Swindled by Faith: A Time For Reconciliation

Richard Kiers is a survivor of a mind controlling cult referred to as "The Move", founded by Sam Fife, in the 1960's, this repressive cult grew to hold approximately 44,000 members at its peak.

Richard tells his story in a unique style, memories and thoughts throughout his younger years are articulated in a way that draws you into his life, paints a picture, and leaves you feeling as though you may have walked this road with him.

I encourage everyone to read this work, understand the heartache and long term pain survivors feel. Learn how to recognize a repressive cult, and help stop others from suffering the long term repercussions of such a cult.

Richard is a man who has faced his past, he has reconciled with those who have affected his life negatively, and he has above all, learned to forgive.

You are invited to take this journey, you won't regret it!

A competent, and highly motivational speaker, Richard is available for public speaking engagements throughout the USA and Canada.

https://www.amazon.ca/Swindled-Faith-Reconciliation-Richard-Kiers/dp/0228815088

Sam Fife's Move of God

Vennie Kocsis:

A History of Sam Fife's Move of God Cult.

Glori L. Stiner:

Describes her abusive childhood and the doctrines of Sam Fife's Move of God (PDF)

Videos: Move Forward First Annual Conference August 14-15 2014
Fairbanks, Alaska.

Glori L. Stiner

One Survivor Among Many

Vennie Kocsis, author of "Cult Child, shares her story of survival from the cult, Sam Fife's the Move of God. Her novelized memoir, "Cult Child", is available at her website, venniekocsis.com and Amazon.com

CultNEWS101: Move of God Article Collection

Publications related to Move of God - adapted from Counter Cult Coalition.

Books and Articles

The Move is On, Cara Lewis, 2016

Monster under the Bed, Richard Kiers, 2008

To the Wilderness and Back, Sheryl Leonard, 2005

Wilderness Blues, T.B. Botts, 2007

Cult Child, Vennie Kocsis, 2014
The Still Before Dawn, Suzanne McConnell, 2013

Immortalization: Sam Fife, Albert James Dager, 2005?

Memorial to My Sister Mindy, Kendall, Child, Inc., 2001

Excerpt from Wilderness Blues;
Alaska Attracks all manner of people, adventureres, nature loves, entrepreneurs and criminals. It also appeals to those who are trying to escape the influences of the modern world. This book is about such a group and the hardships they faced as they tried to carve out a life in the wilderness, all under the teachings of a self-proclaimed prophet. Grandmothers and babies, musicians, a banker, a baby food  salesman and others all worked together to create a home in the last frontier. When Mother Nature and human nature collide, the results can be volatile. This is one man's perspective of life on an end-time farm.

Video

Survivor Voices Series, http://wikibit.me/video/W6STU4wSwDM, February 2018

Last Day at the Farm, Jane Robbin; http://wikibit.me/video/j7KcRuFXz5Y,  August 2012

One Survivor Among Many, Suzanne McConnell;  http://wikibit.me/video/DsCOmcE6Tbo, January 2014

Interview for Move Forward, Angie Kocsis; http://wikibit.me/video/fgpkSWjeBDs,  January 2014

Saved by His Life 1 of 8, Buddy Cobb, Move of God Bowen’s Mill Convention, July 2008

Saved by His Life 7 of 8, Buddy Cobb, Bowen’s Mill Convention, July 2008

Booklets and Official Letters

Letter to the Father Ministry, extensive documentation of illegal activities by leaders to the top brass.

Unmasking the Move, a booklet examining the Move's teachings and beliefs, Johhny Enlow, 1986

Cultnews101 Move of God Collection

View Collection
https://www.cultnews101.com/search/label/Move%20of%20God

Review, Garst Women vs. Religion: The Case Against Faith and for Freedom

Lisa Kendall

Lisa Kendall grew up in the Move of God, leaving at 19 years of age. You can learn about her experience and perspective at Counter Cult Coalition on Facebook. She is writing a memoir about her crazy family and bizarre upbringing called No Place Like Home. 

Purchase on Amazon

Karen Garst has edited another excellent anthology of thoroughly researched essays. Garst’s first book, Women Beyond Belief, is a popular collection of autobiographical essays exploring the experiences of women who have left religion. 

This time, Garst explores the three principle Abrahamic religions, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity with the help of a diverse group of women raised on different continents, in different religions, and speaking different mother tongues. The variety of issues explored are expansive; psychological harm, shame over the female reproductive system, lack of autonomy, evolution, rejection of science, finding community outside religion, secular healers, and treating mental illness- to name a few. 

Garst fearlessly takes on the church’s long history of denying women. The essays in her book explore the extensive oppression of half of their members, keeping them from living as fully developed people. These determined women provide a lens through which we can better contemplate how our own brand of religion limited self-determination and hobbled personal development.  

Garst’s strong suit is analyzing complex systems with an eye to their historic, and even prehistoric roots. Extensive research coupled with thoughtful contemplation allow her to penetrate the tangle of religious leaders’ motivations and consequences for women. Her relatively positive experience in a Midwestern Lutheran church community allows her to penetrate concepts too often clouded by emotion. 

Garst has a knack for illuminating the busy intersection of adherence to dogma and freedom from religion. Her work serves as a guide for people, men and women, sorting out their relationship to the flavor of mythology they learned as children. For many, her work leads to insights that allow for healing and independence. 

Candace Gorham provides the first essay which opens with the stark biblical verse of Jeremiah 8:15, “We look for peace, but find no good, for a time of healing, but find terror instead.” Guilt, Shame, and Psychological Pain is a brilliant exploration of the suffering caused by blindly following one’s faith and church leaders entrusted to provide guidance on one’s path. 

The discussion of guilt and shame offers a path to emotional freedom while piercing the paper tiger that facilitates manipulation by too many religious traditions.

Gorham’s section on religion and mental health therapy reveals how indoctrination of mythology permeates one’s interaction even unintentionally. This essay could provide churches with a road map of how not to do harm to women and children, the most oppressed heteros in most churches. 

“Countless women have been compelled to continue life as usual with lovers, ministers, fathers, uncles, brothers, coworkers, and caregivers who have sexually violated them. 

I’ve collected dozens of stories from women who never revealed their experience specifically because the guilt they felt came from their beliefs about god’s expectations. What a powerful degree of shame and self-blame it must be to keep a victim of such a traumatic experience silent! It is a degree exponentially multiplied under the incalculable influence of religious misogyny and hegemony.”

With her turn at the pen, Valerie Tarico takes on more abstract ideas about ownership in her Owned: Slaves, Women, Children, and Livestock. Her penetrating analysis of biblical support for slavery and the subjugation of women explores the various forms of ownership inherent in the patriarchal structures laid out in the old testament-beyond the explicit approval of slavery.

“Throughout the...Bible, God does what he wants to the creatures he has created: blessing, deceiving, selectively favoring, infecting, healing, rescuing, pitting one against another, burning or drowning en masse...you name it. They belong to him, so normal moral constraints don’t apply. The fact that they have minds and preferences of their own—the fact that they can feel pain or love or can yearn for life—doesn’t really matter in the moral calculus. They are his; he can do what he wants.”

Tarico provides a fresh voice in the current discussion of the residual effects of ancient ownership on contemporary American culture;

“Women will be saved by going back to that role that God has chosen for them.Ladies, if the hair on the back of your neck stands up it is because you are fighting your role in the scripture.”  —Mark Driscoll, founder of Mars Hill nondenominational megachurch franchise (1970–)

Driscoll, a popular evangelical speaker and author..., likes to remind people that every book in the Bible was written by a man. He sees that as confirmation that God wants men in charge, communicating his will to the rest of us.”

We hear the bible’s echo in Tarico’s clear explanations of current customs in some corners of Evangelical networks;

“The echoes of chattel culture couldn’t be clearer: These girls explicitly pledge their reproductive tracts to their fathers who will then give them to a mutually-agreeable young man.”
“Fetal personhood laws are legal sleight of hand intended to ensure that the rights of actual persons don’t interfere with the hierarchy of God and man over woman and child.”

The beautifully written essays in her latest book are a must for those interested in how religion impacts individuals, families, and communities. The extensive documentation provides an excellent resource for those interested in world history- and even her story. 

Cult Child

Free today - January 20, 2017!

Free download of "Cult Child" free until midnight tonight.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016L2HE8G

Angie "Vennie" Kocsis is a writer, poet, artist and nu-folk singer. She draws her inspiration not only from the world around her, but from her unique experiences as an abused child in the 70's and 80's growing up on a religious cult, Sam Fife's "Move of God". After leaving the cult, Vennie went on to study creative writing, art and music, and through these outlets found healing and balance in her adult life. Her passion is centered around supporting creative outlets for survivors of religious abuse by providing them with a tangible way to transfer their pain to a creative medium. Vennie's Books on http://amazon.com "Cult Child" View the book trailer at: http://cultchild.com "Dusted Shelves;memoir of a cult child" "Becoming Gratitude" Vennie resides in Tacoma, WA where she is currently working on her a second novel as well as other varying creative projects. To learn more about Vennie's work visit http://venniekocsis.com