Tuesday, March 1, 2011

The Boy In The Box: Child Abuse in Armstrongism


I ran across this tonight.  I do not remember this story at all.  Sadly, this is just one of many hundreds of child abuse cases that went on in Armstrongism.  Just one more sad legacy of the church.

This is from what I assume is a UCG member's blog:  This Hurts You More Than It Hurts Me



Tim’s mother, Debra, wanted to make a better life. She’d had two children, Tim and Donna, in her teens and tried to raise them as a single mum in Washington, USA.

She decided to move state, seeking to reunite with the children’s father and try to have a proper family. Her step-mother, Retha Skyles, offered to help. She said she would look after Tim and Donna in Washington while Debra established a home interstate. She arranged for Debra to sign a document giving her temporary legal custody.

While Debra was away, Retha moved state and told Debra she had signed over all her parental rights to Retha. She wouldn’t tell Debra where her children were. Six years later, with Debra having given up any hope of getting her children back, Retha Skyles returned to Washington with Debra’s children, Tim and Donna, still in her care.

Donna was a child who, by her nature, tended to be obedient with little urging or discipline needed. Tim, however, was a boy who needed more explicit discipline to understand and accept boundaries on his behaviour. Unfortunately for Tim, his new “mother”, Retha, did not know how to discipline a child.

When Tim, now around six years old, disobeyed Retha this is what would happen: He would be made to bend over, bare-bottomed, and receive beatings administered with a wooden cutting board. If Tim cried, the beating would intensify to punish him for crying. This abuse didn’t stop until all crying and negative facial expressions had ceased and Tim was in silent submission.
Retha was confused when this approach didn’t seem to be working with Tim. It had “worked” with her own children, and it seemed to be effective with Donna. But Tim’s behaviour wasn’t improving. He was starting to behave oddly and have strange tantrums of inhuman screaming. Retha took her to a doctor, telling him that Tim was in her care because her daughter had used drugs. The doctor suggested Tim “might” have mild brain damage from the in utero exposure to drugs. Retha, knowing that she did not have legal custody of the children, didn’t dare seek any further professional advice. She determined to devise new methods of discipline on her own to manage this ostensibly brain-damaged child. She was determined to eradicate all roots of his evil, while keeping him protected from his “drug-abusing” mother.

When Tim was 8 year old, Retha moved in with her own mother. Retha’s son, Glen, was already living there. Glen recalls, “One would almost not know that Tim was there. Except for periodical screaming and butt-beating sessions, he’d be virtually invisible except [at church], where he sat quietly, and was always known as a remarkably “good little boy.’”

Retha had discovered isolation seemed to have some effect on Tim. She would seat him inside a circle of chairs draped with blankets. Tim’s behaviour came increasingly odd. He would bite his fingernails and chew holes in the blankets.

Tim had learned not to cry when punished, holding back with a grimace. However, his grimaces were seen by Retha as defiance, and he was beaten more severely for them. Retha asked her son Glen to build a box four feet by four feet by seven feet, with a bed on top. Glen built it, as asked, with one side open. Retha then closed the remaining side and kept Tim inside the box, only allowing him out to attend church and to defecate. He had a jar in the box with him to urinate in. Retha was calling him “the devil’s child.” He was occasionally cleaned with a wash-cloth, and wasn’t allowed to wear clothes. In his box there were no blankets or pillow – nothing for comfort. He would sleep curled in a tight ball.

To pass the time, Tim would imagine what it might be like to go outside. He thought all children lived in boxes, but imagined some mother’s were a little nicer than Retha. One day Glen gave him a stuffed toy dog. It was the first soft thing Tim can remember. “I used to talk to it,” says Tim. “I dreamed that it would come to life and break the lock. I thought maybe it would help me.” Later, Retha cut the toy to pieces with a knife.

Eventually Glen, who had been a victim himself of abusive “discipline”, realised the seriousness of what was happening to Tim. He went to his minister for advice. The minister, having heard his story, sat in silence for a moment. He then accused Glen of a variety of sins and warned him to stop speaking evil of his mother, threatening that there would be serious consequences if Glen told anyone else.

Glen finally went to Child Services, who within reasonably short time removed Tim and Donna from Retha’s care. The story of the “boy in the box” soon exploded in news reports around the world. It was 1987.

The above story was reconstructed from the following accounts:
Retha Skyles was a member of the Worldwide Church of God, a predecessor of my current church. The minister from whom Glen sought advice was a Worldwide Church of God minister in Tacoma, Washington.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is a horror beyond words.

The ministry was aware of countless cases of child abuse to varying extents. I am yet to hear of any minister who ever referred cases of child abuse to DCYF or oother authority to protect the innocent victims.

Reading something like this is not only infuriating, but the anger and hatred intensified towards the ministers who lacked even an ounce of humanity and compassion to help a poor, innocent little child.

I truly loathe organized religion.

Byker Bob said...

Yes, a horror story for sure, but all too typical in the Armstrong movement. I hope everyone who reads it realizes that it is certainly not an isolated anomaly.

I don't know whether any ACOG teenagers or young kids read here, but if you do, and if you are being abused, and if you want it to stop, have a sibling or a friend secretly record one of your beatings on their cell phone! Then download and post it on You Tube.

There is no way this type of criminal abuse should be yet continuing today!

BB

len said...

We have witnessed so much baby spanking and child abuse in Armstrongism. It is truly despicable! Looking back, we are truly ashamed to have been members of such a deficient and cruel organization.
Anonymous, I couldn't agree with you more. I too loathe organized religion of all stripes. The source, it seems, of so much evil, cruelty, depravity, mind control and mental sickness.

Anonymous said...

Some bad things are easier to explain than others.

For example, the Philadelphia Cult (PCG) was founded by a drunken, lying, false prophet named Gerald. So, the fact that much evil and satanic abuse come from the PCG is not really surprising. That is what Satan does.

Strangely, though, even the United Cult (UCG), supposedly practicing some sort of democracy, is bad too. In spite of their "checks and balances" there is much evil in the UCG. Even the ministers and leaders cannot stand each other and have to split up. No wonder the little sheeple cannot find any decency or fairness or justice in such a group.

These groups, and others, pretend to get their practices from the Bible, yet they all seem to do nothing but evil continually. This is the great paradox.

My knowledge of the WCG, UCG, PCG, etc. is that the evil behavior in them is not at all rare, and it is always knowingly supported by the leadership.

Anonymous said...

So where is the Watchman? Why isn't he screaming indignation at the abuse of this child??????? He comes on here to defend the perverted teachings of Armstrong, yet when a true perversion is identified and it involves an innocent child he is no where to be found. What a hypocrite!

Anonymous said...

Is it too much to expect that the ministry be held accountable for not reporting cases of severe neglect and appalling child abuse?

They should be tried and sentenced to prison for allowing child abuse to continue and doing absolutely nothing to stop it.

Remember: we were taught to believe that man's system was evil and that only the WCG was in accordance with God's laws. So the solution was to put the mentally ill parents out of the church, and that was the end of their responsibility. Not one of them ever advocated for an abused child. If anyone knows of a minister who did, please tell me.

Byker Bob said...

Anonymous 10:28, I realize there were some wonderful rebels and exceptions who acted as buffers between a cruel angry apostle and his "dumb sheep", but for the most part the WCG ministers were TEACHING abuse, as God's way of childrearing. Why would they report people for following church doctrine?

BB

Anonymous said...

As the author of the version of the story posted here, I take some exception to the automatic link being made between a parent's abusive practices and the teaching of WCG. I agree completely that ministers should have no hesitation in reporting cases of abuse to authorities. I also believe it is essential that reports are believed in the first instance, rather than dismissed. However, it is important to understand that the tendency to sweep these things under the rug is in no way restricted to any particular belief system. My work exposes me to many stories of abuse, and I have learned that the pattern of victims being ignored has been rife throughout our entire society - through all kinds of organisations including religion of every kind, schools, government departments, clubs and societies and among individuals. That is now changing thanks to people who have taken it upon themselves to advocate for victims past, present and future.

Unfortunately, though, even today we are not doing enough. As someone who works in Mental Health (another area without enough advocates) I am astounded at the discrepancy between advocacy for people with mental illness and advocacy for children. The government in my state pays more for me to work in Mental Health than if I was working in Child Safety. Child Safety is hopelessly under-resourced and yet not once have I seen anyone advocate for budget increases in that area. All people do is criticise the failures of the system, without being willing to suggest funding an improvement. Yet Mental Health has its advocates, and the government is upping funding because that is what the public seems to be happy to see. Yes, this problem goes far beyond any particular religion, and anyone who reads a story like Tim's and blames it on religion has their head in the sand, and shame on them. (end rant)

Anonymous said...

This is but one type of story concerning the abuse of the WCg.

At a Night to be Remembered, a leading woman in the WCG told me that the elder teaching our son's Sabbath School was a pedophile. She and the other "leading women" in the area went to the ministry up to Headquarters in Pasadena, only to be rebuffed. Their only recourse was to "watch" the elder, particularly on the Feast Days.

I only learned about this years after the fact.

Armstrongism might not be the only venue in which this happens, but in a unique sort of way, the whole 19th Century British Empire sort of Corporate mentality of children being of no worth except to work in factories as 10 year olds for 15 hour days 7 days a week, sort of bled through to a perverted concept of child abuse, protected by the Emperor and the peerage.

Parents were under the gun to insure that the Government of god with attendent discipline to create the illusion of the Perfect Society became a visual "reality", no matter what it takes as a triumph of image over substance....