The night the church literally burned down in Copey de Dota, Costa Rica across the street from our guesthouse. August 2017.

Today is a little different. Instead of quoting some Quiverful enforcer saying very wrong things I think we need to look at churches in Quiverfull, how they operate, the tendency to split, the drama and the sturm and drang to the nth degree. When Quiverfull churches crash and burn.

When I left my old Quiverfull church, Possum Creek, I’d been a member of for many years and there had already been a pile of ‘church splits’. Why did they happen? Over a pile of silly things. One split happened because a group of ladies stuck in unhappy abusive marriages demanded the pastor kick out all church members who’d been divorced, no matter the reason. Once the split was over head coverings, with those demanding all women wear head coverings all the time departing to find a purer church.

See what I mean about the silly? One thing most of the splits had in common at our very patriarchal church is that they were largely spearheaded by supposedly submitting very hard women. There is something inherently backwards about Quiverfull and the role of women. Many times these ladies that made the most noise about joyfully submitting, the Lori Alexanders of this world, were actually doing the most controlling things behind the scenes. A weird secretive version of the Power and Control wheel needs to be updated just for Quiverfull.

After I left things continued on, church splits, people announcing that this or that action had to happen, before leaving the church. One of the splits saw roughly three quarters of the members deciding to up and go to a different church Church of the Hill. That other church had only 20 members, so the influx of suddenly two hundred more was a shock. I watched that the old church members took over the new church, creating more drama before all departing two years later for other places, leaving the pastor and that church pretty wrecked.

Back at Possum Creek the thirty or so members remained. They renamed the church after claiming someone was spreading lies about it online. This was ten years ago, and in the ensuing years I’d hear things about the happenings there. The pastor I knew raided the endowment funds and various accounts to keep paying himself and quit when the money ran out. In ten years they went through a huge pile of young pastors.

Now I heard, and confirmed that the church has been sold. The church, and the land it sits upon, and the monies divided among the few members of the Elders board. A big mega church with ties to Al Mohler have bought them out. The mega church I am going to call the Pepsi church because they have lifted one of Pepsi’s branded logos as the logo for the church.

Got it straight? Possum Creek turned into Creekside. Most of the members ran off to Church on the Hill and then Living Church, crashing and burning a pile of churches in their wake. Creekside was bought out by Pepsi church with much personal pocketing of money.

Here’s the kicker. If you pull up the Pepsi church’s website you now see that the elders board at Creekside not only got money, they are now all on the elders board at Pepsi, and on staff. Even the guy that had a physical fight with the former pastor at another pastor’s funeral!

Sounds like an episode of ABC’s cancelled “GBC” does it not? I share all of this Peyton Place of a mess not because I think it’s an aberration. But because I believe from too many years in churches that this is what typically happens in Quiverfull and other fringe churches without a state or national governing body. Drama happens, and people hop from church to church, sowing destruction, spiritual abuse and hurt every single place they go.

Some of it happens because it seems that no one can agree on anything. Some because members are all to eager to judge others and justify their own interpretations of the truth. But it’s all toxic and bad.

I have a theory that Quiverfull and just out there independent churches attack people who would already be considered outliers before they even join. People who don’t believe that most of the rules of polite society apply to them.

What do you think drives these church splits and all the drama?

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