Why do we need the CARE Act? Because dangerous policies like this one from CFC do not protect children. They protect pastors and abusers.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LWBAGnyLQF7_XWlLILOGfSh58pzs0ewD/view?usp=sharing

In this policy, the CFC elders do an initial "investigation."

They get to decide if the allegations are serious. They get to decide if they should report. They get to decide--in consultation with a lawyer--how to protect the church, not the victim.

Pass the #nyCAREact.

We know what happens when CFC leaders get to exercise their personal judgment in reporting.

Child molesters like Sean Ferguson escape justice.

https://www.northcountrynow.com/news/madrid-man-gets-probation-sex-abuse-calls-mandated-clergy-reporting-renewed-cfctoo-0339598

This policy protects the church, not the victim. Lawyers come before CPS. Any cooperation with the authorities is done "under the guidance of the church's lawyer."

Want to check with CPS to see if you should report? Call anonymously so they can't trace it to the church.


The CARE Act subjects pastors to mandated reporter rules.

https://ocfs.ny.gov/publications/Pub1159/OCFS-Pub1159.pdf

Mandated reporters are required to call CPS immediately. Mandated reporters do not do their own investigations--that is for CPS and local police.

CFC can get away with its dangerous policy because there are no legal consequences for not reporting.

Under the CARE Act, pastors could be charged with a Class A misdemeanor and be subject to criminal penalties if they do not report. They can also be sued in civil court.


This inadequate policy highlights why it's so important to pass the CARE Act.

If a church cannot construct a coherent or comprehensive child protection policy, they certainly do not have the expertise to assess or investigate child sexual abuse.

Pass the #nyCAREact

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/CFCtoo/KIozfVO

The Need for the CARE Act to Protect Children from Abuse

 “So you're telling me that your children, for all these years, have been physically and emotionally abused, and you have been physically, emotionally, and sexually abused," he replied after hearing an hour-long, condensed rendition of my married life.

www.cfctoo.com/stories/priscillas-story

Rick Sinclair looked genuinely concerned as he defined my family’s predicament. As for myself, I sat shocked by his assessment.

I didn’t know at that time that all this craziness we had been living with for 16-plus years was typical domestic abuse. I didn’t understand the cycles of abuse and that abuse wasn’t a daily event.

Honestly, I thought my husband needed some spiritual guidance to change his relational style. I had been in denial for a long time, but I was at the precipice of educating myself and opening my eyes to what my children and I had endured.

The veil was about to be lifted as to the real Rick Sinclair and the Christian Fellowship Center cult.

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/CFCtoo/AfkY4A5

Priscilla's Story: Escaping the CFC Cult

Victim blaming is extremely common in churches and many survivors have experienced victim blaming at CFC.

https://www.cfctoo.com/blog/victim-blaming-in-the-church

People who have experienced horrific abuse have been accused of anything from demon possession and antichrist spirits to immodest dressing. Women at CFC are taught that it is their responsibility to prevent men from lusting after them.

“Carla” recalls in her story: “I was assaulted twice. One of my abusers claimed to be a Christian. When I told my parents, they asked what I was wearing when it happened, because I must have been dressed immodestly.”

https://www.cfctoo.com/stories/carlas-story

This specific type of victim blaming is very common. It can make women feel responsible for the horrible things that have happened to them as if what they were wearing caused their abuse and not their abuser.

Britny Harmer chronicled on her blog how a CFC pastor demanded that she change her clothing and inappropriately placed the responsibility for potential lust on her shoulders.

https://therainsgonnawashaway.wordpress.com/2022/01/08/power/

Victim blaming is particularly insidious in situations of domestic abuse. “Keeley” highlights some of the immediate consequences of victim-blaming in her story.

https://www.cfctoo.com/stories/keeleys-story

Keeley’s ability to engage in sexual intimacy with her abuser was questioned. Her pastor’s wife asked if she was giving her abusive husband enough sex, claiming “if they are not satisfied there then that frustration can spill into other areas of life.”

Victim blaming is pervasive in our culture, not just in our churches. We see it in the media, we see it in legal proceedings, and we see it in our homes with our own family members.

The church can and must do better to support and protect survivors. How do we do that? We start by listening to and believing survivors. We put policies in place to protect survivors and to protect others from becoming victims.

There are many aspects to domestic violence, sexual assault, and other trauma that can wear victims down until they are resigned to the abuse. We know that trauma changes the brain and the way we make sense of the world over time.

It takes a lot of courage and strength to come forward and ask for help. This is why it is crucial that we believe survivors when they disclose their abuse to us. Believe and take action.

Please know that it is not your fault. It never was. You didn’t deserve it then and you still don’t deserve it now. We hear you, we believe you, and we are here to support you.

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/CFCtoo/na6XSuP

The final strand of the Quiverfull ideology is gender hierarchy, typically called patriarchy. CFC enthusiastically promotes patriarchy as a biblical framework for Christian families.

www.cfctoo.com/blog/the-quiverfull-families-next-door-part-4

This handout from one of Rick Sinclair’s Father’s Day sermons in the early 2000s illustrates CFC’s approach to patriarchy. Note that Rick’s evidence for patriarchy is that the word patriarch exists in his translation of the Bible.

Because Quiverfull communities like CFC preach patriarchy as the only biblical framework, individuals who challenge the gender hierarchy must be labeled rebellious and sinful.

While husbands and fathers are charged with leading their households, the actual labor of raising a family and running a household falls on female caretakers. Much of this labor is performed by wives and mothers.

As soon as they are old enough, daughters are recruited to help with domestic labor, both out of necessity and to "train" them for their future roles.

Quiverfull communities teach that women are meant to serve the kingdom of God by being stay-at-home mothers who serve their husbands.

This excerpt from the Mom and Us blog written by Darlene Sinclair highlights the imbalance in Quiverfull marriages.

https://web.archive.org/web/20101205185422/http:/momandus.com/2008/08/25/loving-your-husband-pt-3/

While learning your partner’s preferences and listening well are essential qualities for a healthy relationship, nowhere in Darlene’s writings is it implied that this is a mutual arrangement.

Women are expected to carry the immense burden of anticipating and accommodating their husband’s and children’s needs at all times in the home.

This is not optional, as though it is something a wife can freely offer out of her own personhood, but Darlene’s instruction requires a wife to eliminate her own needs, desires, opinions, tasks, and even personhood in order to replace them with her husband’s.

Furthermore, Darlene’s post demonstrates how QF marriages can easily become physically abusive. Darlene tells women to “never hold back” with sex. Numerous stories from women who have come out of CFC confirm that Rick and Darlene encourage what is essentially marital rape.

In Quiverfull communities like CFC, and even in many more mainstream evangelical churches’ teaching on marriage, a wife is never allowed to say no if her husband wants sex.

In Keeley’s story , a pastor’s wife encourages her to submit to her husband sexually even though Keeley has disclosed that he has abused her and raped her.

https://www.cfctoo.com/stories/keeleys-story

Darlene’s suggestions also encourage emotionally abusive relationships. CFC wives are not only supposed to manage their husbands’ clothing and meals, but Darlene also says:

“Screen phone calls when he is in prayer or study. Train your children to respect his need for privacy and time with the Lord.
Keep non-family members from interrupting unnecessarily during special times set aside for the children or you.”

The wife is supposed to perform all of this unending labor with a “pleasant countenance” because the husband “needs to know you are happy to belong to him.”

One Sinclair daughter shares her thoughts on the role of women in the gender hierarchy in a Mom and Us blog post from 2008: https://web.archive.org/web/20101205163502/http://momandus.com/2008/03/31/trust-in-the-lord/

The intersection of gender hierarchy, large families, and the isolation that can come with homeschooling provides a hospitable environment for abuse to thrive. Quiverfull daughters are groomed to be accommodating and submissive to men from birth.

They are also not taught agency or empowered to succeed outside the home, so it is a self-fulfilling prophecy that they would “fall in love” with the protection of a patriarchal authority.

Within the privacy of an individual family, there is no check to a father’s power or authority. In fact, Quiverfull churches assert a father’s uncontested dominion as part of God’s created order.

This provides fertile ground for all kinds of abuse, including the following which have all been found in Quiverfull circles: husbands “disciplining” their wives through spanking or fathers spanking young adults; fathers who expect special attention from young adult daughters...

...father-arranged marriages when girls are still very young; the entire household expected to obey the patriarch’s whims, however abusive, illegal, or wrong.

Gender hierarchy is always dangerous for women and children when adult men abuse their power, but a largely overlooked and sadly common phenomenon in Quiverfull families is inter-sibling abuse.

When Quiverfull families grow so big that they must rely on the eldest siblings to “stand-in” as parents, siblings are often given absolute authority of their own, sometimes being instructed to spank younger children or enforce household rules in lieu of the parents.

When patriarchy joins the already existing family hierarchy dynamics, it fosters abusive attitudes in young men. Quiverfull ideology encourages the belief that men inherently have the authority to dominate women and children, and young women pay a hefty price for it.

This paves the way for abusive men to wreak havoc on their families and can train boys and young men to act in abusive ways even before they leave home. Because the typical homeschooling curriculum has little to no sexual education, this can also lead to incestuous sexual abuse.

An example of this pattern is the highly publicized story of the Duggar family. Josh Duggar, the oldest of 19 children, was caught molesting several of his younger sisters (as young as 5 years old) and a family friend at the age of 14-15.

Josh Duggar’s behavior was handled “in-house” by Josh’s parents, their insular church community, and a police officer family friend (who was later convicted of CSA charges of his own).

Note how the family dynamics and Quiverfull culture shaped this failed abuse response: The Duggar parents did not report Josh’s criminal activity.

Instead, they took what actions they deemed best: Josh was made to apologize to his victims, and they were in turn made to forgive him, despite several of them being far too young to understand the gravity of what had happened to them.

CFC handled Sean Ferguson’s case in a similar fashion. Sean was allowed to remain at home under the supervision of his wife and the abuse was handled “in the family.”

The Duggar’s broader community was unaware of Josh’s abusive behavior until he molested a young woman who was not a member of the family.

Michelle Wilbur observed a similar dynamic at CFC: “Rick Sinclair’s insistence on handling abuse inside the family allowed the perpetrator to move on to one of my children. God wants sin dealt with in the right way, not hidden from the authorities.”

https://news.yahoo.com/former-members-christian-fellowship-center-222200703.html

Men in the church encouraged the Duggars to enroll Josh in a physical labor rehabilitation “program” run by a family friend affiliated with Bill Gothard’s homeschooling seminars.

When Josh returned home from this three-month program he was taken to meet with another family friend who also happened to be a state trooper. The state trooper learned of Josh’s abuse, talked with him about it, and took no legal action.

Individuals who fail to report abuse often do so because they themselves are abusers. It is unsurprising that the state trooper, who took no action to report Josh’s crimes despite being a mandated reporter in the state of AR, was later convicted on charges of CSAM in 2012.

Josh, who by this time had 7 of his own children, was convicted of possession of CSAM in 2021 and is now serving time. A special agent assigned to Josh Duggar’s case stated that the CSAM was "in the top five of the worst of the worst that I've ever had to examine."

When the story of Josh’s molestation of his sisters broke in 2015, Jim Bob said “it was a very difficult situation. But we talked to other parents and different ones since then, a lot of families have said that they have had similar things that happened in their families.”

It is unknown how many children raised in QF families experience inter-sibling abuse, but Jim Bob’s comment is revealing. In his own experience, Josh’s actions were normative.

Inter-sibling abuse can also go unnoticed because Quiverfull parents in large families are physically unable to pay attention to all of their children at once. For many QF children, delegated authority is a task they shoulder with as much kindness as they can manage.

Unfortunately, parents who shift responsibility to the older siblings can fail to notice the warning signs when older brothers take advantage of their gendered authority to sexually abuse their sisters.

The isolation inherent in homeschooling prevents others from noticing the warning signs either; too often daughters are trapped in environments where their abuse is normalized or swept under the rug.

It is a heartbreakingly common phenomenon for young women to watch as their parents and spiritual leaders cover up the abuse they’ve suffered to protect the reputation of the family and their abusers rather than protecting the victims.

Taken individually, the components of Quiverfull ideology do not have to be abusive. Together, they form a deadly environment ripe for abuse. Quiverfull families can be good neighbors.

They might send their kids to shovel neighboring sidewalks during the winter or drop off homemade applesauce. But it is imperative to understand the ideology that sits behind Quiverfull communities like Christian Fellowship Center.

If you have left a Quiverfull community like CFC, CFCtoo is here for you. If you live in the North Country and want to understand CFC’s place in your community, we’re here for you too. Abuse wears many masks, but it is never acceptable.

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/CFCtoo/df5iRuw

Homeschooling is a hallmark trait of a Quiverfull community. CFC takes great pride in their homeschooling families and offers North Country residents the opportunity to pay for resources for home education through Christian Fellowship Academy (CFA).

www.cfctoo.com/blog/the-quiverfull-families-next-door-part-3

The Quiverfull desire for total control becomes clear in Darlene’s essay on the Four Pillars of Homeschooling: https://storage.snappages.site/JSF76P/assets/files/four-pillars-of-christian-homeschooling--26.pdf

Physical abuse in the form of corporal punishment is especially common in Quiverfull households. Darlene Sinclair, who homeschooled all of her nine children K-12, has repeatedly championed corporal punishment in her blogs over the years:
https://web.archive.org/web/20220807012136/http://www.darlenesinclair.com/2005/v

Many formerly homeschooled individuals have disclosed that their parents applied corporal punishment to “cure” their inability to focus or understand the material. This creates unsafe and fearful learning environments, especially for children who struggle academically.

Homeschooling can be a dangerous tool in the hands of abusers and those who believe they have a God-given right to exert total control over another human being. Children who are homeschooled have very little access to mandated reporters.

Their parents are their teachers, guidance counselors, principals, caretakers, and disciplinarians. Sometimes homeschooled children are also “home churched,” further isolating them, or participate in churches where abuse or neglect is endorsed or will go unreported.

Homeschooled children at CFC are encouraged not to tell people  about bad or scary things happening at home. Darlene says:

https://storage.snappages.site/JSF76P/assets/files/four-pillars-of-christian-homeschooling--26.pdf

One CFA alum and @ResponsibleHS volunteer who shared their insight on homeschooling with CFCtoo earlier this year says:

https://www.cfctoo.com/blog/homeschooling-and-abuse

"Homeschooling is not inherently abusive. What it is, inherently, is isolating: something that works to the advantage of abusers both inside and outside the family."

We cannot ignore the fact that homeschooling has been used to cause immense harm in countless children’s lives. All children deserve access to robust, child-centered, and safe education.

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/CFCtoo/fopptmt

“My mother always told me that people who chose not to have children were selfish,” says Abbi Nye, a Quiverfull daughter who grew up at CFC. “And of course being selfish is sinful.”

www.cfctoo.com/blog/the-quiverfull-families-next-door-part-2

Quiverfull communities romanticize large families and pressure women to have many children. In many Quiverfull communities, this instruction is explicit: women are to place their reproductive functions in God’s hands, thus allowing God to “open and close the womb” as he sees fit.

Quiverfull parents sometimes say that “it takes three [man, woman, and God]” to conceive a child, positioning conception as a divinely sanctioned meńage à trois. This reproductive philosophy is also referred to as pronatalism.

The pronatalist goal is not simply to birth many children but to ultimately produce model Christian children who will go out into the world and shape it to be more like them.

The idolization of large families does not merely concern those within Quiverfull communities. Militant fecundity is a hallmark of the Quiverfull movement, but it has become far more common in more mainstream Evangelical Christianity.

Kevin DeYoung writes at @tgc, “Here’s a culture war strategy conservative Christians should get behind: have more children and disciple them like crazy. Strongly consider having more children than you think you can handle.”

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/its-time-for-a-new-culture-war-strategy


When combined with homeschooling and a strict gender hierarchy, the large, smiling families associated with pronatalism take on a more martial appearance.

As David Bentley Hart phrases it in @firstthingsmag: “Probably the most subversive and effective strategy we might undertake would be one of militant fecundity: abundant, relentless, exuberant, and defiant childbearing.”

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2004/06/freedom-and-decency

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/CFCtoo/EUMHamC

What is the “#Quiverfull Movement”? Why should you care?

http://www.cfctoo.com/blog/the-quiverfull-families-next-door-part-1

#Quiverfull ideology encourages Christian families to birth as many children (some translations specify sons) as possible, raise them up to be model Christians, and send them out to “further extend the effective rule of Christ

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gi_Sff_gEqea5CjHDs-LvOPlcX4xvvQN/edit.

Many Quiverfull families seek to enact systemic change in our country by increasing the sheer volume of like-minded extremist Christian voices. The resulting “arrows” are meant to grow up and infiltrate all levels of government from local politics to international relations.

@EmilyMcgowin: “I use the term Quiverfull to refer to a subculture of American evangelicalism identifiable by the three practices mentioned above: pronatalism, homeschooling, and gender hierarchy."

https://rightingamerica.net/quivering-families-an-interview-with-emily-mcgowin-part-i/

Many #Quiverfull families also view the world through a dominionist lens, placing great emphasis on “filling the earth and subduing it.” One way they seek to do this is by taking a more active role in shaping society.

#Quiverfull communities take Genesis 1:28 as their marching orders. Churches within the QF movement train young women in their congregations to be submissive wives and mothers and young men to dominate through leadership inside and outside the family unit and church community.

In an invitation to be part of the Band of Brothers program at CFC, Pastor Eric Trelease exhorts the men: “It is time for you to dominate as a man of God and take responsibility for yourself and others.”

The “Dominate for Jesus” slogan points to the ultimate goal of the Quiverfull movement: dominion. Recent studies (@ProfSamPerry) have shown a clear correlation between Quiverfull ideology and Christian Nationalism.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/socf.12854

Both groups place an emphasis on large families for the purpose of “strengthening” their nation/religion. They convince large families by citing declining birth rates in the US and claiming that prominent groups in American society (white men & white families) are under threat.

@AboveRubiesUSA: "By refusing children we accept the destruction of our nation. Parenting children is NATION BUILDING. Our western nations have become increasingly sterile, selfish, spoiled, and boring."

https://aboverubies.org/index.php/2013-11-12-17-55-51/english-language/family-life/2288-family-life-children-the-way-we-build-the-nation

White Christian Nationalism seeks to instill fear and contempt for those unlike them. This is contrary to Jesus’ teachings to love one’s neighbors.

Both #Quiverfull and American Christian Nationalist philosophies teach that select white Christians are in competition with other cultures, races, and religions. In order to dominate them, the right kind of Christians must outnumber their foes.

This strategy doesn’t end with simply “filling the earth;” both movements also push their followers to “subdue” it.

Rick Sinclair praises his sons and sons-in-law for “killing Philistines” but for some Christian Nationalists, the slaughter of foes is less metaphorical.

https://youtu.be/jq_qaZ_0FB4

In his 2022 book “The Case for Christian Nationalism” published by Doug Wilson’s Canon Press, Stephen Wolfe argues that Christians who do not hold his views deserve death, banishment, or imprisonment.

"This is not to say that capital punishment is the necessary, sole, or desired punishment. Banishment and long-term imprisonment may suffice as well."

Wolfe goes on: “Those who do not profess Christianity & yet actively proselytize their non-Christian religion or belief system or actively seek to refute the Christian religion are subject to the same principles outlined above” (pp 391-392).

While many QF families would not agree with Wolfe’s extreme views, this inflammatory rhetoric has moved from fringe to mainstream in 2022. Throughout our nation’s history, White Christian nationalism has ebbed and flowed from a fringe belief to boldfaced racism and xenophobia.

This current push may feel new, but is a longstanding American tradition for white men to claim that they are being victimized by other groups (women, people of color, immigrants, etc.) in order to garner sympathy, stoke fear, and further their own causes.

Therefore, it is not unreasonable to scrutinize #Quiverfull men who run for public office and to ask pointed questions that plainly expose their goals to subdue and shape the world to their liking.


Multiple CFC members have sought public office over the years. One CFC elder ran several unsuccessful campaigns to be Madrid Town Justice in 2012 and 2014.

https://www.northcountrynow.com/letters/madrid-man-says-years-experience-make-him-right-choice-madrid-town-justice-0128494

Another CFC deacon ran for Potsdam Town Council only last year: https://www.northcountrynow.com/news/meyers-run-republican-potsdam-town-race-0308373

A long-time CFC member is currently serving on the St. Lawrence Republican County Committee as treasurer http://www.stlawrencegop.com/chairwoman--officers.html.

And most recently, Rick Sinclair’s son-in-law is running for the District 8 County Legislator Position and has been outspoken about his opposition to the #nyCAREact.

https://www.northcountrynow.com/letters/madrid-candidate-county-legislators-says-clergy-shouldnt-be-mandated-reporters-0325768

Men within the #Quiverfull movement make their way into places of power in order to influence their communities. This is often phrased as “serving the community,” which needs to be understood within the larger context of Quiverfull male leadership. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1YR6aaLr73oDegs96Z9qovZgh8OAcQ2XU/edit

Many of their political aspirations are cast as religious freedom and constitutional liberty issues: Abortion bans and anti-birth control policies, anti-LGBTQ policies (to the point of complete eradication of trans and gay people)...

...and homeschooling and “parental rights” In practice, this can look like defunding local DSS so they cannot adequately handle abuse cases, refusing trans minors gender affirming care, or asserting that religious freedom should protect clergy from being mandated reporters.

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/CFCtoo/9ZSG6ZK

Read the next installment in our Broken Arrows series:

www.cfctoo.com/blog/broken-arrows-abuse-is-not-love

CW/TW: self-harm

Rick Sinclair recently asserted to the media: “Child abuse of any kind is a heinous sin. We have never covered up any abuse. God hates abuse, and so do we at CFC.”

https://www.wwnytv.com/2022/10/21/rally-pushes-law-requiring-all-clergy-report-child-abuse/

It is possible that Rick believes his own statement, because CFC identifies abuse as love. CFC explicitly teaches that physical violence, emotional neglect, and isolation are necessary tools if loving parents want to make their children become faithful disciples of Jesus.

When high control religious communities twist scripture to create an image of a jealous God who chastises people in order to gain full submission, then parents as God’s delegated authorities must use the same tactics.

Rick Sinclair’s oldest daughter describes this approach in a Mom and Us blog post:
https://web.archive.org/web/20101205195928/http://momandus.com/2008/04/23/childtraining-a-look-at-our-hearts/

CFC teaches parents to implement corporal punishment as soon as “a baby begins to get around on their own."

https://web.archive.org/web/20101205194438/http:/momandus.com/2008/06/04/a-few-more-questions-on-discipline/

Such “baby training” practices often use violent methods to discipline and curb a baby’s natural curiosity. Instead of taking developmental needs into account, parents expect complete obedience to their own adult expectations.

CFC children as young as 6 months receive this kind of training that normalizes abuse even from a preverbal age. These core experiences form a child’s understanding of the world, even if their young minds do not have words for the memories.

CFC parents dispense abuse with two lies: 1) parents have no choice but to spank, indeed it is a matter of biblical obedience, and 2) spanking is done in love.

CFC compounds the damage by teaching parents to link physical violence with physical affection. At a Mom’s Cadre meeting, Darlene Sinclair offers the disturbing comment that “some of the most precious cuddling times were always right after a spanking.”

https://subspla.sh/mt6n8sc

Wren highlights the natural consequences of this abusive behavior: "How could I end up vulnerable to such a man? Because I was used to abuse at the hands of the church. The church told me throughout my whole life that I was nothing without God."

https://www.cfctoo.com/stories/wrens-story

Conflating abuse with love destroys the development of a healthy concept of self-love. A child learns that violence is a necessary follow-up to making a mistake or associates the feeling of injury with things being made right.

Many children who routinely experienced violence when they didn’t meet their parents’ demands feel the urge to self-harm once they graduate from their parents’ physical punishments.

Non-suicidal self-harm (NSSI) has long been thought to be a self-soothing response to difficult or unwanted emotional stimuli. Children who grow up in the shadow of violence learn that punishment resolves the conflict with their parents.

https://capmh.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13034-018-0261-0

When these children do something wrong, however that is defined, or experience something that is bad or unpleasant, they are more likely than their non-spanked peers to seek distraction or relief from the bad feelings by self-harming.

They essentially take their punishment into their own hands. This can feel like a resolution to the unpleasantness; they have learned well that if a child does something bad, the child should get physically punished and then can move on.

Children raised at CFC live in suspense; they are constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop and for punishment to be administered. Engaging in NSSI can be a way to claim some amount of agency over that cycle of abuse and control over their bodies.

Rates of adolescent NSSI also increase in environments where children feel isolated or rejected by their caretakers. Isolation and/or shunning is a practice that CFC regularly uses to discipline adults and children in their community.

In an interview with RNS, Sinclair shared her personal experience of being isolated and cut off during her young adult years by her father and other CFC leadership.
https://religionnews.com/2022/08/25/an-insular-quiverfull-church-in-new-yorks-north-country-faces-a-reckoning/

“There is an attempt at cutting members off who aren’t behaving properly & punishing them so they feel like they’re in a position where they need to either come crawling back to the community or they have to start anew & start their lives over again, which is what happened to me.

NSSI rates increase in environments where children feel pressured, unwelcomed, or bullied by their peers. Mae describes how Christian Fellowship Academy negatively impacted her child so much that they turned to NSSI for release from the pain: https://www.cfctoo.com/stories/maes-story

Abusive parenting practices are the farthest thing from loving. High control religious groups like CFC teach families that abusive behavior should be received as love.

This does not result in the love-filled lives that CFC expects for their families, rather it results in people who fundamentally do not understand how to express or accept love in healthy ways.

CFC’s abusive parenting teachings have been used to raise generations of traumatized children who struggle to define love, let alone to love themselves or others.

The impacts of abusive parenting on children hinders their ability to build healthy relationships that are based on mutual trust and respect as they grow into adulthood.

Teaching children that God equates love with abuse is an excellent way to drive a wedge in their relationship with God and the Church. Phrases like “God is love” become weaponized and confusing.

The expectation that Christians should “love their neighbor” becomes code for controlling other people. The complex interweaving of abusive theology with abusive practices leads to a community continually giving and receiving abuse, not love.

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/CFCtoo/520a5wB

Our latest post in our Broken Arrows series focuses on emotional  abuse: www.cfctoo.com/blog/broken-arrows-our-emotions

Children trained to instinctively people-please will either not recognize the violation when people breach their boundaries and abuse them or will passively accept mistreatment.

This training starts at a very young age. Consider how Darlene Sinclair proudly describes how she would not let her children play with their toys without permission.

https://subspla.sh/7cmj3m2

"Children should ask permission for everything they want to do or get out. And I remember when I think it was when Jamie was born, and a young lady from the church came to help because I had three little people running around. And so she came in, she helped.

And she just came to us a day or two later and said, it's unbelievable. Your children asked me for permission to open their toy box."

One Sinclair daughter—now a pastor’s wife—describes how she couldn’t trust her emotions about her future husband.

https://subspla.sh/8xsgkx3

She says: "The Bible teaches us the exact opposite, you know, that our hearts are deceitful, who can even understand them, we tend to lead ourselves astray. And that there's a safety in an abundance of counselors."

A steady diet of CFC’s spiritually manipulative teaching prepared this woman to label her own intuition as deceitful. It is never the authority figures’ hearts that are deceitful; only the more vulnerable people, a tactic that keeps children subject to the power of others.

Rick’s daughter says: “What do you think, Dad?” And then he said to me, “I think it's the Lord.” You know what, four months earlier? He had said to me, “I think this is the Lord.” And I had yielded to it. And I had found great joy and great prosperity in it."

"And so when he said to me, “I think it's the Lord,” suddenly, the emotions I was feeling were interest and hope. I felt like I could let them let them out because I had somebody saying to me, “I think it's the Lord.” And there was such safety and confidence I got in that."

She does not permit herself emotions until her father has given his approval. It’s worth noting that Rick doesn’t just give his opinion or permission, he speaks with a divine spiritual authority that, especially in the culture of CFC, cannot be questioned.

In the end, the only option left for this young adult is yielding to a parent’s guidance, something that she has been trained to see as granting “safety” and “confidence.”

In this Mother’s Day sermon  excerpt, Rick Sinclair’s oldest daughter uses a passage in Nehemiah to urge the women in the congregation to be constantly vigilant of enemy tactics against the “great work” of CFC-sanctioned child-training.

https://youtu.be/d5PDOg470Z8

CFC teaches that the devil infiltrates human minds through anxiety, depression, and intrusive thoughts in order to keep people from living obedient, godly lives. She indicates that the devil also employs those tactics to destroy families.

She goes on to instruct women to confessthese feelings to their husbands, to further isolate themselves from any outside influence, and to seek “child-training” counsel from, presumably, CFC-endorsed sources.

"Confess these things to your husband - to people who will pray over you and help you. Comparison, depression, anger, laziness. Don't just hope that like, somehow it gets better. Grab a sword! Let's see some victory. Delete Instagram, get counseling on child training."

"Cancel Netflix. Throw away the chocolate chip stash in the pantry. Whatever you got to do. Let's not be fools. Let's recognize ‘oh, these are low spots and the devil likes low spots.’ Let's get in there."

"Ask! Be transparent with one another! Guys, the devil is real. He wants to destroy you. He wants to destroy your marriage, your home, your family."

CFC regularly teaches both children and adults that they cannot trust their own thoughts or listen to their own physical and mental health needs. This is an immeasurably damaging deception that impacts the entire community.

If individuals cannot trust their own thoughts, who canthey trust? What if they cannot discern what God is saying? Should they then trust their father’s intuition? What about a pastor, since he is God’s mouthpiece in the community?

This is one way CFC leadership maintains the intense psychological grip that they have on their members and ex-members who are so afraid to speak out or leave.

By “othering” personal thoughts, CFC trains children and adults to be constantly at odds with themselves in a state of passive indecision that looks for outside direction.

CFC leadership then offers church-approved philosophies, practices, and opinions as though they are God-ordained truth, keeping members trapped in the vicious codependence of high-control authoritarian communities.

People who experience a constant state of internal turmoil will often do anything to find peace in their lives. CFC stands ready to extend its version of a peaceful life but at the cost of living exactly as they say.

This requires people to follow CFC’s rules and ask for permission to make decisions. This is a hallmark trait of cults and spiritually abusive environments.

You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/CFCtoo/MlXuymA

When parents deny children basic human rights of bodily autonomy, agency, and privacy, their children learn that their bodies are not their own but always under the authority of someone else.

www.cfctoo.com/blog/broken-arrows-our-bodies

Children raised in households that use violence to control them grow up believing that they deserve physical harm and that their bodies are not their own.

The practice of deliberately humiliating and breaking a child’s spirit lays harmful groundwork for their future relationships as adults, teaching them that love means submitting to abusers who claim authority over their bodies.

CFC teaches parents a law of sowing and reaping: whatever godly principles a parent sows into their young children's hearts will bear the fruit of godly character in the future.

What the parents fail to see is that their methods of violence and control are tools of warfare designed to crush a plant rather than cultivate anything good.

Tragically, these violent methods teach only warped messages of love and authority and, in so doing, beget further violence. Children must not only endure the fruit of violence in the present moment but will grow to expect it in the future as well.

Diana’s story highlights the ways in which CFC parents dictated their children’s physical and emotional responses during corporal punishment:

https://www.cfctoo.com/stories/dianas-story

"At first, I maintained a stoic silence because it felt more humiliating to cry. Occasionally Mom was in a hurry and I could get away with it, but this time she was determined to break me. Whack whack whack.

"The wooden drumstick swished through the air, striking my butt cheeks with all the determination held in my mom’s petite arm.

"I stayed silent and tense, thinking for a split second that I was glad I had managed to hide the thick rubber plumber’s hose under the couch cushions because it had a far more vicious bite than the drumstick.

"I returned to the present as Mom demanded, “Are you sorry?” I maintained my silence. “That obviously didn’t hurt enough,” she responded, forcing me to bend over the bed again.

"She continued for several more rounds, the swats growing harder and faster as her need to crush my resistance intensified. Finally, the humiliation and rage broke my silence, and I cried angry tears.

"Even though I knew what would happen if I couldn’t stop myself from crying, I was flooded with rage and couldn’t control the explosion.

"Mom’s response to my rage followed the predictable pattern. “You’re not allowed to have a temper tantrum,” she said. “I’m going to spank you again until you stop crying.”


Diana’s mother begins beating her daughter with the expectation of a specific performance of penitence. When Diana does not perform contrition with the required number of tears, her mother sees the wooden drumstick as the only available tool.

When Diana’s angry tears finally come, her mother threatens more violence in order to control her daughter’s emotional response.

Diana’s mother uses what CFC claims is her God-given authority to physically and emotionally dominate her teenage daughter such that any protest or autonomy, physical or emotional, is interpreted as rebellion against that authority.

Note that Diana’s mother sees authentic emotion as a “temper tantrum” to be trained out of her daughter.  Children in high control religious communities must exercise hypervigilance over their bodily reactions in order to survive the immediate abuse and escape further punishment.

Diana dissociated, thinking about other things, in order to keep her tears in check and so protect herself in the best way she could. Diana censored her emotions to satisfy her mother and stifled her self-preservation instincts, accepting bodily harm, to survive the moment.


You can read the unrolled version of this thread here: https://typefully.com/CFCtoo/dui0WOI