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There\u2019s just one eensy teensy problem.<\/p>\n
Frontline Families is run by a Doug and Lisa Cherry, quiverfull parents to ten homeschooled children. If their discussion of sexual abuse and how to prevent or handle it aligned with best practices, this wouldn\u2019t be a problem\u2014but it doesn\u2019t. R. L. Stollar is writing a series this week on why he cannot support Frontline Ministries\u2019 National Sexual Abuse Prevention Week for Homecshoolers<\/a>, and it\u2019s worth a read. Here I want to touch on a few points, quoting at times from Ryan\u2019s pieces.<\/p>\n The Cherrys have personal experience with sexual abuse, experience Lisa Cherry\u00a0discusses in her\u00a0book,\u00a0Unmask the Predators: The Battle to Protect Your Child<\/a>. When Lisa\u2019s daughter Kalyn was 15, Lisa discovered that she was being groomed by a 46-year-old man in their congregation. Not only did Lisa initially handle this very badly\u2014blaming Kalyn for ruining their family\u2019s reputation\u2014but the approach she eventually settled on and promoted in her book centered on waging spiritual battle against demonic forces.<\/p>\n Here is a page from Lisa\u2019s book:<\/p>\n Transcribed:<\/p>\n \u201cI was never more keenly aware of this fact than during our struggle for Kalyn. We were fighting against powers much stronger than the emotions of a confused fifteen-year-old girl. The truth of Ephesians 6:12 became quite apparent: \u201cOur struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.\u201d<\/p>\n Kalyn had been \u201csoul tied\u201d to a man steeped in the dark world of pornography and perversion.<\/strong> The battle for her life was a battle in the heavenlies.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Throughout her book, Lisa describes Kalyn as \u201crebellious\u201d and centers on spiritual warfare. As Ryan explains<\/a>:<\/p>\n There are many problems with this use of demonology in the context of abuse. The foremost one I want to mention is that that it only amplifies a victim or survivor\u2019s feelings of terror and guilt over abuse. To suggest to a victim or survivor that their intense emotions \u2013 their feelings of anger, pain, betrayal, abandonment, and so forth \u2014 is not physically real (but rather the result of a demonic possession) is psychologically damaging. It makes them distant and distrustful of their emotions. This is damaging because (1) emotions are important indicators about reality and (2) acknowledging one\u2019s emotions is a crucial part of healing and recovery.<\/p>\n Another reason why demonology is problematic in this context is that it shifts the responsibility for criminal actions away from the actual abusers and towards supernatural forces.<\/b><\/p>\n When discussing \u201cour family\u2019s crisis,\u201d Lisa Cherry does this: \u201cThe enemies in this battle are really not the\u00a0people<\/i>\u00a0involved in the dark acts, but the forces of evil which have taken them captive to do their will for this season\u201d (67-8). While this could remain an abstract spiritual point, she later applies it naively and dangerously to the man who abused her own daughter. Lisa says, \u201cI do not believe this man intentionally set out to hurt our daughter\u2019 (137). She then blames the spiritual forces of darkness instead. While there is a time and place for empathy and forgiveness for abusers, language that in any way excuses or minimizes the actions of abusers is inappropriate here.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This isn\u2019t the only problem with Lisa\u2019s\u00a0approach, either.<\/p>\n Obedience as abuse prevention<\/strong>: Lisa\u00a0promotes obedience to authority as a way to prevent child sexual abuse, seemingly unaware that it is children who have been taught to be obedient who are the easiest prey for sexual abusers. She goes so far as to slam\u00a0gentle parenting and urge parents to demand first-time obedience from their children and be ready to back it up with corporal punishment.<\/p>\n Patriarchy as abuse prevention<\/strong>: Lisa\u00a0says that women put their children at risk by asking for equal rights, and calls on her female readers to submit to their husbands as a way to protect their children (remember the spiritual warfare context).\u00a0One wonders what a wife should do if her husband is sexually abusing their children, or finds out their children have been sexually abused and decides\u00a0to hide it and pretend it didn\u2019t happen rather than doing anything about it.<\/p>\n Reporting as optional<\/strong>: Lisa\u00a0says she and her husband reported their daughter\u2019s abuse to the police (which is good!), but rather than calling for other families to do the same she argues that\u00a0fathers\u00a0should listen to God\u2019s leading on this, and explicitly states that there are exceptions and situations where abuse should not be reported\u00a0to the authorities.<\/p>\n As Ryan concludes<\/a>:<\/p>\n Based on\u00a0<\/span>Kalyn\u2019s Secret<\/i>\u00a0alone, I would highly discourage people from consulting Lisa Cherry and Frontline Family Ministries for advice on sexual abuse prevention. From their advocacy of unbiblical theology to their perspective on mental health, from their obsession with demonology to their shockingly bad recommendations of people like Bill Gothard and Reb Bradley and organizations like IBLP and Teen Mania, they are pointing abuse victims, survivors, and their families in all the wrong directions. Those directions have proven time and time again to lead to immense pain for the abused.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In future posts, Ryan will look at another of Lisa\u2019s books and go through some of the material on Frontline Family Ministries\u2019 website. One point Ryan will touch on is Lisa\u2019s\u00a0rampant homophobia.<\/p>\n It is probably possible for someone to believe homosexuality is sinful and still endorse best practices when it comes to identifying and dealing with\u00a0child sexual abuse, but this is not what Lisa\u00a0does. Instead, her disgust at homosexuals and homosexual activity leaders her to type LGBTQ individuals as natural predators.<\/p>\n Transcribed:<\/p>\n The predators are not just the\u00a0psychiatrically diagnosed pedophiles. The middle-school sex-education health teacher, the friendly cohabitating young couple next door that your daughter babysits for, and the clean-cut homosexual teller at your bank who just adopted a baby from Africa are chipping away at our core values and beliefs while we naively think our kids are still with us in the SUnday school. Until we mask the spiritual forces working behind those \u201cnice people\u201d and\u00a0dismantle their spiritual weapons, we will continue to lose our children. The wave of guilt, remorse, rage, adn grief will try to crush us as we scramble to recover our families.<\/p>\n Our goals here are twofold. First, we will peel back the deceptions hiding the predators among us.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Yes, you read that right. In a blog post titled Sexual Predator Calling Cards, Part 1: Found One in My Mailbox<\/a>, Lisa describes the horror she felt when she found that one of her favorite magazines, Country Living, had included a story on a gay couple and their five-year-old daughter in its latest issue.<\/p>\n My mind did a double take as I re-read the article\u2019s opening line\u2026\u00a0Jesse and Gus have forged a surprisingly modern home\u2026<\/em>. I turned the page to find a picture of this \u201ccouple\u201d\u2014two men and their five-year-old daughter.<\/p>\n What?!\u00a0 I was accidentally taking a tour of a homosexual couple\u2019s house?<\/em>\u00a0I dropped the issue on the floor in disgust. The images of the cute little girl stuck hauntingly in my mind.<\/p>\n . . .<\/p>\n What if I had left that magazine in my bathroom reading rack as I usually do, and my children had seen it?\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>They could have been influenced and damaged by this deceptive display.<\/strong><\/p>\n . . .<\/p>\n Will you resolve with me that when we encounter a predator\u2019s calling card, we will call it what it is, and counter it with the truth?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Lisa\u2019s\u00a0daughter Kalyn was groomed by a straight cisgendered male, and yet she insists on discussing \u201chomosexuals\u201d as \u201cpredators.\u201d\u00a0But this is part of the reason it is so easy for sexual abuse in evangelical or fundamentalist circles to go unnoticed. If you assume you can identify predators by sight, and that predators are those living apart from God\u2019s word, you will miss the predators in your midst\u2014just as Lisa missed her daughter\u2019s abuser.<\/p>\n This is not actually the first time I\u2019ve blogged about Lisa Cherry. Last May, Lisa wrote a blog post called An Open Letter to My Fellow Homeschool Parents<\/a>. In it she dealt with the fallout of the Bill Gothard and Doug Phillips scandals. Here is what I had to say about her\u00a0blog post at the time<\/a>:<\/p>\n![\"1382090_10152353749452761_1783050733574283440_n\"](\"https:\/\/homeschoolersanonymous.files.wordpress.com\/2014\/10\/1382090_10152353749452761_1783050733574283440_n.jpg?w=470&h=263\")
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