Review: "Lovingly Abused" by Heather Grace Heath

Lovingly Abused by Heather Grace Heath
Published 2021 via Palmetto Publishing
★★★

I've been reading a lot about conservative American religion of late, especially Evangelicals and the Quiverfull movement. It's not a new reading interest of mine (it's a very, very different world from the one I grew up in), but a few things have made this not-so-fringe group get more publicity of late, and consequently...more reading material. So I picked up Lovingly Abused after watching the Amazon docu-series Shiny Happy People, for which Heath was interviewed. Heath was raised in the Institute in Basic Life Principles and its Advanced Training Institute, which is to say that she was homeschooled using the IBLP's so-called Wisdom Booklets—which in turn is to say that her education was, ah, lacking. Real school curriculums don't hand out actual tests asking "How do show love to a homosexual?" or show a video of a man limping and ask "What do you think is causing this man to limp?" (40), Heath writes. (The answers, if you're curious: you become a 'prayer warrior' for the homosexual—but not a prayer partner, because that could lead to temptation!—and the man is limping because of his extreme bitterness caused by Satan.)

These were the cult classics. I later learned this is an actual term for media geared towards a specific audience, but I mean it in the literal sense. This would have been convenient to know when I spent an embarrassing amount of time arguing with outsiders that films such as Monty Python and the Holy Grail or Clockwork Orange weren't even approved cult movies, let alone classics. (82)

IBLP is not in and of itself a religion: it's an organization that peddles its services to any number of conservative churchgoers. Heath describes attending conferences with Calvinists and Mennonites, Amish people and Baptists. But it has all the hallmarks of a cult: a leader taken as charismatic; a highly authoritarian structure with one leader at the top; an us-or-them mentality; a distrust of the outside world; suppression of questioning. Heath was taught that sexual abuse was the victim's fault, that dinosaurs and humans coexisted, that a seven-year-old girl sharing a hymnal with a seven-year-old boy was slutty and inappropriate, that touching a dead body would defile her, that her role as a woman was to be wife, mother, subservient.

You know that quote from Billy Graham's wife, "I don't believe in divorce, but I belive [sic] in murder?" I'm surprised none of my relatives have that cross-stitched on throw pillows. Throughout my whole family tree, we have rapists, incestual pedophiles, child molesters, spouse and child abusers, thieves, drug addicts, and a murderer. But I was the first one ever to get a divorce. My family simply didn't believe in divorce because, you know, it's important to have standards. (159)

Health is very clear about the disservice her homeschool 'education' did to her and the damage it wrought, but she's also clear-eyed about her parents' motivations—in particular, that her mother was trying to do right by her kids, and IBLP/ATI presented a path forward with what felt like security, a contrast to her mother's unstable childhood. It's a story that seems to be common: parents getting their families into IBLP because it sounds better than their stressed situations; kids bearing the brunt of the consequences. Heath tried, year after year, to fit into the mold—but eventually, the straws piled upon the camel's back became too much, and she started to choose her own future over the one her upbringing demanded of her.

As a book, it's somewhat hit or miss. Heath has a wry, dry humor, and it's very necessary in the face of the abuse, neglect, and control she describes. She also has the evidence to back it up: she's not talking just about 'here's my memory of this experience' (which would in itself be valid, to be clear), but she also has the materials from her homeschooling 'education' and an entire trove of IBLP references to pull on. It's entirely worth checking out her social media accounts after reading the book to get more visuals. That said, I would love it if Heath's role in Shiny Happy People led an established publisher (Lovingly Abused is self-published) to reach out and work with Heath on polishing an updated version of this. It's such a powerful story but sometimes feels all over the place—the structure is sometimes chronological and sometimes thematic, and at times repetition feels more like catharsis than like something that best suits the story. It makes a great deal of sense in the context of Heath not having had access to formal education until she was an adult, and to me it was worth it for the combination of context and personal story that the book offers, but I suspect that there's a potential version of this book that could reach, and resonate with, a much wider audience.