The main idea that all of us in the recovering alumni community want people to understand is that some very damaging things have happened at the Honor Academy, and continue to happen. You can read the ‘true stories‘ section of this website or read a quick synopsis of some of the major issues here.
The bottom line is that the Honor Academy fosters an unsafe environment physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. The excessively authoritarian structure of the Honor Academy and the lack of outside accountability are huge red flags that all is not well at the Garden Valley campus. Any organization that demands that you never “portray them in a negative light” is raising another enormous red flag. In fact, all Honor Academy interns are REQUIRED to pledge:
I will never speak ill of an Honor Academy participant or staff member — past, present, or future.
It is this oath of silence that has kept so many from speaking up until now. Afraid of God’s wrath for ever speaking honestly about the truth of our Teen Mania experience – and feeling the wrath of our Teen Mania loving friends and leaders when we do – many of us have been intimidated into silence for far too long.
Legalism, condemnation, the use of shame and fear to control interns, unsafe working conditions, routine neglect of health and safety issues – all of these and more are major cause for concern for anyone who would ever consider sending their child to the Honor Academy.
And for the body of Christ at large, this kind of behavior is a black eye on American Christianity. If we tolerate it and excuse it, we are enabling it.
27 comments:
Few people think they are in a cult why they are in it. Few Christians would consider a Christian ministry to be capable of reaching that status–like we’d all know it was turning into a cult long before that. Yet I think our understanding of what cults are in reality is limited, and obviously, it’s not until you’re out of one that you can begin to see it that way.
I never thought I would think the internship was a cult. over a decade later though, I have changed my mind. I haven’t lost my faith in Christ, and I’m not speaking in bitterness or anger. But I have to admit that I am still working through issues as a result of the emotional, verbal and spiritual trauma. It is sometimes the feeling of a waking nightmare. I came to TM to grow and mature as a Christian, and to have the support and friendship I lacked at home. Instead I left convinced of my unworthiness, clinically depressed, and pushed to the limits. This was supposed to be a safe place, and my personal attempts to talk to HA leadership about the needs of interns with these pains has been ignored or belittled.
the more I read about what cults are, the more I see my experience in 2000-01 was just that.
I think this is a great reminder, RA. I know that for me, cult still sounds weird when I say it. But I still stand behind the community here and support what is being done. I think this documentary is going to be a great thing because it should help people understand why others may have come to the conclusion that Teen Mania is a cult, even if the viewer doesn’t leave with the same opinion. Would you agree that that is an okay result?
Additionally, this documentary should pose a fascinating question for all viewers, whether they are Teen Mania supporters, TM critics, or outsiders: how does a reputable Christian organization go from having a relatively flawless reputation to being accused of abuse and cultish behavior? That should give anyone pause.
I hope that people can realize that it is simply not possible that this is all just “an attack from the devil.” This isn’t just spiritual warfare, which I think is what a lot of people would prefer to see it as. This whole RA movement only exists because of the way that Teen Mania has repeatedly mistreated its participants and mishandled relevant criticism. An organization doesn’t move from reputable to being covered on MSNBC without making more than just a few errors in judgement. There has to be something systematic in place.
But for me, the fascinating thing is how this has all happened. Even if a viewer fully supports Teen Mania and thinks you are just a lying liar pants, that viewer can still learn something from this whole situation, because the are important questions that need to be asked.
I look forward to the coverage, RA, and I look forward to the conversations that will follow it.
All that said, I should of course mention the fact that I have no grounds to speak on this matter, as just last night a Teen Mania supporter called me an idiot with moron friends and no life. So what do I know? 🙂
LizBR said:
“I think this documentary is going to be a great thing because it should help people understand why others may have come to the conclusion that Teen Mania is a cult, even if the viewer doesn’t leave with the same opinion. Would you agree that that is an okay result?”
I would absolutely agree with that.
Again, I haven’t seen the documentary so I don’t even know how much the word “cult” will be used – though I anticipate it will clearly show the harm done from the abuses at the HA.
As a person who has participated in the Honor Academy, and given tons of time and money to mission trips with GE, it used to be hard think that I was possibly a member of a “cult.” That word lingered in my head and made me feel worthless for giving such precious time of my life to a ministry like that. For over a year now, I haven’t thought about labeling TM as a “cult” for my own benefit. I do this so I won’t get stuck on that word. This way I can fairly listen to the concerns of so many fellow alumni of TM by placing my own awkward feelings aside.
Once we allow our offense to take the better hand we make ourselves blind to some very important issues that have been brought to light. Let the truth shine on TM. It will prove whether it is a “cult” or not. I think we owe our fellow former interns and friends the right to be heard without our condemnation or being scared/offended by the word “cult.”
With saying all of that, I think this documentary will be well worth the time spent on making it.
Great reminder. I don’t want to get caught up in symantics and labels. I think the word is a hang up for me because I’ve always thought of a cult as a group/or leaders with intent to harm, manipulate, or otherwise exploit. The title cult is kind of moot I suppose. Whatever you want to call much of what’s going on at TM, it’s still wrong.
I think that people, in general, associate “cult” with the big name, obvious cults — FLDS, Heaven’s Gate, Jonestown, Waco, etc. You know, where people look and act different enough that the average person is weirded out, and undeniably ugly things are happening (like mass suicides and underage “marriages”).
Unfortunately, something like Honor Academy or similar places/movements/teachings don’t *look like* what people know as “cults”; they just look like groups of teenagers and college-aged kids at a school or camp or something. Nobody bats an eye.
Humanity needs to look past the surface with this stuff, and realize that manic “joy” and 24/7 church-happy and perfectly obedient children/teens/young adults are not healthy.
Sadly, the neglect and abusive teachings at the HA are just as insidious as any other major cult, regardless of leadership intentions. I’m praying that this documentary will raise awareness and spur some type of change, but I’m also sad it had to come to this. As a alumnus who still follows Christ, it pains me to see that we’ve got something to provide more fodder to bashing believers. But if any of us want to lead fulfilling lives, we need to have honesty and these types of issues are part of the ongoing conversation… or at least, they need to be.
It’s probably good to bear in mind that, contrary to what some commenters have said, the reason for the “cult” label is not just that some people had bad experiences at HA (though that itself is a bad sign). There are recognized, reasonable standards that define the term “cult,” and as for instance this series of articles shows, Teen Mania can be seen to objectively meet many of these criteria in various ways. If it looks like a duck….
I agree, of course, that the point is not so much to label TM with the cult-word as it is to raise awareness of the fact that this so-called ministry has the unfortunate propensity to be hurtful, damaging, destructive, and predatory, and that these traits are directly at odds with the Christian faith they profess. Whether we call it a “cult” or a “high-control spiritually abusive pseudo-Christian elitist organization” is not ultimately the issue– either one is a sign of a wolf in the fold.
I do acknowledge that by the definition listed here, and nearly every other definition I have found, TM falls into the parameters of a cult. It’s just a hard pill to swallow when an organization has been so built up in my mind for so many years. I think I’m actually still a bit fearful to slam the ministry and it’s leadership.
Which I know, is only further evidence that it is probably, most likely definately, for sure a cult…it’s my own personal paradigm. I’ll get there, maybe.
When I took a Sociology class even while I was still at TMM the social aspect of a cult was discussed. Things like formal entry into the group, distinct culture among the group that is separate from the outside world, pressure among the group to conform to the groups ideas, punishment system set up to enforce the groups ideals and rules, ceremonies and rituals, distinct isolated location for the habitation of members, rules that suppress speech critical of the organization and its leaders and fellow participants, a formal process to expel members and lets not forget if large amounts of money are involved.
It’s a cult people. That doesn’t mean you didn’t have good things there – but it is. Any sociologist would look at the social structure and the “internship” and how that very program runs the entire community. Yes people can go there for one year and have a great job, great core, have fun, do the running, run around in the middle of the night with Trailer Club and having a gay ole time – it is possible. Yet others aren’t so lucky – especially those drawn into the “world” and stay more and more years.
TMM would maybe get anti-cult points if interns left after one year – but you are enticed to stay and help the machine go even further. The stakes get higher and eventually when you leave – like I did after three years – the departure is much much worse when leaving that sub-culture, ie cult. I know someone who has been there for ELEVEN years – and this person was an intern with me.
jan2001 – we were in class together – say hi sometime. Let’s chat – would love to give you a hug too.
@ Umbrellas And Milk, We’ll always have Alf. Do you have a story on the site? I’d love to hear what happened during your other two years.
On a side note, I think this discussion would make a great parody of “The C Word.”
@ Jan2001 – email me. UmbrellasAndMilk at gmail
someone else said this…i think it was dalen, but the word “cult” is pretty incendiary…it’s hard to not get hung up on it when it’s being used so frequently.
i would definitely agree that tm exhibits many characteristics of a cult, but i don’t think i could agree that it is a full-blown cult. esp on this site where the focus is on the people who’ve been hurt and marginalized, it is easy to forget the good quality people who are at TM and doing their best (they may or may not be misguided…i had some leaders who were hurtful and some who were pretty great) and the people who DO have positive experiences. they may even be the majority. sure as heck doesn’t mean that the troubling patterns and significant numbers of people who’ve experienced trauma don’t count bc they’re “the minority”…i guess my point is just that it’s probably good to every now and then step back and make sure that we’re not forgetting the forest for the trees…and vv.
(i say this as someone who pretty firmly believes the internship should not exist and that TM causes more damage than good in an inappropriately high percentage of cases.)
i love the way you delete comments if they are not in agreement with your thoughts….
I agree with RA – don’t get caught up in the cult label. The word “cult” is a construct and is generally used in a pejorative way. Cults exist on a continuum – on the extreme side, you have Jim Jones, David Koresh, and Charles Manson and on the other end of the continuum, you have groups, such as the one my husband, Doug, and I were in, Trinity Foundation. After we left the cult, we read, Toxic Faith, and we could not decide whether Trinity Foundation met nine of the ten criteria or all ten. We continued reading about spiritual abuse and then about cultic abuse. The more we read the more we realized that we had been in a classic thought-reform environment. It took a period of time before I was able to say the “c” word, but when I finally did, it was freeing.
So, I also agree with Eric. To put a name on the experience helped me to see that I was not flawed or stupid or mentally ill, but rather, I had been recruited, sold a bill of lies, and lived under a charismatic, authoritarian cult leader who had convinced me that my mind was the “antichrist” and therefore, I could not make decisions for myself. My husband and I dated for seven years because our leader and Bible study teachers felt that “we were not ready.” We were not teenagers, by the way. We finally “eloped” and when we came back to the group were chastised and demoted. Long story, which is why I wrote a book, I Can’t Hear God Anymore: Life in a Dallas Cult.
I started writing my book two or-three years after we left Trinity Foundation and spent two years researching, interviewing, and writing it. I located one of the first members of this group who had left many years earlier. I emailed him and asked, “Are you the “Jerry Brown” who was involved with Ole Anthony and the Trinity Foundation in the 70s? I am researching this group and I think it might be a cult.” “Jerry” wrote back and said, “It was/is a cult.” My husband and I flew out to California to interview him and his wife. I also interviewed about two dozen other former members of Trinity Foundation and their stories were all similar. I listened to hundreds of hours of my cult leader’s Bible study tapes and I read every article and every book I could find on cults.
Before I became involved with Trinity Foundation, I had earned a Master’s degree from a conservative theological seminary. The course on cults that I took at this seminary focused heavily on the doctrinal aspect, but what I realize today, is that cults are defined by their behavior and practices. Pseudo-Christians cults usually have a doctrinal statement that reads like mainstream Christianity, but their behavior does not live up to what they say they believe. Didn’t our Lord say, “By their fruits ye shall know them”? (Matt 7:16a, American Standard Version). Jesus does not even mention doctrinal statements. Apparently, He was more concerned about the sheep.
A former intern commented on this blog: http://liturgical.wordpress.com and Colin’s response to her comment is below. I thought he made some excellent points.
However, you raise some matters that require brief rebuttals:
1. You’re equivocating on the use of “hurt.” The context here is not whether someone has been hurt by family and friends. The questions raised by the four ladies in the documentary have more to do with a discrepency between biblical claims about God and allegedly ungodly behavior of people in spiritual authority.
2. As a former newspaper section editor, I was curious about whether Wendy Duncan and her husband did due digilence on the accusations against Teen Mania. She assured me she had interviewed people in leadership with the organization and people like you, who have a more positive view of the experience.
3. How I would feel if my church or pastor was dragged through the mud has nothing to do with the truthfulness or lack of truthfulness behind the accusations that might be made against them. How I would feel might be terrible, but I’ve felt terrible before in my life when confronted with certains truths and facts. Sometimes, the truth hurts. That’s life.
Colin also made this response
Thanks for your comments. I will watch the MSNBC program this Sunday night with an open mind.
I disagree with one of your points. I scrolled through the Recovering Alumni site from the most recent post to February 2010, and I counted 47 different individuals, aside from the site’s founder, who claim to have been hurt by Teen Mania. Now, by way of analogy, if a pastor at a local church so much as winks at just one female member of the congregation, the congregation will most likely fire him. We can argue over the merits of individual Teen Mania stories, sure, but in many cases, just one violation is too much and should be considered unacceptable. To dismiss the Recovering Alumni site, you must be prepared to say that all 47 individuals (perhaps more prior to Feb. 2010) were not actually damaged by Teen Mania. I think that is a difficult claim to make. How many testimonies are enough?
I can also say, from personal experience with abusive religious groups, that the abusers are always dismissive of the victims. That’s how abusers work.
Anonymous wrote: “i love the way you delete comments if they are not in agreement with your thoughts….”
I dare you to go to any of the official Honor Academy blogs and leave a link to any article on this site, adding the simple comment, “This post on recoveringalumni.com has a valid point.” I’ve got 50 cents that says your comment won’t be approved, and if you’re extra-lucky you might even get a passive-aggressive email from Heath Stoner.
RA, on the other hand, allows all kinds of dissenting views, just not trolls or shopworn old objections that violate the clearly-written comment policy. Of the two groups HA and RA, one forces you to take a vow that you will never speak ill of them.
Wendy: Thanks for your thoughts, as always.
Certainly “cult” is a loaded term, but when we’re dealing with a group like TM that (1) professes Christianity but does not even include salvation by grace through faith in Christ in its doctrinal statement, and (2) has a verifiable track record of shockingly spiritually abusive practices over more than a decade, it’s one that’s warranted, if not always diplomatic.
The latest TM line, judging from Pro-TM comments I’ve seen various around the web, is that a handful of interns had bad experiences at HA and thus somehow convinced you that HA was a cult. Nonsense, of course, but we should be sure to stay clearly on point with it.
yes basically the comment policy says if you dont agree with us you may not voice your opinion!! n Eric that is not true the pledge they make is to never speak things that arent true about HA. you all have twisted their words to suit your claims! and i will once again speak the truth. TM/HA is NOT a cult!!
Anon– If you had actually taken the trouble to read RA’s comment policy, you’d see it expressly says that disagreements are allowed. “Stay on topic and deal with the specific ideas presented and I’ll be happy to approve them, even if I disagree.”
Also, you just spoke something that isn’t true about HA. I happen have the HA pledge in front of me as we speak, 2011 version, and the exact wording is:
“4. I will never speak ill of any Honor Academy participant or staff member – past, present, or future.”
“5. I will never portray or allow Teen Mania to be portrayed in a negative light.”
The word is not “true,” it’s “negative.” In other words, you’re twisting words to suit your claims, while accusing us of doing that.
Since I never took that pledge, I feel quite comfortable saying: That pledge is the kind of thing that cults make you do. That’s because TM/HA is a cult. If it wasn’t a cult, why would you have to misrepresent it to make it look good?
If you’re not comfortable with that fact, nobody’s making you stay here (again, unlike HA). Don’t be a troll.
i did not twist anything that is what was told to me by people who go there. i dont go there. and i have made post on topic n they have been deleted for no good reason. oh n i guess it is respectable to call someone a troll??? n HA does not make anyone stay there that is NOT true. they r free to leave anytime they want!
@anonymous 1:34
When they say “dont be a troll”, I think they mean dont be an internet troll. This is like someone saying, dont be a spammer–no one is calling you a dishonorable name. It’s a legitimate internet term about the behavior of the commentator.
About the freedom to leave. I found they made it very hard. When I wanted to visit my family during a crisis, while TM was in my city for ATF, they made it very hard for me. They refused to let me go with the bus of volunteers or be a volunteer, even though they allowed this for one of my coremates who was also from MN. They would not assist me in getting to the airport or even return to campus until I had been stuck at DFW several hours and my family called other TX ministries, who in turn called TM and told them there was a stranded intern. Only then did they inform me I could ge t back to campus with a getting missions trip group.
When I experienced my first depressive episode, I was a wreck where all I could do was sleep our cry. I wanted to leave the HA because I was in so much pain. Ch2 I was afraid to disappoint God, my mom, and I thought that if I left I would never finish anything in my life. I for these ideas from the teachings of Dave, Ron, and the coercion of Valencia. No one was concerned there about my mental health. And my mom wanted me to leave–she felt TM was a mistake and I defended them to her and quit telling her what happened.
The teachings at TM are really very manipulative and take full avaible of any doily you may be experiencing. They will say things that sound good and back it up with scripture in such a way that you think it must be God’s voice. After all, I was there to hear God’s voice.
(sent from my phone)
Sorry my auto correct was getting in the way. I meant to say that they make full use of any guilt interns have. Like if I had guilt about wanting to leave (because they taught it was dishonorable on so many different levels, they would say, see the Holy Spirit is convicting you to stay and these feelings are from the devil. But when we had a prayer retreat and did not receive the gift ro speak in tongues, I was then told the Holy Spirit could not reside in me because of my rebellion (it was never explained how I was rebelling beyond being lonely and afraid to speak up/shy with people.) At that point I was told I could not trust my judgement. Ultimately, when it suited their teachings, my negative feelings were from God, yet “God couldn’t speak to me” when my feelings didn’t suit the HA lessons. And these were people I trusted to teach me how to hear God.
There were two interns my year who were Quakers. They were very conflicted about signing the commitment pledge to TM because it is against their religious views to sign a document like that. After repeated conversations with leadership where they tried to explain that they could not sign the document, leadership basically told them their religious views were wrong and they would be dismissed from the internship if they didn’t sign. They both signed.