything, but it does seem
that like one within any blue system where you believe
that one person is talking directly to God. I mean,
that's going to just like it's ripe for someone to
just step in and begin abusing people because they immediately
(44:13):
have this mystical level of authority.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
And even just like anyone who has special knowledge of anything,
like we're in Los Angeles, the acting teachers are like
some of the most abusive people on the planet in
this totally because I have the secret of how to act.
And it's like, bitch, now you don't.
Speaker 4 (44:31):
Yeah, I mean, Keith Vaniery, you have special knowledge.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
Yeah yeah, but that like special knowledge person seems to
be such a crucial thing.
Speaker 4 (44:42):
And yeah, this world is just rife.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
With not only people with special knowledge, but men with
special knowledge who tend to take.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
It up a notch.
Speaker 3 (44:53):
And I think I'm sorry to interrupt, Lolla, please go ahead,
but I think a really good rate on that is
a well trained wife, remember Tarah Lovings. Yes, yeah, so anyway, yeah, continue, No,
I was just.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
Saying, I like, what does seem unique to me is
maybe the like inherent patriarchal structure where women aren't allowed
to have authority and just statistically abuses much more often
committed by men. And then when women are not allowed
to speak up and not allowed to have you know,
like they don't have any authority within this system, that
(45:24):
I guess is, yeah, it makes it more likely that
it will happen or it will go un addressed.
Speaker 1 (45:31):
One other element I was listening to an old interview
with Martin E. Marty the Theology any Studio Angelicals for
Yours and he said something like evangelicals present into the
world that they are trying to turn us back to traditions.
(45:53):
But they are usually better than the people around them
at using the new media of their time. Someone that's
Billy Graham on the radio, or it's it's on Instagram,
or it's Phil Cloth, or back when it was you
know Aki DVDs.
Speaker 3 (46:10):
Or it's Amy, Yes, what's her name, Amy's simple mccherson.
Go listen to that episode y'all with Claire Hoffman. But yeah,
they're so smart at using the newest media.
Speaker 1 (46:22):
And so this scale will expand.
Speaker 3 (46:25):
Yeah, the newest media while keeping you in the oldest
timey clothes.
Speaker 2 (46:29):
Yeah, repackaging oppressive tradition and making it seem shiny and
new and.
Speaker 1 (46:35):
Exciting, and it's really weird.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
Why do you think so many women started talking about
how abusive this was at the same time.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
Uh, the Internet. Yeah, honestly it was the Internet. Yes,
it's like what we saw all with me too and
church too. It was happening years before on these blogs.
Like for sure, abuse has been happening within churches for generations.
(47:07):
It happens all sorts of places. But in this case,
people who left came of age, and many of them
were just the right age to be a little pissed
off at their parents and I want to open up,
and maybe they needed a community or maybe they just
needed to tell someone what happened to them. And then
(47:30):
these networks of some people's similar experiences started to pop up,
and so they saw it. It wasn't just me. It
wasn't just me who got the ship be out of me,
because James Dobson said, that's how you're going to save
my soul. Not just me who is trapped with my
(47:51):
abusive families, Not just me who wasn't allowed to date.
So not just me, if he carries so much shame
around my body. So all these not just means came
together and then they were able to create a vocabulary
around what happened to them. And that's when they started
to say this is systemic, Like these laws are not
(48:14):
just my one pastor in my one church. It's this
narrative that was through all these books that our parents
were reading. And then they're able to pointing out like
Christian patriarchy is the problem, purity culture is one of
the problems. Cover up of abuse is one of these problems.
(48:36):
And don't I don't know if I don't think people
would have been able to create those then diagrams without
each of them stepping up and sharing their stories.
Speaker 2 (48:48):
Yeah, I definitely experienced the like women's Facebook group era,
but you talk about some women who it was blogs,
it was like what were some of the different formats
where these women started to share their stories with each other.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
So a big one for the younger folks was homeschoolers anonymous,
So that it was and like that's super relevant now
as we see these attacks on public education. But these
were the kids were raised to be the cultural warriors,
like their generation was supposed to be the Joshua generation
(49:26):
and take over the country. And like once they we
should adulthood answered a question what they had been taught,
then they were able to start taking through like huh,
what did you learn of us slavery? Because when I
learn of US slavery was pretty messed off them. So
that was one recovering grace is where the allegations against
(49:51):
bilkgthored bubbled up. And I mean that was initially a
website where people just talked about a being an ATI kid,
an Advanced Training Institute kid. No one really expected that
these allegations were going to service, let alone that it
would have this quality where it was. I saw similar
(50:15):
one story after another, I think another one which was
bless of you know, a agamation of many voices. Kristaph Brown,
who was to be a survivor within the Southern Baptist Convention.
Once she came forward, she started to be overwhelmed by
(50:38):
a number of other people's stories and SBC would not
share our internal list, at least within Texas that she
knew existed.
Speaker 4 (50:48):
That's the church network that she.
Speaker 1 (50:50):
Was sorry, the Southern Baptist Convention, So the largest evangelical
body in the country, okay, had a list of incredibly
accused predator pastors within the state of Texas that she
knew existed, and they would not open up so that
churches could not so parents could know. So she wrote
(51:13):
an off ahead saying this isn't right. And then people
started to email her and call her saying this happened
to me. And so over the years, as she got
these stories, she collected publicly available documents and just listed
them because SBC still has not created the database. Incredibly,
(51:37):
these pastors, they're members voted for the most comprehensive list
we have from the internal investigation about Honestly, that's based
on what Krista Brown spend years of her life compiled.
Speaker 3 (51:52):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
And when women like her do come forward and say,
here are all these people who've been abusing women or
girls or children, whatever, what are the patterns in terms
of how some of these organizations respond.
Speaker 1 (52:09):
Uh. Well, Either if it's a single abuse victim, it's
her fault. If it's a group of survivors or their
families coming forward, there are a threat to the institution.
There may be some satanic influence that's driving them. That's
(52:30):
what they're used. With Christa when she was first coming
forward with laughed at in a meeting with Baptist leaders
like it's this Isabelle mentality. And I think many of these,
especially the sexual assault victims, maybe we're teenagers when this happened,
(52:56):
and somehow that equates with it having been her fault,
so excuse after excuse. There are cases a Jules Woodson
when she came forward the pastor who had assaulted her
confessed in front of his church. And there's a pattern
(53:18):
because when the pastor confesses, so many times are you
give in a standing ovation? Wow, good for you for confessing. Wow,
yeah wow, I get this redemption.
Speaker 2 (53:30):
And I would assume many of those same people continue
to reoffend.
Speaker 3 (53:34):
Yeah, I will say in the two by two church,
there's this very kind of way about it where it'll
be like, yeah, that happened to you. We believe, we
completely believe you, but shut up because you're going to
ruin the one true way from spreading, so like, suck
it up, forgive them they were wrong, You're not lying,
(53:58):
but shut up. And that is equally as say.
Speaker 2 (54:03):
Yeah, yeah, I mean that seems like a really common
response or just this idea that like, well, we can't
let the world know what's going on, because we.
Speaker 3 (54:12):
Can't tarnish the truth of Gods and the gospel spread. Yeah,
so just like, shut up it happened, set it up,
move it along.
Speaker 1 (54:24):
Right.
Speaker 3 (54:25):
There was one girl that was like so abused in
the two by two church. He he like choked her
for so long that she can barely walk now.
Speaker 4 (54:38):
Because she got an oxic brain injury.
Speaker 3 (54:40):
Yes, and she has still been called upon to forgive him.
Speaker 1 (54:45):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (54:47):
Yeah, so it doesn't end. There is no point where
the man is beyond forgivable. You're always expected to forgive.
They're always repentable, right.
Speaker 2 (55:02):
I guess when you're when the belief system like tells
you that sins can all be absolved through repentance and
forgiveness and forgiveness, then it doesn't leave room for the
reality that people who are sexual predators don't just stop
being sexual predators and need to be kept from doing
(55:25):
that physically prevented from continuing to harm people. I mean
that those just those ideas just are incompatible. So I
guess it makes sense if that's your belief system, that
you would think, well, God will just remove that sin
from him and then he won't do it anymore.
Speaker 1 (55:40):
Yeah. Yeah, and there is that also.
Speaker 3 (55:43):
Sorry, we're just having a little discussion, but yeah, there
is that also, just like and this life doesn't really
like matter. It's really short, it's fleeting. It's all about eternity.
So like, just chill out. It's not a big deal. Life.
Speaker 4 (55:56):
Heaven's on its ways.
Speaker 3 (55:58):
Like just let's keep marching forward for truth in God's
perfect way and.
Speaker 4 (56:04):
The end right, ramble over.
Speaker 1 (56:10):
It's not leo like the number of There's a story
from Sovereign Grace Ministries last year with a mother whose
child like toddler, was molested by a teenager within the
(56:30):
church and she was pressured to meet with and for
him this young man. And I mean, I have a
catalog of horrible stories people have told me, but this
mother talking about her baby's reaction to seeing him, and
(56:51):
her scrambling around like hiding under the chair, for pulling
this kid up, because there's still that part of her
like she's still really in the church, she still wants
don't do the right thing. Yeah, this is what I
have to do. And then years later, living with him
memory and breaking down telling me like I can't believe
(57:13):
I did this, that she put her kids. Really she
went through it too that I have pressure to reconcile,
Like I mean, maybe if you sin, you need to
see God's forgiveness, But I do not think it is
appropriate to demand forgiveness anyone, right, let alone a child
(57:36):
and their mother.
Speaker 4 (57:38):
No, that is so sad.
Speaker 3 (57:41):
And one of the points that I think you made
really well in this book is just that like a
lot of the people who are abused are not sexually educated,
so they don't even know that they're abused until much
later in life when somebody else is like Bill Gothard
was praying by me, touching my hair and stroking my
shoulder and blah blah blah blah blah and stroking my breast,
(58:01):
and they're like, he did that to me too. I
thought it was like grandfatherly because I didn't even My
brain wasn't even attuned to that being inappropriate.
Speaker 1 (58:10):
And then suddenly they have a new.
Speaker 3 (58:13):
Narrative about what happened to them, and people are like, well,
why didn't you say it sooner?
Speaker 1 (58:19):
It's just like, yeah, yeah, they don't have the vocabulary.
And I think a lot of that is intentional, of course,
like for the young people whose families really beat them
with felts, or Dell rods or any number of implements,
(58:39):
because that is how you deal with a quote unquote
strong will child. When they had to wear long sleeves
to hide the bruises, and it was for the best
that they were homeschooled, so you know, there wouldn't be
a teacher who could report it. And they have these
childhoods of repeated trauma with the people they love and
(59:02):
trust the most who are hitting them over and over
because the parents think that that's what God requires of them. Yes, right,
And no one knows how to talk about chield abuse
since that now you get rheta right now that it's
like drag queen brunches or whatever.
Speaker 2 (59:20):
That's what the abuse of children is. Yeah, like a
drag man existing you're a child.
Speaker 1 (59:24):
Yeah yeah. And so to have ongoing perpetual physical right punishment.
Speaker 2 (59:30):
Right, What have you noticed in terms of patterns about like,
and I guess we kind of touched on it a
little bit, but like, what has it taken for many
of these women to come forward against these communities that
they've been so much a part of, just like hearing
other women's stories and feeling supported, Like, what are the commonalities.
Speaker 1 (59:52):
I think some of it is finding other people realizing
this has happened to other peop people. For an alarming number,
it's witnessing the self harm or suicide of friends who
had a similar upbreaking, like they know how much they hurt,
(01:00:17):
but to see someone you care about gone do to
all of this, that can be a real motivating force.
For some it's they're the oldest sister, or they got out,
but their little sister is still there and their family
(01:00:37):
won't talk to them, they're her uncle, whatever. But if
they can have a place for the kids to land,
if they can warn not other people. I think mostly
what I'm seeing now, when I'm hearing now is a
lot of people saying I feel like I love the
(01:01:00):
cult and all my country has joined it. They're seeing
the rise of Christian nationalism. They're seeing this draw of figures.
There's so much like the ones that their parents followed,
and it scares the hell out of them. They know
(01:01:21):
what they lost getting out, and they don't want that
future for our country.
Speaker 4 (01:01:28):
Yeah, yeah, nor do we?
Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
Nor do we? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
I mean what I guess maybe this is a different conversation,
but do you have any like cliff notes version of
the way that Christian nationalism is becoming such a mainstream
part of American politics right now.
Speaker 4 (01:01:55):
I mean, I know it's for reaching and widespread.
Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
I think guilt want just given the recent awareness of
Doug Wilson and that our Secretary of Defense is part
of his church network, that he that Hagsath has his
children in the classical Christian in school, that that layer
(01:02:20):
of influence, and then seeing Wilson draw up a church
plan in Washington, d C. Like he is the inheritor
of your Bill author James Dobson. So I think seeing
what's happening with his movement is something to watch. Wilson
(01:02:44):
has said himself he used to be fringe. I've heard
of pullet and TV evangelicles say he used to be
the crazy uncle. Wow. And now he Wilson himself has
this like the country moved him Wow. He is open
about being a Christian nationalist. I wrote a story, if
(01:03:08):
you want, only add a note years ago about the
abuse perpetuated within his church and school system for vice.
That model is what he's hoping to see nationally. He
wants to make his hometown a Christian town, make America
Christian nation in this model, and then a Christian world.
(01:03:29):
All that said, his town is still not a Christian
town that he's been really his version of Christianity. Well,
give it a couple of years, and he's trying, and
there's a stuff going on with real estate. There's been
plenty of attempts, but I think for those who want
to resist this a single mode of thought being the
(01:03:50):
motivating factor for us moving forward. There's a small town
called Moscow, oh Idaho that has been resisting Wilson all along.
So all is lost, but his type of influence is
certainly spreading and is now normalized within are government officials.
Speaker 4 (01:04:16):
Which is so crazy to me.
Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
Like, I know that ideas conflicting with other ideas does
not deter people from still holding them, but this idea
that this is like somehow American to do this when
literally the First Amendment is the freedom of religion.
Speaker 4 (01:04:34):
The fact that there are.
Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
So many people and it is now becoming more and
more mainstream to try to convert America into a theocracy
is the most Unamerican thing I can possibly imagine.
Speaker 4 (01:04:43):
I mean, it's literally not the point of the place.
So it always terrifies me.
Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
But I'm glad we are having conversations like these to
remind people to fight back.
Speaker 4 (01:04:58):
And I'm also.
Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
Curious on all of these incredible survivors and warriors that
you've talked to who have come out against systems that
are much bigger than them, to varying degrees of success,
of course, but for a listener who maybe see something
happening in their own community that has not been addressed,
(01:05:19):
are there any words of wisdom or things you've learned
from hearing these stories that you would say to.
Speaker 1 (01:05:25):
Them, so icummit and like keep your receipts, it will say.
Homeschoolers are the most amazing sources a reporter can find
because they keep everything. They've been shot everything, And I
think a lot of these communities that results from people
(01:05:48):
not believing them. Wow, so they keep their evidence. So like,
start accumulating your evidence, and then you don't have to
go to your pastoral authority that is not your authority.
If they are not protecting you or the people you love,
that is not your authority, go to the police. If
(01:06:12):
that doesn't worry, find a reporter or start a website
like many many many of these folks shared information anonymously.
There is now a means to expoose wrongdoing and I mean,
I talk about this a little bit in the book.
(01:06:33):
There's an ecosystem of bloggers work bro watch as we
go and watch keep I don't know what they've closed,
but they break a lot of these stories. And because
they break the stories, then reporters, instead of taking on
a liability, which can share a lot of editors off,
(01:06:55):
they can refer to the blog post and say local
has recorded online on this blog, and then I get
some information out. If your goal is truth telling, there
is a way, but like get your evidence squared away,
(01:07:15):
because people will not want to believe you. But there's
a tipping point where if you can show what actually
has happened, you can get most people there. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:07:29):
Wow, that's really helpful. It's really impractical advice.
Speaker 3 (01:07:32):
Thank you, Yeah, thank you for this book and all
of the work you've done. It's so comprehensive, it's so important,
and it really sheds light on a lot of the
things that we need to keep working on.
Speaker 2 (01:07:46):
Indeed, do you have anything else you'd like to add?
Is there anything we missed?
Speaker 1 (01:07:51):
I feel like be a cover or to be covered
the book if you want, I can send some links
to it's just like magazine and stories. If people want
bits and pieces of some of this, that'd be great
because it's in years of covering these types of stories.
(01:08:11):
So you can either see in the book or if
you just need a quick kind of tutorial, it's out there.
Speaker 2 (01:08:18):
Yeah, and can you remind us the name of your
book and where people can find it?
Speaker 1 (01:08:22):
Disobedient Women is it should be everywhere still anywhere you
buy books. A few weeks ago bookshop it was I
was sold out.
Speaker 4 (01:08:34):
Wow, amazing.
Speaker 1 (01:08:37):
Yeah, this new awareness of Dougalls and seems to have
gotten people interested in the book, which is good because
it's not just him. I feel like the more we
can understand all of this is interconnected, the better. But
take bookshop, like, go to your indie bookstore.
Speaker 3 (01:08:58):
Totally can be Follow you on Instagram or online? Is
there do you share?
Speaker 1 (01:09:03):
Yeah? Yeah, I'm on install, I'm sort of on TikTok Okay,
what's your Name's how we follow you? Stay in corb.
I'm easy to find. I'm the only one.
Speaker 4 (01:09:16):
Thank you so much, Sarah. It was so nice to
talk to you.
Speaker 1 (01:09:19):
So great talking to you.
Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
Thanks well, thanks to Sarah for coming on. Indeed, Megan,
here's the part where I ask you, would you join
the quiver full movement?
Speaker 1 (01:09:31):
Hell? No, I won't even have one kid.
Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
Yeah, you don't want kids at all? Oh oh my god.
Imagine if you thought you had to, I would not
be okay.
Speaker 3 (01:09:42):
In fact, I would not do it even if I
was a part of the movement.
Speaker 2 (01:09:46):
Do you think, Yeah, if you had that belief system though,
and you felt like you thought you had to, I have.
Speaker 4 (01:09:52):
A lot of like phobia around it.
Speaker 3 (01:09:55):
Oh really, I was just in a lot of like
people giving birth spaces.
Speaker 1 (01:10:02):
Oh my god, I was not. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:10:04):
So and I do want children, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm good. Yeah,
of course if i'm if my brain is telling me
that something is right, I'm not like too smart to
do it or anything. So maybe I would just get
over it and have a bunch of children. But I'm
so grateful that wasn't part of my story because.
Speaker 4 (01:10:23):
Which it feels so adjacent, Like do the two by
twos believe that?
Speaker 3 (01:10:26):
No, It's just interesting how the two by twos were
able to keep some sense of like normality and the
mix where you know, there there wasn't, as far as
I know, an encouragement to have a million children.
Speaker 4 (01:10:38):
I would so assume that that would be the goal.
Speaker 3 (01:10:41):
Yeah, No, homeschooling really like kind of whip mainstream.
Speaker 2 (01:10:45):
I actually don't really have a sense of how true
this is these days. But when I was growing up,
the joke about Mormons was they had a million children.
All Mormons had so many kids. Not nearly as many
as like polygamous Mormons, obviously or mental, but you know,
that was like the joke in school. Everyone would be like, Oh,
does your family have seven kids or whatever?
Speaker 4 (01:11:05):
Right?
Speaker 3 (01:11:06):
I mean seven kids still as moderate compared to these
Quaverble movements, where I'd be like, you have seven kids
and then get your vasectomy and done and have seven more.
Speaker 4 (01:11:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:11:15):
Yeah. So I don't know.
Speaker 3 (01:11:18):
I don't want to sound like I'm looking down upon
it or anything like that, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4 (01:11:22):
Obviously it's not right or fair.
Speaker 2 (01:11:25):
It wouldn't be the indoctrination that would appeal to you uniquely,
not sigh.
Speaker 4 (01:11:29):
I think that I don't.
Speaker 1 (01:11:31):
I don't want to.
Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
I'm very very anti patriarchal values, but I do want
to be a mother, and I think the thing that
appeals to me, which maybe you can hear, I think
I say something like this in the interview is the
idea that, like, well, if people with the wrong ideas
about the world are having a million children, then to
combat that, yes, we should also be putting lots of
(01:11:55):
children on the earth who can stand for what.
Speaker 1 (01:11:58):
Is right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (01:11:59):
Like, I could see myself, yes, falling into that. But
I also do not want that many kids. I mean,
I'd like a few kids. Yeah, that seems nice. Yeah,
I'm good.
Speaker 4 (01:12:06):
On more than that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:12:07):
Yeah, although that's a households with the huge families bustling around.
As long as there's enough help and enough money, I
don't know, it could be fun.
Speaker 3 (01:12:15):
Who knows, We'll see, who knows exactly. The environment's kind
of a thing in my mind, but that's fine. Adoption, adoption, adoption.
Speaker 1 (01:12:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (01:12:25):
Thank you guys so much for listening to another episode
of Trust Me. We cannot wait to see you again
next week. Go leave the episode five stars the podcast,
not the episode, the podcast in general. And uh, you know,
if you don't want to write a five stars, I
always say, then.
Speaker 1 (01:12:40):
Just don't write it at all.
Speaker 3 (01:12:42):
Yeah yeah, yeah, And as always, remember to follow your gut,
watch out for red flags.
Speaker 4 (01:12:47):
And never ever trust me.
Speaker 2 (01:12:49):
Bang goodbye this has been an Exactly Right production hosted
by me Lola Blanc and.
Speaker 3 (01:12:56):
Me Megan Elizabeth. Our senior producer is Gee Holli. This
episode was mixed by John Bradley. Our associate producer is
Christina Chamberlain, and our guest booker is Patrick Kottner.
Speaker 2 (01:13:06):
Our theme song was composed by Holly Ambert Church.
Speaker 3 (01:13:09):
Trust Me as executive produced by Karen Kilgareth Georgia Hardstark
and Danielle Kramer.
Speaker 2 (01:13:14):
You can find us on Instagram at trust Me podcast
or on TikTok at trust Me coult podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:13:19):
Got your own story about cults, extreme belief, our manipulation,
Shoot us an email at trustmepod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 2 (01:13:25):
Listen to trust Me on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts,
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