Whitehorse Leader - Australia June 2, 2011
Former Box Hill student tells of life in a doomsday cult
BY ANNA PRYTZ
AUTHOR Benjamin Grant Mitchell is no longer ashamed to tell people he was born into a doomsday cult.
The writer and former Neighbours actor has self-published his debut novel, The Last Great Day - a fictionalised story about his family’s life in the infamous Worldwide Church of God.
Now 42 and living happily in a sprawling Warrandyte home with his wife, Pauli, and their nine-month-old daughter, Honey Rose, Mitchell speaks without bitterness about the atmosphere of deceit and oppression that shaped his early years.
“We left when I was 10. I had a hard time as a teenager and in my 20s,” he said.
“So for a lot of years I didn’t talk about it and felt shameful and thought, ‘What will people think?’ But I’m happy to be honest and talk about it now because we didn’t do anything wrong.”
Co-founded in America’s northwest by former advertising executive Herbert W. Armstrong and Mad magazine comic artist Basil Wolverton, the cult prophesied the world would end in 1975.
Contact with non-members was discouraged, the sect forbade celebration of birthdays or medical intervention and followers were forced to give 30 per cent of their income to the church.
Armstrong became so wealthy he purchased his own Gulfstream jet.
“If they told you everything at the start, you wouldn’t have joined,” Mitchell said.
Mitchell’s father was a minister in the church in Manchester, England, when Mitchell was born.
The family was ordered to move to Australia in 1970 to spread the word.
Despite his young age, Mitchell’s memories are still vivid of the terrible consequences of the church’s ban on hospital treatment.
His aunt died in labour and his mother lost newborn twin boys.
“Obviously Mum chose to comply, but she was bullied by a very oppressive atmosphere,” he said. “Everyone was afraid of being told they were going against the church.”
The Mitchells left the cult after the prophesied 1975 armageddon failed to eventuate and because the church was being investigated for tax evasion and child sexual abuse.
“Armstrong was always talking about us all going to Petra, the place of safety and salvation,” Mitchell said.
For more information or to order the book visit the author's website at:
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Hi Perry,
ReplyDeleteThanks for spreading the word about The Last Great Day.
There are many off-shoots of the defunct Worldwide Church of God and, though most of my readers have never experienced fundamentalist religions like those WCG spawned, I think people still following many of WCG's teachings may enjoy the story too.
BGM
Benjamin Mitchell: Life in a sect provides novel inspiration. BY BEAU DONELLY
ReplyDeleteMelbourne Weekly Eastern 23 Aug, 2011
WHEN Benjamin Grant Mitchell decided to write a novel based on his life, he had plenty of material to work with. The former Neighbours actor, singer-songwriter and new father was born into an American doomsday cult. To top it off, his father was one of the ministers.
Mitchell, who now lives in Warrandyte, started penning his story three years ago and next week will unveil the debut novel, The Last Great Day, at the Melbourne Writers Festival.
The 42-year-old, who played Neighbours character Cameron Hudson in the 1990s, spent his early childhood moving around Australia, then settled at the Worldwide Church of God headquarters in Los Angeles.
Based on a family’s struggle with its faith and the consequences of choices made decades ago, the novel charts the course of Mitchell’s life.
“It took a long time to build the confidence to be able to write a gripping story rather than a memoir,” says Mitchell. “It’s based very closely on my family [but] I wrote it as a novel so I didn’t put words in my parents’ mouths. The novel makes it very freeing.”
Despite Mitchell’s efforts to respect his parents, they have refused to read his book, which he has published independently.
“I felt that writing it was an act of love and I tried to share my story with them but they weren’t interested in hearing it,” says Mitchell, whose father quit his post following a US 60 Minutes exposé in the late 1970s that alleged corruption and sexual abuse within the church.
“I feel like I’ve finally taken that step away from them and disappointed them,’’ Mitchell says. ‘‘All children want their parents’ love but there’s a time when enough is enough. If they don’t want to read it, I have nothing else to say to them.’’
As a child, Mitchell was disciplined with leather belts and wooden paddles and he grew up believing the world would end when he was six. “I didn’t know anything else,” he says. “It wasn’t until I went to high school in Melbourne that I realised I was the minority.’’
Mitchell was nine when his family left the church and he has strong memories of the turbulent time.
“I sensed the drama unfolding around me; we were excommunicated, we owned nothing and we were broke. This was a real turning point in my life because I became a normal kid.”
Mitchell says his adult life is pretty normal, too. A stay-at-home dad, his most treasured possession – apart from one-year-old daughter Honey Rose – is a 20-year-old nylon-string guitar he bought for $79. But with his daily routine of promoting his book, writing another and changing nappies keeping him busy, it might be a while before he finds time to play it.
The book is available at benjamingrantmitchell.com
http://www.melbourneweeklyeastern.com.au/news/local/news/general/benjamin-mitchell-life-in-a-sect-provides-novel-inspiration/2266324.aspx