This transcrpit has been edited for clarity.

Episode 038 – The Demise of Keith Green’s Last Days Ministries Cult – Part 2

April 24^th, 2024

T: Hi, I’m Tracey.

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

T: Confessions of the Cult Sisters!

S: Today is part two of our deep dive into – Tracey, I think it’s a bottomless pit…

T: Hmmm…

S: …that we call [in a spacey voice] The Demise of Last Days Ministries!

T: In part one we tried to stay with a big picture overview although Sharon, we did hop down a few little rabbit trails in that episode.

S: Ouch, yep ok, guilty. I am guilty as charged.

T: And for our alert listeners – which is I guess, is versus the sleep listeners…

[laughter]

S: Wait, are they Asleep in the Light?

T: That’s exactly what I was thinking. Between part one and this being part two, we did a real live episode – which was great. We just recorded in the car on the way to visiting the old property of Last Days Ministries in Texas, where you and I met each other for the first time.

S: Yeah. And Tracey, that was really an amazing trip together. To me it was special beyond words to have that time with you, in person, once again in that place that was so pivotal in our lives.

T: Yes, and for me I had had some business travel already sandwiched between that, I had travelled for my new grandbaby as you mentioned in episode 36, and yet I was like – I have to make this work. I have to find a way to get into Dallas and I’m so glad I did. We really packed in a lot, I think it was in a day and a half?

S: I know. It was crazy, how much we covered in those 36 hours or whatever. Alright everybody, we’ve been working hard putting together outlines and bullet points for this series, but as we continue with part two, Tracey – and however many following episodes are going to be in this demise series, I really don’t know how many but it’s going to be a lot – I think it’s important that we give ourselves a lot of flexibility to wander down all the nooks and crannies and every little rabbit trail that might pop up along the way. So, Tracey, I’ve got this – my own personal battle cry that I’m going to hold onto as we attack this subject. [battle cry] FREEEEEDOOOM!!! You know what that’s from?

[laughter]

T: Ah, I was going to say is your face half painted blue, maybe, while you’re crying that?

[laughter]

T: Oh my god, so did you also have a crush on Mel Gibson from Braveheart? That was one of the few movies for whatever reason – I guess because it’s war and slaughter it’s ok for Christians to watch – all have a crush on Mel Gibson from that? Like, I did.

S: Oh my god. It’s – ok, it’s very embarrassing and I’m not sure why you’re going to ask me that, but yeah.

T: What? Who thinks Mel Gibson’s embarrassing? He was a hot hottie.

S: No, he was. He was hot. But what’s embarrassing about it though is it’s that little girl romantic, that fairy tale dream thing, you know?

T: Yeah. There were definitely some very mild sex scenes in it, but it was steamy and evocative for the little girl in us. Well, my little girl crush is also Sully from Dr Quinn Medicine Woman. We had a thing going on with the manly men with long hair. You probably never even watched that.

S: I admit, I have never seen that show. But I am not embarrassed – this is maybe a little weird, a little twisted – I am not embarrassed, and I’m actually kind of proud about the two other main crushes I had – which you’ve already recently highlighted on Instagram…

T: Were you excited that I did that? That I knew you so well that I found that?

S: I couldn’t believe that you found that! I thought you’d made it up, like AI or something.

T: Nope!

S: But it’s Gene Wilder of Willy Wonka and Young Frankenstein fame, and of course, the incomparable, the amazing Tim Curry as Frank-Furter in the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Ok, so I’m sure you think I’m a little strange but – I don’t know – to me Tracey, there’s something really appealing to me about those smart, sexy, quirky kind of guys.

T: Yeah. I mean that’s very cutting edge crushes for someone in purity culture. Just gonna say that. For listeners, I will repost it because it’s this puppet artist that has these two string puppets that are both Tim Curry and Gene Wilder, and when I saw it I was like oh my god, I have to find this for Sharon.

S: If you really loved me Tracey, you would buy those puppets for me.

T: I know, I know, they’re like one of a kind, thousands of dollars.

S: I’m sure.

T: But you’re worth it! Alright Sharon, I think this isn’t just dashing down, I think we’ve fallen into a rabbit hole on this one.

[laughter]

S: Alright, yep. That was random. I’ll give it to you, that was random for sure. But some of the rabbit trails we’re going to hop down, they will be meaningful and very important, so alright everybody. We are going to go, like we said, really in depth on this topic of the demise of Last Days Ministries. And Tracey and I have both said, I think to you all already, but to each other for sure, we want to do this one time. We want to do it justice, but we want to do it one time only and then be done with it.

T: Be done with it. Yeah, do you remember three-four years ago when we got together to discuss doing a book together?

S: Oh yeah, that was a good time, and it was overwhelming, actually.

T: So I guess this is what we’re going to do instead. We’re going to have a verbal book and be done with it.

S: And be done with it. And that’s why we’re going to give ourselves that total FREEDOM to follow any bunny trail that seems relevant, and could shed more light into these dark dark corners. So you’re up for that, right Tracey?

T: Yes. And of course, our listeners, there’s always that handy-dandy little fast-forward button that you have on your podcast, if we get to too much off-track and also you can go into fast mode as well.

S: Oh yeah. Listen to it on a higher speed. I do that a lot.

T: I do that a lot as well. So we’re actually calling this series our Eras Tour – not to be confused with Eros tour, which I now think we have to do Sharon, for those deconstructing years – more to come on that.

S: Yep, we can do that.

T: But our Eras are as follows: Number 1, Keith Green blazing bright. Number 2 the reign and regime of Melody Green. Number 3, touch not God’s anointed. Number 4, that god-dammed mountains mandate, although I don’t think that g-d is in the title, but maybe it should be.

S: It should be!

T: And number 5, the hidden years, and finally my favorite, zombie land.

S: I still love that you came up with zombies – I totally love that.

T: Well, you know, it’s such a tendency and already – I don’t know if you’ve been aware, this last week alone our dear friends at IHOP Kansas City, there’s already talk of them ending and closing down parts of the ministry, but wait for it – and reopening it with a new god-damned name.

S: Right!

T: I don’t know what it is about these spaces that they don’t ever want to close, shut the doors, so those damn zombies.

S: Damn zombies!

T: We realize that before we can do the deep dive into the demise of Last Days Ministries, we actually need to kind of tell you what Last Days was all about. Not just what we’ve said so far, but in theory, and in reality – especially for those listeners that might not have been so caught up in this as we were. I promise you all it’s relevant – the more we unpack this and I look back, I’m seeing how relevant it is to what’s happening still in these places today.

S: Amen sister! Amen.

T: Amen. Oh my god. So we’re starting this one with Era number 1 – Keith Green Blazing Bright, which goes from 1977 to July of 1982.

S: Right. When it ended with a literal crash in a literal ball of fire. But before we even get started with this first Era Tracey, I made a little note to myself. Here’s my initial bunny trail. [laughing]

T: Oh my god, already. So you know – you may not know this – but I was actually born in the Year of the Rabbit in the Chinese zodiac.

S: Oh no, I did not know that.

T: Do you know what year, what animal you were born under?

S: Well I know what year I was born, but no.

T: Do you know what animal?

S: No! Look it up. 1961.

T: All I’m saying is it’s not – while you go into your bunny trail I’ll look it up, but I don’t think you even have an excuse for this.

[laughter]

S: Ok, alright. I get it, but I do think that this is important. Like I said, well we’ve told people too – we’re trying to do a lot of research, we’re putting together outlines and bullet points and all that kind of stuff, and I realized as I reflect back on this first era of Keith Green – Tracey, I’ve got these complicated and conflicting thoughts and emotions that are just all intertwined and I gotta admit there’s definitely some cognitive dissonance going on in me. Despite everything I see now of the bullshit and the abuse – and trust me, I see it, I totally see it for what it is – and yet there’s this little part of me that still admires and values some of that radical, all for Jesus, all things in common stuff. So I don’t know if it’s just generalized nostalgia, or teenage idealism, but sometimes – and sometimes this happens when Dave and I are talking – I find myself kind of wanting to defend the – I don’t know, oh shit. I kind of just want to call it the goodness. Was there goodness in that, of what we were seeking, and what we were doing? But then of course, there’s this older and hopefully wiser, and definitely more aware part of me that sees the awfulness of the core message, which basically boils down to God is good, and we are shit. So Tracey, that is my huge cognitive dissonance – how to square the fact that I still have fond memories with the reality that this absurd belief system led to all these abusive behaviors that we were victims of, and we participated in and perpetuated.

T: Wow. Yeah. That’s a lot.

S: It is a lot. And the – but wait, there’s more. So there’s this other part, and it’s anger. But it’s not just anger at the bullshit. This is the weird part of it. I think about how angry I was back then in 1986, and then 1987 right after we were kicked out, and things at Last Days were really going off the rails. And I’ve got to confess that even now, every once in a while, I still kind of feel that anger. But, that anger is about what Melody and YWAM did to distort and corrupt Keith’s original vision, what Last Days Ministries was before the plane crash. So that means, I’m looking at all this and I’ve got to face the fact that that maybe I still really value that original vision, which just makes me want to say to myself, what the fuck Sharon? What the fuck?

T: Ohhhh. Wow. I have so many thoughts on this.

S: I’m sure you do.

T: So many thoughts.

S: I’m sure you do! I’ll just say this last thing and you can let me have it.  On the one hand, I’ve started to think that maybe what I thought the original vision was in actuality was not the real vision, or at the very least, it was not the lived experienced reality of what the words claimed it should be. And then, on the other hand, I think holy shit, Sharon. Are you still wearing tinted glasses all these decades later? To think that any of that was ok?

T: Wow. I personally don’t think this is a side trail at all. I think this goes straight to the very heart of what we’re doing in this podcast, right. That goes very much to the heart, Sharon, of why we even went at first; who we became while we were there, and then why we slowly kind of kept drinking the Kool-Aid, we could say, or beginning to morph into this vision that was different than when we first went, and I think why still, so many today – people we met on our trip, as well as people that we know who reach out to us, they cannot bring themselves at all to really call out the shit that we were all a part of.

S: Mmhmm.

T: I do think this is the heart of why we’re even doing this podcast, and there’s going to be more enlightenment to that as we continue to dive in, but I would rather let’s dive in, and as those things emerge we can point them out and say – I think I see this in the IHOP KC people, they’re wanting to close down this 24-7 prayer, and yet there are people who are emotionally attached to that, and there really is that cognitive dissonance, and I think when we get into that era of the times on all the hippiest movies where Jesus is this cool dude just calling all these people to follow him – I think there’s a lot packed into that.

S: Ok.

T: So I think that means we should get started.

S: Ok. Ok, woman.

T: We should get started with era number 1. Keith Green Blazing Bright in all his hippy coolness, right? From 1977 in California until the tragic fiery plane crash in Texas on July 28^th, 1982. So in order to cover this and not repeat all the different things we’ve said, we’re going to refer people back to some episodes in season one, so they can get caught up. If you’re a newer listener and you haven’t gone back to season one, we really encourage you to do so. We’ve covered lots of different aspects, from my interview with I Was A Teenage Fundamentalist, to your interview with Troy and Brian, and really tried to paint that picture of the private reality of Keith Green versus his public Christian, prophet mega-star persona.

S: Right. And we’re going to put the links in the show notes for all those relevant episodes. Really ecourage you to listen; you’ll get the detailed sense of what it was really like, behind the scenes, in the orbit of Keith Green. These include episode 1, Was Keith Green a Cult Leader – that’s Tracey’s story. Shall we say testimony? Would that be your testimony, Tracey?

T: It’s a testimony!

S: Number 3 – Keith Green Arranged my Teenage Marriage, that’s my story. 15-16 – those are our interview with Keith’s foster daughter Dawn, who lived with him from age 10 on, and is the only living person who ever experienced Keith as a parent. Then number 23, Keith Green Acres…

T: Where you get to hear Sharon and I sing the intro!

S: Worth the price of admission – free.

T: It sure is.

S: Anyway, in that we paint a picture of both the hilarious and horrible reality of our ranch commune life.

T: Can I just say, in episode 37, when you and I go back in real time to the property, and we tour the area and there’s all of these ministry spaces, I was envisioning all the animals. That is what we had that was separate from all the ministries, was the life on the ranch.

S: We did.

T: With all the animals and peach orchards – wow. It was something to think about.

S: Another way in which we miserably failed, for sure.

T: Yes.

S: Aright. Then episode 24 we’ve got an interview with Paul, who was one of the brothers at Last Days Ministries, give his really in depth insight, and number 14, the one to end with on that was the Plane Crash that Killed Keith Green. Again, folks, these are the behind the scenes facts about this tragic event, rather than the sanitized, whitewashed version that has been put out to the world, and it includes taking a hard look at Keith’s own culpability in that tragedy. Alright, Tracey. Boy, see, I’m just going on and on. Era number 1 – Keith Green Burning Bright. If you had to sum it up (I almost said in 50 words or less, but you can use more words than that)…

T: Oh wow, how generous of you.

S: Of course, darling. Any time. So how would you…

T: I think you took my 50 in that recap of the episode.

[laughter]

S: It was more like 500. Alright, how would you describe the original vision of Last Days Ministries, that message and the method (or whatever you want to call it) that drew us there.

T: Well, the first word that comes to mind is intense. That would eventually be called the training school that people would come to; Intensive Christian Training. There was a huge joke that went around at the beginning, people would say what do you think about Last Days school? And it was like, ooh, it’s intense. Everything out of our mouth was, it’s intense. So somebody really thought we held the school in pitched tents.

[laughter]

S: No, that was TeenMania later, wasn’t it?

T: I know, they did it, so they ended up in Quonset huts, taking it to another level, but this joke went on for a while. No, no, we weren’t actually living in tents, but the ministry life itself was just so intense, and with that it’s that sold out abandonment to Jesus, no compromise, right? That should really go to the top of the list, because Keith defined it that way.

S: Yep.

T: And everything you had completely just – what’s the song, burned out for thee. You’re not just gonna be sold out, but you’re gonna burn yourself out for Jesus.

S: Ah right. The lamp of my life is burned out for thee.

T: Yes! That was our mantra. We would cry that from our souls, and then of course you can’t ever charge anything – which is the part that I liked that drew me, that everything is for whatever you can afford.

S: Yeah, that was good. No compromise – I think you’re right, that is a great summation, which of course was the name of Keith’s second album, and then the name of the book that Melody wrote. I can’t call it a biography; it’s really a – how do you say that word, Tracey?

T: Hagiography?

S: Hagiography, right. Skewed and colored and all that, but I think a more fitting word (and I’ve said this before) is no boundaries. That was really the problem.

T: That’s so good. I think you reiterated that on our recent trip to somebody, and I think that’s a great title, and very accurate.

S: Yeah. Alright, shall we get started on our bullet point summary. So, starting out –

T: By the way Sharon, needs these bullet points to keep her on the trail.

S: Yeah, I do.

[laughter]

T: Alright, go for your bullet points.

S: I do, but even with them I’m gonna wander.

T: Yeah, that’s the FREEDOM Sharon. So you were born under the – you said 1961, right?

S: Yeah 61.

T: I don’t know if you’re going to edit that, or if you want people to know that’s when you were born…

S: That’s alright. That’s how old I am.

T: It’s the year of the ox.

S: Of the ox? Oh, do you remember we used to quote this scripture – fun fact, I remember we quoted this scripture and it was about Keith. Holy shit I haven’t thought about this in decades. There’s a proverb that says – let me see if I can get it right – where there is no ox, the manger is clean; but much strength – no, but much benefit comes from the strength of the ox. Something to that effect, with the general idea that yeah, you got this bull in a china shop type character that shits out a lot of shit, but also gets a lot done.

T: Gets a lot done. So when I saw that – yes. Definitely can see the labor intensity of the ox, for sure.

S: Right. Back to my bullet. I need my first bullet point. So, Last Days was born out of the whole hippie Jesus movement. We’re talking love, brotherhood, peace, and this was the age of Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar and Brother Sun, Sister Moon.

T: Brother Sun, Sister Moon! So I don’t think we can overestimate the impact of this on the culture, first of all. I was only 10 when I saw Brother Sun, Sister Moon. I happened to be living in Italy at the time, it’s by Franco Zeffirelli so it’s got a lot of the Italian landscape which a lot of us went to, but I was riveted. I mean, I would liken it to that little girl love that we talk about, it’s almost like a little girl love porn movie.

[laughter]

T: You should look up the trailer; it’s kind of hilarious, but at the time Claire becomes one of the nuns in the Franciscan – I’m sure I don’t have my Catholic history correct in that, but she has to cut her hair in her devotion to God, and I remember leaving that theatre and I had this long 70s hair, and just wrestling. I wasn’t what I would call myself a Christian at that time, but it was still the groundwork of my heart, of would you cut your hair for God, and I just wrestled with that cost – from Brother Sun, Sister Moon.

S: What year was that? What year were you 10 years old?

T: 1973, so I need to look up and make sure that the movie tracks with that.

S: That was the year that I saw Jesus Christ Superstar in the theatres, and I was – was I 12 or 13? Or maybe it was 74. I might have that all wrong.

T: So Brother Sun, Sister Moon came out in 72, so I do track with that.

S: Ok. I didn’t see Brother Sun, Sister Moon. I’ve still never seen it, so I’ll put it on my list to watch, sometime in the next few weeks.

T: Be prepared to laugh hysterically!

[laughter]

S: But Jesus Christ Superstar – now, that has held the test of time. That is – to me, it’s still one of my favorite movies of all time.

T: Yes, it came out in 1973 Sharon, so that tracks as well.

S: Yep, that’s when I was watching it. I think I’ve told you this before Tracey – the scene where Jesus is being whipped; I wept in that theatre. I just bawled my eyes out. What was going through my mind was, he is innocent and good, I’m the one who deserves to be whipped.

T: Wow.

S: I’m the one who deserves to be whipped. So I think that good Catholic upbringing early on was a good primer.

T: Yeah, you know how I say, I don’t think we can discount what was happening in our culture.

S: Right.

T: The hippies, the Jesus Movement, you have these very cool figures in Godspell, Jesus Christ Superstar, Brother Sun, Sister Moon – really eschewing materialism. I would see that hook for me coming in in the later years. I wanted something more than the materialism of the world.

S: Right.

T: Keep going.

S: Ok, so that’s a time that since Keith was in his late teens he began this spiritual quest of sorts. He becomes enamoured with Jesus, and he (according to himself) “gets saved” around May of 1975, at the age of 21.

T: Wow. Yeah, so he was probably taken in by all of these cultural figures as well.

S: I would imagine, yeah.

T: So in August o 1975, just a few months later Sharon, he comes to stay at your house in Tucson Arizona, so you had already seen Jesus Christ Superstar by this time.

S: Yep, the year before.

T: You already had that sense of you are guilty, for wherever that has come from, and at 14 years old you’re primed then to get saved.

S: Yep, it was about ten days after my 14^th birthday.

T: I know that you do talk about this in another episode, but I do still have some questions.

S: Ok.

T: So, Jesus Christ Superstar, you feel the whipping part of Jesus, but also it’s a rock musical.

S: Oh yeah.

T: It has some amazing music in it that’s very gripping. I saw the reunion tour of Jesus Christ Superstar as it was 50 years later (that’s how old we are) and I think I texted my children as I was leaving the live theatre – it was Broadway touring – and I was like, I’m ready to get saved again.

[laughter]

T: That’s how rousing that musical score is.

S: It is.

T: It’s impactful. So with Keith in your living room playing music, he’s got the look – you’ve told the story of going barefoot and standing on a bible; was there any kind of a draw from the whole vibe that was there?

S: Well yeah, it’s this hippie culture, this counterculture. It’s this radical we’re going to talk about love and peace and brotherhood, and it was like going back to this radical dude Jesus. Keith personified that. Absolutely personified it.

T: Wow. Yeah, it’s powerful, especially for a 14 year old. You were 14.

S: Mmhmm.

T: A 14 year old girl’s heart. I think when you do watch Brother Sun, Sister Moon, then you’re gonna get it.

S: Ok.

T: There’s one scene where she’s running through the wildflowers after this Franciscan monk – who by the way, for everybody, they’re celibate. These are celibate monks. So a nun and a boy who will be celibate, and they make eye contact – it’s the most…

[laughter]

T: um…flirtatious show ever.

S: Ok, I look forward to it. Alright, well so Keith’s got this house on Dolorosa Street – isn’t that ironic Tracey? Dolorosa? Did Sandi Patty sing Via Dolorosa?

T: I do. I don’t know if our listeners know, but go on. Make the connection.

S: Well, Dolorosa Street – it’s the red pain. The way of the cross. It’s that whole Jesus carrying the cross through the streets and bleeding.

T: Wow.

S: So his house is on Dolorosa Street in Woodland Hills, California, and pretty quicky he’s taking people into his home to help them out, but mostly to proselytize. To push them towards believing in Jesus.

T: Yeah. So you know what I see. I see Godspell in reality.

S: Right?

T: He’s a musician, the guy playing – it’s the total visual.

S: Total.

T: This musician basically leading this trail of people to Jesus, so he’s doing concerts anywhere he can. I think what we don’t really talk a lot about is his marketing genius, or at least his being a marketeer way before his time.

S: Yeah.

T: So as he’s doing all these concerts, what’s he doing? He’s collecting the names and addresses – brilliant – from everyone who attends his concerts, already having the idea that he would be able to promote future albums, stay in contact with these people – I mean, he was data collecting before it was a thing.

S: That is true. Cutting edge for his time.

T: Yes.

S: So as time goes on, it becomes really obvious, Tracey, that these names and addresses – they are worth far more than any one time cash offering that he might have asked for. These names are gold. Gold!

T: It’s so brilliant. So Keith records his first album on Sparrow Records, and it’s called For Him Who Has Ears to Hear, in early 1977. So Sharon, this is before you went there but you’d already had him at your house – were you familiar with that album at all?

S: Oh yeah. We used to write back and forth, and he came through Arizona I think on his tour before the album, then he had mailed me a copy of the album, so I was totally…

T: So you got it. And do you remember what you thought of it?

S: Oh, I thought it was great. I thought it was amazing. I played it over and over, I memorized every word. It was my worship album.

T: I was – listeners, this is before (remember Sharon’s a little bit older than me)…

S: Fuck you Tracey, fuck you.

T: We always like to say that.

S: By the way, one of our listeners has actually requested a t-shirt that says Fuck you, Tracey.

T: Oh I love it, I think that would be so great, people would be like, what? What’s up with that?

[laughter]

T: So this was a little bit before my time. I had not come across Keith Green yet, so of course I would know this album later on, but at this time in 1977 I was not familiar with it.

S: Ok. What did you think when you first heard it?

T: Well, we’ll get into that when I tell you about the first time I did hear him.

S: Ok. Alright, so that was in 77. In August of 1978 they officially formed the non-profit 501C3 organization called Last Days Evangelical Association. That was the official – and actually, it still is the official name of this (again) tax-free folks – oh my god, I’m not even going to go down that rabbit trail.

T: You can’t. We’ll save that for another time.

S: That’ll be next year maybe. And they expand with buying and renting more houses in that Woodland Hills California suburb.

T: And they were purchased for the 501C3, do you know?

S: I have no idea if they were owned by the non-profit, or owned by Keith personally. I don’t know.

T: Interesting. Also ongoing is the whatever-you-can-afford literature in concerts, and sometime in 1978 they send out, published the first newsletter magazine, and we have not been able to get a copy of that, Sharon. We went through stacks and stacks recently, and the first copy was not there.

S: It wasn’t, so anybody out there who has a copy or knows someone with a copy, or even has photos of that very first publication, please share it with us, please, please. We would be forever grateful.

T: Yes, and we think that in that was the first article, for all of you tract department workers out there of which Sharon and I were – number one tract, baby, was by Charles Finney. I know it wasn’t really number one, but it was number one Breaking Up the Fallow Ground.

S: Ohh. Yeah.

T: I remember getting this at some point. I must have gotten the tract, because I had to look up the word fallow.

S: Mm ok.

T: Because it’s not a current modern word that you typically use, right, and Charles Finney – we’ll get into more about (ugh) Charles Finney but when we were going through all those stacks of tracts from the past, it was like, Finney, then one pile, then Finney, more more more Finney, then another one then Finney – oh, there’s so much Charles Finney in all of those articles. And of course Breaking up the Fallow Ground is all about how your heart is hard like a baked field sitting in the sun that you can’t plant anything in right, so you have to completely break up and pulverize the deepest level in order to be pleasing to God. That’s kind of what it is. And Charles Finney was great with – no levity folks, because – you know, when I began to think about this, because we had a recent conversation with someone on our last tour Sharon, and they were like oh yeah, levity…

S: Wait, our last tour?

T: Our last tour, when you and I were singing together – the road trip together?

S: Oh, the trip together. Oh yes, yes.

T: Our trip together, we talked to somebody who also remembered how levity was something we all were trying so hard not to be.

S: Yeah, don’t you fucking smile people, don’t you fucking smile! All you have to do is look at the illustrations of Charles Finney.

T: Oh yeah! He had such piercing eyes.

S: Yeah.

T: But I began to think it is kind of logical, because if you really internalize and believe that the whole world and everyone you go to the mall and meet, and at the stores, are going to burn forever in eternity – if you really believe that, why are you having church picnics? You should definitely – this is no picnic, you should be out making sure that all these people are getting saved. So I internalized that, I took it. It worked on me. Yep, lowly, filthy, terrible worms that we were. That was Charles Finney’s message for us.

S: Yep. And Keith – that big, thick book, that autobiography of Charles Finney which again – was it a hagiography not an autobiography? I don’t know. But my god, that was right next to the bible, and there were times I think that Finney’s words were more important to Keith than the bible. I really believe that.

T: Oh yes. I was laughing because, listeners, Sharon avoided having to go through the training school. That was – that really thick book was required reading for us.

S: Oh, I read it. I read it before you did, woman. Are you kidding? In 1979 when I came it was required reading for all of us.

T: Ok. Alright, alright. I stand down.

S: Ok. But that whole message of unworthiness – it was perfect for damaged young people because it’s right in line with what our childhood traumas already taught us. Right?

T: Yeah, and the Catholic faith.

S: And the Catholic faith.

T: We saw that as truth, and then we saw a lot of people not living it, because people don’t tend to live that out in most Catholic churches, at least at the time, so dammit, we were going to do it.

S: And you know, I think that a lot of the kids that were raised in IBLP churches or – pick any of these fucking extremist, fundamentalist belief systems, and that’s the message you’re getting right from the beginning. Right from the beginning.

T: Yeah. I feel sad now.

S: So – well I guess my husband to be, but my later-to-be-arranged husband, Martin – he had this college job at a small print shop, so Keith bought this old two-color printing press and they set it up in the garage of one of the houses. Then another guy who was there who was kind of a bit of a tinker inventor sort – we sometimes called him the nutty professor – Wayne Dillard…

T: Oh my goodness, ok.

S: He rigged up this home made collating machine, and I think they used some sort of like an egg beater motor or something ridiculous.

T: That’s hilarious.

S: Anyway, this in-house, or in-garage printshop was really a total do it yourself thing. Figure it out, and honestly Tracey, in many ways it was very impressive for this total mish-mash rag-tag group of teens and 20-somethings to develop and do these things.

T: Yes. Yes it was, and I think that’s where we were talking earlier, where that nostalgia, the stuff that you look back, is impressive, because somehow all of this zeal of youth is harnessed, and it is amazing what young kids putting their heads together can come up with.

S: What we did. Yep. So here’s another fun fact. There was this one time that the printing press was acting up or something, these sheets were coming out the other end and there was this triple image, like, multiple impressions on it. So my yet-to-be/later-to-be husband takes one of the worst of them and he pins it up on the garage wall, and with a marker he’s got this big caption that says pretty good printing! So it becomes an inside joke, and that was later what all the copyright said on the magazine and the tracts. You’ll see it’s a little circle c copyright, Pretty Good Printing.

T: Oh my god, I never cease to learn things. I did not know that Sharon. Obviously I knew about Pretty Good Printing, but I thought it was just a ha-ha we’re trying to be humble so we’re not great, because you can never be great, you can only be pretty good. Oh, that’s – I did not know that.

S: Yeah, it was fun.

T: Which also pisses me off that you and Martin had so much to do with the very foundations of this fucking ministry, and you were completely left out of the book. I know that is a rabbit trail that we’re going to mention in other episodes but it just – it incenses me when I hear stories like that.

S: I get it, and I would rather be out of it completely than misrepresented, so how about that. We can go with that. Alright?

T: Ok. Alright. So in 1978 – god, this is all happening. A lot was happening in that year. Keith’s second album No Compromise was released, also with Sparrow Records, and this is where I come into the Keith sphere. I was listening to the radio on my way to a youth group event, with a couple of other from my youth group in the car. I had gotten saved right about that time in 1978 and I was already finding myself at odds with some of the other church kids, because they weren’t radical enough for my taste, right.

[laughter]

T: You know, people who had grown up in the church – I don’t know, they were there because their parents were there, and I was saved, right? So when I heard his song come on the radio immediately it was like he was singing my heart, and it was like – who is that? Who is that? Who is this person? And I think in the car someone said – Green? Something Green? And that was the first time I heard of Keith Green, and I also heard that he sent out a free – I don’t think they said for whatever you can afford, I think they said free newsletter. So I immediately wanted to get a hold of how I could become a part of the mailing list.

S: Alright.

T: Interesting.

S: Very good.

T: Then in 1979, Sharon, you – god, what month in 1979 did you drop out of college?

S: Well, it would have been probably February, is my guess. Actually yes – you know what? It was, because that’s when this – what was called the revival was going on at Last Days in California, and I had reached out to Keith and he said you gotta come now, and got me a ticket and I flew out – I think I flew out, I don’t think it was a bus. And I was there, so it was right at that time, February of 79. Yeah.

T: Early 79. So I kind of trailed off, but Sharon drops out of college and joins Last Days Ministries – although I don’t think you thought that you were joining, but – and we haven’t really posted the infamous letter that you sent that basically bares your heart out, so we’ll make sure we post in a permanent place that people can refer to, because it’s very telling, just about where you were at.

S: Right, because I had gone through a little bit of a “backslidden” stage and then I’m overwhelmed with guilt, and I’m coming back to Jesus and I’m writing to Keith and – yeah. So from the very beginning of my relationship with Keith and his influence on me, and then my visit that turned into totally being there at Last Days – from the beginning…

T: Which is so crazy, yeah.

S: The toxic guilt and shame and the striving for holiness, and the never, never getting there – that’s what Last Days was, honestly.

T: And you just fell in step with that, right?

S: Yeah.

T: So you – we’ve heard a little bit of that story, but I guess I’m trying to get in touch with the teenage Sharon who goes to college, is definitely feeling backslidden – when you arrive at this place, because I guess I don’t know how many houses there were at the time, can you remember at all your initial feelings or senses, or what has happened when you arrive at this place?

S: Oh I think I was so excited. I was just excited. There was all these teens and 20-somethings, and we were all in it for Jesus. We’re sacrificing, and we’re going to be in these bunkbeds and we’re all working together – it was exciting. It was – wow, this is where I belong.

T: Ok. You came from a family with some money, right, you would probably call yourself upper-middle class?

S: Oh, upper class, my dad was a surgeon. Yeah, definitely upper class.

T: So you’re giving up some comforts to live in bunkbeds and you never thought anything about that or …

S: Nope. It was the antithesis of – my parents were financially successful but my mom was an alcoholic, and my dad was absent and my brothers and sisters were kind of running amok, and I wasn’t happy and I didn’t have friends. Well, I had Christian friends after I became a Christian, but still it was like – what’s the point? What’s the point of life? This was answering that question, what should you do with your life? And you give it all to Jesus, that’s what you do with it.

T: Well, I think you’ll find interesting – and our listeners, if you haven’t watched Brother Sun, Sister Moon, that is Saint Francis’ story. He comes from a lot of money and you see him in one scene throwing all the bolts of very expensive cloth as he goes off to serve Jesus.  Interesting. Alright, continue on the bullet trail.

S: Ok. So, summer – I think it was summer, maybe late summer I’m not 100% sure about that, but it was 1979 we have the move to Texas. We’ve already talked about that in some of our other episodes so it’s about 24 of us in total. For the most part, kind of keeping those people who could be useful and serve. You know, so it’s becoming like a transactional thing – what could you contribute?

T: I’ve heard you mention that. Could you – would you have explained it that way then?

S: Oh, no!

T: What would you have thought that was happening with the culling of the people?

S: Keith and Melody prayed and they followed what God told them. That was the answer to everything, because you know what? You could not fucking admit hey, this is what I think and this is what I want. Because you’re not supposed to have any will of your own. It’s all gotta be what does God want? What does God want? And you get to hide things from yourself and from other people by wrapping this stupid, ridiculous veneer of God is directing us. But I bought into it. I believed it then too, so that’s how I would have described it back then.

T: So the people who didn’t make it you would have said they didn’t have what it takes, they weren’t sold out enough, or maybe God was leading them a different way.

S: Yeah, I think that would have been the explanation we would have given. I don’t know that I thought about it all that much. I wasn’t that close to anyone. I was kind of still in a bubble – it was me and Jesus. I didn’t really relate to most of the sisters there, I didn’t really have any close friends, and I guess my closest friend there was Keith, but he’s busy. He’s running a ministry and frankly, I also realize in retrospect, I’m a young, attractive late teenager, and that’s not going to be appropriate for him to hang out with me very much.

T: I have this very important question to ask you though. Did you wear deodorant?

S: Of course I did.

[laughter}

S: And I washed my hair. Silly, silly girl.

T: We could really be questioning your devotion to Jesus then, couldn’t we.

S: Oh that is true.  But so this move right, this move from California to Texas, if you had skills that were useful, if you knew what you were doing with the printing or the equipment maintenance, of course the artists. We had the guy – you know, Wayne was sort of doing computer programming at that time, and the all important servant’s heart. I just hate that now, the servant’s heart which means you’re basically willing to do whatever you’re asked whenever you’re asked, and of course the sisters who are going to do the cooking and the cleaning and any babysitting – and I think in general, if your personal needs were going to take up too much time, like counselling or hand holding, you would need to be out. Now, there were a couple of exceptions, and I think this was from the whole emphasis on the pro-life thing, right. There were a couple of unwed mothers and their babies, so I am going to give credit for that. Obviously I’m not into that whole pro-life manipulation thing that we (that I) got into, oh my god, but at the same time this was not pointing at a woman and saying don’t you dare have an abortion, and go off on your own and deal with having a baby. They actually did take in women and their babies, so I’m going to give credit for that, for sure. But in the end Last Days goes from a suburb, this hippy collection of houses and outreach to the community that was attempting to help people, to this more removed, pretty remote Texas compound that has business objectives. Those objectives are carried out through extreme servitude by the members.

T: Yep. You didn’t keep a journal during this time, at all?

S: I did not. That’s another one of my failures, I’m not as spiritual as you were.

T: I guess I’m just wondering, as you’re climbing into your bunk at night and you’ve given up college, did you ever think this is only going to be for a short time and I’ll need to go do that, or at what point do you just – I’m in it for life?

S: Oh, I think right from the beginning I was in it.

T: Interesting.

S: Right from the beginning. Never thought of going back. Never.

T: And then you are an ox when it comes to working.

S: Thank you!

T: So I assume that Keith really noticed that and appreciated that, and I assume that you were already finding a lot of value in working long hours. I think I remember you talking about being in the kitchen but that was just for a short time – what were you doing in the houses before you went to Texas?

S: Well, when I first got there yeah, I was in the kitchen because that’s where everybody has to go to get crushed and pulverized, and your will stomped out of you. I really did want to do office work, which was like, opening the mail and answering letters and stuff. I don’t remember when and how the transition took place. I’m sure I was still doing some of the more “domestic” things when we first got to Texas, but pretty soon I was doing data entry because I was a fast and accurate typist. I think that’s what I wound up doing mostly in the beginning, was computer work. Mailing list maintenance, entering the donations and sending out thank you letters, and all that kind of stuff.

T: So in early 1980 I would think that Keith recognizes your value and ultimately betroths you at 18 years old to one of the elders who is also of great value to the ministry. He continues to be a cupid to many of the young, single people there. as a matter of fact when we did our recent tour we met some older people from the old times and every one of them mentioned Keith’s cupid tendencies.

S: Oh my god.

T: So it wasn’t just a couple of people here. I know that Melody mentions it in the book, but it sounds like it was out of control, is really what it sounds like.

S: You know what, it was out of control, and I just want to stop because I’ve always – I’ve sort of joked oh, Keith’s got a good heart, he liked to play matchmaker, like a yenta or whatever.

T: Right.

S: And cupid – I do believe Keith loved people, but to say it’s playing cupid is wrong. That is not what it was. It was controlling and interfering, and inserting himself and what he wanted, and imposing it on the lives of other people. There were some people strong enough to say no, no, no, no…

T: Mmm, there were.

S: And in fact, I’ve heard from someone who was probably 19 or 20 at the time, and Keith was trying to set this guy up with Dawn, his foster daughter. She was only 16. She was a minor, and he’s trying to make that happen. Of course, what happened with me – it was not just playing cupid and trying to fix up a couple of friends. It was trying to tell people this is what you should do. It was not right.

T: Yeah, and it’s so foundational cult behavior. And you’re right, we kind of laugh it off, it’s been glossed over, and then you look at how you were influenced – unduly influenced – by the leadership of this ministry “prophet of God” and yes, thankfully there were some people who were strong enough to withstand that, but I think everyone in every story that we’ve heard, it was hard to say no to Keith.

S: It was hard to say no to Keith. It was. Alright, so I’m engaged now – cos that happened really fast. He set me up, and three weeks later he gets me engaged, so May of 1980, this is when Keith’s third album So You Want To Go Back to Egypt is released, but this time it’s on our own label – which of course, we call it Pretty Good Records. Just like Pretty Good Printing. And this is the one where Keith decided it was going to be available to people for whatever they could afford. Total radical policy, and we loved it. We shipped that album out directly from our Texas commune.

T: Yes, and I am at my house in El Paso, and I am on this mailing list and I send in the coupon, and it was for whatever you could afford. I remember sending in $5…

S: Wow.

T: I don’t know, I think an album probably was like, $7.99 – it was close to the retail value, but not all the way, and got that at home. I had a little round turntable that I would close my door, because you know, my parents would never let me play this on the main stereo.

[laughter]

T: I remember the first time, I wasn’t wild about it. I thought it was a little odd, a little odd musically. I was trying to fight my natural love, which would have been Queen at the time, or Meatloaf, and I wasn’t allowed to listen to secular music, so I thought it was a little odd, and I remember trying to convince myself, this is great, this is great. Did you have any thoughts on, or were you so into the Kool-Aid you thought it was amazing?

S: Oh, I was into the Kool-Aid. Oh yeah, it was a great album. I mean, some of them I loved and some of them I really liked, but hey, it’s all God and it’s all good, right?

T: Mmhmm.

S: So the machine – the ministry machine that is making this all happen, giving you the things you’re ordering for whatever you could afford, we had a mandated schedule. We’re told when to wake up – we get up at 7am. Our lights are out at 11pm, and we have an enforced 8 in the morning till 9 in the morning individual quiet time every morning, where you’re only allowed to pray and read your bible, nothing else. Then our work schedule was generally 9 in the morning till 10 at night, but if we had the newsletter coming out we would go into what was called the burn schedule, and that meant you’re often working 24-36, even sometimes 48 hours straight.

T: Absolutely. 48 hours straight. I think some people were pushing way longer than that, depending on your role.

S: Maybe so. We had mandated 24 hour fasting once a week. We were required to attend the Wednesday evening bible study, usually led by Keith, sometimes by Martin, sometimes by Wayne and often you were going back to work after that. The only day off was Sundays, and you were still encouraged to attend a local church, or go to evangelize at a nursing home, or do something else. And as would be expected in one of these high control groups, everyone – except, of course, Keith and Melody, is required to keep this schedule. Also I’ll note, I don’t think Keith or Melody ever went to go do these mandatory evangelisms at nursing homes or things like that. I don’t remember them going.

T: Oh yeah. I don’t think we’ve spent enough time on that. I know even when I came, they were exempted and I never questioned their exemption…

S: Right?!

T: … and I come from a pretty cynical family. I’ve thought about that, why did I not ever question that? And I think well, they were one of the few married people with kids, so I think in my head I was like ok, they’ve gotta have that time to be with their kids…

S: Yeah, but there was more babysitting going on than there was them having time with their kids!

T: I know! Ok, exactly to your point, ok, I think in my head I said that, but they had people cleaning their house for them; they had people doing their yard work for them; they had people babysitting for them…

S: I know!!

T: And I still – I mean, one of my early jobs – I know I share this on another episode – I’m driving their son to school in the morning.

S: Mmhmm. Because they’re still in bed. They’re still in bed.

T: They’re in bed, and when I would get him, it was sisters in the ministry who were getting him ready for the day, giving him breakfast, and I’m surprized at me Sharon, that I never questioned that enough. I was never cynical enough that it was different for the leaders.

S: Right. Nope. I’m with you.

T: So that continues on as the daily life at Last Days and then April of 1981, that is when you have your wedding to the Elder Martin – even when I read Elder Martin it sounds so annoying to me, it sounds so culty – which means you Sharon, are now a leader’s wife.

S: I am.

T: You kind of are taking a step up, I don’t know if you felt that at all.

S: Yeah – yes…but actually, before we really talk about any of that, can we – I know this isn’t in our bullet points – can we talk about that letter you received, and just shared with me a few hours ago. You sent me pictures of the papers. Can we talk about that now?

T: Yes. I think it fits in very well here, because it’s right on the bullet point timeline Sharon, so I will allow it.

S: Thank you. Thank you. Um, it’s funny. It’s happening in my body again, right this minute, as I’m getting ready to talk about it. So there’s this letter that someone shared with Tracey, someone who had been at Last Days both in California and in Texas, and then left – actually, there were a few people, they all received this, in essence, a form letter with some little bit of personalization afterwards. It was written in February of 81, and it was Keith apologizing, but also excusing some of the extreme behavior and hurtful stuff and everything, and Tracey, I think if we redact who this was to, I think we should post this letter. It’s a couple of pages.

T: I would love to post it, yeah.

S: Ok. So I’ve read that letter that was shared with you, that Keith sent out. Again, it was February of 1981, and again it went out to people that had left on “not good terms”. That’s kind of what this group of folks was. As I’m reading that letter – and Tracey, it’s happening again to me right now as I’m talking about this – I’m feeling this response in my body, like this panic, kind of trauma response where my heart rate is going up, my breathing is shallow, I can feel my blood pressure rising and I’ve got this pain in my chest. The timing of this is very interesting, because there’s something else going on – a number of things are contributing to this. I’ve got a friend who’s currently struggling, she’s been in a long marriage, hasn’t been great, she’s got kids, and she’s realizing that she probably never really wanted to be in this marriage in the first place – just through some circumstances she felt trapped and like she had to do it. She’s starting to come to terms with it, and I’m talking with her and helping her, and of course it’s bringing up for me, I’m remembering all the pain and the terror and the guilt, when I was starting to contemplate leaving that very unhealthy marriage. So of course, I’m hurting with her; I’m empathizing with her, I’m remembering the agony of that, so this is what’s been going on with me, and then I read this letter, and Keith’s apology. He’s referring to oh my gosh, we had these big changes in February of 79 – remember that’s about the time that I arrived, and dropped out of college, and stayed. Alright? He’s talking about how we got rid of all these rules in 79. Of course part of me is thinking damn, there was still a lot of rules! If you got rid of them in that timeframe, holy shit it must have been horrible. And in this letter he’s talking about how he’s realizing he was still too pushy and dictating into people’s lives, and so this is now this new revelation that he’s writing in February of 1981, all this stuff, and I’m reading his words and I’m thinking to myself – Tracey, I was on the verge of tears and I wanted to cry, and this is what I feel right now, too. I want to just scream at him – Keith, if you’re realizing that you shouldn’t be pushing and dictating and playing puppet master with people’s personal lives, why didn’t you walk back that engagement that you arranged for me? Why didn’t you say something like this before the wedding? Why did you go through with this? There would still have been time. And I’m surprized at myself, Tracey, at the anger and the fear and the pain that I feel right now and the way my body – I’m learning to recognize when it comes up in my body. There still is that thing of more than one thing is true at the time, right. I have my kids. I love my kids. If you gave me a magic wand right now to undo it, and I wouldn’t have my kids, I wouldn’t take that magic wand. I wouldn’t take it. And it is true that it was horrible and horrific, so reading this letter just brought all that up again for me. I thought the timing of it was very interesting.

T: Oh, I can totally see that. We will post it – as a matter of fact, maybe you and I can talk and we can read it and do it, a week following this, a bonus where we just read it.

S: Ok, I’ll be up for that.

T: I think it really does paint the picture of a pushy, demanding Keith who thinks he’s apologizing, and all of us who knew Keith posted this letter, and Last Days posts this letter, it’s like damn, I don’t know what you’re apologizing for because a lot did not change.

S: Right.

T: I see that – even in this journey that you and I have been on, and I know from the early days of when you started going to work, when you were just what we would call deconstructing, it’s been kind of ha-ha, arranged marriage, ha-ha, arranged marriage. And I think this definitely in pace with – it was, Sharon.

S: It was.

T: And yes, we made decisions and choices, but we made decisions and choices of young girls who were groomed. Very groomed. I don’t think we have unpacked that to the degree that we should have, or that you are unpacking now. So this completely makes sense to me, that this letter would bring all that back up. Even on our recent tour when we walked the property and went into that room where you had your wedding, then went on the property where the ranch house stood, and you remember as if it was yesterday just the smell of the air, the night time, the fears of a young girl about to make the most impactful decision of your life, under what we would say is the duress and demands of Keith Green. It’s not overly dramatic. I think that when you don’t understand what happens in these spaces it can be very easy to gloss over – and wow.

S: Well, I’m very thankful to the person who reached out and shared that letter with you, because I think it is very revealing, and yep – we’ll do another segment on it. But in the meantime, shall we get back to era number one?

T: Yeah, I mean this is part of the era and I think the point of this person sharing it was lots of people asking would Keith have deconstructed. It’s like, we all apologized, we were conditioned to apologize. We apologized up one side and down the other, and to me this letter is a sample of he’s apologizing, but he doesn’t get it.

S: He didn’t get it.

T: He doesn’t get it at all.

S: I think he was trying to mitigate some of the bad press and people talking about it.

T: I think so! We can go into a little commentary when we read it, because it’s very telling.

S: We’ll do that.

T: Back to all of that – and I do jokingly say you entered into leadership, because in that space there is these tears, these tears of privilege, these tears of respect, these tears of what we would call anointing, so that was my question. You are now the wife of an Elder, which puts you into what they called the leadership team. Was there any kind of instating you, anointing, public recognition, anything?

S: I don’t remember that. I mean, the timing of the wedding itself, we were also in a burn for the newsletter.

T: Always romantic.

S: Very romantic. But I don’t remember – there might have been but yeah, I don’t remember.

T: And the reason – we’ll go into on the letter, the letter is signed by Keith and the leadership team. That would have included Keith and Melody, Wayne and Kathleen, and then I guess Martin, because Sharon hadn’t entered into the picture yet.

S: Right.

T: So the leadership team, of course Sharon was a part of it when I came, and I would say that Keith was very proud of his triune leadership team, I think because it’s like the triune God. We have God, the Father, the Holy Spirit, and it’s like we have Keith, we have Martin, and we have Wayne, and how they needed to do things in unison. They extended that leadership team to be the wives of those elders.

S: But only through marriage.

T: Only through marriage, right. And of course we loved that word – I haven’t heard this word in so long – helpmeets. You guys were helpmeets for your husband, so even though we were reading William and Catherine Booth, and Catherine was active in ministry it wasn’t a spiritual leadership that was allowed, except for as submitted wives to the Elder husbands, as helpmeets.

S: Right. Ugh. Gag me.

T: Yes. So after your wedding all this is happening. I don’t know how long it was but Keith then actually changes his will for you and Martin to be the parents of his children if anything should happen.

S: Right, to him and Melody if they die. Yep. I remember him coming and asking us would we do that. Yep.

T: That’s heavy.

S: It is.

T: It’s big.

S: It is big.

T: And then of course they had two at the time, and the third child Rebecca is born in 1981.

S: Yeah. Melody was pregnant at the wedding. Yeah. Ok, so we’ve already mentioned that we’re all working these crazy hours, six days a week, 10-12 hours a day, and the demand for the literature is increasing. Keith is incredibly successful doing concerts; his albums are super popular; more and more people signing up for the newsletter, more and more people requesting tracts. So we have a staffing problem. How do you find the “right people” who have the “right attitude”? And of course the right attitude equates to doing what you’re told without grumbling and complaining, no different ideas, no different opinions, you put your head down and you do it, and you be grateful for the privilege. You’ll go into tight living conditions, no pay – all this stuff, so how do you find people for that? How do you find people who will sign up for that kind of thing?

T: Who will sing from their heart, burned out for Thee, Lord, burned out for Thee.

S: Right? So here’s another true story. Keith loved old black and white movies, all kinds of old black and white movies, so we’d be renting VHS tapes for – I think we watched them on Sunday afternoons or evenings, you know – group viewing there at the ranch house, on our one day off.

T: Our one day off.

S: One day off. One of the movies was called The Green Pastures. It’s from 1936, this is back when Hollywood was segregated, and this was an old…

T: I actually mentioned that movie in my interview with Troy and Brian.

S: Oh yeah?

T: It was so significant. Yep.

S: Oh yeah. And any movie that we watched, we’d watch over and over again. We’ll put a link to it in our show notes. It’s an all black production, all black cast, and there’s a scene where God is looking for a recommendation from some of the angels to find a new leader on earth. One of the angels asks – and it’s very stereotypical and this is the way it’s done in the movie – does yew wants the brainiest? Or does yew wants da holiest, Loord? And then God answers, I want the holiest. I’ll make him brainy. And this became an ah-ha moment for Keith, for Martin, for Wayne.

T: Yes.

S: Because we couldn’t necessarily rely on just finding the holiest people, but we could come up with a way to systematically groom young people to be even more self-sacrificing. Then once we’re sure they have that right attitude, then we can train them in the jobs that we need done.

T: Ohhh, this is so burned on my brain, so listeners – this was foundational to the ICT training. Foundational.

S: Yeah. So summer of 1981 – I think at point that was mostly Keith and Wayne, maybe Martin was involved, but again, Martin and I are really running the operational side of things, so the personnel stuff is probably more Keith and Wayne. So they start looking over the format of the YWAM DTS. So that’s Youth With A Mission’s Discipleship Training School. That becomes the initial spark or the framework for our own school which we called ICT, Intensive Christian Training school.

T: Intense! But not in tents.

S: We’re going to find and we’re going to make our own disciples but Tracey, ours are going to be way more holier and way more extreme than YWAM!

[laughter]

T: Ding, ding, ding! Yes, yes, yes! That’s how you got me!

S: That’s how we got you, because you were extreme, girl. So January of 1982, that was the first term of ICT. Again, we’re there to recruit more free labor without the problems of like, the street people, and we’re going to condition them in advance to be submissive. Tracey gets accepted to the first term ever, very elite, but Tracey – did you know that the ultimate goal was to make you a servant?

T: So this is where I have to give my quick back story. I’m going to try to make this quick. So yes, I had already graduated early from high school, because Jesus was coming back so I had to serve God, so I had already been away for a year of what would have been my senior year, serving God, on the mission field, in South Africa, during Apartheid, teaching the Zulu how to type, because I was already – like you, an award winning typist, right. I was. I was super fast, I think you were the only person who was actually faster than me.

S: Oh, Betty Daffin. Betty was the fastest.

T: Oh yeah, yeah, she was really fast. So when I had gotten back from this mission trip I was like, depressed. Now I don’t know what to do, I don’t know where to go, I wouldn’t have called it depression back then, but I definitely felt lost and felt like my life needed to count for something. There was a man who came from another community which you probably don’t even know that much about, but it’s the Art Katz Community in Minnesota, called Ben Israel.

S: You’re right, I don’t. I don’t know much about him.

T: Let me tell you, the name – how fitting this is into my life. I was destined for this. The Art Katz Ministries tagline was, a rugged discipleship training camp for End Time Ministries.

[laughter]

S: Oh god.

T: So, guys, I’m like, primed for this, right. This man comes to our church in El Paso and he thinks there’s so many worldly people going on, and he’s talking about the School of the Prophets and how that’s really how God disciples his people, and he starts this small group within this church (of which I am one of them) and he starts to groom me. He’s a 40 year old man, very, very scholarly. He’s the editor of our city newspaper, so he’s no dummy. He starts taking me out to lunch everyday and calling me late at night…

S: Oh wow. Oh my god. I didn’t know!

T: No, you don’t know anything about this.

S: I didn’t know any of it!

T: And we group kind of start breaking off from the church, and we’re starting to look for property so we can buy a house and start our own community.

S: Oh my god. Oh my god!

T: There was a line that I wouldn’t cross so I don’t know what his intentions were, but he’s picking me up for lunch, we’re having deep theological conversations –  ultimately you can read between the lines. It starts some church drama!

S: Oh my god.

T: Some church drama, which the pastor gets involved in. Anyway, it’s a split. A full-on church split comes out of this. I want nothing to do with that level of drama. So I start stepping back, and them I’m reeling, because this is exactly – he described everything that I wanted. The School of the Prophets, this community where discipleship is everything – and what do you know? With in a week or two weeks, what arrives in my mailbox but the Last Days magazine announcing their first Intensive Christian Training school that’s the school for your heart and not just your head.

S: Mmmm.

T: And I’m telling you, I couldn’t have been more primed for that.

[laughter]

S: Oh my god.

T: It was a pretty intensive application, I’m a fast typist, I typewrite 12 pages pouring out my heart and it must have worked because I got accepted.

S: Wow. Ok wait, so Tracey, your inner Jezebel was at the heart of a church split before you even got to Last Days? Is that your confession?

[laughter]

T: I mean, nobody knew about grooming back then, right. I look back and I’m – holy shit. This was so wrong. This is so wrong. I remember a meeting and his wife with piercing, terrible eyes at him with just, disdain for how much he was influencing a younger girl.

S: You know what Tracey? Nothing new under the sun.

T: I know.

S: NOTHING new under the sun. Wow.

T: So, to answer your question yes, I did know what I was getting myself into.

[laughter]

S: Ok. Alright, so tell us about when you arrived.

T: Yeah, so Wayne and Kathleen Dillard – and I guess, I don’t know why they were chosen and not you and Martin, because…

S: Because – here’s why. Wayne was truly a compassionate, caring guy. He really was. And Kathleen was an air-head spiritual nut. That’s why.

[laughter]

T: You’re gonna get shit from that from some people, but…

S: Well if you think I should cut it out, I will. Or do you concur.

T: No, no, no – I’m just saying, they became the leaders of the ICT and I don’t know if the first one – I don’t know what the decision making is, but it was co-ed. We rented the house – if you’re familiar with the Last Days property, there’s the back gate we talk about a lot, the house across from the back gate was rented – eventually it became the brothers’ schoolhouse but for the first ICT it was the co-ed schoolhouse. There were 12 guys that were in 3-high bunks in the garage, and then we eight women had two bedrooms, four each, and then the back bedroom with their own bathroom was Wayne and Kath. And that was the first school. All 20 of us cosy.

S: Packed in.

T: Packed in! We drove up, I mean – we talk about this in some other episodes so I won’t go into a lot of it, but there were definitely a heavy no levity thing going on. Everybody was trying to be so serious for the Lord. It would take me several weeks before I even met you. We had very similar schedules; but the morning time was class time which really was video time, so we’re paying money to go to this school…

S: And watch videotapes!

T: We’re living – I remember my first horror was fish stick soup, because that was left overs, that was our food. I was a little horrified, but I of course felt guilty for being so prideful that I think I deserved more. We would have videotape, a lot by the Youth With A Mission leaders that had been previously videotaped and then of course the confession – all of that. Then we would load up in the school bus to work at the ministry as part of our training.

S: That’s right. Afternoons working. Keith actually came and taught live, though right?

T: Yeah, so we did have – but we had, what was it – two hours every morning, and so he wasn’t gonna…

S: Of course not.

T: He wasn’t even up most mornings.

S: That’s right!

T: He did come, he did greet us, he did mingle with us just a little bit and then we would go over to the ministry and that’s where he’d still be bopping around the ministry when we were working, and I think it took me a couple of weeks before I even met you, and of course it was down by the horses. Let me just say listeners, there was this mystique around Kathleen and Sharon. Of course, Melody was kind of known but she was off at this house. Didn’t see her even then, even when Keith was alive, didn’t see Melody around the ministry hardly at all. But Kathleen and Sharon were like, what we aspired to. They were these young, hippi-esque, godly women who had somehow married, gentle quiet spirit – all that shit that we lauded back then to become wives of the Elders. So I was very in awe of you Sharon.

S: Wow. That feels so weird. It feels so weird to hear you say that.

T: It was a lot of – even in segueing back to the letter, right, so this letter that…

S: You’re talking about the apology letter from Keith.

T: Yes. The apology letter that Keith wrote.

S: In 1981.

T: On behalf of all of the Elders at the time – he was apologizing for all these rules and I’m telling you, when I came there was a fuckton of rules!

[laughter]

T: And rules like, you can’t talk after 10. I at that time thought that was a suggestion.

[laughter]

T: Keep it quiet. But it was like, no you can’t even mouth like, can I get my laundry? NO talking, and if you talked you got these things called sanctions, where in school we didn’t work Saturday afternoons, but if you got sanctioned you had to work Saturday afternoon, so there was a lot of rules still happening in the time period after supposedly all the rules fell away, so I don’t know what that was all about.

S: Well, I don’t remember the timing. ICT started January 82.

T: Yep.

S: And at some point in 82, I think it was early but I don’t remember exactly when, we take the trip to Europe. That’s Keith and Melody and me and Martin. Keith has spent several weeks talking to me and Martin, and saying hey guys I want to go to Europe because I owe Melody a vacation, but come on there’s not going to be any fun without you guys, you guys gotta come, I don’t want to go alone. Which is actually kinda weird, now that I think about it.

T: It’s so weird.

S: I’m thinking about it for the first time.

T: So weird. But telling. Weird but telling.

S: Weird but telling, and it also got spun a little bit because we hadn’t really had a honeymoon. We’d gotten married the year before but we were working, working, working, so it got like – ok, this could be a bit of a honeymoon, but the whole thing of course got hijacked by YWAM. We ended up visiting all these YWAM bases and the Anastasis and blah, blah, blah. However, I mean Tracey – I was all in. I bought into it. I was into this whole thing of yeah, missions for Jesus. We gotta bring the gospel to the world. When we got back from that trip I wrote an article – I wasn’t asked to write it, this was – god it’s so embarrassing. This was what was on my heart, this is what I thought God was saying.

T: It was on your heart.

S: On my heart. So I write out this article. I think I originally called it Should a Chrisitan go to College, and it was my manipulation diatribe, self-righteous – whatever the fuck, all those things, about how I thought yeah, when you get out of high school (cos you gotta do that) you shouldn’t be going to college. You need to go to the mission field. I learned well from Keith. I mean, manipulate and make guilt trips and all this sort of stuff. Anyway, I wrote this and I remember bringing it to Keith and showing it to him and being a little bit worried about it. Keith took it and he read it, and then we have a meeting and I remember Keith specifically saying to Wayne – this. This is the heart of what God is saying now, to all of us. I don’t know – I have this sense that it was – I don’t know. I don’t know how much of a role it did or didn’t play in Keith also jumping on the missions bandwagon, or we were all there together or whatever – because remember, he was actually doing the Songs for the Shepherd which was all about more grace and worship, and blah, blah, blah.

T: Right.

S: Anyway, I don’t know but it’s all tangled up.

T: Sharon, we had already been living that. You were living that; I was living that. When we talked earlier about these young people coming together – none us had been to college. Very few had actually done a stint in college, so we absolutely swallowed the God can make us brainy for whatever we might need. So why would you waste those years when people are dying now, going to hell – I mean, it makes some logical sense if you buy the premise. And the whole missions, missions, missions – remember, I’d already been to the mission field.

S: Yep, you win. You get another point.

T: I was actually really on board – because like, ok, that’s one thing, get the church saved and right, but then for what? You gotta send them out. So…

S: Yeah.

T: I think we were all in it together, all of us Sharon.

S: I think you’re right. And then you of course get accepted to second term, right? Even more elite.

T: That was before the Europe trip, so …

S: Oh really?

T: ICT was January of 82…

S: Ok.

T: Second term was at the end of March and April where we actually did the crusades and we were the prayer group for the Enquirers meeting – Keith was trying to relive Finney’s book – that big, thick book, he was trying to relive that.

S: Right.

T: So that was already over. So your trip to Europe must have been in either the end of May, or June.

S: Oh my god. That is so bizarre. That means there was like, hardly any time at all between that Europe YWAM trip and the crash.

T: There was hardly any time.

S: Well, you know what it was. It’s Last Days Ministries time, because – what was it, a day is as a thousand years.

T: That’s what I was thinking! Yes. That would come up when my family would have birthdays and I’d completely forget, because every day when you’re working that long you lose – everything seems to take a lot longer.

S: Oh my god.

T: Also on that missions trip – let’s not gloss over Youth With A Mission’s grooming of Keith that was happening on that trip as well.

S: Yep.

T: Because I don’t think you guys went into the highways and the byways to see the poverty of poverty, right. You went to fucking Europe.

[laughter]

S: Oh no! We were in Amsterdam, we were in Lausanne Switzerland, we were in Athens Greece – oh yeah.

T: So you guys come back with this terrible burden, as you’ve been touring Europe.

S: Right. Think about it – so you’ve got Floyd McClung, and Don Stephens, and whomever else. Are they living and helping people in the depths of poverty and deprivation in India or Africa? No. No, they’re in these lovely westernized cities and upscale stuff. That’s the truth of it. That’s the truth.

T: That is the truth of it, and of course in hindsight we can see why. It’s quite the recruiting tool to have Keith Green on board with your mission, wasn’t it.

S: Yes. Yes it was, and so much that got done then – May, and June, and July. Holy shit. Holy shit.

T: Even before the plane crash there was a pretty astounding 250,000 person mailing list that was a clean mailing list.

S: A clean list. I want to say this again – I want to say this again for people who don’t really get it. We did not – Last Days Ministries did not solicit donations. So you got this newsletter in your mailbox, however often we sent it out. You could get tracts for whatever you could afford, you could get an album (one per household) for free, if you needed it. We were not soliciting. We had this sterling reputation. There’s no other ministry in the country, maybe even in the world, that was operating that way. Of course we were able to do it because of slave labor, but that’s another thing. But because of that, this list – and it was clean because once a year, if we had not heard from someone, so that’s what this whole mailing list maintenance was – if you wrote to us in any way whatsoever, we’d put the date in of your last correspondence with us, whether it was a donation or a request for literature, or just a thank you letter. It didn’t matter what it was; your record would be updated. If we had not heard from you in a year, in 12 months, we would send out a little postcard just saying, hey just wondering are you still there, do you still want to receive our stuff. We need to hear back from you, otherwise we’ll take you off the mailing list.

T: Oh my god Sharon, oh my god I just thought of this right now.

S: What.

T: I was off doing God’s work as a missionary in South Africa, and that postcard came while I was away.

S: Really.

T: And my dad writes me in a letter and he goes, oh Tracey, you didn’t take care of your business – because he always looked for opportunities to tell me how irresponsible I was. You didn’t take care of your responsibilities, that’s – I’ll have to look it up and see what adjective he used. But that newsletter is going to expire but your old sinful dad went ahead and sent it in for you so you wouldn’t have an interrupted mailing. Ah, so funny I have that in a letter.

S: Oh my god. Yeah, so this list was astounding. There was nothing like it in the history of Christian ministry, ever. Astounding. Ok, I interrupted.

T: No, but it would go on to be 450-500,000, I don’t know what month or year it happened, but (another fun fact) I was actually doing a seminar trying to figure out a way to program our stickers, our mailing labels so we didn’t have to put all those stickers on – if you remember those state stickers and regional stickers, and all of that. You could actually program it into the actual mailing list label. So I was at this seminar trying to learn how to do that to save steps, cos that’s what we do, always trying to be efficient. I was sitting next to Highlight Magazine and Readers’ Digest, so here I am – Last Days cult girl sandwiched between these two very well-known publications.

S: Wow.

T: And they were astounded at our mailing list, when I gave them those numbers. They could not believe how hard they had to work to even get that kind of readership, so – fun fact.

S: Fun fact. Ok.

T: Alright, so big, clean mailing list, lots of money in the bank, I think the donations are flowing because people love that – whatever you can afford. We’re not out there begging for cash, and it was rolling in. Then of course the plane crash happens which we go into great detail on episode 14, so this would be a great time if you haven’t heard that, to pop over and listen to that.

S: Yep. Episode 14.

T: All of this – so everything that we’ve gone through, and Sharon … drumroll – you just turned 21.

S: Twenty-one years old! And Tracey, you were 18!

T: I was 18 years old. Trying to work my way up to become as godly as Sharon and be worthy to be on the leadership team.

S: You’d eventually become co-director of ICT.

T: It worked Sharon! It must have worked.

S: Oh my god, Tracey, we were 21 and 18 when the plane crashed. That is just…

T: Oh, it is.

S: It’s crazy.

T: It is. It is.

S: So I guess that pretty much sums up that first era of Keith Green Burning Bright.

T: Yeah it does, and I mean, it is a very distinctive era. Of course you go back a little further with Keith than I go back, but in that, that timing – people go oh you just came in January and he died in July – yeah, but that was an intensive six months, being immersed into the whole vibe of Last Days Ministries, the direction of Last Days Ministries and seeing Keith and how active he was in molding and shaping, and the direction and everything.

S: And a single day is as a thousand years.

T: It was so true.

[laughter]

S: Tracey, I got one last thing here.

T: Ok, is this a rabbit trail, or is this an ox rut, an ox ditch?

S: Oh the ox – what would be the – the wagon, ruts. Ruts in the road.

T: The ruts in the road.

[laughter]

S: Or the ox in the ditch. Well it actually happened just a couple of days after we were there in Texas at the Last Days trip earlier this month. Oh my god, we are recording this on April 21^st and that was April 5^th, so it was just a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, this happened right after that trip, visiting the property and Keith’s grave. Listeners, you may recall from that last episode that Tracey and I sat together at his grave and we were right next to Keith’s headstone and recording our thoughts in real time. Right before we had started recording that, my husband Dave – we asked him, hey take a few pictures of us, which he did, then he went off for a walk to give you and me privacy so we could just be there together.

T: Good Dave. Good ol’ Dave.

S: Good Dave. He’s wonderful. Then later on when we looked at the photos we saw that on the last two of them there was this glowing yellow and orange spot directly over Keith’s name. it was like this odd, sun refraction in the camera lens, or something like that. So that was Friday afternoon April 5^th – and honestly Tracey, I didn’t even think any more about it right, because we’re tired, we’re exhausted and our schedule’s packed, and on Saturday morning we get up and we’re visiting some other old friends in the area of Last Days, and then we’re driving back to the Dallas airport that afternoon/evening and we’re recording as we go, you fly up to Indiana that night, Dave and I stayed in Texas cos we had some family and friends flying in – we’re all going to go try experience the total solar eclipse.

T: The eclipse!

S: Yeah, getting into the path of totality. So one person who flew in that night and joined us – well, she’s become quite a good friend in the past couple of years. Her name’s Karen Rolf, she’s this wonderful, amazing horse person with an international platform, but she’s not just an equestrian. She just is a really deeper thinker about bigger life stuff and I just love her. I’ll put some links to her stuff in our show notes. So anyway, we’ve rented this behemoth of vehicle, I think it’s called a Grand Wagoneer – it’s this giant thing, and Karen and I are sitting in the way back on Sunday morning as we’re driving from Dallas up north into Arkansas. We’re talking about all kinds of things in our life, in our journeys – family stuff, life purpose, rethinking things, and meaning – Ayahuasca experiences, spirit guides. I also told her about – Tracey, remember that event you and I attended years ago that we nicknamed our séance, where it’s contemplating…

T: The séance in * – that is a good story for another time, not a rabbit hole for now, but we will definitely have to follow back on that one.

S: Ok, but it was like, past lives and purple spirit guides – you’re right, another time.

T: We were searching.

S: We were searching, fair enough. Anyway, I’m telling Karen about how you and I had just visited the Last Days property a couple of days before and I’m telling her also about all these emotions I experienced, standing where that old ranch house had been…

T: Yeah, that location where Keith had set your engagement.

S: Right.

T: That was powerful.

S: Then when we walked into the big room with the fireplace at the Brown’s house.

T: Yes, and I have posted some pictures of the room then and the room now that like I said, I wish we had been alone and you could have had more of that moment.

S: I do too. I do too, and then driving on the way back to the airport, we didn’t have time to stop but we were driving on i20 and we see the sign for a Lake Tawakoni, and I’m remembering that first night of my honeymoon – you know, and all the dissociated pain and trauma, and just the numbness of that.

T: We will put some of those links – also we touch a little bit on it in our Virgins and Volcanos.

S: Yeah. So anyway, I’m telling Karen about this question that many folks have asked us – if Keith had lived, would he have moderated? Or would he maybe even have deconstructed?

T: Yep, so many people ask that, all the time.

S: So I pull out my phone to show Karen the photos that we took on that visit – the whole collection of them. I’m scrolling through, and I point out to her that photo of us at the grave with that glowing, multi-colored spot directly over Keith’s name. we both get really quiet, and then Karen says you know, I’ve done a lot of photography, and I’ve seen lots of lens flares and spots and stuff, and this one seems quite unusual. I sit there, I’m just quiet and I’m looking at that photo, and Tracey, what just instantly drops into my mind is something that I’ve never contemplated before, and it’s like, clear and sharp. It’s this picture of an older Keith looking into my eyes and saying Sharon, I’m so sorry I did that to you. I’m so sorry.

T: Wow.

S: Maybe and probably it’s just my own imagination, right? But whether it was simply that, or whether it’s something more, or whether it’s something of the interconnectedness that weaves us altogether, whatever it was or whatever it wasn’t, I felt a sense of healing in those words, at a profound level that I haven’t experienced before.

T: Wow. The rabbit hole I said we wouldn’t go down with those past lives – that’s the whole point of that, is how do you find healing from the other side? I don’t think you and I have all the answers to that, at all.

S: No.

T: But I think when tangible healing takes place, that’s something you have to take note of.

S: Yeah. It’s interesting, because reading that letter earlier today of the apology that wasn’t enough, that actually felt very wounding all over again, so I’m going to have to spend some time sitting with all this. Sitting with it, and seeing where it all goes. Back to that question that so many people do ask – I don’t know if Keith would have shifted and matured all that much, or if he would have just gone deeper and harder into the extremism. We know Melody certainly has doubled down in favor of the hard religious right.

T: Which is so wild. Yes.

S: So for now I’m just going to have to hold in my heart that image at his grave, that flare of sunlight hovering on his name, and the possibility of his words telling me he’s sorry, and the reality of the letter where that sorry wasn’t quite enough.

T: You have to think – like I said, and we’ll circle back with the audience to see where this goes, but obviously that letter was still written from very young Keith.

S: Yes.

T: I think I said he’s apologizing but he doesn’t have a fucking clue what he’s apologizing for.

S: [laughing] No.

T: And you hope that by the time – we talk about him being 70, and we hope that by the time somebody reaches that, with grown children and the pathways of life, that he would come into more balance. I think that’s what’s so upsetting about Melody Green, and frankly my ex, as I’ve shared on different types of posts – is because deep in my heart I’m like, they should fucking know better! You’re older now, you don’t have the kid’s brain. You’ve lived some life. Why can’t you know better?

S: That’s right.

T: So yeah, I’m here with you and I haven’t posted that particular picture, because – and now I’m probably going to have to post it because we’re talking about it, but I know that you and I can tend to look at signs. I know that many of our listeners, we’ve been spiritual since we’ve been knee-high to a grasshopper, and signs have always been a thing that we’ve taken note of. So I’m a little cautious with that, to be honest.

S: I agree, I agree.

T: But there’s no denying the symbolism of that picture, it couldn’t have been crafted better if we’d tried it.

S: That’s true.

T: There’s obviously the three names on the headstone; the only one that has the orb is Keith, we’re right there at a very emotional time, sharing on his grave, and there is a fucking orb right on his name, and no one planned that, and I was like, ok.

S: No one planned it. Alright Tracey, I have a really important question to ask you.

T: Ok.

S: Or shall I say, maybe it’s a statement to make, for you to confirm or deny. I’m assuming that you have not yet read the Harry Potter books I gave you for Christmas.

T: Ahh, that is – is it, confirmed.

S: Confirmed. Ok.

T: I barely have time to go to the bathroom.

S: I know, I know. But you have seen – have you seen all the movies, or most of the movies?

T: I have seen all of them, I have at least one child who is a Harry Potter trivia expert.

S: Near and dear to my heart. Near and dear to my heart. Ok. There is this wonderful exchange between Dumbledore and Harry in that last movie. I can’t remember if the dialog is directly from the book or if it’s modified for the script, I don’t know. So Dumbledore is already dead, and Harry has just been struck with Voldemort’s killing curse, and the two of them are in this vast, endless, blank white space, talking about what has happened. At the end of this scene, Dumbledore tells Harry he has a choice. To go take a train onward, or to return to the battle currently raging at Hogwarts. And as Dumbledore begins to walk away Harry calls out, Professor, is this real? Or is it just happening in my head? And Dumbledore answers, of course it’s happening in your head Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it’s not real?

T: Hmm.

S: And that’s what I think about the orb, and Keith saying sorry. And I will find the meaning in it for me. That’s what I think.

T: I think that’s a great place to end.

S: Yes. It is.

T: Yep.

S: So you want to sum it up for us Tracey?

T: Yeah, I think when we talk about complexities, and two things being true at the same time – I think we’ve had to come to grips with Keith Green was a cult leader, whether he plotted it all out insidiously or not, it did become a cult. Last Days was a cult, with all the hallmarks and all the control and the sense of emptying out people’s personalities to become something that we were all striving to be. So we were classic followers, right, with our own trauma coming in to try to fill places, and we all eagerly drank the Kool-Aid. I think it was a slow and steady morphine, I know it was for me, I think it was for you too.

S: Mmhmm.

T: We definitely believed we were laying down our lives for Jesus, but it took on a pretty stark and alarming model of what that began to look like, and Keith was the leader of that pack.

S: Mmhmm. He told us exactly what to do and how to do it. So yeah. Last Days may have started out with a focus of loving the unlovable, helping the needy and sharing the good news, and it morphs more and more and became all about pointing a finger at the church as a whole, and at Christians as individuals – including ourselves, right? How we were never obedient enough…

T: Especially ourselves!

S: Yeah. Never sacrificing enough, definitely not holy enough. Just all around – we were not enough.

T: Yep, and I mean, that is part of what led us there in the first place, right. We’ve seen that too true, for too many people, it’s the bringing our own trauma into another stew of different trauma.

S: Right.

T: So that wraps up era number one, which is Keith Green Blazing Bright, because I think it was his charismatic, blazing personality that drew both you and I Sharon, and so many others – how many, 150 eventually?

S: Yeah.

T: And then hundreds of thousands from the message, into other avenues of ministry, trying to live up to this idea of what it meant like Keith, to follow Jesus.

S: By now Tracey, I’d say millions. I have no doubt – millions of people impacted.

T: Yes. So in our next episode we’re going to cover era number two, The Reign and Regime of Melody Green, and maybe how some of that story of Keith Green may have been embellished just a bit to add to his million.

S: Just a tad! As always folks, we really appreciate each and every one of you. Here’s how you can help us. If you enjoy this podcast and feel it can be helpful to others, please rate us on whatever platform you may be listening on, leave a comment, and share a link with your friends.

T: Yes, because Sharon, it’s not even for what you can afford. It’s free! Zero, nothing!

S: Free!!!

T: We charge you nothing!

[laughter]

T: I just had to add that in. Remember, we’re also on Instagram which also feeds into our Facebook stories, where all the cool photos and pics and memories we talk about here – that’s Instagram, FeetofClay.cultsisters.

S: Finally, we have a listener group on Facebook that you can join. It’s called Confessions of the Cult Sisters Community, and you can read stuff and share with us, and share with others who are also on this journey of discovery and healing.

T: So thanks so much for joining us, and until next time, bye bye bye.

S: Who sang that song, was it Britney Spears?

T: Bye bye bye. I think it was her lover, Justin Timberlake. Bye bye bye!

S: I have no idea. I’ll  look it up.

T: Or maybe NSYNC. Justin Timberlake was part of NSYNC – I may have that wrong.

[laughter]

T: We’re not the trivia girls, if you missed that episode we’ll put that link in our show notes. Don’t trust us when it comes to music.

[laughter]

T: Bye bye bye bye bye….