As a practicing Satanist, I have my reasons to treat Christianity with suspicion. After all, a large part of the reason I bonded with demons deals with feeling demonized by hypocritical Christians around me.
Many of the worst people I met paraded “good morals” by advertising their Christian faith. In recent years, Christian fundamentalists have gained social media fame — a platform that I believe many (not all) are using to abuse, control, and fleece others.
That’s why I’m a Fundie Snarker. I watch these influencers because I want to see what messages they’re sending, and I do my best to make a point of exposing people who abuse Christianity by using it for personal gain.
The Rodrigues family is spearheaded by Jill and her husband Shrek — erm, David. They’re a Quiverfull family that acts as a family influencer group, a church music group, and a mini-church of their own. Jill is also an MLM saleswoman because, of course she is.
Shrek and Jill have a total of 13 kids, the oldest being Timothy Rodrigues. His sister Nurie seems to be a close second in age. Both Tim and Nurie are married and were married into other fundie influencer families. (Yes, they have a Duggar in-law.)
Timothy is married to a woman named Heidi.
Over the years, there were a lot of social media posts that were weirdly concerning — though there was nothing specifically that made them feel so “off.” Many people noticed that:
The children all looked malnourished and gaunt. The only one who seems “well built” is the patriarch, David.
The children also always seemed to be afraid of their parents. They apparently have an alleged history of skipping states as a result of phone calls to CPS. Once they’re on the radar, they move.
Multiple posts show the “Rodlets” work on a business making chick tracts. That’s a term for those little Christian pamphlets you throw away, FYI.
Jill seemed very controlling of her kids’ futures. This often zeroed in on marriages and pastor colleges.
Despite everything, nothing came out about anything…until now.
This goes into it a bit.
There’s more…
Yep. He talked about his dad literally denting a baseball bat on him. His sister Nurie quickly stood up against his claims, blaming him. Renee, Tim’s sister, also talked about how culture “became weak” and that this was all BS.
And Jill, seeing her brand go up in flames, quickly said it was “false accusations” and that David is a good dad. She also posts some Christian stuff because bible quotes usually make scandals go away.
In other words, the Rodrigues clan matriarch quickly did the Christian thing, saying that the perp isn’t perfect and that they will continue to humble themselves to Christ.
Jill then added later on:
To everyone’s surprise, Heidi’s family actually stepped the fuck up and refused to accept the standard “brush shit under the rug for Jesus” song and dance. That’s when even more tea got dropped.
Oh man. As the Facebook war came out in full force, Heidi’s family ended up really dropping a large part of the deets, including that:
The fucker left marks on her, repeatedly. Heidi appeared to fear for her life.
At one point, Timothy bit her. Not in a sexual way.
There is photographic evidence of his attacks, which were apparently going on since a MONTH after they married. She stayed with him for two years.
Timothy also apparently has serious verbal abuse issues. Some have also suggested that the phrasig of certain remarks insinuate that there may have been other types of abuse, if you get my drift.
It’s good to know that Heidi is not living with Timothy. She and her child are safe, away from him. In my opinion, it looks like Heidi’s family is putting their ducks in a row to press charges.
If Heidi was going to go back to him, I think that option got shot to hell once Timothy decided to announce what he did without Heidi’s permission.
If you’ve ever hung out with a lot of Christian fundies, you likely know that they tend to throw women under the bus. Women get blamed, told to “work out their marriage for God,” and to “keep sweet” for the sake of the Christian image.
Here’s what Olivia Plath, a great photographer ex-fundie who knew the Rodrigues family personally said:
Plath is one of the very few, very strong ex-fundie women to break away from a toxic marriage, toxic family, and toxic set of beliefs. She’s a an OG gangster in my eyes — and I mean that with respect. I actually agree with her take on this.
While I can empathise with Tim’s upbringing, I also recognize it’s no excuse. Tim’s a massive piece of shit. If you have anger issues to the point of attacking others, you have to actually hold yourself accountable before you have it become public knowledge.
If I have done the work to address my anger issues, Tim should have too. He *wasn’t* holding himself accountable. He *wasn’t* going to therapy, reading up on coping mechanisms or trying to find other outlets.
He wasn’t trying to hold himself back from his rage or trying to figure out how to fix himself. He wasn’t trying to plan dates or try to get Heidi on a plan to address issues that might have been setting him off. He did nothing.
He’s just upset that he’s about to get popped and divorced.
Oh, and an alleged former babysitter to the Rods also chimed in confirming the abuse allegations:
So, there’s that. You know, I grew up assuming that being hit was normal too. It was a lot of families’ way of “beating sense into the kid,” when their kids weren’t okay. (I’m going to leave it at that.)
Not one single parent I have ever met would think beating a goddamn baby is normal. It’s a miracle that, if true, the Rodrigues family haven’t killed one of their own kids.
I’m not even going to touch the baby formula matter because, well, that’s actually a way to kill a child pretty fast.
That shit is terrifying.
And the fact that some of the Rodrigues kids (if not all) have tried to downplay this is shocking. They’re really, really deeply damaged as a group — because only someone really fucked up would find this to be normal.
These sparkly influencer families all seem to have well-behaved kids but that’s more or less because those kids are often tortured into compliance. I’ve personally seen horrors happen to friends who grew up in cult homes that had similar beliefs to many fundie groups.
Kids are meant to be seen and heard. They should be able to laugh and play without fear. They should be able to branch out and be their own people. When you remove that right from them, this is what happens.
You end up with a cycle of monstrous abuse.
Is it me, or are we seeing a lot more fundie women getting sick of their men’s shit? Are we starting to see a growing number of women speak out about the abuse of the fundie Christian church?
I hope so.
And also, I hope Heidi divorces Tim. She deserves better — and even if Tim manages to work on himself, the dynamic between them is likely poisoned to the point of no return. But really: if he’s anything like Shrek, he should not even be considering marriage anytime soon.
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