Houses Of The Holy: The 2016 Article On The Queen City's Haight-Ashbury

 

Aside from Reddit links, scattered Facebook pages and it's own hagiographical PR treatments about itself, there's very little information on the Gladstone Community on the internet aside. Their website page has been revised several times. Since we are unable to drive several hours and stay around for a week to try to connect with them, we're forced to start on the web in our research. 

But in many instances, that's a lot to say right there. As you read these forums, you hear and see that there's something about Gladstone's activity that leaves a bad taste in a lot of people's mouths. Ultimately, some of this is just plain bias and irreverence and can be attributed to a scorn for spirituality so common today. But by no means can that explain it all away whatsoever. The vibe people read from contact with Gladstone's activities as well as their past doings isn't something you can just dismiss out of hand. For a group claiming to be the only true expression of New Testament Christianity on the earth, it's abrasive attitude seems out of place especially when you realize that this is where they've been since their inception.

Social media is not a good place to find primary sources of information about something. When it's all you got, however, you proceed with caution and a good working baloney detector. So we were quite surprised to find that in 2016, Cincinnati Magazine published an article on this cultic movement that was the first and at this time only such source. It described the rise and presence of Gladstone as part of the organizational prowess of one Zac Kijinski, a likable and bright young man whose spiritual fervor, innovative mindset and charismatic personality remind you immediately of another religious innovator by the name of Joseph Smith, founder of the Mormon heresy whose stature and bearing commanded a likeability and allegiance of so many around him in the 1800's. 

Unlike the gregarious and extroverted Smith, who would go on to found a cultic religion all  his own, Kijinski doesn't like to talk to reporters. Click on the link to find out why. Thank you, Cincinnati Magazine.

The Gladstone Controversy: Another Cult Hidden In Plain Sight

We first want to apologize for not keeping our blog up as current as it should be. Thanks for your patience if you've been coming by for updates and not getting them!  We have been so completely overwhelmed by the responses to our work in helping bring light upon the Remnant Fellowship and Xenos / Dwell cults in recent months. We're going to try to keep this going! Our major thrusts of ministry have been related to our "Where Are We Going" Spiritwatch podcasts and we've been featuring testimony from survivors of both of those movements who've generously given us interviews into their involvement which are truly worthy of download and that's just a mouseclick away above.

Mindy Munoz' testimony has turned out to be the most downloaded episode of our podcasts so far. A well known and well loved member of the Remnant Fellowship in it's earlier years, her testimony -- barely cited in the "Way Down" documentary -- seems to be resonating with a lot of people in Tennessee. Our metrics indicate that the region around Franklin is ablaze with activity and visits from people there to our podcast. May the truth be told. 

Our last blog post was too long ago .. although we are glad to see that perhaps Dr. Loritts had listened to our entreaties and maybe a few others because he's no longer listed as a speaker on the Xenos Summer Institute roadshow of "Christian apologetics." It's amazing what the power of Internet outrage can leverage, but regrettably, there had been no communication from him about his withdrawal, much less any explanation as to why he was involved to begin with, going to speak at a "Christian apologetics" conference helmed by a religiously abusive and cultic movement.

Discernment isn't pretty but it gets the job done. There's no beauty in this affair but the vindication of truth. 

Moving forward, on our most recent podcast, we want to begin an exclusive expose on another controversial movement that has been contributing to the spiritual confusion of the Midwestern community it currently flourishes in. Well known there, this movement is almost completely unknown anywhere else. And as always, it’s a tragic story of good people in an evil situation, of love twisted by deceit, of the ecstasy of fellowship and the agony of bullying. In short it’s a cautionary tale of how there are still those who lie in wait to deceive in the name of God, those who boldly come off as champions of truth and draw so many to follow a path to hell in this world and possibly the next.

You see, when you speak of such groups as cults being in our very midst, it tends to confuse a lot of people with a sensationalism that clouds perception. Many assume that cults assemble in secrecy in well hidden compounds in some wilderness stronghold where they cavort with demonic forces, sacrifice children and wear some kind of robes, paint and feathers. As the great French philosopher Pepe Le Pew once said, Au contraire!   They are embedded in our society everywhere and are your friends, your neighbors, maybe even your family. They are the barista at the coffee house and the realtor with an office in town. They are intelligent, idealistic and sharp people with families and interests like you. Cult members are quite ordinary people who just so happen to be in the bondage ofa  cultic mind control that ties them to their chosen gathering. That’s something all too ordinary as we’ve been sharing in our podcasts.

Our attention now turns in our podcasts and outreach to come to a place calling itself a Christian church of intentional community, but which has become an antichristian den of intentional control.  Hundreds of people have been drawn into its orbit since 2006 or so, young and sharp men and women who believe it to be the only Christian movement under the sun, just as any well mind controlled cult member might conclude after having been love bombed, wined and dined and then recruited into yet another cultic billet to slave away for "the Kingdom." 

Click here to listen to our newest episode on the movement calling itself the Madison Place Community Church, after being known as the Gladstone Community Church, and before that, the Gladstone Community. The old adage of something being hidden in plain sight gets new life when considering the recent history of this controversial and quite destructive cult. We'll be focusing on them for the foreseeable future to come, as well as in research articles on the Spiritwatch website as well. Stay tuned!

We are exploting ways to launch two podcasts a week since the Xenos heresy's ongoing outrages require ongoing responses. Pray for us. We're busier than a two tailed cat in a rocking chair factory and we need God's hand on us. 

 

Let's Help A Xenos Summer Institute Speaker Get Some Perspective ..

 

Evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.
Dark Helmet, Spaceballs the Movie

The below text was sent in the comments section of Dr. Loritts' website on April 19, 2022.

I am a licensed minister and countercult activist since 1983 and enjoyed hearing Dr. Loritts off and on throughout the years and was particularly blessed by his admonition at the 2007 Precept conference in which he spoke, aside from his presentation, to give seven serious pieces of advise about false teachers and their insidious influence in the church. It was a riveting moment that I blogged about back then. 

So I'm writing now to ask now for Dr. Loritts to be advised that he's engaging in a highly inappropriate and public association with a seriously questionable group. Honestly, I truly hope that Dr. Loritts is perhaps seriously unaware of this .. but the Xenos church movement institute he is preparing to be a keynote speaker is a dangerous and deceptive assembly. 

I am calling on him to reconsider his involvement and even end it. In the past 5 months, I have begun to help assist three generations  of victims of spiritual abuse who were traumatized by Xenos polity and doctrine visible primarily ONLY in private settings.  This is documentable and has been hidden in plain sight. A documentary is forthcoming on Xenos exposing it's abuses and he needs to be aware of this.  His presence there at this institute this summer will be perceived as a tacit approval of their hidden doings and this is exactly the very thing Dr. Loritts warned about in that conference in 2007. I have posted four different podcasts about our findings the past few months and invite you to hear them. 

I must inform you that we will withhold - for now - any public call on Dr. Loritts to disassociate himself from Xenos. I do not want Dr. Loritts to be embarassed, but his embracing of Xenos' leadership is nothing to be commended for. I want to believe he has seriously failed to discern who he is ministering with as 1 Thessalonians 5:12 warns us and simply has believed the ad print and self representations his Xenos connections have made about their "leadership".   

I want to in the most strongest terms possible advise you that if we don't hear from him or a representative about this issue by the end of this month, April, 2022, we will issue on May 1 a public call through our blog and social media resources for him to do so. That is how seriously we take this.

It pains us to have to be so direct and forthright, but in this day and age in which the Christian ministry has to be above board and blameless in all things as 1 Timothy 3 comands, the glory of God and obedience to His Gospel require this direct note to you.  Xenos preaches another gospel, another Christ by the power of another spirit that is alien to the Biblical good news and all while affirming orthodoxy and worldviews that appear rigorously Biblical and at the same time conducting itself as a cultic manipulator of lives, destroying so many for over 50 years. 

You may call me at _________ to discuss this  further.  That God's Spirit will speak very loudly to you from this day forward about this is our prayer. 

No email or phone call was received by Dr. Loritts or his representatives. He either didn't get it or is choosing to ignore it. I have no way of knowing. 

Therefore, we've regrettably but resolvedly determined to post this and make our call public, a week beyond the date mentioned above giving Dr. Loritts time to respond. We will be seeking to spread this information where it needs to be. 

Good is indeed usually dumb. But not this time. 

Like A Thief In The Night: The Doom of Cultism Coming Soon

 

Even as the anarchy, misery and insanity of this world's corruption continues to blaze on the earth, above and beyond the skies above the fires of humanity's miserable state, the Lord isn't surprised, hasty or puzzled. He is still on the throne. He still has all in his Lordship. 

He will root out and utterly pull down all false authority, from the Russian despots to the other cult leaders all over. For starters. 

He has said He will return like a thief in the night and a powerfully orchestrated song by British pop legend Cliff Richard from a Biblical generation ago makes this marvelously and musically alive. Click the link to hear this. 

You? You can fall with the night or rise with the Son. The choice is yours. 

Readings On Cultic Mind Control and Abusive Churches Now Downloads

Our recent blogging and podcasting has made reference to the seminal work of both Dr. Robert Lifton and Dr. Ron Enroth, a psychiatrist and a sociologist, which has provided for us the conceptual framework for understanding the power of cultic persuasion by "thought reform" (or cultic mind control) and for how to recognize it in contemporary movements including supposedly "Christian churches."  

We mentioned you'd be well informed to find their books and study their findings. Lifton's work "Thought Reform And The Psychology of Totalism", along with Enroth's book "Churches That Abuse" are two of the most informative books that can be read to understand the challenge of cults and abusive churches today.  Click HERE to download Lifton's book and HERE to download Enroth's. 

 

The Collegiate Cultism of The Xenos / Dwell Heresy: Three New Articles Just Released

 

In the heart of the Buckeye State of Ohio, the state capital of Columbus stands as a testimony to the passion and industry of the residents there. The city is the home to many typically American institutions, from the headquarters of White Castle, Nationwide Mutual and  Big Lots to the quaintly charming German Village district , the Columbus Center for Science and Industry and the annual celebration of the Columbus Festival Latino. It’s a great place to live and work. And it’s important to remember that Columbus is also the base for the Ohio State University (OSU), one of the most well known in our nation, a point of amazing civic accomplishment that every Ohioan should be proud of.
What is regrettably not as well known is the work of that of a church that regularly accesses the university’s vibrant social life, a place that used to be called Xenos Christian Fellowship until changing its name to Dwell Community Church in 2020. That is until in late February 2022 when a local NBC television channel affiliate began to air a four part series on the church that ended up being stretched into six parts. You may be here reading this as a result of hearing of this reporting, which I and my associate Megan Cox helped to initiate. You’ve come to find out more and we intend to provide you a side of the story you haven’t heard.
Having been an active presence in Columbus as well since 1970, with generations of men and women having passed through their collective doors, Xenos / Dwell’s vast influence is probably one of the best kept secrets of Columbus which many of it’s over two million residents are scarcely aware of. We have mentioned how regrettable it is that more people know little to nothing of their activities. For the Xenos Christian Fellowship, for all of its seemingly upright orthodoxy has tragically harbored scandalously evil social circles under its governance for all of that time, leaving thousands in the know devastated by religious abuse and a perversion of the very Christian principles it purports to uphold. <snip> That's the introduction to the first of three new articles we've released on this group just in the past few days. To read our first article covering a brief analysis of the heretical history and nature of "XD" as we have identified it, click HERE. The second article will explain how Spiritwatch Ministries got involved in helping in the production of an expose on XD and how we investigated them and came to the conclusion that they are a cultic movement, and to read it click HERE. And to view the uncut version of the Zoom Call dialogue we had with XD leaders as well as the full transcripts of emails we had with them afterwards (which they never allude to in all of their public reaction to our efforts), click HERE.

A Trick Of The Mind: The Persuasion Of Cult Mind Control

Our podcasts continue and last week's episode shared a bit of crucial insight into the deceptive power of cults to ensnare and control people. They come out each Saturday and last Saturday's episode that should have come out on March 5th got delayed as we burnt the midnight oil preparing the three part series we just completed providing a brief overview of the Xenos / Dwell phenomenon in Columbus, Ohio. Those articles are not completed and posted to our Spiritwatch.org site.

One of our foundational principles which contributes to our understanding of cultism isn't rocket science: we have always asserted that cultism is more than doctrine. Cultism involves more than just a warping of one's creed. See how cultism's deceptive power doesn't rely on twisted teaching alone, but their ability to change the behavior of their masses by the change of their thoughts through cultic mind control. Check out our podcast here at our "Where Are We Going" podcast episode page! 

Myths About Cults: Not Just "Those People Over There" Anymore

 

When the sad history of cultism's victims comes to light in the smoldering ashes of their devastated lives, it becomes abundantly clear that the ruin is an equal opportunity storm of destruction. It doesn't matter if you're a rich white American executive or a dirt poor Chinese laborer: the power of cultic delusion is such that it drags down any and everyone who yields to its siren songs. 

And, in typical form, someone who thinks they Know Better decides to edify all around them with their excoriating criticism of a cult victim who, they snarl, should have indeed Known Better.  They rattle off a list of glibly intoned rationalizations that they say prove that the cult victim surely could have "done better," and that their involvement was a tragic miscalculation they saw coming, therefore, they hold the lion's share of responsibility for their involvement and the cost they suffered for having gotten involved. If they were more "mature", more "spiritual", more "educated", etc., they would have then "Known Better."

This strident belief is one of the  most persistently cruel charges that supposedly well meaning observers can inflict upon a cult victim. It leaves them twice victimized and abused and unfortunately it's not at all uncommon among the worlds of pain that cult survivors live in. It is bad enough that they've suffered the religious abuse, personal chaos, lost careers and futures that have left them without friends, family,  resources, even their health. Now you have a bunch of "truth tellers" wanting to essentially scold them and reopen woundings with salted knives of verbal abuse.

It's part of human life for people to want to feel superior to others .. and it's particularly disgusting when these myths are completely wrong to begin with.   We wrote an article years ago that is no less true today about seven of the most popular misconceptions that these armchair therapists like to circulate but which are a break from reality.  Enjoy the no-nonsense rejoinder by clicking here.  
 

"The Way Down" 2.0 On The Way: Until Then Not The Good Girl's Awesome Recap Online

The latest information we've received is that the final two episodes of the HBO Max docuseries "The Way Down" which will conclude this hard hitting expose of the morally bankrupt cultism of Gwen Shamblin Lara and her Weigh Down Workshop/Remnant Fellowship business cult empire, will air either in April or May, 2022, which is literally around the corner.  Keep your DVR's ready.

There's going to be some very tough truth to heed in these and it will be as easily chilling and dark a look into the soft underbelly of the spiritual anorexia that this cult actually does pack in around itself. We look forward to the premiere, having contributed quite heavily to the production of the series and being subjects of interviews and a lot of back office discussion that is completely invisible. Without our work, the series might never have gotten off the ground. We're grateful to have had a part in this second and final installment. 

Until then, a Patreos documentary producer calling herself Not The Good Girl has taken the insights and information shared in the HBO Max doc and created her own gripping and engrossing telling of the grotesque Remnant tale. The linearity and well researched narrative summarizes the whole tragic emergence quite well and we'd recommend watching it if you wanted a recap that is fair, detailed and factual. Not The Good Girl's work can be viewed here. Enjoy. 

In Memorium : Lawrence Pile and Pastor Bill Randles

 

                                                 Lawrence Pile                   Pastor Bill Randles                                                      
                                                    1943-2022                           1959-2022

We recently learned of the passing of these two giants of the faith who you likely never heard of.

Larry Pile was a researcher as well as a facilitator of recovery workshops at the Wellspring Retreat and Rehabilitation center in Albany Ohio and assisted hundreds of people onward toward their own healing and growth beyond the impact cultism had made upon them. He was a well known Bible teacher and wrote a book based upon the epistle of Paul to the Galatians for those suffering religious abuse to help in their recovery of spiritual stability.

Pastor Bill Randles a former Word of Faith pastor, renounced his association with that error and continued onward toward creating a pastoral response to the deceptive doctrines and bad practice that the Faith movement had inflicted upon his church and then began a serious retrenching of his ministry, toward exposing the the New Apostolic Reformation culture (NAR) which emerged in the past 40 years and was based on the profoundly warped Latter Rain error from two generations past.

Both men were gentle, yet uncompromising proclaimers of sound analysis of truth from pastoral perspectives and helped untold numbers of those ripped off by spiritual abuse for decades. I knew of Larry and had only met Bill once but they came highly recommened and the work they gave themselves to speaks for itself. Visit our YouTube and Vimeo channels in the next few weeks as we upload three talks Pastor Bill gave on the spiritual deception the NAR has left behind. For an excellent article by Larry detailing the dangers of the shepherding movement, a vile system of cultic control hatched by Charismatic extremists within it which intensified the lure and damage of the proto-NAR churches then in existence, click here. 

We will truly sincerely miss their discernment, their love of truth and their care for those ripped off by abusive. They were good men who ran the race and kept the faith. Godspeed and condolences to the Pile and Randles families.  Please click on their obituaries above for more information and if you'd like to extend any personal condolences. 

The Legacy Of The Leaderless Cult Remnant Fellowship: From Our Podcast

Episode 2 of Season 2 is under way at our "Where Are We Going" podcast and for the first time, we finally tackled the uncertain destiny of Remnant Fellowship for a full 30 minute episode, the longest we've done so far.

Remnant Fellowship, for all of it's public posturing, appears to be struggling through a serious crisis of direction. Since the 2021 death of Gwen Shamblin Lara, there really hasn't been any actual leadership arising to provide for Remnant the needed vision and leadership for her cult to move beyond it's loss of her iron hand. 

In this episode, we offer our perspectives on where this cult truly seems to be going. It's not a pretty picture and we pull no punches. Enjoy the download here. 

 

Some One Has Some 'Splaining to Do And It May Not Be The Twelve Tribes .. In Colorado, That Is.

 

The Twelve Tribes might be guilty of being a maddeningly enduring and abusive communal cult with roots all the way to Tennessee and beyond.

However, despite initial reports to the contrary, they now seem to have been determined of helping set any fires that started the massive Marshall wildfire in rural Colorado that caused massive property loss and a couple of deaths.  

But that doesn't make them any less a destructive force of human nature. Not all that glitters is gold.  Click here for more information on this seemingly harmless group of spiritual entrepreneurs as they operate in Australia. The Twelve Tribes' obsession with perfecting their abusive community standards of living needs to be remembered.

We are grateful that long time associates of ours, Bob and Judy Pardon of the New England based Meadowhaven rehabilitation cente,r were able to help offer further insight in this online report. 

"Where Are We Going?" Back Online with Season 2, Episode 0 Help Wanted: Jeremiahs In Short Supply

We're back online and intend on staying there until Jesus comes. Our weekly podcast is back and you can hear it on our RSS.com site by clicking here.

Our listeners understand what this podcast is about. It’s our desire to provide for you a solidly Biblical perspective on our times and the trouble we’re all finding in them. We tackle a subject that relates to the challenges to discerning what’s going on around us and take about 15-20 minutes to address them.
In one of our last season’s podcasts, we examined the stability of human society itself and what the Bible says about it. It’s no secret that our world has entered a shadowy time of uncertainty that really quite unlike any other time in recent history. Listening to a national commentator's take on the troubles of our nation is a reality check worth hearing.

Check it out and tell your friends, family, enemies, inlaws and all persons inbetween!

Getting Away With Not Quite Murder: A Child Sexual Abuse Story Remembered

This is an all too common affair among the sons of Adam: when child sexual abuse allegations corroborated by witnesses of the depravity can be admitted to by the perpetrator in a court of law but still be dismissed, be ignored by the police and unadmitted to at Christian church where the abuse occurred at. It's all too common and it should be remembered how an escape from any apparent accountability there occurs. In the last days where evil is cloaked as good, this is to be expected and fulfills once again the cutting indictment of Scripture against such wrongdoing. 

What is singularly horrific is when the perpetrator is a school teacher who volunteers at Christian camps and is alone with children whom are groomed by them to accept the sexual abuse as a manifestation of "God's love." The church was the North Side Gospel Center in Chicago (now defunct) and Camp Awana in Fredonia, Wisconsin (in a bizarre twist of irony, the well known Awana children's church educational program was started in the basement of the church in Chicago). As far as we know, the teacher, one Cherie Carlson was not confronted by the middle school, nor law enforcement. Beyond a statement that the church would cooperate in the investigation, nothing else is know if Carlson received any punitive sanction whatsoever.

You can watch the 2013 investigative video produced by WMAQ in Chicago here about this grotesque incident where Carlson had been seen sexually fondling a girl in the 1990s by a third individual in the camp cabin it occurred. Later that year, the girl who is now a mother sought to sue her directly. Carlson was a middle school teacher at Cooper Middle School in Buffalo Grove, Illinois at the time of this controversy several years in the past but was able to walk back and deflect the accusations which surfaced in a civil but not a criminal court.

To underscore her confidence in her ability to move forward, she would go on and be reinstated back to her job at the school the following year in 2014, opening up a YouTube account (which is now devoid of video content but still is active) not long after the accusation of wrong doing surfaced to support her middle school activities. To this day, Carlson remains employed there.

And later in 2017 Carlson would wiggle completely out of accountability solely because of her appeal to the statute of limitations and not a litigated defensive denial of wrongdoing in that civil court. She didn't deny and all but admitted that the sexual abuse had occurred but she had failed to report it in time and this slipshod defense worked. The lawsuit was dismissed and the appeal affirmed it. You can read about the warped opinions offered by an appellate court in Illinois that allowed Carlson to move on with her life, leaving the victim Jane Due in the dust of injustice.

And if you think this is an isolated instance of a complete breakdown in the efforts to make such perpetrators accountable, meet some links that will beg to differ by the Net.

That's the American way. But Cherie, God saw it all. I hope you repented and made restitution to your victim .. or victims. 



 

You Can't Make This Stuff Up

We're reasonably certain that this individual at a 2018 rally is glad that in his past, his parents were binary. 

Yes, we're aware of the confusion of genders and the need for a gainsaying society to make room for such personal choices and the future of our planet seems brighter with it. 

But the perpetuation of humanity kind of, well, NEEDS the traditional understanding of male and female to work out in that old school way.  In vitro birth and same sex gendering can't quite make that difference. 
 

The Segue In Zion: The Shadowy Leadership Change at Remnant Fellowship

The slow fade of Elizabeth Hannah, daughter of Gwen Shamblin Lara, from the life of Remnant Fellowship was not entirely unexpected.

She simply was not ready to assume a role that her mother had obsessively carried for over two decades. When the tragic accident on Memorial Day weekend 2021 took place that took the lives of Gwen and her coterie of leaders, through the shock, horror and grief that swept Remnant members one big question loomed above all else: who would lead them?  The unthinkable had been thrust upon the Remnant faithful in the most terrible way possible and so much rampant worry about the survival of the group seemed to focus on that very question.

This seemed answered in the June memorial service for the crash victims. Elizabeth affirmed she and her brother were “well equipped and fully ready” but “bound and determined to keep the Remnant legacy alive”  There was never any real reason for concern that Remnant would just fall apart as the machine Gwen had created had too much momentum keeping it moving.  Elizabeth affirmed that she had a massive leadership structure as well as church members who would carry it on. “If you are asking if the Remnant Fellowship will continue on, the answer is yes.”

But despite her passionate affirmative, both brother and sister largely have vanished from any meaningful public view or interaction. Despite one or two carefully curated appearances of Elizabeth only, both have completely disappeared. The Remnant church sanctuary that used to be filled with a throng of members leaning on Gwen’s every word have yet to see her teach or preach a single service. During a recent "feast" day observed by Remnant, we heard many people comment on how  half filled their sanctuary was, how contrived and motion-going the activity there was and how thunderstruck the observers, who were RF members, at how empty the place seemed .. events that under Gwen's charisma attracted far more of the faithful.  As it stands, an order of service at Remnant now exists that is quite literally little more than a video watch party of pre-recorded sermons by Gwen accompanied by carefully crafted live exhortations by leadership figures to rally the Remnant faithful to keep on keeping on. 

So the absence of any public appearance by her or her brother or any direction clearly has become a serious concern. In her latest phoned-in exhortation in late fall of 2021, her chief concern was that no one in Remnant was to assume she was quitting. In that rambling call, which was well attended and was an event that obviously had been announced, she once again thanked everyone for understanding her need to take “a break” and that she would eventually return. She claimed that she was at the church every day from 4 am to midnight to help its day to day operation in its offices.  Her quavering recital of a tired old contemporary cliche meant to dismiss any opposition surely found a receptive audience: "haters are going to hate!" It also signalled the hardline Remnant has taken in completely ignoring or engaging the information being shared that critically examines it with a completely evasive proverb meant to frame the controversy as pure persecution. 

But Elizabeth gave no other explanation for her continued and intentional absence from church services. She did say that one of her conditions for return was that a media onslaught resulting in photography of her and her children needed to die down. 

I understand the need for anyone to suffer the kind of loss that Elizabeth has experienced is a crushing blow for anyone. She lost a truly beloved husband and a mother who had directed her entire life. Keep in mind she is now a fortysomething mother of four children and it’s understandable how this whole sorrowful tragedy is weighing terribly upon her. Yet despite her assurances in June at the memorial to her mother and the victims, she was NOT “well equipped and fully ready” to press ahead. There was a brittle fragility behind her tough verbiage that was plainly heard that persists to this day as she exhibits a real hesitancy of even being seen as a leader, unable to handle scrutiny from the outside world. The official response of the cult to its discomfiture via HBO was a classic circling of rhetorical wagons and a mustering of bravado that rings hollower and hollower as time passes (we'll be reviewing that here soon).  

With such uncertainty, I think the question can now be fairly asked “Since the Remnant Fellowship is going to continue on,  then who is going to lead it?”  We have some thoughts on those as well .. Stay tuned.