The Children of God: "The Family"

The Children of God: "The Family" J. Gordon Melton J. Gordon Melton is the director in Santa Barbara, California, of the Institute for the Study of American Religion. He is the author of the influential Encyclopedia of American Religions and some twenty other works, co-author of the award-winning Religions of the World: A Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Beliefs and Practices, and a frequent contributor to scholarly books and journals on the subject of new religions. His previous book in this series was praised in the Journal of Church and State as a "crisp, cogent study" by one of the "foremost experts on new and unconventional religions," noting that "few books pack as much information into so little space" or in such an "insightful, objective, and scholarly" way. The Children of God: The Family can be ordered from Signature Books at: http://www.signaturebooks.com/children.htm

"The Family", as the Children of God were first known, emerged in the late 1960s out of the "Jesus People" movement that attempted to reach a popular subculture. Jesus People came from the broader Evangelical movement, rooted in nineteenth-century questions of faith and authority in the larger American Protestant sphere.

The challenges of science to traditional Christian belief united fundamentalists of the 1960s into a broad movement. Initially, David Berg, who founded the Children of God, worked with an inner-city rescue mission in Los Angeles. It was there that he recruited troubled teenagers to his Pentecostal movement and to his gypsy spirit guide named Abrahim. Over the years, the group grew into a free-love experiment, relocated to Europe, underwent a moral reformation, and became a global phenomenon.

The Children of God: The Family by J. Gordon Melton

STUDIES IN CONTEMPORARY RELIGIONS
Massimo Introvigne, Series Editor

Signature Books
in cooperation with CESNUR (Center for Studies on New Religions)

Cover design by Ron Stucki
All photographs courtesy of The Family.

© 1997 Elle Di Ci, Leumann (Torino), Italy, as Dai Bambini di Dio a The Family. This edition is published by arrangement with the copyright holder.

Published in the United States of America by Signature Books. Signature Books is a registered trademark of Signature Books Publishing, LLC. www.signaturebooks.com

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Melton, J. Gordon.

[Dai Bambini di Dio a The Family. English]
The Children of God: The Family /
by J. Gordon Melton.
  p. cm. (Studies in contemporary religions)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 1-56085-180-5 (pbk.)
1. Children of God (Movement) I. Title. II. Series

BP605.C38M45 2004
299-dc22

2004056494