On March 20, 1986, Janet Cole drowned her five-year-old daughter Brittany in a bathtub in a motel in Oregon. The incident came as a shock to all who knew her. Janet was considered by many to be the ideal Pentecostal woman. She was attractive, sweet, and deeply committed to her faith. She attended church regularly and even taught women's classes on submission. But it was this very commitment to her church that was ultimately her undoing.
Janet's husband had become involved with another woman. Janet had sought advice from her church and was informed that her husband had established a 'spiritual connection' with the other woman and that her own jealousy was evidence of demonic manifestation. Janet struggled to rid herself of these 'demons' to no avail. She became convinced that her daughter Brittany was similarly manifesting demons.
Finally, losing hope of her own salvation, Janet acted to save her daughter's soul--by drowning her. The church taught that children who died before reaching the "age of accountability" would automatically go to heaven, and so Janet reasoned that she had spared her daughter an eternity in hell.
Janet's husband Rick apparently shared these beliefs. At his daughter's funeral, he gave a speech in which he stated that he had been wrestling with demons in his wife for seven months and he was glad that Brittany was dead. "I will never have to watch her be tempted with the world. I will never have to watch her backslide," he said.
As extreme as this incident was, it is not an isolated event. In 2001, prophet-follower Andrea Yates drowned her five children for almost identical reasons. And in 2003, Pentecostal Deanna Laney murdered her children believing that she was obeying the voice of God.
And there are numerous other extreme cases of Pentecostal parents and pastors abusing children for religious reasons--an autistic child murdered in a Pentecostal church during an exorcism in 2003, a five-year-old traumatized in 1999 after being forced by her pastor to put her hands in a bucket of blood in an apparent attempt to scare her away from temptation toward drugs and alcohol later in life, and a Pentecostal mother who lost custody of her children in 1990 after beating one of them approximately 40 times with a leather strap for making errors in copying Bible verses.
These are only a few high-profile incidents of horrific and even lethal abuse. And yet most cases of religious abuse of children within the Pentecostal church never come to the attention of the media. They occur out of sight and disguised as proper Biblical discipline. They only come to light years later when the victim, now an adult, recounts the tragic stories.
Child abuse is not limited to Pentecostal families, but the problem does seem to be disproportionately prevalent among Pentecostal families. In one informal survey that I took among a certain ex-Pentecostal group, I found that nearly 75% of those who had been raised as Pentecostals (as opposed to joining when they were adults) reported having been victims of child abuse. Many reported that the abuse had not been carried out randomly, but rather it was an intentional program to rid them of evil spirits, to compel them to memorize large quantities of Bible verses, or to "break their will". In other words, it was done as service to the Lord. How is this possible?
PENTECOSTAL PERFECTION
Pentecostalism demands perfection from its followers--not as a goal but as a present reality. Many Pentecostal preachers threaten eternal damnation over any small sin and claim that the failings of even one person in the group may give Satan a foothold into a whole family or a whole church.
Pentecostal parents often overreact to childish failings because they have lost perspective. Any small sin is a construed as a threat not only to the soul of the child, but to the entire family.
Furthermore, Pentecostals are taught to interpret difficult circumstances and even negative emotion as a sign that there is "sin in the camp". And so there are many, many parents who simply get a bad feeling about something and assume that they are being shown by God that their child has committed some sin or is harboring a demon. A child may be punished for a supposed failing that is only in the imagination of a parent or pastor.
LACK OF EMOTIONAL CONTROL
Pentecostals are not encouraged to control their emotions. In fact, their entire spirituality is based around emotional upheaval and release. Aggressive behavior is even encouraged so long as it is directed toward 'Satan' or 'sin'. But these things are poorly defined. Anything that displeases them can be interpreted as an attack of Satan. Anything that falls short of strict church guidelines is a sin.
Many times Pentecostals justify their extreme overreactions and attacks against others by claiming that they are waging spiritual warfare. In their enthusiasm for battling the enemy, they forget that their opponent is flesh and blood. And the blows that they strike at the Devil leave their bruises on a child.
DISPLACED RAGE
I once heard it said by a former World War II prisoner of war that, although most people assume that the greatest threat to their safety was the Japanese prison guards, he actually feared his Japanese guards less than their Korean subordinates. He explained that the Japanese frequently mistreated the Koreans. The Korean guards could not retaliate, and so they turned their rage upon the American prisoners. Torturing the prisoners gave the Korean guards a sense of power and control and a way to vent their anger and frustration.
I believe a very similar dynamic occurs in some Pentecostal churches as well. People who are involved in controlling and abusive churches lose their sense of power and control over their environment. They cannot retaliate against the Man of God for fear of going to hell, and so they turn their rage instead upon their children.
Angered by their powerlessness and their own lack of perfection, they magnify their child's flaws and inflict punishments on him or her as a means of expressing their own frustration.
DESPAIR
The most tragic child abuse cases are those that result not from a parent's lack of self-control, but out of a deep despair. Pentecostals often cannot measure up to the standards set by the church, and they sometimes lose hope of salvation. These moments are especially dangerous, for they produce the Janet Coles of Pentecostalism - the people who love their children but may destroy them in their attempts to save them.
Despite all the claims of tapping into God's power, the reality of Pentecostalism is that its followers believe that God is a weak, helpless deity who cannot save anyone unless all the conditions are right and perfection is attained. No one can meet the standard for salvation in Pentecostalism. The dishonest pretend and the honest despair. And when hope runs out, parents sometimes take rash and desperate actions to save their children from eternal damnation.
Even when the abuse is not fatal and the wounds fade away, religious abuse leaves terrible spiritual and emotional scars. I hear from many ex-Pentecostals who can scarcely read the Bible anymore because of the fear that it stirs within them and the reminders of their painful experiences. I have read the stories of former championship Bible quizzers who no longer even believe in God because of the abuse that they suffered. I know people who were baptized at the age of six who now cannot bring themselves to set foot inside a church.
These people often say that, in retrospect, that they do not feel that they were lead to faith in Christ, but rather that they were sacrificed upon the altar of fanatical devotion.
Pentecostal pastors are often overly hasty in their assurance to parents that their children will ultimately thank them even for harsh discipline, and, if they do make any mistakes, their children will understand and forgive them. I know of few victims of child abuse that have been able to forgive and none who thank their parents. On the contrary, most victims of child abuse have little to do with their parents anymore and many struggle with the pain of their experiences far into their adult years.
The Bible does command that parents guide, instruct, and discipline their children. But far too often, Pentecostals, in their eagerness to seize upon their authority to 'discipline' their children, fail to heed the limits on such discipline commanded in the same holy Scriptures: "Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged." (Colossians 3:21)
The Bible declares that our children are a 'heritage from the Lord' (Psalm 127:3). They are not enemies or vessels of Satan, but rather they are a reward from the hand of God - something to be cherished and nurtured. Children are not ours to sacrifice, for they do not belong to us at all, but to God, in whose image they are created. We are granted the privilege of guiding them, instructing them, and, yes, even correcting them. But always we do so in the fear of the Lord, remembering that He is their Father, and trusting in His power to save and keep them.
Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven. ~Matthew 18:10
(Article by Caroline Weerstra)
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