The Family International (new religious movement)
The Family International is a new religious movement founded in 1968 by David Berg in Huntington Beach, California, originally known as the Children of God. Rooted in a unique interpretation of Christianity, the group emphasizes a personal relationship with God, whom they view as an omnipotent creator who communicates through Jesus Christ. The organization became controversial for its liberal sexual practices and the troubling allegations of abuse, particularly regarding children, which led to significant media scrutiny and legal investigations in the 1980s and 1990s.
Over time, the Family International has undergone significant changes, including a rebranding and a shift towards an online community focused on missionary and humanitarian activities. By the early 21st century, the group had distanced itself from its controversial past, revising its teachings to prohibit any form of child abuse. Despite having a smaller following of around 1,450 members in the 2020s, the organization continues to engage in charitable work while promoting its interpretation of Christian values. The evolution of the Family International reflects both the group's attempts to move away from its contentious history and the ongoing complexities of its belief system.
The Family International (new religious movement)
- Formation: 1968
- Founder: David Berg
Overview
The Family International is a new religious movement founded as the Children of God by David Berg in Huntington Beach, California, in 1968. New religious movements are modern religious groups established as marginal sects of larger, more mainstream religions. Based in the teachings of Christianity, the Family International proclaims God as an omnipotent being who created the universe, guides its actions, and communicates with humans through his son, Jesus Christ.
The organization generated controversy soon after its founding for its promotion of sex as a method of becoming closer to God and for its alleged physical, psychological, and sexual abuse of child members. Testimonies of former Family International members revealed that the group, under Berg’s leadership, regularly included children in its sexual rituals and implemented a variety of physical and mental punishments on internal dissenters.
The Family International acquired a more public profile in the 1980s and 1990s. This was due to increased media attention and investigations by police and courts of law. In the 1990s, evidence indicating that the Family International had abducted and abused children led to a series of police raids and trials against the group in multiple countries around the world. After that time, the Family International leadership revised its official teachings to prohibit sex with or abuse of children.
The type of scandals that had publicly exposed the Family International in the late twentieth century had mostly disappeared by the early twenty-first century. The organization still garnered occasional negative media attention, however, due to former child members recounting stories of their abuse under the Family International to the press. By the 2020s, the group had rebranded itself as an online Christian community of 1,450 individuals willing to share their love of God with the world through missionary and humanitarian activities.
History
Christian minister David Berg founded the Family International as Children of God in Huntington Beach, California, in 1968. He began his movement by teaching his own unique blend of Christianity and hippie philosophy, encouraging his audiences to worship God and Jesus and read the Bible but also to share homes, food, and one another’s bodies. Love should be free among all people, Berg claimed, and adults should feel free to engage in sex with one another and with children. Berg quickly accumulated a small group of followers from Southern California’s hippie population.
Berg and his adherents left California in 1969 and, over the next few years, lived in multiple locations in the United States and Canada. In the early 1970s, Berg moved with his wife and children to London, where his mistress, Karen Zerby, later joined him. Meanwhile, the original members of Children of God had spread to numerous countries throughout the world to recruit others to the group. By the mid-1970s, Children of God had accumulated tens of thousands of followers worldwide.
Around this time, in letters sent to Children of God followers everywhere, Berg expanded his organization’s already liberal sexual policies by advocating for a new practice called flirty fishing. This called for female members of the group to prostitute themselves to strangers to claim them as new souls for Jesus. Using specific instructions, Berg also directed members to make sexual videos for him and to openly have sex with one another and with children. Decades later, recollections of former child members of Children of God alleged that the organization abducted children, forced the group’s religious teachings on them, and coerced them into sexual relations with Berg and other adult members. All of this was done, according to Berg at the time, to spread God’s love into the world.
This activity continued unabated into the mid-1980s, by which time Children of God had changed its name to the Family. But by this time, word of Children of God’s internal sexual practices had reached the international media, and police began investigating the organization’s branches in numerous countries. In 1986, this pressure forced the Family to outlaw sexual contact with children and teenagers. Nevertheless, courts continued to take legal action against the group into the 1990s, alleging child abuse and incest. Police also raided the Family group homes in countries such as Spain and Argentina.
Berg’s death in 1994 left Zerby and her husband, Peter Amsterdam, to lead the Family. Zerby quickly reiterated that Berg’s controversial practice of having sex with children was strictly forbidden. Many of the children who had been abused by the group grew to become emotionally damaged adults; some later took their own lives.
In the twenty-first century, fully grown former child members of the organization, now called the Family International, recounted their memories of sexual and psychological abuse by Berg and his fellow leaders. By the 2010s, the Family International was mostly an obscure Christian sect dedicated to various humanitarian efforts. As part of a restructuring effort known as the "Reboot," by 2010, the organization had discontinued its model of communal-based living and had modified its charter to allow members a greater amount of freedom, including the ability to send their children to school and have relationships with nonbelievers. By the 2020s, the organization was largely based online and dedicated to missionary and humanitarian efforts, though its membership had dwindled to just over 1,400 individuals.
Beliefs & Practices
The Family International’s religious belief system adhered closely to the doctrines of traditional Christianity. The organization held that God was an omnipotent, eternal being who created and ruled the universe. God was made of three persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. God’s son, Jesus Christ, guided all people to his Father through his professions of love.
The Family International also believed that the Bible was the holy word of God and that everything written in it was to be interpreted literally. For example, the group taught that the story of creation in the Book of Genesis occurred exactly as it was written and was not to be understood only as an allegory. Additionally, the New Testament accounts of the activities of the early Christian church were to serve both as history and as a model for how Christians should spread God’s message in the modern world.
Certain other elements of the Family International’s ideology deviated from mainstream Christian teachings. The Family International asserted that although God could heal human illnesses, group members had to decide for themselves whether they would rely on prayer alone for healing or whether they would seek medical assistance. The organization also enthusiastically encouraged sexual activity between consenting heterosexual adults as a symbol of God’s love.
Bibliography
"About the Family International." The Family International, www.thefamilyinternational.org/en/about. Accessed 4 Dec. 2024.
Beverley, James A. "The Family International (David Berg)." Nelson’s Illustrated Guide to Religions. Thomas Nelson, 2009.
"History." The Family International, www.thefamilyinternational.org/en/about/our-history. Accessed 4 Dec. 2024.
Stack, Peggy Fletcher. "Family International: Once Dismissed as ‘Sex Cult,’ Tiny Church Launches Image Makeover." Salt Lake Tribune, 26 June 2009, archive.sltrib.com/story.php?ref=/faith/ci‗12681558. Accessed 4 Dec. 2024.
"The Tragic Legacy of the Children of God." ABC News, 30 Oct. 2007, abcnews.go.com/Nightline/story?id=3797272&page=1. Accessed 4 Dec. 2024.
Tewa, Sophia. "Life after a Sex Cult: 'If I'm Not a Member of This Religion Any More, Then Who Am I?'" 11 Mar. 2017. The Guardian, www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/11/children-of-god-church-sex-cult-texas-mexico-fbi. Accessed 4 Dec. 2024.
Wright, Stuart A., and Susan J. Palmer. "The Family International/Children of God." Storming Zion: Government Raids on Religious Communities, New York, 2016; online edition, Oxford Academic, 17 Dec. 2015, doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195398892.003.0004. Accessed 4 Dec. 2024.