Lester Stark

Reverend Lester Stark was the pastor of a 6,000 person church in Birmingham, Alabama. He also had a weekly television show, The Lester Stark Hour, which broadcast a church service each week. He dressed well and lived well but most of the donations he received went into the church and good works such as helping the poor and fighting what he saw as injustices.

Stark had been preaching on TV for 25 years. In that time many women and a few men had thrown themselves at him but he remained faithful to his wife Rhonda. While most of his congregation were white there were some black too. He agreed with Martin Luther King that the color of the heart was more important than the color of their skin. Anyone in his organization who felt this was wrong were soon gone.

Stark was convinced that the End Times were near. He preached that Israel being reconstituted in 1948 and taking the Temple Mount in 1967 were signs of this. The latest sign was the recent discovery of a red heifer, only the tenth in history. These were all necessary steps in the construction of the Third Temple and then the Second Coming.