David Berg: The Pedophile Cult Leader Of Teens For Christ
Wikimedia CommonsAn unnamed woman with David Berg in the 1980s.
The Children of God cult founded by David Berg promoted sex with children, incest, and a belief in the Antichrist. Established in 1968, it exists to this day.
In some ways, the declining hippie movement only helped Berg to achieve his goal. He both exploited what was left of the free love moment and used the drug burnout and escalating crime rates to introduce some more unseemly facets into the cult’s ideology.
According to The Independent, Berg claimed revolution and happiness were his goals.
The former pastor preferred an “old world” idea of Christianity, which conveniently lent itself to a lot of sex. Unfortunately, he largely meant sex with children over the age of 12, according to CNN.
Berg “wanted his child to embrace sexuality, to be a sexual being as an infant and growing up.” His rationale was that God loved sex, that sex was love, and that Satan hated sex. In other words, he supported pedophilia as a rebellious act of love against the devil.
Furthermore, it was best to learn how to wage this preposterous battle against Lucifer from one’s own family. So he encouraged incest. He taught female members the act of “flirty fishing” to recruit new members into the cult — which had 130 communities around the world by 1972.
One of Berg’s many nicknames was Grandpa, in addition to King David, and Mo (short for Moses).
Boris Spremo/Toronto Star/Getty ImagesA Toronto gathering of Children of God members. June 15, 1972.
Many members lived in communes together, begged in public, relied on street performances, and shared stringent communist ideologies. Naturally, they were only permitted to keep 10 percent of their earnings. The rest went to Grandpa, who continuously furthered the belief that only his Children of God could save the world from the Antichrist.
While the 1970s served as the peak of the cult’s popularity, it was also the era that saw the most abuse allegations against it. The group’s image was so tarnished by 1978 that it rebranded itself as The Family of Love, and in the 1980s, The Family. When Berg died in 1994, his widowed wife Karen Zerby took over.
Former members claimed they’d seen the new leader, known as “Queen” and “Prophetess,” have sex with her son, Ricky Rodriguez. His time in the cult was so traumatizing that he not only escaped in 2001, but later murdered Angela Smith — a member who helped raise him, and raped him as a child.
In a 2005 video he recorded hours before the murder, he warned, “She’s gonna pay dearly, one way or the other,” while presenting a knife and loading several guns.
He then tracked her down and slit her throat, before hunting down his mother. He never found her.
A website managed by former members who grew up in the cult claimed at least 30 of them had committed suicide. Rodriguez was one of them, dying alone at age 29 in January 2005. He was found on a deserted road with a gunshot to the head.
According to The Independent, members who grew up in the Children of God cult and managed to flee had a terribly difficult time adjusting as adults. Former member Natacha Tormey, for instance, missed out on a lot of conventional lessons.
“I was fearful of the outside world, and I felt out of place, a weirdo,” she said. “I didn’t know what a CV was, how to open a bank account.”
Victims like Rodriguez never managed to overcome their psychological scars, unfortunately. The cult had done too much damage at too young an age for them to even have a chance.
“The cult exploited their youthful idealism,” said Tormey, “robbed them of their happiness and freedom and spat them out in middle age. Cults need to be on the curriculum so young people are aware of the dangers.”
Charles Manson And Helter Skelter
Bettmann/Contributor/Getty ImagesCharles Manson leaves court after deferring a plea on murder charges. Dec. 11, 1969.
Charles Manson‘s cult was initially no more than a band of outsiders who found themselves at the fringes of 1960s counter-culture. These runaways, dropouts, and lawless social outcasts seeking purpose and belonging thought they’d found a father figure in Manson.
While the beginnings of this cult saw nothing more than petty crime, drug use, and using an old movie lot as the hippie hub of operations, it quickly devolved into far more serious territory. According to Newsweek, Manson was eager to kickstart a race war he dubbed “Helter Skelter.”
Taken from a Beatles song of the same name, Helter Skelter was believed to inevitably pit black and white Americans against each other and lead to a nationwide rampage. Manson and his acolytes would be the only surviving members of white society, who could then overrun the victorious party.
In order to expedite the process, the Manson Family would have to murder a few admirable and upstanding white members of society while blaming black entities like the Black Panthers for their deaths.
Scrawling “PIG” in blood on Sharon Tate’s front door at 10500 Cielo Drive, for instance, was intended to lead authorities to consider the militant anti-police factions of the time. The failed attempt to start this revolution occurred on August 9, 1969, and continued the following night — but it all began with Manson.
Bettmann/Contributor/Getty ImagesManson Family members (from left to right) Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Leslie van Houten in custody. August 1970.
Born on Nov. 12, 1934, in Cincinnati, Ohio, Charles Manson had a pretty tumultuous childhood. According to Biography, his 16-year-old mother Kathleen Maddox was both a prostitute and an alcoholic, and the young boy was sent off to a boys school by age 12.
He was routinely rejected by his mother and rapidly resorted to the streets to make a living and find comfort. By the time he was in his 30s, Manson was a prolific car thief, fathered several children, and was in and out of prison for a whole roster of crimes.
Familiar with those cast out of traditional society, Manson used his experience — as well as the ubiquity of psychedelic drugs in the 1960s — to convince impressionable young minds that he could see what was around the proverbial corner.
By the time he and his followers made Spahn Ranch in the San Fernando Valley their home, the Jesus-looking prophet had them convinced that only violence would result in the future they desired.
Ralph Crane/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty ImagesThe Spahn Ranch in San Fernando Valley where Manson and his “family” dwelled in the late 1960s.
On one of the last summer nights of the 1960s, the Manson Family invaded the home of Roman Polanski and Sharon Tate and murdered everyone inside. The famous director was in the U.K. while his pregnant wife was stabbed to death, along with her unborn child.
Manson never forgot the address. 10050 Cielo Drive. Music producer Terry Melcher had lived there previously, and the failed musician-turned-cult leader had tried his damndest to get into the industry.
“Make it a real nice murder,” Manson allegedly told followers Charles “Tex” Watson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkel, and Linda Kasabian, “just as bad as you’ve ever seen. And get all their money.”
The first to die was 18-year-old Stephen Parent, who unluckily visited the home that night to sell off his audio equipment and was shot by Watson in the driveway. The others died slower deaths, via repeated stabbings.
Terry O’Neill/Iconic Images/Getty ImagesA pregnant Sharon Tate holds baby clothes not long before her murder.
“I’m the devil and I’m here to do the devil’s business,” Watson told a confused Voytech Frykowski, friend of Tate’s, who awoke to find a stranger in the room. He was then stabbed 51 times and shot twice, while his girlfriend was stabbed 28 times.
Jay Sebring, Sharon Tate’s former boyfriend, was stabbed seven times and shot twice. Tate begged the Manson Family to let her live long enough to have her baby, but they refused. They stabbed her 16 times instead and scrawled “PIG” on the door in her blood.
The Manson Family murdered Leno and Rosemary LaBianca, well-to-do business owners, the following night. It took months for authorities to find those responsible and put Manson’s Helter Skelter vision had come to an end.
The cult leader died behind bars in 2017 at 83.
