I must admit to a certain morbid fascination with the situation in Walterboro.  Not with the bizarre sexual behavior so much as the idea that anyone would dare stand and mock God in this way.  One can really not help but wonder at the sheer audacity of Brother Stair.  Here is a man with a charisma that stems from his claim to a deep, personal relationship with God, and then he uses this relationship with God to lure the unsuspecting into a hedonism worthy of  ancient Babylon. It is one thing to taunt a bully or a killer, but to preach the prophetic message of the wrath of God while committing the very sins this God hates is just inconceivable. If Brother Stair just stood around his mobile home in South Carolina, holding a bottle of Jack Daniels by the neck, smoking a joint and listening to Molly Hatchett, he at least would be no worse off than a lot of people that live in trailers in the south.

    Is Brother Stair the text book example of the falsity of the "once saved always saved" doctrine, God's man gone bad, or is he the consummate actor, a fraud with a routine that would be the envy of Elmer Gantry?  Is he insane or is the appearance of insanity just part of a wickedly clever deception? Or, put another way, can anyone be this much a tool of the devil and not be aware of it?  Here is a prophet that, in the end, poses more questions than he answers.

    There already are those rushing forward with pyshobabel cult leader profiles and the like, ready to attach labels learned in psychology courses, but this does nothing to explain the haunting reality of the prophecies and the deep, spiritual reality of what is going on here.

    My academic background is as an historical researcher, not a psychologist, so my perspective is a little different.  In the study of history, reports of events are analyzed and dissected in order to understand the motivations that brought them about. And so, as I read the testimonies of those victimized by Brother Stair, I search for an explanation as to what could possibly have motivated this man to behave in such a way as this.

    It is too easy to write him off as insane.  Insanity, by definition, indicates an irrational mind, and Brother Stair is in no way irrational.  To the contrary, he has been able to continue in his perversity through a cold and calculating ability to reason out the repercussions of his actions and then manipulate the situation in order to avoid them.  Mind control is accomplished by making an irrational argument seem rational and plausible, and it takes rationality and a high level of intelligence to do this. To twist logic to the point where a normally competent person will accept evil for good is a difficult task, and this guy has been doing it consciously and with ease for decades.

    Difficult as this may be to accept, he can't merely be explained away as a false prophet, simply because he is not. A false pastor and a false Christian brother yes, but he is not a false prophet.  This is the heaviest, most sobering aspect to all of this, but if we have the courage to face it, this is also where God's greatest lesson lies.

    Most people do not differentiate between a prognosticator and a prophet.  They are, in fact, two entirely different things.  A prognosticator predicts a specific event to occur at a specific location at a specified, predetermined time.  Or, at the least, within a relatively narrow time frame.  The source of the revealed knowledge can be anything from an inkling to a channeled spiritual entity, but it is not God, even though the prognosticator often claims Him as the source.

    God reveals what He wants His people to know through His prophets.  Jesus Himself is the greatest because He is the highest manifestation of all the spiritual gifts and, in fact, defines them.  The prophet's message is a warning from God to His people that if they do not repent of their sins and change their behavior, death and destruction will come upon them.  It is the promise of woe, but not necessarily a prediction of it, and here lies the great difference between prophecy and prognostication: a prognosticator is only successful when his prediction comes to pass, whereas a prophet is most successful if his words result in repentance and his forecast of woe goes unfulfilled.  God does not issue prophecies for the purpose of destroying his people but in order to save them from themselves.  He is only too happy to stay the fury of His wrath in those  instances when the people actually do listen and repent.  Jonah's experience at  Ninevah illustrates this most clearly.

    Like Jonah, prophets tend to get tied up in their own egos.  Brother Stair has done this.  It is easier than one might think to take the knowledge God puts in one's heart and expand upon it.  I know full well that destruction will come upon the United States of America if we do not repent of our national sins.  This is knowledge from God and you can bet on it and take it to the bank. But when I speculate that this destruction will come at the hands of the Red Chinese, it is just that -- my speculation.  Informed speculation perhaps, but speculation nonetheless, and it is important that this is made clear.  Brother Stair has made numerous speculations in this way that have proven to be spurious.  However, the core of his message is the coming destruction on America due to sinful and unrepentant behavior, and this knowledge does comes from God.

    And so the fascination lies in the incongruity of a man called to proclaim God's truth, a great and humbling honor in and of itself, and yet in secret he is guilty of the very sins that he knows will bring the wrath of God down upon himself. If he is not mad and yet is a prophet called by God then how is this possible?  There is only one answer that satisfies and explains the situation: he is demon possessed.

    Now, when the historian reaches the conclusion of his argument, it is time to check the primary sources for evidence that corroborates the theory.  In the case of Brother Stair, these primary sources are the eyewitness testimonies of the former community members, and we don't have to look too far.  In fact it is the general belief of the more perceptive ones that he is indeed possessed by evil spirits. Brother Gregory Lindsey writes:

"Stan started talking about us needing deliverance and he brought up a conversation Ralph and he had in which Ralph admitted devils had been cast out of him. Stair never denied having devils cast out. He still would not repent. Those spirits got 7 more spirits (more) wicked than themselves."

In the next paragraph, Brother Gregory writes:

"He is possessed. He is going to hell."

And so we may well marvel at such a man: called by God yet ravaged by Satan.  Not a pretty predicament to find oneself in, and one that we should all take heed to avoid.

    How did this happen to R.G. Stair?  Sister Tammy McAllaster gives us the insight we need.  When her parents sold all their worldly possessions and moved to Walterboro, Sister Tammy corresponded with Brother Stair in an effort to determine what her folks had gotten themselves into:

"Needing him (Stair) to understand the very importance of my questions I e-mailed him again and asked him if he could PLEASE just very shortly and simply tell me who Jesus was to him personally......I then included my own writing of who Jesus was to me. Boy, oh BOY did this upset Mr. Stair. He not only refused to answer my question, but was furious with me. I did not have to be a Christian scholar or Theologian to understand who Mr. Stair was and who he claimed to be were two totally different people."

    As Sister Tammy knows, it is a Christian's personal relationship with Jesus Christ that prevents that person from falling prey to the temptations of the devil, and here, many years ago, is where R.G. Stair faltered and fell.  He willing traded this love of Christ for the temporal pleasures of illicit sex, and in so doing walked willing away from his own salvation and into spiritual, as well as physical, degradation.

    And any man that is foolish enough to do this, whether prophet or pauper, ends up like R.G. Stair:  a sorry, disgusting, pathetic, demon possessed son-of-a-bitch.