Mercy Ministries - Jesus Rx at Bene Diction Blogs On

Mercy Ministries - Jesus Rx

The Nashville Scene’s Caleb Hannon has an excellent investigative report on Mercy Ministries of America.
In March of this year a couple of young women stepped forward in Australia and broke open the story of abuse, neglect, secrecy and spiritualization at one of the overseas locations of the girls/women treatment centres that began in the US.

Unbeknownst to the celebrities that night, Mercy’s polyurethaned image was beginning to stain half a world away.

A month before, Australia’s Sydney Morning-Herald published an exposé of “the Mercy girls”—young women who claimed Alcorn’s homes turned them from merely damaged to suicidal. Entrusting their recovery to untrained counselors barely out of Bible college, the Mercy girls said that exorcisms and speaking in tongues took the place of treatment, that expulsion was the punishment for peeing without permission, and that DVDs featuring the testimony of former gays were peddled as a cure for lesbianism.

When the Mercy girls failed to get better, they were told it was a lack of faith, not credentialed staff, that was holding them back. Moreover, Mercy was cashing their welfare checks, violating Alcorn’s edict to provide treatment without charge.

A member of parliament declared Mercy “a particularly bad example of a money-making cult.”

Alcorn’s response was swift. She claimed Australia was a rogue operation, underfunded and running independent of her control. The home was shuttered and an oversight board formed to prevent future incidents. This was not how Mercy did things in America, she said.

But a handful of women back home disagreed. While the Australian press devoured the scandal’s juiciest morsels—the money and the exorcisms—several former Nashville graduates were drawn to the familiar stories of neglect: the threats of expulsion, and the use of prayer as a substitute for psychiatric care.

The fissure created by the headlines Down Under provided a crack in Mercy’s previously solid facade. It was enough of an opening for once-silent Nashville graduates to feel comfortable coming forward with stories of their own.

Mercy still runs treatment centres in Australia, New Zealand and Britain as well as the homes in the US. While Canada has been targeted for a Mercy Ministry franchise, it has not opened as yet.
Don’t ask, don’t talk, don’t tell. Spiritualizing. Isolating. Exaggerating and inflating ’success’ stories is very much a part of the health/wealth prosperity gospel this ministry springs from.
prior post - Australia

I wonder as the economy in the US continues to sour and people continue to lose their health care plans how good Mercy Ministries will look to the desperate.
Nancy Alcorn earns 178, 582.00/yr.

Why Jesus Rx was written

Mercy Ministry ex-resident blog
Mercy Ministry Survivors blog
Mercy Ministry website
Bob Smietana - The Tennessean August 2008
~~The Mercy franchise faces a NIMBY problem in Georgia.~~
Doesn’t appear to be a Nashville franchise.

Published 3 months, 1 week ago

13 Responses to “Mercy Ministries - Jesus Rx”

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1 Sean the Blogonaut on Oct 2nd, 2008 at 9:40 pm

Good to see other bloggers starting to write about Mercy. I have been blogging about it since the story broke in March of this year. I recently did a summary post of all the posts up till early this week.

Keep up the good work
2 Bene D on Oct 3rd, 2008 at 11:06 am

It is good to see this come to light, I headed over to your blog - thanks for what you’ve been doing.

Blog on!
3 John Weaver on Oct 6th, 2008 at 5:51 pm

Bene D,
Thanks so much for sticking up for the Mercy Survivors on thinklings. And thanks for sticking up for me to. I’m not trying to attack Christians, just trying to point out some abuses in therapy within the church.

Best wishes,
John
4 Bene Diction on Oct 6th, 2008 at 11:46 pm

I know you aren’t John.

Keep up the good work, I’ve read your blog and commend you for your tirelessness in connecting up people who need each other and need the information you are providing.

Blog on!
5 Jacob Bradshaw on Oct 7th, 2008 at 10:05 pm

So I live in Orangeville but I have family in the States. My cousin Kara went to the Mercy Ministries home in STL. She is wicked! Doing great and back in her studies.

I asked her if they dealt with girls sexual orientation at the home. She said that she did not know of any girls there because they were “lesbians” and told me they only take girls in with eating disorders, depression, cutting, and substance abuse. I know she went with a drug addiction. I looked on their website and it said unplanned pregnancy? But she did not mention that so I really don’t know.

She told me she was on medication when she went into the program and she said they had medics on staff that gave them their daily dosage. She said they did not take her off her medication.

She said times were rough battling her addiction but the girls got to go to baseball games and stuff. She said the facility was really nice compared to what she had experienced at other rehab facilities.

So honestly, I am really confused to see this story. I hate to tell you guys this but it sounds like you have bad resources. Maybe you should talk to other graduates? My cousin stays in contact with a bunch of them and I could probably ask them specific questions. I just wanted to let you know so I could help clear up the facts. It looks like these girls are probably still troubled and misinformed. Let me know if you would like me to ask them anything. I also checked out their website and there were a bunch of graduate stories on there. Maybe you could find them on Facebook and ask them more? I think it is really important to get the right information, even just for a blog.
6 Bene D on Oct 8th, 2008 at 12:39 am

Mercy does handle pregancy and has an adoption arm - I’m not saying every home in this corporation is harming 100% of it’s residents.

Nor is MM equipped to handle some of the issues they claim to treat using the RTF manual ( Kylstra and Kylstra and their known ties to the New Apostolic Reformation and neo-charismatic beliefs) and what they are now demanding their national and international franchises adhere to.
I don’t know how that will affect all their operations but it is cause for deep concern.

A 95 or 93 or 90% efficiacy rate is not realistic for any treatment model, and isn’t claimed by other treatment models.

I see MM is putting up positive testimonials as they go into damage control again. Same behavior as the Austrailia debacle, is time it’s the information their celebrity CEO has been outed.

I’m not going to dispute your cousin was helped. That’s great, I’m glad she is doing well.
The either/or dismissal practises of MM doesn’t negate girls and young women who weren’t harmed. I don’t believe every home has been abusive, the show case ones have been run ethically.
Wouldn’t state regulatory monitoring play a part?

The treatment model is flawed for many of their clients and when MM US finally acknowledged the Australia abuse they blamed a lack of money. Not the abusers. Money had nothing to do with what the residents were subjected to.

The MM damage control model is first and foremost blame the victim. That happened in Australia, you’ll see it happening in the US as more breaks in media on this corporation, the one size treatment model, fundraising and management issues.

While any treatment centre is going to have failures, confusing documented MM abuse, and dismissing those that have been harmed is turning a blind eye to future abuse.

I am deeply concerned MM is pushing ahead with it’s Canadian home and begging for money. While we have regulations, I doubt the BC government will see they are enforced.
I can only hope any thinking of sending a girl or young women to the Canadian franchise do their homework and chose a better biblical alternative.
7 The Cynic Sage on Oct 10th, 2008 at 10:41 am

The Mercy franchise faces a NIMBY problem in Georgia.

I think this one has nothing to do with Alcorn’s Mercy Ministries. “Mercy ministry” is a pretty common term among churches used to describe ministries that help the poor and downtrodden.

That ministry doesn’t mention eating-disorders, self-harm, or treating only women so I don’t think it’s Nancy Alcorn’s “Mercy Ministries”.
8 Bene D on Oct 10th, 2008 at 1:50 pm

http://www.bibledeliverancetemple.com/outreach_ministries.htm

‘Day shelter and other services’ and they aren’t using Mercy Ministries of America in their program title.

http://www.mercyministries.org/OurProgram/Overview.aspx

Thanks Cynic Sage. Fixed.
9 The Cynic Sage on Oct 11th, 2008 at 11:56 am

Bob Smietana - The Tennessean August 2008

That link brings you to to Mercy’s Candadian site. The Tennesean put Smeitana’s article into their archives so the previous links won’t work (and you have to pay for access to their archives) but you can read it here for free:
http://www.religionandsocialpolicy.org/article_index/article_display.cfm?id=8623&style=large&SiteTopicRequest=17
10 ex mercy girl on Oct 12th, 2008 at 10:14 am

Jacob, if I weren’t so forgiving I would be offended by your comments. A lot of the girls who have spoken out about Mercy (who also happen to be my friends) have been able to receive proper help for their problems (it was necessary after Mercy because Mercy messed them up even more.) It’s because of this real help they were able to get, that they got the strength to speak out about the abuse at MM.

MM do treat lesbians for “lesbianism” and they advertise they treat girls with psych issues, the affects of abuse and pregnant women. They even advertised that they treated lesbianism on their website until people got wind of it, so they changed it.

So many women and workers from MM have come forward now, that you would have to be a fool to label them just disgruntled.

Also have a look at the counseling model if you want to see their philosophy on treating the issues. Women were promised psychiatric care, only to get treated by MM counselors with no counseling qualifications who performed exorcisms on them. If you won’t take the word of so many ex MM residents, or ex MM workers then at least have a read of the counseling model.
11 Bene D on Oct 12th, 2008 at 4:05 pm

Thanks Cynic Sage, I redirected that link - I wasn’t aware Bob Smietana’s piece was being used by Mercy for PR.

It looks like the the Canadian online pages are no longer dormant, and it’s as if Hannon’s piece wasn’t written, nothing is wrong and people haven’t been harmed.

Instead of addressing what has been pointed out, there seems to be a PR push.
12 The Cynic Sage on Oct 19th, 2008 at 4:12 pm

Hey, just thought you would like to know, Mercy Ministries has been falsely flagging Youtube videos criticizing them as infringing on their copyrighted material, having them taken down as an illegal means of backdoor censorship.

All but two of the ten videos on my Youtube channel were taken down, then Youtube deleted my account. The first video targeted was the Sydney Morning Herald’s interview with Australian Mercy Survivors.

You can read about it here.

Other Mercy-critics had videos taken down (SilverRose72 is one that comes to mind).
13 Bene D on Nov 24th, 2008 at 12:06 pm

Okay, update the salary Ms. Alcorn receives - it is now about 3.5% of operating costs. She got a raise and her salary is up to 230 thousand.

This after Australia, Jesus RX, controvery about the RTF model which was renamed…

As the economy get’s tougher abusive faith based organizations are going to be filling a need, especially in the US. It becomes a vicious circle.