Perception and Cult Non-Apologies

True for all humanity, our value system determines our perception. This means that our beliefs, our ideas about the world, what we "know," not only colors everything we see, but actually determines what we perceive.

The world as we see it inside our heads is far from a perfect image of reality, rather it is an image formed by the emotional and informational input to which we are exposed. This image becomes a filter for incoming information, interpreting it according to our belief system. (See the Confirmation Bias.) In the cult, this was terribly damaging, causing our normal to be completely manipulated into an outwardly righteous, yet inwardly vile, abnormal.

I was reminded of this when reading The Family International's response to the recent A&E Cults and Extreme Beliefs documentary on The Children of God. "As mentioned previously, the allegations and narratives that are the focus of the program date to over 30 years ago and were addressed in the mid- to late-1980s... Although the Family International has apologized on a number of occasions to former members for any hurt, real or perceived, that they may have experienced during their membership, we do not give credence to tales of institutionalized abuse told by those who seek to promote their personal agendas or causes, or for financial gain."

This is galling. The Family International seems to view the thousands of young people who were directly and deeply harmed by the practices and doctrines presented as from God by David Berg and Karen Zerby as disgruntled losers who can't move on, or whiny people hung up on the past hoping to make a quick buck on sensationalizing their childhood experiences in the cult.

Does The Family International leadership not realize that it is against media policy in the U.S. to be paid to give an interview? There was no financial gain.

Are The Family International leadership not willing to consider that maybe the reason these second generation ex-members keep on speaking out is because of the lack of closure? The lack of sincere apology? The lack of admission of guilt? The unwillingness to help make amends?

Surely The Family International leadership does not see this. To them, "All things work together for good,"* and if those second generation people who "claim" to have been abused would just accept the Lord's hand in their lives, they could "forget those things which are behind"** and move on with the Lord. 

I can see no other explanation for TFI's leadership's utter lack of compassion for the thousands of second generation ex-members who suffered educational, medical, physical, sexual, emotional, and spiritual abuse throughout their formative years, and for the hundreds who took their own lives out of despair.

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

*Romans 8:28

**Philippians 3:13

Is Japan the missionaries' graveyard?

During my years in the cult in Japan, I spent the required hours out "witnessing," which is what we called distributing TFI produced publications, and audio and audio-visual materials. In its simplest, it consisted of handing a cartoonish poster to someone and requesting a donation. The pricier materials had an inflated "suggested donation." 

Over the course of doing this, in stark contrast to my experience in Christian countries, I was often met with blank, dubious faces. 

"What is your job?" I remember being asked. 

"I'm a full-time volunteer," I would try to explain in my fragmented Japanese 

"How can you do that? What about your children? How do you provide for them?" The incredulity was palpable. 

To answer the standard cult belief, "God supplies our needs," would sound like a crazy person. I would opt for, "People give us donations to support our work."

They would leave the question, "Why would anyone give you money when you could just get a job?" unspoken, yet hanging in the air as they walked on. 

As the years passed and I eventually learned the language, I came to know devout Buddhists. If what I believed was true, these good, kind, sincere people were going to burn in hell if they didn't accept Jesus. Were they the benighted heathen that I had come to save?

Something was inherently arrogant about the exclusiveness of Christianity. To the fanatical TFI member, these lost "Systemite" (members of society at large, as opposed to the "dropped out" cult members) servants of materialism were inferior to them, the "elite army of the Lord."

It was so obviously untrue. 

Japan became my personal missionary's graveyard.

To quote Christopher Hitchens, "...religion teaches people to be extremely self-centered and conceited. It assures them that god cares for them individually, and it claims that the cosmos was created with them specifically in mind. This explains the supercilious expression on the faces of those who practice religion ostentatiously: pray excuse my modesty and humility but I happen to be busy on an errand for god.” God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Dear FGAs

I am sure, you, like me, joined the COG filled with zeal and enthusiasm. We were going to make the world a better place - to win the world for Jesus. With the best of intentions, we sacrificed, gave up everything. As the years passed, and more and more "strange truths" entered our canon, our "radical prophet" led us down paths that were harmful to ourselves, and more egregiously, to our children. But we didn't notice, so twisted was our sense of normalcy.

Today, our children are grown. Tragically, some have felt they had to take their own lives. Some struggle, not fitting in anywhere. Some have gained a measure of success. Some have been very successful.

If your children have succeeded, perhaps you're tempted to pat yourself on the back, "it's because of the way they were raised, the opportunities the 'faith life' afforded them." Maybe others realize, like myself, that if they succeeded, it was in spite of how they were raised, not because of it.

Maybe you don't want to look back at your life. "It's in the past," you think. "We should 'forget those things which are behind.'"

But, could that just be an excuse for denial? An unwillingness to face the horrible truth? A resistance to dealing with the cognitive dissonance of the truth clashing with your image of yourself as a "good person"?

How much have our decisions affected the lives of our children? Do they still suffer? How have they adjusted to the real world, after being raised in an environment where their "normal" was anything but normal? Imagine the gut-wrenching feelings of abandonment, of being used, of missing out on a normal childhood. They see their peers, and they can't help but compare their upbringing. Do they wonder how their parents - the ones they loved and admired - their first role models - could have raised them so? What can they say when someone asks them innocent questions like, "Where are you from?" or "Where did you go to school?"

Have you talked with your children about their childhoods? Have you asked them how they feel? Have you sincerely apologized to them for the abuse they suffered, whether it be physical, sexual, or psychological? Or for the neglect - educational, medical, financial or otherwise?

Or do you feel you are not to blame, because your "heart was in the right place"? "God looketh on the heart." And besides, it's all in the past? Or perhaps you and your children have put your personal histories away in a box, compartmentalized, and agreed to never open that box, never speak of it.

It's hard to face, terribly hard on the ego to admit we were part of a harmful organization. We were duped. We were exploited, as were our children. The Family was not the best place in the world to raise children. We failed our children by not protecting them. And by continued association with the group, we were complicit in the abuse others suffered.

To realize that the cause we sacrificed for, that we gave years of our lives to, was nonsense that resulted in harm to the ones we love most in the world is shattering. Horrifying. Paralyzing. It shakes us down deep in our hearts. We can lose all equilibrium.

But it must be done. It must be done for our own sake. To face reality. To learn. To grow. To mature.

And more than even for our own benefit, it must be done for our children's sake. They need parents who love them, who support them, who they know will have their back. Who are going to be honest with them. Who they can trust.

Children naturally love their parents. Imagine the difficulties they must face when talking to their parents who still cling to their own righteousness and to the righteousness of The Family.

Our children need parents who are mature, who face their mistakes, apologize, learn from them, and grow. Let's be those parents.

“The Family is the best place in the world to raise children.”

Every TFI member heard this line repeated ad nauseam, and it's a line that I find most egregious.

Who was the poster-child for Family children? Zerby's “Jesus baby” and Berg's stepson, Davidito. He was groomed from childhood for his job as one of the “End-time Witnesses” of Revelations, to work leading God's children alongside his mother. His care was set up as the example for all Family members to emulate with their own children. He was raised with strict discipline, his life documented for all, and with plentiful sexual contact by adults - because that was "normal" and "natural."

In the intervening years, his name and viewpoint changed. Now known as Ricky Rodriguez, he and his fiancée left the group in January 2001, and he explained his reasons to his mother in an email. “We cannot continue to condone or be party to what we feel is an abusive, manipulative organization that teaches false doctrine... You have devoured God's sheep, ruining people's lives by propagating false doctrines and advocating harmful practices in the name of God, and as far as I can see, show no regret or remorse.”

He could not easily get over his past. His rage against his mother and The Family grew along with the dawning realization of how much he had been exploited and abused. He fell into depression.

He stated, "There's this need that I have. It's not a want. It's a need for revenge. It's a need for justice, because I can't go on like this."

His attempts to find his mother ended in frustration. She was keeping her location secret from him. He had heard she was hiding in the Tucson area. He met with one of his former nannies and a close associate of his mother, Angela Smith, intending to force her to reveal his mother's location.

When he told her of his feelings, he was appalled at her utter lack of remorse and her sincere beliefs that she had done no wrong. He stabbed her to death.

Although like everyone else, I cannot endorse his actions. Yet, I can certainly imagine his frustration.

He called his wife and asked her to call the police because he had done something very wrong. He had killed his former nanny. Then he drove into the desert and put a bullet in his head.

His wife said of his phone call, "He said the hardest thing for him had been that as she was dying, she didn't understand what she had done wrong."

Denial to the end.

"American Heiress" and Brainwashing

American Heiress is Jeffrey Toobin's thorough recounting of Patricia Hearst's kidnapping by and involvement with the Symbionese Liberation Army - an "army" of six. Aside from the wealth and influence of her family and the powerful role that that played in her light sentencing and eventual Presidential pardons, the crux of her trial came down to whether or not she had been "brainwashed."

Did she wholeheartedly join the cause of the SLA, or was she coerced and just went along with them to keep from being killed? If the latter, as she claimed afterwards, then why did she not escape when given so many opportunities over the 19 months she was with them? She was left alone many many times. She had people that would take her in. She did not lack for money. She was not completely isolated from society. She had family that cared about her and were willing to help her.

It's hard not to conclude that she was enamored with their cause.  

After she was arrested she still held onto her revolutionary beliefs for a while, but her enthusiasm faded as the days away from the influence of the SLA grew, gradually replaced by the influence of former friends and family who were visiting her daily. With this came a change in how she viewed her past. Like the rest of humanity, she began to view her experience through the filter of her current mindset. 

Surely, she had been coerced. She had not had consensual sex with the man who had given her an obviously sentimental amulet necklace that was found in her purse when she was arrested, a year and 4 months after he had died. Sentimental? No, he had raped her - apparently, repeatedly.

Did she need to tell herself that story in order to preserve her sanity and to corroborate her claims of innocence? How could she, a "good girl" from a "good family," have committed such crimes in the name of the SLA? "Impossible," pronounced her new default narrative in protection of her ego.

Perhaps her situation echoes Stanley Milgram's conclusion. "Often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act."

Could it be, that we are all more vulnerable than we think? Given the right set of circumstances, can we be certain how we would react? 

More on Abuse

There has been attention drawn to the most egregious of abuses of minors in TFI: the sexual abuse, the depriving of education, the child labor, etc. But what of other abuses?

How do children handle being raised with no prospect of personal space? How could they develop a sense of personal control when it was virtually impossible to exert control over their environments and behavior, their lives being fully scheduled and controlled by outside sources - the arbitrary whims of their Shepherds and even more nebulously and frighteningly, almighty God?

Landmark studies conducted in the late 1970s to early 1980s by Ellen Langer and Judith Rodin on perceived control in nursing home residents showed that giving elderly people even the simplest autonomy, such as the freedom to rearrange their furniture, care for a plant in their room, etc., served to enhance their health and well-being significantly.

But isn't that a given? Did this really need to be the subject of studies?

The freedom to control our own environment to an age-appropriate degree is obviously necessary for mental, and even physical, health. Even very young children blossom when given the respect of allowing them a measure of personal control.

As well, how powerless were cult-raised children made to feel when cases of abuse that were reported went nowhere?

One case was of a prone-to-anger step-father who used to beat his son. When local Shepherds remained in denial about it, the concerned mother wrote to the leader of the country. That leader wrote back to the abuser, asking for his side of the story. He did nothing. When the mother confronted him with the letter from the big leader, his only response was to say, "Ha!"

And that was the end of Shepherd intervention. There was no follow-up at all. The abuse continued and escalated.

That was emblematic of how abuse in TFI was handled.

How could it have been otherwise? To step in and do something would have been hypocritical.

As an illustrative example: The "mate" of another country-wide leader was notorious for sneaking into the teen girls' room at night to "say goodnight" to his step-daughters. Kneeling down beside them, he would quietly demand, "Show me your breasts." Yet another big leader impregnated a 14-year-old. Too many cult-born girls were raised with such disregard for their personal boundaries.

What recourse was given to these girls? What personal control did they have? How could they not think that giving in to the whims of men was what "God" required of them?

Were they forced to seek their own, private, methods of control, resulting in anorexia or anxiety disorders, and having left the cult, eventual substance abuse?

It is a tribute to the resilience of the SGA's (Second Generation Adults) that they have grown into self-sufficient adults, with the intelligence and finesse to navigate a world in which they had little contact as children, and that, only from a twisted, paranoid viewpoint. Hats off to them.

Maltreatment in childhood is associated with a significantly increased likelihood of psychiatric disorder that endures across the lifespan. If disorders emerge they tend to be more severe and less responsive to treatment.*

*"The theory of latent vulnerability: Reconceptualizing the link between childhood maltreatment and psychiatric disorder," by Eamon J. McCrory and Essi Viding, University College London

Yielding My Will

Being "yielded" was the ideal characteristic for TFI members. Dictionary.com defines this as "inclined to give in; submissive; compliant." It took me years of being told to "surrender my will to the Lord" to attain to this goal, but I finally made it.

I think the turning point for me was when I returned (to the enormous School Home where I lived) with my fifth baby after giving birth at a little clinic. It was my birthday, and I was filled with joy to have a beautiful new baby. That joy had already been tempered when someone told me at the clinic that the District Shepherd had written to me. Although trying to push it out of mind so I could enjoy the day, I was worried.

For good reason. As soon as I was settled on my bed, new babe in arms, looking forward to introducing my children to their new baby brother, I was handed a 8-page computer printout of correction from that Shepherd. This is the Shepherd who had already put the onus on me for any marriage problems we were having by telling me I was, "not just self-righteous, but really, really, really self-righteous." That 16-page list of my sins and failings, I now see, was the straw that broke the camel's back.

If I had lacked in decisiveness and confidence before, it was nothing to how I was after that letter.

Of course, mandatory public "confession" and united prayer followed, after giving me a week or so to dwell on "what the Lord was trying to teach me." (Shades of Mao and the public confessions required during the Cultural Revolution.) Naturally, I was to do even more intensive studies of the Mo Letters and the Bible as remedy (or was it penance?) for my sins. Oh, not to forget the OHRs (Open Heart Reports), where we wrote our secret sins and daily struggles and victories for our Shepherds to muse over and decide on future dealings. These were ramped-up during times of confession, when "the Lord had his spotlight" on me.

The whole idea was to break our wills and psychologically beat us into submissive, unquestioning, even unthinking, followers. Even more so for women, who were to be obsequious, fawning "helpmeets."

See also: Learned Helplessness