October 7, 2019 Show with Ron Luff on “Warning Signs You’re In a Cult (From A Prison Inmate Serving Life Who Saw Them Too Late)”

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Chris Arnzen. Good afternoon

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

We're listening via live streaming at ironsharpensironradio .com. This is Chris Arnzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Monday on the 7th day of October 2019 and today we're having a first -time interview that is first time in more than one way.

It's not just that my guest has never been interviewed on this program before but we're also going to be interviewing somebody for the first time from prison and our guest today is

Ron Luff. Those of you who listened to our program last Friday will recall that we interviewed

Barb Luff, the mother of our guest today. Barb was a fascinating guest and she was joined by Paul Trask and a dear friend of hers who is actually the publisher of Ron's book,

Faith Gone Astray, Unveiling the Kirtland Cult Murders. He published that through Refining Fire Ministries and he publishes other books by former members of the

Reorganized Latter -day Saint cult. And today we have

Ron on and he is going to be discussing Faith Gone Astray, Unveiling the

Kirtland Cult Murders and Warning Signs You're in a Cult from a Prison Inmate Serving Life Who Saw Them Too Late.

In fact, as I said, we are interviewing Ron from the Allen Correctional Institution in Lima, Ohio and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you for the very first time ever to Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Ron Luff.

Oh, thank you for having me on. And tell us, first of all, Ron, how long have you been in prison right now?

I've been almost 30 years, I'll be 30 years in January. Wow. And how young were you when you were incarcerated in the beginning?

29. 29. Well, God has certainly done a remarkable work in you since you've been incarcerated.

Now first of all, as I do with every first -time guest on this program,

I'd like to know something about the religious atmosphere of your home growing up as a child, and then we'll continue from there and how you eventually entered into a dangerous cult, a decision that you obviously regret very tremendously.

But if you could, tell us about your upbringing, your family, religion, and so on.

Sure. Sure. I was a fifth -generation Latter -day, or reorganized

Latter -day Saint. It's sort of a faction from what we typically call the Mormon church out in Utah.

This one had a headquarters in Independence, Missouri, which is where I was born and raised. My great -great -grandfather got us involved in the church, you know, back in the 19th century.

But at any rate, for me, what that meant was that pretty much my entire family history had been wrapped up within the

RLDS faith. And so as a child, the Book of Mormon to me was just sort of the cornerstone to the

Christian faith. In fact, the Bible itself would in a sense come secondary to the

Book of Mormon. And there are distinct differences between it and the

Utah church, but at any rate, for the most part, it was sort of a collection of groups that remained in the

Midwest and developed a reorganized Latter -day Saint church, dropping away many of the earlier practices that had become part of the

Mormon movement in the beginning. From what

I understand, some of the differences are that they never practiced plural marriages.

In fact, I don't know if they still do, but they denied that Joseph Smith ever was involved in polygamy, and they do not believe that they can attain godhood by their obedience and there are some other significant differences.

I don't believe that they baptize for the dead either, do they? No. In fact, they don't do any of the temple ordinances.

The RLDS church, at least as far as my time in it, and of course since then it's changed its name.

It's become somewhat different. So I'm very unfamiliar with what it is now, but back then there were no temples other than the one here in Kirtland, Ohio area, and that was one that we visited that ended up ultimately getting us involved in this cult.

But the point is that in Independence, the RLDS faith there, we didn't have any of what we consider the secret ordinances or any of that, and as you said, none of the polygamy or none of the spiritual issues or religious beliefs attached with polygamy.

Yes, and if anybody wants more details on the reorganized Latter -day

Saints, you could later on go to the Iron Trip and Zion website, which is www .irontripandzionradio

.com, and if you go to the past shows podcast section, where we have our past programs archived, you could type in the search engine

Paul Trask, T -R -A -S -K, and the interview that comes up where he gives a lot of the details about the reorganized

Latter -day Saints cult will be there, and we've also interviewed a couple of other folks that have been published through Paul Trask's ministry,

Refining Fire Ministries. So if you need any help, just send me an email and I'll get back to you at chrisarnson at gmail .com.

Well, from what I learned last Friday from your mother, you first got introduced into what would be sort of an offshoot of the

RLDS orchestrated by Jeff Lundgren, who was a tour guide at the very temple that you just mentioned in Independence, Missouri.

If you could tell us about your initial meeting with him and what came to be the factors that drew you into this cult.

Well, the cult itself was sort of attractive in that it was part of the struggle that was going on in the church.

There was a huge schism that had taken place in the church, and this really had an impact on a number of people throughout the

RLDS faith. In 1984, they passed a seriously new direction for the church to go, and in that regard, a lot of people began to break away from it.

Many ministries were silenced. They call it silencing. When a priesthood member can't function as a priesthood member, they silence their ordination.

This was the environment within which we got involved. We started asking a lot of questions about what was going on in the church, and that ultimately led to a visit to Kirtland.

We had originally decided not to go. We were going to change our plans and go somewhere else.

On that Sunday, we went to church. Evidently, someone must have passed that word on to the guest speaker who was there, but mid -sermon, when he was in the middle of his sermon, he sort of stopped his message and said, you know,

I feel like I should share my testimony about Kirtland Temple, and what a wonderful experience I had there.

And of course, it seemed like he was speaking specifically to us at the time, because we had just changed our plans that morning about going up to Kirtland for a trip.

Well, after the fact, I told him this. I said, well, it felt like you were really speaking straight to me, and he didn't divulge any idea that I had planned to go to Kirtland before, and it changed my mind.

So to me, I thought, well, maybe the Lord was prompting in this, which is something that needs to be understood, because a lot of people don't read things the same way that Mormon theology would illustrate.

But at any rate, he didn't say anything about that, and he says, well, if you do go, he says,

I'd really recommend that you speak to this tour guide that was up there that was very effective with me, and he ended up telling me about Jeff Lundgren.

But this kind of experience and coincidence really means a great deal in the

Mormon faith, because of the way that they look at their own theology in terms of spiritual experiences.

Spiritual experiences are a huge part of the Mormon faith, particularly within the

RLDS church, and even so much so that the Confession of Peter that we find in the 16th chapter of Matthew, they define the rock that is spoken there as the rock of revelation itself.

Not the revelation of who Jesus Christ is, but the revelation in the sense of any kind of revelation that we might have, visions, voices, and this kind of thing.

And it's not uncommon in that church, or at least at that time, and I know that within my own family, my ex -wife certainly had an abundance of visions and heard voices and such, and these were all considered as fairly normal.

So for him to have changed his sermon that way, and sort of spoken directly to me, did not seem unordinary to us.

Now, to what do you attribute now that you are a born -again believer, and we'll be getting to that momentarily, which is the best part of the interview, to hear about your new life in Christ that you received by God's grace and mercy while in prison.

But in hindsight now, what do you attribute to these voices and dreams that your wife had?

And did you say it was just your wife, or did you also experience this? I actually didn't, and one of the things that was a problem was that I was very passionate, and I was, a lot of this when you mention, for example, my family upbringing, my family was deeply involved in the church activities, but it wasn't in any fanatical sort of sense.

I would say that the fanaticism pretty well was singular with me, because as a child I began getting involved with church activities.

I went on a number of different outings to different states for what they called witnessing weekends at the time.

And I read the Book of Mormon at the age of 13, 14 years old, and was seriously engaged with that at that early age.

And so a lot of this wasn't so much environmental, but it was definitely with me.

And so with this kind of passion later on in life, as I had a young family and a wife, and well, when the church began to go through the rift that it was having,

I found myself, by that time I was an ordained minister, and so I was on a preaching cycle.

And I taught the adult Sunday school class, we did the church cleaning, and we also were the youth group leaders.

And so we were very involved, well, as the church began to sort of create this fracturing within it, a lot of people began to lose their church buildings, and there was a lot of heartache.

In this turmoil, I started asking a lot of questions as to what's going on. Is this something that's, you know, leading to Christ's return?

What is the meaning behind all this? And because I was so passionate, I think that, in a sense, drove my wife to start looking for answers as well.

And she seemed to be more susceptible to having those types of responses than I did, and so I really didn't have any experiences of that nature, but she seemed to, and they generally had to do with me.

Now would you say, as a Christian, and recognizing that while you were a minister and while you were married to a woman having these experiences that include hearing voices and so on, and you recognize that this was a cult you were in now, would you say that this could possibly have been demonic experiences?

Were they faked? Were they psychosomatic? Was it a desperate attempt to just please those in the religion around her that perhaps put her in that mental kind of a condition where she was hearing these things?

And did you say she was also seeing visions, or was it dreams? They were visions, and they've pretty well proven themselves to have been flat evil regardless of the source, because it was ultimately what began to divide us.

And of course this really showed itself when I began to speak out in my new faith, basically.

I had a whole new view towards Jesus, towards God, and I was very outspoken about Mormonism and its falsehood, and in fact the falsehood of the

Book of Mormon itself. Mormonism is not exactly the same thing as the Book of Mormon, and so for me the focus of the falsehood began with the

Book of Mormon. And then of course Mormonism was soon to follow as well, but I first of all came to grips with the book that was to me always most important in my life up to that point, and that was the

Book of Mormon itself. And as I began to speak out more about this, then those experiences that she was having changed their tone considerably.

Now, so you believe that although they were evil, they were real, that you don't believe she was faking it?

I don't think she was faking it. I don't think she was making things up. I think that she either had some psychological problems of her own, emotional problems of her own, or there was something spiritual involved, but whatever the case, they definitely were not right.

Now if you could, tell us some more details about the cult leader

Jeff Lundgren, and obviously you already mentioned that there were things that made you fascinated by him and so on.

Tell us about why you put such trust in this man, and what were the warning signs that you now see in hindsight that there was something going terribly wrong with him and the way that he was thinking, teaching, and preaching, and so on?

Well, that involves a bit of history as well, because we were in the group for about two years.

We actually visited the first time, but we were a long time from moving or anything like that at that point.

We visited the group, and I had just read a piece in one of the church publications about a form of reading called chiasm.

Most people that get involved in theology understand this to be a poetic structure, and it was something that was used quite heavily with the

Hebrew writings. What I was fascinated with him was not the person himself.

Jeff was very off -putting by most people that met him, but it was what he said, and this style of reading scripture using this chiastic structure for interpretation.

That was something that I was fascinated with, and there seemed to be a lot of other Mormon -based passages that gave support to that kind of a pattern.

And so when we walked in the temple and we saw that it was deeply symmetrical, then he said that the temple was essentially a standing monument to chiasm, because chiasm is the pattern that a passage in Revelation states is the pattern whereby you cannot err.

And so if there were any problems going on in the church and any solutions to be found, then it was believed that this pattern, chiasms, would be the means through which we would discover those answers.

And that was the fascination, not so much to the person. Hmm. And so when did you begin, and I don't know if you began to realize this at all prior to your incarceration, or prior to the crimes that have laid you in prison, and of course we've already agreed that I'm not going to go into detail about any of the crime itself, but if anybody wants to learn more about the specific details,

Ron has written a book, Faith Gone Astray, and the subtitle is

Unveiling the Kirtland Cult Murders, and I'll be giving you details later on on how you can get a hold of that book.

It's published by Refining Fire Ministries, a ministry founded by Paul Trask, who is on our program this

Friday with Ron's mother Barb. But when did you begin to realize this man has really gone off the rails?

This man, I really should not be listening to him or obeying him. Did any of this start to take place before the crimes, before your incarceration?

Oh no. I was very sincerely duped in this whole thing, and it really wasn't until much later,

I'm afraid. After the crimes, we left. We were actually planning to, to begin with, to go into the wilderness.

We shed the world. I mean, we literally got rid of everything. My wife and I didn't even have our wedding rings by this time, and all of this took place before the night that the

Avery family was killed. And so we already had plans to go to the wilderness, and that's all we knew.

We had no idea where it would be, and we had tents and we had sleeping bags. Other than that, we really didn't have any property.

And of course, in this process, we were supposed to follow the same path, essentially, that the earlier people in the

Book of Mormon written about had followed. And so the Book of Mormon was really our map as to where we were to go when we went into the wilderness.

Well, the wilderness experience took place after the killings, which meant that there was a genuine sense of obligation to Jeff at that point, even if we did begin to doubt, which

I have to state, for me, I really never did. And if anything, it seemed to solidify me all the more.

There's sort of a point where your own conscience begins to work against you, because if you begin to doubt and challenge the possibility that what you've done is wrong, then somehow your conscience is going to let you know that you need to be responsible for that, and that's something that can sort of work against you.

At any rate, for whatever the reason, I became all the more convinced, and we continued, as the rest of the group did, off into West Virginia.

And eventually, it got to the point where we couldn't stay out there any longer. The weather was turning, and we'd been out there about eight months, winter was going to set in, and we, by necessity, ended up migrating back to Missouri.

And that was where things began to fall apart. Yes, well, since you just mentioned the murders,

I'll just tell our listeners the basic minimum. There was a family in this cult, a husband, wife, and,

I believe, three children, who were murdered, and our guest today actually did not physically participate in the murder, but was involved as an accomplice.

We don't need to go any further than that, and of course, there are also more details that were given by Ron's mother,

Barb, last Friday, in the interview we conducted with her, and you can look that up in the archive as well at some point.

So, when you were saying you were using the Book of Mormon as a map, how could that possibly work itself out as using it as a map to survive in the wilderness?

I'm just curious about that. Well, they were to have left in a certain direction and traveled a certain number of days, and so by doing that, supposedly, we would end up where we were supposed to be.

Well, there was a movie called Highlander, and Jeff Lundgren was fascinated with that movie, and as it just would coincidentally work itself out, after the three days of traveling in a certain direction, we would end up at Highlander Hotel, or sort of a motel, in Davis, West Virginia.

Well, of course, anybody with any real sense would have to figure out that Jeff knew the place was there, and that was his destination all along, so that he could validate that it was the right spot, but at any rate, that's where we ended up staying, was at a sort of a park area there outside of Davis, West Virginia, and we were living in tents, and that let us know that we were at the right place, but at any rate, that was where things eventually just continued on.

We were sort of in a holding pattern, and it wasn't really until we migrated back to Missouri that I began to get challenged a little bit by my brother, because I was stuck in close proximity with him.

We were living in his home. Everybody sort of had to find their own places. I should say that we were living in a barn when we first got back to Missouri.

I don't mean to sound too confusing, but when we moved back, we really didn't have any place to go, and so we lived in the loft of a barn, set up camp in this man's barn in Missouri when my brother ended up finding us.

No, was that with this man's permission that you were living in his barn? Yes, we were, and we were doing chores for him there on the farm, and that was an arrangement that Jeff had made with him, and so we all ended up migrating back and basically set up camp.

Well, one day, my brother heard that there was some group that was living in this guy's barn, and so he came out that way, and we crossed paths.

Well, when that happened, then other family members immediately began to realize that we were in the area.

So now, there was a real problem for the group. Now, one reason why any cult goes out into the wilderness is so that they can separate you from the world that you've known in the past, friends, family, anyone who might challenge the ideology and the beliefs of the group, and what this did was it immediately stuck us back into an area where all those challenges would come at us at once, and that's exactly what a cult leader really wouldn't want to happen.

And so, as a result of this, well, people began to find out what kinds of practices had been taking place by Jeff.

He had begun to practice polygamy, and there's a lot of ugliness that was taking place within the group at that time as far as Jeff involved with another man's wife.

When my brother found this out, he made everyone leave the farm except for anyone who was willing to get out of the group.

And so, for me, I was allowed to stay there on the farm even though I was going to continue to remain in the group, but it did give him a chance to work on me a little bit, and that was what eventually began to sort of crack the foundation of my belief in this stuff.

Now, was your brother involved religiously in any religious group, the

RLDS or any other group? Yeah, he was just somewhat of an RLDS, but he wasn't nearly as strong in his belief in it as what

I was. He never had been, but he was getting a little bit interested in the group primarily because of some of the claims that we made, which were actually false.

But if those claims had been true, surely he would have been interested a little bit himself.

But as he began to see that it wasn't true and what was really going on and what

Jeff was doing, then he drove Jeff off the farm immediately, and the rest of the group were welcome to stay so long as they were going to break away from the group.

And this was where I just finally began to not really,

I was a long, long way from being convinced that the group had been wrong, but I did begin to question whether or not it was right.

Well, we're going to pick up where we left off there when we return from our first station break.

We are not taking listener questions today, so just please be as patient as possible as we take this commercial break.

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Allen Correctional Institution in Lima, Ohio for our guest today, Ron Luff. And for those of you who just tuned us in,

Ron Luff is a former reorganized Latter -day Saint who converted by God's grace to biblical

Christianity in prison while serving a life sentence as an accomplice to murder. And the author of the book

Faith Gone Astray, Unveiling the Kirtland Cult Murders. Today we are discussing warning signs you're in a cult from a prison inmate serving life who saw them too late.

And as I said before, we're not taking questions today from our listeners. And so perhaps you could send in questions when we have

Ron's mom back in the future or Paul Trask who published the book

Faith Gone Astray. Ron, we had reached a point in our discussion before the commercial break where your brother was trying to talk some sense into you.

He was a member of the reorganized Latter -day Saint cult, but he was not as aggressively or enthusiastically zealous as you were.

So if you want to pick up that story where you left off. Sure. Growing up as an

RLDS member, I was very much like a regular Protestant Christian in my general worldview.

And the worldview is very important here because that's really what cults are doing is they're giving you a different worldview which redefines your personal identity.

But in the RLDS faith, it had been sort of a watered -down version of Mormonism to the point that a lot of RLDS people see themselves very similar as Protestant Christians would.

The problem was is with me, I had a very deep interest in the

Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants themselves. And so there were certain passages and certain teachings in there that I just couldn't let go of.

Someone like my brother, for example, they didn't bother him in the least. And so that ultimately led to the interest that I had and the involvement in a cult when things began to turn south.

But when we ended up back at his farm, one of the first things that he did was not really intentional.

I was walking down the hallway of his home and I saw him in his bedroom and he sort of shook his head and put this piece of paper back down.

I said, well, what was that? And he says, oh, you don't want to know. And it turned out later on as I pushed him a little farther was there was a poem that I had written long before I'd ever got in the cult.

And he says, I don't know much about this chiasm stuff, but this thing looks pretty chiastic to me.

And by this time I was pretty familiar with chiastic structure. And as I looked at the poem, which

I hadn't for a long time, I'd actually repented of writing poetry because it was considered as wrong.

And so when I reread it all this time later,

I saw that if I'm going to go by a pattern, well, there's as much pattern in that poem as anything else.

And that began to make me wonder why when I offered that very same poem to Jeff Lundgren early on to see if he saw any chiasms in it, he just slept it off.

And it was at that point that I just really began to wonder whether or not there was something wrong here.

Now, of course, listeners might think that that's pretty obvious there was something wrong.

But for me, that was the initial crack in the dam, so to speak. Now, prior to that, prior to the crimes, did you have any family members and friends telling you,

Ron, you're in a crazy group, you're in a cult, you've got to get out of there? Did you hear anything like that from people that knew you?

Well, unfortunately, there wasn't. In fact, the

Lundgrens themselves, along with another family, the Patrick's, who were part of the group, and the

Avery family that was killed, they were all members of the same congregation that my sister went to.

And when I told her that I had met some of these people in Kirtland, she said, oh, they're wonderful people.

And so I had sort of an open door. I know my sister feels terrible about that now, but the point is that there weren't any warning signs from people.

And we even got letters and phone calls from people we didn't know when we moved to Kirtland saying, what's going on in Kirtland?

What's happening there? Because the church being in the state of turmoil that it was in, people were looking for anything specific that was going on.

And I'm sure that Paul has already mentioned that there were a lot of different little groups that started off during that same time period.

Ours was not the only one. I even went to the bishop for housing.

You have sort of like a diocese. In the Mormon tradition, they're called stakes. But I went to the bishop in the

Kirtland stake to see if they had in church housing something we could rent because we just moved up there.

We had no place to live. I didn't even have a job. And he was very cold. And I think that,

I don't know, somehow or another, perhaps he associated us with some of the rift that was taking place within his own home congregation at that time.

I just really don't know. But it seemed like of all the people who seemed to know so much about Lundgren, there were so many things that I never knew.

Some things I didn't even know about him until I was incarcerated already in Ohio's maximum prison down in Lucasville.

Well, of course, history tells us that those who have been involved in acts of great evil typically are people who have some kind of charm to them, something that masks their evil hearts and minds and intentions.

And therefore, that's why they lure people in. That's why serial killers very often are very successful at what they do, unfortunately.

And why people who have risen as dictators of countries, you could go into all forms and levels of evil.

And obviously, the reorganized Latter -day Saint congregations in that area, they must have thought highly, at least to a degree, of Jeff Lundgren because they had him as the tour guide in the temple.

Well, not just that. He was also teaching their adult Sunday school class at their church, and he was involved in their local church.

But he was a very good chameleon, and most of these people are. They're very good at reading people, and as they read people, they reflect back the way those people perceive themselves.

And so the side of Jeff that I saw was basically what I would expect to see from myself.

And so in that regard, there was a sense of reflecting back a kinship.

But at the same time, it wasn't that same experience, I'm sure, for everyone because different people saw different sides of Jeff, and sometimes

Jeff let a little bit of the true him slip through. And that's where things can really drive people away.

Yes, and obviously there was a point where Jeff Lundgren, the cult leader, and obviously we're discussing two cults today, even the mainline

RLDS, historically Protestant and biblically sound

Christians, would view that as a cult. But it would be obviously not to the level that Jeff Lundgren brought this group into.

The RLDS would not be a violent group. In fact, today, it was interesting that you mentioned that they were somewhat considering themselves more like mainline

Protestants or Protestant Christians. Today, the Community of Christ, as they are known, are very much like and to some degree indistinguishable from liberal mainline

Protestants. Yes, they would almost be like a Unitarian church or something.

I understand it. But as far as the group that Jeff Lundgren was overseeing, that you were a part of, did this group ever officially say, we are no longer a part of the

RLDS? Or did local congregations, local ministers, bishops, or what have you, ever say, you guys have apostatized from us, you are not teaching true, historic

RLDS doctrine, etc.? Was there any point where there was a clear, visible, recognizable split?

Yeah, there was. Actually, each one of us put in a letter to have our names removed from the church roster at one point.

And we did that as sort of an official breaking away from that church. And, you know, in the mission that we saw ourselves exclusively toward, that was something that basically everybody in the cult did.

And as far as the RLDS church, I understand definitely it's a cult.

If you look at the early history with Joseph Smith, I'd see him as a cult leader.

It gets to a point where it begins to assimilate, and then it's just the heresies that draw the real distinctions.

But, like you said, most typical LDS or community Christ wouldn't necessarily be involved.

It's unfortunate that their teachings would lead someone who actually had the audacity to believe them.

Well, now that might lead them astray. Now, did Jeff Lundgren ever adopt a new name for the group, or anything like that?

Did he ever spell out specifically, these are the new rules, this is what we are abandoning from the old group, etc.?

Well, what he did, there was no new name or anything like that. But his teaching sort of amplified things that were already there.

A lot of times cult leaders will do that. They'll take something that's vaguely mentioned, and then they'll embellish upon it.

For example, Joseph Smith himself really built an entire history about Enoch that isn't in Scripture.

And so, within Mormon theology, you've got all these extra writings to fill in the gaps that people might wonder about Enoch.

But in the Book of Mormon, there are some passages in there that just sort of mention a narrative of history, but Jeff would really heighten on those.

So, though they were in the Book of Mormon, they weren't necessarily a part that mainstream

Mormons would ever think anything about. But they became a center of our focus.

And so, the entire experience of salvation, what it meant to be redeemed, was strictly modified.

And it's in this sense that we really see a new worldview take shape.

And having a specific worldview is the way that we sort of reflect to that in our values and in the way we see our purposes and our meaning in life.

And when that begins to get changed, then our personal identity changes as well. One friend of mine that is involved with Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center, it's sort of a cold awareness facility, but he made the statement that it's identity theft in a sense.

Yeah, and people's identities become changed. And one of the things that you're going to look for is that there will be these stark changes.

There will be emotional manipulation and so forth that will take place, which sometimes won't be evident from the outside, but the person experienced it might see that and notice that they're being manipulated here.

They're not necessarily feeling anything genuine. And also, they will be sort of pushed toward believing that the group's ideology, their theological view is completely faultless in every way, can't be challenged, and is beyond reproach.

And so there's no real dialogue that can take place. And they will also be persuaded to rewrite their own personal history.

Like I said, I used to write poetry at one point, because I felt that the

Lord was just sort of stirring my heart to write these thoughts down, and they were generally just very benign kinds of expressions of Jesus' love or things of this nature.

But I had, in a sense, had to repent of those things, because God obviously couldn't have spoken through me since I wasn't speaking, or He wasn't communicating in specific kinds of language that we had to speak through.

And so language communication and this kind of manipulation is very important at this point.

Now, when you guys broke away from the mainline

RLDS through the leadership of Jeff Lundgren, did you notice anything that was intrinsically or innately violent about the teachings in this group, this schism, before the murders took place?

Well, when we first moved up to Ohio, I moved up there because I had become convinced of this form of reading, this chiastic form of reading.

And it looked to me as the means to get to the answers that I was looking for. I had no idea that there was a group, much less a cult.

And we'd attended a class, we did a second visit up to the Kirtland area, and it was in someone's home who wasn't part of any group at that point, and I don't remember who they were.

But it was just a Bible study, and Jeff was teaching that class. Now, that was one of the issues that convinced me that, okay, this is where we need to be if we're going to study this out further.

It was actually something that was going to require a geographical relocation.

I didn't have a job there. I didn't have a place to live. But I did actually make the choice, and it was a very fearful time to pack up my family and to move to Ohio.

At that point, there was no idea of violence in any of this. It wasn't part of our prior history or expectation, and it really was something that was part of the cult that we would eventually find that there was a group, and they had been meeting for a long time.

But I would not know of the violent tendencies of that for a few months into the group, even though they had already been so embedded within the teachings all through that time that some people had actually left because of it.

One member had gone back to Buffalo, New York, where he was from, because he worked in the psych ward in the

VA hospital, and he began to notice in the patients similarities to the behavior of Jeff.

Wow. Yeah, and he had been a friend of Jeff's for years and years all through the

Navy and all that, but it wasn't really until he got more involved with dealing with psychiatric patients that he began to realize that Jeff was a bit of a psychopath.

And he left the group and moved back to Buffalo, and he was actually the one who filed an initial

FBI report, which began an investigation about the same time that we moved up there.

So this violent tendency was part of Jeff, and therefore it was part of the group at some level long before I ever became aware of it, even after I myself had been involved in the group.

Well, we have to go to our midway break right now. This is the time of the show that we have a prolonged break because Grace Life Radio, 90 .1

FM in Lake City, Florida, has to localize Iron Sharpens Iron Radio according to FCC regulations to Lake City, Florida.

So they have to air their own public service announcements, and they have therefore a longer break, or have insisted that we have a longer break in the middle of our show.

So please be patient with us as we take this longer than normal break. And as I said earlier, please write down the information provided by our advertisers so that you can more frequently and successfully patronize them, so then we, subsequently, can remain on the air for a longer period of time because that will further ensure that our advertisers stick around and support us financially.

But also, write down—actually, I was just about to say write down questions. We're not taking questions today. This is one of those unusual shows where we are not taking listener questions.

But we ask you to please be patient with this longer break, and don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages with more of Ron Luff.

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Before we return to our guest today by the way, our guest today is Ron Luff, a former reorganized

Latter -day Saint who, converted by God's grace to Biblical Christianity in prison while serving a life sentence as an accomplice to murder and he is the author of the book

Faith Gone Astray Unveiling the Kirtland Cult Murders Today we are discussing the theme

Warning Signs You're an Occult From a Prison Inmate Serving Life Who Saw Them Too Late and we are conducting this interview, obviously with Ron on the phone in prison at the

Allen Correctional Institution in Lima, Ohio By the way, folks, if you want more information about the book

Faith Gone Astray by Ron Luff our guest, you can purchase that book on Amazon Faith Gone Astray, Ron's last name is

L -U -F -F -F and momentarily I will be giving you also the

Refining Fire Ministries website where you can get more information as well that is a ministry run by Paul Trask also a former reorganized

Latter -day Saint who became a Bible -believing Christian and has books by other former members in print through that ministry as well but before we return to Ron Luff I just have a couple of announcements to make regarding upcoming special events first of all, this

December, the 19th and 20th that's a Thursday and Friday I am going to be once again heading to my old stomping grounds in Manhattan the

Foundations Conference is being held there once again it's a conference orchestrated and hosted by Sermon Audio and there's no better place to be during the

Christmas season as far as I'm concerned, than in New York City I am so looking forward to my return trip there and the

Foundations Conference is always spectacular and by the way, folks, this is only for men in ministry leadership the venue is so small, they can only seat less than 200 people so they restrict attendance to men in ministry leadership so if you're in that category whether you're a pastor, a deacon, a leader in a parachurch organization you are welcome and the speakers include

Dr. Stephen J. Lawson, Paul Washer Rev. Jeff Thomas, Rev. Ormond Tomassian, Richard Colwell Jr.

and Andrew Quigley if you'd like to register, go to thefoundationsconference .com thefoundationsconference .com

or of course you could just go to that website to find out more information about the conference it's Thursday and Friday, December 19th and 20th in New York City I hope to see you there then, in January of 2020

I'm going to be packing up my bags again and this time heading down south to Atlanta, Georgia again more specifically

College Park, Georgia which is a suburb of Atlanta for the G3 Conference an absolutely remarkable conference with the longest roster of speakers and the most phenomenal speakers

I've ever seen on a roster especially this long at any conference that I've ever been to or even heard of the

G3 stands for Gospel, Grace and Glory and it will be held Thursday, January 16th through Saturday, January 18th at the

Georgia International Convention Center in College Park, Georgia the theme this January is

Worship Matters the speakers include Dr. Steven J. Lawson Josh Bice, who is the founder of the

G3 Conference my dear friend since 1995 Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries another dear friend of mine who has been interviewed on this program more than anybody else that's

Phil Johnson the Executive Director of John MacArthur's ministry grace to you my friend

Todd Friel of Richard TV and Richard Radio is also on the roster Dr. Derek Thomas who is a world -renowned

Presbyterian author and conference speaker and pastor my friend Dr. Tom Askell who

I've known for decades as well he is the Executive Director of Founders Ministries which is the

Calvinistic ministry in the Southern Baptist Convention Dr. Steven J.

Nichols the president of the Reformation Bible College the college founded by the late

R .C. Sproul and Ligonier Ministries my friend Kosti Hinn if that name

Hinn sounds familiar it's for a very bad reason most likely because Kosti is actually the nephew of the notorious charlatan

Benny Hinn and Kosti doesn't mind me saying that because Kosti says that and more himself he has repented and renounced the word of faith heresies that he was raised in he has renounced the teachings and practices of his own uncle and he is now a

Reformed Baptist pastor James White's ad that you heard before mentioned that he's pastoring in California well he's just recently accepted the call to a pastoral team at a church in Arizona that happened after James already recorded that ad for us so Kosti is a fascinating brother

I've had him on this program several times he's going to be on again shortly but he's on the roster and as you probably heard from one of the ads we previously aired

John MacArthur is the latest addition to the lineup and I would go to this conference if it was only

John MacArthur speaking he is one of my modern day heroes if you want to join me there

Thursday, January 16th through Saturday, January 18th, 2020 go to g3conference .com

g3conference .com and as I've been strongly recommending if you are a business owner or you run a parachurch organization or you have something a special event that you want to promote to a large number of Christians I would strongly urge you not only to attend the

G3 Conference but register for an exhibitor's booth just like I will be manning for my fourth year in a row and I hope that you get an exhibitor's booth near mine every time

I host an exhibitor's booth at the G3 Conference something spectacular and remarkable happens either by way of new sponsors that I've met there new guests all kinds of things have happened my addition to the lineup at Grace Life Radio in Lake City, Florida was the result of meeting the folks running that radio station 90 .1

FM in Lake City because they had their own exhibitor's booth there so I strongly urge you to register for an exhibitor's booth and one motivating factor is not only do they normally have over 5 ,000 people there every year which is a good reason on its own to have an exhibitor's booth but with John MacArthur added to the lineup

I'm strongly confident that they're going to have over 6 ,000 people so I would register as soon as you can before they run out of room for the exhibitor's booths go to g3conference .com

g3conference .com and you can register to just attend or also for an exhibitor's booth and always mention that you heard about the conference from Chris Arnzen of Iron Sharp and Zion Radio last but not least if you love this program and you don't want it to disappear from the airwaves please

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I'm sorry going by old habits we're not taking questions today for our guest Ron Luff but good to be back in our discussion

Ron is there anything else that you'd like to say to wrap up as far as warning signs that you see now in hindsight about being in a cult people who are listening who knows they may be in a cult and don't even realize it perhaps it's not as extreme as the one that Jeff Lundgren was leading the one that you were part of that resulted in tragic murders but I think obviously even the

RLDS is a cult which is a peaceful group even though they are heretical and not teaching the true gospel and so on they would not be a dangerous group but eventually a dangerous group came out of that cult but if you could wrap us up wrap up for us any signs perhaps that our listeners should be on the lookout for well mostly it just has to do with certain control factors and the way that you know any separation of individuals within a family for example people in a cult are not only isolated from those that are outside the cult but they are even isolated from one another there are certain things that you are not supposed to discuss within the group as much as things you are not supposed to discuss outside the group and so when you have this kind of severing it gets to the point where even spouses don't actually raise the concerns that might be troubling them

I know that there were concerns that I had and concerns that my wife had not necessarily so much doubt but just some things that each one of us knew that the other didn't know and we weren't really open to discuss these things and so that kind of separation and of course there is a great deal of emotional manipulation and this kind of thing and of course a sense of identity shift but unfortunately a lot of times you don't know that it's something that the outside observer would see and like for me when family members would visit my parents came up and visited us in Ohio one time and they were heartbroken had some kind of change but they didn't have a clue as to what was causing or what it was about or how to confront it and unfortunately they themselves were still immersed within the same teachings that had become sort of on steroids within the

Lundgren group so they couldn't really combat them directly the same beliefs that they held though at some level were not necessarily as intense as the way that we believed in them so it really gets back to the heresies as well and of course within a cult you've got a structure there that sort of maintains these controls it's kind of hard to really spot it you will notice the effects but most of the time if people know the effects and they know that these people's personalities are changing the way that they have viewed their relationship with God is drastically changing and they know something is wrong and then of course maybe they can find some resources for someone who knows more about it that can kind of help them out now of course biblical literacy knowing your bible is one of the best ways to realize that you are already in a cult or that may prevent you from joining one to be thoroughly intimately knowledgeable of the bible by reading it by prayerfully reading it and studying it and finding good study resources and so on and of course being in a biblically faithful church with qualified leaders and so on is also going to be invaluable because of the fact that I'm assuming and I don't know this for a fact but I'm assuming that in our day and age in the 21st century groups that we would call cults like the mainline

LDS group the larger of the Mormon groups and the RLDS as we were saying before has become nearly indistinguishable from liberal mainline protestantism and I see the

LDS heading that way as well with some of their softness that they are demonstrating towards homosexuality and so on do they necessarily in our day and age try to divide you from your family and that kind of a thing it would be more of the teaching that would be apostate and heretical and dangerous logically and spiritually than the actual mind control or micro management of the leaders in your life would

I be right in that? yeah yeah that's exactly the difference right there and some of these will still shun you that's one of the things that think is very important and I think that is very important and think important and I think that is important you have actually reached a point in prison where you have earned your doctorate utterly fascinated and utterly envious about that part of that process so if you could give us an we think the really nice part about the story.

I mean, there really is good news. And for me, I made the decision to leave the group and call

Jeff and told him that I was not going to be able to go any farther. I almost did it apologetically because all

I knew was that God had gotten so ugly I just couldn't go forward any farther. And so I got out on December 4, 1989.

Well, one month later on January 4, I walked into the federal building in Kansas City and turned myself in and made a full confession and all of this.

And so by doing this, that month period, I was extremely confused.

And of course, it got to the point where I just really needed to take responsibility for this.

My conscience, in a sense, began to wake up. Well, of course, this led to my arrest. And it was in the county jail in an isolation cell where I had sort of a new software, in a sense.

I mean, I began to see a totally different view than I'd ever had of God. I'd always had a strong passion for Jesus and a strong passion for God, but my perspective on that was totally wrong.

And I was looking for something that really wasn't there. Well, when I ended up in Lake County, eventually

I had to get extradited from Kansas City and they took me up to Ohio. And I was in an isolation there for about five months, isolation cell by myself.

The light never really went completely out. And so for 24 hours a day, I was in this room with nothing but a few books, primarily my

Mormon -based books. But what I had done is I decided that I just needed to start over.

So I took everything that I thought I knew about God and put it off to the side and took this handout paperback

Bible that a volunteer chaplain gave me there. And I read through that book twice during that five -and -a -half months.

And in that, I saw that the Book of Mormon is not another testimony of Jesus Christ at all.

It's a very different book. And I began to understand what the biblical message really said about Jesus Christ.

And it was profound to me in a sense that there was no way of going back to that before.

And I began to realize right there what the Book of Mormon really attempted to do was to put new wine in an old bottle.

And it was trying to steer the reader's eyes back to an old covenant form of practice of the new covenant.

And that is one of the things that I find most repugnant about any view of Christ that does that.

Well, what were some of the apologetics or theological tools that you also discovered that helped you along the way and even gave you an interest that actually came to fruition of earning your doctorate there?

Well, I had to go back and then I took some courses, first of all, through a school out in Maryland and ended up with an associate's degree.

And then later on, I took a course through Colorado Patriot Bible University.

And it was just a correspondence school that had a doctor of ministry degree. And in that,

I was able to go ahead and finish off a bachelor's. And I primarily tested through the bachelor's based upon what

I already had in terms of my own study through the years. And then went on and finished a master's and a doctorate after that.

And so I had to get into several different systematic theologies. And apologetics became a major focus of mine, both the physical evidences as well as the philosophical evidences and the theological ones.

And that's where Ravi Zacharias is one of my heroes today because he's just so deep in his understanding of the philosophical principles that are tied into theology.

And that's an area that I just really find great enjoyment. And of course, you have to have some foundation in theology to know what that means.

But at any rate, for me, I'm sort of captive to leisure here. So I have the time and the motivation.

And so for me, it's an opportunity to either be a prisoner or a monastery, and I choose the latter.

Yes, well, Ravi Zacharias, by the way, has been a guest on this program and has written a really wonderful commendation for this show.

In fact, he wrote one of my favorite phrases in his description of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

He said, Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is both blunt and sharp at the same time. And I've also interviewed one of his daughters, who's an author.

And my friend, Dan Buttafuoco, attorney at law, who runs the Historical Bibles Society, is a friend of Ravi's.

And Ravi wrote the foreword to his own book that Dan Buttafuoco wrote. But I will make sure that they get, both

Ravi and my friend and sponsor Dan Buttafuoco, get a copy of this recording of the interview.

I happen to be a theologically reformed guy, a Calvinist, unlike Ravi, but I still appreciate those outside of my camp.

Do you have permission to receive books and things like that in the mail there at the prison?

If they come directly from the ministry, yes, that's fine. Oh, great. I'm of a reformed theology myself, so we're sort of in a similar company there.

Oh, praise God. Now, how did you discover and embrace reformed theology? How did that happen?

Well, for me, it was through reading a lot of R .C. Sproul's works and some of the other reformers.

But that's where I just, to me, I believe in the sovereignty of Christ. And so there's just sort of some logical connections for me.

That was primarily the deal for me. Logic is a big part of it for me because certain things just have to measure up and be true according to the sequence of things.

And well, I suppose that probably doesn't mean much to most people. But for me, that was sort of a conclusion as I read along with R .C.

Sproul and some of his pieces. But nothing in particular, no particular author stood out for that.

That was just sort of a thing that I maybe have gleaned from the past. Yeah, R .C. Sproul is one of my modern -day heroes, and I also had the privilege to interview him on the show.

And he also wrote an absolutely phenomenal commendation for this program years before he went home to be with the

Lord. And I've interviewed Chris Larson, who's the president of Ligonier Ministries and other folks connected with that ministry.

And of course, my very good friend since 1995, Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries has been an extremely strong influence on my life and theology and thinking.

And I would love to get some books out to you by Dr. White. I don't know if you're familiar with him, but I think that you would just absolutely fall in love with his writing.

Oh, excellent. Thank you. And if you could, give us some kind of an update on everyone else that was involved in Jeff Lundgren's cult.

I understand from your mother that Jeff Lundgren was executed by lethal injection. And what about the other members of the cult?

Are they still in prison and so on? Well, yeah, Jeff was executed in 2006.

Danny Craft and Jeff Lundgren's son, Damon, are both at Mansfield Correctional.

And Alice Lundgren is still at Marysville, I believe. Those are the only four of us that are still remaining incarcerated.

Everyone else has been released. And quite frankly,

I don't know what's going on in most of their lives. I know that Richard Brand and Greg Winship were both here at one time, and so they've got contacts up here from time to time that they stay in touch with.

But they've been out for at least 10 years now, and seem to be, well, pretty close to 10 years,

I suppose, and seem to be doing quite well. Do you know any of the others?

Do you know where they are spiritually? Have any of them also, by God's mercy, become born -again believers, such as you?

I don't know that any of them have looked back at the experience and learned the same as I have in terms of what it was that we were really part of and how it worked.

And also, as far as where they are now, I couldn't begin to say. Some, I'm afraid, have kind of gone back to something similar, perhaps, but I don't really know because I don't have that much contact with any of them.

And some, I'm afraid, also may have just sort of put God on the back burner somewhere and have lost the passion that they once had.

And so I just really don't know. They haven't stayed in touch, and I couldn't say really where they're at now.

And your ex -wife, I understand, has returned to some branch of the

RLDS, perhaps more of a fundamentalist wing of it? Yeah, there was several groups called

Restoration Branches that broke off when, in 1984, when things sort of went into a divide within the

Organizational Church. And her dad actually ran one of those congregations in his home.

And I think that's where she worships now or whatever remains of it because, you know, we're all getting a lot older now.

And so I don't know exactly where she's at with that, but that was sort of her support system while she was incarcerated.

She was incarcerated for 20 years, and then when she was released, that's where she went back to. And how about your kids?

Well, they were raised by my in -laws at the time, and so they were raised up in that same setting.

So you don't know of any rebirth as far as any discovery of true Christianity among your children yet?

No. My son kind of reached across the divide at one point, made contact with family members, and I was able to even talk to him on the phone at one point.

But that communication didn't continue, and it's very—the pull,

I guess, whatever the draw that they might have on my kids has seemed to remain into adulthood.

I'd kind of hoped that when they reached adulthood that they might begin to question something about their dad and want to know me, but so far that hasn't yet transpired.

Now, just out of curiosity, since you were only an accomplice to the murder, are you eligible at any point for parole?

I have a parole date, but it's not reachable. I had 170 years to life, which gave me a parole eligibility of 158 years.

So though I have a date, it's not one that I can live long enough to ever see.

Now, as a Christian serving life in prison, what can you tell us about opportunities for spreading the gospel that our

Lord has providentially opened up for you while you're there? Well, see, that's probably why it's difficult for me to hold a conversation with you on some of these different authors, because we have a variety of different resources here, but there are so many different beliefs.

One of the things I've heard from chaplains from time to time is every kind of religious belief under the sun seems to be resident within this fence line, and it's true.

And so what you're dealing with in here is a very thick mixture of any number of kinds of beliefs, whether it's

Satanism or Paganism or anything else, and the

Christian faith is, to me, the only answer for mankind, period. It's our ethical basis for everything that we can believe and how we move forward in life.

And so that's kind of the area where I challenge these things, and at the end of the day, we always have to remember that it really is the scripture itself that converts the person.

We don't do a thing other than deliver it. Yes, amen. And when we come back from our final break, which will be much more brief than our last break,

I'd like you to perhaps convey some experiences that you've had as a with fellow inmates and so on, and perhaps with the chaplain and the worship services there.

So folks, don't go away. We're going to be right back with the conclusion of our interview today with Ron Luff, and we'll be back right after these messages.

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This is Chris Arnzen, and this is the conclusion of our interview today with Ron Luff, a former reorganized

Latter -day Saint who converted by God's grace to biblical Christianity in prison while serving a life sentence as an accomplice to murder, and he's the author of the

The Kirtland Cult Murders. We have been discussing warning signs you're in a cult, and by the way, the ministry to find out more about the book that Ron has written,

Faith Gone Astray, is Refiners Fire Ministries. I think I mistakenly called it

Refining Fire Ministries before, but it's Refiners Fire Ministries, and the website is help4rlds .com.

help4rlds .com. Before we go, I want to make sure you could share with us, Ron, any of the experiences that you've had.

Have you led anyone to Christ by God's grace in prison, and any kind of other interaction that you've had with fellow inmates as an ambassador for Christ behind bars?

Oh, sure. There's always opportunity, and I was really involved for a long time.

I was involved in a ministry. Kairos is an organization that brings in, basically, the experience of the banquet.

It brings in the love of Christ, and so a lot of guys will go there admitting they're only there for the food and the cookies or whatever else, but they end up with something very drastic happening in their lives, and that's a real pleasure to experience and to watch.

Also, of course, there's just a lot of one -on -one time with people in conversation, and then, of course, the input in different Bible studies.

A lot of people will come in from the streets, and ministries will come in and conduct

Bible studies, and so I always find one or two that I can sit in on and that I can have good input to.

Of course, too, there were some guys that were more interested in their theological studies, and they wanted to take some

Greek, and so I was able to help with some of that. We had a Greek course here, and going through New Testament Greek and teaching guys how to read from the text.

Praise God. Praise God. There's just a number of different opportunities, and it's always fervent ground effect over the chapel as you leave, walking out of the chapel as you're entering the mission field, and that's really where it's at, is out on the compound.

Amen. If some of our listeners listening, obviously that was a redundancy, listeners listening, if some of the folks in our audience want to write letters to you, is that acceptable?

Sure, yeah. Okay. Well, they can email me for all of that information, chrisarnsen at gmail .com,

what are some of your prayer requests? Well, my prayer requests have for a long time been for my ex -wife and my two children.

I pray for them every day, and of course there's so many others out there and some of the people that I know that have gone home from prison, and so I keep them in my prayers, but specifically for my ex -wife and my kids.

Well, I will definitely do that myself, and I will spread the word about that, and hopefully our listeners will as well.

This is, I think, evidence of the really invaluable need that we have as a church to have more prison ministries, more

Christians entering into the prison to bring the good news of Jesus Christ, but also to show the brotherly affection and love to those prison inmates who have become

Christians behind bars. So, if you could, just if you want to give any kind of an appeal in that regard about prison ministries?

Well, prison ministries itself with Chuck Colson's organization was one of the main spearheads right now.

You know, we used to have Chaplain Ray books and this kind of thing, and a lot of those ministries, you know, have just gotten so old, and Chaplain Ray has been long gone, but with Chuck Colson's organization, of course, he's now passed, but his ministry continues to go on, and so that with Kairos and some of the others.

Kairos is a great way for people who don't really know anything about the prison environment to be able to volunteer and come in and do ministry at times.

A lot of times, just your local, if there is a local prison somewhere nearby, then people can volunteer to do some of that kind of work, and then, of course, there's other needs, but that's primarily what

I would say, and then, of course, it's always a, it can be a very fruitful field. I mean, people aren't lost when they end up in prison necessarily.

A lot of times, you know, the greatest change happens in here. Amen. Love that great exchange.

Our sins being imputed to Christ on Calvary, and His righteousness being imputed to us who believe upon Him by God's mercy.

Yeah, I was going to say, go ahead. No, no, you go ahead.

Well, I just do believe that the churches really do need, there's a lot of church activity that comes into the prisons, but I do believe that that's very much of a necessity with the

Christian faith, because I don't see any other hope for really change lives other than through Christ.

I mean, that's really, the Christian faith is unique above all others, and one thing I've done is I've looked at a lot of different religious beliefs over the years, and to me, it is truly the faith that offers what is the cure for mankind or for our society, and I don't see any other way.

Nope, there is no other way. Well, thank you so much, Ron. You have been a wonderful guest.

I look forward to having you back on this program in the future, as long as the Lord will allow, and you are agreeable.

We would love to have you back. I want to remind our listeners, if you want to find out more information about Ron's book,

Faith Gone Astray, and unveiling the Kirtland Cult Murders as the subtitle, you can go to help4rlds .com,

help, the number 4, rlds .com. Thank you so much, Ron, and if you could stay on the line, I'd like to give you a proper goodbye off the air.

Wow, thank you. And I want to remind all of our listeners, please always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater