Advanced Training Institute, Martial Arts, Legal, Religious Freedom, Unification Church
"Looking back at her life as a follower of the Advanced Training Institute, Christine Faour believes she was "ripe for the picking" to be swept into a life in what she now recognizes as a cult.
Born and raised in Corner Brook, the daughter of Danny and Freida Faour, she now lives in Coldbrook in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia.
In June 2022, she released her memoir "Behind the Dress," sharing the story of her life in a religious cult.
"I didn't have much confidence in myself," Faour told the SaltWire Network as she reflected on how she was so easily brought into the cult by her ex-husband.
She had been raised Catholic and attended university at St. Francis Xaiver University in Antigonish, N.S., then went out west teaching.
Every time she'd visit home, she'd hear of friends who were either getting married or having children and Faour felt like she was being left on the shelf.
She was 29 when she met her ex on a plane and remembers him asking her if she was a Christian. She said yes.
"But he was talking about being a born-again Christian," and Faour said she was interested in that.
He told her about an Institute in Basic Life Principles seminar that he had attended.
"And that was the beginning of the cult," she said.
The beginning
The Institute in Basic Life Principles was founded in the United States by Bill Gothard. In seminars. Gothard taught people how to lead successful lives according to his interpretation of Biblical principles.
His followers have included the Duggar family, led by parents Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, and has been featured on TV in shows like "14 Children and Pregnant Again" and "19 Kids and Counting."
Gothard stepped down from the organization in 2014 after being accused of sexual harassment."
Toronto Life: The Guru of Mount Nemo
"On a quiet country road outside Toronto, a charismatic martial arts teacher built a megamansion for his entourage of disciples. For 15 years, he preached peace and love. Then, one morning, the police stormed in and secrets came spilling out.Christian Dombkowski grew up riding horses on his family's farm in the German countryside. He had a happy childhood, but then his idyllic life began to unravel. In 1984, when he was 12, his mom and dad separated. Four months later, his older brother died in a car crash. His parents decided to give it another try and start a new life in Canada, but after they arrived, they split again: mother and son in a townhouse in Milton, father in Alberta. Young Christian learned English and made friends hanging around Trevi Pizza, a strip-mall shop that was popular with students thanks to $1.25 slices and a wall of arcade games. He spent so much time there that, when he turned 16, the shop hired him as a delivery driver.
Christian loved Bruce Lee movies, so he was intrigued when he noticed a martial arts dummy in the back room of the shop. He asked around and discovered that it belonged to one of the owners, Mohan Ahlowalia, whom everyone called Jarry. He was in his mid-20s, and like Christian, he'd come to Ontario as a boy. He taught Wing Chun, a form of close-quarters kung fu popularized by Bruce Lee, in a small studio in the basement of his modest bungalow. Christian asked for a lesson, but Jarry declined. When he kept asking, Jarry eventually relented.
As agreed, Christian arrived at Jarry's house at 7 one evening, but Jarry wasn't home. His wife, Priti, told the young man that he was welcome to take a seat in the living room. He waited as the clock ticked on—20 minutes, an hour, then two. He was sure that Jarry was doing what martial arts masters always did in the movies: testing their students' resolve. When Jarry finally arrived, around midnight, he acted like he'd never scheduled a lesson. But Christian seemed committed, so Jarry gave him a brief history of Wing Chun and demonstrated its first stance, a pigeon-toed position called Yee Jee Kim Yeung Ma. If Christian wanted to learn the art's swift and deceptively powerful movements, he'd have to come back.
He returned for a second class, then a third. They were gruelling. Jarry demanded that Christian repeat movements until he was on the verge of passing out. When he made mistakes, Jarry directed him to do push-ups. It wasn't punishment, he'd say; it was part of the training. Jarry extended his instruction to the pizza shop, showing Christian how Wing Chun footwork could help him move around the kitchen more nimbly."
Tablet: Religious Liberty Behind Bars
"Two court cases involving Rastafarian inmates attract the attention of legal advocates of other faiths.""Last year, two separate cases were filed with the Fifth and Seventh Circuit Courts of Appeals, respectively, by Rastafarians seeking damages. Both litigants, Thomas Walker and Damon Landor, said that their dreadlocks were forcibly shaven while they were inmates, violating their religious liberty. At the center of both cases, which have attracted the attention of other religious groups who have filed amicus briefs in support of both Walker and Landor, are different interpretations of the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA). The 2000 legislation says that prisoners may "obtain appropriate relief" for violations of their religious liberty. But just what constitutes appropriate relief—or Rastafarianism, for that matter—is still up for debate.
According to the Notre Dame Religious Liberty Clinic, which filed an amicus brief for Walker in the Seventh Circuit, together with groups representing Anabaptists, Muslims, and Sikhs:
Walker began growing dreadlocks in 2013 after taking the Nazarite vow of separation, thus committing himself to never drink alcohol, never eat meat or dairy, and never cut his hair. In 2018 he was incarcerated at Stateville Northern Reception Center, where he was permitted to keep his dreadlocks. In early April 2018 he was transferred to Dixon and registered in the prison system's online database as a practicing Rastafarian. He kept his dreadlocks for the first six weeks with no incident.
On May 25, 2018, a corrections officer informed Walker that his dreadlocks had to be removed for 'security' reasons. Despite telling the officer that cutting his hair would violate his religious beliefs by 'sever[ing] [his] physical connection to Jah [(God)],' Walker ultimately had to relent and allow the prison barber to sever his dreadlocks or else face severe disciplinary action and the forcible removal of his dreadlocks."
"The Unification Church is under investigation for its role in Japanese politics following the assassination of former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Some call it a cult, while others say the church's aim is world peace.When Jinae first met her husband, she could hardly communicate with him. He was from Japan and she was brought up in the US, but according to Jinae this "was kind of normal in the church".
She was born into a religious movement called The Family Federation for World Peace and Unification, more commonly known as the Unification Church.
Founded in Seoul, South Korea in 1954, those who are faithful to the Unification Church are often nicknamed 'Moonies', after their leader Sun Myung Moon. Jinae says she was taught to believe that Reverend Moon was the "Messiah" and the "True Father".
Moon was staunchly anti-communist and his church spread internationally during the cold war. Today, the church operates in 120 countries and has around 600,000 members. It gained notoriety for its so-called "mass weddings", blessing ceremonies of thousands of couples, often held in indoor arenas or outdoor sports stadiums.Jinae's parents matched her with her future husband, and they were married in a mass wedding ceremony in Korea. Jinae says this ceremony signifies the change of blood lineage from Satan's lineage to God's lineage.
As a "Blessed Child", second-generation member of the Church, she had known her whole life this was her fate. On her wedding day she says she was miserable.
"I couldn't disappoint my parents and I couldn't lose my community."
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