>>>>
I don't exactly get it myself, but many people find them fascinating, and posts about them here on this site remain among the perennially popular. I just see the family as a typical example of those who transitioned out of one cultic group to enter another, changing very few of their beliefs in the process. Spiritual abuse is spiritual abuse.
The Botkin Family seems to be ramping
up for some new activities after having purchased a new camp-style
compound in Tennessee which I assume means that they won't be running
off to New Zealand. I've heard that “visionary lord of his
home” Geoffrey
Botkin is officially awaiting the birth of grandchildren now, so
he can finally get cracking on that 200
Year Plan for his offspring. I'm not sure what he's going to do
about his
written plan to make his son Prime Minister of NZ since they no
longer reside there. Maybe they tabled that idea? The revision
sounds like a lot of work.
In the meanwhile,
the Visionary
Daughters who apparently have not yet been permitted to court
have written
a book of advice on how young women in homeschooling's aberrant
patriarchy movement should relate to young men. (To their credit, I
understand that it is not nearly as disturbing as their first book,
So
Much More.) Their beautiful, insightful, and well-educated
cousin, has written
about her honest response to her beautiful first cousins' new
book. Katie Botkin who writes the review is the daughter of Geoff's
brother Gregg and his wife who were both involved with the Great
Commission cult under Jim McCotter in the seventies (along with
Geoff) but departed from and disavowed the group's system long ago.
Geoff who was recruited at about the same time as his brother
remained with the Great Commission and then remained with McCotter
as a business partner until 2002. His Great Commission beliefs made
for an easy transition in the similar spiritually abusive system of
Vision Forum.
I understand that
Katie stands in stark contrast
to the stay at home daughter ideal that her cousins teach,
epitomizing some of the very things that her Visionary Daughter
cousins warn against. But I rejoice to see that, though her parents
departed from a restrictive and spiritually abusive lifestyle that
they still maintain a good relationship with Geoff and “Vicky”
Botkin (as “Victoria” was known to her friends in the “Saints”
in the Great Commission in Norman, Oklahoma when they participated in
the cultic group). Families like Gregg's and their children like
Katie encourage me so much because I tend to focus on the numbers of
people who contact me for help with the negative fallout which
results in the lives of their children as a consequence of their own
spiritual abuse experience. The second generation is often required
to pay the price of pain as the lasting legacy of spiritually abusive
groups.
I see Katie
Botkin as a success story, and she is living proof to parents who
struggle with the aftermath of spiritual abuse and the effects that
it has on their children. I'm also glad that she has what I
understand is a loving relationship and good communication with her
extended family, even though they remain part of a such a spiritually
abusive system. It is my hope that in years to come, she will be a
resource and a testimony to them of what can be possible if and when
they decide to depart from the system. I hope that the many parents
who contact me and read here will take encouragement in Katie's
example, living proof that children whose parents were involved in
spiritual abuse can go on to live very full, rich, rewarding, and
meaningful lives. I have heard nothing but encouraging things about
her family through mutual friends and acquaintances, and that is
something worth celebrating.
.
