Girish Chandra Varma (vice-chancellor of Maharishi Vedic University and head of its group of schools) was acquitted of charges of raping a teacher of one of his schools.
Sep 23, 2015
Jim Carrey Jokes While Talking To Uni Graduates But He Makes A Solid Point
Catherine Rhea Roy
September 19 , 2015
ScoopWhoop
Jim Carrey aims for the funny bone and goes straight to the heart when he spoke to the graduates of Maharishi University Of Management. He joked his way through Ayurveda, Pita and Vatta at the commencement speech of the graduates of 2015. The accredited school offers degrees in traditional subjects as well as new fields, such as Sustainable Living and Maharishi Vedic Science. His talk was peppered with anecdotes about his father, acute observations about life and choices, leaving fear by the wayside, and to make decisions inspired by love.
Here is the video to his heart-warming and inspiring address; we skip the niceties and take you straight to where he shoots for the heart.
September 19 , 2015
ScoopWhoop
Jim Carrey aims for the funny bone and goes straight to the heart when he spoke to the graduates of Maharishi University Of Management. He joked his way through Ayurveda, Pita and Vatta at the commencement speech of the graduates of 2015. The accredited school offers degrees in traditional subjects as well as new fields, such as Sustainable Living and Maharishi Vedic Science. His talk was peppered with anecdotes about his father, acute observations about life and choices, leaving fear by the wayside, and to make decisions inspired by love.
Here is the video to his heart-warming and inspiring address; we skip the niceties and take you straight to where he shoots for the heart.
http://www.scoopwhoop.com/world/jim-carrey-graduation-speech/
Sect followers end protests after assurance on 'MSG-2' screening
 |
| Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh |
ZeeNews
Chandigarh: Hundreds of protestors from the Dera Sacha Sauda sect who had blocked railway tracks and roads in some parts of Punjab in the past two days, ended their protests on Monday after authorities assured them that a solution would be found regarding the screening of "Messenger of God-2" (MSG-2), the second movie starring their chief, godman Gurmit Ram Rahim Singh.
The assurance to the protestors was given by district authorities following talks between both sides on Monday.
The sect followers, including scores of women, had blocked railway tracks and roads in the last two days at some places in south Punjab to oppose the "unofficial ban" on the film's screening in Punjab, putting people to inconvenience.
Protestors had blocked rail tracks and roads in Moga, Sangrur, Ludhiana, Ferozepur, Amritsar and Jalandhar districts despite inclement weather and rain.
Authorities in Bathinda and other districts assured sect supporters that a solution for the screening of the controversial film would be found this week.
The sect, which has its headquarters near Sirsa town in neighbouring Haryana, has lakhs of followers across Punjab.
The followers claimed that "MSG 2" film was not being screened in theatres and multiplexes in Punjab despite no official ban by the state government.
They said cinema owners were not screening the movie citing law and order issues.
Cinema owners are worried that members of the Sikh community would oppose the film's screening. The sect has a history of run-ins with the Sikh community.
The film, a sequel to "Messenger of God" movie, was released on nearly 2,000 screens across the country on Friday.
http://zeenews.india.com/entertainment/movies/sect-followers-end-protests-after-assurance-on-msg-2-screening_1800201.html
VC of Maharishi Vedic varsity Varma acquitted of rape charges
Times of India
September 23, 2015
BHOPAL: A local court on Tuesday acquitted vice-chancellor of Maharishi Vedic University and head of its group of schools, Girish Chandra Varma, from charges of raping a teacher of one of his schools.
Teacher made her first complaint against Varma on March 1, 2013 and second complaint on March 24, 2013 and alleged that she was first raped on August 22, 1999 and the last time on March 1, 2013.
Teacher also alleged in her complaint that she was removed from the school after she refused to arrange young girls for Varma, who had taken her signatures on blanks papers in 1997- 99.
Varma was arrested by police on December 30, 2013 and later released on bail in 2014.
A court of special judge Saeeda Bano Rahman, acquitted, Verma on Tuesday.
"Court acquitted the accused as evidences could not establish allegations. There were lot of contradictions in allegations leveled as well as the statements. Then circumstances, like complainant's husband being removed from job by accused and other things were also considered," counsel for Verma, Vijay Chowdhary told TOI.
Earlier, in her complaint the woman also alleged Varma made a video of her and taken objectionable pictures, however police searched Varma's Ashram and could not find anything as alleged by complainant. She also alleged that she was removed from the job at Verma's school after she refused to adhere to Verma's demand of supplying other girls.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/VC-of-Maharishi-Vedic-varsity-Varma-acquitted-of-rape-charges/articleshow/49072191.cms
September 23, 2015
BHOPAL: A local court on Tuesday acquitted vice-chancellor of Maharishi Vedic University and head of its group of schools, Girish Chandra Varma, from charges of raping a teacher of one of his schools.
Teacher made her first complaint against Varma on March 1, 2013 and second complaint on March 24, 2013 and alleged that she was first raped on August 22, 1999 and the last time on March 1, 2013.
Teacher also alleged in her complaint that she was removed from the school after she refused to arrange young girls for Varma, who had taken her signatures on blanks papers in 1997- 99.
Varma was arrested by police on December 30, 2013 and later released on bail in 2014.
A court of special judge Saeeda Bano Rahman, acquitted, Verma on Tuesday.
"Court acquitted the accused as evidences could not establish allegations. There were lot of contradictions in allegations leveled as well as the statements. Then circumstances, like complainant's husband being removed from job by accused and other things were also considered," counsel for Verma, Vijay Chowdhary told TOI.
Earlier, in her complaint the woman also alleged Varma made a video of her and taken objectionable pictures, however police searched Varma's Ashram and could not find anything as alleged by complainant. She also alleged that she was removed from the job at Verma's school after she refused to adhere to Verma's demand of supplying other girls.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bhopal/VC-of-Maharishi-Vedic-varsity-Varma-acquitted-of-rape-charges/articleshow/49072191.cms
India Fortis' Shivinder Singh joins spiritual sect
September 23, 2015
BBC
A top Indian businessman has left the healthcare company he co-founded to join a spiritual sect.
Shivinder M Singh, the executive vice-chairman of Fortis Healthcare Limited, has joined the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) sect.
The RSSB describes itself as "a philosophical organisation based on the spiritual teachings of all religions".
"Having spent almost two decades setting up and running Fortis, our mission of saving and enriching lives is an integral part of my being. Over time this has inspired me to do more direct service and give back to society a little of what I have received in abundance," Mr Singh was quoted as saying in a press release issued by Fortis.
"A short while ago, I requested for sewa (service) at Radha Soami Beas, headquartered near Amritsar and I am fortunate to have been accepted."
Mr Singh would continue to be associated with the company though in a non-executive role, the release added.
The RSSB has a large following in northern India, says the Economic Times newspaper.
According to the organisation's official website, it "aims to build on the primary spiritual practice of meditation".
Members are vegetarian, abstain from alcohol and recreational drugs, and are expected to lead a life of "high moral values".
Prominent followers include Bollywood actor Shahid Kapoor.
BBC
Shivinder M Singh, the executive vice-chairman of Fortis Healthcare Limited, has joined the Radha Soami Satsang Beas (RSSB) sect.
The RSSB describes itself as "a philosophical organisation based on the spiritual teachings of all religions".
\
Fortis is one of India's largest healthcare providers with interests in India, Dubai, Mauritius and Sri Lanka.
"Having spent almost two decades setting up and running Fortis, our mission of saving and enriching lives is an integral part of my being. Over time this has inspired me to do more direct service and give back to society a little of what I have received in abundance," Mr Singh was quoted as saying in a press release issued by Fortis.
"A short while ago, I requested for sewa (service) at Radha Soami Beas, headquartered near Amritsar and I am fortunate to have been accepted."
Mr Singh would continue to be associated with the company though in a non-executive role, the release added.
Mr Singh's elder brother Malvinder Singh, who will now take over running of the company, said that his sibling's decision had his "full support".
Together, the Singh family owns 71% of the company with their stake valued at $848m (£555m).
Together, the Singh family owns 71% of the company with their stake valued at $848m (£555m).
The RSSB has a large following in northern India, says the Economic Times newspaper.
According to the organisation's official website, it "aims to build on the primary spiritual practice of meditation".
Members are vegetarian, abstain from alcohol and recreational drugs, and are expected to lead a life of "high moral values".
Prominent followers include Bollywood actor Shahid Kapoor.
Give Me Sex Jesus: young evangelicals' struggles with sex and church teaching
September 17, 2015
The Guardian
Director Matt Barber’s own conflicted experience growing up in the evangelical community inspired him to make the film. “I bought heavily into the purity culture myth,” Barber said via email. “I rushed into marriage at 23 mostly so I could have sex. Purity culture taught me that if I did ‘everything right’ prior to marriage, then God would bless me with a special woman that he created just for me … and we would have an amazing sex life.”
But the fairytale that purity culture promised didn’t hold. Twelve years later, Barber’s marriage ended in divorce and his faith was deeply shaken. “I wanted to be a good husband and Christian, but I had this nagging feeling that I was sold a lie.”
While Barber doesn’t exactly denounce the church in the film, viewers are exposed to how evangelical youths struggle to abide by the rules of the church, while also growing up in a world that treats (safe) sex and sexual exploration of oneself as a normal and healthy act for young people.
One couple portrayed in the film, Bonnie and Patrick, wait until they are married to share their first kiss. “The beauty of it is that if one night’s awkward, I can sleep with him again and again and practice,” Bonnie says in the film as she smiles towards her husband. But even having waited, there are still issues in their marriage: Patrick finds he has a desire to watch pornography, for example, and Bonnie struggles to come to terms with his “sinful” curiosity.
Outside of the film, the evangelical church’s teachings of purity culture are highly controversial. Sex positive educator and activist Allena Gabosch notes that these stringent rules can leave young people unprepared or seeking alternatives to heterosexual intercourse, such as oral or anal sex. But as she emphasizes, anal sex presents the greatest possibility of transmitting an STI or STD, making it riskier than other forms of sex.
 |
Patrick and Bonnie, a couple who appear in the
film, waited until marriage to share their first kiss.
|
“Whatever it is, don’t let me die before I have sex” is a prayer that at first, sounds like a punchline. But for the young evangelicals portrayed in the new documentary Give Me Sex Jesus, it is a sincere petition to God.
The documentary, which premieres on Thursday 17 September on the streaming video platform Vimeo, presents a wide range of experiences and perspectives on the highly charged politics of purity culture in the evangelical Christian community.
Purity culture is best defined as a set of beliefs that seek to govern sexual behavior and expectations, chiefly that sex is only for heterosexual married couples. In some denominational circles, it can include guidelines for women’s modest clothing to prohibiting masturbation as a sinful act.
The documentary, which premieres on Thursday 17 September on the streaming video platform Vimeo, presents a wide range of experiences and perspectives on the highly charged politics of purity culture in the evangelical Christian community.
Purity culture is best defined as a set of beliefs that seek to govern sexual behavior and expectations, chiefly that sex is only for heterosexual married couples. In some denominational circles, it can include guidelines for women’s modest clothing to prohibiting masturbation as a sinful act.
The Give Me Sex Jesus trailer
Director Matt Barber’s own conflicted experience growing up in the evangelical community inspired him to make the film. “I bought heavily into the purity culture myth,” Barber said via email. “I rushed into marriage at 23 mostly so I could have sex. Purity culture taught me that if I did ‘everything right’ prior to marriage, then God would bless me with a special woman that he created just for me … and we would have an amazing sex life.”
But the fairytale that purity culture promised didn’t hold. Twelve years later, Barber’s marriage ended in divorce and his faith was deeply shaken. “I wanted to be a good husband and Christian, but I had this nagging feeling that I was sold a lie.”
While Barber doesn’t exactly denounce the church in the film, viewers are exposed to how evangelical youths struggle to abide by the rules of the church, while also growing up in a world that treats (safe) sex and sexual exploration of oneself as a normal and healthy act for young people.
One couple portrayed in the film, Bonnie and Patrick, wait until they are married to share their first kiss. “The beauty of it is that if one night’s awkward, I can sleep with him again and again and practice,” Bonnie says in the film as she smiles towards her husband. But even having waited, there are still issues in their marriage: Patrick finds he has a desire to watch pornography, for example, and Bonnie struggles to come to terms with his “sinful” curiosity.
Outside of the film, the evangelical church’s teachings of purity culture are highly controversial. Sex positive educator and activist Allena Gabosch notes that these stringent rules can leave young people unprepared or seeking alternatives to heterosexual intercourse, such as oral or anal sex. But as she emphasizes, anal sex presents the greatest possibility of transmitting an STI or STD, making it riskier than other forms of sex.
Lola Prescott, founder of the website No Shame Movement, a platform for those who have left behind purity culture, says that the evangelical church’s definitions of purity and immortality have shifted over the years.
“I wish folks understood how subjective their views are and how influenced they are by their culture,” she said. “It’s a waste of energy to try and promote these things because they’re not even going to be around 20 years from now.”
Prescott described visiting a religiously conservative church in Ecuador where the women wore tight jeans, something that would be frowned upon in some American evangelical churches. “In the US, people would be scandalized. When telling proponents of modesty and purity this story, I ask, ‘who’s really more modest?’ No one has an answer.”
Where Give Me Sex Jesus especially succeeds is its handling of purity culture for LGBT Christians and those who have since left the church. Mac, a trans man, noted that he left the church because of the lack of authenticity. “Not just about being trans, but I just felt judged,” he said. “If you made a mistake, God’s with a stick, ready to whack you, but he loves you.” While advocates of purity culture would decry this conception of God, the emphasis placed on proper sexual behavior clouds it.
The question remains: how does the evangelical Christian church move forward? The conclusion of Give Me Sex Jesus is the need for open spaces and permission to express often complicated feelings towards sexuality. One participant, Lacey, embodies this space of uncertainty well. When she is asked what she now believes about sex before marriage, her reply is filled with thoughtful pauses: “My views aren’t completely solid. I think it might be more important to wait until you are ready, and there is someone you really care about rather than being promiscuous, rather than getting started early.”
What evangelical Christians seem to need is a space for open and honest discussions that should have been had long ago. In an email to the Guardian, producer Brittany Machado explained, “My hope is that by showing a spectrum of realities we will enable communities to connect, not deflect.” Give Me Sex Jesus provides a good, and safe, place for that connection to begin.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/sep/17/give-me-sex-jesus-film-young-evangelicals-purity-culture
“I wish folks understood how subjective their views are and how influenced they are by their culture,” she said. “It’s a waste of energy to try and promote these things because they’re not even going to be around 20 years from now.”
Prescott described visiting a religiously conservative church in Ecuador where the women wore tight jeans, something that would be frowned upon in some American evangelical churches. “In the US, people would be scandalized. When telling proponents of modesty and purity this story, I ask, ‘who’s really more modest?’ No one has an answer.”
Where Give Me Sex Jesus especially succeeds is its handling of purity culture for LGBT Christians and those who have since left the church. Mac, a trans man, noted that he left the church because of the lack of authenticity. “Not just about being trans, but I just felt judged,” he said. “If you made a mistake, God’s with a stick, ready to whack you, but he loves you.” While advocates of purity culture would decry this conception of God, the emphasis placed on proper sexual behavior clouds it.
The question remains: how does the evangelical Christian church move forward? The conclusion of Give Me Sex Jesus is the need for open spaces and permission to express often complicated feelings towards sexuality. One participant, Lacey, embodies this space of uncertainty well. When she is asked what she now believes about sex before marriage, her reply is filled with thoughtful pauses: “My views aren’t completely solid. I think it might be more important to wait until you are ready, and there is someone you really care about rather than being promiscuous, rather than getting started early.”
What evangelical Christians seem to need is a space for open and honest discussions that should have been had long ago. In an email to the Guardian, producer Brittany Machado explained, “My hope is that by showing a spectrum of realities we will enable communities to connect, not deflect.” Give Me Sex Jesus provides a good, and safe, place for that connection to begin.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/sep/17/give-me-sex-jesus-film-young-evangelicals-purity-culture
Oklahoma Pre-K teacher allegedly calls being left-handed ‘evil’ and ‘sinister’
September 21, 2015
ABBY BROYLES
KFOR
OKEMAH, Okla. -- A 4-year-old was allegedly forced by his teacher to write with his right hand, even though he’s left-handed.
The child was sent home with a letter about how left-handedness is often associated with evil and the devil.
Zayde is only 4 years old.
It's his first year at Oakes Elementary in Okemah, but his mom kept him home Monday after a dispute with his teacher over being left-handed.
Zayde, like most kids in Pre-K, is learning how to read and write. And like his mom, Alisha, Zayde is a lefty.
“From picking things up to throwing things, to batting, to writing, to just coloring you’d do at home with him, he’s always, always used his left hand,” Alisha Sands said.
That was until last week at homework time.
Alisha asked him why he was writing with his right hand, not his left.
“I just asked ‘Is there anything his teachers ever asked about his hands?’ And he raises this one and says this one’s bad,” Sands said.
Alisha sent the teacher a note and got a strong response.
It was an article calling left-handedness “unlucky,” “evil,” and “sinister.”
It even says “for example, the devil is often portrayed as left-handed.”
Alisha couldn’t believe it.
“It breaks my heart for him because someone actually believes that, believes my child is evil because he’s left handed, it’s crazy,” Sands said.
She went to the superintendent with the article.
“There was no suspension of any kind. There was basically nothing done to this teacher,” Sands says, “She told them she thought I needed literature on it.”
Zayde will likely transfer to another class just two months into the school year.
“I don’t feel like the school did what they were supposed to for him,” Sands said.
NewsChannel 4 called the school and were told the superintendent was out Monday, so they transferred us to the principal at Oakes Elementary.
She said she’s aware of the situation and the district is investigating. She hung up before we could ask any questions.
Sands is going to file a formal complaint with the Oklahoma Board of Education.
http://kfor.com/2015/09/21/oklahoma-pre-k-teacher-allegedly-calls-being-left-handed-evil-and-sinister/
ABBY BROYLES
KFOR
 |
| Picture of letter sent home with 4-year-old Zayde. Courtesy: Alisha |
The child was sent home with a letter about how left-handedness is often associated with evil and the devil.
Zayde is only 4 years old.
It's his first year at Oakes Elementary in Okemah, but his mom kept him home Monday after a dispute with his teacher over being left-handed.
Zayde, like most kids in Pre-K, is learning how to read and write. And like his mom, Alisha, Zayde is a lefty.
“From picking things up to throwing things, to batting, to writing, to just coloring you’d do at home with him, he’s always, always used his left hand,” Alisha Sands said.
That was until last week at homework time.
Alisha asked him why he was writing with his right hand, not his left.
“I just asked ‘Is there anything his teachers ever asked about his hands?’ And he raises this one and says this one’s bad,” Sands said.
Alisha sent the teacher a note and got a strong response.
It was an article calling left-handedness “unlucky,” “evil,” and “sinister.”
It even says “for example, the devil is often portrayed as left-handed.”
Alisha couldn’t believe it.
“It breaks my heart for him because someone actually believes that, believes my child is evil because he’s left handed, it’s crazy,” Sands said.
She went to the superintendent with the article.
“There was no suspension of any kind. There was basically nothing done to this teacher,” Sands says, “She told them she thought I needed literature on it.”
Zayde will likely transfer to another class just two months into the school year.
“I don’t feel like the school did what they were supposed to for him,” Sands said.
NewsChannel 4 called the school and were told the superintendent was out Monday, so they transferred us to the principal at Oakes Elementary.
She said she’s aware of the situation and the district is investigating. She hung up before we could ask any questions.
Sands is going to file a formal complaint with the Oklahoma Board of Education.
http://kfor.com/2015/09/21/oklahoma-pre-k-teacher-allegedly-calls-being-left-handed-evil-and-sinister/
Grand Zero
GRAND ZERO from Kevin Oeser on Vimeo.
It's not a cult. It's America. A family man returns to his hometown to discover he's the last person in town who's not part of a legendary pyramid scheme. And everyone-- EVERYONE-- wants him in.
Starring:
- Brian Huskey,
- Janie Haddad Tompkins,
- Lexi Ainsworth,
- Thomas Lennon,
- Ian Roberts
Produced by: Divide/Conquer - divideconquer.us
facebook.com/grandzeromovie
https://vimeo.com/106241499/
Mormon leader Richard G. Scott dies at 86
USA TODAY
Brady McCombs, Associated Press
September 23, 2015
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Mormon leader Richard G. Scott died Tuesday at the age of 86 — leaving the religion with three openings on its top governing body for the first time in more than a century.
Scott died from natural causes at his home in Salt Lake City surrounded by his family, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said in a statement. Scott had been a member of a church governing body called the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles since 1988.
He is the third top member of the quorum to die this year, leaving three vacancies on the quorum for the first time since 1906, church officials said.
Quorum president Boyd K. Packer died in July from natural causes, and quorum member L. Tom Perry died in May from cancer. Replacements for the trio are expected to be named in the coming months, perhaps at the religion's twice-a-year conference on Oct. 3-4.
Six other members among the religion's top 15 leaders are also 80 or older, including church president Thomas S. Monson. He is 88 and is feeling the effects of his age, according to church officials. Russell M. Nelson, 91, is next in line to become church president based on being the longest-tenured member of the quorum.
Born in Pocatello, Idaho, Scott had a successful career as a nuclear engineer before being chosen in 1988 as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Modeled after Jesus Christ's apostles, the group serves under the church president and his two counselors in overseeing operations of the church and its business interests.
Scott's health began deteriorating earlier this year. He was hospitalized with gastrointestinal bleeding in April. He recovered from that, but church officials announced in May that Scott was experiencing fading memory that kept him from taking part in quorum meetings.
Scott kept a fairly low public profile, known mostly for his speeches at Mormon conferences where he managed a delicate balance of "preaching repentance without stridency," said Matthew Bowman, an associate professor of history at Henderson State University.
Mormon scholar Armand Mauss called Scott a "mild-mannered leader promoting self-improvement and compassion as important attributes for Latter-day Saints to acquire."
Utah Gov. Gary Herbert called Scott a kind and generous leader. "His unwavering faith and pursuit of lifelong learning was an example to each one of us," Herbert said in a statement.
Fellow quorum member D. Todd Christofferson said in a church news release that Scott delivered hope-filled messages that inspired others. He was credited with helping drive global church membership.
"I don't go anywhere, especially in Latin America, where he served for so long and in so many places — I don't go anywhere there that I don't see his footprints, where I don't meet somebody who hasn't been influenced by him in some way," Christofferson said in the news release.
Scott was born in Idaho, but he moved at the age of 5 to Washington, D.C., where his father, Kenneth Leroy, would become assistant secretary of agriculture. Scott graduated from George Washington University with a degree in mechanical engineering.
Throughout his life, he suffered intense personal losses. Two of his seven children died when they were young, and his wife, Jeanene, died of cancer in 1995. She was the daughter of U.S. Sen. Arthur Watkins. Scott never remarried.
Scott didn't speak at the last church general conference in April. His final address came in October 2014 when he spoke about the importance of prayer, scripture reading, family home nights and going to the temple.
"Each of us is intimately aware of our own struggles with temptation, pain and sadness," Scott said that day. "Despite all of the negative challenges we have in life, we must take time to actively exercise our faith."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/09/23/mormon-leader-dies/72665084/
Brady McCombs, Associated Press
September 23, 2015
 |
| Mormon leader Richard G. Scott |
Scott died from natural causes at his home in Salt Lake City surrounded by his family, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said in a statement. Scott had been a member of a church governing body called the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles since 1988.
He is the third top member of the quorum to die this year, leaving three vacancies on the quorum for the first time since 1906, church officials said.
Quorum president Boyd K. Packer died in July from natural causes, and quorum member L. Tom Perry died in May from cancer. Replacements for the trio are expected to be named in the coming months, perhaps at the religion's twice-a-year conference on Oct. 3-4.
Six other members among the religion's top 15 leaders are also 80 or older, including church president Thomas S. Monson. He is 88 and is feeling the effects of his age, according to church officials. Russell M. Nelson, 91, is next in line to become church president based on being the longest-tenured member of the quorum.
Born in Pocatello, Idaho, Scott had a successful career as a nuclear engineer before being chosen in 1988 as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Modeled after Jesus Christ's apostles, the group serves under the church president and his two counselors in overseeing operations of the church and its business interests.
Scott's health began deteriorating earlier this year. He was hospitalized with gastrointestinal bleeding in April. He recovered from that, but church officials announced in May that Scott was experiencing fading memory that kept him from taking part in quorum meetings.
Scott kept a fairly low public profile, known mostly for his speeches at Mormon conferences where he managed a delicate balance of "preaching repentance without stridency," said Matthew Bowman, an associate professor of history at Henderson State University.
Mormon scholar Armand Mauss called Scott a "mild-mannered leader promoting self-improvement and compassion as important attributes for Latter-day Saints to acquire."
Utah Gov. Gary Herbert called Scott a kind and generous leader. "His unwavering faith and pursuit of lifelong learning was an example to each one of us," Herbert said in a statement.
Fellow quorum member D. Todd Christofferson said in a church news release that Scott delivered hope-filled messages that inspired others. He was credited with helping drive global church membership.
"I don't go anywhere, especially in Latin America, where he served for so long and in so many places — I don't go anywhere there that I don't see his footprints, where I don't meet somebody who hasn't been influenced by him in some way," Christofferson said in the news release.
Scott was born in Idaho, but he moved at the age of 5 to Washington, D.C., where his father, Kenneth Leroy, would become assistant secretary of agriculture. Scott graduated from George Washington University with a degree in mechanical engineering.
Throughout his life, he suffered intense personal losses. Two of his seven children died when they were young, and his wife, Jeanene, died of cancer in 1995. She was the daughter of U.S. Sen. Arthur Watkins. Scott never remarried.
Scott didn't speak at the last church general conference in April. His final address came in October 2014 when he spoke about the importance of prayer, scripture reading, family home nights and going to the temple.
"Each of us is intimately aware of our own struggles with temptation, pain and sadness," Scott said that day. "Despite all of the negative challenges we have in life, we must take time to actively exercise our faith."
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/09/23/mormon-leader-dies/72665084/
Scientology Doc 'Going Clear' Draws 88,000 Overnight Viewers on U.K.'s Sky
Georg Szalai
September 22, 5015
September 22, 5015
The Hollywood Reporter
The Alex Gibney film is based on Lawrence Wright's book of the same name.
Alex Gibney's documentary Going Clear: Scientology and The Prison of Belief drew 88,000 viewers on British pay TV giant Sky's Sky Atlantic on Monday night, according to overnight ratings data.
Consolidated figures for seven days of viewing are expected to be higher given that much of the viewing for Sky Atlantic content comes in DVR and on-demand form. Also, the 9 p.m. time slot has popular dramas on other networks, and the doc aired in the 9 p.m. to 11:25 p.m. slot. Overall, Sky Atlantic's consolidated figures often double its overnight results.
The overnight audience figure was up from the 34,000 viewers that watched the channel's last documentary on the FDNY in early August, according to Broadcast magazine. It said the slot in which it aired has, on average, reached 147,000 viewers for the network over the past 12 months.
Sky originally planned to air the doc in Britain in April, but put those plans on ice because Northern Ireland is not subject to the 2013 Defamation Act, which U.K. observers said could expose the company to libel claims there. The doc, which has already been screening in British theaters, was recently given its air date across the U.K., including Northern Ireland, and Ireland.
Scientology has called the doc "biased, one-sided" and said it contains "numerous inaccuracies."
Based on the book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright, Going Clear was produced by Jigsaw Productions for Sky Atlantic.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/scientology-documentary-ratings-uks-sky-826117
The Alex Gibney film is based on Lawrence Wright's book of the same name.
Consolidated figures for seven days of viewing are expected to be higher given that much of the viewing for Sky Atlantic content comes in DVR and on-demand form. Also, the 9 p.m. time slot has popular dramas on other networks, and the doc aired in the 9 p.m. to 11:25 p.m. slot. Overall, Sky Atlantic's consolidated figures often double its overnight results.
The overnight audience figure was up from the 34,000 viewers that watched the channel's last documentary on the FDNY in early August, according to Broadcast magazine. It said the slot in which it aired has, on average, reached 147,000 viewers for the network over the past 12 months.
Sky originally planned to air the doc in Britain in April, but put those plans on ice because Northern Ireland is not subject to the 2013 Defamation Act, which U.K. observers said could expose the company to libel claims there. The doc, which has already been screening in British theaters, was recently given its air date across the U.K., including Northern Ireland, and Ireland.
Scientology has called the doc "biased, one-sided" and said it contains "numerous inaccuracies."
Based on the book by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Lawrence Wright, Going Clear was produced by Jigsaw Productions for Sky Atlantic.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/scientology-documentary-ratings-uks-sky-826117
How BYU Destroyed Ancient Book of Mormon Studies
William Hamblin
Patheos
I maintain that numerous policies adopted by a wide range of BYU administrators over the past thirty years have had the effect—intended or unintended—of destroying ancient Book of Mormon studies as a fledgling discipline. Here’s how.
College and Department Politics. Although many people might find it incredible, every single BYU administrator on every level of the administration has explicitly discouraged me from doing ancient Book of Mormon studies in my annual performance (“stewardship”) reviews. They have all explicitly told me to focus my research and publications on non-Book of Mormon topics, such as the crusades. In part this was good advice on their part; they were telling me if you want to be successful at BYU, don’t publish on the Book of Mormon or publish with FARMS or later Interpreter. More broadly, you must publish outside the “BYU Bubble”—that is, BYU or LDS sponsored publications. Only people hired to teach Mormon history should publish on Mormonism. Only publications in non-LDS-related venues are viewed as legitimate scholarship. Since non-LDS publications generally do not accept ancient Book of Mormon studies as a legitimate discipline, this essentially means that no publication on ancient Book of Mormon studies can be acceptable as authentic scholarship at BYU.
College and Department Politics. Although many people might find it incredible, every single BYU administrator on every level of the administration has explicitly discouraged me from doing ancient Book of Mormon studies in my annual performance (“stewardship”) reviews. They have all explicitly told me to focus my research and publications on non-Book of Mormon topics, such as the crusades. In part this was good advice on their part; they were telling me if you want to be successful at BYU, don’t publish on the Book of Mormon or publish with FARMS or later Interpreter. More broadly, you must publish outside the “BYU Bubble”—that is, BYU or LDS sponsored publications. Only people hired to teach Mormon history should publish on Mormonism. Only publications in non-LDS-related venues are viewed as legitimate scholarship. Since non-LDS publications generally do not accept ancient Book of Mormon studies as a legitimate discipline, this essentially means that no publication on ancient Book of Mormon studies can be acceptable as authentic scholarship at BYU.
This policy is also reflected in two other phenomena moving beyond mere verbal discouragement. Over the past twenty-five years I submitted several research proposals to my college on Book of Mormon related topics; none was ever accepted. This is in clear contrast to many of my non-Book of Mormon research proposals, many of which were accepted. Merit pay raises, based largely on academic performance did not include ancient Book of Mormon publications as authentic scholarship. The policy was crystal clear. When I published non-Book of Mormon related books or articles, I received merit pay raises. When I published Book of Mormon-related books or articles, I received no merit pay raise. My promotion to full-professor a few years ago was rejected by my college dean precisely because my Book of Mormon publications were not viewed by him as legitimate scholarship. I was informed explicitly by the dean that I needed more non-LDS-related publications to be promoted—despite the fact that I had two books and numerous non-LDS articles in my vita. (The dean’s decision was overturned by the university.)
So, my experience throughout my 25 years at BYU was that ancient Book of Mormon studies were not considered an authentic discipline. Publications in that field were not legitimate scholarly work. Such research was not supported by the college. Publications in ancient Book of Mormon studies did not contribute to either merit pay raises, nor promotion. Such policies not only obviously discourage young scholars from publishing in ancient Book of Mormon studies, and even overtly punish those who do so against BYU policy and the universal advice of administrators.
Religious Education. One would expect that the College of Religious education would be the natural home for intensive ancient Book of Mormon studies. It is not. First, as I’ll note below, the curriculum on the Book of Mormon at BYU is both superficial and extremely limited. Second, many people teaching the Book of Mormon have no professional interest or training in ancient Book of Mormon studies—or ancient scriptural studies of any sort. Finally, Religious Education focuses on teaching what I call the “Three Ds”—doctrine, devotion, and daily application. Those three approaches to the Book of Mormon are certainly important and legitimate. But they do not provide the students much opportunity for intensive text-based academic study of the Book of Mormon. The whole academic culture of Religious Education is directed towards teaching the basic principles of the Gospel, which is fine, and indeed most important. The problem is that they also actively prevent any classes being taught at an advanced level, and essentially discourage the serious academic study of the Book of Mormon as an ancient text. As far as I can tell, this restriction represents an intentional policy by the BYU Religious Education administration. They don’t want the Book of Mormon studied contextually as an ancient historical document. They want it studied only as a theological and ethical document.
BYU Curriculum and the Book of Mormon. Currently, there are only two courses that BYU students can take on the Book of Mormon: REL A 121: The Book of Mormon (first half), and REL A 122 : The Book of Mormon (second half). Both are introductory courses, and are only two hours long, making a total of only four hours. Even if a student wants to do more in depth study of the Book of Mormon, it is impossible to do so anywhere at BYU or in the church. BYU classes on the Book of Mormon are perpetually stuck at the introductory level. Furthermore, the new Book of Mormon class offered by BYU—Rel A 275 “Teachings and Doctrine of the Book of Mormon”—is now a single two hour class approaching the Book of Mormon thematically. In other words, it’s a glorified Sunday School class. It’s getting more superficial.
What BYU actually needs is a robust curriculum in the Book of Mormon. Most simply, BYU could offer in depth courses on each of the major books of the Book of Mormon, combining some of the smaller books into one. Note that Religious Education offers a class on Isaiah, but no class on the book of Alma or Helaman or Nephi? Why? Beyond in depth classes on major books of the Book of Mormon, BYU should offer classes on Book of Mormon geography, history, archaeology, linguistics, literature, theology, culture, language (ancient Near East and Maya), textual criticism, religion, law, warfare, apocalyptic, reception history, the Bible in the Book of Mormon, etc. BYU could, if the administration wanted, have a program in Book of Mormon studies, and offer two dozen different advanced courses on the Book of Mormon, certainly enough for a major. But it doesn’t. This cannot be an oversight or random chance. This is obviously a conscious policy that implements curriculum decision which minimizes the opportunities of students to study the Book of Mormon as a serious academic discipline at BYU. Which, for all practical purposes, means students can’t do ancient Book of Mormon studies at all, anywhere.
Graduate Studies and the Book of Mormon. The only way that young LDS scholars can study the Book of Mormon in graduate school is to study it as a nineteenth century text in a secular religious studies program, or US history program. There is, of course, nothing inherently wrong with this. But what this means is that one cannot do graduate work anywhere in the world in ancient Book of Mormon Studies. Unremarkably, young scholars are not doing ancient Book of Mormon studies. Furthermore, no one teaching has at BYU has a PhD in ancient Book of Mormon Studies. BYU has completely failed in its mission to prepare young LDS scholars for ancient Book of Mormon studies.
BYU Curriculum and the Book of Mormon. I’ve written extensively on the debacle of BYU’s destruction of FARMS. FARMS originated outside of BYU precisely because of the policies of BYU that I’ve outlined above, which prevented ancient Book of Mormon scholarship from thriving at BYU. Then, not satisfied with undermining ancient Book of Mormon studies on their own campus, BYU administrators decided they should undermine it outside of campus as well. Their goal in forcing FARMS to join was not because they wanted to support ancient Book of Mormon studies. Quite the contrary. BYU wanted to gain control of land that FARMS owned, and be able to manipulate potential donations to FARMS. BYU administrators made a number of promises to the FARMS board at the time of the hostile takeover—almost none of them have been fulfilled. Furthermore, in the past three years, BYU administrators have completely transformed the direction of the Maxwell Institute from ancient scriptural studies to modern Mormon Studies in its broadest sense. As I’ve detailed in blogs over the past few years, BYU has taken what was once the most productive center of research and publications on ancient Book of Mormon studies—which came into existence precisely because of the failure of BYU in this regard—and transformed it into Sunstone South.
Conclusion. I don’t know what the goals or motives of the BYU administrators have been over the past thirty years in relationship to the Book of Mormon. I suspect they haven’t actually considered the implications of their policy decisions at all. Their focus is on other important aspects of running a university. However, the law of unintended (and perhaps even some intended) consequences has resulted in a series of administrative policy decisions over the past thirty years all of which have combined to result in undermining serious ancient Book of Mormon studies at BYU. Indeed, if their actual goal was to intentionally minimize the discipline of ancient Book of Mormons studies, they could have achieved that goal no better than by making precisely the decisions they have made.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/enigmaticmirror/2015/09/08/how-byu-destroyed-ancient-book-of-mormon-studies/
Scientology leader in court
7News Sydney
September 22, 2015
The leader of Scientology in Australia has made a rare public appearance in court. Bryan Seymour reports.
Video
September 22, 2015
The leader of Scientology in Australia has made a rare public appearance in court. Bryan Seymour reports.
Video
New documentary Prophet's Prey reveals how fundamentalist Mormon church survives despite its cult status
September 23, 2015
ROHAN SMITH
news.com.au
IN the hills between Utah and Colorado City, a man named Warren Jeffs was going about his business quietly. He wasn’t disturbing anybody, he didn’t appear to outsiders to be doing anything wrong.
A closer look revealed the opposite. For years, Jeffs, a fundamentalist Mormon, was accruing wives — some as young as 12 years old — and forming a cult like no other.
Inside the walls of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), Jeffs was preaching love and patience and the word of God. But his intentions were not pure.
Sam Brower, a private investigator who got close enough to Jeffs to write a book about what he witnessed, said the 59-year-old was “committing the most vile crimes imaginable”.
“Kidnapping, tax fraud, child molestation, human trafficking, blackmail,” Brower said.
Jeffs would eventually answer for his crimes, despite trying t run. He was briefly a fugitive and briefly owned second position on the FBI’s most wanted list. When he was tracked down he had with him 16 mobile phones, three wigs and one of his wives.
Brower’s evidence led to Jeffs’ conviction and a 20-year sentence for child sexual assault. He was additionally charged with incest and sexual conduct with minors.
Four years after he was put behind bars, a new documentary reveals the church continues to operate without him. Outside his jail cell there are 10,000 loyal followers waiting for his release, convinced he is their saviour.
‘I HAD NO IDEA HOW YOUNG THEY REALLY WERE’
Brower told an audience in 2013 that he believed Jeffs was the leader of more than a church.
“Most people think of them as a church, but I think of them as an organised crime syndicate,” he said.
In his book, Prophet’s Prey — the same title used in the new documentary by director Amy Berg — Brower recounts how, over seven years, he witnessed horrendous crimes under the veil of religion.
In an interview in 2011 he explained how he first gained the church’s trust.
“The community itself is very distrustful, very isolated, very insular,” he said. “It literally took years, baby steps, little bits at a time, getting to know somebody and then them having a brother or some other contact that would slowly begin talking to me. It was a very cumbersome process.”
He said the FLDS community were “more insidious” than the mafia with one subtle but important difference.
“The mafia threatens you with your life, but the FLDS threatens you with your family and your eternal salvation, and people that lose their family are without hope, and that’s worse than death.”
Brower said he knew he was likely to come across polygamy — traditionally one man with multiple wives — but he didn’t expect it to involve pre-teens.
“I’d heard of polygamy and what was happening to these young girls, but I had no idea how young they really were. His one victim in Texas was barely 12 years old.”
A review of Brower’s book by Variety concluded “spiritual and psychological bondage does not end simply by putting a monster behind bars”.
That’s the premise of Berg’s documentary, one that revisits the cult years after Jeffs’ conviction and finds little if anything has changed.
Author John Krakauer features heavily in the documentary. Having previously written about fundamentalist Mormonism, he explains how the FLDS came to hold such strong beliefs about women and enabled people like Jeffs to demand multiple brides.
In an interview ahead of the Sundance Film Festival where the documentary was premiering, Krakauer said polygamy was “everywhere” in Utah in the 1800s but the government soon tried to ban it.
“The fundamentalists, the true believers, said ‘bullsh*t, what the f***’,” he said. “This is (the religion’s) most holy principle and so they broke away from the mainstream church.”
He said Brigham Young, one of the church’s leaders, had “70 or 80 wives” and that wives equalled power.
“Literally, in this religion, women are like animals, they’re treated so badly,” Krakauer said.
Polygamy is not the only crime being committed by the church. Prophet’s Preyportrays a culture of child labour, rape and misogyny.
Berg said “manipulation and brainwashing starts at a very young age” in America’s largest polygamous community.
Krakauer said even Jeffs was brainwashed as a child. He said he was born three months premature and believed he was “special” as a result.
“He grew up with this sense of entitlement and he was a really kinky, f***ed up kid,” Krakauer said.
That kid grew into an adult who channelled his sense of entitlement into molesting children. He’s behind bars but the cult marches on.
The Daily Mail reported this year that through letters and phone calls Jeffs is still running the show but the community on the Arizona-Utah border is divided between loyalists and defectors.
Willie Jessop, who left the cult in 2011, said many refuse to believe their leader did anything wrong.
“That’s why you see such a fractured situation,” Jessop told the Mail.
“People try to come to grips with what he’s in prison for (and) it’s easier for people to put it under religious persecution than the reality of why he’s there.”
Salon recently compared it to ISIS, and the similarities are hard to argue with.
“Both groups have sought to pursue prophetic religious teachings to their ultimate extreme, and both have constructed a throwback social order based on male domination, female subjugation, forced marriage and the rape and sexual enslavement of children. If Warren Jeffs had the guns, the territory and the freedom that ISIS possesses, how far would he go?”
Thank God he doesn’t.
Prophet’s Prey opens in the US on September 25.
http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/movies/new-documentary-prophets-prey-reveals-how-fundamentalist-mormon-church-survives-despite-its-cult-status/story-e6frfmw0-1227539495326
ROHAN SMITH
news.com.au
A closer look revealed the opposite. For years, Jeffs, a fundamentalist Mormon, was accruing wives — some as young as 12 years old — and forming a cult like no other.
Inside the walls of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), Jeffs was preaching love and patience and the word of God. But his intentions were not pure.
Sam Brower, a private investigator who got close enough to Jeffs to write a book about what he witnessed, said the 59-year-old was “committing the most vile crimes imaginable”.
“Kidnapping, tax fraud, child molestation, human trafficking, blackmail,” Brower said.
Jeffs would eventually answer for his crimes, despite trying t run. He was briefly a fugitive and briefly owned second position on the FBI’s most wanted list. When he was tracked down he had with him 16 mobile phones, three wigs and one of his wives.
Brower’s evidence led to Jeffs’ conviction and a 20-year sentence for child sexual assault. He was additionally charged with incest and sexual conduct with minors.
Four years after he was put behind bars, a new documentary reveals the church continues to operate without him. Outside his jail cell there are 10,000 loyal followers waiting for his release, convinced he is their saviour.
‘I HAD NO IDEA HOW YOUNG THEY REALLY WERE’
Brower told an audience in 2013 that he believed Jeffs was the leader of more than a church.
“Most people think of them as a church, but I think of them as an organised crime syndicate,” he said.
In his book, Prophet’s Prey — the same title used in the new documentary by director Amy Berg — Brower recounts how, over seven years, he witnessed horrendous crimes under the veil of religion.
In an interview in 2011 he explained how he first gained the church’s trust.
“The community itself is very distrustful, very isolated, very insular,” he said. “It literally took years, baby steps, little bits at a time, getting to know somebody and then them having a brother or some other contact that would slowly begin talking to me. It was a very cumbersome process.”
He said the FLDS community were “more insidious” than the mafia with one subtle but important difference.
“The mafia threatens you with your life, but the FLDS threatens you with your family and your eternal salvation, and people that lose their family are without hope, and that’s worse than death.”
Brower said he knew he was likely to come across polygamy — traditionally one man with multiple wives — but he didn’t expect it to involve pre-teens.
“I’d heard of polygamy and what was happening to these young girls, but I had no idea how young they really were. His one victim in Texas was barely 12 years old.”
A review of Brower’s book by Variety concluded “spiritual and psychological bondage does not end simply by putting a monster behind bars”.
That’s the premise of Berg’s documentary, one that revisits the cult years after Jeffs’ conviction and finds little if anything has changed.
‘WOMEN ARE TREATED LIKE ANIMALS’
Author John Krakauer features heavily in the documentary. Having previously written about fundamentalist Mormonism, he explains how the FLDS came to hold such strong beliefs about women and enabled people like Jeffs to demand multiple brides.
In an interview ahead of the Sundance Film Festival where the documentary was premiering, Krakauer said polygamy was “everywhere” in Utah in the 1800s but the government soon tried to ban it.
“The fundamentalists, the true believers, said ‘bullsh*t, what the f***’,” he said. “This is (the religion’s) most holy principle and so they broke away from the mainstream church.”
He said Brigham Young, one of the church’s leaders, had “70 or 80 wives” and that wives equalled power.
“Literally, in this religion, women are like animals, they’re treated so badly,” Krakauer said.
Polygamy is not the only crime being committed by the church. Prophet’s Preyportrays a culture of child labour, rape and misogyny.
Berg said “manipulation and brainwashing starts at a very young age” in America’s largest polygamous community.
Krakauer said even Jeffs was brainwashed as a child. He said he was born three months premature and believed he was “special” as a result.
‘HE WAS A KINKY, F***ED UP KID’
“He grew up with this sense of entitlement and he was a really kinky, f***ed up kid,” Krakauer said.
That kid grew into an adult who channelled his sense of entitlement into molesting children. He’s behind bars but the cult marches on.
The Daily Mail reported this year that through letters and phone calls Jeffs is still running the show but the community on the Arizona-Utah border is divided between loyalists and defectors.
Willie Jessop, who left the cult in 2011, said many refuse to believe their leader did anything wrong.
“That’s why you see such a fractured situation,” Jessop told the Mail.
“People try to come to grips with what he’s in prison for (and) it’s easier for people to put it under religious persecution than the reality of why he’s there.”
Salon recently compared it to ISIS, and the similarities are hard to argue with.
“Both groups have sought to pursue prophetic religious teachings to their ultimate extreme, and both have constructed a throwback social order based on male domination, female subjugation, forced marriage and the rape and sexual enslavement of children. If Warren Jeffs had the guns, the territory and the freedom that ISIS possesses, how far would he go?”
Thank God he doesn’t.
Prophet’s Prey opens in the US on September 25.
http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/movies/new-documentary-prophets-prey-reveals-how-fundamentalist-mormon-church-survives-despite-its-cult-status/story-e6frfmw0-1227539495326
Jehovah's Witnesses can hide the truth in court to protect religion
Reveal
Trey Bundy
Trey Bundy
September 23, 2015
On a Friday morning in August, one of the Jehovah’s Witnesses top leaders sat before an Australian government commission investigating whether the organization hid child sexual abuse from secular authorities.
That Geoffrey Jackson, one of the seven members of the religion’s Governing Body, was being grilled in public captivated a global community of former Witnesses that watched the live stream on their home computers.
During two weeks of hearings, Jackson and members of the organization’s top brass in Australia gave hours of sworn testimony, but at least one big question remained: Were any of them telling the truth?
Since the 1950s, the Witnesses have preached a doctrine allowing Jehovah’s followers to deceive anyone outside of the religion if doing so protects the organization. They call it “theocratic warfare.”
The policy has taken on a new significance today as Jehovah’s Witnesses are coming under scrutiny across continents for enabling and concealing child sexual abusers. Top leaders are being questioned under oath as judges and investigators try to get to the bottom of a global scandal.
A 1957 article in The Watchtower magazine – named for the Witnesses’ parent corporation, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York – grants permission to Jehovah’s followers to hide the truth from “enemies” of the religion. The religion teaches that the world outside the organization is controlled by Satan.
“So in a time of spiritual warfare it is proper to misdirect the enemy by hiding the truth,” the article reads. “Today God’s servants are engaged in a warfare, a spiritual, theocratic warfare, a warfare ordered by God against wicked spirit forces and against false teachings.”
The theocratic warfare doctrine teaches that refusing to cooperate with criminal investigations involving Jehovah’s Witnesses is sanctioned by God because outsiders are not entitled to the truth.
Although the term theocratic warfare appears in Watchtower literature less and less over time, the organization’s leadership still teaches that secrecy is a crucial method of avoiding the scrutiny of the justice system. And there’s reason to believe it’s still in practice.
For 25 years, Watchtower policies have directed elders in all U.S. congregations to hide cases of child sexual abuse from law enforcement agencies as well as their own congregations, according to confidential documents from inside the organization.
Reveal looked at more than a dozen lawsuits and discovered evidence suggesting that Jehovah’s Witnesses leaders have either lied under oath or refused to cooperate with secular authorities on the hunt for abusers. In some cases, those elders remain in positions of power in their local congregations.
‘These three brothers lied in court about this and much more’
Three Jehovah’s Witnesses elders lied under oath about their role in enabling a known child molester to continue abusing children, according to another elder who claims to have knowledge of the events.
In a 2011 lawsuit, Michael Clarke, Gary Abrahamson and Larry Lamerdin, elders in the North Fremont congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, took the stand to face questions about why they didn’t report to police that one of their members, Jonathan Kendrick, had confessed to sexually abusing his stepdaughter.
Clarke and Abrahamson testified that they had brought together all of the congregation’s elders and instructed them to watch Kendrick closely to make sure he did not abuse more children.
But in a series of 2013 letters to Jehovah’s Witnesses leaders, Rod Francis, who was an elder in the North Fremont congregation in the 1990s when the abuse occurred, accused the three elders of lying under oath.
“None of the other elders, including myself were aware that a child sexual predator was in our midst even though the offender was in my book study,” he wrote. “Because of this the congregation and our own families were unable to be adequately protected resulting in catastrophic outcomes for other young girls and damage to my own family. These three brothers lied in court about this and much more.”
Francis declined to comment for this story. Reveal obtained his letters from a third party.
Clarke, Abrahamson and Lamerdin did not return calls seeking comment.
The 2011 case was brought against the Watchtower by Candace Conti, who claimed the Witnesses could have prevented her abuse by Kendrick in the 1990s by warning the congregation that he had previously abused a child. The court awarded Conti $28 million in damages, a number later reduced to an undisclosed amount.
Kendrick has confessed to molesting two girls but denies abusing Conti. He was never criminally prosecuted for his alleged crimes against her and remains a Jehovah’s Witness in good standing.
Why a judge called the Watchtower’s omissions ‘reprehensible’
In another California lawsuit against the Witnesses last year, one of the organization’s top leaders, Governing Body member Gerrit Lösch, refused to testify.
In that case, a San Diego court looked at allegations that an elder named Gonzalo Campos had sexually abused a Jehovah’s Witness boy named Jose Lopez in the 1980s.
Lopez’s attorney, Irwin Zalkin, subpoenaed 17 years’ worth of records collected by the Watchtower containing the names of known and suspected child sexual abusers in its U.S. congregations. The Watchtower acknowledged that the records existed but refused to hand them over.
Zalkin also subpoenaed Lösch to testify to the Governing Body’s role in forming the organization’s child abuse policies. On Feb. 5, 2014, Lösch submitted a sworn declaration explaining why he should not have to testify.
“I am not, and have never been, a corporate officer, director, managing agent, member, or employee of Watchtower,” Lösch wrote. “I do not direct, and have never directed, the day-to-day operations of Watchtower. I do not answer to Watchtower. I do not have, and have never had, any authority as an individual to make or determine corporate policy for Watchtower or any department of Watchtower.”
Although Lösch claims he has no power over any department of the Watchtower, internal Watchtower documents show that, as a Governing Body member, he oversaw one of two Watchtower departments that deal with allegations of child abuse, at least until 2014.
Lösch’s declaration also directly contradicted the testimony of Watchtower officials in which they said that the Governing Body reviews and approves all Watchtower policies, including those pertaining to child abuse.
Allen Shuster, a senior Watchtower official, said as much during his testimony in the Candace Conti case. When Conti’s attorney asked whether the child abuse policies came from the Governing Body, he answered, “That is an accurate statement, yes.”
Shuster continued: “On a high level, review, the Governing Body does establish policies.”
San Diego Superior Court Judge Joan Lewis, who heard the Jose Lopez case, threw the Watchtower’s defense out of court for refusing to comply with court orders.
“Watchtower’s actions or omissions were ‘reprehensible,’ ” she wrote in her decision.
She also dismissed Lösch’s declaration that he, as a Governing Body member, had no power over the Watchtower.
“The award of punitive damages against them will hopefully send a message to Watchtower and its managing agents, the governing body of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, that their handling of sex abuse cases within their congregation was absolutely reckless,” she wrote.
Lewis awarded Lopez $13.5 million.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are also facing pressure outside the U.S.
The investigation in Australia has been the most sweeping government inquiry into the Watchtower’s child abuse policies to date. Prior to the hearings, investigators uncovered 1,006 allegations of child sexual abuse against Jehovah’s Witnesses in Australia since 1950. None were reported to the police.
Requests to interview Geoffrey Jackson and other Watchtower officials were denied.
The commission lacks the power to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators but has referred some cases to criminal authorities and plans to issue recommendations to the government.
During the hearings, Vincent Toole, the head of the Watchtower’s legal department in Australia, was asked whether he was aware of the theocratic warfare doctrine.
“Well, I’ve heard the expression,” he said, “but I’m not really sure what it means.”
He was then asked whether Witnesses were allowed to lie to protect Jehovah’s name.
“We are truthful,” he said. “To be a Christian, you have to be truthful.”
This story was edited by Andrew Donohue and copy edited by Sheela Kamath.
Trey Bundy can be reached at tbundy@cironline.org. Follow him on Twitter: @TreyBundy.
https://www.revealnews.org/article/jehovahs-witnesses-can-hide-the-truth-in-court-to-protect-religion/
On a Friday morning in August, one of the Jehovah’s Witnesses top leaders sat before an Australian government commission investigating whether the organization hid child sexual abuse from secular authorities.
That Geoffrey Jackson, one of the seven members of the religion’s Governing Body, was being grilled in public captivated a global community of former Witnesses that watched the live stream on their home computers.
During two weeks of hearings, Jackson and members of the organization’s top brass in Australia gave hours of sworn testimony, but at least one big question remained: Were any of them telling the truth?
Since the 1950s, the Witnesses have preached a doctrine allowing Jehovah’s followers to deceive anyone outside of the religion if doing so protects the organization. They call it “theocratic warfare.”
The policy has taken on a new significance today as Jehovah’s Witnesses are coming under scrutiny across continents for enabling and concealing child sexual abusers. Top leaders are being questioned under oath as judges and investigators try to get to the bottom of a global scandal.
A 1957 article in The Watchtower magazine – named for the Witnesses’ parent corporation, the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society of New York – grants permission to Jehovah’s followers to hide the truth from “enemies” of the religion. The religion teaches that the world outside the organization is controlled by Satan.
“So in a time of spiritual warfare it is proper to misdirect the enemy by hiding the truth,” the article reads. “Today God’s servants are engaged in a warfare, a spiritual, theocratic warfare, a warfare ordered by God against wicked spirit forces and against false teachings.”
The theocratic warfare doctrine teaches that refusing to cooperate with criminal investigations involving Jehovah’s Witnesses is sanctioned by God because outsiders are not entitled to the truth.
Although the term theocratic warfare appears in Watchtower literature less and less over time, the organization’s leadership still teaches that secrecy is a crucial method of avoiding the scrutiny of the justice system. And there’s reason to believe it’s still in practice.
For 25 years, Watchtower policies have directed elders in all U.S. congregations to hide cases of child sexual abuse from law enforcement agencies as well as their own congregations, according to confidential documents from inside the organization.
Reveal looked at more than a dozen lawsuits and discovered evidence suggesting that Jehovah’s Witnesses leaders have either lied under oath or refused to cooperate with secular authorities on the hunt for abusers. In some cases, those elders remain in positions of power in their local congregations.
‘These three brothers lied in court about this and much more’
Three Jehovah’s Witnesses elders lied under oath about their role in enabling a known child molester to continue abusing children, according to another elder who claims to have knowledge of the events.
In a 2011 lawsuit, Michael Clarke, Gary Abrahamson and Larry Lamerdin, elders in the North Fremont congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, took the stand to face questions about why they didn’t report to police that one of their members, Jonathan Kendrick, had confessed to sexually abusing his stepdaughter.
Clarke and Abrahamson testified that they had brought together all of the congregation’s elders and instructed them to watch Kendrick closely to make sure he did not abuse more children.
But in a series of 2013 letters to Jehovah’s Witnesses leaders, Rod Francis, who was an elder in the North Fremont congregation in the 1990s when the abuse occurred, accused the three elders of lying under oath.
“None of the other elders, including myself were aware that a child sexual predator was in our midst even though the offender was in my book study,” he wrote. “Because of this the congregation and our own families were unable to be adequately protected resulting in catastrophic outcomes for other young girls and damage to my own family. These three brothers lied in court about this and much more.”
Francis declined to comment for this story. Reveal obtained his letters from a third party.
Clarke, Abrahamson and Lamerdin did not return calls seeking comment.
The 2011 case was brought against the Watchtower by Candace Conti, who claimed the Witnesses could have prevented her abuse by Kendrick in the 1990s by warning the congregation that he had previously abused a child. The court awarded Conti $28 million in damages, a number later reduced to an undisclosed amount.
Kendrick has confessed to molesting two girls but denies abusing Conti. He was never criminally prosecuted for his alleged crimes against her and remains a Jehovah’s Witness in good standing.
Why a judge called the Watchtower’s omissions ‘reprehensible’
In another California lawsuit against the Witnesses last year, one of the organization’s top leaders, Governing Body member Gerrit Lösch, refused to testify.
In that case, a San Diego court looked at allegations that an elder named Gonzalo Campos had sexually abused a Jehovah’s Witness boy named Jose Lopez in the 1980s.
Lopez’s attorney, Irwin Zalkin, subpoenaed 17 years’ worth of records collected by the Watchtower containing the names of known and suspected child sexual abusers in its U.S. congregations. The Watchtower acknowledged that the records existed but refused to hand them over.
Zalkin also subpoenaed Lösch to testify to the Governing Body’s role in forming the organization’s child abuse policies. On Feb. 5, 2014, Lösch submitted a sworn declaration explaining why he should not have to testify.
“I am not, and have never been, a corporate officer, director, managing agent, member, or employee of Watchtower,” Lösch wrote. “I do not direct, and have never directed, the day-to-day operations of Watchtower. I do not answer to Watchtower. I do not have, and have never had, any authority as an individual to make or determine corporate policy for Watchtower or any department of Watchtower.”
Although Lösch claims he has no power over any department of the Watchtower, internal Watchtower documents show that, as a Governing Body member, he oversaw one of two Watchtower departments that deal with allegations of child abuse, at least until 2014.
Lösch’s declaration also directly contradicted the testimony of Watchtower officials in which they said that the Governing Body reviews and approves all Watchtower policies, including those pertaining to child abuse.
Allen Shuster, a senior Watchtower official, said as much during his testimony in the Candace Conti case. When Conti’s attorney asked whether the child abuse policies came from the Governing Body, he answered, “That is an accurate statement, yes.”
Shuster continued: “On a high level, review, the Governing Body does establish policies.”
San Diego Superior Court Judge Joan Lewis, who heard the Jose Lopez case, threw the Watchtower’s defense out of court for refusing to comply with court orders.
“Watchtower’s actions or omissions were ‘reprehensible,’ ” she wrote in her decision.
She also dismissed Lösch’s declaration that he, as a Governing Body member, had no power over the Watchtower.
“The award of punitive damages against them will hopefully send a message to Watchtower and its managing agents, the governing body of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, that their handling of sex abuse cases within their congregation was absolutely reckless,” she wrote.
Lewis awarded Lopez $13.5 million.
Jehovah’s Witnesses are also facing pressure outside the U.S.
The investigation in Australia has been the most sweeping government inquiry into the Watchtower’s child abuse policies to date. Prior to the hearings, investigators uncovered 1,006 allegations of child sexual abuse against Jehovah’s Witnesses in Australia since 1950. None were reported to the police.
Requests to interview Geoffrey Jackson and other Watchtower officials were denied.
The commission lacks the power to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators but has referred some cases to criminal authorities and plans to issue recommendations to the government.
During the hearings, Vincent Toole, the head of the Watchtower’s legal department in Australia, was asked whether he was aware of the theocratic warfare doctrine.
“Well, I’ve heard the expression,” he said, “but I’m not really sure what it means.”
He was then asked whether Witnesses were allowed to lie to protect Jehovah’s name.
“We are truthful,” he said. “To be a Christian, you have to be truthful.”
This story was edited by Andrew Donohue and copy edited by Sheela Kamath.
Trey Bundy can be reached at tbundy@cironline.org. Follow him on Twitter: @TreyBundy.
https://www.revealnews.org/article/jehovahs-witnesses-can-hide-the-truth-in-court-to-protect-religion/
Vapostori hiding children in mountains to avoid national vaccination
September 22, 2015
Masvingo Correspondent
Masvingo Correspondent
New Zimbabwe
MEMBERS of some apostolic sects in Gutu district are reportedly taking to the mountains and hiding there with their children to avoid a national measles immunisation campaign due to start next week.
The families are said to be avoiding health officials who are moving around the district encouraging parents to take children under 15 years for vaccination at local health centres.
Some vapostori sects still shun medical treatment saying it is against their religious beliefs.
At least 5 million children aged between nine months and 15 years are set to be vaccinated against Measles Rubella in a national campaign that will run from 28 September to 2 October this year.
Gutu paramount chief, Edmond Masanganise, said cases of apostolic sect members hiding from health officials were widespread in the Chiwara, Shenjere and Maungwa communal lands.
The chief said he has since approached the police to round up the defiant groups to ensure their children are immunised when the campaign starts.
“We have approached the police to assist us after a number of families especially from the apostolic sects took to their heels, children strapped on their backs heading to the mountains when health officials visited homesteads just to encourage people to heed the vaccination calls.
“What will be the situation like during the immunisation days? As a community, leader I cannot afford to have a situation where the health of a community is jeopardized by a small group of people who are stuck in religious beliefs in this day and age,” said the chief.
A health official who refused to be named for professional reasons said some families were prepared to stay in the mountains until the immunisation days are over.
“There is need for intensive campaigns to members of the apostolic sects that no child should die from vaccine-preventable diseases.
“We are glad the traditional leaders listened to us. Also, the inclusion of police before and during the vaccination days will improve the number of children who will receive the vital dose,” said the official.
Development partners that include the World Health Organisation (WHO), UNICEF, Maternal and Child Health Integrated Programme (MCHIP) and the Lions Club have offered financial and technical support towards the success of vaccination campaign.
The campaign will be held at all healthcare facilities, primary and secondary schools, outreach points, and other centres agreed by communities.
During the launch of the programme, health and childcare minister, Dr David Parirenyatwa, said the country, last year, recorded 1,024 cases of children suffering from the disease.
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/news-24988-Vaccination+Vapostori+hide+kids+in+hills/news.aspx
The families are said to be avoiding health officials who are moving around the district encouraging parents to take children under 15 years for vaccination at local health centres.
Some vapostori sects still shun medical treatment saying it is against their religious beliefs.
At least 5 million children aged between nine months and 15 years are set to be vaccinated against Measles Rubella in a national campaign that will run from 28 September to 2 October this year.
Gutu paramount chief, Edmond Masanganise, said cases of apostolic sect members hiding from health officials were widespread in the Chiwara, Shenjere and Maungwa communal lands.
The chief said he has since approached the police to round up the defiant groups to ensure their children are immunised when the campaign starts.
“We have approached the police to assist us after a number of families especially from the apostolic sects took to their heels, children strapped on their backs heading to the mountains when health officials visited homesteads just to encourage people to heed the vaccination calls.
“What will be the situation like during the immunisation days? As a community, leader I cannot afford to have a situation where the health of a community is jeopardized by a small group of people who are stuck in religious beliefs in this day and age,” said the chief.
A health official who refused to be named for professional reasons said some families were prepared to stay in the mountains until the immunisation days are over.
“There is need for intensive campaigns to members of the apostolic sects that no child should die from vaccine-preventable diseases.
“We are glad the traditional leaders listened to us. Also, the inclusion of police before and during the vaccination days will improve the number of children who will receive the vital dose,” said the official.
Development partners that include the World Health Organisation (WHO), UNICEF, Maternal and Child Health Integrated Programme (MCHIP) and the Lions Club have offered financial and technical support towards the success of vaccination campaign.
The campaign will be held at all healthcare facilities, primary and secondary schools, outreach points, and other centres agreed by communities.
During the launch of the programme, health and childcare minister, Dr David Parirenyatwa, said the country, last year, recorded 1,024 cases of children suffering from the disease.
http://www.newzimbabwe.com/news-24988-Vaccination+Vapostori+hide+kids+in+hills/news.aspx
The dangers of mindfulness rise up as the practice gains popularity
Douglas Perry
The Oregonian/OregonLive
September 21, 2015
Mindfulness. Everyone seems to be doing it and singing its praises. It might even have won Jon Hamm his long-overdue Emmy: the iconic closing scene of the AMC series "Mad Men" was of Hamm's tortured Don Draper striking the pose at a hippie retreat in 1970s California.
The lesson of mindfulness is clear: Through meditation and the Way of the Buddha, you too can become truly present and at one with the universe. You too can become happier and more fulfilled.
Many big corporations, such as Google, have embraced mindfulness. A cross-party group of legislators in Britain's Parliament is trying to increase awareness of it.
What you don't hear is that there's a possible dark side. Many, many people have found peace and satisfaction from meditation. But some practitioners end up tumbling off the well-lighted path to enlightenment and instead experience "twitching, trembling, panic, disorientation, hallucinations, terror, depression, mania and psychotic breakdown."
That's the conclusion of Miguel Farias and Catherine Wikholm, authors of "The Buddha Pill: Can Meditation Actually Change You?"
The Times of London put it this way: "Mindfulness: it can mess with your head."
People use meditation to "quiet the mind," ease physical pain and anxiety, and embrace their true emotions. "But happiness and de-stressing were not what meditation techniques, with their Buddhist and Hindu roots, were originally developed for," Farias and Wikholm wrote earlier this year in New Scientist magazine. "The purpose of meditation was much more radical: to challenge and rupture the idea of who you are, shaking one's sense of self to the core so you realize there is 'nothing there' (Buddhism)..."
That is indeed pretty radical -- especially for Americans, with our ingrained regard for individualism. Farias and Wikholm cite a study that concluded that 63 percent of people who meditate have had negative side effects of one sort or another, some of them quite serious.
Farias, an Oxford-educated psychologist who teaches at Coventry University in England, said this shouldn't surprise anyone. "How can a technique that allows you to look within and change your perception or reality of yourself be without potential adverse effects?" he told the Times.
None of which necessarily means you shouldn't practice mindfulness. Various small studies have indicated that it's helpful in alleviating depression.
"Properly done, it's the opposite of mindlessness," says Anthony Seldon, a British historian and educator. "It helps people to be self-aware, to collect themselves, to be thoughtful before they decide what to do."
We could all use a little more of that.
-- Douglas Perry
http://www.oregonlive.com/living/index.ssf/2015/09/the_dangers_of_mindfulness_ris.html
Sep 22, 2015
Zimbabwe: Adolescent Pregnancies Rampant in Apostolic Sect Communities, Unicef
September 21, 2015
AllAfrica.com
THE government has been challenged to urgently intervene as the number of young girls aged between 13 and 16 years falling pregnant increases among the apostolic sects, risking their lives and those of the unborn children.
A survey by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) shows that thousands of adolescent pregnancies have been attended to at various hospitals and clinics in Zimbabwe, with Buhera Ward 22 recording 271 cases in less than a month.
In Muzarabani, Mashonaland Central, a church survey revealed that 251 cases of adolescent pregnancies had been recorded at a clinic in the district.
Between 33% and 38% of Zimbabweans belong to various apostolic sects and most do not seek medical treatment meaning the numbers of adolescent pregnancies could be higher than those recorded in the survey.
Girls in the sects are married as soon as they finish primary education and, as one believer put it; "our religion does not allow us to take any form of contraception because it's murder."
UNICEF also said there was low uptake of maternal and child health services among sect members, leading to high maternal deaths in these communities.
Mandy Chikombero, the local UNICEF spokesperson, said authorities must come up with a package of immediate and long term interventions to address the problem.
She said "low value" is been placed on the child's life as sect members use holy water, oil, mealie- meal, salt, stones in the healing processes before and after delivery of babies.
However, Zimbabwe Community Development Association official, Camilias Machingura, accused health service providers of failing to engage the sects and understand their values.
"There is a knowledge gap and improper packaging of knowledge by health service providers in the country.
"The sect members are being stigmatised when they visit health centres, so attitudes should be changed towards the particular group," said Machingura.
He said health extension workers needed training on how to engage sect members.
"Confrontational, prescriptive and coercive approaches should be avoided. This group is willing to be included in modern methods of healing at health institutions," he added.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201509220643.html
AllAfrica.com
THE government has been challenged to urgently intervene as the number of young girls aged between 13 and 16 years falling pregnant increases among the apostolic sects, risking their lives and those of the unborn children.
A survey by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) shows that thousands of adolescent pregnancies have been attended to at various hospitals and clinics in Zimbabwe, with Buhera Ward 22 recording 271 cases in less than a month.
In Muzarabani, Mashonaland Central, a church survey revealed that 251 cases of adolescent pregnancies had been recorded at a clinic in the district.
Between 33% and 38% of Zimbabweans belong to various apostolic sects and most do not seek medical treatment meaning the numbers of adolescent pregnancies could be higher than those recorded in the survey.
Girls in the sects are married as soon as they finish primary education and, as one believer put it; "our religion does not allow us to take any form of contraception because it's murder."
UNICEF also said there was low uptake of maternal and child health services among sect members, leading to high maternal deaths in these communities.
Mandy Chikombero, the local UNICEF spokesperson, said authorities must come up with a package of immediate and long term interventions to address the problem.
She said "low value" is been placed on the child's life as sect members use holy water, oil, mealie- meal, salt, stones in the healing processes before and after delivery of babies.
However, Zimbabwe Community Development Association official, Camilias Machingura, accused health service providers of failing to engage the sects and understand their values.
"There is a knowledge gap and improper packaging of knowledge by health service providers in the country.
"The sect members are being stigmatised when they visit health centres, so attitudes should be changed towards the particular group," said Machingura.
He said health extension workers needed training on how to engage sect members.
"Confrontational, prescriptive and coercive approaches should be avoided. This group is willing to be included in modern methods of healing at health institutions," he added.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201509220643.html
Children of the Tribes
Pacific Standard
September 1, 2015
JULIA SCHEERES
Shuah Jones, 15, stuffed clothes under her bed blankets in the shape of a body, grabbed her diary and Bible, and crept downstairs. Wearing a long blue linen skirt and clunky buckled sandals, she opened the door, slipped outside, and paused to look back at her house: a historic residence in Plymouth, Massachusetts, known as the Blue Blinds, where she lived with other members of her church. Good riddance, she thought. On the street she broke into a run toward the only payphone she knew of, at a gas station near the center of town, half a mile away. She'd never been outside alone at night before. As she sprinted down the main drag, Court Street, men in bars called out and wolf-whistled. She was terrified. When she reached the phone, she called her brother Noah, who told her to wait for him in a parking lot next to the Blue Blinds, so she ran all the way back. He was an hour away. She hid in a bush, heart thumping. When at last he pulled into the lot, she leaped into his car.
"Just breathe," he told her as they drove away. "Breathe."
Today the Blue Blinds is a bakery, famous in Plymouth for its eggs-and-cheddar sandwich and its organic pastries. It has earned a loyal fan base by charging a little less than its neighborhood competitors for food that is consistently delicious. But generating a profit isn't its only objective. Another is winning souls: The bakery is the public face of an otherwise reclusive and controversial religious sect called the Twelve Tribes.
I visited the Blue Blinds one morning last summer. Business was brisk. As I stood at the back of a long line inching toward the entrance, I found myself staring at the employees' garb. The women all wore long hair and baggy, floor-skimming dresses. The men sported trimmed beards and short ponytails, and rolled up their pants to expose their socks. A customer in front of me referred to the "cool hippie vibe" of the place.
Inside, customers dined at small round tables and on dark leather sofas as peaceful Celtic flute music played. I ordered a coffee and sat under a dramatic three-wall mural depicting stages of the Pilgrims' harrowing journey to America. I assumed the decor was just another nod to the tourists who flock to the neighborhood to buy their colonial cranberry sauce and take selfies at Plymouth Rock, a mere two blocks away. But the server who brought out my food, a Hoosier formerly known as Jeremy Johnson and who now goes by Yashar (Hebrew for "Upright"), set me straight. A short, earnest man with warm brown eyes, he sat at my table, welcome but unbidden, and seemed eager to talk.
"We see ourselves as direct descendants of the Puritans," he explained. He pointed to a section of the mural in which Governor William Bradford scowled in the foreground as colonists tended individual gardens behind him. "He's distraught because everyone's working their own field," he said. "They should be working together. That was the goal they had when they came over—to live the life of the early church. And they failed."
Where the Pilgrims failed, the Twelve Tribes hopes to succeed. Members of the group, who number some 3,000 worldwide, live and work together, homeschool their children, and espouse a very literal interpretation of the Bible. Like the religious separatists who fled England in 1620 and dropped anchor down the street, the Tribes claims to practice a purer form of Christianity than mainstream churches.
After Yashar was called away, I browsed a side table filled with the group's literature. Tucked among predictable testimonials from members who said they found purpose or "true love" in the group, one brochure stood out. Its cover featured a 1933 Norman Rockwell drawing of an overwhelmed mother pinning her small son facedown on her lap. At her feet lies a hammer, along with evidence that the boy has recently gone on a destructive spree: a shattered mirror, a broken vase, and a disemboweled clock. Unsure how to discipline her child, the mother grips a hairbrush in one hand, and a book on child psychology in the other. To spank or not to spank? That's the question—and she doesn't know the answer.
But the Tribes does. When the Spanking Stopped, All Hell Broke Loose is the title of the brochure. It cites Proverbs 13:24 ("He who spares his rod, hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly") to make the following argument: "If youlove your child you will take the rod and discipline him when he's disobedient. It's not optional; it's a command." The Tribes argues that progressive childrearing practices such as time-outs or taking away treats or screen time have resulted in a spike in juvenile violence and crime. The only way to reverse this trend, the Tribes contends, is by using the proverbial rod—early, often, and hard enough to leave marks. According to former and current Tribes leaders I spoke with, infants raised in the Tribes are hit with balloon sticks—thin wooden rods used to keep balloons from floating away—for "offenses" as minor as resisting a diaper change or throwing a bottle. Older children are whipped with bamboo canes. "Children are driven by their natural, innate nature to do what is wrong," the group's teachings state. "It's better to go to heaven with welts than to go to hell without welts."
We Americans love our origin story, the notion that a tough band of Pilgrim non-conformists helped birth our nation and our freedoms. We celebrate the First Amendment, which prevents the government from interfering with our religious beliefs and practices. But what if those beliefs and practices make children suffer?
Strange thing to ponder while you're sitting in a sun-dappled cafe sipping Fair Trade-certified coffee. When I asked Yashar about the brochure, he casually mentioned that he spanks his two boys, ages two and four, several times a day. "In the community, it's a regular way of life," he told me, and I thought of Shuah Jones, who'd fled this same place 12 years earlier. "Children who are disciplined grow up to be disciplined adults."
That's what the Tribes tells its members. But interviews with dozens of current and former members—along with a review of hundreds of pages of the group's secret teachings, their public statements to the media, and their website and YouTube channel—tell a somewhat different story.
The Twelve Tribes grew out of a Bible-study group in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In 1972, a former high school teacher and guidance counselor named Gene Spriggs and his fourth wife, Marsha, started a gathering of believers in their home. This was during the heyday of the Jesus Movement, whose adherents viewed Jesus as a counterculture hero. The couple recruited heavily outside of local schools and youth hangouts. Spriggs gave informal Bible lectures in his living room that held audiences rapt for hours, former members say. Many of the young people who turned up seeking enlightenment were runaways and drug addicts, whom the couple invited to move in. To support their growing household, the Spriggses opened a restaurant in 1973 called the Yellow Deli, where members worked for room and board but no paycheck. The restaurant featured booths crafted from reclaimed barn wood, and the menu delivered a subtle come-on. "We serve the fruit of the Spirit," it read. "Why not ask?"
By 1978, Spriggs had opened six Yellow Delis and unofficially re-branded his Bible study as a church: the Vine Christian Community Church. Then came controversy. The Chattanooga Times published interviews with disenchanted former members. "We worked 16 to 18 hours a day, six days a week, until we were so tired we couldn't think," one complained. Those who questioned the leadership were told their doubts were "from Satan."
By this time, Spriggs' followers considered him a modern-day apostle. "His teachings were considered fresh revelations from God," said Joellen Griffin, a former member. And the revelations were extreme. Spriggs told his followers that God wanted them to cut themselves completely off from modern society. This meant no television, radio, books, or anything else that embodied secular culture. "Friendship with the world," he preached, "is enmity with God." Members were required to donate all their possessions to the group—homes, cars, money—in exchange, Spriggs told them, for eternal salvation. When concerned relatives raised objections, Spriggs told his followers to cut them off, too.
Several parents hired a cult deprogrammer to forcibly extract their children from the church—with limited success. Besieged by bad press and desperate relatives, Spriggs pulled out of the Bible Belt altogether, relocating to a remote village in Vermont called Island Pond. Two hundred followers joined him, among them David Jones, the elder who had defended Spriggs in the Chattanooga Times; his wife, Patricia; and their infant daughter, Tamar.
In this new setting, the group became increasingly reclusive. Spriggs decided he was destined to restore the ancient Twelve Tribes of Israel and produce an army of 144,000 male virgins, who would prepare the way for Christ's second coming. To this end, he re-named the group the Twelve Tribes. To differentiate the Tribes from mainstream Christianity, he referred to Jesus as Yahshua, a variant of Jesus' Hebrew name, and insisted members take Hebrew names as well. He called himself Yoneq—a play on his given name that he translated as "tender shoot or sprig."
The tenor of the sect changed now, too. Spriggs began to preach that blacks were destined to be slaves, homosexuals "deserved the death penalty," and women—who weren't allowed to use birth control—had to atone for Eve's original sin by giving birth without painkillers. He drafted rules regulating everything from fingernail length to how married couples should engage in intercourse.
A large portion of Spriggs' teachings concerned children, though he never actually raised a child in the group. (He and Marsha have no children. He has one son, by his first wife, but he left them when the boy was young.) "If one is overly concerned about his son receiving blue marks," he wrote to David Jones, "you know that he hates his son and hates the word of God."
"Blue marks" are bruises, of course, which members of the Tribes consider evidence of exemplary parenting. "I remember constant welts on my hands, thighs, and butt," a woman who was raised in the Tribes told me. Children are expected to obey "on the first command," without talking back or complaining. They are not allowed toys or bikes, and cannot engage in fantasy play. They read only the Bible and the group's dogma. The former members I spoke to claimed most children were beaten multiple times a day, for transgressions as innocuous as forgetting to raise their hands at the dinner table and "dissipation"—the group's term for horseplay. Responding to these descriptions, a current leader of their California communities, Wade Skinner, echoed the brochure I read in Blue Blinds. "That wouldn't be how we portray our life," he said, "but we do believe if you love your child, you will be diligent to discipline them, and if you hate them, you will withhold the rod."
That's the philosophy that guided an elder named Eddie Wiseman. In 1983, according to a former Tribes member named Darlynn Church, Wiseman whipped her with a balloon stick from her shoulders to her ankles for kissing a boy, leaving a ladder of bloody stripes. She was 13. Her father reported Wiseman to Vermont authorities, who charged him with simple assault. But then the father recanted, saying he had been pressured by "anti-cult" activists to exaggerate his claims, and the state was forced to drop the case. (Wiseman maintains the accusations were "greatly exaggerated.")
But the investigation continued. Because the Tribes children were so isolated, investigators couldn't verify the abuse allegations through teachers and doctors, the usual third parties. They didn't know the number of children living in the community, much less their names. So the district attorney's office summoned seven Tribes leaders, including David Jones, who now had four children, to a county courthouse, to try to compel them to disclose this information. The men refused and were briefly jailed for civil contempt, then released. The state continued to marshal its forces. Three days after their release, 90 state troopers and 50 social workers descended on the group's homes shortly after dawn. Under orders to do "whatever was necessary" to identify the children, police rousted members from bed and retrieved 112 minors, among them the Jones children. As police escorted the children to waiting buses, neighbors cheered. The families waited at an armory, while prosecutors sought a court order to have the children examined for signs of physical abuse. But the case fell apart when a district judge rejected the request, stating that the warrant was too broad—it failed to identify the children by name.
The state prosecutor, Philip White, vented his frustration to the Burlington Free Press. "The first lesson is that it is still OK to beat their children," he said, "especially if they have a religious justification for it. The second lesson is that we still have not found a satisfactory approach to preventing and addressing child abuse issues when they occur in closed religious communities."
The Twelve Tribes hailed the decision as a victory for religious freedom. God had delivered His people.
Corporal punishment—which the United Nations defines as "any punishment in which physical force is used and intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort"—has been banned in 46 nations. The general consensus within the medical-research establishment, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, is that physical punishment, especially of children, can lead to increased aggression and psychological problems. Hitting a child in the home in the United States, however, is legal in every state as long as it doesn't leave a mark.
Religious and political conservatives have often thwarted efforts to advance children's rights in this country. Consider the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which aims to protect minors from abuse and exploitation, ensure access to secondary education, and guarantee a child's freedom of "thought, conscience, and religion." The CRC is the most widely ratified international human rights treaty in history, but it has one holdout: the U.S. Although Madeleine Albright signed the convention in 1995, President Clinton never bothered sending it to the Senate for ratification because Jesse Helms, a conservative Republican, had galvanized opposition against it, declaring it to be "incompatible with the God-given right and responsibility of parents to raise their children." More recently, a group called ParentalRights.org, led by evangelical Christians, has spearheaded resistance to the treaty while at the same time lobbying for an amendment that would protect parents' ability to spank their children.
The biggest hurdle to the treaty's ratification is our own legal system. In the past four decades, believers have lobbied for, and won, a host of religious exemptions and shield laws that have steadily chipped away at the basic rights of children. The CRC mandates, for example, that governments take steps to abolish "practices prejudicial to the health of children." But in 1972, the Amish won a case before the Supreme Court that allowed them to pull their kids from school after eighth grade so that they could do farm work. In 1974, the Christian Science Church persuaded the federal government to compel states to enact a religious exemption to child-abuse laws, so that parents would not be adjudicated as negligent when they deprived their children of medical care on religious grounds. Rita Swan was one of those parents, and she now finds religious shield laws indefensible. A former Christian Scientist whose 16-month-old son Matthew died from a treatable bacterial infection despite prayer treatments, she now directs Children's Healthcare Is a Legal Duty, which tracks cases of faith-based child abuse. "Religious shield laws discriminate against children, depriving them of protections the state extends to others," she told me. "They should be repealed."
Since the 1970s, the number of religious exemptions to generally applicable laws has skyrocketed. In 1993, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to circumvent laws that "substantially burden" a person's free exercise of religion. Twenty-one states have subsequently passed their own versions, in effect granting an unprecedented license to discriminate against homosexuals, jeopardize women's health, and deny housing to unmarried couples.
Under the guise of freely exercising their religion, the constitutional-law expert Marci Hamilton writes in her book God vs. The Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty, an increasing number of believers are finding ways to deprive their children of education, force them to work without pay, refuse them medical care, and even let them die as a testament to their faith. (Since 1975, Rita Swan has tallied more than 400 children who died from what she terms "religious medical neglect.") Church pedophiles sometimes claim religious privilege to try to avoid prosecution, Hamilton writes, and they all too often succeed.
Children are defenseless against abuse. They don't vote. They don't organize. They don't have money to hire lobbyists or spin media campaigns to protect their interests. They don't have a voice. They rely on adults for protection—and sometimes it's those same adults who violate their rights.
On June 15th, 1987, in Vermont, Patricia Jones gave birth to a fifth child, a daughter whom she and David named Shuah. These were what former members would later recall as the "glory days." The Tribes owned property along the Saxtons River, and the Jones family would spend weekends camping beside it, swimming in the wide shallow stream and roasting hot dogs over a campfire. Little by little, however, Spriggs denied his followers such simple pleasures. He banned the celebration of holidays, even birthdays. Shuah was spanked for pretending that a rolled-up towel was a doll. The rod, she says, became a constant in her life—a claim corroborated by her siblings, other former Tribes members, and, eventually, a Massachusetts Department of Children and Families investigation. She was whacked for opening the fridge without permission, for leaving food on her plate, for talking too much—and not just by her parents, but by any adult who had authority. (The Joneses declined to address any specific claims for this article.)
"You need to be cleansed," she was told. At communal suppers, parents were pressured to spank kids by other adults. "Spriggs was fond of saying we should be proud of these wounds our children bore," a former member named Roger Griffin told me. "If you loved your children, you were not swayed by their screams."
Some adults did balk at the severity of these teachings. Mary Wiseman, the wife of Spriggs' second-in-command, was one of them. She became furious when Spriggs paddled her six-year-old daughter, Kate, and threatened to leave the community with her children. She didn't, though, and when she died, at 39, of cervical cancer, Spriggs declared that her "unconfessed sin"—criticizing his authority—had killed her. "Guilt and unconfessed sin is how you get sick," Spriggs wrote in a teaching on the immune system. "This is why people die young."
Children have died because of the Tribes' rejection of modern medicine. During a whooping-cough epidemic that swept the community in the late 1980s, Bruce Whittenburg grew alarmed when his 15-month-old became sick. He and more than a half-dozen former and current members say he consulted the elders, who told him, "If God wants her to live, He'll save her." She died a few hours later. "It was the worst thing that happened to us," said Whittenburg, who left the Tribes in 2001.
During her second pregnancy, another former member, Ruth Williams, developed placenta previa—a dangerous condition in which the placenta blocks the birth canal. She was told that if she prayed hard enough God would move the placenta out of the way. Despite beseeching God on her hands and knees, Williams started hemorrhaging when she went into labor and lost consciousness—at which point she was driven to a hospital, she says, and dumped on the sidewalk outside the emergency room. She woke to the news that her son had been stillborn. Another woman who labored for days was only brought to a hospital after her child died inside her.
After Mary Wiseman's death, Tribes elders began to judge parents' ability to raise their children. When they judged parents inadequate, they split families up, often with devastating consequences, as the Jones family would learn.
Their son Noah tells a distressing story from 1992, when he was nine and the Joneses were living in a community in St. Joseph, Missouri. One day, Noah says, he and his two brothers, Yoshiyah, 12, and Ezra, seven, were rappelling out of a tree when an elder's wife told them to stop. The boys told her that their dad allowed them to do it and kept playing. So the elder separated them and locked Noah in the furnace room of an adjacent house—with David and Patricia's support. The elder gave Noah a piece of paper and told him to write down his sins. Noah wrote down past peccadilloes, such as stealing a penny from his dad's dresser, but the elder told him to think harder. This went on for a week. He slept on the cement floor, used a bucket as a toilet, and was fed one meal a day. When he cried and asked to see his father, he was told his father didn't want to see him. Finally, the elder accused him of engaging in a homosexual encounter—with his brothers. Noah didn't know what "homosexual" meant, so the leader described gay sex to him in graphic detail. (When reached for comment, Yoshiyah refused to discuss any details but said, "My siblings exaggerate these stories.")
The ordeal ended with the three brothers sent away to three different homes in Vermont. Shuah, who was four at the time, remembers a van driving off with her brothers as the other kids clapped, happy the "corrupters" were gone. Noah lived with a succession of single "brothers" who beat him and forbade him from socializing with other kids. "I kept hoping my parents would come rescue me," he told me.
By the time he was finally allowed to re-join his parents a year later, his trust in them and the Tribes was shattered.
The Tribes now has communities at 12 locations around the globe, most of them in New England, together intended to represent the original 12 tribes of Israel. The group owns not only restaurants but also businesses in construction, landscaping, body-care products, and tea. According to tax documents given to me by a former leader, the group's sales were $26 million in 2012. These earnings are tax exempt and fueled by members' free labor—including that of children. Like the Amish, the Tribes stops homeschooling children after eighth grade so that they can work, a practice they call "apprenticeship." Younger kids are tapped if there is a push to fulfill a contract. "We make no apology," Wade Skinner, the elder, said when asked about this. "It's the age-old practice of families."
The Jones children were put to work at an early age. For several weeks when she was seven, for example, Shuah boarded a 15-passenger van at dawn with other grade-schoolers and drove to the Tribes' Common Sense factory in Rutland, an hour away. One of the Tribes' biggest clients was Estee Lauder, which contracted the group to make its popular Origins salt scrub. Shuah spent 10 hours a day labeling and packaging the scrub and other products. At a certain point, she told me, the elders passed out sleeping bags so the kids could sleep on the factory floor. "We'd take little breaks and run around and play and get spanked for it," recalled Alicia Gonyaw, who worked at the factory when she was 12. "We weren't allowed to be kids."
By the time he was 10, the youngest of the Jones siblings, Kepha, was working for the Tribes' tree-trimming service in Cape Cod. He wore no safety gear, and one day a large pine fell on him, gashing his head and knocking him out. Instead of being rushed to a nearby hospital, Kepha was driven to a Tribes community in New Hampshire, four hours away, where a member who was an EMT used 60 stitches to close the wound. Now 25, Kepha has a scar and suffers from vertigo and blackouts.
Noah Jones worked full-time from the age of 12, doing commercial millwork and building furniture, including handcrafted roll-top desks that were sold through Robert Redford's Sundance catalogue. The work so exhausted him that he often fell asleep during the hour-long religious services he was required to attend twice a day. At 14, a supervisor beat him with a two-by-four at a construction site. When he turned 18, Noah left, vowing to do whatever he could to pry his younger siblings away from the Tribes. Helped by former members and sympathetic strangers, he found a place to live and work. He then sought out a former priest and critic of the Tribes who urged him to contact the press; outlets from the New York Post to CNN soon ran stories on the Tribes' child-labor practices, prompting Sundance and Estee Lauder to cancel contracts.
Shuah, who was 12 at the time, was deeply worried for Noah's safety. Spriggs tells his followers that God will strike them down if they leave or speak out. Stories of defectors who died violent deaths circulate as warnings among members. (Indeed, several former members I contacted refused to speak on the record because they still feared divine revenge.)
Shuah's diary reflects her inner turmoil. On one page, she describes the world as "dark, cold and empty." On another, she fantasizes about running away. Plagued by nightmares about adults hitting children, she often wet her bed. Her jaw locked up for days, leaving her unable to speak or chew. To solve that problem, Shuah says, an elder hooked her up to a transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation unit, a device that uses currents to treat joint and muscle pain. although the Food and Drug Administration explicitly warns against using such devices on the head, the elder applied two electrodes to Shuah's jawline and two to her wrist. The pain was excruciating, she says—her head vibrated, and an acid taste filled her mouth. She ripped the leads off and noticed burn marks on her wrist. Her jaw remained locked until the following day, when it unlocked on its own.
At 14, Shuah was working full-time at the Common Grounds restaurant in Hyannis, Massachusetts, in a downstairs kitchen with other underage girls. If anyone asked, they were instructed to say they were 18. Although she was working adult hours, she was still treated as a child. One day, an older woman accused her of stealing food. In the interrogation that followed, which lasted hours, Shuah realized she would only be released if she confessed. So she did. "You must be cleansed," the woman said—and then ordered Shuah to lie face- down on a bed so she could whip her bare buttocks with a bamboo cane.
Noah, meanwhile, had saved up enough to buy a car. He had the windows tinted so he could drive by the communal houses unnoticed, hoping to catch a glimpse of his siblings. One afternoon he saw Shuah walking alone between houses and rolled down the window. "Hey, how are you?" he asked. Shuah, overjoyed, jumped into the passenger seat. He slipped a CD into the player. "Listen to this," he said, putting on Faith Hill's "There You'll Be." He knew better than to pressure her to leave. He let the lyrics speak for him: "In my heart there'll always be a place for you /For all my life, I'll keep a part of you with me / And everywhere I am, there you'll be."
"Isn't her voice amazing?" he asked. He wanted her to know that there was beauty in the outside world.
Before Noah dropped Shuah off, he made her memorize two numbers: an untraceable AT&T calling card ID and his cell phone number. He knew that members' belongings were routinely searched for contraband, such as money, chocolate, or bikini-cut "harlot" underwear, and that she could get in trouble for possessing his number.
Shuah was torn. As a woman in the Tribes, a bleak future awaited her: She would be expected to marry young, be subservient to her husband, and produce as many babies as possible. But she was also terrified of the unknown.
At about that time, Shuah was given permission to live with her older sister, Tamar, then pregnant with her first child. The two lived in the large commune the Tribes owned in Plymouth: a 9,000-square-foot mansion with 12 bedrooms and sweeping views of Plymouth Bay. The sisters had rarely lived in the same community and didn't know each other well. Shuah looked forward to spending time with Tamar, who was married and possessed more freedom than rank-and-file members. Tamar bought Shuah ice cream, a forbidden treat, and took her to the library, a forbidden activity. Sitting in a hushed corner, Shuah learned about the country she was living in for the first time.
But two days after Tamar's daughter was born, the elders abruptly moved Shuah to the Blue Blinds, and her life became an endless loop of mind-numbing work and rote religious ceremony. She was put to work packaging boxes from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day. Her jaw locked up again.
These people can do whatever they want to me, she thought.
It was the last straw. A few days later, Shuah ran out into the street clutching her Bible and diary, called Noah, and made her escape.
Although Gene Spriggs didn't respond to repeated interview requests, I did wrangle an invitation to the Tribes' commune in Plymouth—the mansion where Shuah spent several happy days with her sister and niece in 2002. As evening settled in, members gathered on a stone patio to sing and perform dances to acoustic guitar. A dozen or so children, all dressed in the same faintly Biblical garb as their parents, peered at me shyly. Afterward, individuals stepped forward to share whatever was on their minds.
"The world is the fruit of Satan's reign," one man said, looking directly at me.
"I'm just thankful we have a cause to live for," said another man.
"Deliver us from the schemes of the evil one," a young woman added.
A small boy fidgeted, swinging his hands back and forth, until his brother tapped him sharply on the shoulder.
The sole African-American resident—a woman named Aisha Woodman, who has a degree in Film Studies from Columbia and teaches the children in a three-room schoolhouse at the front of the property—gave me a tour of the grounds. When I remarked on the balloon sticks I saw jammed into pencil holders in a classroom and resting on a wall-mounted coat rack in a bedroom, she nodded. "We strive for perfect obedience," she said. Earlier that day, I'd asked a big-boned, blonde leader named Nehemiah Jayne to strike me with one. He obliged, whipping the palm of my hand. It stung; I fought the urge to curl my hand into a fist. As I took notes, he joked, "See, you can still write—you're fine."
At dinner, I sat with Nehemiah and his silent three-year-old son at a table separated from the rest of the residents, on the veranda, overlooking the sparkling bay. Although members use chopsticks to eat—to appeal to potential Asian recruits, Jayne said—I was handed a fork to eat our simple yet tasty meal: steamed broccoli and cheese over brown rice. For an hour, we discussed the group's more controversial teachings. As we wrapped up, Nehemiah sighed deeply and rubbed his face with his hands before giving me a tired smile. "We're not even afraid of bad publicity," he said. "We've had several people move in after they've read negative articles about us."
As our plates were cleared, a quiet game of tag was staged on the lawn directly in front of me. The children's play seemed tentative, nothing like the rowdy versions of tag I'd witnessed my own kids play. Perhaps, as the Tribes contends, this is because its kids are more disciplined. Or perhaps, as former members contend, it's because their children have never been given the freedom to act like kids. I thought of Sammie Brosseau, who broke with the group at 18, put herself through college, and now lives in Manhattan. "I was robbed of my childhood," she told me.
I gave Aisha Woodman a ride back to Plymouth, where she lives above the Blue Blinds bakery. Before opening the door to get out, she turned and said, "Be careful. There's a lot of nightlife around here."
It was July 31—the same date Shuah escaped. I decided to re-trace the route she took down Court Street 12 years earlier. The night was warm; dance music wafted from pubs and restaurants; young people in shorts and boat shoes swarmed the sidewalks. The atmosphere felt anything but menacing.
When Noah brought Shuah back to the house where he was living, his roommate was watching a concert on television. She stared at the scandalous blonde prancing half-naked across the stage, but she had no idea who it was— Britney Spears, then at the height of her popularity.
The next morning, Noah drove his sister to the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, where Shuah told investigators she'd been systematically beaten, denied an education, and forced to work without pay. She was sent to live with relatives in Tennessee, where she enrolled in high school and for a time went by a more mainstream name—Monica. She went to her first movie, wore jeans for the first time, idled an afternoon away. Noah didn't criticize her when she caked on make-up or gained weight from gorging on mac-and-cheese; she'd been raised by domineering men, and he wanted his sister to figure things out for herself.
Eventually, she did. In 2013, she graduated magna cum laude from the University of South Florida, and is now married with two children. She calls herself Shuah again.
Last June, I flew to Clearwater, Florida, to spend four days with Shuah and her siblings. Now a statuesque 28-year-old with long hair, Shuah projects a calm yet intense air. She chooses her words carefully. Her left shoulder bears a tattoo of a lotus flower—a symbol of re-birth that's popular among survivors of tough times. We were joined by Noah, Kepha, and Tamar, all of whom have left the Tribes, as has their brother Ezra. Only their parents and their oldest brother remain in the group.
Over cups of coffee throughout the day, and bottles of beer in the evenings, the siblings discussed what it was like to grow up in the Tribes. Their conversations were often angry. Shuah, who still has nightmares about the group, takes medication for anxiety. She cried freely as she recounted the beatings she endured. She spent several hours in my hotel room one afternoon piecing together the story of her harrowing escape, then abruptly rose and locked herself in the bathroom. After a few minutes, I heard the shower running. "Phew," she said when she emerged, smiling. "I feel much better now."
Kepha, who wasn't allowed to ride bikes as a kid, recently graduated from the University of Florida, where he was a member of the cycling team. He credits Noah with starting a mass exodus of teenagers from the Tribes. Noah has employed dozens of them in his construction business, but they are the lucky ones. Others, without high school diplomas, work experience, savings, or a safety net, have resorted to prostitution, drug dealing, and, in one notorious case, robbing banks.
The Jones siblings' relationship with their parents continues to be strained. When David and Patricia heard their kids were talking to me, they threatened to stop communicating with them. One evening, I returned to the hotel with Noah and Kepha and found them waiting; they'd driven two hours from a Tribes commune in Arcadia, Florida. As the brothers headed to the bar to order beer—"to take the edge off," Noah later told me—I sat down with their parents on the lobby's small sofas. During a short, tense meeting, they questioned me about my intentions and deflected most questions. "The entire media is under the sway of the Evil One," Patricia told me.
I turned to her husband, a tall, angular man with piercing blue eyes.
"Do you really think it's fair to spank an infant?" I asked. Kepha and Noah returned, beers in hand.
"When a baby understands the word 'no,' they're ready to begin their training," he said, without missing a beat. "When the spanking stopped," he said, quoting the title of the pamphlet I'd seen at the Blue Blinds, "all hell broke loose." Of his broken family, he observed, "Our one mistake was not spanking our children enough."
This sparked a heated exchange between parents and sons. Patricia ran a hand through Kepha's hair.
"You were never abused," she murmured. "Our life is full of love."
"You're in denial, mom," he shot back, leaning away from her.
Noah pulled out his iPhone to show them photos of the granddaughter they've never seen. It was excruciating to watch.
The Tribes continues to be dogged by negative press in England, Spain, and Australia, but the biggest blow to the group came in Germany, where corporal punishment is illegal. In 2013, a reporter for RTL Television infiltrated one of the sect's communes and, over a two-day period, secretly filmed 50 instances of adults spanking children, including one small girl whose offense was refusing to say, "I'm tired." After the footage aired, police seized 40 children and placed them in foster care, where most of them remain today. In France, a few months ago, a police raid of a Tribes community led to social workers rescuing four small children whose bodies bore evidence of recent beatings.
Shuah and her siblings are bewildered that the authorities have not taken similar action in this country. Despite the media exposés that Noah triggered, Tribes members who have left the group in the years since have claimed that the Tribes continues to beat children, exploit them as free workers, and deny them access to education and modern medicine. "Where do our human rights as children begin and their religious rights end?" Shuah asked me during our time together.
It's not an easy question to answer. But Shuah plans to try. She's been studying for the Law School Admissions Test and hopes to take it in December. She plans to become a legal advocate for children.
"Someone," she says, "has to speak out for us."
http://www.psmag.com/books-and-culture/children-of-the-tribes
September 1, 2015
JULIA SCHEERES
Shuah Jones, 15, stuffed clothes under her bed blankets in the shape of a body, grabbed her diary and Bible, and crept downstairs. Wearing a long blue linen skirt and clunky buckled sandals, she opened the door, slipped outside, and paused to look back at her house: a historic residence in Plymouth, Massachusetts, known as the Blue Blinds, where she lived with other members of her church. Good riddance, she thought. On the street she broke into a run toward the only payphone she knew of, at a gas station near the center of town, half a mile away. She'd never been outside alone at night before. As she sprinted down the main drag, Court Street, men in bars called out and wolf-whistled. She was terrified. When she reached the phone, she called her brother Noah, who told her to wait for him in a parking lot next to the Blue Blinds, so she ran all the way back. He was an hour away. She hid in a bush, heart thumping. When at last he pulled into the lot, she leaped into his car.
"Just breathe," he told her as they drove away. "Breathe."
Today the Blue Blinds is a bakery, famous in Plymouth for its eggs-and-cheddar sandwich and its organic pastries. It has earned a loyal fan base by charging a little less than its neighborhood competitors for food that is consistently delicious. But generating a profit isn't its only objective. Another is winning souls: The bakery is the public face of an otherwise reclusive and controversial religious sect called the Twelve Tribes.
I visited the Blue Blinds one morning last summer. Business was brisk. As I stood at the back of a long line inching toward the entrance, I found myself staring at the employees' garb. The women all wore long hair and baggy, floor-skimming dresses. The men sported trimmed beards and short ponytails, and rolled up their pants to expose their socks. A customer in front of me referred to the "cool hippie vibe" of the place.
Inside, customers dined at small round tables and on dark leather sofas as peaceful Celtic flute music played. I ordered a coffee and sat under a dramatic three-wall mural depicting stages of the Pilgrims' harrowing journey to America. I assumed the decor was just another nod to the tourists who flock to the neighborhood to buy their colonial cranberry sauce and take selfies at Plymouth Rock, a mere two blocks away. But the server who brought out my food, a Hoosier formerly known as Jeremy Johnson and who now goes by Yashar (Hebrew for "Upright"), set me straight. A short, earnest man with warm brown eyes, he sat at my table, welcome but unbidden, and seemed eager to talk.
"We see ourselves as direct descendants of the Puritans," he explained. He pointed to a section of the mural in which Governor William Bradford scowled in the foreground as colonists tended individual gardens behind him. "He's distraught because everyone's working their own field," he said. "They should be working together. That was the goal they had when they came over—to live the life of the early church. And they failed."
Where the Pilgrims failed, the Twelve Tribes hopes to succeed. Members of the group, who number some 3,000 worldwide, live and work together, homeschool their children, and espouse a very literal interpretation of the Bible. Like the religious separatists who fled England in 1620 and dropped anchor down the street, the Tribes claims to practice a purer form of Christianity than mainstream churches.
After Yashar was called away, I browsed a side table filled with the group's literature. Tucked among predictable testimonials from members who said they found purpose or "true love" in the group, one brochure stood out. Its cover featured a 1933 Norman Rockwell drawing of an overwhelmed mother pinning her small son facedown on her lap. At her feet lies a hammer, along with evidence that the boy has recently gone on a destructive spree: a shattered mirror, a broken vase, and a disemboweled clock. Unsure how to discipline her child, the mother grips a hairbrush in one hand, and a book on child psychology in the other. To spank or not to spank? That's the question—and she doesn't know the answer.
But the Tribes does. When the Spanking Stopped, All Hell Broke Loose is the title of the brochure. It cites Proverbs 13:24 ("He who spares his rod, hates his son, but he who loves him disciplines him promptly") to make the following argument: "If youlove your child you will take the rod and discipline him when he's disobedient. It's not optional; it's a command." The Tribes argues that progressive childrearing practices such as time-outs or taking away treats or screen time have resulted in a spike in juvenile violence and crime. The only way to reverse this trend, the Tribes contends, is by using the proverbial rod—early, often, and hard enough to leave marks. According to former and current Tribes leaders I spoke with, infants raised in the Tribes are hit with balloon sticks—thin wooden rods used to keep balloons from floating away—for "offenses" as minor as resisting a diaper change or throwing a bottle. Older children are whipped with bamboo canes. "Children are driven by their natural, innate nature to do what is wrong," the group's teachings state. "It's better to go to heaven with welts than to go to hell without welts."
We Americans love our origin story, the notion that a tough band of Pilgrim non-conformists helped birth our nation and our freedoms. We celebrate the First Amendment, which prevents the government from interfering with our religious beliefs and practices. But what if those beliefs and practices make children suffer?
Strange thing to ponder while you're sitting in a sun-dappled cafe sipping Fair Trade-certified coffee. When I asked Yashar about the brochure, he casually mentioned that he spanks his two boys, ages two and four, several times a day. "In the community, it's a regular way of life," he told me, and I thought of Shuah Jones, who'd fled this same place 12 years earlier. "Children who are disciplined grow up to be disciplined adults."
That's what the Tribes tells its members. But interviews with dozens of current and former members—along with a review of hundreds of pages of the group's secret teachings, their public statements to the media, and their website and YouTube channel—tell a somewhat different story.
The Twelve Tribes grew out of a Bible-study group in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In 1972, a former high school teacher and guidance counselor named Gene Spriggs and his fourth wife, Marsha, started a gathering of believers in their home. This was during the heyday of the Jesus Movement, whose adherents viewed Jesus as a counterculture hero. The couple recruited heavily outside of local schools and youth hangouts. Spriggs gave informal Bible lectures in his living room that held audiences rapt for hours, former members say. Many of the young people who turned up seeking enlightenment were runaways and drug addicts, whom the couple invited to move in. To support their growing household, the Spriggses opened a restaurant in 1973 called the Yellow Deli, where members worked for room and board but no paycheck. The restaurant featured booths crafted from reclaimed barn wood, and the menu delivered a subtle come-on. "We serve the fruit of the Spirit," it read. "Why not ask?"
By 1978, Spriggs had opened six Yellow Delis and unofficially re-branded his Bible study as a church: the Vine Christian Community Church. Then came controversy. The Chattanooga Times published interviews with disenchanted former members. "We worked 16 to 18 hours a day, six days a week, until we were so tired we couldn't think," one complained. Those who questioned the leadership were told their doubts were "from Satan."
By this time, Spriggs' followers considered him a modern-day apostle. "His teachings were considered fresh revelations from God," said Joellen Griffin, a former member. And the revelations were extreme. Spriggs told his followers that God wanted them to cut themselves completely off from modern society. This meant no television, radio, books, or anything else that embodied secular culture. "Friendship with the world," he preached, "is enmity with God." Members were required to donate all their possessions to the group—homes, cars, money—in exchange, Spriggs told them, for eternal salvation. When concerned relatives raised objections, Spriggs told his followers to cut them off, too.
Several parents hired a cult deprogrammer to forcibly extract their children from the church—with limited success. Besieged by bad press and desperate relatives, Spriggs pulled out of the Bible Belt altogether, relocating to a remote village in Vermont called Island Pond. Two hundred followers joined him, among them David Jones, the elder who had defended Spriggs in the Chattanooga Times; his wife, Patricia; and their infant daughter, Tamar.
In this new setting, the group became increasingly reclusive. Spriggs decided he was destined to restore the ancient Twelve Tribes of Israel and produce an army of 144,000 male virgins, who would prepare the way for Christ's second coming. To this end, he re-named the group the Twelve Tribes. To differentiate the Tribes from mainstream Christianity, he referred to Jesus as Yahshua, a variant of Jesus' Hebrew name, and insisted members take Hebrew names as well. He called himself Yoneq—a play on his given name that he translated as "tender shoot or sprig."
The tenor of the sect changed now, too. Spriggs began to preach that blacks were destined to be slaves, homosexuals "deserved the death penalty," and women—who weren't allowed to use birth control—had to atone for Eve's original sin by giving birth without painkillers. He drafted rules regulating everything from fingernail length to how married couples should engage in intercourse.
A large portion of Spriggs' teachings concerned children, though he never actually raised a child in the group. (He and Marsha have no children. He has one son, by his first wife, but he left them when the boy was young.) "If one is overly concerned about his son receiving blue marks," he wrote to David Jones, "you know that he hates his son and hates the word of God."
"Blue marks" are bruises, of course, which members of the Tribes consider evidence of exemplary parenting. "I remember constant welts on my hands, thighs, and butt," a woman who was raised in the Tribes told me. Children are expected to obey "on the first command," without talking back or complaining. They are not allowed toys or bikes, and cannot engage in fantasy play. They read only the Bible and the group's dogma. The former members I spoke to claimed most children were beaten multiple times a day, for transgressions as innocuous as forgetting to raise their hands at the dinner table and "dissipation"—the group's term for horseplay. Responding to these descriptions, a current leader of their California communities, Wade Skinner, echoed the brochure I read in Blue Blinds. "That wouldn't be how we portray our life," he said, "but we do believe if you love your child, you will be diligent to discipline them, and if you hate them, you will withhold the rod."
That's the philosophy that guided an elder named Eddie Wiseman. In 1983, according to a former Tribes member named Darlynn Church, Wiseman whipped her with a balloon stick from her shoulders to her ankles for kissing a boy, leaving a ladder of bloody stripes. She was 13. Her father reported Wiseman to Vermont authorities, who charged him with simple assault. But then the father recanted, saying he had been pressured by "anti-cult" activists to exaggerate his claims, and the state was forced to drop the case. (Wiseman maintains the accusations were "greatly exaggerated.")
But the investigation continued. Because the Tribes children were so isolated, investigators couldn't verify the abuse allegations through teachers and doctors, the usual third parties. They didn't know the number of children living in the community, much less their names. So the district attorney's office summoned seven Tribes leaders, including David Jones, who now had four children, to a county courthouse, to try to compel them to disclose this information. The men refused and were briefly jailed for civil contempt, then released. The state continued to marshal its forces. Three days after their release, 90 state troopers and 50 social workers descended on the group's homes shortly after dawn. Under orders to do "whatever was necessary" to identify the children, police rousted members from bed and retrieved 112 minors, among them the Jones children. As police escorted the children to waiting buses, neighbors cheered. The families waited at an armory, while prosecutors sought a court order to have the children examined for signs of physical abuse. But the case fell apart when a district judge rejected the request, stating that the warrant was too broad—it failed to identify the children by name.
The state prosecutor, Philip White, vented his frustration to the Burlington Free Press. "The first lesson is that it is still OK to beat their children," he said, "especially if they have a religious justification for it. The second lesson is that we still have not found a satisfactory approach to preventing and addressing child abuse issues when they occur in closed religious communities."
The Twelve Tribes hailed the decision as a victory for religious freedom. God had delivered His people.
Corporal punishment—which the United Nations defines as "any punishment in which physical force is used and intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort"—has been banned in 46 nations. The general consensus within the medical-research establishment, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, is that physical punishment, especially of children, can lead to increased aggression and psychological problems. Hitting a child in the home in the United States, however, is legal in every state as long as it doesn't leave a mark.
Religious and political conservatives have often thwarted efforts to advance children's rights in this country. Consider the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which aims to protect minors from abuse and exploitation, ensure access to secondary education, and guarantee a child's freedom of "thought, conscience, and religion." The CRC is the most widely ratified international human rights treaty in history, but it has one holdout: the U.S. Although Madeleine Albright signed the convention in 1995, President Clinton never bothered sending it to the Senate for ratification because Jesse Helms, a conservative Republican, had galvanized opposition against it, declaring it to be "incompatible with the God-given right and responsibility of parents to raise their children." More recently, a group called ParentalRights.org, led by evangelical Christians, has spearheaded resistance to the treaty while at the same time lobbying for an amendment that would protect parents' ability to spank their children.
The biggest hurdle to the treaty's ratification is our own legal system. In the past four decades, believers have lobbied for, and won, a host of religious exemptions and shield laws that have steadily chipped away at the basic rights of children. The CRC mandates, for example, that governments take steps to abolish "practices prejudicial to the health of children." But in 1972, the Amish won a case before the Supreme Court that allowed them to pull their kids from school after eighth grade so that they could do farm work. In 1974, the Christian Science Church persuaded the federal government to compel states to enact a religious exemption to child-abuse laws, so that parents would not be adjudicated as negligent when they deprived their children of medical care on religious grounds. Rita Swan was one of those parents, and she now finds religious shield laws indefensible. A former Christian Scientist whose 16-month-old son Matthew died from a treatable bacterial infection despite prayer treatments, she now directs Children's Healthcare Is a Legal Duty, which tracks cases of faith-based child abuse. "Religious shield laws discriminate against children, depriving them of protections the state extends to others," she told me. "They should be repealed."
Since the 1970s, the number of religious exemptions to generally applicable laws has skyrocketed. In 1993, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act to circumvent laws that "substantially burden" a person's free exercise of religion. Twenty-one states have subsequently passed their own versions, in effect granting an unprecedented license to discriminate against homosexuals, jeopardize women's health, and deny housing to unmarried couples.
Under the guise of freely exercising their religion, the constitutional-law expert Marci Hamilton writes in her book God vs. The Gavel: The Perils of Extreme Religious Liberty, an increasing number of believers are finding ways to deprive their children of education, force them to work without pay, refuse them medical care, and even let them die as a testament to their faith. (Since 1975, Rita Swan has tallied more than 400 children who died from what she terms "religious medical neglect.") Church pedophiles sometimes claim religious privilege to try to avoid prosecution, Hamilton writes, and they all too often succeed.
Children are defenseless against abuse. They don't vote. They don't organize. They don't have money to hire lobbyists or spin media campaigns to protect their interests. They don't have a voice. They rely on adults for protection—and sometimes it's those same adults who violate their rights.
On June 15th, 1987, in Vermont, Patricia Jones gave birth to a fifth child, a daughter whom she and David named Shuah. These were what former members would later recall as the "glory days." The Tribes owned property along the Saxtons River, and the Jones family would spend weekends camping beside it, swimming in the wide shallow stream and roasting hot dogs over a campfire. Little by little, however, Spriggs denied his followers such simple pleasures. He banned the celebration of holidays, even birthdays. Shuah was spanked for pretending that a rolled-up towel was a doll. The rod, she says, became a constant in her life—a claim corroborated by her siblings, other former Tribes members, and, eventually, a Massachusetts Department of Children and Families investigation. She was whacked for opening the fridge without permission, for leaving food on her plate, for talking too much—and not just by her parents, but by any adult who had authority. (The Joneses declined to address any specific claims for this article.)
"You need to be cleansed," she was told. At communal suppers, parents were pressured to spank kids by other adults. "Spriggs was fond of saying we should be proud of these wounds our children bore," a former member named Roger Griffin told me. "If you loved your children, you were not swayed by their screams."
Some adults did balk at the severity of these teachings. Mary Wiseman, the wife of Spriggs' second-in-command, was one of them. She became furious when Spriggs paddled her six-year-old daughter, Kate, and threatened to leave the community with her children. She didn't, though, and when she died, at 39, of cervical cancer, Spriggs declared that her "unconfessed sin"—criticizing his authority—had killed her. "Guilt and unconfessed sin is how you get sick," Spriggs wrote in a teaching on the immune system. "This is why people die young."
Children have died because of the Tribes' rejection of modern medicine. During a whooping-cough epidemic that swept the community in the late 1980s, Bruce Whittenburg grew alarmed when his 15-month-old became sick. He and more than a half-dozen former and current members say he consulted the elders, who told him, "If God wants her to live, He'll save her." She died a few hours later. "It was the worst thing that happened to us," said Whittenburg, who left the Tribes in 2001.
During her second pregnancy, another former member, Ruth Williams, developed placenta previa—a dangerous condition in which the placenta blocks the birth canal. She was told that if she prayed hard enough God would move the placenta out of the way. Despite beseeching God on her hands and knees, Williams started hemorrhaging when she went into labor and lost consciousness—at which point she was driven to a hospital, she says, and dumped on the sidewalk outside the emergency room. She woke to the news that her son had been stillborn. Another woman who labored for days was only brought to a hospital after her child died inside her.
After Mary Wiseman's death, Tribes elders began to judge parents' ability to raise their children. When they judged parents inadequate, they split families up, often with devastating consequences, as the Jones family would learn.
Their son Noah tells a distressing story from 1992, when he was nine and the Joneses were living in a community in St. Joseph, Missouri. One day, Noah says, he and his two brothers, Yoshiyah, 12, and Ezra, seven, were rappelling out of a tree when an elder's wife told them to stop. The boys told her that their dad allowed them to do it and kept playing. So the elder separated them and locked Noah in the furnace room of an adjacent house—with David and Patricia's support. The elder gave Noah a piece of paper and told him to write down his sins. Noah wrote down past peccadilloes, such as stealing a penny from his dad's dresser, but the elder told him to think harder. This went on for a week. He slept on the cement floor, used a bucket as a toilet, and was fed one meal a day. When he cried and asked to see his father, he was told his father didn't want to see him. Finally, the elder accused him of engaging in a homosexual encounter—with his brothers. Noah didn't know what "homosexual" meant, so the leader described gay sex to him in graphic detail. (When reached for comment, Yoshiyah refused to discuss any details but said, "My siblings exaggerate these stories.")
The ordeal ended with the three brothers sent away to three different homes in Vermont. Shuah, who was four at the time, remembers a van driving off with her brothers as the other kids clapped, happy the "corrupters" were gone. Noah lived with a succession of single "brothers" who beat him and forbade him from socializing with other kids. "I kept hoping my parents would come rescue me," he told me.
By the time he was finally allowed to re-join his parents a year later, his trust in them and the Tribes was shattered.
The Tribes now has communities at 12 locations around the globe, most of them in New England, together intended to represent the original 12 tribes of Israel. The group owns not only restaurants but also businesses in construction, landscaping, body-care products, and tea. According to tax documents given to me by a former leader, the group's sales were $26 million in 2012. These earnings are tax exempt and fueled by members' free labor—including that of children. Like the Amish, the Tribes stops homeschooling children after eighth grade so that they can work, a practice they call "apprenticeship." Younger kids are tapped if there is a push to fulfill a contract. "We make no apology," Wade Skinner, the elder, said when asked about this. "It's the age-old practice of families."
The Jones children were put to work at an early age. For several weeks when she was seven, for example, Shuah boarded a 15-passenger van at dawn with other grade-schoolers and drove to the Tribes' Common Sense factory in Rutland, an hour away. One of the Tribes' biggest clients was Estee Lauder, which contracted the group to make its popular Origins salt scrub. Shuah spent 10 hours a day labeling and packaging the scrub and other products. At a certain point, she told me, the elders passed out sleeping bags so the kids could sleep on the factory floor. "We'd take little breaks and run around and play and get spanked for it," recalled Alicia Gonyaw, who worked at the factory when she was 12. "We weren't allowed to be kids."
By the time he was 10, the youngest of the Jones siblings, Kepha, was working for the Tribes' tree-trimming service in Cape Cod. He wore no safety gear, and one day a large pine fell on him, gashing his head and knocking him out. Instead of being rushed to a nearby hospital, Kepha was driven to a Tribes community in New Hampshire, four hours away, where a member who was an EMT used 60 stitches to close the wound. Now 25, Kepha has a scar and suffers from vertigo and blackouts.
Noah Jones worked full-time from the age of 12, doing commercial millwork and building furniture, including handcrafted roll-top desks that were sold through Robert Redford's Sundance catalogue. The work so exhausted him that he often fell asleep during the hour-long religious services he was required to attend twice a day. At 14, a supervisor beat him with a two-by-four at a construction site. When he turned 18, Noah left, vowing to do whatever he could to pry his younger siblings away from the Tribes. Helped by former members and sympathetic strangers, he found a place to live and work. He then sought out a former priest and critic of the Tribes who urged him to contact the press; outlets from the New York Post to CNN soon ran stories on the Tribes' child-labor practices, prompting Sundance and Estee Lauder to cancel contracts.
Shuah, who was 12 at the time, was deeply worried for Noah's safety. Spriggs tells his followers that God will strike them down if they leave or speak out. Stories of defectors who died violent deaths circulate as warnings among members. (Indeed, several former members I contacted refused to speak on the record because they still feared divine revenge.)
Shuah's diary reflects her inner turmoil. On one page, she describes the world as "dark, cold and empty." On another, she fantasizes about running away. Plagued by nightmares about adults hitting children, she often wet her bed. Her jaw locked up for days, leaving her unable to speak or chew. To solve that problem, Shuah says, an elder hooked her up to a transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation unit, a device that uses currents to treat joint and muscle pain. although the Food and Drug Administration explicitly warns against using such devices on the head, the elder applied two electrodes to Shuah's jawline and two to her wrist. The pain was excruciating, she says—her head vibrated, and an acid taste filled her mouth. She ripped the leads off and noticed burn marks on her wrist. Her jaw remained locked until the following day, when it unlocked on its own.
At 14, Shuah was working full-time at the Common Grounds restaurant in Hyannis, Massachusetts, in a downstairs kitchen with other underage girls. If anyone asked, they were instructed to say they were 18. Although she was working adult hours, she was still treated as a child. One day, an older woman accused her of stealing food. In the interrogation that followed, which lasted hours, Shuah realized she would only be released if she confessed. So she did. "You must be cleansed," the woman said—and then ordered Shuah to lie face- down on a bed so she could whip her bare buttocks with a bamboo cane.
Noah, meanwhile, had saved up enough to buy a car. He had the windows tinted so he could drive by the communal houses unnoticed, hoping to catch a glimpse of his siblings. One afternoon he saw Shuah walking alone between houses and rolled down the window. "Hey, how are you?" he asked. Shuah, overjoyed, jumped into the passenger seat. He slipped a CD into the player. "Listen to this," he said, putting on Faith Hill's "There You'll Be." He knew better than to pressure her to leave. He let the lyrics speak for him: "In my heart there'll always be a place for you /For all my life, I'll keep a part of you with me / And everywhere I am, there you'll be."
"Isn't her voice amazing?" he asked. He wanted her to know that there was beauty in the outside world.
Before Noah dropped Shuah off, he made her memorize two numbers: an untraceable AT&T calling card ID and his cell phone number. He knew that members' belongings were routinely searched for contraband, such as money, chocolate, or bikini-cut "harlot" underwear, and that she could get in trouble for possessing his number.
Shuah was torn. As a woman in the Tribes, a bleak future awaited her: She would be expected to marry young, be subservient to her husband, and produce as many babies as possible. But she was also terrified of the unknown.
At about that time, Shuah was given permission to live with her older sister, Tamar, then pregnant with her first child. The two lived in the large commune the Tribes owned in Plymouth: a 9,000-square-foot mansion with 12 bedrooms and sweeping views of Plymouth Bay. The sisters had rarely lived in the same community and didn't know each other well. Shuah looked forward to spending time with Tamar, who was married and possessed more freedom than rank-and-file members. Tamar bought Shuah ice cream, a forbidden treat, and took her to the library, a forbidden activity. Sitting in a hushed corner, Shuah learned about the country she was living in for the first time.
But two days after Tamar's daughter was born, the elders abruptly moved Shuah to the Blue Blinds, and her life became an endless loop of mind-numbing work and rote religious ceremony. She was put to work packaging boxes from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. every day. Her jaw locked up again.
These people can do whatever they want to me, she thought.
It was the last straw. A few days later, Shuah ran out into the street clutching her Bible and diary, called Noah, and made her escape.
Although Gene Spriggs didn't respond to repeated interview requests, I did wrangle an invitation to the Tribes' commune in Plymouth—the mansion where Shuah spent several happy days with her sister and niece in 2002. As evening settled in, members gathered on a stone patio to sing and perform dances to acoustic guitar. A dozen or so children, all dressed in the same faintly Biblical garb as their parents, peered at me shyly. Afterward, individuals stepped forward to share whatever was on their minds.
"The world is the fruit of Satan's reign," one man said, looking directly at me.
"I'm just thankful we have a cause to live for," said another man.
"Deliver us from the schemes of the evil one," a young woman added.
A small boy fidgeted, swinging his hands back and forth, until his brother tapped him sharply on the shoulder.
The sole African-American resident—a woman named Aisha Woodman, who has a degree in Film Studies from Columbia and teaches the children in a three-room schoolhouse at the front of the property—gave me a tour of the grounds. When I remarked on the balloon sticks I saw jammed into pencil holders in a classroom and resting on a wall-mounted coat rack in a bedroom, she nodded. "We strive for perfect obedience," she said. Earlier that day, I'd asked a big-boned, blonde leader named Nehemiah Jayne to strike me with one. He obliged, whipping the palm of my hand. It stung; I fought the urge to curl my hand into a fist. As I took notes, he joked, "See, you can still write—you're fine."
At dinner, I sat with Nehemiah and his silent three-year-old son at a table separated from the rest of the residents, on the veranda, overlooking the sparkling bay. Although members use chopsticks to eat—to appeal to potential Asian recruits, Jayne said—I was handed a fork to eat our simple yet tasty meal: steamed broccoli and cheese over brown rice. For an hour, we discussed the group's more controversial teachings. As we wrapped up, Nehemiah sighed deeply and rubbed his face with his hands before giving me a tired smile. "We're not even afraid of bad publicity," he said. "We've had several people move in after they've read negative articles about us."
As our plates were cleared, a quiet game of tag was staged on the lawn directly in front of me. The children's play seemed tentative, nothing like the rowdy versions of tag I'd witnessed my own kids play. Perhaps, as the Tribes contends, this is because its kids are more disciplined. Or perhaps, as former members contend, it's because their children have never been given the freedom to act like kids. I thought of Sammie Brosseau, who broke with the group at 18, put herself through college, and now lives in Manhattan. "I was robbed of my childhood," she told me.
I gave Aisha Woodman a ride back to Plymouth, where she lives above the Blue Blinds bakery. Before opening the door to get out, she turned and said, "Be careful. There's a lot of nightlife around here."
It was July 31—the same date Shuah escaped. I decided to re-trace the route she took down Court Street 12 years earlier. The night was warm; dance music wafted from pubs and restaurants; young people in shorts and boat shoes swarmed the sidewalks. The atmosphere felt anything but menacing.
When Noah brought Shuah back to the house where he was living, his roommate was watching a concert on television. She stared at the scandalous blonde prancing half-naked across the stage, but she had no idea who it was— Britney Spears, then at the height of her popularity.
The next morning, Noah drove his sister to the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, where Shuah told investigators she'd been systematically beaten, denied an education, and forced to work without pay. She was sent to live with relatives in Tennessee, where she enrolled in high school and for a time went by a more mainstream name—Monica. She went to her first movie, wore jeans for the first time, idled an afternoon away. Noah didn't criticize her when she caked on make-up or gained weight from gorging on mac-and-cheese; she'd been raised by domineering men, and he wanted his sister to figure things out for herself.
Eventually, she did. In 2013, she graduated magna cum laude from the University of South Florida, and is now married with two children. She calls herself Shuah again.
Last June, I flew to Clearwater, Florida, to spend four days with Shuah and her siblings. Now a statuesque 28-year-old with long hair, Shuah projects a calm yet intense air. She chooses her words carefully. Her left shoulder bears a tattoo of a lotus flower—a symbol of re-birth that's popular among survivors of tough times. We were joined by Noah, Kepha, and Tamar, all of whom have left the Tribes, as has their brother Ezra. Only their parents and their oldest brother remain in the group.
Over cups of coffee throughout the day, and bottles of beer in the evenings, the siblings discussed what it was like to grow up in the Tribes. Their conversations were often angry. Shuah, who still has nightmares about the group, takes medication for anxiety. She cried freely as she recounted the beatings she endured. She spent several hours in my hotel room one afternoon piecing together the story of her harrowing escape, then abruptly rose and locked herself in the bathroom. After a few minutes, I heard the shower running. "Phew," she said when she emerged, smiling. "I feel much better now."
Kepha, who wasn't allowed to ride bikes as a kid, recently graduated from the University of Florida, where he was a member of the cycling team. He credits Noah with starting a mass exodus of teenagers from the Tribes. Noah has employed dozens of them in his construction business, but they are the lucky ones. Others, without high school diplomas, work experience, savings, or a safety net, have resorted to prostitution, drug dealing, and, in one notorious case, robbing banks.
The Jones siblings' relationship with their parents continues to be strained. When David and Patricia heard their kids were talking to me, they threatened to stop communicating with them. One evening, I returned to the hotel with Noah and Kepha and found them waiting; they'd driven two hours from a Tribes commune in Arcadia, Florida. As the brothers headed to the bar to order beer—"to take the edge off," Noah later told me—I sat down with their parents on the lobby's small sofas. During a short, tense meeting, they questioned me about my intentions and deflected most questions. "The entire media is under the sway of the Evil One," Patricia told me.
I turned to her husband, a tall, angular man with piercing blue eyes.
"Do you really think it's fair to spank an infant?" I asked. Kepha and Noah returned, beers in hand.
"When a baby understands the word 'no,' they're ready to begin their training," he said, without missing a beat. "When the spanking stopped," he said, quoting the title of the pamphlet I'd seen at the Blue Blinds, "all hell broke loose." Of his broken family, he observed, "Our one mistake was not spanking our children enough."
This sparked a heated exchange between parents and sons. Patricia ran a hand through Kepha's hair.
"You were never abused," she murmured. "Our life is full of love."
"You're in denial, mom," he shot back, leaning away from her.
Noah pulled out his iPhone to show them photos of the granddaughter they've never seen. It was excruciating to watch.
The Tribes continues to be dogged by negative press in England, Spain, and Australia, but the biggest blow to the group came in Germany, where corporal punishment is illegal. In 2013, a reporter for RTL Television infiltrated one of the sect's communes and, over a two-day period, secretly filmed 50 instances of adults spanking children, including one small girl whose offense was refusing to say, "I'm tired." After the footage aired, police seized 40 children and placed them in foster care, where most of them remain today. In France, a few months ago, a police raid of a Tribes community led to social workers rescuing four small children whose bodies bore evidence of recent beatings.
Shuah and her siblings are bewildered that the authorities have not taken similar action in this country. Despite the media exposés that Noah triggered, Tribes members who have left the group in the years since have claimed that the Tribes continues to beat children, exploit them as free workers, and deny them access to education and modern medicine. "Where do our human rights as children begin and their religious rights end?" Shuah asked me during our time together.
It's not an easy question to answer. But Shuah plans to try. She's been studying for the Law School Admissions Test and hopes to take it in December. She plans to become a legal advocate for children.
"Someone," she says, "has to speak out for us."
http://www.psmag.com/books-and-culture/children-of-the-tribes
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