The Power Worshippers: Inside the Dangerous Rise of Religious Nationalism by Stewart Katherine

Author:Stewart, Katherine [Stewart, Katherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Politics, Religion, History, Sociology
ISBN: 9781635573435
Amazon: 1635573432
Goodreads: 44453035
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2020-03-03T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

Converting the Flock to Data

By his own account, Bill Dallas grew up in an unhappy household.1 His mother had been sexually abused by her father. She had her first pregnancy at the age of seventeen. Dallas’s dad was an alcoholic and a depressive. He died at fifty-one. Bill was an intense, obsessive child, dogged by feelings of inadequacy. You could say he was wired for the bitter schema of sin-and-salvation religion.

By the time he reached adolescence, Dallas’s self-doubts were all-consuming. He “began to pray constantly for forgiveness,” he later recalled, as many as “two to three hundred times each day.” Seeking affirmation, he joined Young Life, the Christian youth-focused evangelism outfit. Christianity soon “became the heaviest burden I had yet encountered.”

Despite this challenging start in life, Dallas had clear talents and attended Vanderbilt University, a private university in Nashville, Tennessee, known for its vast academic offerings, well-heeled student body, and vibrant Greek life. Dallas joined Sigma Nu and took business classes. But his heart was in the drama department, and he dreamed of making it big as an actor.

After graduating with honors, he moved to San Francisco. Blessed with photogenic looks, he modeled for “a major retail chain.” “The money was good, but it was the clothing and attention that really appealed to me,” he writes. “Hugo Boss and Armani were my favorites. Throw in some exquisite Italian loafers and a brilliant designer tie, and with my hair gelled back, I was ready for action.”

Soon Dallas was at the center of an energetic social whirl. “My party mates and I regularly rented stretch limos to weave through the streets in search of the hottest clubs,” he says. People gave him the nickname “Mr. GQ.” Men and women were drawn to him, and those connections started to yield fruit—and temptation.

He found his way into the real estate business, and then the money began to pour in. Dallas moved his mother and stepfather out west. In his early twenties, he and a woman named Toni had a child, a boy named Dallas. Toni “didn’t put any pressure on me to support Dallas,” he writes, though “she did give me the option of being part of his life.” In those fast days and nights, however, he didn’t make much of an effort. His life was focused on being “the bad-boy party animal of the Bay Area” with the “latest and greatest toys a man could buy.”2

Even as he accumulated outward signs of success, Dallas couldn’t shake the anxieties at his core. “I was completely empty, almost numb,” he wrote. And then things really fell apart.

Dallas has publicly offered few details of the crimes he committed. What is known is that he was convicted of grand theft embezzlement and sentenced to prison. In addition, according to a 1995 article archived on SFGate.com, Dallas and his former company, Dallas Lucas, were fined a record $772,000 for having laundered campaign contributions to six Oakland City Council candidates.

As Dallas tells the story, he spent time in

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