In the name of God? The secretive Christian sect under FBI investigation

A shadowy Christian sect known as the Two by Twos (2x2s) — also called The Truth, The Way, or the No-Name Church — is at the center of a shocking global child sexual abuse scandal. A Daily Maverick investigation reveals that South African members have also come forward with disturbing allegations. The FBI and SAPS have confirmed an active investigation into historic sexual abuse within the church. Marianne Thamm explains. 

Reporting by: Marianne Thamm & Jeannette Wang

Edited by: Malibongwe Tyilo

Filmed by: Bernard Kotze & Joel Seboa

Produced by: Emilie Gambade

Sub-edited by: Ian Wolstenholme

Marianne Thamm is a South African journalist, author and stand-up comedian. She is the assistant editor of the Daily Maverick and has written several books. In 2016, she released the memoir, Hitler, Verwoerd, Mandela and me.

Read the full story on Daily Maverick: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025-06-22-saps-and-fbi-investigate-child-sexual-abuse-by-secretive-two-by-twos-christian-cult/

Ex-2x2 Stories of Deconstruction

Beyond Religion with Meliesa Tigard

Beyond Religion

June 27, 2025

Meliesa takes us on a journey through her experience growing up in the 2x2s, and into her experience as a worker for a short time. Her experiences led her down a winding path from the 2x2 version of Christianity, to new age spirituality, and ultimately embracing the unknown.

Meliesa has written a book that allegorizes her 2x2 experience, which I highly recommend. "Little Mouse and the Purple Door" can be found on Amazon here: https://a.co/d/3AkeImr

CultNEWS101 Articles: 6/27/2025 (Shunning, Jehovah's Witnesses, Norway, Book, MISA, 2x2)

Shunning, Jehovah's Witnesses, Norway, Book, MISA, 2X2

Stop Mandated Shunning: What next in Norway? An interview with Jan Frode Nilsen

" ... Jan Frode Nilsen [offers] an insightful update on the evolving situation in Norway. Jan shares why he remains optimistic that mandated shunning by Jehovah's Witnesses will eventually be consigned to history. He also offers thoughtful guidance on the journey from victim to survival—and ultimately, to thriving after leaving Jehovah's Witnesses."

Freedoms Embrace

"This is a true account about a couple who met and fell in love while being members of the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society. Jehovah's Witnesses. Both born into the religion in separate geographical areas. As children they grew up within this secretive and highly controlled environment. From babies they were repetitively taught that they, "were no part of the world". The world outside of their true religion was evil and controlled by Satan himself and it was imperative to remain vigilant from Satan and his demons as he looks to entice you from the Organisation and into his world that leads to total destruction.

Marc and Cora were both divorced. Marc had left the religion at 15 and joined the forces. Partly to escape his abusive alcoholic Jehovah's Witness father. Cora remained inside the religion and was eventually married at 20 to a man whose father was a Presiding Overseer within their congregation. A powerful senior position locally and closely connected to the policing and rigid controls at the behest of the hierarchy in London and the USA HeadQuarters.

Cora's divorce did not meet the religions scriptural requirements, this led the hierarchy to decree that she was no longer free to marry anyone else. To go against this decree and marry again would lead to a world of patriarchal judgments, punishment and eventual shunning from all she knew and loved. The risks were very high when she met Marc who moved into the congregation and was trying to repent and be accepted back within the fold. The very close observations placed on Marc because of his past were very real, surrounded in suspicion and mistrust of him. Cora too was under strict control and scrutiny by the elders of her congregation. Marc had a long way to go before being accepted back as a fully fledged Jehovah's Witness. The story goes on to tell how they eventually take risks to court each other, fall in love, then marry against the will of the whole community and the pain they experienced for three years as a result.

This is a story about Love, fear, control, punishment, endurance and learning to rely on each other. The story covers other characters whose names have all been changed, who tried their very best to cause as much harm as possible to Marc and Cora. They are both eventually disfellowshipped (banished) from the religion. No one is allowed to talk to them again, they are dead in the eyes of all Jehovah's Witnesses. From this point onwards they are determined to prove Cora was free to marry all along and so they go to every meeting at the Kingdom Hall with their two youngest children for three years while being shunned slandered and hated and without a single word being said to them in the Kingdom Hall (church). The story eventually vindicates their marital position, where more lies are exposed about how the elders held back vital information from the couple. After three long enduring years they are reinstated and everyone loves them again. But for Marc and Cora they are totally burnt with the experience and plan their resignation from the religion for good. Leaving behind family and their childhood indoctrination. After much intensive research of the religion that had controlled their lives for so long they decided to become activists and are known worldwide for their work in supporting other JWs who are in trouble with the organisation. The work has led to many true friends being made around the world and in some cases led to suicide prevention."

ExMISA: Bivolaru is hidden behind the panties of "sacred eroticism"

LAURA MCCONNELL: Doesn't she know the baby is teething?

" ... I've written and spoken on violence within Truth 2x2 and fundamentalist (mainly rural) communities for a while now, predominantly in women's magazines. Every time I've published a piece; I've carefully crafted around disclosing too much of my own story. Underpinning my writing on violence in these communities is a very real, lived experience.

If you've been around here awhile, you'll know I was trying to protect my own family. I know the experiences the women in my family survived. I have a deep respect and understanding that their lives were difficult. I have never wanted to cause more harm or distress by naming what they've done to contribute to violence.

However, this piece is to say: I'm done. I want to talk specifics about the violence.

I grew up surrounded by violence, coercion and abuse. Some of it was perpetrated by women. That is a difficult and extremely nuanced conversation in a culture where men perpetrate the majority of violence, and where the manosphere likes to accuse women of equal levels of violence as a deflection technique. I want to be clear here – my talking about women who abuse should not be used to deflect from the very real issue of men's use of violence.

What I'm writing on here is nuanced – these women are abusing in the context of high control, high demand, cult communities. These communities allow (encourage in my opinion) women to use violence on their children.

Violence and abuse by the women in my family still flares up in my life. Often after I've had something published in mainstream media, one or more of them will reach out in email or via DM's on social media, with paragraphs of vitriolic hate mail. Right now there is content galore to flare them up – a Decult documentary released which includes me. A Victorian inquiry into cults and fringe groups, which I'm playing an active part in. They can find information about me and my work unsolicited in their social media feeds, and it's quite upsetting for them, it seems.

What they could do is be proud when this information about me crosses their paths. They could think 'How amazing is it that one of OUR OWN is breaking intergenerational cycles?'

Instead they lash out."

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery

CultMediation.com   

Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.

CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.

CultNEWS101.com news, links, resources about: cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations, and related topics.

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CultNEWS101 Articles: 2/6/2025 (Two by Twos, The Truth, Scientology, CVLT, Zizians)

Two by Twos, The Truth, Scientology, CVLT, Zizians

RNS: Two by Twos: Kiwis who left sect being probed by FBI form support group

"New Zealand leavers of a secretive sect the FBI is investigating for historical child sexual abuse have formed the first support network for former members in this country.

They said recent publicity has helped lift the lid on the high-control religious group that has no official name or church buildings - weekly meetings are held in members' homes.

The group has many markers of a cult and is known to those who leave as the Two by Twos or The Truth.

Tristan Phipps grew up in the sect and left as a young adult more than a decade ago because he didn't believe in its teaching - including that people outside the group go to hell.

"Things just don't start to match up, you feel very lost and you get to a point where it sounds like a load of rubbish. It's very complex but also very simple at the same time."

It was a lonely time because so few people knew about the group or understood his experience.

He has helped establish the support network for leavers and says there are already 100 people connected online."

The Shrinking World of L Ron Hubbard

"Remastered from the best available source, this amazing show was produced by Charlie Nairn who tracked down Hubbard and approached him to do an interview.  Hubbard agreed, not knowing what how aggressive Nairn could be.  A true classic and a rare chance to see Hubbard when he was not in full control of his message."

Department of Justice: Four Members of Online Neo-Nazi Group that Exploited Minors Charged with Producing Child Sexual Abuse Material

"Two men were arrested today on charges of participating in a neo-Nazi child exploitation enterprise that groomed and then coerced minors to produce child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and images of self-harm. The group allegedly victimized at least 16 minors around the world, including two in Southern California.

Colin John Thomas Walker, 23, of Bridgeton, New Jersey, and Clint Jordan Lopaka Nahooikaika Borge, 41, of Pahoa, Hawaii, were arrested this morning pursuant to a grand jury indictment that charges them with one count of engaging in a child exploitation enterprise. They are expected to make their initial appearances in court later today in New Jersey and Hawaii.

The indictment also charges two other defendants who are already in custody: Rohan Sandeep Rane, 28, of Antibes, France, and Kaleb Christopher Merritt, 24, of Spring, Texas. The indictment returned by a grand jury on Jan. 17 and unsealed today, also charges Rane and Walker with one count of engaging in a child exploitation enterprise.

According to the indictment, from at least 2019 to 2022, Rane, Walker, Merritt, and Borge were members of CVLT (pronounced "cult"), an online group that espoused neo-Nazism, nihilism, and pedophilia as its core principles. Members of the international enterprise engaged in online child sexual exploitation offenses and trafficked CSAM. Rane, Walker, and Merritt acted as leaders and administrators in the CVLT enterprise, hosting and running CVLT online servers and controlling membership for the group.

CVLT members worked collectively to entice and coerce children to self-produce CSAM on a platform run by CVLT members where they groomed children for the eventual production of CSAM through various means of degradation, including exposing the victims to extremist and violent content. CVLT specifically targeted vulnerable victims, including ones suffering from mental health challenges or a history of sexual abuse.

Victims were encouraged to engage in increasingly dehumanizing acts, including cutting and eating their own hair, drinking their urine, punching themselves, calling themselves racial slurs, and using razor blades to carve CVLT members' names into their skin. CVLT members' coercion escalated to pressuring victims to kill themselves on a video livestream.

When victims hesitated, resisted, or threatened to tell parents or authorities, CVLT members would threaten to distribute already-obtained compromising photos and videos of the victims to their family and friends. For victims who stopped participating in the CSAM, CVLT would sometimes carry through on their threats.

Rane previously was charged with several child exploitation and related offenses in France and has been in French custody since 2022. Merritt is currently in Virginia state custody, serving a 50-year sentence for child sex abuse crimes committed in 2020 and 2021.

If convicted, the defendants would face a minimum penalty of 20 years in prison and a statutory maximum penalty of life in prison. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys' Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.

Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the Los Angeles Police Department, San Bernardino County Sheriff's Office, Henry County Sheriff's Office (Virginia), Iowa State University Police, Police Nationale (France), the National Crime Agency (United Kingdom), the New Zealand Department of Internal Affairs, and EUROPOL are investigating this matter.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Catharine A. Richmond for the Central District of California and Trial Attorneys Justin Sher and James Donnelly of the National Security Division's Counterterrorism Section are prosecuting this case.

An indictment is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law."

SFIST: Suspect and Possible Cult Member Makes Court Appearance In Vallejo Killing as Further Links Revealed to Other Murders

" ... It appears to be a small group, highly educated, computer savvy, at times geographically scattered, and a number of them if not all of them appear to identify as trans or nonbinary — with their deadnames potentially being publicized widely as law enforcement releases information about the cases, as these are still their legal names. If we can call them a cult at all, they aren't the type who all lived together on a compound for extended periods — though if they had a compound, it was a pair of box trucks parked for three years on Curtis Lind's property on Lemon Street in Vallejo, a cul de sac in an industrial part of town.

Neighbors had seen the individuals walking around outside with gas masks, and they'd been seen walking in the nude as well. Otherwise they would be clad in black, and they'd been nicknamed "The Cult."

It's since come to light that they are all vegan, highly intellectual, concerned with the rise of artificial intelligence, and they were linked to a creepy protest action in Solano County in 2019 outside a retreat hosted by the Berkeley-based Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR) — with whom they, or at least the group's purported leader, has some previous ties.

Lind was killed earlier this month at age 82, three months before he was set to testify in the trial of two people who had allegedly attacked him with knives and a samurai sword in November 2022, causing him to lose an eye."

News, Education, Intervention, Recovery

CultMediation.com   

Intervention101.com to help families and friends understand and effectively respond to the complexity of a loved one's cult involvement.

CultRecovery101.com assists group members and their families make the sometimes difficult transition from coercion to renewed individual choice.

CultNEWS101.com news, links, resources about: cults, cultic groups, abusive relationships, movements, religions, political organizations, and related topics.

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The selection of articles for CultNEWS101 does not mean that Patrick Ryan or Joseph Kelly agree with the content. We provide information from many points of view to promote dialogue.

Please forward articles that you think we should add to cultintervention@gmail.com.

Two by Twos: Kiwis who left sect being probed by FBI form support group

Amy Williams 

RNS

January 31, 2025 

New Zealand leavers of a secretive sect the FBI is investigating for historical child sexual abuse have formed the first support network for former members in this country.

They said recent publicity has helped lift the lid on the high-control religious group that has no official name or church buildings - weekly meetings are held in members' homes.

The group has many markers of a cult and is known to those who leave as the Two by Twos or The Truth.

Tristan Phipps grew up in the sect and left as a young adult more than a decade ago because he didn't believe in its teaching - including that people outside the group go to hell.

"Things just don't start to match up, you feel very lost and you get to a point where it sounds like a load of rubbish. It's very complex but also very simple at the same time."

It was a lonely time because so few people knew about the group or understood his experience.

He has helped establish the support network for leavers and says there are already 100 people connected online.

"We've all been affected in some way and scarred in some way. It's more powerful when more of you recognise it together," he said.

"There's people out there that have been floundering for a long time which is really sad."

Phipps said until now, former members of the cult here have joined online groups based overseas.

Last year police separately arrested two men who were members of the sect, for historical child sexual abuse - one pleaded guilty and was sentenced, the other denied the charges and next appears in court in a fortnight.

Phipps said many former members of the sect have experienced religious, physical or sexual abuse and the focus of the leavers group is friendship and support.

"It's quite a specific area in that it's very hard to understand unless you've been part of it," he said.

"For those of us who've left we're our best resource. We might not think we know much but we actually know a lot and we can help each other."

Decades on support still effective

Academic and GP Kyle Eggleton is a member of the support group.

He was born into the Two by Twos but left in his mid-20s when he decided the teaching and rules didn't stack up - that was 26 years ago.

"I didn't have any support so it was a bit of a lonely journey. I spent quite some time trying to figure out who I was and what my belief systems were and trying to navigate that all by myself."

Eggleton still has family in the group and when he left he felt supported, not shunned or ostracised.

He said even decades on, he is benefiting from being part of a community of people who understand his upbringing in the cult.

"I think it's really important to help people make sense of their experience and realise they're not alone, that they have commonality with others who have left."

Eggleton said it was only recently he found out a friend of his family in the Two by Twos, who had died, had been an abuser.

"That's something that makes me angry and upset, knowing that that experience is prevalent in our survivor community."

He wants to formally research the mental health and wellbeing effects of being part of the cult, and what helps people thrive when they leave.

"A lot of people have a trauma experience being part of this group.

"Trying to articulate to someone that you were brought up in this group that has no name and you can't really identify the group and there's no literature around them...makes it difficult trying to explain that to other people."

Peer support crucial

Author, reporter and cult researcher Anke Richter was convenor, director and organiser of Australasia's first cult awareness conference, Decult, held in Christchurch last year.

She said it became clear at the conference that peer support for those leaving cults was crucial because it was such a unique experience.

"People need to connect and be with each other and share their stories. You can do that online of course but there's something about being in the same room together, maybe handing someone tissues when they cry, being with others who understand."

Richter said Decult was in the early stages of setting up groups where people leaving any cult could meet for support and friendship.

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/540353/two-by-twos-kiwis-who-left-sect-being-probed-by-fbi-form-support-group

FBI launches probe into church investigated by BBC

George Wright BBC News

February 21, 2024

The FBI has launched a probe into a secretive Christian church that was the focus of a recent BBC investigation.

The church has no official name but is often referred to as The Truth or the Two by Twos.

The sect has recently been rocked by a sexual abuse scandal, with the names of hundreds of alleged perpetrators given to a hotline set up for survivors.

An ex-minister who abused a boy in the 1980s told the BBC he had "no reason" to be concerned about the FBI probe.

Last month's BBC investigation looked into claims of child sexual abuse spanning decades within the church.

One ex-minister, Robert Corfield, admitted when confronted that he sexually abused a boy, Michael Havet, in Canada in the 1980s.

Mr Corfield said he wasn't aware of an FBI investigation.

"I'm just leaving it all in God's hands and willing to accept whatever he allows to happen, so I'm not concerned about it," he said on Wednesday.

His name is one of more than 700 given by people to a hotline set up by a group called Advocates for The Truth (AFTT) to report sexual abuse within the church.

In a statement, the FBI said that it was "seeking the public's help in identifying victims of abuse that has occurred within a religious group".

It said the abuse "dates back to the 1980s".

The agency said that the group "traditionally does not have a name" but is widely referred to as 2x2, The Way, The Truth, and The Church With No Name.

The investigation has been welcomed by AFTT. The group was founded last year by Americans Cynthia Liles, Lauren Rohs and Sheri Autrey.

All the women used to belong to The Truth and Ms Rohs and Ms Autrey say they were abused by the same man.

"The FBI investigation brings validation and potential justice to survivors that have been silenced by their community for generations. A community that should have been wrapped around survivors with unconditional love, safety and communal care," AFTT said in a statement.

"For many, reporting abuse will be the first steps in their healing journey."

Ms Autrey, who stepped down from AFTT in December, told the BBC that she hopes for "full exposure and accountability and the opportunity for justice for survivors".

"I believe the response from the organisation itself will be the exact same as it always has been, where they say the right words but continue with no correct and tangible actions.

"An exact replication of what we've seen since it's been exposed in the last 11 months, and what has been tried to be exposed for the last 38 years in my case and for decades by countless other survivors."

Mr Havet, who was abused by Mr Corfield for six years in the 1980s, said "the rug has been burned where they have been hiding everything underneath".

He added that the care and support he is receiving now is "so much different" to when he first spoke out in the 1990s.

"It's 2024, the FBI is knocking on doors," he said.

The church's leadership has not responded to the BBC's request for comment.

The group is believed to have up to 100,000 members worldwide, with the majority in North America. It has a notable following in the UK, Ireland and Australia.

It was founded in Ireland by William Irvine, a Scottish evangelist, in 1897 and is built around ministers spreading New Testament teachings through word-of-mouth.

One of its hallmarks is that ministers give up their possessions and must be taken in by church members as they travel around, spreading the gospel. This makes children living in the homes they visit vulnerable to abuse, insiders say.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-68361054

FBI Investigating an Insular, Nameless Religious Group Undergoing Sexual Abuse

Agents are said to have visited at least one senior member of the group, sources tell VICE News.

Anna Merlan

Vice

February 21, 2024

In an unusually transparent move, an FBI field office in Omaha, Nebraska announced this week that it is looking for help from the public in identifying people with “knowledge of abuse and/or criminal behavior” in an insular, nameless religious sect, often referred to by outsiders as the “Two by Twos.” 

As VICE News detailed in an investigation in October, the group is in the midst of a dramatic reckoning with a decades-long pattern of sexual abuse, often committed against children by people in the community with a high degree of spiritual authority. Both current members of the sect and people who have left it have accused the group of failing to alert secular authorities when individuals are said to have molested children.

For several weeks, former members of the community who have become anti-abuse activists have told VICE News that it appears the FBI is investigating the group. The FBI generally does not confirm or deny active investigations; reached for comment last week, an FBI spokesperson in their Seattle office gave the usual response, telling VICE News, “The FBI’s media policy prohibits confirming or denying an investigation unless in rare circumstances.” The same spokesperson did not immediately respond to a follow-up request for comment. But the request for help from the Omaha office is exceedingly clear that the group is being investigated; the agency even created an online questionnaire for people with knowledge or direct experience of the abuse. 

The group – usually referred to by insiders as “The Truth” or “The Way” – has a lineage that stretches back over 100 years. The name “Two by Twos” is drawn from the fact that its preachers, known as “workers,” are homeless and itinerant, traveling in pairs around territories composed of several states to lead prayer meetings held in people’s homes. Workers are often expected to sleep in the houses of congregants, which several people told VICE News has led to sexual abuse committed against children. Above workers are “overseers,” who in the United States have control over territories that include several states. Both workers and overseers have been accused of sexual abuse, committed both in the homes of congregants and during large conventions held yearly. 

The current tumult began in March 2023, when a letter began circulating disclosing that an Oregon overseer named Dean Bruer had been a “sexual predator” whose patterns of alleged abuse first came to light after he abruptly died in a hotel room in the remote community of Government Camp. The letter, said to have been written by Bruer’s successor Doyle Smith, added: “His actions include rape and abuse of underage victims. He totally abused his authority as an overseer in order to control, manipulate and threaten his victims. We are strongly recommending our staff look at the Ministry Safe Program and possibly other venues that help understand, recognize, and prevent such problems.” (Italics his.) 

Notably, this letter does not suggest that Bruer’s alleged behavior was referred to legal authorities. (Smith did not respond to a previous request for comment from VICE News.) Sources within the community told VICE News that instead of alerting law enforcement, sexual abuse allegations were often handled by temporarily removing the accused person from prayer meetings, or, in the case of workers, seemingly moving them to a different territory. 

Former members of the group told VICE News that one specific overseer, Darryl Doland, an overseer for Washington state, received a visit from FBI agents. There is no evidence that Doland is himself accused of abuse or any other crime; he has, however, been unusually transparent in his communications with members about what he said was his own inadequate response when receiving reports of sexual abuse. 

“I want to personally apologize for the times I have ‘tuned out’ the muted cry of a wounded, frightened person and left their plea for help unheeded,” Doland wrote in an April 2023 letter said to have been sent to community members in Washington, North Idaho, and Alaska; the letter was reprinted on WINGS For Truth, which information about the sect’s issues with child sexual assault and reshares letters from workers and overseers.  

“ I am saddened and deeply sorry to know that my responses (or lack thereof) have hindered justice and/or healing in some way,” Doland’s letter continued. “I hope you will forgive me for this.” It followed with concrete steps Doland says leaders in the group will now take: “Going forward, we will have a zero-tolerance policy regarding CSA. If we are made aware of CSA violations involving a victim who is presently a minor, we will report it to authorities immediately, in compliance with the law.”

Reached for comment on February 10, Doland would not confirm or deny whether he had received a visit from the FBI, but told VICE News he’s “actively addressing” abuse allegations in his region and committed to helping victims receive help.

“Thanks for reaching out,” Doland’s email read. “I am actively addressing all abuse allegations involving participants in this region of our fellowship. My paramount concern is that victims receive the professional help that they need.  I take all allegations of abuse seriously, strongly recommend mandated reporter training to all, and encourage everyone to report issues to the proper legal authorities as soon as possible. This is my only statement at this time.” 

Bruce Murdoch, a spokesperson for WINGS For Truth, told VICE News that WINGS is encouraging “full cooperation” from people in leadership positions in the group with the FBI investigation.

"WINGS would like encourage full cooperation for the FBI's investigation into victims of child sexual abuse stemming from the ‘2x2’ church,” Murdoch told VICE News in an email. “In particular, we encourage those in leadership positions of elders, workers and overseers to come forward where you have knowledge of past offenses that were never resolved through the proper legal and social channels.”

Several groups of current and former members of the sect have formed to advocate for sexual abuse survivors and chart a path forward. Mike and Abbi Prussack and Kyle and Kari Hanks are two married couples who all grew up within the sect. They founded and help run a large support group on Facebook for ex members, and told VICE News in a statement that they’d first spoken to the FBI last year. 

“After decades of being silenced, survivors are finally having their voices heard and amplified,” their group statement read. “We first spoke with the FBI last year when they reached out to us and have continued to help them in their investigation while prioritizing survivors who have entrusted us with their stories. The FBI is motivated to expose abusers and those complicit within the church, especially those in positions of leadership. The investigators are compassionate and concerned for survivors. Their goal is to protect future generations of 2x2s. We encourage and stand behind survivors who want to reach out to the FBI with their stories.” 

Another major group is Voices for the Truth, who told VICE News that news of the FBI investigation is “a significant step forward in providing validation and support to countless victim-survivors.” The group also said that they’ve recently partnered with RAINN, the national anti-sexual violence organization, to create a hotline with specific resources for people who are current and former members of the sect. Their full statement reads as follows: 

We are grateful that a legal and professional entity is acknowledging both the historical and ongoing abuse crisis within the Truth community. This recognition is a significant step forward in providing validation and support to countless victim-survivors. It is our sincere hope that the FBI's investigation will be a valuable resource and a powerful tool for victim-survivors as they navigate their personal healing journeys. 

We encourage victim-survivors to explore all avenues of support available to them and to choose what feels safe and empowering. It is vital that victim-survivors and their loved ones have access to psychologically safe and compassionate support from professionals who fully understand the unique circumstances of the Truth community. That's why we have partnered with RAINN — the nation's largest anti-sexual violence organization and operators of the National Sexual Assault Hotline — for our Victim-Survivor Support Hotline, which will be launching in early March.

See more here: https://voicesforthetruth.org/hotline/

Update, 2:40 P.M. EST:

A spokesperson for the FBI Omaha field office confirmed to the investigation to VICE News, but said they were unable to answer further questions about its scope or whether other FBI field offices are involved. The statement reads, in full: “Because the FBI Omaha field office is seeking the public’s help in identifying potential victims, I can confirm an investigation.  In order to preserve the integrity and capabilities of the investigation, I cannot share any details of the ongoing process.”

https://www.vice.com/en/article/88x7zp/fbi-investigating-an-insular-nameless-religious-group-undergoing-sexual-abuse-reckoning

Lies, manipulation and blind faith: My life inside Australia's nameless sect

Elizabeth wore knee-length dresses and wasn’t allowed jewellery, makeup, nail polish or even to cut her hair. Here’s how she got out.


Malin Hagglund
7NEWS
January 21, 2023

Elizabeth Coleman was just 16 when she stood up in a Canberra school hall and publicly declared she was ready to follow Jesus.

It was 1990 and she was standing amid a group of people professing her faith to the worldwide but nameless religious group she had been born into.

She was a late starter, and for years she had been plagued with pressure from her community to profess.

The moment was followed by congratulations from others in the hall, who threw their arms around her. Some were even crying out of sheer joy.

“I was a bit shocked afterwards when people were coming up and hugging me and literally crying and congratulating me. I found it quite strange and off-putting. I don’t know why, but I wasn’t expecting that,” she told 7NEWS . com.au.

Before her commitment, meeting attendance as part of the group’s requirements was more than twice a week. Often after school hours and Sunday nights.

But now, as a professing member, she was expected to actively partake in the Sunday morning meetings too.

Every Saturday night she tried to come up with a spiritual message to share with the group the next morning. She knew that keeping up appearances was important if she was ever to be allowed baptism under the unique rules of the sect’s doctrine.

But for the next meetings, Coleman – who shied away from publicly sharing her spiritual messages with the group – struggled.

After often experiencing shortness of breath and panic attacks she stopped speaking in the meetings for weeks. She was eventually taken aside by one of the preachers.

“If you weren’t speaking in the meetings, maybe you had a troubled spirit. But if you are doing all the right things, buying all of their living rules and their external rules and how you look and speak in the meetings and putting on a show, then you have a good spirit,” Coleman says she was told.

She remained a professing member until her emotional exit from the group in 1993.

“I had too many questions and by that time I had started to uncover information about the background of the group and started to realise that I had been deceived and manipulated in various ways,” she says.

What the church is all about

Coleman was a fourth-generation part of a global religious sect known by outsiders and ex-members as the Two-by-Two.

For over a century, the sect – which remained strictly nameless among its members – gradually gained a number of pseudonyms worldwide despite successfully remaining largely under the radar.

Apart from the Two-by-Two, other common labels given to the group over the decades include The Fellowship, The Meetings, The Way, Cooneyites or The Nameless House Sect.

And if questioned by outsiders, Coleman was told to say that the doctrine she followed was the only one that went directly back to Jesus’s teachings in the New Testament.

It was said to be of apostolic succession, which meant that the teachings had been passed down in a continuous line from the disciples to the sect’s preachers today.

The sect worked in a rank-layered hierarchical system with two tiers: Workers and Friends.

Despite the name, the Workers were placed at the top of this system with those attaining this rank considered spiritual messengers, like Jesus’s disciples. It was the Workers who were believed to have received their teachings through apostolic succession.

At the bottom were the Friends – or layperson members – such as Coleman.

And in accordance with the sect’s interpretation of Jesus’s teachings in the New Testament of the King James Version, Workers were to remain homeless and stay with the Friends.

Coleman says their slogan was: “The meetings in the home and the ministers without a home.”

Besides “catching the spirit” from the preaching in the meetings, it was the only thing they could tell you about what they believed.

The rules she had to live by

There weren’t a lot of places Coleman would feel like she fit in.

Attending a public school in Australia’s capital, Coleman already knew she was different from the other kids.

She wore knee-length dresses and wasn’t allowed to wear pants, jewellery, makeup, nail polish or even cut her hair.

To participate in entertainment and sports alongside outsiders was seen by the sect as putting her at risk of being contaminated by “the worldly”.

Even worse was interacting with other Christians.

She says it was almost unheard of for sect members to attend Christian schools.

Owning a TV was also not allowed, but while watching such devices or listening to recorded music or the radio was not encouraged, it wasn’t sinful.

As a result of having been excluded from electronic media, Coleman felt out of the loop compared to other kids.

“I still got to hear some music at school. But you always feel like you’ll never quite know what is going on out there in the world, as we would say, because we didn’t see the news, we didn’t listen to music, we didn’t watch the television shows,” she says.

One of the few places she felt most normal as a child was at the sect’s remotely held annual conventions at private farms.

And although the same rules applied there, at least everyone dressed the same.

The day contained three meals, each followed by nearly two-hour meetings. Then they slept in white tents lined up row after row at night.

“We had so many children there, and we weren’t allowed to do anything. We had to be dressed in our Sunday best all day every day, out on a property in the middle of nowhere in heels and Sunday frocks, sometimes in the mud, (and) there were pit toilets,” she says.

A startling new chapter

Shortly after professing as a 16-year-old, two massive discoveries were about to wake Coleman up to the nature of the world that she was locked into.

The first came from Coleman’s passion for reading.

With watching TV and listening to music deemed too worldly, Coleman became an avid reader and would borrow one book a day from her school’s library.

But little did she know that her passion for reading would lead her to a book whose cover she could never completely close again.

Shortly after professing, Coleman found herself spending the summer holidays at her grandparents’ cattle farm. One day she was browsing her grandparents’ library for some new reading material.

“So, I found this book called The Secret Sect,” she says.

“I started reading and I was horrified. And I said to my grandmother ,‘This guy reckons that the group was started by this man called William Irvine and he is telling all these lies about us’, and she said to me, ‘Well, sometimes, God has to use a man to raise up his true way again’.

“That shocked me even more, that she wasn’t denying it, but was telling me that this was probably true.”

Shocked and confused, she decided to bury what she had read for the next three years.

But once the holidays came to an end, and she returned for her last years of school, the secret would become harder to keep buried as she was confronted by the second major discovery about to shake her faith.

“So, I walked into my first English class in that new school and saw him across the room and this thing went through my mind like writing on a wall, ‘what would you say if someone told you that was the man you’re going to marry one day’, which made me completely freak out,” Coleman says.

Coleman says she backed out of the room, thinking it was a strange reflection to have. Knowing full well that it wasn’t encouraged to associate with outsiders, she tried to ignore the new male classmate she was strangely captivated by. She says she even asked God why this boy had been put into her life.

“But I can only say that he started to haunt me over the next few months, and I became more and more agitated but had this very deep burden that I had to speak with him,” she says.

After having struggled to stay away from him for months, Coleman finally decided to talk to the new male classmate. His name was David and he was a conventional Christian.

From the day of their first conversation and for many more to come, they were almost inseparable. It started with having lunch together every day to him walking her to and from school.

He told her about his religion, and she repeated the lines her sect had told her to tell outsiders.

As time passed and their friendship grew stronger, David’s household eventually became like a second home to Coleman.

But the thought still nagged at her: How could his family, which was as devoted as hers in their service of family and God, be in the wrong?

Twelve months into their friendship, Coleman and David became romantically involved.

At this point and for the next two years, she describes living a double life. While she was still attending her Fellowship meetings, she also started attending David’s church.

And, more importantly, sometimes he attended hers.

But after David went to several of her Fellowship meetings and started to ask questions, the Workers were no longer interested in having him attend.

“They were questions really relating to fairly key elements of Christian doctrine, and actually fairly mainstream and simple ones. So, that is what perplexed me about the different answers of two men who were preaching together,” David says.

The Workers gave Coleman an ultimatum.

“The Workers came to me and said, ‘You know, we have had some chats with David, and he is not very receptive. We don’t think he is going to keep coming along. But don’t worry, there is plenty of more fish in the sea’. That’s what they said to me,” she says.

Exodus: Coleman leaves the church

In 1993, at 19 years of age, Coleman decided to leave the sect. She would marry David two years later.

She says it had been a terrifying prospect for her to leave but the previous years had been exceptionally difficult.

“Once the doors have been opened, I’ve learned too much and seen so much. It is impossible to shut the door and be shut in the dark room,” Coleman says.

She told her parents early on a Sunday before her father was set to host a morning meeting.

“Of course, my parents were fairly devastated that first Sunday morning when I told them I wasn’t coming to the meeting and that I was going to church with Dave. That was pretty heart-rending for my parents and a very, very, traumatic event,” she says.

Coleman says her exit from the sect ultimately left her suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. For some time, she thought she was going crazy.

“(I had) panic attacks and terrible anxiety, very deep fear, and a lot of physical symptoms. I did get some counselling for that but even that took sort of six to 12 months for the worst of the daily manifestations of that to ease off,” she says.

A crisis of faith

With her entire family still based in the sect — along with everything she had previously believed to be true — Coleman says she struggled with shame and doubt for several years after her exit.

One of David’s friends eventually suggested she search about the sect on the internet. The results turned out to be more than they anticipated.

Among ex-members’ stories, Coleman says she found books and pamphlets that further revealed the same kind of deception that she had experienced within the church without a name.

She collected the books and pamphlets and called the Workers she knew to organise a meeting.

At first, Coleman says they were unreceptive. Eventually, they agreed to meet with her – but only if certain conditions were in place.

“I was never to reveal their names. I was not to admit to anybody they had come to see me, I was not to reveal any of the contents of the conversations that they had with me and if I did tell anybody they had been to see me that they would deny it and call me a liar. Wow,” she says.

When Coleman expressed to them that her understanding of the gospel had changed from that of the sect and that she now believed Jesus to be God, one of the Workers declared her the Antichrist.

”One of them called me the Antichrist and he said, ‘You’ll never be happy, you will come back. It might take years, but you will come back to us and be sorry and we will take you back when you want to come back,” she says.

But even after she sought professional help, found ex-members, and confronted the Workers, her trauma continued for almost 20 more years.

“So, I did decide to do a lot more study on cults. Learn about how the conditioning of the brain happens. Learn about thought-stopping phrases and I realised what those have been in the group,” Coleman says.

In 2015 she published Cult to Christ: The Church With No Name and the legacy of the Living Witness Doctrine and found healing in the process of learning about her experience – and hearing about the experiences of others.

“So, I feel as if that was the most therapeutic thing. Telling my story. And of course, the other therapeutic thing is to hear other people’s stories. And I have had a lot of feedback for my book, I get a lot of letters from people saying how much it has helped them,” she says.

“The more of us that tell our stories, the more people go, ‘Yes, that has been happening to me as well, and yes that has happened’.”

What Coleman is up to now?

Almost three decades have passed since Coleman decided to leave the sect.

Today she lives in Canberra, is still happily married to David, and says she enjoys life without the sect’s restraints.

She became a lover of storytelling through films and also enjoys tennis and Champagne.

And only recently has she started to have contact with one of her good childhood friends from the sect.

“Look, we understand that there are some who are complete die-hards and want to stay in the group and not hear any of it. We can only do what we can do and support each other and support others who are trying to leave,” she says.

Last year, Coleman was a finalist in Lifeline Canberra’s 2022 Women of Spirit Awards at the National Gallery of Australia, for sharing her story and helping others going through similar experiences with religious groups and trauma.

https://7news.com.au/news/religion-and-belief/lies-manipulation-and-blind-faith-my-life-inside-australias-nameless-sect-c-9504722

Laura was raised in a fundamentalist sect. She left at 19, but she'll never be 'free'.

BELINDA JEPSEN
Mamamia
SEPTEMBER 21, 2021

As a child, Laura McConnell Conti was raised not to trust outsiders.

Even at school, she knew to keep to herself, not to play with or dress like the other children in her western NSW farming town. She'd been convinced that, no matter how kind or good they seemed, they would only attempt to 'put the devil' into her heart.

Laura had little in common with her classmates, anyway. She didn't listen to music or watch television. She didn't read magazines or dance or play sport. All of that was forbidden.

"I didn't even really care at the time. I believed, like my community, that these things are put [in front of you] to be a temptation, and that you mustn't give into them," she told Mamamia. "That suffering is your way."

Laura's world was instead confined to her extended family and the fundamentalist Christian sect to which they belonged.

The Truth: "My family lived very complex double lives."

This sect doesn't have a sole leader, or headquarters. It doesn't even have a name. It's often referred to as 'The Truth' or 'Two By Twos' or 'Friends and Workers' by members, who are numbered in the hundreds of thousands, primarily across Australia, Europe and the United States.

Laura's family had been part of the sect for at least four generations.

"My particular branch of the group has quite a large following in regional Australia, because they can operate fairly autonomously. They can run their own businesses, their own farms, and not really come into contact too much with mainstream society," she said.

Laura and other former members have described the sect's teachings as being based on interpretation of particular sections of the Bible. There are reportedly clear expectations about dress and behaviour. There is, for example, said to be a preoccupation with female modesty that sees women made to wear floor-length dresses and banned from having short hair.

Leadership is provided by 'Workers', who are senior members of the community equivalent to, say, a pastor or priest. But otherwise, the structure is bare-boned. There is no text capturing the group's doctrine, nor are there churches or permanent places of worship (in the eyes of the sect, to erect and revere such a building would be to worship a false idol and to distract oneself from proving one's worth to God and Jesus, Laura explained).

Instead, members gather twice weekly in each other's homes: once on Wednesday night, and once on Sunday morning.

Laura, who will speak more about her experience on Tuesday night's episode of Insight on SBS, recalls those meetings as "not very joyous".

"There is a lot of focus on being very formal and being very devout," she told Mamamia. "My group, in particular, were very obsessed with how much suffering they were going through, in order to prove their worthiness and their godliness. It wasn't a happy experience."

Still, being raised away from the trappings of pop culture and surrounded by cousins and a tight-knit community wasn't all bad, Laura stresses. As a small child, she found it to be "a very nurturing, very loving environment".

It was only as she grew older, that she began to feel the weight of conformity.

Listen: A survivor shares how people get sucked into cults, why they stay and what happens when you want to get out. (Article continues below.)

"Children are seen as an extension of their family's piety and their family's godliness. So not only are you under pressure from your family, but you're also conscious that you're being looked up and down by other members who are judging you and your parents. Wearing the right shoes and the right length dress and having your hair the right way, not looking too worldly and not speaking too loudly, and being godly enough — it's a full-time preoccupation," she said.

"I felt that there wasn't really a place for asking questions and getting answers or thinking differently. It was a very black and white view of the world."

By the time Laura was in her mid-teens, the whispering questions she'd long had in her mind about the group's methods grew louder and louder.

Laura says her female cousins were pushed into teenage marriages. That she witnessed domestic violence and coercive controlling behaviours behind closed doors.

"Like most people, I believe, inside this group, my family lived very complex double lives," she said. "There was a lot of abuse. There were a lot of things that were said and were done that didn't line up with my interpretation of the Bible, and my interpretation of what spirituality was, and what goodness was and what other people would call 'Christian behaviour'. It just gradually crumbled for me."
Not quite freedom: Laura's path out.

When Laura moved to Melbourne at the age of 18 to pursue a university education, she fully intended to remain in the sect.

But when she arrived, she found herself treated coldly by its Melbourne branch. They seemed to avoid speaking with her or including her. During a ritual in which members would shake hands with one another at a weekly meeting, they seemed to dodge her or back away.

Laura suspects class played some role. While her floor-length dresses were homemade, Laura quipped that the women of this urban branch bought theirs from Country Road.

But much like her group back home, they also seemed to disapprove of her lifestyle.

"They didn't know what to do with me. I mean, how do they explain to their children and their young women that this woman has decided she wants to go to university, and she wants to get an education, and she's not married, and she's living here on her own?"

One day after a Sunday meeting, she waited for her tram in pounding rain and watched as several members drove past her, pretending they couldn't see her standing there, soaked.

"Something in my head just went, 'This is not right. You don't want me. You just don't do that to somebody from your own community. That's not Christian behaviour. They're not good people.' And I made this sort of snap, rash decision. I just said [to myself], 'That's it. I'm not doing this religion anymore. I don't fit in.'"

Despite pleas from her family, Laura simply never went back to another meeting. The shame that brought upon them saw her shunned.

That was two decades ago now, and she still has very limited contact with her loved ones and her community; the only one she'd ever known.

The adaption to mainstream society has been difficult for Laura.

There was (and still is) the unique grief of being cut off from her family; the struggles of building a life with no money or support; the huge gaps in her knowledge about seemingly everyday things.

"I didn't even know how to buy jeans, I didn't know how to get a haircut," she said.

"You feel like an alien in your own country, in your own city. Because you know nothing and you know no one, but you look like everyone else."

The social struggles were immense, too.

Laura had rarely had to ingratiate herself with strangers before; she was private, guarded, even wary. She particularly didn't know how to talk about her family and her background, how to explain why she didn't know anything about Seinfeld or sport, or why she didn't have anywhere to go for Christmas lunch.

She'd often rely on half-truths about growing up isolated in the country. And when she did open up about the sect, she said she felt that people thought she was lying. There is, after all, little awareness that fundamentalist religious groups such as 'The Truth' exist in Australia.

"You learn very quickly that people don't know what to do with you when you're from one of these backgrounds. They just don't know how to speak to you about it. They don't know how to communicate with you about it. They're almost perplexed," she said. "There's a lot of shame. And so I just learned not to speak about it. I just learned, 'fob people off, and create your own life.'"

The life Laura created is a good one, a happy one.

She has close friends, a husband and a child. She has earned multiple degrees and qualifications. And after more than a decade working in finance, now runs her own social enterprise, #GoKindly — a bedding label that donates 50 per cent of profits to supporting women experiencing homelessness and housing stress. (It's a nod to her time relying on food banks and charities after leaving the sect as a 19-year-old.)

She's grateful for it all. But she doesn't describe her current life as 'freedom' from the sect, or from her past. In her view, there's no such thing.

"I think you're constantly aware that you don't have a family, that you've lost a lot, and that you will never quite fit... You feel like an outsider forever," she said.

"It's been 20 years now, and while I'm at peace with it, I don't think it will ever leave me."

You can hear more from Laura and others on Odd One Out tonight on SBS Insight at 8:30 p.m.





https://www.mamamia.com.au/the-truth-cult-australia/

CultNEWS101 Articles: 1/16-17/2021 (Agape Boarding School, ParCare Community Health Network, Two by Twos, NXIVM, 5G, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Boy Scout, Charles Manson)

Agape Boarding School, ParCare Community Health Network, Two by Twos, NXIVM, 5G, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Boy Scout, Charles Manson

Kansas City Star: Boarding schools fleeing abuse claims in other states find 'Promised Land' in Missouri

"Aaron Rother was 16 when the leader of his boarding school announced they were packing up and moving again, to their third state in a little more than a year.

But this time, in the mid-1990s, Agape Boarding School was moving away from the "nonbelievers" in Washington and California and heading east. To a place with "good Christian people," no government scrutiny and where leaders could feel free to run their school the way they saw fit.

"It was the feeling like we were going to the Promised Land," said Rother, whose father dropped him off at Agape in Othello, Washington, when he was 15. "Kind of like, 'This is where the Christians can go to not be messed with.'

"When we got to Missouri, they announced to us that they had found THE place. Like this is our new home. … The state followed God's law, that's the message they told us."

It's a message that seemingly has been heard across the country for decades as schools have made their way to the Show-Me State, where a nearly 40-year-old law allows faith-based residential facilities to operate without a license, any scrutiny or interference from the state."

The Jerusalem Post: NY investigating Orthodox-run clinics with 'fraudulent' COVID-19 vaccine

"  ... A network of health clinics owned by a Hasidic man and serving a number of Hasidic communities in Brooklyn and upstate New York is under investigation for administering COVID-19 vaccines to members of the general public.

New York State health commissioner Howard Zucker announced the investigation into ParCare Community Health Network on Saturday, saying in a statement that the clinics may have obtained the vaccines "fraudulently" and administered doses to members of the public "contrary to the state's plan."

Currently, only frontline health care workers and nursing home residents and staff are receiving the vaccines in New York State, and vaccinations are taking place at hospitals and nursing homes.

But BoroPark24, a Yiddish news service, reported on Dec. 21 that ParCare had obtained 3,500 doses of the vaccine produced by Moderna and would vaccinate 500 people that day. The network's CEO, Gary Schlesinger, told BoroPark24 that ParCare had gotten permission to vaccinate patients and that only people over 60 or with underlying conditions would be eligible at first. The next day, he retweeted a picture of himself receiving the vaccine."

Daily News: Inside the Christian sect that's been in Australia for 100 years but escapes scrutiny by having no churches or even a name - as insider reveals how secrecy binds followers and allows sexual abuse to run rampant

"Laura McConnell was 19 when she finally escaped a highly secretive Christian sect with no name, church or freedom for its members.

Up until that point the sect - which is known as The Truth, the Two by Twos or Friends and Workers - had controlled every aspect of her life.

She couldn't play with kids outside the group or have a haircut - and was brainwashed into believing death awaited her should she ever decide to leave.  

Ms McConnell, now 40 and with a two-year-old son, opened up to Daily Mail Australia about growing up inside the sect in the hopes her story will inspire others to leave.

'I had a wonderful childhood ... until i was about eight and realised how different I really was and how difficult it would be to grow up as a girl and woman inside this group,' she said.:

GoldDerby: Cecilia Peck and Inbal Lessner ('Seduced' showrunners) describe how there's no difference between NXIVM and relationships with domestic abuse

"In describing how NXIVM operated, 'Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult" showrunners Cecilia Peck and Inbal Lessner explain that it really is on the same level as being in a physically or emotionally abusive relationship. "I think so many people have been in a coercive relationship that's hard to get out of. There's really no difference between a domestic abuse relationship, where you just feel so broken down and you feel there's nowhere to go," Peck explains. She hopes that this documentary can help viewers understand how people can become involved with harmful groups like NXIVM. 'That's what these women were in and especially someone like India [Oxenburg], who went in at 19 and was broken down by them for seven years. It's very hard to imagine that you can have another life.""

Miami Herald: What is 5G paranoia? Nashville bombing renews conspiracy theories

"A Tennessee man who federal investigators say detonated a bomb in downtown Nashville on Christmas Day may have been paranoid about 5G technology, reports say.

Investigators say they are now looking into Anthony Warner's alleged 5G paranoia and if it motivated the bombing, ABC News reported. Warner, identified as the suspect in the bombing, was killed in the explosion, the FBI said.

Douglas Korneski, an FBI special agent in charge, told ABC News investigators "are aware of certain things online, and we're looking at every possible motive." That includes whether Warner believed "5G technology was being used to spy on Americans," WSMV reported.

The RV linked to the explosion was parked outside of an AT&T building, and the blast caused internet and phone outages throughout Tennessee and surrounding states. Authorities have not determined a motive as of Monday afternoon.

"Early in 2020, conspiracy theories about 5G technology were considered the greatest domestic threat to critical infrastructure, according to homeland security reports," Newsweek reported."

KBTX: Mormon church sued for alleged role in Boy Scouts sex abuse

" The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was hit with several lawsuits Monday for allegedly covering up decades of sexual abuse among Boy Scout troops in Arizona, marking the latest litigation before the state's end-of-year deadline for adult victims to sue.

The church "must be held accountable in order to bring healing and closure to Mormon victims of childhood sexual abuse," Hurley McKenna & Mertz, a law firm that focuses on church sex abuse, said in a statement.

In the seven lawsuits each representing seven different male victims, attorneys say church officials never notified authorities about abuse allegations. Public records show members of church-sponsored Boy Scout troops who were abused would tell church bishops about what they had experienced. The lawsuits allege bishops would then tell the victims to keep quiet so the church could conduct its own investigation. In the meantime, troop leaders and volunteers accused of sex abuse would be allowed to continue in their roles or be assigned to another troop, the suits said.

Church spokesman Sam Penrod said in a statement that the faith has zero tolerance for abuse of any kind and that the serious allegations require thorough investigation. He called it inaccurate to say the faith had access to files that had names of banned Scout leaders and said the church hasn't seen the records that allegedly back the accusations."

Luxury London: How the Manson Family cult continued long after its leader was behind bars

"In late 1970, Charles Manson and his 'Family' stood in the dock accused of some of the most brutal crimes in American history. Far from spelling the end of the cult, what followed was five more decades of assassination attempts, violence and insanity."

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