Over the past few years, the Honor Academy has put in place several new avenues for interns to give feedback to the staff. Everything from the food they eat, to how much sleep they are getting to workplace issues are supposedly covered in these new surveys.
However, I believe these surveys do not really uncover what is going on in the lives of the interns because the HA staff is operating from faulty assumptions.
First, the power differential between interns and staff at the HA is staggering. The average intern is basically a nothing. They have little power even over their own lives. When the abuser has more power and authority than the abused, it is not realistic to to expect the abused person to speak up.
Second, the majority of interns are coming straight from high school. They have never lived outside of their parent’s house. They have no idea what “normal” is in real world relationships like boss/employee or discipler/disciplee. So when they are forced to work back-breaking amounts of overtime (either by their boss or their workload) they don’t have any frame of reference that says, “This isn’t normal or healthy.” When their Christian leadership shames them into behavioral changes or uses fear tactics to motivate them, they don’t have the life experience and critical thinking skills to say, “Hey, this isn’t discipleship – this is manipulation.” When they are told that pushing themselves physically equals spiritual growth and that “pain is just weakness leaving your body” they don’t have the life experience to say, “Pain is God’s way of telling me something is wrong and I need to stop and fix it, not ignore it.”
The brain isn’t even finished developing until the early 20’s. When parents send their children to the HA, they expect adults to watch out for their child’s physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health. Its a cop-out to abuse the interns and then say, “Hey, they never complained!” Most interns don’t even understand what they are going through. They don’t have the insight or perspective, especially in such a pressure cooker environment where they are afforded no private down time to think and reflect.
Furthermore, interns are told that whenever they go through something hard that its a trial or a test. So they are dis-incented from “complaining” (i.e. speaking out) because to complain about a trial from God is to be a bad Christian. Couple that with the humiliation doled out to anyone who would question authority and you have a recipe for obedient masses that condemn themselves for ever thinking anything is wrong with Teen Mania.
Dear Teen Mania: Just because you can trick interns into taking abuse DOES NOT MEAN IT IS OK FOR YOU TO ABUSE THEM. The fact that, while on campus, interns aren’t “complaining” in vast numbers doesn’t mean anything – you taught them not to! And as for those that do speak out, you humiliate and then ignore them. And we both know that is true.
9 comments:
The videos of some of this year’s August Gauntlet Lessons are online. In those lessons the tell the intern that to complain about trials is to go against what God is doing in their life during this year. Further video lessons tell them to be willing to be “shaped” by doing what the leadership wants them to without questions…. That this is what God wants in their entire lives.
I hav
December 3, 2010 9:09 AM
Melissa said…
This just brought to mind a man (among many)who loved God, and complained to God Himself. (David)Nothing wrong with voicing how you feel. It is a very healthy way to work through frustration and anger. I know my son learned quickly not to voice his opinion while he was at HA. IMHO, this is one of the worst tactics that can be used to “reign in” the unique person God created us to be.
December 3, 2010 10:30 AM
Lisa98 said…
GREAT post! Right on.
December 3, 2010 10:41 AM
Anonymous said…
I don’t want to encourage wickness, but there is a hint of abusive, self indulgent, “earn my grace”, and take me away from the local body of christ @ TM.that being said… it has it’s uses, if you ever find a christian based intership, your gonna find hard leadership imposing a belief that you have to be superman or your not good enough, you say TM’s the problem, I say it’s the church.
Alumni…
December 3, 2010 4:35 PM
Recovering Alumni said…
Anon – I agree that the problems are more far reaching than just TM.
December 3, 2010 9:09 PM
Shelley said…
I remember, at least during my year, one of Dave’s favorite phrases was “Don’t complain about something you’re willing to tolerate.” As you can imagine, this statment was used quite frequently as a way to shut us up. It definitely discouraged voicing your opinion about anything if that opinion wasn’t sunshine and rainbows. As interns, we knew that a lot of things just weren’t going to change. If you tried to speak up and show intolerance toward something, that was frowned upon and you were looked at badly.
December 6, 2010 12:04 PM
Anonymous said…
What I find humorous about this whole deal. Is that when kids are 17 18 19 they think they are adults and know a good amount of life. Now they enter TM. 10 years later they have realized how young, unprepared and naive to an extent they really were. I’m not one to say that TM isn’t responsible for heavy work loads, but I got to ask when you were growing up didn’t your parents ever show you what an honest days work is, what being lazy is, and what being overworked looks like? To overall better prepare you for the real world?
December 28, 2010 3:32 AM
Recovering Alumni said…
Yes, lets blame children and young adults for their upbringing. Great idea.
December 30, 2010 1:51 PM
Anonymous said…
This isn’t about blame rather, accepting responsibility. Had the parents took responsibility and given their kids plenty of honest days work. The kids would understand the difference between the three of an honest day’s work, a lazy day’s work, and being overworked. Had they grown up understanding the three then if they felt they were being overworked to then speak up. And ask questions, like is this really for God’s good or is it overworking and taking advantage of naive for business purposes.
January 1, 2011 10:36 AM