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Monty
A cult is defined as a system of religious veneration and devotion directed towards a particular figure or object. The secondary definition is a relatively small group of people having a religious belief or practice regarded by others as strange or sinister or both. I don't know what it is about Southern California, but man is it a breeding ground for some wild cults. The counterculture movement of the late 1960s had young people raised in these strict religious structures, rejecting established institutions and materialism, but wanting somewhere to belong. And when you are raised with great restriction to not ask questions, to question your own mind, to follow without hesitation. You're usually male leader and you're kind of set up to follow into a cult like mindset. People searched for new meaning, new family minds were more open to new ideas and expounding boundaries. And in a lot of ways that's a great thing. It's great to be curious and expand. I talk about curiosity all the time. But it also can give rise to falling into pitfalls of charismatic leaders who seek to manipulate. The counterculture movement gave rise to great things such as the civil rights movement, open mindedness about racial equality and equal rights for women. It opened the door also for charismatic leaders like Charles Manson, Jim Jones and today's Dave Berg to step in and give people new meaning, give them a new leader and a new God. New leaders that God somehow always told to take money from their members, marry tons of women and children, cheat, lie and in this case support pedophilia, preaching pretty openly. Interesting how religious doctrines just so happen to benefit the leaders, specifically because God said so. David Brandt Berg, a charismatic preacher who left the traditional Christian church, formed the Children of God in 1968. He believed the apocalypse was near and urged believers to survive on basic necessities by giving up their money and personal possessions to the group's leaders. And by the group's leaders he meant himself. He also infamously taught that God is love and love is sex. The cult was notoriously suspected of rampant sexual abuse of women and children. All all supported by its sex craze leader David Yikes on a bike. Berg. So much more on that later. Like many cults, we're going to get a heavy dose of I can't believe this is actually real and what the is going on and how in the world did people believe this? The reason I chose this is because not only was this Colton offshoot of traditional evangelical Christianity, but a lot of the mindset that traps people in cult like mindsets we see here in this cult and how people were lured in long enough to believe and to follow this man who was clearly corrupt, who was clearly lying. And people, good people, many of whom grew up in religion, followed him anyway. So a little bit of some famous and diabolical cult like mentality on today's episode of Flipping Tables. Hello and welcome back to Flipping Tables, a podcast of evangelical deconstruction history and a lot of questions. My name is Monty. I'm a rock singer, gym junkie, ex Christian nationalist, and just for today, I will be your cult leader. We'll be a cult of curiosity because more than anything, I want my content to challenge you, to ask questions, play with new ideas, expand your worldview and trust. But always, always verify. Curiosity is the foundational tenet of my life. Follow me today on a journey. Listen to the sweet, sultry sound of my voice. Give me all your money. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. If you wanna buy me a coffee, you can. If you wanna support my work, you can sign up for to be an accomplice on my Patreon with the link is in the show Notes. By popular demand, I'll be starting Bible courses and lectures in June. These are not conversion studies. I don't want you to follow me and I don't wanna convert you to follow anything. However, we live in a world where the Bible has been unjustly and incorrectly used for great harm. And I would like to help teach people what the Bible actually says and the historical context around it. Hopefully free people from some doctrines, heal people from some doctrines, and help us have conversations to have right now. Stay tuned on Patreon and Instagram for those announcements. And I'm going live on Instagram next Wednesday at 7pm Central to celebrate over 500,000 followers, which is still shocking to me though when I post it, I would do that. It's now going to be closer to 750,000 thanks to you crazy people. So we're going to do a 500 and 750k celebration. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for your support. I am in the process of doing this work full time. I've made that decision. I have quit my other lines of work, which has been pretty terrifying but also very exciting. And starting also in June, I will be doing 10% of everything that comes in on Patreon or people give through Venmo and I will do a fundraiser each month that I'll announce. I'm going to give 10% of everything I make through this work to a charity that I think is honoring the mission of care and Love in the world. And so for June, that charity is going to be Project Renewal out of New York City. They have so many programs to help people who are facing homelessness get back on their feet. But in particular, they have what's called the Marcia House, which is specifically for the LGBTQ community ages 18 to 30 who are facing homelessness. And it helps them re. Helps re establish security for these people and help them get back into the workforce and also give them comprehensive medical and mental health care. On today's episode, I'm going to give you a brief review of what a cult is and what qualities they have from episode two, why those raised and fundamentalist religions tend to be so susceptible to cults. And we'll do a very brief overview of America's counterculture movement, how it also set people up to fall prey to cult leaders. We'll cover the history and crimes of the Children of God cult, specifically their leader, David Berg. So first, let's review what a cult is. While not all cults share every characteristics, many display some or all of the following traits. The first is that they have a very charismatic and authoritarian leader. It's a single leader or a small group of leaders that is often regarded as infallible or divinely inspired. They claim to have special knowledge or direct connection to a higher power. Members are expected to obey their leader without question. And we see this on a spectrum. You can see this in some evangelical churches where questioning the pastor might get you thrown out of the church or thrown out of the room or thrown out of Sunday school. Or it can be in the in the sense of a cult where their word is absolute law, without question, even if what they command is immoral. Number two, they focus on isolation from society. Members are often cut off from the outside world, including family and friends. The groups may use physical isolation or ideological isolation. Again, happens on a spectrum. We've seen cults where people are not allowed to contact anyone from the outside world. We've seen evangelical churches where you're not allowed to listen to certain forms of media or talk to people of different religions or go to a public school. Three, they have and engage in an us versus them mentality. Cults often teach that outsiders are evil, corrupt or inferior. Members believe that they are part of an elite group with special knowledge or a divine mission. God told us. God chose us. And they may see criticism. This is a big one. Or questions as an attack from enemies. This is seen most commonly in Christian nationalist rhetoric, where any opposition or any call for accountability is seen as persecution. Number Four, they have strict control over their members. Leaders often control many aspect of their members lives including where they live, how they dress, what they eat, who they associate with and even what they think about. Members may be required to abandon personal goals and possessions. You may be called to leave your career behind. There is often constant surveillance and policing of members behavior. And again these all happen in a spectrum. Sometimes we see something that's cult leaning and then a cult, a true cult would lean more towards total domination. Number five is exploitation, specifically financial, psychological or physical. Members may be required to donate large sums of money or work long hours for little to no pay. Some cults exploit members sexually or emotionally, especially through manipulation or coercion. They often, they often institute punishments like public humiliation or abuse that may be used to keep members in line. Number six, thought reform and indoctrination. Cults use repetition, groupthink and psychological tactics to instill loyalty. They often discourage critical thinking and questioning of leadership. Some employ mantras, chanting or repetitive rituals to to enforce beliefs. This is why many cults and religions actively engage in influencing children. Because the repetition is what makes indoctrination stick. And the younger you can start, the more effective that indoctrination is. Number seven. They institute fear and guilt as control mechanisms. Cults instill fear of leaving by teaching that ex members will be punished, cursed or doomed. For those of you that grew up in fundamentalist communities, you can think of this as the fear of hell to control what you do, what you believe and who you speak to. Members are often made to feel guilty for having doubts or wanting to leave. And many cults warn of apocalyptic or end times consequences or spiritual death if one leaves. Number eight. They have extreme commitment and sacrifice. Members may be expected to cut ties with family and friends, to give up careers, possessions or personal ambitions. And some groups demand total devotion, including sexual or violent acts a la the Manson Family. Below we're going to talk about some key beliefs and principles of fundamentalist Christianity in particular. One, because this cult we're talking about today was an offshoot of Christianity. Two, in our current environment with Christian nationalism, a lot of the cult like ideology that we're seeing is an offshoot of fundamentalist Christianity in particular, which I want to reiterate is not biblical. A lot of these doctrines originated much much later. But they're important for the context of what we talk about today. So the first tenet of fundamentalist Christianity is what's called Biblical literalism. They consider the Bible to be 100% inspired directly by God, that it is inerrant and infallible, and that every single word is absolute truth and should be interpreted literally. This is where we get the creationism. Even though the beginning of Genesis is clearly a poetic myth, but it also is how they use the Scripture to to penalize or harm people by saying that this is the literal word of God. Even though the Bible is a collection of books written by hundreds of authors over the span of thousands of years, it rejects modern interpretation at all and even suggests that symbolic and metaphorical readings of Scripture are inaccurate. Fundamentalist Christians also believe in salvation through Christ alone. They believe that Jesus Christ is the only path to salvation, that he is 100% God and those who do not accept him will face eternal damnation. They have a strict belief in heaven and hell, with no room for alternative theological perspectives. The third characteristic is an obvious opposition to what is called secularism and an opposition to science. They reject evolution in Face in Fate in favor, excuse me, of young earth creationism. And they actually believe that scientists are actual tools of Satan to attack God. When I grew up in fundamentalist Christianity, we were taught that dinosaur bones were planted as the devil's way to deceive us about the age of the earth. They teach you from a very young age to be skeptical of science and any historical findings that contradict a literal interpretation of biblical accounts. Resistance to secular influence in culture, education and government, which is why we see the school voucher program arising, because they want to defund public schools that they see as a secularist and evolutionist anti God institution. Number four, they believe in moral absolutism. There is right and wrong, black and white. There's a strong emphasis on sexual purity, traditional gender roles and family values. Those family values only apply to subvert women, and the gay community usually seeks to serve men. In general, they have an opposition to LGBTQ rights, abortion and feminist movements because of their subversion of those traditional gender roles and because of the resources that it gives to women, especially financially. Number five, they believe in evangelicalism and End Times prophecy. They believe in actively proselytizing or trying to convert others to Christianity. They have a strong belief in End Times prophecy, including the Rapture, which did not exist until the 1800s, and the Antichrist and the return of Jesus. Some groups engage in apocalyptic thinking, believing the world is close to an end so that you should devote all your time and energy and money to saving souls for Christ. Number six, they believe in a separation from worldly influences, encouraging a distinct and separate Christian lifestyle to avoid corruption from secular society. Some fundamentalists reject Mainstream entertainment, higher education. They believe that higher education is indoctrination when it's simply just providing information. And they even reject any politics that do not 100% align with their view. Which is why again in a lot of fundamentalist cultures, if you are a Christian, you have to vote Republican. And so we're going to do a quick summary again of why fundamentalist Christianity is more susceptible to occult ideology. Not all fundamentalist Christians are cult members. But they are predisposed in the way that they're taught to think, to be susceptible to ideas that adhere to a cult like mindset. And one of the first things is the the fundamentalist group teach an unquestioning obedience to authority. Your pastor, your father, your church leader or a self proclaimed prophet. Members are discouraged from questioning authority. It makes them vulnerable to manipulative leaders. And myself and many people who grew up in these denominations remember being thrown out of Sunday school classes or youth group because we asked questions. It was very clear that questioning was basically akin to disobedience. They also use so much fear based control, the fear of hell, demonic influence or the end times to maintain control. They also will use the threat of prosperity gospel that if you sin, God will not bless your life as a way to control people's lifestyles. They have their high control groups and they they lean towards the cult like exploitation of fear, convincing members that leaving the group means eternal damnation. They have a very exclusive mindset. They engage in the us versus them mentality. It's us Christian Republicans versus those demonic Democrats. It's US secular. It's us versus the secular education. Which is why they promote so much homeschooling and private schooling. They don't believe in friendships with non believers many times or reading non religious materials. It's intellectual isolation which again is behind the movement around the school vouchers and even things like defunding Harvard. Because the harder that institutions, higher education institutions are to get into, the fewer people can access them, the more easily people can be controlled. A poor, less educated society is much more easily influenced into cult like behaviors and strict fundamentalist religions of any kind. It just so happens that in America, Christianity is the dominant fundamentalist religion. They also have an end times obsession. Some fundamentalist Christians are so deeply invested in apocalyptic prophecy that they based most of their actions and their voting practices on that prophecy. Cult leaders can manipulate this belief pretty easily, claiming to have special knowledge about the end times. And if you look throughout Christian history there have been so many very famous evangelists, televangelists who have made end times prophecies and they're always wrong. So far they are zero out of a hundred. They do not ever have the right one thus far. They also have very strict gender and power hike pyro power hierarchies. The English language is tough today. I don't know why. Many fundamentalist groups emphasize male leadership and female submission. And they will harp on that over and over, over and over and over. And they will do whatever it takes to keep the women in line, including selecting a few handpicked women who look according to their standards, who behave according to their standards to have lower roles than men but positions of leadership. She is the sugar that helps the medicine go down so that the other women will fall in line. This makes women especially that are raised in fundamentalist groups especially vulnerable to coercion and exploitation in cult like environments. Number seven. They engage in emotional and psychological manipulation. Fundamentalist churches often use highly emotional worship services. Guilt and public confession to maintain control. And those highly emotional worship services, as someone who again participated in these most of my life are very structured. They control the temperature of the room to elicit an emotional response, the way the musicians will play a song to elicit. Whether they slow down or they build anticipation to elicit a very much predetermined emotional response down to the chord progressions that are chosen for that song. Cults will now take this fundamentalist technique and they'll further it by using thought reform techniques such as sleep deprivation, extreme fasting or public humiliation. To further that manipulation. They in fundamentalists they distill a trust of what they call secular authorities. They reject the media a la fake news, government and science as corruption, anti God and the devil's warfare against Christian soldiers. This skepticism makes it easier for cult leaders to convince members to ignore warnings from people like law enforcement or their own families and friends, or psychologists or doctors. So now that we've reviewed what a cult is, what they engage in, why fundamentalist groups like fundamentalist Christianity make people so much more susceptible to a cult like mentality. Let's talk about the history in which the Children of God cult was founded. And this was the counterculture movement in America. The counterculture movement in America was particularly prominent in the 60s and 70s and was a profound period of political, social and cultural change. It originated in the late 50s and gained significant momentum in the 60s. It was primarily driven by a younger generation who was disillusioned with societal norms and the political landscape of the time, which included a cold war and a nuclear threat. America's dropping of the atomic bombs at the end of World War II ushered in a terrifying new era with weapons that could level cities and decimate countries. The ethics of using such a weapon was hotly contested. We had never seen warfare like this before. America was also in the throes of the Cold War where nuclear threats, espionage and fear of the threat of the Iron Curtain were very present part of American culture. This is when anti communist rhetoric was able to gain such a chokehold in American culture. Because at the time it was a very real threat, it was a very real fear. Fear of nuclear war and the disillusionment of the arms race prompted a lot of anti war sentiments because it was exhausting and it was really questionably, from a moral perspective, questionable from a moral perspective. This disillusionment with arms and militant use and militant action exploded during the Vietnam War, which is why there were so many protests. The second thing that happened during this movement was the civil rights movement in the 1960s. This was a pivotal moment in American history. Marked by widespread and vigorous campaigns against racial segregation and discrimination towards African Americans. This movement sought to achieve legal and social equality through nonviolent protests. Legal challenges and civil disobedience. In 1960 marked the sit in at Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro by four African American college students, which ignited a wave of similar protests in the South. And I want to make a note here that the Woolsworth lunch counter being removed from the Museum of African American History because of these anti DEI rhetorics are so dangerous because it is a visual representation of what the civil rights movement did. It was a civil. It was a representation of change and equality and a reminder that things weren't always peaceful, that things weren't always equal. And it's a dishonest telling of history to not include those things. In 1961, the Freedom Rides challenged segregation in interstate bus terminals across the south, which led to violent reactions including mobilizing the KKK and eventually required mobile federal intervention. In 1963, the March on Washington for jobs and freedom highlighted the need for equal economic rights and where Martin Luther King Jr. Delivered his historic I have a Dream speech. Finally, in 1964, the Civil Rights act was passed, outlawing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex or national origin. The Selma to Montgomery marches of 1965, which highlighted the suppression of black voting rights in the south, led to the passage of the Voting Rights act in 1965, a key legislation that aimed to overcome legal barriers at state and local levels that prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote. And the Attacks that we've recently had on both the Civil Rights act and the Civil Rights Voting act are extremely dangerous because the Civil Rights act protects all people. It prevents discrimination against race, color, religion, sex or national origin, regardless of what that race is. So the idea, again, this anti DEI rhetoric, that it's somehow exclusionary. Well, the Civil Rights act protects white people too. And if discrimination is not the goal, then having a law on the books that says discrimination is illegal shouldn't be a problem. Also in the counterculture, there was a change in consumerism and what was called corporate culture, much of which we experience today. The younger American generation rejected this materialistic values. The conformity that was heavily pressed on American students, especially in the end of the 1950s. The threat of the Cold War, the divide of values, the growing lack of trust in the government, which peaked during Nixon. A key issue here being the Vietnam War. It led people to believe that maybe going to church, college, getting married, the two kids, the picket fence wasn't all that there was for the human race to experience. So some of the key features of counterculture, many of which that we associate it with when we think of these decades, include music and art and I mean, what a time to be alive if you love music. Artists like the Beatles, the Grateful Dead, the Doors, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and Jimi Hendrix were all part of this pivotal movement. Beyond being pivotal pieces in the evolution and culture of music, they promoted messages of rejecting science, societal norms, promoting peace and love, and a powerful anti war sentiment. It's amazing to me how many people love Fortunate Son by CCR but don't actually listen to what it says. It is an anti war protest song. Obviously there's so many more artists, but that's just a few that I wanted to mention. The counterculture movement also brought a huge interest in communal living, alternate lifestyles, psychedelics and alternate alternative in Eastern medicine. And we've seen a rise in interest in psychedelics and alternative and eastern medicine. Now I would argue that America right now is experiencing another counterculture movement. I've done deep studies into especially psychedelics and plant based medicines and have actually, I have taken mushrooms, I have done journeys, I've microdosed, and it has been a pivotal part in curing and treating my depression. And we're seeing all these things come back into the mainstream conversation with the movement that we're experiencing now. A lot of the things I'm listing as part of the counterculture movement we see and relate to now. Drug use was prevalent during this time in the absence of federal Regulation drugs such as LSD and marijuana were prevalent and seen as a way to expand consciousness and evolve as a person. Something interesting is happening in today's culture. We're in a similar space of distrust with politics and the law. Especially in the last four months. We've witnessed money go to wars while people don't have clean water, people can't buy homes or groceries. We're still fighting for civil rights and equal rights for men and women. And again, as I mentioned, we're seeing a growing interest in the use of psychedelics. It's the highest right now that it has been since the counterculture movement. I personally think we're on the doorstep of seeing some dramatic changes that we saw in this era. And lastly, the counterculture was marked by persistent political activism, which is very on par to what we see right now. The original counterculture movement focused against the Vietnam War, promoting civil rights and fostering environmental activism. Very interested to see what our new movement does with us moving forward. So how did this counterculture movement affect the explosion of cults? Don't get me wrong, modern cults very much exist and they have always existed. They're also recruiting, they're very active. We see cult like ideologies around us all the time, maybe more blatantly than we've ever seen them and on a larger scale. But what about this era in the 60s and 70s fostered this environment? The first thing was spiritual experimentation. One of the hallmarks of counterculture was a quest for spiritual meaning outside of religious frameworks. But that quest for religious meaning was built on fundamentalist ideologies like we discussed before, such as not questioning authority or something being infallible. Evangelical Christianity, being the dominant religion in America, faced a lot of opposition due to its opposition of civil rights and feminist movements. Where seeing this now we are seeing how Christianity is becoming associated with opposing women's rights and opposing civil rights. Most American cults were spin offs of traditional Western Christianity and Mormonism. Cult leaders use this familiarity as a way to make people comfortable with the initial teaching and then segue them into more extreme movements. And I think we're seeing this now. People used common talking points, common political points to bring people into the fold. And now people are seeing those movements turn into something much more extreme that they never signed up for originally. There was also a rejection of traditional authority. And the counterculture's challenge to establish institution included skepticism questioning, which I think we're experiencing now. Is this all there is? Is this true? What is true? This skepticism often manifested as a search for More radical and transformative spiritual experiences, as well as a deeper sense of belonging to a cult or gang like level. There was this sense of I want to belong to something, I want to identify something, I want to be able to stamp my life with meaning and with a label of something. Lastly, many young people felt alienated from mainstream society due to political disillusionment, dissatisfaction with consumer culture, or feeling a lack of personal connection to their communities. They were looking around and saying, is the. Is the two kids in the picket fence all there is? What if I don't want that? And in the 50s, we were sold the house especially for women. We were sold the happy housewife, two kids, perfect family. This is the way all Americans should live. And young people decided that that wasn't what they wanted. Before I dive into the Children of God sex cult, I'm just gonna mention a couple other notable cults from this period that you'll probably know of or you've at least heard mentioned. One being the Manson Family, perhaps the most infamous cult of the era. Charles Manson exploited countercultural themes of apocalypse and revolution to manipulate his followers into committing heinous crimes to incite a race war, including The Tate and LaBianca murders in 1969. This one of the other most famous one is the People's Temple, which you can listen to in episode three. Jim Jones started the People's Temple in Indiana, but it reached its infamous culmination in Georgetown. Georgetown, Jonestown, Guyana Initially, Jones drew people in on themes of social justice. He was incredibly progressive. He tapped into both religion that people were familiar with, the counterculture that they were familiar with, and then he was able to initiate one of the most tragic mass deaths in history. Another famous and very large cult was the Unification Church. Also known as the Moonies. This was founded by Sung Myung Moon. The Unification Church gained traction in the United States during the counterculture era. It was known for its mass wedding ceremonies, its conservative political activism, which was somewhat at odds with the broader counterculture, but also was tying into the religious rights connection with politics, the marriage that would solidify during the Reagan administration, the spiritualist pursuit of the counterculture, while very healthy in some ways very healthy to engage in new ideas, engage with them, wrestle with them, ask questions, look at our culture and reflect on spirituality and religion. There was a fine line between these utopian ideals and dangerous extremism. And again, as someone who grew up in very strict alt right, fundamental Christianity, I wasn't taught much about the counterculture movement. I didn't know much about it because There was this fear of allowing me to ask questions. Now, thankfully for me, my curiosity won out eventually. But a lot of these cults were born because they wanted these radical followings that without question, would adhere to what they wanted to say. If you listen to my content, you probably know that I talk a lot about history, a lot about current events, a lot about religion. Sometimes it feels like the big jarring headlines hit the news every single day. And that's why I use ground News. Ground news lets me look at all the headlines on an issue in one spot. It gives me all the sources. Do they lean left or right? Who owns those new sources? How factual are those sources? I can get balanced information from multiple sources by looking at a wide variety of things in one app. I don't waste time diving into a source that doesn't really have a lot of factuality. It saves me a lot of time and a lot of content overwhelm, which is easy to experience with today's headlines. You can subscribe today using the link ground news.com Monty for 40% off their vantage plan and stay informed with a resource that you can trust. This brings it down to about $5 a month to make sure that you know you're getting good information from a quality source in one single app. And now for the Children of God cult. David Berg was born in Oakland, California, February 18, 1919, while his parents were traveling in California as the Berg Evangelistic Dramatic Company. Really rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? David grew up traveling with his parents preaching the gospel, particularly with his mother, who called herself a divine healer. It was later discovered that David was repeated sexually abused by both sexes in the religious organization his parents ran and had an incestuous relationship at the age of seven. David, unsurprisingly, had a dramatically unhealthy and obsessive view on sex by the time he was a teen, which conflicted heavily with his mother's rigid form of spirituality. David Berg is an interesting study here because his mother had this very rigid, more traditional, fundamentalist, strict view of sexuality in Christianity. But because of the abuse that he experienced in the evangelical movement, his parents were a part of it, warped his view of sex. And that's very common in what we see in the current fundamentalist movement. Every other day we see some church leader come out as having abused children or abused women. It's often swept under the rug, it's often hidden for decades, and it creates this exact type of dysfunction, while on the outside they're preaching about spiritual purity. In 1941, David was drafted into the military at the age of 22 and sent to Fort Belwar, home of the army of Engineers, where David was, according to him, struck with double pneumonia in 1942. He would later claim that he promised to God that if God saved his life, he would serve him for the rest of his life. According to David, he was then instantly and miraculously healed when, by the way, double pneumonia means pneumonia in both lungs. In 1944, David met and eloped with young Jane Miller, a young church secretary that he met in Glendale, California. David decided to become an ordained minister in 1948 and worked for the Christian and Missionary Alliance. He eventually left the alliance. And whenever I see the word alliance, all I can think of is Dwight Schrute in the office. Would you like to form an alliance with me? In 1950, he claimed that due to his strong sermons and his progressive ideals, everyone else, he was kicked out of the Alliance. But everyone else would say it's because he had an affair with a member of the congregation, which I'm gonna guess based on his life, it was number two. He would have several falling outs with the organizations due to cheating on his wife with members of the flock. He spent the remainder of the 50s driving school bus and working odd jobs before working for Fred Jordan at the Soul Clinic in Los Angeles and for his TV program Church in the Home. David really loved working with Jordan and his emphasis on personal witnessing. In 1965 and 1966, David's mother, Virginia Berg, made two prophecies about him declaring that David was God's prophet for the ending of days and a prophet of the last generation. So let's pause here because we want to tie in where fundamentalism ties in and where cult like ideologies tie in. So now we've got prophecies and end times looped into it. And now we have someone proclaiming that this man is God's prophet. He has a special relationship with God, divinely sent by God. God is speaking directly to him. Not only is David's David believing this, but David's mother is believing this and enforcing this idea. David spent time in Miami at a missionary school associated with the Soul Clinic, but was eventually stopped by local authorities for overly aggressive recruiting tactics. And I want to know what those tactics were. Sources don't say, but I'm just like, like, was he tackling? I don't know what he was doing, but apparently it was so aggressive that police officers were like, hey, you can't do that. No, there's no context or proof, but we we know that he at least was stopped by law enforcement. David would later claim that the Jews were what pushed him out of Florida. Again, there's absolutely no proof of this, but that was his claim. The entire Berg family began working as a traveling evangelist. The dear I was just thinking with my dick. David became progressively more at odds with traditional church beliefs, particular sexuality, fidelity and incest. So that's fun. And on this note, there are a lot of traditional fundamentalists that have very questionable beliefs around incest and child marriage. Only for women though, only for teen girls. People who knew the family and family members said that during this time David was sleeping with prostitutes, house cleaners, nannies and members of the congregation. In the late 60s, he also started making sexual advances on his own daughters. I want to just little bit of a trigger warning. It's going to get a little weird talking about the rest of this cult. And I know that David Berg and the children of Children of God sex cult is the extreme obviously, but again, all of these operate on a spectrum and I'm sure a lot of you were thinking about a famous evangelist or a famous sex scandal because stories like this aren't that uncommon. And the reality is that for every scandal we hear about, there are hundreds we don't hear about. And it is so you can talk any woman who grew up in fundamentalism, you can ask her, she will probably have the story of some kind of scandal that happened with a church leader or the pastor himself. After getting repeatedly kicked out of towns for inappropriate conduct, especially towards children, like a true Prophet of God, 49 year old David Berg returns to Huntington beach to move his entire family in with his mom. Because that is the bastion of success right there. God, God's prophet. Moving the whole family in with mom at nearly 50 by the way, because he couldn't keep it in his pants. What a keeper. You know, researching this guy, I realized I shouldn't be so hard on myself. I feel like, I feel like all the time I'm like, I'm not doing enough, I'm a failure. And I read lives like this and I'm like, you know what? I might actually be doing okay. In Huntington Beach, David decided his new targets would be the youth of the counterculture. He would use his four teenage children to lure other teens and early 20s people in to hear him speak. And after getting a few members locked in, force them into rigorous Bible studies and memorization with a big, big emphasis on bringing more people into the group. Here we see the fundamentalist ideology of proselytizing you have to minister to people, save souls from hell, bring them into the church. You can't leave the group. And repetition of religious teaching. He of course initially had very, a very Bible based message. It was very akin to what people would have heard in church before, what fundamentalism would have taught. You can't jump right into pedophilia with people most of the time it turns out it would scare off your new converts. Can't go full Drake until you've got enough of a cult following. He didn't use scripture. Sorry, excuse me. He did use the scripture and the rejection of materialism that was already happening in the culture and many of the doctrines that would have already been taught in church. He encouraged his followers to return home and what he said, quote, plunder Egypt, which he stole from Exodus, that is steal anything of value from your parents and sell it and give their money back to him. Cults tend to have a lot of red flags, like circus tent worth of flags, like being a grown man, like texting 14 year olds would, would be one of those. For those of you who are not familiar with this, what I'm saying here is that a lot of these cults follow the same pattern. And it's that gut feeling of hey, something's wrong here. And cults have a lot of red flags. And one of them is that if all of the sudden your new church leader tells you and only you, the congregation that you have to sell off everything you own and give the money to him, but he's not doing that. Probably a cult. You're probably in a cult. If your cult leader is doing that. If your cult leader decides that people should be able to have relationships with preteens, teens, you're probably in a cult. If your cult leader suggests you rob Anyone, you are 100% in a cult. Not surprisingly, when locals found out what he was encouraging young people to do, they wanted him to leave. So conveniently, God's timing, right as the people of town are telling David to leave. David says he receives a prophecy from God that a massive earthquake earthquake was coming to destroy coastal cities and that he and his followers must flee. To be clear, when I make these jokes, I'm not ridiculing God. I'm ridiculing cult leaders like David who say that God told me to do this and use God to justify their own teachings that are only self serving. The cult relocated to Tucson before also getting kicked out of there for their demonstrations. They ended up moving around the U, around US and Canada around this time in 1970, 150 members of the group established a 450 acre colony in Texas. Lots of compounds in Texas. A lot of. There's a lot of cults that like start in Southern California and a lot of compounds in Texas around this time. But their world headquarters were in Montreal. It was during this time that David finally achieved his dream of openly sleeping with his cult members, using a prophecy that he received from God, of course, to justify taking a second wife. You can see a lot of this teaching overlapping, overlapping with Joseph Smith and Mormonism who used scripture to justify polygamy. But again, only for the men. Seems like only the men get to have fun, sexy times and cults most of the time. Shortly after his. After this, promiscuity and partner swapping became rampant in church leadership. Again, not for the congregation, but in leadership. This wouldn't be extended to the rest of the cult until much later. David divided his church into 12 groups inspired by the 12 tribes of Israel, enforced weird budgets that included you only got to use two sheets of toilet paper in the bathroom, which is a very weird restriction. But I want to stop on the twelve tribes of Israel thing. This is another tool used in fundamentalist churches, cults, strict religious sects is they will take things from the Bible and they will twist it and morph it and reshape it and put a bow on it and say, see, the Bible says this, so this is what we must do. That is an intentional cherry picking of the Bible, an intentional misuse of it it to subjugate people. It's like, it's like when people reach into the Old Testament to say that God condemns homosexuality when homosexuality as we know it didn't exist back then. This was also the time that like women would have to leave the community for seven days when she was on her period. You know, like there are things that clearly we don't adhere to. Clearly it's out of cultural context. And to take it, take one little thing like the twelve tribes of Israel and say, well, that still applies. If someone's doing that, I would, I would just advise you to question every single thing that they say. And also the two sheets of toilet paper in the bathroom. I'm not kidding. That was actually a real rule. You could get in serious trouble in this cult if you used more than two sheets of toilet paper. They imposed a buddy system that nobody from the cult could go anywhere without a cult member present because they didn't want people to escape, which is another red flag if they accountability partners. A buddy system. They don't want you to be out in the world by yourself. That's a huge red flag. Exhausted and overworked cult members were forced into rigorous Bible studies and scripture memorization. Super common in fundamentalist and cult societies keep people so exhausted and so indoctrinated by repetition that they can't function. This is also used against women. In strict fundamentalist communities. No one is able to to work 24 7. So asking women to do all the work at home and all the work for the kids and sometimes work an external career is not functionally possible. It's not. But if women are exhausted enough, they don't fight back. They're more likely to fall into patriarchal gender ideals. They're more likely to resist. They're less likely to have resources to resist. So this, the use of exhaustion is a is not only used in religious circles but it's also part of the cycle of abuse. If you've ever dated a narcissist or been around a narcissist, one of the most common things that they will do is they will fuck with your sleep. That's why they'll pick a fight right before you have an important event or an important speech or an important test. Because they they want to participate in your failure and they want to also keep you under control. When you are so exhausted you start to question yourself, it is much easier for them to convince you that you are crazy. Not them. The Church of God cult then began recruiting on television and promoting a biblical school. They established and also used a strange incentive of this school as a recruitment tool. Draft dodging. Turns out if you became an ordained minister you didn't have to go to Vietnam. So they used draft dodging as a way to motivate people to attend the school. New converts were taught that total subservience to the cult is what you have to do and that's God's will. Now we're ramping things up. David convinces his followers that the government is is Satan and any established authority is the enemy. Again, cults us versus them. It's us and everyone else is an attack on God. P now starts to ramp up. Crazed sex cult leader Many former members of church leadership would discuss how in meetings Berg would introduce a sexual topic which would then lead to orgies. Church orgies like at a church meeting. As the Lord hath ordained under his eye takes the invitation of come to church to a very different space. Anyways, again this was just church leadership at this point. There was very strict like sexual purity rules enforced on the congregation and Most of the cult was actually forced into celibacy. At a certain point, Berg and his second wife flee to London to avoid scrutiny from law enforcement into their activities. Here, David writes a book and releases a series of his letters. He called them the MO Letters because he changed his name to Moses David as as one does and his followers. His followers would hold this book and his letters at the same level of authority as the Bible at this time. Berg predicts that the last seven years of world history will begin in 1982 and that he himself will die in 1989. Here we go. With the end times prediction so common in religious circles, he somehow doesn't lose followers. When neither of these things come to pass, they're like, well, okay, the big issue here is everyone was so convinced that the world was ending, they didn't make long term plans. People quit their jobs. They neglected making any savings or plans for the future. Not good. This is one of my biggest beefs with the Jehovah's Witnesses is they very much teach that an end times type of theology which prevents people from financially protecting themselves. And then every time the end times doesn't happen, people are left without retirement, without savings. From London, Berg pushes his group to heavily recruit. And by 1972, the group recorded reportedly grew to 1400 members, mostly teens and young adults. But also the group had been around long enough for people to leave. And that's when things start to get dicey. Members who leave the group start reporting coercion, rape, orgies, forced isolation from family fraud, and parents begin attempting to free their children from the cult. But despite those efforts, the cult continues to grow. Later, in 1972, David or Moses or whatever his name is, now starts to change the sexual boundaries of the cult more publicly. He decided to redefine the family unit and to condone rape and molestation. Again. Obviously this cult is such an extreme example of these ideologies, but it does illustrate the danger of the idea of authority without question. In his new doctrine of love, he states that taking sexual liberties is not wrong in God's eyes if it's done in the name of love. This reminds me of a recent post that I did talking about purity, culture and justification and how it's only used against women's sexuality. And a woman commented that her minister told his congregation and his congregation did not fire him for the this, that God told him to have an affair with a woman of the congregation and have a baby with her so that he would understand men's struggles with lust and adultery when they Came to ask him for help and he did not get fired for this. People were like, oh, okay, yeah. And this is unfortunately extremely common in evangelical circles. He begins arranging and breaking up marriages as he sees fit. This is David, not her pastor. David continues to push recruitment and by the end of 1973 there's over 2000 members in 40 different countries. David keeps a choke hold on leadership of the cult as his MO Letters get continuously controversial. They got so controversial in fact, that he started to classify his letters into categories ranging from letters for the general, general public to letters that were only for his inner Circle. In 1974, the now five year old Berg. I'm sorry, 55 year old Berg. I was like that's, that's not correct. In 1974, the now 55 year old Berg keeps getting worse. In one of letters he demanded that female followers remove their bras or they would be forcefully removed. Berg stance on sexuality for the group at this point was that married or not, disregarding age, sleep with anyone in the group you want to. So we've had a pretty drastic change here in 1974 when Berg introduced recruitment tactic that would get huge push, pushback against the cult. This was kind of the beginning of the end. And he called it flirty fishing. Again, I wish I was making this up, but I'm just. This was pushing of the female members to engage in sexual relationships with non members in order to recruit them to the cult. This was, this was using the young women of the cult as prostitutes essentially to recruit them into, to recruit men into his cult. A Spanish. On a Spanish island that the church of. Island. Sorry, on a Spanish island that the Church of God had a compound on was where Berg said he tested and perfected flirty fishing tactics. I. E. He slept with a lot of young women as he saw fit, regardless of if they wanted to sleep with him or not. And he said that God told him to. People didn't question this because how can we question the prophet? This concept was introduced to the cult as a whole in 1976. He even told members not to be worried at all about STDs, that Jesus himself had venereal disease. So he was. I forgot how stressful this script is. He told people that Jesus himself had STDs. So don't worry about it. It apparently the ultimate free love pitch was working because by 1976 there was 4,000 members in 70 countries. Seventy countries. And I, I found this kind of hilarious and tragic that in 1978 Berg redefined communion, which is the act of taking the blood and body of Christ. If you have not been to church, this is a, a ceremonial tradition that again operates on a range. But conservative churches, most churches partake in communion. Catholics are very strict about their process of communion where they take. You take a cracker or a piece of bread and you eat it as representation of the body of Christ that was sacrificed and you take a grape juice or a red wine as partaking in the blood of Christ and his sacrifice for you. Which is actually, this is actually based on pagan blood rituals that far predate Christian religion. But that's what communion means in the church sense. So Berg takes communion, which is spelled C O M M U N I O N and he changes it to communion C U M O N I O N and he turns it into an orgy session. And again, I want to reiterate that people with religious backgrounds, many of whom grew up in traditional Christianity were buying into this and not quite granted, some of people were like, okay, this is too much, I'm out. But it was enough that thousands of people were participating in this. He then started enforcing flirty fishing on all members at this time. And it quickly becomes, as I said, full out prostitution with the money the women are paid becoming a significant form of funding for the church. So now instead of the women engaging in what their partners thought were consensual relationships, this is now actual all out prostitution. Hooking on the street street. Many of these girls were minors. Yikes. It literally became referred to, and I'm not joking, as hooking for Jesus. If you grew up in 90s purity culture, you heard the phrase I'm dating Jesus. I, I said it before and I'm ashamed of that. But I did hooking. Can you imagine hooking for Jesus? Man, sometimes I. Reality is so much weirder than fiction. That's how I feel with the news a lot lately. I look at headlines and I'm like that. I couldn't have made that up if you paid me to make that up. Berg has officially become a pimp of over a thousand people. One former member reported that he had a million dollars in cash stored under his bed. This global prostitution and sex trafficking minors obviously begins to attract the attention of press, press and law enforcement. Also during this time is to be expected, lots of babies were born in the cults because David Berg had also outlawed birth control. I want to make a note about birth control and conservative movements. Why would he. Why would David Berg say birth control is bad? Well, because the children born into his cults will likely stay in his cult because you are most likely to follow the religion you are born in. In. This is one of the reasons that conservatives in a lot. Conservatives in a lot of Christian sects oppose birth control, because the children born into the church will most likely stay in the church and fill their pews and donate money. Also because the number one way to restrict a woman as far as education and access to work is by restricting her ability to decide when or if she wants a family. Berg deemed these Jesus babies and even had one of his own with wife number two. Very sadly, this boy would grow up being repeatedly sexually abused by church members because his dad believes that having sex with anybody of any age isn't wrong, even if they don't want to do it. His son would actually eventually stab one of his abusers to death before taking his own life. Nobody was ever charged in his sexual abuse. To avoid more scrutiny of the cult in the wake of the Jonestown Massacre, because, remember, this is all happening at the same time. David disbanded the compounds but actively kept members informed with his orders via his MO Letters. He moved the whole movement underground. So he rebranded and reformed the whole movement in 1980 as the Family of Love. The compound in Greece leaned heavily into Berg's deviant teaching, continuing orgies and partner swapping, flirty fishing. And now, in 1980, we have graduated to very open pedophilia. Berg began actively teaching members how to sexualize children. Something else I want to say. In the conservative circle, they often will point to the LGBTQ community as, you know, grooming children. It is far more common to be groomed in religious circles than it will ever be in the LGBTQ community. And instead of everyone leaving this horrible monster, membership grows to 12,000. And the implications of that are startling. Think of the fact that looking at a religious institution where open pedophilia is not a deal breaker. In fact, it's an incentive. It tells you a lot about the type of people that move toward these movements. And one of the things, when you're looking at a religious group or any ideology, philosophy or political, it's not just about what the group says they believe. It's about what. What isn't a deal breaker. I had a conversation with someone I know who is a. I like. I like to say an awakening MAGA person talking about the issue of race. And he was saying, well, I'm not racist. I don't know why everyone thinks I'm racist, blah, blah, blah. And I said, well, you may not be in your daily life. However, based on the Alignment of the group you have chosen to join and their alignment with the KKK and the Proud Boys, you have decided that race is not a deal breaker. And there was a little bit of an awkward silence of that because it's not just about what you believe, it's about what's not a deal breaker for you. So his cult practicing open pedophilia and saying that that's okay grows to 12,000. Berg wrote, the only way to get free of the devil and his lies and his prohibitions and guilt complexes about sex is to ridicule, is to get rid of his lies and his lying propaganda, his anti sex propaganda, and believe the Lord and his Word and his creation of God's love and his freedom that there is nothing in the world wrong with sex as long as it is practiced in love, whatever it is or whoever it is with, no matter who or what age or what relative or what manner, obviously huge. This is just proof that if you want to, you can take scripture and you can make it say, say whatever you want to say and you can cause unbelievable harm because obviously what his interpretation completely overlooks is consent. Didn't care at all about that. John and Arlen Phoenix, Archbishop, Archbishops for the children of God Phoenix in Venezuela, in Trinidad, received this letter and promptly removed their children, River, Rain and Joaquin out of the cult and relocated to Miami to protect their children. And yet, yes, that is Joaquin Phoenix of Walk the Line and Joker fame. His parents were members of this cult and when that letter came out, they were like, nope, no, we're not doing that during this time. So this is 1980 to 1994. The group continued to hide and bur hide Berg and cover for him in spite of recurring investigations, he is. The press and law enforcement are hot on his tail now. Finally, on October 1st of 1994, Berg died of natural causes at the age of 75. Which is so disappointing because I'm wishing that someone he abused or the family of someone he abused would have slowly tortured him to death. And I'm sorry if that makes you uncomfortable, but I have zero tolerance for people that abuse minors. Zero. Throughout the last 14 years of his life, he continued his doctrine of sexual abuse, coerced prostitution, continued with the cult as. As did the child molestation within that cult and his personal child molestation. His second wife took over leadership of the cult after his passing, which is now called Family International and is still in charge to this day, as far as I can tell. I want to be so clear that this cult still exists. They are called Family International. Even while he was alive, she would make prophecies to the cult, including, including one in 1986 denouncing sexual relationships between adults and minors. But this all seemed for show because while she's making this prophecy, he was still teaching and promoting this. Members who escaped as late as 2005 has said that the child abuse in particular is still incredibly rampant. Several more people left the cult in years following and gave the same story in 2018. A Scottish woman named Verity Carter, who was raised in the cult until she was 15, spoke out against the cult and gave her experiences in the hope of stopping other children from experiencing what she went through. BBC reported it this way. Verity Carter says growing up in a secretive cult that encouraged sexual contact between adults and children was hell on Earth. The 38 year old says she was abused from the age of four by members of the Children of God cult, including her own father. Her father, Alexander Watt, was convicted in February after admitting four charges of sexually abusing. Verity and another child in renfrewshire say that 10 times fast. And on the east coast of Scotland in the 1980s, Verity confirmed that sex at any age was encouraged, including with minors as young as two, two or three years old. They encourage sexual abuse. Verity says she was repeatedly beaten and whipped for the smallest of transgressions. It was hell on earth for anyone born into it, she says. It happened a step at a time and many of the adults did not see how extreme it had gotten until it was too late. A lot of parents did leave and take their kids out. And that's another thing. It's like the. The frog in hot water analogy. Many times, cult and extreme movements slowly progress over time and. And you end up at a moment where you snap out of it and you can't believe how extreme it is and you find yourself wondering, how did I get here? Cults, extreme religious institutions and abusive relationships are very similar. The language is the same. It's all narcissistic, abuse, manipulation, but also the way that you wake up out of it is often the same. It often progresses slowly over time and then eventually someone having a serious realization because something so extreme happens. Verity also said, we had no contact with the outside world. We did not have music or television or culture. We had no idea how the world worked. And although my experience was not directly related to Verity's, I remember getting to college for the first time and hearing secular music like. Like besides very few bands that were allowed by my father. Like, I heard Tupac for the first time. I didn't know who Nirvana was. I had no context by which the world around me functioned. That is a clear red flag of a cult or cult ideology that tells you you cannot associate with or read this or watch this. And it's one I'm not talking about making sure that things are age appropriate for children. I'm telling, I'm telling that people like you can only listen to Christian music. Music. You can only do this, you can only believe this way. Very dangerous thinking. Although Verity and her siblings received no formal education, they were taught survival skills and how to keep secrets from these systemites in the outside world, especially social workers. This is also very common in the fundamentalist church is that you're taught how to argue and defend yourself against people that are attacking God. This includes scientists, law enforcement. In fact, there was a lot of conversation when I was growing up that eventually the American government would turn so evil that law enforcement and government officials are going to come to your door with a gun and ask you if you believe in God and it's your duty to say yes even if they kill you. I'm not kidding. And so when we look around us and we see these extreme beliefs and we're looking saying how is anyone buying into this? This is how. And I tell these cult stories and actually in a few weeks I'm having a cult expert that this is his life and his study and he is a. Oh, he's so genius. And we're going to talk about this. The reason I bring up these cult stories is because it's so relevant to the ideologies we see right now and the manipulation that we see on social media to lure people into these beliefs. It's very slow trad wife content, as sinister as it is, is very genius because it seems so harmless. It seems so like oh, look at these pretty dresses and sourdough bread. When really it's pulling people into a much more harmful ideology. Verity said there were heavy consequences if you failed to keep that smile and say the things you were meant to say to social workers. They were told that terrible things would happen to them and their sibling and their siblings if there was bad publicity for the group. Her mother and father claimed to be Christian missionaries as a cover for their activities. Verity says that she was forced to go on the streets and be a prostitute as well as trick people into donating money. I wasn't comfortable with the things being done to me, but if I asked a question, I got beat, beaten or put on silence restriction. People didn't question it because nobody wants to be accused of being prejudiced against someone who wants an alternative belief system, she said. She also said that with little formal education, she did not have a way to refute these topics, but was very good at reading people and manipulating them him. She says her days with the cult were very regimented and any sign of imagination would be beaten out of her. I want to point out that the truth is never afraid of questions. The truth is never afraid of scrutiny. Any ideology that tells you not to question, that tells you not to take in information or sees outside information as a threat is not the truth, because they wouldn't be afraid of external information if it was. Verity said There was sexual abuse for myself from the age of four, not just from my dad who got convicted, but from various other members of the cult. Some related, some not. She said that at the time she was old enough to learn things like brushing her teeth. She was taught that sex is love and encouraged to engage in sexual activity and porn. Pornographic material from Grandpa David. David Berg was all over the house, she said. I wasn't comfortable with the things being done to me, but I was afraid of punishment. I was punished a lot and I was never able to stop asking questions. Verdi says she was living in communities full time from 11 to 12, but she escaped at the age of 15. She says she had reached the stage where she no longer cared what happened to her and refused to submit to the cult's punishments. This is what happens in abusive relationships. You get to a point where you said, I am not going to take this anymore, I'm simply not going to do it and you finally find the strength to leave. There comes a moment where things become so extreme you can no longer engage in it. So just a recap of the cult itself before I summarize the episode. David Berg founded his sex Cult in 1968 in Huntington beach and unfortunately it survives to this day as Family International. The controversy around the cult revolved around its sexual practices, starting with Berg taking a second wife, then orgies with high ranking members destroying traditional monogamy that most Christians would uphold and making the women of the cult prostitutes and finally open pedophilia. And lastly, despite all the allegations of abuse, no high ranking member has been arrested for their role in the abuse. I could find David Berg certainly never faced prosecution. There have been individual arrests of members of the cult, but again, none of the leadership, which is truly, truly unfortunate. All this to say one to take a little bit of a I'm a true crime and a cult girly. I want to take a little bit of a break from the constant barrage of news, but also to remind us to train ourselves to think. Think the most valuable resource we have is knowledge and the ability to ask questions immediately. Distrust anyone who says you cannot question something immediately. That is a sign, an immediate sign that they are trying to manipulate you. I hope you found this informative and educational. And for those of you that are like me and just love the history of cults and true crime, I hope that this was kind of a nice break from the norm of the news. Again, if you would like to support my work on Patreon, 10% of the of the what I make from that every month is now going to be going towards charities that I believe are doing good work and helping make the world a better place. I will also be sharing stories from those charities moving forward and people that have benefited from them. I think we need a little bit more good news in the world. And thank you for joining me on today's episode of Flipping Tables.