"The end of all things is at hand! Jesus Christ is coming in your lifetime! Prepare to meet your God!  Maranatha!"  As anyone that has spent any time at all listening to Christian short wave radio knows, these words are broadcast around the world daily from a studio in an old house trailer outside of Walterboro, SC by the self proclaimed "Last Day Prophet of God," Ralph Gordon Stair.

    Like strong cheese, R.G. Stair has always been an acquired taste.  As the "mad prophet of the airwaves," he has indeed made many hysterical and unfounded proclamations.  The Catholic Church as the whore of Revelation, God's condemnation of women that wear pants, and his outright denuniciation of anyone that should dare to disagree with him being but a few examples.  However, from the midst of his rails and rants there emerged a true prophetic voice that spoke eloquently and accurately to the plight of our times and to the truth of the destructive power of sin in our world and in our lives.

    While claiming to be a prophet and not a pastor, he none the less proceeded to build a community of believers at his Walterboro compound.  In recent weeks, former members of this community, some that were forced out by Stair himself and some that left of their own accord, have testified openly and earnestly of his domination and physical and mental cruelty.  Most devastating are the claims that he initiated  and participated in the most debased and perverted sexual sins imaginable against the wives and daughters of his "brothers" in the community.  Virtually without exception, those that were lured into this trap of degradation were drawn by the short wave radio broadcasts.

    In the world of Christian short wave radio, R.G. Stair is a force to be reckoned with.  On WWCR alone he is on 24 hours per day and occupies all of the time available on transmitter 4.  Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on airtime, he represents a substantial part of the operating budgets of several different broadcasters.   More than just another evangelist caught with his pants down, the revelations of his lewd behavior have repercussions that will be felt throughout the Christian short wave medium.  We at Radio New Jerusalem encourage WWCR and other Christian broadcasters to trust God and do what is right in terms of providing airtime that results in the exploitation of our Christian brothers and sisters in this way.  Do what's right and God will provide.  If transmitter 4 causes you to sin, then cut it off;  it is better to enter the kingdom of heaven with three transmitters than to burn in hell with four.

    Given the importance of these charges, this issue of Troubled Times deals exclusively with the events surrounding R.G. Stair.