Most of us have heard of YWAM (Youth with a Mission) and know it to be a large youth centred international organisation devoted to mission and evangelism.  My knowledge of this group did not encourage me to want to look further into its story when I first heard about it a decade ago.  Rumours of mistreatment of volunteer staff members were then circulating.  One particular account did burrow into my memory.  This was the story of a young idealistic volunteer who was working in India, but who became disillusioned with the treatment he was receiving at the hands of YWAM leaders.  The response of the organisation was simply to abandon the volunteer.  He had no money or other means of returning to his home,  which I believe was in Australia.

I would normally hesitate before recounting a story heard a decade ago about an organisation which may be a hostile piece of gossip. I take the risk because although the story I heard may be just that, a rumour, it pales into triviality when set alongside the many other allegations against the group collected by Shanti Das in the Observer last weekend.   The Observer story is in many ways a familiar one, especially for those of us who are familiar with safeguarding stories connected with control in some religious groups.  These seem inevitably to focus on abuse, whether emotional, spiritual or sexual.  The YWAM story appears, from the Observer account, to indicate what we can only describe as cultic exploitation.  The abusers in YWAM, if such they are, seem to be concerned with establishing complete control over their victims.  This enables them to obtain access to a gratification that such control provides.  This pattern is common to the behaviour of cult leaders the world over. 

I retell some of this Observer story of spiritual abuse to show how an ostensibly Christian organisation can put itself in the situation of using cult dynamics, while believing that it is doing God’s work.   There are various danger signs in the Observer description of YWAM that together allow us to refer to it as cultic.  When these danger signs are found in any Christian group, we must be on the alert and aware that we are entering potentially dangerous territory.

The first danger sign is the age issue.  There is nothing intrinsically wrong in recruiting young people from the 18-30 age group to practise Christian evangelism and ministry.   Young people in this age group have not yet settled into family life or careers and so are free to be recruited into a ‘gap-year’ experience as provided by YWAM.   They also possess a great deal of idealism and capacity for self-sacrifice at this stage of their lives.  Youthful health and vitality are also generally more tolerant of the less-than-ideal living conditions that are experienced in poorer parts of the world.   But there is a shadow side to this boundless capacity for self-sacrifice and idealism.  These same qualities, however honourable, make the individual potentially open to abuse and exploitation if there is any rottenness or corruption in the organisation.  In short, where there is human sin there will be a potential for some of those in positions of power to take toxic advantage of those in their charge.  A perennial issue for YWAM, as for any organisation with responsibility for groups of young people being prepared for ministry, is to be alert for this potential for abuse among the trainers.  No amount of high-sounding Christian rhetoric can remove this possible evil, even in organisations dedicated to the highest of values.  Only safeguarding vigilance and a realistic understanding of human nature will make such organisations consistently safe and free from the toxic effects of controlling abuse.

There are two salient factors that have allowed toxic abuse to find a home in YWAM’s method of operation.  One is a practical issue brought about by geography.  If you remove a group of young people to a centre in an alien unfamiliar culture and many miles from home, you inevitably increase a sense of vulnerability and dependency in these individuals.  The greater the vulnerability, the more the dislocated youngster is likely to develop a potentially unhealthy dependence on leaders.  A second method for creating a dependency on an organisation is by insisting on an adherence to an authoritarian understanding of scripture.  In the case of YWAM and numerous similar organisations, the teaching will include a reactionary stance on all things to do with sexuality.  There seems to be an unhealthy focus on compelling YWAM members in group ‘confession’ sessions to open up and admit any deviance from the conservative understanding of sexuality within their personal lives.  It does not take much imagination to see such compulsory ‘confession’ as a weapon of control.  Quite apart from what any of us think about the LGBTQ issue, it cannot be right to use the sexual preferences of an individual as a means of controlling them through the imposition of shame and guilt.  This is what appears to have been a regular pattern in the YWAM group meetings.

The YWAM culture of coercion and control that the Observer article describes is very similar to the dynamics of a cult.  It is one thing to teach and believe a set of attitudes about human sexuality.  It is quite another to impose those beliefs on others using the tools of social shame and the threat of ostracism.  This kind of compulsory groupthink is typical of cults. Whether or not my anecdote about the Australian young man abandoned in India by YWAM is literally true, it represents a sense of dread that a young person might feel when tempted to question those in authority.  To describe YWAM as a cult is simply to indicate that within this group non-conformity is impossible.  Such suppression of identity is, most of us would claim, a denial of an essential human freedom.  The freedom to be a dissident is a fundamental human right.   Maturity is gained through questioning and exploration, not through the surrender of one’s intellect to the dictates of an authoritarian conservative mind-set.

The Observer article is, for a change, not a narrative about sexual abuse and exploitation.  It does, however, lay bare the vulnerability of idealistic young people to harm.  These, in the name of Christian ideals, sacrifice an important stage in their lives to a cultic group.  At best they can extract some positive learning out of their experience, and this may include some insight about the power of groups to take over control of young lives.  At worst, there may be a completely messed up set of values in the head, which puts a permanent block on the ability to understand sexuality and healthy human relationships.  If even half the claims of control in the Observer are true, it represents the imposition of an enormous burden on a substantial cohort of young people at a vulnerable stage in their lives.  If such damage is routinely happening at YWAM, we might ask which other branches of the church are treating young people with the same recklessness and potential damage to their lives.  Abuse is not just about sex and finance.  It is often about damage to trust and the ability to make healthy meaningful relationships with God and with others.  To damage that ability is to create real and lasting harm.

Message for blog post:

Do you have a personal connection to Iwerne camps or have material related to it? I’ve been contacted by someone conducting research in this area and they would be very interested to hear from you. Please get in touch with me directly on parsvic2@gmail.com to learn more.