One of the major issues members and ex-members of SRF was the insertion of the church leadership into their lives and relationships.
SRF considers men to be at the bottom of the food chain. At SRF, children come first. Then women, then dogs, then men. To keep the men in line, they would stoop to the lowest kinds of behavior.
Bill and his partners took more than the usual amount of interest in people's lives. They became counsels to the point where you were compelled to do exactly what they say. And if you disagreed, then the people closest to you will be pursued, confronted and used to help them drive home the will of the church leadership to you.
Bill Duby actively took the role of spouse and father in all the relationships at SRF. His reasoning was that his role was to "father you from above", citing some kind of obscure and odd biblical or "spiritual" references. I never really saw any reference to someone replacing a husband or father, mother or wife anywhere. If someone can, please post it here so we can start a discussion on it.
Several times, my spouse was told several lies, distortions and inflammatory statements to anger her and compel her to lash out against me. Then, the "healing" would consist of us attending a "couples counseling" session costing hundreds of dollars.
Men were beasts, in their view. And nothing could redeem them.
In Steve Sanchez's book, "Spiritual Perversion" the things that were said to spouses, the intimidation, the way that the leadership of SRF deliberately pitted spouse against spouse and child against parent is clearly described. I can tell you that I witnessed much of what was described in Steve's book. I never thought that such horribly demeaning and terrible techniques would be done by ministers of God.
Steve wrote mostly about his own abuse at the hands of the Spiritual Rights Foundation. I have seen the same technique of pitting spouses against each other and using lies, intimidation, and deliberate attempts to discredit husbands in front of their wives, deliberate attempts to demonize fathers in front of their children for reasons as minor as an inconsequential disagreement such as the way a wall was painted.
While Steve Sanchez describes in his book presents the disruption of established relationships through the unrestrained anger of William Duby, the basic attempts of the SRF leaders into the relationship of spouses and children remain. To survive, men must take a subservient role - not a equal one.
