We are restarting our podcast and are grateful you've returned: tell others! For this first episode of our fourth season, our focus today on our podcast is upon the Pure Life Ministries parachurch bandwagon - a residential program where addicts to pornography supposedly receive intimate personal spiritual direction to be freed from it. This coerced formation is a travesty of compassionate spiritual direction and is an abusive and damaging organization that empowers the hand of the Gladstone/Madison cult in Cincinnati by serving as a recruitment front for it. We're thankful for the testimony of Chris Johnson, a former participant of PLM who has become one of many survivors who is breaking a silence about it's aberrant and wicked activity guised in the robes of "toughlove". WARNING: EXPLICIT CONTENT MAY CAUSE TRIGGERING FOR SURVIVORS OF RELIGIOUS AND SEXUAL ABUSE.

Stephen Ketter's desire for truth in his life led him to the Xenos/Dwell movement back in the days when it was still calling itself the "Fish House." He joined it as an old warehouse on Sinclair Road in Columbus, Ohio was pressed into service the "non traditional" church's growth. Like so many, it all provided a place of profound spiritual impact until he began to understand what the nature was of the kinetic force behind its' power. And it was that love of Biblical truth that helped him see that oh so critical difference. We're glad to have him unpack that for us here.

The Remnant Fellowship (RF) cult of Franklin, Tennessee was likened to being the exclusive "Kingdom of Love" by its deceased founder, Gwen Shamblin Lara. And she and her coterie of leaders there were the most charming, the most engaging of recruiters for what they also called "Zion", beckoning people searching for God, community and meaning.

Our guest, Ge'Cobi Pittman and her family found this draw irresistible as people of faith seeking refuge and being persuaded Lara's Remnant vision as the place to find it. We are grateful to have her share an enlightening and deeply personal reverie about her journey into what would become a travail of authoritarian community where love, when it was found, was in quite short supply. LIke our previous podcasts and streams with other ex-RF members, the journey is painful to listen to yet a testimony to a young woman's determination to seek the truth, no matter where it led her.

Sadly, it’s when the light shines brightest that the bugs fly in. Right alongside the genuine revitalizing of the 196o's Jesus movement came the deception of false teachers who organized massive movements all of their own design aimed at drawing away and exploiting hapless "Jesus people" to their sectarian cause. The Way International movement founded by Victor Paul Wierwille was one such group and it attracted hundreds of thousands of people in the 1970's into its fold which was definitively cultic to its core.

Among them was a lively young Texan girl named Cyndee who was seeking answers to her questions about life and eternity. Wierwille convinced her to pursue them along his primrose path and this podcast is the story of where it would lead her .. and how she finally found the real Home she sought.

On today's podcast, we're sharing Dr. James Bjornstad's talk entitled "A Look At the Misuse of Scripture In Aberrant Christianity" He offers keen insight on how abusive religion found in cultic churches stems from their twisted misinterpretation of Biblical principles. If you want to understand how cults twist the Scripture and distort its truth to support their lie, Dr. Bjornstad pulls no punches. Get ready for a timeless talk needing to be remembered today, even as this world's order prepares to end in a flurry of lies and deceit.

Every testimonial we've shared on our podcast is hauntingly compelling listening and A.J.'s sharing from the heart, lively and cautionary, is certainly no exception. She shares freely about her journey into and out of the Xenos/Dwell cult and her story is so incredibly familiar. It's how a young woman of faith, finding herself drawn to an exciting community she thought embodied her hopes and dreams of a deeper spirituality, would have to resort fighting for her ideals against a system that militated against them "in the name of Jesus"

Suzanne, while a member of the Xenos/Dwell movement, visits with us to provide a perspective on a profoundly warped side of its existence they deny exists. The most excruciating abuse a cult member can experience is when those whom they trust there are so caught up in it's disciplinary spirit that they associate grace and mercy with whatever its leaders decide to dish out to those they think should be "disciplined." She found the infinite mercy of God in Christ, the heart of the Christian Gospel, laid aside for the indulgence of a lurid voyeurism from people playing God.

In one of the most disturbing testimonials to the abuses of cultism I've ever heard, somehow, Suzanne's indomitable will to move beyond it shines through. WARNING: EXPLICIT CONTENT MAY CAUSE TRIGGERING FOR SURVIVORS OF RELIGIOUS AND SEXUAL ABUSE.

Alex Craig was among the first of many who we met who'd survived a traumatic life that she had completely given to Xenos/Dwell with all of the hope for purpose, fellowship and destiny it supposedly offers. Her voice to her passing through X/D's cultic crucible which she found there which almost destroyed her is a poignantly all too familiar one. We're glad we reconnected and finally have been able to present this cautionary and personal word Alex shares. WARNING: EXPLICIT CONTENT MAY CAUSE TRIGGERING FOR SURVIVORS OF RELIGIOUS AND SEXUAL ABUSE.