Out of Mormonism and into God's Kingdom
Author’s note: This story may not be appropriate for young children or those who have experienced sexual or physical abuse. Reader discretion is advised.
One night, when she was young, Barb McDannell threw a temper tantrum because she didn’t want to go to bed. What followed was a sickening punishment that lasted for several years.
That was the night the rapes began. At five years old, her consequence for throwing that tantrum was to be raped by her brother’s best friend (age 16).
“Dad told me to stop crying,” said Barb. “Soon after, I heard footsteps on the stairs. Dad told my brother’s friend to do something about the crying, and that’s when the boy began to rape me—with my dad standing by, watching.”
For the next two years, unbeknownst to anyone else and while Barb’s mom worked nights, the young man raped her, the younger boy getting payment from her dad—who also began to rape Barb. Within that time, the duo also began to rape Barb’s older sister (whom we’ll call Mary), who was four years older.
The evil intensifies
By age seven, Barb’s dad had become an alcoholic and a member of a local organization. He met with fellow men within this nationally-known organization—a teacher, businessman, doctor, county official, and a pastor, just to name a few.
Barb and her sister were taken to the local meetings regularly, where men were paid to rape them both. Her dad was running a prostitution ring, selling his own two young daughters for sex.
As if those weekly rapes weren’t enough, her dad continued to rape the two girls at home. Mary became pregnant and was sent away to have an abortion. While the girls’ mom and everyone were told that Mary was visiting a nursing school, she was actually recovering from the abortion. Soon after, Mary left home, never to return. (She committed suicide years later.) Even after Mary left, Barb continued to be raped by her father and the men at the local organization.
She always knew when the rapes at home would come.
“I always knew when my dad was coming to rape me—I could hear his feet on the stairs,” said Barb. “I was a fighter all my life. Even if I’d try to hide in the hall closet, he would find me. One night I decided to fight him. I bit him, kicked him, and hit him, and it didn’t end well. He still raped me and beat me. I remember him saying, ‘I am your father, and you need to do whatever I tell you to do.’”
Almost dead
When she was 8 years old, Barb told her best friend what was happening to her at the regular meetings of the organization. Her dad overheard and beat her, also forcing her to tell the men there. The men encircled her and gave her a choice of three consequences, deciding to punish her with all. She was beaten. They “bid” on her and the man with the highest bid raped her. And they locked her in a box for 24 hours.
When her mom asked where she was, her dad said she was at a sleepover. Instead, she was being cared for overnight at a local doctor’s office—the same doctor from the local organization who had raped her. Mercifully, he did not rape her while she was kept at his office overnight; that’s because, after 24 hours in the locked box, she was near death.
Extreme pain and loss
The raping continued and five years later, Barb became pregnant.
“At age 14, I was around seven months pregnant,” said Barb. “My mom was told that I was going to spend a long weekend with some of my dad’s family. Instead, I was taken to the same doctor (who raped me). My dad, the doctor, and some other men were present at the doctor office. They restrained me and gave me an IV to induce labor.”
Barb gave birth to a premature baby girl who was “tiny and perfect.” Soon after the birth, Barb’s dad forcibly took his grandchild from her arms and into another room.
“They killed my daughter,” said Barb, who remembers the coroner taking her baby away in a garbage bag. “My dad said to me, ‘Take a good hard look and remember what you’ve done.’” He then told the doctor to “make sure this never happens again.”
The physical pain was excruciating after the forced delivery and destruction of Barb’s reproductive system. But the pain from Barb’s broken and confused heart was even greater.
For two days, she recovered at the doctor’s house. Then, when she was taken home, “Mom was told I was sick and she could only bring me food [and not see me otherwise]. My dad threatened me not tell anyone what really happened.”
A promising change comes
Barb’s life went back to “normal.” She went back to school—and she was still raped on a regular basis. Then one day, everything changed.
“One day, my brother went to school and his friend saw his bruises,” said Barb. “My brother told the friend that he’d been beaten, and a teacher overheard it.” Child welfare authorities removed Barb and her three younger siblings from their home.
A couple from a local church—the man served as the pastor—began to foster Barb when she was 14. She arrived with a garbage bag that held two outfits. She found it difficult at first to trust the pastor who welcomed her into his home. Would he rape her just like so many other “respected” men had?
“Soon after I went to live with them, I accidentally broke a glass, shattering it,” said Barb. “I heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and I dropped to the floor, covering my head.” But her foster dad didn’t hit her or rape her, and it took Barb some time to get used to her new, safe reality.
Life improved drastically for Barb, who found herself doing well academically in school for the first time in her life. She attended a Christian college, although she was not a believer, earning a degree in communications.
Tragedy strikes
Fast forward a few years. Barb was 22 and a college graduate. Her mom was killed in a head-on collision on her way home from work. She found herself back at her parents’ house, seeing her dad for the first time in eight years. Barb would continue to see her dad every now and then in her small town, and he went around acting as though nothing ever happened in how he treated his family.
Throughout the following few years, Barb and her then-fiancé found themselves continuing to postpone their wedding. They both lost a parent and Barb fell ill several times—most everything the result of the forced trauma that her body endured for years.
In a span of time, Barb was diagnosed with uterine and cervical cancer, which led to needing a hysterectomy. After the surgery, the surgeon asked if she’d ever had a child.
“I broke down and told him everything,” said Barb. What followed were days of extreme physical and emotional pain. She remembered how she would never, ever have a child again. Within those 16 days spent in the hospital, her dad visited, still condemning Barb and calling her worthless. And her wedding was also canceled when her fiancé told her that he was gay.
Barb felt like she had nothing to live for.
Introduction to a false religion
When a near-death experience (while she was in a coma) produced a vision that led her to believe that Jesus was talking to her, she wasn’t sure who to talk to about it. So she talked to a fellow co-worker, who happened to be a Mormon. When that co-worker couldn’t answer her questions, she invited Barb to meet with a bishop from the Mormon Church.
What began as a conversation about her near-death experience led to Barb’s involvement and membership in the Mormon Church.
“I had no intention of joining the Mormon Church,” said Barb. “I just needed a religious person to answer my questions. The bishop was kind, and I was so beaten down that I was open to any words of encouragement.” Barb knew a little about the Mormon Church. After all, she’d taken a class on college that centered on cults, and her brother’s foster family was Mormon. She began to attend the Mormon Church, also known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her days consisted of morning and evening prayers, reading scriptures, reading the book of Mormon, and teaching young women in Sunday school at the local ward (or church).
“Because I wasn’t a Christ follower, I was hungry to keep learning,” said Barb. “I became a member soon after [my first conversation about the church] and was baptized 18 days later (in 1990). I was convinced that the Mormons had all the truth and others were wrong.”
The church doctrine that won Barb over was this: “I was told I would be a mother in heaven one day,” said Barb, who knew the pain of losing a child. “That’s all it took.” (“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that all human beings, male and female, are beloved spirit children of heavenly parents, a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother,” according to the Jesus Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints website.)
Another draw to the Mormon Church was the promise of cleansing and washing through rituals and good works. The desire for the hope that the cleansing would provide drew Barb in.
By all accounts, Mormons appear to be Christians. According to World Religions & Cults 101 by Bruce Bickel and Stan Jantz, “Mormons consider themselves Christians, and they will tell you that they believe in the Bible, God, and Jesus Christ. By outward appearances, Mormons do appear to be Christians … but their beliefs tell a much different story.”
Mormon beliefs on the nature of God, the person of Jesus, sin and salvation, and the afterlife all differ from biblical Christianity. (We have a list of reputable resources at the end of this story that we suggest reading for more information on how Mormonism differs from Christianity.)
Introduction to the real, biblical Jesus
In 2023, after 33 years in the Mormon Church, Barb’s life began to change. A co-worker and friend invited her to attend a Bible study at Stones Crossing Church. She turned down the invitation because of her commitments at the local Mormon ward. That same month, her nephew began to express his doubts over Mormonism and considered leaving the Mormon Church. His doubts became Barb’s as they conversed on the topic.
Barb’s doubts increased and so did her faith-related conversations with her friend. Her attitude about the Mormon Church started to change and her local bishop noticed. She was reprimanded and disciplined.
“I was asked to give back my ‘temple recommend,’” said Barb. (Not all Mormons are allowed to go to the temple, which is a step above the local ward. This privilege must be earned with good works.) “He said he’d meet with me every three months and that I needed to repent. Before I left, I asked what would happen if I died during this year of ‘probation.’ He told me I’d not go to celestial kingdom and that I’d be going to the lowest of the lowest kingdom.”
Naturally, Barb was extremely sad and emotional over it. But this spurred her on to watch the first sermon in Pastor Dustin Crowe’s series The Wilderness is Not a Waste—a sermon series at Stones Crossing in June 2023.
Soon after, Barb’s friend connected her with Pastor Dustin. The two began conversing regularly on theology, Pastor Dustin patiently answering Barb’s questions on both Mormonism and Christianity, giving her a Bible and encouraging her to read the Gospel of John. She also began attending Stones on Sunday mornings.
A new freedom in Christ
Two months after Barb was introduced to the gospel, she placed her faith in Jesus on September 30, 2023. She had recognized that the real/true Jesus from the Bible gave himself as the sufficient sacrifice to cleanse her from sin and that she didn’t need to keep performing good works to be righteous before him. Soon, Barb began attending Sunday services and Bible study regularly, as well as being discipled by a woman at Stones.
While Barb has experienced the joys of knowing Christ and meeting other believers, she has still experienced some suffering—she lost a lot of Mormon friends who shunned her after leaving the church. And her twin brother stopped talking to her for a while after her conversion. (They are now on good terms.) She even had to legally get her name taken off the Mormon Church roll, and she cannot attend the wedding of a family friend because that union is taking place in a Mormon temple.
As difficult as those losses are for Barb, she knows what she’s gained is so much greater—salvation in Christ through faith. She walks in full knowledge and freedom, knowing that no man holds the power to take away her salvation and that she is secure in Christ!
Below are some resources that will give more information about the Mormon Church and the differences between this religion and biblical Christianity.
One night, when she was young, Barb McDannell threw a temper tantrum because she didn’t want to go to bed. What followed was a sickening punishment that lasted for several years.
That was the night the rapes began. At five years old, her consequence for throwing that tantrum was to be raped by her brother’s best friend (age 16).
“Dad told me to stop crying,” said Barb. “Soon after, I heard footsteps on the stairs. Dad told my brother’s friend to do something about the crying, and that’s when the boy began to rape me—with my dad standing by, watching.”
For the next two years, unbeknownst to anyone else and while Barb’s mom worked nights, the young man raped her, the younger boy getting payment from her dad—who also began to rape Barb. Within that time, the duo also began to rape Barb’s older sister (whom we’ll call Mary), who was four years older.
The evil intensifies
By age seven, Barb’s dad had become an alcoholic and a member of a local organization. He met with fellow men within this nationally-known organization—a teacher, businessman, doctor, county official, and a pastor, just to name a few.
Barb and her sister were taken to the local meetings regularly, where men were paid to rape them both. Her dad was running a prostitution ring, selling his own two young daughters for sex.
As if those weekly rapes weren’t enough, her dad continued to rape the two girls at home. Mary became pregnant and was sent away to have an abortion. While the girls’ mom and everyone were told that Mary was visiting a nursing school, she was actually recovering from the abortion. Soon after, Mary left home, never to return. (She committed suicide years later.) Even after Mary left, Barb continued to be raped by her father and the men at the local organization.
She always knew when the rapes at home would come.
“I always knew when my dad was coming to rape me—I could hear his feet on the stairs,” said Barb. “I was a fighter all my life. Even if I’d try to hide in the hall closet, he would find me. One night I decided to fight him. I bit him, kicked him, and hit him, and it didn’t end well. He still raped me and beat me. I remember him saying, ‘I am your father, and you need to do whatever I tell you to do.’”
Almost dead
When she was 8 years old, Barb told her best friend what was happening to her at the regular meetings of the organization. Her dad overheard and beat her, also forcing her to tell the men there. The men encircled her and gave her a choice of three consequences, deciding to punish her with all. She was beaten. They “bid” on her and the man with the highest bid raped her. And they locked her in a box for 24 hours.
When her mom asked where she was, her dad said she was at a sleepover. Instead, she was being cared for overnight at a local doctor’s office—the same doctor from the local organization who had raped her. Mercifully, he did not rape her while she was kept at his office overnight; that’s because, after 24 hours in the locked box, she was near death.
Extreme pain and loss
The raping continued and five years later, Barb became pregnant.
“At age 14, I was around seven months pregnant,” said Barb. “My mom was told that I was going to spend a long weekend with some of my dad’s family. Instead, I was taken to the same doctor (who raped me). My dad, the doctor, and some other men were present at the doctor office. They restrained me and gave me an IV to induce labor.”
Barb gave birth to a premature baby girl who was “tiny and perfect.” Soon after the birth, Barb’s dad forcibly took his grandchild from her arms and into another room.
“They killed my daughter,” said Barb, who remembers the coroner taking her baby away in a garbage bag. “My dad said to me, ‘Take a good hard look and remember what you’ve done.’” He then told the doctor to “make sure this never happens again.”
The physical pain was excruciating after the forced delivery and destruction of Barb’s reproductive system. But the pain from Barb’s broken and confused heart was even greater.
For two days, she recovered at the doctor’s house. Then, when she was taken home, “Mom was told I was sick and she could only bring me food [and not see me otherwise]. My dad threatened me not tell anyone what really happened.”
A promising change comes
Barb’s life went back to “normal.” She went back to school—and she was still raped on a regular basis. Then one day, everything changed.
“One day, my brother went to school and his friend saw his bruises,” said Barb. “My brother told the friend that he’d been beaten, and a teacher overheard it.” Child welfare authorities removed Barb and her three younger siblings from their home.
A couple from a local church—the man served as the pastor—began to foster Barb when she was 14. She arrived with a garbage bag that held two outfits. She found it difficult at first to trust the pastor who welcomed her into his home. Would he rape her just like so many other “respected” men had?
“Soon after I went to live with them, I accidentally broke a glass, shattering it,” said Barb. “I heard footsteps coming up the stairs, and I dropped to the floor, covering my head.” But her foster dad didn’t hit her or rape her, and it took Barb some time to get used to her new, safe reality.
Life improved drastically for Barb, who found herself doing well academically in school for the first time in her life. She attended a Christian college, although she was not a believer, earning a degree in communications.
Tragedy strikes
Fast forward a few years. Barb was 22 and a college graduate. Her mom was killed in a head-on collision on her way home from work. She found herself back at her parents’ house, seeing her dad for the first time in eight years. Barb would continue to see her dad every now and then in her small town, and he went around acting as though nothing ever happened in how he treated his family.
Throughout the following few years, Barb and her then-fiancé found themselves continuing to postpone their wedding. They both lost a parent and Barb fell ill several times—most everything the result of the forced trauma that her body endured for years.
In a span of time, Barb was diagnosed with uterine and cervical cancer, which led to needing a hysterectomy. After the surgery, the surgeon asked if she’d ever had a child.
“I broke down and told him everything,” said Barb. What followed were days of extreme physical and emotional pain. She remembered how she would never, ever have a child again. Within those 16 days spent in the hospital, her dad visited, still condemning Barb and calling her worthless. And her wedding was also canceled when her fiancé told her that he was gay.
Barb felt like she had nothing to live for.
Introduction to a false religion
When a near-death experience (while she was in a coma) produced a vision that led her to believe that Jesus was talking to her, she wasn’t sure who to talk to about it. So she talked to a fellow co-worker, who happened to be a Mormon. When that co-worker couldn’t answer her questions, she invited Barb to meet with a bishop from the Mormon Church.
What began as a conversation about her near-death experience led to Barb’s involvement and membership in the Mormon Church.
“I had no intention of joining the Mormon Church,” said Barb. “I just needed a religious person to answer my questions. The bishop was kind, and I was so beaten down that I was open to any words of encouragement.” Barb knew a little about the Mormon Church. After all, she’d taken a class on college that centered on cults, and her brother’s foster family was Mormon. She began to attend the Mormon Church, also known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her days consisted of morning and evening prayers, reading scriptures, reading the book of Mormon, and teaching young women in Sunday school at the local ward (or church).
“Because I wasn’t a Christ follower, I was hungry to keep learning,” said Barb. “I became a member soon after [my first conversation about the church] and was baptized 18 days later (in 1990). I was convinced that the Mormons had all the truth and others were wrong.”
The church doctrine that won Barb over was this: “I was told I would be a mother in heaven one day,” said Barb, who knew the pain of losing a child. “That’s all it took.” (“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that all human beings, male and female, are beloved spirit children of heavenly parents, a Heavenly Father and a Heavenly Mother,” according to the Jesus Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints website.)
Another draw to the Mormon Church was the promise of cleansing and washing through rituals and good works. The desire for the hope that the cleansing would provide drew Barb in.
By all accounts, Mormons appear to be Christians. According to World Religions & Cults 101 by Bruce Bickel and Stan Jantz, “Mormons consider themselves Christians, and they will tell you that they believe in the Bible, God, and Jesus Christ. By outward appearances, Mormons do appear to be Christians … but their beliefs tell a much different story.”
Mormon beliefs on the nature of God, the person of Jesus, sin and salvation, and the afterlife all differ from biblical Christianity. (We have a list of reputable resources at the end of this story that we suggest reading for more information on how Mormonism differs from Christianity.)
Introduction to the real, biblical Jesus
In 2023, after 33 years in the Mormon Church, Barb’s life began to change. A co-worker and friend invited her to attend a Bible study at Stones Crossing Church. She turned down the invitation because of her commitments at the local Mormon ward. That same month, her nephew began to express his doubts over Mormonism and considered leaving the Mormon Church. His doubts became Barb’s as they conversed on the topic.
Barb’s doubts increased and so did her faith-related conversations with her friend. Her attitude about the Mormon Church started to change and her local bishop noticed. She was reprimanded and disciplined.
“I was asked to give back my ‘temple recommend,’” said Barb. (Not all Mormons are allowed to go to the temple, which is a step above the local ward. This privilege must be earned with good works.) “He said he’d meet with me every three months and that I needed to repent. Before I left, I asked what would happen if I died during this year of ‘probation.’ He told me I’d not go to celestial kingdom and that I’d be going to the lowest of the lowest kingdom.”
Naturally, Barb was extremely sad and emotional over it. But this spurred her on to watch the first sermon in Pastor Dustin Crowe’s series The Wilderness is Not a Waste—a sermon series at Stones Crossing in June 2023.
Soon after, Barb’s friend connected her with Pastor Dustin. The two began conversing regularly on theology, Pastor Dustin patiently answering Barb’s questions on both Mormonism and Christianity, giving her a Bible and encouraging her to read the Gospel of John. She also began attending Stones on Sunday mornings.
A new freedom in Christ
Two months after Barb was introduced to the gospel, she placed her faith in Jesus on September 30, 2023. She had recognized that the real/true Jesus from the Bible gave himself as the sufficient sacrifice to cleanse her from sin and that she didn’t need to keep performing good works to be righteous before him. Soon, Barb began attending Sunday services and Bible study regularly, as well as being discipled by a woman at Stones.
While Barb has experienced the joys of knowing Christ and meeting other believers, she has still experienced some suffering—she lost a lot of Mormon friends who shunned her after leaving the church. And her twin brother stopped talking to her for a while after her conversion. (They are now on good terms.) She even had to legally get her name taken off the Mormon Church roll, and she cannot attend the wedding of a family friend because that union is taking place in a Mormon temple.
As difficult as those losses are for Barb, she knows what she’s gained is so much greater—salvation in Christ through faith. She walks in full knowledge and freedom, knowing that no man holds the power to take away her salvation and that she is secure in Christ!
Below are some resources that will give more information about the Mormon Church and the differences between this religion and biblical Christianity.
- World Religions & Cults 101 by Bruce Bickel and Stan Jantz
- Engaging with Mormons by Corey Miller
- Mormonism: What You Need to Know by Ed Decker
- Sharing the Gospel with a Mormon by Tony Brown
- Out of Mormonism: A Woman’s True Story by Judy Robertson
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