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.”
