which justified punishing the child more
severely. For instance, school children could not
ask to go to the toilet during school hours, make
mistakes in their schoolwork, or fail to keep up
in class without those behaviors being seen as
signs of perversity punishable by their father
spanking them at home that night.
Still, Pastor X, fearing fathers might not be
giving the required numbers of lashes or hitting
hard enough, instituted a new rule that obliged
fathers to administer the prescribed punishment
to their child in front of the child’s classmates at
school. If a father could not be present, the
pastor meted out the corporal punishment
prescribed. This punishment consisted of
spanking the naked buttocks of the child with a
special wooden rod for a specified number of
lashes determined by both the offense and the
attitude of the child, who was expected to accept
the punishment and express gratitude to the one
administering it. If a child failed to adopt the
correct attitude, or if he put his hands on his
buttocks to protect himself, the number of
strikes would be augmented.
Such means of discipline were also extended to
preschool children who attended the day-care
facility. All children more than 1 year old were
subjected to corporal punishment for any
behavior or attitude that could be considered a
sign of rebellion or of disobedience according to
the fundamentalist doctrine the pastor preached.
Behaviors that were to be expected
developmentally in toddlers, such as the
incapacity to control sphincters or the inability
to sleep on command during nap time, were
interpreted as rebellious attitudes attributed to
the work of Satan in the child’s vulnerable and
undisciplined soul. The pastor justified the use
of corporal punishment with the rod with
toddlers as the only means not only to rid them
of the demon, but also to teach them self-control
so they eventually would be able to ward Satan
off themselves.
By 1983, Pastor X’s involvement in the daily
lives of the members of his congregation was
considerable not only did all of the members’
children attend the BCW’s day-care center or
school or both, but members also had their cars
fixed at his service station and their insurance
premiums negotiated through him. They
furthermore received weekly rations of food the
pastor specially selected for their family.
Because a great many members of the
congregation worked for the pastor’s enterprises,
and they were also considerably engaged in
church matters and rituals, their relationship
with their pastor was based on his frequent and
often intense presence. It is in this context that
the project Pastor X initiated of building a self-
sufficient estate exclusively for members of the
BCW was developed. It seemed to him the
logical next step in their evolution. The project
was financed in great part by loans, mortgages,
and donations made by church members to the
leader personally. He bought the land for this
project in 1983, then plans were made, and
church members cleared the land.
God’s Emissary
At that point in time in the trajectory of the
BCW, Pastor X described himself as God’s
emissary and declared himself infallible. He
demanded absolute submission from his
members and exhorted his congregation to
“enter into the joy of thy master by being
faithful slaves” (interview, A., former member).
He required more and more work from church
members, and more money from them, claiming
that, according to the Bible, what was theirs was
his. His attitude became difficult to predict, and
he took pleasure in ridiculing members who he
thought were not as generous as he expected.
Leaving the church did not seem to be an option
for those who had handed over all of their assets
to the pastor who, in turn, had invested the
money toward the BCW estate.
Notwithstanding, many did leave—some
because they felt drained and exploited by the
minister, others because of the treatment
inflicted on the children. It is noteworthy that
only men claimed the latter reason for leaving
the BCW, which is comprehensible since they
were the ones administering the beatings. Some
men left their wives and children behind, their
spouse not being convinced that she should
leave the church.
The pastor’s discourse on corporal punishment
became more extreme during this period. An
emphasis was put on the need to correct children
88 International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 6, 2015

from their earliest age to loosen Satan’s grip on
them. The minister thought that, as children
aged, it became more and more difficult to
correct their nature and drive evilness out of
them. He therefore ordered that punishment be
extended to include children less than 1 year of
age. Infants in arms at the day-care center were
spanked with a smaller wooden rod if they did
not sleep during nap time, did not finish
drinking their bottle, or even if they cried. The
five-lash rule was abandoned, leaving the
number of lashes to the discretion of the one
administering the punishment. As before, the
children’s attitude during the spanking counted
in the number of lashes received so if a child
tried to protect her buttocks with her hands, for
example, she was hit until she adopted an
attitude of submission.
Another BCW development in 1983 was the
introduction of public corrections. Fathers
henceforth had to administer spankings during
religious services. If a father was absent, the
pastor replaced him. Although the number of
lashes was usually decreed when the punishment
was announced to the child, more lashes would
be added for various reasons, most often for lack
of the proper attitude during the administration
of the punishment itself. The number of lashes
during these public corrections was generally
higher than at school, sometimes as many as 50.
With such high numbers, it was not uncommon
for children to present burn marks and lesions,
and sometimes they remained permanently
scarred. Testimonies of church members present
Pastor X as a man who, at that point of the
trajectory of the group, had become convinced
of his godlike qualities.
Despite these excesses, the BCW members
accepted Pastor X’s doctrinal conviction that
punishment was necessary to ensure their
children’s salvation. Although some later
admitted to being shocked by the severity of the
punishments administered, they added that it did
not change their belief that administering
corporal punishment was proof of their love for
their children and of their obedience to the will
of God. Some followers, including one who was
a police officer, said they were aware that those
outside the group might see the type of
punishment used in their church as excessive
but they added that the degree of use did not
shake their belief in the soundness of its
practice.
1985—Formal Investigation
Very few members feared being brought before
a court of law because of the way they treated
children, arguing that they had so little contact
with people outside their church that they did
not think about such things. Despite the group’s
isolation and the followers’ trust in their leader,
rumors did begin to circulate in the nearby town
about the treatment inflicted on children in the
BCW. A number of former members, although
they did not disclose the exact nature of the
physical punishment administered to children,
possibly for fear of being held responsible for
their own actions during the time they belonged
to the church, nevertheless helped bring the
issue to light. The rumors they initiated came to
the attention of the police in 1984. A formal
investigation was opened in January 1985 when
a woman, while still a member of the BCW—
and at the insistence of her husband who had
already left the church—lodged a complaint
against the pastor for the assault of her 5-month-
old baby who had been beaten at the day-care
center. Alarmed by the punitive practices
described by the complainant, the municipal
police reported the case to the Child Protection
Services of the region (DPJE3), with the request
that they investigate a potential situation of
generalized child abuse at the BCW.
Meanwhile, the investigation led by Windsor
police ran up against a wall of silence on the part
of both members and former members of the
BCW. In these first phases of the DPJE’s
investigation, members wanted to protect their
way of life, proclaiming that they were
answerable only to God, whatever their actions.
The former members, for their part, feared
incriminating themselves if they revealed how
badly children were treated while they were still
members of the church. After 2 months of
investigation, the police reported a dozen more
cases to the DPJE in addition to the one already
3 DPJE refers to the Direction de la Protection de la Jeunesse de
l’Estrie, which can be translated in full as Office of Youth
Protection of the Eastern Townships.
International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 6, 2015 89