Transcripts For CSPAN2 David Cady Religion Of Fear 20240713

abwe want to thank you for being here and also thank you for being a sponsor without individual donations and the support from our community and around the nation southern festival of books would not be t possible it would not be able to continue to be free for you so we want to urge you to visit the website and give as you can and thank you for being here. You are really in for a treat this afternoon. The book that we have here and will be talking to the author david katie who am getting ready to introduce religion of fear the true story of the church of the god of the Union Assembly. What a story it links into tennessee in 19 other congregations across the nation. Cady ably juxtaposes the bizarre tale of the church of god of the Union Assembly with contemporaneous history illustrating how this power mad yet charismatic leader came to rise without anyone noticing anything out of the ordinary. In a part of the world where pentecostal churches are common. The kind of sum it up, heres a quote by shakespeare though all things foul would wear the brows of grace yet grace must still look so. We are going to hear from david cady about how he does that. Let me tell you a little bit about david. He was born and raised in northwest georgia and graduated from right here middle Tennessee State university. We are glad to know that. He received his masters degree in science from the university of georgia abim so sorry about the loss yesterday david. Sorry i had to throw that in. David taught science for 32 years before he retired at Dalton High School in georgia and that of course retired in 2000. He began writing at the age of 50. His First Published book was the handler which is about snake handling near chattanooga. For the handler david was nominated for the georgia author of the year in 2007. He is also the author of fatal option the sequel to the handler and severed. David started his research for religion of fear in 2011. It was published just this june by the university of Tennessee Press in knoxville and since publication has been one of the highest selling books out there we cant wait to hear more about it. David lives with his wife cindy and rocky face georgia. David, please tell us what led you to write this book . And grew up in the headquarters of a Church Called the church of god Union Assembly. I didnt know a whole lot about it even hethough the church was across the street from where i lived. I didnt even know there were 54 other churches. I thought there was just that one church and it happened to be the headquarters. A guy by the name of zach norwood would come in after id written the other books and said by the way thats debbie norvells father and he said ive got a book free to write i thought it was to be about the culprit meals and bolted. He said, i want you to write about the church of god union of sin. He said what to write about dthat he said you will find out im going to give you your first interview and i went to four years of interviewing former members and we have former members here today im going to ask them to stand and maybe even speak in a few minutes. About the hell they went through being members of this church. I would like to tell you a lot of things i will redo some of the things that happen ngbut th hardest thing was piecing it all together because i would get an interview and i would say what have i got. And since you were never a member of the ua he mentioned there are members of the book that reads more like a novel although its not a novel its based with a lot of interviews. How did you get your information. I started hunting pthese peopl like i hunt dear. I couldnt find them. All of a sudden people started calling me. And then people started to hear about it marie over there send me a message she said today just to remind me her first inquiry. She said i understand youre writing about the church of god Union Assembly and she said that was about three or four years ago. As i went through talking to these people i plan on doing a fiction book about a colt. When i got to talking to these stories were so horrific. The stories were so hurt moving it was an Emotional Experience to write this book. There were times that i just sat down and tcried as i was writing it because of what i was hearing from some of these people. And i will read some stuff here after a while. Did you find it difficult to get these former members to talk about their experiences like you said it was an emotional for you. We can only imagine how emotional it wouldve been for them to talk with you . Some of them were very hard to get to talk to. I would get a name phone number and call or go see them and went as far as to talk to people in knoxville want to talk to people because the Church Actually started from alabama down the east side of alabama down through east side of tennessee through georgia. I did have a tough time getting people to talk for a while. People i would call they would say im not telling you anything okay okay thats fine. An hour later id be off the phone. Because they were going to tony. Tthey just had to tell me. I recorded everything. Then it would take about a day to time all that so i got a dragon thing i could talk into and it printed for me. I have a filing cabinet with over a thousand interviews in it. I had interviewed over 100 people i lost count now. Since the book was published it was actually given in tennessee a few years ago and we rereadded took 150 pages out of it and certain things, ive got a lot more information that i could have put in it. Let me tell a little bit about the echurch. He was a young man in his 20s he was married in williamsburg kentucky and belong to the church of god mount assembly. He was kicked out of the church in 1917 about the same time the war of the United States declared war on germany. He was sent away from the church because he didnt believe in their doctor about the end of time. He gets with a guy named mcknight and they moved to Center Georgia and thats a about 30 miles north of atlanta. There is no longer a town its called cartersville now. Dalton is about 30 miles south sof chattanooga. He actually started the church he added about 20 more churches in 12 states. He added creatures and would travel from one to the other but his headquarters was in dalton. He built it up and his big thing was and at times would be in september 1961. So while everybody else was worried about the russians bombing us people of the church of god did more of that because they knew the time was going to end pretty soon anyway when jesus came back. He was a pretty good leader. He did take a lot of money from the people, he demanded a lot of money he didnt believe in tithing. I learned all this from interviews but also i learned about it in Court Records because there was a lot of stuff in Court Records that i had a lawyer friend help me he found hundred and 94 deeds that people had given their property Justin Whitfield county to the church. When he brought those to me and said heres a stack of ai said youre kidding. I went to all of those. I found all these people who have given their money the to the church. But why shouldnt they give their money. He said the times is going to end at 61 anyway. He had nine children and his fifth son was a guy named jesse and jesse was a taller guy he was very charismatic too. He started breaking the rules of the church. But this is where the story gets very interesting. He started trying to take control and talk about how he went about taking control. It wasnt just from the witnesses who talked to me. Theres Court Records on this. It was a rule that you could not, the church had a lot of rules. They didnt just go by the bible. He went by i have a long list of rules and i did have copies of the rules from the 1920s to the 1940s. I had rules all the way up to 1995. They always made a list of them every year and gave them out to people and people gave them to me. The ministers were not allowed to divorce. Or seremarry. Jesse in 1945 left, he was a pilot. They had nine airplanes. He was a pilot and he flew his piano player irene out to, i forgot somewhere out west where you get divorces, reno. Flew her out there and they stayed six weeks. She was a wife and had three children two daughters and a son and one daughter was just a year old and he had a wife and three sons and nobody knew they were married until he came back in the church. His daddy grandma for a while but cannot totally control him. He took over the church in detroit. They had churches in detroit, they had them in hamilton ohio, kokomo indiana. San Diego California and i thought there was only one church and i grew up in dalton georgia. Jesse started working his way back in. There was a man who became who was not a Family Member named huey h carmichael. He was the pastor of the Knoxville Church and they had about 10 churches in knoxville. Here in tennessee. Around marable. Got some members here from emarable church. Then we have a course to follow it. Intimacy. I cant remember the name of all the churches. In fact, they have 54 churches in 19 states. In over 15,000 members. They had a lot of money coming in. But jesse was able to take over carmichael man was the assistant moderator and ct was the moderator charlie thomas. His son was just a minister. His son moved back to dalton and he started doing something that actually started the call direction. I dont know if we can say its a cult, a lot of my professor friends recently say the word cold is overused. So we will let you people decide that like i let the readers decide that. He started taking and rebuking people physically. He would take his members up call them up grabbed him by the head, start shaking them, shake them until they fell on the floor the women script to come up. Some of them would urinate on themselves during this rebuking and he built this fear. His daddy try to control it because his daddy didnt do this. Some of the other ministers started doing this too. The first thing jesse did when he gets back is he rebukes cash carmichael. And forces him to leave and jesse takes over as moderator. Then when he has the rules of the church changed he has people start bringing all their money in and other than physically abusing them they have another rule that if anybody leaves the church they have to be totally ostracized. That meant if you are kicked heout of the church, he didnt just let you leave, if you are kicked out of the church then you wouldnt see your wife or children or your mother or father and there were people that i talked to that never saw the grandparents for 30 years after they were kicked out of the church. Or left the church. This is the story of this. 1961, i dont know why all the sudden, ct was in his late 70s by then. When the world didnt come to an end and jesus didnt come back in september of 61 he said we dont have a wife for him so asking women to come into his house and he would ask them to on clothes so he could pick out a bride for christ. Some of these women were married and some refused to do this. He built up such a thing in dalton because everybody was in a move back to dalton. People sold their houses in hamilton ohio and kokomo in san diego. They had nothing. They sold they gave the money to the Church Everything they had and they came down in the world didnt come to an end. So for some reason ct a lot of these relatives i talked to you and some of his grandchildren i talked to were willing to talk to me said they thought he had had many strokes. But i dont know why he decided to do this but it allowed jesse to kick him out of the church. He kicked his own father and mother out of the church and this was in 1961. He had over 1 million in assets at this time they own one fourth of whitfield wcount and Murray County which are two counties sidebyside which actually whitfield and murray touches the tennessee line. He had everybody, he had all this property. It wasnt a lot of liquid assets it was own property. Jesse started having to sell some of his property. I have the Court Records and where he sold the property off and everything. And of course when his daddy was out of the church most of the preachers and the other churches were his relatives. Thats what i read. So they started rebuking. And they didnt just review, he would take a sermon and start preaching and instead of talking about jesus, because i listened to some of it, some of them were sent to me, he would start belittling certain people and talking them down. I have a recording of one of them which i dont know if it will play here its just about 15 seconds that was sent to me just recently im going to let you listen to it and im going to tell you what he said and all the hollering and screaming how the people in the church saying amen and all that. See if you can hear it. [inaudible] im going to tell you what he said. Im going to tell you what he said. He was talking to a woman she is still alive and im sure shes in almost her 90s now because this happened, jesse died in 74. Thats another story. Which is in the book. This is a woman who they say was very very pretty. Her name was bessie and he just decided one day he was given preach against her and he says if you will say bessie you need to wipe that smile off your face i cant remember exactly he said its going to be your funeral next and that pretty face that god gave you hes going to rip it right off of you. So im going to let you listen to it again. Im sorry thats a different one. I was in a play for you later ill go back to that one. [inaudible] thats just hard to imagine if you dont mind im going to read you some of the stuff that happened. Its packed full and ive got enough for another book but im not going to ever write another book like this. While he is turning to that essection, it sounds like this when the real fear started when his son came in. Would we be correct in assuming rthat this is one a lot of the real fear really started . Right. They would actually kick people out and he encouraged divorce. And not even mention this or go read about it but if you were sitting in church one day and he says, okay brother roberts, thats not your erwife. Your wife is mayville over here. He would just change them around. During the church services. That happened occasionally. Let me read you one here about rebuking. This happened in 1961 of the most pitiful cases of rebuking happened at a tent revival in trying georgia right close to tennessee. In the late 60s when a young girl we would call her pam had a seizure it was known by the membership that pam had suffered from epilepsy most of her life while jesse was preaching that night pam had a seizure and jesse had the girl who was still convulsing brought down to the pews in the front where he grabbed her by the head and started slinging the slobbering child around. And screaming for the devil to come out of the poor sick kid. Theres a glare on it im trying to say. It wasnt long until about 50 men gathered around pam stomping their feet and screaming for the devil to come out. Finally after 30 to 60 minutes of this treatment black bile came flowing from pams mouth and nose. Jesse announced that it was the devil escaping to the childs ymouth. Jesse took full credit for the miracle over satan. Later people presented reports that it looked as if the young girl had actually thrown up blood and not the devil. However, when pam continued to have seizures jesse blamed it on pam herself saying that satan kept coming back into the child because she was not keeping the faith. One other thing they did i didnt mention here is they did not allow you abthey did not allow the people to see doctors. David, why did these members allow this to continue to happen . Why didnt they just leave or why did they just reported to the authorities . Thats really a good question and the thing i kept asking myself. Some of the members, one of them here can help me answer that question one night at my house. Basically if thats all you have and you got to realize these people are born into it. They hardly ever got new memberships. He encouraged big families and the people i knew had 10 or 12 brothers and sisters. He encouraged us. It was what we call socialization. This is all they knew. This is all they believed. If they left he told them this is the only way to heaven. They were going to go to hell if you left the church. Right robert . Also if you left the church, you left your family he would not allow them to have relationships with you so they stayed with the church. Robert, hold your hand up robert. I will let him talk to you in just a second. Robert told me when we when i was interviewing him about four years ago that was kind of like reading a book being in the church. And i will use this as an illustration. When you are in it, you cant read it. When you are out of it and get back you can read and once you are out you start seeing what was on it. Some of these people were kicked out, stayed out. But they had to give up a lot. They had to give up their family and this happened quite often. Ive got a few other things here that i could read if youve got any questions. We were talking about why, we would think if we were sitting there why couldnt we do something and that clearly understand hear you say that now i see where you lose your family they already given up es their homes they didnt know anything and another thing in reviewing and talking with david earlier is most of these people were born into this religion. So they dont know any different. You have to remember, this started in 1917 this was three generations of this family so some of these people were born into it and didnt know that there was another way or the right way to be treated and that was a big aha moment for me too to understand why some of them didnt say anything. And why dalton living at the headquarters i didnt even know about heit. People that have read this book and dalton said, i didnt know all that went t on. They were so secretive. They were just not allowed to talk about it with anybody else. Before i go into jesses death, i think weve still got some time. Got a lot to tell you. In 1960s, this is an email i got about five years ago. In the 1960s, jesses brother, reading the email and the email came to me from hamilton ohio in the 1960s jesses brother tom pratt church it was actually jesses first cousin but they thought it was his brother. He treated those members they are terribly making them work ungodly hours and then turning over most of the wages to him. My precious mother worked for him and some business he owned Grocery Store and he forced her to work from 7 00 a. M. To 11 00 p. M. At night. Tom pratt was an evil man and hes also love the women as most rats he will see later did too. There was so much fear that was infused in the church from jesse senior. That everyone was afraid and fearful of the family of god and no one would ever stand up for themselves. We just thought that was the way it was, it was supposed to be, jesse would have easily told these people to drink the koolaid and all of them would have. In march 2014 i got a phone call from kokomo indiana and this is one more detail here toward to me about brenda moore. I had never talked to her before so i had her call you back and equipment recording on and then i said okay now tell me about that baby who died in church. Did you say it was 1962 and brenda said yes. abhad already been gone the pastor who was thrown out for being a epedophile. You said the baby was small and the Mothers Holding it. Oh my weve god, instead instead in some of the women stood up and they were preaching to tell the women to sit down. My mother went down anyway. When i did i am talking now. When i did tom want anybody to go see about the baby. And she says, he kept preaching, the sermon went on for two more hours. Then he said somebody to go get the baby. When they brought the baby up, it had turned blue. Tommy told them the baby, would hold the baby and he prayed over it in front and tried to bring it back to life. An i. C. E. And of course he do it. And she said no. And this just another example the skip on to another part of the book here, and chelsea had complete control at his second wife irene, they had six children one of them was chelsea junior. And he had children who are still alive. They turned out to be quite fine citizens now. In 1974, chelsea had decided some people that you talk to actually i interviewed told me that he was going to go over and divorce irene. When he goes over there on marcs the 13th on friday. And they had church on friday i didnt go. He was working at farm. In a bunch of farms. At 4 00 oclock in the morning, they called the funeral home to come pick him up. That he had had a heart attack. It was 56 years old but also a pilot and it had a pilots exam just. Recently. And a big gash in his head and he bled out. Nobody to this dayt knows exacty what happened but i have a death certificate this is heart attack but no autopsy was ever done. Theres still a lot of people arguing with me members that are members now that safe that can happen. Well, ive been a hunter, i know when the heart starts beating, well have stops flowing. I dont know exactly what happened there, but they had his younger brother, i mean, his in the son of chelsea, was the assistant moderator but irene set for chelsea junior and chelsea junior was sworn in by one of the members right there that morning at hate oclock before anybody else knew about it. Even jesses brothers. And he took over and brought a new range to the church in 1974. And increased rain of terror. Increased. When he took over, and 12 Million Dollars in illiquid assets and it still owed quite a bit of property. Any added a lot of things like candy sales, large sales. He would have people pledge to build a balcony in the church and it never came about. He had the pledge for a Recreation Center where he bought 400 acres in the county next to whitfield he was going to build the recreations area. They called at the campgrounds. The members. That never happened. One of the main things i would like to read one more time, something. Please. I just read that one. It was about some of the deaths that happened because they were not allowed to go in the had a birthing center. It was in the county next to it, even ohio came down to have their babies there at the birthing center. Ct news daughters, with the midwives. They were not trained. Even put hatchets on the beds to try to cut. So people from the ohio people came down were members of the congregation for the didnt have a birthing center there. Its genetic some of them had their babies in chattanooga. Some were born there. And some of them down in knoxville. I will tell you, i was going to read this about an if it that happened in the church about a friend of mine, is ours a friend of mine, the mother partner name was mildred. Robert would you finish the story. You stay on right upul there at the microphone because robert is the one who moved by the way, this is robert and his wife, will tell you their story just a minute. Wilson son, he was a friend of mine at the time when i was a small boy, he drove my older brothers and sisters and so i knew the family was a family. One in particular time when we had communion service, well, everybody had to get in line in order to run the church to come before the leader and he would tell you whether or not you had the right spirit or the ability to get offff hillside. She walks around, and she was 80 or 90 pounds and at the time, she was about 75 years old she was older than we, for some reason chelsea didnt like her spirit she had this when he called it and so do some shakespeare and he would take her right out the back door. She was making for marcy. Thats not the only time. Its happened brother times byim the people. Thats just what i saw in particular. In the right there, did something to me the time. That went out this has brought right. For that man to have such control like that. To tell you right what kind of spirit you have. It was horrible. What edge were you robert we do witness this. I wouldve been in my 30s at the time. And he still felt that fear we discussed earlier you witness this but yet you are afraid to telling one else or go outside, that fox if you will to tell brother people. Yes. That is true. As david described earlier, was born into it and thats all i knew. We went saturday night and sunday morning and sunday night and wednesday night and revivals. Not to mention whether you had to go instate or outofstate you had to go or you got in trouble. Your into it so deep that you cant see clearly. Like he illustrates with the book. Its a step back a few steps, you cant see the clear pitcher. Thats where i was and many others. You cant see the clear pitcher and it was just brainwashed is what they call it. So finally we saw the live and got out. Tonight did you have to robert, this might be a little more personal but you have to get therapy to help through this. My wife is there to and she went through a lot of emotional stress to over that. Both of our minor mothers died for reasons that could been saved. When i was a kid and her mother is it too. When she was very young. And there is many brother cases not just ours there are countless. We are so sorry you had experience with that. Let me tell you roberts story with that i will ask marie to tell about it. If shes wanting to pray tell pop her mother died. Brandon robert were childhood sweethearts and had planned to get married and we do had to go to irene. This is when chelsea junior was in charge. He had to go to a rain to get permission to get married and he lived in miracle. She was on her way back to the church and she was in florida. Correct. And she told irene the mother and chelsea junior, that she wanted to marry robert and she says, you can do better than that so she found marie some videos and of course it just worked robert up and so she married some videos that robert married some videos they had a family and their family later on broke apart and i say it was 2014 they became divorced about each brother again. Anna married now. [applause] there a lot of things in here abouter some of e deaths. Some of them were just horrible. But they want you to tell me about your mother news death. You were a young girl. I was 16. My mother with 32. She had me when she was really young. She was such a good mother even at the edge of 15 having a child. But she hadh remarried and she was coming down some steps at the front door and it had just rained. Ticket she came right down on her bottom. Right after that, she got real sick. And when it say a whole lot about what had happened until most recent years when i felt like it was weve god speaking in my heart of what may have really happened because when anybody would ask, what happened to sell that was her nickname, they would see, she died of cancer. And she never saw a dr. Or a specialist. Thats just, you know, what they would see about her. Let her remember when she was sick something with trite to come out of her and i dont want to get is it too grotesque. Everything but i would witness this myself. There was women that would come in and out trying to help take care of her. One of my most vivid memories of what was trying to come out of her and he said the only way i know how to describe it is that look like a bit joint if women have ever cleaned and chicken are a turkey with the wing looks like. This would look like. To me. So when that would start, they would get her out of the bed and bring her out into a clearing and stay on erect on top of her head to get that back in her. So this went on and on and on. I witnessed them taking lysol from the brown bottle mixing it with warm water and cleaning that which would go up in her. I would a breakdown. The shrill of her screen, she died just a horrible painful death. Twelve years later, this is just been the bet past few years that ive contemplated him a thought how did they know that she died of cancer and all of these questions would come up in my mind. Sorry david. Strength is okay. Then it just came to me, the fall. Remember she fell. And then i thought, im doing that i believe she was trying to miscarry and as i was telling as andy, i could finish the sentence. She said the input was decaying in her. And i said, thats what he really believe happened. I dont believe it was cancer. Like robert said, theres so many others the died in childbirth it couldve made it. It was just a horrible time and it took, like u. S. , did we go through therapy. I went to counseling for years. But i waited until i was in my late 30s and 40s. And that was long after i quit the church. I lift in my late t 30s. That was the one thing that really helped me was to be able to un loaded until somebody and now if im having gone through this and brother things, you wonder why weve god, why did i have to live through this but i am using it to witness to others to be careful. Everything that talks nice and looks nice, just really be careful about what you are getting into because we all look like great people, we dressed nice, we just look like i want to be a part of them. But really do your research. Thank you. [applause] we applaud you and thank you. I say this is the really tough thing. And using it and thats what david is doing with this book. To tell what really happened and i say that might take us through where that church is today. When the congregation is today they will open it up today for questions and answers. After the last death of the third generation. Take it from there. In 1994, in 1995, chelsea junior had started a Musical Group called the trailblazers in the got pretty famous and he required of the members to come. Will they didnt cut their hair, they worded in a bun. There were not allowed to wear makeup and not allowed to wear jewelry. Not even a cross. No crosses. Wone woman that rebuked because she were cross to church. But chelsea decided that he had got pretty big into the gospel singing business that he decided that the women could start cutting their hair and wearing makeup start dressing a little differently. In 1995, chelsea had completely lost everything. Everything the church had. In the way of her name. I tell what people tell me but it is in the Court Records how a lot of this was lost. By then, chelsea junior news mother, had him from tells why in the book. In her next son charlie, the third takes over everything changes. People are allowed to go to the dr. And people are a lot of the rules are and they are still some people told me that they still do a little bit of ostracizing in a few of the people try to but this is just what they were taught. In some places. But the church is totally revamped now. Its not totally but it has revamped now. I will see anymore. They still go by your title, which is the church of weve god of the Union Assembly. David, do you feel like theyre part of any thought to where revamping, changing some of these royalties, they felt the need to exchange that name a little like we might if we rebrand something to support those who had gotten out maybe by this time but some things were known. What are your thoughts on that. Things were not known. Still not known. Still known. In fact most of it has brought known until i came out with this book. Okay. Since then,n, theres been a few churches closed. And there has been some of them that disbanded. Are down in some churches. A lot of people, i have had people really, the anatomy who are still members and i get some really nasty comments and some reviews of come in and some people in the reviews have said there was a special place in hell for me. And of course amazon took that off. Real fast. [laughter] there still, people resent this. And that is normal. Its normal for people to not lbelieve that this happened. You take people that are 35 years old, and they didnt know it the wayid it was back before 1995. And they didnt know about what happened. I know from some of the people they were told not to get this book and not read it. You know thats like telling a kid theres a canning jar, dont you go get it. Its going to happen. They are j still, since this is only come out in june, there are still a lot of repercussions going on. This is very controversial book. I know frank and i would like to see one of the thing. Marie made me say of it. A lot of the members that i feel like have posttraumatic stress disorder. There is no doubt. There are several over here. When all of the former members we called them, they formed their own group called wenzhou stay on up. Theyre here. [applause] i sure appreciate you coming. I really do. And that went out them, this couldnt have happened and i guess, and i hope i have helped them in the little way. Make it feel a little better for them. There are several stories in here if i read them, i would cry. Even now. So not going to read them. Even hearing your testimony its really upsetting to us to oknow that this happened. We do have some time in the audience were some questions if you have a question, we would like for you to come up to the microphone might up here if you will and ask your question. We appreciate that. In one of q the things that you said is that people have to, understand evil to avoid it. It can come in any disguise. Ive read a good bit about jeffs church in utah. It seems like theres so many similarities. And a powerful leader, actually the son takes a group in a much more radical direction with the leader saint who marries to complete findings when people leave, number of things i read about that have eincluded an encouraging people not to be educated. That was it was the role of education in this group. For a long time, and required them to quit school when theyre 16. The required. Especially theth boys. One reason is they didnt want them they didnt want them Getting Started another thing is i had to get to work real fast. The stories in here, about how people would go work then a saturday hed have to turn in everything made to the church. Everything. Related to that, this often times really kind of scamming the government and getting, getting food stamps and things having to turn those over to the leaders. Did you run into any evidence of that. Know the food stamps and so forth. There probably some people that were so poor and they talk about it were so poor that they had their lights turn out. Occasionally because they given everything they had to the church. It happened to them. And chelsea over there, that did happen to people. So the leader was leaving her what sort of life so was he leaving in comparison to his very poor congress. Chelsea junior lived in a mansion. Robert went all the way down and everybody else, from tennessee and have built. And the problem was that the irs caught up with them. That was another turning. On the irs, i found the paperwork when they were sued in the irs took me aliens of dollars away from them. They had a cello lot of those properties. You are talking about it in ey1995, some of it before then o is a lot more her name. Worth a lot more her name now. One more thing. Also because they married enter, the greater the religion by having large families married each brother and theres genet genetic, diseases that are found amongst them way out of proportion to the general public. Is any evidence of that sort of thing. [inaudible conversation] were going to bring a microphone over to you. All that talk. There was some instances where families and the jones family, they did marry families and even in georgia, there was one where cousins married and the children were very disabled. Some that were mentally challenged very mentally challenged. Some the children were causally carried. Into the teens were carried by the parents because he couldnt walk. So yes it did have that. So i learned a little bit myself today. See, i get emails, five a day. From former members who were still telling the stories. Ill tell you when i start, robert go ahead. Go ahead he has got something to see here. Go ahead robert. I just wanted to add in all of my years i was in the church, 37 years. Chelsea had one final see in it. He used to see all the time, even if these meetings together he would see in front of the revivals, four to six weeks. People would be expected to buy from outofstate to go to the revivals. And if you didnt get there you got in trouble. Here are a minister you get that had chuck. Cant get them in here, will raise our own army. So they had a lot of marrying within their relativee stuff a lot of that went on. And he said we cant get them in here we will raise our own army. Stuck in my head. It is way out there. One instance in indiana, and i know were about ready to allow time i didnt get to talk about it here but in 1959, was a patch there, divorce but was and set up their because he had been a thpedophile. He went up there to preach in anadarko rome in a furniture store. To make this right quick and fast, he would call in young women as young as 11 and 12 and 13 years old and talk to them about why they didnt wear stockings out there was was wear them out and they had to wear them. Come to find out, he was having relationships with them. He ran away. I have newspaper articles on this. He ran away when he came back, he said i want all of you women is had a relationship with clintonville up here to ask for forgiveness and about some people said, 25 others said 50 women got up. Some of the mothers and daughters who came up. To testify. Go ahead. The question thank you. Can anyone hear me okay. Okay, being a current member of the church, and 21 years old, so i was raised in an as well. My dad news actually pitcher. I will see im not discounting anything the road in the book. I havent actually read the book. It just happened we were just in town today. Be my boyfriend. Im not discounting the stories that anyone has shared anything. I will see in the church is a lot different than any of that. I grew up hearing different stories that are very similar to the stories that you have shared in the stories you wrote about that you guys have shared but as far as in my eyes, last time, it is the churches and it is going a different direction than that. Avoid it was back then. There are good things coming out of it b currently. Off of it did not start that w way. We are about to wrap up. I want to thank david in his time and letting all of us. For all of us to know that evil can come in those packages. Its so good to hear that its moving forward but telling the story is important. Especially for those survivors to help them heal and thats what we want to do is support you. We also want to let you know that david will be out of the book signing tent on the plaza with his book and you can get autographed copies of the book in the plaza at the 10th sunnybrook and we want to thank you for attending. Thank you precip you for suppor the southern festival of books and we will see you next year. Thank you [applause] [inaudible background conversations] the new cspan online store now has booktv products. Go to cspan store. Org to check them