Sad re-posts [forum.culteducation.com] about the San Diego TLWF church by paleface and thisweek. It was all about control. That's one thing all the churches had in common, but some were worse than others. : (

Welcome, Leahsmiles. I was part of TLWF from the late sixties until about ten years ago. I doubt that our paths crossed, but I had lots of experience with that "emotional, mental, and spiritual abuse" that you mentioned. It's good to hear that you got out OK. Glad you found this forum. I hope that you find the connections and answers that you're looking for.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/18/2020 06:07AM by Reepicheep.

Thank you for the listed older posts. It helps me have context. I am glad that things fell apart for the whole cult when Marilynn died. I have been haunted a long time because even at 15 I knew the Elijah/Elisha relationship was horrible and open to abuse. I was never given an Elijah thankfully. I worried about some of the kids I knew. I asked my "foster" mother in a bumbling way if she was worried that the Elijahs, many men in late teens or early 20s, would have sex with their Elishas, young girls 12-18. My foster mom told me there would never be abuse because each Elijah had his own Elijah in a chain that reached to the apostles. I thought it was an idiotic defense then and now.

Leahsmiles wrote:
My foster mom told me there would never be abuse because each Elijah had his own Elijah in a chain that reached to the apostles. I thought it was an idiotic defense then and now.

Yes, that is idiotic. Especially in light of what we know now about these 'apostles.'

Yes. Apostles of greed, and addicted to power from my later research. Anyone with mansions, cooks... In Shiloh when I was working in the kitchen one lady said the Apostles had their own cook because they had to focus on spiritual things. MAybe a jet or access to a plane as well for travelling to all the churches? I thought that was weird. McDougal diet was hard to fix but to have a personal chef?

changedagain Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Leahsmiles wrote:
> My foster mom told me there would never be
> abuse because each Elijah had his own Elijah in a
> chain that reached to the apostles. I thought it
> was an idiotic defense then and now.
>
> Yes, that is idiotic. Especially in light of what
> we know now about these 'apostles.'

Oh, boy. Knowing what we know now, that is nuts. It sounds like you dodged a bullet, Leahsmiles. Why on earth would they assign a young teen girl to an older male "Elijah" in the first place? Idiots! I forget if that was before or after the designated relationship phase. Also, it's not true that everyone had a relationship up the line. No one was standing in line to be an Elijah to middle-aged and older adults.

Leahsmiles wrote:
I also went to Shiloh several times. I was in YASP late 90s. I remember working in fields pulling thistles. One day a girl fainted from the heat, we had to keep working. There were many long sermons and church sessions in a nhug auditorium, at least 3 a day. We had to do a lot of chores like cooking,cleaning, working in organic farm fields even as children. If we weren't in church we were working until we almost dropped.

Your experience as a 'Yasper' echoes what was written by 'RecoveredFinally' in this post from October of 2006:

Posted by: recoveredfinally
Date: October 07, 2006 10:46AM

Shiloh really was a slave camp. I was forced to work all day long in the blazing heat cutting rose bushes one summer. I fainted from exhaustian. Most summers were spent like this: wake up at 6am, take a 5 minute shower that is timed, go to breakfast, go "wait on the Lord" for an hour, go discuss waiting on the Lord, get your personal list of chores, do your chores from about 10am - 6pm. Eat dinner, go to church, sleep, wake up again. Some of the chores included:
1) weeding outdoors on the side of a pebble road that lead into the entrance of the church - and it was at least 90 + degrees -- or the humidity made it feel that way
2) weeding in the man-made lagoon where one year I was attacked by leeches when I sat in the sand
3) serving on the kitchen staff - the dish washing room was horrible because the dining room was already hot, but combined with the steam of the dish machine - it was 10 x worse!
4) scrubbing toilets and showers with a toothbrush
AND so forth....
It was misery. I can vouche for that! :(

Posted by: louann
Date: October 21, 2006 07:19PM

This is in answer to "recoveredfinally". I do not know when you were at Shiloh. I was there 1978-1984. I did my stint with kitchen and housekeeping, as well as working on a hymnal (which was never really used, BTW).

Posted by: recoveredfinally
Date: October 29, 2006 04:25PM

I was involved in the young adult summer program from 1992-1994.

I didn't realize older members didn't have an Elijah....that it was mainly kids makes it even worse. I did dodge a bullet. I've always been grateful I didn't go through some of the more horrible abuses I suspected. I don't know what tipped the scales against me being given an Elijah. I may never know. I am glad.

It sounds as though the Elijah/Elisha arrangement was the younger generation version of 'designated relationships' which many adults had. Basically, a monitoring system, where each person (theoretically) could be monitored and controlled by a personal 'shepherd'..all the way up the food chain. Of course, if you're top dog, you get the prerogative of choosing someone you've trained as servant to conduct oversight. And you can always dismiss them if you don't approve of the way they are doing their job.

Leahsmiles Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I didn't realize older members didn't have an
> Elijah....that it was mainly kids makes it even
> worse. I did dodge a bullet. I've always been
> grateful I didn't go through some of the more
> horrible abuses I suspected. I don't know what
> tipped the scales against me being given an
> Elijah. I may never know. I am glad.

Leahsmiles,

We had "designated relationships". I think it was in the late nineties? It probably depended on the individuals as to how intense an experience that was. I remember Gary preaching mercilessly about everybody NEEDING to be submissive to a designated person. Shepherds kept blowing out or moving on, so some of us were not sure how to make that work. It was a bizarre time after a lifetime of bizarre situations. I'm glad that you didn't receive the "gift" of a narcissistic "Elijah" too.

An interesting post regarding the shepherding requirements in TLWF. People were hurt. JRS and G&M were culpable. They knew of situations and wrongdoing. They did not report it to the proper authorities and even participated in cover ups.

Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Posted by: puddington ()
Date: May 06, 2018 12:24PM

There was one situation of sexual abuse that I was familiar with. It had to do with a sheep submitting themselves to an elder as their “designated relationship” and as “christ in the flesh”. The elder took advantage of the situation and coerced sex acts with this sheep against the sheep’s will. The person was devastated. G&M heard about it and thankfully removed the elder. At a meeting about this, someone asked Gary an interesting question. The conversation went something like this:

“Gosh Gary, maybe we need to rethink this whole shepherding over each other idea. It seems to give too much power over people who can become abusers”

Gary’s response “ We don’t need to change anything. This is just colateral damage in the battle for the kingdom. There’s always going to be casualties.”

So yes, G&M didn’t sanction the abuse. But they didn’t do anything to correct the environment for this abuse to breed. It’s still like that today.

The only effort they made was to direct the victim to keep quiet about it. I think this makes them culpable.