Jeffrey Lundgren's Ohio Execution

Jeffrey Lundgren’s Ohio Execution – déjà vu the Summer of 1983

Carrying the word on the New Age Movement to many diverse elements was, to put it mildly, a challenge. Support came from where I often least expected it. So did the opposition. I decided early on that apart from refusing to give dignity to a known cult leader (e.g., Rev. Sun Myung Moon, Roy Masters), I would not insist on a test of doctrinal purity to those I delivered the information. My theory was that if folks were being conditioned by various false doctrines and prophets to receive the antichrist, let me go give them the bottom line. That could well make it wasted conditioning.

In 1983 I was asked to speak to a summer camp of RLDS fundamentalists. The doings were at a site near Independence, Missouri, site of the world headquarters of the Reorganized Latter Day Saints Church. The RLDS is clearly a branch of Mormonism. I was told that nearly a thousand individuals were in attendance from all parts of the populated world. The attendees included the head of the RLDS church in India, himself also a former Hindu guru. It was a very hot sticky week that was frankly a trial for me, although I must say that most of the people there were very kind to me and listened respectfully to what I had to present.

I was loaned by the conference organizers to a Bott radio station in Independence, Missouri. Richard Bott interviewed me. The Bott station is a well respected Christian one. During the interview, Richard Bott asked me, “how do people get into this stuff?” He was referring, of course, to the New Age Movement. I answered him by saying, “the scriptures tell us clearly that no man has at any time seen God. Moses came as close to it as anybody ever did; however, even with that limited exposure, God had to put him in the cleft of the rock, and cover him with his hand to keep the exposure from killing him. Even that extremely limited exposure left Moses with such incredible brightness that he had to wear a veil over his face to avoid blinding Israelites he later encountered.”

I went on to explain that the average New Ager was seeing and hearing things the rest of us weren’t experiencing. The scriptures (Deuteronomy 18) gave a very comprehensive list of forbidden spiritual practices. Those rules were not given us by a benevolent God for the purposes of being a “cosmic killjoy.” God, who made us and loved us enough to send his Son to die for us, gave us those rules for our own protection. We are not smart enough to second-guess God on rules he gave us for our own protection. When we cross that line and disobey God, in a sense we are repeating the sin of Eve. When people cross that line and engage in forbidden spiritual practices, they very quickly report various mystical experiences, which almost always is powerful beyond their present perceptions. If one has not seen the sunlight, a flashlight could look very impressive. A New Ager dabbling in the occult and having a subsequent predictable mystical experience that he can not explain by past experience, just “knows” that he “knows” that he has “seen God.”

I was returned to the camp for my last presentation before departure. As usual there was a vigorous question and answer period. One in particular stood forever embedded in my mind. A comparatively portly man, approximately 10-12 years younger than myself, challenged me. He asked me point blank if I had ever read “The Book of Mormon.” I answered in the negative. To be honest, I had tried to read it many times, but had never succeeded. It had seemed to me to be a patchwork combination of the King James Version of the Bible and a Zane Grey novel about the American wild, wooly west.

My challenger persisted. He said, “we believe that our founder, Joseph Smith, did see God, and that is how it is written in our “Inspired Version” of the Bible. I said, “Sir, all I can tell you is that is how the Bible, as I know it, reads.”

The conference chairman mercifully rescued me from the challenger. He said, “now, we invited Mrs. Cumbey here to educate us about the New Age Movement – not to debate theology. She says she has not had an opportunity to read the Book of Mormon. We will leave it at that.

The crowd sang very sincerely, “God be with you till we meet again.” Whenever I spoke at other Christian churches in the Kansas City area at later times, I would frequently have many people there come and greet me again. I was glad to see them.

I was told by the organizers that a few months later they were organizing materials for their membership on the New Age Movement and suddenly the committee doing so recognized obvious parallels between New Age and their own church’s teachings. The head of the RLDS church in India, the prominent real estate developer who organized the conference, and many others resigned their church memberships. Others retained their church membership, but have continued to expose the New Age Movement for their fellow RLDS’ers.

A few years later, I was startled to see the unforgettable face and body of the man who challenged me at that conference flash over television. It was Jeffrey Lundgren. I checked with the conference organizers who confirmed the worse. He had formed what he believed to be a “reform” version of his church, truer to the teachings of Joseph Smith. His delusions broadened and deepened. He turned on the family that followed him and his cult to the State of Ohio and murdered the hapless Averys.

Today Jeffrey Lundgren was executed. I suggest everybody re-read Deuteronomy 18 for a good list of those forbidden spiritual practices. The problem with too many fundamentalists is that sometimes they are just not fundamentalist enough. They should seriously consider the fundamentals of what God says, “don’t touch, don’t do.” And above all, they should consider the all important fundamental of THOU SHALT NOT KILL.

May the Lord have mercy on us all!