According to several US media reports, the 19-year-old Lucas Leonard and his 17-year-old brother Christopher Leonard were heavily beatened after accepting counseling at Word of Life Christian Church in New Hartford on Oct.11. Lucas Leonard was pronounced dead at a hospital. But his brother, Christopher remains hospitalized, suffering from serious injuries. Their parents, Bruce and Deborah Leonard, and four church members were subsequently arrested, and his parents were accused of first-degree murder, the other four church members were charged with second-degree murder. But their parents deny guilty of the crime, a former church member also stresses that the church is not a cult.
Rick Ross tells Inverse, the church’s insular behavior and power structure is perfectly tailored to the psychology of classic cult behavior, less likely to be seen as similar sects move into the digital age. “This is an old-school group, it’s typical in many ways. They’re very isolated, they’ve cocooned their members and homeschooled the children. Besides a web site to sell pedigree yorkies, they were very isolated. That’s a common characteristic in cults to make sure they are the only ones influencing the member’s judgements.”
Once these groups can cut themselves off to outsiders, as Word of Life is said to have done in New Hartfordmembers, both brothers were continually subjected to physical punishment over the course of several hours, in hopes that each would confess to prior sins and ask for forgiveness. Church members reinforce bizarre behavior as the norm without any voice of reason questioning their actions.
On Oct.19, Rick Ross said during an interview by 100.7 FM WUQT, “I think in my opinion this group fits all three criteria of being a destructive cult. Those criteria are defined as does the group have an authoritarian leader, are the members isolated from the outside world, and finally does the group do harm? This is a very controlling group, this is a very extreme group.”Original text from:
