Escaping the Midwest Church That Was A Cult

Cult leaders arranged for Benjamin Risha\\\\\\\'s mother, a woman of Jewish descent, and his father, of Lebanese descent, to be married. Their marriage, and his birth, was intended to be a sign of peace between Arabs and Jews.

The Church leaders hoped to show him off as a sort of street credit to garner legitimacy with other fundamentalist churches in the South and Midwest. As such he was the favored ‘adopted’ son of the cult leaders, where he lived in luxury in a mansion, rode around in limousines, and traveled all while wearing expensive clothes. But he grew up without knowledge of his biological mother who had escaped ‘The Church’ when he was six months old and whom he wouldn\\\\\\\'t learn about until he was a teenager. He was raised instead by seven mothers throughout his adolescent years.

As Benjamin and his friends came of age they were punished for their innate curiosity about the opposite sex and he regularly saw them abused, beaten, and kicked out of their community. When the US Government seized the Church\\\\\\\'s assets Benjamin got a glimpse of the world beyond his community for the first time and began to understand that it was not the enclave he had been raised to believe. Once he learned his father\\\\\\\'s whereabouts Benjamin contacted him and they planned his escape.

In this episode of And Then Everything Changed Benjamin shares his harrowing story.