rightsaidfred
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Hi I'm very new around these parts although have lurked for a long time. Decided to sign up as this case has been at the forefront of my mind for a long time.
I think that religion may hold a big piece of the puzzle here. As we know CM was a member of the TB Joshua cult many years ago. I think that while escaping it she still probably held on to a lot of her 'Christian' beliefs (pure speculation) and was looking to fill that 'God Shaped Hole' again. I believe that MG perhaps came to her rescue in that respect.
I've been doing a bit of reading around 'The Local Church', the organisation who published the Bible found in the car. Why would they have that edition if they didn't have some link? It's not an easy edition to come across. The Local Church tries to separate members from their families, they also follow a lot of the practices of the Plymouth Brethren. I used to have Plymouth Brethren neighbours... they considered themselves, 'in the world but not of it' and were a very strict sect. If they did have these beliefs it would account for a lot of the 'us against the world' mentality.
It's also completely anecdotal but of the few aristocratic / wealthy boarding school people I have known - being Born Again has been quite a common feature. Alpha Courses etc. One even joined the clergy.
I have a personal theory that they met at church.
We don't know how they met, but we do know they lived nearby each other.
CM clearly holds Christian beliefs; she went to an evangelical course when she was 18/19 and that's how she found out about TB Joshua, and ultimately why she went to Nigeria to join his church / cult.
I'd be completely unsurprised if a black man from Birmingham via the Deep South's prison system had found God along the way.
Given their entirely different socioeconomic backgrounds, they're unlikely to have met through mutual friends or work, so church seems a plausible option.
I didn't grow up Christian and I only really have the knowledge of it that you tend to pick up by default if you go through the British schooling system, so it would be easy for some of the nuances to pass me by. I'd never heard of the Local Church until this thread! Do they have any churches in the UK - especially around Ilford where I think they certainly lived at one point and may have been living when they met?