ErIog posted:

but you'd at least think they'd switch the pronouns to the more modern style if only to try to sucker people into thinking they're not so culturally backward.

ErIog posted:

It really wigs me out that these people are using "he"/"him" as the gender neutral second person pronoun. I understand that's technically grammatically correct English, but using "he or she" or "him or her" or "their"/"them" has been pretty standard for more than a few decades now. Literally the only objection a person could have to it boils down to "anyone with too many X chromosomes can gently caress off." It's just so nakedly patriarchal. I guess that's not surprising considering what you said before about all the future Piano Instructors graduating from these A.C.E. programs, but you'd at least think they'd switch the pronouns to the more modern style if only to try to sucker people into thinking they're not so culturally backward.

Prester John posted:

WoodrowSkillson posted:

James Garfield posted:

What is it with the crazy right wing and still using Wade-Giles?

my dad posted:

I am so sorry you had to suffer this.

Prester John posted:

I really do appreciate this and all the other sympathy posts. Thankfully I am really, for the most part, over it. My life now, for me at least, is really good, and I do feel really blessed overall. I just desire now to expose this for what it is and get the word out just that little bit more. Posting this has been a big help honestly, I've been trying to start this thread for years.

rkajdi posted:

Serious question: do you have proof any of this stuff happened? As in, could you maybe go to the cops/CPS and see if anything here went over the line into neglect/abuse? Even if it just brought in some temporary removals and failed court cases, it at least gets some vulnerable kids away from an abusive environment and hopefully can show them that the real world is different and better.

Prester John posted:

Prester John posted:

"Wouldn't it be great if Jesus came back today and we all died and went to Heaven together?"

Tiggum posted:

Is there a lot of crossover between this stuff and the Quiverfull movement?

Kellsterik posted:

This one stands out to me because I have a distinct memory of going to Catholic Mass when I was like 8 or 9, and the priest rather genially goes "Everyone who wants to go to Heaven, raise your hand." So everyone in church raises their hand. Then he follows up "Okay, and who wants to go to Heaven right now?"

I was the only person in the church still raising my hand. Apparently I misunderstood how this was supposed to work!

WoodrowSkillson posted:

Christine Gregg posted:

Turnover of staff is extremely high at the company. Mr Roderick doesn’t like anyone with a different opinion to him and if you don’t comply you will be sacked. This sacking may be disguised as resignation in some form or other. In my case I received a letter thanking me for a fictitious resignation during a nervous breakdown and marriage crisis. In the past I have seen people head hunted from all over the UK and indeed the world. They moved to Swindon with their family and then get promptly dropped at the will of Arthur Roderick. He fills his board room with people who will agree with him and if they don’t they get pushed.

Whilst I was there, one person was sacked for a supposedly gay relationship, another we were told wanted to go back to school, which was a total fabrication, another general manager was told his position was redundant and then another person was employed, a young boy pushed for getting together with a non-Christian whom he later married, the list is endless. Probably one of the worse cases was that of Alastair Kirk whom Arthur groomed and mentored to take the CEO position. He was given the job as well as Home-school Manager at a very young age without training or experience. This of course was never going to work and he and his long serving, loyal mother were both pushed out. No one speaks about what happened to them. They are afraid of being kicked out of the local Christian community as I have been. They are also told it is ungodly and not Christian like to criticise.

Meanwhile, in appointing a new CEO, they ignored employment law:

I absolutely pray that the Border Agency will investigate overseas appointees to CEE. Their current CEO was allowed immigration to work and live in the UK. The agency was told the position was advertised in the UK and no one qualified in this specialist area could be found. This is not true. There were many suitable applicants but the directors did not even read the CVS they submitted. This was because Arthur Roderick had wanted this particular person. The position was indeed advertised, but the company had no intention of employing any such applicant. Their employment of overseas students for no salary was stopped and a couple of them deported.

[Arthur Roderick] also likes women managers, as they can be kept to rule with twisted scripture and repressed. In some cases I was paid much less than others even though I was a senior management because my husband earned enough to keep me. The hours were long and thankless. It was normality for me to be called at 10pm to complete a PowerPoint or some such presentation for the next morning. Everyone wanted to please Arthur and seemed to vie for his attention. Let me tell you though if you cross him or don’t fulfil his requests you are soon history. The working conditions were bleak at best and illegal at worse. I was often called into directors meetings to be ticked off like a schoolchild no matter how hard I worked. Arthur has this knack of placing his hopes in daft places, whilst others pick up the work but get no credit for it. Usually this was the incompetent men he put over the women managers who did the real work. The atmosphere is far from Christian let me tell you.

Arthur was also my pastor and directly through his interference I lost my marriage, home, “friends” and self-esteem. I was left destitute, had a terrible nervous breakdown and was sent to Coventry… as well as the lies spread defaming my character by this lovely Christian group. At the same time, being told I was loved. They almost sent my son with me. How muddled was my mind. This control freak mind-set became norm to me and I have suffered terribly since leaving. Normally a confident person, I was left a nervous wreck, on benefits with a social worker. This brain washing and control is not dissimilar to the control in its schools. I liken my experience as to being expelled from a cult. There are one or two saints who privately support me. Only one is willingly to publically stand with me just now and she was sacked too.

Curriculum development is by unqualified and incompetent staff:

One of my thankless tasks there was to correct curriculum mistakes in the UK PACEs and report mistakes to the US of errors in the American PACEs. UK ones would be corrected, but then mixed in with the older incorrect ones in the warehouse causing further confusion and muddle. American PACEs were reported often, but we knew they wouldn’t be altered until after the massive print run was sold, maybe years on if ever. Many home school calls resulted from this confusion. Help was available from a rather confusing TEACH Principal, Colin Slater or a very part time advisor, Lionel Boulton. The TEACH Administrator Felicity Devine spent hours consoling customers complaints and queries.

If a complaint is ever held, Arthur’s reply would be God knows… He knows we are doing our best. Actually, no you are not. Untrained and teenage staff is rife. Young people do very adult jobs with no proper training, thanks or salary. Discontent is rife. Everyone blames each other. Christian you may ask?

Copyright law has been broken in some PACEs:

The curriculum development often is done by unpaid or low paid writers who all squabble with each other. Facts are often wrong and the PACE gets laid out and has to be redone OFTEN, poor layout lady…aka me. When I first arrived in the curriculum department, the young men developers (ex-students) were pinching copyrighted images off Google and rubbing out the copyright symbol! This resulted in a fuss made by me, a sacking and some dumped PACEs which actually got sold in the muddle anyway! The curriculum department was at that time ran by a nineteen year old who was later pushed out. All the early development at CEE was a joke until one day I contacted Brenda Lewis then a head teacher and now a director too. She improved things immensely, as did the formation of ICCE International. The Australia team particularly combined with Brenda’s hard work is improving things.

Conditions in home schools are frequently poor:

A good home school educator on TEACH [CEE's home schooling plan, based on ACE] needs to supplement their child’s education with debate, other material and trips out. Their children seem quite well socialised. These are not the majority. Often I took calls from tearful mothers and angry fathers that just could not do the work with the children. Many a time on a call, there would be the sound of screaming children, a tearful mum struggling with maths or an incorrect PACE situation and dad shouting in the background.

Opposing views are crushed:

The schools are run similar to CEE offices under the disillusionment of a Godly love way of training which is often cruel. The kids have to set their own goals and pace themselves. Outward appearance is of love. The children believe this is the way God wants them taught etc. It is actually a curriculum designed to further the views of the company and like-minded parents.One ex home school parent recently stated to me in an email, that she believes that the company are inciting hatred with their open anti-gay ramblings, sexual discrimination and twisted scripture. She told me that they are a money making, inferior incompetent group that should be banned from operating.

I would say there is no room for free a thinker in this system which gives a narrow view of the world. Their way is the only their way, fact black and white. If you don’t apply you are either ground down or cast out. The curriculum is all Biblical no matter what the subject. Mastery learning is used for this indoctrination which is probably why it attracted my ex-husband. Mastery learning is not the brain child of ACE. Many modern computer games use a form of mastery learning. Think of the Mario games or Hungry Birds AP for example. You can’t go to the next level until you master the current one. This is how ACE works. Trouble is the content reads like brain washing rather than training your child.

Kazak_Hstan posted:

I am a big fan of the middle panel where the black guy calls the preachy guy bro.

That whole cartoon could have just as easily been billed as satire and I would have bought it.

Prester John posted:

TO expand on this a bit, there were occasionally people whom were not raised in this whom would get dropped in, and I'm certain they would have defended themselves. However, they never seemed to get whacks no matter what they actually did.

MeLKoR posted:

Is a teenage legally obliged to take a paddling without resisting? What would happen from a legal point of view if, say, a 16 year old that was about to get whacked turned around and beat the living poo poo out of a supervisor in self defense?

Prester John posted:

Edit: This is why I have argued in that past that the misogyny from Conservatives during a Hillary Presidency would exceed the racism we are seeing now during Obama's. In this world view White>Black, Man>Woman, and Black Man>White Woman.

Prester John posted:

At my school Supervisors didn't handle whacks, only the Pastor did. And it was always in the presence of several other Male Elders/Supervisors in a back room. You were outnumbered 4-to-1, so there really wasn't too much chance of actually fighting them off. Also fighting would have meant almost certain expulsion, and there was tons and tons and tons of propaganda about how public schools were literal tools of the Devil and how we might get beaten/robbed/shanked for being "True Christians" in a public school,ad how the teachers there wouldn't be able to save us. So we believed that whatever we were experiencing was both preferable and much nicer than any other option.

But to answer your question directly, I honestly doubt there would have been legal consequences for fighting with a Pastor in self defense, they were terrified of any and all forms of State Authority and handled all such things internally. As an example of this the fire that destroyed my school records was actually an act of arson by two children of one of the Elders. When this came out the boys were publicly punished but no police were ever involved.

A Winner is Jew posted:

Was preferential treatment for kids of "elders" something that was common place at your school as well?

James Garfield posted:

What is it with the crazy right wing and still using Wade-Giles?

Belome posted:

I like how the excuse for the decline in American educational performance was "taking God out of schools" when almost every higher ranked country is less religious.

Prester John posted:

Fornits Wiki posted:

Punishments:

Licks: Being spanked with a wood paddle. Other times, whatever was handy was used. (i.e. the rod from a set of blinds)
Confinement: Spending weeks hanging her head without speaking or making eye contact with anyone. This punishment was called "red shirt" or "discipline". The former name being due to the fact that these "deviant" girls were given only red and white checkered shirts to wear. They were only allowed to wear any other shirt when they went to bed. They were also made to stand with their nose to the wall and their arms at their sides all day. A 10 minute break allowed if they complied to the Helper's satisfaction. Many times the Helper would forget to give them a break. In this instance, the Red Shirts just had to remain silent and hope for a break to be given. Or, the Red Shirt could take a demerit (or three) for raising their hand to remind the helper or taking their nose off the wall-- no matter what, the Red Shirt will be in trouble for the Helper's oversight. More often than not, the Helper was sitting at a desk with nothing better to do than critique them.
Sitting on the wall: Being required sitting (suspended above the floor, as if there was a chair beneath them) with the back against a wall and without the support of a chair, arms outstretched with the palms flat against the wall. Helpers would come around to each girl and place a book on their thighs, if the book slipped off, they would push the girl's hips down. If they failed twice, they might have to start over.
Kneeling: Being ordered to kneel, while either have two bibles resting on each outstretched palm or with pencils wedged between the legs.
The lockup: (THIS WAS NEVR USED WHILE THE MCNAMARAS WERE OVER REBEKAH, THE ROOM HAD BEEN MADE INTO A REGULAR DORM ROOM. IT WAS OBVIOUS WHICH ROOM HAD BEEN THE LOCKUP ROOM, THOUGH; THERE WAS A CAGE OVER THE INTERCOM AND THE WALLS WERE SOME SORT OF METAL WITH WALL PAPER OVER THEM. THE ROOM WAS SOMEWHAT UNSETTLING TO BE IN, EVEN IF YOU DIDN'T KNOW IT'S HISTORY) An isolation room used as solitary confinement. During the stay in the lockup the intercom piped in hourlong prayers from the pastor (Lester Roloff or Wiley B. Cameron) that would play in loops 24 hours a day. The detained girl could use a toilet but there was no possibility to wash or bathe. Girls have told of terrible smelling survivors of the lockup when they were released after a month of isolation.
Calesthenics:* Girls would do laps (1 lap run + 1 lap walk = 1 lap) for first 5 demerits, and then 100 of chosen exercise for every demerit after that up to 10. "cherry pickers", "calf lifts", "jumping jacks", "squats", "arm cirles", "lunges", "leg lifts", "kills" (10 slow "calf lifts", 10 fast "calf lifts", jumping 10 times, 10 "scissor jumps", 10 half jumping jacks, 10 whole jumping jacks, and then going back through the exercises finishing with the 10 slow "calf lifts"= 1 Kill= 1 demerit worked off) etc. No matter how hot it was, you would do the exercise outside. When it would sleet or was below freezing, they would let the girls do their exercises either on the enclosed patio or inside. As mentioned, after 10 demerits, it was one lick for every 2 demerits. If you had 20+ demerits, your licks would be transferred to the next day. If you recieved demerits the next day and you ended up with 20+ again (that day's demerits PLUS the rollovers), they would continue to roll over until Sunday. Being the day of rest, you didn't have to work off demerits. You attended church twice a day and rested. Demerits started at 0 on Monday, unless you were on someone's bad side. Although it may seem like it would be easy to avoid getting to that point, it wasn't. Helpers were rewarded for giving out the most demerits. Not with an award, but Bro. Mac would verbalize his admiration for their righteousness or begin to give them extra privileges or leniencies.

Texas Monthly posted:

Discipline at the Rebekah Home was rooted in a verse from Proverbs: "Withhold not correction from the child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die." The dictum was liberally applied. Local authorities first investigated possible abuse at the Rebekah Home in 1973, when parents who were visiting their daughter reported seeing a girl being whipped. When welfare workers attempted to inspect the home, Roloff refused them entry on the grounds that it would infringe on the separation between church and state. Attorney General John Hill promptly filed suit against Roloff Evangelistic Enterprises, introducing affidavits from sixteen Rebekah girls who said they had been whipped with leather straps, beaten with paddles, handcuffed to drainpipes, and locked in isolation cells—sometimes for such minor infractions as failing to memorize a Bible passage or forgetting to make a bed. Roloff defended these methods as good old-fashioned discipline, solidly supported by Scripture, and denied that any treatment at Rebekah constituted abuse. During an evidentiary hearing, he made his position clear by declaring, "Better a pink bottom than a black soul." Attorney General Hill bluntly replied that it wasn't pink bottoms he objected to, but ones that were blue, black, and bloody.




LONG BEFORE DEANNE DAWSEY CAME to the Rebekah Home, a succession of girls had stared out of its dormitory windows at a world that lay just beyond reach and dreamed of running. Only a few got away, tearing through the tall grass to Farm Road 665 and thumbing rides to Corpus Christi. So many girls tried to run from the home over the years that its caretakers took precautions—putting up a six-foot fence, rigging the windows with alarms, and wiring the girls' bedrooms with intercoms so they could listen for any plans of escape. Punishment for even talking about running was so severe that most girls learned to accept their lot, turning away from the windows that looked out onto Farm Road 665 and allowing only their thoughts to roam.

The Rebekah Home was bent on driving sin from even the wickedest of girls and making them see the light of God. Jo Ann Edwards was brought to the Rebekah Home in 1982, after running away from home at the age of thirteen. "I was an acolyte at my church before I went there, and God was very close to me in my heart," she said in a phone interview from her home in Victoria, where she is the mother of five children. "But that place turned me against Him for a while and made me very hard. I thought that even He had left me." As a new girl, she was scrutinized by "helpers," the saved girls who handed out demerits for misbehavior. Demerits were given for an endless host of wrongdoings: talking about "worldly" things, singing songs other than gospel songs, speaking too loudly, doodling, nail biting, looking at boys in church, failing to snitch on other sinners. Each demerit earned her a lick, which the Rebekah Home's housemother administered with a wood paddle. The beatings left her black and blue. "I got twenty licks my first time, and I was hit hard—so hard that I couldn't sit for days," Jo Ann said. "I begged [the housemother] to stop. When she was done, she hugged me and said, 'God loves you.' She told me to go back to the living room and read Scripture and sing 'Amazing Grace' with the other girls."

Only Rebekah girls who had proven their devotion by repeatedly testifying to God's grace could avoid Bible discipline. Some girls were genuinely troubled teenagers who had gotten mixed up with drugs or prostitution; others had been caught having sex; many were guilty of nothing more than growing up in abusive homes. Tara Cummings, now 31 and a mortgage consultant in Chicago, was sent there by her father, a preacher, whose beatings had left her badly bruised. Even she was not immune to judgment. "I was told that I was a reprobate, that I was beyond help and was going to hell," she said. She was treated to the full range of the Rebekah Home's punishments, which were not limited to lickings. "Confinement" meant spending weeks hanging her head without speaking. "Sitting on the wall" required sitting with her back against a wall and without the support of a chair, even as her legs buckled beneath her. But kneeling was what she most dreaded. Kneeling could last for as long as five hours at a time; she might have to kneel while holding a Bibleon each outstretched palm or with pencils wedged beneath her knees. Only girls seen as inveterate sinners received the full brunt of the home's crueler punishments. "You had to be saved," Tara said. "It didn't matter if you didn't feel moved to do that—you did it to survive."

The worst form of punishment, the lockup, was reserved for girls who had not yet been saved—who had talked of running away or who had proven to be particularly intractable. The lockup was a dorm room devoid of furniture or natural light where girls spent days, or weeks, alone. Taped Roloff sermons were piped into the room, and the near-constant sound of his voice was the girls' only companionship. Former Rebekah resident Tamra Sipes, now 34 and working in advertising for a newspaper in Oak Harbor, Washington, remembers one girl who was relegated to the lockup for an entire month. "The smell had become so bad from her not being able to shower or bathe that it reeked in the hallway," she said. "We could do nothing to help her. I remember standing in roll call one day waiting for my name to be called off, and I was directly across from the door. She was singing 'Happy Birthday' to herself in such a pitiful voice that I couldn't help but cry for her."





DEANNE DAWSEY REFUSED TO MEET HER MOTHER'S GLANCE as she was escorted inside the Rebekah Home by two guards who walked on either side of her to prevent her from running. Once inside, she was plunged into a monastic existence that left her cut off from the outside world. "It didn't take long to figure out that this was not an ordinary boarding school," said DeAnne. She was ordered to strip down and told to put on the home's required clothing: a long skirt that covered her legs—no pants were allowed—and a loose-fitting shirt. Then she was taken to the living quarters, where she met many of the 25 or so residents. Some of the girls had been sent there for being in gangs or on drugs, and as they greeted her, they gave her the rundown of how things worked at the Rebekah Home: there were no televisions, no radios, no magazines. Speaking of anything worldly was forbidden, as was singing worldly songs. Meeting eyes with boys in church was barred. Letters going both in and out of the home were read first by the staff and censored. Phone calls, which could be placed only to family members, were monitored. No conversations were private, since staff listened in on the intercoms that were installed in each bedroom. "Just give in and do whatever they want," her roommate told her.

DeAnne looked out the dormitory windows, which were still wired with alarms to prevent escape, and tried to picture spending the next year of her life at the Rebekah Home. Her mind reeled. "I cried all night long," she said. "I don't think I fell asleep until about an hour before I had to wake up. I was freaked out." Her anxiety only grew in the days to come. Each morning, she and the other girls were required to listen to a taped Lester Roloff sermon while they did their chores. Each afternoon, they were required to attend a Bible memorization session, where they had to read Bible verses out loud, in unison, in what sounded like a chant. What troubled her was not the sentiment behind these exercises, for she considered herself to be deeply faithful: Raised in an Assembly of God church, she had stepped forward at a revival when she was twelve years old to be baptized and to accept Jesus Christ as her personal savior. What disturbed her was her growing suspicion that this was "a cult," whose methods had left some of the girls in her midst brainwashed. "Everyone talked about Roloff like he was God," she said. "The majority of every sermon was talking about how Roloff did this and Roloff did that, instead of testifying to how God did this and God did that. It was just totally mixed up. People were really worshiping him instead of God."

DeAnne hated many things about life at the Rebekah Home—the isolation, the constant surveillance, the joyless view of faith. She took pity on a dim-witted girl whom, she says, Fay Cameron slapped for not doing her homework; DeAnne would have her own run-in with Mrs. Cameron as well. DeAnne had written a letter to her boyfriend, whom she had not been able to communicate with since leaving Houston. As was the custom, Mrs. Cameron read the letter to see if it needed any alterations before being mailed. She soon handed it back to DeAnne and told her that she would have to rewrite it entirely because it painted too negative a portrait of the Rebekah Home. When DeAnne refused, Mrs. Cameron told her the letter would not be sent. "I lost my temper, and I called her a nasty word—I called her a bitch," DeAnne said. "I was furious because everything in that letter was true, but I wasn't allowed to write it." In return, she says, Mrs. Cameron delivered a stinging slap to DeAnne's face.

The two would have another confrontation several weeks later: DeAnne had been caught talking in class, and when she was told to write "I will not talk in class" one hundred times, she refused. ("I was tired of playing by their rules," she said.) Mrs. Cameron grabbed her by the arm and marched her to the lockup. "You'll stay here until you write your sentences," she said, bolting the door behind her.

Inside the lockup, Lester Roloff's voice began to play over the intercom, his rich baritone echoing off the walls—sermonizing, singing gospel songs, and exhorting all who listened to come to Jesus. His voice droned on as morning turned into afternoon and afternoon into evening. DeAnne stuck her fingers in her ears, but his voice seemed to have lodged in her brain. She began yellingrap songs at the top of her lungs—anything to drown out the sound—but Roloff's voice was only turned up louder. "You people are crazy!" she screamed at one point, beating her fists against the wall. "Get me the hell out of here!" She began kicking the wall that night, and by morning a hole had formed in the Sheetrock. ("I felt like I was losing my mind," she said.) Mrs. Cameron warned her that if she did not stop, she would be restrained. When DeAnne persisted, she was wrestled to the ground by three male guards, who pinned her arms behind her back while Mrs. Cameron bound her wrists with duct tape. Her ankles were then bound as well, and once she was immobilized, someone—DeAnne is unsure who—gave her a hard kick to the ribs. She was left alone to writhe on the floor, gasping for air. Having worked herself into a sweat trying to fight off the guards, she was able to squirm out of the tape within a few minutes. She has no idea how long she would have been left restrained.

After 32 hours in the lockup, DeAnne finally relented and wrote her sentences. The following day, when she complained that her ribs were hurting, Wiley Cameron called her mother to say that he was sending DeAnne home. "The only reason they put me on that plane is because they knew that if they called a doctor, they were going to have to answer a lot of questions," DeAnne said. She had lasted only three weeks at the Rebekah Home. As soon as she returned to Houston, she called Child Protective Services, which launched an investigation into the Rebekah Home. Since Texas law forbids child-care facilities to seclude their residents in locked rooms or bind them with restraints like duct tape, the agency issued the home one finding each of physical abuse, medical neglect, and neglectful supervision—and ultimately banned Fay Cameron from working with children in the state of Texas ever again. The home was not given so much as a warning by the TACCCA, even though it had violated state law; in fact, it was reaccredited the following year.

Coriolis posted:

it's like they're being prepared for an office that hasn't existed since 1955:

Coriolis posted:

The part that baffles me is the lobotomized office-drone aspect of it. What is the thinking behind it? Men need to venture out into the godless world long enough to pull a paycheck to support their ever expanding brood of faith warriors, so let's train them from birth to do mindless office work? Is it actually effective? Do a lot of them actually manage to hold down office jobs during the day, come back home to sit ramrod straight and stare at the wall, go to bed, repeat?

It doesn't even sound practical from that angle, it's like they're being prepared for an office that hasn't existed since 1955:

Coriolis posted:

The part that baffles me is the lobotomized office-drone aspect of it. What is the thinking behind it? Men need to venture out into the godless world long enough to pull a paycheck to support their ever expanding brood of faith warriors, so let's train them from birth to do mindless office work? Is it actually effective? Do a lot of them actually manage to hold down office jobs during the day, come back home to sit ramrod straight and stare at the wall, go to bed, repeat?

It doesn't even sound practical from that angle, it's like they're being prepared for an office that hasn't existed since 1955:

RationalWiki posted:

One of the purposes of Patrick Henry College is to train committed Christians for government posts, [5] and many graduates of the College found positions in the Bush administration. [6] The UK based Wilberforce Academy jointly set up by the Alliance Defense Fund (US based) and the Christian Legal Centre (UK based) has a similar purpose.