This transcript has been edited for clarity.

Episode 024 – A “Brother” from Keith Green’s Last Days Ministries Cult: Paul Part 1

October 4th, 2023

T: Hi, I’m Tracey.

S: And I’m Sharon. And we are Feet of Clay…

T: Confessions of the Cult Sisters!

S: We have a really special guest to share with you today. This is our first episode with one of the brothers from Last Days Ministries, Paul Kellerman.

T: You know Sharon, a while back ago Troy and Brian messaged us and said that every time you talk about the bothers and the sisters, you sound so culty.

S: [laughing] Yep. Cos we sure as hell were super culty. No doubt about that. Alright. Well some listeners are going to recognize this brother’s voice from our episode 14, The Plane Crash That Killed Keith Green. He was one of those who shared his reflections from that fateful, fateful day. And those of you who have joined our Facebook group, Confessions of the Cult Sisters Community, you might recognize his name as well. He’s been active, commenting and posting in that group.

T: Yes, and as you’ll hear, he came to Last Days Ministries in 1982, and he attended one of our earlier training schools, those intensive Christian training schools that we often reference. You know, a lot of students in those first training schools rose to be leaders fairly quickly at Last Days…

S: Yes!

T: …and Paul was one that did rise very quickly.

S: Yes, he did.

T: Fun titbit, He was actually the group leader to my not-yet-to-be-husband at the time.

S: [laughing] Your husband to be!

T: Yes, I was going to say, how do you say that because he’s now my ex-husband but at the time he was not yet my husband. So anyway.

S: Oh my god. We could string it altogether.

T: My not-yet-to-be-ex-husband!

[laughter]

S: I love it. Well, we really enjoyed reconnecting with Paul after all these decades. We had this wonderful long and winding conversation together, which of course means it was hard to condense it into just one episode, so two things; this will be a two parter, so today is part one, and also because we had to edit it down, please forgive the occasional places where it might seem a little bit choppy.

T: Yes, I always say we’re all getting older so our stories are long.

[laughter]

S: Longer and longer.

T: And we’ll definitely be hearing more from him in the course of our podcast journey. But his story is so important to understand how the leadership, control, and the purity culture was so much at play and in full force at Last Days Ministries. You’ll hear how it was unleashed on this sincere young man in just his 20s. So today is part one of our interview with Paul Kellerman.

S: Paul, welcome to Confessions of the Cult Sisters!

PK: Well thanks, it’s a pleasure and honor to have reconnected with you and to have these moments together.

T: I’m so excited to have a cult brother. Was that strange for you, at Last Days Ministries, just to get us started, to hear brother and sister?

PK: No. The church that I was raised in, back in the early 60s, everybody was brother and sister. Only the pastor was different.

S: So you had the culty lingo going already, huh.

PK: Yeah, I wouldn’t have known it then. I thought they were more like the mafia or the mob than a cult, but …

[laughter]

PK: Because they were all family, and they were very Italian.

T: So Paul, I would love if you could introduce yourselves to the listeners. We’ve already said that you joined us on one of the episodes earlier. I would love to know a little bit of the back story of how you made your way to Last Days Ministries and kind of how you started off on this pathway to what I guess we would call fundamentalism.

PK: Well, thank you. I guess I’ll start with saying that at the age of five we moved to Long Island New York. When we first got there, there was a parade that was going through our street from a local church. It was for a Vacation Bible School. We got a knock on the door and they asked do you have any children in this house that would like to go to Vacation Bible School? I don’t remember exactly how the conversation went, it was like, take them. You know.

[laughter]

S: Free babysitting.

PK: Yeah. I have three siblings, all born within 41 months of each other, total.

S: Oh my goodness.

T: Okay, so I have to ask – were they Catholic? Or was there a religious reason that made them have so many children in quick succession?

PK: No. Religion was not a part of us growing up. They argued about religion. My mother said she was Greek Orthodox, and my dad was some other thing, but they never went to church, never talked about God. No.

S: So the Vacation Bible School pretty much popped your cherry there, huh.

PK: That’s correct. So when I tell my story, I say we went to a church that adopted us. Adopted us and they called us the Kellerman kids. We went there for 16 years until my sister got her driver’s licence, when we were able to either take ourselves, or not. Brother John picked us up every week and took us to the church.

S: So what was that church experience like?

PK: They were an independent, Full Gospel Assembly, hanky waving, tongues speaking, blowing snot at the altar, church.

[laughter]

T: And what did little Paul Kellerman think of these displays, and did you have your own – as Keith Green would say – Waterloo with God?

PK: My recollection was that I liked the idea of and the sense of community of the church, since they were all related, I think – except for us. There was this sense of belonging and safety, though it was a very, very heavy sin message – get right with God kind of thing. They actually had a woman pastor and the woman pastor started the church, I think in 54, and just retired a couple of years ago.

T: Oh wow.

S: That’s a mind blower, man.

PK: No kidding. I think she was the longest tenured pastor in America. Somebody else pointed that out one day. So it was interesting – it was Go-d sai-d repen-t. I remember being really confused as a young boy. I’m like, five or six when this started, and one day she got down after church, and walked down amongst the people and started talking to me, and she didn’t have that voice. So I was like, wait a minute, what’s going on? I thought that was her voice. I didn’t know it was something she was taught to do.

S: Performative, huh?

PK: Oh, absolutely, yeah. But we were a small church – oh my gosh, there was probably no more than 75 people there when we first went. Anyway, it was interesting. My parents were what I call tag team alcoholics. They were abusive – let’s just say Brene Brown says I was raised in a less than nurturing environment.

T&S: Mmhmm.

S: You know Paul, I think that is a very common thing for many of us who get attracted to the Jesus saves; Jesus is going to fix me; God loves me; there’s an answer to this pain in my life. It would be interesting to see how many of us at Last Days came from alcoholic families. I know the three of us here – all three of us did.

PK: Right.

T: Yes, the three of us did, and that definite draw to that family community that I think we always longed for growing up.

PK: Yeah. It was confusing – it was a confusing time for sure, but I did go up to the altar a lot and I remember praying to help my parents be kinder, or that we could be safe, as kids, or as a young boy I remember giving my life to God so I could be protected. Does that make sense?

T: Yes.

PK: This is a much safer place than my home.

S: Yeah.

PK: But at the same time, it kind of tore at you, right, because at the same time I took on this belief that I was never good enough. So it seemed like everybody there was perfect. It was the happy smiles, the happy face, right. Shiny happy people, in a way. I remember knowing that’s not my story. That’s not my story. I remember thinking I hope the Pastor, and Brother Al, that they never invited me to their house, because if they did they would find out that I’m not good enough, because I couldn’t be good enough, long enough, and I just knew that about myself. So you’re at church –  you could be really good in Sunday School and all that – I remember I memorized all the books of the bible, they put me up in front – not the words, but the books, and I stood up front and recited that, so I was a good boy, a good little soldier boy. But I knew inside if they really knew me, they wouldn’t like me either. I wasn’t good enough for them, like I wasn’t good enough for my parents.

S: Paul, what do you remember about your come to Jesus, or giving your life to Jesus, accepting him as personal savior – do you have any specific point in time you remember?

PK: Well, yes and no. Mot then – it was just assumed because I was at the altar all the time. they didn’t do the confession of faith like the Baptist church, or stuff like that. You just were a Christian because you came to church, and I acted and tried to do everything I could to be a good Christian. So I never doubted my Christianity that way, but later in life when I went to a Baptist church – because in Virginia, much later on when I was in the Marine Corps, they said I wasn’t a Christian because I didn’t do it their way so I had to go through all the steps. I had to do a confession of faith; get the right hand of fellowship; make my declaration of faith; get baptized; and then I was a Christian. And then I got a letter of membership.

S: Well there you go! That’s authentic. You’re certified now.

PK: Right.

S: So Paul, in your teen years you also got sucked into the whole purity, virginity, that sort of thing – although we didn’t call it that back then. We didn’t have that name.

PK: It was abstinence.

T: Yes.

S: So how did that come about for you? Who taught you, how did you get into that?

PK: You know, I think I just absorbed it somehow. They didn’t really teach it. I don’t remember being taught it, it was just somehow something I absorbed, and I accepted as real. There was no structure around it; there was no teaching around it that I can ever remember, but somehow I heard that sex was only good in the confines of marriage and everything else is sin, but I don’t remember the direct teaching. Certainly nothing like Abigail and some of the other people that were raised in a much more structured, fundamental thing. I didn’t have any structure.

S: Yeah.

PK: Some way I just absorbed these things – like, not cursing. I didn’t curse. We didn’t drink; didn’t go to the movies – I guess there was part of it there, that women couldn’t wear pants, we couldn’t dance, so there was some of that that was taught, but I certainly never questioned it.

S: So what happens when you graduate from high school?

PK: We had an unspoken – but it might have been spoken at some point – understanding from our parents that when you graduate high school, you are not welcome to be in the house anymore.

S: Oh no.

PK: Right, and you know what? None of us wanted to be.

T: Right.

PK: They were tag team alcoholics. It wasn’t fun. So yeah, so we were forced to move on. My other older brother went to the Navy; my older sister went to nursing school, and I – I wasn’t a good student. I was straight As all the way through elementary school, but as soon as I got into Junior High and high school, I fell off the path, so to speak, of education. And as it turns out, I would accept the reality that I’m neuro diverse and a bit autistic, and the school setting wasn’t something that I was good at. I couldn’t sit in a chair that long; I couldn’t keep focus, and being told what to regurgitate just didn’t work for me. So I didn’t do very well, so I had no path to go to college. I got left back in the 11^th grade, I thought I was dumb. My grades reflected that, though I didn’t feel I was stupid – you know what I’m saying? You can be a high functioning person in society, but as far as going to school and doing well in that setting – not so good.

T: Oh yeah.

PK: College was not an option. The only thing was military or go on the streets.

S: So you decide that you’re going to join the military.

PK: Right. So I decided to join the military.

T: I want to ask about the purity culture. How does a Marine Corps soldier embrace purity culture while you’re stationed in all of these places where – again, I’m an army brat, so I know how the GIs behaved…

PK: Yeah, that was tough. I had – let’s see, how do I go there. When I was stationed where I was in Quantico Virginia, just south of Washington DC, I had liked a woman – she was actually in the School of Music with me at the same time, but she met a guy there and married him. We were away on a trip and all of a sudden these ambulances – these guys literally in white coats came and took away her husband. It was a scene – what’s going on here, and all I know is that I had liked her and cared for her – I was a caring guy, right. So I said wow, what’s going on and she goes well, they’re taking him away, he went crazy. I said is there anything I can do? What can I do for you? And she said well, you can have sex with me, because I need to have sex every day.

[laughter]

T: Wow. That’s a story!

PK: Yeah. I said I can’t do that. I don’t do that. I can hold your hand and I can kiss you, but I can’t do that. I just can’t do that.

S: Okay Paul, let me – Paul, okay. Were you sexually active with yourself?

PK: Oh boy. Okay. Accidentally, yes.

T&S: Accidentally. Okay.

PK: Let’s just say that my first sexual experience with myself was one of the most confusing moments of my life. I didn’t know what happened.

S: How old were you?

PK: I try to place it – my brother was already in the Navy. He was three years older than me.

T: Okay, so you were old – er.

PK: Yeah. Old – er. Yeah, you weren’t born yet Tracey.

[laughter]

PK: I’m going to guess I was around 16.

T: Okay, and this is why sex education is so important, especially when you grow up in these fundamental circles, that you have to stumble upon this and be freaked out – I’m sorry, but do tell. We want the details.

PK: [laughing] Okay – my first experience with myself was totally by accident. I was just laying in bed on my stomach, and all of a sudden something felt a little funny down there. And I’m like, what’s going on? It started feeling good, so I just moved my body in a way that just increased the feeling that I was having. I was like, oh, this feels really good. I don’t know what this is. I had no idea what it was. So I kept going, and then all of a sudden it was like oh no, I’m gonna pee. I’m gonna pee! So I stopped, and all of a sudden there was this massive pulsating going on down there. I thought, oh good, I didn’t pee, phew. Then I moved and it was like, oh my gosh what is all this?

T: Wow.

PK: A major mess.

S: What did Borat call it – a romance explosion.

[laughter]

PK: So I was absolutely confused as to what it was.  But what I do know, and what would be honest is I wanted to repeat that feeling as often as I could.

T&S: Oh yeah!

S: So, this woman that you were attracted to – her husband gets taken off to a mental institution. She wants you to comfort her with sex, and you’re not going to do it because of Jesus and morals? Or because of fear and not knowing what to do? What was your reason to say no?

PK: Uh, (d).

S: Okay.

[laughter]

PK: All the above. Again, as a guy, you’re not allowed to not know, so I wasn’t allowed to not know how to have sex, I didn’t really know what that literally meant.

S: And how old are you?

PK: I’m probably 21?

S: Wow.

PK: I got a lot of crap in boot camp for being a virgin.

S: I bet.

T: Yeah, that’s my other question, because usually that’s a major part of the conversation, so I assume you didn’t lie about it? you told them the truth?

PK: That’s correct. I was that kind of honest fool guy.

[laughter]

PK: I thought maybe somebody would respect me.

[laughter]

S: So you remained a virgin through your entire time at the Marines?

PK: No.

S: No? Okay.

PK: Why would you think that?

S: Well, I don’t know!

[laughter]

T: Because you have this opportunity that this woman is basically coming up to you and handing herself to you, and you say no. Do tell us about the time when you didn’t say no.

PK: Okay, so I really did care for her and I tried to help her through this transition. I definitely had feelings for her, and my body had feelings for her too, but I just couldn’t go there. We spent enough time alone – she had her own apartment off base because she was married, so when he got sent away, she still had her off base housing, so I’d see her over there. Things would get heated, and they got heated often, but never to the point that anything really happened.

T: No romantic explosion.

PK: Never got to the explosion.

T: Okay.

PK: Until it did.

T: Uh huh.

S: Until it did.

PK: Until it did, right. It took a lot of wearing down, and I want to say I really didn’t want to do it, because I’d lived my whole life with that in mind, and it’s almost like I got overwhelmed with the energy of the moments. I put myself in the spot, so I’m not thinking I was a total victim, but I certainly never intended to go where I went.

S: I just want to pause right now Paul, because it’s interesting to me, as I hear you recount this, and maybe I’m picking up on something – or maybe I’m not, you tell me – but in a way it almost sounds as if you still carry some guilt or shame, as if you failed at that point. Do you still feel that that was a failure?

PK: That’s really interesting. I never – I guess I never revisited that situation in a way that would put the lens on it that I carry now in my life. So, in my life story yes that was probably my greatest failure, up to that point. Because my whole life was set to be different. I wanted to be a virgin on my wedding night. That’s what I had to offer. Even though I wasn’t active in the Christian faith at the moment, those things didn’t go away. Some of those guideposts just never went away. It didn’t even feel religious; it felt like just the right thing to do – or not to do.

S: Right. That just really speaks to the depth in which these ridiculous constraints just entwine our entire beings, right, so we develop this sense of shame over what is just absolutely normal being human, and we internalize it and we have such self-loathing and believe we were such failures, when it’s just being human.

T: Yeah, and it’s so great to hear this from a male perspective. In Sharons and my episode of purity culture, that whole veneration of virginity – we of course, know how much that hits females, and a lot of that is spoken about in purity culture – but to hear it from a male perspective, that was also something you set your sights on. I want to be a virgin on my wedding night; and then you failed at that, according to these constraints you put on your life. It’s very interesting to hear it from that perspective.

PK: And you know, again with the idea that I raised myself and had very little connection to other men that ever talked about this, other than men talk – you know what I mean. So I just didn’t know there really was another way. I do – because one time my older sister talked to me and says are you having sex? And I said no, and she says why not?

[laughter]

PK: And I’m thinking, because you’re not supposed to. Why would you? It’s wrong. So again it just seemed like something that was so matter of fact as me being a man, or being alive, or being my parent’s kid – it just didn’t get questioned.

S: Right.

T: You mentioned also being neuro divergent, and I know that there are some more conversations starting to take place about being drawn into black and white thinking when there’s something like that at play.

PK: Oh man.

T: So I don’t know if you’ve done any examination of that…

PK: A lot.

T: But as you’re describing it, it’s very much in line with this is just wrong, and I’m not going to do what’s wrong.

PK: Oh yes, I’ve looked into that. I’ve been working with the same counsellor now for ten years and she’s the one that brought up the idea of neuro diverse and autism. My black and white thinking – everything was black and white. Everything was black and white until later in life when everything turned grey, when I just didn’t know what was going on in life. But truly black and white. People say well Paul, it made sense you went into the Marine Corps because it was very rigid, and you’d probably feel secure there. Nope, didn’t go in because of that. I went in because I had to get out of the house and this was the only path out. It just happened to be that they were rigid, and I was able to get along with that. I did everything that you’re supposed to do. I got into trouble once with the CO of our entire battalion, because he looked at my boots and says, Kellerman, those are illegal. You’re not allowed to have patent leather booths. You have to have regular boots and polish them – because you’re supposed to be shiny; everything’s shiny right, brass in order, straight lines, and all that. And I said sir, they are leather. He got down on his hands and knees and put his finger down and he goes oh my gosh, I have never seen leather boots look like patent leather. So I was good.

[laughter]

PK: I could do right, really well.

S: Paul, so the woman that you were with while you were in the Marine Corps – how many times did you “know” her in the biblical sense?

PK: I couldn’t tell you. We did go onto a phase of living together.

S: Okay.

PK: And then we had plans to marry.

S: Okay, so it wasn’t just like a couple one offs. This became more of a real relationship for you.

PK: Yes, it definitely did. But something happened deep inside me that said hey, I’m losing myself in this relationship. This isn’t healthy for me. So I asked to be transferred, and that’s how I got to Okinawa, Japan.

S: So you moved to Okinawa, you transferred there. What happens in the year that you’re still in the marines?

PK: Well, that’s where it gets interesting. We travelled and let’s just say it was Manila in the Philippines. You get off the plane or helicopter, and they give you a girl. There’s a momma san and a pappa san that are assigned to whatever base it is, and when we got off the plane, every guy gets presented with a girl. I told them I don’t want that. I don’t want to do that. I didn’t get back into Christianity, but the sexual relationship didn’t work out, so I’m going to go back to where I was before, which felt safer and better. So here I am turning down these women that you get and stayed pure again.

S: So Paul, you were in Japan for a year?

PK: That’s correct.

S: And then did you decide to get out of the marines? Wahs your time up? What happened at the end of that year?

PK: Yes. At the end of the day, I got out.

S: So then what did you do? Where did you go?

PK: I went back to New York, because when I was in Japan my friend Danny, he was working in the oil fields in the Gulf of Mexico. He stayed in touch with me, and he was writing me and telling me he was making X amount of money working two weeks a month, and having two weeks off a month, and making way more money than I was. So we agreed that when I got out, I would join him down there. By the time I got out, he had left the oil field and was back in New York, so I went back home and I just tried to restart my life. When I was in the military my parents divorced. My dad put a note on the refrigerator for my mom, saying I’m out of here.

T: Wow.

PK: So he left, and it was just my mom in the house in New York. He ended up out in Washington State. I go back home to my mom, and my younger sister is still living there. It’s the house we were raised in that they bought in 1962 when we moved there. I went back there to restart my life, and my sister was getting married at the end of that year. She was going to move out. I looked at this scenario and I went oh crap. I was going to have my mom – this is not healthy. My mom was pretty narcissistic; she wasn’t easy to be around. Anyway, I got into that scenario so I knew I had to get out of there – one of the hardest decisions I had to make in my life. But before I got out of there, I got on with UPS right away as a truck driver. I did that for about eight months, I was hired as seasonal help, then I was let go and in March or April I got a job right away, selling pianos and organs in New York during a recession.

S: [laughing] oh my gosh.

PK: Yeah, this is the recession right, so this would have been 1980. Selling pianos and organs in a recession – not a good thing. Anyway I reconnected with Danny, and I said Danny, you made a promise. So we agreed we would go back down to the oil field. The story here was I was just going down there to make money and get rich. I wanted to have money. We get down there, and this was when there was the oil crisis and they were shutting down some of the oil fields. That’s a whole back story there.

T: Yeah, these are part of the signs of the end times. All of the crisis in the Middle East that was heating up for Armageddon. Yes, go on.

PK: Yes, this was crazy. So we get down there and we talked with the guy he worked with before. His name was Bubba. This is two hours south of New Orleans. This is a place called Grand Isle, Louisiana. The nickname for it is seven miles of sand and sin.

[laughter]

PK: So we go down there. He knocks on Bubba’s door and he says Bubba, I’m here, this is my friend Paul, and we’re here for jobs, and he goes, I just laid off half the company. He said but Danny, you were a good employee so I’ll lay off a couple more, and I’ll take you guys on.

T: Wow.

PK: Yeah. So I got the job, I moved through a lot of jobs, because I was seen as extremely intelligent. They didn’t understand how I knew so much. It took usually two to three years to get your own oil platform – your own operating platform, and I got one after about six months. They said you must be a college boy, look at them hands, you never worked a day in your life, did you, college boy. And I never spent a moment in a college unless it was to play or see a basketball game or something. So anyway, I did really well and I got hired away from company after company, because people wanted me. I was kind of a hot commodity as far as how I could apply myself to it. So I got a lot of money real fast – a lot of money for back then. A lot of money for me. And it was empty. It was empty, and I had a lot of time to myself. Somehow I connected with one of the leaders in the company, one of the people I worked for. He had a brother living in New Orleans, and he said maybe you should spend time with my brother. He hooked me up with his brother, and they were a very good Baptist family. When I connected with then it was this is like heaven on earth; this is what I need to do; I need to get back with God again.

S: Ahhh.

T: Mmmm.

PK: I reconnected there, went to the Baptist church, and this time I was prepared. They asked me for my letter of membership and I said aha. It’s at Chesapeake Bay Baptist Church in Chesapeake Virginia; send away for it. so I didn’t have to go through the whole getting saved again thing. I was back on fire for God, got into their youth group, Amy Grant started being popular then; started listening to Christian music, and this was heaven. While I was still in Louisiana I went to a different Baptist church, because I moved to another little town called Homer Louisiana. I was in a Baptist church there, I was in the choir, I was doing everything you did as a good Christian young man. I was in the choir one day, and this guy who was about 6’6”- 6’7” walked in. I looked at this guy – I wasn’t super happy with this church at that moment, and I said if this guy really loves God, what is he doing here? I introduced myself to him and he said hey, my name is Roland.

S: [laughing] Okay! Huh.

PK: So one of you want to do the little segway there?

T: Yes, so for listeners, why we’re laughing – now we’re making the connection to what brings Paul to Last Days Ministries. Roland was a brother who came after you, Paul, I think.

PK: That’s correct.

T: Yeah, so he wasn’t there yet, but he was known to all of us because he was six feet, seven inches tall. They had to actually make a special bunk bed for him because he was so tall, and he’s a very dear brother to the rest of us because he’s kept a lot of the connections through the alumni association alive.

PK: That’s correct, yeah. We get to meet and he starts telling me – he introduces me to Keith Green’s music. I’d never heard of Keith Green before.

S: What year is this?

PK: Probably the summer of 81, I’d say, because he was working in the oil fields as well.

S: Okay.

T: Don’t think we knew that.

PK: He was an electrician, so we had a little bit of that in common. We started connecting, and he told me about Keith Green’s music and somehow I had this thing – I don’t know where it came from, but it felt like God called me to full time ministry. I went to the pastor of the Baptist church I was going to and he goes oh Paul, I’m so delighted for you. I will go to Dallas theological seminary myself and get a pack for you, and we’ll get you going in that direction. I’m thinking yeah, I don’t think that’s what I have in mind. But anyway, so he brings me this packet. At the same time I started going to a more non-denominational, Full Gospel type church.

S: Like, charismatic with the raising of hands and speaking in tongues and all of that?

PK: No, this would have been a little bit more subdued than that. Full Gospel – it was spirit. Okay, there you go, that’s the difference. They believed in the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Baptist churches know they’re the devil; these people said the other people are just asleep in the light, so to speak. So he goes off and gets this packet, I open it up thinking okay, I’ll look at it, and you have to have an under graduate degree to do it. Again, my only time in a college was going to a sporting event or something, so I don’t qualify. That was a great relief. At that moment, or just around that time, Roland says, brother Paul! (He called me brother Paul.)

T: The brothers!

PK: He still does that today. He said, Last Days Ministries is starting a school; you should go to it. I’m thinking yes, that sounds right. I didn’t know anything about Last Days Ministries.

T: I was going to say, what would make you say – so you’ve met Roland, you’re in this Full Gospel church. I don’t know how they felt about Keith Green; I don’t know if you’d gotten the newsletter…

PK: No.

T: How connected were you to what that really meant?

PK: Only through conversations with Roland. He did share some tracts with me and maybe a newsletter. But certainly Keith’s newsletter. At that point I really loved music. I could feel music. I was a worship leader in one of those churches I was at there. Heading way back to when I was a kid, I wanted to replace the organist in the church I was raised in. that’s what I thought I was supposed to do when I got older. So I always felt I would have something to do with the church, and in music, so it just seemed to fit. It was timing – yeah, I should do that. I sent away for an application, and boy was it lengthy.

T: It was very lengthy! Sharon can’t appreciate all that because she was there before the school but…

S: I was already there. I was elite. I was in the inner circles. I was just so fucked up brainwashed. Yeah.

T: [laughing] But the rest of us – everyone will know from my earlier interview that I went to the first school and I know I had 12 typewritten pages that I ended up packing up and sending. It was very lengthy.

PK: Right? It felt like they were really trying to vet out whether you were really a Christian. There was a lot of questions about your conversion experience and your spiritual experiences. So anyway I applied, and I got into the second ICT school, which would have been Tracey’s second term there.

T: Correct.

S: That was what, spring of 82, right?

PK: April of 1982, yes. I would have been 25 years old when I showed up there. I think it was the day before or the day after my birthday. So that started that journey there.

S: Just to put in context Paul (cos it’ll come in later), your interactions with my then husband, now ex, Martin – you and he are virtually the same age. He was your “elder” but you guys are the same age.

PK: Right, yeah we graduated the same year. I believe  we talked about it at one point; he graduated in 75 as well.

S: That’s right.

PK: So there’s the quick intersection right there; I show up to school, I’m so excited to be in the school. I showed up maybe an hour early or something like that, and they said well, the brothers’ dorm isn’t ready, but you can go over there and help set it up.  So instantly I was like this isn’t …

S: Wait, one second sorry Paul. Was this the house that was on that road that was on the east side of the property line?

PK: No, that’s where the classroom was. This would have been I think, Miss Susie’s house.

T: Miss Susie. Yes.

S: Okay. Down by the four way stop sign.

T: Yeah.

PK: Yes. On the right hand side.

T: For the first school, there was one school house and it was co-ed. There was only 20 of us, so there were 12 brothers in the garage room that they had converted, then eight of us sisters were in the two front bedrooms. They wanted to expand, so in the second school they took on another school house, but then they divided it. Miss Susie’s was the one right on the corner at the stop sign, Sharon.

PK: That’s correct, yes.

S: Okay.

PK: So I show up to that house, there’s a man who looked to be my age, a little smaller than I was. He said hey, can you help me carry this in? I’m thinking well, I’m a student here, I’m not part of the labor force.

T: Hold it. You’re a student – and this is going to come in as we dive into the Youth With A Mission model, and the Last Days Ministries model – you paid to come to this school.

PK: Yes.

T: You had paid to come to this school, you arrive and they’re  like, pick it up. Take it in.

PK: Right. It was interesting. I didn’t expect it – I didn’t know what to expect, really. So I did, and he introduced himself. He said my name is Martin, and I’m one of the Elders here, and I said something like, my name is Paul, and wow, what does it take to be an Elder?

[laughter}

T: Okay, so I have to ask you about this question. Did you mean it snarky at all? Did you size him up in any part of your brain and go this is a little squirt, how did he get to be an Elder?

PK: No. If you think about any traditional line of Christianity, Elders are usually older; grey hair; wise people, right? I did not know the leadership structure there; I did not know there were Elders or whatever, so when he used that word, it just didn’t fit with his …

PK, T&S: Youth.

PK: With his youth! Right. And his lack of experience, because he was my age. He actually was my age, although I didn’t know that at that point. So that was my introduction to Martin, and I could tell he did not take kindly to that.

T: Which is why I was wondering if you had some snark that you may not have been aware of, because it’s just – hey, it’s an interesting question to ask somebody.

S: Tracey, we were – look, the whole application to ICT, even though I didn’t work in the school, we were so all about trying to analyze and examine somebody’s heart and motives; are they really pure; are they really sold out for Jesus; have they really set aside their pride and their ego; are they willing to do everything that God requires, and humble themselves, and, and, and… So we were pretty intent on making judgements, even though we said we wouldn’t judge. You know, discernment. We needed to discern whether or not somebody was really serious about Jesus or not. So every little indication that might show some level of ambition or aspiration – even aspiring to something would be construed as wow, you’re pretty fucking arrogant. Although we wouldn’t say that, but that was the attitude.

[laughter}

PK: Right. So Tracey, I think it’s fair. I think there was a bit of shock in that conversation for me right, that this is an Elder, because it didn’t fit the model. And there would have been a bit of snark; I’m from Long Island, so is Martin, I don’t know if he was really raised there. But we have that kind of sarcasm, that little bit of cutting humor. It didn’t come out like ooh what does it take to become an Elder. It didn’t come out like that at all. It was more like wow, what does it take to be an Elder? Which would have been more like, maybe I can be too.

T: Correct, yeah.

S: My point Paul, in that, is any detection of wow, this guy might think that he could become one of us? That spiritual? Which is so ridiculous, because of course anyone who is serving Jesus and wanting to be part of something, is going to say hey, what do I need to do to be able to do this, to be able to be spiritual, to be able to be used of God? But it’s turned around and looked at – yeah, you’re just trying to claw your way to the top to feed your ego.

PK: Absolutely. And that is one thing that I think was very clear in our times there, that we intentionally attacked the ego portion of the individual. If someone was good at painting, we made sure we put them into computers; or if someone was good with something, we made sure they went somewhere else. I called it – and I don’t know where I got this from – I called it the applied cross. We’re supposed to pick up our own cross, but I think back then I saw that the cross was being applied to me.

S: Wow.

PK: I ended up being a leader in the second school, so I went through all the applications, and we vetted people out to say nope, can’t tempt them there, they gotta go here. We gotta break them, we gotta send them here, because they might think that they’re all that, and we’ve got to let them know that they’re not, because you can’t be all that, because you need to be broken.

T: Correct.

S: I love that term Paul. I’ve never heard that before.

T: Yes, I do too.

S: Applied cross. You’re right. We didn’t give people the autonomy to pick up and choose; we decided for them. We put that cross beam right on their backs and smashed them down to the ground as far as we could.

T: Yes. Which is a classic tactic of cults, because you have to break them down to make them into the kind of follower that you need them to be. Of course, it gets very clouded in fundamentalism, because we’re doing it to follow Jesus, but there’s definitely the motivation to be able to fit into our organization as a good follower.

S: But also the problem is the leader is telling you what Jesus wants. It’s one thing if you’re going to seek God, and find it for yourself, but that’s not what’s happening. You’re being told what God wants you to do.

PK: Right.

T: Correct, because they’re anointed. They’re anointed by God to tell you that.

PK: They know! They know somehow. That’s what I call one of the greatest perversions of my time there, which was love is willing the highest good for another. The perversion comes in that I, your leader, know what that highest good is for you. I hear from God; you don’t. That is, I think, a deep-seated root that is not something that was unique to our situation, but is unique to any environment where they need to take away your autonomy, make you have to lean on them, and therefore they can control you.

S: Yeah, you know Paul, I also want to say something here and that is, we have seen a lot of backlash from Last Days Ministries staffers who really, really bristle at us making any inference, let alone our outright statement that we really believe we were in a cult. But, the one thing I’ve noticed is that most of these people who are so upset with that definition are ones who didn’t even go to Last Days Ministries, some of them until ten years after Keith died. So they really don’t know what it was really like in those days.

PK: That’s true. I came to that realization too. I think we respond to something – if you still are hooked onto something – it’s like having kids. When your kid is doing something that you don’t appreciate is happening in public, you take that on as a potential failure on your part, so you act in a way you wouldn’t normally act if it was somebody else’s kid. You would think oh, they’re just being a kid; but no, that reflects back on me. I think the same dynamic happens here, but this is even deeper sometimes than family. This is around belief systems, and this is around – we joined forces with people; we lived together; it was everything. It was our church, it was our job, it was our housing – we got so connected that if you take one piece of it, everything is now suspect.

S: Right.

PK: So it’s a deep, deep challenge, and it’s definitely a part of what happens in these high control culty type situations. It’s required to keep people together in that way.

S: Yeah. Paul, I remember you telling me briefly about a situation when you were kind of given a test; a theoretical test. That blew my mind, so do you want to share it again so our listeners can get blown away too?

PK: Sure. At some point I’d been there – I’d been through the school, I helped lead the next school, and then I was working somewhere in the ministry doing a job, I think I was in the operations department, which I ended up heading up at one point. But at one time, Martin, Sharon’s ex, called me to join him outside. We walked outside of the building where the tract department was, and the printing press and all that. He pointed to a car, it was an old, tan rabbit that one of the people owned that donated to the ministry, so to speak.

T: The Rabbit!

S: That was Laura’s rabbit.

PK: There you go.

T: So do you just want to set this up for listeners, because we haven’t brought this in yet. A lot of people who came to the ministry did have their own vehicles; they donated them to the ministry, and they became ministry vehicles. Then we could check them out and people could use them to go into town. Most – I don’t know if it was required – I know of one person who may have kept their car in their name, but the pressure was definitely there to donate your car to the ministry.

PK: Yeah. I donated my car, but not technically. It became part of the pool when I came there, but I never technically did it. As a matter of fact, because of the way I exited (which we’ll get to), I had to leave it there.

T: Ohh-oo.

PK: But anyway, the scenario Sharon is pointing back to is her ex, Martin, took me outside and he pointed to the car and said Paul, if I told you the trunk of the car is loaded with drugs and I told you to go take it to this other location, what would you do? And I said, I’d ask you why there’s drugs in the car, and why you’re asking me to do it. And he looked at me and said, that’s why you’re not leadership material.

T: [gasps] Ohhh.

S: [laughing] So fucked up!

T: Oh my god. So even to Sharon and I, who were in a lot of screwed up situations, that is really screwed up. That is really screwed up.

S: And the fact – well, I don’t know Paul. What did you think about it at the time? Did you look at yourself and think oh yeah, there’s something wrong with me, or did you look and go oh my god, what the hell?

PK: You know, I think it was probably somewhere between that. Because it was – when you’re there you’re planning on being on staff, and you’re planning on being there the rest of your life, right? So I knew I failed the test, and I knew that I wanted to be in leadership, because by my design, I’m a leader.

S: Yeah.

PK: So I wanted to participate at the greatest level that I could, and that got eliminated in that moment. I didn’t feel like I was screwed up; I felt like maybe a part of me doesn’t fit here because I can’t just do that. I wouldn’t just do that. Why would anybody just do that?

S: Mmhmm.

T: Well, and you’re a former Marine.

PK: Correct.

T: I just think that that is not part of the equation that Martin was thinking at that time. There’s also legal ramifications, there’s a lot of stuff that somebody more mature, who had lived some life, might be thinking, that somebody 18 and out of high school might not be thinking.

PK: Right! Good point.

T: That’s why that one is particularly a crazy story. I will add this; I say it’s so crazy, but something very similar happened to me. I was in the tract department, I wasn’t running it at this point, I was still in my internship phase. For those listeners, you come in through ICT, you get selected to stay on for a second term, then you also get selected to be an intern and at some point you get invited to be on staff. So I was in my internship phase, and we had these pre-printed responses that were all in this box, so that if somebody ordered an order and we were going to send some communication, they all had letters – reply R, reply T, reply S. I went in and got the last reply R.

S: Reply R meaning somebody probably bought a record, so the reply was a pre-printed reply thanking them for buying the record, or something to that effect, right?

T: Yes, and it was on Last Days Ministries letterhead, and these were photocopied, I assume. But I went to the print shop head, which was Martin at the time, and I said we’re out of these, we need more. He looked at me and he was like, why didn’t you tell me when we were not out of them, when we needed to do a few more. And I said I didn’t know that that was my job. Wrong answer!

[laughter]

T: And he looked at me and he said, that is the difference between a staff member and an intern. A staff member would have known that was their job and would have asked the question sooner.

[laughter]

S: You should have been psychic, Tracey!

T: And I too, Paul, felt like I had failed the test very miserably, and walked away really contemplating why I didn’t know what I didn’t know, and even thinking if I were closer to God, maybe God would have nudged me in that direction. It really messed with me. But I wasn’t a Marine beforehand, so maybe if I had been a Marine I would have been like, dude – [laughing].

PK: Yeah, you were just semi-army related which isn’t anything near like being a Marine, you know what I mean?

[laughter]

PK: Oh, that’s funny. So you and I would have been connected at that point, because when I was in first term ICT I worked with you in the tract department, and for you in the tract department. I would second that you definitely weren’t spiritual enough to hear from God in those moments – it was clear in your management style.

[laughter]

T: But I never gave you weird tests!

PK: That’s for sure. You tested us all the time though, with your attitude.

[laughter]

S: Oh, tell me more Paul! What do you mean by that? Describe, please.

PK: Tracey and I have gone back and forth on this a little bit, so I’ll just share my side of it. When I was in the tract department, me and another brother, Rafe, were assigned to the tract department. I’ve been known to be a funny guy, a sense of humor, I try to lighten the load. When you have alcoholic parents I played the role of the peacekeeper and the distraction. You become the muse of the family. So I get into this setting, and here are these two young women running this department. I had no problem working with or around women, because remember I was raised in a church with a woman pastor so I didn’t understand any of the rules around that, or how it happened, so I just never questioned it. But it was such a somber environment. I could see this part of Tracey that almost like was trying to jump into a straight jacket to try and be a certain way that just didn’t feel natural to me, about her. So we would poke her. You know.

S: Ohhhh. I want to hear! Tell me, tell me.

PK: Well, not physically. That would have been against the law.

S: Yeah, I know.

[laughter]

T: I guess we have to clarify that for listeners! Not physically.

PK: No, it was just like – lighten up! What’s going on here? It’s even like her and the other woman that was in there – I don’t know if she was co-leading it with her, her name was Gina. It was almost like everything was so spiritualized, even the way they sneezed.

[laughter]

PK: It was like ah-choooo. There’s like, a spiritual sneeze!

[laughter]

T: I think that was Gina, in all fairness, about the sneeze.

PK: You were two peas in a pod. Stop it.

T: Yeah, that was funny. For the listeners; we had been so indoctrinated with Charles Finney, and the concert crusades that Keith was doing, and the message was a sober spirit. That is why revival didn’t come, because nobody had the sober spirit. So I was determined to have a sober spirit and really squell – is it quell – squelch and quell is…

S&PK: Squelched.

T: Squell. That’s my new word. I really squelched any of my effervescent, outgoing personality, because that was what we called levity and that’s an old revival word that would completely drive the Holy Spirit away.

PK: Mmmm. Mmhmm.

T: So then Paul comes in and all he’s trying to do is get me to laugh and always – I would go by him and he would go, smile Tracey, or make a joke and I did a pretty good job of staying sober though, I think.

S: Oh my god.

T: [laughing]

PK: You did. You get good marks for all the wrong reasons.

S: So Tracey, in addition to making up for lost time from purity culture, you’re also making up for lost time with brash and heathen humor, yeah?

T: Yes! But I actually – the funny thing is, is what was going on inside of me; I really appreciated Paul and Rafe, because I feel they were trying to lighten my load and it wasn’t all so sober and so serious and I didn’t have the weight of the tract department on my shoulders; whereas my interaction with Martin, I felt like I had the weight of the tract department on my shoulders and the eternal destination of the people who would be getting what we would be doing, if I failed at what I was doing.

S: You know what’s ironic in that is, Keith and Melody would have us over to their house at night and the weekends, and we’d be watching SCTV or other rented things, and we’d just be laughing our asses off at this stuff, but yeah, you guys didn’t know.

T: That’s why the revival didn’t come, because Keith was not taking it seriously.

[laughter]

PK: It’s still tarrying.

T: Yes, it’s still tarrying.

[laughter]

PK: Tracey, you know I’m an organizational type guy; I like structure, I like doing things well, efficiently, and I think while we were trying to do all that, I think we really busted our butts to make things happen. I don’t think Rafe and I were a distraction in any way from the work. I think we were highly effective, and that’s what made it fun, too.

T: No, you guys were great. You were great.

PK: A lot of throughput.

T: And it’s just so sad that we couldn’t appreciate so many of those beautiful personalities because we were all trying to be our own version of what spiritual meant.

PK: Yeah. To not have a personality.

T: Mmhmm.

PK: That’s what it kind of felt like.

S: Yep. So Paul, I’d like to hear some of the other – for you – kind of significant or meaningful memories of that time there at Last Days.

PK: Sure. After ICT I was asked to stay on and lead the next ICT, by Wayne Dillard who was one of the Elders. He still, to this day, I always describe him as the only man that I’ve ever really loved.

S: Wow.

PK: Wayne was a little bit older than me; a gentle soul, a loving guy. I just loved him, and business-wise, the way we saw things seemed to align as well. So he invited me to stay on and lead the school with him.

S: Yeah, Wayne was – I think we saw him as kind of this really encouraging, affirming, nice guy who just seemed to genuinely care and was gentle and soft – which was really the antithesis of Keith, and even of Martin. Wayne was a special person.

PK: Right, yeah. I really loved him. I was so thrilled I got asked to stay the second term, and to work with him. I don’t think we ever got to ask for what we could do next, but in my heart or my mind, I wanted to work with him. Matt Schoenfelder was in that role in my ICT class, so Wayne had him leave and I took Matt’s spot. Then partway through the school the crash happened, and he left the school. Wayne had to go back to the ministry, then Matt came over and led the school. I went through the rest of ICT – it gets a little bit blurry after that, what I actually did after ICT. I think I worked in operations a little bit. At one point I became the head of operations for the ministry and I got to put some things in place there as far as organization structure. I created a little work desk where people could pass things through. I worked with a great guy named David, and I think we impacted the way things got handled in the ministry at that point.

S: Yeah, you guys also formed this kind of like, fun music skit group. You called yourselves the Operationals.

PK: That was one of the fruits that came out of it. That’s correct. So yeah, it became a fun thing. I learned a lot of things. I maintained a phone system for the ministry; I put in the phone system out to the trailer village that was being developed, just because I said I’d try it. I’d try anything. So here’s some of the deeper undercurrent things. It became very obvious, once you’re there, that the only way to be in leadership at the ministry is to be married. You guys certainly have developed out all of this about how this happens there. The man hears from God; speaks to his counsellor; they speak to God and the woman’s counsellor; they speak to God, and it all comes back, and I just knew I wasn’t spiritual enough to get married. I wasn’t spiritual enough to do that. I just knew that about myself.

T: So, what made you think that? I’ve heard you mention that in our private conversations.

PK: I think it’s rooted in the whole thing back when I was younger; when I knew I’d never be good enough. I just felt that I was – what was the thing there? To love God with all your heart, mind and soul, right? With everything. I knew I didn’t do that because there were parts of me that knew I wasn’t really loving God in that way. There were some things in me – I was maybe ambitious, or maybe selfish or whatever. So I didn’t feel like I compared to what the standard was.

T: The standard. Which, for listeners, we loved that verse, be ye perfect, as I am perfect. Our standard was perfection, to the point of really taking away all of our humanity. It was unattainable for everybody Paul, but I guess you didn’t know that.

PK: Right. Like, the rest of my life – even everything since then has been just on my own. Either they’re not admitting what they’re really going through, or they’ve made it somehow. Like, Matt, he seemed to have made it. He seemed to be someone who was genuine. He seemed easy about something somehow, where everyone else seemed to be working at this. But he’s also the one who taught me on my own, separately – because I worked with him – he taught me about this instant sanctification theology that he had. Like Finney’s instant – you know when people got saved, this instant sanctification. This radical change to life; it wasn’t just a one time event; it happened for the rest of your life. Therefore if you ever sinned, you were never really saved, because if you were really saved, you would have been instantly sanctified and never have done those things. That was heavy.

T: It is really heavy.

S: What fucked up circular reasoning!

T: Yes it is. And it really did mess a lot of people up, because it starts to get into finer points of theology, and of course we didn’t do the schooling to understand it, it just meant be perfect as I am perfect, and when you weren’t, you were failing.

PK: Right! That’s right. So, I knew I couldn’t do the ministry way. The last thing you want to do is tell someone you heard from God and they come back and say no, that wasn’t God. That’s like another drug run, right? Busted again. I didn’t want to risk that. I am a risk averse young man, at that point. Well, around there I would have been an older man then, because you were like, six or seven years younger than me. You were just kids.

S: That’s right, we were.

PK: When I was asked to be on the ICT, Wayne pulled me aside before class started, before people arrived, and said Paul, I want you to be aware of something. He said you are going to be very attractive to women now, in a way that you may have never been before, and I’m thinking hmmm, why would that be. He said because you’re in leadership, and there’s something about being in leadership that is attractive to young women. So just be aware, and be on the alert.

T: Wow.

S: What did you think in your mind and brain and body and everything about that?

PK: I think that’s kind of crazy, but I can see it. It’s what our culture does. Forget about the church; it’s what our culture does. It sees someone who’s up front, who’s on top to some degree, who has a voice, and we idolize them. They become larger than what they really are. The things that people look at, they want to try to understand your characteristics or your character, your personality and all this stuff, but when you are put in a position, they assume those things are there so some of the pre-qualifying goes away, and maybe even the way you look becomes less important.

S: Yeah. So did you experience that? Did you find you had sisters coming at you?

PK: Yes.

T: You had leadership charisma.

PK: I did.

[laughter]

S: What happened with these sisters?

PK: I won’t go into detail. There was a few of them that made it known, through either the proper channels or improper channels, they showed an interest in me. It was like wow, this is pretty heavy stuff. But I still knew I couldn’t work with the ministry framework, but it ended up being very true, and a surprizing experience for me.

S: Then – I’m going to put you on the spot here, Paul, a little bit, I think.

PK: No! Who’s paying for this?

S: Yeah, I am.

PK: Alright.

S: So, in our private conversations you have shared about how a couple of things happened, and your job in operations meant that you were doing certain – almost personal services, whether it was Leonard and Martha Ravenhill, or …

[laughter]

T: You better clarify that.

PK: Please.

T: Personal services!

PK: I didn’t poke anybody.

[laughter]

T: My mind is so not sanctified anymore that personal services means something very different to me now.

S: I’m so glad that you have fallen under the spell of the levity demon Tracey. I’m so glad.

[laughter]

S: Alright, well anyway.

PK: Go ahead.

S: Paul, would you go ahead and share what was happening there?

PK: Oh, I think I know what you were referring to.

S: Yeah.

PK: One of my responsibilities at the ministry for a season was I was responsible to take care of Melody in her housing, her facility, and help her with whatever she needed. There were projects that we did on her house, I remember the linoleum flooring and things like that, so I got a little bit close to her and spent time with her. Next to their house they had a little studio, a little portable building they’d set up that had Keith’s Yamaha piano in it, so she invited me at times to come down and play it, and play for her, because she’d heard that I was a piano player. I’m really not, I’m self-taught, but most people that don’t know music think I am; people that do know music think I’m not. So, we got to spend some time together and I actually spent time with her family. There was a young lady taking care of their kids, because Melody had the second child by then, had Rachel, and on Rachel’s first birthday I was noted as her favorite person. I got to spend time around them.

S: In other words, you were there. You were there not just on work, but there was a personal friendship.

PK: Correct.

S: Camaraderie, whatever, was happening there.

PK: Yeah. It was more incidental than intentional, but it just happened. One evening Matt, who we’ve talked about, came up to me and he let me know that I needed to back away from Melody because there’s a possibility she’s getting the wrong idea about our context; our relationship. He did say it was a bit about the kids, I was just there with the kids, and he saw the way I interacted with them, and it may have been something she was attracted to. So I was asked to back away. His specific words were, I don’t think you want to get into that, and I wouldn’t want to either.

S: Yeah.

PK: Which was the context of the relationship.

S: Were you surprized by that?

PK: Yes. Certainly. Because this is Melody Green, for God’s sake.

T: Right.

PK: She’d gone through a terrible trauma. This would have been about a year after the crash, I would say, so some time had passed. It wasn’t anything I had thought about or was interested in, I was just being the best me I knew how to be, and serving in a way that seemed natural to me, and being who I was.

S: Can you tell me a little bit about your interactions with Leonard and Martha Ravenhill?

PK: Oh yeah, just briefly I guess. Part of my responsibilities was to take care of their house too, whatever they needed to have done, and to be kind of their driver when they needed to go places. I don’t think I was the only one, because they had to get around more than just what I did with them, but I drove them places and got to hear Leonard with his hair down a little bit, and I got to know Martha. They’re funny people; they taught me how to eat fish and chips, they took me to Arthur Treacher’s – alright, Arthur Treacher’s, in Dallas, and they showed me the right way to do it, you know. That was kind of fun, I always tried to joke with them. He had a big white Cadillac, and I’d be driving up front, they’d be in the back and they’d fall asleep halfway to the airport, because this was about a two hour drive. They’d wake up and go oh sorry Paul, we fell asleep and I’d be – no problem. I took a nap too, it was fine.

[laughter]

T: You know, a memory just hit me when said Cadillac. I remember there being some kinds of judgement that this fiery preacher who preaches that we should give everything that we have, has a Cadillac.

S: Yeah.

T: And there being some conversations, and people rose to his defence, but it did seem out of step with all these vows of poverty we were taking to give our cars to the ministry and we didn’t own anything, and we lived in bunk beds with two shelves, and this man who was our like, patron saint, was driving in a Cadillac. I don’t know if that ever came up for you all?

PK: It didn’t for me, because I was doing what I felt I was supposed to be doing, and he was doing what he was supposed to doing, and I didn’t really see the difference. It was like, this guy’s not part of the ministry; he’d led this long life and I didn’t care if they had a Cadillac or not. It didn’t impact me at all.

T: So I was way more judgemental than you, is what you’re saying.

S: Well yes, of course. Of course you were!

PK: I get a spiritual point, if I get to be on your scoreboard.

[laughter]

S: No you don’t Paul, you lose it, because she was more judgemental, which means she gets the point.

PK: Oh right, I forgot. This is the inversion way of looking at things.

T: Well no, it’s what’s spiritual; judgementalism is not spiritual, but being willing to give up a Cadillac, or not spending your money on a Cadillac, is more spiritual.

PK: Yeah, you’re right.

S: I’m still gonna give Tracey the point.

PK: Okay, alright.

S: I do remember Martha. I remember her being really, really funny. Keith and Martin and I would go over there sometimes. I remember one time we’d walked in and the 700 Club was on the television, just in the background. We were sitting in the living room and Martha had brought in tea, and Marta leans over – oh I know what it was. It wasn’t the 700 Club, it was Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker.

T: Ohhh.

S: It’s just in the background, and Keith glances at it every once in a while, and then Martha – she must have seen what he was doing, so she kind of leans over to him and she says very quietly, isn’t she beautiful? Of course she’s doing it in her Irish accent. Keith looks a little confused and he doesn’t know what to say, and he goes uh, you really think so? And she says och no, that Jezebel.

[laughter]

S: And laughs and laughs, because she got him good on that.

PK: Yeah, she was funny. I took them out shopping once to a grocery store; she went down the bread aisle and ripped open a bag of white bread, grabbed a couple of slices of bread in her hand, squished them up in a ball and she says you’re not supposed to eat this kind of stuff, this is what it does in your stomach!

S: Oh my god!

T: So did she buy that loaf of bread then?

PK: No.

T: Ohhhh.

[laughter]

S: Privilege, man. Privilege. Shit.

PK: My other Leonard story is kind of my relationship thing which got me out of the ministry but since we’re talking about it, I’ll just insert it here. We’ll unpack this a little bit, but I ended up being in a relationship with this woman. Leonard got wind of it, because I was with him a lot. He gave me this book of Puritan quotations, and signed it, and wrote a message in the cover to me. It said, Paul, love may be blind, but marriage is an eye opener. Love, Leonard.

[laughter]

S: Now, that’s pretty good.

T: That’s so good. It’s better than Dr Ed Wheat’s book on sex. I’ll just say that.

PK: So anyway, that was fun.

…

S: Okay folks, that is the first half of our talk with Paul Kellerman. We’ll be back in two weeks with the second part where Paul’s trauma from Last Days is really ramped up. Hey, if you’d like to connect directly with Paul, and us, and other former culty folks, you can request to join our Facebook, Confessions of the Cult Sisters Community.

T: And another way you can really help us out is to take a few seconds to rate our show on whatever podcast platform you are using. And really, if you can spare another minute, please write a few words of review. Whenever you rate and review, it really does help our podcast become more visible in the podcast universe when people are searching for content like ours. And remember to always follow us on Instagram, Feet of Clay.cult sisters for lots of fun photos and extra juicy titbits that coincide with our topics for our episodes. Thanks for listening everyone, we’ll see you next time.

S: Bye bye!