QuoteOnion This is interesting..... EFCA sounds like an organization we should have sniffing around. Interesting article, Onion. Here's another article about the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability: It seems to be a watchdog organization for nonprofit evangelical churches and charities. Those joining must submit to financial scrutiny in order to remain members in
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Ok, fine, we'll all be merries. I had a bad day. But I just have one question: who is Robin Hood? And I absolutely will not be Maid Marion. That's where I draw the line. ;)
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Quotethat little red flag While we are on the subject, you know what really rankles me? JRS, Gary, Marilyn, Rick, and others getting away with lying, abuse of clergy, cover-ups, deception, offerings, sexual misconduct, all night prayer, multiple affairs, bad stewardship of funds, breaking up marriages, abandoning children, etc., etc., ad nauseam without any accountability. Absolutely, r
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Amos, the movie Goliath Awaits offers a powerful metaphor for the state of affairs in what is left of TLWF. I am sad for those remaining who are unable to be free, for whatever reason. Unfortunately, there are still Branch Davidians over twenty five years after so many died in their ill-fated standoff. There would probably also be People's Temple followers of Jim Jones holding fast to this d
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Prettboy, thanks for trying to be jolly, but I must admit that it rankles a bit in light of the crimes against children that are being exposed. From Shakespeare, King Lear: "Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear:  Robes and furr'd growns hide all. Plate sin with gold,  And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;  Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pier
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Road to Damascus, Your story breaks my heart. It is another example of the toxic culture of control that we all lived under. To anyone who says, "Why didn't you just leave?", I would advise them to learn more about cults. Our families and friends were used against us in such a way that leaving would be beyond frightening. It would have been an existential experience that most we
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Quote The Blix house? Sorry, but you mix a lot of unsure young people with others seeking guidance or not, and with a woman who convinced her mother to leave her father over absolutely nothing but a misquoted and misunderstood scripture, and who overtly used her own sexuality and looks in attempt to fill her own emptiness among men she in long discussions actually despised but overcame out of nec
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Kbyrne and Richard M,, that's quite a quote about men in the church. Between that and "I'm pretty anti-woman" from Girl's Turn It Off, it sounds like MH didn't like people much.
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Onion, the link seems to work. I just can't listen to it. I will barf. Seriously. I remember getting in trouble because a few guys submitted wanting to date me back at the time that this message was released. I must have "put my spirit on them", according to this tape. I mean, that's the only reason that a young man would ever be attracted to a young woman, according to Mar
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Welcome, typer. Thank you for sharing parts of your story here. I'm so glad that you got your family to a safe place, both physically and spiritually. I agree with your assessment that the spirits of believers belong to God and not to a human leader. I concur also with prettyboy and others on the status of the churches. The real dedication and loving relationships have always been in the
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Quotechangedagain I recall back on Factnet when various people still holding on to John's word would claim that his death to cancer was a result of people's disobedience, lack of faith, lack of violent prayer--whatever. They weren't going to budge, and they probably still aren't...assuming they're still alive. I've been watching "Ministry of Evil" about
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteOnion A lot of people have wondered and even speculated about what Gary might have up his sleeve in all that has happened since so many people began to blow the whistle on church abuses, especially in CLW/COL/TLW. I think Gary's exit plan was started quite a bit before anyone went public on FB. The response to his request for letters in the context of his 360 thingie was apparently a
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Quotechangedagain Note: After Jeff P. left the South Gate church in the early 90's, my wife and I were asked by Statton to help fill in the void he left with the young adults in the church. I recall at one point Scott M. coming to the church, and relaying a message to me that God 'meant business' with the younger generation. Apparently a teen in TLWF was hit by a train and died...a
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Quotechangedagain Dissent brings retribution, at least from my experience. The uncomfortable truth is that anyone who considered themselves a ministry during the reign of G & M & R (Gary, Marilyn, Rick) were only kidding themselves. They were merely figureheads...having the appearance of having a say in matters, but actually inconsequential. The way to test this premise,of course, was to
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteRichard M. “Invictus” OUT of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Dick, thank you. You confirmed my suspicions of what I felt about "the intercessors" being told that they were much more important to JRS than the elders in the church. It really was an alternate universe.
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Quotepuddington Yes. And I recall that the Blix girls in the 70’s & 80’s were taught to “get Marilyn’s thinking”. Because she had the “mind of Christ”. To think like her, was to think like God. I’m not kidding. I heard this doctrine myself. I remember, too, puddington. I don't think that I would have lasted long at Blix House. Good thing that I was never "invited" to li
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Richard M., I remember those days of the elite intercessors group. Somehow they knew years before anyone else did that JRS had a "nephilim wife", and were actively praying for her death. They knew that Stevens had prophesied against Robert Kennedy, and were strangely ok with his assassination because it was "God's will". How is that Christian? Many times various ones r
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

What happens when a leader's prophecies don't happen as foretold? (Or, in the case of TLWF/The Walk, it becomes stunningly obvious that "The Apostle to the Kingdom" was a conman?) Do the cult members realize that something is wrong with the teaching? Or do they go through mental gyrations to keep their beliefs intact? This story about the Christmas the aliens didn't come
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteRichard M. ...Stevens made it clear to Richard that taking as much as you can through the gifts of others without being known for it or otherwise caught for your self-serving and sycophant goals, was the height of success. And he was still reaching for it partly through the willing help of Marilyn. Between this and the accounts of motel room trysts up on the Boulevard, it's pretty
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteRichard M. Reepicheep, thanks. I knew Stevens was a phony when I first saw and met him. He wouldn't look at me eye-to-eye and seemed even a little frightened of me. Of course, it later made more sense. But if there hadn't been Marilyn and my kids tied to her, he never would have survived to stand at another sermon . . . But I had my own future and two kids’ lives to consider so a
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Richard M., you are awesome for sharing your experiences. I didn't see this when it was on FACTNET, but it is so important that you shared it again. This is epic, and should lay to rest the thinking that the founder of the Walk was anything other than a very skilled conman. I want to believe in Santa Claus and the Wizard of Oz too, but it is not a healthy obsession for adults. And neither is
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteOnion As to forgiveness, depending on each individual's stage of recovery, I believe the best route is for people to consult their therapists or other providers with education in the area of abuse recovery and forgiveness before responding in a willy nilly fashion to a surface interpretation or another's opinion on how forgiveness works within the victim. Forgiveness is a deep
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteNancyB Wimpy little apology is not repentance nor is it rehabilitation for sexual addiction of so many leaders who helped themselves to those vulnerable children/sheep who should have protected by the leaders. Sick. There is no way a religious leader can claim to speak words of the lord and the lord forgets to reveal heinous abuse. Does it really make sense that god gives wisdom to tell pe
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Welcome deborahs. Over the years there were many leaders who were treated very badly by JRS and G&M, including W.J. Stevens, Vere Thomas and many more. There were even more congregants who were used and taken advantage of. This is where the abuse train stops. No more.
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuoteOnion Apparently, the best thing all of us have done is to publicly speak up. I would hope that those who are die-hard loyalists to the past will realize there is a requirement to speak out about wrongdoing to avoid being held responsible. Of course, the complete control exercised by various leaders will result in complete liability but that doesn't mean they will be the only ones cul
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

With all due respect to the lovely calls for forgiveness, I would like to point out that many people posting here (especially women and those who were minors at the time) have had forgiveness shoved down their throats for most of their lives while those hurting them gleefully piled abuse upon abuse. It is not healthy to ignore our own process because "someone" tells us that the correct
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

QuotekBOY POST TLW LEXICON: ~ Walk with Fraud ~ Shalom-oshima ~ Tramp of Israel ~ Apologetic Company (APCO) ~ Alcoholic Company (ALCO) ~ Center of the LoonyVerse ~ School of Profits ~ Impostor-stolic Company ~ Pervert Prince ~ Lying Word ~ Personal Misdirection ~ Queen of Con My autocorrect supplied this one: Church of the Living Weird
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Here is an article that I believe would be helpful to many people on this forum. The title is "Forget About Forgiving Your Narcissist/Psychopath: Here's Why ". Here's a sneak peek of the subtitles: You need to move on You get more drained by the second It's time for you to come first You need to stop feeling bad for seeking justice Toxic people get off scot-free
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families

Changed, Onion and kbyrne, Thank you for bringing up the names of people who were unceremoniously shown the door and disenfranchised for whatever reason or no reason at all. I remember being told to go to church to hear a super secret restricted tape one night. It was about Larry Makuakane. I don't know what to call "those" tapes. Demonizing and orders to shun tapes. There we
Forum: Former Cult Members and Affected Families