Raped for God: The People of Praise with Coral Anika Theill
(00:00) Intro and announcements.
(03:08) The news: The Senate impeachment trial of former president Donald Trump.
(16:40) Guest Segment introduction with Coral Anika Theill. Quotes from Alexander Solzhenitsyn on human evil. Choosing the predator over the victim. Patriarchal cults as prisons and torture chambers for women.
(26:35) Coral Anika Theill discusses her childhood trauma.
(41:39) Meeting Martin Warner, and getting into the People of Praise cult. How childhood sexual abuse contributed to Coral's adult vulnerability to being approached by her future abusive husband. Trauma bonding.
(57:50) Discussion of the parallels between The Handmaid's Tale and patriarchal Catholic / Christian cults in America. Women as enforcers of the patriarchy.
(01:14:55) The process by which Coral's eight children were systematically alienated from her by their father, and indoctrinated into patriarchal dehumanization of their own mother. Kids becoming informants / hostages.
(01:21:35) Physical and emotional breakdown after 7th child. Hemorrhaging with no medical attention. Being "exorcised" of demons, labeled a Jezebel. Escape from the Bill Gothard Institute in Chicago. Marital rape. Appeals to Senator Jeff Merkley.
(01:30:20) Court battles for custody of children. Being on the run. Losing her eighth child who was still a breastfeeding infant.
(01:39:45) Poverty as punishment in Christianity. Not being allowed to visit dying father.
(01:45:15) Coral's testimony she planned to give at the 2020 Amy Coney Barrett confirmation hearings.
(01:54:35) Conclusion and Outro
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Show notes:
Coral Anika Theill website
Coral Anika Theill memoir
Recommended book list on patriarchy and the oppression of women
Shattered Scriptures
Women, Church, and State - By Matilda Joslyn Gage (1893)
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