International Journal of Coercion, Abuse, and Manipulation Volume 3 2022 38
year old (Daily Motion, 1993).
The Quiverfull movement is a less cohesive Christian
movement whose members do not live in communal
homes or work at communal labor. However, their core
beliefs and sense of isolation from the broader secular
society give them a sense of community. The Quiverfull
movement consists of a subgroup of conservative
Christians who became connected through particular
homeschool networks and Bible institutes such as the
Advanced Training Institute International (ATI) and
Vision Forum Ministries. (Vision Forum Ministries
closed in 2013 [Bailey, 2021]. The ATI closed down
its home-schooling curriculum in 2021. Additionally, it
connected through camps and Bible institutes.)1 These
networks have provide connections through family
events advertised to allow participants to become
“more connected with other families who have similar
goals and vision” (ATI, 2020).
It is harder to define the parameters of the Quiverfull
than the Twelve Tribes because Quiverfull’s adherents
are scattered geographically and tend to belong
to broader church groups such as Independent
Fundamentalist Baptists, or to do home churching with
one or a few families. Even the name Quiverfull may
be problematic because, after a series of controversies
in homeschooling organizations and churches, the use
of the term by movement members has become less
frequent. One recent term the group has been using to
refer to itself is Biblical Families. However, that name
can be confusing because many other types of groups,
including polygamists, believe they live out the image
of the biblical family and thus also use that name
(Brannum et al., 2018).
The essential components of the Quiverfull belief
system include biblical inerrancy, or infallibility an
emphasis on patriarchy a belief in separation from
secular society for children and women youth training
to win the nation for Christ and a belief that women
should have as many children as possible. The belief
that women should have as many children as God
will allow is what truly distinguishes the group from a
broader fundamentalist movement).
1 One can see discussions and descriptions of some of the camps and
conferences at sites such as Above Rubies Retreat/Camp Testimonies (https://
aboverubies.org/index.php/retreats-family-camps/camp-testimonies)
Family Conferences (https://familyconferences.org/?s=&event-
category=3&event-time=1+year) and Alert Academy (https://alertacademy.
com/quest/).
We don’t have numbers of Quiverfull members because
they are not enrolled in formal organizations. In
2006, they were believed to number in the thousands,
possibly as many as 10,000 (Joyce, 2006). There is
also a great deal of overlap in membership with the
patriarchy movement (Harrison &Rowley, 2011). The
Quiverfull movement goes further than many others in
the broader patriarchy movement in that its supporters
believe the primary responsibility of families is to have
as many children as possible raised to be a “Joshua
Generation.” Joshua Generation refers to the idea that a
group of children raised correctly will lead the United
States back to a Christian culture. This belief, popular
in Christian Homeschool for several generations, was
advocated in Michael Ferris’s (2005) book the Joshua
Generation and was put into action in groups such as
Generation Joshua (Generation Joshua, 2022).
The members of the Generation Joshua movement,
like those of the Twelve Tribes, openly admit that they
train their children with corporal punishment. Leaders
of the movement have written about recommended
techniques for beating children in books such as Train
Up a Child, by Michael and Debi Pearl, first published
in 1994. and most recently revised in 2015 (Pearl &
Pearl, 1994/2015). At least three sets of parents using
this book have been convicted in the death of their
children (Eckholm, 2011). Although the book warns
against brutality, it does advocate using whatever force
is necessary (Pearl &Pearl, 1994/2015).
Challenges to the State by Nonstate Religious Actors
The literature reflects a great deal of attention focused
on the challenge non-State actors present to the State
(Davis &Robinson, 2012 Davis, 2009 Kirby, 1997).
Gallaher and Froehling (2002) explained that the
increase in non-State actors challenging the -was based
upon the “continuation of State control over the means
of violence, and on its growing use in the domestic
arena” (p. 84). In Politics As Vocation, first published
in 1919, Weber introduced the idea that the defining
feature of a State is its monopoly on violence (Weber,
1919). However, for the groups in this case study the
challenge is focused more on control of the body than
simply on the means of violence. The struggle for
control of the body manifests itself in many smaller
struggles, over issues such as corporal punishment of
children, compulsory school attendance, and child

ISSN: 2710-4028 DOI: https://doi.org/10.54208/0003 39
labor. As part of their monopoly on violence, state
actors in democratic societies are generally expected to
protect the physical security of citizens (Weber, 1919).
However, when it comes to concerns over the bodies of
minors, governing officials have been more reluctant
and certainly more inconsistent in their actions to
provide protection. This inconsistency has left children
in religious groups particularly vulnerable.
Religious and Victim Credibility
One of the challenges to addressing the issue of violence
against children’s bodies is that the violence often
occurs in the context of adults claiming their religious
freedoms. Despite international norms, violence that
is decried as human-rights abuse when it is done to
adults is often considered an exercise of religious
rights when it is done to children. The United Nations
Committee on the Rights of the Child has defined
corporal punishment as “any punishment in which
physical force is used and intended to cause some
degree of pain or discomfort, however light” (Dodd,
2019, p. 116). When rights come into conflict, human-
rights scholarship and advocacy always become more
difficult.
However, while the protection of religious minorities is
crucial, it should not exclude focus on credible reports
of actual physical harm done to children. There has
been a tendency in recent decades for scholars to focus
on flawed reporting rather than on threats to children
as an example of bias. This reaction was evident
when Radio Television Luxembourg (RTL) journalist
Wolfram Kuhnigt captured video inside a German
Twelve Tribes community where adult members can
be seen bringing small children to a basement and
striking them with rods (2013).2
1 When discussi
When discussing the
videos that spurred the German government to remove
children from the Twelve Tribes, Palmer and Frisk
(2014) described the scenes or images as having been
“crafted into horror movie scenes through suspenseful
music, lurid angles, and a biased narrator” (Palmer &
Frisk, 2014, para. 20). However, neither the angle of the
cameras nor the music negates the video and testimony
that Twelve Tribes members were violating German
law.
2 See, for example, https://question12tribes.com/rtl-wolfram-
kuhnigk-goes-undercover-in-germany/
Moreover, survivors are often classified by apologetic
writers as biased apostates. Because of this classification,
the interview of former member Kate Wiseman about
the abuse she suffered as a child was not given the same
weight as the statements of Twelve Tribes group leaders,
such as Wiseman’s father and stepmother.1 Ultimately,
this distorted view unjustly creates a perception of bias
with regard to the credibility of victims and denies
the voices of the children who grew up and left the
movement.
The idea that victims are too biased to report on their
abuse is a dangerous one, even if it is circulated in
the name of fighting prejudice against new religions
(Kent &Swanson, 2017 Thorn 2021). To accept this
idea would mean that victims not only of physical but
also sexual abuse inside religions would be framed as
apostates and given less credence than other victims of
violence (Burt, 1980 Nagel et al., 2005 Suarez, 2010
Cameron, 2019). Even if we accept these arguments,
the writings of Twelve Tribes group disclose practices
that align with victim accounts.
Another common way that violence against children is
trivialized or obfuscated is to accept the perpetrators’
use of the word “spanking” rather than more accurate
words such as “beating,” “caning,” or “whipping,” thus
downplaying the level of force. As Kent (2010, p. 44)
has pointed out,
the so-called “cult wars” continue to rage, as a
few scholars persist in publishing ideologically
tainted studies designed to minimize or ignore
real instances of harm. In such studies, of course,
these scholars have to neutralize or deemphasize
the child abuse that the adults far too frequently
perpetrate upon children.
Methods
This structured, focused, comparative case study
involved content analysis of a variety of sources that
discussed the extent to which interactions between
religious actors and the State left children vulnerable
to physical abuse. During the data collection, we drew
from group teachings, websites, and writings, and
3 See for example Jean Swantko Wiseman’s (2011) Strategic
dissolution and the politics of opposition: Parallels in the state raids on the
Twelve Tribes and the FLDS. In Stuart A. Wright &James T. Richardson
(Eds.), Saints under seige: The Texas state raid on the fundamentalist Latter
Day Saints (pp. 201-220). New York University Press.