Inside A Cult Part 1
The Lord Our Righteousness Church, sometimes called Strong City, is a religious community near Travesser Park, Union County, New Mexico. It originated with a group of about eighty adherents who migrated to the area from Sandpoint, Idaho in 2000. In 2008, the community consisted of approximately fifty people. The community believes in modesty of dress and the women wear long skirts and dresses, and reportedly mix well with the local people.
Its leader, Wayne Bent, born May 18, 1941, is known as Michael Travesser within the church. Bent, once a Seventh-day Adventist pastor, left his denomination with others of like mind in 1987 and has since referred to that church as one of the "daughters of the great harlot" condemned in the book of Revelation. Bent claims that, during an experience in his living room in June 2000, God told him, "You are the Messiah." Bent has since stated, "I am the embodiment of God. I am divinity and humanity combined."
A former church member has alleged that Bent told his congregation that "God told him that he was supposed to sleep with seven virgins," including the member's own daughters, then only 14 and 15 years old; the man, John Sayer, refused. Though he left the compound and took his wife and daughters after being a church member for sixteen years, one daughter returned and, according to Sayer, was one of three minors taken into state custody for their own protection in April 2008. Bent has said he's had sex with his followers, including a woman who was divorced from his son, but asserts that though he lay "naked with virgins" and the virgins asked him for sex, he refused.
"Inside a Cult" was shown on the Four Corners program on the ABC in the United States.
It covers Bent's announcement that the Day of Judgment began on October 31, 2007. Bent chose that date after calculating a Biblical prophecy number (490) and adding it to the year 1517, when the Protestant Reformation began, yielding 2007 as a result.
text via..
List of cults claiming the end of the world is nigh.
8/17/09
Bent
Inside A Cult Part 1
The Lord Our Righteousness Church, sometimes called Strong City, is a religious community near Travesser Park, Union County, New Mexico. It originated with a group of about eighty adherents who migrated to the area from Sandpoint, Idaho in 2000. In 2008, the community consisted of approximately fifty people. The community believes in modesty of dress and the women wear long skirts and dresses, and reportedly mix well with the local people.
Its leader, Wayne Bent, born May 18, 1941, is known as Michael Travesser within the church. Bent, once a Seventh-day Adventist pastor, left his denomination with others of like mind in 1987 and has since referred to that church as one of the "daughters of the great harlot" condemned in the book of Revelation. Bent claims that, during an experience in his living room in June 2000, God told him, "You are the Messiah." Bent has since stated, "I am the embodiment of God. I am divinity and humanity combined."
A former church member has alleged that Bent told his congregation that "God told him that he was supposed to sleep with seven virgins," including the member's own daughters, then only 14 and 15 years old; the man, John Sayer, refused. Though he left the compound and took his wife and daughters after being a church member for sixteen years, one daughter returned and, according to Sayer, was one of three minors taken into state custody for their own protection in April 2008. Bent has said he's had sex with his followers, including a woman who was divorced from his son, but asserts that though he lay "naked with virgins" and the virgins asked him for sex, he refused.
"Inside a Cult" was shown on the Four Corners program on the ABC in the United States.
It covers Bent's announcement that the Day of Judgment began on October 31, 2007. Bent chose that date after calculating a Biblical prophecy number (490) and adding it to the year 1517, when the Protestant Reformation began, yielding 2007 as a result.
text via..
List of cults claiming the end of the world is nigh.
