Court documents in the divorce of Allen Prevo, son of Anchorage Baptist Temple pastor Jerry Prevo, and Holly Jo Prevo raise questions about ABT religious exemption housing. Or, in the judge’s words, “if there was a tax appraiser or a reporter from the Anchorage Daily News, things would not look good… it’s pretty loosey-goosey to me.”

Citing Alaska Statute § 25.20.120, which provides the option of sealing court records in proceedings involving child custody, attorney Wayne Anthony Ross on August 3 filed a motion to seal the records in the case of Allen Prevo v. Holly Jo Prevo (3AN-10-08113CI). The motion was filed on the same day that Anchorage Superior Court Judge Frank A. Pfiffner granted a decree of divorce. Arguing to seal the records, Ross wrote,

The plaintiff’s father (the children’s grandfather) is a high profile individual in the State of Alaska and is a well known, national figure. There are several journalists who would delight in airing any “dirty laundry” attached to the Prevo family. Access to these court records would provide little material that would be of any benefit to the public, and the negative publicity which would result could have a strong negative effect on the children.

Phyllis Shepherd, the defendant’s lawyer, countered on August 16:

It appears that plaintiff’s primary concern is, not so much the protection of his children, but to protect his father “a high profile individual in the state of Alaska and a well known national figure.”

The “high profile individual” is, of course, Jerry Prevo, pastor of the Anchorage Baptist Temple, who has long been a powerful figure in Anchorage and the state. He’s well-known to Anchorage’s LGBT community as a prominent leader in opposition to equal rights under the law for LGBT people, leading the fight against three ordinances which granted those rights in 1975, 1992, and 2009 — all of which passed the Anchorage Assembly, only to be reversed (twice through mayoral veto, once through vote of a successor Assembly). He had close ties with Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, and founded Alaska’s chapter of the Moral Majority in 2000. In 1985, Prevo accompanied Falwell on a widely publicized “Freedom Mission” to South Africa, returning to Anchorage to speak the praises of then-president and apartheid advocate P.W. Botha. Since at least 2003, Prevo has been chair of the board of trustees of Liberty University in Lynchburg, which Falwell founded as Lynchburg Baptist College in 1971.

Prevo also has ties with other national Christian figures, including Franklin Graham, and is on the board of directors of Graham’s charity Samaritan Purse.  He accompanied former Alaska governor Sarah Palin on a Samaritan Purse mission to western Alaska. Prevo has several times been a member of Alaska’s delegation to the national Republican convention, at least twice serving as the delegation’s chair.  At the 2009 convention, according the the Washington Post political blog The Trail, he handed Palin his cell phone for her to accept congratulations from Franklin Graham for her nomination as vice presidential candidate. His power is such that many political candidates feel compelled to take what Amanda Coyne of Alaska Dispatch once termed “the perp walk at Anchorage Baptist Temple” to introduce themselves to his congregation.  The funeral of Sen. Ted Stevens was held in his church.

Allen Prevo’s attorney, Wayne Anthony Ross, is also widely known. In Anchorage he’s famous for driving a bright red Hummer bearing vanity plates with his initials, WAR. In 2009 he was Gov. Sarah Palin’s nominee for Alaska attorney general, and distinguished himself by becoming the only cabinet nominee in Alaska state history to fail to be confirmed by the Alaska Legislature. His candidacy had been widely opposed by Alaska Natives, women, and the LGBT community — who weren’t favorably impressed by a 1993 letter he wrote to the Alaska Bar Rag (of the Alaska Bar Association) calling gays and lesbians “degenerates” who practiced “sexual perversion” and were “”immoral in the eyes of anyone with intelligence.” Asked in a confirmation hearing if he could fairly represent LGBT Alaskans, Ross replied,

Let me give you an analogy. I hate lima beans. I’ve never liked lima beans. But if I was hired to represent the United Vegetable Growers, would you ask me if I liked lima beans. No. If I disliked lima beans. No. Because my job is to represent the United Vegetable Growers.

Wayne Anthony Ross is perhaps not correct when he writes — as his motion to seal the court records goes on to say —

The plaintiff respectfully submits to the court that it is in the best interests of the children to have these records shielded from public scrutiny.

In fact, there may in fact be “benefit to the public” — a benefit having nothing to do with the Prevo kids — in leaving the court records open to scrutiny. That’s getting down to the bottom of what’s going on with Jerry Prevo’s son’s housing.

Background

Allen and Holly Jo Prevo married on May 1, 1992 and had three children.

Allen Prevo, 43, is the only child of Jerry and Carol Prevo. He began working for his father’s church, Anchorage Baptist Temple, in 1983 as a lighting director and TV consultant, and currently is ABT’s audiovisual and computer technician in charge of virtually everything having to do with ABT’s television ministry — Sunday broadcasts, commercials, advertising, and lighting for plays. He also is an ordained pastor, though court records mention only a high school education, no college or seminary work. In 1997 while working at ceiling level at ABT, he fell 24 feet from a catwalk, landing on a railing and suffering severe injuries to his ribs and thoracic spine. As a result, he has a chronic pain condition which is managed with the pain medication Oxycontin (oxycodone). Prevo was the plaintiff in the case, with Ross stating on his behalf in the Complaint for Divorce of May 17, 2010,

There exists an incompatibility of temperament between the parties which renders a life together burdensome and intolerable. However, plaintiff does not wish a divorce and believes that if the defendant will involved herself in counseling with him, take the necessary time, and make the necessary effort, then this marriage could be saved. If the defendant refuses, however, to involve herself with plaintiff in counseling, take the necessary time, and make the necessary effort to try and save this marriage, then a divorce may be necessary.

The Plaintiff’s Trial Brief of March 18, 2011 elaborates:

In April 2010 Holly announced to Allen that she wanted a divorce. Allen filed for divorce on 10 June 2010 because he feared Holly was planning to take the children out of the state. Rather than wanting a divorce, Allen hoped to get Holly to agree to involve herself, with him, in marriage counseling. Holly, however, has refused to work toward saving the marriage. Instead, she has advised Allen that she plans to move to California after the divorce.

Holly Jo Prevo nee Jaggers, 39, currently works as a customer service representative for AT&T, though during most of her marriage to Allen Prevo she was out of the workforce, staying in the home as a homemaker and primary caregiver of the couple’s three kids. Previously she had been involved in volunteer activities centered around Anchorage Baptist Temple and the Anchorage Christian School, including directing the children’s choir and coaching cheerleading.

At issue in the divorce was the custody of the three minor children, possible child and spousal support, attorney’s fees, and the equitable division of marital property. The Amended Decree of Divorce of August 3 ultimately granting them joint legal custody of the two younger children, with Allen having primary physical custody of them; and Holly being granted sole legal and primary physical custody of their oldest child. Despite Allen’s initial claim in his Complaint for Divorce that “Defendant is financially capable of paying spousal support to plaintiff,” Judge Pfiffner found Holly’s claim to be the financially disadvantaged party — with an annual income in the area of $60,000 less than Allen’s — to be correct, writing in the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law,

Because of her limited income and assets and smaller earning capability, Holly needs a disproportionate share of the marital estate. Accordingly, the court has divided the estate on a 55/45 basis in favor of Holly.

Holly’s name was also restored to Holly Jo Jaggers.

Some details of the settlement, as well as some of the Finding of Fact incorporated in the decree, are still being argued about between the parties, resulting in further motions in countermotions.

The marital home

But one item in particular remains of public interest: the marital home at 2330 Banbury Drive. A search on the property at the Municipality of Anchorage Real Property Information site confirms that the property is, as discussed in court records, owned by the Anchorage Baptist Temple. Furthermore, it’s got a religious exemption from taxes. From there, the questions begin.

Anchorage news junkies may remember that in April 2004, municipal tax assessors revoked the exemption for four ABT-owned houses that were determined not to qualify for a religious exemption because none of the people living in them was “a bishop, pastor, priest, rabbi, minister or religious order of a recognized religious organization” as specified in state law about property tax exemptions.  Three were teachers at the ABT-affliated Anchorage Christian Schools. The fourth was a janitor.  Then, a couple of years later, the Municipality discovered that an additional six ABT-owned houses were occupied by teachers.

Anxious to retain its tax exemption on those houses, ABT enlisted the help of assistant pastor Glenn Clary, who also happened to be the treasurer of the Alaska Republican Party, to go down to Juneau and lobby legislators to fix things. The Republican-dominated legislature was quick to respond: in March 2006, Senate President Ben Stevens drafted language which added “an educator in a private religious or parochial school” to the list of people whose residence in a house made the house exempt from property taxes. Furthermore, the new language defined a “minister” to be someone who is considered one and is “employed to carry out a ministry” of a religious organization. Stevens then asked Sen. Bert Stedman, chairman of the Senate Community and Regional Affairs Committee, to introduce the new language into a redraft of an obscure property tax bill that Sen. Con Bunde had introduce the previous year. Public testimony on the bill a few days later was aligned squarely against the bill, but legislators advance it anyway, and it ultimately passed and was signed into law by Gov. Frank Murkowski. The ACLU of Alaska sued, but ultimately a Superior Court judge found the new law constitutional.

It’s not completely clear from the court paperwork, but it’s possible that the religious exemption for the house the Allen and Holly Jo Prevo family lived in came out of this law — the portion of it which permits a religious organization to define for itself what a “minister” who is “employed to carry out a ministry” is. Allen Prevo is, again, an ordained minister — despite no record in the court documents to indicate his education went past high school to college, much less grad school or a seminary. And, Allen Prevo is employed to carry out ABT’s television ministry. Thus: the ABT house he lives in is tax-exempt.

But there’s still plenty of unclarity to be found in the court documents. For example, in paragraph 4 of the Counterclaim contained in the defendant’s (Holly’s) Answer to Complaint for Divorce (filed June 30, 2010), Phyllis Shepherd on Holly’s behalf asserts,

Defendant asserts that she is a disadvantaged spouse and is in need of spousal support to be paid by the Defendant.

Wayne Anthony Ross on behalf of Allen Prevo denied this, writing in the January 26, 2011 Answer to Counterclaim,

The defendant is gainfully employed and is continuing to live in the marital home while the plaintiff continues to pay the mortgage.

But how could Allen have been paying the mortgage when he didn’t own the home? (At this point, also, Ross and Prevo were continuing to insist that Holly, with an annual income perhaps one quarter of Allen’s, should pay him spousal support.)

The details begin to come clear in a significantly unclear way in on the first day of the divorce trial, which took place on April 5, 2011. A summary of the trail is included in the court file. These notes, prepared by court clerks during testimony, generally include the statements made by witnesses, but not (except in rare instances) the questions asked by attorneys — so it’s rather like hearing only one side of a telephone conversation. Occasionally Judge Pfiffner — identified in the record as COURT — also steps in with a few questions, as in this passage, in which Allen Prevo is being examined by Wayne Anthony Ross. Typos and errors here are as in the original; comments or explanation from me are in square brackets.

Direct Exam continues by Mr. Ross

Plaintiff ex. 6 – reference [Plaintiff identifies exhibit 6]

(spreadsheet of property, to be split 50/50)
(fair thing to do, not written agreement between us the church)
(been working for ABT fro 15 years and they will have rent go to equity in the home. If you stay in this home an its paid off its our home, verbal agreements and nothing in writing)

plaintiff ex. 3 – ID [Plaintiff identifies exhibit 3]

(verbal agreement we wrote up to be fair on this issue, written up…., not sure of date)
(written up for this litigation, since she decided on this divorce)
(if I were to quit ABT they would get the home, its in their name)
(took what we put toward the home, rent to own, transfer equity from other home to his home and they appliances and new boiler etc.,)
($322,888.50 valued at, yes)
(we picked out refrigerator and the washer and dryer, church put up the money and added to what we owed the church)
(correct)
(the previous house was also owned by ABT)
(got credit for the first ABT home toward the 2nd ABT home)
(yes, made repairs but paid for by ABT, increased what we owed on the home)
(They also paid fire insurance…,)

Clerk change back to Holly Fuentes

Exhibit(s) Offered

Court inquires of Allen Prevo

Allen Prevo
(No, the church paid the house off so I don’t know, I guess because we’re paying the church there’s no mortgage
(It’s listed as Anchorage Baptist Temple…if I had my paystub I could show you exactly
(We were paying a bi-weekly payment…toward the equity of the home
(That was…yes sir…$770 monthly, on the second page
(Yes…not sure if it’s fifteen years, started in 2005…started ABT in 1983
(It was a good deal sir
(I’ve stated to Holly, if I keep the kids for the school year I’d purchase the house and get money from the church to pay her half and then I’d owe my dad an arm and a leg
(If I don’t have the kids for the school year I don’t need that big of a house
(We’d default on the mortgage and we’d see…we’d divide it up
(They’d end up paying us fair market value…no sir
[…]
(Holly did all the financing when we were married
(This came from the church, what we have paid since 2005, how much we paid for the house
(Yes {paid by the Baptist Temple}…and added to…yes…correct

COURT:
-Anchorage Baptist Temple, your father, whoever is going to agree to all of this…that’s a stretch

Ross
-If he decided to become a Presbyterian…nothing requiring him to pay them

COURT:
-I’m willing to have you explain a lot more but if there was a tax appraiser or a reporter from the Anchorage Daily News, things would not look good
-I’m seeing and hearing all this stuff…I have to deal with it only in the context of this case
-Who owns this, is there equity, how it will be paid out, it’s pretty loosey-goosey to me

On the second day of the trial, April 7, 2011, Ronald Thomas Slepecki, a college professor at Wayland Baptist, was examined as a witness for the defense by Holly’s attorney Phyllis Shepherd. Before going to Wayland, Slepecki had been a staff member at ABT.

(I retired from the Air Force…in 1991-1995…I was over a lot of the children so I had interactions with…mostly those four years I knew of Allen and Holly
(That all changed in…we were family, they’d help sit our kids…both were great
(This is very difficult for me because I love them both, I’m here testifying to the truth, not here to be on one side or the other
(Well, yes…whenever you go up against your old bosses son is the way it could be seen
(I’ve worked for his dad for quite a long time…yes, Pastor Prevo…can be very tough to deal with
(He does wield a lot of power as it relates to that church…our government and the way it’s structured
(A Pastor is a Pastor…he does all the hiring and firing so it’s difficult to be put in a situation
[…]
(Yes, how it works…

Ross
-Objection, relevance

COURT:
-Overruled

Ronald Thomas Slepecki
(Any church atmosphere…that means the property is owned by the church and an ordained minister lives in that property
(So I met that, I was an ordained minister…therefore, the church does not have to pay taxes on that home because I meet those requirements
(Two would be later on if I move out of the church house…and purchased my own home, the church can designate a certain part of your salary as a housing allowance
(The rental value…then you have to justify that…all the things have to add up to that
(There’s one more than occurs at Anchorage Baptist Temple, there’s a third setup that relates to Allen and Holly’s home, that has been given to folks that are higher up
(I never got that, I asked and was denied

Ross
-Objection, speculation

Ronald Thomas Slepecki
(The church carries the note so they give you a better interest rate and you work off that and pay the church

Based on Allen’s first-day testimony, apparently the rent which Allen paid went towards equity in the home in some kind of unwritten, purely verbal agreement between him and ABT, or between him and his father. But after it became clear that there would be a divorce, the agreement was finally put down on paper. Which may possibly be what’s being referred to here, from Day 3 of the trial, held July 12, 2011 (though to verify someone would have to listen to the recording and/or examine the exhibit):

Holly Prevo
(His dad gave us that…his fingerprints would be all over that document, he’s fully aware of document…original document has been signed
(Allen signed it and Jerry Prevo…no doubt whatsoever

Rebuttal: Cross Examination by Mr. Ross

Holly Prevo
(I heard Jerry Prevo say…unless he’s a liar…yes, I did see it signed

Meanwhile, the rent that Allen paid, which went towards this supposed equity in the home, actually appears to have come out of one of the components of Allen’s compensation as an ABT employee — his housing allowance of $10,029.24. In other words, he was given a housing allowance, which he used to pay rent which went towards his equity.

(His total compensation, per Holly’s Answer to Complaint for Divorce as well as the final Findings of Fact, includes: Salary$58,844; housing allowance $10,029; cell phone $420; utility allowance $3,000; 403(b) contribution $9,500; vacation 4 weeks; for a total of $81,793. Additionally, there was free private school tuition for each child enrolled at Anchorage Christian School, up to about $11,750/year; medical reimbursement for 1/2 family medical expenses not otherwise covered by health insurance; ABT-provided truck insurance; and retirement held in Vanguard mutual funds valued at about $100,000. Holly in the meantime had an annual income in 2010 of $24,931.)

Judge Pfiffner, as he said on Day 1 of the divorce trial, could only do the best he could within the context of the case. As summarized in the Findings of Fact:

ABT has legal title to the residence at 2330 Banbury Drive in Anchorage. (Ex. G). There is no deed of trust on the residence. However, ABT and Allen Prevo had an unrecorded agreement in place whereby Allen owns the equity in the residence. (Ex. 3) The agreement provides Allen Prevo is vested with the equity from prior ABT housing. (Id.) The difference between the prior equity and the purchase prices was the initial paper mortgage amount on the Banbury residence. (Id.) Each pay period, a percentage of Allen Prevo’s annual housing allowance was subtracted from Allen’s paycheck and is applied to reduce the paper mortgage balance on the Banbury residence. (Id.) Essentially, Allen Prevo’s housing allowance is an interest free reduction in Allen Prevo’s paper mortgage. (Id.) The paper equity on the Banbury residence is a marital asset. [emphasis added]

Maybe we need what Judge Pfiffner mentioned in the first day of the trial —

-I’m willing to have you explain a lot more but if there was a tax appraiser or a reporter from the Anchorage Daily News, things would not look good
-I’m seeing and hearing all this stuff…I have to deal with it only in the context of this case
-Who owns this, is there equity, how it will be paid out, it’s pretty loosey-goosey to me

Yep, looks pretty loosey-goosey to me, too, an unschooled renter-for-life like me, who has never owned a house in my life.

Tax assessors, Anchorage Daily News, or any other journalists who just want to get down to the truth — whether or not you “delight in airing any “dirty laundry” attached to the Prevo family” — please have a look at this, will you?

The court file is not yet sealed.

Update 1: I’ve been informed that the court file was sealed at about 1:00 PM on August 29, several hours after this post went live on Bent Alaska.

Update 2: The file was not actually “sealed”: the order reads “Order Granting Motion in Part ~ Motion for Documents to be Filed Under Protective Seal ~ Before the court is plaintiff’s motion for the files in the above captioned case to be maintained under seal or kept confidential. Plaintiff’s motion is granted in part and denied in part. The court finds that the public interest in disclosure is presently outweighed by a legitimate interest in confidentiality. See Alaska R. Admin. 37.6(b). Specifically, the court finds that confidentiality should be maintained in order to protect the best interests of the minor children. See AS 25.20.120. Accordingly, all transcripts and documents filed in the above captioned case shall be kept confidential within the meaning of Alaska Rule of Administration 37.5(c)(4). Plaintiff’s motion to maintain the file under seal is denied. This order is without prejudice to a motion filed by any member of the public seeking access to the case file in whole or in part.”

Please note that there are other and much more personal aspects of this divorce, which I chose not to discuss in this story, which have bearing on the the judge’s decision on this matter.

Update 3: “Confidential” and “sealed”:  under Alaska Rule of Administration 37.5(c)(4) and (c)(5):

(4) “Confidential” means access to the record is restricted to:
(A) the parties to the case;
(B) counsel of record;
(C) individuals with a written order from the court authorizing access; and
(D) court personnel for case processing purposes only.
(5) “Sealed” means access to the record is restricted to the judge and persons authorized by written order of the court.

The judge ordered the records to be kept confidential, but denied the plaintiff’s motion to seal them.

References

Besides the court documents cited within the text, or references which were linked, these references were also used:

• “Co-sponsors flummoxed by hijacking of tax bill – BAPTIST TEMPLE: Exemption from taxes for church’s housing for teachers shoehorned into measure” by Richard Richtmyer (Anchorage Daily News, March 10, 2006).
• “Committee gets earful about property-tax bill – EXEMPTION: No one spoke in its favor, but it advanced anyway” by Matt Volz, Associated Press (Anchorage Daily News, March 12, 2006).
• “Temple’s homes for its teachers are tax exempt – COURT RULING: Alaska ACLU had sued to stop the practice” by Sheila Toomey and Megan Holland (Anchorage Daily News, July 4, 2008).

Related posts:

1. Those Phelpists aren't too clever, are they?
2. Publicity, publicity, publicity
3. Prevo's red herrings

Max Blumenthal in Anchorage: click on picture for full-size poster with details on where & when you can hear him during his visit.

Crossposted at Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis

Thanks to some problems with a print job I was needed to help solve, my lunch yesterday was late, & to compound frustration it was interrupted by a fire drill, which meant having to shut down my computer, do a quick pack-up, & join everyone else in the office — faculty, staff, students — in a walk in the rain.

But the worst of it was that it interrupted me in my reading: having learned at Phil Munger’s blog Progressive Alaska about the upcoming visit to Anchorage of Max Blumenthal, & further detail about the same at some of the other Alaska progressive blogs like Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis, What Do I Know, Immoral Minority, and the Mudflats, I decided to check further into his recently published book, Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party. [Ref #1-6]

Palin's in here too, in case you were wondering.

Well, lunchtime wasn’t enough to get the full skinny out of what is something of a fat book (416 pages in hardback)  I ended up buying the book for my Kindle.  Didn’t have my Kindle with me, actually — but I did have my iPod Touch, with the Kindle for iPhone app, so after work found me reading at the bus stop at Prov Hospital, then on the bus, & then some more over dinner.  Per my Kindle, I’m now 14 percent of my way through the book at locations 1110-1119. That tells you a lot, doesn’t it? Sorry, Kindles don’t come with page numbers (I sure wish they did).  Okay, so another way of saying it: I’m at the beginning of chapter 8, “The Killer and the Saint,” which is about to describe to me how serial killer Ted Bundy got some last-minute attention prior to his execution in January 1989 by blaming his sociopathic ways on an addiction to pornography, & by seeking absolution from the father-confessor he’d chosen, Focus on the Family leader James Dobson.

That chapter should be interesting.  Back in the ’80s I’d read at least two or three books about Bundy, & I remember the date of his execution well — I was in Seattle at the time, where a lot of people were discussing him that day, especially women who lived in King County when Bundy was raping & murdering women there. Having read those books about Bundy, having read 7 chapters of this book already, I know even without having yet read chapter 8 that Bundy’s confession to Dobson was nothing more than self-aggrandizing publicity on both their parts. Bundy might claim to have been “born again” as a Christian on Florida’s death row, but best I can figure in all I’ve read about sociopaths of his ilk he had no soul to save: it had been, for whatever reasons, lost long ago — perhaps as a result of the abuse he himself had experienced as a child.  Dobson might be claiming to be witnessing Bundy’s salvation, but best I can see is he was either (1) a chump; or (2) delighted to have Bundy’s assistance in promoting his distorted idea of Christianity, which itself is marked by a promotion of child abuse (what Dobson called “discipline”).  Maybe both.  Y’think?

I hadn’t actually known before starting this book that James Dobson got his start as a child psychologist & was even a professor of pediatrics at USC School of Medicine in the late ’60s/early ’70s.  Then in 1970 he published his child-rearing manual, Dare to Discipline — his answer to the “permissive” child-rearing advice of Dr. Benjamin Spock.  Blumenthal quotes from Dobson’s book:

A little bit of pain goes a long way for a young child…. However, the spanking should be of sufficient magnitude to cause the child to cry genuinely.  After the emotional ventilation, the child will often want to crumple to the breast of his parent, and he should be welcomed with open, warm, loving arms. [Ref #6]

Wow.  If my partner & I had followed that advice in disciplining the already-abused boy who came to live with us at age 9, guess what would have happened to us?  We’d've been charged with child abuse. And rightly so.

Blumenthal makes a case that Dobson’s beliefs about corporal punishment extends into his views about — & indeed the overall Christianist view about — the Christianist believer’s relationship to (their version of) God. Blumenthal quotes from Philip Greven’s book Spare the Child: The Religious Roots of Punishment and the Psychological Impact of Physical Abuse:

The persistent ‘conservatism’ of American politics and society is rooted in large part in the physical violence done to children…. The roots of this persistent tilt towards hierarchy, enforced order, and absolute authority — so evident in Germany earlier in this century and in the radical right in American today — are always traceable to aggression against children’s wills and bodies, to the pain and the suffering they experience long before they, as adults, confront the complex issues of the polity, the society, and the world. [Ref #6]

Blumenthal points out that many Christianist leaders — including Dobson — were themselves subjected to corporal punishment and/or outright physical abuse as children.

Now, this doesn’t surprise me.  I’ve felt for a long time that the God worshiped by Christianists was your basic big bully.  And that the fear of God’s bullying punishments & the threat of eternal damnation were the only things that many Christianists felt could keep them in line — if indeed they did keep them in line.  When you’re taught from babyhood that “responsibility” is no more than blind obedience under the threat of a slapping hand or a belt or a “board of education” (which I remember seeing in use two or three times in junior high: yes, teacher-administered corporal punishment with a wooden paddle was allowed in public schools when I was a kid), what kind of responsibility do kids really learn?  Do they learn the internal strength needed to make truly moral decisions? Or are they merely running scared from Mom’s or Dad’s or the (so-called) Lord God Almighty’s whiphand?

People in Anchorage probably won’t be too surprised, either, to learn that at least as of 1985, even preschool children in the Anchorage Baptist Temple-affiliated Anchorage Christian Schools were subject to corporal punishment. From an October 1985 story in the Anchorage Daily News:

The Rev. Jerry Prevo announced Thursday that pre-school children will no longer be paddled at the Anchorage Christian School following Wednesday’s sentencing of a school employee for child abuse.

Prevo, whose Anchorage Baptist Temple runs the school, said corporal punishment will no longer be used on the pre-schoolers, “based on the fact it’s hard to spank and not take a chance of accidentally bruising.”

“When that happens, it puts our employees in an awkward position, and it’s not worth the hassle,” Prevo said.

Mary Lou Love, 52, a secretary with the school, was given a six-month suspended sentence for bruising a 2-year-old child’s bottom. Love swatted the child, Jennifer Wheeler, three times with a wooden paddle last May when she refused to eat.

… During her sentencing hearing, Love testified that she had been deeply disturbed over the incident and said that she never meant to bruise the child. She said she spanked her only because her job required her to do so.

“I would not have swatted her if I’d knew it would have bruised,” she said, adding that she will never paddle another child even if it means losing her job.

In 1983, Love’s supervisor, Robert Moreland, was charged with bruising the bottom of a 2-year-old child who also refused to eat….

Prevo said the bruising incidents were isolated cases.

“The parents sign a permission slip knowing that corporal punishment will be used.

“We’ve had as many as 800 kids a day and in the 13 years (the school has been open) and we’ve had two incidents. We would think that’s pretty good.”

He said corporal punishment will continue to be used at the grade school, junior and senior high school levels. [Ref #7]

That was, of course, 24 years ago, in 1985 — I have no idea if Anchorage Christian Schools still hits older-than-preschool kids with wooden paddles for serious crimes against the Lord Bully Almighty like refusing to eat. It is, after all, possible that ACS has learned over the years using wooden paddles on older kids is just as much of a “hassle” as hitting two-year-olds with them. But then again… maybe not.

(Did I say I remembered seeing wooden paddles in use in my junior high days? Much more do I remember hearing them: the hard loud thwack of wood against a kid’s behind, & the kid crying out with each swat. None of the cases involved a kid having been violent. No, only the teacher was violent. This was in 1971–72. It’s a practice I hope the Columbia Falls, Montana school system has dropped long since.)

People in Anchorage will possibly also not be surprised that ABT’s pastor Jerry Prevo, like James Dobson, grew up in a household where incidents of abuse occurred:

Born Jan. 12, 1945 in Oak Ridge, Tenn., Jerry Prevo grew up as the eldest of two sons to a pious mother and an alcoholic father who worked at a nuclearfuel processing plant.

One of his earliest childhood memories is rooted in a latenight argument between his mother and father when he was 3. Prevo’s father was in a drunken rage and threatened to kill the boy to get back at the mother.

She retreated, dragging young Jerry across the family bed to safety. He stills bears a scar on his chin from hitting the bedstead in the frantic escape effort.

His father, Prevo says, was abusive only when drunk. When sober, he taught Jerry how to hunt and fish and other fatherson things. During Prevo’s high school years, his father tempered his drinking somewhat and life was a little easier at home.

But when Prevo went away to college, the drinking began again and his father eventually deserted the family for a barmaid.

In 1976, the day he received a letter from his son in Alaska that spoke of how he still loved him despite the drinking, Prevo’s father hung himself in a shower stall.

Prevo speaks openly about the alcoholism, the abuse, the desertion and the suicide. But the arrival at his decision to reveal the final chapter of his father’s life, which he did to his congregation upon returning from his father’s funeral, was not easy.

“The biggest problem I had,” he says, “was the pride factor. I asked myself, “Are you going to share that with others? . . . Well, no one is perfect and sometimes people expect perfection in a pastor and get hurt . . . But it was an example that everything doesn’t always go my way, that people don’t always speak highly of me, that I have personal problems that everyone else has.”

His childhood experiences hardened many of his current beliefs, including total abstention from alcohol. [Ref #8]

What really strikes me here is the apparent assumption on Prevo’s part that his father’s alcoholism, abuse, desertion, suicide — somehow had something to do with Prevo‘s lack of perfection: as if the young Jerry Prevo was somehow at fault for his father‘s imperfections.  For imperfections that, in fact, harmed Prevo’s mother & Prevo himself.

This isn’t just irony — although it is that, too.  But mainly: his is a common reaction in people who have been abused as children: they take the responsibility for the parents’ abuse of them upon themselves. They blame themselves: something must be wrong with them for their parent to hurt them so.

And then, all too often, unless someone helps them to learn differently, they grow up to pass that belief on, in word & in deed: the cycle of violence.  Some of them even teach that it’s what God wants.

What a horrible teaching.  What a horrible God. But this is the God Jerry Prevo, as much as James Dobson, calls upon us to believe in.

Sorry, but a Big Bully Child Abuser in the Sky is not anyone I want to worship.

I have more to say about what I’m learning from Max Blumenthal’s book, but it’s way past midnight & time for sleep — so it’ll have to wait.

But before I shut my laptop & shut my eyes, I want to reiterate what the other folks have been saying: Max Blumenthal is coming to Anchorage this weekend, & you have a chance to see & hear him. Phil Munger has the full lowdown on where he’ll be. [Ref #9] And if you’ve got a spare dime, please consider donating using the PayPal link on Phil’s site to help cover costs of Mr. Blumenthal’s plane ticket up here!

References

1. 9/21/09. “Max Blumenthal Returns to the Land of Queen Esther” by Phil Munger (Progressive Alaska).
2. 9/18/09. “Now THAT’S what I call some down-home ‘indoctrination’!” by Linda Kellen Biegel (Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis).
3. 9/21/09. “Frank Schaeffer on Evangelicals – Max Blumenthal in Anchorage Next Weekend to Tell us Personally” by Steve Aufrecht (What Do I Know?).
4. 9/21/09. “Help Max Blumenthal receive the Alaska Bloggers bump” by Gryphen (Immoral Minority).
5. 9/21/09. “Max Blumenthal is Comin’ to Town!” by AK Muckraker (The Mudflats).
6. Republican Gomorrah: Inside the Movement that Shattered the Party by Max Blumenthal (Nation Books, 2009).
7. 10/18/1985. “Children won’t be paddled” by Kim Rich (Anchorage Daily News, p. C1).
8. 10/30/1986. “No middle ground” by Andrew Perala (Anchorage Daily News, Lifestyles section p. 1).
9. 9/18/09. “Max Blumenthal in Anchorage Next Week” by Phil Munger (Progressive Alaska).

Related posts:

1. No Questions, Questions (poem)
2. Illimitable god, & related thoughts about why I’m not a Christian
3. I’m not a mother, but I am. And then there’s Anya James.