Posted by Horus Gilgamesh on Oct 15, 2014 in GET INVOLVED |

Pamela Christensen has been charged with the attempted murder of her three daughters so they would “meet Jesus Christ” after receiving instructions from her husband (who is a pastor) about the “world coming to an end” according to court documents.

When police arrived at the Christensen home on September 25 (after 911 dispatchers received two hang-up calls), they found Pamela dressed in white, covered in blood. The children were all upstairs, dressed in white, two suffering from stab wounds to the chest. The mother also had self-inflicted stab wounds on her abdomen and chest according to Kendall County Court records. Also at the scene of the crime was a homemade poison/sedative made from dishwashing detergent.

According to a police affidavit, Pamela told officers that she was sending the girls home to “meet Jesus Christ”. The children told the police that their mother held them at knife-point asking them if they accepted Jesus Christ as their lord and savior before stabbing two of the girls. When asked by police about the poisonous liquid found in the home, the mother admitted to concocting the mixture to subdue her children, hoping they would fall asleep so she could stab them.

Pamela told police that her husband, Vaughn Christensen former pastor of Sugar Grove Church, had left several messages about the ending of the world, instructing her to prepare the family to meet Jesus. I should also note that the father recently received a restraining order to keep away from the family after violent and erratic behavior toward the wife and children – including threats of suicide. In fact, police report to visiting the house on several occasions in the last year with reports of suicidal activity.

Once the girls were released from the hospital, Daniel Meyers, Chief of the Montgomery Police Department released the children back into the custody of their father’s father, because it “was determined by the court” to be “ the best place for the kids at this time.” [EDIT: The original reports seemed to suggest that the children were released back to their father, however, recent reports now refer to the paternal grandfather, which begs the question – where did Vaughn Christensen get all of his fear-filled ideas about apocalyptic preparations in the first place? I hope this gives the girls some sort of fighting chance.]

And of course, neighbors like Robin Domalewski were completely surprised by the situation, remarking how the homeschooling family was always together and seemed “so quiet and reserved”. Of course, they were church going people – who could have ever seen this coming? (As is often the case with these stories, one day they are “devout Christian mothers, adored in church”. The next? Insane murderers that nobody could have ever predicted. What changed overnight besides denial and spin?)

Meanwhile, Pamela Christensen is in custody, facing three counts of attempted first-degree murder, aggravated battery and aggravated unlawful restraint. Her bail was set at $1 million and she is scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 16.

MY ONLY QUESTION: When will we, as a culture, be able to finally speak openly about the correlation between devout religious indoctrination and serious mental health issues? No, not all child-murderers kill their kids for Christ. Yet, when a mother specifically says, “I wanted to save him from hell” or “I wanted them to meet Jesus,” well – why wouldn’t we take them at their word and pay attention to the underlying issues at hand?!? How many kids have to die before we take a good look at the effects of lifelong brainwashing and ritualistic delusions? Instead, we take these as horrifically sad and isolated cases, blaming mental illness. But, what caused the mental illness? If these mothers had not invoked the “Because God” defense, we’d still be investigating, looking for the cause of their mental illness. Yet, we already know it. We simply can’t talk about it…

Spoiler Alert: It is not polite, respectful, or even acceptable to merely suggest that indoctrination of mainstream religion could ever have anything but a positive effect on one’s life… Let’s just take these cases from 2014:



“He had to die,” “I am saving him from hell!”

– Jessica Murphy, killed 8-year old son



“God never told me to stop!”

– Kimberly Lucas, after killing 2-year old

while reenacting the story of Genesis 22 she heard in church the day before.

In this country, there is still a huge taboo for law enforcement and social services to encroach on a family’s “religious freedoms”. Yet – after several visits to the Christensen house, a personal protection order against a violent and suicidal apocalyptic pastor, these children are left to fend for themselves… Who is protecting the freedoms (and futures) of these children? (Certainly not the church…)

Yes, of course – not all religious folks kill their children because of their beliefs. Of course not! But, why not learn something from the ones that tell us specifically how their beliefs progressed into dangerous delusions that ultimately led them to act irrationally? Instead, churches will sweep these cases under the rugs and chalk them up to anything from “sad mental illness” to “demonic possession” to “not trusting God” (all depending on their own theology based on the “one truth” found in the Bible).

Yes, there are all kinds of horrible mental illness out there and people kill for all sorts of reasons. Yet, when a mother kills her children and specifically says it was because, “I wanted them to meet Jesus Christ” or “He had to die, I’m saving him from hell!” – we should take notice! We believed Dahmer and Bundy and Kaczynski – why not take the word of these mothers seriously? They have been very clear: it has not been aliens or microwave dinners or govenrment programs that are convincing them to kill their kids – it is specifically their deeply-held religious beliefs!

Do you want to know how I know this? Because they said so!

Ignoring, sidestepping, or distancing these poor women’s actions as general “mental illness” does nothing but help good Christians sleep at night, knowing, “Those poor women weren’t true Christians – they were very ill. Their illness had nothing to do with my faith, by beliefs, or my Jesus….”

OUR POINT? Blindly believing, trusting, and following God can be a slippery slope… Accept Jesus as your personal savior at a teen rally. Strive to be closer to God, learning from the most “righteous” characters in the Bible. Cut ties with your family and friends for not being faithful enough. Cut the throats of your family and friends for being enemies of God.

“BUT IT”S JUST ANOTHER SAD CASE OF MENTAL ILLNESS!” Yes, yes – crazy people do crazy things to their loved ones on a daily basis. However, it takes a special kind of crazy to actually plan/plot to murder your kids. Let’s say, one in a million or even ten million. The odds of having one parent like that are just… crazy! How then, are there two parents like that in this single household? Pure chance? Random coincidence? No.

I think it would be a logical assumption that their specific theology had something to do with it. A theology that has taught them that the world is coming to an end any day now, that dark forces are going to inhabit the earth, that the only way to survive is with Jesus. To escape death, they must accept their own deaths to meet their maker. This isn’t just the result of random brain chemistry happening in ONE random parent. They both actually believe this stuff – deeply! What are the odds? Well, in their church – it’s pretty understandable after a lifetime of indoctrination. Once fantasy is forced to become reality, it is only a matter of time before reality is left with no choice but to become… insanity.

These parents had a family plan in place on how to “prepare the family” when the end of the world was coming. A plan. That they carried out together… The daddy/pastor makes the call when the world is ending, the wife/mom carries out the previously planned preparations. To chalk this type of mutually deliberate religious ritual to “random mental illness” is to completely ignore the reality of the situation. (Seriously – think about it. If this were not a religious case, the father would also be in jail as an accomplice/accessory to attempted murder!) These parents (like millions of others) took dramatic actions within their families based on their religious beliefs – not logic, not reality, not science, not socially acceptable. The end of the world was coming according to their Bible and deeply held beliefs. Period.

LAST QUESTION: Where would they ever have gotten that idea in the first place? Random brain chemistry and mutual mental illness? No. Sure, they are mentally ill, but they needed an opening, a prompt. Their chosen religion gave them that. (Though, they likely didn’t choose their religion at all, simply inheriting it from their families…) Now, if I had questioned the Christensen’s bizarre-but-not-uncommon beliefs of the “end times” BEFORE they carried out these unthinkable acts, I would have been accused of religious persecution. After the fact? (I’ve already been accused of attacking Christianity by generalizing mental illness, etc…)

October is “Domestic Violence Awareness” month. Sadly, I know far too many people who have been victims of brutal violence, intimidation, and psychological abuse – all in the name of God. Meanwhile, the poor daughters are back in custody of the very man whom a protection order was issued to protect them from. Ugh. I can’t take it. 🙁

– Horus Gilgamesh