Broken Arrows: Abuse is not love
The Broken Arrow series names and identifies the layers of harm in CFC’s approach to child training. Authoritarian child training sets children up for abuse by teaching them erroneous beliefs about themselves and their place in the world.
Rick Sinclair recently asserted to the media, “Child abuse of any kind is a heinous sin. We have never covered up any abuse. God hates abuse, and so do we at CFC.”
While the claim that CFC hates abuse is objectively false, it is possible that Rick actually believes his own statement. Why? Because CFC identifies abuse as love. CFC explicitly teaches that physical violence, emotional neglect, and isolation are necessary tools if loving parents want to make their children become faithful disciples of Jesus.
This paragraph from a child training series demonstrates the deceptive promise of this approach: follow our abusive practices, and your children will grow up to be faithful disciples of Jesus. Since CFC also conflates their parenting principles with God’s requirements, a misuse of spiritual authority that tells church members the CFC way is not just a recommended approach for Christian parents but the only God-endorsed way to parent.
“As parents, we must not only settle for outward compliance but work toward seeing our children have a personal awareness of their own responsibility toward God. They must become knowledgeable of God’s requirements and acquainted with His character. “
This idea that God’s requirements and character are in alignment with what CFC teaches is rooted in bad theology. When high control religious communities twist scripture to create an image of a jealous God who chastises people in order to gain full submission, then parents as God’s delegated authorities must use the same tactics.
Rick Sinclair’s oldest daughter describes this approach in a Mom and Us blog post:
“We discipline and train out of love, and with our children’s best interests in mind. Mom touched on this in her last post:
“That is the goal: their success, not ours. After all, even a child is known by his doing. We want our children to be respected and well received. That is a blessing for them. It may take hard work on your part to bring them to that place and they may meet your efforts with resistance, but because of your love for them, you must keep your eyes on the goal.”
Biblical discipline is correction motivated by love. The perspective and motivation in that is absolutely key to successfully fulfilling our mission as parents.”
Healthy and loving parents set clear expectations and developmentally appropriate boundaries with their children. They model emotional intelligence, self-compassion, and curiosity. In contrast, CFC teaches parents to implement corporal punishment as soon as “a baby begins to get around on their own.” Such “baby training” practices often use violent methods to discipline and curb a baby’s natural curiosity. Instead of taking developmental needs into account, parents expect complete obedience to their own adult expectations. Note how the Sinclairs ignore a child’s brain development and lean on “discernment.”
“A lot of “baby” training requires discernment, and a good dose of confidence, too. I could tell the difference, for instance, between squirming while being changed because he’d spotted a toy out of the corner of his eye (in which case I would often grab the toy and give it to him to hold, much to his delight!), or squirming because he was upset about having to lay down (in which case I would swat his little thigh and so, “no.”)
With a young child who’s just learning the ropes, you want to make a quick connection between behavior and consequence (thus, flick the hand when he touches a no-no; the thigh when he’s kicking his legs.) And you’re not entering into a full-on discipline session here. You’re just trying to teach your baby the meaning of “no,” and that he is to obey you (and not the other way around!)”
CFC children as young as 6 months receive this kind of training that normalizes abuse even from a preverbal age. These core experiences form a child’s understanding of the world, even if their young minds do not have words for the memories.
CFC parents dispense abuse with two lies: 1) parents have no choice but to spank, indeed it is a matter of biblical obedience, and 2) spanking is done in love.
In addition, the claim that God wants them to chastise their children exculpates CFC parents from responsibility. Any and all parental behavior is justified, no matter if “outsiders” or child experts name it to be abusive, because parents see themselves as submitting to God’s requirement. In fact, CFC has taught them they are obeying God when they abuse their children. One mother at the Mom’s Cadre meeting chimes in to describe beating her child:
“And I'm like, “Because mommy and daddy have to obey God. And God tells mommy and daddy to spank you.” Just like, you know, we would explain it to him. Like, “We're just obeying God, just like you have to obey us. Like it's a chain of command.” Right? And like, “This is what we have to do. This is what you have to do.” “
CFC compounds the damage by teaching parents to link physical violence with physical affection. At a Mom’s Cadre meeting, Darlene Sinclair offers the disturbing comment that “some of the most precious cuddling times were always right after a spanking.” Authoritarian parenting practices withhold love when children fail to perform, require corporal punishment as correction, and then teach parents to pray and connect after the spanking. A child thus learns that being physically assaulted is the precursor to attachment. In high control households where children don’t experience much warmth and affection to begin with, their nervous systems easily link beatings with the only source of comfort.
Wren highlights the natural consequences of this abusive behavior:
“How could I end up vulnerable to such a man? Because I was used to abuse at the hands of the church. The church told me throughout my whole life that I was nothing without God. I was nothing but a wretch. Nothing but sinful and worthless without a savior. I was helpless and weak, deserving of damnation.”
Conflating abuse with love destroys the development of a healthy concept of self-love. A child learns that violence is a necessary follow-up to making a mistake or associates the feeling of injury with things being made right. Many children who routinely experienced violence when they didn’t meet their parents’ demands feel the urge to self-harm once they graduate from their parents’ physical punishments.
Non-suicidal self-harm (NSSI) has long been thought to be a self-soothing response to difficult or unwanted emotional stimuli. Children who grow up in the shadow of violence learn that punishment resolves the conflict with their parents. When these children do something wrong, however that is defined, or experience something that is bad or unpleasant, they are more likely than their non-spanked peers to seek distraction or relief from the bad feelings by self-harming. They essentially take their punishment into their own hands. This can feel like a resolution to the unpleasantness; they have learned well that if a child does something bad, the child should get physically punished and then can move on.
Children raised at CFC live in suspense; they are constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop and for punishment to be administered. Engaging in NSSI can be a way to claim some amount of agency over that cycle of abuse and control over their bodies.
It is important to note that rates of adolescent NSSI also increase in environments where children feel isolated or rejected by their caretakers. Isolation and/or shunning is a practice that CFC regularly uses to discipline adults and children in their community.
In an interview with RNS Julia Sinclair shared her personal experience of being isolated and cut off during her young adult years by her father Rick Sinclair and other CFC leadership. CFC intentionally uses shunning to punish and control members who are seen as out of line.
“There is an attempt at cutting members off who aren’t behaving properly,” Julia Sinclair told RNS, “and punishing them so they feel like they’re in a position where they need to either come crawling back to the community or they have to start anew and start their lives over again, which is what happened to me.”
In addition, NSSI rates increase in environments where children feel pressured, unwelcomed, or bullied by their peers. Mae describes how the high-control environment of CFA negatively impacted her child so much that they turned to NSSI for release from the pain:
“I remember asking one of my children about a scab on their arm. My stomach dropped when they told me that they had done it to themselves intentionally. I stood there, shocked. Why? What had caused my child to harm themself? Through further conversations, I learned how they felt like they didn’t fit into the CFA mold. How people had made comments about their appearance. Then when they weren’t sure what else to do to dull the pain, they took an object and sliced their arm. I cried inside hearing how slicing their arm released the pain that they felt within. How had a place that I thought would be safe for my family turn out to bring so much harm?”
Self-harm is a complex emotional issue, and although the reasons that individuals engage in NSSI differ from person to person, studies have shown that exerting excessive control over kids and using violence to discipline them can lead to higher rates of NSSI.
Abusive parenting practices are the farthest thing from loving. High control religious groups like CFC teach families that abusive behavior should be received as love. This does not result in the love-filled lives that CFC expects for their families, rather it results in people who fundamentally do not understand how to express or accept love in healthy ways.
CFC’s abusive parenting teachings have been used to raise generations of traumatized children who struggle to define love, let alone to love themselves or others.
The impacts of abusive parenting on children hinders their ability to build healthy relationships that are based on mutual trust and respect as they grow into adulthood.
In addition to all of this, teaching children that God equates love with abuse is an excellent way to drive a wedge in their relationship with God and the Church. Phrases like “God is love” become weaponized and confusing. The expectation that Christians should “love their neighbor” becomes code for controlling other people. The complex interweaving of abusive theology with abusive practices leads to a community continually giving and receiving abuse, not love.
Some children who grow up in high control religious environments reject Christianity altogether. Others may attempt to connect to healthier religious communities only to find themselves participating in a new iteration of the same authoritarian approach. Still others may be unable to ever engage in church communities again. There is no single way forward for those who have survived family and church systems that have in a myriad of interwoven ways taught them that God’s love results in abuse.
If you have 1 minute
Mindful self-compassion exercise:
Hold space for yourself for a moment and breathe. When we grow up in home environments that are volatile and use abusive child-rearing tactics, our natural inclination is often to internalize physical pain and feel disdain for ourselves. Give yourself a moment to be kind to yourself. What’s one thing you like about yourself? What’s one thing you are proud of achieving? Forgive yourself for making a mistake. You are so deeply loved.
If you have 15 minutes
Read this overview of NSSI and consider how you might extend compassion to yourself or to others.
NSSI Resources:
Crisis Text Line: How to deal with self-harm.
Cornell University: Self-injury & Recovery Resources
