Gabriel Pearl divorced?!

[Palimpsest]

Do we have any evidence of (divorce in the very unlikely event they were legally married)  or custody hearings between Lori and Gabriel?  I really wouldn't put it past a Pearl just to grab the children and move out of state.  A 2.5 year struggle to grab the kids and run.

58 minutes ago, hoipolloi said:

Would really like to know what's up with Rebekah & Gabe Anast. Last I recall, they'd had baby #7 but that was several years ago.

I would too.  They closed 7 X Sunday in 2011, IIRC, when Gabe decided he needed to study the Bible full time and couldn't afford the server.  They had 7 children and were squatting on a Navaho Reservation in a shack with no electricity and were also allegedly diverting water from the Zuni River illegally at the time.  I bet their children are undocumented too.

I don't think we've heard a peep out of them since.

[December]

19 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

I don't understand the logic. Why would a Tennessee marriage forfeit the sanctity of the covenant just because them gays can get married too? Shouldn't the sanctity of your marriage be dependent on you and your spouse, not some strangers who have nothing to do with your relationship?  Gays have driving licences too, should Christians drive without a licence?  

I think their "logic" is that the government is morally corrupt, so any marriage license issued by it would be tainted by association because the government would someday give the same marriage licenses to gays and other random people that the Pearls disapprove of. It also probably has the side effect of limiting the government's view of their lives even more. 

And I can't imagine it'd be easy to get a driver's license without proper identity documents. Not to mention purchasing insurance. 

[molecule]

2 hours ago, hoipolloi said:

Maybe this the fundie equivalent of an annulment in the RC Church.

Or, even if they live apart, the Pearls might still view the couple as married to each other. As long as Gabe doesn't go and become one flesh with any other woman, he hasn't violated his wedding vows. If she goes and remarries (legally it would be her first marriage), then in their eyes that makes her an adulterer. Gabe, though, is still good.

It's kind of convoluted and I'm not sure I explained it right, but I can see how the Pearls would be able to accept the uncoupling.

[EmmieJ]

On 6/20/2016 at 2:16 PM, willpower said:

*Michael and Debi.

I am saying that they all strive to be good people. The ending results of their desire is questionable, but what they do, they do because they think is right. I can respect that, but that is as far as my respect goes. Their view of  right and wrong is not my view of right and wrong. The fact that they cannot respect that makes us very different people.

I'll respectfully disagree and say that Michael Pearl in particular has not striven (strove?) to be a good person, maybe not ever.  I read his description of his wedding night and how he treated his new wife.  No way, no how, was that striving to be a good person.  In fact, just the opposite.  He was actively striving to be the biggest asshole he could.  He enjoys controlling those who are under his control, and actively hurting them, mentally and physically.  Of course he thinks he's right to abuse his wife and children - that's how he sells his bullshit.  I have absolutely zero respect for him, and same for his wife (although I think of her as suffering from Stockholm-syndrome)

[browncoatslytherin]

Or, even if they live apart, the Pearls might still view the couple as married to each other. As long as Gabe doesn't go and become one flesh with any other woman, he hasn't violated his wedding vows. If she goes and remarries (legally it would be her first marriage), then in her eyes that makes her an adulterer. Gabe, though, is still good.

It's kind of convoluted and I'm not sure I explained it right, but I can see how the Pearls would be able to accept the uncoupling.

that does make sense, i hadn't thought of that. in some christian circles, divorce is okay, it's remarriage that's the issue.

and, if gabe did just grab the kids, i wonder if his wife would know she could challenge him in court. i wonder if he's on their birth certificate, being not legally married and all (not sure about where they live, but in wisconsin, if a couple isn't married when a child is born, the father has to fill out an affidavit and submit it to the state to get added to the birth certificate, otherwise only the mother is listed). i wonder, if that's the case, if they would submit the affidavit? or would that be too much government control? lol

[Grimalkin]

2 hours ago, Palimpsest said:

 They closed 7 X Sunday in 2011, IIRC, when Gabe decided he needed to study the Bible full time and couldn't afford the server.  They had 7 children and were squatting on a Navaho Reservation in a shack with no electricity and were also allegedly diverting water from the Zuni River illegally at the time.  I bet their children are undocumented too.

I don't think we've heard a peep out of them since.

       This is a really inspiring testimony for ttuac/fundie homeschooling. Doesn't every parent dream of this lifestyle for thier children? The fruit of the spirit!

      Did she leave him? Maybe it doesn't count if he is being victimized by an evil temptress who defied him and ran away. 

     

[Howl]

1 hour ago, browncoatslytherin said:

and, if gabe did just grab the kids, i wonder if his wife would know she could challenge him in court. i wonder if he's on their birth certificate, being not legally married and all (not sure about where they live, but in wisconsin, if a couple isn't married when a child is born, the father has to fill out an affidavit and submit it to the state to get added to the birth certificate, otherwise only the mother is listed). i wonder, if that's the case, if they would submit the affidavit? or would that be too much government control? lol

As we're starting to learn, if it is a home birth, there may be no birth certificate. 

Unless there are horrible extenuating circumstances, I can't imagine she would voluntarily give up custody, knowing what those kids are in for with the Pearl approach.  If he's been working for two years to get custody, she most definitely did not want to give them up.  Very curious now.  Also odd when kids (Nathan, Gabriel) wind up that far from their parents.   Like maybe even they need some breathing space from Pearl pere. 

[iheartchacos]

I just want to know if Lori is in the know...

[Chocolatedefrauded]

I can't find words strong enough to describe how horrible M Pearl is, after reading about his wedding night. And being proud of baby beating with a plumbing line? This is the most disgusting thing I've ever heard. That must piss God off. It should never even occur to someone to do that.

Even the Pilgrims hundreds of years ago said under age 7, kids cannot be held accountable or something like that. They may have spanked kids but not babies. He's more barbaric than a group from the late 1600s.

[Palimpsest]

Disclaimer: I haven't had much time today to peruse the Gabe and Nathan Pearl FBs properly.  However, it looks as though they are both fully within the family fold.  Nathan is busy converting Hawaii to the Pearl version of Jesus, with side trips to convert the Philippines, and Gabe is keeping busy helping missionaries in the Philippines too.  We can rest assured that Nathan (and family) and Gabe have passports.  I'm also getting the impression from photos that Gabe had some of the older children already and just acquired the younger ones.  Poor Lori.  I can't imagine how hard it must be after years of Pearl domination and submission to keep hold of your children.

Can people with more time dash over and take a better look and perhaps some screenshots before they make everything private?  https://www.facebook.com/gabe.pearl.1  and https://www.facebook.com/nathan.pearl.79/

Also, no Gabe Anast sightings on those FB pages yet.  Beka and Anast are now way off the grid and the most likely to be committing identity abuse against their children.  Among other abuses.  Poor Beka.

[hoipolloi]

4 hours ago, Palimpsest said:

However, it looks as though they are both fully within the family fold....

Beka and Anast are now way off the grid and the most likely to be committing identity abuse against their children.  Among other abuses.  Poor Beka.

Being in the Family Fold. Indeed they are. Debi Pearl and their sisters Shalom Pearl Brand and Shoshanna Pearl Easling all comment regularly on Nathan's & Gabe's FB pages. So much for preaching against divorce -- guess that only applies to OTHER people, not the Pearls.

Re: the Anasts. The oldest ones are 14-15 years old now -- old enough to need some forms of ID.

 

[hoipolloi]

Michael Pearl talking about his superior methods of "Christian" child-rearing and why his kids are so perfect [emphasis added]:

Quote

Those of you who think I am too hard, too protective, and too distrusting, keep in mind that all my children are grown and married now. They have demonstrated themselves to be solid citizens and emotionally stable. They all came to marriage as virgins and are now happily married. They will never divorce. We are delighted with them, and they are delighted with us. What more could you want in this life? 

[Howl]

Uh oh, I think the Easlings are spruiking Plexus.  Shoshanna Easling and family went to a Plexus convention. Gabriel mentions taking it on his Web site, and Debi chimes in to remind him to take his Plexus; there is a picture of him with a handful of pills. 

 Plexus is firmly in the MLM realm; there are many complaints that all of the glowing reviews about Plexus are written by Plexus "ambassadors".  I googled "is Plexus a" and google autofilled "scam".  Plexus received an FDA letter several years ago reminding them that their products were not FDA approved and could not be marketed as drugs. 

Natan and Gabriel are going to the Philippines to convert Christians to the right kind of Christianity, oh and some Muslims as well.  Meanwhile, it looks like they are living a fun life in Hawaii. 

[NotALoserLikeYou]

Since school just got out, I am going to speculate that he just has the kids for the summer as part of a custody arrangement.

[mallallory]

I hope he only has the kids for the summer and doesn't kidnap them at the end of the summer, if that is what's going on. 

Ken, one could hope for many more things for one's children.  Happiness in themselves and not to be afraid of physical violence at the hands of their parents for starters. 

[polecat]

14 hours ago, Palimpsest said:

Disclaimer: I haven't had much time today to peruse the Gabe and Nathan Pearl FBs properly.  However, it looks as though they are both fully within the family fold.  Nathan is busy converting Hawaii to the Pearl version of Jesus, with side trips to convert the Philippines, and Gabe is keeping busy helping missionaries in the Philippines too.  We can rest assured that Nathan (and family) and Gabe have passports.  I'm also getting the impression from photos that Gabe had some of the older children already and just acquired the younger ones.  Poor Lori.  I can't imagine how hard it must be after years of Pearl domination and submission to keep hold of your children.

Can people with more time dash over and take a better look and perhaps some screenshots before they make everything private?  https://www.facebook.com/gabe.pearl.1  and https://www.facebook.com/nathan.pearl.79/

Also, no Gabe Anast sightings on those FB pages yet.  Beka and Anast are now way off the grid and the most likely to be committing identity abuse against their children.  Among other abuses.  Poor Beka.

 

Pro-child abuse, pro-spousal abuse, pro-racism ... 

How anyone can read that and call these people "good people" is beyond me. 

[Jellybean]

I've been pondering this a great deal since the start of this thread. 

I would like to consider myself a good person. By my own judgement, I try to treat people with kindness and respect, speak up for (other) people with disabilities and with others who need the voice of an ally alongside their own (especially on LGBTQ issues, and against Christian fundamentalism). I love my family, my husband's family, my friends, and go out of my way to show them that I care about them. 

Because I'm a real person with shades of grey, rather than clear cut binaries of good and bad, I also lose my temper, say cruel things, can be thin-skinned, overly introspective, lazy, nitpickingly organised and detail focused... 

And that is just on my own moral judgement. My former pastor would add that I slept with my husband for years before marriage, that I sometimes swear, drink alcohol, and don't put god first in my life. He would add that the fact that I am still disabled, and continuing to deteriorate, despite all those prayers, means that I don't have enough faith, that I have unconfessed sin in my life, and that on some level I don't want to be healed.

On the basis of that analysis, I'm not sure that I can take for granted that I'm a good person, just because I *feel* that I am.

could this explain the insistence of the OP that s/he feels that Michael and Debi Pearl are good people?

[gustava]

3 hours ago, Jellybean said:

could this explain the insistence of the OP that s/he feels that Michael and Debi Pearl are good people?

No. OP is a troll.

[Howl]

On 6/22/2016 at 5:35 PM, Palimpsest said:

Also, no Gabe Anast sightings on those FB pages yet.  Beka and Anast are now way off the grid and the most likely to be committing identity abuse against their children.  Among other abuses.  Poor Beka.

The last thing I read from Beka--she was chugging the kool aid and explaining that even though they were poor, they knew how to get by.  Too bad her husband didn't hold off a few years on his bible studies, so he could continue to support his family until the kids were grown, and THEN start his epic quest for insight.  But no!  Anyway, she writes young adult fiction and has a rather astonishing bio, including a college degree, (NOT a stay-at-home daughter) which you can find here: 

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7622902.Rebekah_Joy_Anast

Her publishing web site is here: birthrightmedia.com/

However, I think I remember reading that she stopped writing to better serve her husband (or something along that line).  

My impression is that they are doing some serious homesteading and subsistence living, presumably still in the Gallup, NM area or maybe not. 

A google search shows him at a suburban address in Gallup and he also has a Web site called Blurb, that looks like a design tool for authors who self publish. 

blurb.com/bookmaking-tools  

[lawfulevil]

Lori almost certainly doesn't have the kind of money she'd need to fight the Pearl family in court, didn't they make a lot of money from their awful books?

I also wonder if maybe they threatened her (Lori's) life to take her kids away. People who have no problem beating infants with plumbing line and bragging about raping their wives seem unlikely to have a problem with threatening violence to ensure compliance in general.

[nelliebelle1197]

On 6/22/2016 at 11:57 AM, browncoatslytherin said:

haha, maybe THAT'S the workaround!

Nah. They were married in the eyes of God. MP does not care about the eyes of the state.

[Palimpsest]

11 hours ago, Howl said:

<snip for space>

However, I think I remember reading that she stopped writing to better serve her husband (or something along that line).  

My impression is that they are doing some serious homesteading and subsistence living, presumably still in the Gallup, NM area or maybe not. 

A google search shows him at a suburban address in Gallup and he also has a Web site called Blurb, that looks like a design tool for authors who self publish. 

blurb.com/bookmaking-tools  

Great finds, thank you!

Rebekah was always very interesting, more so than her sisters, because she spent that time in Papua New Guinea.  However,  if you read her bio through skeptical eyes in looks a little less impressive.  Was she really alone in PNG, or under the umbrella of protection of like minded missionaries?  A vacation in SE Asia with her brothers and then college, because the Pearls are not expressly anti-education.  Then she met Gabe Anast and decided to submit to him.  The Pearls are very good at making silk purses out of pigs ears.

It looks as though Rebekah is still writing, and that may help bring in some money, but her last post on Good Reads is 2014.  She is isolating herself from friends and social media, no way to know whether it is voluntary or not.  

 From reading 7 X Sunday I got the impression that Gabe had broken whatever spirit she had left in her after growing up Pearl.  That site was unbelievably awful.  Bekah couldn't even answer questions from women without Gabe barreling in to tell the women to submit and treat their abusive husbands like Kings.

 

[Howl]

Sadly, living in an environment of abject submission probably feels psychologically comfortable, since that's what she grew up with.  

As some critical commenters re: the Peals and 7xSunday have pointed out, Jesus certainly respected women, they played key roles in his ministry, and he treated them with compassion.  

 

 

[hoipolloi]

Great finds, thank you!

Rebekah was always very interesting, more so than her sisters, because she spent that time in Papua New Guinea.  However,  if you read her bio through skeptical eyes in looks a little less impressive.  Was she really alone in PNG, or under the umbrella of protection of like minded missionaries?  A vacation in SE Asia with her brothers and then college, because the Pearls are not expressly anti-education.  Then she met Gabe Anast and decided to submit to him.  The Pearls are very good at making silk purses out of pigs ears.[emoji20]

On Tapatalk so can't link to NGJ but if you go back thru NGJ magazine you'll see that Mike Pearl made a BFD about Rebekah going to PNG under the quasi-headship of her brothers for at least part of the time she wa there.

Also, re: college, she went to some fundie Bible college, not sure if it is/was accredited in any way. While I suppose the Pearls deserve credit for "letting" her go to college, PNG, Israel, etc. her travels were hardly equivalent to, say, those of Katie Botkin.

Yes, the Pearls do have a chameleon-like ability to portray themselves favorably to whatever audience they want to scam.

[Palimpsest]

47 minutes ago, hoipolloi said:

On Tapatalk so can't link to NGJ but if you go back thru NGJ magazine you'll see that Mike Pearl made a BFD about Rebekah going to PNG under the quasi-headship of her brothers for at least part of the time she wa there.

Also, re: college, she went to some fundie Bible college, not sure if it is/was accredited in any way. While I suppose the Pearls deserve credit for "letting" her go to college, PNG, Israel, etc. her travels were hardly equivalent to, say, those of Katie Botkin.

Yes, the Pearls do have a chameleon-like ability to portray themselves favorably to whatever audience they want to scam.

Right!  Thanks.  I knew Rebekah wasn't all on her lonesome in PNG but couldn't remember why I thought that.  Pearl was trying to set her up as a second Elizabeth Elliot for his followers.  So much of the Pearl story is bunkum all gussied up to be inspirational.

I also seem to remember that both the Pearls and Anast claim Navajo blood and that is why they were able to live and homestead on the reservation.  That part may even be true. I never got the impression that they were much good at homesteading.   Gabe Anast may also post on some of the Homesteading forums today.  I find it hard to believe that he could keep his mouth shut on the internet for long.

@willpower, if you are still reading:  are you aware of Papa Pilgrim, AKA Robert Allan Hale?  Do you think he was a "good person" too?  Here's a news story to start you off. 

http://www.adn.com/projects/article/after-hellish-abuse-hale-daughter-fled-heaven/2013/07/12/