Speaker 1: Today, we're diving into a powerful story of resilience and
Speaker 1: self discovery. Jared Walker grew up in a world consumed
Speaker 1: by fear. An eight year old child convinced that the
Speaker 1: end of the days were right around the corner. Raised
Speaker 1: in the Worldwide Church of God, a white supremacist doomsday cult,
Speaker 1: Walker's childhood was dominated by apocalyptic prophecies and disturbing doctrines.
Speaker 1: Yet despite his church's racial prejudices, Walker's black family believed
Speaker 1: they were chosen for salvation. But when the promised dooms
Speaker 1: day didn't arrive in nineteen seventy two, his family, like
Speaker 1: many others, faced a reckoning. How do you rebuild a
Speaker 1: life when your beliefs have been shattered? Today, we'll explore
Speaker 1: Walker's journey from a childhood defined by control and fear
Speaker 1: to finding his own path free from the shadows of fantasism.
Speaker 1: This story forces us to reflect on how institutions can
Speaker 1: manipulate the vulnerable, and how reclaiming one's autonomy requires immense courage.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned as we unpack Gerald Walker's transformation from a
Speaker 1: child trapped in a cult to a writer who reclaimed
Speaker 1: his life. This story is from the Guardian by Steve Rose,
Speaker 1: published on September tenth, twenty twenty four. So, aj, I'm
Speaker 1: coming to you what role does fear play in maintaining
Speaker 1: control within doomsday cults? And why do some individuals remain
Speaker 1: loyal even after predictions fail.
Speaker 2: I think that it always comes down to childhood, to
Speaker 2: how you're raised. If you see in many of these
Speaker 2: very extreme religious cults, or even Christianity Catholicism, you find
Speaker 2: that kids erase to believe things are the same level
Speaker 2: of factulness. Right. You teach kids something like we need
Speaker 2: water to survive, or Jesus perform miracles, or you're going
Speaker 2: to go to hell if you don't do X, y Z,
Speaker 2: and all of these things become exactly the same. They
Speaker 2: become just as true as the other. So you grow
Speaker 2: up believing all these things. You grow up believing that
Speaker 2: your soul is going to go to hell if you
Speaker 2: don't do as you're told. And generally this is being
Speaker 2: taught by people in a position of high authority, leaders
Speaker 2: of the church, even parents. Unfortunately, parents don't really have
Speaker 2: that choice of becoming that because they grew up exactly
Speaker 2: the same way. And I think this is how people
Speaker 2: go from childhood to adulthood, thinking that they have to
Speaker 2: stay within these structures, within these cults, no matter how
Speaker 2: harmful they become.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about how psychological factors can also make
Speaker 1: one susceptible to this. Did you want to possibly touch
Speaker 1: on that, Scott, Like, what factors make people susceptible to
Speaker 1: joining or staying in harmful organizations that Aj just alluded to,
Speaker 1: like the world where Church of God despite clear, like
Speaker 1: crystal clear contradiction.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean we're social, social species, right, and so
Speaker 4: we're influenced a lot by our society, by our people
Speaker 4: that we see as peers, people that we want to
Speaker 4: be like, that we want to be around, that we
Speaker 4: rely on to help us, that they rely on us.
Speaker 4: That gives us a sense of purpose and a sense
Speaker 4: of belonging. And so being part of a group is
Speaker 4: just a massively huge influence on an individual of any age.
Speaker 4: But as Aj pointed out, children have the additional I
Speaker 4: shouldn't really call it a drawback because we evolved to
Speaker 4: develop this way. But children really just believe whatever their
Speaker 4: parents say. You know, they they start out, they'll believe
Speaker 4: whatever they say. They'll do whatever you tell them to do,
Speaker 4: and they'll stick with it. And and so that at
Speaker 4: that early age. I think it was Aristotle that said,
Speaker 4: you know that famous quote, give me a man by
Speaker 4: age seven, or no, give me a child, but before
Speaker 4: age seven, and I'll give you the man, meaning that
Speaker 4: if you can, if you can implant, implant, if you
Speaker 4: can encourage particular beliefs at that young age, then they
Speaker 4: will last throughout their lifetime. But even once we you know,
Speaker 4: we see adults joining these groups and staying in these groups,
Speaker 4: and you know, why can't they just decide to leave
Speaker 4: the group after the fact. Well, because there's lots of
Speaker 4: social support in those groups, there's lots of uh, it's
Speaker 4: frowned upon to question the beliefs of the organization and
Speaker 4: especially to question the you know, the leaders of those organizations.
Speaker 4: In the In the previous section segment that we talked
Speaker 4: about this week, we brought up the idea of authoritarianism
Speaker 4: and so that that you know, very much central to
Speaker 4: the to many religions. You know, many religions have a
Speaker 4: god at the at the at the head, and who
Speaker 4: dictates what what should be done and what you should
Speaker 4: not be doing, and that kind of thing. And so
Speaker 4: from the very beginning from day one, from page one,
Speaker 4: even it's a it's a very authoritarian approach and so
Speaker 4: and once somebody gets in with a group like that,
Speaker 4: it's very tough to shake those feelings because you feel
Speaker 4: like you're rejecting your identity, you feel like you're rejecting
Speaker 4: your friends and family. And so, you know, we have
Speaker 4: very evolved, strong emotions that try to keep us tied
Speaker 4: to that group, even at the expense of our own
Speaker 4: well being and and truth to be honest, and so
Speaker 4: so psychology definitely has a major impact on that. And
Speaker 4: that's what makes it so, that's why that this kind
Speaker 4: of phenomena is so persistent, is because it's our nature
Speaker 4: to kind of go along with it and to and
Speaker 4: to stay with it. You know, we've seen so many
Speaker 4: of these, uh you know, these ends of the world
Speaker 4: group professing to know when the world we're in and
Speaker 4: obviously they've been wrong so far every time, every time
Speaker 4: you would think it would sink in and it's not.
Speaker 4: So there's got to be something happening behind the scenes.
Speaker 4: And I think it's that, you know, you know, our
Speaker 4: evolved psychology, which happens to have a side effect of
Speaker 4: you know, promoting this type of blind belief, and it
Speaker 4: can be frustrating, but it's human nature and it's probably
Speaker 4: not going to change anytime soon.
Speaker 1: You know, Scott, you brought up something that I kind
Speaker 1: of want to touch on because of the struction of
Speaker 1: this particular church worldwide church being not only a doomsday cult,
Speaker 1: but a white supremacist doomsday cult. And you can even
Speaker 1: imagine Gerald Walker's family being part of this organization, being
Speaker 1: a black family in the sixties, seventies, in the sixties
Speaker 1: and the seventies, listening to their rhetoric, being who they
Speaker 1: are because you can't change your race, and still having
Speaker 1: to believe or being taught that they have to believe
Speaker 1: the things that's being talked to them over the pulpit.
Speaker 1: I kind of want you both to kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: glance on this, because I believe both of you are
Speaker 1: brought it up in your own research. But Ag I'm
Speaker 1: coming to you first. How can the intersection of race
Speaker 1: and religion complicates one's identity, especially in environments where white
Speaker 1: supremacy is normalized.
Speaker 2: You know, I think a lot of these doomstaate Coats
Speaker 2: and other extremely nationalistic type of Christianity. It wasn't very extreme.
Speaker 2: They use that type of philosophy that makes it where
Speaker 2: the rules have to be exactly this, and then you
Speaker 2: have to follow these rules. So to me, like the
Speaker 2: most surprising aspect of the specific story of Walker was
Speaker 2: the cognitive dissonance that was sorry to justify participating in
Speaker 2: a group that actively segregated its members. So Walker mentioned
Speaker 2: that black members had their own separate church and they
Speaker 2: were not allowed inside the white church, and it made
Speaker 2: me wonder whether the rules were even the same, given
Speaker 2: that you know, even heavenly rules were different. For example,
Speaker 2: the church founder made it very clear by preaching that
Speaker 2: white people were made in the image of God and
Speaker 2: black people were put on earth to be white people's servants,
Speaker 2: and that heaven would also be segregated. So even though
Speaker 2: black people were going to be saved and were allowed
Speaker 2: in the church, it would not be with white people.
Speaker 2: So Walker stated that the church founder Armstrong used a
Speaker 2: scripture from the Bible to excuse that racism, which actually
Speaker 2: helped the black members accept the idea that they were
Speaker 2: inferior to white people because it came straight from the Bible.
Speaker 2: And as I mentioned earlier, these are words that you
Speaker 2: are meant to take literally and strictly and these are
Speaker 2: these are the rules. So this, unfortunately is far too
Speaker 2: similar to like the horrific practices of slave Bibles that
Speaker 2: were used to indoctrinate slaves right to keep them obedient
Speaker 2: to their white masters and preserve the system of oppression
Speaker 2: of African slaves. And I feel like they were using
Speaker 2: a very similar concept here.
Speaker 1: That's what I thought of as soon as I read
Speaker 1: that part, is like, this is the same type of
Speaker 1: techniques that were used in the Antebello South during slavery.
Speaker 1: The Slave Bible specifically omitted passages that alluded to anything
Speaker 1: that had to do with freedom, emancipation, being able to
Speaker 1: even you know, see yourselves as like your counterpart. Because
Speaker 1: I believe that passage, I want to say, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if it's in Nophesians or if it's I know
Speaker 1: it's like one of Paul's books where it says there's
Speaker 1: neither male nor female, Greek, nor Greek, nor Jew, bond
Speaker 1: nor free. We are all one in Jesus Christ. So
Speaker 1: that would be a passage that would have been completely
Speaker 1: taken out. Matter of fact, I believe that the majority
Speaker 1: of exodus in the Slave Bible was completely omitted because
Speaker 1: that is a story specifically talking about, right about how
Speaker 1: God freed the children of Israel because He was their
Speaker 1: chosen people and they were bonded to too long in Egypt.
Speaker 1: So it's interesting how a lot of times and I
Speaker 1: think about this and you guys, just forgive me. I
Speaker 1: just gotta I gotta get this out for a moment, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is kind of the thing that I talk about
Speaker 1: a lot. But it's interesting how one can use the
Speaker 1: Bible specifically just by cherry picking certain ports in order
Speaker 1: to fit a narrative that you're trying to basically propagate. Right,
Speaker 1: So this whole notion of white people are superior to
Speaker 1: black people, that this is the reason why we have
Speaker 1: to keep you separate and have you regulated to certain
Speaker 1: positions in the church. You cannot be a church leader
Speaker 1: or you can only be an underling. So far because
Speaker 1: you are black, you are not white. And God has
Speaker 1: a specific area that white people are supposed to occupy
Speaker 1: and a specific area that black people are supposed to occupy,
Speaker 1: and that is to be white people's servants. It's the
Speaker 1: same thing that was also written in mind Come by Hitler.
Speaker 1: He said the exact same thing. He even though he
Speaker 1: is said basically very anti Semitic things against Jewish Jewish people,
Speaker 1: but when he got to other groups of people, especially
Speaker 1: black people, he said, well, you're not evil per se,
Speaker 1: but Jay that smarten either. So the only thing that
Speaker 1: you really can do is this be servants to the arians,
Speaker 1: i e.
Speaker 3: White people, the perfect white people.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: So it's it's it's interesting, like how I keep saying
Speaker 1: interesting because like you know, I'm trying to I'm trying
Speaker 1: to be objection I'm trying to be objective here, guys.
Speaker 1: But it's it's, uh, yeah, I should actually say it's
Speaker 1: dumbfounding that these this particular rhetoric exists, and how it
Speaker 1: has been recycled in generation after generation, and how and
Speaker 1: how superbly effective it is in order to actually keep
Speaker 1: a certain group of people subjugated. But I'm sorry, Scott,
Speaker 1: I was taken away from my question that I was
Speaker 1: asking you, because I know you alluded to that particularly
Speaker 1: that same thing as well in your research, So please talk.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, it's it's going back to the to
Speaker 3: the racial issue.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 4: If I remember correctly from the article, this particular group
Speaker 4: preached that black people were lower than than white people.
Speaker 4: But then they also said that the black people that
Speaker 4: participated in their group were a notch above black people
Speaker 4: that were not part of the group. And so I
Speaker 4: think perhaps what we can see here. I'm not not
Speaker 4: an expert on this, and I'm certainly not all that
Speaker 4: knowledgeable on what it's like to be a black person
Speaker 4: going to church.
Speaker 1: But we'll talk after this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Okay, you're right, you give me the give me
Speaker 3: the inside scoop on that.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 4: But but we see this kind of thing with like
Speaker 4: conspiracy theories and conspiracy theorists. Psychologists say that they're attracted
Speaker 4: to these kind of things because they feel like they're special,
Speaker 4: like they they're in on some kind of special information,
Speaker 4: they know something that the rest of the population will know,
Speaker 4: or in this case, they're they're part of a group
Speaker 4: that's going to survive at you know, when humanity gets
Speaker 4: wiped out in that kind of thing, or they're going
Speaker 4: to be sitting at the at the head of the table,
Speaker 4: or at least, you know, maybe serving the head of
Speaker 4: the table, but at least being part of that process.
Speaker 4: And so it's it's hard to imagine that that kind
Speaker 4: of impetus would be powerful enough to to encourage a
Speaker 4: family that we're stuck in a situation where they were
Speaker 4: being looked down upon. They and they would look forward
Speaker 4: to it. They would they would lap it up and
Speaker 4: say please, can I have some more? And it was
Speaker 4: just very It's very it was very frustrating to read.
Speaker 3: For one thing.
Speaker 4: It was very I could feel my chest tightening, and
Speaker 4: I could feel my stomach getting all riled up. And
Speaker 4: it was just a very unfortunate situation. But I think
Speaker 4: we see it quite a bit. And and and it's
Speaker 4: not just racial issues too. You you wonder why a
Speaker 4: black family would be to this church group. But at
Speaker 4: the same hand, we can we can wonder why women
Speaker 4: flock to Christian churches. I mean, women are not uh
Speaker 4: you know, they don't have an exalted spot in the Bible,
Speaker 4: and uh you know or LGBTQ people, right, why why
Speaker 4: do they continue to support their Christian you know, their pope,
Speaker 4: even their pope who says that, you know, you can't
Speaker 4: be gay if you want to if you want to
Speaker 4: get into heaven. And so it's from that from the outside,
Speaker 4: we might boggle our minds and think, how could somebody
Speaker 4: fall for this stick right, but you know, it's it's
Speaker 4: it's got there's got to be some part of human uh,
Speaker 4: the human condition that urges us to go into that way.
Speaker 4: And I think the the being part of the special group,
Speaker 4: being in on the on that uh, this secret knowledge
Speaker 4: and that kind of thing being part of the in
Speaker 4: group can be very very powerful motivator.
Speaker 3: And clearly, uh, it happens here.
Speaker 4: The second thing I would bring up, though, is that
Speaker 4: just religion in general, I think is very powerful. We
Speaker 4: you know, we talk endlessly about how people are taught
Speaker 4: not to quite in their religious beliefs. So so slaves
Speaker 4: in the Antebellum South of the United States were we
Speaker 4: were taught that this was the way it was supposed
Speaker 4: to be by your your slaves, obey your masters, even
Speaker 4: the parole ones and and so uh. It literally says
Speaker 4: that word for word in the Bible, and so so
Speaker 4: so they're taught to it. It's a side effect of
Speaker 4: or maybe even a feature, not a bug, but of
Speaker 4: just religion religious thinking in general.
Speaker 3: We talk about where's the harm.
Speaker 4: This is a big piece of the harm, right there,
Speaker 4: is that if you if you buy in, if you
Speaker 4: take that first step into irrational belief, even even if
Speaker 4: you are in the quote unquote friendly religion or liberal,
Speaker 4: you know, Christian or that kind of thing. Just taking
Speaker 4: that step across that threshold makes everybody on that side
Speaker 4: of the threshold stronger. And so by by moving in
Speaker 4: that direction, you're more likely to fall for these kinds
Speaker 4: of statements, for these proclamations that different people are on
Speaker 4: different tiers and society. And you know, if you want
Speaker 4: a question that you'd be questioning your identity, you'd be
Speaker 4: questioning the entire group.
Speaker 3: And so it's there's just it.
Speaker 4: If you think about it from that perspective, it's amazing
Speaker 4: that not more people are caught up in it, and
Speaker 4: you know, it seems like it's just an overwhelming force
Speaker 4: and it's it's very frustrating. So I think that makes
Speaker 4: it all the more important that there's people like us
Speaker 4: that want to talk about it.
Speaker 2: Is quite a bit of people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and yeah, exactly, like you know, it's in Christianity,
Speaker 1: like the biggest religion in the entire world. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you know, I know that we were talking about, like,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole thing about people being stuck in
Speaker 1: this belief system, right, but you know, one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why we are talking about this story specifically is
Speaker 1: that Walt Walker found himself out right. So, ah, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna come to you first reading the article, if you
Speaker 1: can just think about why do you believe that maybe
Speaker 1: some individuals, why Walker, succeed in escaping the cycle of
Speaker 1: reduction self destruction while others like his brother did not.
Speaker 2: You know, I think it has a lot to do
Speaker 2: with with also how you are, how you are raised, right,
Speaker 2: like all of your your environment and your upbringing. You
Speaker 2: may even be raised in the same house, but your
Speaker 2: experiences the way that you're perceiving them are going to
Speaker 2: be a little bit different. And I think a lot
Speaker 2: of people who actually go into religion are taught not
Speaker 2: to question, as we mentioned earlier, and not to not
Speaker 2: to put too much thought on what these wolves are
Speaker 2: telling them. Right, So there is a lot of focus
Speaker 2: on this eternal life, and there are making so many
Speaker 2: sacrifices on this earth to achieve that goal, and part
Speaker 2: of that is attempting to I'm sorry to we're just
Speaker 2: cut that off and even answer the question. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: I'll start right there. So I think the reason that
Speaker 2: some people are unable to come out of that is
Speaker 2: because they just completely refuse to use that method of
Speaker 2: critical thinking, right, and there are people who are who
Speaker 2: are actually exposed to two new ideas. One of the
Speaker 2: things that I always find most fascinating is that people
Speaker 2: who start reading or who got to college are some
Speaker 2: of the ones who are more likely to convert from religion.
Speaker 2: And as you mentioned Walker, he became a writer, and
Speaker 2: I believe that that was you know that and his passion.
Speaker 2: He more than likely was somebody that that began reading
Speaker 2: a whole lot. And I think that that information sort
Speaker 2: of was the difference that it made between him and
Speaker 2: his brother. You know that the access knowledge and it's
Speaker 2: just that's just to information.
Speaker 1: Maybe access to information is very important. I really believe
Speaker 1: that when people are able to get different thoughts from
Speaker 1: what has been put to them previously, and different ideas
Speaker 1: and just a difference of even opinion can definitely interrupt
Speaker 1: some aspects of indoctrination. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: you know we are a part of is the atheist
Speaker 1: community of Austin. And one of the things that is
Speaker 1: the I believe the most important portion of that name
Speaker 1: is community. And I'm wondering what is our responsibility. I
Speaker 1: want both of you all to just you know, just
Speaker 1: kind of give like a minute response to this if
Speaker 1: you can. What is the responsibility of communities like us
Speaker 1: to have supporting people who are leaving harmful religions and
Speaker 1: helping them integrate back into normalcy in society. Uh a
Speaker 1: J I want you to go first, and then Scott
Speaker 1: be around us up.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, I want to go into something for
Speaker 2: a second that I thought something that was really important
Speaker 2: in this in this specific case, as I disabled person,
Speaker 2: myself being legally blind and death, I couldn't help but
Speaker 2: sympathize with his parents. You know, both of his parents
Speaker 2: had lost their vision due to some traumatic accidents in childhood.
Speaker 2: And I can recognize that religion and codes of them
Speaker 2: pray on and take advantage vulnerable people who are going
Speaker 2: through experiences that are very traumatic like that. So Walker
Speaker 2: said that his parents were promised that their bodies won't
Speaker 2: be whole and that they won't regain vision when Chris
Speaker 2: Christ returned, and he believed and I agreed, that his
Speaker 2: parents' blindness played role in why they were so willing
Speaker 2: to participate in this court. That was you know, in turn,
Speaker 2: extremely harmful to his full family. So to answer, to
Speaker 2: go back to your question, I think that this is
Speaker 2: something that we as the secular community can do more
Speaker 2: for to help people who are more vulnerable. Right Like
Speaker 2: in their case, there were blind people and both of
Speaker 2: their parents were blind, and I think that the community
Speaker 2: as a whole could have done so much more to
Speaker 2: give them the support that they truly needed to succeed,
Speaker 2: so that they didn't turn to such a controlling environment
Speaker 2: that eventually, you know, took advantage of them and took
Speaker 2: their money, and took their happiness and took you know,
Speaker 2: Walker's life basically was was completely entangled in that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's uh. I think that's very important.
Speaker 4: And we also need to take into consideration speaking of
Speaker 4: the responsibilities of communities like ours. We talked about information already,
Speaker 4: So first of all, providing information. It's it's it's important
Speaker 4: that people like both of you are saying that people
Speaker 4: hear a variety of perspectives, that hear a variety of opinions,
Speaker 4: that hear a variety of approaches to thinking. Uh, And
Speaker 4: so that in itself can give an individual, can empower
Speaker 4: them to make changes in their own life, can it
Speaker 4: can empower them to think about things in a slightly
Speaker 4: different way to quote unquote rely on their worldly thing,
Speaker 4: you know, their worldly reasoning and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: But I think it's also important that communities like ours
Speaker 4: and AJ was talking about this do provide support. I mean,
Speaker 4: it can be traumatic to leave a situation like that,
Speaker 4: to leave a situation where your family is supported, where
Speaker 4: you're where you feel loved, where you feel have friendships,
Speaker 4: where you identify with the group. And these these small
Speaker 4: cult groups are I mean, they could be very tight,
Speaker 4: and so their their identity is very closely tied into
Speaker 4: that group.
Speaker 3: And so when you leave that group.
Speaker 4: You're leaving everybody you know, and you're leaving everything you
Speaker 4: ever had, and you're leaving everything you've ever known. And
Speaker 4: so being able to not only have information that there
Speaker 4: are communities like that are different out there, but also
Speaker 4: then when the rubber meets the road, is the support
Speaker 4: going to be there? Are are there going to be
Speaker 4: people that can pick up the slack as far as
Speaker 4: the social the loving requirement, the friendship requirement, maybe even
Speaker 4: helping each other with you know, financial issues or finding
Speaker 4: a job or finding a new place to live, and
Speaker 4: you know, things like that. And so I think you know,
Speaker 4: the combination of information and support after the fact, I
Speaker 4: think that can be that can be very helpful. And
Speaker 4: you know, religious groups aren't going to provide that, and
Speaker 4: so it's up to us to get that stuff done.
Speaker 1: It's up to us.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 1: Well, Walker's experience highlights the dangers of dogma and the
Speaker 1: ways in which it can warp family bonds and personal potential.
Speaker 1: Despite the indoctrination that led him to feel chosen yet inferior,
Speaker 1: he ultimately broke free of those constraints. His story is
Speaker 1: a reminder of the importance of questioning narratives and polls
Speaker 1: on us seeking our truths, and the transformational power of
Speaker 1: education and mentorship. And I just have a personal side. Boy,
Speaker 1: what could Gerald Walker's life been have been may have
Speaker 1: been like if him and his family were familiar with
Speaker 1: black non believers. I'm just saying, I'm just saying.