John of God's sexual assault arrest tarnishes Brazil's spiritist movement

Eduardo Campos Lima
Religion News Service
January 30, 2019

SAO PAOLO, Brazil (RNS) — For decades John of God attracted crowds with his alleged faith healing powers, at first capitalizing on local spiritualist beliefs but soon riding the wave of New Age spirituality to cater to personalities such as Oprah Winfrey and performance artist Marina Abramovic.

In December, John of God, whose real name is João Teixeira de Faria, was arrested after being accused by hundreds of women of sexual crimes perpetrated during healing sessions.

Since the 1970s, Faria, now 76, had performed thousands of “spiritual surgeries,” a technique in which the medium supposedly channels a spiritual physician, who removes the illness from the patient. His approach, which also combined meditation, prayers, crystal healing, herbs and bathing in waterfalls, drew a steady stream of the suffering, disabled and merely curious from as far away as Europe and Australia to Abadiania, a small city about 70 miles southwest of Brasilia.

Victims say Faria would ask a woman attending one of his gatherings to follow him to his office. “The spiritual entities selected you for healing,” he would reportedly tell them. Claiming that physical contact was part of the procedure, Faria would abuse them, reports say, counting on his power as a local celebrity to keep them quiet.

Although the rumors of Faria’s sexual assaults are not new – the Australian version of “60 Minutes” mentioned them in 2014 — the case erupted Dec. 7, when a group of 10 women reported abuses on a TV show presented by Brazilian journalist Pedro Bial.

Days later police opened an investigation and solicited complaints via a dedicated email account. On Dec. 16, Faria was arrested after a newspaper revealed that he had taken almost $10 million from his bank accounts and financial investments. Money, firearms and emeralds were found at his house.

At this point, more than 600 women — varying in age from 8 to 67 — have accused Faria of sexual assault. One of them, Dalva Teixeira, is his daughter.

Faria is the product of a uniquely Brazilian combination of religious traditions — popular versions of Roman Catholicism in which saints almost assumed the status of deities, as well as the African-Brazilian Umbanda and Candomblé faiths, and spiritism, the belief that the dead live on as spirits and communicate with the living.

That mix was represented in Faria’s center in Abadiania, Casa de Dom Inacio de Loyola. Founded in the late 1970s, it is named in honor of St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus and one of the spiritual entities Faria claims to channel. Before that, Faria had been a babalaô, the leader of an Umbanda spiritual center.

“John of God is a Roman Catholic and a devotee of St. Rita of Cascia. Everybody wears white clothes at the center, which is an Umbanda tradition, as well as bathing in waterfalls,” said Cristina Rocha, director of the Religion and Society Research Center at the Western Sydney University and author of the book “John of God: The Globalization of Brazilian Faith Healing.”

This amalgam of faiths at the Casa is likely why the Brazilian Spiritist Federation – the main organization of the spiritist movement in Brazil that guides thousands of centers in the country – never endorsed Faria’s activities.

As soon as the assault scandal came to light, BSF released a statement to clarify that the spiritist movement “does not recommend the activities of mediums that work on an individual basis.”

Despite BSF’s attempts to distance itself from Faria, “surgery” performed by a medium embodying a spirit is basically a spiritist practice, according to Sandra Stoll, author of a pre-eminent study on Brazilian spiritism.

The idea of healing through magical rituals has long been a part of Brazilian folk beliefs, going back to the country’s founding. “Although a Roman Catholic country, there was a lack of priests and people developed unorthodox practices,” said Stoll. Cults grew up around the Virgin Mary and other Catholic icons, who people believed had miraculous power to cure them.

But Brazil’s brand of spiritism is derived from writings of a mid-19th-century French educator, Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail, whose pen name was Allan Kardec. Impressed by the phenomena made popular by the North American spiritualist movement, such as table-turning and Ouija boards, Kardec developed a quasi-scientific belief system that was imported to Brazil mainly by law and medicine students returning home from studying in France, according to Augusto Dias de Araujo, a professor at the Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology in Paraiba and an expert on spiritism.

Spiritism’s emphasis on healing ran it into trouble with the medical establishment as well as religious authorities, and spiritism soon changed its focus to social welfare and charitable work. Healing became only a portion of the work done in spiritist centers.

“The spiritist movement promoted homeopathic treatments and the creation of dozens of psychiatric hospitals,” said Alexander Moreira-Almeida, director of the Research Center in Spirituality and Health at the Federal University of Juiz de Fora School of Medicine.

In the 20th century, mediums came to enjoy significant social acceptance. Francisco Candido Xavier, known as Chico Xavier, who died in 2002, was modern spiritism’s most important architect, Stoll said. He made Catholic sainthood, and the Catholic religious vows of celibacy, poverty and obedience, the model of spiritist virtue. Xavier’s books detailing spiritist values and beliefs sold millions of copies, and he often appeared on TV.

His popularity helped establish spiritism as one of the chief religions in Brazil, with at least 3.8 million adherents in 2010, according to Brazil’s Institute of Geography and Statistics. The BSF estimates that the belief has as many as 40 million sympathizers among the largely Catholic population.

Faria is the most prominent spiritual surgeon since Jose Pedro de Freitas, known as Ze Arigo. Without any medical training — he claimed to channel a German doctor who died in World War I named Dr. Fritz – Arigo used knives and switchblades to remove tumors and cysts from patients without sterilization or anesthesia. He died in 1971.

During healing sessions in Abadiania, visitors choose to undergo visible or invisible surgeries. The invisible ones, according to Faria, are conducted by spiritual entities while the person is meditating or doing other therapeutic activities. The visible procedures are performed by Faria himself.

Channeling a spiritual physician, he cuts the patient’s skin with a scalpel or scissors or sticks an instrument in their nostril. Claiming to have removed malignant tumors (or other illnesses), he prescribes passion flower pills – sold at the Casa’s pharmacy – and tells the patient he or she will be cured.

Moreira-Almeida, who has studied Faria’s surgeries, confirmed that no antiseptic or anesthetic measures were taken – despite the unbearable pain that should accompany some procedures, such as, in one case, scraping the cornea with a kitchen knife. Tissues taken to the lab were found to be compatible with the parts of the body from which they were removed, but most showed no sign of pathology. “He never reached body cavities, usually getting only to the adipose tissue,” said Moreira-Almeida.

So far, Faria is facing two lawsuits involving nine alleged victims of sexual assault, as well as charges of illegal possession of firearms and coercion of a witness. Police are still investigating him on money laundering. Several claims of assault may never be taken to court due to statutes of limitation. Sexual offenses carry prison sentences of up to 15 years.

Faria’s arrest, meanwhile, caused concern in Abadiania, where the local economy thrives on the hotels, restaurants and tour guides serving the thousands who visit the Casa annually.

“The reaction of some tour guides was to dissociate John of God from the spiritual entities he channeled,” said Rocha. “They are reasoning that the Casa continues to be a holy place.”

But Stoll argues that Faria’s fall represents a deeper crisis for the spiritist movement. “He failed to meet the moral code established by Chico Xavier,” he said, which is based on renouncing the world.

“Once there is no hierarchy, the medium is the institution,” said Stoll. “Discrediting the medium equals discrediting the creed.”

https://religionnews.com/2019/01/30/john-of-gods-sexual-assault-arrest-tarnishes-brazils-spiritist-movement/

Church issues warning over Scientology 'infiltration'

EVIE ANDREOU 
Cyprus Mail
FEBRUARY 1ST, 2019

The Church of Cyprus on Friday warned that the foundation for a Drug-Free World was a branch of the Church of Scientology which, it said, was not only one of the most dangerous cults but was also “a disguised financial enterprise”.

In a written statement, the Church’s Synod Committee on cults, citing a document on religious cults, said that the Church of Scientology “works under various facades and with a variety of parent organisations whose names do not cause any suspicion.”

“Under pseudonymous titles and names, it tries to erode all areas of life, including politics and the economy,” the committee said.

It also referred to a branch of the Church of Scientology – the Centre for Applied Philosophy – that was shut down by Greek authorities some years ago.

The multi-page report by the court at the time, according to the announcement, describes “not only a multitude of illegal activities, but also reveals the surveillance of political and ecclesiastical personalities in the country and sending the data to foreign centres abroad in an encrypted fashion.”

Among the people that had been monitored, was the Archbishop of Athens, Christodoulos, who at the time, was the Bishop of Dimitriada, the Church said.

According to the decisions of the Greek courts, the Synod Committee said, “Scientology is an organisation with totalitarian structures and tendencies that essentially despises man.”

Participation in it “entails a change in personality of the members, behaviour in relation to third parties and especially in relations with their families.”

Furthermore, it said, “it is a disguised commercial enterprise and (…) pursues purposes unrelated to the nature and concept of man as a free being and towards the norms and customs of the Greek people.”

The announcement of the Synod Committee on cults, follows the controversy over data about drug use in schools given to MPs this week by the representative of the Cyprus chapter of Drug-Free World Europe (DFW), which comes under the umbrella of the Church of Scientology.

The representative of the foundation, Stella Constantinou, denied that the programme had any links with the Church of Scientology’s ideology other than funding.



https://cyprus-mail.com/2019/02/01/church-issues-warning-over-scientology-infiltration/

Lawmakers Going After FLDS Polygamy Compound in South Dakota

AMELIA MCDONELL-PARRY 
Rolling Stone 
FEBRUARY 1, 2019

Followers of Warren Jeffs’ former sect are living on a 140-acre compound where there have been no reported births or deaths for 14 years

Tucked in the remote Black Hills of South Dakota lies a 140-acre “military-style” fortress surrounded by a barbed wire fence, shielded by pine trees and guarded 24/7 by a lookout tower. Known as “R23,” the compound was established 14 years ago by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) — radical, polygamist offshoot of the Mormon Church — amidst a federal investigation into its leader, Warren Jeffs. Jeffs has since been convicted of child sexual assault and sentenced to life in prison, several other FLDS Church base camps have been seized by federal authorities, but R23 remains occupied — and shrouded in mystery.

The South Dakota Department of Health has said that the compound’s residents have never complied with a state law requiring them to report any births or deaths, so it’s unclear who actually lives beyond its walls. According to the Daily Beast, that may change now that state lawmakers have advanced a bill that would establish a penalty for citizens found in violation; if House Bill 1110 passes, citizens who do not file a birth certificate within one year or report a death within 48 hours will be guilty of a Class-2 misdemeanor.

“We’ve talked about doing something about this faction for years. This is the first time we’re doing anything,” Rep. Tom Goodwin, a co-sponsor of the bill, said at a hearing Wednesday night. “I don’t think ever since this capitol has been here, there has ever been a bill like this.”

While the law would apply state-wide, the bill was written with the FLDS Church and the residents of R23 in mind. According to their doctrine, polygamy is a requirement to gain entry to the kingdom of heaven, where large “plural” families have an especially high status. FLDS Church members don’t believe in birth control in any form, and officials are certain that there have been plenty of babies born at R23 over the last 14 years, but its occupants rarely emerge, let alone interact with residents in the nearest town, 20 miles away. One former resident, Sarah Allred, told the Associated Press in 2017 that she knew of at least two dozen births at the compound, and Goodwin estimated that there were nearly 300 people living there just a few years ago.

Officials say that the lack of records makes it difficult for local authorities to monitor the group for sex trafficking crimes in relation to the FLDS Church’s history of forcing underage girls to marry much older men. Unreported births have no government records — “they just don’t exist,” as Goodwin put it — and according to Allred, the Church denies women even basic documents like Social Security cards, making it all the more difficult for those who wish to flee.

“If a death occurs with this compound and it’s someone where there’s no tracking of the birth to begin with, and they cremate the body, I don’t know how anyone would ever know that,” Rep. Doug Barthel told the Daily Beast.

Barthel is one of the 13 members of the Judiciary Committee which passed the bill with a vote of 12-1. The lone outlier was Republican Rep. Tom Pischke, a self-described libertarian, who told the Daily Beast that he feared the bill was an attempt to “legislate morality.”

“If someone at this complex doesn’t register the birth of a baby or death of somebody, we’re basically going to give the authorities the right to do what could possibly be deemed an ‘unreasonable search and seizure’ of the entire complex,” Pischke told the Daily Beast.

While Goodwin has assured his fellow lawmakers that the local Custer County Sheriff Department was “very cooperative” and just needed “some kind of reason to go in there,” a spokesperson told the Daily Beast that even if the law passes, “We still have to respect their privacy.” Barthel, who supported the bill, acknowledged that enforcing the new penalty will be easier said than done.

“I’m not sure how that will happen,” Barthel told the Daily Beast. “I don’t think law enforcement will just be able to go in there and ask for papers unless they have probable cause.”

“From my perspective and for law enforcement, if a death isn’t being reported, that raises concerns,” Rep. Doug Barthel (R) told The Daily Beast. “If a death occurs with this compound and it’s someone where there’s no tracking of the birth to begin with, and they cremate the body, I don’t know how anyone would ever know that.”

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/warren-jeffs-flds-south-dakota-compound-788509/

Russian Trial Of Danish Jehovah's Witness Draws To A Close

RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty
January 30, 2019


A verdict is expected soon in the trial of a Danish member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a U.S.-based religious denomination that Russia has branded extremist and outlawed.

A statement on the website of the Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia said that final arguments were to continue on January 30 in the trial of Dennis Christensen in the western city of Oryol, where he has been jailed since shortly after his arrest in May 2017.

Prosecutors want the judge to convict Christensen, 46, of organizing the activities of an extremist group and sentence him to 6 1/2 years in prison. The maximum sentence for that crime is 10 years.

The verdict will reportedly be the first to be issued against a member of the Jehovah's Witnesses since Russia's Supreme Court designated the group as extremist two years ago -- a decision that has been criticized by the United States, the European Union, and human rights groups.

Human Rights Watch has said that Christensen, who denies the charge, did nothing wrong and should be released. Russian activists and Christensen, who has lived in Oryol for more than a decade, say the case against him has echoes of the era of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Headquartered in the U.S. state of New York, the Jehovah's Witnesses organization has long been viewed with suspicion by some governments for its members' positions on military service, voting, and government authority in general. The group says it has around 170,000 adherents in Russia.

In its 2017 ruling, the Supreme Court ordered the seizure of its property and effectively banned worshipers from the country.

More than 100 criminal cases have been opened against followers in Russia and some of its publications have been listed as banned extremist literature.

Some of the criminal case brought before the Supreme Court by prosecutors hinged on Russian-language Bible translations by the organization.

Freedom of religion is formally guaranteed in Russia but legislation sets out Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism as the country's four traditional religions, and smaller denominations such as Baptists, Pentecostalists, Mormons, and others frequently face discrimination.

President Vladimir Putin seemed to suggest the Russian state might review the "extremist" designation when he discussed the issue at a meeting of his advisory human rights council in December.

Putin said that "Jehovah's Witnesses are Christians, too," and that it is "complete nonsense" in some cases to "label representatives of religious communities as members of destructive, even terrorist, organizations."

Putin's spokesman said at the time that the Kremlin would look into the matter, but no further announcements have been made.

Earlier in the trial, Christensen, who denied the charges, said the case evoked the Stalin era.

"I'm afraid that history is now repeating itself," Christiansen told Reuters. "I'm afraid that it's actually like Stalin has come back."



https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-jehovahs-witness-sentence/29741057.html

Church of Scientology's Kansas City building adds to growing list of Ideal Orgs

RICK MONTGOMERY

Kansas City Star
JANUARY 28, 2019

If you’ve never heard of an Ideal Org, you don’t know the Church of Scientology.

On the church’s website, portraits of these buildings are captured in dramatic twilight in about 30 U.S. cities and dozens more around the globe, from Dublin, Ireland, to San Francisco; Minneapolis to Perth, Australia. They seem to be mostly located in urban areas, city centers and sometimes, in renovated historic buildings.

Soon, there will be a portrait of Kansas City’s own Ideal Org.

“Gawd no,” wrote Kyla Wilson, publicly posting one of hundreds of opinions on The Star’s Facebook site the morning of Jan. 9. By afternoon, the smaller words “CHURCH OF” already had been fastened to a higher tier of signage, completing the message to curious motorists and Crossroads pedestrians below.

One passerby posted the obvious, if with a hint of chagrin: “The Constitution gives us freedom of religion, so...”

Few recalled that the church had bought the City National Bank building in 2007 for a reported $4 million. And that for 11 years, it sat waiting for its grand rebirth as an “Ideal Organization.”

The church’s main website says new Ideal Orgs are “dedicated each month,” with one in Detroit — with a similar rooftop sign — holding a grand opening in October.

What will it mean for Kansas City and those in the Scientology church here? The answer is unclear.
‘PUBLIC WELCOME,’ SORT OF

For the last 16 years, the Church of Scientology has quietly occupied two floors of a low-slung storefront at Main and 39th streets. A neighboring H&R Block outlet commands more attention. A yellow van for hauling “Volunteer Ministers” around the region sits in the parking lot off the church’s back door.

And beside that door, the words “Public Welcome.”

Taped on a hallway wall, a recent notice alerted church members that “we got okay to brief public on specific strategies that we are about to launch.”

But when a reporter for The Star arrived unannounced at the briefing, spokesman Matt Ward said: “You’re more than public.”

He said the organization was not ready to roll out anything for news media. Then Ward escorted the reporter out of the facility, past maybe a dozen gathering members.

He said the church was too busy finishing the downtown building’s renovation to consider The Star’s requests to tour it.

Last year, Scientology enthusiasts attending local fundraising celebrations numbered at least 50, as suggested in group photos and videos they posted on a “Kansas City Ideal Org” Facebook page.

The site has 377 followers. It shows many dancing, singing, donning costumes and congratulating one another as their individual gifts to the Org climb into the tens of thousands of dollars.

Such moves out of modest office digs and into fetching new buildings have been happening since the early 2000s. But critics such as Tony Ortega speculate that once it opens, the new Ideal Org will likely appear dormant — like some of the church’s other refurbished showcases.

A one-time Kansas Citian and author of the anti-Scientology blog The Underground Bunker, Ortega told The Star: “In a year or two, that place in Kansas City will be dead. Then the financial challenge will be keeping the lights on.”

The charge was echoed by former Scientology architect Paul Burkhart. He told ex-member and actress Leah Remini on a recent episode of her scathing A&E documentary, “Scientology and the Aftermath,” that a few years into an Ideal Org’s operation, most of the buildings stand empty but for the furniture and some staffers.

While Scientology’s website boasts of more than 10,000 locations — worship places, missions and “related organizations and affiliated groups” in 165 countries — its detractors have long smacked down the church’s membership claims.

Still there’s no disputing that the church has appealed to the rich and famous: Hollywood stars Tom Cruise, John Travolta and Elisabeth Moss are among Scientology’s most vocal followers, along with singer-songwriter Beck.

Launched in the 1950s by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard and his admirers, Scientology mixes a spiritual brew of technology, metaphysics, the universe, self-worth and emotional wellness. Scientologists practice Hubbard’s brand of so-called Dianetics, which he captured in a best-selling book that has sold millions of copies.

But the organization’s notoriety has largely come from condemning psychiatric medicine and smearing defectors who go public.

The group’s continued push to purchase large urban facilities have raised questions about the church’s motives, including avoiding income and property taxes.

Ortega, formerly with the Village Voice newspaper and co-author of “Battlefield Scientology,” said he was unaware that the church had any meaningful presence in Kansas City while he worked here as a journalist from 2003 to 2005.

“I started writing about Scientology 10 years earlier, including in Los Angeles, and I didn’t write a single story about them in Kansas City because there was nothing to write,” he said in a phone interview. “I’m not sure I even looked them up.”
GALA TO COME?

The new addition to Kansas City’s skyline required city approval, which a division of the Planning and Development Department granted with a permit issued in October.

With rare exceptions, the city allows elevated, illuminated roof signs only on downtown structures, said Joe Rexwinkle of the department’s development management office.

Under Kansas City rules, such new signs can rise no higher than 26 feet above the roof’s tallest parapet (or vertical ledge), stretch no wider than 50 percent of the building’s width and meet weight and design standards allowing the signs “to be supportable by the roof, for safety reasons,” said Rexwinkle.

The Scientology sign, which is unlit for now, makes full use of those margins but still lacks the grandeur of the Crossroads’ iconic Western Auto rooftop sign, which was grandfathered in before size restrictions were worked into codes.

Rexwinkle said signage rules for groups presenting themselves as religious are no different than for other entities with downtown buildings.

With office furniture arriving and interior lights aglow on the upper floors, the future Church of Scientology may include classrooms, a chapel and visitors area lined with informational video screens, if it replicates Ideal Orgs in other communities.

Not long after the sign was raised, contractors threw a white tarp over the letters.

The covering presumably will be pulled off for the 1928 structure’s grand re-opening, a date for which has not been announced. The occasion is expected to be a glitzy gala featuring leader David Miscavige and other Scientologists.

When the 18th and Grand site opens, it “will house the new Church of Scientology of Kansas City” and will service parishioners in Missouri, Kansas and nearby states, Ward said in an email. “It is similar to hundreds of churches that exist around the world …

“We look forward to working in the community with our social betterment programs (drug education, human rights initiative and literacy programs) and providing a central location for all our parishioners.”

https://www.kansascity.com/living/religion/article224180030.html

Upcoming Workshop​ 03/24/2019

Upcoming Workshop​ 

March 24, 2019

10 - 4:30

533 West Howard Avenue,
Decatur, GA, 30030,
United States

"Toxic Faith" is a workshop for former members of small or large destructive groups, even one-on-one guru-relationships. Any totalist environment really, where absolute obedience was expected and pressure and coercion was used to make members believe in something. 
​
Faith is a beautiful thing. I am not addressing what groups believe in. Instead I will try to explain the mechanisms that all destructive groups have in common, giving you tools to better understand how it can become toxic.
​
The location is the beautiful Gathered and Grounded studio at:
​
533 West Howard Avenue,
Decatur, GA, 30030,
United States
​
There is a restaurant right next door, and a few more within walking distance. Coffee and cookies will be provided during breaks.
​
If you have any questions, write me at katharina@cult-kids.com. 
​
Cancellation policy: 100% refund two weeks prior to event, 50% refund one week prior to the event.
​
Cost: $85*     Limit: 20 people
​
*Sometimes there's a little fund to help with the workshop cost, please write to inquire.

10 am - 12 pm
​
The "only" Truth
Coercion in Groups
Narcissistic Leaders 
 
1 pm- 4:30 pm
​
Saving the World & Pressure
Authoritarian Upbringing
Boundaries and Identity
Feelings and Fears
Recovery and Autonomy

Accused Nxivm sex-cult leader asks to be freed on $1M bond

Emily Saul
NY Post
January 25, 2019

The head of the alleged sex cult Nxivm hopes the third time’s the charm.

Keith Raniere has just made his third pitch to be sprung from the Metropolitan Detention Center, where he’s been held since his April 2018 arraignment, given that his trial date has been repeatedly pushed back by prosecutorial delays.

His request blasts the government for again postponing his trial and insinuates that prosecutors are purposefully dragging their feet to keep him locked up.

“Raniere could not help but notice how adept the Government was at keeping innocent people in prison by simply refusing to try them and by using its own failure to produce discovery as an excuse,” writes defense lawyer Marc Agnifilo in the new filing.

Brooklyn federal court Judge Nicholas Garaufis has previously refused to release Raniere, dubbing him a flight risk.

This time, Agnifilo suggests his client be released on $1 million bond secured by five properties, and a redacted amount of cash. The package also says Raniere would be subject to full home confinement, electronic monitoring, daily check-ins with pretrial services, no internet access and other conditions — including moving to a spot near the courthouse once the trial starts.

Raniere, “Smallville” TV actress Allison Mack, Seagram’s heiress Clare Bronfman and others are facing various charges, including racketeering conspiracy, for their role in Nxivm.

Raniere and Mack are also facing sex-trafficking conspiracy charges for allegedly running a secret master-slave group inside Nxivm, where the women were branded and supposedly instructed to have sex with Raniere.

Garaufis has yet to rule on the motion.

Opening statements are currently scheduled for April 29.

https://nypost.com/2019/01/25/accused-nxivm-sex-cult-leader-asks-to-be-freed-on-1m-bond/

Brooklyn judge finds ‘issues’ with Nxivm defense fund

 Emily Saul

NY Post

January 23, 2019

A Brooklyn federal judge is hauling the members of upstate sex cult Nxivm into court — saying he’s found some “issues” with a defense fund that prosecutors claim was set up by Seagrams heiress Clare Bronfman to help her cronies at the upcoming trial.

Prosecutors have said Bronfman set up the irrevocable trust to keep her fellow cultists in line as they head to trial by paying for top-notch defense attorneys.

Judge Nicholas Garaufis held an initial hearing on the issue last month, where he ruled that documentation related to everyone contributing to the trust must be turned over.

The Wednesday order from Garaufis was brief, simply stating that all defendants must attend “to address issues [the court] has identified in its review of the Trust’s indenture and the declaration that Defendants submitted.”

Those documents were not publicly filed.

Garaufis also noted he intends to schedule further investigative hearings on the finances at a later date.

Bronfman is charged with racketeering conspiracy and conspiracy to commit identity theft for allegedly aiding cult leader Keith Raniere to run his self-help group — which prosecutors claim contained a secret inner circle of masters and slaves.

Raniere and onetime “Smallville” actress Allison Mack are facing charges of sex trafficking related to the secret group, where the slaves allegedly were instructed to have sex with Raniere.
The trial is scheduled for April 29.

https://nypost.com/2019/01/23/brooklyn-judge-finds-issues-with-nxivm-defense-fund/

Exclusive Brethren ‘cult’ sues over publication of sermons

Billy Kenber, Investigations Reporter
The Times
January 23 2019

A fundamentalist Christian sect is using charitable funds to sue a retired Scottish academic for more than £100,000 after he published short extracts of its leader’s teachings online.

The legal action against Ian McKay, a former lecturer at Glasgow University, has been taken by the Exclusive Brethren, which previously promised to show restraint in taking legal action when it struck a controversial deal to protect its charitable status.

The Exclusive Brethren, described by critics as a cult, has about 17,000 British members who follow a doctrine of separation that does not allow them to eat or drink with outsiders. Members attend Brethren schools, work at Brethren-run businesses and are encouraged to make donations to the group’s Australian leader, Bruce Hales.

Read More:
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cult-sues-over-publication-of-sermons-l9gqfj2hx

You've seen the posters around town; here are 5 things you need to know about Shen Yun

Manuel Mendoza
Dallas Morning News
January 22, 2019

You've no doubt seen the posters for Shen Yun Performing Arts that blanket each city where the music and dance troupe travels. Its elaborately designed shows are advertised as a celebration of traditional Chinese culture. But there's more to the upstate New York ensemble than flashy costumes and choreography: It's a wing of Falun Gong, a spiritual movement banned by the Chinese government.

As Shen Yun enters its final week of performances in North Texas, here are five things you need to know about the group:

1.     It operates out of the 427-acre Falun Gong retreat in Deerpark, N.Y., according to a report by Britain's Guardiannewspaper. Six separate troupes totaling hundreds of performers train there for tours that will take them to 43 states and 14 countries this year. In North Texas alone, Shen Yun opened its annual run with six shows earlier this month at Richardson's Eisemann Center before moving to Bass Performance Hall in Fort Worth for two dates. Its whopping 16-show stand at Winspear Opera House wraps Jan. 27.

2.     Falun Gong was founded inside China in 1992 by Li Hongzhi during a boom in meditative practices. According to the Los Angeles Times, it initially had the support of the communist Chinese government. But as its followers reached the tens of millions late in the decade, the government began cracking down on groups promoting the new spirituality. Protests and clashes followed. The socially conservative Hongzhi, who has preached against homosexuality and sex outside of marriage, emigrated to the U.S.

3.     Shen Yun was established in 2006. In the ensuing years, as its connection to Falun Gong has become more public, the secretive group has acknowledged the link though it still declines interviews and access to its shows by photographers.

4.     The productions contain references to Falun Gong and its Chinese oppressors. In a Toronto show described by Guardianreporter Nicholas Hune-Brown, young students were depicted reading Falun Gong books and being attacked by thugs wearing tunics with hammer-and-sickle symbols.

5.     Shen Yun likes to publicize the names of celebrities attending its shows, sometimes collecting testimonials. "It was an extraordinary experience for us and the children," actress Cate Blanchett is quoted as saying after a 2012 performance. "The level of skill, but also the power of the archetypes and the narratives were startling."

https://www.dallasnews.com/arts/performing-arts/2019/01/22/seen-posters-around-town-5-things-need-know-shen-yun

How a Dysfunctional Family Functions Like a Cult Published

By Jose Fernández Aguado
ICSA Today

Note: This article is based on a paper presented at ICSA’s Annual Conference in Bordeaux, France in 2017.  Vol 9 No 3 2018
In my clinical practice, I often see how dysfunctional families cause pain to their members, and it is my opinion that the cult perspective can help explain certain aspects of what these families go through. (Many families may be dysfunctional in ways that have nothing to do with cultic dynamics. Those are not the focus of this paper.)
I start with a working definition of a dysfunctional family and note some broad areas of relationship between dysfunctional families and cults. Then, using three concepts from family systems theory (Minuchin, 1981; Satir, 1976)—boundaries, rules, and roles—I suggest similarities between how a dysfunctional family weakens its members and the harmful effect of a cultic group on its members.
In this article, I do not intend to deal with the relationship between persons being part of dysfunctional families and the degree of risk of their being recruited by a cult. Dysfunctional families may make their members more vulnerable to cult recruitment, but professionals acknowledge that even people belonging to healthy families can be deceived into cultic involvement; no one is free of the risk of recruitment. Rather, I focus on how families in which there is psychological abuse or inadequate relationships are similar to cults.
https://www.icsahome.com/artic...unctions-like-a-cult

What is a Cult, What you Need to Know

China alerts citizens against Indian spiritual courses, ‘cults’

The alert was issued by the ministry of public security (MPS), China’s police, after a Taiwanese actress promoted a spiritual course offered by a south India-based organisation.

Sutirtho Patranobis
Hindustan Times
January 17, 2019

China has warned its citizens to stay alert about spiritual courses offered by Indian religious schools, warning that some of them are mired in “sexual assault” cases and urged its citizens to stay off “suspected religious cults”.

The alert was issued by the ministry of public security (MPS), China’s police, after a Taiwanese actress promoted a spiritual course offered by a south India-based organisation. It triggered a debate across the country’s social media whether the celebrity was actually promoting a “religious cult”.

“Yi Nengjing, or Annie Yi, an actress from the island of Taiwan, posted on Sina Weibo on Monday promoting lessons of Amma and Bhagavan, creators of the Oneness University based in Chittoor, India,” the tabloid, Global Times said in a report.

Following the “heated discussions” on Weibo, China’s version of Twitter, the MPS and the China Anti-Cult Association (CACA) “forwarded the post and warned the public that some spiritual schools are mired in sexual assault cases”.

The actress subsequently deleted her post.

“The CACA referred to a case of a so-called Indian religious master named Singh who was reportedly arrested for imprisoning and raping nearly 200 female believers in December 2017,” the report added.

The report was possibly referring to the case of Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh, who is serving a 20-year sentence for raping two of his woman followers.

Quoting anonymous experts, the report said the teachings and courses offered by the south Indian organisation fell within the definition of “cult”.

“The Beijing-based expert also noted that its courses are a mix of Buddhism and Christianity, which is similar to the doctrine of the South Korean Unification Church, which the State Council, China’s cabinet, considers a cult,” it said.

The Supreme People’s Court of China defines a cult as an illegal organisation that uses religion or ‘qigong’, a kind of healing practice that involves breathing exercises, as a means to deceive and ultimately control its members.

“Cult leaders whose activities result in especially serious consequences, such as the death of three or more people, can be fined and imprisoned for at least seven years,” the SixthTone website said in a report.

“Chinese authorities have long been wary of religious sects. The 19th-century Taiping Rebellion, a violent uprising led by a man claiming to be the younger brother of Jesus, lasted for 14 years and resulted in the deaths of over 20 million people,” the Foreign Policy magazine website said in an earlier report.

In 2017, according to the official news agency Xinhua, China opened a website named China Anti-Cult Network, aiming to promote the preventative measures and policies that China has for combatting cults, offer an interpretation of the anti-cult law and related information.

“The website also has a section where the public can report criminal offences related to cults. It provides psychological guidance for the victims of cults and their families, and assistance in the search for missing relatives. An online pledge called ‘Say No to Cults’ calls for the public to sign their names to show they oppose and resist cults,” the report added.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/china-alerts-citizens-against-indian-spiritual-courses-cults/story-3bMHRKnz3ZsW5aTYtO0yrL.html

Convicted cult leader Malachi York files $2 billion lawsuit

York, the former head of the Eatonton-based Nuwaubian group, is now serving a 135-year sentence on federal child-molestation charges.

WMAZ Staff
December 14, 2018


The former head of a Putnam County cult, now serving a 135-year sentence on child-molestation charges, wants $2 billion.

And he wants it in 20 days.

Dwight D. York filed a lawsuit in Macon's U.S. District Court Thursday demanding compensation from various government agencies. His three-page suit argues that he is a Native American and the U.S. legal system has no jurisdiction over him.

"I am not or never have been a part of this corporate state or their judicial system," York writes.

He adds, "The reason I am asking for the amount of money damages is because I think a message should be sent to everyone in North America that you should not rape, murder, pillage or do treason, sedition, involuntary servitude, slavery, terrorism, fraud, extortion, grand theft, robbery, conspiracy and racketeering against a Native American Moor."

'A pseudo-religious sect'

York was the head of the United Nation of Nuwaubians, a Eatonton-based group that prosecutors called a "pseudo-religious sect."

According to a federal court ruling in the case, "Over the years, the Nuwaubian organization's official philosophy (as well as its name) has changed several times, alternatively finding its basis in Islamic, Hebrew, ancient Egyptian, Yamasee Indian, and various other cultures and religions."

York founded the group in Brooklyn in the 1960s, moved to upstate New York and eventually in the 1990s set up a compound off Shady Dale Road near Eatonton that featured a pyramid replica and other faux Egyptian relics.

Fourteen children testified against York

In 2004, a jury convicted him on 10 federal charges, including racketeering counts and transporting children across state lines for sexual purposes.

Federal prosecutors claimed that York molested and sexually abused countless children who were members of the Nuwaubian group.

Fourteen of those children testified in his three-week federal trial. Judge Ashley Royal gave York the maximum sentence -- 1,620 months or 135 years.

He is currently being held at the federal maximum-security prison in Florence, Colorado.

After his conviction, federal prosecutors seized the Eatonton compound and demolished it.

'You have 20 days'

Although federal prison records list him as Dwight D York, he filed his lawsuit this week as Malachi Z. York -- one of his aliases.


The federal docket for his 2002 criminal case lists several other aliases -- Isa Muhammad, Isa Alihad Mahdi and "Baba."

His lawsuit cites an 1871 law that allows people to sue local governments for civil rights violations: "I am looking for compensation from Title 42 Statute 1983 in the amount of two billion dollars."

York submitted several attachments with his lawsuit, including several documents arguing that he's not under jurisdiction of U.S. law, a form granting power of attorney to a Michigan man and a manila folder simply marked, "You have 20 days to comply."

As defendants, his suit names the "Macon County Police Department" -- a non-existent agency -- Bibb County, State of Georgia, FBI, an unidentified "Sheriff's Department" and Judge Royal.

No trial date has been set for York's lawsuit.

The federal Bureau of Prisons' website lists York's earliest release date as June 7, 2122.

https://www.13wmaz.com/article/news/local/convicted-cult-leader-malachi-york-files-2-billion-lawsuit/93-623499810

Hundreds of sex abuse allegations found in fundamental Baptist churches across U.S.

Fort Worth Star-Telegram

BY SARAH SMITH

DEC. 9, 2018

Joy Evans Ryder was 15 years old when she says her church youth director pinned her to his office floor and raped her.

“It’s OK. It’s OK,” he told her. “You don’t have to be afraid of anything.”

He straddled her with his knees, and she looked off into the corner, crying and thinking, “This isn’t how my mom said it was supposed to be.”

The youth director, Dave Hyles, was the son of the charismatic pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, considered at the time the flagship for thousands of loosely affiliated independent fundamental Baptist churches and universities.

At least three other teen girls would accuse Hyles of sexual misconduct, but he never faced charges or even sat for a police interview related to the accusations. When he got in trouble, Hyles was able to simply move on, from one church assignment to the next.

Hyles’ flight to safety has become a well-worn path for ministers in the independent fundamental Baptist movement.

For decades, women and children have faced rampant sexual abuse while worshiping at independent fundamental Baptist churches around the country. The network of churches and schools has often covered up the crimes and helped relocate the offenders, an eight-month Star-Telegram investigation has found.

More than 200 people — current or former church members, across generations — shared their stories of rape, assault, humiliation and fear in churches where male leadership cannot be questioned.

“It’s a philosophy — it’s flawed,” said Stacey Shiflett, an independent fundamental Baptist pastor in Dundalk, Maryland. “The philosophy is you don’t air your dirty laundry in front of everyone. Pastors think if they keep it on the down-low, it won’t impact anyone. And then the other philosophy is it’s wrong to say anything bad about another preacher.”

The Star-Telegram discovered at least 412 allegations of sexual misconduct in 187 independent fundamental Baptist churches and their affiliated institutions, spanning 40 states and Canada.

Twenty-one abuse allegations were uncovered exclusively by the Star-Telegram, and others were documented in criminal cases, lawsuits and news reports. But victims said the number of abused is far greater because few victims ever come forward.

One hundred and sixty-eight church leaders were accused or convicted of committing sexual crimes against children, the investigation found. At least 45 of the alleged abusers continued in ministry after accusations came to the attention of church authorities or law enforcement.

Compounding the problem is the legal statute of limitations. For many alleged offenders, the statutes on the crimes have expired.

Many of the allegations involve men whose misconduct has long been suspected in the independent fundamental Baptist community. But most of their victims have not publicly come forward, on the record, until now. Even pastors have for the first time — in interviews with the Star-Telegram — acknowledged they moved alleged abusers out of their churches rather than call law enforcement.

From Connecticut to California, the stories are tragically similar:

A music minister molested a 15-year-old girl in North Carolina and moved to another church in Florida. Another girl’s parents stood in front of their Connecticut congregation to acknowledge their daughter’s “sin” after she was abused by her youth pastor, beginning at 16. This year, four women accused a pastor in California of covering up sexual misconduct and shielding the abusers over almost 25 years.

To understand how this systemic, widespread abuse could happen again and again, some former members say it is necessary to understand the cult-like power of many independent fundamental Baptist churches and the constant pressure not to question pastors — or ever leave the church.

“We didn’t have a compound like those other places, but it may as well have been,” said one former member who says she was abused. She requested anonymity because, like many others, she is still intimidated by the church.

“Our mind was the compound.”

HEAR THEM SPEAK

‘MEN OF GOD’

Current and formers members say many independent fundamental Baptist churches rule by fear.

Pastor Jim Vineyard was an expert in the tactic.

Vineyard had a tattoo snaking around his forearm and liked to talk about the days he said he was a Green Beret. He began his preaching career under Dave Hyles’ father, Jack, in Indiana and left to begin his own church, Windsor Hills Baptist Church in Oklahoma City.

Former members in Oklahoma City remember the story about a photo of a dead man Vineyard kept in his desk. It was a favorite of Vineyard’s to tell from the pulpit.

In one version of the story, the picture was of a man who voted against Vineyard coming into the church to pastor. The man subsequently got into a car crash and broke his neck.

Or there was this version: The photo was of the son of a Windsor Hills family who told Vineyard they were going to leave the church. Vineyard warned them: If they did, God would punish them. They left, and the son died in a car crash.

Defy Jim Vineyard, the message went, and God would punish you.

To go against the advice of the pastor of an independent fundamental Baptist church is almost unthinkable. The “man of God” is chosen by God and is the church’s direct link to him. To question the pastor is to question God.

“I see a culture where pastoral authority is taken to a level that’s beyond what the Scripture teaches,” said Tim Heck, who was a deacon at Faith Baptist Church in Wildomar, California, and whose daughter said she had been abused by the youth pastor there. “I think the independent fundamental Baptists have lost their way.”

Many pastors build authority through fear and interpretation of Bible verses. Children learn the story of Elisha and the she-bears: As the prophet Elisha walks up the path toward Bethel, a group of children surrounds him and makes fun of his baldness. Two she-bears emerge from the woods and maul 42 of the children. The lesson: Don’t challenge the man of God.

Even if they leave, some ex-members wonder for years whether bad events in their lives were caused by an angry God. Jennifer McCune, who came forward this year to allege that Dave Hyles raped her when she was a 14-year-old in Texas, still wonders 36 years later if God punished her by giving her late husband cancer.

Other ex-members said they believed that if they disobeyed the pastor or left the church, God would kill them or their loved ones.

The authority of the men of God extends far beyond the church. Pastors often have a heavy hand in who church members can date. Pastors are asked by members for their advice on where to vacation or whether to take a new job. When one congregant wanted to buy a new house, he had the pastor drive by first and approve it.

Independent fundamental Baptist churches preach separation: Stay separate from the world, separate from non-believers and separate from Christians who do not believe as they do. That includes Southern Baptists, who are deemed by the strict sect as too liberal.

Members instinctively go to the pastor first with problems, including those of a criminal nature.

“Any issues, even legal issues, go to the pastor first, not the police. Especially about another member of the church,” said Josh Elliott, a former member of Vineyard’s Oklahoma City church. “The person should go to the pastor, and the pastor will talk to the offender. You don’t report to police because the pastor is the ultimate authority, not the government.”

Stuart Hardy was a youth and music pastor at an independent fundamental Baptist church in Michigan. He witnessed the same authoritarian approach.

“You can’t question your leaders,” Hardy said. “And when you can’t question your leaders, we’ve seen it in politics, you know what happens. It’s not a good thing.”

Hardy left in 2014 and now describes the experience using one four-letter word.

“Those of us that have gotten out definitely know it as a cult,” he said.

The independent fundamental Baptist movement began to grow in the 1950s and ’60s as the churches positioned themselves as the true way to Christ in contrast to less conservative churches and a godless secular world.

While there’s no official count, an online directory assembled by a pastor in Maine lists more than 6,000 independent fundamental Baptist churches in the United States, as well as churches in countries from Germany to Nicaragua.

The churches operate independently. But many pastors are linked by the church-affiliated colleges they attended: Bob Jones University, Hyles-Anderson College, Pensacola Christian College and Golden State Baptist College, to name a few. Friendships are forged at preaching conferences — and, just as often, alliances are rearranged when there’s a rift.

Pastors use their connections in this informal network to help abusers find new churches, the Star-Telegram found.

Many of the churches identified by the Star-Telegram that have faced abuse allegations are in the Southeast and Midwest, with the most being in North Carolina (17) and Ohio (12).

Nine of the churches are in Texas, including Open Door Baptist Church in Mesquite. In April, police arrested pastor Bob Ross on charges that he failed to report the alleged sexual abuse of a minor. A month earlier, one of his ministers and a youth volunteer were jailed on suspicion of sexually abusing children at the church.

While many abusers in the ministry are never caught, there’s a collection of church officials in prison for their crimes. Carlton Hammonds, who pastored Willows Baptist Church in Willows, California, served three years for molesting four girls from his congregation in the mid-2000s. In 2012, Joshua Gardner was sentenced to six years for sexually abusing two boys at his parents’ church on an American base in Okinawa, Japan. (His Minnesota church stood behind him.) Two officials at Kettle Moraine Baptist Church in Wisconsin were sentenced to prison for sexually assaulting children at the church’s Camp Joy. One of the Camp Joy workers already had a sexual offense conviction.

Jim Vineyard would also face misconduct allegations when his leadership-by-fear style was finally challenged in 2004.

Multiple women say the Oklahoma City pastor made sexual comments to them from the 1990s to 2000s when they were teenagers during one-on-one counseling sessions. The allegations went public when the brother of one of the girls put together a packet of letters and sworn affidavits describing the comments and sent it to the church’s deacons.

Vineyard, who died in October 2017, denied he’d done anything wrong and led Windsor Hills until 2007.

Vineyard’s son Tom took his place as head of the church. Ross, the pastor from Mesquite who was arrested in April, had worked for Jim Vineyard in Oklahoma before coming to Texas, and has found refuge back in Vineyard’s church as he awaits trial.

Tom Vineyard and Ross did not respond to requests for comment.

Ex-members of Windsor Hills say they’ve been contacted by Mesquite officers as part of the investigation into Ross. They said police also asked them about allegations that Ross had failed to report abuse when he worked at Windsor Hills.

‘HE DOES THAT WITH EVERYONE’

In Joy Evans Ryder’s mid-1970s church-driven world, skirts had to go past knees, men and women had to be separated by six inches, and a good daughter’s gift to her father was to save her first kiss for the altar.

A father himself, Jack Hyles was nicknamed the “Baptist Pope” for the sway he held over the nationwide independent fundamental Baptist movement from his power base in small-town Indiana.

His son Dave was tall, skinny and already balding by his mid-20s. He had his father’s eyes that pulled down at the corners. No one would have called him traditionally handsome, but he had his father’s ability to make you feel a part of the in-crowd with a compliment or sarcastic joke. And he could just as easily push you out with a cutting insult.

Dave Hyles had taken an interest in Ryder when she was 14, and it scared her.

One Sunday morning after service, she stood in line to speak to Jack Hyles — the most important person in her world — about his son’s repeated calls to her house. The attention made her uncomfortable, she said.

The pastor sat at his desk and took her in for a moment.

“Joy, you’re not special,” he said. “He does that with everyone. So don’t think he’s trying to do anything with you.”

Not long after, she was raped by Dave Hyles. It continued for two years.

Reached by phone, Dave Hyles declined to comment. The Star-Telegram followed up by sending him a list of written questions. He did not respond. Jack Hyles died in 2001.

At 16, Ryder thought about suicide, fearing she might be pregnant with Dave Hyles’ child. She imagined ramming her car into a telephone pole or a tree, killing her and the baby.

She didn’t think about going to police.

“I went to somebody I thought would be my protector,” Ryder said. “Not my dad, because this shows you how we were taught to think about our pastor, Dr. Hyles.”

Dave Hyles had warned her to stay quiet or he’d get her parents fired. Her father was president of Hyles-Anderson College, a school started by and run from First Baptist Church. Her mother was the school’s dean of women.

To her friends, Ryder looked happy. She was popular, secure in her social status, and had a spot in the church school’s coveted choir, called Strength and Beauty. She liked to run off to the mall with friends every chance she got and had her light-brown hair feathered, Farrah Fawcett-style.

But she was also angry and ready to rebel against the system that entrapped her. She sneaked to movies, wore pants and swiped cigarette packs, all verboten in the church.

At 17, Ryder snapped. She called her parents from a payphone at the church school and told them to meet her at home. She told them everything.

The next time she met Hyles, her father would follow.

He drove behind her to a Holiday Inn, and waited in his car as he watched Ryder walk into a first-floor room and shut the door.

“I’m leaving,” Ryder told Hyles.

He asked what she meant.

“I’m leaving,” she repeated. “I told my parents, and my dad is outside.”

Hyles pulled back the curtain and saw her father’s car. She says he shoved her against the wall, his forearm pressed on her throat.

“What have you done to me? You’ve ruined my ministry. How could you do this to me?’”

He let her go and paced the room. Ryder walked out, got in her car and drove home. Her father followed her. He didn’t confront Hyles.

He did, however, go to Jack Hyles, who dismissed the report about his son because Ryder’s father didn’t record Dave Hyles’ license plate number.

Her father dropped the subject.

Ryder’s father, Wendell Evans, wished he could do it over, he said 35 years later in a notarized statement provided to the Star-Telegram, taken because Ryder was seeking evidence to take to the church.

At the time of the abuse, Evans’ career was blossoming in the church. Pushing Hyles, his boss, on the allegations would have been difficult, he said.

“I mean, Hyles and I were still good friends,” he said. “We marveled sometimes that our friendship survived this situation.”

But in an interview with the Star-Telegram, Evans was not so forgiving of Dave Hyles. He regrets not calling the police on him.

“I think it’s remarkable that in 40 years, Dave didn’t find time to ask forgiveness from his victims and their parents,” said Evans, now 83.

It was not the first time Jack Hyles heard allegations against his son, nor would it be the last. One woman alleged Dave Hyles raped her at 14 when she attended the church’s high school, years before Ryder. The woman’s 10th-grade teacher also confronted Jack Hyles about his son, only to be brushed off.

Dave Hyles’ ministry wasn’t ruined. Instead, he got promoted.

A few months after Evans and Jack Hyles spoke about the encounter at the Holiday Inn, Dave Hyles became the pastor at Miller Road Baptist Church in Garland, Texas — the church his father led before moving to Indiana. Jack Hyles would later say he never recommended his son to any church, but deacons and staffers at Miller Road said their search committee called Jack Hyles about Dave. No one heard any warnings.

Two more women would accuse Dave Hyles of molesting them in Texas. One woman, who went to Hyles-Anderson for college, said she tried to tell Jack Hyles what had happened. He told her not to tell anyone else.

Then, she said, he kicked her out of his office.

‘THE M.O. IN FUNDAMENTALISM’

It was a Friday in May 2018 when one of Stacey Shiflett’s associate pastors pulled him aside after a staff meeting and said they needed to talk — and that it was urgent.

Shiflett, a native Georgian with close-cropped hair who hasn’t lost his Southern accent or his penchant for the Bulldogs, was in his fourth year of pastoring Calvary Baptist Church in Dundalk, Maryland. His predecessor, Cameron Giovanelli, had recommended him for the post and was president of the prestigious Golden State Baptist College in Santa Clara, California, where Shiflett’s daughter attended.

Shiflett liked Giovanelli. He was a funny man with a young family. He’d beaten cancer and written a book about how his faith — and family — got him through it.

But it was Cameron Giovanelli whom the associate pastor had come to talk to Shiflett about. Giovanelli had allegedly molested the associate pastor’s granddaughter, Sarah Jackson, when she was 16, in 2006.

Shiflett called Sarah Jackson, now 29. Jackson told him of kisses in Giovanelli’s office, the secret phone he bought for her on the church plan so they could text, of gifts of diamond hoop earrings (he didn’t like studs) and how Giovanelli said his wife would never give him oral sex, so it was something special for the two of them.

A few hours after her conversation with Shiflett, Sarah Jackson posted her story on Facebook, naming Giovanelli. She logged off immediately, shaking. But she felt free. For the first time in years, she wouldn’t have to lie.

“I was raised in a way where you respect your elders and your leaders,” she wrote on Facebook. “Your Pastor in the Baptist faith, is pretty much right under God. You trust him. With everything.”

She then accused Giovanelli of abusing his power to instigate a physical and emotional relationship with her. “Why now? Well, now I am a mother. I will do whatever I can in my power to not allow something to happen to my son that happened to me as a 16-year-old girl. So this is my story, and with this, I let go.”

Stacey Shiflett, a 45-year-old with 25 years of ministry behind him, hoped the allegations weren’t true. But the more he investigated, the more credible Jackson’s story became.

When Giovanelli resigned from Golden State Baptist College after the abuse allegation went viral, the chancellor of the college and the pastor of its affiliated church asked the congregation to pray for the church, the college, and the Giovanelli family.

The pastor, Jack Trieber, dressed in a yellow tie and matching pocket square, reached into his pocket to put on his glasses before reading a statement that “allegations of inappropriate conduct” had been made against Giovanelli.

Trieber took his glasses off. The video posted on the church website ends. Then, say people who were in attendance, he proceeded to praise Giovanelli.

Trieber did not respond to interview requests. Reached by phone, Giovanelli said he had no comment and hung up. He did not respond to specific questions that were sent to him.

Jackson filed a police report. The investigation is ongoing. Still, Giovanelli found a soft landing at Immanuel Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida, where he is an associate pastor and head of the church’s book publication arm. He is supported by the pastor, Greg Neal, and his Twitter feed shows him traveling around the country, welcomed at churches.

Neal has had his own brush with the law.

In 2011, police investigated Neal over allegations that he videotaped unsuspecting women as they changed their clothes in his church office a decade earlier. By then, the one-year statute of limitations on the allegations had run out.

Neal did not respond to requests for comment.

Stacey Shiflett saw the video by Jack Trieber, the chancellor of Golden State Baptist College. He decided to speak out because he felt Trieber downplayed the allegations against Giovanelli. He put up an 18-minute YouTube video, recorded in his office — the same office in which Sarah Jackson said Cameron Giovanelli molested her.

For Shiflett, the issue was personal. He’d twice been a victim of attempted sexual misconduct in the church world. Both times, people knew about his would-be abusers’ behavior and did nothing to stop it. One alleged abuser went on to serve as an administrator in a Christian school in a different state, even after Shiflett warned the school’s pastor.

“It’s been the M.O. in fundamentalism for pastors and churches and ministries to just gloss over and sweep under the rug things of absolute epic proportion,” he said in the video. “The reason why I’m so fervent, so passionate about it this morning is because I relived all of those feelings of what it’s like to be abused — and the one that does the abuse is the one that always comes out the other side smelling like a rose and goes down the road to another church so he can do it again to somebody else.”

The reaction in the movement was predictable, not that Shiflett cares.

"Your Pastor in the Baptist faith, is pretty much right under God. You trust him. With everything."

The father of the man who pastors the Jacksonville church that took Giovanelli in retaliated by publishing a piece on his personal website titled “An Expose on Stacey Shiflett” that called him “self-aggrandizing” and a “little man” and accused him of automatically taking Sarah Jackson’s side.

As for Jackson, he wrote, he studied her “sordid FB page” and found her to be “godless, narcissistic and self-promoting.”

At Calvary Baptist Church, Shiflett said, he’s been open with the congregation. They haven’t lost a single member since Jackson went public with her allegations, he said. She even went to a church service once with her husband and baby boy. Everyone lined up to give her a hug.

“It bothers me that men of God will stand up in the pulpit all over this country who say, ‘We’re going to stand up for the truth and stand for what’s right,’ they duck and they run and they hide when stuff like this comes out,” Shiflett said in the video, holding up his Bible.

“And that’s why people have given independent Baptists a bad name. It happens all the time. But it’s not going to happen this time.”

On July 4, Cameron Giovanelli put up a YouTube video (now deleted) denying Sarah Jackson’s accusations that he began a sexual relationship with her when she was 16 in her Maryland church. He stood in a red Georgia Bulldogs polo in front of palm leaves with his wife. Birds chirped in the background.

“With these false allegations, God has now brought us to Jacksonville, Florida,” he said. “Who’d have ever thought? Jacksonville, Florida.”

He resigned from Golden State for the good of the college, he said, and was excited to start down the new path God set out for him.

Giovanelli’s wife stood behind him in a striped T-shirt, eyes on her husband through the three-minute video, nodding. She said nothing.

A FORCED APOLOGY

Consequences are rare for pastors who cover up abusive behavior. In some cases, the abused are even forced to apologize in front of the congregation.

Lisa Meister’s pastor listened when she told him that her youth pastor, Mark Chappell, had abused her in Wallingford, Connecticut, in the 1980s.

Then he let Chappell move to another church.

Mark Chappell’s alleged misconduct has long been a topic of speculation in the independent fundamental Baptist community. Ex-fundamentalist message boards had stories about him, but were posted anonymously.

Meister, 48 now and speaking publicly for the first time, met Chappell when she was 15. He was stocky and handsome, with yellow-red hair and a mustache. He complimented her lip gloss, her dresses, her perfume — and at the time, she liked the attention.

When she was 16, she said, he took her to his apartment and kissed her. Eventually, they did everything but penetrative sex, she said, and she cried after. He told her that if she told anyone, she would ruin his life.

At 17, feeling like she had no other way to get out of the situation, Lisa Meister tried to kill herself.

Sitting in the hospital room, she told her pastor, Stephen Baker, why she did it.

Ultimately, Meister’s parents and Chappell were asked to appear before the church to repent for their sins.

“It wasn’t said, ‘This man preyed on this girl,’ ‘This man violated this girl,’” Meister said. “It was put out before the church as two people who sinned together. Like I was just as guilty as he was in the eyes of the church.”

When Chappell moved to a new church, Baker said he made the leadership in the new church aware of the allegations.

“I worked very closely with our leadership, and we felt we had tried to do what was in the very best interest of really, two situations,” Baker said. “The church and both parties.”

Nothing in his schooling had prepared Baker for the situation with Meister and Chappell. He’d never heard the term “mandatory reporter,” referring to laws that require people in certain professions to report suspected abuse to authorities. In retrospect, he said, he should have taken more time to decide what to do and let Lisa Meister’s parents know that there were options besides church discipline.

Chappell now pastors Freeway Baptist Church in Phoenix, Arizona. He is part of one of the most prominent families in the movement: His brother, Paul Chappell, is a pastor and is the president of West Coast Baptist College in Lancaster, California. Mark Chappell did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Meister is married to a Southern Baptist pastor. She’s in treatment for depression and has had thoughts of suicide since her first attempt. She wishes she had talked more to her parents about what happened before they died. For a while she hated religion, but after hearing sermons, she realized it wasn’t God who hurt her, it was a man.

“It made me very distrustful of men,” she said. “It made me very distrustful of the pastor.”

‘CONTINUE TO PRAY’

Dave Hyles left victims across the country. They are still in recovery.

In the 1970s and ’80s, with his dad’s church among the biggest in the country, Hyles cut a celebrity-like figure in the movement — and took advantage of it.

Rhonda Cox Lee felt special when Hyles noticed her out of the hundreds of kids who attended his dad’s church.

The first time anything sexual happened, she said, they were in his office. He sat at his desk, she sat across from him on a chair. He walked around the desk and placed her hand on his groin.

“Do you feel that?” he asked.

At first she thought it was some sort of spiritual test. He was a man of God, after all, and even though it felt wrong, he wouldn’t ask her to do anything wrong. Several meetings later, their clothing came off. She was 14. It felt wrong, she said, but she knew it had to be what God wanted.

“He compared himself to David in the Bible and how he was anointed, and said this is what I was supposed to do,” Lee said. “I was supposed to take care of him because he was the man of God.”

Hyles, she said, alternately promised her that they would be together once she turned 18 and warned her not to tell anyone in the church because if she did, the church would split, America would go to hell, and the blood of the unsaved would be on her hands.

Brandy Eckright went to Hyles for counseling at his church in Garland, Texas, when she was 18, after being molested as a child. She said he soon took advantage of her, and they had sex for the first time in 1982.

“Dave, I thought he was a God,” said Eckright, who like Lee had never gone public with her allegations against Hyles. “I thought if I got pregnant by Dave Hyles, it would be like having God’s baby.”

At 54, Eckright can barely talk about what happened. She’s survived three suicide attempts. She works as a cashier and said she can barely hold down the job.

In 1984, Hyles left Miller Road Baptist Church in Garland after a janitor found a briefcase stashed with pornography featuring Hyles and married female members of the congregation, ex-members said. He and his new wife went back to live near First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, and then moved again.

Dave Hyles has managed to stay out of handcuffs.

Today, he runs a ministry for pastors who have fallen into sin, supported by Family Baptist Church in Columbia, Tennessee, pastored by David Baker.

In 2017, Joy Evans Ryder’s brother emailed Baker, outlining Hyles’ alleged crimes against his sister. Baker took five words to reply: “Thank you for your concern.”

Baker, a Hyles-Anderson College graduate and a military veteran, said he thinks Dave Hyles has been unfairly blamed. Hyles, Baker said, is a good man, with a strong marriage who has helped many people through his ministry.

“He’s someone who made mistakes years ago, and through that brokenness and God restoring him, wants to use what he’s been through to help others,” Baker said. “I’m not going to debate anybody about those issues.”

Dave Hyles, with gray hair and a beard, is pictured on his Facebook page in a red polo shirt and square-rimmed glasses similar to the ones his father so iconically wore. He sends posts in his private Facebook group, Fallen in Grace Ministries, contemplating the nature of sin and restoration.

In a September missive forwarded to the Star-Telegram, Hyles wrote that he had enemies, people who harassed him and slandered him. “In fact, I have come to realize that there is nothing we could do to satisfy them. The more we tried the less we would satisfy them,” he wrote. “So, what exactly do they want?”

Joy Evans Ryder just wants acknowledgment.

In March 2014, Ryder approached the new pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, and asked for an independent investigation into alleged abuses at the church. John Wilkerson had become the pastor the year before, after Jack Hyles’ successor and son-in-law went to federal prison for sexual abuse of a 16-year-old congregant.

Wilkerson is a tall man with a long face and gray hair parted neatly to the side. His sermons are more even in tone than either of his predecessors, who preferred to pace and shout.

Ryder and Wilkerson spoke on Friday, March 7, 2014. Ryder told him everything that had happened with Dave Hyles, and said she knew stories of other women.

Wilkerson suggested Ryder line them up to tell their stories. The next day, he texted Ryder to thank her.

“Your spirit was Christlike but your pain obviously deep,” he wrote. “I am also saddened by the way Jesus’ name has been shamed. Please continue to pray that The Lord gives direction.”

Ryder hasn’t heard from the church in four years. Wilkerson, the church’s pastor, did not respond to requests for comment.

Ryder started Out of the Shadows with other church abuse victims in 2013. It’s a nonprofit dedicated to helping sexual abuse survivors, particularly from the independent fundamental Baptist movement.

Out of the Shadows has no physical headquarters, but one day Ryder hopes it will. She spends hours talking to people on Facebook and email, mostly women, who are still in the church or have just left.

Ryder is undaunted. She swears and drinks, and every photo of her on social media shows her smiling, wavy hair in place to frame high cheekbones.

Thirty-nine years after that day at the Holiday Inn, Ryder and her father have a good relationship. She’s tried to make it that way and to enjoy her father for who he is. He learned in October he has beginning-stage Alzheimer’s. They don’t talk much about what happened.

She lives in Indiana still, after years of missionary work in Papua New Guinea and raising three children. Ryder has found the anger she couldn’t access when she was a teenager about what happened to her, and about how Hyles was allowed to move across the country.

“Like, how could I ever let myself feel special about that? That’s another bit of blame you heap on yourself,” she said. “And then it’s a whole other amount of shame. Because if they can shuffle them on and not help you, again, that reinforces that you are not worth it.”

DECEMBER 09, 2018

If you have a story to share, contact lead reporter Sarah Smith at ssmith@star-telegram.com or 817-390-7186 or reporter Kaley Johnson at kjohnson@star-telegram.com or 817-390-7832.

Kaley Johnson, Katie Bernard, Jenna Farhat, Cortlynn Stark and Sorayah Zahir contribued to this report.

 

https://www.star-telegram.com/living/religion/article222576310.html