Where Are We Going? A Spiritwatch Podcast

“𝗕𝗮𝗯𝘆𝗹𝗼𝗻 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗴𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻, 𝗶𝘀 𝗳𝗮𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗻, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗮𝘀 𝗯𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗲 𝗮 𝗱𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗽𝗹𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗱𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗻𝘀, 𝗮 𝗽𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝘂𝗹 𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗿𝗶𝘁, 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗮 𝗰𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗵𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗯𝗶𝗿𝗱! " 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝟭𝟴:𝟮The legacy of Remnant Fellowship, as Michael S. Black has been sharing, is that it has become a demonic haunt of unclean birds as vividly depicted by he and Steve Lomas for his FallenChurch.com site in this graphic. It is a congregation of vicious pecking orders. false teaching, and abusive socialization all under the gleeful control of Elizabeth Kauffman, his sister and heir apparent to their late mother. In this concluding episode to our Spiritwatch conversations, Michael shares with us how he exited the cultic movement, his personal and ongoing transition out of a lifetime of cultism and a razor sharp retrospective on the future of Remnant 2.0 as he puts it. This is an illuminating episode of over 2 hours length. If you are a victim of the deceptions of Remnant, confidential and compassionate sharing and counsel are available. EMAIL us at help@spiritwatch.org.

During 2018 and beyond, the years that changed everything in the Remnant Fellowship cult, Michael did his best to weather the firestorms of transformation which Gwen Shamblin Lara had been stoking for years. Her marital missteps became her cues for stoking a Remnant congregational conflagration as she socially reengineered the Remnant culture to an unimaginable degree. Our conversation is a gripping look into their nose-down descent into an authoritarian anarchy.

We continue our discussion with Michael S. Black as he continues a painful reverie of how his time in Remnant Fellowship became completely orchestrated by his mother Gwen Shamblin Lara. He recounts how Gwen's connection with reality began to be lost as she became what she preached against, and how the encroaching socialization within the cult further poisoned the lives of his sister Elizabeth and father David.

Michael S. Black continues his unflinching retrospective look back at his time as a leader of the Remnant Fellowship cult founded by his late mother, Gwen Shamblin Lara. As the movement's social boundaries hardened by self-deceptive excess and inner immorality, Michael's struggles to know the difference between right and wrong intensified.

Michael S. Black, son of the infamously late Gwen Shamblin Lara, continues our discussions about his past involvement in the Remnant Fellowship,

While Xenos/Dwell, as any cult, may have good points and even laudable points, they are more than negated by it's disconnection from the plain reality that it is underpinned with an authoritarian and abusive culture. Our brief summary about this movement's ongoing spin cycle in regard to its questionable history and present state of corrupted affairs includes a review of Xenos/Dwell leadership evasion and an examination of the movement's ecclesiastical machinery it uses to attract and retrain new prospects in the same way any other cult works.

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

The Remnant Fellowship (RF) cult of Franklin, Tennessee was likened to being the exclusive "Kingdom of Love" by its deceased founder, Gwen Shamblin Lara. And she and her coterie of leaders there were the most charming, the most engaging of recruiters for what they also called "Zion", beckoning people searching for God, community and meaning. Our guest, Ge'Cobi Pittman and her family found this draw irresistible as people of faith seeking refuge and being persuaded Lara's Remnant vision as the place to find it. We are grateful to have her share an enlightening and deeply personal reverie about her journey into what would become a travail of authoritarian community where love, when it was found, was in quite short supply. LIke our previous podcasts and streams with other ex-RF members, the journey is painful to listen to yet a testimony to a young woman's determination to seek the truth, no matter where it led her.

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

Suzanne, while a member of the Xenos/Dwell movement, visits with us to provide a perspective on a profoundly warped side of its existence they deny exists. The most excruciating abuse a cult member can experience is when those whom they trust there are so caught up in it's disciplinary spirit that they associate grace and mercy with whatever its leaders decide to dish out to those they think should be "disciplined." She found the infinite mercy of God in Christ, the heart of the Christian Gospel, laid aside for the indulgence of a lurid voyeurism from people playing God. In one of the most disturbing testimonials to the abuses of cultism I've ever heard, somehow, Suzanne's indomitable will to move beyond it shines through. WARNING: EXPLICIT CONTENT MAY CAUSE TRIGGERING FOR SURVIVORS OF RELIGIOUS AND SEXUAL ABUSE.

A Spiritwatch Conversation. The Gladstone/Madison community, an abusive church movement based in Cincinnati, Ohio is being rocked by changes challenging the power of its secretive leader Zac Kijinski and a shrinking pool of sycophantic elders. Their increasing instability and deceptive example have led many members and other elders to leave their religiously cultic ghetto there. It's important to really understand why. Some survivors, all of whom have shared their stories in part on our "Where Are We Going" podcast came back to help us understand.WARNING: Explicit content and language about religious abuse could cause triggering to cult survivors. Viewer discretion advised.

Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Matthew 7:13 NKJVWe are still going somewhere. We briefly revisit that chief concern about our dangerous times and give an update and what we will be soon doing in our ongoing discerning of them.