Apr 29, 2021

CultNEWS101 Articles: 4/29/2021

Children of God, #IGOTOUT, Ole Anthony, Nityanand, Danny Masterson
  
NPR: After Growing Up In A Cult, Lauren Hough Freed Herself By Writing The Truth
"Writer Lauren Hough grew up in a nomadic doomsday Christian cult called the Children of God. She says she remembers being taught animals could talk to Noah — that's how he was able to get them on to the ark — and that heaven was located in a pyramid in the moon.

"I had problems with [the teachings] pretty early on, but I couldn't express those," she says. "Probably the earliest thing I learned is just keep your mouth shut — and I couldn't, which was a problem."

Hough tells of how she was put in solitary confinement as a kid and suffered rampant sexual abuse from adults in the "Family," as the cult was known (it's gone through several iterations and is now called the Family International). When Hough was 15, her family left the cult for good — but she struggled to connect with other children. She joined the military, but she didn't fit there either: Hough is gay — and it was the 1990s, during the era of "don't ask, don't tell."

Hough asked for, and received, a discharge from the Air Force, but things didn't get any easier. She became homeless and lived in her car. Eventually she took on a number of jobs, including as a bouncer in a gay club and as a "cable guy" — and she began writing as a way of sorting out her feelings about the past."

Washington Post: Ole Anthony, longtime critic of prosperity gospel televangelists and head of Trinity Foundation, dies at 82
"Ole Anthony, a small-church pastor and activist who spent years investigating the lifestyles of rich and famous televangelists such as Robert Tilton, Benny Hinn and Jan and Paul Crouch, died Friday (April 16) at the age of 82.

Anthony, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2017, was the longtime president of the Dallas-based Trinity Foundation Inc., a nonprofit that helped the homeless, ran a radio show, held Bible studies and eventually spent years investigating televangelists.

He was an advocate of "full contact Christianity," a form of the faith that, he explained, went beyond church "niceness" and focused on a high level of commitment to following the teachings of Jesus. The foundation was named in the 1970s after the Trinity nuclear test site in New Mexico, and hoped to set off an "explosion of faith."

"Anthony appeared more like an Old Testament prophet than a modern preacher," according to an obituary posted on the Trinity Foundation website. "He could most often be found sitting on his back porch, swathed in tobacco smoke from his ubiquitous pipe."

Anthony came to fame in the early 1990s, after the Trinity Foundation's investigation of Tilton's direct mail operation was featured on ABC's "Primetime Live" broadcast. During the investigation, Anthony visited a Tulsa, Oklahoma, direct mail firm that had helped Tilton raise millions. The firm's president offered to help Anthony do the same, according to the Tulsa World at the time.

The Trinity Foundation also claimed Tilton's direct mail operation kept the checks from donors but threw their prayer requests in the trash — a claim the ministry disputed. Anthony also appeared on the program, lambasting Tilton as someone who misused religion for profit.

"It was awesome," Anthony told the Dallas Observer in 2006. "The one aspect of the program that everybody remembers is when Tilton crossed over the sleaze line. They remember the prayer requests in the trash. A producer at ABC told me it was the No. 1 topic on talk radio for weeks."

Anthony would spend three decades investigating televangelists and even ended up advising a U.S. Senate committee that looked into the finances of high-profile televangelists. His followers would climb through dumpsters, comb mountains of documents and interview whistleblowers in a relentless crusade against what Anthony saw as religious fraud. For a time, the Trinity Foundation also ran The Door, a satirical Christian magazine.

Anthony and the Trinity Foundation also spent years investigating the Crouches, whose long tenure at the helm of the Trinity Broadcasting Network was filled with controversy over their wealth.

"Paul Crouch at TBN is the greatest proponent of the oldest heresy in the church — that gain is godliness," Anthony said in 2013. "All of the heresy connected with that position is what they're based on and the problem is they've spread that all over the world."

His hard-charging style made enemies, among both the televangelists he hounded and some of his own followers. A number of former members claimed the Trinity Foundation was a "cult of personality" dominated by Anthony.

"Some former members blame Trinity for the breakup of marriages. Several members, they say, have had nervous breakdowns," the Observer reported in 2006 in a feature titled "The Cult of Ole," which also reported three members of his team killed themselves.

"Many of the men and women attracted to Trinity are people who've come to the end of their abilities and want to throw everything at the feet of God," the paper said.
"DirectorMadan Patel has a very important agenda in mind. The filmmaker has announcedfour films recently but the one garnering most of his attention is the one about Nityanand sex scandal.
The director counts the film as one of his most ambitious projects. Patel has titled the film as 'Satyananda' and claims that it is the true story of Nityanand.Though based on a controversial topic, Patel is least bothered about facing flakand objections.

He declares, "I don't care about any pressures and I will showcase the ills of a particular Swamiji." Patel isupset that the entire Swamiji fraternity has got a bad name due to the offensive activities of Nityanand."

"Danny Masterson isn't ready to defend himself against charges of rape — and he's blaming Leah Remini.

Masterson filed papers in Los Angeles this week alleging that Remini's well-documented campaign against The Church of Scientology is extending to his court case. According to TMZ, which obtained the documents, Masterson, 45, is claiming Remini pushed for the three women — all Jane Does — in his case to make reports to the Los Angeles Police Department, with two of them only coming out with their allegations after being urged to by Remini.

Masterson's papers hold that Remini's celebrity has prosecution "starstruck" and further alleges that she has a close relationship with LAPD detectives, "even using them as her personal security," per TMZ."

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