Q&A 9: What about Sexual Abuse of Children?

As a mother, how could you remain in a group that allowed pedophilia? What was your reaction when the Davidito book came out?

There had been so many strange publications by that time, Mo Letters about sex and Flirty Fishing, rants and warnings of coming doom, descriptions and interpretations of Berg’s bizarre dreams, etc. When I read the Davidito book, I focused on my area of interest which was teaching children. I paid attention to how Sarah taught Davidito during his “school-time” rather than her sexual encounters with him. Those practices were far-removed from my daily life and experience, and I didn’t really think much about them. Yet in my state of mind at the time, I did not think of her sexual interactions with Davidito as abuse.

Clearly Davidito was abused sexually, so why didn’t I recognize that at the time?

To answer that, we have to look at how I became so utterly imperceptive. 

When I joined the Children of God, I was told that I was a “babe in Christ” and that I had to relearn everything from my “father in the Lord,” the End-time Prophet, David Berg. I dutifully and wholeheartedly memorized passages from the Bible and the Mo Letters, which we referred to as “the Word,” and spent hours every day reading and studying. Berg’s words and his interpretation of the Bible flowed through my mind, forging new mental pathways, creating new mental habits, and, indeed, making me a “new creature” with new thought patterns. [“If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” 1 Corinthians 5:17]

Romans 10:17 states that “faith cometh by hearing the Word of God,” or, as Daniel Kahneman wrote in Thinking: Fast and Slow, “A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth.”

I had my new “truth,” and through constant repetition I was growing more familiar with it by the day.

As well, there was no access to newspapers, television, or any outside news or information sources. Our only mental input was from cult publications, and there were many. 

We, Children of God disciples, were taught that questioning, called “doubting,” the Word was sinful. Any thoughts that we had that went contrary to what we read in the Mo Letters or the Bible were thoughts from the Devil. We were to reject them, and never voice them. (“Only believe, only believe” we used to sing.) This also ruled out any form of confrontation. If a disagreement arose, we were immediately to pray and let it go. We were to yield to our elders in the Lord. No discussion. No working things out.

Behavior that was not in line with what the Leaders felt befitted a dedicated disciple brought on severe rebukes. I was regularly scolded for not “surrendering my will to the Lord.” I was told that I was not “yielded” to the Lord, and that therefore I needed to pray desperately for Jesus to help me to yield myself fully to Him and His work. This kept me focused inwards on trying to improve my sorry spiritual state.

By the time Flirty Fishing was introduced, I had been conditioned not to question for years. Groupthink had long ago taken over, with its deterioration in mental efficiency, reality testing and moral judgments. The social norming of living in isolation with others who held the same narrow views made it so no one spoke up or dared question. The mindless conformity of cult life had been firmly settled.

Besides, questioning the sexual doctrines of the group would have meant not only that I was a disloyal doubter, but that I was selfish, and not willing to sacrifice and give of myself for others, cutting into the very foundation of my mental image of myself as a self-sacrificing Christian. This attitude held sway within cult Homes.

How did it come to that?

Mental pathways that are continually used are strengthened, like my recall of verses memorized and unquestioning acceptance of the Mo Letters. These had become intuitive because of years of mental programming. Likewise, mental pathways that are not used become atrophied. I had not thought critically about anything in years — maybe never — having gotten involved with the COG when I was 16, long before my brain was fully developed. Thinking critically and questioning were beyond my mental capacities.

As well, my mind was busy everyday with the needs in front of me: taking care of the educational, emotional, and physical needs of the children in my care; fighting the jealousy that went hand-in-hand with the scheduled free-sex in the cult; reading the Mo Letters and the Bible; trying to “surrender my will to the Lord;” and whatever else I was called upon to do. My mental bandwidth was fully occupied, with no space left over to sin by questioning.

Because of the systematic restriction of critical thinking, the mindlessness of group conformity, and the control of information, the cult’s own skewed morality became the accepted and practiced norm. And in that alternate reality, we did not see abuse as abuse. Berg said, "Anything that is done in love is perfectly lawful in God's eyes." If an action was deemed loving, it wasn't abusive. 

How widespread was the sexual abuse of children?

I did not see sexual abuse of children in the cult. Some areas were clearly worse than others, and I was lucky enough to be in a relatively safe place. I realize that sexual abuse would have taken place behind closed doors, yet I was unaware of it happening in Homes where I lived (although I have heard stories years later about incidents with certain adult men). There were videos of girls dancing in sarongs that came from Music with Meaning in Greece, but I saw that in the naive light of little girls having fun. I had no concept of grooming and no idea that people would harm the girls. I believed in my childish immaturity that we were all “good Christians.” I was so trusting and blind that I never would have dreamed that there were sexual predators in the group. 

(Update: I remember now that there was a teenage boy who was reported to have forced young girls to perform sexual acts on him. This was around 1991. I found out about this after he moved away from our Home, and I reported him to the national leaders who lived at the Home where the boy had moved. I have no idea what happened after that.)

In retrospect, I think it's possible that some adults who abused children were not predators per se, but rather thought that what they were doing was actually "loving" and in accord with Berg's "godly" teachings. What a travesty!

This attitude was demonstrated by Angela Smith in her reaction to Ricky Rodriguez when he confronted her about his childhood abuse. Ricky's wife recalled his phone call with her before his suicide, "He said the hardest thing for him had been that as she was dying, she didn't understand what she had done wrong."

I have been horrified by stories I have heard from ex-SGAs (those who were born in the group) of the sexual abuse they suffered. This is one of the points that have caused me the most pain and guilt. I am sincerely sorry for my blindness in not seeing what could — and did — happen as a result of Berg’s twisted and perverse doctrines.