Fundamentalist Exchange: The evangelical pipeline between New Zealand and the United States.

Part 3: Geoff Botkin, continued

Due to circumstances outside of my control, the edition of the newsletter in which Part 1 was published had to be removed from MailChimp - there were issues with a different article in that edition. If you were unable to read/access Part 1, send us an email (at newsletter@skeptics.nz) and we'll either send you a copy or find an alternative format to share it.

I was also able to locate a video I'd mentioned before, Y2K: The Millennium Bug's Deadliest Secret, which was produced by Botkin.

But, on with the show….

So, what became of Geoff Botkin after he resigned as the CEO of the New Zealand Media Group? Did he learn the error of his ways and leave Christianity behind, or did he hitch his wagon to another rising star in Christian fundamentalism?

If you guessed the latter, you would be correct. And the whole family came along for the ride too.

The Botkin family claimed that during their residency in New Zealand, they were rebuilding scriptural foundations here. Regardless, the Botkins would briefly share an affectation of referring to the British Commonwealth when they obviously just meant New Zealand.

What exactly the family was doing with regards to that rebuild is mostly unclear. With Geoff we initially see a haphazard collection of media gigs, and older brother Isaac was working as an animator with HUHU studios, which while owned by evangelical Christian Trevor Yaxley, never quite reached Veggie Tales levels of Christian media influence.

If we turn our attention to the Botkin daughters, however, we see that maybe it was Anna Sofia and Elizabeth who were holding all the tools.

The biography to their first book, So Much More: The Remarkable Influence of Visionary Daughters on the Kingdom of God, implies that the Botkin sisters were living in New Zealand at the time of the book's publication in 2005. Directed at young, Christian teenage girls, the sisters offer biblical solutions for those who want to do…”so much more than just “survive” in a savagely feministic, anti-Christian culture”. The book was only of many influential, quiverfull-adjacent titles printed in the 1990s and 2000s. Within the pages of So Much More, traditional gender roles and the importance of marriage, and how these lessons are instilled from childhood, are reinforced. As Bethany Sweeney summarises in her PhD thesis, the Botkins see feminists as anti-god, and virtues such as purity, holiness, and submission to god are seen as disgusting to said feminists. The sisters also include an interview with Geoff, in which he advocates, of all things, the paying of a bride price:

With the bride price, both institutions [the family and marriage] are strengthened over many generations. Good daughters attract worthy suitors who have proven themselves good, productive servants. By giving the bride price to the girl's father, suitors also prove they understand the father's authority over the daughter and their subordination to God's order and the father's authority. By giving the gift [dowry] to the daughter, the father signifies his obligations to succeeding generations.

But the chief takeaway, as seen in other Quiverfull writings directed at women, is the need for women to put themselves last, behind the needs of their family, home, church, and God. Or as the Duggars once put it, JOY: Jesus first, others second, yourself last. As Sweeny concludes, the Botkins believe that a woman's role isn't just about obeying the husband who has the greater authority, but that being a helpmeet is intrinsic to their existence, with the man as the superior being and the woman the subordinate one.

In their footnotes, Sweeney makes an interesting comment about the influence Geoff had on the conclusion Anna Sofia and Elizabeth made. It's similar to Isaac revealing in recent years about how pivotal Geoff was to helping him secure his early contracts with the Navy. The same question arises as to whether the sisters came by their opinions honestly or are deliberately demonstrating submission to authority, thereby aiding their credibility amongst quiverfull circles.

It's pretty heady and intense psychological and religious topics to be writing about at the ages of 17 and 19 years of age.

So Much More was published by Vision Forum Ministries. Vision Forum (VF) was an evangelical organisation founded in 1998 by Doug Phillips; Doug is the son of Howard Phillips, who founded the conservative US Taxpayers' Party/Constitution party. Phillips is the father of eight, an advocate of Quiverfull ideologies, creationism and patriarchy, and worked for several years as a lawyer for the Home School Legal Defense Association. Vision Forum was not a church per se, but rather a dual nonprofit ministry and for-profit company that sold toys, costumes, and teaching materials to the ultraconservative fundamentalist Christian families that they served. The organisation also hosted conferences, a Christian film festival, and produced several films of its own. To those on the outside, Vision Forum tried to appear sophisticated, wealthy, polished, and intellectual; which wasn't overly hard, considering the competition were families like the Duggars and Bates.

Further evidence of collaboration between Botkin and Phillips can be seen through movie collaborations like League of Grateful Sons, also released in 2005, and the roles played by the Botkin sons in the operation of VF's film festival. Fundie Fridays has put together an effective short video giving an overview of VF and their association with the Botkin family, as well as a separate video about the Botkin's themselves.

When the relationship between the Botkins and Vision Forum actually started is irrelevant. What is important is that Botkin's theology and ideology were finding a wider audience than Jim McCotter could ever dream of, all in return for becoming Phillips' right-hand man.

But that also meant that his daughters fell under increased scrutiny. Some very weird stories were widely and publicly shared about their obedience to Geoff and their true value in a patriarchal family unit. One story had involved the near death in childbirth of Geoff's wife Victoria. While the doctors were saving Victoria's life, Geoff busied himself with praying to god over the ovaries of newborn Anna Sofia that she would be the “...future mother of tens of millions”, and that she would marry young. A second story, also about poor Anna Sofia; on Geoff's orders, five-year old Anna Sofia untied Geoff's shoes while he was meeting an ‘important politician', and then Anna Sofia asked the guest if he also wanted his shoes untied.

Apparently, that act inspired the politician to have more children with his wife. But it was one of many that contributed to criticism that Geoff was a cult leader, and that the enmeshment/covert incest between father and children was excessively unhealthy. The term ‘Botkin Syndrome' was used frequently in online forums to describe the emotional, psychological, spiritual, and sometimes physical effects manifested by children who have been raised in biblical patriarchy, quiverfull, or similar religious paradigms. The particular paradigms in question are ones where all members of the family orbit around the family leader, most often the husband/father.

Within the nexus of Vision Forum, Father-Daughter retreats were events where this was reinforced movement-wide. Through sermons and games, daughters were taught that they had to rely on and serve their father, i.e through blindfolded obstacle courses where the daughters could only follow their father's commands, teaching daughters to serve by learning to shave their father's face, etc.

The End of the New Zealand years

Documents lodged for First Pacific Information Technology Limited indicate that the family retained New Zealand addresses until 2004 at least, and the sisters, Anna Sofia and Elizabeth, certainly used the online storefront until late 2007. Some believe Botkin left NZ when he resigned from NZ Media Group in 2002. By 2006 the family appeared to have relocated to Nashville, although a cached version of their donations page lists an address in San Antonio, which is where Vision Forum was located.

While the Botkins went on to form their own ministry-cum-production house, they kept New Zealand in their plans. In a 2008 cached version of their website, the Western Conservatory of the Arts and Sciences is presented as a creation of the Botkin children to honour their father's vision of Christendom with a commitment to the Great Commission. They initially presented themselves as a public charity, sought donations and encouraged employment and internship inquiries. The seven children ”identified” seven divisions for this so-called conservatory which had some pretty lofty goals for itself:

The original biographies of the conservatory advisors is something to behold as well.

In 2006, under the name Visionary Daughters, the sisters would expand their writing about biblical womanhood and turn these ideas into a documentary called Return of the Daughters. They would publish a further book of advice on how to relate with guys, and a study course on how to be attractive while keeping it biblical and modest. The sons would go on to produce documentaries of their own, and the whole family would travel the Christian/homeschooling circuits.

During an interview with ministry leader and podcast host Kevin Swanson in 2007, Geoff Botkin revealed that he has planned out the next 200 years of his childrens' lives on an excel spreadsheet.

For his daughters, he put down a book project that they needed to work on when they were 15 and 17 (which they did). Geoff has also predetermined book titles for his children for when they are in the early-twenties to mid-thirties.

Media projects.

Music projects.

Whether they met their goals with legislative reform.

How many children they have, how many married children they have (note: None of the adult Botkin children got married until 2010).

The spreadsheet includes areas where they hope to have an impact for righteousness.

Geoff even has his death on the list in the year 2038 (which was an estimate given by the insurance companies), as well as the deaths of his sons, and their sons, etc, with the hope that each son would have 157 male descendants.

Admittedly, Botkin states that he is not putting any presumptions on God's plan, and the plan gets updated every year. But at the 20:44 mark, he makes an unusual comment about how if his son is to be the Prime Minister of New Zealand at the age of 56/57, his son needs to consider what he is doing to be an adequate and just leader.

Whether he actually has one of his five sons down to be Prime Minister, or if it's illustrative of the international ambitions he has, remains to be seen.

In 2008, there were rumblings online that Geoff had predicted a coming socioeconomic disaster and was planning to return to NZ in 2010 and bring some Vision Forum Supporters with him. In 2009 Geoff and Isaac Botkin, along with 15 other homeschooling dads, travelled to NZ on a reconnaissance tour to determine if they would emigrate. Meetings were to be held in Auckland, Hamilton, Tauranga, and Christchurch.

Obviously nothing came of this trip, and no permanent relocations occurred. The last document filed on behalf of First Pacific Information Technology was in 2010, but still listed Isaac and David Botkin as Directors but not Shareholders. On July 26, 2011 the company was deregistered.

The end of the Vision Forum Gravy Train

In 2013, Vision Forum would fall apart when Doug Phillips admitted to an inappropriate relationship with a woman who was not his wife. It was soon revealed that the woman, Lourdes, was the family's nanny, and had also featured in Botkins' documentary Return of the Daughters. Lourdes had known the Phillips since she was 15, and was invited to share in the wealthier lifestyle of the family, albeit as an unsalaried servant. In 2007, when she was 23, Lourdes was invited to move in with the Phillips family. This was also when Doug Phillips began to sexually assault her. The suit was dismissed in 2016.

The Botkins haven't entirely kept a low-profile. One of the younger brothers, Lucas, founded a gun holster and accessory company called T.Rex Arms, which seems to keep most of the other brothers busy with either design, finance, or legislative politicking. The exception is Ben Botkin, who has some musical chops and composes for films that aren't produced by his family. Even his brothers admit that they can't afford him anymore. There are rumours that he and his wife have distanced themselves somewhat from the family church.

Geoff continues to do his own thing, but on his own, and it appears he starts and stops a lot of projects. He does give advice to the team at T. Rex Arms, but otherwise the last pivot he made was to conservative politics.

With their writing and media output slowing to an imperceptible crawl, the Botkin sisters caught more and more flack for their stay-at-home daughter message as they aged. It was a circumstance/brand crisis they had to grapple with as well, though maybe not as gracefully as some would expect. As many of their contemporaries (and stars in Return of the Daughters) deconstructed what their conservative upbringing actually entailed, many did get married and receive educations (and not always in that order!).

Things did eventually change for Anna Sofia and Elizabeth. Anna Sofia became a real estate agent, and became involved in the local chamber of commerce, while Elizabeth recently married. Many wonder if the sisters still believe in what they once wrote or whether, with the passage of time, they see the error of their father's ways. Everyone's a victim in patriarchal systems, and without knowing the whole truth of the internal dynamics of the Botkin clan, I'm hesitant to start demanding repentance from the sisters. As the daughters of other fundamentalist families seized their freedom and have made up for lost time, it will be interesting to observe if Anna Sofia and Elizabeth fully cast off the yolk their father placed on their ovaries years ago.

There are still 160 years left to the 200 year plan. Maybe we should ask Geoff if some introspection is scheduled.