Inside the Christian Reform School From Hell At Missouri’s Agapé school, a devout Baptist boarding facility for boys, students say they were subjected to isolation, restraints, and treatment that bordered on torture

Rolling Stone ^ | January 5, 2023 | Adam Piore

[Morgana]

W hen Andrew Breshears arrived at the Agapé Boarding School in 2018, he was a sandy-haired 12-year-old who weighed less than 100 pounds. He enjoyed watching movies, listening to Elvis, and playing soccer with his friends. “I was sheltered,” Breshears says. But he struggled at home. When he was told he couldn’t live with his mother after her stint in rehab, he threatened to kill himself, and another person from the household. His grandparents sent him to a mental hospital, then to Agapé.

At first glance, the facility for “at-risk and unmotivated boys” — a Baptist institution in Stockton, Missouri — wasn’t so terrible. Passing under the majestic cross affixed to its towering arched entryway, Breshears gazed over a beautiful campus. The foothills of the Ozarks sat in the distance. There were horses, a swimming pool, and a football team. It appeared to be a vast improvement over his previous digs.

But Breshears got a rude welcome. Right away, staff shaved his head, handed him an orange shirt and a pair of Wranglers, moved him into a dorm that looked like Marine barracks, and introduced him to a dizzying litany of rules. Chapel was daily. Church was on Wednesday and three times on Sunday. Hymns blared in the classrooms.

To keep order, Agapé instituted a military-like hierarchy, indicated by colored shirts that denoted ranks. The fastest way for a student to attain a coveted burgundy or red shirt, Breshears soon learned, was to embrace the Lord and help Brother Bryan — Bryan Clemensen, the school’s co-founder and eventual director and principal — enforce the rules. That meant calling out and even disciplining classmates for infractions like cursing, talking in line, refusing to pledge allegiance to the Christian flag, or talking about their pasts.

[Morgana]

I’m convinced a lot of parents don’t know how to be parents anymore. Don’t believe me? Go into any Wal mart and look at parents looking at their smartphone while the baby in their cart is wailing for attention and they just ignore the kid. What kind of message does that send? I’m watching this and thinking “Lady do you not see your baby needs you??”

These schools? There is a lot of reasons kids are sent there they are not all “bad” kids like you are thinking. Some are “troubled” as in mentally ill. They have troubled home lives. A lot are adopted kids like

I said before. Adopted from outside the United States. Parents “re home” them after not being able to deal with them.

Remember that woman a few years back from Tennessee? She sent the kid on a one way ticket back to Russia? Well other parents just send their kids to these schools until they are 18 and are done with them.

A lot of the kids in these schools are what you call “Throw away kids”.

Here is a youtuber who interviews survivors of these schools A lot of them are from Agape but there are others.

https://www.youtube.com/@TheHammerPodcast

this podcast? She was a staff member and a parent of a child at one of these schools. One called Masters Ranch

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8AH0f2tT95k&list=PLc3O8TfilUTD_1cvHfbSVl0NhNQGe7br_

here is ex staff from Agape

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aBXsm0k1Dug&list=PLc3O8TfilUTBZq8qTDWiSY8yaEesfrEnE&index=2&t=894s

I want to warn you all these stories can be bad.

[Chode]

give-em all norplant at birth???

[stylin19a]

thanks. I’m surprised you responded.

tough question, right ? where we could find no answer.

We did everything recommended by the “powers that be” - school;courts;psych profession etc...to no avail.
I recommendeed the military for my cuz but, that got shot down....mostly because of his drug use.(I still think it was the best choice - but he had a newborn son @ 18...)

Job Corps maybe ?...but he didn’t last long in the jobs he had...
maybe the peace corps - it kept Chris Matthews out of Vietnam.

I have a friend who is taking the “model” we had at the orphanage - sans the brutality - and has set it up as an environment for at risk kids. It really was a great naturing model for the conditions and circumstances at the time.

A different story for another time.

FreeRegrds.

[robowombat]

These schools? There is a lot of reasons kids are sent there they are not all “bad” kids like you are thinking. Some are “troubled” as in mentally ill. They have troubled home lives. A lot are adopted kids like

This is true, but it is nor new. The famed screen and TV star Steve MacQueen was a classic example and he was born in 1930. His father immediately abandoned his family upon his birth. His mother was flakey and not prepared to live in poverty with a very hyperactive boy. She sent him to a junior reform school, The California Youth Colony, when he was just a boy and when he was a teen sent him a bus ticket to NYC to come live with momma. MacQueen never could really trust any woman, not even his very loyal first wife whose determined mothering helped their three children to become nearly normal tinsel town residents, and whose determined wifery kept this troubled man from going off the rails as his career steadily grew.

[stylin19a]

I just looked at the Job Corps in Joliet.
My ignorance dismissed it. I apologize for that.
I take it back - the job corps might have been perfect for my cuz.
We never thought of it. Maybe he wouldn’t have walked away from that.
And it is currently the same kind of model my friend set up on a smaller scale

thanks again

[dragonblustar]

I agree. Thank you. I’ll have to watch when my kids aren’t around.