A Gay Teen in the IFB: Jonathan Nichol's Story

I recently ran across a great story of a man who was a gay teen in the Independent Fundamental Baptist  (IFB) cult. His family was IFB through and through, he attended a high school ran by one of their churches, he was well on his way to attending Bob Jones University, one of their flagship colleges, life seemed all good and well.

That is, until he gave up being in denial about being a gay teen, started a relationship with a Bob Jones student, and was outed by a friend to his pastor and family.

His hopes of going to Bob Jones went up in smoke, and he had to leave his family behind. He has made a nice life for himself though, he is now active in the former IFB community online, and has started over in life, ironically enough, settling down in Greenville, South Carolina, only 5 miles from Bob Jones University. He sounds like a great guy,  I wish him all the best in life, and I'm glad that he has been able to get a fresh start in life.

If you want to read his story, check it out on the site bjunity.org, it's a support site for LGBT people who are currently in fundamentalism, or have already left. Read both part 1 and part 2 of his story, it's a great read.

Hat tip to Bruce Gerencser for this link.

IFB Institution Bob Jones University Forced To Sell It's Radio Station

A radio station owned by the fundamentalist Bob Jones University has shut down after being in continuous operation since 1948. It is now a talk radio station, it was sold due to financial problems at the university due to declining enrollment.

The station was used to broadcast sermons by the college's leaders, past and present, as well as chapel services. I see this as good news, seeing that Bob Jones University is a part of the cult known as the Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) organization, if you wondering why I call the group a cult (especially if you are new to the blog), just check out my archive of past blog posts on the IFB, and check out the resources listed on that page for more information. Some of the facts you will find out about that group will shock you.

It goes to show that though fundamentalist groups are dangerous, their membership numbers are on the decline, and I'm celebrating that fact. The IFB needs to end as a group, and fade into history as a relic of the past, but for many who have left this group, it will be hard to leave what they experienced there in the past.

For more information on Bob Jones University itself, check out my blog post about them, and I would like to give credit to the blog Debunking Christianity for bringing this to my attention.

Part 2: Hezpibah House Abuse, Plus Response From Ron Williams and The IFB

(Authors note, for part one in this two part series on Hezipbah House, click here, for more information about the IFB movement that pastor Ron Williams, its founder was a part of, check out my page, Exposing the IFB)


Ron Williams also had an extremely low view of women in general (to say the least), here's a few statements from the Christian anti-cult/anti-fundamentalism blog, Under Much Grace about his indoctrination and psychological abuse of the girls:

His views of women/girls who had been molested or raped:

"Girls who have been molested have an inherent sexual character that entices men, and Ron Williams believes that the Old Testament references to the “strange woman” applies to all women who are violated sexually. They are responsible and culpable for enticing good men to sexually abuse them – the first cause in the sin. Once they are violated and their purity gone, they have very limited opportunities for service, and they become something less than the rest of the human race. Ron Williams treated them that way and programmed these young women at Hephzibah House to believe that they were the dregs of humanity, deserving of abuse."

"Williams showed great disdain for these young women. He openly told the girls in residence at HH that when the book of James talked about man's works done without faith as filthy rags, this was also a reference to God's great disdain for soiled menstrual rags. According to Williams, there was nothing more disgusting to God than a woman's menstrual cycle. Women who were holy and acceptable to God were supposed to marry young and spend most of their years without menstrual periods through pregnancy and nursing to suppress the menstrual cycle so that God would find them of value"

That's right, he believed that if a woman had been raped either as an adult or child, or molested, that it was a character defect that caused it. Though many in the IFB movement may not say this publicly, I believe that this is their belief as well, seeing as how they view women in such a negative light, almost as property, not as human beings. Women are not allowed to work outside the home once married (exceptions are for family run businesses, and ministry in the church), and birth control is not an option.

This view within the IFB that female victims of sexual abuse deserve what happened to them is best reflected in the actions of New Hampshire IFB pastor Chuck Phelps. He forced a 16 year old church member to apologize for being raped by a church deacon, then shuffled her off to Colorado to quietly have the baby that was the product of the rape. Instead of being rejected by the IFB for this atrocity, he was hired onto the board of Bob Jones University, an IFB college.



Starvation was also common at the house, as well as the girls sometimes being forced to eat dog food:

"Williams tended his flock of throw away girls which brought in a great deal of wealth for him. He received donations of food which he kept for his family and fed girls soup made of dog food. The girls were required to inventory and dust the stored food while they dropped in weight, having to hold themselves up by their hands so that they wouldn't fall into the commode. Churches sent their money to Williams to care for these girls. Women who volunteered at the home who were not “Strange Women” were not treated much better than the girls themselves and did what they could to survive the conditions there."

Forced labor was also used, with no regard as to the health or safety of the girls:

Here's one account, from the survivor blog Hephizbah Girls (a different blog from the Former Hezpizbah Girls site I linked to earlier). This was written by a survivor named Connie, this was during a project where the girls had to till by hand, a field fertilized with human waste:

"I noticed Connie was breathing funny.  My brother had been asthmatic and I recognized the sound of a wheeze.  I asked her about it and in bits and pieces she told me how she was asthmatic and had an inhaler when she arrived at Hephzibah house.  Her inhalers had all been confiscated and she had had a couple severe attacks when she first arrived. She told me how she had been on her knees  begging and pleading for her inhaler.  She  described her fear and panic as she struggled for each breathe,  each inhalation clamping her lungs down tighter and tighter.  Certain she was going to die,  she stopped fighting and held her head in her hands,  willing herself to relax.  Little by little as her jagged gasps slowed and she sucked in the precious air she became aware of the staff saying she was just being dramatic and if she had enough breath to  ask for her inhaler she did not need it.  I was speechless.  What if she had died??  What if they had waited too long?? " 

They refused to get an inhaler for a girl having an asthma attack, and denied that she was even having an attack in the first place.

Unfortunately, Hezpibah House is still operating to this day, despite the credible accusations, their website is still in operation, copyright current as of 2012, where they describe the house as a "private Christian boarding school for teenage girls". Here's a statement that takes a lot of nerve to make, after reading about the abuse they inflicted: "Hephzibah House promotes character development and a work ethic. The students are involved in daily exercises as well as times of recreation and relaxation."

They are almost trying to make it sound like a spa or elite private school for young girls, despite the details of the abuse even making it onto a CNN report. Ron Williams, the pastor, as expected is trying to deny the allegations entirely, and he has even gotten the support of an Indiana state representative, whom he says "has suffered abuse from the local paper and on the web for supporting us". Read his full statements of denial, here and here (PDF links)

He has also found support from fellow IFB ministers and from IFB bloggers. An Ohio church even invited him to speak at an anniversary celebration, which it's no surprise that the pastor, who defends him from what he considers to be attacks from a vocal minority, is a graduate of Bob Jones University. An IFB blogger named Tim Dunkin even wrote a disgusting rebuttal to the abuse accusations made against Ron Williams and Hezpibah House.

Denial, and attack the innocent, it's the game that the IFB as a whole, throughout the denomination has been playing for years, all the while abuse of children continues, while leaders turn a blind eye to it, as in the case of A.V Bollinger, a First Baptist Hammond deacon who was honored by the church with a standing ovation for his work with bus ministry after his felony conviction for molesting young boys. The IFB has repeatedly made it clear that abuse of children and teens by clergymen is perfectly OK by them, so long as they put on all the appearances of a holy life, and agree with all the multitude of other rules that they set down for the members. 

According to the IFB, if a minister lives to their other standards, it doesn't matter if he rapes/molests, beats, tortures, starves and physiologically abuses children, it's sickening, this organization needs to exposed, today, and now. Help spread the word about this dangerous group. Share this on social media, by e-mail, whatever it takes to get the word out about the horrendous acts of this dangerous organization.

Exposing the IFB: Bob Jones University.

(Authors note: This post is part of a continuing series on the Independent Fundamental Baptist (IFB) movement, which many of it's critics and former members consider a cult. For previous posts on this group, and resources containing more information on the IFB movement, check out my page, Exposing the IFB.)

Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina is one of the flagship institutions of the IFB movement, as it is one of the headquarters group for a major branch of the movement. I talk more about the structure of the IFB in part one of my post on First Baptist Hammond and Jack Hyles.

The complex has enough influence within IFB circles to have it's own press company which makes home school materials for one million students worldwide, and has enough influence in politics to have received a visit from George W. Bush when he was campaigning for President in 2000. Those of you who have read my previous posts on the IFB are probably shivering at the thought that a man who would become a US President visited an IFB institution. As the old American saying goes, politics makes strange bedfellows.....

Just like other IFB institutions, Bob Jones University is no stranger to scandals involving rape and pedophilia. In my post, Fundamentally Toxic Christianity, a response to a John Shore article of the same name, I briefly mention the case of New Hampshire teen, Tina Anderson, who was forced to apologize by her IFB minister for being raped by a church member. This same pastor also contrived a plan for her to go away from her home to Colorado to live with a family there, and quietly have the baby who was the product of that rape (she put the baby up for adoption, which may or may not have been her choice, that is unknown). Her pastor, Chuck Phelps, who forced her to make an apology for being raped, was hired onto the board of Bob Jones University. Chuck Phelps did resign from the board, after his acts were made known by a protest movement called Do Right BJU, made up of disgusted students and alumni brought this to light (BJU had been trying to keep this quiet), but not without some severe retribution waged against students who participated, including expelling a student organizer named Chris Peterman.

Some of the extremes they went through to try to justify his expulsion (denying that it had anything to do with his protest activities) included zeroing in on "wrongdoing" that included watching Glee and posting lyrics to a Matthew West song on facebook. BJU, like any other IFB institution, does in fact rabidly opposes both homosexuality  (the show Glee has a gay character), and any form of contemporary music, (Matthew West is a Christian contemporary singer.), but with the timing of the expulsion coming mere days before his scheduled graduation, it led many to believe that it was to make an example out of him to other students because he challenged the board over the Chuck Phelps appointment.

Also, like other IFB institutions, they continually bash other religions, and Christian groups that they see as not being true Christianity, or to use their favorite term, as personally was told by an IFB pastor when he found out as a teen that I was part of a Southern Baptist church, not "Bible believing ".
In 2000, their then president, Bob Jones III, publicly stated on their website that both the Catholic church and Mormonism were "cults that call themselves Christian". He then later stated that the university is not anti-Catholic or Mormon, but said "Our shame would be in telling people a lie, and thereby letting them go to hell without Christ because we loved their goodwill more than we loved them and their souls".  So he believes that they are not anti-Catholic or Mormon, but that Catholics and Mormons are indeed going to hell because since they don't agree with him, they are "without Christ" and going to hell. Got it....

Although they share the common bond of rejection and hatred of other religions, and other Christian groups, as well as pedophilia within their ranks and/or indifference to it, one bad habit  that BJU had that isn't shared by their IFB cousins is the continuation of blatantly racist policies well into the modern era .BJU didn't not admit black students until 1971, and until the year 2000, BJU did not allow students of different races to date or marry. This policy was in place until the aforementioned visit of George W. Bush to the campus that same year caused a firestorm of controversy after their policy become well known in the media. Bush's staff had to have known about this policy at the time of his visit, and maybe even the former President himself, but the visit went on anyway. An actual picture of the student handbook containing this policy can be found in this article by the blogger The Friendly Atheist. Contrary to what some might think, their interracial dating ban is not the norm in the IFB movement, in fact when my sister was a part of a Hyles-Anderson college, interracial dating and marriage were actually more common than what I have seen outside the IFB movement in the general US population.

Bob Jones University has apparently become a bit more open minded on race, and is becoming less political under it's new president, Stephen Jones. Under Stephen Jones' leadership, according to Wikipedia, the university made an apology for it's interracial dating ban, and Jones himself said that some statements were made by his predecessors that he would not say today (he didn't go into specifics, however). The college also refused to endorse a candidate in the 2008 election, with Stephen Jones saying "he didn't have a political bone in his body". It's really hard to tell, though if these kind of changes are just cosmetic changes done begrudgingly to try to improve their public image, or if it comes from a true change of heart. I would opt for the latter, seeing as though the Chuck Phelps debacle, and the retribution for protesting against his appointment happened only this year.

Bob Jones University, until it truly proves itself otherwise for a long time, still appears to be a dedicate IFB institution, and even though a few minor changes (mostly in the way they conduct themselves publicly) have been made, their core beliefs still haven't changed, and the Chuck Phelps board appointment and their response to criticism of it shows that they have just as horrible as many in the Independent Fundamental Baptist when it comes to protecting children, and standing up to pedophiles. They may try to look a good appearance for the outside wold, but they're still a part of the same corrupt, isolationist, controlling organization that the rest of the IFB movement is known to be to it's former members.