Oct. 10, 2025, 3:45 p.m.
“But there was an intensity to it because of this belief that, you know, they were on the cusp of this great tribulation and this coming of this new era,” Don Lattin, journalist and author of “Jesus Freaks,” said.
In 1968, in Huntington Beach, California, David Berg founded the Children of God. The apocalyptic, evangelical Christian cult infamously preached sex as a pathway to salvation. By his followers, Berg was considered the “end-time prophet,” someone who possessed supernatural power and would lead them into the end of the world. A collision of the broader Jesus people movement and the free love movement, Berg’s doctrine boiled down to a multitude of sexually abusive practices justified by loose ties to Christianity. Still active, the group has since rebranded to The Family International.
The 1960s are recognized as a period of upheaval and transition, where counterculture was at its height. It is easy to look back on the decade with a nostalgic rosy lens, like one long Van Morrison song. But in actuality, political tumult, divisiveness surrounding the Vietnam War, and lingering tensions left many individuals vulnerable and lost, giving rise to cult culture.
“People join so-called cults, right, or sects for the same reason that people join churches,” Lattin said. “You know, a lot of people are, often people are having a transition in their life. You know, they’re going through a difficult period in their life … They’re searching for meaning, they’re searching for community … a lot of the people who joined Berg’s group were kind of rebelling against everything. They were in the counterculture.”
Characteristics of the Children of God were recruitment methods and doctrine teachings in the form of subscription-style pamphlets, some copies of which can be found at UW’s Special Collections. One such series, “Poorkid Magazine,” targeted younger audiences, providing exaggerated cartoons, testimonies of other young people following Berg, and stories centered on the group’s evangelism. Everything was penned by Berg, who wrote under the alias Moses David, a name more aligned with the identity he assumed as a modern prophet. In the second issue of “Poorkid,” one particularly disturbing comic introduces the infamous “Look of love” concept that was an inescapable aspect of the Children of God’s doctrine.
“Eyes are extremely spiritual and have uncanny powers of which you may never dreamed— powers over you and powers over others,” Berg said on page nine of “Poorkid’s” second issue. “A deep look into someone’s eyes can move the emotions! … A man can look at a beautiful woman and just one look can so move his emotions as to affect his physical body! … Because the only love of God they can see is the love they see in you! And unless you can show them that God loves them by your own love from God, they’ll never know it!”
Berg implored his followers to grow the cult through seduction. The pamphlet solely dedicated to this idea of evangelical prostitution, “Look of Love,” from 1974 and authored by Berg, features a cover with an attractive woman embracing a man and fixing him with a striking look. The seven pages and 58 subpoints go on to manipulate Biblical teachings, saying that Jesus praised the eyes as the most powerful organ and a vehicle of influence. The text builds sinisterly, listing the abilities of the eye, and alluding to Berg’s grander agenda for his followers: “Flirty Fishing.”
“Love-making is hypnotical — wooing is all a part of that process of romantic hypnosis,” Berg said on page four of “Look of Love.” “It’s partly physiological: your body chemistry gets in the mood … And there’s got to be something of the spirit about the eyes in wooing.”
Along with communal living, Flirty Fishing was the defining practice of the Children of God. The term is derived from a verse in the Bible in which Jesus tells his disciples that he will make them “fishers of men.” Berg sickly twisted this scripture, conveying to his followers that it was the predestined mission of the women and minors within the group to seduce men, evangelize to them, and produce offspring, thus growing the cult rapidly. At its height, around 10,000 “Jesus babies” were born into the cult through Flirty Fishing. Families adopted Berg’s parenting doctrine, drawn from his book “The Story of Davidito,” which is about his adopted son, Ricky Rodriguez, and explicitly encourages incest, neglect, and sexual practices between adults and minors, justified in the book by Berg’s sexual sharing philosophy.
“Berg was basically a pedophile,” Lattin said. “I mean, he was, and he tried to justify it theologically. And I think a lot of it was because he was really ashamed as a child, you know, sexually. And he was kind of revolting against that. And then, you know, he found himself right in the middle of the sexual revolution. So he just, you know, had a field day. […] He was your classic dirty old man, you know. Except he was also the end-time prophet.”
Robert Espiau is a counselor and trauma therapist who has worked with ex-members of the Children of God. During our conversation, he emphasized the longevity of the effects of abuse that children raised in the cult experienced.
“The central issue that’s really rough that goes on in [the cult] is attachment trauma,” Espiau said. “Parents basically leave their kids to be raised by the group in whatever house they live in. And parents just abandon their kids, and they believe that the group should raise them … And the belief that you can be raised by the commune because you’re being raised by all these Christians, that somehow that’s okay.”
It is still disputed whether the group reformed beyond a name change, or if their practices remain cruel, as they have moved mostly towards an online network and disbanded the aspect of living communally in one or a few houses. The infliction of abuse upon a multitude of people went unchecked for a concerningly long time. Berg never faced criminal penalties, and the group was not legally scrutinized until the 1990s, when a British court case ruled that “The Family” had become a safer environment for children, but ruled that they must officially denounce Berg’s writings.
On the outside, Berg was preaching the teachings of the Bible. Warped, extrapolated, and extremely radical teachings, but still labeled as Christianity, and thus, did not face much skepticism and criticism until he had already established a large following. This protective shield that comes from claiming affiliation with a mainstream religion is not unique to Berg’s cult.
“I think that’s just especially something to be aware of, you know, as a lot of these fairly radical right-wing Christian groups are on the ascent,” Lattin said. “There are some messianic tendencies among all these groups and among the president himself.”
A healthy wariness of groups that align themselves with the term “Christian,” but have alternative agendas, is necessary to navigate through today’s political landscape. We must persist in looking beyond the guise of motives that falsely originate from sacred and holy texts. Neither the words “Christian Nationalism” nor “Project 2025” are in the Bible. Remaining curious about what truly is at the center of these groups is essential in preventing the unhealthy growth of power, as well as protecting democracy.
Reach writer Ava Soleibe
Source: The Daily, 10. October 2025
