Faith Assembly in Wilmot, Indiana and its pastor, Hobart Freeman
(previously known as the "Glory Barn" and located in various places including Claypool, Warsaw, Goshen, Kosciusko County, and Noble County, all in Indiana)
1983-09-27, written by John J. Davis: (note that Mr. Davis was a student of Hobart Freeman's at Grace Theological Seminary, so he shouldn't be considered to be a disinterested third party)
journal article — Spence, Craig, T. S. Danielson, and Andrew M. Kaunitz. "The Faith Assembly: A Study of Perinatal and Maternal Mortality." Indiana Medicine: the Journal of the Indiana State Medical Association 77.3 (1984): 180-183. (full text)
"Abstract. An investigation was conducted of perinatal and maternal mortality in a religious group in Indiana which practiced out-of-hospital, non-physician-attended birthing with no prenatal care. Members of the Faith Assembly religious group had a perinatal mortality three times greater and a maternal mortality rate about 100 times greater than the statewide rate.
"In May 1983 the Indiana State Board of Health received reports of excessive perinatal and maternal mortality in northeastern Indiana possibly due to medical neglect. ..."
journal article — Malecha, Wayne F. "Faith healing exemptions to child protection laws: keeping the faith versus medical care for children." Journal of Legislation. 12 (1985): 243. (full text)
journal article — Spence, C., and T. S. Danielson. "The Faith Assembly. A Follow-up Study of Faith Healing and Mortality." Indiana Medicine: the Journal of the Indiana State Medical Association 80.3 (1987): 238-240. (full text)
"Abstract. We investigated births and deaths within an Indiana religious group that was avoiding all medical care, including prenatal services. Religious group perinatal and maternal mortality rates for the years 1983-1985 were sharply lower than they were for the years 1975-1982. These findings suggest that public health and legal surveillance have an important role in the prevention of medical neglect."
journal article — Asser, Seth M., and Rita Swan. "Child Fatalities From Religion-motivated Medical Neglect." Pediatrics 101.4 (1998): 625-629. (full text)
"Abstract. Objective. To evaluate deaths of children from families in which faith healing was practiced in lieu of medical care and to determine if such deaths were preventable. Design. Cases of child fatality in faith-healing sects were reviewed. Probability of survival for each was then estimated based on expected survival rates for children with similar disorders who receive medical care. Participants. One hundred seventy-two children who died between 1975 and 1995 and were identified by referral or record search. Criteria for inclusion were evidence that parents withheld medical care because of reliance on religious rituals and documentation sufficient to determine the cause of death. Results. One hundred forty fatalities were from conditions for which survival rates with medical care would have exceeded 90%. Eighteen more had expected survival rates of >50%. All but 3 of the remainder would likely have had some benefit from clinical help. Conclusions. When faith healing is used to the exclusion of medical treatment, the number of preventable child fatalities and the associated suffering are substantial and warrant public concern. Existing laws may be inadequate to protect children from this form of medical neglect."
The scope of the article is described thus: "Several states had totals disproportionate to population. There were 50 from Indiana, home of the Faith Assembly. Pennsylvania had 16 fatalities, including 14 from the Faith Tabernacle. The Church of the First Born accounted for the majority of 15 deaths in neighboring Oklahoma and Colorado. In South Dakota there were 5 deaths from the End Time Ministries. Nationwide, the Christian Science church had 28 deaths in the study."
In other words, Faith Assembly accounted for 29% of all child fatalities caused by religion-motivated medical neglect, nationwide, during the period 1975 - 1995. Of the various religious groups (23 denominations were studied here), Faith Assembly was by far the number one responsible for faith healing child deaths.
journal article — Hughes, Richard A. "The Death of Children by Faith-Based Medical Neglect." Journal of Law and Religion 20.1 (2005): 247-265. doi:10.2307/4144687
"Faith-based medical neglect is permitted or facilitated by religious exemption clauses that appear in many state statutes and federal regulations, which allow religious parents to withhold preventative and diagnostic measures from and to refuse medical care for their sick children. ... The aim of this essay is to (1) examine critically the theology of one faith healing sect, that of the Faith Assembly, which is consistent with the jurisprudence of legal positivism; (2) discuss the dilemmas of a religious defense in the original Faith Assembly trials; (3) review the ethos of medicine in relation to spiritual healing; (4) explore restorative justice as a standard of adjudication; and (5) conclude by affirming a relational model of law as the context of restorative justice."
(In my opinion, this article is well-written and does a good job of summarizing Hobart Freeman's apparent motivations in disparaging medical care, and the various legal arguments made during the trials, including appeals, of parishioners Gary and Margaret Hall, and David and Kathleen Bergmann.)
book — "Handbook of Religion and Health", published by Oxford University Press in 2001, written by Harold Koenig, Dana King, and Verna B. Carson, page 67[wikipedia]
(copied verbatim from the book The Checkbook Bible by Rodney Crowell)
Hobart E. Freeman (d. 1984) — founder
June Freeman (d. 1999) — Hobart Freeman's wife, who managed the book store "Faith Ministries"
Bruce Kinsey (d. 2008) — Hobart Freeman's son-in-law
Steve Hill — Hobart Freeman's son-in-law, and assistant pastor at Faith Assembly; he now goes by the name "S. J. Hill"
Jack Farrell — assistant pastor at Faith Assembly, who left the church in June 1985
Malcolm Webber — lead pastor at Faith Assembly, after Steve Hill stepped down
Tom Hamilton, a former traveling preacher for Faith Assembly
Joseph O. Brenneman — Lead pastor starting in 1994 at the Faith Assembly that's located in Larwill, IN. This is the closest geographically of the various Faith Assembly offshoots. URLs formerly associated with him:
