relatively normal, you know, get sucked in so far that they re willing to commit violent murders? maybe it would be easy to go backwards and find out a little bit about your early years, when you were a kid. if you can tell me a little bit about the family you were raised in? i was a fifth-generation member of a branch of mormonism known as the reorganized latter day saints. i was really very active. inside the family, what were things like there? what was the tone growing up in your house? the tone was pretty oriented around the church. it wasn t a perfect lifestyle. i mean, i know for myself, i i fell away from faith a little bit later on in my high school years and let me stop you there. you said it wasn t a perfect house. what about living in that house
conference for the church. at this particular world conference, they introduced a new direction for the church and it split the church wide open. now, for me, i was getting out of the military and i was starting a huge life, but the church, which was a huge part of my life, was in utter turmoil. looking for answers, luff takes a fateful trip with his family to an ohio town, known as a kind of mecca for mormons. kirtland, ohio, this small farming town hosts hundreds of mormon tourists annually. they come to visit the kirtland temple, one of the first religious structures for mormons. it s primarily a historical landmark. we have visitors from all over the country. it was built for joseph smith in the 1800s. in the spring of 1987, 27-year-old ron luff visits the
meet, some are saying they re going to endorse. now aside from the fact of my opinion of donald trump and others, the thing that s interesting here is that he is going for a block that represents a lot, if not the majority of black voters. lot of people don t understand even in a transforming time, the majority of black voters attend church. it may not be the traditional church, it may be the megachurch. is he playing on a weakness that the democrats have left an opening who have not dealt with the church, where the vote is? yes and it s interesting. i think you re right in that people do underestimate the extent to which the pastor, the church is still probably the most compelling secentrifugal
economic needs, opportunity, education. we belong to a group that s called the reconcile church. we re trying to find national leaders to come, invest in our community be able to give these young people a hope a dream to be able to prosper. a washington post article, the city of baltimore is called a churched city. i wonder when it comes to getting people not even just to go to traditional church but to be more involved in their community, also a lot of that has to do with voting. and getting people out to vote to elect the leaders they want to make the change they re calling for. absolutely. i was just joined by a local radio host here marc who told me voting here last time around was abysmal. 12% participation. exactly. does that change going forward? it has to change. what we have to do as a church is be able to reach all segments of the population. we have the african-american we have the latino, we have the anglo churches. what we need to do is come
authorities, this small religious group is quickly morphing into a cult. so where does this fellow, lungren, come in? my faith was very much everything and i m looking to a lot of answers to questions. i decide that i want to go to kirtland temple and just visit the place. i d never been there. pray, meditate, and see if i can, you know, if god will touch me in any way or let me know anything that he wants in my life, a direction in my life. okay. and so i ve never heard of jeff lungren before that day. that was where we first met. we spent about six hours after that tour talking with him and his wife and some of the things going on in the church and so forth. we met some of the other people that were there. what there seemed to be is a collection of people who all seemed to have the answers to their questions. that was very attractive to me, because i was still not finding those answers to my questions. and everything that i was