The World in Flames
A Black Boyhood in a White Supremacist Doomsday Cult
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Narrated by:
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C. S. Treadway
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By:
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Jerald Walker
About this listen
A lively memoir of growing up with blind African American parents in a segregated cult preaching the imminent end of the world—for fans of James McBride’s The Good Lord Bird.
It’s 1970, and Jerry Walker is six years old. His consciousness revolves around being a member of a church whose beliefs he finds not only confusing but terrifying. Composed of a hodgepodge of requirements and restrictions—including a prohibition against doctors and hospitals—the underpinning tenet of Herbert W. Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God was that its members were divinely chosen and all others would soon perish in rivers of flames.
The substantial membership was ruled by fear, intimidation, and threats. Anyone who dared leave the church would endure hardship for the remainder of this life and eternal suffering in the next. The next life, according to Armstrong, would arrive in 1975, three years after the start of the Great Tribulation. Jerry would be eleven years old.
Jerry’s parents were particularly vulnerable to the promise of relief from the world’s hardships. When they joined the church, in 1960, they were living in a two-room apartment in a dangerous Chicago housing project with the first four of their seven children, and, most significantly, they both were blind, having lost their sight to childhood accidents. They took comfort in the belief that they had been chosen for a special afterlife, even if it meant following a religion with a white supremacist ideology and dutifully sending tithes to Armstrong, whose church boasted more than 100,000 members and more than $80 million in annual revenues at its height.
When the prophecy of the 1972 Great Tribulation does not materialize, Jerry is considerably less disappointed than relieved. When the 1975 end-time prophecy also fails, he finally begins to question his faith and imagine the possibility of choosing a destiny of his own.
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- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Eleven-year-old Aliya Shah lives a double life in Islamabad, Pakistan - at home with her Pakistani father and Dutch mother, and at the American School, where Aliya tries to downplay that she is a "half-and-half." But when a hit-and-run driver kills the son of the family's servant, Sadiq, who is also Aliya's dear friend, her world is turned upside down. After she discovers the truth behind the tragedy - a terrible secret that burdens her heart - her conflicted loyalties are tested as never before.
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Beautifully written and narrated
- By Wayne on 11-05-17
By: Sorayya Khan
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Cartwheels in a Sari
- A Memoir of Growing Up Cult
- By: Jayanti Tamm
- Narrated by: Jayanti Tamm
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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In this colorful, eye-opening memoir, Jayanti Tamm offers an unforgettable glimpse into the hidden world of growing up cult in mainstream America. Through Jayanti's fascinating story, the first book to chronicle Sri Chinmoy, she unmasks a leader who convinces thousands of disciples to follow him, scores of nations to dedicate monuments to him, and throngs of celebrities (Sting, Pope John Paul II, Nelson Mandela) to extol him.
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A Must-Listen
- By Lauren on 04-14-10
By: Jayanti Tamm
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In the Country
- Stories
- By: Mia Alvar
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu, Don Castro
- Length: 13 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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These nine globe-trotting, unforgettable stories from Mia Alvar, a remarkable new literary talent, vividly give voice to the women and men of the Filipino diaspora. Here are exiles, emigrants, and wanderers uprooting their families from the Philippines to begin new lives in the Middle East, the United States, and elsewhere - and sometimes turning back again.
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My introduction to Filipino literature and culture
- By Amazon Customer on 03-28-16
By: Mia Alvar
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Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules (Unabridged Selections)
- By: Edited by David Sedaris
- Narrated by: David Sedaris, Mary-Louise Parker, Cherry Jones
- Length: 2 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules is a collection of short stories, some classic, others impending, selected and introduced by David Sedaris.
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Great stories but only 5 of 17 are included
- By Terri Kirk on 07-13-12
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Bettyville
- By: George Hodgman
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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When George Hodgman leaves Manhattan for his hometown of Paris, Missouri, he finds himself - an unlikely caretaker and near-lethal cook - in a head-on collision with his aging mother, Betty, a woman of wit and will. Will George lure her into assisted living? When hell freezes over. He can't bring himself to force her from the home both treasure - the place where his father's voice lingers, the scene of shared jokes, skirmishes, and, behind the dusty antiques, a rarely acknowledged conflict...
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Title Should Be Georgeville-It's All About George
- By Sara on 10-08-15
By: George Hodgman
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Apocalypse Child
- A Life in End Times - a Memoir
- By: Flor Edwards
- Narrated by: Flor Edwards
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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For the first 13 years of her life, Flor Edwards grew up in the Children of God. The group's nomadic existence was based on the belief that, as God's chosen people, they would be saved in the impending apocalypse that would envelop the rest of the world in 1993. Flor would be 13 years old. The group's charismatic leader, Father David, kept the family on the move, from Los Angeles to Bangkok to Chicago, where they would eventually disband, leaving Flor to make sense of the foreign world of mainstream society around her.
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A truly unique background and story
- By Asaph on 04-13-18
By: Flor Edwards
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Full Circle
- By: Michael Thomas Ford
- Narrated by: Blake Somerset
- Length: 17 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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History professor Ned Brummel is living happily with his partner of 12 years in small-town Maine when he receives a phone call from his estranged friend - Jack - telling him that another friend - Andy - is very ill and possibly near death. As Ned boards a plane to Chicago on his way to his friend's bedside, he embarks on another journey into memory, examining the major events and small moments that have shaped his world and his relationships with these two very different, very important men.
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To Every Season...
- By Donald on 10-01-13
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Priestdaddy
- A Memoir
- By: Patricia Lockwood
- Narrated by: Patricia Lockwood
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Father Greg Lockwood is unlike any Catholic priest you have ever met - a man who lounges in boxer shorts, who loves action movies, and whose constant jamming on the guitar reverberates "like a whole band dying in a plane crash in 1972". His daughter is an irreverent poet who long ago left the church's country. When an unexpected crisis leads her and her husband to move back into her parents' rectory, their two worlds collide.
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Terrible narration--read, don't listen
- By Penelope on 08-06-17
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Breaking Night
- A Memoir of Forgiveness, Survival, and My Journey from Homeless to Harvard
- By: Liz Murray
- Narrated by: Liz Murray
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Liz Murray was born to loving but drug-addicted parents in the Bronx. In school she was taunted for her dirty clothing and lice-infested hair, eventually skipping so many classes that she was put into a girls' home. At age 15, Liz found herself on the streets when her family finally unraveled. She learned to scrape by, foraging for food and riding subways all night to have a warm place to sleep. Then, when Liz's mother died of AIDS, she decided to take control of her own destiny.
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unbelievably inspiring
- By Amazon Customer on 03-17-12
By: Liz Murray
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To See the Moon Again
- By: Jamie Langston Turner
- Narrated by: Eva Kaminsky
- Length: 13 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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The first step to letting go of the past is forgiving it …Every day of her life Julia Rich lives with the memory of a horrible accident she caused long ago. In the years since, she has tried to hide her guilt in the quiet routine of teaching at a small South Carolina college, avoiding close relationships with family and would-be friends. But one day a phone call from Carmen, a niece she has never met, disrupts her carefully controlled world.
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Beautiful Story of Forgiveness and Selfless Love
- By sharon on 09-20-14
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A Prayer for Owen Meany
- By: John Irving
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 27 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Of all of John Irving's books, this is the one that lends itself best to audio. In print, Owen Meany's dialogue is set in capital letters; for this production, Irving himself selected Joe Barrett to deliver Meany's difficult voice as intended. In the summer of 1953, two 11-year-old boys – best friends – are playing in a Little League baseball game in Gravesend, New Hampshire. One of the boys hits a foul ball that kills the other boy's mother. The boy who hits the ball doesn't believe in accidents; Owen Meany believes he is God's instrument. What happens to Owen after that 1953 foul ball is extraordinary and terrifying.
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Outstanding
- By Alan on 03-28-11
By: John Irving
What listeners say about The World in Flames
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- R. Gill
- 04-07-18
Life inside of a cult member
Would you listen to The World in Flames again? Why?
Probably not, once is enough. I just wanted to really understand someone who has been part of a controlled religion because I could relate to some of it.
What did you like best about this story?
The way the story was presented with the authors family life. He took you through the circumstances and the reasons why they did a lot of things that they did. Also, his confusion regarding his religion. It amazes me that how gullible we as humans are when we are brought up in our lives to believe something no matter how strange it may be.
What about C. S. Treadway’s performance did you like?
The way he adjusted his reading when characters changes in order to let you know that there were more narratives within this story. I was able to visualize the people in my own mind. Whether it was a woman or a man, it made it easy for me to decipher which character was on the scene.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
No, not at all. I ended up with feeling as if I could relate to the character. Being that it was a book regarding religion, I understood what it meant to truly believe something is true and have it crumble to pieces upon finding that your religion isn't everything that you grew up to believe. To find out that those who are writing the rules for you and punishing you according to "Bible standards" are drenched in corruption and conspiracy.
Any additional comments?
No.
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- The Rev. Randy P. Orso
- 07-21-17
Masterful Memoir of a Unique Childhood Come of Age
Prof. Jerald Walker wrote a convincing memoir. It was excellent. I was impressed by it so much that I will also be buying a hard copy of it for my library. Thank you so much for an insightful look at the World Wide Church of God, Doomsday Cult and what it was like to grow up in it.
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