There seem to be constant stories in the news of extreme criminal child abuse. It is sickening, and these stories are far too common. These victims are children who do not attend public school and whose parents claim to be homeschooling them. Let me emphasize that this is NOT typical of most homeschoolers, but homeschooling is a convenient cover to avoid discovery and arrest.
Responsible Homeshooling.org says:
Because of the nature of the issue, there is no data that will tell us the overall number of parents who homeschool in part or in whole to conceal abuse. The data we do have suggests that among parents who abuse school-age children so severely that their abuse can be deemed torture, homeschooling is a popular choice.
Extreme Criminal Child Abuse
Severe child abuse can involve extreme isolation, starvation, physical abuse, and neglect of healthcare, education, and other important developmental supports. These crimes are often uncovered when someone reports suspicion of abuse to Child Protective Services (some states use different names) and the suspect families are investigated.
The Coalition for Responsible Home Education (CRHE) states, “Our preliminary research suggests that homeschooled children are at a greater risk of dying from child abuse than are traditionally schooled children. This preliminary finding is based on an analysis of the cases in our Homeschooling’s Invisible Children (HIC) database and on national government reports on child maltreatment. When we compare the rate of child abuse fatalities among homeschooled families to the rate of child abuse fatalities overall, we see a higher rate of death due to abuse or neglect among homeschooled students.”
A major concern among many fundamentalist homeschoolers is being visited by CPS (Child Protective Services) because they feel the state has no business interfering with issues in their homes. Strong support for fundamentalist homeschoolers comes from the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), which has been very successful in preventing state involvement with homeschoolers. However, HSLDA is on record as NOT supporting child abuse even to the point of recommending reporting of suspected abuse to CPS in some cases.
Stories of Terribly Tragic Child Abuse
One might think the prevalence of such extreme child abuse is overstated. I wish it were, but here are examples of very recent incidents.
The Hart Children
Time reports (March 26, 2018) “Two weeks after a family of eight plunged off a California cliff in an SUV, investigators remain bewildered by how little they know about the Harts, who homeschooled their children and faced allegations of child abuse stretching back 10 years. Jennifer and Sarah Hart and three of their children — Markis, Jeremiah and Abigail — were killed in the crash, which authorities now suspect was intentional. Police believe the Harts’ three other children were also in the car, though their bodies have not been found.”
CHRE responds: “The Hart children’s deaths occurred two days after a child protective services official visited their home following a report made by a neighbor that one of the children had come by her home a dozen times asking for food, stating that he was being starved as punishment.”
“Rachel Coleman, executive director of the Coalition for Responsible Home Education (CRHE), a national nonprofit that advocates for homeschooled children, did not find the details of the case surprising. ‘The Hart children’s abuse and tragic death fit many of the themes we have identified since we began maintaining our Homeschooling’s Invisible Children database in 2013,’ said Coleman. ‘A disproportionate number of severe and fatal child abuse cases in homeschool settings involve adoption.’”
The Turpin Children
The Turpin family. Image credit news.au.com.
From the Los Angeles Times (January 16 2018) “The siblings were discovered after one of them escaped through a window and called 911…When deputies arrived at the house…three of the children were tied up. The couple punished their children by beating and choking them, tied them to beds for weeks or months at a time and deprived them of food…
“Deputies at first assumed from the children’s frail and malnourished appearances that all of them were minors but later determined that seven of them were adults, according to the Sheriff’s Department…Their undernourishment was so severe that the 29-year-old weighed only 82 pounds…A 12-year-old victim weighed the same as an average 7-year-old.”
CRHE adds: “CRHE…has learned that the thirteen Turpin children, found emaciated and chained in a home in Perris, California, on Sunday, were homeschooled. “This case fits a pattern we’ve seen of isolation and imprisonment in abusive homeschooling situations,” said Rachel Coleman…the organization’s executive director.”
Savannah Leckie
From the Springfield Patch (September 21, 2017) An indictment returned Wednesday charged Rebecca Ruud, 39, and Robert Peat Jr., 31, with first-degree murder and an alternative count of child abuse resulting in the death of Savannah Leckie…bone fragments identified as the teen’s were found in a burn pile on the couple’s rural property…Savannah was homeschooled and her only contact with others came from working as a junior firefighter in Theodosia, where Ruud was a volunteer firefighter…Ruud’s ex-boyfriend, Buddy Smart, told investigators he had seen her discipline Savannah by forcing her to crawl through a hog pen and making her to bathe in a pond, the affidavit states.
CRHE writes: Earlier this month, the ashes of sixteen-year-old Savannah Leckie’s body were found concealed on a farm in a rural area of Missouri. Authorities believe Rebecca Ruud, Leckie’s birth mother, dissolved her body in lye before burning it. “Savannah is at least the third sixteen-year-old girl to die of child abuse in a homeschool setting in the past twelve months,” said Rachel Coleman.
Homeschooling and Child Abuse
I am not suggesting that homeschooling causes such tragic child abuse but that homeschooling is a convenient way to avoid detection and possible arrest. But there IS another form of child abuse that is more typical of fundamentalist homeschooling. We will talk about that next time.
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Jesus Without Baggage 
A very well-balanced article on a harrowing subject. Well done, and I appreciate that it must have been painful for you to write it.
I would make two points here: firstly, as is probably obvious, these families written about here have of course kept the kids in ‘homeschooling’ (i.e. no education at all, in these cases), to hide the abuse so that nobody outside finds out. This much is obvious, I think.
Secondly, it would be easy to make a false deduction from the ‘statistics’ that because “…homeschooled children are at a greater risk of dying from child abuse than are traditionally schooled children”, and other similar data, that homeschooling itself is bad. It’s not; to interpret the stats that way (and I appreciate that you are not doing that!) would be to get things back to front. The correct conclusion is that abused children are more likely to be homeschooled, not the other way round. It’s a good illustration of how statistics *could* be mis-used.
As an aside, one of my favourite examples of that misuse of statistics is that the motor insurance industry in the UK claim this: “At least 50% of all road accidents happen within 2 miles of home”. Their implication is that people getting near the ends of their journey let their guard drop, and accidents happen because people are less on their toes. Or that people within 2 miles of home are so complacent, because they know the roads and traffic patterns, that their lack of vigilance causes accidents. But to me it’s not that. The explanation for me is simply this: that the vast majority of car journeys begin or end at home. And so the one place that a car can be guaranteed to be either at the beginning or end of its journey, is home. This is called lateral thinking… 😉
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…or actually I think it’s 80% – 4 out of 5. 50% wouldn’t make any sense, because it would also mean that you are equally likely to have an accident away from your home area 😉
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Tony, you said: “The correct conclusion is that abused children are more likely to be homeschooled, not the other way round.” I totally agree. I tried to be clear in the article that it was not about homeschooling in general but about abusers who use homeschooling as a cover (a small minority of all homeschoolers).
I also agree with you that these extreme child abusers who claim to be homeschooling their kids are not likely schooling them at all.
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Tony, a friend of mine claims that most of his car use is to make a journey of about a mile to his local shops. If he had an accident it would be highly likely to be within 2 miles of his home.
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Well put, Tony.
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I’m not surprised at all! Unfortunately, it’s not only homeschooling that can be used as an opportunity for abuse, it’s private fundamental Christian schools as well. I went to one from the second grade up until I was 18 and then I ran away. They were so strict with us and were trying to brainwash us with thought police. We were constantly asked what we were thinking and then punished or paddled just for thinking a negative thought. A negative thought was a simple as not wanting to do our homework even though we did it. If we said no when asked, we were accused of lying and lectured with Bible verses until we said yes out of guilt, that would then either get us spanked or detention. Many of us were abused by our parents and would go to school with severe bruises, the teachers never helped or called cps. I remember once that I went to school with bruises all over my face and the teachers did nothing but sent me into an empty classroom to sleep for a few hours. Everything was so strict, and everyone had to act, think, and talk the same. Fake smiles all of the time, never ask questions, just believe everything. Memorise scriptures by the chapters word for word. Three or four chapters at a time, if only one word was off, then had to start over. I was hated so badly by my teachers because I always asked questions, and challenged everything all of the time. I would get in trouble for not smiling until one day I told them that I had nothing to smile about and that if they paddled me one more time I was going to call the police. They left me alone for a while. Anyways, after I turned 18 they tried to pull some crap on me and the Dean of the school called me into his office. He told me I was rebellious and that I made them miserable all of those years, I then let him have it! I told him that the school was a torture chamber with unqualified teachers and inferior curriculum. I also told him that his preaching would put me to sleep, bored me to death and that I would count down in my head or scetch on paper until chapel was over. I said I was walking out and never looking back and reminded him that I turned 18 already. Oh man, his face, that look! At this point, we were yelling at each other, which was amusing to see him lose emotional control, so much for the self-control fruit of the spirit he always taunted us with during his preaching. He told me that I would not graduate then and be a loser without a diploma. I told him that my life would work out just fine, and I walked out. I ended up getting a diploma from somewhere else six months later. My life has been more than fine. I have friends from other schools like this too, and the same type of abuses accrued. Either they were abused by parents and the school covered it up, or the staff in the school were abusive themselves. Sometimes both. Please everyone out there, stay away from “ACE” (accelerated Christian education) curriculum your kids will not learn anything. I wish the government would do something to try and either regulate or shut these things down. My parents homeschooled one of my younger sisters after I left home, I found out years later that they just abused and beat her, and that cps got involved.
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Ancadudar, this is heart-rendingly dreadful! And I am so sorry for your experience. I had no idea you were involved in such a fundamentalist group as this; this is far worse than my fundamentalist experience–which was bad enough. It is a tragedy that such a situation can exist in the name of Jesus.
You said, “I was hated so badly by my teachers because I always asked questions, and challenged everything all of the time.” One of the characteristics I have noticed about fundamentalism is that they already have the answers, and questioning those answers is unacceptable. But I say ‘Do not question = Do not think’ I am glad that you question.
I learned a lot about ACE curriculum from my blogger friend, Jonny Scaramanga. He is an expert in it to the point of it becoming his doctoral dissertation. Anyone interested should read his past articles on ACE at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/leavingfundamentalism/
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Ancadudar, my heart goes out to you. We once had a teacher who bullied us verbally and made our lives miserable for his lessons, for one year. To have suffered this continuously for most lessons over several years is worse than I can imagine.
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“Ancadudar, my heart goes out to you. We once had a teacher who bullied us verbally and made our lives miserable for his lessons, for one year. To have suffered this continuously for most lessons over several years is worse than I can imagine.”
Thank you Chas. It was really horrible and it was not just one teacher it was most of them with only two or three being kindhearted. We also had a creeper principle come in for three years, and he was sexually assaulting some of the girls. The Dean did nothing despite the complaints until three years later when parents got involved. Then he was finally fired. I am really sorry to hear of the teacher that did that bullied you guys for a year! I know how horrible it is.
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I appreciate your approach to this – it is not homeschooling that causes abuse, but that abusers often hide behind the veil of homeschooling. The whole issue makes no sense to me in so many ways. Why would someone who is so concerned with extreme versions of law and order want children – even adopting them. Children are unruly and not little adults. They wiggle and do stuff that tests the boundaries. Is it a situation where there is a belief that we have to save people and so the law and order is used as a hammer to bring salvation to people for their own good? If that is the case, then these people are confusing who is responsible for salvation. Is it a mental illness that causes people to go to these extremes? Is it something else? A combination? I know, there aren’t easy answers or one single answer for it. But it seems that so often many of these things are inter-related. Reading these stories is frustrating and angering. I don’t understand how someone can do these things and consider them self a follower of Christ. But then again, what I think of as following Christ is based off of Matthew 28 and the Sermon on the Mount. When someone’s view of God is based on wrath, then really all they are doing is following their image of God. If someone is focused on Rapture theology, then it makes sense that they would be more wrathful, since that is the god they worship. This gets into the issue of Imago Dei and what it means. If we are made in the image of God, then we follow what that image is.
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Luther, this behavior makes no sense to me either. I don’t understand the motivation or the ability to inflict this much suffering–especially on children. And, in most cases, I doubt there is much ‘schooling’ of any sort going on. I’m not sure that religious considerations are a factor either.
And why some people like this actually adopt more children (victims) is beyond me.
By the way, recently I had computer problems and lost my RSS feed, which is how I follow your blog. I still haven’t restored the feed, but I now follow you by email as of this morning.
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Tim, is it a manifestation of the philosophy: ‘give me the child and I will give you the adult’?
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Chas, I have no idea what motivates this abusive behavior–other than the seemingly total lack of empathy, compassion, and care.
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“Is it a situation where there is a belief that we have to save people and so the law and order is used as a hammer to bring salvation to people for their own good? If that is the case, then these people are confusing who is responsible for salvation.”
Let’s go back in time a few centuries and we’ll find that this is exactly the kind of mindset christians have had toward many indigenous populations around the world. Many with this type of mindset have been taught themselves that they are “soldiers” in the “army” of Christ — this is what I was taught as a young boy at my confirmation as a Roman Catholic. Just doesn’t seem to be much room for the Gospel here.
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Good point Anthony. There is a long history of this throughout history, across beliefs. Thanks for the reminder.
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Luther, it is almost as if they had got stuck in the Old Testament and never learned about the loving God who can be seen in the New Testament. In regard to your question about their sanity, I am increasingly convinced that that type of behaviour shows mental illness, although I am not an expert and so cannot identify of which type.
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I agree with you generally, but I also want to say that God shows up as loving in the Old Testament too. The story of Creation is a story of love. There are plenty of other stories in the OT that show God as love as well. It is a loving God who brings Israel out of Egypt. It is a loving God who gives Elijah what he needs to carry on. It is a loving God who stops the slaughter of Isaac. It is a loving God who inspires the Psalms. It is a loving God who brings Isreal back to the promised land after being in exile.
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Luther, yes, love is shown in the OT, but bear in mind that the actions surrounding Israel being brought out of Egypt involve various plagues and the murder of first born sons and a whole host of common soldiers, and the creation story goes on to punishment by being thrown out of Eden into hardship. Elijah is involved in hacking to death prophets of Baal. This is why I am convinced that the OT was written by men, because men are part good and part evil.
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I don’t disagree. I am just pointing out that too often we draw a line between the OT and the NT – that the OT never shows God as love and the NT never shows God as angry.
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Chas, I think you might be right about the mental illness. It is difficult to imagine a mentally healthy person doing these sorts of things.
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Tim, This also applies to many of the things for which people are found guilty in court. So why does our society consider that a person is sane enough to be punished, even though they have done things that normal people really don’t do?
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Chas, that question is beyond me. What do you think?
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laceduplutheran,
“I appreciate your approach to this – it is not homeschooling that causes abuse, but that abusers often hide behind the veil of homeschooling. The whole issue makes no sense to me in so many ways. Why would someone who is so concerned with extreme versions of law and order want children – even adopting them. Children are unruly and not little adults. They wiggle and do stuff that tests the boundaries. Is it a situation where there is a belief that we have to save people and so the law and order is used as a hammer to bring salvation to people for their own good? If that is the case, then these people are confusing who is responsible for salvation. Is it a mental illness that causes people to go to these extremes? Is it something else? A combination? I know, there aren’t easy answers or one single answer for it. But it seems that so often many of these things are inter-related. ”
Unfortunately, most of these parents think that they are doing the child a favor by breaking their will and emptying them of any sense of self. It makes sense from their perspective if God is an angry and vindictive God that will burn people in hell forever and ever for something as innocent as never having even had the opportunity to hear about Him and say a 20-second prayer. They are trying to be the Holy Spirit in the child’s life. They think it’s better to make the child suffer here on earth than risk them burning forever in hell. This mentality, as others have stated here, is also what justified many of the atrocities and tortures that both Catholicism and Protestantism enacted on others who did not believe “sound doctrine”. Church history is really dark when it comes to human rights violations and crimes against humanity. Go figure that the sadistic book “How To Train Up A Child” is the number one best seller amongst evangelical parents. Protestants like to say that it is the Holy Spirit and predestination that brings someone to salvation, yet they torture and discipline their children as if it’s really the parents’ job to save their children’s souls from hell.
I’ve often thought that it’s really no surprise that so many Christians are unquestioning fundamentalists. If they were beaten and tortured into unquestioning blind obedience to biblical authority and inerrancy as children, then most of them may not have the ability to think critically on spiritual matters as adults as their minds have been somewhat destroyed. The brain is a living organ, and if one is hindered from using certain parts of it for long enough, then they may not have the capacity to use those underdeveloped parts of it later on in life.
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very true ancadudar. Sadly. It brings sadness to me that Christianity has been twisted throughout history to be something it was never intended to be. It breaks my heart that the supposed followers of Christ are anything but followers of Christ in how they live their lives.
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“very true ancadudar. Sadly. It brings sadness to me that Christianity has been twisted throughout history to be something it was never intended to be. It breaks my heart that the supposed followers of Christ are anything but followers of Christ in how they live their lives.”
It breaks my heart too! Imagine what history would have been like if the Church and Christians would have set all of their slaves free voluntarily from early on without a blood war, if they would have made women equal in all rights early on, if they would have actually gone out in mass to care for the worlds orphans, and widows, the oppressed and the poor. My gosh, it would look so different, just imagine what two thousand years of putting Jesus words into practice would have done for the world! Instead, we see the world manifesting those qualities now and most of the Church resisting it. It’s so backward, it breaks my heart too!
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And it’s because of what Jesus says that some of us take it seriously and that it applies to us and so we do our best to live out the words of Jesus. Miracles happen in our midst, with just a spark. That’s all it takes to see how Jesus transforms the world.
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“Imagine what history would have been like if the Church and Christians would have set all of their slaves free voluntarily from early on without a blood war, if they would have made women equal in all rights early on, if they would have actually gone out in mass to care for the worlds orphans, and widows, the oppressed and the poor. My gosh, it would look so different.”
Yes, Ancadudar! Just imagine that! What a different history we would have!
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Ancadudar, the problem is that, because man were prone to violence, these things could never have happened as you wish they had. Indeed, it might be that the only reason it is better now is that so many violent men in the past have died by violence before they had sons. i.e. they culled themselves out of the breeding population.
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ancadudar, The thing that your first paragraph brought to mind was that man has actually made God in his image, not the other way round.
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Chas,
“Ancadudar, the problem is that, because man were prone to violence, these things could never have happened as you wish they had. Indeed, it might be that the only reason it is better now is that so many violent men in the past have died by violence before they had sons. i.e. they culled themselves out of the breeding population.”
That’s an interesting thought Chas!
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ancadudar, this idea goes back to the time when a Christian friend of mine suggested that the world is getting better than it once was. Some other things also show that the process of evolution is still ongoing. A Jewish friend of mine was taking a pessimistic view of some recent instances of anti-Semitism in UK, more so than seemed reasonable, but on giving the matter some further thought, it resonated with my recent reading of European history, which showed repeated and widespread anti-Semitic actions. It made me realise that the people who took a pessimistic view and moved out as soon as the rumblings began were the population who had survived. Hence they now show pessimism when minor incidents occur.
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jesuswithoutbaggage,
I want to say that I am so thankful I found your website as I am going through this transition for leaving Bible inerrancy. I don’t know what I would have done if a site like this was not available. I love Jesus very much and everything He stood for and is, but I could not accept everything else that supposedly came with being a follower of Jesus. For example, the NT is full of verses that speak about doing justice for the oppressed and loving the brokenhearted, yet the NT is also full of verses that cause and allow for injustice. I never got over the fact that Christians believed that you should love your neighbor like you love yourself, but then approved of and allowed slavery for almost 1800 years. What a joke and disconnect in consistency. It’s almost like some of the later epistles hijacked the message of Jesus. I have always been drawn to the fruits of the Holy Spirit since I was a child, they really resonate with me, but I find them at odds with some of the other doctrinal teachings in the NT. Anyways, your website is such a big blessing and support for me and for others.
“You said, “I was hated so badly by my teachers because I always asked questions, and challenged everything all of the time.” One of the characteristics I have noticed about fundamentalism is that they already have the answers, and questioning those answers is unacceptable. But I say ‘Do not question = Do not think’ I am glad that you question.”
Yes, I would question why we had to do all of this pointless stuff. They were so legalistic and made all kinds of rules that had no point to them. Everything was rigid and about order. We were always thought to deprive ourselves. That happiness and true enjoyment in life were sinful. I’m not talking about going out and doing bad things, but having any hopes and dreams in life was looked down upon, everything was so prudish. They also kept quoting the old testament and saying that evil and deceit was in the heart of a child. They used that to support beating little babies and toddlers. That was the thing I challenged the most, and they hated me for it because I would show them the verses where Jesus said that little children are pure and we should be innocent like them. They also hated me because I would get into discussions with my teachers about unbelievers not being good people. I think that there are good people from all walks of life, how can God reject them when their lives bear the fruits of the Holy Spirit? Basically, they just labeled me as rebellious for thinking for myself. They were southern baptist, one of the worst groups of fundi’s out there. Worse yet, I’m from eastern Europe and I was raised in fundi pentecostal religion where they made women wear head coverings, no makeup, no shaving legs, etc. Oh God, I was hated there too. I refused to wear the head-covering after a while and wore makeup. Women were overworked by husbands and had no rights, they were just slaves. The churches would teach that a raped woman should marry her rapist if he would have her. Now in the last 15 years or so those churches have become more liberal after they saw that their youth was leaving to the American churches because they were too strict. So that is a good thing. So during school days I had American southern baptist fundamentalism shoved down my throat, and on Sundays I had eastern European Pentecostal fundamentalism shoved down my throat. It was horrible. Now I can’t find a church of any flavor that does not teach male headship and crazy female submission for marriage. It’s getting really crazy out there! I’m hoping this headship stuff dies down soon. I’m not married and am leery of marrying someone from the church because of this headship stuff. I get asked out by Christian men, but then it turns into a heated debate after a few dates over this headship stuff. I’m not sure what to do about it.
“I learned a lot about ACE curriculum from my blogger friend, Jonny Scaramanga. He is an expert in it to the point of it becoming its doctoral dissertation. Anyone interested should read his past articles on ACE at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/leavingfundamentalism/”
I’m going to check out his website, thank you! Also, ACE is really racist. And the teachers at my school would make fun of my accent. The cartoons in the paces that were supposed to teach us morality were so disgusting! Complete brainwashing for kids and everything read like it was out of the 1950’s.
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Ancadudar, I think Christian fundamentalism is extreme in many ways but your group seems to have been even more extreme. I am glad you resisted and questioned it. Fundamentalist legalism was the first issue that I questioned and worked through.
I like your response to them about their idea of evil in children. “They also kept quoting the old testament and saying that evil and deceit was in the heart of a child. They used that to support beating little babies and toddlers. That was the thing I challenged the most, and they hated me for it because I would show them the verses where Jesus said that little children are pure and we should be innocent like them.”
My next two posts take up the disturbing issue among many fundamentalists of hitting babies, toddlers, and older children based on their mistaken use of the ‘rod’ in the book of Proverbs.
I am very glad if this blog has been helpful to you.
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Tim, it is amazing that one small phrase ‘spare the rod and spoil the child’ has been given so much credence. Since it appears in the Bible, which God has allowed mankind to think was His Word for so long, it reminds me of a phrase from a song by the Moody Blues that refers to the “Wall of Love”, which I take to show a means of separation. Maybe the stone upon which we stumble, or perhaps fall? Put more briefly, adopting or rejecting that initial small phrase indicates who loves and who does not.
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Chas, I agree. I think the misguided belief that the proverbs are God’s eternal word is the source for this violence to children.
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Correction to my above comment; having checked the song again (‘Question’), the words actually say ‘war of love’, but I have always heard it as ‘wall of love’, maybe because war and love just don’t go together!
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Ancadudar, one suspects that this effect of the later epistles is actually a manifestation of the churches’ imposing their interpretation, aimed at controlling their congregations, rather than setting them free, which was the basic message of the Gospels.
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Chas,
“Ancadudar, one suspects that this effect of the later epistles is actually a manifestation of the churches’ imposing their interpretation, aimed at controlling their congregations, rather than setting them free, which was the basic message of the Gospels.”
Yes, yes, that is exactly what I believe it was! I came to a sickening realization as I was studying Ephesians and it’s roots for the past seven months. So the epistle is claiming false authorship to gain Paul’s authority. It also has language that only developed in the early second century, the same way the word “twitter” or “texting” did not exist a few decades ago. So the sickening realization for me was the fact that the whole epistle reinforces the Gentile and Jewish reconciliation, and the abolishment of the Gentiles needing to keep any purity of Kosher laws in order to be part of the “New Isreal”, those hardships and barriers are broken down for Gentiles, yet there is a reinforcement of slavery and subjection of women! Conveniently, this stands to benefit one group of people only, that group being middle and upper-class free males, men! So much for there being neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, and neither male and female. Everything has been made easy and convenient for free males as they don’t have to keep the Jewish laws, yet they get to keep their slaves and have blind obedience from their wives! Then when pressing further, one finds that 1 Peter, Colossians, and 1 Timothy are also claiming false authorship and all of them share the same word development that simply did not exist at the time of Paul or Peter. Amazingly, those are the only epistles that have a hierarchy household code.
Not to beat a dead horse as I’ve said this a few times before on the blog, but has anyone ever wondered what the Roman Empire found so appealing about adopting Christianity as the official state religion? Selling someone the promise of power over women and slaves sells religion! This is exactly the tactic that Muslims used to sell Islam to the Turks before Turkey became Islamic. They promised them a horde of obedient slaves and power over women. The part about every authority being from God as found in Romans is also known to be an interpolation by scholars as it breaks a sentence that continues logically without the government and authority part.
Ignatius one of the early Church Fathers is quoted as saying –
CHAPTER IV.–EXHORTATIONS.
Do not despise either male or female slaves, yet neither let them be puffed up with conceit, but rather let them submit themselves the more, for the glory of God, that they my obtain from God a better liberty. Let them not long to be set free [from slavery] at the public expense, that they be not found slaves to their own desires.
“Let them not long to be set free at public expense!”
So this Church Father would keep slaves in bondage at the slave’s expense, but not at the public’s. They knew exactly what they were doing in that they were exploiting these people/slaves for economic gain.
And here below we have reverse psychology and feeling and thought police –
“that they be not found slaves to their own desires.”
So let me get this straight, a slave that longs to be set free is a slave to his own desires, but the person, especially another believer, that owns and uses the slave for their own financial gain at the cost of the salve having a real life, that person is not a slave to greed, or selfishness, or exploitation of another? The logic of these people is mindblowing to me! You are right Chas in these epistles put others in bondage instead of setting them free like Jesus said in the Gospels!
Christians treat Jesus words and message like it’s only the confetty and decorative wrapping paper in a gift, the stuff one thinks is cute but rips apart and throw on the floor to get to the gift inside the box, the real gift being the hierarchy and power over others presented in the later epistles.
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You are suggesting that certain epistles like Ephesians and several others attributed to Peter and Paul contain some internal evidence to suggest that they were written by someone else because the writers had a different agenda not completely in sync with the Gospel? Is there some place I could go to check this out for myself?
Thanks.
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Anthony, there is almost unanimous scholarly consensus that some NT books attributed to Paul were not written by him. For example, almost all scholars agree that Ephesians, 1 & 2 Timothy, and Titus are not from Paul. Others add Colossians and/or 2 Thessalonians books to the list. Those books universally accepted as coming from Paul are Romans, Galatians, 1 & 2 Corinthians, 1 Thessalonians, Philippians, and Philemon.
This is not necessarily considered a fraudulent practice, as it was also common outside the NT. In Paul’s case, the books were likely written by Paul’s close followers in the spirit of Paul after his death.
The issue is not so much that they have a different agenda, though they may, but that the issues and references some involve are from a little bit later in the history of the church and that the style and vocabulary are different than Paul’s.
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Anthony Paul says,
“You are suggesting that certain epistles like Ephesians and several others attributed to Peter and Paul contain some internal evidence to suggest that they were written by someone else because the writers had a different agenda not completely in sync with the Gospel? Is there some place I could go to check this out for myself?
Thanks.”
From what I know, it is almost certain that Ephesians, 1 Peter, Colossians, 1 Timothy, Titus 2 Timothy are not authentic Paulin letters. The research and consensus on this go as far back as the 17th century long before modern scholars or feminism existed. What was going on was something called polemics. Here is a definition of polemics below.
A polemic is contentious rhetoric that is intended to support a specific position by aggressive claims and undermining of the opposing position. Polemics are mostly seen in arguments about controversial topics.
There are actually a lot of different resources on this, but what more than likely happened is that after the Apostles were no longer living and the Church grew in size, these extra epistles were forged in the name of Paul for multiple purposes. One major one being to add Paulin authority for the subjection of women to men in both ministry and marriage, and another one to put a stop to the mannerism of Christian slaves as was a popular practice in early Christianity. Another reason for the forgeries was to combat and fight against different sects of Christianity and “heretics” as new ideas were emerging. So polemics was used as a way to pass of one’s ideas as originating from Paul or Peter and having their authority behind them as a way to shut down opponents who held another theological position. Scholars believe that it was more than likely Bishops were forged the documents and then mysteriously “found” them as being lost letters of Pauls. People will argue that writing letters in the name of Apostles were a common practice back then that was excepted, but all of the research from that time shows otherwise. False letters when found were called either lies or bastards, this is what we have recorded in history. The forgery rate was 5 to 1. So for every authentic epistle, five were forged. Most of them were caught and did not make it into the cannon, but the ones mentioned above more than likely had a group of Bishops behind them and therefore got passed off as authentic. Scholars think that the pastorals, 1 Peter, Ephesians, and Colossians come from the same school of thought, the same group of clergy that acted together. 1 Peter is actually versed in later Paulin theology sharing common themes with Ephesians. It was a way of putting both Peter’s and Pauls authority behind the other forgeries. Some of the epistles were forged to bridge the gap between Jewish and Gentile Christians as problems still existed between the two groups long after Paul was dead. We know for sure that seven of the 13 letters attributed to Paul are authentic, and when one takes a close look at the 7 authentic ones and compares them to the later ones, some major theological issues arise. They appear similar at first, but not when studied closely. Predestination is one issue that arose from the nonauthentic letters. 1 Timothy is disastrous. It was not really even known until late second century when Trutilian, a known misogynist, used it to shut down the Churches run by women that had a lineage traceable back to some of Pauls churches.
So I would not say that the intention was explicit to go against the gospels, but rather to go against and shut down the liberty and transformation that gospel was bringing in society and churches as they were living it out in the early days of Christianity. There is quite a lot of proof that the Romans were persecuting the Christians precisely because their social structures were revolutionary in regards to women and slaves, so the forgeries were an attempt to put a stop to those early church practices and to Romanize the Church to the standard of the culture. That and misogyny was a reality at the time. For example, there were two other letters forged in the name of the Apostles. One swearing on the name of Jesus Christ and the Holy Apostles that the letter is true. What it contained and tried to pass off with Apostolic authority, was that women should be denied communion and Eucharist. The other letter said that women should not be allowed to stand when praying, that they should sit on the floor while the men stand, the same while a woman prophesied. This was to show a difference between men and women of course. Those two almost made it in the cannon! Now imagine the effects not allowing women communion would have had until this day had they not been caught as forgeries and denied entry into our cannon!
Ok so now that I’ve made these big claims, here is a book I recommend you start with,
“Forgery And Counterforgery, The Use Of Literary Deceit In Early Christian Polemics”
by Bart D. Ehrman.
If you would also like resources to materials from conservative evangelical scholars, I can provide those as well. The difference is that despite all of the evidence pointing to intentional deceit, conservative scholars still claim that forgery was an innocent practice.
I recommend Bart Ehrman first because his work is one of the best so far, but there are many other sources going back to 17th century.
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Ancadudar, ‘Let them not long to be set free at public expense!’ It is of interest that Britain set free its slaves in the 19th cent. by doing just that. Although arguments were made that to compensate the slave owners would be to say that they owned their slaves legitimately, the slave owners were compensated generously from the public purse. (Fortunately many of them lost their ill-gotten fortunes by investing in ill-considered railways that were never completed.
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Chas,
“Ancadudar, ‘Let them not long to be set free at public expense!’ It is of interest that Britain set free its slaves in the 19th cent. by doing just that. Although arguments were made that to compensate the slave owners would be to say that they owned their slaves legitimately, the slave owners were compensated generously from the public purse. (Fortunately many of them lost their ill-gotten fortunes by investing in ill-considered railways that were never completed.”
That’s really interesting Chas, thanks for sharing that, I did not know. Sadly, people were so hypocritical throughout history. The Church Father that I quoted was the second writing of any Bishop known after the Apostles died. So besides Polycarp, Ignatius was the second recorded writing we have putting it very early in date. Sadly we can see the twisted thinking that existed so early on. When one reads the early Christian writings of the Church Father’s, there is a loud witness between the pages if one looks for them.
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Ancadudar, this question of slavery crops up outside the immediate Christian community in early times. The Stoics, who were influential in the Greek and Roman societies during the years from about 300 BC to 300 AD, held that slaves should be treated with respect, although they did not actually suggest that slavery should be abolished. Seneca is quoted as saying “Remember that he whom you call your slave is smiled on by the same skies, and breathes, lives and dies on equal terms with yourself.”
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Here is what I suggested. I hope it goes through.
“I learned a lot about ACE curriculum from my blogger friend, Jonny Scaramanga. He is an expert in it to the point of it becoming its doctoral dissertation. Anyone interested should read his past articles on ACE at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/leavingfundamentalism/”
Let me know if it does not work and perhaps I can email it to you.
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It worked. Sorry, I think I got it mixed up because the link for Jonny’s blog came through in your first reply. This is what showed up in my email below and I did not see a link for it, but I’m thinking now that it might be from another post.
“You might want to go see what they’re up to! Perhaps you will like their blog as much as they liked your comment!”
I can’t delete any comments of mine from my end. If you want to delete my last post about not receiving the link and this comment as well, then please do. Thank you!
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“Anthony, there is almost unanimous scholarly consensus that some NT books attributed to Paul were not written by him.”
Tim and ancadudar…
Thank you both for your views on this subject; you both seem to have a rather firm grasp of a part of church history that I have to confess I have never really looked into myself. Please understand, I am not disputing what you’re both saying; it’s just that it isn’t something I ever really gave much thought to before now. Not much would surprise me about how the canon itself came to be written and gathered into a “unified whole” — bearing in mind that there doesn’t even appear to be a unity here as we find the Roman Catholics have the deuterocanonical books (apocrypha) and the Eastern Orthodox have their various other books not included in the protestant version of the Bible as well. I would just like to look into this a bit further because I find it somewhat unsettling in light of the fact that for most of my life I believed (past tense) that the Bible was both inerrant and absolute.
ancadudar, I will look into reading Bart Ehrman as you suggest. It isn’t that I’m looking for new and exciting things to read (I have a full list already) but what I have read about church history over the last 5 years or so has taught me that some of the things which the church passed on as “christian tradition” over the centuries didn’t always jive with some of the ideas espoused by some of the early church fathers… the early idea of universal salvation which seems to have gotten lost in the doctrines of hell somehow, to name just one.
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Anthony Paul,
“ancadudar, I will look into reading Bart Ehrman as you suggest. It isn’t that I’m looking for new and exciting things to read (I have a full list already) but what I have read about church history over the last 5 years or so has taught me that some of the things which the church passed on as “christian tradition” over the centuries didn’t always jive with some of the ideas espoused by some of the early church fathers… the early idea of universal salvation which seems to have gotten lost in the doctrines of hell somehow, to name just one.”
Oh, the doctrines of hell! LOL, do you know that the Apocalypse of Peter almost made it into the cannon in place of Revelations? There was a heated debate over it for more than 100 years! Here is what it says: Women who braid their hair and wear pearls to seduce men get hung up by their hair in hell, and the men who are seduced by them get hung upside down by their penis! I’m serious here, that almost made it in place of revelations!
Couple that with the fact the nonauthentic Paulin letter of 1 Timothy and false 1 Peter both mention that a woman should not wear breaded hair and pearls or gold. Both epistles were later developments from early 2nd century around the same time the Apocalypse of Peter is believed to have been written. So it’s not hard to begin to see how these things intertwine. The doctrines of hell we also embellished as a way to threaten other Christian sects that did not hold to mainline orthodoxy, such as gnostics, ebonites, Arians, etc.
I would like to purchase Bart Ehrman’s book for both you and jesuswithoutbaggage if you both would like? I can send an Amazon digital gift card for the both of you to purchase it. It is such an eye-opener to understand how things developed and intertwined. This is also a reason why I personally do not believe that the nonauthentic Paulin letters share Pauls original views. The authors may have thought they are close followers of Pauls ideas, but some major things really clash with the original Paul, and I would say that the authors even went so far as to correct certain teachings of Paul’s that they did not like.
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Thanks for the review of Ehrman’s book. I have read one other book of his, and it was very good. Thanks also for the book offer, but my reading list is quite long right now; however, I have put it on the list for a later date and will purchase it before then.
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jesuswithoutbaggage,
Is it alright with you if I send you a digital gift card if you would like to purchase it? No worries about reading it anytime soon, I would just like to gift you and Anthony with it if you like. It’s a long read indeed, 600 pages.
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Sure, Ancadudar, you can do that. You are so kind! My email is tchastain@cfl.rr.com.
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You seem to have done quite a lot of reading on this subject and I understand how that goes when we find something that really touches us deeply. You are most kind to offer to buy Ehrman’s book but, like Tim, I have quite a list I am working on right now. I will definitely put it on my list for a later reading as I am currently caught up on studying some of the mystics and frankly I have more than I can handle right now. I only hope we can pick up this thread again at some point in the future when I will be better prepared to offer something to the discussion.
Before closing this out I would like to offer a quick comment on something you said in an earlier post:
” I wondered if what has been happening to me these last few years had to do with another level of consciousness…”
I really do believe you are getting into the heart of self-discovery because you are not just thinking now… you are also thinking about your thoughts which is very important as you move downward (upward?) as you discover the true nature of your very soul and the loving God who takes up residence within. (Jesus: “Abide [live] in me and I in you” John 15:4)
A man I like to read a lot lately, Bernardo Kastrup, says that there is no reality outside of consciousness… all of reality resides in consciousness in fact… in essence we are all part of the Great Mind of God — what he calls “Mind-At-Large”. Everything we experience through the senses in our life — the trees, the ocean, the mountains — everything… is a symbolic expression of God’s creative mind. Everything we experience in our lives is basically an inside/outside view of the Spirit of God. What is it about sunsets that make people feel so emotionally “present” and in the moment? Why do the haunting sounds of a particular piece of music make us cry in wonder even at our own emotion? It’s all God at work… Bernardo says He (God, not Bernardo) is like the vibration of a guitar string, or more like an entire orchestra making universal music to which we are all invited to dance… but first we must listen for the music… I do believe that you are starting to hear it too.
God Bless!!
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“…some of the things which the church passed on as “christian tradition” over the centuries didn’t always jive with some of the ideas espoused by some of the early church fathers… the early idea of universal salvation which seems to have gotten lost in the doctrines of hell somehow, to name just one.”
Anthony Paul, thank you for raising this point as I have also learned that this “to name just one” was recognized as an important teaching of the first centuries of Christianity.
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