“I finally went in and said, ‘Pastor Ben, my husband cheated on me. He molested my child, that is cheating. I have a Biblical reason to leave my husband.’ Pastor Ben started crying, and he’s like, ‘That is not cheating’ … And he cried and begged me, ‘Please, keep your family together,’ knowing that my husband at the time beat the crap out of me, that he drove drunk in our car with our children, that we lost an adoption placement because of him, that he molested three of our kids. All of it.”
Levendusky told RNS in an email, “I never try to keep someone in a situation against their will; if they feel they are in an unsafe situation and need to leave, I try to support them as much as possible.”
Wilbur eventually left CFC and, she told RNS, filed charges in 2015. Her ex-husband was charged with two counts of felony first-degree sexual abuse, but the charges were dropped in October 2016 after the district attorney’s office failed to prosecute him in a timely manner.
Joyce told RNS that she was unsurprised to hear that several former CFC members had alleged abuse at CFC. While abuse can happen anywhere, she said, hierarchical groups with leaders who have “a strict sense of authority” can make it “pretty easy for abuse to go unchecked.”
CFC members estimate that at least 10 families have left CFC since May. In sharing their stories, Wilbur and others hope the pastors will recognize their own complicity — and that current CFC children can be spared from harm.
“I want (CFC members) to know that even if you’re this far in, you can still rescue your children and yourself, and you can get them out,” said Wilbur. “There is a life outside of CFC.”
This article originally appeared here.
