David Berg

American cult leader

  • Born: February 18, 1919
  • Birthplace: Oakland, California
  • Died: November 1, 1994
  • Place of death: Costa de Caparica, Portugal

Cause of notoriety: Berg, as the leader of various pseudoreligious cults, engaged in pedophilia and sexual abuse of the cult’s members.

Active: 1940’s-1994

Locale: Worldwide

Early Life

David Berg (buhrg) was born to Hjalmer Emmanuel Berg and the Reverend Virginia Lee Brandt. His mother was a Christian evangelist, and his father was a minister in the Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA). Berg was the youngest of three children; two boys and one girl. He graduated from Monterey High School in northern California in 1935 and continued his studies at the Elliott School of Business Administration. On July 22, 1944, Berg married Jane Miller in Glendale, California. The couple had four children: Linda, Paul Brandt, Jonathan Emanuel, and Faith.

By 1948, Berg had joined the CMA and was relocated to Valley Farms, Arizona, to begin his ministry. However, he was expelled from the church because of significant differences in his interpretation of the church’s teachings and the true mission of the organization. He was also alleged to have engaged in sexual misconduct with a church employee. After his dismissal, Berg worked as an independent evangelist and later worked with the Reverend Fred Jordan’s Soul Clinic in locations across the United States.

Cult Career

In 1968, Berg and his children founded Teens for Christ in Huntington Beach, California. The group primarily preached to surfers and beachcombers, terrifying them with apocalyptic prophecies and urging them to renounce their lives of sin. It was during this period that Berg first adopted the alias Moses David and was affectionately referred to as “Mo” or “Dad” within the group. The group took on the name Children of God. Shortly after the group’s founding, Berg separated from his first wife and married young follower Karen Zerby in August, 1969. Karen became known as Maria within the group, and Berg’s first wife eventually left the movement.

The group quickly acquired followers by staging public demonstrations, stressing that America would soon experience God’s wrath. The members would dress in sackcloth, smear their faces with ashes, and tie giant yokes around their necks. The group soon had an impressive following, and its momentum was growing. Berg saw himself as a prophet and relocated to England in 1971 in order to begin a worldwide mission. Berg also wanted to leave North America because of the growing anticult movements that began to surface in the early 1970’s.

Berg encouraged an open sexual policy within the ministry, which was referred to as the Law of Liberty and included the practice of having multiple sexual partners and swapping partners. In the 1970’s, Children of God introduced “flirty fishing” (also called “hooking for Jesus”), a practice in which women would engage in sexual relationships with people to whom they were witnessing.

By the late 1970’s, a paranoid Berg fired the managers of the Children of God and formed a new ministry, the Family of Love, and later, the Family. The Family promoted the same sexual freedoms but also focused on child rearing and children’s sexuality. Berg’s open stance regarding children and sex attracted pedophiles and other sex offenders to his organization. The Family’s views on sex, especially involving minors, brought much criticism and investigations. Although Berg maintained that the Family’s views on sexual relations with minors concerned teenagers and never young children, he was forced to change the movement’s policies regarding the Law of Liberty, to end flirty fishing, and to denounce any type of sexual relationship with a minor.

In the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, former cult members and concerned relatives began producing evidence to foreign governments about sexual abuse and pedophilia occurring within the group. Investigations were launched, which resulted in several lawsuits in Australia, Argentina, France, Great Britain, and Spain. However, there was never enough evidence to convict Berg or any Family member criminally, and all cases were resolved in the Family’s favor.

During this period, further and more troubling accusations against Berg surfaced. At least six women, including Berg’s two daughters, his daughter-in-law, and two granddaughters, alleged that Berg sexually molested them when they were children. As these women publicly accused Berg, others began to come forward in public interviews. With more accusations occurring and the anticult movement growing, Berg went into seclusion, moving frequently internationally with only the top members of the group knowing his location. As his health failed in the 1990’s, Berg handed control of the organization over to his second wife, Karen “Maria” Zerby. Maria began drafting a new charter that addressed many of the complaints and concerns that the movement’s critics voiced and granted its members new rights. In the twenty-first century, the Family continued to have more than nine thousand members across fifty countries.

Impact

With families losing their children to David Berg’s cult, concerned parents formed the Parents’ Committee to Free Our Sons and Daughters from the Children of God, later called Free the Children of God, in the 1970’s. The group launched the investigations that drew considerable press and resulted in widespread criticism of the group. As a result of the organization’s efforts, the New Yorkattorney general published an anti-Children of God broadside. The group was instrumental in paving the way for the Cult Awareness Network, which began in the 1980’s.

Bibliography

House, Wayne H. Charts of Cults, Sects, and Religious Movements. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2000. A comprehensive resource listing the history and ideologies of cults and religious groups in an easy-to-read chart format.

Lewis, James R., and J. Gordon Melton, eds. Sex, Slander, and Salvation: Investigating the Family/Children of God. Stanford, Calif.: Center for Academic Publication, 1994. A thorough look into the history of the cult in its various incarnations, its members, and its leadership.

Pritchett, W. Douglas. The Children of God, Family of Love: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland, 1985. Lists books and other sources about the Children of God and the Family movement.

Rhodes, Ron. The Challenge of the Cults and New Religions. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2001. Rhodes examines cults and religious zealots, their doctrines, and their beliefs. The book reveals the way in which these groups stray from true Christianity and other organized religions.

Singer, Margaret Thaler. Cults in Our Midst: The Continuing Fight Against Their Hidden Menace. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2003. An in-depth look at cult leaders and members. Singer reveals their techniques and warns of their dangers.