Cult deprogrammer will talk about GF Victory Church

Grand Forks Herald/March 25, 1994
By Stephen J. Lee

In an unprecedented event in Grand Forks' religious life. Several ex-members of a local church have organized a seminar this weekend with the purpose of exposing the congregation as a cult.

Brad and Karlene Croy and several other members are bringing in Rick Ross, a nationally known expert on "deprogramming" members of cults to discuss Victory Church an World Outreach Center.

Ross, based in Phoenix, was hired last fall by Brad Croy to deprogram his wife, Karlene Croy. She had been active in Victory Church since it began as a fellowship named Victorious Believers in 1981, led by Pastors Renee and Ed Julison.

Croy was an elder, one of only a few entrusted with certain activities in the church, outside of the Julisons, she says.

She and other ex-members say the Julisons endanger a type of mind control that renders people incapable of distinguishing their authority from God's, and they abuse people emotionally, spiritually and psychologically.

Ed Julison, in a telephone conversation from Daytona Beach, Fla., where he and his wife are beginning another ministry, dismissed the seminar as typical of those who reject the teaching at his church. "We are preaching Jesus Christ," he said, and a disciplined spiritual life that often is unpopular. He questioned Ross' credentials and said Brad Croy didn't have his wife's best interests in mind.

This seminar begins at 7 tonight at the C'mon Inn at 3051 32nd Ave. S; it runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday.