Status: 🔴 A conservative religious congregation near Cisco, Texas, pastored by billionaire fracking magnate Farris Wilks. The Assembly teaches that homosexuality is a crime and serves as the ideological foundation for the Wilks family’s anti-LGBTQ+ political funding.
The Assembly of Yahweh (7th day) is a small, conservative religious congregation headquartered near Cisco, Texas — a rural town of approximately 3,800 people east of Abilene.[1] The congregation’s pastor and bishop is Farris Wilks, the billionaire fracking magnate who along with his brother Dan Wilks funded The Daily Wire with $4.7 million and has donated hundreds of millions to far-right and anti-LGBTQ+ causes through his Thirteen Foundation.[2]
The Assembly of Yahweh (7th day) is not to be confused with other similarly named organizations. It is a distinct, independent congregation tracing its origins to a 1947 doctrinal split from the Churches of Christ.
The Assembly of Yahweh (7th day) holds the following distinctive beliefs:
The congregation’s roots trace to 1947, when a group of parishioners from the Ramsey Church of Christ were disfellowshipped after a doctrinal dispute. These members included Charlie Fenter and his son-in-law Gwyn Voy Wilks — father of Dan and Farris Wilks.[2:5]
After Charlie Fenter died in 1952, Voy Wilks took over leadership of the congregation, which was eventually named the Assembly of Yahweh (7th day). Voy Wilks is listed as the “Founder” of the Assembly on their website.[3]
Farris Wilks is now the congregation’s pastor and bishop, serving from its location near Cisco, Texas. In sermons, Farris has denounced homosexuality and abortion.[4]
The Assembly of Yahweh (7th day) is significant for the anti-trans movement because it is the ideological foundation of the Wilks family’s political giving. Farris Wilks, the congregation’s pastor, and his brother Dan Wilks have used their fracking fortune to fund:
The congregation’s doctrine that “homosexuality is a crime” provides direct religious justification for the Wilks family’s multi-million-dollar war chest against LGBTQ+ rights.
The Assembly of Yahweh (7th day) near Cisco is a small congregation — likely numbering in the hundreds — but its influence vastly exceeds its size due to Farris Wilks’s personal wealth. The Wilks brothers’ combined fortune of approximately $2.8 billion[9] makes the small Texas congregation uniquely powerful in American right-wing politics.
Assembly of Yahweh — Our History (via Wikipedia citation) ↩︎
CNN — How the billionaire Wilks brothers are funding the far right (2015) ↩︎
Atmos/HEATED — Fossil Fuel Billionaires Are Bankrolling the Anti-Trans Movement (June 2025) ↩︎
The American Prospect — Meet the Billionaire Brothers You Never Heard Of Who Fund the Religious Right (2014) ↩︎
ProPublica — The Wilks brothers’ Texas political network (2024) ↩︎