In 1976, Berg had introduced a new proselytizing method called Flirty Fishing (or FFing), which encouraged female members to "show God's love" through sexual relationships with potential converts. BBC reported 10,000 full-time COG members in the 1970s.
īy 1972, COG stated it had 130 communities around the world, and by the mid-1970s, it had "colonies" in an estimated 70 countries. and we had to get out." This, along with the pressure members felt that parents were trying to "rescue" children who had joined CoG, encouraged members to " abroad - first to Europe, eventually to Latin America and East Asia". In 1972, a Mo Letter reportedly entitled "Flee as a Bird to Your Mountain" was interpreted by some members (such as Ruth Gordon) as a warning to leave America. Berg's letters also contained public acknowledgement of his own failings and weaknesses, (for example, he issued a Mo Letter entitled "My confession - I was an alcoholic!" (ML #1406 Summer 1982) relating his depression after some of his closest supporters quit in 1978).
In a letter written in January 1972, Berg stated that he was God's prophet for the contemporary world, attempting to further solidify his spiritual authority within the group. He published nearly 3,000 letters over a period of 24 years, referred to as the Mo Letters. Members of The Children of God (COG) founded communes, first called colonies (now referred to as homes), in various cities.īerg communicated with his followers by writing letters. Leaders within COG were referred to as The Chain. They would proselytize in the streets and distribute pamphlets. In 1969, after having a revelation "that California would be hit by a major earthquake", he left Huntington Beach and "took his followers on the road". Berg started in 1968 as an evangelical preacher with a following of "born-again hippies" who gathered at a coffeehouse in Huntington Beach, in Orange County, California. The founder of the movement, David Brandt Berg (1919–1994), was a former Christian and Missionary Alliance pastor.
Berg "urged a return to the early Christian community described in the Bible's Book of Acts, in which believers lived together and shared all", resembling communal living of late 1960s hippies. There was much "end-of-the-world imagery" found in the Book of Revelation of the New Testament, preaching of impending doom for America and the ineffectiveness of established churches. īerg preached a combination of traditional Christian evangelism, with elements popular with the Counterculture of the 1960s. There have been multiple allegations of child sexual abuse made by past members. Kelly took the title of "King Peter" and became the face of TFI, speaking in public more often than either Berg or Zerby. Zerby married Steve Kelly (also known as Peter Amsterdam), an assistant of Berg's whom Berg had handpicked as her "consort". After his death, his widow Karen Zerby became the leader of TFI, taking the titles of "Queen" and "Prophetess". TFI's founder and prophetic leader, David Berg (who was first called "Moses David" in the Texas press, and was also referred to "Father David" by members), gave himself the titles of "King", "The Last Endtime Prophet", "Moses", and "David".īerg communicated with his followers via "Mo Letters"-letters of instruction and counsel on myriad spiritual and practical subjects-until his death in late 1994. In 1976, it began a method of evangelism called Flirty Fishing that used sex to "show God's love and mercy" and win converts, resulting in controversy. Like some other fundamentalist groups, it "foretold the coming of a dictator called the anti-Christ, the rise of a brutal One World Government and its eventual overthrow by Jesus Christ, in the Second Coming". TFI initially spread a message of salvation, apocalypticism, spiritual "revolution and happiness" and distrust of the outside world, which the members called The System. 2.5 The Family International (2004–present)Īccording to the Canadian Broadcast "at its height", the Family movement had "tens of thousands of members, including River and Joaquin Phoenix, Rose McGowan and Jeremy Spencer".