This is part four in a series. For the rest of the series, go here.
Former residents of the Pentecostal-linked Esther Foundation which received a $4 million grant from Scott Morrison before the 2019 election mostly spoke anonymously to Crikey. Until now.
Lydia Taylor tells Crikey that what happened “can’t be allowed to go without being confronted”.
“This has to be made an example of,” she said. “I would call myself a Christian but their version of Christianity is not mine. What they do is not Christianity. They twist the Bible.”
Other women have spoken anonymously worried that identifying themselves might jeopardise their new lives. One cited how hard it was for those raised in conservative Christian homes to speak against the church: “We’re raised to be martyrs for Jesus if needs be. It might be dramatic but that is literally what we’re talking about.”
Taylor was a resident of the Esther Foundation for five years, from the age of 16 to 21. She arrived there because her life at home became “impossible”. Her mother had parted from Taylor’s Indigenous father and taken up with a man who she felt had little sympathy for her.
“My mum was doing her best and loved me but the environment was not healthy for me,” she said. “Esther wasn’t great, but home was worse.”
Taylor says she was told by some Esther staff that she had “Aboriginal demons”.
“A couple of the workers said they saw an ‘Aboriginal spirit’ over me … On multiple occasions I was told I had to burn my possessions that might have a worldly spirit on them. There were also regular prayer nights that went for hours.
“They would say to me that as an Aboriginal I was incoherent but I would say that their charismatic Pentecostal crap is totally incoherent.”
Taylor alleges there were attempts to break her connection to her heritage so she could assimilate the foundation’s Christian beliefs. On many occasions, Indigenous residents were not allowed to speak in any Indigenous languages and were forbidden from speaking to each other in order to break “ungodly soul ties”.
She says the Esther Foundation presented her as a token Indigenous success story to the public as part of marketing efforts: “I felt more like a race than a person and my identity was a collective of ideas and representations, rather than the individual.”
Now 30 she says she still bears the scars of her time at the Esther Foundation from 10 years ago.
“The emotional baggage it’s given me is incredibly heavy,” she says. “I fear death. I fear hell. I’m scared to my core. I learnt to fear more than I learnt to believe.”
During her time at Esther, Taylor studied for a diploma in Christian ministry at the Harvest West Bible College in Perth which, she says, was open to a variety of religious beliefs.
“I’m not in the Pentecostal loop any more,” she said. “As far as I’m concerned that conservative white Christian stuff is skewered now. I believe in the individual, the individual’s rights and the individual’s respect within their own belief systems.” She now works at an Aboriginal legal centre in Perth.
The Esther Foundation’s founder, Patricia Lavater, has denied allegations that there were attempts to drive out “Aboriginal spirits”. Burning possessions, she said, was symbolic and applied only to any stolen goods the girls might have brought in.
At the same time she conceded that some allegations might be true but suggested this might be because she “wasn’t always there” to supervise staff: “A lot of the girls who were successful under the program stayed on as staff and weren’t qualified.”
Lavater and the foundation parted ways in early 2020, six months after a new CEO took over and reviewed the foundation’s practices.
It said then that it was exploring “Indigenous and cross-cultural training opportunities” for the future.
“Burning possessions, she said, was symbolic and applied only to any stolen goods the girls might have brought in.”
ok, that’s just a detail in the article’s account of what was going on. But really? What is the difference between something burned ‘symbolically’ and just being burned? And how is this an appropriate way of handling stolen goods? Did the owners of the stolen goods know what was going on and approve of it? How is this legal?
Unfortunately people manufacture their own image of God which too often is more an image of their likeness. A God of Love, which is the New Testament version proclaimed by Christ is a much healthier image for people and for our society and world. It is quite repugnant that Morrison doles out our precious funds to those who do so grievous harm because of their distorted belief systems, and without any ethical consideration of his own conflict of interest
It’s unlikely that the ‘stolen goods‘ referred to were based on Proudhon’s “property is theft” concept and it is beyond credulity that the notion of stolen land ever entered the tiny minds of Estherites.
Most likely it was just for the sheer power of being able to torment, their own warped lives being so miserable that they resented all whom they deemed to be suffering insufficiently.
The behaviour of the Ester Foundation is abhorrent. They need to be held accountable for the behaviour. How do they get away with burning stolen gods instead of returning them to the owner? Demonic possession? In the 21st Century? Really?
But we always get the fallacy of the No True Christian This god of love committed genocide in the flood. In Mathew 10 34-37 Jesus says
34 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
35 For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.
36 And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.
37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
So who is twisting the bible. You don’t get to cherry pick the good bits. The Esther foundation appears to be acting within the teachings of Jesus in the Bible.. Jesus came to uphold the law. Would any of these true Christians be happy to become my slave as described in Exodus 21. A book based on the teachings of a mad blood god of the desert has no place in the comfort and aid of those people struggling in life
About 25 years ago I knew a teenager from a strict Baptist family. The girl was deemed by her parents to have the devil in her and required an exorcism.
The actions requiring the treatment was smoking marijuana (freely available amongst some high school students). Wasn’t successful, as she became more of a worry with casual sexual encounters.
However, she still maintained her good grades at school. And kept herself safe. Did not live at home. Ended up overseas on some employment, last I heard she was secure with female partner.
I thought her parents lived lives via bible, repressed and unhappy. Absolutely no understanding of adolescent changes occurring and how to deal with situation.
There are so many stories of the damage done by such parents and of course the results can be much worse. Perhaps you know about the founder of the Samaritans, Chad Varah? His first service as a Church of England curate in Lincoln in 1935 was a funeral for a girl, fourteen years old. When she had her first period she had no idea what was happening, nobody she trusted enough to talk to and she decided it was a sexual disease. In fear and panic she killed herself. The funeral affected Varah profoundly. As well as founding the Samaritans, Varah was an advocate for sex education and similar causes all his life.
The happiness of members and their children is of no interest to these evil sects. The primary objective is the “prosperity” of the promoters and managers.