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Josh Duggar

Joshua James Duggar (born March 3, 1988) is an American convicted sex offender and former reality television personality from the TLC series 19 Kids and Counting. The eldest of Michelle and Jim Bob Duggar's nineteen children, Duggar was the executive director of FRC Action, a lobbying political action committee sponsored by the Family Research Council, from June 2013 to May 2015. He left this position when news broke that he had molested multiple underage girls, including a victim under five years old, when he was aged 14–15.

These revelations led to the cancellation of 19 Kids and Counting on July 16, 2015. Duggar's publicity woes were named one of the "10 Big Scandals of 2015" by USA Today, and The Washington Post listed Duggar as one of the fifteen most hated people on the Internet for that year.

On April 29, 2021, Duggar was arrested by U.S. Marshals on charges of receiving and possessing child pornography. He was found guilty on all charges on December 9, 2021. He was sentenced to over 12 years in prison on May 25, 2022.

Early life

Josh Duggar was born on March 3, 1988, in the city of Tontitown in Washington County, Arkansas, to James Robert and Michelle Annette Ruark Duggar. Duggar was homeschooled and passed Arkansas's state test for a general equivalency diploma at the age of 16. He did not attend college.

Career

Reality television personality

Starting in 2005, Duggar appeared on a number of reality television shows about his family, beginning with a program on Discovery Health when he was aged 17. The most prominent of these programs was the TLC series 19 Kids and Counting, which debuted in September 2008. Duggar's wedding was featured in an episode broadcast on January 25, 2009, which included the planning, preparation, rehearsal, ceremony and reception. Duggar and his wife have stated they saved their first kiss for their wedding day.

Multiple episodes document Duggar's children, including: "GrandDuggar's First Birthday", airing December 7, 2010, where Duggar celebrates his daughter Mackynzie's first birthday and announces the expected birth of their second child; "First Grandson", airing June 19, 2011, which featured Duggar and his wife introducing their second child, Michael James; and "GrandDuggar Makes 3!", airing June 16, 2013, a Father's Day special introducing the Duggars' third baby, Marcus Anthony. A special titled "Josh & Anna: Our Story" aired on October 22, 2013, reviewed the couple's first five years of marriage. Duggar and his wife announced the expected birth of their fourth child on an episode titled "Anna's Having A...", which aired May 12, 2015. The episode included the Duggars announcing the ultrasound showed they were having another girl.

Political activity

When Duggar was a teenager, his father, Jim Bob Duggar, was a two-term Republican member of the Arkansas House of Representatives. Duggar has also been active in conservative politics; while running a car dealership he worked as a part-time political consultant in 2007 under the business name Strategic Political Services. In 2008, he worked on the Republican presidential primary campaign of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. In 2012, Duggar addressed rallies for the Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania.

From June 2013 to May 2015, he was executive director of FRC Action, a political action and lobbying organization sponsored by the Family Research Council. When describing his position with the organization, he stated that he would be focused on "engaging the grassroots and taking the message of faith, family and freedom all across America". FRC president Tony Perkins said that by hiring Duggar they hoped to appeal to more young people by tapping into the popularity of 19 Kids and Counting. He further stated, "The big part of Josh's focus is going to be building our grass-roots across the country". While working at FRC Action, conservative Republican candidates valued Duggar as a way to advance their messages to his constituents. He campaigned for Senate candidates in Kansas, Mississippi, and Virginia before the 2014 midterm elections.

Duggar described his family as the "epitome of conservative values" and advocated for what he termed "family-centered" and conservative Christian viewpoints, including opposition to abortion, divorce, and gay marriage. He has been referred to as an "anti-gay activist" by GLAAD, a pro-LGBT rights organization.

Molestation charges

2006

In 2004 and 2006, the first four television specials featuring the Duggar family were released. In December 2006, the family was scheduled to appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show. At this time, an anonymous source emailed Oprah Winfrey's production company, Harpo Studios, and called the Arkansas Child Abuse Hotline to reveal Duggar's past sexual misconduct toward minors. Winfrey's producers alerted the Department of Human Services and canceled the Duggar family's appearance on the show.

As a result of these reports, an investigation by Springdale police was launched. Investigators spoke to Duggar's parents and several other family members, with the family describing the sexual misconduct that occurred in 2002 and 2003. The family reported that no further incidents had occurred since Duggar returned to the home in late 2003. Family members interviewed by police said that they felt safe in their home and had forgiven Duggar for his past behavior.

Under Arkansas state law, child sexual abuse charges must be filed within three years of being reported to a police officer to be within the statute of limitations. In July 2003, Duggar's father had taken him to meet Joseph Truman Hutchens, an Arkansas State Trooper and family acquaintance. Because of this contact, the statute had started at that time and had run out by the time of the 2006 investigation. As a result, no charges could be filed. Hutchens was himself convicted in 2012 of child sexual abuse.

2015

On May 21, 2015, a report by the magazine In Touch Weekly stated that Jim Bob Duggar had told the Arkansas State Police that Josh had molested five underage girls between 2002 and 2003, when he was 14 and 15 years old. According to a redacted police report obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request, four of the five molestation victims were Duggar's siblings. Jim Bob reported he had learned in March 2002 that Josh had touched the breasts and genital region of his sisters on multiple occasions while they were sleeping. Both parents stated that they were made aware of the incidents when he confessed and that the girls were initially unaware the abuse had occurred. Jim Bob stated that Josh was disciplined at home. In March 2003, Duggar's parents learned of additional incidents and victims, which included the touching of a babysitter, reaching under the dress of a younger sister who was in his lap, and cornering a sister in the laundry room to reach under her clothing. The Duggars had also been told the abuse included a much younger sister, who, according to the Duggars, "didn't understand she had been improperly touched". At this time, Duggar's father brought the issue to the elders of their church.

Jim Bob informed police that he had enrolled Josh in a program consisting of counseling and physical labor after consulting with his church's leadership. Michelle stated he was sent away from home for a period of three months to work for a family friend who was remodeling a building. Later reports suggest that Josh may have been sent to a facility in Little Rock owned by the Institute in Basic Life Principles (IBLP), a Christian ministry and training program founded by Bill Gothard, a Duggar family friend. It has not been established that the IBLP center in Little Rock was open for counseling during the time Josh was there, if the building was renovated during this time period, or he was assisting with any such renovation.

When Josh returned home in July 2003, his father took him to meet Joseph Truman Hutchens, an Arkansas State Trooper and family acquaintance. According to Josh and his parents, the meeting was the first time any law enforcement authority was made aware of the abuse. According to Jim Bob, Josh admitted to Hutchens that he had committed molestation and apologized. Speaking via a lawyer, Hutchens disputed part of the account, saying he was only told of a single act of incestuous molestation and that he would have responded differently if he had known of additional instances and victims. In an interview following this statement, Jim Bob claimed Hutchens was told the entire story. Hutchens did not take any official action but reportedly gave Josh a "stern talk". Under Arkansas state law, law enforcement officers, as mandated reporters, are required to alert the Arkansas Child Abuse Hotline when learning of sexual abuse. Hutchens was later arrested and convicted on unrelated charges of child pornography and is currently serving a 56-year prison sentence.

Though Josh Duggar's misconduct was largely unknown to the public before 2015, a blogger writing in 2007 and identified only as "Alice" referred to the canceled Oprah Winfrey Show appearance and stated that staff for the program had been told he was a "child molester". The allegation circulated online for years but was not publicly corroborated until the In Touch article revealed the police report. Immediately after the article was published, an unidentified victim who was reportedly still a minor requested that any remaining products of the investigation be destroyed. State judge Stacey Zimmerman granted this request to protect the unidentified victim's privacy.

Duggar resigned his position at FRC Action on May 21, 2015, on the same day the In Touch article was published. He stated that he "acted inexcusably" as a teen and said he was "deeply sorry" for what he called his wrongdoings. In response to his resignation, FRC president Tony Perkins stated, "Josh believes that the situation will make it difficult for him to be effective in his current work. We believe this is the best decision for Josh and his family at this time. We will be praying for everyone involved."

In Touch reported in a June 3, 2015, article that another police report obtained by the magazine revealed that Josh had confessed to his father, on three separate occasions, to committing child molestation, which had involved a much younger sister and seven incidents. The article also noted that the family waited at least sixteen months before reporting the abuse to authorities.

Testimony from both Jim and Bobye Holt revealed that the sexual abuse inside the Duggar family home was far more extensive than Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar claimed during their 2015 interview with Megyn Kelly. The Holts revealed that the incidents were widespread and that Josh had touched his siblings inappropriately multiple times. Jim Bob and Michelle once claimed Josh’s victims were initially unaware anything had happened to them. The Holts revealed that Jim Bob and Michelle’s past statements were untrue. They testified that at least one of the victims reported an incident.

Debate over release of police reports

The Arkansas Freedom of Information Act states that the records of a juvenile "shall remain confidential" and "shall not be subject to disclosure under the FOI". Arkansas State Senator Bart Hester called for Springdale Police Chief Kathy O'Kelley to be fired, saying that she had re-victimized Duggar's victims by releasing his records. Springdale city attorney Ernest Cate defended the release of the records, saying that while Duggar was a minor at the time of the alleged incidents, he was 18 in December 2006 when the police report was filed. He added that under these circumstances, the records could be released once minors' names, as well as any potentially identifying pronouns, were redacted. Zimmerman ordered all copies of the report destroyed on May 21, 2015.

On June 5, 2015, Duggar's sisters Jessa and Jill gave an interview to Megyn Kelly on Fox News, discussing the abuse and the reports' release. Jessa called Duggar's actions as a teen "very wrong" and stated, "I do want to speak up in his defense against people who are calling him a child molester or a pedophile or a rapist, as some people are saying ... [T]hat is so overboard and a lie really ... I mean, people get mad at me for saying that, but I can say this because I was one of the victims." She further stated that "the system was set up to protect kids ... it's greatly failed", and that the week preceding the interview had been "a thousand times worse for us" than the sexual abuse. Jill called the release of the police reports "a revictimization".

Admissions following Ashley Madison breach

On August 20, 2015, following the online posting of information from the Ashley Madison data breach, which included records of credit card transactions under his name, Duggar and his parents released a statement on the family website in which he admitted to watching pornography on the Internet and being unfaithful to his wife. According to the material obtained in the data breach, Duggar's credit card was used to pay $986.76 for two Ashley Madison subscriptions starting in February 2013, which were cancelled in May 2015 shortly after the molestation allegations surfaced.

The statement contained the following: "I have been the biggest hypocrite ever. While espousing faith and family values, I have secretly over the last several years been viewing pornography on the Internet and this became a secret addiction and I became unfaithful to my wife" ... "the last few years, while publicly stating I was fighting against immorality in our country I was hiding my own personal failures". The reference to pornography was later removed from the website.

On August 25, 2015, Duggar checked himself into a rehabilitation facility that his family described as a "long-term treatment center". The facility was later confirmed in media reports as Reformers Unanimous, which describes itself as "a learning atmosphere where the addicted can be disciplined in an environment that is much like a greenhouse".

Sexual assault allegations

In November 2015, pornographic actress Danica Dillon filed suit against Duggar, claiming he had "assaulted her to the point of causing her physical and emotional injuries" during an episode of consensual sex at a Philadelphia strip club earlier in the year. According to Dillon, the incident occurred after she had provided $600 worth of lap dances to Duggar. Dillon was seeking $500,000 in damages from him. In February 2016, Dillon chose to drop the lawsuit.

2021 arrest, trial, and conviction

On April 29, 2021, U.S. Marshals arrested Duggar on federal charges of receiving and possessing child pornography. Prosecutors allege that Duggar obtained the images in May 2019 and it was acknowledged that a federal investigation by the office of the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas had been previously recommended after Duggar's used car dealership Wholesale Motorcars was searched by U.S. Homeland Security agents in November 2019 as a part of an initiative launched by the U.S. Department of Justice to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation. The federal grand jury's indictment accuses Duggar of having "knowingly" received pornographic images of children who were under 12 years old. Following his arrest, Duggar was booked into the Washington County Jail. On April 30, 2021, Duggar pleaded not guilty to one count each of charges of receiving and possessing child pornography, with his attorneys indicating that he would "fight back in the courtroom" against the charges.

U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge Erin L. Wiedemann said that, if Duggar were to be awarded bail, he would have to be "in a residence where there's no minor in the home". At that time, Duggar's six children were under the age of 11, and his wife Anna was pregnant with a seventh child. The seventh child was born in October 2021. Duggar was granted conditional bail at a bond hearing on May 5, and he was released from jail and transferred into the custody of a third-party custodian. As part of the conditions for his bail, Duggar was permitted to have contact with his children only in the presence of his wife. He was required to wear an ankle monitor, have a probation officer's permission to leave the third-party custodians' home, could not access the internet, and could not be inside a residence where firearms were stored.

Gerald Faulkner, a special agent for Homeland Security Investigations, stated the files on the computer were "in the top five of the worst of the worst that I've ever had to examine". One of the videos allegedly in Duggar's possession, created by Peter Scully, depicts the rape and torture of an 18-month-old toddler.

Trial

Duggar's trial date, originally set for July 6, was rescheduled for November 30, 2021. He did not meet an October deadline to accept a plea deal.

As of October 2021, Duggar's lawyers attempted to use procedural nuisances to get the case against him dismissed. The judge described the action of the lawyers as "frivolous". Further attempts by Duggar's lawyers to suppress evidence against him similarly were denied by a judge. The prosecution wanted to bring up sexual assault accusations made against Duggar when he was a young teenager; the defense alleged these charges were irrelevant and could prejudice a jury. A pretrial hearing was held on November 18, at which the judge demanded an evidentiary hearing. The evidentiary hearing was held on November 29 in a Fayetteville court to determine if Duggar's father Jim Bob Duggar and family friend Bobye Holt could testify as prosecution witnesses during his trial. During this three-hour hearing, both took the stand, with Holt testifying that Josh Duggar had fondled four younger girls since the age of 12.

The trial began on November 30 with jury selection. The same day, Duggar's lawyer filed a motion urging the presiding judge to dismiss "any further testimony" from Holt. On December 1, 2021, opening statements took place after trial judge Timothy L. Brooks denied the bid from Duggar's defense counsel to have past abuse allegations dismissed as trial evidence. The same day, Detective Amber Kalmer of the Little Rock Police Department became the first witness of the trial to testify. On December 3, an official from the Department of Justice testified that the hard drive in Duggar's computer had been partitioned into two sections: one which had Windows installed that he used mainly for business, and the second with Linux installed, which he used to download, access and share child pornography. The accountability software Covenant Eyes had been installed on the Windows side and was set to alert Duggar's spouse when pornography was viewed, but the software could not detect what was accessed while the computer was using Linux. Husband and wife Jim and Bobye Holt were called as a witnesses for the prosecution. Jim Holt testified that Josh Duggar had asked him how to create the Linux partition on a computer in 2010, while Bobye Holt reiterated the same information that she testified on November 29.

On December 9, 2021, a jury found Duggar guilty of receiving and possessing child pornography.

Sentence

On May 25, 2022, Duggar was sentenced to 12 years and 7 months in prison. His earliest possible release is August 22, 2032. This will be followed by 20 years of supervised release, during which he must register as a sex offender and can have no unsupervised contact with minors, including his own children. He can only access the Internet with the permission of his probation officer, and must agree to monitoring of his online activity. He was fined $10,000 and ordered to pay an additional $40,100 in special assessments.

He had faced up to 20 years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000 for each of the two counts.

Aftermath

Multiple Duggar family members and their spouses issued statements following Duggar's conviction. Some celebrated that justice was served and offered prayers for Duggar and his family. On May 17, 2022, Duggar's cousin, Amy King, posted an open letter to Anna Duggar, telling her "there is no shame in divorcing Josh."

A day after Duggar's conviction, news of his sister Jana's child endangerment charge from September 2021 was published. On December 14, 2021, five days after Josh's conviction, Jim Bob Duggar's bid to represent District 7 of the Arkansas State Senate was unsuccessful, finishing third in the Republican primary.

On January 20, 2022, Josh Duggar's legal team filed for acquittal, arguing that the evidence presented at trial did not support conviction. On May 24, 2022, the federal district court denied Duggar's motion for judgment of acquittal. On June 3, 2022, Duggar appealed his conviction to the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which appeal remains pending.

Personal life

On September 26, 2008, Duggar and Anna Renée Keller, both aged 20, were married at the Buford Grove Baptist Church in Hilliard, Florida. They have seven children: daughter Mackynzie Renée (b. October 2009), sons Michael James (b. June 2011) and Marcus Anthony (b. June 2013), daughter Meredith Grace (b. July 2015), son Mason Garett (b. September 2017), and daughters Maryella Hope (b. November 2019) and Madyson Lily (b. November 2021). His four younger children will still be minors at the time that he is expected to be released from prison. Any visits with his minor children would have to be supervised.

 

Eastern Lightning

 

The Church of Almighty God (simplified Chinese: 全能神教会; traditional Chinese: 全能神教會; pinyin: Quánnéng Shén Jiàohuì), also known as Eastern Lightning (simplified Chinese: 东方闪电; traditional Chinese: 東方閃電; pinyin: Dōngfāng Shǎndiàn), is a monotheistic new religious movement which was established in China in 1991. Government sources estimate the group has three to four million members.

The group's core tenet is that Jesus Christ has returned to earth and is presently living as a Chinese woman. The name "Eastern Lightning" alludes to the Gospel of Matthew 24:27: "For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."

The movement has been described by Chinese media as the nation's 'most dangerous cult', and the group has been formally banned in China since 1995. Christian opponents and international media have in turn described it as a cult and even as a terrorist organization. In contrast, members of the group deny all accusations and argue they are victims of religious persecution at the hands of Chinese authorities.

Sources

Scholars who have tried to study the group have complained that, due to its "secretive" nature and the fact that in China it operates underground, researching Eastern Lightning is difficult, and media coverage is only partially reliable.

Two books on the group were published by Western academic presses. Brill published Lightning from the East by Emily Dunn in 2015, and Oxford University Press published Inside The Church of Almighty God by Massimo Introvigne in 2020. Holly Folk, a professor at Western Washington University, reported in 2020 that she is observing Eastern Lightning through a participant observation study since 2016.

Due to the growing influx of refugees from Eastern Lightning who seek asylum abroad, some national authorities have published reports on the group. In 2019, the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada published a compilation of its interviews with scholars about Eastern Lightning. In the same year, the National Commission for the Right of Asylum of the Italian Ministry of the Interior published and shared with the other European Union countries through the European Asylum Support Office a report on "Persecution for religious reasons in China: Church of Almighty God."

History

Zhao Weishan

A woman, whose name is never mentioned in the group's literature, but is believed to be Yang Xiangbin (b. 1973, simplified Chinese: 杨向彬; traditional Chinese: 楊向彬; pinyin: Yáng Xiàngbīn), started spreading in 1991 among Chinese house churches, most of them part of The Shouters, roneotyped texts with revelations she said were coming from the Holy Spirit. Chinese authorities state that Yang had a history of mental problems.

Zhao Weishan (simplified Chinese: 赵维山; traditional Chinese: 趙維山; pinyin: Zhào Wéishān; born December 12, 1951), a former physics teacher, had a history of membership in a variety of Christian new religious movements. In 1986, Zhao was a member of a Christian house church, and in 1987 he was baptized into a branch of The Shouters which venerated their leader Witness Lee as "Lord Changshou". Zhao rose to a leadership position within the group and, according to Chinese governmental sources, preached that he was himself the "Lord of Ability."

In 1989, the Shouters were labeled a xié jiào (cult or evil cult) by the Chinese government and officially banned. In 1991, Zhao met Yang Xiangbin and quickly became the main leader of her small group, where he was recognized as "the Man used by the Holy Spirit." According to one estimate, by 1991, the organization had more than a thousand members. In 1992, Yang's revelations propagated by Zhao announced that Yang herself was more than a prophetic voice; in fact, she was the second coming of Jesus Christ on earth and the incarnated Almighty God. Since then, Yang was referred to as "he" rather than "she," as she was in fact regarded as Jesus Christ. Chinese media started taking an interest in the sect, and referred to Yang (sometimes also mentioned as "Deng"), as "the female Christ."

In 1995, the group was classified as a xie jiao by China's Ministry of Public Security. On September 6, 2000, both Zhao and Yang entered the United States; they were granted political asylum the following year. Since then, they live in and direct the movement from New York.

Beliefs

Eastern Lightning holds that Jesus has returned as a Chinese woman, worshiped by the sect as Almighty God, hence its official name. The group is non-Trinitarian, and teaches a form of millennialism. The group publishes the revelations of its female Almighty God; most of them are collected in The Word Appears in the Flesh (simplified Chinese: 话在肉身显现; traditional Chinese: 話在肉身顯現; pinyin: Huà zài ròushēn xiǎnxiàn). The group is anti-Communist, identifying the Great Red Dragon of the Book of Revelation with the Chinese Communist Party.

The Church describes human history as "God's six-thousand year management plan," divided in three stages: the Age of Law, when God as Jehovah guided Israel; the Age of Grace, when God as Jesus Christ saved humanity, but did not eradicate its sinful nature; and the Age of Kingdom, inaugurated in 1991, when God in his present incarnation as Almighty God reveals the fullness of truth and works to free humans from their sinfulness. Also, the group mentions a future Age of Millennial Kingdom, in which the earth will enter after the death of the present divine incarnation, and will be transformed into a kingdom of peace and joy.

According to Holly Folk, an associate professor at Western Washington University that has been studying the Church, it does not view the Bible as God's word but as a human work with flaws.

Organization

According to sociologist Fenggang Yang, Eastern Lighting is organized hierarchically, with "inspectors" overseeing regional and sub-regional leaders, who in turn oversee the leaders of the local congregations. At the local and regional levels, leaders are elected by the members.

Members get together weekly (but not on a fixed day of the week) in what they call "fellowship meetings," in private homes in China and in "community houses," sometimes called "churches," abroad. There, they pray, read and discuss the revelations of Almighty God, sing hymns, hear sermons, and sometimes present artistic performances. Holly Folk, an associate professor at Western Washington University, said that "a lot of their international ministry functions as an internet religion".

Starting in 2001, the group began efforts to proselytize online by creating websites which host church scripture in various languages, links to group chats, and news about online events. The group is also present on social media.

Repression in China

Eastern Lightning is banned in China and proselyting or organizing meetings on its behalf is a crime prosecuted under Article 300 of the Chinese Criminal Code. The United States Department of State in its Report on International Religious Freedom for the year 2018, published on June 21, 2019, reported claims that in 2018, Chinese "authorities arrested 11,111 of its [Eastern Lightning] members," and "subjected 525 of its members to 'torture or forced indoctrination,'" mentioning that some were "tortured to death while in custody". In its Report on International Religious Freedom for the year 2019, published on June 10, 2020, the same U.S. Department of State mentioned claims that in 2019, "at least 32,815 Church members were directly persecuted by authorities, compared with 23,567 in 2018," and "at least 19 Church members died as a result of abuse (20 in 2018)." The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom reported that "in 2018, the Chinese government harassed and arrested thousands of followers of [...] the Church of Almighty God. Many of those detained during the year [2018] suffered torture and other abuses, in some cases resulting in deaths or unexplained disappearances while in custody."

Controversies

Eastern Lightning has been described by Chinese media as the nation's "most dangerous cult". The group has been accused of ties to violence. In 2020, an article published in The Daily Beast by veteran reporter Donald Kirk found that Western scholars who have written about Eastern Lightning tend to support the sect's position that it has been unfairly accused.

2002 Mass-kidnapping

In 2002, The Church of Almighty God was accused of staging a campaign of simultaneous kidnappings across multiple cities to capture thirty-four leaders of the China Gospel Fellowship (CGF). Eastern Lightning denied the accusations, and scholar Emily Dunn concluded in her 2015 book that rogue members of the sect, acting without the approval of the leaders, might have been responsible for the incident, writing that, "While Eastern Lightning's leadership evidently does not condone the use of violence, it may be unable to impress this upon some followers." Massimo Introvigne in his book published in 2020 suggested that China Gospel Fellowship members described as "kidnapping" what was in fact "deception," as they were invited, and went (voluntarily, according to Introvigne), to training sessions without being told that they were organized by Eastern Lightning.

2012 doomsday riots

Some members of Eastern Lightning embraced the so-called Mayan prophecy and predicted the end of the world for 2012. The authorities accused them of causing riots and even crimes around China. According to Emily Dunn, the 2012 predictions were accepted by some sect members "without sanctions from [Eastern Lightning] authorities," who pointed out that in their theology there is no end of the world, and reprimanded and even expelled members who insisted in spreading the Mayan prophecy. Immediately prior to the supposed doomsday date of December 21, 2012, the Chinese government arrested 400 members of Eastern Lightning in central China, and as many as 1000 from other provinces of China. Chinese authorities also claimed that a certain Min Yongjun, who stabbed an elderly woman and 23 students at a school in Henan province, was motivated by the 2012 prophecies, and after the incident occurred pointed out that Eastern Lightning members were among those propagating these prophecies.

2014 Murder of Wu Shuoyan

Wu Shuoyan (1977–2014), a 37-year-old woman who worked as a salesperson in a nearby clothing store, was waiting after work to meet her husband and seven-year-old son in the mall McDonald's. While Wu was there, a group of six persons (including a 12-year-old), entered the restaurant. They announced that they were "missionaries." After presenting their religious message, they demanded that customers supply their cell phone numbers for future contacts. Wu was twice asked to provide her phone number. She refused.

Wu was then beaten by two of the "missionaries", who used mops the group had brought with them. A chair was thrown at Wu, and her head and face were stomped. One attacker screamed "Go die! Evil spirit!" while another shouted at customers: "Whoever interferes will die!". The attack was captured on camera, with footage widely shared online. Wu died from her injuries at the scene.

The attackers were arrested and identified by the government as members of Eastern Lightning. Representatives from Eastern Lightning publicly condemned the murder, claiming it had been committed by "psychopaths" who had nothing to do with them. In the wake of the murder, authorities in China engaged in widespread arrests of Eastern Lightning's members. The five adult attackers were found guilty at trial, with two of the murderers being executed for their role in 2015.

Covering the trial and the confessions of the accused assassins, reporters for the Chinese daily The Beijing News wrote that the perpetrators were in fact not members of Eastern Lightning at the time of the murder: they recognized as the living incarnation of God, rather than Yang Xiangbin, their own two female leaders, regarded as one divine soul in two bodies, and claimed that Eastern Lightning was a cult while theirs was a legitimate religious group. Some Western scholars who wrote about Eastern Lightning also concluded that the perpetrators at the time of the murder were members of a group different from Eastern Lightning. In 2017, Chinese authorities announced that two of the assassins had been successfully "re-educated" in jail. Although they maintained that theirs was a group based on the belief that the two female leaders of their movement, not Yang Xiangbin, were the real Almighty God, they also blamed books and Web sites of Eastern Lightning for having "ideologically corrupted" them in their youth.

2019 Israeli election

In weeks before the 2019 Israeli election, as reported by BuzzFeed News, Twitter suspended dozens of Hebrew-language accounts run in The Church of Almighty God's name that were amplifying right-wing religious and political messages. The BuzzFeed article reported the opinion of Holly Folk, that the political activity was "outside the pattern of CAG's [Church of Almighty God's] typical behavior," and the accounts might have been created by Chinese agencies to discredit Eastern Lightning.

The Seekers (Rapturists)

 

The Seekers, also called The Brotherhood of the Seven Rays, were a group of rapturists or a UFO religion in mid-twentieth century Midwestern United States. The Seekers met in a nondenominational church, the group originally organized in 1953 by Charles Laughead, a staff member at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. They were led by Dorothy Martin from the Chicago area (also called Sister Thedra), who believed a UFO would save them from a catastrophe on December 21, 1954. They are believed to be the earliest UFO religion, and were the subject of the book When Prophecy Fails by Leon Festinger, in which Laughead was given the pseudonym Dr. Armstrong and Martin the name Marian Keech.

Festinger infiltrated the Seekers with the goal of studying their cognitive reactions and coping mechanisms when their beliefs failed, a thought-process which Festinger named cognitive dissonance. When the UFO did not come, a majority of the members became convinced that the UFO would arrive on Christmas Eve, at which time their second disappointment produced even greater dissonance. In the book, Festinger and his colleagues write, "The experiences of this observer well characterize the state of affairs following the Christmas caroling episode—a persistent, frustrating search for orders." After this incident, many of the members returned home and abandoned their initial belief. Those who did not claimed that their group's belief and faith had saved the world from the disaster the aliens had warned of.

From this study, Festinger and his colleagues developed the Cognitive Dissonance Theory. Cognitive dissonance results when two cognitions contradict each other, creating psychological discomfort. There are four main principles on which cognitive dissonance is based. The most important is whether any two cognitions are relevant or not. If they are relevant, then they are either dissonant or consonant – if dissonant, psychological discomfort arises. People are ultimately motivated to diffuse this arousal.

There are a few ways to reduce dissonance. One can change one's behavior to bring it in line with dissonant cognitions. Alternatively, one can change the dissonant cognition. One can also add new consonant cognitions, or subtract dissonant cognitions, thus either reducing the perception of choice or the importance of the conflict. In The Seekers, members changed their dissonant cognition the first time the UFO didn't come, and reduced the importance of the conflict by going home the second time.

The Ant Hill Kids: Roch Theriault

 

Roch Thériault ([ʁɔk te.ʁjo]; May 16, 1947 – February 26, 2011) was a Canadian cult leader and convicted murderer. Thériault, a self-proclaimed prophet under the name Moïse [mɔ.iz], founded the Ant Hill Kids in 1977. They were a doomsday cult whose beliefs were based on Seventh-day Adventist Church beliefs. In 1978, Thériault was removed from Seventh-day Adventist Church. Thériault maintained multiple wives and concubines, impregnating all female members as a religious requirement, and fathering 26 children. Thériault's followers, including 12 adults and 22 children, lived under his totalitarian rule at the commune and were subject to severe physical and sexual abuse.

Thériault was arrested for assault in 1989, dissolving the cult, and was convicted for murder in 1993 for the death of follower Solange Boilard. He had previously killed an infant named Samuel Giguère, while two of his disciples, Geraldine Gagné Auclair and Gabrielle Nadeau, died following homeopathic treatments administered to them by Thériault. Thériault received a life sentence, which he was serving when he was murdered at Dorchester Penitentiary in 2011. Thériault, along with Robert Pickton, Clifford Olson and Paul Bernardo, has been considered one of Canada's most notorious criminals since the 1980s.

Early life

Roch Thériault was born on May 16, 1947, in Saguenay, Quebec, Canada, into a French-Canadian family, and raised in Thetford Mines. As a child Thériault was considered to be very intelligent, but dropped out of school in the seventh grade and began to teach himself the Old Testament of the Bible. Thériault believed that the end of the world was near, and would be brought on by the war between good and evil. Thériault converted from Catholicism to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and began practicing the denomination's regular holistic beliefs which encouraged a healthy lifestyle free of unhealthy foods and tobacco.

Ant Hill Kids

In the mid-1970's, Thériault convinced a group of people to leave their jobs and homes to join him in a religious movement. Thériault formed the cult in 1977 in Sainte-Marie, Quebec with the goal to form a commune where people could freely listen to his motivational speeches, live in unity and equality, and be free of sin. He prohibited the group from remaining in contact with their families and with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, as this was against his cult's values of freedom. Thériault's fear of the end of the world grew, claiming that God had warned him that it would come in February 1979, and used the commune to prepare for it. In 1978, in preparation, Thériault moved his commune by hiking to a mountainside he called "Eternal Mountain" in Saint-Jogues, in the sparsely populated Gaspé Peninsula, where he claimed they could all be saved. There, Thériault made the commune build their town while he relaxed, comparing them to ants working in an ant hill, naming the group the Ant Hill Kids. In February 1979, when the apocalypse did not occur, people started questioning Thériault's wisdom, but he defended himself saying that time on Earth and in God's world were not parallel, and that therefore it was a miscalculation. To expand the community as well as keep the members devoted, Thériault married and impregnated all of the women, fathering over 20 children with 9 female members of the group, and by the 1980s there were nearly 40 members. Followers were made to wear identical tunics to represent equality and their devotion to the commune.

In 1984, the group relocated from Quebec to a new site near Burnt River, a hamlet in Central Ontario now part of the city of Kawartha Lakes.

Abuse

Following the cult's formation, Thériault began to move away from being a motivational leader as his drinking problem worsened, becoming increasingly totalitarian over the lives of his followers and irrational in his beliefs. Members were not allowed to speak to each other when he was not present, nor were they allowed to have sex with each other without his permission. Thériault used his charisma to cover for his increasingly abusive and erratic behaviour, and none of the other members questioned his judgment or openly blamed him for any physical, mental or emotional damage. Thériault began to inflict punishments on followers that he considered to be straying, by spying on them and claiming that God told him what they did. If a person wished to leave the commune, Thériault would hit them with either a belt or hammer, suspend them from the ceiling, pluck each of their body hairs individually, or even defecate on them. The Ant Hill Kids raised money for living by selling baked goods, and members who did not bring in enough money were also punished.

Over time, Thériault's punishments became increasingly extreme and violent, including making members break their own legs with sledgehammers, sit on lit stoves, shoot each other in the shoulders, and eat dead mice and feces. A follower would sometimes be asked to cut off another follower's toes with wire cutters to prove loyalty. The abuse extended to the cult's children, who were sexually abused, held over fires, or nailed to trees while other children threw stones at them. One of Thériault's wives left a newborn child, Eleazar Lavallée, outside to die in freezing temperatures to keep him away from the abuse. Thériault attempted to backtrack to the original religious mission of the commune, beginning to strongly believe in purifying his followers and ridding them of their sins through abusive purification sessions where the members would be completely nude as he whipped and beat them. Thériault claimed to be a holy being, and started performing unnecessary amateur surgical operations on sick members to demonstrate his healing powers. These "surgeries" included injecting a 94% ethanol solution into stomachs, or performing circumcisions on the children and adults of the group. In 1987, social workers removed 17 of the children from the commune. However, Thériault faced no repercussions for his abusive acts.

In 1989, when follower Solange Boilard complained of an upset stomach, Thériault performed another amateur surgery without anaesthesia. He laid her naked on a table, and punched her in the stomach, then forced a plastic tube into her rectum to perform a crude enema with molasses and olive oil. He cut open her abdomen with a knife and ripped off part of her intestines with his bare hands. Thériault made another member, Gabrielle Lavallée, stitch her up using needle and thread, and had the other women shove a tube down her throat and blow through it. Boilard died the next day from the damage inflicted by the procedures. Claiming to have the power of resurrection, Thériault bored a hole into Boilard's skull with a drill and then had other male members (along with himself) ejaculate into the cavity. When Boilard did not return to life, her corpse was buried a short distance from the Ant Hill Kids' commune.

Arrest and conviction

Lavallée underwent harsh treatment at the Ontario commune during the late 1980s, suffering welding torch burns to her genitals, a hypodermic needle breaking off in her back, and eight of her teeth being forcibly removed. Lavallée attempted to escape from the commune after Thériault cut off parts of her breast and smashed her head in with the blunt side of an axe, but upon her return he removed one of her fingers with wire cutters, pinned her hand to a wooden table with a hunting knife, and then used a cleaver to amputate her arm.

In 1989, Thériault was arrested for assault after Lavallée had fled the commune again and contacted authorities, effectively dissolving the Ant Hill Kids. Provincial authorities had long-held suspicions about Thériault's cult due to the particularly primitive living conditions of its membership, but because the commune was officially registered as a church, officials were legally unable to investigate the adults, and could not do much except ensure the welfare of the children. Thériault was found guilty of assault for the amputation of Lavallée's arm and received a sentence of 12 years imprisonment. The vast majority of the cult's followers abandoned Thériault after his arrest, but during his imprisonment he fathered another four children with remaining female members during conjugal visits. Lavallée's report allowed further investigation into Thériault's actions, exposing the wider abuses at the communes and Solange Boilard's murder. In 1993, Thériault pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for the death of Solange Boilard, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2000, Thériault was transferred to Dorchester Penitentiary, a medium-security prison in Dorchester, New Brunswick. In 2002, Thériault was rejected for parole as he was considered too high a risk to re-offend, and he never applied again.

In 2009, Theriault tried to sell his artwork on a United States-based website MurderAuction.com, which called itself a "true crime auction house" and was willing to sell some of Theriault's drawings and poetry. The Correctional Service of Canada prevented Theriault's works leaving Dorchester Penitentiary, and Stockwell Day, the Canadian federal Public Safety Minister at the time, wrote to the Correctional Service to express concern that the killer was benefiting from work in prison.

Death and aftermath

On February 26, 2011, at age 63, Thériault was found dead near his cell at Dorchester Penitentiary. His death is believed to be the result of an altercation with his cellmate, Matthew Gerrard MacDonald, a 60-year-old convicted murderer from Port au Port, Newfoundland and Labrador, who was charged with the killing. MacDonald pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison, having already been serving a life sentence for a previous murder charge. MacDonald had stabbed Thériault in the neck with a shiv, walked to the guards' station, handed them the weapon, and proclaimed "That piece of shit is down on the range. Here's the knife, I've sliced him up."

The 2002 film Savage Messiah depicts Thériault's crimes against his followers and the ensuing legal recourse. The film stars Luc Picard as Thériault, and Polly Walker as Paula Jackson, the social worker whose investigation revealed the crimes. Gabrielle Lavallée wrote a memoir of her life in the sect entitled L'alliance de la brebis ("Alliance of the Sheep"), ISBN 2-920176-85-4

The Children of God: David Berg

 

David Brandt Berg (February 18, 1919 – October 1, 1994), also known as King David, Mo, Moses David, Father David, Dad, or Grandpa to followers, was the founder and leader of the new religious movement currently known as The Family International. Berg's group, founded in 1968 among the counterculture youth in Southern California, gained notoriety for incorporating sexuality into its spiritual message and recruitment methods. Berg and his organization have subsequently been accused of a broad range of sexual misconduct, including child sexual abuse.

Life

Family heritage

His maternal grandfather was Rev. John Lincoln Brandt (1860–1946), a Disciples of Christ minister, author, and lecturer of Muskogee, Oklahoma. Brandt had a dramatic conversion in his mid-twenties and immediately entered full-time Christian service. For years he was a Methodist circuit rider. He later became a leader of the Alexander Campbell movement of the Disciples of Christ, a restoration movement that developed into the current Protestant denomination Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

Early years (1919–1969)

Berg was born on February 18, 1919, in Oakland, California. During his early years, he usually lived in or around Florida. He was also the youngest of three children born to Hjalmer Emmanuel Berg and Rev. Virginia Lee Brandt, both parents were Christian evangelists. His father was Swedish. His mother is the individual whom he credited for influencing him the most. Although raised in a Christian home, Virginia became an atheist during her college years. However, shortly after the birth of her first child, she broke her back in an accident and spent the next five years disabled and bedridden, often hovering near death. Eventually she recovered and spent the rest of her life with her husband, Hjalmer, in active Christian service as a pastor and evangelist.

Virginia and Hjalmer were no strangers to controversy. They were expelled from the Disciples of Christ after publicly testifying of her "divine healing," which was contrary to church doctrine. They subsequently joined a new denomination, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, shortly before David Berg's birth. In later years, their missionary zeal and disdain for denominational politicking often set them at variance with the conservative faction of that church's hierarchy, causing them to work largely as independent pastors and evangelists.

David Berg spent his early years traveling with his parents, who pursued their evangelical mission with a passion. In 1924, they settled in Miami, Florida, after Virginia successfully led a series of large revivals at the Miami Gospel Tabernacle. This became Berg's home for the next 14 years, while his mother and father were pastors at a number of Miami churches. As is the case with many pastors and their dependents, the Berg family depended entirely on the generosity of their parishioners for their support, and often had difficulty making ends meet. This instilled in Berg a lifelong habit of frugality, which he encouraged his followers to adopt.

David Berg graduated from Monterey High School in 1935 and later attended Elliott School of Business Administration. Like his father, Berg became a minister in the Christian and Missionary Alliance in the late 1940s, and was placed at Valley Farms, Arizona. Berg was eventually expelled from the organization for differences in teachings and for alleged sexual misconduct with a church employee. In Berg's writings he claimed the expulsion was due to his support for greater racial diversity among his congregation.

Fred Jordan, Berg's friend and boss, allowed Berg and his personal family to open and run a branch of his Soul Clinic in Miami, Florida as a missionary training school. After running into trouble with local authorities over his aggressive disapproval of evolution being taught as fact in public schools, Berg moved his family to Fred Jordan's Texas Soul Clinic, in Western Texas.

The Children of God/The Family (1968–1994)

David Berg, along with his wife and children, founded the organization known as the Teens for Christ, operating out of Light Club coffeehouse in Huntington Beach, California, in 1968. While in California, after receiving strong resistance from local churches due to his followers picketing them, he took the whole group of 40–100 people "on the road." It was while they were camped in Louis and Clark Park that a news reporter first called them "The Children of God."

In the mid-1970s, Berg began preparing his followers for a "revelation" he had about "Flirty Fishing" or winning important, influential men through prostitution.

In 1975, after letting everyone know via one of his letters that his mistress, Maria (Karen Zerby), gave birth to a so-called "Jesus baby" (as his cult called babies born within the cult), Berg changed the name to "The Family of Love" or "The Family." Eventually in 1991, this was changed to "The Family International."

Berg lived in seclusion, communicating with his followers and the public via nearly 3,000 "Mo Letters" ("Mo" from his pseudonym "Moses David") that he wrote on a wide variety of subjects. These typically covered spiritual or practical subjects and were used as a way of disseminating and introducing policy and religious doctrine to his followers. Berg's letters admonished the reader to "love the sinner but hate the sin." His writings were often extreme and uncompromising in their denunciation of what he believed to be evil, such as mainstream churches, pedophilia laws, capitalism, and Jews.

Death and legacy

Berg had been in hiding since 1971 and died in November 1994 in Portugal. He was buried in Costa de Caparica, and his remains were cremated.

After his death in 1994, his wife Karen Zerby (also known as Maria Berg) led The Family, and there were 6,000 adults and 3,000 children as members of The Family worldwide, in 50 countries. There were investigations of The Family for child abuse and prostitution in Argentina, France, Spain, Australia, Venezuela, and Peru.

Controversy

David Berg has been accused of leading a group which promoted assaults on children and sexual abuse of women and children for decades. Former members have told their stories in widely disseminated media reports, though official inquiries at the time found no evidence of child abuse. Berg was also personally accused of pedophilia. He claimed in his letters he was taught to masturbate in church by another boy his age. He also claimed that when his mother caught him, he was forced to masturbate in front of his father. Oftentimes Berg would explicitly describe his sexual preferences and recalled that one thing he regretted was that he never slept with his mother.

In a child custody case in the United Kingdom Berg's granddaughter, Merry Berg, testified that Berg sexually molested her when she was a young teenager. Another of Berg's granddaughters, Joyanne Treadwell Berg, spoke on American television about her claim of being sexually abused by David Berg. Berg's adopted son, Ricky Rodriguez, wrote an article on the web site MovingOn.org in which he describes Berg's sexual activity involving a number of women and children. Davida Kelley, the daughter of Rodriguez's nanny (Sarah Kelley), accused Berg of molesting her in a June 2005 Rolling Stone article. In the same article, a woman identified as Armendria alleged that David Berg sexually abused her when she was 13 years old. Despite numerous investigations and claims by purported witnesses and survivors, Berg was never charged with a crime related to child sexual abuse.

The allegations of Berg's institutionalization of pedophilia and sexual abuse were also described in Not Without My Sister, an autobiographical recount of the sexual abuse of three sisters who eventually escaped The Family. The book describes videos being taken of very young children engaging in sexually explicit activities for Berg's consumption, even as a method for his choosing of child brides. Serena Kelley claims to have been one of Berg's child brides and was purported to have been presented by her mother at age 3 to be selected.

His distant Jewish ancestry notwithstanding—in 1745, one of his mother's forebears, Jewish by birth but a Christian convert, moved to the American colonies and lived as a Mennonite—David Berg was outspokenly antisemitic, believing that the Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus, as well as all persecution of Christians in the world. In support of his views of an international Jewish conspiracy, he cited the forged Protocols of the Elders of Zion, but disclaimed the label "antisemitic."

Berg predicted several apocalyptic events that did not occur. His best-known prediction was that the comet Kohoutek (1974) would wreak havoc and possible destruction. This prediction was shared by others outside The Family, such as Joseph F. Goodavage in the January 1974 issue of SAGA magazine. He also predicted that the state of California would be subject to a massive earthquake in 1969, the Great Tribulation would begin in 1989, and the Second Coming of Jesus would happen in 1993.

Personal family

Berg married his first wife, Jane Miller (known as "Mother Eve" in the Children of God), on 22 July 1944 in Glendale, California. They had four children together: Linda (known as "Deborah" in the Children of God); Paul, d. April 1973 (known as "Aaron" in the Children of God); Jonathan Emanuel (known as "Hosea" in the Children of God); and Faith.

Berg married his second wife Karen Zerby (and present leader of The Family).

Berg informally adopted Ricky Rodriguez, the son of his second wife Karen Zerby. In the 1970s and 1980s, sexually suggestive photographic depictions of Rodriguez ("Davidito") with adult caretakers were disseminated throughout the group by Berg and Zerby in a childrearing handbook known as The Story of Davidito. In January 2005, Ricky Rodriguez murdered one of the female caretakers shown in the handbook before taking his own life several hours later.

Media featuring Berg

Children of God, Documentary, Directed by John Smithson, 1994.

Cult Killer, documentary on Ricky Rodriguez and child abuse within The Family International.

A&E's Cults and Extreme Belief, episode 3 (2018) is about David Berg, the Children of God, its victims, and the survivors.

Sex Cult Nun: Breaking Away from the Children of God, a Wild, Radical Religious Cult, an autobiography written by Faith Jones Esq. (Granddaughter of David Berg, Daughter of Jonathan "Hosea") about her experience growing up in The Family and her subsequent escape at the age of 22.

Apocalypse Child: A Life in End Times, A Memoir, Flor Christine Edwards.

Shoko Asahara

 

Shoko Asahara (麻原 彰晃, Asahara Shōkō, March 2, 1955 – July 6, 2018), born Chizuo Matsumoto (松本 智津夫, Matsumoto Chizuo), was the founder and leader of the Japanese doomsday cult known as Aum Shinrikyo. He was convicted of masterminding the deadly 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, and was also involved in several other crimes. Asahara was sentenced to death in 2004, and his final appeal failed in 2011. In June 2012, his execution was postponed due to further arrests of Aum members. He was ultimately executed on July 6, 2018.

Early life

Shoko Asahara was born as Chizuo Matsumoto on March 2, 1955, into a large, poor family of tatami-mat-makers in Kumamoto Prefecture. He had infantile glaucoma from birth, which made him lose all sight in his left eye and go partially blind in his right eye at a young age, and was thus enrolled in a school for the blind. Asahara was known to be a bully at the school, taking advantage of the other students by beating them and extorting money from them. He graduated in 1977 and turned to the study of acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine, which were common careers for the blind in Japan. He married the following year and eventually fathered 6 children, the eldest of whom was born in 1978.

In 1981, Asahara was convicted of practicing pharmacy without a license and selling unregulated drugs, for which he was fined ¥200,000 (equivalent to about ¥260,000 in 2019).

Asahara's interest in religion reportedly started at this time. Having been recently married, he worked to support his large and growing family. He dedicated his free time to the study of various religious concepts, starting with Chinese astrology and Taoism.

Later, Asahara practiced Western esotericism, yoga, meditation, esoteric Buddhism, and esoteric Christianity.

Aum Shinrikyo

In 1984, Asahara formed Aum Shinsen no Kai (オウム神仙の会). He changed his name from Chizuo Matsumoto to Shoko Asahara and renamed his group Aum Shinrikyo in 1987. Asahara applied for government registration and, against the advice of cult experts and government officials, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government granted it legal recognition as a religious corporation in 1989.

After this, a monastic order was established, and many lay followers joined. Asahara gained credibility by appearing on TV and on magazine covers. He gradually attained a following of believers and began being invited to lecture-meeting at universities. Asahara also wrote several religious books, including Beyond Life and Death and Supreme Initiation.

The doctrine of Aum Shinrikyo is based on the Vajrayana scriptures, the Bible, and other texts. In 1992 Asahara published Declaring Myself the Christ, within which he declared himself Christ, Japan's only fully enlightened master, and identified with the Lamb of God.

His purported mission was to take others' sins upon himself, and he claimed he could transfer spiritual power to his followers. He saw dark conspiracies everywhere, promulgated by the Jews, the Freemasons, the Dutch, the British Royal Family, and rival Japanese religions.

He outlined a doomsday prophecy, which included a third World War, and described a final conflict culminating in a nuclear "Armageddon", borrowing the term from the Book of Revelation 16:16.

Asahara often preached the necessity of Armageddon for "human relief." He eventually declared, "Put tantra Vajrayana into practice in accordance with the doctrines of Mahamudra," and he led a series of terrorist attacks using a secret organization hidden from ordinary believers.

Tokyo subway gas attack, and arrest

On March 20, 1995, members of Aum Shinrikyo attacked the Tokyo subway with the nerve agent sarin. Thirteen people died and thousands more suffered ill effects. After finding sufficient evidence, authorities accused Aum Shinrikyo of complicity in the attack, as well as in a number of smaller-scale incidents. Dozens of disciples were arrested, Aum's facilities were raided, and the court issued an order for Asahara's arrest. In the following months, a general attitude to perceive new religions and cults as a potential danger for the whole society spread among the Japanese people.

On May 16, 1995, the police investigated the headquarters of Aum Shinrikyo. Asahara was discovered in a very small, isolated room in one of the facilities.

Wary of possible Aum military power, the First Airborne Brigade of the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force was stationed nearby to support the police if needed.

Accusations, trial and execution

Asahara's death warrant

Asahara faced 27 counts of murder in 13 separate indictments. The prosecution argued that Asahara gave orders to attack the Tokyo Subway to "overthrow the government and install himself in the position of Emperor of Japan".

Later, during the trial which took more than seven years to conclude, the prosecution forwarded an additional theory that the attacks were ordered to divert police attention away from Aum. The prosecution also accused Asahara of masterminding the Matsumoto incident (another sarin attack nine months earlier that killed eight people) and the Sakamoto family murder. According to Asahara's defense team, a group of senior followers initiated the atrocities and kept them a secret from Asahara.

During the trials, some of the disciples testified against Asahara, and he was found guilty on 13 of 17 charges, including the Sakamoto family murder; four charges were dropped. On February 27, 2004, he was sentenced to death. The trial was called the "trial of the century" by the Japanese media.

The defence appealed Asahara's sentencing on the grounds that he was mentally unfit and psychiatric examinations were undertaken. During much of the trials, Asahara remained silent or only muttered to himself. However, he communicated with the staff at his detention facility, which convinced the examiner that Asahara was maintaining his silence out of free will. Owing to his lawyers' failure to submit the statement of reason for appeal, the Tokyo High Court decided on March 27, 2006, not to grant them leave to appeal. This decision was upheld by the Supreme Court of Japan on September 15, 2006.

Two re-trial appeals were declined by the appellate court. In June 2012, Asahara's execution was postponed due to arrests of several fugitive Aum Shinrikyo members.

Asahara was executed by hanging at the Tokyo Detention House on July 6, 2018, 23 years after the sarin gas attack, along with six other cult members. Relatives of victims said they approved the execution. Asahara's final words, as reported by officials, assigned his remains to his fourth daughter, who was unsympathetic to the cult and stated she planned to dispose of the ashes at sea; this was contested by Asahara's wife, third daughter, and other family members, who were suspected of wanting to enshrine the ashes where believers can honor them. As of March 2020, the ashes were still at the Tokyo Detention House.

Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God

The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God was a religious movement founded by Credonia Mwerinde and Joseph Kibweteere in southwestern Uganda. It was formed in 1989 after Mwerinde and Kibweteere claimed that they had seen visions of the Virgin Mary. The five primary leaders were Joseph Kibweteere, Joseph Kasapurari, John Kamagara, Dominic Kataribabo, and Credonia Mwerinde.

In early 2000, followers of the religious movement died in a fire and a series of poisonings and killings that were initially considered a group suicide. It was later determined to be a mass murder by the group's leaders after their predictions of the apocalypse failed to come about.[1] In their coverage of that event, BBC News and The New York Times referred to the Movement as a doomsday cult.

Beliefs

The goals of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God were to obey the Ten Commandments and preach the word of Jesus Christ. They taught that to avoid damnation in the apocalypse, one had to strictly follow the Commandments. The emphasis on the Commandments was so strong that the group discouraged talking, for fear of breaking the Ninth Commandment, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor", and on some days communication was only conducted in sign language. Fasting was conducted regularly, and only one meal was eaten on Fridays and Mondays. Sex was forbidden, as was soap.

Movement leaders declared that the apocalypse would occur on December 31, 1999. The group had a strong emphasis on an apocalyptic end time, highlighted by their booklet A Timely Message from Heaven: The End of the Present Time. New members were required to study it and be trained in its text, reading it as many as six times. They also taught that the Virgin Mary had a special role in the end, and that she also communicated with their leadership. They held themselves akin to Noah's Ark, a ship of righteousness in a sea of depravity.

The Movement developed a hierarchy of visionaries, topped by Mwerinde. Behind them were former priests who served as theologians and explained their messages. Although the group had split from the Catholic Church, had Catholic icons placed prominently, and defrocked priests and nuns in its leadership, ties to the Church were only tenuous.

Background

The recent past of Uganda had been marked with political and social turmoil. The rule of Idi Amin, the AIDS pandemic, and the Ugandan Bush War wreaked havoc across the country. People became pessimistic and fatalistic, and the established Roman Catholic Church was backsliding, enveloped in scandals and the faithful were becoming dissatisfied. In this void, many post-Catholic groups formed in the late eighties as a confused and traumatized populace turned to charismatic self-declared messiahs who renounced the authority of the government and the Church. An example of this phenomenon was the Christian resistance group, the Holy Spirit Movement, which fought against the government of Yoweri Museveni.

A former member of another unrelated sect, Paul Ikazire, would explain his motivation to join the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, "We joined the movement as a protest against the Catholic Church. We had good intentions. The church was backsliding, the priests were covered in scandals and the AIDS scourge was taking its toll on the faithful. The world seemed poised to end.”

History

Founding

The earliest origins of the movement have been traced back to Credonia Mwerinde's father Paolo Kashaku. In 1960 he claimed to have had a vision of his deceased daughter Evangelista, who told him that he would have visions of heaven. This prediction passed in 1988, when he saw Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, and Saint Joseph. His daughter Credonia also had similar visions and was involved in a Virgin Cult. In 1989 Kashaku instructed her to spread the message across Uganda on the orders of the Virgin Mary. In that year she would meet Joseph Kibweteere and tell him of their communications.

Joseph Kibweteere claimed to have had a vision of the Virgin Mary in 1984. Credonia Mwerinde also claimed to have had a similar vision in a cavern near Kibweteere's house in Rwashamaire, Uganda. In 1989 the two met and formed the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God, with the mission to spread the Virgin's message about the apocalypse. The group grew rapidly and also attracted several defrocked Catholic priests and nuns who worked as theologians, rationalizing messages from the leadership. Two of the arrivals were the excommunicated priests Paul Ikazire and Dominic Kataribabo.

Middle years

The sect grew in importance with the arrival of Dominic Kataribabo, a respected and popular priest with a PhD from a university in the United States. In order to obtain more funds for the increasing number of disciples, Kibweteere sold his three other properties, car and milling machines. By the late 1990s, the church had grown into a thriving community, set in pineapple and banana plantations. Members lived communally on land bought by pooling their assets, which they sold when they joined the Movement. Mwerinde claimed to receive messages from the Virgin Mary through a hidden telephone system that communicated through everyday objects. In western Uganda they built houses for recruitment, indoctrination and worship, and a primary school. The year 2000 was settled on as the final, compelling date for the sect's predictions of the apocalypse.

In 1992 the group was ordered out of Rwashamaire by village elders, and moved to Kanungu District, where Mwerinde's father offered an extensive property for their use. In 1994, Paul Ikazire left the sect, taking with him approximately seventy members. By 1997, according to a filing with the government, the Movement's membership was listed at nearly 5,000 people. In 1998, the Ugandan press reported that the Movement had been shut down for unsanitary conditions, use of child labor, and possibly kidnapping children, but the sect was allowed to reopen by the government.

As the new millennium approached preparations for the end mounted. In 1999, the state-owned New Vision newspaper ran an interview with a teenage member. He said, "The world ends next year. There is no time to waste. Some of our leaders talk directly to God. Any minute from now, when the end comes, every believer who will be at an as yet undisclosed spot will be saved."

Apocalypse claims

With the new year looming, activity by Movement members became frenzied, their leaders urged them to confess their sins in preparation for the end. Clothes and cattle were sold cheaply, past members were re-recruited, and all work in the fields ceased. January 1, 2000, passed without the advent of the apocalypse, and the Movement began to unravel. Questions were asked of Mwerinde and Kibweteere, and payments to the Church decreased dramatically. Ugandan police believe that some members, who had been required to sell their possessions and turn over the money to the Movement, rebelled and demanded the return of their money. It is believed that events that followed were orchestrated by sect leaders in response to the crisis in the ranks.

Another date was immediately predicted. March 17, 2000, was the new end of the world, a doomsday they said would come "with ceremony, and finality" according to The New York Times. The Movement held a huge party at Kanungu, where they roasted three bulls and drank 70 crates of soft drinks (most being Coca-Cola). Minutes after the members arrived at the party, nearby villagers heard an explosion, and the building was gutted in an intense fire that killed all 530 in attendance. The windows and doors of the building had been boarded up to prevent people from leaving.

The fire alerted the Ugandan authorities as to what had been occurring in the Movement. Several days before Movement leader Dominic Kataribabo was seen buying 50 liters of sulfuric acid, which may have started the fire. Another party was planned for the eighteenth, which officials believe sect leaders had announced in order to mislead authorities as to their plans. The whereabouts of the five principal cult leaders Joseph Kibweteere, Joseph Kasapurari, John Kamagara, Dominic Kataribabo, and Credonia Mwerinde are unknown (all having presumably escaped).

Four days after the church fire, police investigated Movement properties and discovered hundreds of bodies at sites across southern Uganda. Six bodies were discovered sealed in the latrine of the Kanungu compound, as well as 153 bodies at a compound in Buhunage, 155 bodies at Dominic Kataribabo's estate at Rugazi, where they had been poisoned and stabbed, and another 81 bodies lay at leader Joseph Nymurinda's farm. Police stated that they had been murdered about three weeks before the church inferno.

Aftermath

Medical examiners determined that the majority of the 395 individuals who did not die in the fire had been poisoned. Early reports suggested that they had been strangled based on the presence of twisted banana fibers around their necks. After searching all sites, the police concluded that earlier estimates of nearly a thousand dead had been exaggerated, even though the final death toll had settled at 924.

After interviews and an investigation were conducted the police ruled out a cult suicide and instead consider it to be a mass murder conducted by Movement leadership. They believe that the failure of the doomsday prophecy led to a revolt in the ranks of the sect, and the leaders set a new date with a plan to eliminate their followers. The discovery of bodies at other sites, the fact the church had been boarded up, the presence of incendiaries, and the possible disappearance of sect leaders all point to this theory. Additionally, witnesses said that the Movement's leadership had never spoken about mass suicide when they prepared members for the end of the world. A survivor recalled meeting a devout member of the cult with nails and a hammer on his way after he had left the cult. It is believed he is the one who shut the windows with nails to prevent any one from escaping.

The Ugandan government responded with condemnation. President Yoweri Museveni called the event a "mass murder by these priests for monetary gain". Vice president Dr. Speciosa Wandira Kazibwe said, "These were callously, well-orchestrated mass murders perpetrated by a network of diabolic, malevolent criminals masquerading as religious people."

Although it was initially assumed that the five leaders died in the fire, police now believe that Joseph Kibweteere and Credonia Mwerinde may still be alive, and have issued an international warrant for their arrest. In 2014, it was announced by the Uganda National Police that there were reports that Kibweteere was hiding in Malawi.

 

Ben Klassen

 

Bernhardt "Ben" Klassen (February 20, 1918 (O.S. February 7, 1918) – August 6, 1993) was an American politician and white supremacist religious leader. He founded the Church of the Creator with the publication of his book Nature's Eternal Religion in 1973. Klassen was openly racist, antisemitic and anti-Christian and first popularized the term "Racial Holy War" within the White Power movement.

At one point, Klassen was a Republican Florida state legislator, as well as a supporter of George Wallace's presidential campaign. In addition to his religious and political work, Klassen was an electrical engineer and he was also the inventor of a wall-mounted electric can-opener. Klassen held unorthodox views about dieting and health. He was a natural hygienist who opposed the germ theory of disease as well as conventional medicine and promoted a fruitarian, raw food diet.

Early life

Klassen was born on February 20, 1918, in Rudnerweide (now Rozivka in Chernihivka Raion in Zaporizhzhia Oblast), Ukraine, to Bernhard and Susanna Klassen (née Friesen) a Ukrainian Mennonite Christian couple. He had two sisters and two brothers. When Klassen was nine months old, he caught typhoid fever and nearly died. Due to the Russian Civil War, circumstances during his early childhood were quite difficult. When he was five, the family moved to Mexico, where they lived for one year. In 1925, at age six, he moved with his family to Herschel, Saskatchewan, Canada. He attended the German-English Academy (now Rosthern Junior College).

Entrepreneurship

Klassen established a real estate firm in Los Angeles in partnership with Ben Burke. Believing that his partner was prone to drinking and gambling, Klassen eventually bought him out and became sole proprietor. He hired several salesmen, including Merle Peek, who convinced him to buy large land development projects in Nevada. Klassen and Peek started a partnership called the Silver Springs Land Company, through which they founded the town of Silver Springs, Nevada. In 1952, Klassen sold his share of the company to Phillip Hess for $150,000 and retired.

On March 26, 1956, Klassen filed an application with the U.S. Patent Office to patent a wall-mounted, electric can opener which he marketed as Canolectric. In partnership with the marketing firm Robbins & Myers, Klassen created Klassen Enterprises, Inc. In the face of competition from larger manufacturers that could provide similar products more cheaply, Klassen and his partners dissolved the company in 1962.

Political career

Klassen served Broward County in the Florida House of Representatives from November 1966 – March 1967, running on an anti-busing, anti-government platform. He campaigned for election to the Florida Senate in 1967, but was defeated. That same year, he was vice chairman of an organization in Florida which supported George Wallace's presidential bid.

Klassen was a member of the John Birch Society, at one point operating an American Opinion bookstore, but became disillusioned with the Society because of what he viewed as its tolerant position towards Jews. In November 1970, Klassen, along with Austin Davis, created the Nationalist White Party. The party's platform was directed at White Christians and it was explicitly religious and racial in nature; the first sentence of the party's fourteen-point program is "We believe that the White Race was created in the Image of the Lord." The logo of the Nationalist White Party was a "W" with a crown and a halo over it, and it would be used three years later as the logo of the Church of the Creator.

Less than a year after he created the Nationalist White Party, Klassen began expressing apprehension about Christianity to his connections through letters. These letters were not well received and they effectively ended the influence of the Nationalist White Party.

Church of the Creator

In 1973, Klassen founded the Church of the Creator (COTC) with the publication of Nature's Eternal Religion. Individual church members are called Creators, and the religion they practice is called Creativity.

In 1982, Klassen established the headquarters of his church in Otto, North Carolina. Klassen wrote that he established a school for boys. The original curriculum was a two-week summer program that included activities such as "hiking, camping, training in handling of firearms, archery, tennis, white water rafting and other healthy outdoor activities", as well as instruction on "the goals and doctrines of Creativity and how they could best serve their own race in various capacities of leadership."

In July 1992, George Loeb, a minister in the church, was convicted of murdering a black sailor in Jacksonville, Florida. Fearing that a conviction might mean the loss of 20 acres of land worth about $400,000 in Otto, North Carolina, belonging to the church, Klassen sold it to another white supremacist, William Luther Pierce, author of the Turner Diaries, for $100,000.

Klassen self-appointed himself Pontifex Maximus of the church until January 25, 1993, when he transferred the title to Dr. Rick McCarty.

Racial holy war

Ben Klassen first popularized the term "Racial Holy War" (RaHoWa) within the white nationalist movement. He also consistently called black people "niggers" in public discourse as well as in the literature of the COTC, as opposed to many white nationalist leaders who use relatively more polite terms in public. Klassen wrote, "Furthermore, in looking up the word in Webster's dictionary I found the term 'nigger' very descriptive: 'a vulgar, offensive term of hostility and contempt for the black man'. I can't think of anything that defines better and more accurately what our position... should be... If we are going to be for racial integrity and racial purity... we must take a hostile position toward the nigger. We must give him nothing but contempt."

In his 1987 book Rahowa– This Planet Is All Ours he claims that Jews created Christianity in order to make white people weaker, and he said that the first priority should be to "smash the Jewish Behemoth".

Personal beliefs

Klassen was a natural hygienist who promoted a back to nature philosophy that espoused fresh air, clean water, sunshine and outdoor exercise. He recommended a raw food diet which consisted of fruits and vegetables and believed that medicine and processed foods create cancer inside the body. Klassen wrote that food must be "uncooked, unprocessed, unpreserved and not tampered with in any other way. This further means it must be organically grown without the use of chemicals."

Klassen promoted "racial health" and natural hygiene principles, and he was influenced by the works of Herbert M. Shelton. Klassen believed that fasting would cleanse the body of toxins, and he also believed that a fruitarian raw food diet would cure disease. Klassen rejected the germ theory of disease and believed that modern medicine was a Jewish multi-billion-dollar fraud. Klassen contributed an introduction and a chapter on eugenics to Arnold DeVries' book Salubrious Living (1982). The book endorsed fasting, sunbathing, fruitarian and raw food dieting. Historian George Michael has written that "despite his advocacy of healthy nutrition, some of his associates claimed that in practice Klassen did not actually follow the "salubrious living" regimen, because he often ate red meat and ice cream."

Klassen firmly opposed religion because he believed it was superstitious, and he described Christianity as a "Jewish creation" which was designed to unhinge white people by promoting a "completely perverted attitude" about life and nature. He rejected the afterlife as "nonsense". He argued that man's morality and sense of purpose is based on the laws of nature and racial loyalty. Klassen believed that the white race was the sole builder of civilization and all of the advanced civilizations which existed in antiquity were created by white people but they were destroyed because they practiced miscegenation.

Death

Possibly depressed after the death of his wife, the failure of his church and a diagnosis of cancer and considering suicide a suitable way to end his life, Klassen took an overdose of sleeping pills either late on August 6 or early on August 7, 1993. Klassen was buried on his North Carolina property in an area which he had previously designated "Ben Klassen Memorial Park".

Selected publications

Natures Eternal Religion (1973)

The White Man's Bible (1981)

Salubrious Living (with Arnold DeVries, 1982)

Expanding Creativity (1985)

Building a Whiter and Brighter World (1986)

On the Brink of a Bloody Racial War (1993)