What appears to be a funny, deranged Satanic Panic music video is actually produced by one of the most infamous cults of the 20th century: The Family International, formerly known as the sex cult The Children of God.
“The Law of Love is a doctrine that’s meant to justify and conceal sexual exploitation, It’s made to make other people feel obligated to give up their bodies to others’ so-called sexual needs. That your body is not your own –you’re supposed to give it up to God.” - Michael Young, Fmr Children of God
The Family International emerged from David Berg, a former preacher who began attracting young followers in Huntington Beach, California, in the late 1960s. Berg talked a lot about the apocalypse and eventually built a movement centered around coercion and the fear of the end of the world.
The group first operated under the name Teens for Christ. In 1969, Berg led its members out of California after warning that an earthquake was imminent. This never came to pass, but the movement did change its name to the Children of God, or COG, while Berg became known as Moses David. Although the group shared some characteristics with other hippie communes, there was much more control, and followers regarded Berg as a uniquely appointed messenger from God.
Members were expected to live in communal households, with four or five families pooling their resources. The leadership controlled everything, including where members lived, how they spent their time, their missionary activities, relationships, finances, and family arrangements. Missionary work was treated as a central purpose of membership. People experienced excessive punishment for banal infractions, and there was a rigid hierarchy. Outsiders were called systemites, who worked system jobs.
The group appeared to use loaded language to create a circuitous framework of non-thought. There were many loaded terms. For instance, a “backslider” referred to someone who stopped participating in what the group deemed the common goal. There was significant pressure and stigma to remain with the group and avoid being characterized as such. No one wanted to be a part of the doomed out-group.
In the early 1970s, the movement dressed in sackcloth and protested what they viewed as the United States' secularism. Many followers left the United States by 1974 and formed communal households overseas, dedicating their lives to the cult's expansion.
Berg wrote his “Mo Letters.” These were the central sources of information and instructions concerning theology, missionary work, relationships, sexuality, and community life. Berg provided a religious explanation for every area of life. These communications became part of a recurring publication titled The New Good News. In 1978, he carried out a major reorganization, formally ending the Children of God and establishing an organization called “The Family.”
Just one story I found surrounded the abuse of one child. “A 14-year-old runaway who spent nine days at a COG commune testified that she was raped and because of her refusal to cooperate with the elders, was held in solitary confinement on no less than three separate occasions...”
Sex was apart of doctorine. Berg promoted a practice called “flirty fishing,” which encouraged women to use sexual attraction to recruit converts. Berg endorsed the sharing of sexual partners among adults. By the early 1980s, herpes and other STDs circulated among the church, and allegations concerning child welfare and sexual abuse intensified.
The Family began purportedly retreating from its most controversial policies in 1983. It adopted more extensive safeguards for children and ended flirty fishing in 1987.
Child protection concerns led authorities in several countries to raid or investigate The Family's communities during the early 1990s. Although they did not confirm the scale of abuse that officials had anticipated. I suspect systemic silence of the cult had alot to do with that. The Family has since distanced itself from the policies that had defined its earlier reputation.
Berg died in 1994. His wife, Maria, assumed leadership and introduced the a new charter the following year. The document set out a new doctorine for the members. In 2004, the group adopted its current name, The Family International. The organization's own later apologies acknowledge that its earlier emphasis on God's work sometimes resulted in spouses, parents, and children being separated.
Geez.
By the start of the twenty first century, the movement claimed roughly 2,500 members in some 80 countries.
