Brian Raymond Tamaki was born in 1958 in Te Awamutu, New Zealand, as the eldest of five children. He was raised in a rural environment on a family farm. His mother introduced him to Methodism, while he later described his father as largely absent due to alcoholism. Tamaki left secondary school at 15 and worked… Continue reading

The Queen and Lady of All Creation is a Costa Rican religious organization founded in 2000 by Juan Pablo Delgado. Delgado, who was in his early twenties at the time the group gained public attention, claims to receive and transmit direct messages from the Virgin Mary. The organization became widely known for its apocalyptic predictions,… Continue reading

The Deeper Christian Life Ministry, also known as the Deeper Life Bible Church, is an international Pentecostal denomination headquartered in Gbagada, Nigeria. Its origins date to 1973, when William Folorunso Kumuyi, then a mathematics lecturer at the University of Lagos, began a Bible study group with 15 students. In 1975, while continuing to lead his… Continue reading

Tyler Deaton rose to prominence as a religious leader whose prayer group later became the subject of a major criminal investigation in Kansas City, Missouri. He was born and raised in Texas and attended Calallen High School in Corpus Christi. Deaton enrolled at Southwestern University, a liberal arts college in Georgetown, Texas. While there, he… Continue reading

Robert Schuller was an American televangelist, pastor, and author who founded Crystal Cathedral Ministries and hosted the long-running “Hour of Power” television program. He was born in 1926 in Iowa and earned a Master of Divinity degree from Western Theological Seminary in 1950. After completing his studies, he was ordained as a minister in the… Continue reading

The Crossroads Movement, later known as the International Churches of Christ (ICOC), emerged in 1967. Its origins lie in the 14th Street Church of Christ in Gainesville, Florida, which later adopted the name Crossroads Church of Christ. Under the leadership of minister Chuck Lucas, the congregation launched an evangelical outreach initiative known as “Campus Advance,”… Continue reading

José Luis de Jesús Miranda was born on April 22, 1946, in Ponce, Puerto Rico. He grew up in poverty and later said he became addicted to heroin by the age of 14. During his youth, he served multiple prison sentences for petty theft, which he attributed to his living conditions at the time. Miranda… Continue reading

The Concerned Christians was a religious organization founded in the early 1980s in Denver, Colorado, by Monte Kim Miller. The group was initially established as an anti-cult and anti–New Age activist organization. In its early phase, it worked with law enforcement agencies and established churches to raise awareness about mind control practices and what it… Continue reading

Community Chapel and Bible Training Center was an independent religious organization founded in 1967 in Burien, Washington. The church originated from a home Bible study led by Donald Lee Barnett, who had completed two years of education at a Pentecostal Bible college. The study began after Barnett’s wife, Barbara, met a Lutheran couple through her… Continue reading

City Harvest Church is a Pentecostal megachurch based in Singapore that was founded in 1989 by Kong Hee and his wife Sun Ho, beginning with a group of 20 youths meeting at the Peace Centre. Initially known as “Ekklesia Ministry,” the group operated under the legal oversight of Bethany Christian Centre. It became an independent… Continue reading

The Church of Wells, originally known as the Church of Arlington or You Must Be Born Again (YMBBA) Ministries, is a religious community based in Wells, Texas. The group was founded in 2011 by Sean Morris and Ryan Ringnald, who met as roommates at Baylor University in 2004. A third leader, Jacob Gardner, also joined… Continue reading

The General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn, often shortened to the Church of the First Born, is a fundamentalist Christian sect with historical ties to the Latter-Day Saint (LDS) movement, though it maintains no present-day affiliation with Mormon fundamentalist groups that use similar “Firstborn” names. The group has also been referred to by older… Continue reading

The Church of the First Born of the Lamb of God, often shortened to the Church of the Lamb of God, was a Mormon offshoot founded by Ervil LeBaron in the late 1960s. Its origins trace to the broader Mormon fundamentalist movement, which sought to continue the practice of polygamy after the Church of Jesus… Continue reading

The Church of Israel is a Christian Identity-linked sect founded in 1972 by Dan Gayman. Originally called The Church of Our Christian Heritage, it arose from a schism within the Church of Christ (Temple Lot) and is now linked to white supremacist interpretations of theology, though Gayman has attempted to distance his church from Christian… Continue reading

The Church of God with Signs Following is a Christian snake-handling sect primarily located in the Appalachian region of the southeastern United States. The group is known for its literal interpretation of Mark 16:17-18, which it understands to command acts such as handling venomous snakes, drinking poison, and enduring fire as demonstrations of faith and… Continue reading