Jesus People U.S.A., a.ka. JPUSA, is discussed in chapter 7 of Ron Enroth's book "Recovering From Churches That Abuse". With Ron Enroth's permission, this book is now online in it's entirety at :
[www.reveal.org]

More info about this cult and stories by ex-members of this cult may be found at:
[www.angelfire.com]

I lived there for a couple months right after I got out of the Army and KNOW FOR A FACT that there was a registered sex offender and his wife living there while I was there. I also know for a fact that they are gone now, as I helped them move. This would be in February '06. JPUSA is right next to a middle school and it was a total violation of his sex offender status to be living at JPUSA so they helped him set up a fake residence in one of their warehouses in order to decieve the authorities with whom he had registered.

In fairness, this is a guy who was caught having sex with his 17-year old girlfriend when he was 18. He was arrested for statutory rape and now forever wears the scarlet letter of a "known sex offender". But he's not a pervert, and hardly a sexual predator. A guy who got arrested under a blanket law that treats him like a criminal.

My point is this guy is not dangerous IMO opinion but he couldn't live there (JPUSA) under the terms of his sex-offender status, all of JPUSA leadership KNEW that he was a registered sex offender, and not only did they let him live there anyway, they helped to hide him from the authorities. I know this for sure, as I helped them move and was present when N. Taylor gave them a $1000 check to help them move, as well as renting the moving van with a JPUSA credit card. So I can say that I have seen JPUSA leadership give money to persons who were in the process of leaving JPUSA, but I also know for a fact that they will bend and outright break laws, deceive the authorities and help hide people, when it suits their purposes. The man I knew was one of their better workers at Lakefront Supply, and did a lot of free work for them.

All in all, a very insular, cliquish, controlling place. I left after just two months. Never worked for any of the businesses or anything and wa on "home crew" the whole time. I left them to work with TFI. At the time, I thought that TFI was "safe". That's another story.

I really liked living in Eastwood though and miss my roommate Don; he was a good guy.

The reason I left JPUSA: it had to do with stuff I'd read about JPUSA online, some of it here at RR's. I chose to go check it out anyway. It was neat to hang out with gutter-punk, tatooed Christians in Bible studies and stuff. I ultimately decided to bail after some bad experiences with R. Brown. He spoke to me in an overly harsh and accusatory manner and insulted and offended me deeply. It's a lot to get into, the details of it, but I'll put it like this: in JPUSA culture, you DO NOT say hi and goo-goo to somebody's cute kid unless you want to swiftly land in an office being grilled by the coordinators and one of the pastors (usually either Taylor or Brown). Brown basically told me that I had no business goo-gooing a cute kid, in full company of his parents (with whom I was eating dinner) and told me that he thought I should avoid kids like an alcoholic should avoid a bar. I wanted to tell him to go f**k himself, but held my tongue, and moved out soon after that. This, and they KNEW that there was a registered sex offender living there, hiding him from the police even! The self-righteous hypocrites.

The sex offender: I still have his name and phone number and all that and can prove what I say. What I reported about their "hiding him out" is accurate.

This is a good outline of their history:

[religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu]

Zeuszor-
Thanks for sharing your experiences with this CULT and for the link.
On the ex-JPUSA site I posted above, there were various CRIMES mentioned by the ex-members, as well as stories of one elder who seduced teenage boys, suicides and suicide attempts, and the way the leadertwits was able to fool various state and Federal agencies.
IMB(bombastic)O, JPUSA is just a scam run by a bunch of ex-hippie dirt freak/drug addicts who are now living on easy street thanks to their manipulation of those under their authority and their ability to scam and con the various social systems of this country. They've even got their own built in "smoke-screen" artists like Jon Trott and Eric Pement who do spin and damage control, or ( especially in the case of Pement ) remain silent about what they know.
What stinks is that about 5 or 6 days ago one could do a Google search of "JPUSA" and the ex-JPUSA board I posted above would be the second link on the list. Now it is nowhere to be found on a Google search!
Any ideas what may have caused this?
Mark

I don't know that I'd call JPUSA a cult technically, Mark. 1) There is no living leader who has no accountability structure, and who is held in veneration ("The Council", in JPUSA culture, is not some mouthpiece for God) 2) No mind-control practices that I made out, denunciation sessions, cult of confession, sacred science, information control, etc., just pretty ordinary conservative Christian doctrine, and 3) Exploitation of members? OK, that I concede. JPUSA has a lot of money most most rank-and-filers are pretty poor. There are a lot of double standards for leadership and their families (or in JPUSA culture, "JPUSA royalty") vs. ordinary peons.

So a "cult"? No, IMO. An "abusive church", "spiritually destructive ministry", or whatever? Absolutely. It just doesn't seem to fit the sociological and psychological criteria to be called a "cult". There IS a difference between the two.

What is your opinion, RR?

In fact, I really liked and miss my stay with JPUSA. It was a good season in my life. We had good fellowship and camaraderie in Eastwood. My points of contention were with one of Vic Williams' sons (he was kind of a jerk) and with R. Brown. Mostly it was the double-standards and hypocrisies in leadership that got me. Not a place I'd recommend, but still some happy memories there.

Zeuszor-
Concerning your post two posts above:
I don't mean to minimize your experiences or observations at JPUSA, and I don't mean to be disagreeable, however, there were many, many people who posted at the old ex-JPUSA boards who kept saying that "Mama Dawn" (Dawn Mortimer) was the leader of the group, and that the rest of the council were merely her puppets.
In regards to point 2.) : Individuals at the old boards talked about what could be termed "denunciation sessions" ( see chapter 7 of "Recovering..." for an example), information control ( the old ex-JPUSA site is blocked on computers at JPUSA ) and mindgames/mind control.
As far as doctrine, JPUSA is embracing the Emergent Movement which is NOT conservative Christian doctrine.
Some call JPUSA is a cult, some say it's a psuedo-cult, some say it is an abusive group. Semantics? Maybe. The point is, people have been hurt badly. Repeatedly.
Glad you're out. Glad I only visited for a few days - back in spring, '81 - and never moved there.

Mark

Apparently Trott is still keeping tabs on the old ex-JPUSA site. One of the threads there mentioned a link to a discussion board that had a post from a former JPUSA whose son was molested and repeatedly beaten while at JPUSA. Trott posted on Monday but said NOTHING about the molestation or beatings.
So if your visiting this site Mr. Trott, feel free to post. Perhaps you could comment on the fact that 2 of Ron Enroth's books - one of which specifically talks about JPUSA - are now on the net.

With contempt and derision,

Mark Scheiderer