Shepherd's Chapel - My Story

I’ve publicly shared on my blog and YouTube channel that I was once a student of Shepherd’s Chapel, a claim met with accusations of lying in comments and posts. To set the record straight, here’s my story.

In the late 1980s, my grandfather, a longtime Baptist preacher, discovered Shepherd’s Chapel on his C-band satellite dish. As he studied their teachings, he gradually adopted Pastor Arnold Murray’s doctrines, moving away from traditional Baptist beliefs. He sent my parents Shepherd’s Chapel tapes and shared Murray’s teachings with us. By the time I was 11 or 12, we began weekly Bible studies at my grandfather’s house, my first real exposure to Christian teachings. Influenced by Shepherd’s Chapel, my family—parents, brother, and I—embraced Murray’s doctrines as truth.

When I was 14 or 15, my father bought a C-band satellite dish, giving me access to Shepherd’s Chapel’s 24/7 channel. For years, I watched Murray’s broadcasts obsessively, absorbing his teachings. At 18, I introduced a close friend to Shepherd’s Chapel, and we became passionate advocates, distributing tracts, hosting Bible studies, and defending the doctrines online in forums and chat rooms. I attended three Passover meetings in Branson, Missouri, and exhibited the confrontational behavior typical of Shepherd’s Chapel students, harshly dismissing churches and individuals I believed were deceived by Satan and the “Kenites.”

In 2008, after marrying, I tried introducing my wife to Shepherd’s Chapel’s teachings, but her resistance led me to back off. By 2009, doubts about certain doctrines, particularly election, began to surface, though I initially suppressed them. In 2010, a new job gave me time to study the Bible independently, without Murray’s influence. Over a year, I read the Old Testament once and the New Testament multiple times. Following Murray’s own advice to “check him out,” I found his teachings unbiblical. By February 2011, at age 32, I rejected Shepherd’s Chapel’s doctrines entirely, having followed them for over 20 years. Through personal study, I embraced Reformed Theology and joined Hanson Baptist Church, a Bible-teaching congregation that studies verse by verse.

I now renounce Shepherd’s Chapel as a heretical cult outside biblical Christianity. Below is a condensed list of their unorthodox teachings, with scriptural refutations:

• Preexistence and Gap Theory: They claim souls existed in a “first earth age” before physical birth, and God destroyed it after Satan’s rebellion. Zechariah 12:1, Isaiah 44:2, and 1 Corinthians 15:46 refute soul preexistence, and the Gap Theory lacks sound Hebrew exegesis.
  
  
• Pre-Adamic People: They teach a “sixth-day” creation of non-white races and a separate “eighth-day” creation of white people. Genesis 2:4 clarifies that chapter 2 describes chapter 1’s events, refuting a separate creation.
  
  
• Election by Works: They claim the elect were chosen for standing against Satan in the first earth age, implying justification by works. Romans 9, Ephesians 2:8-10, and 2 Timothy 1:9 show election is by God’s sovereign choice, not works.
  
  
• Serpent Seed Doctrine: They assert Satan had sex with Eve, producing Cain and the Kenites, a supposed evil race controlling the world. Genesis 4:1 confirms Cain was Adam’s son, and this doctrine fuels racism.
  
  
• Kenites and Esther: They claim Kenites wrote the book of Esther, which they avoid teaching publicly. This denies Scripture’s authority (Revelation 22:19, Deuteronomy 4:2).
  
  
• British Israelism: They teach Caucasians are the “lost tribes of Israel,” a baseless claim tied to racist ideologies.
  
  
• Anti-Rapture Teaching: They claim pre-tribulation rapture believers will be deceived by the Antichrist, contradicted by Revelation 13:8 and John 10:28-29.
  
  
• Antichrist as Satan: They equate the Antichrist with Satan, but 2 Thessalonians 2 and Revelation distinguish them.
  
  
• Annihilationism: They deny eternal conscious torment in hell, refuted by Matthew 25:46 and Revelation 14:9-11.
  
  
• Modalism: They reject the Trinity, teaching God operates in three “offices” rather than existing as three co-equal persons, a heretical view.
  
  
• Kosher Laws: They require adherence to Old Testament food laws, refuted by Romans 14:17 and Mark 7:19.
  
  
• End-Times Misinterpretation: They link the 1948 founding of Israel to “bad figs” (Kenites) in Jeremiah 24, but Hebrews 1:1-2 shows the last days began in the first century.
  
  
• Kenites and the Key of David: They claim churches ignorant of Kenites lack the “Key of David,” misusing Revelation 2:9 and 3:9. Romans 2:28-29 defines true Jews as Christians.
  
  
• Elect vs. Free-Will Christians: They distinguish between elect and free-will Christians, unsupported by Romans 8 and Ephesians 1, which affirm all Christians are elect.

Shepherd’s Chapel’s core heresy is teaching that election is based on works from a supposed first earth age, contradicting Ephesians 2:8-10 and the gospel of grace. Their doctrines, absent from early church writings, rely on mishandled Scripture and resemble cultic claims of exclusive truth. They redefine the Trinity, preaching a false gospel that cannot save (Galatians 1:9). I pray anyone involved with Shepherd’s Chapel examines these teachings critically and finds the true gospel.