Domestic Violence in Armstrongism

In March of 2009 Dakota O'Leary posted the story of her life in Armstrongism on the God Discussion blog.

An open letter to those who have experienced abuse at the hands of religion

She goes into great detail on how her so called 'christian' father beat her mother continually.  Despite repeated complaints to the COG ministry, they did nothing.  The ministry blamed her mother for not being submissive!  What degenerate filth these ministers were/still are!  This is just one case in thousands who have lived and currently live their lives in terror with abusive spouses.

Armstrongism created an atmosphere of self righteousness that fostered this abuse.  When one of it's demanding doctrines is that women are to SUBMIT to their husbands in all things what more could we expect?

This kind of abuse still goes on in LCG, PCG, UCG, and many of the other splinter cults.  I have seen some of the men who abused their wives and know what happened.  They now are part of various splinter cults and certainly have NOT changed their ways.  One man who is part of Spanky's cult in Charlotte NC, was so mentally abusive to his wife that she cowered in his presence.  She called him Sir.  She dressed in long dresses, no make up, her hair was always in a state of disarray.  Nothing ever pleased this vile little man. He had to have been the most unhappy person I had ever met! Of course in his eyes he was Armstrongism's most perfect follower.

Here is a small excerpt from her letter.  You can access the entire letter above in the link.

My mother was severely beaten for the entire time we belonged to Worldwide.   My father claimed he was beating her in order to "get her under submission" to him because the church taught that men were head of the households under Jesus Christ.     My dad would try to explain to me while he was beating her that he was "saving" her soul for God by "beating Satan out of her."       He was always careful to not touch her face.   He left bruises where they could be covered up.   And lest you think my dad was somehow justified for beating her, he would also call her a whore.   He called her a bitch.   He called her every filthy name under the sun while he beat her.   He held her and me hostage while on a religious retreat in South Dakota. He held us hostage in our hotel room for 12 hours, with no food or water, threatening us with further violence if we tried to leave.   To this day Mom and I have no idea why he held us hostage.   When my dad beat my mom, he used his hands, he used object, and he even beat her with the Bible, beat her with a book that is supposed to be holy. he beat her so hard he broke the binding on one of his Bibles.   He abused her psychologically, when he wasn't beating her, and the mental headgames that went on was like walking through a minefield.     You never knew what would set my dad off.   Ever.   Yet my dad's public face was quite another matter. In public, he was kind, and courteous, and helped out many church members. In public, he complimented my mother, and was really, just a completely different person from the madman we knew at home.   No one would ever have believed in our church that my dad was a wife beater.   No one did for a long time.

My mother tried to get help. She appealed to the pastor.   The pastor made more trips to our house than he made to the grocery store. And the result was not ever in my mother's favor.   The pastor told my dad that my dad was in the right.   He told my dad in front of my mother that my dad, as head of the household under Jesus Christ had the right, even the duty to "do whatever it took" to get my mother to submit.     Over and over for 15 years my mother heard that tired litany, not just from one pastor, but from three and four pastors.     Our pastor even made a public example of my mother in church telling the congregation that she had a problem submitting, and then, after services, locked my mother in a room with himself and the associate pastor there as a witness, and screamed at my mother for an hour.   My dad never got screamed at.   He got invited to the pastor's house and they watched football games together.   They were best buddies.   While my dad was off palling around with the pastor, my mother was figuring out just how to submit.   And she tried.   She stopped talking about anything controversial.   She stopped offering opinions.   She stopped drawing, because drawing annoyed my dad, because pursing anything she was personally interested in took time away from him.   She stopped being a person and became what she would nervously jokingly term "a puppet."   She cooked, cleaned, worked two jobs, and handed over her paychecks to my dad, never getting any of the money for herself.   If she refused to hand over her paychecks, Dad would beat her, and did beat her, with the breadboard.     He spent the money on tools, and toys for himself and gave large offerings at church, while we went without food (which is why she tried not to hand over all the money to my dad).   When my dad was around she did exactly what he told her to do and said exactly what she thought he wanted to hear.   The difficulty was in my house, saying "pass the salt" could start World War 3.     The violence escalated to the point where there came a day that my dad nearly killed her.   He picked her up and threw her under the kitchen table and he threw her so hard she slid across the kitchen and hit her head on the kitchen sink cupboard doors hard enough to render her unconscious.       I lived in fear for years, and suffer from anxiety today, which I take medication for.     I lived in my room, with books, because I couldn't bear to see that evil played out, and because I felt so powerless to stop it.   We'd go to church and be all happy and normal and the abuse was effectively–hidden.   But not really.   Worldwide broke up in 1996, and people I used to go to church with came forward and confessed they knew "something bad" was going on, but didn't know what to do about it. I also heard stories of horrors going on that nothing was ever done about–spousal rape being near the top of the list.     Again, nothing was done, because in most Christian churches "rape" doesn't exist if you're married.

Here are a few books from Amazon that deal with domestic violence in the Church.  Despite the fact that the various splinter cults of Armstrongism deny there is abuse in their churches, it IS going on.  They are liars, plain and simple.

Breaking the Silence

Domestic Violence and the Church

Epidemic of the Silent Church

Woman Submit