Child's death drives churches to call out coercive control and cult-like behaviour
Elizabeth Struhs died after members of The Saints, including her parents, withheld lifesaving insulin. (Supplied)
How did one man convince 13 other people to let an eight-year-old girl die?
This is the question haunting many people of faith in the southern Queensland town of Toowoomba.
Elizabeth Struhs died after members of a cult called The Saints withdrew her medication for her type 1 diabetes. They prayed and sang around her until she perished.
Then they prayed to God for her resurrection.
Fourteen members of The Saints, including Elizabeth's parents, are now serving jail time for manslaughter.
The leader of the group is Brendan Stevens, a self-styled pastor who exerted absolute control.
He taught followers that doctors and medications were evil, and that only God could heal.
According to Brendan, you couldn't be a Christian without the physical manifestation of speaking in tongues. Without that, he argued, you were not imbued with the Holy Spirit.
Indeed, Brendan viewed himself as the messenger of God and his followers as chosen ones, superior to normal human beings.
His extreme Pentecostal theology led his members on what's known as a "purity spiral".
Loading...'God shall prevail'
Kerrie Struhs, the mother of Elizabeth, was a devotee.
This wasn't the first time she had rejected a doctor's advice to give her daughter insulin.
Two years before, in 2019, Kerrie refused to follow a doctor's instructions.
On July 15, 2019, she had the following text message exchange with Brendan:
Kerrie: I know you are already praying but could some of you have some praying NOW for Elizabeth and me.
Brendan: Yes indeed Kerry. God is faithful praise God ... in my vision I see Elizabeth turning to you and saying " I am getting better mummy …"
Kerrie: AMEN It can't happen any other way.
A day after those text messages were sent, Elizabeth was in deep trouble. She could no longer walk.
Kerrie sent another text message to Brendan, telling him that her husband Jason was taking their daughter to the hospital.
"GOD shall prevail not JASON," Brendan replied.
Following that 2019 incident, Kerrie was convicted of neglecting her child and served nine months of her sentence.
Three weeks after she was released from prison, Elizabeth was dead.
Kerrie Struhs, pictured with a baby Elizabeth, was a follower of Toowoomba's Brendan Stevens. (Supplied)
Kerrie's police interviews after her child's death reveal a woman without empathy or grief.
In the tapes, she believes Elizabeth could be raised from the dead.
"We still believe [God] can do anything. He has promised healing," she told officers on January 11, 2022.
Losing a son to a cult
Kerrie Struhs and her husband Jason received a 14-year sentence for manslaughter.
Brendan Stevens was given 13 years and the others in the group, mainly people in their 20s and 30s, received between six and seven years.
Two of those young people were Lachlan Schoenfisch and his wife Samantha. He was an engineer with a bright future, she was a dancer and hairdresser.
Lachlan and Samantha met on the set of a musical, before marrying in 2018. (Supplied)
Elizabeth's death rocked the Schoenfisch family.
Today, Lachlan's father Cameron is part of a group of Christians in Toowoomba who are speaking out about the problem of cult-like behaviour in their church communities.
Soon after joining The Saints, Lachlan and Samantha tried to recruit Cameron and his wife Jen.
"Lachlan wanted to tell us about his experience and … the teaching of Brendan Stevens, who claimed to be without sin and to be the messenger of God," Cameron tells ABC TV's Compass.
He recalls being dubious about Brendan's claims, including the idea that people could only be considered Christian if they spoke in tongues.
"The proof of receiving the Holy Spirit would be that you would jibber jabber, allegedly speak in tongues, unknown tongues," Cameron says.
It was at this point, he and his wife realised they had lost their son to a cult.
"My heart was broke," he says.
"I've seen all the tragedies that unfold as a result of some of these extreme [religious] teachings, and I'd warned [Lachlan] about those prior, but he couldn't listen.
"I said, 'Son, I know what you've got, and I don't want it.'"
Cameron Schoenfisch's son and daughter-in-law were members of The Saints. (Compass)
The risks of refusing medicine
Three years on from Elizabeth's death, many are concerned that extreme beliefs are still proliferating throughout this part of Queensland.
Les Donges was once a member of a cult, but left after long conversations with Cameron Schoenfisch.
Les has a close family member who was also involved in Pentecostalism and refused to take his medication for diabetes. That relative nearly died.
"He went from about 80 kilos down to less than 50, literally pretty much skin and bone," Les says.
"He understood the medical repercussions of not taking insulin. He knew full well that there were issues with eyesight, with blood clots, with limb loss"
There were other concerning incidents taking place.
Les recalls being told by a pastor about someone trying to raise a deceased person from the grave — during a funeral.
"The funeral director was quite aghast, I guess, at somebody praying for this man to be raised as he was being buried," Les says.
"Obviously, that wasn't going to happen, and it didn't happen."
Loading...Fighting coercive control in churches
But there have been glimmers of hope.
Out of this tragedy has come a network of Christian pastors who are determined to educate themselves — and their followers — about coercive control.
They want to teach people the warning signs of cult behaviour, before it is too late.
Denis Lennox was formerly the executive director of Queensland Rural and Remote Medical Support. He is a Christian pastor and a good friend of Cameron Schoenfisch, Lachlan's dad.
Denis believes coercive control is endemic to our homes, churches and workplaces.
"In many instances, churches have borrowed the system of power that's used in our world generally, including coercion, domination, lording it over people, and it's replete within our church communities where it should not be," he says.
At the same time, he says many churches are in denial about how widespread the problem is in religious communities.
"The central process of abuse of power is deception, and deception works best when it's hidden," he says.
"The best way to deal with this, in fact, is to expose it to the light, to expose it to the truth, to talk … [to build an] awareness of power and how it can be abused, particularly in our church and family situations, so that we can redress it.
"[It's ensuring] … our ears are attuned to hear the first plea of somebody who's experiencing coercive control and to believe them, not to doubt them."
Denis and a network of pastors have put together a series of workshops called Time to Do Better, led by a domestic violence expert.
They are working on including education about coercive control in every aspect of church life, including bible study groups and children's activities — wherever people come together.
For Cameron Schoenfisch and the other families of The Saints members, it is a hard road ahead.
The father has a message for his son, who may be soon out on parole:
"I would just like to say to Lachlan, 'We love you as much as ever in spite of what you've done. But everything that we do has consequences. Wake up to yourself and come back to us.'"
Watch The Cult of the Saints on Compass tonight at 6:30pm on ABC TV, or stream on ABC iview now. Suzanne Smith is a producer and presenter, and author of The Altar Boys.