Our latest post in our Broken Arrows series focuses on emotional abuse: 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.
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"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 daughterânow a pastorâs wifeâdescribes how she couldnât trust her emotions about her future husband.
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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 CFCâs spiritually manipulative teaching prepared this woman to label her own intuition as deceitful. It is never the authority figuresâ hearts that are deceitful; only the more vulnerable people, a tactic that keeps children subject to the power of others.
Rickâs daughter says: âWhat do you think, Dad?â And then he said to me, âI think it's the Lord.â You know what, four months earlier? He had said to me, âI think this is the Lord.â And I had yielded to it. And I had found great joy and great prosperity in it."
"And so when he said to me, âI think it's the Lord,â 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, âI think it's the Lord.â And there was such safety and confidence I got in that."
She does not permit herself emotions until her father has given his approval. Itâs worth noting that Rick doesnât 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 parentâs guidance, something that she has been trained to see as granting âsafetyâ and âconfidence.â
In this Motherâs Day sermon excerpt, Rick Sinclairâs oldest daughter uses a passage in Nehemiah to urge the women in the congregation to be constantly vigilant of enemy tactics against the âgreat workâ of CFC-sanctioned child-training.
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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 âchild-trainingâ 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 âoh, these are low spots and the devil likes low spots.â 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 fatherâs intuition? What about a pastor, since he is Godâs 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 âotheringâ 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 CFCâs rules and ask for permission to make decisions. This is a hallmark trait of cults and spiritually abusive environments.