When Religion Turns Evil

Jesus Freaks - A True Story of the Murder and Madness on the Evangelical Edge is a chilling expose by award-winning journalist Don Lattin. It reads like a crime thriller in places, yet it is not a fiction novel.

The Children of God, now called The Family International was founded by David Berg, son of Virginia Brandt Berg, a well-known evangelical pentecostal preacher. Berg said that his mother was his biggest influence.

Berg found a receptive audience evangelising to hippies of the sixties and seventies in California who were disillusioned with 'the system' - government, traditional churches - what Berg referred to as Systemites. He became the Endtime Prophet, who referred to himself as Moses or Mo and preached an anacalyptic message and the Law of Love.

He seduced Karen Zerby (aka Maria), the daughter of a strict conservative preacher. She'd left her family to join Berg's mission. He convinced her to be his polygamous 'wife' and his queen.

Ricky Rodriguez 'aka Davidito' was a product of not-so-immaculate conception resulting from Zerby's 'flirty fishing'. FFing was a new doctrine as part of the Law of Love that Berg and Zerby introduced in the seventies. The women were sent out as heaven's harlots to bring men to Jesus and The Family by selfless acts of sexual sacrifice.

Ricky was the Prophet Prince, and details of his life were documented in a controversial publication The Story of Davidito - containing nude photographs of Ricky and adults in sex play from the youngest age. The book was distributed as a parenting book with The Family. Ricky was a sexual playmate for his nanny Sara Kelley (also called Sue and later changed her name to Angela Smith).

Berg considered the Systemites, including mainstream churches to be too prohibitive and condemnatory about sex. In his letters, his form of communication to his followers, he outlined his doctrines. One letter was called The Devil Hates Sex, and detailed how God made sex to be enjoyed even by children. As his doctrines became more bizarre and illegal, Berg and Zerby went into hiding and became faceless to their followers.

Many second-generation children escaped the cult and several that revealed they had been sexually and physically abused - being beaten or subjected to violent exorcisms. His grand-daughter Merry was abused with violent exorcisms, because she dared to question the teachings. Defectors found it hard to integrate into the society they had been taught was so evil. Many became drug-addicts and/or committed suicide. Those that spoke out were labelled liars and 'bitter apostates' by The Family.

Merry came to see her grandfather as a drunken madman. Her father (David Berg's son) had committed suicide years before. She was slapped by her grandfather, speaking in tongues and 'rebuking demons' commanding them to leave her body. Her head was banged against a wall until she was vomiting and then it was said she was vomiting demons.

After Berg's death, Zerby was now the head of the Family and consulted the dead. She proclaimed that she had revelations that Jesus desired sex from his followers.

Ricky left The Family and tried to leave his past behind him, but his rage at his mother consumed him.

He made a ranting video about his anger at his mother and the cult and how he planned to take revenge against his abusers. He couldn't get to his mother, so he killed Sara, his former nanny, before taking his own life.

Brent Jeffs had been a Lost Boy, one of the many boys abandoned or tossed out of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS). The FLDS practise polygamy secretly (whereas mainstream Mormons discontinued the practice), and believethat multiple wives were required for salvation.

When Brent's uncle Warren Jeffs started to take over as Prophet, he arranged marriages of older men to underage girls. The Lost Boys, thousands of them were neglected or abandoned, because they were competition for Warren and older men wanting extra wives. These boys, often young teens, with no financial support or skills to cope with life on the outside frequently became addicted to drugs and/or committed suicide. Brent lost two brothers this way.

Brent was taught a bizarre version of science. All the bits on evolution and human anatomy were cut out of books. He was taught that dinosaur bones were remnants from other planets and that the reason for polygamy was to populate new planets.

Brent suffered post-traumatic-stress-disorder and had vivid nightmares and flashbacks of being raped by Warren when he was a child. He was also terrified of hell, as Warren preached continually about hell and the end of the world. Warren was severe in his punishments for 'minor' infractions as questioning his authority or refusing to wear the mandatory long underwear.

After his brother's deaths, Brent summoned the courage to speak out about the FLDS. He was one of a group of Lost Boys to file a law suit against Warren.

Carolyn Jessop was one of the many wives of Merril Jessop, the leader of the FLDS while Warren Jeffs is in jail. She fled the FLDS with her eight children, one severely disabled. Destitute and without child support payments, they lived in leaking trailers. At first her children were angry at her for taking her away from they life they knew. The eldest, Betty refused to stop wearing the FLDS clothes - long-sleeved, full-length praire dresses, and returned to the cult as soon as she was 18.

Carolyn wrote a best-selling book Escape about her experience. In Triumph, she outlines her thoughts and role in the raids on the FLDS. She says how she was accused by the FLDS of being a liar. She faced her past head-on in frightening court battles, where FLDS women turned up in the hundreds to intimidate her. She gained the courage to pursue her husband for missed child support, and won. The settlement was nearly $100,000, but Merril only drip-feeds $100 per month.

Girls in the cult were in 'spiritual marriages' from age 12. Those in the FLDS have a much higher incidence of the genetic disease fumarase deficiency (resulting in severe brain retardation, seizures and encephalopathy) than all other worldwide cases combined. This results from the intensive in-breeding within the FLDS - marriage of first cousins and sisters marrying the same man, resulting in children that are half-siblings as well as first cousins.

Carolyn and her children appear to be well-adjusted. She lives in hope that Betty will leave the cult.

Both these cults started out not much different from mainstream religion. The Family/Children of God developed out of pentecostal Christianity. The FLDS wanted to keep practising polygamy after the LDS discontinued the practice.

Both of these cults didn't start out as dangerous religions. They would have just been weird religions in most people's books. Then they evolved into evil movements, hiding criminal activity.

The danger was in the growing isolation and the leader. A perverted leader that was a control freak and claiming to hear God's voice would gradually introduce corruption. Most followers didn't notice - they were like frogs in a pot of water being slowly heated, and didn't realise they were being cooked until it was too late.

David Berg wrote about how his mother caught him masturbating as a young child. She brought in the whole family, a knife and bowl, and said she would cut it off. He never forgave her for embarrassing and terrifying him. He also told a story about a babysitter that used to suck on his genitals each day, and he claimed he enjoyed it. Berg decided the church was too prohibitive about sex, so he wanted children to grow up with sex.

Brent Jeffs thinks Warren's teachings about never being naked, being quick about changing diapers and always covering all exposed skin result from his won struggles with his lack of control over his desires. Perhaps Warren was abused, but Brent found it hard to understand how the abused would inflict this on someone else. Warren was manipulate from the youngest age and hungry for power - traits he learned off his mother. He was fascinated with Hitler.

Even in mainstream religion, abuse of power and criminal activity takes place. Devotees live in their brainwashed bubble, relying on a charismatic leader to hear the voice of God and to tell people how to live their lives. With both these cults, they were able to justify anything they liked in the Bible, just like mainstream Christians do. It seems that when it comes to religion, people throw away their rational brains.