The Family (Children of God)
A problematic example of Adventist thought in the later twentieth century can be found in a community known first as the “Children of God” and subsequently as the “Family of Love,” or more simply The Family.
The Children of God was established by David Brandt Berg (1919- 1994), an evangelical minister who, in 1969, declared that he had received a revelation concerning a cataclysmic earthquake that would plunge California into the Pacific Ocean. Fearing imminent destruction, Berg led his small band of followers from California to Texas, where they lived a communal existence. Convinced that disaster loomed for the entire country, Berg moved once again, leaving the United States and ultimately relocating in London, where he established his headquarters in the 1970s.Berg’s teachings became increasingly radical, and he urged his followers to abandon their families and to renounce all allegiance to existing social and political structures, believing that the Second Advent of Christ—and all of the violent events that would precede it—was imminent. Like the Witnesses, the Children of God are millennialists who look forward to the beginnings of Christ’s 1,000-year reign. Committed to what he termed the “law of love,” Father Berg (as he was called) commanded his flock to celebrate the “sacrament” of free sexuality as often, and with as many partners, as possible, and he urged his female followers to prostitute themselves for the purpose of drawing male recruits into his movement. This practice (called “flirty fishing”) brought considerable notoriety to Berg’s community, and by the 1980s this behavior was discontinued, partly out of fear of the AIDS epidemic. By the
1990s, the movement had become somewhat more conservative in lifestyle, and it adopted a written constitution that endowed individual members with a greater measure of religious autonomy. Berg’s death in 1994 left the Children of God, now renamed The Family, without a dominating prophetic personality, though he was immediately succeeded by his second wife, Karen Zerby (b. 1946, and known to members of the Family as “Maria”). Nevertheless, the emphasis on charismatic gifts and an evangelical style of worship remain constants in this community. “Father David,” as he is posthumously known, continues to exert considerable influence on members of the Family from beyond the grave; his spirit messages are channeled through Maria and her second husband, Steve Kelly (b. 1951; known as Peter Amsterdam).