A gay man who spent 33 years of his life in an extremist cult has revealed some of the staggering truths about his upbringing.
Forced into marriage and fatherhood at a young age, Nephi Robinson's story unveils the daunting realities of being part of a polygamous, incestuous sect known as The Order.
Raised in an extremist Mormon-adjacent cult in Utah, Nephi was expected to marry multiple women and father multiple children with each of them. He himself was one of the 100 to 200 children fathered by his biological father, John Daniel Kingston, an integral figure in The Order.
Nephi Robinson opened up about being raised in a polygamous cult called The Order
Image credits: Cults to Consciousness
The cult was founded in 1935 by Elden Kingston, who cut himself off from the mainstream Mormon Church because he disagreed with its ban on polygamy. After Elden's death in 1948, leadership passed to John Ortell Kingston, who died in 1987.
The role of the leader was then taken up by Paul Elden Kingston, who is the brother of Nephi's father, John Daniel.
Nephi's mother is the third of John Daniel’s 14 wives.
The former cult member noted how his parents had “strange” interactions, where John Daniel would treat his mother like “she was dumb” and “talk down to her quite often.”
The Order was founded by Elden Kingston in 1935 after he split from the mainstream Mormon Church because of their ban on polygamy
Image credits: DCC Society
Image credits: Mormon Fundamentalism
Nephi, the second child born to his mother’s 13 biological children, said they would receive a phone call to inform them that John Daniel would be visiting, and all the kids were expected to clean the house and cook dinner for him.
As soon as he arrived at the house, the environment would become “hostile,” he recalled.
“When he was there, we had to make sure he was taken care of. And he would be nice to us for the most part... but you really had to watch because it felt like you were on eggshells. Because he could change in an instant, and somebody's getting slapped,” he said on the podcast and YouTube channel Cults to Consciousness.
Eventually, as Nephi grew up, he began realizing that his father’s rare and stressful visits were disturbingly timed to maximize the chances of conceiving a baby.
His mother, like many women in The Order, had to work to support her children while paying rent to her husband.
The former cult member said he was one of 100-200 children fathered by John Daniel Kingston, the brother of The Order's current leader, Paul Elden Kingston
Image credits: Cults to Consciousness
Image credits: KDVR/Shanell DeRieux
Nephi's childhood and adolescence were marred by the cult's oppressive practices. Girls were betrothed or married off by 18, and a woman’s status was tied to the number of children she bore. First wives had grand weddings and a higher status, but plural wives, like Nephi's mother, were only recognized within the sect and not legally.
This led to Nephi's father being fictitiously named "Phil Robinson" on his birth certificate to avoid legal complications.
While being raised in The Order, the cult survivor realized he was gay and felt “a lot of shame” over his sexuality.
“I tried so hard to not be. I fasted and prayed many times... The way I understood it, I was instilled with something that is anti-marriage, and anti-life, and anti-procreation, and terrible,” he said.
“Being gay was such a terrible thing that I just did what I could to deserve to be alive, I guess,” he added.
When Nephi told John Daniel about being gay, his father blamed his homosexuality on absurd reasons like eating "too much chicken" or working "too much"
Image credits: Cults to Consciousness
Image credits: Lori Carson
When John Daniel deemed Nephi the right age to be married, he had him engaged to a woman and then married to her within five weeks.
Nephi never “looked forward” to being intimate with a woman, but he still fathered seven children to fulfill what was expected of him.
“I so enjoy having kids. It's the most fulfilling thing that I do with my life,” he said. “But creating kids is definitely one of my least favorite parts of my life.”
When the pressure to marry a second wife began building, Nephi came out to his father about being gay.
Initially, John Daniel tried to attribute his son’s homosexuality to absurd reasons such as consuming "too much chicken" or working "too much." He also suggested his first wife was a "hard person to love" despite John Daniel orchestrating Nephi's marriage himself.
The cult survivor shed light on the dark realities of The Order on the podcast and YouTube channel Cults to Consciousness
Image credits: Cults to Consciousness
From his wife's religious point of view, Nephi's reluctance to marry another woman was an obstacle to her own chances of entering the celestial kingdom, the highest level of heaven in Mormon doctrine.
“Towards the end, my ex would tell me: if I'm not going to do what I needed to do to gain my salvation, then I needed to leave. Because I'm not worth it. She and the kids deserve a chance to gain the celestial kingdom,” he said. “And if I'm not going to provide that for them, then I need to leave.”
With time, Nephi did exactly that. He divorced his wife, who then went on to marry someone else about a year after they separated.
After spending 33 years of his life within the strict, closed community, Nephi finally left the cult and is currently forging his own path. While doing so, he also wants to make sure his seven children are also protected.
“When I left, my oldest daughter was 10-and-a-half. And I was recognizing that in less than two years, she's going to be on the dance card,” he said. “And even guys my age are going to be approaching me for her, whether they are married or not. And I started to think in my mind, ‘How am I going to respond to my friends coming to me about my daughter?’ And I started to play that out in my head.”
“In some ways, it does feel like you're trafficking your own daughter. And as you watch how some of the other men do it... Like that's something that I just was not capable of doing,” he added.
Ex-members of The Order, Amanda Rae and Joe Robinson, also previously shared their own harrowing experiences of the strict, closed community
Image credits: Amanda Rae
Since leaving the cult, Nephi spent a month sleeping in his car before his grandmother caught wind of the situation and offered him a room in her residence. He managed to find a job and get his own address within a year.
He still pays child support and said, “Nothing will ever relieve me of the duties that I have to them. And that's a lot more than just financial. And if I have to exercise the legal system to take care of those duties, then I will.”
Previously, Amanda Rae and Joe Robinson, ex-members of The Order, also shared their harrowing experiences of the community, shedding light on its disturbing practices, including incestuous relationships.
Joe revealed that his parents were half-siblings, and by the age of ten, he underwent a blood test to determine which distant family members he could potentially marry in the future.
Rae left the Order in 2013, while Joe was kicked out at the age of 20.
The internet was happy to hear that Nephi was finally free and able to open up about his journey
