During the pandemic, when most places were shut down, New Heights Baptist Church Aurora held services almost every Sunday morning and Wednesday night. Pastor Adrian Dominguez was determined to keep the doors open, deliver messages, and show people there was healing power from meeting in person. The church was an oasis for many people isolated and negatively affected by COVID and its government regulations.
Sean Carnahan and his family found the church in October 2020, and they were welcomed warmly from day one. Sean, his wife and their three daughters were invited to a house for dinner and introduced to other families with children. It all seemed wonderful until Sean noticed what he considered odd messages presented during certain Wednesday night services. Seeking clarity, he emailed the pastor, and found the responses to be unsettling. When Pastor Dominguez started preaching about how Catholics and Muslims are evil, Sean began to look further into the church he and his family were attending. He learned Pastor Dominguez and his wife were mentored by Peter Ruckman, notorious leader of the Ruckmanites and a prolific writer of hateful and paranoid literature related to the Bible. Sean also learned the Ruckamanites are predicting the rapture, or the end-times return of Jesus Christ and the gathering up of his elect, by the end of 2025.
Sean tried to convince his family they were participating in a religious cult and needed to leave, but by that point, other members of his wife’s family had joined the group, and they all got together to convince Sean’s wife that he was a lost and evil person because he was doubting God’s “truth.” Sean spent the better part of a year asking Pastor Dominguez in various ways to support his efforts to take his family to another church, but the pastor refused, contributing instead to the family’s division and strife.
Finally, in August 2023, Sean decided to share his concerns with other members of the congregation, hoping the added pressure would convince the church’s leadership to cut ties with his wife and children. Instead, the Ruckmanites convinced Sean’s wife it was time for her to take action against him — and in support of their church. The following month, she announced her intentions to sell her interests in a family-owned motel and make a large donation to the church to help save people before the fulfillment of end-times prophecy next year. Sean soon filed for divorce and has fought in court since to get his children away from New Heights Baptist Church Aurora, which has announced plans to move to 5600 W. 33rd Ave. in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, in November 2024.
Sean says he would like others to know the Ruckmanites were deceptively friendly and seemed like a normal church congregation until he dug deeper into their theology and practices. By the time he learned details about the group’s origins and beliefs and experienced the controlling nature of its leadership, it was too late for him and his family to exit without trauma. Be urges everyone to be careful about churches affiliated with the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist movement.
