The Cult of Lori Alexander (The Transformed Wife)

The Cult of Lori Alexander (The Transformed Wife)

Daniel Schricker, Ph.D

Prologue

I had a Bible study leader who stood out to me for how seriously he took his faith and his responsibilities as a husband and father. He worked hard, his family attended church every Sunday, and his wife seemed to respect him. He had three well-behaved children who were always impeccably dressed. I still recall the amusement with which he told me how the first child had been conceived. Tired of waiting for his wife to be ready to start having children, he had poked a hole in his condom one night and she had fallen pregnant. He gleefully added that it had worked out great as he had been wanting his wife to quit her job anyway and the pregnancy had forced her to do so. I found the story alarming but pushed it to the back of my mind. The family seemed to be doing well so everything must have turned out for the best.

It was not until a conversation about his child’s fifth birthday that I had reason for further concern. He was once again in a rather jovial mood as he told me how he had had to discipline his daughter on her special day. Apparently, she had woken up early and he found her opening her presents before anyone else was awake. He had immediately picked up a slipper and spanked the child before locking her outside the house to think about what she had done. After she was allowed to return inside, it was explained to her that his anger had been like Jesus’ reaction to the moneychangers in the temple and was therefore justified. The child was also told that just like God exiled Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden after they sinned, her banishment from the house on her birthday morning had been a necessary punishment. I was shocked by this story but decided to keep my thoughts to myself. It was probably just a one-time incident, I reasoned.

One evening, he showed up to lead a Bible study with a distinct limp. Everyone questioned him about what had occurred, and with his usual level of confidence and amusement he told us how his cat had annoyed him earlier that week and he had tried to kick it. Unfortunately, the cat had evaded him and he had made contact with the wall. He went on to explain that the kick had so much force that the resultant injury required ice all week. He must have noticed the horrified looks in response to his story as he told us to lighten up. He even joked about how his wife had forgiven him for the time he lashed out physically at her, so surely the cat would too. I was feeling distinctly uncomfortable at this point, wondering what kind of man had been put in charge of our Bible study. But my thoughts were interrupted by his voice. “We will be continuing in our series on the fruits of the spirit this evening by examining what it means to have self-control and not be ruled by our emotions”…

I hope it is obvious at this point that the story above is about a fictional Bible study leader. Thankfully I have never met such an individual in real life. I hope we would all agree that such a person is disqualified from holding any position of teaching or leadership within the church or any other religious platform. While some of the details have been modified slightly, all the key elements of the story- sabotaging birth control to fall pregnant[1], punishing children for opening gifts early in the morning and using a religious veneer to justify it[2], trying to kick the cat so hard that the injury required ice for a week[3], hitting her husband one time[4]– are anecdotes shared by Lori Alexander (aka The Transformed Wife) about her own life. Which begs the question: is this woman qualified to teach on Biblical womanhood, the value of self-control, not being guided by our emotions, and how to be a Godly wife and mother? And is there perhaps a double standard in how we respond to those incidents when they are committed by a female instead of a male?

Some Background Information

I originally joined Twitter in 2021 to have a platform to share my content relating to anti-cult activism. An unlikely sequence of events from 2020 onwards saw me temporarily departing from my academic field of music to focus on writings and interviews which dealt with some of the psychological and theological aspects of high control groups. I am by no means an expert on the subject, but it has always interested me, and over the last few years I have immersed myself in further exploration of the topic. It has been fascinating to observe some of the common characteristics of groups with harmful belief systems and the ways they try to influence or recruit others. My engagement with the subject allowed me to speak on cult-themed podcasts in Australia, the UK, and South Africa as well as being a speaker at the 2023 International Cultic Studies Association Conference in the US.

It is in this context that I encountered Lori Alexander on Twitter. The nature of her content struck me as such a bizarre version of the hyper-patriarchy movement that I initially dismissed her without much thought. Much like one might put up with that one strange aunt who shows up at the family Christmas dinner and spouts nonsensical ideas, it seemed easy enough to tolerate her content occasionally finding its way onto my feed. It became even easier after she blocked me for challenging her insinuation that single mothers are second-rate Christians if they work to provide for their children.

As it turns out, people with extreme ideas have a way of garnering a following on the internet. Who knew? In Lori’s case, this is in large part due to the sheer volume of her online content. As far as I can tell, she is regularly active on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, her blog, and has also published multiple books to promote her ideas of ‘biblical womanhood’. People are often initially so taken aback by her content that they question whether her account is intended to be parody. But sadly, she is all too serious about the harmful ideas she promotes under the guise of religion.

My intention with this article is to detail some of the ways in which Lori’s teaching, behaviour, and the response by her followers are exhibiting cult-like characteristics. I am deeply concerned by the fact that someone with her influence is perpetuating harmful ideology and using Christianity as an excuse to do so. My examination of this topic will not be exhaustive but will highlight some similarities between the ways cults typically operate and the way Lori’s ministry appears to function.

What The Transformed Wife Is Known For

Lori markets herself as someone who provides Biblical teaching to women, often focusing specifically on aspects of motherhood and marriage from a patriarchal perspective. According to her website, she ‘began mentoring women years ago and ha[s] found [her] ministry in doing this.’ She describes her aim on her website as follows:

My ministry is based upon Titus 2:3-5 in which God commands that older women teach younger women to be sober, love and obey their husbands, love their children, be chaste, discreet, good, and keepers at home. If you would love to learn and grow in these areas and allow God’s Word and His ways to transform your marriage and your life, please join me as I teach you what I have learned from His Word, my own experience and mentoring many women, and most importantly, allowing the Holy Spirit to convict and transform you into the image of Christ. [5]

Some of the frequent topics in her content include wifely submission in marriage, health advice for women (including comments in which she tells women to ignore medical advice from doctors), cooking tips, the dangers of feminism, the evils of birth control, the ways colleges mislead and harm women, marital and pre-marital sex, and the beauty of patriarchy. Although Lori often claims that her ideas are founded on the Bible, even a superficial perusal of her content demonstrates that her own subjective experience is the final arbiter of right and wrong. The Bible seems a mere afterthought which is occasionally referenced as a form of confirmation bias. When it is quoted, the verses are often ripped out of context to support her narrative. I should clarify that I do not believe she is necessarily being deliberately deceptive in this. I think she is probably convinced in her own mind that her ideas are biblical. It seems she is so deeply enmeshed in a worldview of her own making that she can no longer separate biblical truth from her own experience.

It is worth taking a moment to reflect on how Lori came to adopt her rather extreme ideology. She claims that she experienced 23 years of ‘bad marriage’ which she summarises in the following way:

From the day Ken married me, I knew he loved me but he didn’t show it to me in the way I wanted him to show it. Therefore, I would be continually upset with him when he wasn’t acting like I wanted him to act and I wasn’t getting my way. These feelings would swirl in my mind until I made a mountain out of a molehill and spewed my irrational contempt towards him in a fit of anger. Then I would give him the silent treatment until he apologized appropriately. I was allowing my lying emotions to destroy our relationship…

…After I read Debi Pearl’s book ‘Created to Be His Helpmeet’ and I was no longer blinded to my sin in our marriage mess, I knew that I had to learn to become a submissive wife who reverenced my husband. The first thing I did was apologize to him for my behavior and allowing my emotions and feelings to hurt our marriage so badly. I had to begin treating him with kindness and warmth. I had to learn to trust him because he was trustworthy. He was my head; the head that the Lord had given me and I chose to marry. My unsubmissive and rebellious spirit had caused havoc on our marriage for way too many years so I had to give it up and obey God.[6]

I think it is telling that Lori characterises herself in a way that indicates that she has always sought a high degree of control in her relationships, seemingly engaging in emotional manipulation when things did not go her way. As I have delved deeper into her content, it also became apparent that she frequently universalises her own experiences and assumes them to be true of all females. It would probably come as a shock to her to realise that emotionally healthy people do not need to seek control over others, especially their spouse. Her own feelings are the measure by which she judges all women, and if she has a solution that she feels has worked for her, she assumes it will work for everyone else. It is this inability to step outside the realm of her own experience and walk a mile in someone else’s shoes that has made me question whether she possesses an unusually low degree of empathy and emotional intelligence.

Lori cites Debi Pearl’s ‘Created to Be His Helpmeet’ as the catalyst in her meteoric rise to be the most submissive of them all. In many ways this comes as no surprise as the book is seemingly every bit as extreme as Lori’s own ideology. Time does not permit me to detail all the problems with Pearl’s book, but others have done so elsewhere. (See Tim Challies’ critique, for example: Part 1 https://www.challies.com/book-reviews/created-to-be-his-help-meet/ Part 2 https://www.challies.com/book-reviews/created-to-be-his-help-meet-part-2/)

I cannot help but speculate whether Lori’s online ministry became a psychological outlet for her desire to dictate the behaviour of others once that was no longer directed at her husband and children. I would be curious to know the timing of the start of her online ministry in terms of its proximity to the change in her marriage dynamic after encountering Pearl’s book. The timing in relation to when her children moved out would also be point of interest. Sometimes people with a need for control and conflict simply swap one outlet for another. Westboro Baptist Church founder Fred Phelps, for example, only directed his hostility towards the community around him in Topeka after he was disbarred as a lawyer for unprofessional and hostile behaviour in court. His granddaughter Megan Phelps-Roper has hypothesised that the removal of this outlet for his anger was the trigger which saw him redirect his focus to the church he pastored and using its members for public demonstrations. Westboro became infamous for waving the vile placards at pickets and for their aggressive confrontations of people on the street. Is it possible that Lori’s online ministry is simply an attempt to exercise the control she no longer possesses in her domestic domain?

“Me? A Cult Leader?” (said in the fundie baby voice)

Despite the information above, it might still surprise some that I am attempting to draw parallels between cults and Lori’s teaching. Perhaps it is even more shocking when you consider the qualities that typically define a cult leader. How could a soft-spoken woman who seems to dote on her children and grandchildren be mentioned in the same sentence as Jim Jones, Bert Potter, or Erlo Stegen? Especially given the fact that she lacks the intelligence that typically characterises narcissistic religious zealots. However, as one dives deeper into her content and ways of disseminating it, a picture emerges of a belief system that is indeed cultic in nature.

One of the aspects of Lori’s ministry which concerns me is the way in which she and her husband, Ken, view her. Ken has said the following about Lori:

‘She definitely has the gift of prophecy. As one who has spent 36 years with Lori, I am confident that she has the gift of prophecy in a personality and “forth telling” way, not a foretelling way. I have never heard her try to foretell anything in terms of what might come true, but she absolutely adores the Word of God and wants to be as godly as she can be, wanting others to know it and obey it too. Those with prophetic gifting are not without their weaknesses, like any gift or personality style…and these must be harnessed by putting on grace and understanding…Too often those who hear truth find themselves under condemnation and accuse the one speaking truth as being unloving and ungracious, when it is not the prophet condemning the person, but their own sin as it stands in the face of God’s Word. Lori tries to keep all thing Christian and Biblical, and if she is faulted by others, it is that she wants to believe ALL of God’s Word in CONTEXT, even the things that are difficult to believe in today’s society. I don’t find that to be a bad thing in a culture where the church is watering down the Words in so many areas and picking and choosing what to believe.[7]

Ken has also referred to Lori as a voice raised up for this generation.[8] I do not want to read more into his comments than he intended, but I do find these kinds of characterisations troubling. If Lori and Ken were simply presenting her as a Christian woman who is sharing her wisdom with others, I would be far less concerned. In my experience, the moment a religious teacher markets themselves in any sense as a ‘prophet’ or possessing ‘prophetic gifting’ it very often indicates bigger red flags. Whilst one can usually disagree with healthy teachers over their interpretations of Scripture, the moment someone believes their ideas carry a degree of infallibility because they are speaking for God, they are typically completely closed off to criticism of any kind. Given how Lori has responded to even gracious critics in the past, I believe she is in danger of a mentality in which her own ideas are increasingly conflated with the will of God. This is precisely how every religious cult leader operates. They are not to be questioned because they are speaking for God and have a connection to the Divine that nobody else has. It is also interesting that Ken characterises the church as a whole as presenting a ‘watered down’ version of the truth. It is typical for religious cults to appeal to people by claiming to speak the hard truths that have been lost in our culture or in other churches. You know who else thought that their spokesperson was raised up by God to proclaim truth to their generation? Virtually every religious cult that has ever existed.

In the following sections, I will highlight some of the characteristics of Lori’s ministry which are exhibiting cultic tendencies.

Overemphasis On One Topic

In my experience of studying cults- especially religious ones- their teaching is often defined by a myopic overemphasis on one particular doctrine or topic. In some cases, a single Bible verse is used to justify their foundational belief. And the way the cult defines who is and who is not a true Christian is primarily done in relation to this secondary doctrine. In the case of KwaSizabantu, for example, everything is assessed according to their erroneous interpretation of James 5:16. Confession of sins to the leaders thus became the determining factor in who was part of the group and who was an outsider. In the more extreme case of Jim Jones, his utopian view of racial harmony was the driving force behind the ideology at Jonestown. Centrepoint’s foundational belief was the dissolution of society’s sexual constraints. With Lori, to say she is singularly focused on a patriarchal interpretation of the role of women would be an understatement. She is obsessively single-minded about patriarchy and women’s submission to it as the solution to all of the world’s problems. In a blog post from July 2020, Lori wrote:

If women would stop having their babies slaughtered in their wombs, life would once again be valued and women would understand that it’s not about “my body, my choice” but about another human life’s well-being.

If women would stop initiating up to 80 percent of divorces, then marriages would be stronger and children would be raised in homes with mothers and fathers.

If women would decide that raising their own children is far superior and more important than a career and a paycheck, children would grow up to be secure, emotionally stable, and protected.

If women would stop being promiscuous and wait until marriage to have sex, there would be no babies being born out of wedlock.

If women would decide to be modest and not involved in being filmed for pornography, porn would soon die out.

If women would learn that godliness with contentment is great gain and seek to have meek and quiet spirits, then their marriages would most likely last until death do they part.[9]

Lori literally believes that the blame for all the world’s woes is to be laid at the feet of women. Her solution, inevitably, is always to suggest that to control women’s behaviour would be to instantly create a utopia. This is what every cult promises its members: follow our rules, submit to our control, and all will be well in the world. This is not only a naïve and unbiblical position, but entirely detached from reality. Lori justifies her preoccupation with this topic with a passage of scripture she refers to frequently:

The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness, not false accusers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things; that they may teach the young women to be sober, to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, keepers at home, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God be not blasphemed.
Titus 2:3-5

I will not belabour the point regarding Lori’s single-minded obsession with patriarchy. One need only peruse her Twitter feed to find confirmation of this.

Us vs. Them Mentality

Another common characteristic of almost all cults is that they foster a strong us vs. them mentality in which the members of the group are pitted against the outside world. Typically, any part of society outside of the cult is viewed as dangerous, making it difficult for members to leave as they fear abandoning what they perceive as the safety inside the group. For Lori, this essentially encompasses everything outside of a patriarchal home and church. In 2022, she shared the following tweet:

I must admit that my first response to reading this was to feel a degree of sympathy for her. I cannot imagine what it must be like to go through life viewing the entirety of society as being part of a conspiracy to destroy you. Cults thrive on fear of the world around them, something Lori actively promotes. In a blog post from January 2019, she quoted Judith Pella:

“And yes, the worst thing that ever happened to the western world is feminism/women’s suffrage/whatever you want to call it.”[10]

That is Lori’s worldview in a nutshell. She sincerely believes that the root of all the evils in the world is the empowerment of women. In light of this, it is not hard to understand her singular obsession with the subjugation of her own gender. Unfortunately, she seems oblivious to the fact that she is recreating the conditions that every cult does: inventing an imaginary evil in the world around her and then proposing a solution that only comes through adherence to her teachings.

In a blog post from October 2016, Lori elaborated on her view of women:

Women today are lost and floundering being raised with a feminist mindset for all of their lives. They have no idea what it means to love their husbands until death do they part. They believe with everything in them that they love their children but do they love them enough to discipline them and teach them self-control? Are they sober? Do they even understand what it means besides not drinking too much? Do they act and dress modestly understanding how this affects men and not wanting to be a stumbling block to them in any way? Do they know what goodness means anymore since evil is prevailing in our nation? I know for a fact that most younger women have no idea what being a keeper at home means and it repulses them when they think they should obey their husbands. “This will most certainly lead to abuse,” they surmise.[11]

It is interesting to note the characteristics that she associates with women outside of her brand of patriarchy. They are lost, floundering, incapable of genuine love, unable to raise their children properly, lacking common sense, a stumbling block for men, incapable of recognising goodness, inadequate homemakers, and unwilling to submit. A pretty bleak picture, indeed. If the description above sounds somewhat familiar, it is because it is the recruitment tactic of almost every cult. The message is always: “You are lost without us. Only we possess the truth that can liberate you. If you submit to us, you will find the fulfillment you lack in the evil world around you”. By implication, Lori promises the opposite of all the despair she has described. If you subscribe to her brand of religion and patriarchy, you will find purpose, the meaning of true love, the ability to raise your children properly, become a good keeper of the home, and know what true goodness is. And it only comes at the small price of surrendering your autonomy and your common sense which as a woman is suspect anyway. So the story goes, in the Gospel according to Lori Alexander. Her view of women finding freedom through subjugation reminds me of a pithy quote from Frank Burns in MASH: “unless we each conform, unless we obey orders, unless we follow our leaders blindly, there is no possible way we can remain free.” Lori’s idea of freedom is the Frank Burns approach: submit, do not question, obey the rules of the cult, and there you will find true liberation and peace as a woman.

Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the us vs. them mentality that Lori promotes is her suspicion of secular research and wisdom, including some medical information. Based on counsel she has given to women who have sought medical advice, it is safe to say that Lori values the opinion of a patriarch more than that of a medical professional outside the cult. One woman wrote to Lori with the following question:

‘Doctors do not want me to have more babies because my pelvis is too small they say…Should I listen?’

Lori’s response:

‘Obey your husband. He is head over you and if he believes that more babies can be harmful, then don’t. If he doesn’t, then do. Doctors don’t know everything. They aren’t God.’[12]

Advising a woman to disregard information from a medical professional is not only delusional and narcissistic, but downright dangerous. And it is not the only time Lori has given advice that should only be addressed by someone with the expertise to do so. In another instance, Lori responded to a woman who shared that her three-year-old son had a fever of 106 by stating that ‘a 106 fever isn’t dangerous and it’s simply the body fighting the infection’[13]. Once again, this is reckless advice on Lori’s part. But this is the inevitable conclusion to the kind of us vs. them mentality that Lori adheres to. The patriarchs in the system always know best, even in subjects in which they have no formal training. And apparently, she is also privy to this higher knowledge. Lori has also responded to someone who expressed that they were suicidal by advising them to read the Bible more, without directing them to seek professional help. This is the point where Lori’s teachings should be called out publicly by the entire Christian community online. Her teaching has the potential to do a lot of damage.

Hassan’s ‘BITE’ Model

Dr. Steven Hassan is a cult expert who has proposed a model for evaluating the ways in which high demand groups exercise control over their members. Known as the ‘BITE’ model[14], it presents a set of criteria by which to define the modus operandi of harmful organisations. Each letter represents a different form of control: Behaviour control, Information control, Thought control, and Emotional control. It is my opinion that much of what Lori teaches is advocating for these types of control, even though her influence is to a following that exists online.

Behaviour control is at the heart of almost all of Lori’s advice on raising children. Very little is said about their emotional needs, their social needs, or teaching them empathy and compassion. She has written extensively on the subject of disciplining children, including some disturbing anecdotes relating to the treatment of her own children. (Elizabeth Prata has documented some of the most problematic aspects of Lori’s parenting here: Discerning Lori Alexander, “The Transformed Wife” of @Godlywomanhood (the-end-time.org)) More will be said on Lori’s view of children later.

In addition to her extreme views of controlling children’s behaviour, she also has a long list relating to women. According to Lori, women should not:

Remain single[15]
Work outside the home[16]
Vote[17]
Use contraception[18]
Say no to sex within marriage[19]
Go to college[20]
Vaccinate their children[21]

All of these represent forms of behaviour control that are based entirely on Lori’s feelings, nothing else. I truly weep for the girls that are raised in this form of patriarchy. They are robbed of the chance to fulfill their potential by a system that crushes their individuality and seeks to reduce them to baby-making machines. This is reprehensible and utterly incompatible with the Christian faith.

One of the most disturbing forms of behaviour control which Lori engages in is in relation to female sexuality. It is so extreme, in fact, that it has rightly been condemned by progressive and conservative Christians alike. Her view of sex in marriage is essentially that the woman owes it to her husband no matter how she is feeling- something she calls duty sex. And if the wife does not give it to him, not only is she in violation of God’s will, but she is encouraging adultery on his part. She tries to justify this abhorrent and emotionally bankrupt view by claiming that it only takes ten minutes. A fact which makes me unsure whether to feel worse for Ken or Lori…

In a blog post titled ‘Does Duty Sex Become Dull”, Lori writes:

“Apparently, explaining to women that they are not to deprive their husbands since God is the One who commands this, creates a scenario where sex becomes a “duty” and they no longer enjoy sex. Sex becomes dull. Can I tell you what this attitude boils down to? Rebellion, plain and simple. God commands many things of us, many, and they are ALL for our good! When supposed “sex teachers” are teaching women that duty sex is wrong, they are teaching against God’s Word.

It’s our duty, as believers in Jesus Christ, to obey God regardless of our feelings. It’s not only our duty to obey God, but it’s our privilege to serve and obey the Living God Almighty. Nothing He asks of us should be seen as a duty, especially as we understand that His will is perfect. Then, whatever we do, yes, even make love to our husbands, we can do heartily as unto the Lord (Colossians 3:23).

You see, women, it all comes down to our thoughts. If we view not depriving our husbands as duty, we will view it as drudgery. But if we view it as something that is good and right since God’s will is for our best, then we will not want to deprive our husbands. We will take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ and renew our minds with truth.” [22]

Lori’s view is that any intimacy problems within marriage will be resolved if the woman just ignores her feelings and (pardon the crudeness) becomes a sex doll for her husband. Nothing is said of marital intimacy flowing from mutual affection and attraction. In Lori’s world, sex is a chore which the wife must simply endure so that her husband is not tempted to leave her. A woman once wrote to Lori and asked the following:

“Advice for initiating intimacy with my husband when I’m tired and don’t feel my best”.

Lori’s response:

“Make up your mind to obey God regardless of how you’re feeling. If I based intimacy with my husband on how I was feeling, we wouldn’t have had sex for 30 years. Love your husband! It’s mind over matter. It’s a choice.”[23]

What a tragic distortion of the biblical picture of sex within marriage. Speaking as a male, let me add that normal, healthy men do not desire ‘duty sex’. They desire connection, mutual respect, and intimacy based on love and pleasure for both parties. Psychologically mature men care more about their wife’s emotional wellbeing than their own sexual desires.

One of the most problematic aspects of Lori’s view of sex is that the lines are blurred between ‘duty sex’ and marital rape. In a blog post called ‘Was This Truly Marital Rape?’, Lori shared some advice and the backlash she received after she shared it online:

Last April, I made a video called ‘Should Wives Have Sex With Their Husbands When They Don’t Feel Like It’? It was viewed by many, and many were very angry with me and accused me of promoting marital rape because a woman wrote to me and told me her husband asked to have sex with her one night. She told him no but found him having sex with her in the middle of the night. She asked if this was considered marital rape.

I told her that no, this wasn’t considered marital rape. Marital rape is when a husband forces himself upon his wife on a frequent basis while drunk or high on drugs or is simply an abusive, mean man. If there is true marital rape, there is physical abuse that comes with it. Every woman who has told me that they were raped by their husbands, also told me that they were physically abused by their husbands. In this case, the authorities need to be called and the wife needs to be protected from her physically abusive husband.

In the case I mentioned in the video, this wasn’t marital rape. Her husband doesn’t physically abuse her. He woke up in the middle of the night (maybe he wasn’t even fully awake, for all we know) and began having sex with his wife. What does this mean? Was he having full on intercourse with her or was he having foreplay with her? We don’t know. She didn’t tell me. If he was having full on intercourse with her, she must be a very deep sleeper but even if he was, I would never consider this marital rape.

Let’s say I told her that yes, this was marital rape. Then she would report it to the police in the morning. Her husband may be put in jail, then lose his job. He would have no means to support his family. He may even divorce her for considering him having sex with her one night as marital rape. In my opinion, she should have given him sex when he asked that night since we aren’t to deprive our husbands. She could have asked him if it would be okay to wait until the morning, too, if she was too exhausted but at least let him know she will give it to him very soon. I know that many wives are depriving their husbands sexually on a continual basis and they are in sin.

So he divorces her and remarries. Her marriage is destroyed. She’s left alone to have to support herself and her children, if she has any, just because I told her that her husband was committing marital rape because he was having sex with her one time during the middle of the night. I won’t do this. I am in the business of restoring marriages and trying to make them better. I am sure there are many wives who would admit that their husbands have woken them up in the middle of the night trying to have sex with them. It’s not that big of a deal! [24]

I imagine that by this point most people have recoiled in horror at her view, much as I did when I first encountered this story. In addition to the obviously atrocious advice and justification for it, it is interesting to note some aspects of her framing of the event. Lori immediately presents herself as the authority and what constitutes marital rape. In her view, it must include force, frequency, drugs or alcohol, or physical abuse. Other than Lori, says who? Nonconsensual sex is rape, irrespective of the circumstances surrounding it. While I am grateful that Lori encourages the authorities to be called in instances of physical abuse, she does not seem to realise that the psychological effects of what she is promoting could be just as devastating. Imagine how this advice would play out in a scenario where the wife suffers from PTSD due to sexual assaults in the past. I have women who I am close to who have been the victims of sexual violence as children and adults, and the amount of pain they carry to this day is significant. I do not want to begin to picture the kind of trauma that would be unearthed if their partners forced themselves on them in the middle of the night. How would they ever feel safe in her own bed?

It is also interesting to note the way Lori downplays the responsibility of the husband by suggesting he may have not been fully awake. I dare anyone to try and use that defence against rape in a court of law and see how that works out for you.

Lori also suggests her advice was correct by catastrophising- a psychologically manipulative device she is employing to coerce women into believing her. She states in no uncertain terms that by rebuffing marital rape the woman is in danger of losing her husband to another woman, facing loneliness and abandonment, being responsible for her husband going to jail and losing his job, and forfeiting the income necessary for her survival and the survival of her children. Lori’s view is a distortion of the Christian message so extreme that I am truly at a loss for words when finding ways to condemn her message. I sincerely hope no women have internalised her advice as it relates to marital sex.

The final comment in the excerpt I presented is a classic form of gaslighting: “it’s not that big of a deal!”. It is downplaying the severity of the behaviour and making women question their own emotions and reasoning if they do object to marital rape. Lori is wrong. It is a big deal. A very big deal, in fact.

There is much more that could be said about the types of behaviour control Lori encourages. Almost none of them are healthy. I have spoken at length about her attempts to control the sexual experiences of others because it is among the most troubling of her views. This level of control over female sexuality is typically only found in high control groups, not a healthy ministry. I hope at some point Lori has the humility to recognise her error in this area, but that seems unlikely.

Information control is something Lori engages in frequently, although this takes a different form from most cults as her ministry is entirely based online. This format does not, however, prevent her from attempting to influence the information that other women take in. I have already discussed Lori’s tendency to negate or attempt to control information from medical professionals if it contradicts her ideas.

Another form of information control Lori frequently engages in is attempting to silence anyone from within her own theological camp who publicly voices criticisms. When Jinger Duggar released a book detailing her childhood experiences, Lori sent out a flurry of tweets to disparage the author. In a blog post titled “Jinger Duggar Threw Her Parents Under The Bus”, she said the following:

Jinger Duggar is coming out with a new book about her “harmful and damaging” childhood” which had “lasting effects” which caused her to be “fearful and confused who Jesus was.” She was interviewed by People Magazine. I took notes so I could make this post true to exactly what she said. She gave no praise or thankfulness to her parents, only condemnation in how they raised her. Her sister, Jill, and her cousin, Amy, are the only ones who praised her on her Instagram. Both of these women also came out against the ways Jim Bob and Michelle raised their children…

…What disturbs me most about this interview and Jinger’s new book is that she has thrown her parents under the bus in a most public way. The world is rejoicing! They love seeing the downfall of believers. They love that Jinger is now wearing short shorts and “living free” from the constraints her parents put upon her. I am not. It saddens me. Her parents don’t deserve this. They should be honored as God commands us to honor our parents. They weren’t abusive. They were cheerful and fun. I watched every TV show of theirs. Those children had wonderful lives! Yeah, some of Jinger’s thinking was bad. So? Most of us had some bad thinking in our childhoods, but it doesn’t mean we have to expose it publicly and make a mockery of the way we were raised.[25]

It was obvious from her many public statements on the subject that Lori was desperately trying to persuade people to ignore Jinger’s book. The reason? It contradicts the narrative of the patriarchy cult Lori inhabits. And dissenters must be silenced at all costs. Having a child raised in the system Lori celebrates and publicly voicing concerns about it flies in the face of everything Lori argues for constantly. Instead of reading and engaging with openness and empathy, she simply tries to silence someone who has left the type of religion she approves- something every cult leader does. And imagine the level of narcissism required to think you better understand the childhood of someone than the person themselves.

It is also interesting to note how Lori engages with people online. It is her modus operandi to hide replies and block people who disagree with her opinions, even when done respectfully. This on its own is probably not too shocking as it is a common way for people to present their material on social media. What is shocking, however, is the content that Lori does not block or delete. While browsing responses to her posts, one frequently comes across the vilest misogyny which is ignored or even applauded by Lori. In contrast, respectful pushback encouraging her to rethink her positions or challenging her biblically results in the swiftest deletion or block. It is simply another way in which the cult of hyper-patriarchy is maintained under the dictatorship of Lori- no dissenters or questioners allowed.

Thought control is also something Lori advocates for, but only in relation to women. One of her favourite responses to women expressing struggles, emotions, or feelings of any kind is to rip 2 Corinthians 10:5 out of context and tell them they must ‘bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ’. As is typical in a religious cult, Scripture is weaponised rather than exposited and understood in its context. Paul is not addressing marriage in this passage, nor emotions. He is describing his ministry as a whole in the surrounding culture he inhabits. Lori ignores this and simply uses the verse to try and spiritually batter women into submission.

One woman wrote to Lori with the following problem:

“I feel the sadness fill my whole body and I can’t help crying. My husband doesn’t like my crying and many times I feel like I’ve done nothing wrong. He seems to try to put me down. I do clean our home every day and I cook for him.”

Lori’s response is to rebuke the woman for being manipulative and emotional before quoting the aforementioned verse.[26]

In his section on thought control, Steven Hassan mentions ‘allowing only positive thoughts’ and ‘using excessive meditation, singing, prayer, and chanting to block thoughts’. Bearing this in mind, consider Lori’s advice to two women who wrote to her about their struggles with depression. The first woman said the following:

What about the mothers that do stay home but still end up with depression and anxiety. I agree with your teachings and push myself to do ALLLL the housework, cooking, taking care of the kids alone but something has to give. I would do ANYTHING to actually enjoy what I do because I want to please God. But this depression and anxiety are very crippling, and I wish it would just go AWAY. I read my Bible. I pray all day long but my heart is just broken by it all. Any encouraging words? I know all the Bible verses about it and try my best to live by it but each day gets darker and darker.

The other woman wrote in with a similar struggle:

“Not all of us have older Christian women who have raised us or mentored us. Some of us are on an island alone in a lot of ways. I am a stay-at-home mom (new to me) and I have no one. What do you advise for women without family and a husband who works all the time to provide? What do you advise we do for mental breaks? After all we are human, and we aren’t robots. I am struggling myself with just being run down and anxious.”

Among the responses Lori gave is precisely the type of thought control that Hassan describes:

…begin being thankful. Sing hymns and praise songs. You can’t be depressed when you are dwelling on the good, being thankful, and praising the Lord in song.”[27]

Lori’s solution to anything that does not fit her narrative is to simply silence it- whether it is thoughts or public information. To state the obvious, depression cannot simply be resolved by singing songs and dwelling on positive things.

Emotional control is central to Lori’s thinking about her faith and is something she cites as a key to making a marriage last. Rather than recognising emotions as a healthy part of the human experience, she seems to believe that they are responsible for many of the problems women face. In the cult of Lori, women must silence and ignore their emotions entirely. I have heard of cults where the opposite is true, and it is the repression of emotions that is viewed as a source of evil. The Divine Truth cult in Australia, for example, subjects people to what one journalist described as an emotional holocaust, by forcing them to publicly express feelings of rage, fear, and guilt as they process childhood trauma. The leader, A.J. Miller, claims to be the reincarnation of Christ and promises enlightenment through his peculiar brand of emotional manipulation. In Lori’s case, she goes to the opposite extreme. She is deeply suspicious of emotions, but, again, only in relation to women. One of her blog posts is titled “Women Obey Their Lying Emotions” which seems to summarise how she views the entire subject. She concludes the post by stating:

Begin obeying God by obeying your husband. Make your husband your authority instead of your lying emotions. You will one day find that you are no longer a miserable wife but one that enjoys being married to the man you chose as your husband until death do you part.[28]

What Lori is advocating for is for women to simply attempt to kill their feelings. She seems to believe that the husband’s authority can replace the wife’s emotions and that this will magically alter the way the woman feels. I find this advice to be dangerous on many levels. Our emotions- while not infallible- function, in part, to protect us. Telling women to ignore them could be disastrous in many cases. Especially if they find themselves in an unsafe marriage.

I have already mentioned Lori’s use of fear to coerce women into accepting abusive behaviour from their husbands. This is a theme that runs throughout her teaching. She holds to an extreme view in which, seemingly, no matter how vile the actions of the husband, the woman is obligated to remain married to him. In a blog post titled ‘Is It Okay For A Wife To Divorce An Abusive Spouse?’, Lori wrote:

The question is not if it is okay to divorce an abusive spouse; but rather, is it okay to divorce? If you permit exceptions for which to divorce, people will ALWAYS take a foot if you give them an inch; divorcing for every reason. Although divorce is a hotly debated subject, I just believe that God made two people for each other, to spend a lifetime together, for better or worse. If your spouse is sentenced to life in prison, I think you should be there for them, not move on in your self-righteousness. You’re just as much a sinner in God’s eyes. We all deserve to burn in the fires of Hell. You cannot run from responsibilities, tragedy, heartache, and burdens. If you do, it will haunt you until you die if you have any conscience at all.[29]

It is interesting to note the attempt to use fear and guilt to emotionally coerce women into feeling that they may not challenge an abusive husband. She states that it would be self-righteous for a woman to move on after her husband is sentenced to life in prison. This is a misunderstanding on her part. There is nothing self-righteous about acknowledging the severity of somebody else’s sin, especially when it involves breaking the law. When it comes to financial and sexual crimes, sometimes divorce is the only sensible option for a woman to protect her assets, herself, and her children. This is also a classic tactic used by cult leaders when people uncover wrongdoing and challenge them on it. They will be told that they have no right to question because they are sinners themselves. And in Lori’s case, she throws in a dose of fundamentalist fire and brimstone preaching for good measure. I have experienced this type of gaslighting myself. As a 17-year-old, I once spoke to one of the leaders in the branch of KwaSizabantu I was in, asking him to address the fact that others were being bullied within the group. His response was to tell me that I should ‘have enough sin on my own plate’ to prevent me worrying about anyone else in the church. I now recognise this as an insidious form of emotional manipulation to prevent the leaders having to submit to any accountability. It is the exact kind of response Lori is giving to women who are in a situation where they must deal with a husband who has engaged in criminal behaviour.

The constant refrain from Lori to prevent women from expressing their emotions is incredibly troubling. And speaking as a man, allow me to add that any husband who does not wish to know or care for the emotions of his wife is, at best, a very poor husband, and, at worst, an abusive one. A healthy marriage consists of two people who are allowed to express themselves freely without fear of retribution from their spouse.

Treatment of Children

Children frequently suffer the most in cults. In religious high control groups, there is often physical or sexual abuse present as children are stripped of their voice and any deviation from the rules is met with the harshest punishments. In Bert Potter’s Centrepoint, the dissolution of sexual norms led to widespread sexual abuse of the children. Daniella Mestyanek Young and Erika Bornman have both written autobiographical accounts in which they detail the mistreatment of children present in The Children of God and KwaSizabantu respectively. It seems that something extreme religious cults have in common is a view of children that inevitably leads to their abuse. While I do not feel that Lori’s teaching would of necessity lead to abuse as serious as in the aforementioned groups, I do believe her parenting ideology could be dangerous in the wrong hands.

One incident which has received backlash online is an account in which Lori describes disciplining one of her children for four hours. She and Ken have since clarified that the spanking was not administered continuously for the entirety of that time[30], but it is still easy to see why people found the story troubling. Some of the other controversial parenting advice Lori has given includes:

Slapping the child’s hand while they are still young enough that they are crawling
Using a rod or a strap to spank a child
Flicking a babies’ cheek while they are nursing
Smacking a baby’s bottom while changing their diaper
Putting a squirt of soap in the child’s mouth every time they tease someone
‘Breaking the will of the child’ while they are young[31]

I want to give Lori the benefit of the doubt and assume that she is not advocating for extreme forms of child abuse when she mentions things like spanking. I suspect her views of parenting are, in large part, a product of her generation where the types of punishments she describes were more the norm. However, there are additional aspects of her advice that do concern me. I have already mentioned the incident where she spanked her children for opening presents on Christmas morning. One of the reasons this story shocked me was because the discipline seems to have been administered as a result of Lori losing her temper. Even well-known advocates of spanking like James Dobson always insisted that parental discipline should only ever be done in a calm, controlled manner. I wonder how Lori imagined teaching her children the benefits of emotional control when she seemed incapable of exercising it herself.

Lori frequently recommends the controversial book, ‘To Train Up A Child’ by Michael and Debi Pearl. In the Wikipedia article about the book, the following is presented under the ‘controversy’ section:

To Train Up a Child has been criticized for advocating child abuse. The book tells parents to use objects like a 0.25 in (6.4 mm) diameter plastic tube to spank children and “break their will”. It recommends other abusive tactics like withholding food and putting children under a cold garden hose.^[4]^[16] Its teachings are linked to the deaths of Sean Paddock,^[17] Lydia Schatz,^[18] and Hana Grace-Rose Williams.^[19] In all three cases, homeschooling parents acted on the Pearls’ teachings.^[20] Michael Ramsey, the district attorney who prosecuted the Schatz case, called To Train Up a Child “an extraordinarily dangerous book for those who take it literally” and “truly an evil book”.^[1] Dr. Frances Chalmers, the pediatrician who examined Hana Williams’s corpse, said that “this book, while perhaps well intended, could easily be misinterpreted and could lead to what I consider significant abuse.”^[4]^[32]

Even conservative Christians have condemned the book and its harmful ideas. Tim Challies, for example, summarises it in the following way:

In this way To Train Up a Child is the very opposite of books that encourage you to pursue your child’s heart, that teach that “the heart is the heart of the matter.” In Pearl’s view there is no heart to get to—not yet. For now there is the conditioning of poor behavior, the administration of the rod, and the purging of sin through a child’s pain.[33]

(Challies’ full review can be found at the following links: (How Not) To Train Up a Child | Tim Challies (How Not) To Train Up a Child, Part 2 | Tim Challies)

It should be of significant concern that Lori’s main parenting resource is fundamentally anti-gospel and has been so closely linked to abuse of children.

Equally troubling are her views on the sexual abuse of children. To be fair to her, she has posted some content in which she encourages mothers to protect their children from this by encouraging sex education. Unfortunately, the way she has responded on other occasions gives me reason to doubt her wisdom in this area. For example, she has said the following in relation to women who are married to child molesters:

‘…I have been frequently asked how I would mentor a woman whose husband is a child molester since I am so opposed to divorce. If I were to mentor Brenda, I would tell her to not divorce her husband but to allow the children to continue to see their father in brief periods of time with her or another trustworthy adult with them so the children could still have a relationship with him.’[34]

Lori has also stated that a mother would do well to bring their child to prison to visit their father who is incarcerated for child sex offences. In an online exchange, a woman wrote the following comment to Lori:

‘I’ve read Debi (Pearl’s) book. I believe it’s on pg 76, she recommends taking a child that has been molested by daddy to prison to visit him. I’ve read their To Train Up A Child, a manual for child abuse.’

Lori’s response:

‘There is nothing about child abuse ever written by the Pearls and they warn against it. Think what a powerful testimony of God’s grace and forgiveness a child would see if he were to go visit his evil father (who needs Jesus) in prison with his mother!’[35]

What she suggests is incredibly dangerous for the psychological wellbeing of women and children in this scenario. It is attempting to coerce them into an ongoing relationship with a man that has forfeited any right to be in their lives. It is not the job of a mother to subject her children to potential trauma by forcing them to interact with an abusive father. What I find particularly disturbing is that Lori gives this advice in reference to a child that was the victim of the abuse. The fact that their mother would be forcing them to interact with their abuser on an ongoing basis is horrifying to contemplate. It would send the message to the child that the feelings of the perpetrator are more important than their emotional safety. This is a distortion of grace and the Gospel and is being used to impose guilt and fear on women and children alike. The physical and psychological wellbeing of the child must always be the main priority, not the feelings of the abuser.

An example of Lori giving precedence to a perpetrator rather than the victims became very evident when she publicly commented on the sexual abuse committed by Josh Duggar. Because the family- specifically the parents- are within Lori’s patriarchal camp, she put forth a valiant effort to downplay the responsibility of the offender and the parents when the abuse became public knowledge. After the revelation that Josh molested his sisters, Lori wrote the following:

‘All of this talk about the “victims” of Josh Duggar isn’t sitting right with me AT ALL! I finally figured out why. We know nothing about these victims but is sounds like most were his sisters. We know he touched their private parts. He didn’t have sex with them; he touched them. They are being raised in a godly home with amazing parents and they know, without a doubt, the power of forgiveness and God’s amazing ability to heal ANYTHING!!!…Yes, what Josh did was bad but he was 14 and was punished and has nothing said against him for the past 12 years. He lives a godly life now. However, his life is ruined now. He will forever be branded as a “child molester” and suffer. Yes, the Lord will give him strength but I am sure his ”victims” are devastated by what has happened to their brother.’[36]

This is one of the times I must be cautious to measure my response because of how much her comments infuriate me. Firstly, the girls abused by Josh Duggar are victims, not “victims”. She then speculates about the exact nature of the abuse, trying to downplay the seriousness of the offence. What follows is an absurd attempt to rationalise the effect on the victims by appealing to the family. As for her comment that Josh lives a godly life now- since she wrote that, he has been jailed on child pornography charges, including content so vile that it even shocked law enforcement. One of the investigating officers stated the files on the computer were ‘in the top five of the worst of the worst that [he’d] ever had to examine’[37].

Lori’s attempts to minimise sexual abuse of children when it occurs in circles she respects is sickening. I have only ever seen this level of denial regarding sexual abuse within cultic groups where the mistreatment of children is minimised to preserve the reputation of the organisation. If your ideology leads you to this kind of behaviour, it is obviously harmful and certainly not biblical. Underpinning her response to this scenario is something that emerges as a common thread in all of her teaching- girls and women are responsible when evil occurs. And when a man is found to be the perpetrator, the effect on the female victims is immediately dismissed as unimportant while a nauseating amount of sympathy is directed at the male culprit. And therein lies the real danger of the hyper-patriarchy movement: women are only valuable in as much as they serve the men in the community.

Response to Critics

One aspect that most cults have in common is the demonising of anyone who dares to speak out about the group or abuse within their ranks. In religious cults, this is often cloaked in biblical terminology and framed as righteous persecution. This is another way in which Lori exhibits a cult-like methodology in the running of her ministry. I have already mentioned her habit of censoring anyone who questions her online. Additionally, she frequently uses a variety of slurs as labels for people who challenge her teaching. According to Lori, her critics are wicked, feminists, lukewarm Christians, devoid of wisdom, haters of truth, and haters of God. And I am sure there are other less-than-flattering descriptions given to those who have tried to correct her or highlight the problematic nature of her words. This is exactly the kind of language one expects to find from a cult leader when they are questioned. Lori never seems to do any self-reflection to assess whether there is merit in the feedback. She immediately belittles those who do not unquestioningly follow her teaching. A blogger by the name of Julie Anne has provided a succinct summary of Lori’s approach to criticism:

It’s important to note that Lori is often challenged by reasonable people, encouraging proper medical or mental health care. Lori, or her husband, Ken, usually delete these comments, so all you end up seeing are accolades of her like-minded followers who pat her on the back telling her how right she is. Her blog and Facebook page is solely: Lori’s way or the highway. She does not accept challenge or corrective criticism. She and her husband believe that anyone who counters her is obviously not godly and dismissed as being the work of Satan.[38]

Elizabeth Prata has also commented on this tendency:

A minister of the Gospel should be teachable, fair, and humbly allow correction when wrong. Lori does not. Rather than seek truth, she retreats behind a blocked wall, scrubs content, deletes tweets, hides comments, and carries on with error.[39]

The type of language that Lori uses to describe her detractors is sadly familiar to me. As someone who has spoken out publicly against a cult, I have been labelled as a conspirator, a liar, a worker for Satan, bitter, and a variety of other insults. This is what cults do to avoid accountability. And it is precisely how Lori is attempting to control the narrative surrounding her ministry.

Lori’s followers

I believe one can learn a lot about a leader by the character of the people that are drawn to their teachings. And the people online who follow Lori and her teaching are a peculiar group, to say the least. My friend who goes by RC on Twitter calls them ‘Lorifans’. Below I present, without comment, responses left under Lori’s social media posts. I think they speak for themselves:

‘There’s hardly a man alive who hasn’t grabbed a woman by the crotch and bragged about it to his buddies.’

‘I’m not justifying physical abuse no way but that is not a biblical reason to leave’.

‘Lori and Pearl will knock the Satan out of you feminists real good’.

‘They just need to go to Lori’s school for girls. Lori will unbrainwash them and graduate them when she can no longer detect any feminism. Us guys will be outside figuring out who gets first pick, second pick, and so on and so forth’.

‘If you ladies would dig down deep and embrace the core issue, that 15 and 16 year old women should be marrying, it would all be fixed’.

‘Sending women to college has been a disaster’.

‘Wife woke up to horny husband is not marital rape. You feminists need to get over yourself’.

This is just a small sample of the kinds of responses frequently appearing under Lori’s content. While I do not hold her accountable for the actions of her followers, it is telling that many of these comments are allowed to remain on her posts while she hides or blocks comments from people who respectfully disagree. And if I was Lori, I would be starting to ask myself why the content I am promoting consistently attracts such vile responses from people who seem very disturbed.

Imagining Loriville

As mentioned, Lori’s following exists almost entirely online. But imagine for a moment if Lori’s followers were in a specific location where she had the opportunity to enforce her beliefs in their lives in more tangible ways. Let’s call this compound Loriville. How would her ideology play out in practice, especially in the life of a female in the group?

Imagine a little girl is born in Loriville- let’s call her Betty. From the time Betty is born, she is taught that her sole responsibility before God and purpose in life is to marry early and to have a lot of babies. This is the indoctrination that is fed to her even as a toddler and is a constant theme in the Sunday sermons. When she is four years old, she is molested by one of the older boys in the group. This is dismissed as “boys being boys” while the opportunity is used to teach Betty about the importance of not dressing provocatively because men are visually stimulated. As she gets older, she observes all of the older girls marrying at 18 or 19 and wonders who her husband might be one day. At the age of 10, she reads a story about a missionary doctor, and it inspires an interest in medicine. She dreams of what it would be like to be a doctor herself one day, but these hopes are quickly dashed as she is told that colleges are evil places, especially for women. It would only lead her into fornication and feminism. This is not God’s plan for her. She will be a homemaker one day. She tries to listen to what her mother and the other adults are telling her, but her curiosity takes over and she takes to secretly reading books about medicine when no one is looking. She is discovered and is punished severely for her disobedience.

In her teens, she is allowed to start courting. She has been taught that being in love and emotions are not important in choosing a marriage partner. When an eligible young man asks to court her, she agrees. She does not find him attractive, but he seems to want to follow God and have a family, the two most important things in life. Shortly after her 18^th birthday, they announce their engagement. They are swamped by messages of support from the entire group and for a while it feels nice to receive the validation of doing what the group expects. The engagement period is very chaste. Only hand holding allowed. An awkward first kiss is shared at the wedding ceremony before an even more awkward wedding night. But she has prepared for this- her role is to ignore any physical and emotional discomfort and give her husband sex whenever he wants it. After all, men are so driven by physical desire that her husband may be tempted by other women if she does not fulfill her role as a wife in the way she has been instructed.

Betty wishes she could have some time to adjust to married life before thinking about children, but contraception is one of the evils she has heard talked about often from the pulpit. She falls pregnant at 19 and prepares for motherhood. The birth is traumatic, physically and emotionally, adding an additional layer of confusion. She has always been told that motherhood is the pinnacle of what God wants from her as a woman, and instead she feels depressed and overwhelmed. Despite her best attempts to remain cheerful and energetic, she is constantly fatigued with the demands of being a mother. Her husband is not sympathetic and uses emotional and physical coercion to try and initiate sex again. He even consults the leaders in the group who call Betty in for a private meeting and remind her, with Scripture, that it is her duty not to withhold sex from her husband as a Christian wife.

By the age of 30 she has six children with little time for anything other than raising them at home and attending church. Occasionally she wonders what life might have been like had she been allowed to pursue the career of her choosing. But her job in life is to raise the next generation so that they grow up to adopt the values she has known her whole life. And so, the cycle repeats…

Conclusion

If you think the world I am describing seems hyperbolic in its representation of Lori’s teachings, I would encourage you to re-read the excerpts from her writings that I have shared and examine her online content for yourself. There is no doubt in my mind that this is the ‘utopia’ she envisions. A brand of religion in which women are stripped of everything except their purpose to serve the men in their role as a wife and mother. One thing ought to be crystal clear- this no longer has any resemblance to the teaching of Scripture. This far more closely mimics ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ than biblical Christianity. It is an ideology constructed purely in the imagination of a woman who, for some inexplicable reason, believes that her thinking reflects the mind of God.

Make no mistake, the thin veil of Scripture and religious terminology that cloaks Lori’s teaching seeks to hide the fact that her message is fundamentally anti-gospel, anti-Christian, and anti-women. The legalism, the misuse of Scripture, and the spiritually bankrupt view of marriage and women are all disqualifying factors in terms of her teaching ability. My recommendation is to reject her message on all fronts and, when necessary, call it out if you have the platform to do so. I am grateful for the people who have already done that.

If you are someone who supports Lori’s message and has taken the time to read this far, could I urge you to seriously consider the points I have made.

To Ken and Lori, allow me to say this: I believe the only moral course of action at this point would be to shut down your ministry and offer a heartfelt, public apology for the unbiblical teaching you have promoted and the harm it has undoubtedly caused.

I will close with the following comments:

Women deserve much more than being sex dolls and baby makers in the way that Lori demands. There is nothing in scripture that prevents a woman from going to college, voting, pursuing a career, or any of the other prohibitions Lori claims are scriptural. Nor does scripture demand that they become emotionless robots who submit to abuse.

Men deserve to have a relationship with someone who is their equal, not just a sexual outlet and someone who raises the children. A marriage based on communication, respect, consideration, equality, and genuine intimacy is much more fulfilling.

Single women are not second-class citizens or second-class Christians just because Lori suggests that they are. Scripture does not hold marriage or singleness as superior to the other. I believe Lori’s suggestion that single women are outside the will of God adds further pain and guilt in a situation that can already be very difficult. And a woman is not a bad mother if she is required to work in order to financially support herself and her children.

Children deserve protection- emotionally, physically, psychologically and spiritually. There is never an excuse for physical abuse in the form of harsh punishments, emotional abuse by forcing them to interact with their abusers, or spiritual abuse by presenting them with a God who expects them to kill their emotions and critical thinking.

In short, do not join the cult of Lori Alexander. And if you have joined already- for heaven’s sake, get out.

[1] https://lorialexander.blogspot.com/2011/11/when-husbands-say-no.html

[2] https://thetransformedwife.com/michelle-lesley-adds-me-to-her-post-of-false-teachers/

[3] https://lorialexander.blogspot.com/2013/01/ice-dipping-for-pain.html

[4] https://x.com/RoCa74394915/status/1719114680902222143

[5] https://thetransformedwife.com/about-2/

[6] https://thetransformedwife.com/women-obey-their-lying-emotions/

[7] https://thetransformedwife.com/what-is-the-gift-of-prophesy/

[8] https://thetransformedwife.com/setting-the-record-straight-again/

[9] https://thetransformedwife.com/women-are-the-answer-to-everything-that-ails-society/

[10] https://thetransformedwife.com/the-backlash-of-women-in-the-workforce/

[11] https://thetransformedwife.com/welcome-to-my-new-blog/