America 1982-Chapter 479 - 89: What does the Cult Leader Look Like?
Martin returned to the living room of Zack’s house, which was temporarily serving as both a campaign office and dormitory. He had just taken two cans of beer from the fridge and was about to hand one to Tommy, then sit down with him to discuss in detail how much money he could make as the campaign manager if they split the profits 28%.
But before he could open his mouth, he saw Page and the production team leader, Nick, each carrying a thick stack of books, coming in from outside.
This caused Martin’s brain to momentarily malfunction. The sight of Page, that despicable bald old man, even producing a hundred electric shock devices wouldn’t have surprised him. But...helping to move books? How could that be?
It made Martin feel that something major must have happened in the world because Page, that bastard, would always go out of his way to find him no matter how far he hid to assign him these menial tasks.
"The President of Gambia fulfilled his damn promise! Did he send troops to occupy the United States? So..." Martin’s face was full of disbelief and excitement as he clutched the beer and looked at Page:
"So the good days for American white ghosts are finally over?"
Tommy swept the clutter off a card table in the living room, allowing Page and Nick to walk over and place the stack of hardbound books on the table. Page slapped the cover of the top book and explained to Martin, "Nick said that the owner of these books specifically emphasized not to let these volumes be touched by the unclean, which in my book, is synonymous with Black people, and includes Gambia."
"Thank you, Nick." Tommy said, thanking the production team leader Nick, whose face showed curiosity.
Unlike his usual expression of despair due to Tommy’s non-cooperation with filming, Nick now looked curious as he placed the books on the table and deliberately tilted his head to read the names on the spines. From their designs, he could tell all were related to Christianity, but other than the Old Testament, he had never seen or even heard of any of them.
The Seven Epistles of Ignatius, The First Epistle of Clement, Panama Epistles, Against the Arians, The Book of Enoch, The Shepherd of Hermas, The Didache or The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles...
Nick considered himself more of a Protestant than the majority of Americans who only call upon God in shock or peril. He went to church at least once every two weeks when time allowed and had joined the well-known Christian youth community group "Vibrant New Life Youth," to pray, dine, and volunteer together. It might sound exaggerated, but the fact was, Nick’s level of devotion already made him a true believer, especially since most young people had lost interest in investing time in church to pray and enrich their inner being with scripture, preferring to dull their empty souls with intoxicants or drugs.
But as an orthodox Protestant, he had never heard of these books.
"Some guy dressed like he was from the KKK, sneakily handed these books over to me, instructing me not to let the unclean touch them," Nick resisted the urge to touch the books and asked Tommy.
While Jeff was giving a speech to the veterans at the retirement home, Tommy found some time to visit several churches in Miami, and then they asked him to go to Panama and gave him a phone number to help collect some books. He drove to Panama and found a young white man wearing white robes in a small church, stealthily passing off the pile of books to him.
"Don’t mind his nonsense; these aren’t any valuable books, they don’t have much in terms of collection value, they are just hard to purchase quickly." Tommy sat down at the table and pulled out a chair: "These are from the private collection of Sean McDaniel, the Senior Pastor of the First Baptist Church of Panama, Florida, and were secretly lent to me by his son, who is also my Fraternity brother and an intern pastor."
"First Baptist Church? I’ve never heard of this denomination," Neil said, his expression turning suspicious.
Then he had a sudden realization: "Is it the very same non-mainstream religious group you mentioned wanting to contact... or should I say, cult?"
He immediately distanced himself from the stack of books, as for him, an orthodox Christian, it was best to keep a distance from theories that deviate from orthodox doctrines. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶
"No~ Of course not~" Tommy saw Nick’s reaction and immediately explained with a smile: "It’s certainly not a cult. It’s part of the Southern Baptist Convention, a small branch under it, comprised of original members who felt that the denomination had become corrupt, so they branched off into their own faction. It’s a bit more extreme than the Southern Baptist Convention, and some also refer to it as the White Robe Baptist Church."
The person next to Martin had already been stunned for a while before he spoke: "Even more extreme than the already extreme Southern Baptist Convention? The White Robe Baptist Church?"
Page walked over and snatched the can of beer from Martin’s hand: "You could think of it as, compared to the ordinary KKK, the members of this church not only wear white robes when they burn Black people alive but also carry the Bible and wear crosses."
As Martin mentioned, the Southern Baptist Convention is the largest Protestant Baptist denomination in America and is the second-largest Christian denomination in the United States behind Evangelicalism.
"Hell, a white supremacist church!" Martin recovered his wits, cursing loudly.
