I was reading some of the many thing that you have on your website and I saw the name that I instantly recognized: Skip O'Neil. I remember him! He was one of the very earliest! How did he die? Did he take his own life? Was he still in COBU at the time of his death? Another name that comes to mind in those early days was a guy who went by the name "Jingo.” And another one is a guy whose last name was "Whipple". I saw a Bob Whipple and I remember him and my sister knew him even better. My sister and I called him Bobby. He was the body builder type when I knew him then. Too bad about Skip O'Neil. He was a nice guy, I can remember. I remember all the young people as nice. I also remember Dorothy and Harold Stoudt. They were an older, middle-aged couple whom ST stole from I think either Calvary Temple or Central Assembly Of God in Bethlehem. What happened to them? That couple were the bootlickers for ST. They would do anything for him. ST was the evil one.

S.

Mike,

You may publish the impressions that I have given you, just keep me anonymous, on your web page. I can remember in those early days ST calling me "Saint Sue". He seemed to have taken a shine to me. Glad I got out of there. I might have been one he would have seduced. I remember ST being big time into photography and once I saw him in the Whitehall Mall going to the photo shop and, since I had already left the group, I ran in the opposite direction to avoid a confrontation! Too bad he couldn't use the money that he spent on photography in caring for his wife and offspring.

S

I feel sorry for anyone who had gotten sucked in by ST. At least my Heavenly Father gave me the discernment to see ST for what he really was, a charlatan. I thank my Heavenly Father I was never in a fellowship house. It was too early in ST's game for that. But my best friend in high school was in one for 5 yrs after 1974, in Youngstown, OH. Her mother didn't like ST but credits him for getting her off drugs. Her name was (name here) and as far as I know she still is in Bethlehem, PA. I do remember ST's first wife, He had her dress very immodestly. For someone who considered himself a "Man of God!" And then he dumped her after he seduced a younger sister. I barely remember Gayle. The Gospel is not one of fear. You cannot scare someone into the Kingdom of God. They must accept Jesus by way of love for Him; His atonement for us, for all mankind on the cross. It is as simple as that.

S

Hello again, Mike,

Is Stewart still alive? Is he still the emperor of his insidious empire? Did he come to a bad end? I can remember when he lived nearby the sewage treatment plants and the old A&B meat packing plants in Allentown, where there was a row of tenements. The house was strewn with trash and filth and there was a stack of old, broken vacuum cleaners, stacked clear to the ceiling. Also he had a lot of cats, and the sofas and cats were infested with fleas. No wonder he devised his plan to be a cult leader: to dig his way out of his dire poverty. He was a very brilliant man, albeit, a madman at the same time.

S

Hello Mike,

Do I ever remember about Stewart!!! I was one of the smart ones who got out in a month in the fall of 1971. I grew up in the Lehigh Valley, in Bethlehem. I was 15 yrs old at the time. In the summer of 1971, a man named Doug Norwood, a Moravian minister, started up a coffeehouse on 9th and Church Sts. in Allentown called the "Message.” It was on Saturday nights. The building no longer is standing. It was a small chapel. Stewart seized on the opportunity to use this place to gather his "flock" from the local hippie hangouts, i.e.: Robin Hood's Dell, Ilick's Mill in Bethlehem and filled up the place. I remember one summer night Stewart started an argument with Doug and proceeded to steal all of what Doug had brought there through his ministry and the ones that Stewart had gathered and emptied the place and started his then little flock. At first he used Calvary Temple's gym (when they were near Union Blvd) for his gatherings, until Stewart insulted Pastor Chester Jenkins by accusing him of being a homosexual. At about that time, I was getting leery of this group and I would ask questions and I would be shut down and have a hand clapped on my mouth and have hands laid on me to drive the devil out. That is when I knew there was something wrong about this group. I left. Stewart would telephone me at my parent's home and harangue me about why I didn't want to come and I stood steadfast. Eventually they left me alone. But I have seen the damage it has done to others that I went to high school with and I warned them but they didn't listen. Unfortunately Stewart is a formidable individual. I remember him in the VERY early days. I remember him with red hair, a crew cut, long patriarchal beard, workingman’s shirt and brown Carhart trousers and suspenders. He looked like he was 6'6", had piercing green eyes that would gaze at you intensely. When he asked something of you, you backed down and couldn't say no. That is the control I could see in him right in the beginning. The first time I really saw Stewart was in 1970 at a place called Jack Brown's house on Market St. in Bethlehem. On Wednesday nights, Jack and Sandy would open their house for the hippies and Stewart and Shirley were in tow with their five children. Jack was a Presbyterian minister. He has since passed away many, many years ago as a young man. He had a heart condition.

Susan