Video About Growing Up Under Gothard’s and Pearl’s Teachings

Kristiana Minor is interviewed by Chris Shelton in the long but very worthwhile video, Growing Up Quiverfull – The Duggar’s Destructive Cult.

Because this video is over an hour long, I will provide an outline with times so you can skip to the parts you wish to watch. You can also read Kristiana’s story by clicking on her name above.

0:00 – Introduction, in which Chris Shelton introduces the concept of this dangerous cult, which he compares to Scientology. He tells us a little about Bill Gothard and the Duggars.

4:34 – Kristiana Minor is introduced and she explains what the quiverfull movement is.

7:16 – Kristiana recounts how her family slowly got involved with the quiverfull movement and patriarchy through Gothard’s teachings after they started homeschooling. She tells about ATI conferences and mentions that the Duggars were involved.

13:11 – She starts talking about the controlling environment of being raised quiverfull and how children are protected from outside influences.

23:17 – She is asked to discuss the abusive environment, which brings her to introduce the Pearls. Disclaimer, this footage of the Pearls’ teaching is very disturbing. I discussed this video in detail here.

25:57 – She explains blanket training and a quote from the Duggars is shown on crawl by which talks about how Michelle used blanket training. (I discussed whether or not the Duggars were quiverfull and if they promoted the Pearl’s teachings here.) Kristiana explains how blanket training at a young age sets the stage for all mental manipulation which follows.

28:33 – She wraps up the abuse section explaining that this control does not end when they grow up because Jesus was 33 and continued to follow His father’s commands. This is apparently what she was told growing up. It goes without saying that this reasoning does not hold water, since Jesus was obeying God’s commandments and He is equal with God and cannot sin. So, of course He followed God’s commandments. She then explains that they know no other discipline than to continue hitting until they break the child’s will and prove that they are bigger and stronger than the child. She seems to recall that quote coming from Michael Pearl. (She is close, the correct quote is, “…prove that you are bigger, tougher, more patiently enduring and are unmoved by his wailing.”)

28:55 – An excerpt from a redacted police report regarding a Duggar child is shown on the screen to prove that the Duggar children are spanked with a rod. After this, Kristiana discusses how the physical abuse ties in with forcing a belief system upon them.  She responds that it makes you fear to question or rebel.

30:21 – They discuss her position in the family, and how as the oldest she was the second mother to all the children. This leads discussing to her relationship with her siblings.

33:38 – She is asked if there are any other points she would like to make about her upbringing and the influence of Quiverfull/Gothard/Pearl on her life.

34:49 – She is asked how often they attended the Gothard conferences.

36:39 – She tells us all about how she managed to escape. This is quite a long story which starts with her parents being believers in education, even for women.  She tells about how she gets married and how she got involved with RecoveringGrace.org.

https://youtu.be/9WQy4LGUQRg

1 Comment

  1. Lisa on September 3, 2018 at 7:37 pm

    Thank you for giving these details.

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