Children of God: Inside a Cult's Systematic Child Abuse

In the late 1960s, a former Christian and Missionary Alliance pastor named David Brandt Berg began assembling a religious movement that would eventually span 70 countries and leave a documented legacy of child sexual abuse. What started as a small exodus from California would become one of the most troubling cases of institutional abuse in modern religious history.

Berg, a native of Oakland, California, had claimed his first pastorate in Arizona in 1949 before resigning in 1950 following a falling-out with church leadership. Two decades later, convinced that an earthquake would destroy coastal cities, Berg departed California in early 1969 with approximately 50 followers bound for Arizona. The group soon adopted the name "Children of God" (COG), and what appeared as spiritual revival quickly became something far darker.

The organization's growth was rapid and alarming. By 1971, the group claimed 4,000 members across all U.S. states, predominantly teenagers and young adults in their twenties. Within a year, COG operated 130 communities worldwide. By the mid-1970s, the BBC reported the organization maintained 10,000 full-time members distributed across an estimated 70 countries.

As COG expanded, Berg established theological justifications for practices that facilitated abuse. He taught that "God was love and love was sex," a doctrine that normalized sexual relationships without regard to age or family relations. This foundational teaching created a framework for systematic exploitation.

One of the most notorious practices was "Flirty Fishing," a recruitment and fundraising method involving sexual manipulation. More fundamentally, the organization engaged in documented systematic sexual abuse of children. Survivor testimony reveals the scope of the abuse. Verity Carter reported being sexually abused "from the age of four" by cult members, including her own father—a pattern that was neither unusual nor condemned within the organization's hierarchy.

Authorities eventually took notice. In 1974, the New York Attorney General's Office classified COG as a "cult." Federal investigations followed, with both the FBI and Interpol launching inquiries. However, these investigations would ultimately prove limited in scope—they ended in 1994 when Berg died, allowing many perpetrators and enablers to escape prosecution.

International legal systems proved more forceful. A British court examined the organization's practices and delivered a stark ruling: the group constituted "an authoritarian cult that engaged in the systematic physical and sexual abuse of children." This judicial finding formally documented what survivors had long known—that abuse was not incidental but woven into the organization's structure and theology.

The organization attempted to rehabilitate its image through rebranding. It eventually adopted a new name: "The Family International." This strategic reframing did little to address the profound harm inflicted on generations of children or to bring accountability for years of institutional abuse.

The Children of God case remains significant in understanding how authoritarian religious organizations operate. Berg's theological innovations provided doctrinal cover for predatory behavior. The organization's distributed structure across multiple countries complicated oversight. The young demographic targeted for recruitment—vulnerable teenagers without independent resources—made resistance difficult. And the movement's insularity meant victims often had nowhere to turn for help.

For survivors like Verity Carter and countless others, the damage extends far beyond childhood. Systematic abuse within a closed community creates trauma compounded by religious manipulation, making recovery extraordinarily complex. Decades later, many survivors continue processing the psychological impact of a childhood stolen by an organization that clothed predation in spiritual language.

Sources https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6FY7fTmId0 https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/children-of-god https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Family_International