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Wanda Mason's Story
MY INVOLVEMENT WITH DESTRUCTIVE
ABUSIVE CHURCHES
By: Wanda Mason
As I write this, my emotions range from nostalgia to nausea. There were good
times as well as bad. From 1970 to 1991, for over twenty years, I was
involved with churches that I now believe to be cults. This movement started with
William Sowders in Shepherdsville,
Kentucky.
My personal opinion is that it's not what a group "believes" about the
Bible because all beliefs are just a matter of the interpretation of an
individual or group but it's what they "do" that brings them into
the position of a being a cult. If you look at the definition of a cult and
compare that to many religions, you could even say that Jesus was a cult
leader. But in my opinion, it's a matter of how much control is used in a
person's life and over their minds and the amount of information control and
isolation from family and friends. Cults have a black and white answer to all
of life's problems. It makes it easy for people who want to escape reality
but at the price of giving up their identity.
The first church that I became involved in for any length of time was Gospel
Tabernacle in Fort Worth,
Texas. I was in this church for
five years. One of the doctrines of this particular branch is that
"sex" was the fruit that Adam and Eve ate in the Garden of Eden
(the forbidden fruit). The pastor, Lundy Keller, who is now deceased, taught
that we would have to "overcome" sex if we were to be saved! To
have a child was practically a sin. Many young men, including my brother,
(who is still in that church now) were told to have vasectomies, some, even
before they got married.
I had two children when I got in the church and had an appointment to get my
tubes tied when I became pregnant for the third time. One of the women in the
church told me that Keller would want me to get an abortion. I cried for
weeks, but knew that I could not abort my child. He did not ask me to get an
abortion but I did get my tubes tied when my son was born, at Keller's
request. I remember one young woman, whose husband had a vasectomy at
Keller's request, came up to me after my son was born and said, "I'd
rather go to hell than to live my life with-out a child!" My own brother
will never have a child of his own. He and his wife were crazy about my
children and wanted their own desperately but they really believe they made
that sacrifice for God!
There was really no dress code at this branch but we still looked to Lundy
Keller for direction in all phases of our lives. He did not fellowship any
other church in the world although he did have his beginnings with William
Sowders. The world and God was so small! We were not to visit another church.
My brother was even forbidden to come to our Father's funeral when he passed
away in 1988. They teach that if you don't attend that church, then you're
damned! Before Lundy Keller died, he told the people not to ever go to
another church. They are just to listen to his tapes until the Lord returns.
My father was a minister for fifty years! But to them, he was spiritually
dead because he wasn't part of that church. They use the scripture in Matthew
8:22 where Jesus said, "Let the dead bury their own dead and come and
follow me." They twist and pervert scripture to fit their own perverted
needs!
When we moved to Des Moines in 1975, the whole
church in Ft. Worth disowned us. According to them
we were no longer under God's covering and were to be considered
"dead" to God. I was involved with the church in Des Moines for sixteen years.
Lloyd Goodwin was the Senior Pastor in Des
Moines and the only "Apostle" of
all the churches he controlled. He was trained under William Sowders and then
Thomas (Tom) Jolly. After William Sowders death, Jolly became the
"head" leader, so to speak, of all the different assemblies. Then
Goodwin separated himself and his church from all of them and started
building his "own" following around the world. He went to India, Africa, Haiti,
Canada and all over the United States.
He still has followers in all these places, even though he is dead. He was a
charismatic leader and a "mesmerizing" teacher. William Sowders,
Tom Jolly & Lloyd Goodwin have all passed away but others keep it going
on.
The Gospel Assembly in Des Moines
did not practice sterilization as a rule. Lloyd Goodwin actually encouraged
people to have children so that the church could grow from the inside and
they could be indoctrinated early on. The church was very controlled and
seemed like a really safe place to be. You didn't have to worry whether
something was right or wrong. They told you. You were told how to dress, wear
your hair, where to live, what kind of car to drive, where you could go, what
you could do and not do, what you could listen to on the radio and TV was
forbidden. Our children, at that time, could not have a bicycle or go to the
public library.
My sister, Sharon (Dotson) Netzer, of Springfield,
Missouri, and her family had moved to Des Moines several
months before we did. They wrote us letters telling us what a wonderful place
it was. Sharon
worked as a monitor in the Christian school. They seemed so happy. It sounded
like a dream come true. So we moved to Des
Moines. Not long after we got here, she went to
Goodwin for counseling and as she told him her problem she started crying. He
took advantage of her weakness and kissed and fondled her. She was unable to
settle for an affair and keep the "secret" so he forced their
family to leave. After she told me what had been going on with her, I went to
him and confronted him. He, his wife and another woman in the church
convinced me that my sister was lying and in fact had tried to seduce him!
They said that she was just mad because he had rejected her and she was full
of demons. I was not allowed to speak to her or go to her home or have her in
mine. There was a tremendous amount of suffering, not only for her and me but
also for our families. They moved to Missouri
and ended up divorced.
She wrote me letters and I was upset because I didn't know what to believe. I
talked to Goodwin about it. He instructed me to send them back unopened. He
told me to write her a letter and told me what to write and gave me all the
Bible scriptures to show me why it was the right thing to do. I really
believed I was doing the right thing. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I wrote
the letter disowning my own sister. I told her that she was a liar, a whore
and a Potiphar’s wife (like Joseph and Potiphar’s wife in the Bible), that I
knew she had tried to seduce "the man of God"! I told her I never
wanted to hear from her again. Goodwin asked to read the letter and said that
I had done a good job. He asked if he could make a copy for his files and of
course, I said yes. He was almost like God to me. I didn't find out until two
years later that he had made several copies of my letter and sent them out to
other ministers. He felt that if they saw a letter written by her sister,
they would believe it.
One of my friends, Linda Verwers, now Schacknell, was at our house in 1977
and told me that I shouldn't have written the letter because my sister was
telling the truth! She said that it had happened with others as well. I
called my sister immediately and for the first time in two years I spoke to
her and told her how sorry I was. She understood. Even after all that, I
stayed. I felt that Goodwin was still the "man of God". He had made
some mistakes and was human. After all, as he told us many times,
"remember David and Bathsheba?" The thing that he failed to mention
in David's case was that when the prophet Nathan, confronted David with his
sin with Bathsheba, David admitted it and repented and stopped doing it
to anyone else. (He always compared himself to King David and
compared Tom Jolly to Saul.)
During the next four years, money was raised to build a new church at 7135 Meredith Drive
in Urbandale, a suburb of Des Moines. The people, us included, sold
our homes and gave the equity to the church. We kept only enough money to pay
down on another house. Some of the people ended up losing their homes a few
years later because of really high interest rates. Our men worked day and
night in the rain and freezing cold, mud and snow. Families were neglected.
The women worked when and where they could, hanging wallpaper, sweeping and cleaning.
We took turns taking care of each other's children so all could help. Our
whole lives revolved around the church. This was our family. All, to build a
kingdom for Lloyd L. Goodwin. He never so much as lifted a finger to do any
manual labor. The men couldn't even roll their sleeves up when it was
steaming hot.
The building was completed in 1980. Later an apartment complex was completed
and a new parochial School building around 1993, I believe. Goodwin claimed
that all this was to show people that God had blessed "his
ministry." In truth, it was the result of the blood, sweat, tears,
financial sacrifices, broken lives and homes of many sincere, honest,
Christian people who felt, as I did, that they were doing it for God. After
we moved into the new church, I became disillusioned. It seemed that no
matter how hard you tried, you just couldn't do enough. No matter how much
you gave, you should give more. We gave 10% of our gross income, offerings,
pledges and school tuition. He would say, "you shouldn't go to McDonalds
after church, put that money in the offering." Yet he and his wife and
close friends ate at the fanciest restaurants. He drove a Lincoln or Cadillac
and lived in a fancy home furnished with the best! They had a second home,
also furnished with the very best, in Colorado.
He had not worked at another job in many years, so most of it came from the
church and outside offerings. We gave many thousands of dollars over the
years.
Because of sexual problems in the leadership, it started spreading through
the church. It wasn't long and I ended up in a very short-lived affair with a
man in the church. (We are now married) However, we could not continue
because of our consciences. I do not believe that we would have ever done it
in the first place if not for the example of our leaders. Somehow we thought
it must be okay if they were doing it. However that's no excuse and we accept
full responsibility for our actions. That is why I expose it myself. I also
claim God's forgiveness to cover it again. After my first husband and I had
been in the church in Des Moines for six
years, we divorced because of a complete breakdown of our marriage and I
moved back to Oklahoma.
I was away for six years.
In 1985, I married my present husband, Robert Mason. We lived in Texas for a year and a
half and even after six years of being out of this church, I was still
mentally connected. During those years that I had been away, I had still sent
all my tithes and offerings to Lloyd Goodwin. I still thought that if I couldn't
get back to that church that I couldn't be saved. My husband very
reluctantly, moved us back up here!
I know this sounds unbelievable but it's true. I'm an intelligent woman,
above average I.Q. People say "WHY"? It's hard to answer, except
that the teaching sounds so "right." You are intimidated. You are
threatened with God's judgment. We even made an oath that we would keep our
own "Ten Covenants or Commandments!" This gave him even more
control over our lives.
The women were humiliated and taught that they were to obey their husbands no
matter what. He (Goodwin) told a friend that if her husband told her to jump
off a cliff, she had to obey! When she left the church, they told her husband
to divorce her, which he did. Here is an example of some of his teaching and
this is verbatim. April of 1991: "The devil has made idiots out of
women, they are fickle and the devil continually makes fools out of them.
They are silly and stupid and many go haywire. There is no enmity between the
devil and the man, just the woman. She's emotional and not capable of
thinking for herself! She is used by the devil to do much, much, much more
damage than a man could ever do! No man on the face of the earth could sink
as low as a woman when she sinks!"
These statements were the catalysts that jarred my mind and started me
thinking critically.
After four years back here, I knew it was wrong. I went to the home of my
sister, Betty Edmondson, in Arkansas
and she helped me through this dark but very fruitful time of my life. Although
there are good professional deprogrammers who work with victims of mind
control, in my case it was her and the Lord who assisted in my
"deprogramming." I was there for nine days and she gave me books to
read, such as, "Jonestown," "The Perfect Victim," history
and other books. It took me several hours before I could even begin talking
about what was going on in Des
Moines. I was afraid that God was going to send down
lightening or something! Finally, I just said "God, if you want to
strike me dead, go ahead and do it." I decided if God was the kind of
God that would strike me dead, then he wasn't the kind of God that I wanted
anyway. That's just the point that I had to get to. Then it was like a dam
bursting.
At first, I argued back with scriptures that I had been indoctrinated with
and Betty finally just got the Bible and laid it on a footstool and suggested
that we just start all over. We went back to the basics. I felt like I was in
labor! I walked the floor, I cried, I became sick at my stomach, I read and
read and read some more. When I read about Jim Jones, I felt that I was
reading about Lloyd Goodwin. When I read "The Perfect Victim," by
Christine McGuire & Carla Norton, which is about perversion and
dominance, and very graphic, I felt like I was reading about Goodwin. It took
extremes to get my attention and make me start "thinking
critically" again.
When I left, after nine days, the world seemed bigger and the sun seemed
brighter. I felt like a newborn baby. It was freedom that I had never in
my life experienced before.
When I got back to Des Moines, I called the
pastor in Texas
who had been sent a copy of my letter and I told them the truth about my
sister. I felt I must make it right. When Goodwin found out what I had done,
he publicly threatened my life! My husband was there and heard it. He called
me by name and said "If Wanda Mason is not dead within (approximately)
two months, then God never called me to the ministry!" He also said,
"she will not die the death of a normal woman but will be in a horrible,
fiery crash and be burned and charred beyond recognition!" The next
service my husband went to, he said the same thing but said, "It will
just be a few days!"
I called Bill Verwers, who had been out of the church for several years and
asked him if I should take this serious and he said "absolutely."
He said that the same thing had happened to a man years earlier while on his
way to confront Goodwin. We heard him use this example many times to prove
that God was on his side. I wrote Goodwin a letter and told him that we had
gone to the authorities and had it documented and taped that he had made the
threat. My husband and many other people were witnesses. I told him that if
anything happened to me that he would be the number one suspect along with
anyone that worked for him. I tried going to the Elders but no one would
listen to my side of it. Everyone was told to "shun" me. After
that, he told everyone in the church that I was a "Jezebel" and I
was trying to destroy the "man of God." None of my friends would
speak to me after that. It's been eight years now and I'm still alive! He
isn't. Even if I die today, he was a false prophet. So evidently, God NEVER
called him to the ministry!
At first, I just about threw the Bible away. I studied all of man's religions
that I could find over the next five years. I started with Egypt and Babylon. I considered everything. I thought
Lloyd Goodwin was the greatest Bible teacher that I had ever heard and he was
wrong and I thought "now what do I believe?" I even got
"burned" on several more occasions in my search and was absolutely
amazed at the number of controlling cult like situations there are in the
city of Des Moines
alone! One thing for sure, after you find out what touching that hot stove is
like; you recognize it pretty quickly there after. I also had a couple of
years of professional counseling as I was suffering with Posttraumatic Stress
Syndrome. I couldn't even bear to go to a Christian counselor. I didn't trust
anyone related to religion for a long time.
There are many books out about this subject but some that were a big help to
me are CHURCHES THAT ABUSE and RECOVERING FROM CHURCHES THAT ABUSE, by Ronald
M. Enroth, and THE SUBTLE POWER OF SPIRITUAL ABUSE by David Johnson &
Jeff VanVonderen. They give much insight into the problem of abusive
churches.
I'm so very thankful that I'm free from it! But I feel that I can't just sit
around and do nothing while there are so many honest and sincere people who
are held prisoners in these abusive churches! They are not in literal cells
with literal bars, but are held captive by MIND CONTROL AND BRAINWASHING.
Most people, when and if they get out of a cult, choose to try and forget and
go on with their lives but I feel that EVIL prospers because GOOD MEN DO
NOTHING. I would like to do SOMETHING. That is why I wanted to publish my
testimony. I know that ultimately God is the attorney, the judge and the jury
and He deals with each of us in his own way.
Tom Jolly was arrested, charged and convicted in 1993 (St. Louis dispatch 03/26/93) of molesting
three girls - ages 9, 13 and 16 at the time of the incidents. This happened
at his church in St. Louis,
Missouri. His charge was
second-degree sexual abuse and two counts of sodomy. They didn't want to put
him in prison because he was sick and they didn't want to have to pay his
medical bills. He died shamed and disgraced a couple of years later. He was
83 years old and had been getting away with this type of thing for 40 years!
Lloyd Goodwin died on July 20, 1996 of a heart attack after giving his last
sermon. He died in church. He had told the people a short time before that
the Lord had "appeared" to him and told him that he had ten more
years. He had preached many times that people need to start falling over
dead, just like Ananias and Sapphira, right at church!" He was the first one.
His brother, Vernon Goodwin, who was
one of the Elders I tried to get help from, was left in charge of the church.
Leander (Lee) Ray had been in Kingsport,
Tennessee for several years.
The split was between Vernon Goodwin and Lee Ray and many of the people moved
to Kingsport
with Lee Ray after Lloyd Goodwin's death. Many more have just left. (We have
been reconciled with some of them.) I've heard that Lee Ray has changed but it
is my opinion, because of reports I've heard, that he has "changed his
tactics."
Vernon died 16
months later in November of 1997 from a brain tumor. He left his son, Glenn
Goodwin, in charge as pastor. Years before, Glenn had gone to school to be an
attorney, at Lloyd Goodwin's request. I believe that the church paid for his
schooling but I'm not sure of this. He is carrying on his Uncle's work and
even though several former members have contacted him to try and work things
out, he refuses to discuss anything concerning the allegations of former
members. He and his family seem to pretty much control the five to eight
million dollar property that all of us worked so hard to build. We were raped
spiritually and financially. I know we gave close to $35,000 just the last
four years we were there.
There are many innocent people whose lives are still being hurt and broken.
We thought we were giving our children the very best but they were definitely
hurt by this and are trying to learn how to keep the good and discard the
bad. There was a lot of mental abuse in the church as well as the school.
Years later, we discovered that the school was not accredited, even though we
were told that it was. When we put them in public schools, they were behind
everyone else and it was difficult for them to cope. We all had a hard time
making decisions after we left because they had been made for us.
We don't go to church a lot. It's been difficult to trust anyone again. We
put so much trust in "so called" men of God that it's really hard
to do it again, even though we have met and been helped by many good people,
including ministers, since we left the church.
We are learning who God truly is and that we don't have to go anywhere to
find him. He lives in us and we take him wherever we go! I guess that's why
we are on this earth, to live and learn and help others as we go along the
way. Our lives are not perfect but I can truly say that I have peace in my
heart and am happy and content with my life. "I know who I am in Christ."
For a more detailed story read: Wanda’s Journal
 Hi, my name is Robert Mason and I just
wanted to say that I am in complete agreement with my wife, Wanda. I am a
Vietnam Veteran and that was a very rough time of my life. It was a war that
I did not choose to fight. I came home with Post-traumatic Stress Syndrome
and I have seen many coming out of abusive churches with the same thing. I
have seen how much our children have suffered and were hurt from the
cult-like environment that shaped their early years and I know that someone
needs to stand up and speak out to save others from going through this
religious abuse.
Robert Mason
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