Cultish: Walter White and the Followers of Christ, Pt. 1

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Cultish: Gods of the New Age, Pt. 2

00:02

If God didn't save me, then that was his will for me to be dead.

00:07

It was God's will that you died. Yeah. It is the story of one woman's escape from a local church where she says she was brainwashed as a child and nearly died giving birth.

00:18

Mira Cunningham talked only to K2 about her life in the Followers of Christ Church. Now she says she wants women in the church to know they can get out.

00:26

And on your side, an investigator, Tom Jensen, has an interview you will see only right here on K2 Now. A woman who left her church knowing she would be shunned by everyone she knew, including her own family.

00:37

This little church in Oregon City was the only way to go to heaven. For Mira Cunningham, it seems like a lifetime ago, and yet like yesterday.

00:46

They brainwashed you into keeping you there because if they didn't tell people from birth that if you leave that church, you're going to go to hell, why would you stay there?

00:55

She says it's almost surreal to think she was ever a part of that little church in Oregon City. We were called the kissers.

01:02

Why is that? Because the members of the church greet each other, they call it with a holy kiss.

01:07

It's not the holy greeting that bothers Mira, nor is it the reason she left the church. None of it made sense to me.

01:14

I mean, they don't go to the doctor like you said, but yet we would go to the dentist and we'd go have our eyes checked, well they're doctors, and the explanation would be they aren't going to save your life.

01:25

Mira started asking questions before she was a teenager. I would always question my dad and he would get upset with me because he couldn't show it to me in the

01:32

Bible. It's like, where did you get that from? Why do we do this? And where is that in the Bible? You know, and he couldn't show me.

01:39

And she had no idea why she couldn't play sports or take part in any activities with people from the outside world.

01:46

Mira says she was taught the worldlies, as followers call every non -member, will all go to hell.

01:52

Fear tactics, she now believes. Church founder Walter White hammered into the heads of every follower to keep them in line.

02:00

All right, welcome back, ladies and gentlemen, to Cultish, entering the kingdom of the cults.

02:05

My name is Jeremiah Roberts, I'm one of the co -hosts here. I am joined as always by Andrew, along with Andrew, the super sleuth of the show, sleuthing around up in Harriman, Utah.

02:18

I believe I finally have that name down, ingrained in my head.

02:23

So it's kind of how I am sometimes, with names and meeting new people, all that sort of fun stuff. And how are you doing, man?

02:30

I'm doing great, dude. My wife gave birth exactly two weeks ago, and my baby would have been born actually in about nine minutes.

02:39

So I'm a father of three now, got my little Phineas chilling on the side, drinking milk, and it's been great, bro.

02:46

Having a wonderful last two weeks. I know. I'm super excited to meet him when I finally make it up there in a couple months.

02:52

I'm excited for that. And yeah. Yeah. So anyways, we are very interesting.

02:59

The audio that you just heard was some very interesting audio. It's part of a cult we just sort of found out about and made some connections.

03:07

And so we have a guest with us today, Jason Morris. How are you doing, man? Good. Yeah.

03:14

So you played, we played that little news clip and it sounded like you had some familiarity with the person talking and you're in different proximity.

03:21

So just real quickly, this is one of those, just from the initial research that we had, this seems to be one of those kind of really under the radar sort of fringe cults.

03:32

We dealt with large cults, kind of dealing with the celebrity cults, the

03:38

Jim Jones and talking with one of Jim Jones's, one of Warren, I'm sorry, one of Warren Jeff's former polygamous wives and having that conversation, but also dealing kind of like with the underground small fringe churches.

03:56

We kind of did that when you explored the Church of Wales. This kind of really caught my attention. So just before, if you heard that audio, it mentions kind of like very typical sociological tactics.

04:07

You know, usually there's a very definitive us versus them, you know, and also there's also distortion, the gospel of Jesus Christ, rather than saying that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven, which is biblical

04:22

Christianity 101. They're saying specifically, no, this is anyone who does not go into our church, our specific location.

04:30

And under this specific church authority or charismatic leader, you're going to go to hell if that hasn't happened.

04:36

So you see things like that, rigid restrictions in regards to whether or not you can celebrate birthdays, what you can and can't eat, whether or not, you know, you can do medical care, which sometimes is a huge issue and comes up a lot, even in larger known cults like Christian science and things of that nature.

04:53

But man, if you could go ahead and just maybe from the very beginning, they mentioned Walter White, which

04:58

I think is obviously irony, like typically culturally that name is the primary character of Breaking Bad.

05:06

You could, however, say that he, him as a cult leader, he is someone who broke bad and kind of led people into this movement.

05:16

So pun intended. But yeah, if you could, man, go ahead and just let, bring people into this group.

05:24

Tell us first about this person, Walter White, who was he, where did he come from and what motivated him, do you think, to start this small church organization?

05:37

Sure. So full disclosure, Walter White was dead before I was born. And he was a man that he would have called himself an actual apostle, like the 12, welcomed by the 12.

05:50

He even had a dream that he said the 12 welcomed him to their table. But he's not actually the original founder.

05:56

He was definitely the founder of the Oregon City branch of this. He planted this church that I grew up in, but the church actually dates back probably closer around the 1850s, maybe even a little sooner than that.

06:10

He was baptized by a man named Charlie Smith, who was also a charismatic leader, and he would have called himself an evangelist.

06:18

He planted churches all over the country. And then, and it goes back even further, but it's, you know, it's old church history and it's kind of, some of that's kind of muddy because it's,

06:26

I have notes and documents on that, but it's a, it's not great that they didn't do a great job of keeping their own history.

06:33

But, but from Walter White forward, Walter White, there was many small churches planned around the

06:39

Northwest and in California. So there was like a bunch in Idaho, a few in Northern California, the

06:45

Redding, Red Bluff area. Yeah. And I have family that came from both sides of that. Walter White came to Oregon City to meet with a man that was, name was

06:53

Webb. And ultimately he wound up planning a church here after that meeting. And through some infighting amongst the ministry, some of the ministry in Idaho fell into adultery.

07:06

And so ultimately he used that as a way to not just discredit them, which I would have no issue saying, you know, obviously pastors or so -called apostles shouldn't be committing adultery.

07:16

But, but as what he did was he kind of made a power grab and he said, everybody has to come to his church in Oregon City or else,

07:23

I mean, it was kind of an ultimatum. Many, many people came, but those churches, they definitely suffered a number when he did that, but they managed to continue on.

07:33

And the man that Fern Baldwin, who fell into adultery, didn't step down.

07:39

He still kept leading those smaller congregations. But they've stayed small. I've actually become friends with some of the people in Idaho that have left there.

07:47

But there's much smaller groups. Oregon City at its peak is over 2000 members. So fairly large, you know, maybe smallish megachurch size.

07:57

But when Walter was alive, it wasn't that big yet. It's definitely grown a lot since his passing. So I'm born in 1976.

08:04

He died and I believe it was 1969. But they have a lot of similarities with say like, you know, like if you take some of the parts of Mormon and maybe

08:16

Catholicism, I see a lot of parallels. They believe in apostolic succession and they believe in baptismal regeneration.

08:26

So if you're not baptized, you can't go to heaven. And they also believe that only a called man can do the baptizing.

08:34

Their view of a calling is going to be a little different than what the typical evangelical

08:39

Christian would call a calling. They would see like Paul being called by the risen

08:47

Jesus as the same sort of calling that Walter White received, that he was an apostle because he seen

08:52

Jesus. And so, you know, his calling is kind of odd and complicated, but, you know, claim that he was chosen by God to preach the word.

09:03

Yeah. So when someone like in the modern day would say they have a calling, I mean, it's very different than a

09:09

New Testament apostle who have seen the risen Lord and having that sort of like that sort of like legitimate apostolic authority.

09:16

How would one go about determining whether or not they had this particular power or calling, you would say?

09:24

So they would be confirmed by like two or more other apostles. And so before, you know, when

09:31

Walter was a young man, he was only 22 when he received this calling. So there was other men that were preaching and they had he had told them that he'd had this calling and they told him they would try him out and they would put him on the pulpit on Sunday.

09:45

And that was the beginning of his ministry. And as you know, most of those men that I think he never had a falling out with the men that were there before him.

09:53

It was the ones that were kind of ordained around the same time he was that ultimately, you know, his power grab excluded all of them, including an uncle of his.

10:01

And really, I mean, he just he just closed the doors. He said it was Oregon City or nothing.

10:08

And so my family, of course, came from California and from Idaho with him.

10:13

And so Walter is actually my he would be my great, great uncle. So my great grandmother, who

10:20

I was very close with, was his sister. So whatever that makes him to me, I suppose. But I was actually really close with her. She lived a long life and was actually a very sweet lady, very well read and very loving and kind.

10:32

Okay. Very interesting. And then, Andrew, I'll let you jump in here a second. And then. But it's interesting.

10:37

You mentioned this sort of his almost like you might call it a power grab or use utilizing what was this person's falling and committing adultery as sort of a catalyst for him to have, you know, the power grab.

10:51

And it's always interesting when you look at cults historically in the United States or just abroad, there's usually some sort of conflict of interest.

11:00

There's usually something happens when there is a successor and when it comes to succession, because everything is always centralized around a central figure hour.

11:09

And usually when that person passes away, like, who does it actually go to? And that person may end up having discrepancies.

11:17

And you see that with Sun Yung Moon and the Moonies now where you kind of have these off shoots and kind of off branches, especially like with his son or, for example,

11:25

David Miscavige after L. Ron Hubbard passed away in the Church of Scientology. There was a lot of you follow documented going clear

11:32

Scientology, the aftermath or some other works. They'll kind of show you a lot of the power grabs that he took and not just something that you always see.

11:39

There's always this there's always a conflict that always seems that there's always a fragmenting in the organization, typically when the charismatic leader either passes away or or stumbles or falls or kind of, you know, gets disenfranchised.

11:52

Like, where does the cold go from here? Andrew, so you've done a little research just real quick. We're talking about this guy,

11:57

Walter White, just from what you've looked at, what questions would you have in just regards to kind of getting understanding of who this person was?

12:04

Yeah. Yeah. So I have a couple of questions in terms of where where he came from, right?

12:10

So one of the questions would be, is this, is it, did this religious movement stem from like the restoration movement?

12:16

Is there a belief within the followers of Christ? Because that's who we're talking about today. That's the name of this organization.

12:23

Was there a belief that there was like a great apostasy where the truth was lost, the apostolic succession was gone, and then all of a sudden came about during this restoration period in America?

12:34

That's actually a really good question. So they believe actually that they don't believe in the

12:40

Reformation or that the Catholic Church was the only, the world history, what we know about the church today, they do not believe in that.

12:47

They believe that there was a, that that all happened, but they believe that they sidestepped that, that they remained the one true church all along.

12:54

So they like are a parallel history of, they believe their apostles date directly back to Peter and Paul.

13:01

I mean, they're, they're, they're, they can't prove that. Okay. They have no proof of that. No evidence of that.

13:06

But they truly believe they are the church, they are the original church. They would have came over on like the

13:11

Mayflower, I guess. I don't know. They don't talk about that stuff. But you know, as a young man, I had lots of questions about stuff like, you know, where did we come from?

13:18

And, and they, they truly believe that they are the first church, that this is the church at Pentecost.

13:25

That is them. I mean, that's, that's what they would cling to. And so in regards to them, like being the, being like part of the first church and given the entirety of church history, typically you'll see whether it's a

13:37

Mormonism or other similar churches where all of a sudden that they believe there is sort of like a falling away.

13:42

And then there's sort of a, a, a revelating and unveiling or a restoration or like in Mormonism when, when

13:49

Joseph Smith believes he had, you know, two, two different personages come down, you know, the God, the

13:55

Father and Jesus Christ, two distinct persons, distinct physical persons and in separate form.

14:02

And you know, they're, they're talking about don't join any of the churches, all everyone's corrupt and there's always this sort of elitist mentality that they're in the know and everyone else is false and apostate and somehow there's like a restoration.

14:16

Because you mentioned it's in the 1800s is when this founded, which is fascinating because this is right around this time of the 1800s when you saw a lot of these similar movements going on.

14:25

But they did have an aspect of that in regards to saying that there is a sort of like a revelatory, you know, revelation of sorts saying, saying all that, or give me your thoughts on that.

14:38

Well, I would say that they crept up really probably right around the time of the Pentecostal movement and they might even predate it slightly from, you know, when we first hear of, you know, women speaking in tongues in California and, you know, some of the stuff that I'm not an expert on some of that, but I read some of that and it seemed very parallel time -wise, but there wasn't like, they don't say that they came up with a new doctrine.

15:02

They really believe this is the doctrine, the only doctrine and they've always preached it. But yeah, they didn't have a, you know, like it wasn't like a

15:10

Joseph Smith thing where it's like, oh, we have a new doctrine or a new revelation, even though it was new.

15:17

They claim, you know, they've made up this false history if they predate any of that. Yeah. Okay, definitely.

15:24

And so the next question I have, just so we kind of have a general idea of the history of that area and also like location, geographical, was there anything about when he took over and he relocated just sort of about the city in which just the sociological demographic that kind of drew people in, you said roughly around 2000 members.

15:42

You know, Oregon City, when they would have first came here was just a rural farming community. There was not much here, you know,

15:48

Portland was already established and we're about 30 miles south of Portland, Oregon, but, but Oregon City was just a rural suburb at best with, you know, maybe only a few thousand people total in the whole town.

15:58

And so the city grew up around them. They didn't mean to be planted in the middle of what's a fairly large, you know, maybe not, it's not a large city, but it's a medium sized city, you know, with a few hundred thousand people now and their church is right in the center of, of Oregon City.

16:12

And it's a huge building on a, you know, nice piece of property and it just, the city literally grew up around them.

16:19

So that was not a, that was not a decision made back then. They probably would have, if they would have known they'd have been a little further out.

16:25

I don't think they would want to be right in the middle of town because they do tend to stick out and draw more attention than they would like in that location.

16:34

Wow. So before they got that building, can you give us like where they met prior?

16:41

Where were they meeting at? Were there other religious movements meeting in buildings where they were meeting at? So no, they were meeting in houses in Oregon City.

16:50

So there was already, you know, before Oregon City was planted, there was already like, they would be, they don't look like like Baptist type steeple type churches, you know, they'd be very plain, nondescript buildings.

17:00

You'll find no crosses there. They would say that's like a Catholic thing and very offensive, you know, to like display a cross.

17:08

And so, you know, all you'll see is maybe a little sign that says followers of Christ. And there's an ancient sign in front of the building that's been there for as long as that building's been there.

17:19

And yeah, the, and all the churches, all the ones I've seen, and I've been to a few of them. Actually, I went and visited, after I left,

17:27

I just kind of went and checked out some of those other churches and they're all just tiny. Some of them haven't even, they won't even have a indoor plumbing, like they're literally living like the same way they were when those churches were built.

17:37

They refuse to move forward. So yeah, maybe not as backward as like Amish, right? But like, but they're stuck in their past.

17:44

It's really, it's really pretty strange. Now Oregon City is much more proactive and actually more liberal is what I found in the, the

17:50

Idaho churches are very, very conservative, just being that they're planted in Idaho. It's a very different, very just different people than, you know,

17:57

Portland, Oregon is a fairly, fairly liberal area, as we know. Well, that's similar. Cause I mean, we're, I'm, I'm still in Arizona, Andrew's in Utah, but we had different counties that certain areas are very liberal, which tend to be like the suburbs, but then, but then you go out to places like Maricopa or, or other different counties and such.

18:16

And they will be, usually the ones on the, on the out, on the outskirts, they tend to be a lot more conservative as the far, the places they're still farmland, but anywhere where there's just sort of like a gathering of suburbs, you're kind of seeing that, which is just kind of an interesting variable in play.

18:30

And Colts can definitely formulate in both of those demographics, but it does seem to me and I, give me your thoughts on this.

18:39

It does seem, however, that, you know, just given the demographics of Oregon City at that time that, you know, that Walter White, at least he's had, would have been like a relaxed relatability to the people to get them, you know, these rural folk that just are kind of like, they do their own thing.

18:54

And they're probably very traditional, especially if you think of just farm culture, you go there, you harvest crops, you, when you have children, people would probably have children in the farming culture, not just as a form like,

19:04

Hey, just want to have a couple of kids for having kids. Like this is a form of survival, you know, eventually I'm not going to be able to work until the ground.

19:10

Like I used to, I have to be able to hand this off. So it seems though he'd be able to really at least relate to that.

19:16

Yeah. He was a, he was a sheep farmer in Idaho here in Oregon City. He actually eventually he borrowed some money from a family member of mine and they, him and another man built a store.

19:29

And so he had a small grocery store. It was called

19:35

WB market and it actually existed till all, not that many years ago. Actually. The funny thing is now it's actually a weed dispensary in the exact same building, which is actually makes me laugh every time

19:45

I drive by there. But, but you know, we were all encouraged to shop at his market even after he was dead. It was still like family and church owned.

19:52

And they did some amazing things with that though, that you know, Walter would use that as a way to help members that were lacking in money, you know, he would.

20:00

And if say you were just, so you weren't necessarily broke, but if you were just, you know, waiting on a paycheck and need some food, you could run a tab there and then, and then pay it at the end of the month or whenever you had time, it was, that was an accepted practice that you could, you know, run lines of credit through him essentially with no penalty or no.

20:18

And, and so I actually think it was actually kind of cool the way that he did that. And that his, in his family, it was, it was ultimately sold by his grandsons.

20:28

It's probably been 10 years ago now, I guess. And it stayed a little, it turned into a little more like an

20:33

Asian market for a while. And then it, and then, and then became a dispensary here the last couple of years.

20:42

Yeah, definitely. And then I guess you can give me thoughts. You can also give me your thoughts too, Andrew, like, but maybe that kind of gives you a good idea of the historical kind of background, the sociological infrastructure around the time, the formulation of this group.

20:54

So what, let's go into maybe a little bit of his theology, because there's always theological aspects and the

21:01

Baltimore would usually do this. He'd always go into the history and kind of go into what the theology of what they believed.

21:06

What did he believe about God? What was his Christology? What did he believe about Jesus? In regards to the

21:13

Bible, typically it'll either be my own unique interpretation of the

21:18

Bible plus these extra revelatory books or commentaries. And you're only allowed to view it through that lens, or sometimes it's a little bit of both, but maybe kind of, let's go into just unravel the little bit of the theology if you could.

21:31

Sure. So the only commentary that would have been allowed was his own. He was not studying

21:36

Matthew Henry or anything like that. If he knew of a Charles Spurgeon, he most certainly didn't tell anybody.

21:42

So he and he probably did, but he most certainly wasn't he was not in line with that sort of theology.

21:49

So he, they believe that really, you can't even really understand the Bible without an apostle to interpret it for you. So even they're not a very well read group because they find no value in reading.

21:59

They're a King James only cult. So that came from one of the apostles, so -called apostles before Walter was handed a

22:06

King James Bible through a wall by a spirit, right? Presumably Jesus himself until him to preach out of this

22:13

Bible and it was King James. And so after that, they only, only preach King James and now you know that they don't preach.

22:20

They're only allowed to have King James Bibles, which eventually got me in some trouble, which we can talk about later. Yeah. Well, definitely.

22:27

But anyways, but a big part of their thing would be they're a workspace doctrine. They believe that you can earn your way to heaven, right?

22:35

They don't really believe that this will sound confusing to them to hear this, but they don't actually believe in the deity of Jesus Christ.

22:41

They believe in Jesus, the man, but they do not understand the Godhead. You know, the Trinity is a lost concept on them.

22:48

Jesus being equal to God, being the word that we see in first. So is there no aspect of Jesus that's divine?

22:55

Was he strictly just sort of a messenger of God that was just someone, it's just a messenger of God come in the flesh, not

23:02

God come in the flesh. That would be the distinction. A great example on how to live like an upward and righteous life would be

23:07

Jesus Christ. Like live like him. Live weird. The term followers of Christ, the way they would hold that is, yeah, walk a sinless life like Jesus did or as close to it as you can.

23:19

But they definitely deny the atonement. You can't really have a workspace theology and accept the atonement at the cross.

23:25

So it's a very weighty doctrine because if you understand anything about your own nature, you see your own sin nature and your own depravity.

23:36

And yet you're being told if you live a sin free life, you can go to heaven. But also there's a few caveats to that, you know, stay in the church is definitely one because nobody that leaves the church can go to heaven.

23:47

And they know of no other churches except theirs, except Walter had told them maybe one in Ethiopia, which is kind of an odd thing to say, but that is what he told them.

23:56

Yeah. But they also were baptismal regenerationists, that salvation doesn't come from believing that Jesus Christ is the son of God and confessing that with your mouth.

24:06

Instead, it comes from being baptized by a called man. And so, you know, for my generation, that's a pretty tough mark to hit since the last called man died, you know, seven years before I was born.

24:19

And so they came up with this new doctrine after he was born that they told as what I was told was that the fullness, the

24:25

Gentiles had came in and it's what that meant to them was the number of Gentiles that were being saved was over.

24:32

There would be no more Gentiles. You could not be in Christ unless you were born into this church.

24:40

Then you were the same as an adopted Jew. Somehow they just made that up. But that's the way they tried to alleviate the people that weren't being baptized.

24:51

Yeah. Let me go and ask you one question then, Andrew. I know that you're probably, I'm sure your mind's being blown right now as always, and you probably have thoughts going on about, you know, everything you're saying.

25:01

So I'm going to let you ask the next set of questions. You always ask good questions too. But in regards to that aspect of having this unique distinction, and now there's only people saved, you know, through, but almost once he passed away or there's no one who's a called person that's around anymore and having to redefine that.

25:20

So would that mean that, and we talked a little bit about this. So people in the church who have children post called people who baptize, like how does that work?

25:33

Do, are they, are they considered saved because they are born into the group or do they kind of, there's an age of accountability.

25:42

They have to go into it later. How does that work? Given that there's not really succession really anymore.

25:48

How does that work? I had that question for my whole life out there really, because I couldn't understand it because their answer was, they would say, don't you know, you're saved by our baptism that somehow we would be included.

26:00

And they, they would use scripture that they didn't understand. And they would say things, you know, like, what was the first thing they liked?

26:06

It was, Oh, it was the unbeliever. The unbelieving wife is sanctified by the believing husband else their children were unclean.

26:13

Right. So, so we were considered clean children because we had believing parents and somehow that was our adoption into the faith.

26:19

We were in Christ because we were born into a believing household. If it sounds confusing, it is because I'd still can't really grasp what, what it was.

26:28

They were trying to say other than to keep people like me quiet, honestly, because it makes, it just makes no sense. It never, it never felt like,

26:35

Oh, I get to go to heaven because I attend the right, the right church. So quick, couple of quick questions too.

26:42

So what, what exactly is a, in the followers of Christ there, number one, their doctrines hard to find if you're looking for it, because I couldn't even find their own website.

26:52

Like they didn't even have a website. Yeah. Right. Very intentional. Yeah. Yeah. I believe, I believe that. What, what is a

26:57

Gentile? Cause it sounds like there's like a definitional distinction between what the Bible calls a Gentile and what they actually believe are

27:03

Gentiles. Right. So they would, they, you know, they, they don't use the word like Gentile and Jew as much as they would say a follower and worldly.

27:13

So there's only, so I, I believe in the word worldly actually, I just don't believe I'm one of them. So as we know, there's only two classes of people really in this world anyways, they're saved and unsaved, but they, so they seen it kind of like that, except everyone is worldly and is going to hell.

27:28

And they're a little group of 15 to 2000 were saved just by they, they, one of the, so I'll tell you a little more about leadership.

27:37

So after Walter had died, he still had some elders, like a board of elders, right? Yeah. Others were not, they would preach, but they wouldn't call themselves preachers.

27:45

So they would speak and read out of the Bible, but off the pulpit, but they never claimed the authority that he had not to baptize.

27:53

They even stopped taking the supper after he died because they didn't have a postal to lead them in the supper.

27:59

And they were also foot washers. So they would do literal foot washing once a month. All of that stops at the birth or the death of Walter White.

28:07

But these, the last elder died in 1986. So I was only 10 years old. And so I can remember him, but not, not greatly.

28:16

I remember a few of his, a few of his messages. I remember what he looked like. And I remember there's a few things that he really emphasized hard that, that I'll never forget because they were scary.

28:26

But yeah, those were, yeah, that's kind of what they were left with was after him, you had, you know, these guys that were trying to like very lay and unread men trying to lead this body of people with no waiting for either the end of time, you know, or another man to be called.

28:43

Wow. That's what I was just thinking too. I was just thinking, how come no one has like stood up yet and been like,

28:48

I had, I heard an audible voice of God, or I saw Jesus walk through a wall. He told me that I need to do

28:54

X, Y, and Z. I need to go preach. We need to include others into our congregation. Cause I was reading that Walter White did that.

29:01

He would evangelize, but now there's no evangelism anymore. None. You're they're close. Cause they, they quit doing that.

29:07

They, they really kind of like where they're at though, in a sense they would say they don't, but they actually do because they're in a spot.

29:13

It very much reminds me of in the Old Testament when we, when we see in the early days every man did what was right in his own eyes.

29:21

Right. So before the, before the judges and the, and before you know, Moses and all that, you know, they have this, you have this strange time.

29:30

And they're kind of like that. They do, they do what's right in their own eyes. They to have a type of leader like Walter White would mean they'd have to submit, submit to authority.

29:38

They don't want to submit to anyone. They, they, right now they submit to no man. So why would they actually want, they pray vain prayers, you know, about send us an apostle.

29:47

I prayed that prayer for most of my life, but, but they don't actually want that. That would be a, I mean, they would have to stop living the way they live now would not be acceptable to a man like Walter White.

29:57

You know, he would, I don't think that the type of life that he would have expected his followers to live.

30:03

I don't feel like they're living that anymore. And so I think it wouldn't go, it wouldn't go over very well. If they had a reincarnated

30:10

Walter White. So, so if I walked into their church today, right. And I was like, I want to be a follower of Christ.

30:17

I believe that Walter White was an apostle. What must I do to join your congregation?

30:22

Like what, what would, what would they say? How do they handle that? Well, that's a tough one because since so all their church meeting looks like now is a worship meeting.

30:30

They'll have, they have a board of they're not elders. They have a board of I don't know what you call them. They're just board members.

30:35

I think it's what they're referred to. And although these board members do perform weddings, they are, they still deny that their actual ministry, but, but they are somewhat ordained because they can perform legal weddings.

30:48

But a board member will get up and announce like who needs prayers or any other church announcements right before the meeting starts.

30:54

And then, and then everyone will stand and sing a song that just a piano player.

31:00

He'll call out the song. They'll sing. And it's an old hymnal. It's very, you know, it's, it's, it's the classic hymns, you know, it's

31:06

Fannie J. Crosby and those type of, those type of hymns, all they do after the first song, everyone kneels in prayer.

31:14

And then the piano player will call it a number out of the songbook and they sit back up and they sit for, it's supposed to be about 10 songs, but a lot of times it's supposed to be 10.

31:24

A lot of times it's seven or eight songs. Like the piano player is getting kind of old. So I don't think, you know, he had his, his fervor for playing the full 10 started to slow down these last decade or so, but, but that's all they have for a meeting.

31:36

So if you were to show up and walk in, which happened, which is really a shameful thing. I got to tell you, I was humiliated when people would show up when

31:42

I was a young man, because people would show up asking questions. And what do you tell somebody? You have no, nothing for them.

31:49

I have nothing to offer them. And so you just kind of hope that they leave and you've kind of encouraged them, you know, by literally shutting them or being, they wouldn't be mean, but, but you're going to get sideways looks.

31:59

You're not going to be very well welcomed. It's not going to be like walking into a typical church where everyone's going to be glad to see you and want to know your name.

32:06

They might, if they're suspicious that you come from, you know, a church that's trying to evangelize them, you know, then they might have more questions for you.

32:14

But if they see you as non threat, they're just going to hope that you leave pretty quickly, but they will not allow you to join. You'll never be invited to, you know, you can sit in on their meeting,

32:21

I suppose, all you want, but you'll never be part of the group. You'll never be accepted. You'll never be invited to the weddings or their parties.

32:28

And they throw spectacular weddings and parties. They have a fellowship and community is something they're extremely good at.

32:34

You know, like they're, they're a very tight knit group and really their parties and the stuff they do as a safe and amazing.

32:42

That was a great experience. You know, as a young man to have a safe place to be, you know, with people that were familiar and everybody, everybody there for most of my life,

32:51

I was comfortable with and friends with to some degree. And I knew everyone's name, 2000 people.

32:57

I knew all their names. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. I mean that, and that's the thing too, you talked to me about, you know, while, while it's from a, just the ultimately we're, when we look at a, a, a cult, you know, we're primarily critiquing the theology as a whole.

33:14

You know, we don't always go for like, you know, the issue of a cult is not, we don't go for the character first.

33:19

Now, sometimes there are characteristics or character traits they'll come about as a byproduct of the theology, but primarily it was a theological distortion of biblical

33:29

Orthodox Christianity. And so you typically see that, but you know, one thing you talked to me about, and sometimes people will do this when they come out of the cult, they just talk to every different aspect of their life was completely bad, completely oppressive, but they're probably only viewing it through that filter.

33:45

Almost if, you know, you're in a relationship and it goes really well and you get married and, and you get, you go all of a sudden, you know, it ends in divorce.

33:52

Well, you're viewing it through the, you're probably, when you think about that, the only thing you, the only times you think of it is just maybe like bitterness or just jadedness comes up, but you're viewing it through a lens of a particular event that doesn't negate that there were times of like really, you know, of joy and happiness and all that.

34:09

So, you know, you said in some aspects, there are almost different positive aspects where you saw like the closest of community or just like the real love that people had for each other.

34:17

And I think maybe you can come and give me your thoughts on that. Cause I think sometimes it is good to show that in dealing, there is, especially the internet age, you know, we kind of separate ourselves from like real life versus how we view and perceive people on social media.

34:31

Maybe that's a similarity, but sometimes when you look at a cult and, and just kind of look at the impact that it had, we do sometimes tend to strip these people, a cult members of their humanity, almost in the same way, how that's been done with the

34:44

Branch Davidians, people who follow Jim Jones, you know, honestly, at this day and age,

34:50

I absolutely despise any Kool -Aid jokes, especially having listened to the suicide tape and hearing the story behind people who were lured by Jim Jones's teaching.

34:59

So, but yeah, just share just a little bit about like, share just about the human aspect of who these people were and how their community formed.

35:05

I mean, this was really part of your life for such a long time. Yeah. So for over 40 years, and I'll tell you, you used a key word there that I'm glad you used, because I might have forgot to bring it up, but bitterness.

35:15

When somebody leaves the church, they're always referred to as, oh, they're just bitter. And that they say bitter things.

35:20

And I want to be very clear. I am not bitter about my time at the Followers of Christ Church. I hold no ill will against them.

35:28

Do I take great exception to their theology? Great exception. But did I learn some valuable things?

35:34

Have I benefited from it? Absolutely. You know, I mean, they do believe that there is one true

35:40

God. Now, do they really, like we said, they don't understand how Jesus plays into that role.

35:46

They don't understand that he is God, but they do. They are monotheists. You know, they are in that realm.

35:52

But their community is, it is an amazing community because it is a safe community. It's a safe place to grow up.

35:59

You have a built -in friend group. You know, you do marry from within that community, which is getting more and more difficult because, you know, now that they're not openly evangelizing people, everybody's starting to become related.

36:10

So it's getting trickier and trickier, you know, like they'll marry up to like, you know, third cousins would be kind of the cutoff typically.

36:18

But, you know, they don't want to go closer than that. But although that's been broken a few times.

36:25

But there is like, you know, they have like Friday nights. Every Friday night, the teenagers all get together and they'll go to somebody's house and it's a safe environment for the most part.

36:35

You know, kids aren't perfect. So I'm not going to say that their kids always do good things because we know they don't. But overall, they're pretty well behaved.

36:42

And it's a safe place. You could send your daughter there on a Friday night and not worry about what she's doing. There's not going to be drinking and not going to be smoking pot.

36:51

None of that. It's just not going to happen. Sunday nights, they have a dance party through the school year and then they take a break for the summer.

36:59

But they play secular music. They have a dance floor in their church and they have great bands.

37:06

They have some amazing musicians. And so they play kind of like classic rock or country songs. You know, nothing that would be inappropriate though.

37:12

There'll be nothing with sexual innuendo or anything like that. It's going to be clean music. And they dance kind of like a two -step country dance that everybody knows.

37:21

And so, you know, that's how you, you know, ultimately meet your wife is going to these parties and hanging out with the girls.

37:27

And so, yeah, there's, you know, there's some problems with the way they date. But overall, I would say that I appreciate what the thought behind it is to try to create like an environment of holiness, right?

37:39

And even though when I look back on it now, it's easy for me to say that that holiness isn't real. But I appreciate the effort that's put into it.

37:46

I appreciate that they are, because it is works -based, you know, they are trying hard to separate themselves from the world.

37:52

They want to stay clean. They want to be different than the world. And especially, you know, and I said they're kind of a liberal church.

37:59

They're very conservative compared to this area. So I want to make that clear. Compared to Portland, they're the most conservative people

38:04

I've met in Portland. They're just not conservative compared to rural Idaho. But I don't know that I've ever met anything quite like rural

38:11

Idaho for just how conservative, you know, it's just a different area. But anyways, yeah, so there's not the community.

38:19

I can tell you that, you know, there's been somewhere in the neighborhood of 300, maybe even 400 that have left the last three or four years, which is significant out of, you know, a 2 ,000 member or so church.

38:30

And they've been planted in, I was told today that they counted 17 different churches that people are attending that have left.

38:37

And I know a lot of the pastors and elders at these churches. I've become friends with many of them.

38:44

They all have very positive things to say about the community that ex -followers bring to their church, that their churches are suffering from not having the greatest community, not knowing really how to do that.

38:55

And then they see these people come and they see, wow, they're teaching our people to be more like a family. And so it's been a really positive.

39:02

Like I said, you could ask any of the churches that we've all started attending and they would say, yeah, it's been great having them here. We're learning better how to be more like Jesus in that way.

39:11

If, you know, Jesus wanted a family, that's what his church was. He didn't come to build $20 million buildings.

39:16

He came to build his family. And so there's parts of the gospel that they're very good at because I do believe being part of the family of Jesus is important.

39:25

And they have, I would say they're masters at that aspect. So quick question.

39:31

Since there's not a big evangelism focus, right, which would tend to get people to focus less on the gospel because that's what the gospel is.

39:39

It's literally, you know, people spiritually dead coming to life. It sounds more like the gospel in the sense to keep their church alive.

39:45

It's procreation. What is that like there?

39:50

Like say 400 members are leaving, right? And now there's 1 ,600, let's just say estimated, whatever.

39:57

But how do they see that? Do they see that as a sign of the end times? The end is coming soon.

40:04

Are there weird things about procreation there? Like you need to have this amount of children, things like that?

40:09

Yeah, at some branch there was a conference in 1937 about women's hair length and about birth control.

40:16

Oregon City came away saying that as long as the man was okay with the wife with shorter hair, that was fine. Other branches kind of divided over that actually though.

40:23

And also they felt in Oregon City they felt birth control was fine. Our family that we have met recently in Idaho, you know,

40:33

I've met a man with like 18 children. So they obviously didn't take the same approach there. And to have more than 10 was normal is kind of what

40:41

I've seen in Idaho. But, yeah, they don't believe in hospitals.

40:46

So part of their works doctrine would be going to the hospital is damnation.

40:52

I mean, doctors, I was raised believing doctors literally are like the devil incarnate. That's how wicked. I mean, that was about the worst thing you could do.

41:00

I mean, you know, like we were definitely to flee fornication and, you know, big sins. In their mind, you know, they definitely see levels of sin.

41:07

They don't see it in a more orthodox way. You know, not the way that I understand sin now. But, you know, if you avoid the big sins, the little ones won't keep you out if you stay close to the middle.

41:17

But so when you get to, you know, how you can have babies, you want your husband's delivering babies. So they, you know,

41:23

I most certainly don't want to do that. So they have church midwives, which are lay midwives. Some are more educated than others, but none of them educated like maybe what you would, if you were to hire a midwife to deliver a home birth, you wouldn't hire one of these women.

41:37

Some better than others, I would say. They have a handful. I'm not sure how many they would have right now. But usually you'd have two or three for a birth, and there was maybe eight or nine to pick from.

41:49

And, you know, your wife would pick the ones she was most comfortable with. Yeah. Now just real quickly in regards to, I'm glad you brought this up because this is just something that, you know, theologically, you know, we're always not surprised when they're trying to redefine who

42:04

Jesus is or deny the Trinity or talking about they have on some level their own private revelation.

42:10

But in this particular case, you know, there always are rigid restrictions. Sometimes it relates to particular foods or in this case, we're talking about, you know, medical care and medical attention.

42:23

So how would this also relate to like taking like medication, you know, for example, in the areas, in the field of mental health, there's people who are diagnosed with clinical depression and there's actually medication they truly need or, or something in related to them being like being bipolar or, you know, you name their autistic or just something that relates to the field where they have special needs.

42:48

And sometimes those type of people, they require unique care and attention.

42:53

Like how, how would they, in regards to the things that are more like mental health related, how would that work?

43:00

Well, that's a bummer because it would be totally forbidden in those instances. And over the years,

43:06

I'll say they've softened on their stance on medical care because when they started losing women and children, you know, women in childbirth and young children started to die, you know, the heat got turned up.

43:17

Suddenly they changed laws in Oregon because of them and they started getting arrested. And, you know, that's just in my generation, that's the last 10 or 15 years that this has happened.

43:25

But so they have definitely taken a softer stance on medicine from when I was a child, but as a whole, they would still, they, they say things like your prayers hit the ceiling in the hospital if you go to the hospital and that it's a lack of faith to go.

43:39

And that if your child dies, it's just God's will. And so, you know, they don't really understand what God's will is.

43:45

It's their way of explaining away things that are caused them immeasurable pain and suffering. And so, yeah, that's the really, the sad part of the story is really when we start to get to the, these midwives and these women and, and young children needlessly dying, you know, like something as simple as a shot of insulin denied and allowing, allowing a boy to die for lack of insulin.

44:11

How does it work? I'm trying to think as a, as a follower of Christ, I'm just trying to get, get myself into this world.

44:18

Say that they needed an apostle to have the authority to baptize and to do the feet washing.

44:25

Well, there's no more apostle now. So who would have the authority to heal? Right? Like, so like why, why, why, why were the doctors devils?

44:35

Was it because you wouldn't rely on the apostle and the healing powers that was done through this intensely charismatic church?

44:43

I mean, the apostles not around anymore. The just shall live by faith. That's what they would tell you. That's the first they would cling to there.

44:50

And that it's a lack of faith. You know, some families were always a little different on that. I would say that my, my family was a little more liberal on that than some families where like when my daughter was 18 months old, so she's 13 now, she broke her arm and I took her to the hospital.

45:06

They have their own church doctors that set bones. They put casts on people. They wouldn't call themselves doctors, but they most certainly are doing medical work, not internal work, right?

45:16

They're not going to open you up or, or, you know, but, but they're going to, they set their own bones whenever possible.

45:22

If it's really bad and they can't handle it, they'll send you to the hospital. But, but, you know, there's been men that had legs that were too short because of a poor set on a broken femur, you know, that walked with a limp their whole lives.

45:33

But, but even in a situation like that, where they have uneven legs or something in that regard, that would be treated almost like I'm actually suffering for the kingdom or I'm actually suffering for God's work.

45:47

This is part of my, you know, almost similar. It reminds me of, you know, the, the

45:53

Jehovah's Witnesses doctrine of blood transfusion where they can't give or transmit blood.

45:59

And, you know, because of that, you know, there's lots of children who have died and there's on record, there's audio record and it's like,

46:06

Oh, just, just eats just, Oh, it's hard, man. But it's just, you know, they're describing these children who died because they would not get this medical care.

46:16

Like these children, they gave their lives for Jehovah. And, you know, we talk about bad theology hurts people.

46:22

And you're Andrew, you remember, man, when we had, right, when we were in our infancy at Koldish, we had,

46:28

I can't remember his name at the top of my head that are the, the who's in Christian science. I'm Mary Baker Eddy.

46:35

Do you remember his name off the top of your head? Not, I can, I can see his face, but I'm, I'm more of a face person than a person.

46:43

It's been a while, but man, what stuck with me and it really had an impact, you know, it's one thing to, you know, watch a documentary of someone being, you know, affected, you know, and I'm a very much like a, where my heart like on your shoulder sort of like person, like I hate seeing people in pain and there's always like something in me, like I have to,

47:09

I want to go fix them. You know, that's just like part of who I am. Like that's just me.

47:14

And man, I remember when he broke down and was in tears and talking about how hard it was because he dealt with death so much as a young child and even just being part of Christian science because these people would not get medical care.

47:33

And again, you know, birds on some level, like birds of a feather flock together and you know, and that's why, you know, it's, it's, it's important that, you know, theology does matter and it's important to have a holistic, you know, the

47:45

Lordship of Christ encompasses everything, you know, including, including healthcare, including medical care.

47:52

Like the gospel Luke was written by a medical doctor you know, and you even look at even the hospital system as, as crazy and corrupt as it is right now.

48:01

We see everything going on with the news about healthcare professionals being fired and, and all of that, you know, at the end of the day, not to get, not to have that, that's a whole nother discussion, but the hospitals like these were for, these are

48:14

Christians who started it. I mean, even like even the symbol of, of the meta, the one, is it the medical association?

48:23

I can't remember the exact symbol, but it's, yeah, the cross, the, the, yeah, the snake and that's related to Moses.

48:30

Like you look upon that and you'll be well, like there's, there's definitive Christian symbolism and they were behind that, like the red cross and you, and you see that, like this is the

48:38

Christians who formulated that and it breaks my heart to see, you know, a distortion of that, that ends up hurting people and ends up, you know, and also not only that they're being taught, they're suffering unnecessary as a by -product of bad theology.

48:53

But then, you know, they're being manipulated to believe that this is a just and worthy cause.

49:02

Yeah. Well, go ahead, go ahead. Yeah. Not, not only that, but that that's your salvation is your own personal suffering.

49:09

Right. And you can suffer your way to heaven. There you go. And so, so let's listen to this. This is a, this is a quote in terms of the statistics of the deaths that were happening within the followers of Christ organization.

49:19

I'm going to read this to you guys. Larry Lumen, a former medical examiner in the state alleges that during a 10 year period, 25 children perish due to the lack of medical intervention.

49:29

This is within the followers of Christ. And this was the medical examiner in a, for Oregon city, a death rate 26 times higher than among the general population.

49:38

In an investigation by the Oregonian claim that at least 21 out of 78 minors found to be buried in the church cemetery died of preventable causes, including simple infections, which would be easily treated with routine anti antibiotics.

49:52

Right. That's, that's sad. That's sad. And, and you, you grew up in this, you know, and did, did you know that was normal?

50:01

So did you know people or children that were your friends that, that perished? I knew women and children.

50:06

So that, you know, that's the hard, that's the darkest part of this story really is the women and children. Because you know, if you were to meet these people, you would think they're good people.

50:16

You wouldn't, you really, honestly, they don't stand out as being anything other than good, upright citizens. The local employers love to hire them because they're honest, faithful workers.

50:26

They're not going to cheat you or lie, but, but when it comes right down to it, these same people that appear good, they will kill their children.

50:34

And you know, they're going to hate hearing me say this, but it is true that they will sit there and they will say things, you know, like don't abandon your faith.

50:41

You know, if somebody is considering taking their child in one old woman, I know that asked to go to the hospital right before she died, they told her you've given away your whole life.

50:50

You're going to burn in hell now just for going in and asking to be made comfortable as she perishes. This is, it was very abusive the way that they would treat people that were sick.

51:02

They weren't allowed to be in charge of their own medical care. If you were sick and dying, the church was in charge of your medical care. And sometimes they were denied access even if they asked, you know, children don't have the ability to ask.

51:12

That's why the state has had to step in and say, you know, we're going to take that right from you. If your children is, this child is sick and in need of medical care, go where you're going to jail.

51:20

And they've had quite a few members wind up in jail for, for neglecting their children and abusing them in that way.

51:27

But, but yeah, I knew these, I knew. So those ones that you're talking about that Larry Lunan guy and yeah,

51:33

I know him because I've seen him, you know, he would appear when somebody would die, you know, we'd have to deal with him. And, and I seen that interview that you're quoting.

51:41

And I knew every one of those children. Yeah. Oh my word. Yeah. Yeah. And if you're listening in, you know, you can,

51:47

I am sure a lot of you can identify with that because I mean, it's, it's like I said, birds of a feather flock together. And there's been many a times, even in, even in Christian churches, there's a lot of times where they're just really bad, bad counseling, you know, and really, really a horrific misunderstanding of the aspects of mental health or the role that, you know, medication has.

52:11

I mean, there's ways that someone can obviously use it as an idol. I mean, apology was founded of a drug and alcohol addiction recovery center.

52:18

And there's plenty of people, you know, opiates and even like this forms of morphine that actually are help people, you know, during particular situations, but there's also in a tremendous abuse of that.

52:29

But what ends up happening is that, you know, there's a lot of bad counseling where totally negates that and people suffer as a result.

52:35

So, you know, a lot of you, a lot of you can relate. This is the importance that we need to have the Lordship of Christ under all different aspects.

52:44

So yeah, most definitely. So one question I have real quickly before we kind of wrap up this, the first part here, and as you said, just for the time being, we're temporarily doing a part one and part two, just because we're getting ahead of schedule with all our other stuff going on.

52:59

But just talk about one of the things that Walter White did to kind of really his driving catalyst for his group before he passed away would have been really his end times visions.

53:14

And so this is something that, you know, while eschatology is a non -essential issues, there's people from all the different camps, people who are just people who

53:23

I love and respect who have very different views from us. It's a non -essential issue, but it does have an impact with how you interpret it because a huge portion of the

53:32

Bible is eschatological. It is about end times events. And the question is the end of what, but with typically what you'll see within cultish infrastructures, they'll use the current events of that time.

53:45

I mean, a lot of people right now are kind of looking at what's going on now with 2020 and COVID and, and what's going on in Australia.

53:52

This is the end times visions and people have been doing that for a while. You'll see that in on the eve of 2000 the, between the late mid nineties and the year 2000 from Koresh to heaven's gate.

54:06

There's a lot of people were looking at the eve of the millennium as a time, you know, up until like Y2K, this was a time where something was going to go on, but just to clarify his time when he was really prominent would have been around the 1960s.

54:19

Correct? Yeah. Fifties and sixties would have been kind of the, the, the really the time when he was, you know, the he was the alpha leader at that point, you know, there was no.

54:28

Yeah. So just a real quick before we wrap up here, I mean just things that come to mind, you know, you have like the Vietnam war, you know, the civil rights movement, uh,

54:36

Martin Luther, the assassinations of JFK, uh, Martin Luther and the Cuban missile crisis.

54:42

I mean, there's time, even like Cuban missile crisis, there's tension, there's times of uncertainty. And now, you know, we have stuff even now going on, like what's the relationship between us and China.

54:52

You know, there's always the uncertainties and people use that uncertainty to create confidence that we're the

54:58

Noah's ark that you stay with us. You'll be safe. You'll be in the, just talk to us real quickly before we wrap it up. How did he, how did he formulate that?

55:05

So he had a vision or a dream. He actually was a dream that he actually told over the pulpit, uh, where he was with Christ.

55:11

And I have a copy of it here somewhere I could find and read you the whole thing, but it'd take too long, but I'll, I'll summarize it. I'll summarize it for you.

55:17

Uh, he's with Christ and they're talking and he's describing Christ as young and athletic, like, and then the drift, the dream changes in Christ as a baby and Walter is carrying this young Jesus, which to me is maybe the worst part of the dream that, uh, you know, he's saying that he carried our

55:33

Lord, uh, as opposed to the other way around. But then, uh, he asked Jesus at one point, uh, when is the end of time and he tells him, uh, and I think he says it's in two,

55:44

I think he says in two years will be the end of baptism and then three years, uh, will be the end of the world. And so, and I'm paraphrasing,

55:50

I may have, if I, for any followers that are listening to this, if I have those dates a little off, it's, I'm not trying to be specific, but I don't,

55:58

I'd have to look it up on my paper to see the exact dates, but about three years. Uh, and so they started to prepare for the end of time.

56:04

And so he dies, uh, and baptism stops. Right. So, uh, and it's about, you know, it's the year or two after he tells this dream.

56:11

Well, once he stops baptizing, he self fulfills his own dream because he actually stopped baptizing him before he died, uh, to fulfill that prophecy.

56:18

And then, uh, he passes in like a year or two later, you know, here comes 1972 and they're still there.

56:25

Jesus has not returned. Uh, and, and, but I'll tell you on that too, before we move on to like this more, the more interesting stuff actually is going to be this stuff these last few years, but to kind of paint a little better picture to just what type of a cult leader

56:37

Walter White really was. Um, they, they're definitely a charismatic group, at least when it comes to their apostles and he did, he was not one that had the gift of tongues, but the ones before him, you know, would speak in tongues and then they would interpret it themselves or have an interpreter say it.

56:51

But Walter had what he would have called the gift of prophecy, except if you read through his prophecies, there's nothing prophetic about him.

56:58

Um, but he would do this thing where he would clap his hands loudly and he would walk back and forth across the pulpit or up and down the aisles and, uh, speak in a different voice and talk very loudly.

57:08

And my, my mom, you know, uh, she was young when he died and she said it was terrifying, but, uh, that he would say things like,

57:14

I am Jesus of Nazareth, be faithful, be faithful. Uh, and he would claim that it's kind of hard to explain.

57:21

I don't, I don't believe he was saying that he was the physical manifestation of Jesus, but he was claiming that the spirit of Jesus filled him.

57:27

And now Jesus was speaking through him. Wow. And so as I was helping my mom come out of this cult, I asked her one day and I said that I was trying to help her see who

57:35

Walter really was. And I said, Hey, do you know how many times Peter or Paul, uh, had that happen with them or that they had claimed that, uh, how many accounts of the

57:42

Bible there are doing that? And she said, well, I'm not sure how many was it? And I said, well, zero mom, no one's ever, except for cult leaders.

57:51

And you know, very, that was for a time. That was very hard for her to accept. Uh, you know, but, uh, but yeah, so he would, it was a very much like an old school kind of charlatan trick, uh, that he was using.

58:02

I don't think it's unique to him, but a pretty evil and pretty destructive to the claim that you're Jesus. And yes, he was quoted as saying that if the president of the

58:11

United States wants to go to heaven, he'll go through him. So that's the type of authority that he claimed that he was the only way to heaven.

58:18

Yeah. I, yeah, I don't, I don't care what camp of denominational Christianity you fall into, whether you're charismatic, whether you're

58:27

Anglican, Presbyterian, Baptist, Methodist, whatever, what have you, someone's in the pulpit or in the foyer and they're saying,

58:36

I'm Jesus. Uh, that is the red flag, a bunch of red flag emoticons for sure.

58:42

So let's go ahead. Let's go ahead and do this. Um, I think what we did in this episode, I'm going to kind of indicate,

58:48

I want to go full nerd here. Um, so basically the first episode, we're kind of describing like the map, the open world map.

58:57

Right? So if you're like, if you play video games, you know, you, you spend like wandering around and now all of a sudden you understand where this location, this is, but kind of go like, think of Lord of the

59:05

Rings for example, this first episode, what we did, we kind of described the infrastructure of middle earth.

59:11

We kind of went into Gondor and Helm's deep Isengard, like all these different locations.

59:17

Right? And so now you get an understanding of the historical origins of, of Walter White, this group, uh, certain, certain aspects of Oregon city, kind of their theology, their doctrines, the implications of that theology.

59:31

But now the next episode, this will be part two will be kind of like, you know, Frodo and Sam's journey all the way to Mordor.

59:39

Right? So, or in this case it's going to be kind of like how, how did you fit into this and how did you end up leaving?

59:45

And I think now that we've said the first episode laying the foundation, I think people will get a better understanding of that.

59:51

So thank you again so much for coming on. Uh, definitely appreciate for part two and we'll talk to you guys next week.

59:57

Uh, so thank you all for listening. If you enjoyed this first episode, uh, go ahead and share this on your social media, any thoughts that you have and what comes to mind in regards to the, to this first part of this conversation.

01:00:08

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01:00:28

There's lots of super exciting things we have lined up in the future. So all that being said, thank you all for listening.