by AfricaTurtle
The title of Sierra’s Post “When Dreams Become Promises” stirred thoughts in me of another Dream, of other Promises that have brought their own dose of pain and disappointment and reality into my life: Dreams of an enduring, godly marriage and the Promises I made to God and myself in order to lay hold of that dream.
I made my first promise at the age of 14. “I promise to never date a non-christian”. It was the call to action given by a speaker at the summer church camp I attended that year. I knew it was right, I knew it was what God expected of me. How can “light fellowship with darkness”? Why would I build a life with someone I couldn’t hope to spend eternity in heaven with? What a heartache that would be! What a burden to bear, to be “unequally yoked”! I knew that God wanted what was best for me. I knew I could trust him. I knew I would never “compromise” my walk with God by dating a non-Christian.
The second promise came only a few, short years later, at the age of 16. “True Love Waits” was the name of the campaign. It was pretty popular that year in various area youth groups and on a national level. I still have the card that I taped to the inside cover of my Bible that year: ““Believing that true love waits, I make a commitment to God, myself, my family, my friends, my future mate, and my future children to a lifetime of purity including sexual abstinence from this day until the day I enter a biblical marriage relationship.” Signed and dated. For my 16th birthday I even asked my dad to buy me a “purity ring”, a ring I would someday give to my husband to show him how I had saved myself for him, and him alone.
Then as I went through high school and built friendships with other “like-minded” and “strong” Christians, we started talking about “casual dating”, why it wasn’t good, the emotional repercussions and so on. We really believed it was important to only consider dating someone who we believed we could actually marry. By this time I knew I had a call to foreign missions so this drastically reduced any dating “options” for me. Not too many guys I knew were interested in heading off to live in the jungles of Africa!
I believe it was also around this time that Josh Haris’ book “I Kissed Dating Good-bye” started to appear in Christian circles. I had pretty much already concluded that casual dating was not for the “mature” Christian. My father had no interest in “choosing” my spouse for me. (Not that he was unconcerned, he just always said “you’re the one that has to live with him, not me! ) So while I never committed to courtship, in the purest sense, I was, nonetheless, convinced God would lead me to the “right man” at the “right time”. This was something I was leaving in his hands. I didn’t “trust” myself with a decision this weighty, I definitely knew I needed God’s guidance, direction, and seal of approval.
Warning: This story series contains descriptions of physical abuse.
by Defendant Rising
Hannah was born at home in spring of 1996. By this time, Nate had a better job at a personal injury law firm and we were able to get a three-bedroom house.
Satan must have followed us, because now there were lesbians having sex in the mailbox and Nate had no idea how the pervert porn peddlers got his name and address again.
I was still in a stupor, still worshipping my cult leader. The lights were on in my brain but no one was home. I think, however, that my brain’s doorbell started ringing in 1996, and Tess’s Good Sense began its three years of patiently knocking, waiting to be invited back in. Doubts, in huge bold type, slipped under the door and were increasingly hard to shove back out onto the doormat of my mind. Even a Branch Davidian or a card-carrying member of the Manson Family would begin to get suspicious when the porno people guessed their leader’s name and address twice.
Nate’s theology had more twists and turns than a ‘coaster at Busch Gardens. I could not keep up, and the numbers of True Christians with whom we could associate grew smaller and smaller.
By degrees, Nate became:
1. A Reformed Baptist—a Calvinist who holds that only “the elect” are predestined to be saved and he’s one of the “elect,” only Nate was the Baptist brand of God’s chosen few, as opposed to the more common Presbyterian variety.
2. A Reformed Baptist Theonomist—all of the above plus embracing Old Testament Law. Nate forbade me to serve bacon, ham, or shellfish. We wore only 100% cotton or other natural fibers.
3. A Reformed Baptist Reconstructionist—all of the above plus a belief that the Old Testament Law as given to Moses should be the one and only law of the United States. This would reconstruct America. In Mosaic Law We Trust.
4. A Reformed Baptist Reconstructionist Polygamist—ditto, with the possibility of the reconstructionist taking multiple wives, the better (and faster) to reconstruct America, my dear.
This was a bit much.
However, Nate was quick to assure me that while God would have no problem with Nate “using his freedom” to take one or more mistresses and call them wives, and while Nate had no problem with polygamy per se—he was actually pretty comfortable with the concept—I, Tess, was so loved by Nate that my husband would set aside his liberty in Christ to sleep with other women out of his great love for me.
Nate did not understand why I was not bowled over with love and gratitude. After all, “God’s Law says . . .” Look at Abraham, Isaac, David, Solomon.
by Francesca T.
Lori Wick, the author of historical Christian novels has been tied to a 16 month child abuse investigation in the town of Black Earth Wisconsin (Dane County). The child abuse investigation and resulting charges surround the Aleitheia Bible Church which, Lori and her husband Bob financially support, to the tune of $500,000.
In the Dane County Sherrif’s Department press release dated 03/21/2011, there are twelve total counts of child abuse against the two elders of Aleitheia Bible Church: Philip B. Caminiti, who is the main pastor, and his brother John R. Caminiti.
Philip Caminiti’s charges are: Intentional Child Abuse-Bodily Harm; Conspiracy to Commit (8 counts).
John Caminiti’s charges are: PTAC of Mental Harm to a Child (4 counts); Intentional Child Abuse-Bodily Harm (4 counts); Mental Harm to a Child (4 counts). (Please note that in Wisconsin, a large burden of proof lays with the prosecution in the successful prosecution with charges of Mental Harm to a Child.)
Also accused are second generation Caminitis, Mathew and Alina, the Wick’s son Timothy, Andrea Wick, and finally, Maria and Timothy Stephenson. Please see the Sheriff’s press release, linked below, for the entire list of the additional charges.
In a criminal complaint Phil is quoted as saying “the scripture is never wrong” and “pain is a good way to teach children.”
The complaint says he also told them “if you spank early and it is done right then kids will be obedient”, adding he didn’t think bruises were telltale signs of something bad.
Church members say children and infants were punished for things such as being emotional, grumpy or crying, not sitting quietly through church, crying when being handed from a mother to another person or for potty training mistakes.
These members of the church are on record as saying that they believed a “one and a half month” old child is old enough to be spanked. They also go on to say that their preferred method of spanking is by the use of wooden spoon or a 12” – 18” wooden dowel with the diameter of a quarter. These implements were described to be used on the bare skin of young children, including infants as young as 2 months old. Every parent attested to the redness or bruising of the children’s skin after such a bout of (so called) spankings.
by Whisper Rain
Once upon a time, there was a little girl. We’ll call her Whisper Rain. 
She was a furiously happy little girl- she had tons of energy & was sometimes loud and difficult, but her parents loved her very much just the way she was.
Soon her little brothers and sisters started coming along, and happy little Whisper got even happier. She was confident- and bossy sometimes- but her little brothers and sisters didn’t seem to mind. She made up stories and jumped on the couch, and even cussed like a sailor once in awhile.
One day Whisper’s Mommy was excited! She had met Jesus, and now she finally felt like, through his strength and with his guidance, she could be the Mommy she’d always wanted to be for her children. The Rain family started going to church, and the people there were very nice. The children did all kinds of fun things at church, and made friends. Whisper started public school and made more friends! Sometimes they’d take along some school friends to church, and they all had a good time together.
All the kids in the neighborhood liked to come play at the Rain’s house, because it was a fun place to be. Sometimes she’d go to their houses to play too, and sometimes while she was there she would see parents fighting and yelling, and slamming doors… and that kind of scared her. It was so different from home, where Mom and Dad would sing songs with you and play hide and seek and video games with you… Whisper liked her family.
When Whisper was in third grade, her Daddy lost his job and her parents decided to move down south to look for work. One of Daddy’s friends was planning to move too, and the families got to know each other and decided to make the move together! Their new friends, the Orwells, had a boy right around Whisper’s age, and they quickly became friends. Finally, the house sold and Whisper said goodbye to her grandparents and cried as she watched them get smaller and smaller in the U-Haul truck’s big rearview mirror. It was a LONG drive to this new state they were moving to! Everything there was different! Their new town was so small! The people there talked with a funny accent. But at least they had their new friends nearby!
Vyckie Garrison started No Longer Quivering to tell the story of her “escape” from the Quiverfull movement.
Over time, NLQ has developed into a valuable resource of information regarding the deceptions and dangers of the Quiverfull philosophy and lifestyle. Several more former QF adherents are now contributing their stories to NLQ and our collective voice makes these Quiverfull warnings impossible to dismiss or ignore.
NLQ is a gathering place for women escaping and recovering from spiritual abuse.
Listen to Vyckie's Story now:
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