Testimonies from Former Longview Baptist Temple Members

Emmanuel Baptist Church of Longview, formerly Longview Baptist Temple, has accumulated an infamous reputation among locals and former members throughout the years. It is widely considered to be a cult. In an effort to uncover why this is, I reached out to former Temple members and asked about their experiences.

“We were taught our entire life that you don’t say no to adults. You say yes sir or ma’am, and you do as they say. So to find out this [abuse] was happening was sickening but not surprising. I have been told that the church knew about what was going on and didn’t do anything until a mom of one of the victims read it in her daughter’s diary…”
— Rachel Pace, discussing the Russell Hirner case

Rachel Pace’s family became involved with Longview Baptist Temple in 1985, when Bob Gray Sr was still the pastor. She grew up within the cult until she left at age 20. While she was taken into the organization when she was still young, she recalled that the Temple placed heavy emphasis on their member count.

“Any time people joined the church, they were like fresh meat. I felt like everyone was just a number to them. They were all about numbers to make themselves look good.” Rachel said, “They like having big congregation numbers but it was more about ‘souls saved’ and baptized. The reason I put it in quotes is because a lot of the time the teenagers would just write down random names to keep everyone off their back. As teens, we would get dropped off in groups of four or more and were told to go ‘soul winning.’ We were instructed to knock on doors. Most of the time we were dropped off in shady neighborhoods, but they didn’t care.”

While the church placed extra emphasis on their membership and the number of souls they saved, Rachel recalled that people weren’t the only numbers they were obsessed with. “They were all about tithing, too. The private school was so expensive, and they wanted people to give so much more to the church. My parents were broke all the time. But they just kept wanting more money. Most of the church members lived paycheck to paycheck, but the pastor [Bob Gray Sr] and his secretary got brand new matching Cadillacs one year.”

This push for funds culminated in the Temple’s “give it all” week, as Rachel recounts, “They wanted everyone’s money to go toward random things. But they wouldn’t let people leave on Wednesday night church without having a certain amount of money guaranteed. They would expect families to give up their whole paychecks. So our parents are paying out the ass for a ‘private Christian school’ that’s not even a school. Then having to give up weeks worth of paychecks or Bob Gray Sr would throw a fit.”

The Temple’s private K-12 high school, Longview Christian Academy, teaches Abeka curriculum, (1-a) which has received criticism from the National Center for Science Education for teaching young earth creationism. (2) However, given the Temple’s strong stance against sex education, (3-a) Rachel recounts that the school taught incomplete Abeka curriculum. “They tore out or marked through any pages that talked about reproduction. No plant reproduction, animal, human. Nothing. Anything they didn’t want us to know they marked out with a black magic marker or tore out of the book.”

Kent Hovind, a prominent figure within the young earth creationist movement, has attempted to give himself educational credibility by claiming to have taught at Longview Christian Academy for five years. (4) Additionally, the school website claims that their staff has “over 350 years of combined teaching experience.” (1-b) However, according to Rachel, “The ‘teachers’ were just members of the church, so they didn’t have any education on how to teach… Members of the church paid hardly anything to be teachers.”

This leniency would apparently backfire in the early 2000s, when former principal Russell Thomas Hirner was indicted on fifteen counts of child sexual abuse. (5) (6) Rachel, who had some experience with Hirner, recalls his inappropriate behavior. “Russell was always a creep. We lived such a sheltered life, but he would show us pictures in the newspapers of girls in bras and stuff. Which was so weird to us then, because weren’t even allowed to talk to the opposite sex.” In reflecting upon the abuse, Rachel commented, “It’s not surprising because we were taught our entire life that you don’t say no to adults. You say yes sir or ma’am, and you do as they say. So to find out this was happening was sickening but not surprising. I have been told that the church knew about what was going on and didn’t do anything until a mom of one of the victims read it in her daughter’s diary. They ended up going to the pastor who then called the police. The church paid the victims some money, but they were told that they had to tithe it back to the church.”

Rachel’s mention of being kept from conversing with the opposite sex seems to be supported by the Longview Christian Academy’s student handbook, which includes “being alone with a member of the opposite gender” as an infraction on-par with fighting. (7-a) However, according to Rachel, the school’s efforts to divide young men and women went above and beyond the rules mentioned in the handbook. “In all our school life, we were taught to not talk to the opposite sex at all, because it would lead to premarital sex. Well, my senior year, they caught a guy and a girl passing a note, so for the rest of the year we were in a “lockdown” — their words. The classroom had a divider down the middle. Girls on one side, boys on the other. In the lunchroom, they put a divider up so the boys and girls couldn’t look at each other. It was all about control.”

“A couple of times per year there would be a push for funds. Sometimes there was a clear reason, other times it was just to “clear debt.” It was coupled together with a six week campaign. This campaign was a competition between members to bring in the most converts. The last Sunday of the campaign was the ‘big day.’ And every member was expected to give their entire household income for the past seven days. My mom worked for them. On ‘give it all’ week, her paycheck was garnished.”
— Christina Little

A long-time friend of Rachel, Christina Little joined Longview Baptist Temple when her family moved there in 1990. Her father attended their unaccredited Bible college, Texas Independent Baptist Seminary & Schools (then Texas Bible College). She attended Longview Christian Academy with Rachel, then went to Hyles-Anderson College upon graduation. Her family decided to leave the Temple while she was at Hyles-Anderson, and after receiving the news, she left the school and never looked back.

When asked if she lost friends due to the Temple’s apparent practice of excommunication, Christina responded, “Yes, many. My parents struggled emotionally with that. It got better with time. Personally, I didn’t care much. I tried to ignore members just as much as they were trying to ignore me.”

However, Christina did not allow her negative experiences to keep her from confronting the organization. “The paper published my letter to the editor expressing my concern that Bob Gray II supports Dave Hyles. It warranted a phone call from him [Bob Gray II] to my husband — he only speaks to the head of the household. He called my husband to inform him that he did not support Dave Hyles. [He] is working hard to show that he’s the opposite of his father. He’s still running a broken system, though. I’ve been trying to round up people who were abused by their parents and asked Bob Gray II to report it. He did not. There’s only two girls still inside the statute of limitations.”

When attending Longview Christian Academy, Christina encountered the school’s demerit system, which can be found in their student handbook. (7-a) She recalls, “They also had it in the college. You’d sign a paper at the beginning of each year acknowledging everything that could get you demerits. After a certain number of demerits, further action was taken. They were for standard behavior things like dress code… I was in Dallas at a Rangers game and a church member saw me. The next day I received demerits for violating the dress code at that game. Mind you, I was wearing a hideous jean jumper, but it wasn’t ‘full’ enough.”

Having experienced the demerit system as well, Rachel elaborated, “If you got a dress code violation you get a demerit. Talking to guys, demerit plus being berated in front of the whole school. A lot of swats were given in opening assembly. A lot of yelling and ‘preaching.’ If someone got in trouble big, they would try to turn that person and get them to tell on everyone else.”

By preventing its students from learning key developmental skills, the school ensured that its members would be ill-equipped to face the outside world, as Christina recalls after leaving, “I was definitely unprepared, but I made do. I worked two jobs and met a man and got married. A lot of friends went a little wild after getting out. Excessive drinking, experimenting with drugs, unprotected sex, etc.”

When asked about the Temple’s “give it all” week, Christina was able to corroborate Rachel’s story. “A couple of times per year there would be a push for funds. Sometimes there was a clear reason, other times it was just to “clear debt.” It was coupled together with a six week campaign. This campaign was a competition between members to bring in the most converts. The last Sunday of the campaign was the ‘big day.’ And every member was expected to give their entire household income for the past seven days. My mom worked for them. On ‘give it all’ week, her paycheck was garnished.”

“…Chapel was the part of each day where we were berated, called out, slapped into line, solemnly warned, and otherwise encouraged to not break the rules and to humbly submit to being molded into the image of Bob Gray Sr, our pastor and college chancellor. In chapel we were constantly reminded of our lack of character, that we were lazy devils, that we were immature, that we probably wouldn’t make it.”
James Spurgeon, Tales from the Temple, pg 70

James Spurgeon’s family moved to Longview in 1987 when he was 18 years old. He joined his father in attending Texas Baptist College, where he suffered for seven years before leaving in the mid 1990s. His experiences are documented in his book, Tales from the Temple, which can be found here. He is now a pastor in east Texas and has come to peace with his experiences. In preparing for this article, I reached out to him and received the following statement:

“…I want to make sure that it doesn’t come across as my having picked up the sword against them again. Because I am really done with them, love my life, and love my personal plans for the next 30 years (or whatever I have left)…”

While James is decidedly finished with confronting the Temple, permission was obtained to quote his book for this article.

While James’ writings detail the many horrors of life within the Temple’s college, the first chapter of his book sets the tone for the shock-based environment he endured: (8-a)

All of a sudden, Bro. Cauthron pulled a pistol out from behind the pulpit. He said, “You know what this is? It’s a .357 magnum. I got it for shootin’ communists!”

There was a pause followed by a few tentative “amens.”

Then he went into a tirade explaining how he wanted to shoot all the communists. He was waving the pistol around like a maniac and hollering about the communists that were apparently among us. “Are you a communist?” he hollered.

The room responded with raucous “amens.”

“Are you a communist? I’d like to find out some of you were communists!” Then he stepped right off the platform, walked up to the front row of preacher-boys, stuck the gun under one of their noses, and said, “Are you a communist?”

There was a moment of apprehension as the emotionally driven student body asked itself if perhaps Bro. Cauthron was a a little TOO tense that day, if perhaps he had gone a little too far. But then somebody said, “Amen preacher!” and the moment passed.

Many of the claims made by Rachel and Christina are supported by James’ writing. In particular, James details the Temple’s attitude toward interaction between men and women: (8-b)

Dating rules at TBC have always been strange at best. Polite conversation in the lunch room was considered a date. One-on-one conversations between members of the opposite sex were frowned upon. Girls were not to wear jackets, rings, or any apparel that “pertained” to a man, namely their boyfriend. Suffice it to say that the dating rules at TBC were an ever-growing, ever-more complicated maze of regulations designed to discourage relationships between the sexes altogether… Anything that remotely resembled communication between male and female was considered a date, and thus subject to being tightly monitored and restricted by the staff.

The ultimate determiner of whom should date whom, I was later to learn, was Bob Gray Sr himself. If a couple did not have his approval, they were not to be a couple. The man of God had ultimate authority in these matters.

This claim is supported by the student handbook for the Temple’s college, which states that “Parent, pastor, and Pastor Gray must all be in agreement to a dating couple.” (9-a)

Additionally, James reflected Rachel and Christina’s depictions about the expenses involved with the cult, including give-it-all week: (8-c)

I have estimated (conservatively) that in my seven years at LBT I poured at least $45,000 into Gray’s ministry. That would include college tuition, room & board in the dorms, tithes, missions giving, debt retirement, give-it-alls, and personal money spent in the bus ministry. I assure you that the estimate is conservative. That’s $500+ a month during a span when my average income was probably between $200 and $300 a week.

Finally, James’ writings supports Rachel’s claims about numbers being of the utmost importance. During a conversation with a woman the staff had pressured him into dating, James recounts that she had criticized him for having low numbers in his “Walking With God” notebook: (8-c)

One day, as we were sitting out on the benches in front of the gymnasium, she told me there was something she had been wanting to talk to me about. She was concerned about me.

“About what?”

“Well, you know I’m on work scholarship down in the college office and part of what I do is check activity sheets and ‘Walking With God’ notebooks.”

“Yeah?” This didn’t sound too good.

“And I noticed that you only got 580 points in your WWG notebook last week,” she said.

I was at a loss for words. I was thinking to myself, Did she really just say what I think she said? Did she really just get onto me about how many points I got in my WWG notebook?

I responded, “Say what?”

“You only got 580 points in your WWG notebook. What was the problem?”

“Problem?” I had an ‘I can’t believe this is really happening’ look on my face.

“Yeah, problem.”

This was incredible. In fact, it was priceless. Here I was getting lectured by this girl on how many points I should be getting in my WWG notebook. I was thinking, I’ve spent a lot of money on this chick and this is what I get in return?

I responded, “Umm, excuse me, but isn’t the minimum 575? I believe 580 points is higher than the minimum. Am I getting demerits or something?”

“No. But I just don’t understand why you didn’t get 700 points. What’s the problem?”

While many parts of James’ book are humorous, they are intertwined with a sense of abject sadness — his anecdotes reveal an environment which is so oppressive that it truly is comical. In addition to the archived version from 2005, his writings may be purchased on Amazon here.

Closing Thoughts

Interviewing Rachel and Christina was a deeply moving experience, and I am eternally grateful to the both of them for sharing their stories with me. However, this article is an incomplete collection of what they have to say. I will be publishing a sequel to this piece which focuses on women’s issues within the Temple, as well as a full BITE model analysis.

Additionally, I would like to thank James Spurgeon for publishing his experiences in such detail — they have been a fantastic resource not just for me, but for many others.

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please leave a comment on this article. Additionally, feel free to contact me.