***I am not approving comments from this group. Don’t even bother trying***
Thank God this criminal is behind bars. Talk about mis-use of spiritual authority, right here in the US. I can’t believe this ‘ministry’ is still operating.
In the 1980s, Tony Alamo, a self-proclaimed prophet of God, had thousands of devoted followers in the United States, including the parents of Jeanne, Amy, Desiree and Nikki. “When Tony would say that God spoke to him, everyone believed it,” Jeanne says.
Jeanne says that when she was 15 years old Alamo, who was 59 years old and her pastor at the time, forced her to become his spiritual wife and have sex with him. Amy says Alamo made her say vows and submit to his sexual desires when she was 14.
Then, Alamo reportedly did something that reportedly shocked even his most devoted followers. Desiree says Alamo made her his youngest spiritual wife when she was just 8 years old. Desiree says Alamo then forced her to have sex with him.
When Desiree was an 8-year-old little girl who loved playing with dolls, she believed Alamo was a prophet. But, she says, she still felt that what was happening was wrong.
“I just remember Tony bringing me into his room at one point. He laid me on the bed, said the marriage vows, said ‘I do,’ got a wedding ring, and after that, what actually made it final was, instead of a marriage license, you had sex,” Desiree says. “I didn’t know about sex. I didn’t know about any of that. What kept going through my mind was: ‘How can this be right? Isn’t this wrong?’”
Despite what she’d been taught all her life, Nikki says she also felt that Alamo’s manipulation and teachings were wrong. “I thought, ‘If this is heaven and this is what’s going to get me to heaven, I’m going to have to go to hell,’” she says.
Children know what is wrong.
Gah.
Yup. I’ve gotten four comments from this group trying to defend his actions. Blech