PAUL DAVID COOKE
Essays, Books, Stories and ReflectionsHere are found selections from Seminole Lovelight and Other Episodes From My Life in a Cult–-the story of meeting the Children of God, how I spent nine years with the group and then rebelled against the influence of the man who led it. It’s a tale of delusion and disappointment, and yet also (perhaps surprisingly) one of hope for the human situation. Here, too, are excerpts from The Life of Ida Pages and Her Friends, a novel set in Houston, Texas and Concord, Massachusetts, as well as book reviews, stories and essays tied to these difficult days. I hope you’ll stay a bit and look around.
Seminole Lovelight
Standing in sackcloth decrying the sins of America was not the aspect of The Children of God I saw when I first encountered them. No, what I first saw and what attracted me was the way they talked about Jesus, the style of their communal life and their intense commitment to the Bible–Oh, there was something charming there. But these were not the things that marked it as the cult it eventually became.
Ida Pages and Friends
Mr. Paul Cooke learned all this first from me—I’m Ida Pages. Paul, he thinks he’s a writer, though I doubt he’s made more than $1,000 from his pen in his life. Yet sure enough, he’s written a ton—too much of it ‘bout me, ridiculous as I am. So he finished something and this is it. It’s not a bad tale, though he took some liberties. Well, the Lord gets the credit, but my friends do deserve thanks, I’ll say.
Short Stories
“You’re like an old shoe, Bindy, you suit me fine and I’m not happy to lose you,” J.S. told her at the news she was moving out. J.S. knew she’d miss the boys who came by, having met tall, talkative Bindy with her fabulous figure and her perfect posture which soon vanished when she slouched onto the floor in their dorm rooms, argumentative or flirtatious by turns—and they didn’t think of Bindy as an old shoe.
Media and Speaking
Readily conversant about things to do with cults, how they arise, with the subtle ways they disguise themselves and with how they diverge from authentic biblical faith, Paul Cooke is eager to share lessons he has begun to learn through personal experience and study. He is available to speak with live audiences or via the media, or through the written word by means of commissioned articles.
Latest Blog Entries
Pauldavidcooke.com Now Live!
Announcing the Launch of Pauldavidcooke.com Essays, Books, Stories, Blog Posts and Podcasts At PaulDavidCooke.com are found selections from Seminole Lovelight and Other Episodes From My Life in a Cult–-the story of meeting the Children of God, how I spent nine years...
Preface to Seminole Lovelight: A Cult Memoir
I first tried college at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Things went mostly unsuccessfully—I was on academic probation after my freshman year and then I dropped out in February of 1969, at the end of my third semester. I wandered back to Houston, my...
Book Review: The New, “Soft Totalitarianism” in the West
A Review of Live Not by Lies: A Manual For Christian Dissidents, by Rod Dreher (New York: Sentinel: 2020), 240 pp. As a young Christian I was introduced to Richard Wurmbrand’s Tortured for Christ and to the reality that suffering for Christ at the hands of those who...
When Billy Graham Met Winston Churchill
In his autobiography, Just As I Am, Billy Graham writes of the context of an unexpected meeting he had with Winston Churchill. Graham sailed for Britain in 1954 to begin an evangelical crusade and there were dire predictions that his effort would fail. “Billy Graham...
Rembrandt’s Peace in the Storm
Dear Friends, Do we think of God being present in difficult times like these? It’s sometimes hard to do. What might it be like? Think of being in a great storm in a small boat on the sea. We look at the wind and the waves and we’re frightened. But if Jesus were in the...