This transcrpit has been edited for clarity.

Episode 040 – The Demise of Keith Green’s Last Days Ministries Cult – Part 4 – The Sharon Problem

May 23^rd, 2024

T:  Hi, I’m Tracey.

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

T: Confessions of the Cult Sisters! So…

S:So the…

T: Oop, Sharon, I’m going to go off like you did last time, you went off script…

S: Oh ok!

T: So before we get started on this, I did want to say something to you as well. Listeners, I have had, I would say two very hellacious weeks at work where I am working some old Last Days Ministries hours.

S: Oh shit!

T: And Sharon has pulled all of the weight in getting everything edited and spliced together, and that last episode, I’m telling you was a long one. I just want to thank you for all that work and effort and amazing creativity that you’re putting into that, so thank you. Thank you for doing that and I’m sorry I have not been pulling my weight in that sphere.

S: Your apology is not necessary and you’re totally welcome. I mean, it’s a joy and a pleasure to do this with you. I know, when I don’t hear from you for a while, I know holy shit, she’s working in the coal mine.

[laughter]

T: I’m working in the coal mine, and then because I am also in data all the time from my own mental space I have to walk away from devices. So that’s something I’ve made a commitment to myself to do so I don’t anymore. I used to work in a warehouse where I got to push pallets around and now I’m in data and on a device all the time, so I have to walk away from that, at least for some time.

S: Yeah. I get it.

T: So, thank you.

S: And while you’re gardening it’s so healthy for you so I’m glad you’re doing that.

T: Yes, it’s getting me out, it’s getting me in my body, it’s making me tired, and then I can stand back and look at something really beautiful. So that’s important to me.

S: Oh, nice! Ok, can I go now?

T: You can go now.

[laughter]

S: Alright. This is part four in our series The Demise of Last Days Ministries, which we have divided up into six different eras. Believe it or not folks, we are still just in the first era.

T: Number one baby!

S: Number one, which we have called Keith Green Blazing Bright. I got Tracey – like, ok, we’re doing multiple parts in these multiple eras, and sooner or later we’re going to start tipping over into a higher math, or something like that.

[laughter]

T: Ah, so good thing – listeners, if you listened to our last episode, that Jesus was your calculus tutor, Sharon!

[laughter]

S: Oh my god, that was so embarrassing.

T: That was the funniest little side in the letter. I thought it was hilarious. And (spoiler alert) she goes on to write Should A Christian Go to College, and I’m like – well shit, if Jesus is your fucking calculus tutor and college tutor, shouldn’t everyone go to college just to experience that?

S: Oh man I gotta tell you though, I did not do well in that class so maybe he’s not all he’s cracked up to be.

T: Oh, true, true! Jesus, man, what’s the deal?

S: But, but, I got my first test back – I will never forget it. I got a D. I got a D on my first calculus test, and I was like, oh my god, but it was one of those courses where there was like, 300-400 students in the room and I did feel a little bit better when the professor said that 85% of the class got an F. So I felt a little bit better but Jesus didn’t get me an A.

T: Jeee-sus! I think you just dissed Jesus as the Great Tutor, which I think is also hilarious. Can’t wait to pull that snippet out on our Instagram.

[laughter]

S: Excellent!

T: Ok, rabbit hole, rabbit hole. I digress. So, I honestly don’t think that this episode is going to be quite as long as our last episode…

S: THANK GOD!

T: Who knows, with us as we get going, you never know. And I don’t think we’re going to be doing as many episodes on every era?

S: Ok, good.

T: But again, with us, who knows!

[laughter]

T: But since the first era was Keith Green Blazing Bright, I think it makes so much sense that we really take time to set that up, explore that era, and kind of explore why you and I ended up joining the commune anyway.

S: Mmhmm.

T: I know many years since we’ve deconstructed, people would ask us even when we were together, why did you join a commune? And we’d kind of give just a little pat answer, but you and I have really not taken the time before now to explore our pre-Last Days days, so I think this has been really good, and really important.

S: Yep. And that’s why the last couple episodes I think were really insightful. They helped me get my head around some of it too.

T: Yah. So I hinted last time that I think we had at least one more branch to explore.

S: Mmhmm, yes, yes you did.

T: Yeah, so I just want to take a deep breath before we enter into this.

S: Ah, yes.

T: This particular branch, which I hinted to last episode, I think is really going to make some people angry in our own circles, as we will definitely be involving some speculation. This is our speculation, but I think we’ve earned the right to speculate from the journey we’ve been on, and what I call putting these inappropriate puzzle pieces back together to show us kind of a picture that we just couldn’t see back when we were young and impressionable, and vulnerable.

S: Right.

T: And ultimately these puzzle pieces lead to what we have see now, to what many are calling an epidemic in church spheres of sexual misconduct, sex abuse, sexual exploitation, and I don’t know how much is more than epidemic than ever before but we definitely have the communication tools to allow that message to go out, more than it ever had been before.

S: Right. Is it higher frequency, or is it just greater awareness? Don’t know. But yeah, so Tracey, we’re doing this speculation. You are right; there are some folks, some former LDMers and basic Keith Green Last Days groupies who are going to be pissed off at us big time. I can think of several names in particular, you know who I’m talking about, right Tracey?

T: Yep.

S: Alright. Well, last episode Tracey mentioned that we’d received a letter from a listener who wrote to us. I think she’d been binging our episodes, especially those related to Keith and our life at Last Days. Anyway, she wrote to share a theory with us.

T: Yes. So again listeners, we read and appreciate everything you send to us, and of course I read that message and immediately answered with an emphatic I totally concur! I think I did this on a public comment so not everybody could read the email that she wrote to us.

S: Right.

T: You were reading it separately, so I wasn’t in the same room with you and I didn’t know what you would think about me responding so emphatically to her theory.

S: Yeah, well – uh, I felt a combination. I felt a combination of discomfort at the whole idea, but then also this little sliver, this odd sort of relief at it because if it’s true, it sure would help to explain a lot of things.

T: Yes. This is going to be – this is a delicate topic for you, so let me just say Sharon that in all my years of knowing you, in all of your irreverent freedom – and you are one of the most people I know that has this irreverent freedom – in all of your willingness to open up and spill your guts (some would even call over-sharing)…

[laughter]

T: You have been surprizingly dismissive of this topic whenever I’ve tried to bring it up, which I always thought was peculiar.

S: Yeah. It is a tough topic for me. There’s a variety of reasons, and as you’ve been forcing me – not forcing me, leading me, prompting me, suggesting that I explore this a little bit more – I realize that the biggest reason it’s been an idea that I’ve avoided is this whole idea of check the motives of my heart thing. Because to even open the door of my mind to this possibility? It makes me question myself. Would that just be pride and ego, and this false sense of self-importance? Things that I find really unappealing in a person – and I don’t want to be that person.

T: Hmm. Well there’s a lot to say on that, but before we keep talking in cryptic circles, I did want to bring our listeners up to speed with what’s the topic we’re talking about.

S: Right.

T: We’ll start off by sharing the message we received from Daphne, and we did get her permission to be able to share this. “I’ve listened to all of your episodes, some of them a couple of times to make sure I got the whole story right. It seems to me that Keith arranging Sharon’s marriage had a lot to do with his own needing to deal with, what in my mind I call ‘the Sharon problem’. The ‘Sharon problem’ is not really a Sharon problem at all. It’s a Keith and Melody cannot cope with the fact that sometimes his penis ever moves for anyone or anything other than Melody problem. Shame on him for being a human man. And because Keith likes spending time with Sharon, but she went and grew up (how dare she), the only way that Melody and Keith can possibly deal with this is to neutralize her. She must not be a woman friend anymore. Woman friends are temptations! No, Sharon must become ‘another man’s wife’. Specifically, she must become a leader’s wife though, so she can still be close by, because that’s the point. Make her neutral and controlled. No longer a threat to the Green marriage. That’s my take anyway. Signed, Daphne.” Hoooo!

S: …

T: So, she said it. She said the stuff that I haven’t said, out loud.

S: Yeah.

T: So that’s our topic today. Did Keith have a thing for Sharon? And I love that she calls it the Sharon problem.

S: I love it too, and Tracey, you know I can’t resist the opportunity for a musical number!

T: A musical!

[How do you solve a problem like Maria (from the Sound of Music) plays]

S: You ready?

T: I am ready.

S: Ok.

[singing]

S: How do you solve a problem like a Sharon?

T: Sharon… oh my god I love it.

S: How do you keep your mind from going down?
How do you stop your eyes from always staring?
A suitable outfit, wedding date, and a gown!

T: A gown! Oh my god you’ve missed your calling. I love that so much.

[laughter]

S: So despite the frivolity and my unashamed off-tune singing, I – ok, Tracey, I definitely still have some hesitancy about this topic. Of course I’ve mentioned I feel repulsed at the idea of being prideful, and thinking I’d be so special that Keith Green, the great prophet of our generation, would have had an attraction to me. It’s not comfortable. Then there’s the implication that if he did, if that was in fact what was happening, the question is, is that the reason why he arranged my marriage, and changed the trajectory of my life? And finally, there’s also the really big obvious one Tracey, and that is, in the here and now, we’re decades after his death – it really is just speculation. It’s based on some data points and pieces of circumstantial evidence, but we don’t know.

T: Ok. Ok, so I’m going to just dive right in. There’s so much from your statement above. So, I would definitely call his relating inappropriate relating, which we can clearly see in hindsight. But that fact that this is what – if you were 14 when you first met him, it’s not quite 50 years, but it’s almost 50 years later, I would say your conversation in this is still – you’re checking yourself! You’re still calling out where you might have wrong motives or there being pride etc, and I point that out because to me, this is what is so prevalent in these spaces. Listeners, this is why we decided to dive into this topic anyway, right. So to set this up a little bit more I’m going to go back to a story that I had briefly shared in the first era, my pre-LDM days. If you recall, I talked about a 40 year old prophet of God from another commune, who started to take a special interest in me.

S: Ok, ok, Tracey, oh my god – honestly, woman, you shocked me! You shocked me when you revealed that story while we were recording! I mean, I never even heard a hint of that before! So, damn girl, you can keep a secret.

T: Which is why we’re unpacking our pre-LDM days, right? We didn’t really have a lot of opportunity to unpack that.

S: Yeah.

T: Why I think this is a really important branch to a branch…

[laughter]

S: We’re out on the ends of the twigs now!

T: Ha. So nothing ever sexual happened between me and this 40 year old. I was 17 years old, I was young, I was very zealous and of course, he was married and honestly it never crossed my mind that there would be anything untoward about his interest in me, or anything sexual in nature. I do – if I’m completely honest and examine that part; I was working at a law firm at the time, so I did dress up, so the days that he was meeting me for lunch I did want to look nice, so there’s that happening.

S: Mmmmm…

T: Uh, so for whatever reason – maybe my own sense of security inside, maybe it was my catholic upbringing, sexuality was a clear line I wasn’t going to cross. I didn’t have – I wasn’t toying with that, I wasn’t messing with that, so it literally never crossed my mind that he would be thinking anything about me in that sphere. But why Sharon? Why is a 40 year old man taking such an interest in me?

[laughter]

S: Creepy!

T: I was of course, honored, I was definitely flattered, and he would say things to me to basically encourage me at how soft my heart was to the Lord, and how sold out I was. Obviously now in hindsight that’s massively inappropriate, and if I had had some deeper inner needs – you know, going through something really terrible – would he have reached out physically to comfort me? I don’t know.

S: Ok. Wait, I just want to say something, and this kind of goes to the heart of where we’re going to wrap up in this whole episode, but the whole idea of physical contact, whether it’s platonic or shifts over into sexual – I just want to say that for all of us, for humans, it is totally normal to need and want human touch. We are social animals, our species forms family units, we’ve got offspring that are highly dependent on their parents, for years, and the physical affirmation and bonding – first with the parents and later with life partners – it is what we need in order to survive. We are not that far removed from the great apes. If you watch those animals in their extended family units, the social fiber is held together by affiliative physical contact and interaction. So if we, growing up especially, if we have experienced a lack of that familial touch in our family of origin – and Tracey, you and I both totally did not get what we needed – there’s an unspoken longing deep inside all of us and that is normal. That’s normal.

T: It is normal, and why we have to understand that there are healthy expressions for that, and unhealthy expressions for that.

S: Right.

T: So I look back now at that time, and I realize wow, I was a prime candidate. I was vulnerable, I was young, there was an older man who was taking an interest in me, so even though there wasn’t any physical touch – or, maybe because as I mentioned, the whole kind of thing imploded with the pastor and there being almost a split so it got to implode before we even got to test that point, but what was present between us was the fact that this man, 40 years old, found my youth and innocence and admiration of him intoxicating.

S: Right.

T: I wasn’t his wife of 20 plus years who knew all his warts and issues. I was …

S: And how he farts in bed. Right.

T: I was absolutely taken with the idea that here was a prophet of God who was saying so many of the things that I felt were from God, and that I, just me, was worthy of this man’s time and investment that he was making into my spiritual life, and I’m telling you I look in hindsight and I go, this is such a recipe for disaster.

S: Yeah, boy, you escaped that one. You dodged that bullet.

T: I did. And it’s why I think there are so many stories today of why people did cross the line, because as you said, it’s a natural crossing at some point. So I think as we explore this topic, I know there is some speculation, but we pull that speculation from some real life experiences in the stuff that we’ve learned.

S: Right. You know, it is very obvious when a leader is sticking his dick or putting his hands where they don’t belong. That’s the obvious violation. But yes, there is true danger in these more subtle versions as well, or the subtle pathways that lead to that, right?

T: Yes. So back to your story now. This is why I’ve wanted to explore this with you so when I first heard you – first of all, Sharon, I know your story. But when I actually got to hear you share it on I Was A Teenage Fundamentalist with Troy and Brian, I remember my jaw kind of dropping a little bit at how you were sharing about your interactions with Keith, and how much I thought his inactions with you, at 14 and then later at 17, were absolutely inappropriate.

S: Ok. So, listening to you right now, right now – you know what’s really funny – or maybe it’s not funny. I did not see them as inappropriate back then. And I didn’t see them as inappropriate when I was telling my story to Troy and Brian a year ago. Honestly Tracey, I am still also trying to wrap my head around that word right now, because as you say it, my first thought is no, no, maybe I’m misinterpreting, or maybe I’m misremembering, or maybe I’m exaggerating, and that would not be fair to Keith. So what the fuck Tracey, that is where my mind goes first.

T: Yeah. And I think we’re going to talk about that a little bit more. You’re right, we are doing some speculation here – and I know we’ve often said with pride (because we liked to be proud of our humility at Last Days Ministries) – at least there weren’t any sexual scandals right, at LDM.

S: Right.

T: And that’s as far as we know, there were not – at least particularly with the leadership. But there were things that you were saying in your story, and all of this was before my time so I didn’t get to witness this first hand, and I was like, oh, oh, wow. Oh nooo. Not good.

[laughter]

T: So much so that if you remember, I asked you in a conversation not too long after that, I said so Sharon, if Keith had somehow gotten a revelation – as so many cult leaders do – that he was being led by God to have multiple wives, because you know there is a case to be made from the bible. That’s what makes the bible so dangerous sometimes, because you can make cases for some crazy stuff. Would you have said yes? And part of me asking that was me just trying to find out and ask you what you even thought of that question.

S: Yeah. I remember absolutely distinctly you asking me that. I remember where I was, exactly, when you asked me that, and it was a surreal feeling to hear that question. It’s kind of a little surreal right now, and I think the honest and horrible answer that I told you at that time, is I’m pretty sure I would have said yes. Not because I had any feelings of, you know, horny for Keith, or hot for Keith – I didn’t feel horny for anyone, but it would have probably been just like your situation. Feel honored, feeling special that someone who is so important in the Kingdom of God would find specific interest in measly old me, and – I don’t know, this is another type of speculation, but I think that that vulnerability in both of us in our teens and early 20s, I believe a lot of that can be attributed to not having had fathers who really loved us, who were engaged, teaching us and instilling in us a sense of self-worth, and appropriate – you know, yeah.

T: Yeah. And to me this is why this is such an important topic to explore, because that is how people are groomed; that is the type of personality that is drawn into these spaces and can become vulnerable to that, and ultimately this is how cults start going down the wrong path. Or, you know a lot of cults – and there’s a ton of documentaries out there you can see – maybe they started with a sincere motivation and quickly went down a very dark pathway. If you’re following the IHOP Kansas City stories at all, you can see that Mike Bickle started going down this pathway, and you can almost hear those same words from these words who were victims, of I was just so honored that somebody so important thought that there was something in me, that he felt worthy of his time. So even if it doesn’t cross what we call that line, I’m telling you some of this has already been crossed. Keith clearly had that line, so we say good for him, right. He didn’t go the way of so many people of – you know, David, the story of David with Bathsheba, and we’re all just human and we have sinned, and we just can give ourselves leeway for that, he drew that line…

S: Wait, wait, no, it wasn’t that David Bathsheba thing, because David was definitely in sin, and he was called out. It’s more like the you can have multiple wives because it’s sanctioned by God thing, like David Koresh at Waco – that whole thing.

T: Yeah, many of them who start of – whatever – I think you and I have explored was the message ever on track, ever, but in that sincerity to really be devoted to God, right. I’ll give them that. And being able to be the husband of many wives seems to follow very quickly, and it is this dynamic that we’ve just mentioned. I’m saying from my wise old age that I am now, I think it is clear from the stories that you tell, that he was somewhat taken with you. I mean, he’s a human male who finds you young, very pretty, but I think even more than that there’s this sold out heart that you have that completely wants to be malleable, molded, and I think in these spaces that is an intoxicating quality.

S: I would agree with you, because – what was it, man looks at the outward appearance, God looks at the heart. I mean, we did value that above all else. It was, what is the heart towards God. That was the most important thing. Ok, so we are speculating, but you know Tracey, there is one way – there would be one way to get possible confirmation on this, but it will never, never happen. Actually, there’s two ways. The first would be to have access to read Keith’s uncensored journals, and there would be so many reasons that would be amazing, right, I mean, that would just be crazy amazing.

T: Yes.

S: Then the second way would be to ask Melody personally. Would she share whether or not Keith had ever confessed something to her of struggling with an attraction, or did she ever confront him having suspected something?

T: Or had she ever wondered, right? Because women have such a sixth sense in this area.

S: Mmhmm.

T: That would be incredible, to be able to go to his journals that are uncensored.

S: Yeah. Not gonna happen.

T: Not gonna happen, but again, following this allegory of putting the inappropriate pieces together, I can take from my own story. So that 40 year man, he had a wife, right. So we were getting together because we were all going to build a community together, and I think I even mentioned in that other story how she just basically glared at him, and said how she had huge problems with him spending so much time with the young women – she may have called us girls at the time, there was me, and I think there was two others – and one of the things she said to him was, as she glared at him, you love having them hang on every word you say. So much so – that’s a long time ago, and that’s a vivid memory that I have so that point that it can be so intoxicating. You’ve been married for a while; you have this wife that doesn’t see you in this light anymore, and how you have – I think this is also part of the Mike Bickle story – you have these young girls who are just listening to everything that you have. We talk about the Confessions of the Cult Sisters – this is a true confession from my heart, because I remember thinking even though I didn’t have what I could connect to any sexual thoughts towards him, I remember thinking his wife was very unspiritual, and thinking that he deserved to have somebody with a greater heart toward God – of course, like me, Sharon – Confessions of the Cult Sisters – ohhh.

S: Ohh.

T: And that’s tough to remember. It’s tough to say that, so I’m going to put you on the spot because I do remember you thinking or at least confessing to me something similar, when you looked at Melody.

S: Yeaah. Yes. Yes, and we’ll go through the timeline about this whole thing with Keith, and there was a moment – there was a moment where I had some similar thoughts. Yeah, I’m going to put it all out there on the table. But I also do want to say, we haven’t just jumped into this topic on a whim. This isn’t just a frivolous little – oh, wouldn’t this be fun to speculate about. Tracey, when you first floated the possibility of actually doing an episode and discussing this publicly, I really, really wanted us to do a bit of a sanity check before just jumping off a cliff. One of the first things that I said was hey, let’s circle back to Troy and Brian from the podcast I Was A Teenage Fundamentalist, so listeners – you remember, we’ve said a little over a year ago they invited us to tell our stories there, and that was the first time that either Tracey or I had gone on public record about any of this stuff about Keith and Last Days.

T: Yeah, and ever since we’ve become such good friends with them. We have this group messaging chat, we bounce ideas, we get their feedback – because we do respect their perspective so much. Sharing things about our personal lives, and then of course, the stuff with the podcast – and, you know we call them our little bros…

S: Because we’re their old hoes.

T: And I think they call us their little hoes.

S: No, they call us their old hoes, we’re the old hoes. So there have been a few times over this past year when one or the other of them have made comments about the idea of Keith having had an interest in me. For those who may not be aware – Troy and Brian, I mean, they are like, mega mainstream Keith Green groupies. Or I mean, they were. They aren’t now, but they were. I remember them saying he was a huge influence on them and maybe they said even the biggest influence in some ways. They’ve read and listened to everything they could find that was by Keith or about Keith.

T: Yeah, I think many people will remember they actually said they read No Compromise like, seven times. Maybe a dozen times. I don’t know. so we did toss this question to them – is this idea totally crazy and outlandish, or does it maybe have some plausible merit. They were gracious enough to not just send us something they could read, they were gracious enough to actually record their response.

S: And here that is.

 

Brian: Now Troy, this is something that’s come up a couple of times, I know for you, and it is the thing you’ve spoken about with, was there a thing that Keith had for Sharon. I haven’t seen it or felt it, except I have felt before a couple of things about it, about him being very protective and wanting to keep her close, but you’ve got a slightly different perspective on this one. What do you reckon was going on there with Keith in terms of Sharon?

Troy: Well, I can only respond to what they’ve said, right. I’m not saying look, I was there of course. I wasn’t. But just in the way that Sharon and Tracey both tell the story, it sounds to me like, from a Freudian perspective, right, they talk about this projection and deflection and these kinds of things, and I think what was happening is Keith had what he would have considered to be a bad desire, so he turned that around and made that into something that’s a bit more wholesome – this is my little sister and all that kind of talk, and you’ve gotta remember, the little sister has basically grown up and she is of legal age, so no one’s sitting there saying that he was being inappropriate to her at any point; but the way that she tells the story, there’s – I think it’s a plausible possibility, if not the truth. I’m not saying it is, I’m just saying I think there’s a plausible possibility that he was attracted to her, and he basically tried to resolve the issue by marrying her off and getting her the hell out of there. And when she tells the story, that was the first thing that came to mind when I listened. I thought oh ok, he probably had a thing for her. I’m not saying he wanted to cheat or anything like that; I just think it was there, and Keith lived pretty much on the edge with his faith, and in his own “weaknesses”, and yeah, I think it’s entirely possible that that was going on. I mean, you remember what it was like when we were in church right; there were people – women, girls, everywhere, and you would be attracted to them sometimes. I’m not even saying he was doing anything wrong or bad. I think it was just there. it happens. There was an attraction, and I think it’s more his response to it that was wrong. I mean, it’s good that he didn’t make any advances on her; it’s good that he didn’t turn into one of those love commune kind of cults – which there were a lot, you’ve got The Family and these other ones that were very much Jesus People cults, or came out of the Jesus People movement – so it’s a good thing he didn’t do that, of course, but at the same time I think it’s really quite plausible that he wigged out a little bit, married her off, tried to get rid of her.

Brian: Yeah, well, by the sounds of it he did that with quite a few, so maybe that was his tactic and way to protect himself – and as Tracey and Sharon have said, Last Days Ministries haven’t had (that they know of) any big sex scandals or anything like that, so maybe it was a successful tactic.

Troy: Yeah, maybe. Maybe. But not too successful for Sharon. When you think about people like Joseph Smith from the Mormons, right, they were living very sort of community and moving around through the mid-west and everything, and Joseph Smith with his little culty thing, he just shagged them and married them and created doctrines around that you could do so, and there’s that leadership abuse kind of thing that happens. As I said, there was The Family, Children of God, and all these other ones that sexualise the leadership as well, so it’s not uncommon that that kind of thing happens in cults. In one sense it’s good that he didn’t go that way, but at the same time it’s very destructive, what he ended up doing to Sharon – if that’s in fact what he did, because she ended up being forced into a marriage that she wasn’t ready for, didn’t want, and now lives with the ramifications of that as a mature woman.

Brian: And also deals with the fact that she’s got five beautiful children, and grandchildren from that, and also has a podcast that she can talk about, so well done, Sharon. You’ve turned it around despite the fact that you got married off at 18 and protected from the world, and under the wing of Last Days Ministries – you have turned it around. So, well done.

Troy: Yeah, well done from I Was A Teenage Fundamentalist. Well done, Sharon! Well done.

Brian: Well done. We’re over and out. Back to you ladies.

 

T: Oh, I love them so much. Thank you Troy and Brian for weighing on this with us.

S: Yes. Tracey, I want to emphasize something before we go on to discuss the possible “Sharon problem”. We’ve tried to do this in earlier episodes, and I think we need to say it over and over again. Regarding my first marriage, your first marriage, our former spouses – it is never our intent to hurt anyone, to shame anyone in these discussions. I want to make it clear about that. It’s the belief system that’s the problem, because all of our behaviors, all of our actions stemmed from that. Our former spouses – they were hurt and injured in this whole fucken mess, too. So I just want to say that; they were locked in the bible box, they were doing what they felt God wanted – although in the case of my ex-husband, Tracey I believe it was also what he personally really wanted. So yeah, I just want to state that.

T: And those who are still in that bible box hate us going on record about this stuff, so I’ll just add that in too.

S: They do.

T: Because they still see that as that was God leading, so we are uncovering – maybe not so much, and I think it threatens their belief so they don’t like it at all.

S: It does. And, I also just want to be clear that for me, back then, as this 18 year old kid, I’d never had a boyfriend, I was totally committed to sacrificing everything to follow Jesus, to obey God, and so it was never a question for me of what do I want. It was always what does God want. And of course, Keith was the leader there at Last Days, so he is the one closest to God’s heart, and if Keith is praying and Keith believes this is what God wants, of course I’m going to be on board with it. So on the one hand, I know people can make the argument that it was not against my will because no one threatened me or held a gun to my head. I freely chose. I said yes to the dress. I accepted the marriage proposal, right?

T: Yeah, and this is where this gets very intricate with a lot of things to untangle. Those who have never been in a high control belief system, or in an organization, will have a very hard time understanding how this works, but you do have a heart, again, very groomed to be malleable, to be able to say it’s not about our happiness – that’s not even a consideration.

S: Right.

T: It is all about us laying our lives down as a sacrifice to do the will of God, so marriage is just another choice in that already pathway of decision making.

S: Yes. So, on the one hand, I said yes. But on the other hand – and Tracey, this took me decades to remember and understand, and I’ve only been able to really, really look at it in the past couple of years. My body told a completely different story than my words saying yes, and that was a story of total, total trauma in the situation. I mean, complete inability to eat. Huge weight loss. Utter terror when contemplating the idea of the wedding night, and then even this out of body dissociation during the honeymoon itself – and yet, as Brian just said, I mean, I have five incredible children. So would I go back in time and undo it? Not if that meant I wouldn’t have my kids, of course I wouldn’t do that. But I also want to do everything I can to expose this kind of destructive belief and manipulation, and behavior that abuses and robs vulnerable women – and sometimes men, but usually mostly women – of their true freedom of choice.

T: Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Dare I say, amen sister. It’s important to expose this dynamic. It’s a dynamic that exists today in these spaces, and why we want to share our stories – how do you go from saying yes to someone that you would never choose – this is how. This is how it happens.

S: It’s how it happens. There was a thing I read from one particular therapist; it was talking about if you’re assessing a relationship, about whether to stay in it or leave it, a key question to ask yourself is, if when it was at its very best, was it ever very good? I mean, I think that’s a brilliant question. When I look back – and I look back on even these different chunks of my marriage which lasted 25 years – what felt good in the beginning at that time was my belief that I was serving Jesus.

T: Yes. Yes, and that is so hard to separate.

S: That’s right.

T: I mean, if you haven’t been in this mindset this is so hard to separate, but that’s what satisfied us.

S: That’s right. I can feel good because I’m glorifying him, and I’m advancing the kingdom of God and we are a good team to help reach the world for Jesus, but if you take away that Chrisitan belief and that obedience mindset – yeah, no. No. That relationship wasn’t ever very good. Again, it’s not meant as a hurtful comment about my ex-husband; it’s a statement about individual autonomy and self-determination, and choosing for yourself who you want to be with. If you remember – I know well get into a timeline, but I had a little crush on a different guy there, and he was very different in temperament and personality than the man Keith set me up to marry.

T: Mmhmm. Even as you’re saying all of that, it was never a consideration who we would want. I mean, it just wasn’t. I do want to drive home this point – and I’ll do it here, because I think it’s very, very, very important. In our last episode, I know I mentioned that your soon-to-be husband, who was very taken with you from the letter – remember, your letter of repentance that we read last episode, so he’s listening to that heart and we listen to that letter and we’re like oh, sweet little Sharon. You don’t need to beat yourself up about all of this, but that is what attracted him right, to you. We were conditioned to be that way, to have that kind of heart that was – basically we would so self-loathe our own humanity that we be very easily molded into ultimately what God wants – to deny our humanity. You know, we often say what God wants – who wrote the book, but a bunch of men. So it’s really what men have wanted their women to be. Shannon explores this – we’ll put it in our show notes in a past episode where we go over the book that Shannon Harris wrote called The Woman THEY Wanted – and we were so much a part of that, that entire system that was molding women to what they wanted, and that we bought into that we should become.

S: We did.

T: And then – you know, as we started to grow up and find our own inner voice and begin to change and make ourselves who we really were – that’s when the tension starts in the marriage.

[laughter]

S: Yep!

T: Because, not so attracted, right? Ooh, I don’t like this version.

S: Right.

T: So as we go on, we had some important questions that we wanted to ask about this – was Keith attracted to Sharon? And if he was – like, hot – I was attracted to Sharon.

[laughter]

T: You were a beautiful, beautiful young woman, and I think more to that is that why he wanted to marry you off to avoid his own temptation? There was something – I don’t know how it worked, but remember when I shared a confession of liking somebody and I thought God had told me to marry him, or that I was going to marry him, and then he got married and I was like ok, that’s the end of that. There is something about marriage being the final kind of nail that helps settle that. So was that going on with Keith – hey, if she’s married and taken, then I would be definitely in sin against a commandment, to covet a neighbor’s wife. So, is that part of why he had you married off? Was that why he didn’t walk back that sense of control and influence, that he went on a great two-three page letter to apologize for in February 1981? And why is this relevant today; why are we willing to pull up this speculation that could be irritating to some people, angering to some people, painful for some people, is because this is a dynamic that happens today in high control churches, and in organizations, and I think it’s important to talk through.

S: I agree. Hey Tracey, something interesting – I don’t know if I’ve told you this before, but from time to time, and really especially in this past year as you and I have been unpacking so much of this LDM shit – on a number of occasions my husband Dave has mentioned this idea, like, he’s talked about how to him it’s so clear that I was so important to Keith and how hard Keith worked to recruit me, and maybe there was something more there. Interestingly, and Dave has brought this to my attention a few times, whenever he would bring it up, I would usually get kind of defensive about Keith and for Keith, and almost angry at the idea that Keith might have had some other underlying motive. What’s that about? I really go to Keith’s defence! Yeah?

T: Yeah, and you did that with me as well.

S: Really?

T:  Yes! Which is why I am so glad that you’ve been willing to open up and talk about it here. Your favorite quote, which you always say from Shakespeare – she doth protest too much, and I think is very fitting in this. Whenever we get kind of near this topic, you are jumping to the defence very quickly, and kind of brushing it aside. Surprizingly. I mean, I mentioned before it surprized me how you would brush this off, because you’re usually the first one to go down an irreverent rabbit hole with me.

[laughter]

S: That’s true.

T: And we have not been afraid to joke about polygamy in the past, we would irreverently say oh wow, I wish we were in a polygamist situation because then we’d have extra help with the kids, send another wife to the bedroom once in a while. Of course we were not going to do that, but we have not been afraid to be irreverent.

S: Oh we joked about that all the time. Like, wouldn’t it be great?

T: Uh huh. So, I was expecting you to jump on that like, oh yeah, wouldn’t that have been funny if Keith had a harem, which of the wives would it be, totally in just like, a joking manner but nope, nope she’s not going there. Which just led me to go – humph.

S: Hmm.

T: Hmm, there might be a little bit more sensitivity to this, because it’s not a funny thought for you.

S: Yeah. That’s a – yeah, I’m just trying to let that sit with me right now, because you’re right. It’s hard for me to make a joke, and I can make a joke about just about fucking anything.

T: I know!

S: But it’s hard. Something else Dave said last night, as I was putting together some things, prepping for our recording today – he has become a huge fan of the movie Jesus Christ Superstar too. Actually, the moment he watched it the very first time, and he’s never had any sort of religious background or belief, he just loves it.

T: That’s awesome. I was going to say you’re a good evangelist, but I guess he liked it before he met you.

[laughter]

S: No, no, I’m the one who introduced him to Jes- I led him!

T: Oh, well then, good job!

S: I led him to Jesus Christ Superstar.

[laughter]

S: Obviously the movie and the music. Anyway, we’re talking about this and he starts humming the song, and quoting to me, [singing] He’s a man, he’s just a man!

T: Just a man!

S: You know, like, Sharon, open your eyes! Keith was human, and just a man. And this stuff is all part of it.

T: It’s all part of it, of course, and of course we can see that from our vantage point. Absolutely. I was actually thinking about that very song today as I was pulling weeds.

S: Oh you’re kidding.

[laughter]

T: No, and I’m trying to think of what triggered it, but I was like, you know, that was when the secular world made movies, right. They got this really right, because I don’t think they knew what to do with this oddly intimate relationship that the greatest story ever told, that Jesus is having with Mary, and that Jesus is having even with some of his male disciples. How do you portray that? So I think this song is brilliant in its depiction of that struggle. It captures that beautifully; that struggle, what do I do with this intimacy that I clearly feel, but the sexual realm is forbidden right? So how do you succeed in a relationship with that? That is tough, and that is why we talked about Brother Sun Sister Moon – the same element is there between Clare and Saint Frances. They have this celibate relationship with this intimacy that is clear, and ultimately forbidden to go into the sexual realm, and I think a lot of my mind was conditioned in that direction anyway, and I do see, Sharon, that that’s a great song when talking about your relationship with Keith, because there was an intimacy that you all had, an affection, and this movie, when they sang he’s just a man, caused Christian to picket the stages where this was playing, because they were so angry with this song. It’s something that we in the Christian world are afraid to go to. We don’t want to talk about it, so I think that’s really interesting that he was singing that song as you were prepping for this.

S: Yeah. Well, like I’ve said, I’ve really resisted thinking about it and even looking at it, and to imagine the possibility that Keith had a thing for me – I feel like I’m repeating myself. It immediately brings up self-judgement and loathing, like – wow Sharon, who the hell do you think you are, that you’re so special that it could have been possible. What horrible pride and ego, etc, etc, etc. And, because I made myself do this – I’m like, ok, if I let myself get very quiet and still, if I let my mind kind of rest in openness, stop fighting back and pushing back any awareness, and let those things that have been pushed down into the subconscious, let them speak now – I will have to say that yes, I think there was something significant there, in Keith towards me, and – I kind of have this silly test that I often ask myself if I’m trying to decide between yes or no on something. If the life on one of your kids literally depended on you guessing the right answer; yes or no, which would you guess? And in this case my inner subconscious, or whatever – it was pretty fucking fast Tracey, it was like, yes. Yes, he did. Yes, Keith did. So…

T: Yeah, and I think even – as I think back to your story and how much he was clearly pursuing you, which shows in our Christian sphere a lot of that was excused because we just care about the eternal souls of everybody, right? And I think that’s how so many of these things have gone under the radar in other organizations, because there’s a certain amount of this that we excuse away, this attention. But the amount of attention that he showed you, and then later your worth to the ministry – I don’t question it, but it’s not about what I’m questioning, it’s about what you’re questioning. So I know there’s another part of your story that when I hear it, I’m sad. I don’t know if it was in the interview, or where you talk about how you felt really lonely in the first days at Last Days, because Keith – you guys had this…he would call you, you guys would write and exchange letters, then all of a sudden you notice he’s pulling away from you.

S: That was when we moved to Texas. That was after I’d already been there six or nine months or whatever. Yeah.

T: Yeah, and it broke my heart Sharon, because obviously so much of your heart was also reciprocating this whatever it is. It’s a connection, it’s an intimacy. It’s a mutual respect and admiration, if nothing else. And I could see why there may have been something more than just this little sister, because by the very nature of him pulling away I think he’s trying to do the right thing, but it hurts. It hurts you, and it leaves you with all this questioning about what’s going on inside you, and this intimacy in that kind of circumstance, in the situation we were in – it is complicated. Definitely I can also see that as a catalyst of why he would want to get you married off, and get you married off to his best friend.

S: Hmmm. Oh my god Tracey. You know what? Something in what you just said just now combined with Troy’s words about – what did he say, about keeping her close – or maybe that was in the letter. I don’t know. I don’t know if it was the letter from Daphne or what Troy said, but um, holy shit. I’m remembering now, when Melody pulled me aside to ask if I had even a little attraction to anyone, and I gave her a name – because that’s what you had to do, you couldn’t say no one, right – she then redirected me and asked me about the elder – about Martin, the elder, Keith’s best friend. So that question that she was asking me – I’m seeing this now for the first time. It wasn’t really about finding out who I was interested in. And if – ok, that’s the speculation point – if Keith wanted to keep me close by, ok if I’m forbidden fruit but you can put me under a glass dome so you can’t touch me but I’m out of sight – it makes sense that they would have steered me away from just this standard other young brother there, and steered me towards this elder – as you said, probably Keith’s best friend. Wow. I’m literally feeling a little dizzy as this is coming into focus. I’ve got this little bit of a pain in my chest.

T: [murmurs in comfort]

S: I’ve known – maybe for the last I don’t know, I guess the last 15 plus years, I’ve known and I’ve been able to acknowledge that Keith arranged my marriage, right, and I could say it laughingly, and I’ve always told myself that it was just because he thought that was what would be best for the kingdom of God. That that’s what he was all about. Maybe it was so that he could have his cake and eat it too. Or not. Not eat it, just be able to look at it and smell it, and keep it close.

T: Yeah, and the name of our podcast is Feet of Clay because we’re all human, and we have to wrestle with these aspects of who we are, so even for us to unpack all this gets very complicated. Maybe that was his way to make it a legal friendship, right? But I know for me there’s absolutely no doubt in the attention with which he poured on you to recruit you, to the point that’s where my first initial reaction was like, this is unhealthy for this level of recruitment.

S: Tracey, Tracey I gotta stop you. It’s like, right now my brain is still doing this. It’s like, no it wasn’t that much. It wasn’t. My brain is literally doing that right now, and I’m literally saying Sharon, you must have exaggerated these stories. You must have. You must have exaggerated.

T: No, and this is one of the big reasons that I’m so happy you are willing to at least talk about this, and we can do this in real time, because I think this is part of so much of the problem that happens in these particular circumstances. Look, it’s you turning inside on yourself, blaming yourself.

S: Right.

T: And I think most of us who can step back and say ok, even if it was for the purest motives, you then come into this ministry and it’s like, who’s the major mover and shaker of this ministry? It was you. You were the one being able to carry out his vision with such intensity.

S: There wasn’t just me.

T: It wasn’t just you, but I think of the fact that then you would be in that eldership circle is very much a piece of this that I know is staggering, because what you point out earlier is, it wasn’t about who you wanted, Sharon. It wasn’t about trying to find out what does Sharon want. It is we see this as a good fit, and it also legitimizes a closeness that you can continue to have, that is now sanctioned.

S: Yeah.

T: Mmmm.

S: Wow Tracey. Just lots of sensations in my body right now, and it’s like a shuttered window being opened. It’s kind of fucking crazy in real time right now. I think I have all this time just been subconsciously been holding things outside and away from conscious awareness – just a little too hard to look at. Tracey, this is literally true – my breathing is shallow right now as I ponder this, so let me take a couple of moments to breathe, and you can either pause it or keep talking, then we can continue on, with bullet points after. That ok with you?

T: Yeah, definitely taking the time, and of course you’re going to take some time after this too. Another thing I want to call out is – this is so many years later, and why this is so important to acknowledge how conditioned we were, how deep it goes, how long it takes to really open those portions in our life and look in, and again – which I think is a beautiful title – The Woman They Wanted. I think that’s part of this, of wow – it was part of the agenda of what Keith wanted for you.

S: Yuh.

T: In doing this I love that you have been such an open and dear friend, and we have open relationship, and I want to be able to share that journey with others. You know I love a good fairytale right, so in my mind I think of Hansel and Gretel and how they left the breadcrumb trail, and I envision this more of, this is the journey of our lives, and we now see the red flags, and we’re leaving a red flag trail. We want you guys to notice these red flags when you start to see them happening in spaces, particularly in high control spaces, so that you can ultimately get all the healing that you need to get, and not do – or at least acknowledge when you’re doing – of how much we internalize, and turn it back into ourselves. It’s not about you being groomed, or you being pursued, or you being related to inappropriately. It’s all about oh no, I’m just proud. It’s all you turning it back inside yourself, and I think that is very, very telling, and good for us all to be reminded that this conditioning goes deep.

S: Yes. And, it’s still all speculation, Tracey.

[laughter]

S: So, if we go back to the bullet points we had planned, one thing was if it’s speculation, what’s the point of it? Why the hell is it even a topic for discussion? We put those together before knowing I would have my piece of cake under the glass revelations, but I think it probably will still make sense – or do you want to rearrange?

T: No, I think that we said we were not going to go quite as long as last time, so we can start wrapping it up so that we kind of bring it home to the relevance.

S: Ok. I’m not sure that our bullet points and timeline are quickly wrapping up, but hey. Let’s just keep going. For me, the crux is that these fundamental belief systems – they dehumanize everything, Tracey. Everything that has to do with healthy self-awareness, health relationships, healthy sexuality, and by dehumanize what I mean is this huge part of basic humanity – it gets recast into this literal spiritual eternal life or death battle, and therapists say what you resist will persist, and the more the fucking bible box Christian world and other religious groups try to resist and deny these natural human tendencies, the worse it gets.

T: The worse it gets.

S: The WORSE it gets. I am really happy that there wasn’t a sex scandal with Keith – whether it was with me or with anybody else – really happy about that. I do think that speaks to a level of true integrity with him, however misguided and fucked up he was in so many other ways, right?

T: Yeah, I think underlying these high control groups that have ended in sex scandal, and we didn’t end in sex scandal, but it’s the control Sharon. It’s the control that’s the foundation for all these other things to spring out of. I mean, so much control that it’s very telling in his own self-confession in that letter of 1981 from our last episode, that even if you listen, go ahead and Google different artists who share their different memories of Keith – it’s very rare that it is not mentioned how – they don’t use the word controlling…

S: Pushy!

T: …but forceful, pushy, no boundaries. It was a high level of control.

S: Yeah, yeah there was. But if – and it’s still an if – if Keith was struggling with attraction or desire, or lust or whatever towards me…

T: Or just human …you know, attraction. Human desire.

S: Right – friendship, affinity, whatever, ok. It is logical that his solution would be to marry me off to someone else. And that wasn’t maybe a sex scandal of him with me, but that was damaging in another way. And the situation – whether out and out obvious, like in the fundamentalist Mormon cults where the guy’s got 50 wives or whatever, or super subtle like we see in everyday churches and youth groups, it is happening over, and over, and over in all these religious spaces. The youth groups, the ministries, the pastor’s counselling the members of their flock. And the roots that are in purity culture and these ideas about sin, and the denying the realities of basic humanity – I mean all of that is just this fucked up shit storm.

T: It is. I mean, being able – now it sounds so toxic to have a mantra of I just want to burn myself out for you, empty – I want nothing – that sounds so abusively toxic, but we didn’t think a thing of that, of having that pour from us, right?

S: No! We thought that was great. We thought it was the sign of following God.

T: It was great. So you have this whole group that that’s all they want, and particularly with women there’s definitely a conditioning of us. I want to throw some words out here right – we’re trying to be nothing so we can just accept the will of God. So that we can be molded to be exactly what he wants us to be – or how about that word, submit, that we can be in full submission to him and then ultimately when we’re called to marriage, it’s to be in full submission to who would be our spouse. Even in the ministry setting for the single people, full submission to the elders. There is so many unhealthy characteristics that are birthed in that environment, so then you have that as a young, single person, being directed to a choice – ohh Sharon.

S: Well, don’t forget…

T: It’s so obvious in hindsight.

S: And don’t forget the key of it all, which is die to self.

T: Mmhmm.

S: Death to self. I mean, think about that.

T: Death to self.

S: If you’re death to self, there’s nothing left of you. That is true nothingness, and that’s what we thought we should be.

T: That’s where we were all trying to get to.

S: You know, it’s funny…

T: I just want to say this, and if we weren’t quite sure where that was, there were elders there to help us. Show the way.

[laughter]

S: And if you have two choices, chances are the one that you like the least, that’s the one God’s calling you to do.

T: Yes!

S: The harder it is, the worse it is, the more you dislike it – that must be what God wants.

T: I think that’s such an important point, especially when we’re trying to find that spouse, because that’s exactly why it didn’t matter if we liked them because what we like is born of the sin and the flesh, and what God has for us is born of the spirit, so we absolutely will turn from our natural affections. Oh, so true.

S: There’s one other dynamic in this, so you think about these scandals that are rocking so many of these spiritual empires – you know what, I hate even calling them spiritual, cos they’re not. They’re religious. They’re not spiritual. So, these scandals – there’s three categories that I can think of; there’s financial ones with embezzlement, mismanagement and all that other shit; there’s child abuse which is actually sanctioned – the corporal punishment and all that horrible stuff – rabbit hole we can’t go down right now, and then there’s the whole sexual scandal thing. But if you think about it, if you think about the way fundamentalists and Evangelicals – what seems to horrify them the most, it’s not the misuse of money and it’s not the beating of children, it’s sex! They fucking lose their minds over the idea of anything that’s tempting or whatever with sex, and yet it’s the one thing that happens all the time, over, and over, and over.

T: All the time. I mean, they’re creating the mindset to make this happen – everything we’ve just reviewed and gone over. So I think now may be the time for the timeline. Is it time for the timeline?

S: Time for the timeline. Ok.

T: Just the data points that we wanted to put together – again, this is my perspective, that Keith did have inappropriate relationships with Sharon, whether it was an attraction he was trying to fight, or what, and of course  there is some speculation in that, but I think personally there is a lot of circumstantial evidence and again, the inappropriate puzzles from our own life that we’ve put together. So we’re going to share what we know, and you know what readers – listeners – you’re not reading us unless you’re reading our transcript – you can determine for yourself if you think it’s likely or not.

S: Right.

T: So Sharon, let’s go through this chronologically.

S: Ok. So, first thing is I’m 14, Keith visits, and I am “zapped”, right. Seemingly on my own, overnight, not with Keith talking to me directly, but just me having listened to him talk with other people, I do my own thing with God. So immediately the next day when I’m talking with him, he’s like, oh my god you got zapped. So I’m immediately this sold out for Jesus, just intense, intense teenager. There’s a contrast there, and if you read Melody’s words in No Compromise, she had a real struggle with following Jesus or even if she wanted to – this idea of getting saved, so there was really like a dragging her heels along that way. There’s Keith’s inscription that he wrote in my bible that he gave me when he visited on that first trip. I’ve always assumed Tracey, that it was pretty typical of what he wrote to everyone else. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t, I don’t know. If anybody else out there had Keith write an inscription to you, or welcome you into the family of God, I’d love to see what he wrote to others. So I figured out how to do this little AI thing, so here’s Keith’s cloned voice reading his actual words that he handwrote into my bible.

            August 5^th, 1975. My beloved sister Sharon, I see in you the heart of a saint. Let God have His perfect will in you by letting Him train you for holy service. Read this book, and study it to the core, for it is your survival manual. Daily pray for the Holy Spirit and give thanks to God for Jesus, and the saving of your soul. Seek fellowship and rest in Jesus, your faith will thrive. Always remember that I love you and will always pray for you. Don’t ever think you can be taken from Jesus, your salvation is sealed. Forsake evil, purify your speech, thoughts and deeds, but never forget you can’t do it but with God’s help through Jesus. Your brother in Christ, Keith.

S: So then after that we have writing letters back and forth, and phone calls. I think it was mostly me calling him, but I do think he called me a couple of times. One – we talk about it in my interview with Troy and Brian, was he literally leads me into the baptism of the Holy Spirit over the phone. Just crazy. Keith came back through Tucson, multiple times. Every time we’d get together and sometimes Melody was with him, a couple of times not. I don’t remember exactly but I have the impressions of both. I remember my parents making comments – this is while I was still at home so I would have been 15 or 16 – I don’t remember if it was my mom or my dad, but a comment alluding to Keith’s sexual interest in me, and I am sure that I just would not have given that any credence, but it sticks with me. I remember it. I would have just dismissed it, because my mom was often drunk and my dad was cynical, or absent, but there was even this comment they made something about him hugging me, and there being pelvic gyration, or something.

T: Oh, wow.

S: I know, right? I’ve just always shrugged that as oh, that wasn’t anything at all, because Keith was bouncy and fidgety, and it totally may have just been him being bouncy and fidgety. I was definitely not tuned into any sexual energy stuff, and Keith is married and he’s a godly man, so I did not think anything more of it. Right now – so back to my test – if I had to guess the right answer, uh, because my kid’s life depended on it – Tracey, I still find it almost impossible to believe that there was an attraction or sexual interest in me at that point. I’m not sure if that means he really didn’t, or if that means I was and still am somewhat naïve and/or clueless, or semi-willingly blind, but there was that instance and it has stayed with me all these years.

T: Yeah, and I think from the beginning I’ve said inappropriate, right, and that’s where – you know, things can cross lines at some point. I don’t know that there would be any lines crossed in the sexual realm, but even – some of what we heard from Dawn’s story, it’s like – this is cult leader behavior where he’s recruiting. He’s actually recruiting young people, like, intensely. It wasn’t this kind of natural thing that just unfolded. That’s where I was coming from when I first heard it – wow, this is some heavy recruitment that’s happening here.

S: Ok. Had I ever told you that before, about my parents saying something about him hugging me and…

T: No. No.

S: Pelvic movement.

T: No. And I think I mentioned in my story that when this 40 year old man was calling me at night, my dad made a comment to my mother – that now of course, I look back and my dad had a nose for this stuff so well, and even my mother dismissed it on my behalf, because I think we were trained to dismiss this stuff. So the fact that the adults mentioning some of this, and the fact that you have never said that to anybody, I think is also a part of the muddled-ness. That’s what this inappropriate stuff does. It just muddles it, and then what does it do – it turns itself on you. I, I, I – no, this is some inappropriate behavior.

S: Yeah. Alright, then we have the February of 79, when Last Days in California is going through this big repentance, and simultaneously I on my own in Tucson, not having been in contact with Keith, I write the letter, right. That’s the letter we read last episode. So no influence on me, other than “God”. At the same time – and there’s some documentation about it in Melody’s book, Melody just doesn’t ever have the “breakthrough” that everyone else is having in this revival – which, in a way though Tracey, I look – ok, we would have judged her as not being spiritual enough, because she didn’t grovel in self-reproach as much as everyone else, where she wasn’t willing to be open and humble and broken, so maybe in some ways she was more real, but she definitely was not in the groove of what was happening at that time.

T: And I think that is another important point that I’ve made before but I want to make again – that’s the same situation with my 48 year old’s wife, and now I would see them as way more wise and having a clue that we didn’t have, and that’s what made the young people all the more attractive, because you’re getting that cynicism from your wife who’s like – umm, not quite so sure about that, but not from the young ones. Not from us. We’re like yes, pour me out more. Whatever it is that you want me to do – and I’m telling you there’s an intoxication in that.

S: Yeah there is, and this thing of Melody not being as on board for Jesus as the rest of us – this was a later topic that was brought up by Wayne, and Martin and Kathleen towards the end of our second era that we’ll eventually get to – they had vivid recollections, and everyone’s assessment was she just wasn’t as spiritual or really connected, or really as committed to Jesus as the rest of us. So it was a topic of discussion.

T: Which I think then makes young, sold out, coming of age teenagers, who are also beautiful by the way, all the more tempting.

S: Yeah. So then still in February, Keith – I’ve got his strong urging, we’re on the phone and he’s insisting that I need to come out to California right now, because of the revival going on.

T: Mmhmm. You know when I think – I don’t know when the last time it is that you saw him before you arrived, but I think you were a problem – back to the original part of this. The Problem of a Sharon. You arrive, you’re coming into age, you’re very smart, you’re very articulate, you have this long, gorgeous dark hair, you’re very capable so you’re able – I mean, what is the biggest need that he has right now, is all this work and vision, and you are very capable to jump in and do all that.

S: Yeah, I mean, it wasn’t evident the moment I got there in California but pretty quickly after. I’m moving up into areas of key operational responsibility – the computer mailing list, tract distribution, magazine distribution, I’m proof reading – in fact, Keith got tired of me finding the typos and the grammatical errors in the newsletter after it was printed, so he insisted that I start proofing before things even went to the dark room to make plates. So, yeah. Alright, so then this feels a little awkward to say Tracey – back to that whole pride thing, but fuck. So I was a pretty open and kind to others type of person. There was a contrast there with the way that Melody generally was. She was kind of cold, kind of aloof – I don’t think just with me, but with many others. That was…

T: Yeah. I mean, that was my perspective when I came later on, but now in hindsight when I step back and I think what the fuck? What would it have been like to be married to this man who just wants to recruit everybody into this commune? So now – how much of that was her own struggle with what’s happening, and then how much more appealing when you have someone who wasn’t just off the streets, right – he wasn’t trying to help you off drugs, you’re coming with some stability and some capability, and I think that adds another layer of someone that stands out, because you can pull your weight as well as you’re also beautiful and you’re willing to do any part of this vision, cheerfully and willingly.

S: And…I’m taking a breath now, because this feels very uncomfortable. It’s back to this thing of like – what is this, is this me just trying to build myself up? So Tracey, that conditioning is there. It’s really there. Alright, you know, I felt that I had a connection and a friendship with Keith. We would talk, we would laugh, we would have personal conversations. I haven’t thought before that it was anything like a crush on my part – obviously like we’ve both said, it feels good to have someone who is such an important, charismatic, prophet of God take an interest in you, I think I thought of Keith as my big brother or spiritual father, but Tracey, I’m being really honest in real time right now. I’m thinking is there something else that I’ve been pushing down. Maybe in the timeline I’ll get to that. Anyway, this feels pretty fucking weird.

T: And we don’t – I want to be cautious, because I don’t people as they listen to this to think we’re trying to manufacture something, right.

S: Right! Right, right, right. No.

T: Because I think the dynamic that jumped out to me as you’ve been telling this has been very clear – you have to be very careful, you’ve been pushing stuff down so I want to be careful that I’m not leading you in that direction, but I think that given the dynamic of the place, and there was definitely a connection that you had – and maybe that’s where the problem came in, right, because you’re going to go on, you’re going to mention how there was a pulling away.

S: Yep. Yeah, cos that distinctive shift – it happened about, I think it was about six months after we moved to Texas, and it’s possible that Martin in that timeline – maybe Martin had approached Keith and expressed interest in me. Maybe that’s why Keith kind of withdrew.

T: Yeah, but that doesn’t make sense to me, because if it’s a pure thing – I mean, you even said there were other females that he was still joking and having relationships with right.

S: Yes.

T: So that wouldn’t make sense, because all the more I would think he would want to joke, because it’s a pure thing, it’s a safe thing – I think the pulling away is definitely something to take note of.

S: Right. Yep. Cos maybe the explanation was he did feel an attraction, and/or Melody sensed it, or Keith confessed it, or something, but there was a definite point in time that was very stark for me. I remember having this definite awareness of that change. Still warm and friendly and joking with the other sisters, but barely talking to me, and when he did it was just purely business. Like the computer stuff, or the mailing list stuff. I do remember feeling confused, feeling hurt, but then thinking that it would be wrong to feel hurt, and I internalized it that I just must not be as pleasing to the Lord as the other sisters.

T: Wow. Or maybe even as you once were, right.

S: Right, or maybe I’ve shifted, or something. So the true confessions time Tracey – there was – and this is something I’ve never told anyone.

T: You’re hearing it here, folks.

S: It’s not as juicy as they’re hoping, I’m sure. Anyway. I remember this very clearly. We were sitting in the eating area of the ranch house – you know, where the tables were kind of up against the metal spiral staircase. So that’s behind me and the fish tank is off ahead to the right, and there’s a few of us still sitting around the tables. It’s after the meal, or something. I can’t remember exactly what Melody was saying or doing, but it must have been something that wasn’t very nice. I clearly remember having the thought, I wonder what Keith sees in her. Why is he with her? I think I was horrified at myself for having that thought. Like, wow that’s super judgemental, so I shut that down asap, and I have never said that to anyone ever, in my whole life.

T: Well, I know that’s exactly my confession, what I was saying about that wife, these women who probably married young and vulnerable, although Melody was older than Keith, but wasn’t on board with everything, and I think a lot of us thought that. I thought that. This doesn’t match, right. Her level of – it wasn’t even just intensity. I mean, even if you went to the fruit of the spirit right, we’re just like hey, let’s judge by the fruit of the spirit – it just was not there. I am not afraid to say.

S: Yeah, it was not.

T: So that was usually the big disconnect. I don’t know – was he feeling some of that, because that had to have caused some tension. I never got that either.

S: Yep. So then I also think – we’re talking about data points or indicators, so there are some normal human dynamics – and Tracey, as we’ve gotten older, we’re in our sixties and you start to understand these things about people, so Keith was seven years younger than Melody. When they first met he was on 19 years old.

T: Wow.

S: She was 26.

T: Yeah. Lots to unpack there, yes.

S: At the time Melody was super stylish, the whole Bohemian beauty thing going on, and we do know that teenage boys, and even 20 something men – some of them have a real fascination with an older woman, because of this idea that that woman is going to have so much more experience and supposed maturity. So there can be an attraction of that going on. And, we also know that it is often a real ego boost to an older woman when a younger man is interested in her. So there could have been that dynamic thing going on. They got married in – I think it was the end of 73. Keith had just turned 20 years old.

T: That’s crazy.

S: It is crazy right. Melody was 27, then they got “saved” in May of 75. He’s 21, that’s when I’m 14 – anyway it doesn’t matter. The interesting thing is to look at some of the evolution. You can see, if you look at the back cover, the photo of his first album, For Him Who Has Ears To Hear. That was in May of 77. You can see Melody is still very stylish and very put together. Then we’ve got No Compromise is released in December of 78, that’s a couple of months after Josiah was born, and then by February of 79, when I come out to the ministry, all that stylish, put togetherness of Melody – it was gone. Whether it was beaten out of her with the fucking culture of modesty and purity or whether it was just given up – who knows. But we also – Tracey, you and I, we know. We relate – the changes that happen with our bodies both during pregnancy, after childbirth, and of course society over-sexualizes women, and that idea of the beauty and the sensuality of a woman – that’s a huge taboo for Christian men, right. They’re not supposed to even acknowledge it. And again, what we resist will persist, so body form – it becomes a way bigger deal than it should be.

T: Yes.

S: So Melody’s normal body shift of a mature woman who has done this beautiful amazing thing of giving birth, versus you have showing up this very svelte, and at the same time busty teenager.

T: A teenager. So Sharon said busty. She was busty for her slim little figure. So that also reminds me – and we bring this out in our Purity Culture series, Virgins and Volcanos – why I was so mad at the teachings on this, because there’s such a cognitive dissonance. We’re supposed to be these humble, holy women that don’t care about our appearance, while at the same time, all the men were attracted to all the ones with the appearance, right. It happens in these spaces, and you’re right, a woman’s body changes, she’s probably trying to do more things probably at the control of Keith, and yet these young, nubile women are around, and guess who they tend to be attracted to.

S: Right.

T: And I experienced that – everybody knows I didn’t use deodorant, and I started looking really dowdy, and it’s like – wait, guys aren’t attracted to that? They’re supposed to be attracted to that. That’s what the bible tells me.

[laughter]

S: Oh man. Alright, then – oh god, that just reminded me of something I haven’t thought of forever. I remember – I can’t remember if it was while I was engaged, I’m jumping ahead a moment, or maybe it was after I got married, but Martin made some comment about a pair of white pants I had, and that they were very – I don’t even remember what he said, but it was definitely the idea that – kind of like an ooh la la. Tracey, I was so clueless, I never even thought about that, but apparently I walked around sometimes wearing things that were…

T: Some ooh la la pants. I love that.

S: Who knows. Ok, back to our timeline. Spring of 1980, there was that whole mistake I made on calculating the packaging materials for the release of the first Pretty Good Records album of Keiths, the So You Want To Go Back To Egypt album, which was a huge big deal, and we could not ship them all out. There was a delay of – I don’t know, it might have been months to get them all out because of the mistake I made. When I talked with Keith, I talked with Keith about it, he did not have this explosive anger towards me that I totally expected. And I’m like ok, why would I have expected it – well, I mean, you heard his confession in the letter about the fleshly anger that he often had towards others. And I can’t think of anything that was a bigger deal than this all of a sudden radical, whatever you can afford policy for albums, and I fucked it up, and he did not come down on me. So that’s an interesting thing. Then there’s the whole engagement/marriage set up. That also was happening in the spring of 1980. Melody’s initial question who do I like, so it wasn’t really a strong thing for me, I said one of the art brothers, then she prompts me about the elder Martin.

T: It sounds so Mormony – Elder Martin. Just saying.

[laughter]

S: Well, we didn’t call him that.

T: No, we didn’t. We didn’t call him elder. When we referred to him as his title, he was an elder.

S: Yes, but I’m saying it now because it puts it in context for those listeners who weren’t part of Last Days, right.

T: Yeah, yeah.

S: So then there’s Keith’s follow up with me. He comes and talks to me personally. Wait a second, I think he pulled me into their bedroom. Melody was there, but it was Keith really talking it through, and then they bring Martin straight in and that’s that first – I don’t know if you want to call it a date night, it was so weird. The engagement that was three weeks later – that was Keith proposing. I think we were already engaged by the time of Wayne and Kathleen’s wedding, which was April of 1980, because I remember seeing a photo of me holding – gosh, I guess I must have been holding Bethany on my lap at that wedding. Again, I think we were already engaged. There was an instance of Martin was really harsh and mean to me about something, and it just devastated me. I talked to Keith, and the way Keith intervened is like, there was this personal intervention to try to fix that. Melody confronts me to warn me about sexual temptation, and of course I say no, I’m not tempted, I’m really worried about all this. Well, it’s not Melody who talks to me.

T: Which is so weird.

S: It’s Keith. Keith – I guess Melody must have said something to him, and he takes me aside and has this very private talk about it all. I remember, I’m sitting there telling him it’s really hard to think that there’s this date on the calendar and you’ve decided this is the day I’m going to have sex for the first time in my life, and I don’t remember much more about that conversation, but it was me and Keith. He changed the date. He pushed it way back after that. So – ugh.

T: I just have to point out, for Troy and Brian who read the No Compromise book 12 times, will get this. Melody does bring this element out of what Keith would do – burst into the ladies’ dorm room, and she also does that whole deflection of, that was just Keith’s personality. Isn’t that cute. And to the rest of us, this is horrifying. Even in church circles this is a step too far. As you were sharing your story for the first time from start to finish on that interview, that’s what kept jumping out at me of, not appropriate. Not appropriate. So not appropriate! I think there has been this oh, wink, wink, that’s just Keith, and I think this is not just odd to the rest of us. This is hyper unhealthy. You put yourself back into your young, impressionable mind.

S: I’m 18 years old!

T: It’s a sadness that I’m glad you’re having a chance to unpack, because regardless of what aspects of the speculation are true, I think the overarching, overriding truth is, it wasn’t about Sharon, and who Sharon is, and what Sharon wants; you’re very much in the stream of what many cults do as far as getting their women married off. I think that’s an injury, and I think that’s a wound that has to have time to sit with so that you can not just put it in that box of – yep, that’s just the way it was. I look at Melody and I think oh, how can you write all of that and kind of wink, wink, wink, nod that as well. I believe she must have struggled with this.

S: You would think so.

T: I can’t imagine being married, as one of the only married couples with all these young women around, and not having struggles. Maybe that was part of her sourness, frankly.

S: You know what, I feel for her in that. That would suck. That would really suck. Alright, so I know I’ve mentioned this before – Keith was originally going to perform the wedding, but he had Leonard Ravenhill officiate instead of him, and he said it’s because it was just too culty. But then I’m also like, was there something more, because I’m 99% sure he officiated Wayne and Kathleen’s wedding, April of 1980.

T: He did.

S: Ok, yep. He also officiated another couple’s wedding shortly after mine. So of the people he was close to in the ministry, I’m the one that he did not perform the wedding.

T: Yeah, that was interesting when you first said that to me, and why, because I did come in when that other couple after you was getting married, and it never entered my mind that somebody else would do that, so I thought that was very interesting.

S: Yeah. Alright, and then there was our social interaction as couples, so Keith and Melody and me and Martin. I don’t remember how much of that was during the engagement, or was it all after the wedding? That part I’m not sure, but lots of invitations to come over to their house in the evenings, watch movies, go out to dinner together. We’d play games, we’d play Risk, we’d play racket ball. We’d go to video arcades, and I think Martin was always there. I’m pretty sure of that. Sometimes Melody was there, but often not. Of course, she had a couple of young kids, definitely she didn’t come play racket ball, but looking back the real intense fun and the competition – I think that always seemed to be a bit more between me and Keith than other.

T: Do you think it always seemed, or are you pretty sure it was always between you and Keith?

S: Um. I remember laughing. A lot. With Keith. I remember intense kind of almost yelling back and forth at Risk, and Centipedes. I do remember Martin and I talking about how Keith was a real sore loser when you play racket ball, but you know Tracey, it’s hard for me to say for sure, but that’s my impression of it.

T: Yeah, I think that’s my impression as I’ve heard all of these is, now it’s a sanctioned friendship. He can have that.

S: Yep. And the two other things – the big trip to Europe, and also being in the will for the kids. I have always in my mind framed that as he really wanted Martin to go on the trip to Europe, and he really wanted Martin to be the one raising his kids.

T: [laughing]

S: I’m serious, Tracey, that’s how I’ve always thought of it. That’s how I’ve always thought of it.

T: Wow. Wow. Because there was another couple who was the pastoral couple, and I think it’s interesting that they weren’t the ones.

S: Yeah. Well, I remember Keith saying something like I want my kids to be able to have fun. I remember him saying that for sure.

T: Interesting.

S: Anyway, I think that’s pretty much the timeline. I just want to say, I’m also trying to be really, really real here. I’ve said a couple of things that I’ve never said to anyone ever before, and I have this vague recollection, and it’s horrible and I’m embarrassed to say it, but I do have this vague recollection at some point it would have been in between that thought I had about Melody, and before I was set up with Martin, I remember this thought of, if something happened to Melody I wonder who Keith would remarry, and would it be me.

T: Mmm.

S: I’ve never said that before, and it feels really strange to say that.

T: And so human. I think that’s what we’re also trying to bring out. It’s not to shame anyone, or to put something on someone; it’s the humanity that we know at our age people have, we were not allowed to have, and so it became exercises in denial and deflection, and excusing and ignoring. That’s why we’re talking about this, because in that sphere where you’re always denying and excusing, you’re actually setting yourself up for some great falls – which we’ve seen happen right, time, and time, and time again. And why community and commune environments can often lead down the path to where the head guy gets the revelation that he’s to have multiple wives, because you’re having these relationships with all these amazing, tender-hearted people who are really hanging on everything you say. That is a human intoxication.

S: It is. Hey Tracey. Tracey.

T: Tracey.

S: If things had taken a different turn, we could have been sister wives.

[laughter]

T: Sister wives! So, true story. I hate all that TLC shit, except for Sister Wives.

S: I’ve never seen it!

T: Oh my god. So my daughter – I think it’s been on like a zillion years ago – they started watching it, and I would usually come in still in my – it was non-Christian judgement, just trash TV. Trash TV. And I was so taken by this story I think (a) because we used to joke about polygamy, and (b) it’s a fascinating exercise in how these multiple wives are reacting to basically, this insufferable patriarch, right.

[laughter]

T: So maybe one day we’ll share some more about that. Don’t want to go down too far on that rabbit hole, but I think sister wives is such a natural step in some of these environments, because of that level of intimacy that you’re building, that can be very difficult to draw proper lines, and that’s why I start at the beginning – inappropriate, right. It’s just inappropriate, and you’re in an environment that doesn’t draw the boundaries, and of course we have Keith Green who is I think, the brilliant title of no boundaries, and you have all these elements at play, and I think there’s some human Feet of Clay that were there and were present.

S: Amen.

T: And I am interested, and I may never know the answer to that – how much did Melody feel some of this too? And also, either denied and pushed away and made excuses, or simmered and struggled? I don’t know.

S: Mmm. I don’t know. And that would be a fascinating thing to learn, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.

T: For the record, if I were to be sister wives with anyone, it would be you Sharon.

[laughter]

S: Thank you Tracey. Thank you.

T: So now do you feel a little bit able to joke about that?

S: Yeah, I think I probably can. Well, hey, you know what? We already did share one man.

T: Ahh, we did, and that was not…

S: Not at the same time!

T: And not in the cult commune.

[laughter]

T: At all.

S: No. Alright, Tracey, do you think we are now finished with era number one, Keith Green Blazing Bright?

T: With the goddam longest era ever, I think we relived it as long as we lived it the first time. Ah yes, I think this wraps up era number one…

S: Thank God!

T: Which I think is going to be important to understand the depths of these roots. We’re talking about trees here, right, the branches, the roots, because as we go on I think more things are going to make sense. Again, the thing that just irks me is you got completely left out of the book! I know I’ve said that over and over again, but when you start understanding the depth of this relationship, and the depth of this connection, it makes no fucking sense to me.

S: Alright. Well, let’s hold it that we can revisit this era if something else important comes up, but in the meantime, thank you so much everyone for listening to us, and you can help us help others find our podcast by giving us a rating, leaving a written review, telling your friends, sharing a link – all of the above.

T: And don’t forget to follow our Instagram account – ooh, there’s gonna be some good AI and some good true history pictures on this. Sharon and Tracey as sister wives. No, Feet of Clay.cultsisters where you can find all this fun stuff, the heart wrenching stuff – the whole gamut. What you get here is what you get there. if you want to see these things and you’re not on Instagram – well (a) you should be, because it’s my favorite platform, and (b), a lot of the stories feed right into my Facebook account, Tracey Ardern.

S: And you can connect with others by joining our Facebook group, Confessions of the Cult Sisters Community.

T: Should it be Confessions of the Cult Sister Wives Community?

[laughter]

S: We are not going there right now.

T: Kidding, kidding. Thank you for listening and for walking through, as we go through the heartfelt and then to the silly, cos that’s who we are. The Cult Sisters. See you next time.