The Family International/Children of God

Posted by RISE International | Filed under Children of God, Lost Children, The Family International

The Family International is a religious cult formerly known as the Children of God, The Family of Love, and The Family.1  It was founded in 1968 by David Brandt Berg.2   Before founding the cult, Berg worked as a minister in the Christian and Missionary Alliance and later, after being expelled for having a sexual affair with a 17-year-old church employee (although Berg reportedly denied the charges and claimed he was fired because he tried to racially integrate the church), as a promoter for television evangelist Fred Jordan.34   In December 1967, he and his family moved to Huntington Beach, California and began to assist the staff of the Light Club Mission, a coffee house and youth ministry founded by David Wilkerson’s Assemblies of God Teen Challenge organization.5 6  By mid-1968, Berg and his family had taken over the Light Club Mission and began a ministry to the youth and hippies in the area and gradually began to attract followers who were encouraged to “forsake all” (all though the term referred to donating everything one owned to the group it also encompassed renouncing one’s family and friends), “drop out” (quit their job or leave school) and devote their lives to full-time evangelism and a communal life of service to Christ.  They initially used the name “Teens for Christ” (which was also the name of a singing group composed of Berg’s children) but in 1969 a reporter in New Jersey dubbed them “Children of God” and Berg liked the name so much that he eventually adopted it as the official name of the cult until 1978 when it was changed to “The Family of Love.”7  In 1981, the name was shortened to “The Family” which was also a name used internally by members since the early 1970s.  In 2003, it name was officially changed to “The Family International.”

As the movement grew, it attracted attention from the media, law enforcement agencies and from the parents of new converts.  The origins of the modern anti-cult movement can be traced to concerns about the activities of the Children of God movement.  Ted Patrick, who invented both the term and the practice of deprogramming, began his career as a deprogrammer after becoming concerned following a July 1971 encounter between members of the Children of God and his son and nephew on Mission Beach in San Diego, California. 8  The following month, Patrick helped a group of concerned parents form the first organized anti-cult group, “The Parents’ Committee to Free Our Children from the Children of God” (later renamed to “Free the Children of God” or FREECOG).9.  Focusing on concern for the young adults who joined cults such as the Children of God, until recently most anti-cult groups generally ignored what happened to children in cults.

There is voluminous evidence documenting the fact that David Berg was a pedophile who sexually abused a number of children, including two of his daughters his daughter-in-law and two of his grand-daughters and that he began to sexually abuse children years before founding the Children of God.  Raising children in a cult founded and run by a child molester who tried to create an environment in which the practice of pedophilia was not only tolerated and encouraged but perceived as normal, natural and wholesome by both the perpetrators and their victims resulted in the widespread sexual abuse of the children of the Children of God.[10. David Berg. (2008, February 15). XFamily - Children of God, . Retrieved 08:03, July 19, 2008.]1011[13. Final Report on the Activities of the Children of God. (2007, December 19). XFamily - Children of God, . Retrieved 07:58, July 19, 2008.][14. Sarah Berg. (2007, January 30). XFamily - Children of God, . Retrieved 07:59, July 19, 2008.]12131415

Besides the harm and trauma caused by child sexual abuse, children raised in The Family faced a host of other problems and violations of their basic human rights that were related to the beliefs, practices and structure of the cult their parents joined.  David Berg and the Children of God preached an apocalyptic theology in which a nuclear holocaust, the coming to power of the Anti-Christ, the Great Tribulation and the Second Coming were all events expected to happen not only within their lifetimes but very soon.  Members of The Family believed they were an elite squad in God’s Endtime Army and that it was their job to prepare their children for that role.  This naturally made it extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, for children raised in The Family to receive an adequate education.  Indeed, Berg initially decreed that children raised in The Family did not need any education beyond the 6th or 7th grade.1617  Although the quality and amount of education children in The Family are provided has changed over the years, it is still the case that children raised in The Family must leave the cult if they want to go to college and that the education most of them receive in The Family is completely inadequate preparation for post-secondary education.  Furthermore, for most of its existence the cult prohibited its members and children raised in the cult from reading almost any material that was not published by The Family or approved by its leaders.18  Naturally, this meant that Family education, in addition to omitting a lot of math, science and history also did not include much literature.  Family publications were and are the primary texts used to “educate”  children in The Family and these included the Mo Letters which are the cult’s scriptures and consist primarily of edited transcripts of the drunken ramblings of child molester, cult founder and “prophet” David Berg.  However, a number of children raised in The Family who left the organization have been able, after years of hard work and perseverance, to overcome these enormous obstacles and excelled both academically and professionally in science, medicine, law and other fields.

Most of those who survived the experience of being raised in The Family did not escape unscathed.  Although reliable data is not readily available, there is some evidence to suggest that there is a higher than normal rate of anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, alcoholism and drug addiction among these survivors.  Children raised in The Family who left the organization to build a new life for themselves have often found that they faced extraordinary difficulties and problems in relating to a world and society from which many of them had been isolated for nearly their entire lives.  Some chose suicide as a way out and an end to the pain while others died of drug overdoses and untreated or neglected medical conditions.  Over the years, a number of individuals born and/or raised in The Family have also died of other causes.

All these children deserve to be remembered.  The list below is not a complete list by any means.  Due to the extraordinary secrecy of the cult and its members, information about such deaths is not easy to find.  If you have information to share pertaining to the life and death of any of these individuals, please feel free to contact us and provide it.

  1. Amos Boetius
  2. Andrew Parker
  3. Daniel Parker
  4. Andrew Seteram
  5. Angela
  6. Ben Farnsworth
  7. Caleb David Shillander
  8. Cherish Lloyd
  9. Davida
  10. Eman
  11. Eman (of James & Sara)
  12. Immer Glimmer Beckman
  13. James Sullivan
  14. Jasmine Hiemstra a.k.a Jasmine Joy
  15. Jeremy Marchbank
  16. Jeremy Martin
  17. Johnny
  18. Johnny Micheal
  19. Jonas
  20. Jonathan Zielke (listed as “Johnny of Steven and Gina” in earlier list versions)
  21. Josh Lykins
  22. Karina
  23. Katrina
  24. Kei
  25. Martin
  26. Matthew
  27. Nolie
  28. Peter (son of Shaul and Abiah)
  29. Richard Peter Rodriguez
  30. River Phoenix
  31. Sam
  32. Sam Rucker
  33. Sarah
  34. Sharon/Joy (daughter of Byron & Mercy)
  35. Sho David
  36. Simon Novotny
  37. Tio Bow Nakajima
  38. Windy Hill (daughter of Rufas and Dulce)
  39. Zion Horwitz
  40. David Goodnow
  41. Daniel Matthews
  42. Daniel Matthews’ sister
  43. Daniel Brinich
  44. Emmanuel David Frouman
  45. Gabriel Adam Redstone
  46. Katrina Angela Oehler
  47. Kristina Hope Noell
  48. Megan (daughter of Heaven and Joseph)
  49. Nina Theresa Wickenheiser
  50. Piper Simmons
  51. Rose Simmons
  52. Sean Simmons
  53. Precious Heart Oehler
  54. Stephen Philippe Richard
  55. Victoria Luz Korkames-Luevano
  56. JD Roberts
  57. Maria Roberts
  58. Benjamin (son of Mateo and Belen)
  59. David (of Stephen and Lisa)
  60. David (of Paul and Margie)
  61. Marie Claire (of Samuel and Heidi)
  62. Michelle (of Gloria)
  63. Shuly Bolivar
  64. Vanessa Rose (of Amber and Stephen)
  65. Isaac (son of Siloam & Zebediah Zephy)
  66. Andrew Jonathan (son of Robyn Ann Van Blarcom aka Hope and Zeb Geppetto)
  67. David Vincent (son of Keren-Happuch & Andro)
  68. Michael (son of Sara and Gideon)
  69. Seiko ( daughter of Samaria)
  70. Justin David (son of Job and Charran)
  71. Michaelangelo Moraes Drumond
  72. Christina (daughter of David and Charity)
  73. Libian (of Shaphan and Mahlah)
  74. no name (infant child of Karen Meyer)
  75. no name (infant child of “Lucy Lowe”)
  76. Shalom Hora
  77. Mariko Tateishi aka Miracle Mariko (Parents: “Elisha and Liberty”)
  78. Seiichi Sasaki
  79. Tony R.

References

  1. The Family International. (2008, April 26). XFamily - Children of God, . Retrieved 07:12, July 19, 2008. ↩
  2. “Chapter 5 - The Birth of a Cult” in Davis, D., & Davis, B. (1984). The Children of God: the inside story. Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan Pub, pp. 50-71 ↩
  3. Lattin, D. (2007). Jesus freaks: a true story of murder and madness on the evangelical edge. New York, NY: HarperOne, pp. 19-26. ↩
  4. Davis, D., & Davis, B. (1984). The Children of God: the inside story. Grand Rapids, Mich: Zondervan Pub, pp. 23-24. ↩
  5. Ibid, 35. ↩
  6. Lattin, D. (2007). Jesus freaks: a true story of murder and madness on the evangelical edge. New York, NY: HarperOne, p. 36. ↩
  7. Book of Remembrance. (2007, December 6). XFamily - Children of God, . Retrieved 07:42, July 19, 2008. “The Pioneering of North America — pages 141-144, By Ho (Jonathan Berg)” ↩
  8. Patrick, T., & Dulack, T. (1976). Let our children go! New York: Dutton. , pp. 37-60 ↩
  9. Ibid, 62-64 ↩
  10. Kent, Stephen A., “Lustful Prophet: A Psychosexual Historical Study of the Children of God’s Leader, David Berg,” Cultic Studies Journal Volume 11 No. 2 (1994): 135-188 ↩
  11. Complete Judgment of Lord Justice Ward. (2007, October 8). XFamily - Children of God, . Retrieved 07:57, July 19, 2008. ↩
  12. Life with Grandpa - the Mene Story. (2006, March 18). XFamily - Children of God, . Retrieved 08:01, July 19, 2008. ↩
  13. Rolling Stone: The Life and Death of the Chosen One. (2008, February 28). XFamily - Children of God, . Retrieved 08:01, July 19, 2008. ↩
  14. New Times: Where have all the Children of God gone?. (2005, December 9). XFamily - Children of God, . Retrieved 08:02, July 19, 2008. ↩
  15. Gente: Habla Joyanne Treadwell Berg. (2005, October 18). XFamily - Children of God, . Retrieved 08:03, July 19, 2008. ↩
  16. Roselle - Berg and TF on Education. (2006, October 8). XFamily - Children of God, . Retrieved 08:11, July 19, 2008. ↩
  17. HomeARC ML 0371. (2006, October 8). XFamily - Children of God, . Retrieved 08:12, July 19, 2008. ↩
  18. Berg, David. “BOOK BURNING!”–”YOU ARE WHAT YOU READ!”–Part II August 31, 1978 ML 776, DFO ↩

Permalink | June 19th, 2008

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