Faith vs. Fanaticism
by Debbie Hooper | 12 April 2024 |
People in my part of the world have been captivated by the criminal proceedings in the United States against Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell, Ruby Franke, and Jodi Hildebrandt. Three of these four active members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been sentenced to long prison terms for horrific crimes involving children and family members. Chad Daybell, the last to go to trial, is before the court right now.
These cases force us to reckon with spiritual abuse and the need for religious institutions to be vigilant and accountable for radical beliefs that develop in their pews and car parks.
Vallow and Daybell
The day Lori Vallow—mom, beauty queen, and end-times prepper—met Chad Daybell—writer, publisher, and public speaker—the perfect ingredients for religious extremism came together. Both were Mormons, diligently preparing for Christ’s second coming. They believed a fringe, out-of-context teaching about the most righteous Mormons being called out to lead and protect the 144,000 in the mountains in the last days.
Vallow and Daybell believed that God had granted them special powers and authority. Daybell claimed that a near-death experience had given him power to “see beyond the veil” into the spiritual realm. He could intuit who was aligned with God or Satan, and he ranked them from “light” to “dark.” People could migrate from light to dark, but never from dark to light. When completely dark (minus-5 dark) they were zombies, inhabited by an evil spirit.
The “light” might be candidates for their spiritual inner circle, but the “dark” were an obstacle to be removed. Driven by money, sex, and power, and believing temporal laws would soon be abolished anyway, Daybell and Vallow did away with people who got in their way.
By the time they were arrested, Vallow’s previous husband, Charles Vallow (62); her children, Tylee (16) and Joshua (7); and Daybell’s previous wife Tammy (49) were all dead. The discovery of the children’s remains in shallow graves on the Daybell property shocked their community. The bodies showed evidence of torture, making it impossible even to determine the cause of death of Vallow’s 16-year-old daughter.
Both Vallow and Daybell claimed life insurance from their spouses’ deaths, with Daybell accused of insurance fraud and Vallow of grand theft for continuing to claim social security that she had been receiving for her children after their death. The money sustained them in their cultic calling, as well as a Hawaiian beach wedding and honeymoon.
In May 2023, Vallow was given three consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. She will soon face charges for the murder of her husband Charles, and conspiracy to murder in the near-miss shooting of her nephew-in-law. Daybell has been jailed since June 2020, and will likely face a death penalty. (Find a crash course on the case here.)
Franke and Hildebrandt
Popular parenting YouTuber Ruby Franke and her mentor and family counselor Jodi Hildebrandt were sentenced to up to 60 years in prison for torturing the youngest of Franke’s six children. Franke’s detailed journal entries reveal that she and Hildebrandt believed the children were “spawns of Satan,” “devil possessed,” and “gripped by Satanic chaos.”
While living together in Hildebrandt’s home, the women inflicted punishments on the 12-year-old boy and 10-year-old girl that included beatings with a cactus branch, days of isolation, and sensory deprivation in a cupboard, starving them, keeping them in shackles, and forcing them to work in the desert sun without food, water, shoes, or shade. Franke told the children she was punishing them because she loved them, and that God wanted them to obey her with absolute, precise submission.
Footage from a doorbell camera shows Franke’s emaciated son approaching a neighbor’s home and asking to contact the police. “I got these wounds because of me,” he explains when the homeowner comments on the lacerations on his skinny wrists and ankles. Although the boy believed he deserved the punishments, he wanted to get help for his sister, who was still imprisoned inside the Hildebrandt house. Police photos show deep wounds bordered by flaps of dead flesh, bandaged with duct tape. Had the children not escaped, they would have almost certainly died from abuse in their concentration camp-like living conditions.
Approved fanaticism
The teachings of these cultish families tracked the themes of their mother church: demon possession and end-time preparation for Daybell and Vallow, demon possession and child discipline for Franke and Hildebrant.
Let’s be clear: Mormonism does not condone any of these practices—though it’s safe to say that none of this would have occurred had it not been for a springboard provided by their church. The people who perpetrated these crimes were members in good and regular standing. Each attended services in their local congregations, and had duties that required a Temple Recommend from a bishop. Hildebrandt’s family counseling services were listed in church referral directories, and they taught child-rearing principles on YouTube. Chad Daybell and Jodi Hildebrandt conducted their careers in close association with the church, giving them a pool of susceptible Mormons from which to recruit. Daybell was a popular guest speaker at fringe Mormon “prepper” events, and Vallow had a podcast.
Some in the public had raised concerns about the beliefs and practices they detected in these families. But where was their church? Cases such as these demonstrate how religions can unravel at their extreme edges, and fanaticism leads to some horrible consequences.
Adventist fanaticism
Adventism cannot escape responsibility for the development of extremist ideologies, either. We are linked to three of the worst cults in living memory.
The most well-known, the Branch Davidians, led to the deaths of over 80 people during a siege that ended in an inferno. Their leader, Vernon Howell, declared himself a modern Christ and renamed himself David Koresh. He took multiple women and underaged girls as his wives, and amassed an arsenal of illegal weapons.
Most of Koresh’s followers were Seventh-day Adventists, as he himself had been. The Branch Davidians’ teachings were based on Adventist beliefs in modern-day prophets and last-day events.
Wayne Curtis Bent, who called himself Michael Travesser, was an Adventist pastor in Idaho before establishing the Strong City cult in New Mexico around 1987. His extreme beliefs led to accusations of criminal sexual contact with minors. Many feared that this group would commit mass Jonestown-style suicide.
Arguably the cruelest, though least known, is Roch Thériault’s Ant Hill Kids. This Canadian Adventist’s delusions led to him to torture his followers: he made members break their own legs with sledgehammers, sit on lit stoves, shoot each other in the shoulders, and eat dead mice and feces. Wikipedia says:
A follower would sometimes be asked to cut off another follower’s toes with wire cutters to prove loyalty. The abuse extended to the cult’s children, who were sexually abused, held over fires, or nailed to trees while other children threw stones at them. One of Thériault’s wives left a newborn child, Eleazar Lavallée, outside to die in freezing temperatures to keep him away from the abuse.
Like the others, Thériault gave himself a messianic name, took multiple wives, and fathered 26 children. He went to prison for murder.
The Adventist Church did not condone these cults any more than the Mormons approved of the actions of Daybell and Vallow, Hildebrandt and Franke. But is there something about the apocalyptic beliefs and extreme expectations of our respective religions that opens the way for such fanaticism?
To be blunt: when do we stop applauding fervor and start recognizing fanaticism?
We should know by now that delusion and paranoia seep into topics like diet, discipline, and prepping for the time of trouble. There have been cases of Adventist couples rejecting medical care for their children in favor of prayer. One couple starved their toddler because of strict adherence to dietary principles; another was convicted of manslaughter after using herbal remedies on her seven-year-old instead of getting proper medical treatment. Who protects Adventist children in their own homes from parents with extreme religious delusions?
In all of these tragic cases, church leaders are quick to release statements distancing themselves—when, in fact, it is Adventist beliefs that opened the door.
The accountability imperative
It’s unsettling to think that right now, within the Adventist Church, there are likely people who are perpetrating abuse on those too young to protect themselves. There are probably, at this moment, well-meaning believers who, through seeking spiritual and personal growth and greater godliness, find themselves ensnared by leaders who use the Bible and Ellen White to lead them into dark and harmful places.
Whenever faith and fervor slip into paranoia and fanaticism, the church itself has to take some of the responsibility. Because the ingredients, as we who have studied Adventist teachings and the voluminous writings of Ellen White know, are found within our framework of beliefs.
At her sentencing Ruby Franke spoke movingly of her remorse over her actions. She admitted to believing that the world was:
“…filled with cops who control, hospitals who will injure, government agencies that brainwash, church leaders who lie and lust, husbands who refuse to protect, and children who need abuse…. My choice to believe and behave this paranoia culminated into criminal activity for which I stand before you today.”
Recognising the evil to which her thinking had led her, she said, “I’m sorry for twisting God’s Word and twisting His doctrines.”
By contrast, Lori Vallow carried her delusions all the way to the end of her 2023 trial. At sentencing, she delivered a speech denying the court and public’s right to judge her. God knew, she said, that she had done no wrong.
It’s possible for abuse to occur within any four walls of a church where fringe cultures are tolerated or ignored. It’s a lesson for Adventists: pay attention, prioritize the safety of children and vulnerable people, be accountable for what is taught and endorsed by Adventists on official and Church-associated platforms, clarify doctrinal ambiguity before it paves the way for distortion and manipulation, and reject extremism in all its forms.
Shouldn’t it be the Church’s first responsibility to save those who come to them seeking salvation?
Debbie Hooper writes from Palm Beach, Queensland, Australia.
