October 4, 2019 Show with Paul Trask & Barb Luff on “Faith Gone Astray: Unveiling the Kirtland Cult Murders”

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Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

Earth who are listening via live streaming at IronSharpensIronRadio .com. This is

Chris Arnzen your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio wishing you all a happy Friday on this fourth day of October 2019 and this is going to be no doubt a fascinating program that we have today.

It involves a returning guest and also a first time guest. Today we have on the program for a second interview

Paul Trask who is a former reorganized Latter -day Saint who converted by God's grace and mercy to biblical

Christianity and founded Refiners Fire Ministries. We also have joining Paul a first time guest

Barb Luff who is the mother of prison inmate Ron Luff serving a life sentence for participating in the

Kirtland cult murders at the Allen Correctional Institute in Lima, Ohio and it is my honor and privilege to welcome you both to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio Paul Trask and Barb Luff.

Hi Brian, thank you very much for that welcome Chris. Thank you. And welcome

Barb for the first time it's a pleasure and honor to have you on the show today. I hope this works out very nice.

I'm sure it will. And Paul, if you could start the program by giving a summary of who the reorganized

Latter -day Saints are and I know that they are under a new name these days, the

Community of Christ. But if you could tell us something about the reorganized Latter -day

Saint cult. Yes, I'd be happy to Chris. One thing that most people don't understand is that Joseph Smith's original

Mormon church has continuously fractured over the couple hundred years that it's been around.

And there are well over 100 different freestanding separate denominations, church organizations which stand, which ultimately broke away from Joseph Smith's original church.

The second largest, other than the Mormon church in Utah, the second largest group is the reorganized

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter -day Saints. They changed their name in 2001 to Community of Christ.

And so we refer to them as RLDS or Community of Christ. And their distinction is that they have the son of Joseph Smith, Jr.

to be their prophet. When the prophet Joseph Smith was killed around Nauvoo in 1844, there was a car vacuum and people were very confused and disillusioned.

And actually the splintering began right then by different groups going in different directions.

Interestingly, Chris, one of the more notable groups at that point in time was James J.

Strang, who led a group of Latter -day Saints up to Beaver Island in Michigan, ultimately declaring himself

King James. And in those very early days after Joseph Smith was killed, his group was so large that it actually rivaled the

Young's group that went to Utah. And so the reorganized church was formed when people became unhappy with what

Brigham Young and the Mormon church were doing in Utah, with the practice most notoriously of polygamy.

So when Brigham Young in 1846 started the wagon train to go out west, not everybody followed him.

A lot of people stayed back here in the Midwest and just abided their time for a while. Sixteen years later,

Joseph Smith's own son, Joseph Smith III, he's called, came and agreed to be the leader of a loose assembly of congregations, and the reorganized church was born in 1860.

And so their great claim, so the original founding tenets of the RLDS church is, we have

Joseph Smith's own son to be our prophet, and we don't practice polygamy. Those were the two primary distinguishing claims to fame of the reorganized church when they first began in 1860.

And we do not marry for eternity, or baptize for the dead either.

They're some very strong points, I think. Now do you, did the group, or should

I say, does the group disagree with the main

Latter -day Saint group on becoming gods of your own planet if you are a faithful person to the

Bible and to the Book of Mormon, etc.? Yeah, that doctrine of eternal progression and godhood is uniquely

Utah Mormon, and the RLDS church would distance themselves from that and disavow that as anybody else would.

So there are no secret temples, there are no secret temple ceremonies, there is no celestial marriage, there is no exaltation to godhood after you die.

Virtually all of those weird doctrines are uniquely Utah in terms of the

Utah Mormon church. They have nothing to do with the RLDS church whatsoever, and they violently reject all of those doctrines.

Now, although they violently, I'm assuming you mean passionately, not physically violently, although they reject those classic teachings, false teachings of the main cult, what still exists within the reorganized church of Latter -day

Saints, now known as the Community of Christ, that would still place it under the category of a cult?

Well, apart from those bizarre doctrines that we just talked about, they still believe that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, they still believe that Joseph Smith was inspired by God to translate and produce the

Book of Mormon, which they claim has legitimate history and legitimate literature, that there was a literal selection of people here on the

American continent, and the Book of Mormon is their record, and they still believe in Joseph Smith's so -called

Restorative Priesthood, talking about that has become a specialty of mine. So they have a number of the earmarks of Joseph Smith's original church, even though they have not gone all the way to the extreme end of Mormonism as the

Utah church has. And from what I recall, interviewing you and some,

I believe it was Peter Elliott, another former RLDS member, is that his name?

I can't remember off the top of my head. Yeah, Peter Elliott? Yes. Peter Elliott, an Australian? Yes, yes. Having interviewed him and you,

I also recall that the RLDS would not be in alignment with clastic, reformational, historic

Christianity, which of course, we who are historic Protestants would believe to be biblical

Christianity, that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.

Yeah, no, and that's exactly right, Chris. Joseph Smith instituted a very works -based religion.

He introduced a heretical priesthood system, which acted as intermediaries between people and God.

In other words, your way into proper relationship with God could only be mediated by a

God -authorized and ordained priesthood system, which they claim was historic of the earth again through Joseph Smith in 1829.

And so it is, it's very works -based and not the least bit amenable with genuine biblical

Christianity. Although, Chris, I did forget to mention one thing that distinguished the

Reorganized Church. The Reorganized Church actually holds the copyright to Joseph Smith's inspired version of the

Bible. He, together with Sidney Rigdon, an early convert to Mormonism, together worked and revised the

King James Bible in some fairly significant ways, and then they published that as Joseph Smith's inspired version of the

Bible. So the Reorganized Church also has that distinction, which obviously classifies them as a cult and distinguishes them from the

Mormon Church. The Mormon Church, while they admire the work that Joseph and Sidney did on the inspired version, they don't claim it as scripture, as the

RLDS Church does. And so they actually buy inspired versions from the

RLDS Church and sell them in Utah. Wow, it is quite ironic that they would not view that as the supreme, if not exclusive, version to use.

And I can't help but wonder if it has anything to do with the copyright that you just mentioned being owned by another organization.

Well, no, that's exactly right, Chris. You know, they were quite embarrassed when

Joseph Smith's own son and his own wife, so not only did his son,

Joseph Smith III, become the first prophet of the RLDS Church, when Brigham Young did the

Westward Hoping and went to Utah, Emma Smith, Joseph Smith's own wife, failed to go with that group.

She stayed back here in Illinois and then ultimately joined the Reorganized Church with her son,

Joseph Smith III. And it was Emma Smith who had been the custodian of the inspired version of the

Bible. And so once her son became the prophet of the RLDS Church, she tendered up Joseph Smith's inspired version, and it was the

Reorganized Church which first published that version in 1867. And so the inspired version, like you suggested, is a bit of an embarrassment, actually, to the

Mormon Church, because they lost both Emma Smith as well as Joseph Smith III, and they lost the copyright to the inspired version.

So they can't just own it all together because it was the work of Joseph Smith, and yet they don't want to embrace it too closely because it's an embarrassment that the

RLDS Church has sole claim to fame. One other thing before we move on to Barb's story,

Barb Luff, who, if you just tuned us in, is one of our guests today. Barb is the mother of Ron Luff, who is serving a life sentence in the

Allen Correctional Institution in Lima, Ohio. He is serving that life sentence for murder because he was an accomplice in what have become known as the

Kirtland Cult Murders, and we're going to be getting into detail about that just momentarily.

But before we go to Barb, one of the things that I recall from our discussions on RLDS history is that Emma Smith and Joseph Smith III both claimed that Joseph never had multiple wives.

Is that true? Yeah, that's absolutely true, Chris. In fact, when

Joseph Smith III became the prophet of the RLDS Church in 1860, one of his primary missions was to clear his father's name because rumors of his many polygamous wives was especially hurtful to the family, hurtful obviously to his mother, and tarnishing of Joseph Smith's reputation.

So he actually made it one of his primary missions in life to clear his father's name of those charges.

But he did have multiple wives. And so did most Mormon men.

In fact, wasn't that somehow very connected to your reward in the afterlife in the teachings, the former teachings of the primary

LDS cult? Well, they could have many wives in heaven when they got there.

Right, but wasn't it some kind of a benefit on earth to have multiple wives for a man as far as what kind of reward he would have in heaven or in the afterlife?

You know, I'm not sure that could be possibly true, Chris. I'm not intimate with the inner

Mormon theology on that. I do know that in their

Section 132 of their Doctrine and Covenants, the Mormons believe that in order to obtain salvation, in order to obtain the ultimate exaltation in the following life, you must have multiple wives here in this life.

But according to their doctrine, you only take one of your wives and go into that next life.

It's really the Adam -God Doctrine where they, Chris, they teach that as man is,

God once was, and as God is, man shall become. So they actually teach that Adam is the

God of this world. That God, you know, that we are on the same conveyor belt as God.

God is eternally progressing, and just like God, we are eternally progressing as well.

It's just that He's a little bit further on down the conveyor belt from us. And that ultimately, we're going to come off that conveyor belt and become a

God just like He was, and then we can take one of our wives and go to a planet like Adam did here.

They believe that Adam is the God of this world, and that He brought Eve, which was one of His wives.

And, you know, Eve and Adam came here to this earth to start the population here on planet earth. They believe the same thing is true for good

Mormon elders, that they will take one of their wives and go populate a planet somewhere in the universe. OK, well now

I'd like Barb to give a bit of her own story. Obviously, from what we have already said,

Ron, perhaps we didn't even say this yet, Ron Luff, the son of our guest

Barb Luff, was in a cult that was a breakaway, an offshoot of the reorganized

Latter -day Saints. So Barb, I'd like you to tell our listeners what kind of a religious atmosphere were you yourself raised in, if any, and were you yourself involved in either the

RLDS or the offshoot to which your son belonged? I had an unusual situation in my case.

As a child, my mother and father were divorced. My mother didn't have a car, and so I just went to a little

Baptist church on the corner from where we lived that I could walk to. And when

I reached 18, I was around 8 years old, and I went to a Bible school. And at this

Bible school, of course, a Baptist church, they have a call, you know, if you want to accept

Jesus. And I felt very, very strongly about this. I remember it very well, even to this day.

I felt very strongly that I wanted to accept Jesus in my heart. So I went home and told my mother that I wanted to be baptized.

And my mother had some Utah Mormon friends that told her, well, you need to have them be baptized in the

Mormon church because it's the only true church. So not knowing what she was actually doing, my mother had me and my sister and brother and herself, and we were all baptized into the

Utah Mormon church. God is good, and we didn't have a car, so there was no church in our little town in Washington state that we lived in, so I continued to go to the

Baptist church. So I went to the Baptist church off and on mostly, and once in a while, people would come pick us up.

We went to the Utah church, the Mormon church, but I really didn't learn very much about it.

But when they came and asked me to be baptized for my dead relatives, that was very frightening to me.

I think the Holy Spirit was speaking to us that time. Thank you.

Did something conjure up in your mind like you would actually be going to a cemetery and digging up graves or anything?

Well, anyway, as I grew older and I met my husband, he was in the military up in Washington state where I live.

Well, ironically, he was a member of the RLDS church. That is contrary to anything to add.

But anyway, he told me, he said, no, he said that Utah church is wrong, and he convinced me that the

RLDS church was right, so we were actually married in the RLDS church. Well, I didn't know anybody except in his family.

I came home with him to meet his family after we were married, so I didn't know anybody in Missouri until I moved to Missouri.

His family was all I knew. Well, I joined the RLDS church thinking that my husband knew what he was talking about.

Now, my husband is fifth generation RLDS. He had a great -grandfather that was an apostle in that church, so he and his whole family were very, very strong in that church.

And I went along with it, but my Baptist background taught me about Jesus, taught me about salvation, and I think it kind of kept me on the edge because my husband and I would have disagreements about our beliefs.

And our kids can tell you that they grew up with our debating these things. Anyway, when this thing happened with Ron and we found out about what went on, we began to investigate the

RLDS history. And as Paul can tell you, there's so much history there.

In the 1830s, in fact, if you were to go to the internet and just look up Mormonism, you could find out many things about what took place in Missouri in the 1830s.

And it's very, very disgusting. And as we read more and more and heard more and more about it, we finally decided we had to come out of that religion.

And one of the things that was very strong with my husband was that he was an elder in the priesthood there.

And when we came out of that, we began reading the Bible. We decided we'd read the Bible through and through together.

And the one thing that stood out very strongly with us was where when Jesus said,

It is finished, and the curtain at the Holy of Holies was split, that just absolutely registered with both of us that we do not have to go through an apostle or a prophet or anybody else to get to Jesus.

We go directly to him. And that was very meaningful in my life. Amen. Let me ask you a question about your own spiritual journey, if you will, when you were a

Baptist going to the RLDS church and being married in the

RLDS church. Well, I was never actually baptized into the Baptist church.

Right. Well, I mean, as far as you had some connection with the Baptist church.

Were you under, or at least in hindsight, when you look back at it now, do you believe that you were a saved but naive person, a truly born again

Christian, but naive about this strange new group that you were learning about the

RLDS, which you, as you said, were married in that church, etc. And your husband had a long history in that church.

Were you just kind of like a naive person who was puzzled, but going along? Or do you think that perhaps at that time, you were not born again, but just had enough knowledge from affiliation and visiting

Baptist churches that there was something not quite right with the RLDS? I believe that as soon as you believe in Jesus with your whole heart, that he is the

Son of God, that the Holy Spirit comes to you. I don't believe you have to be baptized to be a

Christian. And that was the prominent thing with me.

I believe that I was a born again Christian, and I have since believed there are some people that are in the

RLDS church that are truly Christian. I think the ones that are the strongest in this priesthood thing probably are not, but I did believe from the very beginning that the

Holy Spirit did direct me, and I think he protected me from a lot of those doctrines.

Yeah, I have a friend who is now in heaven, William Norman Grigg, who is very well known especially to political libertarians.

He was a strong libertarian politically, and I interviewed Norman on a number of occasions, a brilliant man, and he was a high priest in the

LDS cult, and he became a born again believer while out on the mission field,

I think in Mexico, or South America, I can't remember right now, but he became a born again believer, and much to his later regret, he remained functionally in the

LDS for almost two decades, I think. And then finally, he and his wife officially left and requested to have their names removed from the rolls and stuff, but he remained because he was just fearful of losing his marriage, losing his family, etc.,

and he recognized that was wrong for him to stay that long, but he nonetheless was convinced that he was a born again believer all those years even though he was functioning in the

LDS. Yeah, I know what you're, I understand. My husband, when he finally realized what that cult was, he just immediately turned his back on the

RLDS. His own family told him, several of his, he had, there were seven kids in his family, and they all turned on him and said that he lost his soul because he was denying his priesthood and all that, but it didn't shake his faith at all.

We began to go to church at a Baptist church in Independence, we lived there at that time, and the first service after we went to the

Baptist church, we were so in sync together on what we believed.

It was amazing because we didn't argue religion after that, and that church was a real salvation for us when we got into it.

Now, my husband was re -baptized, he felt like he needed to be re -baptized, and the

Baptist church does not accept the baptism of the Mormons. Yes. And so, he kept telling me that he wanted to be re -baptized, and we talked to the pastor about it, and I thought maybe

I didn't need to because I knew I was a born again Christian anyway, but the morning he decided to go forward and ask the pastor to baptize him,

I went with him, and we were baptized together in the Baptist church. Yes, I think that was a wise decision.

Not that, as you said, we do not believe that baptism is required for salvation, but it is required for obedience, and a baptism in a church that denies the

Triune God, that denies the Trinity, and denies the essentials of the faith, that baptism is not a true baptism in my opinion, and in the opinion of most people that I highly respect who are theologians and so on.

I know when I was baptized, I actually felt better that I was re -baptized, that was a good thing for me, but as far as my relationship with the

Lord Jesus, I don't think that changed a bit because I've never accepted the cult part.

Right, amen. Well, we are going to our first break, and when we come back from our first break,

I want you to get more into your son Ron, and the spiral that he unfortunately went on in his downward journey into the dark and sinister beliefs and practices of a cult that, as we were saying, was an offshoot, an end offshoot, or a breakaway group from the

RLDS. We'll get more into that when we return from our first break. If anybody would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, please send us an email to chrisarnson at gmail dot com, chrisarnson at gmail dot com, c -h -r -i -s -a -r -n -z -e -n at gmail dot com, and please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA. Only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. Perhaps we even have some folks in the

RLDS listening today, or in the LDS, or any other group that is not considered by evangelicals to be a genuine biblical church, and you don't want to call attention to yourself.

You'd rather remain anonymous if you're writing in a question. Well, feel free to remain anonymous, but if it's not a personal and private matter, please give us at least your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA, and don't go away. We're going to be right back after these messages with more of Paul Trask and Barb Lough, and our subject, faith gone astray, unveiling the

Kirtland cult murders. Chris Sorensen, host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio here.

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We are now back with our guests today, Paul Trask and also Barb Luff.

Barb Luff is the mother of Ron Luff, who is currently serving a life sentence at the

Allen Correctional Institute in Lima, Ohio, for being an accomplice in the murders that took place in Kirtland, Ohio, and they have become known as the

Kirtland Cult Murders, and we are going to be hearing more about how our guest

Barb Luff's son wound up in this cult, and what has happened to him since, and by the way,

I've got some phenomenal news for our listeners, this Monday, God willing,

Ron Luff, the son that we are speaking about, the son of Barb Luff, he is going to be our guest on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, being interviewed directly from prison at the

Allen Correctional Institute in Lima, Ohio, so we're looking forward to that discussion with Ron this

Monday, we hope that you tune in, but if anybody has any questions, our email address is ChrisArnzen at gmail .com,

C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com, give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence if you live outside the

USA, only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal or private matter. Before we go to any listener questions,

Barb, please tell us something about your son Ron's childhood, it's obvious that you and your husband made a break from the

RLDS, did Ron, at least at some point, follow suit with you and also leave that cult, and tell us how he later became a member of the cult that was responsible for the murders we've been mentioning.

Well, I'd like to first of all say I have three children, love them all dearly, not one more than the other, but I will say that Ron was a very, very easy child to raise, he accepted authority is what

I would say, as a child if you told him to do something he did it, and if you told him not to he didn't, and he grew up very, very pliant in that way, that was much to my sadness as he got older when

I see what happened, because of his belief in authority,

I think is one of the reasons he got more tightly involved in Mormonism than I did, but when he went through grade school, he went through high school, and every teacher he ever had had nothing but good to say about him, he was a very good student, and he only went through high school, but when he got out of high school he joined the

Navy, and he went into the Navy, and he was in the Navy for six years, and he became an engineer on an atomic, on a, anyway he can tell you more about the ship, but anyway, he was very, very good in the

Navy, he never had one strike in any way against him, he was just a very compliant person and followed authority, and as I noticed when he was about 14 years old, he got very interested in witnessing for the

RLDS church, and they had a program of witnessing weekends where they would take kids and they would go from to a different town, and they would have services in the

RLDS church in that town, and kind of witness to people in the town, and he enjoyed doing that, he was very, very dedicated to the church, and of course

I didn't realize how dedicated he was, but then when he got married, he married a girl that was extremely dedicated also, she was very, very strong in the

RLDS, and had faith and vision pertaining to different things, and when they were first out of the

Navy, they decided they wanted to go to Kirtland and visit the temple there because it was a place that the church made a big deal about, and they wanted to go up there, when they went up there, they met

Lundgren, who was a guide at the temple there in Kirtland at the time, and he was so knowledgeable about the temple and the church and so many things that Ron was very taken with him, and so was his wife, and Lundgren convinced them that it was very, very important for them to move to Kirtland if they wanted to really do what

God wanted them to. And what was Lundgren's whole name, his full name? His name was

Jeffrey Lundgren, and he convinced them that he was a prophet, and that's why he knew so much about everything, and he convinced both of them that it was very, very important.

Well, Ron, when he got out of the Navy, he had a really wonderful career ahead of him, had a very good job in Springfield, and his wife was just ready to be a very good wife for them and their two children, but they decided that they would move to Kirtland and follow this man they thought was a prophet, and that's one of the things that I think has hurt me so bad about that, because I kept my mouth shut to a certain extent about my beliefs and let my husband pretty much doctrinate him into the

RLDS belief system. So this was before you and your husband left the

RLDS? Oh yeah, we didn't leave the RLDS church until this murder took place. I see.

Yeah, anyway, they went and moved up to Kirtland, and we didn't hear a whole lot from them, but we went up to see them for Christmas the year,

I believe it was 86, just before, you know, 87 when all these murders took place, but we went up there to spend

Christmas with them, and we noticed a very, very big difference in our son. He was so different than I remember him, because even like when he would hug me, it was something that just was different, and he tried to convince us that Lundgren was a prophet, and we weren't buying it, and we were, he pretty soon lost interest in us even being there,

I think, and we left early after Christmas. And we were very, very hurt of the changes that we saw in him, and so when we got home and we tried to keep in touch and all, but after those murders took place,

Lundgren took that whole group and went to West Virginia the very next day, and everybody lost, all the families lost track with him at that time.

Now when you say that you noticed differences, uh, was it, he was colder perhaps?

His hugs, as you said, we're mentioning your, his hug was different, was perhaps less enthusiastic?

What was? I just felt like he was empty. There was just not the, uh, the same person.

It just seemed like he was a different person to me. I didn't, I didn't know anything about folks at that time.

Now, uh, was Lundgren uh, at this time still a part of the main

RLDS cult, or had he started to break away at this point?

Yeah, I'm talking about the... I really don't know how you can ask Ron more of that. Uh, he, he, uh,

I don't think he ever took his membership out of the RLDS church, and he tried to draw other people in.

He went to Independence many times to try to draw other people into the group, and got some of them to come into it.

I don't remember, I think there were around 20 people. Uh, I don't remember how many were in the group altogether.

Now, uh, was the local RLDS congregation, or plural congregations, uh, who, obviously there had to be, uh, congregations, or at least one near this historic landmark of theirs, the temple.

Yeah, there was in Kirtland. Yeah, so how were they reactioning to this claim of, of Lundgren to be a prophet?

I don't know a lot about that. You'll probably have to ask Ron more about that. Okay. So, uh, when, how long was it before you had heard that these horrific, nightmarish murders, uh, took place?

And, uh, tell us, uh, as much of the details about that as you can. I know that when

I interview Ron on Monday, those, those are questions that are off -limits.

I'm not to be discussing the details about the murders with your son, just basic theological, and doctrinal, and sociological, uh, mental -emotional kind of issues that involve not only his becoming a member of the cult, but also his, uh, salvation testimony, having become a true born -again believer in prison, and, and not only that, but earning his doctorate.

We're looking forward to discussing a lot of those things with him, but, uh, the actual murders are off -limits, uh, next week when we interview him.

Well, the only thing I could probably say is that I didn't hear about it until it hit the news. Uh, I heard about it just before it hit the news.

My older son, um, actually knows more about that period of time than I do, because there was a period of time there, as you've read in the book, that they lived with my older son, uh, when they, when they, uh, uh, got back to Missouri, and some of them began to be realizing that things were not right in that group, and, of course, they all knew something was wrong when they, the murders were committed.

There wasn't one person in that group that wanted that to happen at all. It was simply a matter of plundering himself.

Personally, my feeling is that he wanted to feel power, that he thought he would receive if he, if he killed somebody.

I, I think the man was just a psychopath. Now, it was an entire family that was murdered, correct?

And the entire family, another father and three children, and, uh, the thing was that I, this is my viewpoint, but I know that when each one of the families joined that group, they gave all their money to Lundgren, and then he passed out money as he saw fit.

Now, my son got a job at the, uh, power company there in Kirtland, and, uh, he gave his entire salary to Lundgren, and got his back enough to pay the rent, the food, and to feed them, and, and that sort of thing.

So, each of the families had their own apartments or, you know, lived, uh, separate, and Lundgren and his wife, uh, rented a farm, and, uh, they would meet at this farm for their, for their teaching, and their getting together and all.

Okay, we have to go to our midway break right now. Uh, this is the longer than normal break that we have during the show, because Grace Life Radio, who airs this program twice a day in a pre -recorded format, they require of us to have a larger break in the middle of the show, so they can air their own public service announcements to localize

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Before I return to our guests, Paul Trask and Barb Luff, to continue our discussion on Faith Gone Astray, unveiling the

Kirtland Cult Murders, which is actually a book, the title of the book, by Ron Luff, the son of Mary Luff, I'm sorry, son of Barb Luff, who is our guest today.

Ron is serving a life sentence at the Allen Correctional Institution in Lima, Ohio, for being an accomplice in the

Kirtland Cult Murders, and we're going to be getting into more details on that in a moment. And he wrote that book while in prison, and he also earned his doctorate in prison after becoming a born -again believer.

But before we go into more detail about that, I just have a couple of announcements to make. First of all, tomorrow and Sunday, October 5th and the 6th, don't forget that the

Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, is having their conference on the theme, God is

Still Speaking, The Bible's Continued Revelence, Authority, and Sufficiency, featuring

Dr. Dustin Benj, who is my guest very recently on Iron Sharpen's Iron Radio, a brilliant young man, and this is going to be, no doubt, a phenomenal conference.

I hope to be there for a part of it. I have to get out from around some plans that I had already arranged, so hopefully

I will be able to be there for at least a part of that conference. If you would like to join me there at the

Grace Bible Fellowship Church in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for their conference, just go to their website at gracebfc .com

forward slash conference. Then in December, I'm packing up my bags and heading down, or should

I say heading up, to my old stomping grounds in New York City. I am going to the

Foundations Conference once again, and there's no better place, in my opinion, to be during the Christmas season than Manhattan.

So I'm looking forward to being there not only for the Christmas season, and all the lights and decorations and so on, but also for this absolutely phenomenal

Bible conference. The Foundations Conference is for men in ministry leadership only, so keep that in mind if you would like to register.

The speakers include Stephen J. Lawson, Paul Washer, Jeff Thomas, Armin Tomasian, Richard Colwell Jr.,

and Andrew Quigley. If you would like to join me Thursday and Friday, December 19th and 20th in Manhattan at the

Foundations Conference, go to thefoundationsconference .com, thefoundationsconference .com,

and remember this is a conference for men in ministry leadership only. Then in January 2020, from Thursday the 16th of January through Saturday the 18th of January, I will be once again at the

G3 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia, actually a suburb of Atlanta, College Park, Georgia, at the

Georgia International Convention Center. I love this conference in more ways than I can even enumerate.

This is a phenomenal event that takes place every year.

I don't know of any conference like it where the roster is so enormous and filled with absolutely brilliant and gifted speakers.

The G3 Conference this January is going to be on the theme of worship matters, a very crucial element of Christianity, especially in a day and age when people divide tragically over worship so often and sometimes over frivolous matters involving worship.

But we hope that you could join us there, and the speakers at this conference include, again,

Dr. Stephen J. Lawson, they include my friend Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, Todd Friel of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, Derek Thomas, the world -renowned

Presbyterian author and pastor and conference speaker, and also my friend

Dr. Tom Askell, the Executive Director of Founders Ministries, the

Calvinistic ministry within the Southern Baptist Convention. Kosti Hinn, you've been hearing the ads announcing that he will be there, he is the nephew of the notorious charlatan and heretic

Benny Hinn, and Kosti doesn't mind me saying that at all because he has renounced the word of faith heresies of his youth and of his uncle, and as much time as he can outside of his own pulpit, he spreads the word about the dangers of this group, the deadly, deceptive, and damning dangers of this group, and so he is on the roster as well.

And John MacArthur himself is going to be there, I would go to this conference even if it was just John MacArthur, and many more.

So, if you'd like to join me there at the G3 Conference, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com,

I strongly urge you to register for an exhibitor's booth as well, because they are likely going to have over 6 ,000 people there with John MacArthur added to the lineup.

They normally, as it is, have over 5 ,000 in attendance every year, but I am certain, or at least fairly certain, that with John MacArthur added to the lineup, they are going to have over 6 ,000 people.

Go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com to register for either just to attend or also for an exhibitor's booth.

And I hope your exhibitor's booth is near mine at the G3 Conference. I have been manning my own Iron Sherpins Iron Radio exhibitor's booth there already for three years in a row, and this will be my fourth year in 2020.

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Remember, if you're not a member of a Bible -believing church and you're not even prayerfully looking for one, you are living in rebellion against God.

Please rectify that situation. I have lists of biblically faithful churches all over the world. I have helped many people in our

Iron Sherpins Iron Radio audience find churches that they have either joined or where they have visited when they're on vacation that they have recommended to their family, friends, and loved ones who do not have the local church where they are a member.

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Send me an email to chrisarnson at gmail .com and put advertising in the subject line. That's also the email address to send in a question to Ron Luff and also,

I'm sorry, not Ron Luff. Ron Luff is Monday. Barb Luff and Paul Trask we are discussing, if you just tuned in,

Faith Gone Astray, unveiling the Kirtland Cult murders written by Ron Luff, who we are going to be interviewing on Monday from prison.

And this is the first time we've ever interviewed somebody who's a prison inmate. And I'm looking forward to discussing this with Ron, especially since he is a born -again believer and even has his doctorate that he has earned in prison.

But the email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com, chrisarnson at gmail .com and give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence.

If you live outside the USA, only remain anonymous if your question involves a personal and private matter. Going back to your son

Ron's spiral downward, you said you heard about the murders on the news.

It was a husband and wife and their three children that were murdered. What was the reason given by the cult as to why these murders took place?

I'm not sure I ever heard a reason for it. My belief was that because they were asking questions and I think

Lundgren was afraid they were going to try to leave and he was trying to keep them. He kept control of Ron by separating his family from him at times.

That was one of the things that he did to control. But I would like to say that when my husband and I spent time out in Ohio during the trial so that we were there at the whole trial and I know that the judge had a psychiatrist to do a workup on each one of those kids that had been in the cult.

And when he was on the stand and he actually testified that the man that was in the barn that night was not the real

Ron Luff. He made that statement. But after psychologically talking to Ron that was his expert opinion.

Now did Ron ever tell you what the reason the cult gave for killing this family?

And did he ever give you more of an explanation? I don't think anyone in the cult knew that these murders were going to take place until they took place.

Only Lundgren and his wife knew about it as far as I know. And how exactly were they murdered?

Were they shot? Were they stabbed? They were shot, yes. I didn't hear that, I'm sorry. They were shot and my son was the one that he ordered to bring each one of them from the house to the barn that night.

And it was in the barn that he killed each one of them. Now when you say he killed each one you mean

Lundgren? Lundgren killed all of them. None of the other kids killed anybody.

I will say that Lundgren's son, Damon, is also serving five lifetime sentences.

And at the very time that Lundgren killed the first person, the father, his son,

Damon, ran out of the barn crying and throwing up. And he forced him to come back and watch him kill each one of the other ones.

And how young were the children that were murdered? I don't know their age.

One of the girls I think was a teenager. I think they were all girls. And I think the youngest was five.

Wow. Now Ron can tell you that I think like 14 and maybe seven or eight or five and five.

But they were, you know, about spread apart about that three years or so. So how...

Go ahead, I'm sorry, Paul, go ahead. Yeah, Chris, I just thought on a personal note my wife's mother actually had taught all three of the children that were murdered in a private school east of Kansas City, a little town called

Bay City. There was a private fundamentalist RLDF school by the name of Cienita.

And so my mother actually, my mother -in -law rather, had taught all three of those children in that fundamentalist school.

So a little bit of a personal connection with us. And when you say fundamentalist

RLDF, I'm assuming that you mean that those that consider themselves a remnant and more authentic and more truly connected to the original teachings of that group, including the teachings of Joseph Smith III and so on.

Because today the RLDF, as you have even shared with us today, is largely a very liberal group.

That happened over time, Chris. During the first half of the 20th century, the

RLDF church was very solidly Joseph Smith, fundamentalist, the whole

Joseph Smith package storyline. And then in the 60s, the church became increasingly liberal.

And part of the reason of the Lundgren cult is that in 1984, the

RLDF prophet received a very liberal revelation that he presented to the church, which started a mass exodus from the church of many fundamentalist groups.

And actually my wife and I and Dick and Barb Luff and their family were a part of this fundamentalist breakaway from the institutional church because they had become so liberal.

And they have increasingly become liberal over the last 20 years or so.

And so that happened in 1984. And so that became a seedbed for groups like Lundgren.

Trust me, Chris, Jeff Lundgren is not the only cult leader that emerged from this meltdown in the institutional

RLDF church. This region is littered with little cult groups. We know of one even in Iowa that is practicing and believing some strange doctrines.

This region is littered with the remnants of Joseph Smith's original

RLDF church who broke away from the church beginning in 1984. So you can see where Jeffrey Lundgren seized that opportunity and became a cult leader, but he's hardly alone.

Not all of these groups murdered people, obviously, but there are many really goofy, weird offshoots of the

RLDF church all over the Kansas City region. How did the governor of Missouri kill

Mormons? They could kill Mormons on sight? Yeah. I'm sorry, can you repeat that, Barb?

You were a little bit fuzzy there. Yeah, she was asking me to talk with you about the Mormon War in Missouri, which is pretty significant.

In 1838, there was a virtual war here in Missouri. It's called the Missouri Mormon War. And you can read about it, actually.

And I've done this. You can read about it on the Missouri Secretary of State's website. There was an election day riot over voting rights, and literal warfare broke out between Joseph Smith and his spouse and the residents here of Missouri.

And at the end of that investigation, Governor Boggs issued an extermination order for the

Mormons to leave Missouri. And if they didn't leave by a certain date, it was open season on Mormons, and there was no bag limit.

You could kill as many as you wanted to, and there was no criminal charge for murder.

Wow. You can see there was a lot of things happening at that time that were very, very unlawful with the

Mormons coming in here trying to take over people's farms and things. So there was a lot going on in the 1830s out here.

And so that's the reason, Chris, that the Mormon Church migrated from Independence, Missouri to Nauvoo, Illinois.

They were kicked out of the state of Missouri in 1838, and that started their rise to power on the other side of the

Mississippi River in Nauvoo, Illinois. So Barb just wanted me to give you that little bit of historical background.

Oh, I appreciate that. We have a listener, CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, who wants to know how were

Lundgren, the cult members, including your son, eventually captured and arrested?

My son went into the ATF, burdened with a lot of guilt because he was beginning to come to himself after getting away from Lundgren.

Now, in the book, it tells about how they had moved from the barn and went to live at my older son's house.

He opened his house to them because it was getting cold. It was in November, and they were living there.

And when Rick, my older son, began talking to Ron, and things began to emerge that caused a lot of it, these kids began to start thinking for themselves a little bit.

And once that began, Ron had such a deep guilt, the way I understand it.

He went to the ATF, even though he knew he should not do that as far as the laws are concerned, because anything he said could be used against him, and that's exactly what they did.

They videotaped him giving his testimony of the exact things that took place up there in Kirtland with the killing and the whole thing, and just went right into the

ATF and told them everything. And that's how this...

Well, by the way, the ATF, for those of our listeners who are unfamiliar with that term, it's the

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. Where was

Lundgren, Jeff Lundgren, when the other members of the cults were at your other son's home?

Well, see, my older son actually ran Lundgren off of his farm.

He lived on a little farm here in Warrensburg, and he ran Lundgren off.

And so Lundgren took his wife and his concubine and his children and all, they took off, and they were headed for California is the way

I understood it, probably heading for Mexico. And they...

I don't know the details of how they actually caught Lundgren then, but it was my son going into the

ATF that opened this whole can of worms. And so I'm assuming

Lundgren is... Is he serving a life sentence in prison now? No, he's been executed.

Oh, he's been executed. Okay. Oh yeah, he's been executed. I forget the year. Yeah, they executed him in Ohio in 2006.

Okay, and how about his wife and concubine? I have no idea about his wife.

His concubine was turned loose because her and her husband were not at the farm the night that the death took place.

But from what I understand, her and her husband were divorced and the four children went with him.

And I know that she was living around the Warrensburg area, the last I know about her. Okay, so how long were these cult members, including

Lundgren and your son, how long were they avoiding capture before your son turned himself in and the others were arrested?

Well, I think it all took place pretty fast except for catching Lundgren. I don't know all the details about that sort of thing, but Lundgren was the last of them to be caught.

And so they were all in jail at a while until they sorted all this stuff out. Now, is your son the only one,

Ron I'm speaking of, the only one that demonstrated remorse over this?

Is he the only one that repented and became a true child of God? I don't know that.

I don't know very much about the rest of the group. They were all very dedicated RLDS as far as I knew.

I haven't heard anything about any of them, if any of them have ever come away from that religion.

I know that Ron's wife has never come out of that religion and has gone very much against us because we did come out of it.

Wow, you mean when you say that religion, are you speaking of the mainstream?

I'm talking about the whole Mormon movement. I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you said. I'm talking about the whole

Mormon movement when I talk about that religion. Okay, but is she still in some kind of an offshoot of the

RLDS or is she in the mainstream RLDS? She's still in what they call the restoration groups of people.

Okay, so that's like an offshoot of the RLDS? It's one of those offshoots that Paul was talking about in 1984 and she's still involved with that as far as I know.

She's cut off all connection with us so we don't have any connection with her right now at all.

And she cut off all connection with Ron? Yes, they got divorced when she got out of prison.

She spent about 15 years in prison. Oh, okay. And she remained in that cult theologically all that time that she was in prison?

Well, see, I don't know anything about her mindset. I don't know anything about it because we've never had any conversations to amount to anything since the group broke up.

Now, do you know why she had less of a severe sentence than your son? I think it's because the men were the only ones that went down to the barn with Lundgren and took part in that.

Like I said, Lundgren, each one of those men did exactly what Lundgren told them and he happened to tell

Ron to bring each one of his family down one at a time. Okay, we have, let's see, we have

Susan Margaret in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, who asks,

I'm sure you saw the spectacular evidence and demonstration of genuine

Christian forgiveness recently in the news when the brother of an innocent man who was killed by a police officer who went into what she thought was her own apartment and went into the victim's apartment mistakenly and killed him thinking he was a burglar and we all saw on television the remarkable demonstration of love in Jesus Christ that the brother of the victim demonstrated towards the police officer who was on trial for murder.

I was wondering, have you become aware of any kind of demonstration of forgiveness and love from the families of the victims that were killed through the participation of your son?

I really wasn't close to anyone that was connected with it. Very, very little talking to any of them, so no,

I haven't seen anything. I don't know anything about what happened to any of them after that, no.

Okay, and your son hasn't told you about anything after that? No, and besides that, of course, he's been separated from all of them since he went to jail.

No, I'm speaking of your son never mentioned anything about hearing either through a letter or a visit or anything of the family members of the victims who are offering any kind of forgiveness or anything like that.

Not that I have heard, no. Okay, well, we have to go to our final break right now.

It's going to be much more brief than the last one. If you want to send in a question of your own, please do so quickly because we're rapidly running out of time.

Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com. chrisarnson at gmail .com. Give us your first name, at least your city and state of residence and your country of residence if you live outside the

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We are now in our final segment of today's program. Our guests are Paul Trask, the founder of Refiners Fire Ministries, and Barb Luff, who is the mother of prison inmate

Ron Luff, who is serving life in the Allen Correctional Facility or Correctional Institution in Lima, Ohio for participating in the

Kirtland Cult Murders and our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com if you have a question.

We do have a question from John in Bangor, Maine who wants to know how did your son,

Ron, discover the true gospel of Jesus Christ and become saved in prison? When he was in solitary confinement when he went to jail up in Ohio, he read through the

Bible twice and I believe that that was where he actually became a true

Christian. Before that, he probably relied more on the

Book of Mormon before that. He told me that he read the Bible through twice at that time and once he got his mind back after he followed

Lundgren, I think a lot of things took place. Praise God!

Can you tell us something about that good news that you heard from him when he first believed he was a true child of God and were you and your husband at that time,

I know there was something a bit fuzzy about the timeline of when you both left the

RLDS and became truly born again. Where in the timeline was that?

Was that prior to or after Ron's own conversion in prison? Well, I think it was about pretty much the same time that we left that religion and we began to study the history of the

Mormon Church and decided that was not what we were in wanting to be involved with.

I believe that I was a born again Christian from the time I was about 8 years old. That's right.

I have never ever felt like I had lost anything. I was never what you call a good

Mormon. I never did even read the Book of Mormon. I read it in Sunday school classes and that was all

I was involved with that religion, but I really just never did accept all that.

Okay, we have let's see we have Christopher in Suffolk County, Long Island, New York who asks how did

Ron start doing the necessary studies to receive his doctorate in theology and who encouraged him to pursue this?

Well, I pretty much encouraged him once he decided he wanted to do that. He took correspondence courses while he was there in prison and I paid for the books and things that he needed for that correspondence course.

And who was he doing the correspondence course with? Where did he get the doctorate? You know, I would have looked at his diplomas and I have them back in the other room but I can't remember the name of the university that he went to for this correspondence.

They're just not in this room and I can't remember the name. I'm sorry. You can ask

Ron that. Yes, and so can you tell us something about what differences you have seen and heard from Ron since this wonderful transformation by the mercy of God?

Well, I got my son back. He was himself.

Amen. Like I had told you, I noticed there was a difference in him when he came back out here from West Virginia after they'd been on that long trip after the murder took place.

I could see that he was not the same person for a while there. Is he actively involved in any kind of a chapel in the prison or with the chaplains or anything like that?

He does work with outside teachers that come in from time to time.

I know because he knows Greek. There were some of the inmates that wanted to learn Greek and they had a teacher come in and the man asked

Ron to help him and so he helped with that class and he's done that periodically throughout his time that he's been in prison.

There have been different cases like that where he's been able to help other people. Do you know if he has been used of God to lead anyone to Christ in prison?

Oh, several. Yes, I remember him telling me about several of them.

He said some of these men are so highly tattooed and he said and some of them are black people and he says, have you ever seen a big tough black guy crying when he comes to the

Lord? He talked about those things several times when he would be involved with some of them.

It's hard for Ron to talk about things where he's done good things though.

It's just not him too much to talk about himself that way. Praise God for that.

I interviewed a man who is now a pastor who became a

Christian in prison and he was the leader of a white supremacist gang in prison and became a

Christian and renounced his bigotry. He is currently pastoring in Virginia.

I will send you an MP3 of the interview I did with him. Perhaps Ron would like to hear that if he has access to those kinds of things.

Well, I don't know to send it to the jail because I couldn't send him something like that.

This brother's interview is quite remarkable. His name is Lowell Ivey by the way.

L -O -W -E -L -L -I -V -E -Y now pastoring in Virginia. Let's see here.

Well, I'd like to tell you I won't tell you the names but there was a correctional officer and also a man that ran one of the shops that Ron worked in at one time in one of the prisons where he was in.

He's been in different prisons. He's now in a medium security. But he started out in a very strong security prison.

But anyway, two people that we met and became very good friends with were people that worked one was a correctional officer and one was the owner of the shop.

And they both told me that they could have Ron as a neighbor they felt so strongly about what a good man he was.

And also Ron was telling me about a pastor in Tennessee and he wrote a letter when they were trying to get a clemency for Ron and he wrote a letter to the governor and told him that he would offer

Ron a job and he would live next door to him as far as he was concerned because of his connection just through writing to Ron I don't think they ever talked but just of reading letters that went back and forth there have been a lot of people throughout

Ron's life now that have written to him and became friends and I mean very close friends.

Praise God. Bobby in Hartsdale, New York. We have time for one more question. He said

I believe it is a delicate balance that must be had when one has a loved one who has committed atrocious crimes while we want to love them and continue in our love toward them at the same time being overly forgiving in a premature fashion before they have repented

I think can help to continue a life of sin even if it's just in the heart and mind.

How did you react first of all towards your son after the murders and was there a change in the way that you forgave him after he repented?

Well see Ron by the time that he started getting his mind back he was very repentant he didn't talk to me about those murders or anything like that of course

I heard about that on TV but I know that he was very very repentant and I could feel it the few times

I was near him after when I first saw him when he was still with that religion there was a whole different feeling about Ron.

He was just a different person to me. But it was very soon after his mind started coming back that I knew he was a very repentant and that's one reason he went to the

ATF in the first place. Praise God. Well we are out of time and I really was thrilled with the program today.

I thank you so much both of you, Paul and to Barb for being on the program today

I want to make sure that our listeners have your website for Refining Fire Ministries it's help4rlds .com

that's help4rlds .com Do you have any other contact information that you care to share,

Paul? No, that's the primary way to get a hold of us Chris, that would be just great and thank you for making that announcement.

And I'm assuming that's the way that our listeners can get a hold of Barb too if they want to contact her.

Absolutely. Well, thank you so much both of you. I hope that you enjoyed the interview as much as I did

I look forward to having you back at some point I want to thank everybody who listened, especially those who took the time to write remember to mark on your calendar for this

Monday, God willing when we are going to be interviewing Barb's son Barb, who was one of our guests today her son,

Ron Luff is our guest from prison this Monday, God willing and so mark your calendars for that I hope you all have a blessed, safe and happy weekend and Christ -centered

Lord's Day and I hope you always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater

Savior than you are a sinner. Amen. And I talk to Ron every Sunday morning so I'll be talking to him

Sunday morning before he talks to you. Great, well I'm looking forward to that and tell

Ron I'll be praying for our interview. Good, that's very good. I know he is too.