Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2003, Page 41
lists of contacts and links to other web sites TRGPN activities include:
TRGPN activities include:
exchanging fliers with pictures of one another‘s children
―searching‖ for JRG members
―sure shot,‖ photos and information about JRG members on 4‖ x 6‖ cards
surprise visits with JRG members by their families (and no kidnapping!)
an e-mail network
many media interviews
publication of From Dean‘s List to Dumpsters: Why I left Harvard to join a Cult
an annual conference
The TRGPN mailing list now includes 75 individuals representing 49 families in 24 states, as
well as 45 former members of the JRG and four expert consultants. We have information on
38 members of the JRG whose families are known and 44 other members, about whom we
have some information, for a total of 82 members of the JRG that we know about.
Since 1996, we can document over 50 members who have left the JRG.
Part IV: Ideological Totalism in the Jim Roberts Group (Joseph P. Szimhart)
In this section I try to show that the JRG has destructive cultic features and behaves like
groups that operate as eccentric ideological social movements, many of whose former
members testify to various forms of abuse. My information comes from several sources. I
have initiated many personal interviews with active members of the group and interviewed
20 or more ex-members since 1986. I have also interacted with dozens of concerned
persons from families of group members and conducted several interventions to assist
group members or fringe members to reevaluate the group. Extensive reading of nearly all
the significant literature about the group bolsters my view. The latter includes the book,
From Deans List to Dumpsters: Why I left Harvard to Join a Cult, by ex-member Jim Guerra
(2000) and the unpublished, 300-page manuscript, Free Lunch, by former member Jim
Robinson, who broke with the group after participating from 1985 through 1986. Guerra
was in the group from 1976 to 1986. I have gotten to know both authors personally.
Though they did not know one another while members, it is not unusual for even long-term
members of the group to be unaware of who ―belongs,‖ despite the group‘s relatively small
size, which fluctuated from fifty to two hundred members.
Several features stand out when I reflect on the movement formed around the teachings of
Jim Roberts, a Bible-based group known as ―the Brethren‖ or ―garbage eaters‖ to outsiders.
Members rarely call themselves anything but ―the brothers and the sisters,‖ yet they regard
themselves as perhaps the only true vanguard of the Gospel on the planet.
Feature one is the appearance of the members, who wear drab colored clothes. The women
wear their hair and dresses long, and they cover their hair with a scarf or shawl. The men
sport long beards with relatively short haircuts and are distinguished by a kind of tunic or
long shirt. Their intent is to appear modest. In general the group has been nomadic for the
past 25 years, often living and moving in small cells around the United States. The leader,
Jim Roberts (also known as Brother Evangelist), founded the sect in the early 1970s as an
end-times ministry dedicated to living and spreading a primitive form of Christian life.
Roberts first established the group as a moving commune of sorts, but negative publicity
after an accident caused a death in the late 1970s led him to break the group into cells. He
governed the members by connecting with sub-leaders (leaders are always ―brothers‖ as he
lists of contacts and links to other web sites TRGPN activities include:
TRGPN activities include:
exchanging fliers with pictures of one another‘s children
―searching‖ for JRG members
―sure shot,‖ photos and information about JRG members on 4‖ x 6‖ cards
surprise visits with JRG members by their families (and no kidnapping!)
an e-mail network
many media interviews
publication of From Dean‘s List to Dumpsters: Why I left Harvard to join a Cult
an annual conference
The TRGPN mailing list now includes 75 individuals representing 49 families in 24 states, as
well as 45 former members of the JRG and four expert consultants. We have information on
38 members of the JRG whose families are known and 44 other members, about whom we
have some information, for a total of 82 members of the JRG that we know about.
Since 1996, we can document over 50 members who have left the JRG.
Part IV: Ideological Totalism in the Jim Roberts Group (Joseph P. Szimhart)
In this section I try to show that the JRG has destructive cultic features and behaves like
groups that operate as eccentric ideological social movements, many of whose former
members testify to various forms of abuse. My information comes from several sources. I
have initiated many personal interviews with active members of the group and interviewed
20 or more ex-members since 1986. I have also interacted with dozens of concerned
persons from families of group members and conducted several interventions to assist
group members or fringe members to reevaluate the group. Extensive reading of nearly all
the significant literature about the group bolsters my view. The latter includes the book,
From Deans List to Dumpsters: Why I left Harvard to Join a Cult, by ex-member Jim Guerra
(2000) and the unpublished, 300-page manuscript, Free Lunch, by former member Jim
Robinson, who broke with the group after participating from 1985 through 1986. Guerra
was in the group from 1976 to 1986. I have gotten to know both authors personally.
Though they did not know one another while members, it is not unusual for even long-term
members of the group to be unaware of who ―belongs,‖ despite the group‘s relatively small
size, which fluctuated from fifty to two hundred members.
Several features stand out when I reflect on the movement formed around the teachings of
Jim Roberts, a Bible-based group known as ―the Brethren‖ or ―garbage eaters‖ to outsiders.
Members rarely call themselves anything but ―the brothers and the sisters,‖ yet they regard
themselves as perhaps the only true vanguard of the Gospel on the planet.
Feature one is the appearance of the members, who wear drab colored clothes. The women
wear their hair and dresses long, and they cover their hair with a scarf or shawl. The men
sport long beards with relatively short haircuts and are distinguished by a kind of tunic or
long shirt. Their intent is to appear modest. In general the group has been nomadic for the
past 25 years, often living and moving in small cells around the United States. The leader,
Jim Roberts (also known as Brother Evangelist), founded the sect in the early 1970s as an
end-times ministry dedicated to living and spreading a primitive form of Christian life.
Roberts first established the group as a moving commune of sorts, but negative publicity
after an accident caused a death in the late 1970s led him to break the group into cells. He
governed the members by connecting with sub-leaders (leaders are always ―brothers‖ as he
