Why I Joined-Part 2 This Bud's for you

I don’t think anyone starts out with the idea that “hey, I think I’ll join a cult and get brainwashed” anymore than one starts out with the goal of being an alcoholic or a drug addict. It happens “line up line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little” until you become chained down to an ideology that you would have never accepted had the entire package been honestly presented to you as a whole. So it was with me.

I grew up as the oldest son of a United Methodist minister. I was born in Mississippi but we moved to Georgia when I was 10 so my dad could attend the theological school at Emery University.

As a P.K. (Preacher’s Kid) we moved around a lot. Every four years in fact. In 1981 we moved to South Georgia so that my dad could become pastor over a Charge of four churches. I went through some tough times and left high school. I never really seemed to be able to adjust to this new place.

I went ahead and got my G.E.D. and started going to the local community college. It was there that a guy named Bud Baxter would have a profound impact on my life. It was a September day in 1981 and Bud, a guy I knew from class, came into the McDonald’s where I was having lunch. He came over and sat down and we began to talk. The subject of religion came up and he told me he had recently been baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I was to discover that all Mormons are given the charge of being missionaries for their religion and Bud was no exception. He went on and on!

He kept telling me that I should come with him to see the “elders”. I thought that “elders” were older men who taught in the church. I later learned that “elders” were simply teenage boys. After a small harangue I agreed to meet with them and learn about Mormonism. Dumb kid that I was, I had no idea what I was getting myself into!