Ruby Franke's influence and "end times" rhetoric
Plus, updates from SJP on this month's episodes covering Bethel church and a mini review of Shannon Bonne's memoir
Last week, I watched all three episodes of Devil in the Family: The Fall of Ruby Franke in a single sitting. I remember the story from when it broke in 2023, but I hadn’t read about it since. Then, I saw an interview with Caro Claire Burke (author of Yesteryear), where she describes the Franke case as the closest thing she’s seen to a real-life version of what happens in her novel. Yesteryear is a story about a tradwife influencer who wakes up in the 1800s and has to live the lifestyle she’s been promoting for her millions of followers… but without her industrial kitchen, electricity, the brand deals, the financial freedom, and all the other benefits from being a successful influencer.
In many ways, this story parallels Ruby Franke’s (without waking up in the 1800s). Ruby was a Mormon mommy vlogger, who went viral for posting videos of her six children and her life as a stay-at-home wife and mom. After she rose to internet fame, she spent years filming her family and using social media to promote “traditional family values.” She was raking in cash from her brand deals, often seeing over 100k a month. Then everything goes South. Fast.
The “8 Passengers” YouTube channel (which had 2.5 million subscribers) tanked after she posted a video about making her child sleep on a bean bag chair for seven months as punishment for his bad attitude. She lost all the brand deals, faced intense public scrutiny, and had to scramble to make sense of her downfall. At this crossroads, Ruby Franke goes ahead and leans in. She gets even more dogmatic about her religious beliefs and why it’s important to discipline children.
In this season, she meets Jodi Hildebrandt (a pseudo, religious therapist) and they join forces to create “Mom’s of Truth.” The rest of the story gets much darker from this point forward, and it ends in both Jodi and Ruby being arrested and sentenced for aggravated child abuse.
The documentary came out last year, and includes footage from Ruby Franke’s archive that did not make it onto her Moms of Truth account or the YouTube channel. It is chilling. It’s too simple to chalk this up to the ills of social media. Yes, the platform gave her astronomical power—how could that not play a role in what happened? But what is truly unsettling is the connection she makes between her religious beliefs and the content she produced about parenting.
Her videos were never just about making money or sharing insight to her tradwife life. There’s a turning point—after the YouTube debacle—where it becomes obvious that she really believes she is fighting a supernatural battle against the evil forces of “wokeness.” And she’s filming all of it. She’s taking notes about all of it in her journals. She’s consumed by the idea that the world is ending, Jesus is coming back, and that the way to prepare a space for his arrival is through fighting the devil… by disciplining her children.
Moms of Truth is still an active Instagram account. I watched several videos there that seem “normal” enough because they fit into a genre of religious fantastical thinking. Here’s the point in the story where religious belief and practice (of this variety) moves from problematic to actively harmful. When you set up a scenario where Jesus is returning at any minute and anyone who is not “saved” or chosen will be left to suffer, you’ll do anything to make sure that you’re not getting left behind. Or that your family isn’t getting left behind.
This is what I’m talking about when I’m talking about religious trauma—it’s a specific form of harm and abuse caused by belief systems (like this one) being used to control, coerce, and manipulate people. We can look at stories like Ruby Franke’s and think, “Yikes, coocoo bananas, what a nut,” but people listened to her and followed her as an influencer because she was offering a “truth” that relied on doctrine that millions of people believed then and still believe now. To be more specific, she relied on the belief that God is going to condemn sinners to eternal suffering, and the chosen, saved ones will be taken up into heaven to be rewarded for their righteous behavior on earth. Is this that different from what is being preached by some of the most influential pastors in the US right now?
Of course, not all religious spaces operate this way. When I read through the comments on Ruby’s posts from 2022 and early 2023, it was surprising to see so many voices supporting the principles and messages she promoted. The same principles that fueled her choices to “punish” her children in the ways that she did. So, anytime you see a pastor or religious influencer sharing these kinds of “end times” messages, think about Ruby Franke.
This story, and the connections to supernatural belief systems, picks up on some of the themes Sean and I are exploring on the Sexy Jesus Podcast this month. When I saw that Bethel church (mega church in Redding, CA) released an apology for misconduct happening with leadership, I did a deep dive on what’s been happening there over the last several years. We recorded a two part series on the church where we share some of our personal stories in connection with the charismatic movement and megachurch culture.
We also get into how Bethel, specifically, reproduces a specific culture focused on the supernatural and the many problems involved with turning spiritual practice into capital gain. In the second part to this series, we discuss soaking (in three different varieties…wild), the rise of Christian Nationalist worship leader Sean Feutch, and we eventually coin the term supernatural industrial complex as a shorthand for the issues shaping these movements. You can stream on Spotify and Apple and subscribe to our Patreon for the bonus material!
Reading Log: A mini review of Shannon Bonne’s memoir on leaving purity culture
Shannon Bonne’s book covers her story into and out of her high-control religious setting and the ways this shaped her marriage to Joshua Harris (author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye). She dedicated herself to evangelical norms about gender, sexuality, and faith in her young adult life. This happened largely through her process of joining a mega church and getting deeply involved in her early twenties. Then Bonne met and married Josh Harris and found herself increasingly under surveillance by church leadership and members as Josh rose to prominent leadership positions.
Her memoir is a close examination from an era in her life where she was in the public spotlight as a role model for the perfect Christian wife. This meant that she was required to dress and act in very specific ways. She was expected to raise her children with strict disciplinary methods, and she includes a chapter about the difficulties attached to things like the expectation to spank her children. She would often face interventions from church leadership when they thought she wasn’t living up to the extreme standards placed on her life as Josh Harris’s wife.
There are so many details in this story that will feel familiar to people who with backgrounds in the strict, gendered hierarchy and the gender roles assigned within high-control religious contexts. What I found most interesting in Bonne’s story is the reflection on what was happening behind the scenes in her megachurch world. She had a front row seat to the myriad ways leadership covered up issues and stifled complaints from church members. For example, in the early stages of Josh’s ministry career, the head pastor advises the couple to buy a bigger house before Josh takes over a more senior role. This was to avoid questions that might arise from how the church was using funds to support a luxurious, wealthy lifestyle for senior staff members.
The Woman They Wanted goes to a lot of places. While Shannon Bonne’s story is unique in the ways that she was tied to a certain kind of Christian celebrity, it also resonates with many messages that were passed down to women within these spaces. Her journey out of these highly surveilled spaces is certainly not an unfamiliar one.
That’s all for April! Upcoming—I’ll be working on a couple of research projects for a conference at the end of May. Also, the release of Purity Culture, Bodies, and Beliefs (my co-edited collection) is set for May 12th. You can pre-order now!
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