"Heaven's Children": The Children of God's Second Generation

Susan J. Palmer - Dawson College

Susan J. Palmer received her Ph.D. from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, where she worked on a research project involving new religions, directed by Frederick Bird.   She has engaged in research projects in new religions funded by the Social Science in the Humanities Research Council in Ottawa, and teaches in the Religion Department of Dawson College.  

On September 8, 1993, I was flying over the Grand Canyon to visit The Family in Los Angeles. The leaders in L.A. had found out about my SSHRC grant to study children in new religious movements (NRMs) and had demanded, "We need to be studied, so why don’t  you come out and study us?"  They had offered unlimited access and cooperation (in contrast to Quebec NRMs I’d approached who definitely didn’t want me snuffling around their kids).

Looking down at the purple-orange crusts of the Grand Canyon, I thought of my family’s "warning",  "What if you get hauled off to jail in the middle of the night as a child molester?"  I didn’t know what to expect--utopia or distopia?

One week later I was back in Montreal, and everyone seemed to inquire, "Well, do they?  Do they abuse their children?"  "No, they don’t, I’m convinced of it."  My friends looked doubtful.  "Are you sure?  That’s not what Time magazine said.  How can you be so sure?"  Now that I know the disciples, have studied their literature and tried to figure out their history and communal patterns, my own common sense is telling me these allegations of "kidnapping, rape, sodomy, and child abuse" are ludicrous--but it is difficult to convince others.

After living with the Family for an action-packed week and pouring over the Mo Letters, I decided that perhaps these people were, after all, merely Christian Fundamentalists with a heavy millenarian and communal emphasis. ... They "mess up" our categories, our preconceptions concerning the sexual repressions and hypocrisy of Christian Fundamentalists, particularly those who (like Father David) are inclined to denounce sin, doomsday, abortion and "sodomites."

One must consider that religious founders often display unconventional approaches to the moral dilemmas and obsessions of their age, and an uncanny ability to predict future trends through setting up laboratories of social, sexual and familial experimentation.  Thus, the changing sexual mores and patterns of marriage and parenting from the COG days to the present might be analysed as reflecting, magnifying and occasionally even parodying social tensions and moral trends in the surrounding culture.

In attempting to chart the changing communal patterns and the development of parental roles and models of childrearing, I relied upon three sources: 1) Interviews; 2)  50 questionnaires were filled out, 35 in the San Diego Home and 15 in the L.A. Media Home; 3) A study of a cupboardful of COG to Family literature.

The Mo Letters mirror and magnify these larger shifting social dilemmas and it would be fairer to treat them as an exploratory narrative, rather than as evidence of pathology when quoted out of context.  

My purpose in writing down my thoughts and experiences of the past week is to convey my impressions of life in The Family today, as related by an outsider who at least strives towards the elusive ideal of "objectivity."  Next, what I find most extraordinary about The Family at this phase in their history is their success in socializing their children who, it seems, have absorbed their parents’ fiery evangelical spirit and intense religious commitment. Since Foster (1) (1981) and other historians have observed that one of the main causes for the decline of two great utopias in American history, the Shakers and Oneida Perfectionists, was their failure in inculcating religious values in their children, I am going to address the issue of how The Family has accomplished this feat.  Finally, I feel compelled (more by a feeling of exasperation than by a larger sense of justice) to refute the lies and gross inaccuracies inundating the mass media concerning The Family--and to present my own theories as to why this particular NRM invites this currently fashionable brand of religious persecution--allegations of child abuse.

The media portrait of "the sex-for-salvation cult" suggests aging baby boomers enslaving and molesting little children. What I actually encountered was a society run by dynamic teenagers and young adults born into the movement.  Attractive and clean cut, they brought to mind the Pat Boone Show rather than the ragged hippies who "forsook all" to become Children of God. Trained in music and choreography from an early age, they perform on the streets and make the outreach videos; they teach the children, preside over devotional services in the Homes, and deal with the public.

The Home in San Diego was a large, ranch-style L-shaped house with a swimming pool.  After I had been introduced to the 15-odd adult brothers and sisters and finally mastered the ritual hug, I was taken on a tour.  It was during the two-hour "Rest and Word" period (2:00-4:00 p.m.) and all the children were asleep. ... Four little "MC" boys (Middle Children) of 6-8 [years of age] lay in their bunks beside a fan’s cooling buzz. I was interested to note that they segregate their children’s sleeping quarters by sex at an early age. ... The children’s rooms were clean and pleasantly arranged, from the YC’s (Younger Children) of 3-5 [years of age] to the OC’s (Older Children) to the OT’s (Older Teens).  On viewing the five empty bassinets in the Infants and Toddlers’s room, I asked, "Where are the babies?"  "With their mothers," was the logical reply.

Two young teachers introduced me to The Family’s rich and extensive literature on childbearing and education. Parents consult the three-volume Childcare Handbook (1982), and the book Raise ‘em Right, which is a compilation of writing and theories from secular sources.  The educational material used in their home schooling program contains a broad range of information in the same subject areas found in public schools.  The main difference lies in the rejection of Darwin and the emphasis on Bible studies, prophecy and prayer.  Various teaching methods are employed--books, workbooks, Family-produced "GAP" videos, a (secular) Skillbank computer course on reading, comprehension, dictionary, language tutorial, composition, grammar, spelling ("We consider it pretty godly") and field trips.  The Family’s schooling has been registered under an umbrella school, and they periodically hand in samples of work, put out report cards and have been examined by schoolboard officials in five or six countries ("They have told us our program is superior to most regular programs").

Witnessing Expeditions

On the third day I was invited to accompany the children on a Get Out. The KIDS (Kind Inspired Dedicated Soldiers) and the JETTS (Junior End Time Teens) were well-groomed and dressed like any middle-class kids but in matching T-shirts, jeans and sneakers that were factory-donated, not personally chosen.  Throughout the trip the teachers kept brushing their hair and spraying their small hands with an alcohol bottle.  This latter custom, they explained, was picked up in Asia, where it was used as a safeguard against tropical diseases when children rode on subways or played in parks.

The next evening I drove the van for the Senior Teens and the YA’s witnessing/provisioning expedition. The girls resembled all-American upper middle class teens in shorts and blouses, their long hair brushed neatly. Eight young people and two guitars piled into the van and, before setting off, we prayed for safety.  Sometimes the team would  stop at a restaurant that knew them and had invited them back. ... We had already sung in a few restaurants, when they decided it was time for "provisioning."  I pointed out an expensive-looking restaurant as a joke, and they said, "OK, stop!"

I panicked, "Come on, there’s no way we can barge in--nine strangers--and ask for free food!"   But we pulled into the parking lot, prayed for the Lord to "soften the manager’s heart," and then the girls went in, asked to speak to the assistant manager, explained they were from a "Christian missionary movement," got permission to sing a few songs and started right away.  The guests, surprised by the high quality of the performance, put down their forks and clapped.  The girls performed exuberant choreography, and waiter and cooks gathered at the kitchen and stared. The eyes of some were tearful, evidently moved by the singers’ intense religious expression. After a few songs, everyone in the room was charmed by these talented, attractive, clean-cut kids--who then mentioned they were hungry and asked  the manager to provide some food ... "just something simple."

To my surprise, heaping plates of burritos and salad arrived at our table, with sugarless drinks. While the boys wiped their mouths, the leader girl got them organized:  "You go take those cooks in the kitchen.  You take the manager and the waiter--take them into the hall, and I’ll talk to this table."  It was now serious soul-saving time when receptive "sheep" would be warned of the impending End Time and invited to repeat a prayer so that Jesus could come into their hearts.

"Heaven’s Children," The Future of The Family

Family teenagers appear to be far more cautious and conservative than their parents’ generation in their attitudes towards sexuality. ... The second generation appear to regard their parents’ time of sexual excess with a kind of amused indulgence.  A group of YA’s showed me their albums and pointed to photographs of their parents in their hippie heyday with pride.  "There’s my Dad. He used to be a drug dealer before he got saved." "Did you see my Mom? She was in a biker gang when she met the disciples on Miami Beach."  "My Dad was from a very old Argentinean family. They were very wealthy and he was a famous guitarist, but he forsook all because he really loved the Lord."  "My Mom was feeling really depressed and guilty when she met the disciples because she’d just had an abortion. She was so grateful to the Lord when she met my dad and they had me."  Whether their parents had been down and out or aristocrats, the point was they had forsaken all for Jesus, and their children looked back on them as legendary heroes and pioneers.

The rather wild impression I had received of the Children of God in the 70s was of an erratic band of rebellious hippies-turned-Jesus Freaks who indulged in what [sociologist] Roy Wallis (1979) dubbed "antinomian" behaviour (2) ... So, naturally, I wondered how they had arrived from there to here--to developing this rich, highly organized and elaborate culture of childhood.

The empowerment of youth is a theme that runs through the movement’s history. Today this pattern has returned. Now that the second generation have reached the same age as the original Children of God, they are being groomed to take over the administration and executive posts of the movement.

Footnotes:

Click on the number to return to the footnote location.

1. Foster, Lawrence (1981) Religion and Sexuality: Three American Communal Experiments of the Nineteenth Century. New York: Oxford University Press.

2. Marriage and the Children of God" in Salvation and Protest: Studies Wallis, Roy (1979) "Sex, of Social and Religious Movements (ed.) Roy Wallis. New York: St. Martins Press.