On her latest episode of “Relatable,” Allie Beth Stuckey was joined by author and ex-cult member Elizabeth Coleman, who shared the story of her childhood spent in a mysterious cult with no name and no traceable presence.
Thirty years ago, Coleman left the international group, which some ex-members call the “Two-by-Twos,” and is spreading the word not only about the horrors she experienced but also how she came to truly know Christ.
The cult, Coleman explains, is predicated on the belief that it is the only way to Christ and that all other denominations are literally satanic.
“We did go to a secular school, and the reason for that is we’re really strongly conditioned against other Christians and other churches,” she tells Allie. “All other churches were literally called churches of the devil and false churches, so we were actually quite scared of other Christians and other churches.”
Fueling the belief that the Two-by-Two faith is the only path to salvation is the notion that it is “the only church not started by a man — that [it] went all the way back to the original apostles.”
However, that claim quickly falls flat when you look at the cult’s origins. A Scottish-born Irish evangelist named William Irvine founded the group in the late 1800s in Ireland. He believed that he had an “epiphany” that the two-by-two (hence the cult’s name) missionary structure mentioned in some of the gospels was “Jesus’ plan for ministry for all time.”
“He started to believe that he was the chosen one risen up by God to restore his true way on the earth,” says Coleman.
Irvine was eventually excommunicated from the group. Other members went to great lengths to erase him from history, destroying all the records of his letters. As the faith spread to other parts of the world, church planters pretended that he had never existed.
Then in the 1980s, a man named Doug Parker, who was set to join the ministry, got into an argument with high-ranking members of the cult about his plans to take a family trip to Ireland. Apparently they were scared he would uncover the origins of the cult and Irvine. Parker, smelling trouble, then researched the cult in depth, discovered Irvine, and self-published a book called “The Secret Sect” that exposed the Two-by-Two faith.
The cult’s response to Parker’s exposé was to forbid members to read it. However, they were ordered to purchase copies of the book and burn them so that non-cult members couldn’t read them either.
But the truth, as it always does, got out.
Documentaries have since been produced on the Two-by-Two faith, and ex-members, like Coleman, are sharing their experiences.
Coleman tells Allie that according to cult doctrine, the ministers or “workers” — the celibate preachers who travel in pairs — believe they are the “middlemen” between the people and Jesus, who is regarded as a “perfect example” but not a deity. Thus obedience to them is paramount. Any law they make, however arbitrary it might be, must be rigidly adhered to.
“Women could not cut their hair” or “wear makeup or jewelry”; “no television, no recorded music, no sports — watching it or playing it,” were some of the rules.
Church meetings could not be missed for any reason. Coleman tells the story of a young boy who died from appendicitis because his parents chose to attend a meeting rather than address his excruciating stomach pains.
The “workers,” who were forbidden to have a home or possessions, traveled around to different Two-by-Two communities and stayed with various families of the faith.
“They had absolute authority in our lives, so they would ring and say, ‘We are coming on Wednesday; we are staying three nights,’ and you didn’t argue,” says Coleman.
“Asking questions” about literally anything — rules, Scripture, the conduct of the workers, etc. — “was about the worst thing you could do.”
It wasn’t until after she had left the cult that she found out about the sexual abuse allegations against many of these workers.
Two years ago, “one of the most revered overseer workers was found dead in a motel room.” It turned out that he “had a credit card” and “had been meeting multiple sexual partners, including underage partners, for a very long time.” After that, some of the female workers came forward and admitted that they had been abused by him as well.
The scandal “opened the floodgates to a whole Me Too movement within the Two-by-Twos,” says Coleman.
“We had people coming forward in the dozens and then the hundreds and then the thousands, and last year the FBI announced a worldwide investigation into the group because workers who had abused were often then shifted across state lines and across countries to reoffend in other places, so they would take the offender, move them somewhere else, try to smooth things over in the local area,” she explains, noting that these kinds of cover-ups were made possible by the unquestionable authority of the workers.
But thanks to social media and streaming services exposing the rampant corruption in the Two-by-Two faith, “they’re starting to be recognized on the world stage for the first time.”
To hear more about Coleman’s story, including the wild way she met her husband, her departure from the cult, and her coming to faith in the real Jesus Christ, watch the episode above.
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