When evangelical Americans began talking about Donald Trump as God’s chosen president, the religious phrasing around his leadership – miracles, destiny, calling – triggered something in the memories of Lynette Wallworth, the Emmy-winning Australian virtual reality film-maker. As a young woman, she had been drawn into a Pentecostal community and came to hold “extreme beliefs” about God’s will. She became a “prophetess”; fellow members would come to her with questions to hear her “give prophecy” from literal and earnest biblical interpretations.
“My burgeoning identity as a 17-year-old got fused to a belief system,” says Wallworth. Now 61, she is about to premiere her live one-woman show, How to Live (After You Die), at Sydney Opera House and then Melbourne’s Rising festival, in which she recounts her four years with the cult. The group’s core beliefs were patriarchal: men were the “natural leaders” and women should never lead men. Music and films that lacked holiness were frowned upon, while clothing, too, was circumscribed: “God preferred us [females] to wear skirts and petticoats.”
