“At 20 years old I had to sit in the dean of men’s office with the dean of men, dean of students and both my parents, and had to read out loud this thing that happened to me. And then at the end of that, one of them said, wow, you have excellent grammar. And then the other one said, and what were you wearing when these things happened? And he started questioning my attire, and then said, did I understand how guys’ brains work?”
When Burchwell’s alleged perpetrator and his family threatened to sue her, she agreed to stay silent. But in 2014, after Bob Jones fired GRACE, an independent watchdog group the school had hired to investigate sexual abuse allegations at the university, Burchwell came forward in The New York Times as a participant in the investigation. Though the school eventually rehired GRACE and issued a report, Burchwell said that to her knowledge, Bob Jones has avoided most of GRACE’s recommended changes. She added that after she spoke to the media in January 2014, her father was fired from Bob Jones one month later, after 42 years, without explanation.
While Burchwell told RNS she agrees that Bob Jones fits the “academic definition” of a cult, she’s hesitant to use the word because it can alienate those still connected to the university.
Many religious scholars have long contested the use of the word “cult,” saying it has been misused to dehumanize believers as passive and brainwashed, to create unhelpful boundaries between “good religion” and “bad religion” and to signify groups as targets for government surveillance and even violence.
Podcast guest Rachel Bernstein, a therapist who is on the advisory board for the International Cultic Studies Association, told RNS she thinks Bob Jones does qualify as a cult because of what she described as unquestioning loyalty to presidents and administrators, the school’s insular nature, its adversarial approach to the outside world, black and white thinking, restrictions on beliefs and lack of privacy.
“I find that it is good to use the word cult when it qualifies as such so you know what you’re dealing with,” she said.
As the podcast continues to gain traction, Lewis told RNS she hopes the firsthand accounts will give listeners a clearer picture of life at Bob Jones and prompt them to think twice before attending. “The tattling, the isolation, and the control is the same,” said Lewis. “I think it would be better for people to go to a different place and learn that God isn’t just at Bob Jones.”
This article originally appeared here.
