One Saturday morning in August, Pastor Farris Wilks, a brawny man with a close-cut beard, walked up to the altar of the church he leads, the Assembly of Yahweh, 7th Day.
The church, which sits off a two-lane, 75-mph highway, draws most of its members from nearby Cisco, Texas, a town of 3,800 filled with empty storefronts, idled derricks and beat-up houses. Church doctrine considers being gay a serious crime, the Bible to be historically and scientifically accurate in every detail and abortion to be murder, including in cases of rape or incest.
Here's what Assembly of Yahweh believes (PDF)
Wilks bowed his head and closed his eyes. “We lament and mourn the great sin of our nation, the many millions of babies murdered, and we pray that you turn these people away from this evil,” he said.
A slide flashed above the altar on the church’s movie screen with instructions on how to sign a petition asking Congress to cut off federal funding for Planned Parenthood, the women's health care agency that provides abortions and other medical services.
Cisco has two stoplights but 10 churches. So it isn’t unusual for residents to turn to their pastors for guidance. What is out of the ordinary is for that pastor to also be a billionaire. Farris Wilks, 63, and his younger brother Dan, 59, made a fortune in the recent oil-and-gas drilling boom.
Also setting Farris Wilks apart is a little-noticed filing with the Federal Election Commission in July that showed he and Dan, together with their wives, had given $15 million to a Super PAC backing Republican presidential contender Ted Cruz.