By Ilana Masad
Publication Date: 2026-04-09 19:07:00
In 2017, a gaunt, bespectacled 71-year-old woman wearing a crisp white uniform with two stars on the shoulder was arrested in New Mexico. This was Deborah Green, née Lila Carter, the leader and self-proclaimed general of the Aggressive Christianity Missions Training Corps (ACMTC) – a cult that operated with impunity for three decades, despite various attempts by former members to get law enforcement to shut it down.
“But Deborah looked so small, so frail – like that old“When she was arrested, Harrison Hill writes in his new book: The Oracle’s Daughter: The Rise and Fall of an American Cult. And yet it was the woman who had instilled fear in her followers with her talk of God and hell.
Hill’s book closely follows two characters – Maura Aluzas and Sarah Green – and their journeys in and out of ACMTC. It also explores the…