The Shifting, Lurid History of The Family

From the beginning, there was controversy: predictions that Comet Kohoutek signaled God’s destruction of America, claims that Douglas MacArthur and the Pied Piper were speaking from beyond the grave and charges that Jews and blacks were conspiring to ruin the world.

There was also sex. Lots of sex. All in the name of Jesus.

The Children of God--a Christian hippie movement that started 25 years ago in a Huntington Beach coffeehouse--outraged critics with a free-love gospel that urged women to use their bodies to hook new converts.

Then the group seemingly disappeared.

Badgered by cult deprogrammers and condemned by New York’s charity-fraud bureau, the Children all but abandoned the United States in the mid-1970s. The group moved overseas, and has been dogged repeatedly by accusations of child abuse, such as those made this week in Argentina.

To date, all of the cases have folded for lack of evidence, but the bad publicity has crimped the group’s operations.

Now, with a new name--The Family--and what they hope is a new image, they have brought their “Jesus revolution” back to Southern California. Last Christmas season, they also sang for Barbara Bush in the East Room of the White House.

In and around Orange County, several hundred members have worked quietly for the past four years, evangelizing at juvenile homes, colleges and beaches while collecting donations from business people and service clubs apparently unaware of their strange history.

The group asks to be judged by its current actions, not by its past. But some former members say things haven’t really changed. And, as this week’s arrests in Argentina indicate, The Family has a lot to live down.

The Children of God began in 1968 as a small, Christian commune led by traveling preacher David Berg, then 49. Berg, whose parents were evangelists, initially operated out of a coffeehouse near the Huntington Beach Pier where he preached an apocalyptic, anti-Establishment gospel.

In 1969, he and about 50 disciples split into teams that crisscrossed the country holding eerie doomsday vigils. “Jesus freaks on the road” is how former member Daniel Welsh recalls the early days: “We traveled around like Gypsies, living in trucks and campers, stopping at anti-war rallies and the Chicago Seven trial.”

As the movement grew, Berg’s teachings--outlined in rambling, profanity-laced letters to his followers--turned increasingly bizarre. He predicted Kohoutek would doom America, said a pyramid-shaped city was inside the moon and claimed to be guided by the spirits of Rasputin, Martin Luther, MacArthur and the Pied Piper.

Sex was another frequent topic. “There’s nothing in the world at all wrong with sex as long as it’s practiced in love . . . no matter who (it’s with) or what age or what relative or what manner!” Berg declared in a 1980 letter that still haunts the group.

Critics, armed with sheaves of the sect’s literature, suggestive photographs and videos of preteen girls performing stripteases, claim that incest and sex between adults and children has run rampant among Berg’s followers. And they have been successful in persuading authorities in several countries to raid sect homes looking for evidence of such abuse.

Family officials--backed by some academics who have studied the group and a string of legal victories--vehemently deny the accusations, saying they were fabricated by disgruntled or mentally unstable ex-members.

The truth appears to lie somewhere in the middle.

Sex between children, for example, is officially “discouraged.” But a 1985 letter to followers from Berg and his wife says: “I think as children, before the girls start menstruating and the boys start seminating, that’s their opportunity to have all the sex they want.”

A 19-year-old woman who left The Family two years ago recalls how the policy played out: “When I was 13 or 14 . . . I was told to go downstairs and they (the leaders of the home) sent boys in one by one, and I was supposed to teach them how to kiss and (masturbate them) and let them feel my breasts.”

Family spokesman John Francis says the rules have since been tightened: Minors are not to have intercourse before age 18. And heavy petting “has pretty much been limited.”

Then there’s the question of sex between children and adults, including parents.

Some of the most damning accusations come from Berg’s own family.

Joyanne Treadwell, 28, who left the group in 1978, claims now that Berg, her grandfather, “started having sex with me--not penetration, but everything else--when I was 5.” The Family denies her charges.

Also damaging is a 1982 book published by the sect that seemingly details oral sex and intercourse between Berg’s preschool stepson and the boy’s nanny. Sprinkled with risque photos and quotes from Berg about how God expects children to enjoy sex, the text also describes sexual relations between the boy and his younger sister.

The book--along with other “questionable publications” and homemade soft-porn videos--is now banned, Francis says. He acknowledges that “theories were postulated” about adult-child sex, but insists that only a few disciples took the writings literally.

Two researchers, sociologist James T. Richardson of the University of Nevada and anthropologist Charlotte Hardman of London, agree. Their studies found that Berg disciples don’t practice what their leader preaches.

Several ex-members interviewed earlier this year by The Times say they engaged in incest or adult-child sex, but on a once-only or limited basis because they were horrified by it. They also say that most others who took part felt the same and never repeated it.

Another observer, Gordon Melton, director of the Santa Barbara-based Institute for the Study of American Religion, says the sect was “less than upright” in the past, but “the things that got them off-base have worked themselves out (and) they seem to be rather benign in recent years.”

Today, the group operates quietly in Orange County and the rest of Southern California, spreading its gospel to gang members on the streets of Anaheim, surfers at Huntington Beach and youngsters at a juvenile halfway house in Santa Ana.

A scrapbook of photos and thank-you letters from such activities is then used to solicit donations from area business people.

The scrapbook showcases the group’s new image--wholesome, upbeat, conservative.

And it pays off. While canvassing businesses in Fullerton three years ago, for instance, Family teens met a restaurateur who has since donated $900 in food, $100 in cash and has invited the teens to sing at two annual Thanksgiving meals for the homeless at his establishment. Last year, he also let the group hold weekly “music and drama” nights for potential converts at his banquet center.

Other area businessmen, service clubs and YMCAs have donated cash, supplies and rent-free housing.

Ex-members say the reaction would be different if the sect didn’t conceal its identity and soft-pedal its beliefs.

The group does employ a dizzying array of pseudonyms. In addition to two official name changes (from Children of God to Family of Love to The Family in the mid-1980s), the sect has gone by such monikers as Project Outreach, Hearts Aflame, Heaven’s Magic and World Services.

Family spokesman Francis says the various organizational titles are the same as a corporation with different products or subsidiaries.

As for the charge that The Family downplays its controversial beliefs to avoid scaring off donors, Francis acknowledges that members don’t immediately tell people about “the 40 most difficult doctrines that would blow them away. . . . That’s wisdom, not deception.”

One such doctrine is that “a small group of international Jews (is behind) a worldwide conspiracy” to discredit Christianity. In a 1982 letter to followers, Berg refers to Jews and “their stooges, the Negroes” as “the curses of the world” and blames both for “nearly everything that’s evil.”

Francis insists that the meaning of that and other passages have been misconstrued or taken out of context. The Family has never advocated or engaged in violence, he says. Berg is merely venting “righteous indignation.” As for accusations of anti-Semitism, Francis explains that Berg’s venom isn’t aimed at all Jews--only at those behind the mistreatment of Palestinians--and those involved in what he calls the anti-Christian conspiracy.

Francis estimates The Family has 10,000 full-time followers in 50 countries (down from about 100), but other observers place the figure as high as 25,000--plus tens of thousands of financial supporters and “friends.”

Estimates of U.S. membership--covert or virtually nonexistent for two decades--range as high as 4,000, scattered along the Eastern Seaboard, Texas and California. Disciples have been filtering back since 1989. Berg, now 74 and reportedly living in Japan, is said to have urged the return as preparation for the Second Coming of Christ.

Ex-members say the impetus for the return is negative publicity and accusations of child abuse in Australia, France, Brazil, Spain, England and other countries.

Family officials say that the allegations, including those coming out of Argentina, are the work of ex-members who are trying to destroy the group with trumped-up charges. They note that they have never been found guilty of child abuse.

One Chula Vista man whose daughter and grandchildren are apparently living with the sect in Argentina is among those who would like to see The Family broken up. Bill Rambur said he hopes the police action in Argentina signals the beginning of the end. “I’ve been waiting 22 years for this,” he said.