Botkin Alert. They are back on the conference circuit!

[AmazonGrace]

50 minutes ago, SrMaryEloquentia said:

Actually, I like the sample profiles quite a bit, they use historical persons such as Martin Luther’s wife Katharina. Unfortuantely, she‘s the only one I recognized - maybe someone with more knowledge of American history can help out?

Apart from Eliza Lucas they're more European history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katharina_von_Bora

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wilberforce

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Kuyper

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_the_Great

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eliza_Lucas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Guinness

 

[Marian the Librarian]

[Inner reference librarian kicking in...can't...help...myself...]

"Katie" = Katharina von Bora, AKA Mrs. Martin Luther.

"William" = William Wilberforce.

"Hannah" = Hannah More.

"Abraham" = Abraham Kuyper.

"Alfred" = Alfred the Great.

"Eliza" = Elizabeth Lucas Pinckney.

"Arthur" = Arthur Guinness.

[I'll see myself out now...]

 

ETA: OOPS - crossed paths with @AmazonGrace! Great minds think alike 

Edited September 22, 2019 by Marian the Librarian
Synchronicity!

[The Mother Dust]

I wonder what the Botkin sisters think about the "42 year old spinster" bit.  In their culture, that word has a pretty negative connotation.  Unless they are trying to "reclaim" it, like some groups do with offensive words?  I know they aren't in their early 40s yet, but they are close enough to look at it.

[FundieGhostWriter]

Spinster! SPINSTER! @The Mother Dust - how could you! The Botkin girls, like many others, are simply living out the very early stages of a ... 200-year-plan (I fear Steve Maxwell has a 300-year-plan prepared for his girls). There is still plenty of time for all of them (remember Sarah, the mother of Isaac!) Before anyone considers casting a stone, look in the mirror and ask yourself - where's my multi-century plan?

 

[Marian the Librarian]

2 hours ago, FundieGhostWriter said:

Spinster! SPINSTER! @The Mother Dust - how could you! The Botkin girls, like many others, are simply living out the very early stages of a ... 200-year-plan (I fear Steve Maxwell has a 300-year-plan prepared for his girls). There is still plenty of time for all of them (remember Sarah, the mother of Isaac!) Before anyone considers casting a stone, look in the mirror and ask yourself - where's my multi-century plan?

 

And let's not forget that the girls themselves refer to this time as their "season of singleness." Seasons are supposed to change...right? RIGHT???

[FundieGhostWriter]

11 hours ago, Marian the Librarian said:

Seasons are supposed to change...right? RIGHT???

I wholeheartedly agree. If you plan on making it to 200, a season is ... 50 years. Plenty of time for lengthy courtships yet.

[starfish]

I predict Nattie Darnell will register for the conference in a ill-conceived plan to get back in the good graces of the

Botkins sisters..... a snarker can dream, right? 

[hoipolloi]

28 minutes ago, starfish said:

I predict Nattie Darnell will register for the conference in a ill-conceived plan to get back in the good graces of the

Botkins sisters

Maybe...would be surprised, though, if he gives up on being a "bachelor uncle."

Edited September 28, 2019 by hoipolloi

[CyborgKin]

I wish the Botkinettes could meet Katharina von Bora.

[SrMaryEloquentia]

... or Eliza Pinckney - she married in her early twenties, but she had spent her „season of singleness“ managing a plantation from the age of sixteen on, all the while cultivating in indigo for large-scale agriculture (unfortunately, that very likely involved Slave labour in those times). 

Still, there‘s a young woman who definetely spent her time more productively than two grown „Girls“ whose major contibution to the world is how to dress to some made-up modesty standard. 

ETA: thanks @AmazonGraceand @Marian the Librarian, that was several fascinating historical wormwholes!

[FundieGhostWriter]

Please forgive my horrible suspicion, but the feeling has been creeping up on me that there could be people here at FJ who have doubts about 200-year-planning. In another thread

https://www.freejinger.org/topic/32313-ask-an-ex-fundie-vf-style/?page=6

@wallysmommy even suggested that the idea smacks of witchcraft - and astoundingly no one rushed to Geoff's defence!

Generations of my family have been blessed by the plan begun by my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother in the 1820s. Sadly she started work on hers too late in life, and disappeared when she had only completed 195 years. Oddly no one knows where the old girl is buried (she lived most of her life near Salem), she simply vanished (along with her treasured broomstick and black cat) just before her 130th birthday. The last entry in the plan was:

2016 i) flee to Canada or New Zealand before the 'shame of November' and the triumph of the man of sin

ii) purchase not a new release galaxy, lest it take fire while in flight

Imagine my disappointment in 2009 when it occurred to me that the mysterious 2016 directive ii) might just refer to a phone! For nearly two centuries my family had eagerly anticipated a future beyond the wildest dreams of George Lucas. I've been all at sea for the last three years, not knowing what to do next, just wishing that greatx6granny had finished her plan.

[MamaJunebug]

I’m making myself watch AHC about Vile plans for the rest of Europe after World War II. 

You know who had a 1,000-Year Plan for his “Family?”  That’s right. Old Adolph. 

“200-Year Plan, Geoff?  Really?  *scoff* Amateur.”

—A. Hitler

ETA: Modest, gender-affirming clothing. Dougie, Geoffy & Voddie and their ilk have never had an original evil plan in their lives. 

*shuddering*

Edited September 30, 2019 by MamaJunebug

[bea]

I've been all at sea for the last three years, not knowing what to do next, just wishing that greatx6granny had finished her plan.

Anathema? Is that you?

[FundieGhostWriter]

1 hour ago, MamaJunebug said:

“200-Year Plan, Geoff?  Really?  *scoff* Amateur.”

—A. Hitler

Early in Geoff's plan (has anyone seen the whole thing? - please do tell...) was his son becoming the PM of New Zealand. I wonder what the Botkin dominated NZ armed forces uniforms would have looked like? (His NZ buddies, BTW, are quite into military and police careers.) It's a measure of the man's delusions that he looked at the US and thought: 'it'll take ages for my hundreds of thousands of zombie spawn to outbreed everyone and seize control - NZ has less than 2% of the US population - that should be a synch within one generation'! Geoff is too cracked to see that national leadership isn't attained from a Tennessee or NZ bunker. Politics - the art of the pragmatic and possible - is about getting on side with a large number of people broadly acceptable to each other. Geoff's breed of crazy is a narcissism so deep that it longs to escape the grave by strangling the spirits and individuality of generations unborn. He aims to persist in the soil of his homestead like The Evil Dead. Don't start me on duck biologists (whenever I see that boast I remember the joke about the duck expert park ranger). Geoff even dictated the names and release dates of the books his spawn would some day write!

Geoff Botkin: rock of ages.

Botkin's Guide to better living: hidden glories of my father's plan.

My great-grandfather Saint Geoff: Patriarch of the new world order.

Parallel Lives: Geoff Botkin and Noah.

Stocking your bunker for surviving the Zombie Duck Apocalypse.

So Much More of our lives wasted than we ever imagined.

[MamaJunebug]

50 minutes ago, FundieGhostWriter said:

Early in Geoff's plan (has anyone seen the whole thing? - please do tell...) was his son becoming the PM of New Zealand.

Yep, and I’ve figured it was his association with his own evil mentor, whose name blessedly escapes me now*, that started that particular mishigas.  Who in their right mind would think an uneducated Yank could arrive in NZ in the 1990s & take right over?  Geoff seems to have solidly missed the fact that New Zealand is not some recently colonized plot of dirt. 

 

*It was/is Jim McCotter, of theGreat Commission cult.  

Edited September 30, 2019 by MamaJunebug

[Marian the Librarian]

I remember reading all sorts of various and sundry about Geoff's lofty 200-Year aspirations, back when I first discovered them and their connections to DPIAT/Vision Forum. A bit o' Googling (using the search term ["Botkin family" New Zealand]) reveals the following results:

http://hef.org.nz/about-us/craig-smith-26151-to-30911/craigs-funera/tribute-botkin/  (Snipped for brevity, there's muuuuch more, as per usual with Geoff...)

Quote

 

In the late 1990s six of my children were studying New Zealand as we made plans to live there and become dual citizens.  They asked me a thoughtful question that deserved an honest answer.  They wanted to know the name of the most important person in New Zealand.  After a day’s reflection and my own personal study, I told them the most important figure in New Zealand was Craig Smith, the nation’s most thoughtful home school leader.

When we moved to New Zealand I was able to follow Craig, pray for him, and watch his influence on the national stage.  New Zealand was dying at the time, as it madly and recklessly turned its back on its Christian heritage.  But Craig and his family were standing against that decline by calling families back to the very essence of Christian civilization, which could be kept alive in the obedient and set-apart Christian family through home education.

 

https://undermuchgrace.blogspot.com/2009/05/a-botkin-update-who-is-geoff-botkin-and.html (This one includes a quote I remember finding quite apt: "A former associate of Geoff Botkin told me: 'I hope that your friends in NZ will be extremely careful in dealing with the Botkins. They are incredibly attractive and seductive.' "

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/nolongerquivering/2019/02/why-who-is-geoffrey-botkin-is-not-going-anywhere/

And - a happy surprise! - a link to a PhD dissertation entitled "Happily Ever After: Gender, Romance and Relationships in the Christian Courtship Movement," by  Elizabeth Shively. Only 227 pages long - I've found my new bedtime reading!

https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file?accession=osu1345389677&disposition=inline

Happy reading to all, and to all a good night!

[MamaJunebug]

@Marian the Librarian: even more admiration from me to you, the information ferret’s ferret!

[FundieGhostWriter]

9 hours ago, Marian the Librarian said:

the most important figure in New Zealand was Craig Smith

SAHDs take note: when Craig's eldest daughter lost patience with her own singleness season, she put a 'Husband Wanted' sign on a friend's refrigerator. It got a response, and worked out very well (her husband seems a lovely and genuine fellow). Other than the whimsy of the note itself (she did it as a 'joke' - officially speaking - but I think I know better) the whole affair was conducted in full Biblical Patriarchy Propriety Mode. Geoff, by contrast, plays cruel and inconsistent games to keep AS & E unwed. They'd still both be 'off the market' in two blinks without the cold dead parental hand hovering. If a suitor can't guess which girl fancies him, according to Geoff, that's proof that the guy is bad news. I say to Geoff then, how do you want it: arranged marriages, or love matches? If arranged, go ahead and arrange. If love, then give the girls more space.

Nothing I say should be taken as mockery of these girls. I'm full of sympathy for them. Responsible adulthood doesn't kick in at 14, 18, 21... Someone dear to me, a very smart woman, was raised in narcissistic multi-generational homesteading madness. She did not truly fight back until age 35. That cost her, immediately, contact with parents, surviving grandparent, aunts and uncles, siblings (save one who maintained a slender secret life line, and a second who still keeps up very limited major news updates every few years). Even with such drastic exclusion it took her another decade to feel free of the last internal shackles. (Her life is great now. She has made her own family to replace the lost one. And she is still - or rather again - or probably better put: for the first time - a genuinely committed Christian. That sentence intentionally reflects the complexity for such people.) These girls often come across badly, but I put little blame on them, regardless of their age.

And... not looking too intently at anyone in particular... and I really do mean that... but

I have a fear that in a decade or two (maybe when fathers exit stage left and daughters speak out) we could have a new 'perspective' on some of these permanent SAHDs. Sure, we know that the lordlings want lots of grandsons, and are so in love with themselves that the grandkids must have their own surname, and the household help of a SAHD can theoretically make a DIL breed a little faster...

But even so, why are the patriarchs so scared of letting the maidens marry? Are they (in some instances) fearful of fundie husbands coming gunning, once they learn from their brides that all was not as it should be at Great Daddy Patriarch's homestead? I truly hope not, but the paradoxical weirdness of the seemingly endless saga of the eternal virgins of Quiverfull suggests a bad smell to my nostrils.

In my last post, if anyone was confused, I too am wondering at cinch becoming 'synch' - I don't think I've even seen that spelling before. @bea - Anathema? Am I missing something?...

[Seahorse Wrangler]

On 9/30/2019 at 11:54 PM, FundieGhostWriter said:

 @bea - Anathema? Am I missing something?...

Gaiman/Pratchett  "Good Omens" novel recently released as a series on Amazon Prime.

[CTRLZero]

Being in the neighborhood, I wandered by the location where the Botkins' conference is being held today and tomorrow.  The "event parking" lot designated for 10 Talents was not at all full, but maybe folks carpooled.  The First Nazarene Church displays welcoming signs encouraging all ethnic groups to attend, but I don't know the actual extent of their inclusiveness.  Don't tell the Botkins, but around back there was what looked like a day care or summer camp going on.  All manner of pants- and shorts-wearing women (maybe even working women!) were dropping off or picking up their children.  Circling the block was the extent of my stalking, and I am sad to say there were no Botkin sightings.

[Marmion]

2 hours ago, CTRLZero said:

The First Nazarene Church displays welcoming signs encouraging all ethnic groups to attend, but I don't know the actual extent of their inclusiveness.  Don't tell the Botkins, but around back there was what looked like a day care or summer camp going on.  All manner of pants- and shorts-wearing women (maybe even working women!) were dropping off or picking up their children .

Now of days at least , the Church of the Nazarene is more ethnically diverse .  Still largely white , especially compared to the related Church of God , Anderson , Ind.  , but welcoming of others just the same .  I don't know if the Botkins realize just how much things have changed , since the time of Joseph P. Widney  .  http://2017.manual.nazarene.org/paragraph/p915/   The church most likely were holding a V.B.S.   I remember , from my time volunteering at various Nazarene vacation bible schools ,  that many mothers , whom were not part of our church , would seem to use us as a free babysitting service . Oh , the stories I could tell of my time there .  Women  in the Church of the Nazarene , by which I do not mean the Pilgrim Nazarene Church  ,  are allowed to wear pants , and even shorts , as long as the legs come down to at least the knees .   In actual practice though , what exactly constitutes modest attire is ill defined , and loosely enforced . But to give you some idea , here are some sourced references , concerning the rules on dress .  http://2017.manual.nazarene.org/paragraph/p927/  ( in general )  , and pertaining more particularly to students enrolled in their university https://www.mvnu.edu/uploads/StudentLife/studenthandbook.pdf . 

[smittykins]

My town used to have a Church of the Nazarene, but it closed several years ago(I presume that there weren’t enough congregants to keep it financially viable).  It’s now a private home.

[ophelia]

Never heard of the denomination to be honest. 

[Red Hair, Black Dress]

On 9/30/2019 at 11:54 PM, FundieGhostWriter said:

I truly hope not, but the paradoxical weirdness of the seemingly endless saga of the eternal virgins of Quiverfull suggests a bad smell to my nostrils.

The patriarchs seem absolutely petrified of letting their daughters marry. 

Is it the loss of control?  Simply the idea that a married daughter now obeys her husband instead of Daddy Dearest?   Are they afraid they will no longer be waited on, every whim catered to by the SAHDs who live to serve Daddy Dearest only?  Voddie B is/was a huge proponent of daughters stepping into that role.

Are patriarchs horrified at the idea of their precious daughters having sex -- even fundie sex - because they know what fundie men are like? Better to remain eternally a single virgin then?

It's all very, very odd and seems to prove explicitly that the patriarchy courtship model doesn't work.  Like FundieGhostWriter, I really really hope it's not something else,  However, odds being what they are, there are most likely one or two unsavory stories out there.

Edited October 14, 2019 by Red Hair, Black Dress

[Howl]

13 hours ago, Red Hair, Black Dress said:

It's all very, very odd and seems to prove explicitly that the patriarchy courtship model doesn't work.  Like FundieGhostWriter, I really really hope it's not something else,  However, odds being what they are, there are most likely one or two unsavory stories out there.

It seems simple emotional incest/family enmeshment to me and Geoff blocking every eligible male possible by creating a huge threshold of eligibility while teaching his daughters to worship him and him alone. 

I'm sure  A-S and E are certain that there is NO MAN IS GOOD ENOUGH for them or as amazing as their very own dad. 

Will there be a power struggle amongst the sons for supreme patriarch position when Geoff shuffles off this mortal coil?

What if something happens with T-Rex Arms and the family no longer has an income?

They aren't  quite in the mystery category of the Arndts, but close. 

 

Edited October 14, 2019 by Howl