Thread by @BendIllustrated

1) This pic is the #peopleofpraise prophet named #kevinranaghan and his prophecy is the only one that people in "the community" listen to and act on. That is how the group refers to themselves internally. They used to be really open. This pic is from "New Covenant" magazine

2) I have to describe #peopleofpraise because I can't be quiet while our country gives a lifetime seat on the #supremecourt to a member of a #cult. I know it's a cult because I was raised in it. I didn't have a choice. But #AmyConeyBarrett did.

3) The #peopleofpraise attracted new members from the grad school programs at #notredame and by absorbing other groups of people who believe that they had been "baptised in the spirit" and can now #prayintongues. But that's not real.

4) Praying in tongues is just people babbling nonsense to be part of the group. #cult leaders use it to reinforce #groupthink. They saw other groups like theirs fall apart in the '80s, so their response was to withdraw from public life, become secretive, become insular.

5) The #peopleofpraise stopped writing publicly in "New Covenant" and created their own publication called "New Heaven New Earth." They embraced an authoritarian power structure. And they set some goals...

6) They are against abortion with every fiber of their collective being, and they work tirelessly to attempt to eradicate it from the earth. To that end the #peopleofpraise encourages members to have as many children as possible, to educate those children at their schools...

7) ... and then to try and place those highly educated children into different positions of power. To understand why, you'd need to know that the #peopleofpraise refer to everything outside of the community as "the world." And to them, the world is evil. That probably means you

8) They love to say they're just "building the kingdom of God." But that phrase literally means they want to build things that they can control, and specifically a woman's right to choose. They are organized, focused, and completely dedicated to this cause.

9) The #peopleofpraise are true believers who have sworn a life-long oath to the cause. This is not some @kimmyschmidt bumpkin group, and you would be ill-advised to underestimate them just because they come from #Indiana.

10) Their hard work has clearly "borne fruit" with their obvious manchurian candidate. The #peopleofpraise follow a strict dichotomy of good people vs bad people. These labels are placed on their children by leaders and teachers in "the community."

11) If a child fails in school, he could be said "not to bear fruit" and he would be told he is "bad," a label the child would assume sticks for life. Heaven forbid a child be born #lgbtq in the #peopleofpraise because the penalty of that is #shunning.

12) That's right, they raise children in an insular community and are completely willing to take away every person a child has ever known, played with, made friends with, been taught by, loved... all because of the way they were made... by God.

13) But at least #kevinranaghan practices what he preaches because he was totally willing to #shun two of his #lgbtq children. Children who don't speak out against their parents because they have been so conditioned to believe that people in "the community" are good people.

14) And the #peopleofpraise does do good things and service projects. But no one is all good nor all bad To cover up their bad, the #peopleofpraise decided to create a public face. They have a pr flak named Sean Connolly and a figure head leader named Craig Lent.

15) The #peopleofpraise will direct reporters to them all day long, and those same reporters will write that those two are in charge. No community members will speak to reporters about the group lest they reveal that it is a #cult.

16) And it is a #cult. It has an authoritarian structure where #kevinranaghan (THE overall coordinator) controls other coordinators (who oversee geographic regions) who in turn control "heads" who in turn control individual men and women who in turn control their children.

17) #peopleofpraise members are told where to work, who to marry, what to pray, where to live and how to live their lives without sin. The reason no adult leaves is because they risk losing all their friends, their job, their economic prospects, possibly even their housing.

18) But what about those children? Almost all children raised in the #peopleofpraise flee like they're running from the plague. But why is that? It could be that the #prayingintongues freaks them out.

19) During the Sunday #peopleofpraise meetings, when the adults start babbling, the kids lower their heads and try not to look lest the adults try to coerce them to join in - the risk being group shaming when they can't do it... because it's not real.

20) Maybe the kids flee because they are often shamed for having romantic feelings for other people. You know, a normal part of human development? To combat that the #peopleofpraise keeps genders separated at their schools and tried to have parents enforce the separation at home

21) Just imagine what your teenage years would have been like in a #cult like that. And keeping kids separated will surely prevent abortion, right? But it doesn't prevent abuse.

22) Giving adults that level of control over children would never lead to any abuse at any of the schools or boy scout groups that #peopleofpraise runs. The reason these mandatory reporters never call the police is because it never happens when "good" people are in charge, right?

23) Or maybe a child got sick? Or simply didn't do what a #peopleofpraise member told them to do. Is it possible that they might resent being called in front of the group to have community members lay hands on them to "faith-heal" them?

24) Or perform an exorcism (they call it "spritual warfare") to cast the evil spirit out of them? These are reasons a rational person would run. But here's the problem. #AmyConeyBarrett was raised in the #peopleofpraise and saw all of it and she didn't run. She embraced it.

25) She even chose to be mentored by #kevinranaghan for years while she lived in his house during the time she was underway (a three year period where people are in the #cult but before they have made the #covenant).

26) If she is confirmed to be on the #supremecourt we will have placed someone there who welcomes #lgbtq people only if they agree to a life-long covenant to be celibate and live with other people in a "brotherhood" or "sisterhood" house.

27) Someone who believes that love only occurs where a #peopleofpraise allows it to occur. There is going to be a narrative that claims that questioning #AmyConeyBarrett on any of this constitutes a religious test or an attack on Catholicism. That's bullshit.

28) The #peopleofpraise has nothing in common with the Catholic Church. There are no priests, no sacraments. It just happens to draw its powerful members from a nearby Catholic university. And that's the thing. The #peopleofpraise is and always has been exclusionary.

29) The #peopleofpraise doesn't want you. No one is just walking in off the street and allowed to join. The idea would be preposterous to them. They want people who can assume positions of power and shape the world around them for their benefit.

30) #AmyConeyBarrett is the supreme manifestation of #kevinranaghan's life-long goal. They are a cult, with a prophet, that recruits from an exclusive pool of candidates, they use groupthink and authoritarian structures to control their members.

31) The #peopleofpraise pretend to have "special gifts of the holy spirit," they believe they can heal people with their touch, and they feel they don't need to face punishment for abusing children. But lastly, they have no teachings about honesty.

32) The #peopleofpraise has no teachings on honesty because they believe the ends justify the means. If they were honest people, they would show what it looks like when their groups pray in tongues. They'd provide evidence for their claims to faith healing and miracles.

33) They wouldn't create a public face to conceal their true power structures. They would tell the truth about how they treat #lgbtq people. They would explain all the reasons they shun people. They would report incidents of abuse to police.

34) And they would publish their prophecies again. Because in the beginning, #kevinranaghan used to sell his prophecies on cassette tape and advertise those tapes in magazines like this one.

35) The #peopleofpraise is now inherently dishonest because they don't respect you and they think they can lie to you to achieve their goal. Are you going to let them put #AmyConeyBarrett on the #supremecourt under a guise of religious freedom?