Rescue and Revival in Detroit Anti-Sex Trafficking Ministry: How sex industry outreach and the fight against human trafficking is reviving American evangelicals by Jessica C. Lowen A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Anthropology) in the University of Michigan 2020 Doctoral Committee: Professor Alaina Lemon, Chair Professor Paul Johnson Assistant Professor Michael Lempert Associate Professor Gayle Rubin Jessica C. Lowen [email protected] ORCID iD: 0000-0002-3392-0642 ã Jessica C. Lowen 2020 DEDICATION To survivor leaders and those who support them. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This project would not have been possible without external funding. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the Wenner Gren Foundation as well the King-Chavez-Park Initiative for Future Faculty development. In addition, various grant programs at the University of Michigan also supported this project, including: the Rackham Graduate School, the Program in Public Scholarship, the Center for the Education of Women (CEW), the Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG), the Hatcher Graduate Library, the Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP), and the Department of Anthropology. I wish to express my gratitude to my dissertation committee for their guidance, their patience, and for their enduring belief in the value of this project. In particular, I wish to thank Professor Alaina Lemon for supervising my doctoral work at the University of Michigan. I would also like to thank my many faculty mentors who supported my work. By introducing me to the field of Linguistic Anthropology, Professors Chas McKhann and Bruce Mannheim provided the initial training that allowed me to conceptualize this project. I thank Professors Bridgette Carr, Scott Lyons, Michelle Munro-Kramer, Gayle Rubin, Luke Schaefer, and Suellyn Scarnecchia for reinforcing the interdisciplinary relevance and policy import of my iii research topic. I would also like to acknowledge Professor Kelly Askew, Dr. Robert Donia, and Dr. Dana Nichols for their mentorship throughout all stages of this work. I also wish to acknowledge my colleagues who were present for the writing of this dissertation. In particular, I would like to thank Dr. Allison Caine, Dr. Georgia Ennis, Dr. Drew Haxby and Assistant Profesor Prash Naidu for their support, which they provide through equal measures of intellectual criticism, editorial feedback, and friendship. I am immensely grateful to those neighbors, friends, and family members who supported me in a way that allowed me to pursue my academic work while at the same time achieving multiple personal and professional milestones. All students must balance personal and academic obligations. In my case, earning my degree, and seeing this project to completion, required me to balance a diverse set of responsibilities over a span of nearly two decades. My pride in finishing my PhD is enhanced by the knowledge that I graduate free of physical illness and with an enduring marriage partnership, a thriving child, a robust work history, a successful small business, and two beautiful homes. I can only hope that I achieved this balance with grace more often than not. I also wish to thank the community of St. Clare’s Episcopal Church in Ann Arbor, Michigan who provided the theological conversation, personal support, and spiritual guidance that was instrumental to the early stages of this work. In addition, I would like to express my admiration and gratitude to Bob, Dana, Chris, Kelly, and Scott for supporting me and my family throughout this process and continuously for showing me how to successfully combine intellectual criticism and deep friendship. Most of all, I wish to thank the many teachers, coaches, youth leaders, and care providers who fostered my daughter’s intellectual and social development during period that I pursued my iv PhD. In particular, I would like to thank the staff at the Ann Arbor YMCA, Emerson School, Gretchen’s House Child Development Center, and Liberty Pediatrics, especially Beth Barclay, Michelle Burgess, Leslie Capozzoli, Brandi Daniels, and Diane VanDorn. For the past thirteen years, I have enjoyed absolute confidence in my daughter’s education and care. I truly could have not done this without you. I would also like to express my gratitude to Doctors Wade Cornblath, Shelly Hershner, and Jasmine Parvaz whose skilled medical expertise made it physically possible for me to do this work. I also thank the many members of my immediate and extended family who never doubted that I would achieve this goal. I wish to thank my parents for their patience and for their emotional support. I also thank my husband and daughter for holding me accountable to fulfill both my personal obligations and my professional goals. I reserve my deepest gratitude for my husband and partner of twenty years. His belief in my professional success has never faltered. I hope I have made him proud. I look forward to doing so for many more decades to come. v PREFACE Research and writing for this project with a series of public revelations of sexual predation that introduced analytical challenges on a near daily basis. All dissertation writers must resist the temptation to alter their thesis in order to speak to the news cycle. However, in my case this challenge was acute. These events spoke directly to the issues discussed in this study, especially questions about the types of individuals who are charged with sexual crimes as well as the types of victim who are believed and on what grounds. In some instances, they also impacted me personally. In future writing I hope to reflect more deeply on the specific ways in which the following events challenged my thinking. The idea that rich and powerful public figures have long preyed upon sexual victims is not new. However, since 2017 public attitude has shifted in ways that enabled more victims to come forward and secure justice for these crimes. Primary examples of this change include the conviction of media executive Harvey Weinstein (2018), charges against the late financier Jeffrey Epstein (2015-2019), the arrest of businessman Robert Kraft (2019), and ongoing allegations against US president Donald Trump. Since the before the announcement of his presidential campaign in 2015 and well into his term of office, President Donald Trump has faced multiple accusations of sexual assault. Additionally, his immigration detention policy, which separated children from their families in part by placing many in foster care system in the United States, have placed a generation of migrant children at risk of sexual exploitation. Yet, his supporters, many of whom are the most vi vocal proponents of anti-sex trafficking laws and programs, have largely brushed off these personal challenges and policy risks. From 2017 to 2018, former USA gymnastics athletic trainer and Michigan State University faculty member Larry Nasser was convicted on multiple charges of child pornography and child sex abuse. These revelations, which stretch back to Nasser’s time as a Detroit-area high school coach, sent ripple effects throughout my local community in Ann Arbor. As did similar scandals at the University of Michigan, including the conviction of U-M pediatrician Dr. Mark Hoeltzel (2018) and lawsuits alleging sexual abuse by the late Dr. Robert Anderson (2020). In addition to these public revelations of sexual exploitation and abuse (which continue to be debated in the public sphere), throughout the writing of this project, I also learned new information about some members of my community that shook my intellectual foundations. Specifically, these include the recent conviction of a cousin (a Catholic seminarian) on federal child pornography charges, the uncovering of multiple historic wills in my family that identify the intergenerational transfer of enslaved individuals, and the suicide of a beloved high school teacher following allegations that he maintained a sexual affair with a minor student. In future writing I hope to reflect more deeply on the specific ways in which these events impacted my research and writing process. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii PREFACE vi LIST OF FIGURES xii LIST OF APPENDICIES xiv LIST OF ACRONYMS xv ABSTRACT xvii CHAPTER Chapter I: Introduction 1 Main Claims and Contributions of this Study 3 A Brief Introduction to Evangelical Christianity 6 Ethnographic Sources 15 Michigan Human Trafficking Resource Survey (MHTRS) 18 Ethical Considerations 20 Notes to Chapter 1 26 PART 1. HUMAN TRAFFICKING AS A RELIGIOUS ISSUE 27 Chapter II: The Evangelical Fight Against Human Trafficking (Introduction to Part 1) 28 viii Human Trafficking in the United States 31 Critical Anti-Trafficking Studies 43 Notes to Chapter 2 50 Chapter III: Theresa Flores is a Slave Unshackled 51 Chapter Summary 52 The Discursive Limits of Modern Day Slavery 56 Calls and Responses 62 The Whitewashing of Modern Day Slavery 67 Paradigmatic Relations as Facework: Making the Unimaginable Legible 71 The Absence of Evidence: Incredulity as Proof 77 The Purview of Evangelical Social Justice 83 Self-Defense as Anti-Trafficking Activism 94 Conclusion 100 Notes to Chapter 3 101 Chapter IV: Christianity and ‘White Slavery’ 103 Regulated Prostitution (Europe Pre-1850): Early Church Attitudes about Sexual Exploitation as Nascent ideas about sexual exploitation 106 Anti-Regulation Backlash: Salvationists Campaign for Abolition (England 1850-1900) 112 Progressives Fight ‘White Slave Traffic’ (United States 1890-1930) 119 Philanthropic Agents of Reform 128 Religious Liberty 1927 to 1996: from White Separatism to “Charitable Choice” 136 Notes to Chapter 4 144 ix Chapter V: The Expansion of Faith-Based Service Sector: ‘All they really need is Jesus’ 146 Chapter Summary 148 Faith-Based Organizations 153 Federal Funding for Faith-Based Service Providers 165 DOJ Anti-Trafficking Funds and the Michigan JATT Task Force 172 Religious Narratives of Care: ‘All they really need is Jesus’ 176 Conflicting Views of the Victim Service Landscape 181 Notes to Chapter 5 186 PART 2.