This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Episode 004 – Just the Facts

May 10, 2023

T: Hi, I’m Tracey.

S: And I’m Sharon. And we are Feet of Clay, Confessions of the Cult Sisters.

T: Cos there’s no sister like a cult sister, amiright?

S: Yes you are! But fortunately we are not in that cult anymore.

T: But it’s been a long road out, and for over 40 years we’ve shared an amazing journey together.

S: Yes we have. It’s been a parallel journey with lots of tears and laughter and anger and angst…

T: And fun! Don’t forget the fun.

(laughter)

S: And fun. So these are our stories. So folks, buckle in and enjoy the ride with us.

…

S: Alright, are we recording?

T: We are.

S: Okay, so this is kind of informal. We were thinking is this really worthy of an episode, or what the heck is this thing?

T: Yeah, but people do – I have had some feedback from my own children that they need a little bit more context.

S: Coooon-text. Context. Right.

T: So we understand that of our listeners, there will be very few people that will be familiar with Last Days Ministries.

S: Well, not that there will be very few, but there will be a few who are very familiar with. Right?

T: There will be a few that are very familiar with them. Like Troy and Brian, who are so familiar, and read the book 15 times, which still blows my mind away.

S: Right. But there’s also going to be some people who have no fucking clue at all.

T: At all.

S: Like, they didn’t grow up religious, they know none of this. And then probably the majority of people are going to fall somewhere in between those two groups, right?

T: Somewhere in between, so we thought it would be a great idea if we could do just a short episode, pre-episode, prologue – whatever you want to call this – to give some kind of basic timeline and definitions, kind of like a 10,000 foot view. The who, what, when and where.

S: Right, but we’re not supposed to get into the why right? Because the why – that’s the stuff we’re going to cover in all of our other juicy episodes, but I’m going to tell you, this is going to really test our self-control, to not give commentary on the why.

T: When you start mentioning some people yes – I’m going to try and be very good.

S: And FYI, I have never in my entire lifetime been accused of having self-control, okay?

(laughter)

T: Yes, I actually can – that’s why I’m laughing. So as we’ve been piecing this together I’ve gone back over my journals – I think Sharon, you’ve had some journals.

S: Yeah. My journals are not like yours.

T: I just wanna say I had a lot of journals. And in my journals – I have stacks of them, I think in one of my pages I show a picture – but throughout it, I apologise for never journalling enough.

S: Oh my god.

T: Yeah. I’ve looked at publishing dates, I definitely cross checked some of those with some online references; we’ve talked to folks who also were there. We’ve tapped into our own recall the best we could…

S: The best we could – but therein lies the problem, right? Like, reliability of memories, or deficiencies thereof.

(music of portent)

S: So I’d love to say that we are giving the facts – just the facts, ma’am.

(music of portent)

S: You know, so we’re like Sergeant Joe Friday on Dragnet – or did he?

(music of portent)

S: So, did you know out there folks that Sergeant Friday never actually said that line – remember Tracey, I told you this and you wanted to argue with me.

T: I did! Just the facts, just the facts ma’am. I can see him pursing his lips.

S: I know, right? But actually I also have to say I’m kind of trusting internet sources, because I did not go back and watch every single minute of all those old episodes, but I was trying to find a clip of it because I thought that would be really cute and clever to put it in here. Just the facts, ma’am.

T: Yeah, and I was going to find a clip to prove you wrong, but I didn’t.

S: So it wasn’t there, so that just goes to show that all of our memories can be prone to inaccuracy.

T: Correct. But we are doing the best that we can, so unlike the pope (because you and I were both good Catholic girls) unlike the bible – as we used to believe…

S: As we used to believe…

T: We are not infallible.

S: No. Nope. No.

T: So if anyone finds an error in anything, you guys can drop us a note and it can be substantiated, please let us know because we really are doing our best to correct the record on this.

S: Yes, we are. Okay, so let’s start with some definitions, alright. So the first one is the first part of the name of our podcast. Feet of Clay.

T: Feet of Clay. And this comes from my father, who I used to argue religion with a lot, believe it or not. He was a student of history, and he would come out with these Latin quotes, and one of the things he would say is all idols have feet of clay. We lived in Italy where there were statues everywhere, and I was a very literal child and I was like, all idols? Like, underneath that gold statue is there feet of clay? It took me a little bit longer to realize ohhh, that’s what he was talking about. Everybody has these hidden weaknesses within their character that are referred to as feet of clay.

S: Yep. But you know there’s also in the bible Daniel interprets Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and it’s something about these idols, you know, it starts with the head and it’s got gold, then all the way down, and the feet are mixed clay and iron, or something like that. But you know, when you first talked about it, feet of clay, I thought about it – obviously there’s these idols in Christian lore that we’re going to talk about, Keith Green being one of them. But also it’s like the foundation on which we stand, so we ourselves – we all do. Nobody’s gold from tip to toe.

T: Nobody is. And it’s been a long lesson for you and I to learn, because at one point we were trying to be perfect, even as God was perfect.

S: We were. You got a little closer than I did, I think.

(laughter)

T: So just my toes are clay?

S: Maybe just the tips. Well anyway, the other part of our name is Confessions of the Cult Sisters. So, Tracey, what are we going to talk about here.

T: There’s a lot of stuff out there that you can google about cults. It took us a long time, first of all, to even say we were part of a cult.

S: I know!

T: A lot of high control – some of the hallmarks, there’s some super lists you can look at. But definitely a para-group, not a mainstream religion. A lot of shared beliefs, practices, definitely a sense of elitism happening in there, that they have the answers; usually led by a very dynamic personality that also has elements of – just a whackiness!

(laughter)

T: We joke that we came from Waco, because we were out in Texas and it wasn’t Waco, but we often will say that we were definitely a little whacko.

S: I think the other thing is that most cult followers have in common; they are people who are looking for something. Trying to find meaning, trying to find belonging, looking for answers to unresolved pain in their lives. I know that was absolutely true for you and me, and probably just about everyone I can think of that was there.

T: Yeah, and especially young people right? You get them vulnerable at an age when they really are a blank slate in many ways, and that environment can start writing some very harmful and dangerous messages.

S: Yep. Okay so, another term is evangelical. That’s having this emphasis on sharing the good news – well, not actually sharing the good news but really kind of cramming it down people’s throats. So, go into all the world and preach the gospel so we’re looking to evangelize and convert others. Of course, if you come from this belief that every soul is going to eternal hell unless they believe exactly the right way, well if you are a compassionate person, then of course you want to be evangelistic because you want to save everybody.

T: Absolutely. You’re going to go share that good news.

S: Whether it’s welcomed or not. So then, charismatic. That’s another term. There’s these verses in the bible in the second chapter of Acts, there’s this experience of Pentecost, right. Pentecostalism. It has to do with – alright folks, it has to do with some really bat crazy shit, right.

T: Yes, it does!

S: So it’s this emotional ecstasy, the raising of hands, dancing, and there’s these things called the gifts of the Spirit. So it includes speaking in tongues. And that is…

T: And some people don’t even. If you’re outside of this, we’re going to explain it later.

S: Yeah, well this is like talking in a different language that the angels somehow implant into your brain, right? So that’s speaking in tongues, and you can speak or sing in it. And then there’s words of wisdom. That’s where you KNOW something. It just drops into your heart and brain from the Holy Spirit and you know something that could never otherwise be known, and you can call it out, and you can tell someone what they’re thinking or what’s about to happen – no, no, that would be prophecy. Anyway, that’s words of wisdom. And then there’s prophecy. That’s like foretelling the future. Yeah.

T: Which is what drew me, because it’s kind of like magic, right?

S: Yeeaaah…

T: It’s like wow, I wanna have some of this power!

S: We should have just gone to Hogwarts.

T: And then there’s the term fundamentalist. You’ll hear that a lot lately, you can have fundamentalists in not just Christianity, right, in other religions, but in Christianity it is the strict, firm, literal interpretation of the bible, so that every word is inspired and true.

S: That’s right.

T: We’ll have some stories on where that really derailed us from regular life.

S: Oh my god, you can get in such a deep hole, following that. So then there’s other general terms we’ll use from time to time – you already know the answers and definitions of those like, what is an asshole?

(laughter)

S: We don’t need to define those things. So next up we’ve got some of the players, the whos. Okay, so Keith Green, he was born in 1953, he became a born again Christian at age 21. He was a top selling – he became a top selling Christian musician; albums, concerts, he’d pack out big stadiums, he wrote articles, and he was the leader of Last Days Ministries.

T: Yes, he was.

S: I think in ’74 he married a woman named Melody Steiner, who then became Melody Green. Sadly, Keith was killed in a small private plane crash in Texas in 1982. That was along with 10 other people, including two of his children, Josiah who was almost four, and Bethany who was two and a half years old.

T: Yep. And we’ll definitely have some podcasts that will explain that more. So Melody Green, his wife who he married, she was younger. She was born in 1946.

S: No, no, older. She was older.

T: Yah yah yah…

S: Do the math, woman! Do the math.

T: HE was younger. And she is still alive, she had two daughters with Keith – you just had mentioned two of her other daughters who were part of the plane crash.

S: So sad.

T: She did get briefly engaged to another young man while we were still there, and then they called that off, then after we left she married a man called Andrew Sievright in 1991. They announced their divorce in 2000. She is known for co-writing some of her songs with Keith, and of course, the book. The book that is often referred to in some of our stories called No Compromise, The Life Story of Keith Green is kind of how a lot of people today know who he is.

S: Yep. Definitely. And she had a big emphasis of being anti-abortion. That was a huge claim to fame for a while.

T: Yeah, you were part of that. You actually co-wrote some articles with her.

S: One of those things I need to repent for, and do penance for sure.

T: And she continues the website; if you go on, there’s a Last Days website that she continues to run where you can get some of the newsletters and articles that will chill your soul. Not in a good way.

S: Alright. So then other players at Last Days, there was another couple Wayne and Kathleen Dillard. They had joined Last Days when they were single, didn’t know each other. This is back in California, Wayne became an elder pretty quickly. He and Kath got married in 1980 after the whole ministry had moved to Texas. They were the first directors of the Intensive Christian Training school. We’ll have to define that in a minute.

T: Ding ding ding, mmhmm.

S: After Keith’s death, Wayne continued to work with Melody through 1991, Wayne himself died in 2010, it was very sad. His widow Kathleen, she runs what she calls a prophetic prayer ministry – can you hear the self-control that I am exerting right now?

T: Yes, you are. She started that with her husband and she continues that today. And then we have Martin and Sharon Bennett. You guys joined Last Days also as singles, and that’s part of your story that they can hear as far as how you guys got together. Martin was also an elder, right? I know even when I went, Keith was very proud of his three, triune I think it was kind of like, because it was like the Trinity right? There was three of you. Martin, Keith and Wayne. You actually were led to the Lord by Keith Green in 1975 when you were just 14 years old. You ended up marrying dear Martin and becoming part of that leadership team, and then you were kicked out.

S: We were.

T: That’s a whole story in and of itself as far as the split; Keith was very proud of his triune that always kind of came to agreement together, and then there was a split. And you guys were kicked out.

S: Yep, but that was after he died.

T: That was after he died, when Melody was running the show, and then divorced in 2005. Now, Martin is still – he calls himself a Christian, he still follows a lot of what we all once did follow, but you are not.

S: Nope. Absolutely fucking not.

T: Okay.

S: Okay, so alright. The next two players in this drama are Lindsay and Tracey Reid. So Tracey, originally Phalen and now Phalen, that would be you. You attended the first ICT in January of ’82, then over the course of the next year you became a staff member, and then you worked as a counsellor or something.

T: A counsellor.

S: In the ICT school

T: That would be true.

S: So Lindsay, your to be husband, he attended the third ICT in the summer of 1982, and actually that’s the same summer that the plane crashed that Keith died. He also later worked at ICT, and then the two of you – still single – you became directors of the Intensive Christian Training school in 1985. Now. Could it be that was a sign from God. Uh oh I’m getting into commentary.

T: It was a sign from God. And we will get into that, but yes, we have to keep going.

S: You got married in ’86, and you left…

T: The very end of ’86.

S: So then you left in July of ’87. You divorced in 2006; Lindsay remains a Christian, and Tracey, you are not a Christian, are you.

T: I am not. I am no longer a believer.

S: I am so thankful for that. So thankful.

T: Well, I don’t know that everybody feels that way, but…

S: I do. Okay, so Last Days Ministries, the organization itself. You’ll hear us refer to it as LDM. So technically it was a religious, non-profit organization, which means hey folks, paid no taxes! No taxes! Also didn’t pay salaries for the people who worked for them – but oopsies, I’m going into commentary.

T: Yep, you’re going into commentary.

S: It was founded by Keith Green, so its roots were in the mid to late 70s, started out in the suburbs of Woodland Hills California, taking in people who had various needs. So in 1979, Last Days relocated to Texas…

T: To Waco??

S: No, not Waco. It was the evangelical Christian mecca of East Texas. They initially purchased, I think it was about 100 acres along with this big house and a barn, and gradually LDM increased the real estate holdings; bought hundreds of acres of adjacent land. I think we had to close to 500. I’m trying to be accurate; I think we had close to 500 acres. Also bought a bunch of nearby houses, then we had construction projects, including building more houses, warehouse, print shop, we had a private air strip, and then after Keith’s death in 1982, Melody took over. And I’m going to shut up so I don’t compromise myself.

T: Yeah, that’s good, and the albums right? So Keith is best known for being a contemporary Christian musician.

S: He was an incredible pianist- sorry I just can’t help myself.

T: Yep, you can’t do it.

S: He was an incredible piano player. His style; for those of you who have no clue at all, you should go google or listen to some at some point. He was sort of Elton John, sort of Billy Joel, but with this giant jewfro – okay, I’ll shut up.

(laughter)

T: Um, you know, one of the things was he didn’t want to have to sell his albums like everybody else did in the bookstore, right? So he actually made a splash in contemporary Christian music for offering his albums for whatever you could afford.

S: That was the last ones. Not the first two, the first two were on the regular commercial venture.

T: Correct. You can go on and you can see the first one was For Him Who Has Ears to Hear, then there was No Compromise, then there was So You Want to Go Back to Egypt, then you get into the newer ones.

S: Songs for the Shepherd was also – yeah, anyway. I digress. I’ll shut up now. You keep going.

T: Well, I just want to say yeah, Songs for the Shepherd was one that I helped mail out so that was the one that was offered for whatever you could afford, and we mailed out a lot of those albums.

S: And I believe that he still remains one of the best selling ever Christian artists.

T: He was kind of on the beginning before CCM even blew up, and CCM is another acronym for Contemporary Christian Music, for those of you who didn’t know.

S: Okay, very good.

T: And then part of getting more of those people to help send out all those albums so that he didn’t have to charge, they started an ICT program which stands for Intensive Christian Training. It was very patterned a lot after the Youth With A Mission training programs. It started in 1982, the first school had only 20 students; they would go on to have like, 60-80 students coming in, but the first one was 20 students; they determined to have…

S: You were one of them, right?

T: I was one of them! Yes. They were 10 week sessions with then a second term of ten weeks, but the second term you had to be accepted into it.

S: Mmmm, special.

T: Yes, and I was (of course) accepted. They ran four of these a year.

S: Special! Soo special!!

T: Very special. So you can imagine this was actually bringing in a lot of new people to help roll up their sleeves and work.

S: That’s right. Alright, well, the plane crash. So, July 28^th of 1982 we had a leased twin engine Cessna plane, and very sadly Keith, as we mentioned, two of his kids, the pilot who was on staff with us, Don Burmeister, and a family that was visiting, Gary and Dede Smalley and all 5 of their children were killed in this plane crash. It was tragic and shocking and horrible, and there was – oh my gosh, the angst, the debate, the prayer, the questioning that went on, not just at Last Days Ministries but all over the Christian world.

T: All over!

S: Was this the Devil’s work, was this God’s will, basically …

T: No commentary. We’ll get into more of it later.

S: Or just arrogance and gravity.

T: Okay. Was that commentary?

S: Yeah it was. Sorry about that. Okay. YWAM – Youth With A Mission.

T: Oh, YWAM.

S: This organization was founded in 1960 by Lauren Cunningham, and the whole idea was to get young people to go all over the world and spread the gospel of Jesus. Remember that whole evangelical thing.

T: Uh huh.

S: But, you also get these young people to pay the organization for that privilege, right, then they have to solicit money from their friends and family so that they can have money to go do these things, and there’s a kick up and a little bit of a pyramid – I’m commenting now.

T: You’re starting to get into it.

S: I told you I have no self-control. Okay, they run tuition-based programs called Discipleship Training Schools or DTS, then Leadership Training Schools (LTS), and I’m sure there’s more things, and they have lots of bases all over the US, and all over the world.

T: Yes. And if you look at YWAM – I know some people are like is it ye-wam, yu-wam – so if you’re not in that world it’s Y-WAM.

S: It’s pronounced Y-WAM. Y W A M.

T: Keith and Lauren Cunningham kind of hooked up there for a little bit with their shared vision and so they had an agreement to do these concerts all over to raise youth to basically be recruited to Youth With A Mission. But as we know, Keith then died on a plane crash, but low and behold there was a video of him doing one of those concerts, so Last Days and YWAM joined team together and they did these memorial concerts all over the country to recruit young people and I think they actually boast 100,000 or more youth were recruited as a result of those memorial concerts.

S: Ugh. That just makes me sad. Anyway, alright. The book. The book title is No Compromise by Melody Green. It’s the life story of Keith Green. The first edition was written and released in 1989. Subsequently in years after that there was an updated version. The updated and expanded version, which just so happened to remove all references to certain persons…

T: Like, maybe, you and Martin.

S: Yeah, like maybe us.

T: Yeah, so LDM post-Keith was very interesting, and most of my time there right, because he died pretty quickly after I was there. In 1991 it was officially absorbed into … you hear it here folks…

S: Drumroll!

T: YWAM. Youth With A Mission. Yes. Up until then definitely there was a lot of shared – they were just a few miles down the road at the time of the property of Last Days Ministries so there was a lot of shared teaching, and in 1995 they ended up finally giving over to Youth With A Mission and then closing their doors. They left Texas, no more commune at Last Days Ministries, right. So I guess then people just went down the street to the Tyler base.

S: Right.

T: 2006-2008 onward, it moved kind of to a web based business. Last Days Ministries where you could get articles and the newsletters could be ordered, but there’s no longer the physical Last Days Ministries as we knew it and loved it.

S: Is it still for whatever you can afford?

T: So, as far as I can see, there’s always a price tag assigned to anything you want to purchase on there. Wanting to be honest – I haven’t ever tried to purchase something there, so if I tried to not say I didn’t have any money, they might honor that, but it does say prices are there.

S: So for people that want to learn a little bit more, get a flavor, there is a biography available on YouTube, it’s called The Keith Green Story or Keith Green Documentary Your Love Broke Through. It’s got some pretty cool stuff in it. it’s not going to be the full story, but definitely you get the flavor for sure.

T: You definitely get the flavor. My kids have watched it and it was helpful for them to put some faces to some names. LDM information services and product promotional – if you YouTube that, we’ll probably put a link in our show notes. It’s a very interesting 10 minute quick video tour of what it was like in 1984.

S: Really?!

T: Yeah. You can see some of the players, the old computers, you can see some of the products, you can see the presses going.

S: Have I seen that?

T: I don’t think that you have, but my nephew sent it to me and was like oh my god, when I looked at this, this is so like a cult.

S: Oh my god, I’m going to have to go back and watch that. I didn’t even know.

T: Yes, so definitely some visuals to some of the things we’re talking about.

S: Alright, okay. Well, to wrap up I guess we should say define what is Feet of Clay Confessions of the Cult Sisters podcast, yeah?

T: It’s a mouthful.

S: It is, it’s long, but oh well. Alright, so we’re launching this Spring of 2023. It might be short-lived; it might be amazing; it might be crazy. Whatever it turns out to be, this I know, Tracey. We’re going to have a lot of fun in the midst of unpacking.

T: We’re going to have a lot of fun together. We’ve walked a long road together and some of it’s been heartbreaking, and some of it’s been crack up funny.

S: Yep. Painful shit, and a lot of humor that goes with it. Hey, you know we kind of started making a shortlist of folks that we know that were involved with Last Days  way back when, and I think we’re going to be able to have some of them on as guests as well. So that will be interesting.

T: That will be very, very interesting. People have been reaching out to us and volunteering their stories. We haven’t put all that together yet, but stay tuned because I think that there are some very good stories coming.

S: Hey, you know what else I want to do – you know I don’t really know how to do this Instagram and these other sort of things, but I was thinking it would be also cool to have something where people can send us their questions, and we could answer the burning questions that people just must have the answers to. So anyway, I don’t know if that’s a thing.

T: They might send you some things you might not want to read, too. So just be careful.

S: That’s true! Alright well Tracey, thank you for being the one to drag me along and get this thing going. I’m really excited. It’s going to be a lot of fun. I’m finding it cathartic and helpful already, and yeah. Sister.

T: Sister sister, let’s get this thing going.

S: Alright. Rock on, girl.