Aaron Bushnell raised in ‘mysterious’ and allegedly ‘abusive Christian cult’ Community of Jesus

ORLEANS, Mass. — Aaron Bushnell, the US airman who burned himself to death to protest the Gaza war, was allegedly raised in a religious compound accused of being part of “a mysterious and abusive Christian cult.”

The 25-year-old Massachusetts native was raised in the alleged “mind control” group, the Community of Jesus, in the tiny Cape Cod town of Orleans, said former member Susan Wilkins, 59, to the Washington Post.

His parents appear to continue to have strong ties to the murky religious sect — which has reportedly been a vocal online supporter of Israel’s war on Gaza.

Aaron Bushnell reportedly grew up on a religious compound in a quintessential Cape Code sea town. X/@taliaotg Bushnell was reportedly raised on the Community of Jesus religious commune in Massachusetts. Google Maps

Some former members said the Community of Jesus tries to control its members by trapping them in a perpetual state of terror.

“People don’t realize the mind control that goes on in the background,” a former member told the Boston CBS-TV affiliate WBZ.

“You just exist in fear because you feel trapped,” said the person, who was not identified but grew up in the Community.

The group’s Church of the Transfiguration is about 100 yards from the Bushnells’ home — and its spire towers above their abode and the entire neighborhood.

An American flag and another titled “An Appeal to Heaven” were flying outside the family’s home Tuesday.

Bushnell, 25 (whose face is blurred by The Post) fatally set himself ablaze outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC, on Sunday while screaming, “Free Palestine!” X/Talia Jane

On the home’s door was a sign with scripture from Genesis 28:17: “He was afraid and said, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.’ ”

Bushnell’s mother Danielle, 57, has worked for the Community’s publishing arm, Paraclete Press, for years, and Aaron interned there when younger.

His father, David, a construction higher-up with a local architecture firm, touts links to the Christian group on his Facebook page.

The CBS source said members have been publicly disciplined by being put in the middle of a circle as others scream “at you about something you did, and making you feel like the worst person on Earth.”

The eerily calm airman talked about not wanting to “be complicit in genocide” while walking toward the embassy before killing himself Sunday. Facebook / Aaron Bushnell

Another ex-member, Carrie Buddington, told CBS. “I definitely was repeatedly traumatized while I was there.’’

She said she left the Community about 10 years ago — after being forced to give up her baby daughter for three years in the 1980s because other members thought the child cried too much.

‘“I would go and pick her up to comfort her and sit in the rocking chair with her, and the head of the house would come and yell at me for being soft on her,” Buddington claimed.

The mom said she was eventually reunited with her child, but by then, the tot “didn’t know I was her mother,’’ and the pair had to re-bond.

“I think that’s a pain that will always be with me,” Buddington said.

A woman answering the phone at Community for Jesus on Tuesday told a Post reporter, “I’m not able to put your call through’’ when asked for someone to talk to about the group. A man who identified himself as a pastor of the church also declined comment to The Post on Tuesday.

CBS was referred to lawyer Jeffrey Robbins, who told the outlet, “Of course, none of these things you say were alleged by someone to have occurred … are the ‘policy’ of the community or in any way consistent with its way of life.

Law enforcement guard the scene of Bushnell’s suicide in DC on Sunday. Anadolu via Getty Images

“The suggestion otherwise is not merely offensive, it is outrageous,” Robbins said. “It is disgraceful.”

He said Buddington belonged to the Community for 40 years, a long time for someone now claiming her time there was hell.

Aaron Bushnell was with the group at least until 2005, said Wilkins, who left that year after 35 years as a member. She also said she did not think Bushnell was still associated with the church.

Aaron, an Air Force cyber-security tech, live-streamed his fiery extreme act of anti-Israel protest Sunday in which he screamed, “Free Palestine!’’

Dressed in military camouflage, he said on the video moments earlier, “I will no longer be complicit in genocide [in Gaza].”

Some ex-Community members said it is not unusual for people who leave the group to struggle with a sense of purpose afterward, as Aaron might have.

It is not uncommon for them to head into the military, either, Wilkins said.

It’s about moving from “one high-control group to another high-control group,’’ she said.

Mourners create a memorial to Bushnell outside the embassy this week. Ron Sachs – CNP

Another former member in the 1980s, Bonnie Zampino, 54, told the Washington Post, “A lot of us that got out are very much into social justice, trying to defend those who don’t or can’t defend themselves, because that is what we went through.’’

The Community of Jesus was tied to a school in Ontario that had been accused in a lawsuit of creating “an environment of control, intimidation and humiliation that fostered and inflicted enduring harms on its students,’’ according to a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation investigation in 2021.

The CBC claimed it uncovered the school’s “strong connections to a mysterious and abusive Christian cult in Cape Cod, Mass.,’’ referring to the Community of Jesus of which Bushnell and his family belong.

The suit against the now-defunct school was eventually settled for $10.8 million, the CBC reported.

Community for Jesus is said to have been founded by two women in the 1960s. They were known as “the Mothers’’ and were replaced with new leaders after their deaths.

The group’s Web site says it has nearly 300 members, most of whom live on its compound in Cape Cod.The community includes “celibate Brothers and Sisters, and Families and Single Adults that live in privately owned homes surrounding the church,’’ the site says.