Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2006, Page 20
The Children of God/The Family: A Discussion of Recent
Research (1998-2005)
Susan Raine
Abstract
The Children of God/The Family has provoked much debate and discussion
among scholars over many years. These debates have centered upon
numerous issues including sexual sharing, Flirty Fishing (FFing), adult-child
sex, childcare, education, and discipline. The academic polarization of
perspectives on these topics has been persistent and has not well served
newer researchers. The purpose of this article is to provide an examination of
contemporary literature on COG/The Family that scholars and ex-members
have produced since 1998. I take a holistic approach to the research and
attempt to bring together the findings to produce a more complete picture of
COG/The Family‘s history and current manifestation. As a result, I address
some of the specific divisive issues that pervade approaches to this NRM.
Additionally, I provide a summary of some of the concordant and discordant
research findings.
In January 2005, Ricky Rodriguez killed Angela Smith, who until recently was the executive
secretary to Rodriguez's mother, Karen Zerby (Maria), the spiritual leader of The Family
International. Rodriguez then drove to the California border town of Blythe, where he killed
himself with a single shot from a semiautomatic handgun (Goodstein, 2005). The murder-
suicide propelled the Children of God/The Family back into the spotlight and ignited a new
wave of popular media attention.1 Although popular media coverage of the group tends to
appear only during periods of intense controversy, academic scholarship on this new
religious movement (NRM) has been continuous over the years.
The Children of God/The Family (COG/The Family hereafter) has engendered many debates
among scholars. Some of these debates have centered upon Rodriguez (known as Davidito
in the group) and whether one of the group‘s publications about him (The Story of Davidito)
sanctioned adult-child sex. Sexual sharing, Flirty Fishing (FFing),2 childcare, education, and
discipline have all been subject to academic scrutiny, as well. The academic polarization of
perspectives on these topics has been persistent and has not well served newer
researchers. Navigating the divergent perspectives sometimes leaves one frustrated
because it is difficult to find an approach that fairly and fully discusses both the positive and
negative aspects of this enduring movement. Hence, one faces the arduous task of trying to
reconcile what at times are exceedingly disparate research findings.
With these difficulties in mind, the purpose of this article is to provide an examination of
contemporary literature on COG/The Family that scholars and ex-members have produced
since 1998.3 I take a holistic approach to the research and attempt to bring together the
findings to produce a more complete picture of COG/The Family‘s history and current
manifestation. In this way, I address some of the specific divisive issues that pervade
approaches to this NRM.
Discussing each work by its publication format, I begin with an analysis of recent books,
followed by book chapters and, finally, academic journal articles. James D. Chancellor‘s Life
in the Family: An Oral History of the Children of God (2000) traces the development of the

Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2006, Page 21
movement from its inception to its status into the late 1990s. Because of the book‘s
comparative comprehensiveness, I devote more discussion to his work than to others. Next
is the autobiographical account of former member (and now sociologist) Miriam Williams
(now ―Williams Boeri‖). Her book Heaven‟s Harlots: My Fifteen Years in a Sex Cult (1998)
traces her own personal history with the group from her initial years as a young idealist
through her sometimes happy and at other times painful experiences as an active member
of the group. Third, William Sims Bainbridge‘s The Endtime Family: Children of God (2002)
analyses the group using primarily survey data as a means to compare attitudes and beliefs
of contemporary COG/The Family members with those of the general American population.
The final book under consideration is J. Gordon Melton‘s The Children of God: The Family
(2004). This publication is the most recent of contemporary books on the group. In it,
Melton provides a concise history of the group and includes some excellent old and more
up-to-date photographs of the movement‘s leaders and disciples.
Stephen Kent dedicates a subsection of one chapter of his book From Slogans to Mantras:
Social Protest and Religious Conversion in the Late Vietnam War Era (2001) to COG/The
Family. Kent explores the group‘s emergence and early development in the context of the
political climate of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Miriam Williams Borei‘s contribution to
Christel Manning and Phil Zuckerman‘s edited volume, Sex &Religion (2005), begins with a
discussion of COG/The Family within the context of the historical tradition of communes and
utopian communities. She then explores the sexual socialization process that produced the
sexual norms of the movement. Using a linguistic analysis, Annabelle Mooney addresses the
emotionally laden language and the specific structure of the Mo Letter ―The Big Lie—
Exposed!‖ Mooney provides a detailed discussion of this publication in her chapter, ―The
Family,‖ which is part of her book The Rhetoric of Religious Cults (2005). She examines the
specific devices that Berg used in his effort to discredit evolutionary theory while postulating
not only that Creationism reveals the truth of human life, but also that it answers those
questions that evolutionary theory cannot.
Of the four journal articles under consideration, the first that this article explores is Stephen
Kent and Deana Hall‘s (2000) discussion of the efficacy of the ―brainwashing‖ concept to
COG/The Family‘s Teen Training Programs and Victor Camps. Second is Williams Boeri‘s
(2002) ethnographic study of the everyday life experiences and self-perceptions of 15
women who have left COG/The Family. Third, Stephen Kent (2004) examines the conditions
that produced the second generation‘s discontent with, and rejection of, the movement.
Fourth, Gary Shepherd and Gordon Shepherd (2005) analyse the group‘s changing
relationship to society. The authors observe not only how the movement has revised its
organizational structure to accommodate other domains of society, but also how it has then
responded to the perceived problems and tensions that have arisen as a result of this
changed relationship.
Books
Life in the Family: An Oral History of the Children of God (2000) by James D.
Chancellor
James Chancellor‘s book often does exactly what he designed it to do—it bridges the gap
that he identified between COG/The Family literature, ex-member accounts, academic
literature that is favourable to the group, and that which is critical of it. (p. xviii)
Chancellor‘s goal then has been to produce a more inclusive account, one that discusses the
positive aspects of life in COG/The Family but that simultaneously does not shy from
probing its controversial past. Having interviewed more than 200 disciples, his book affords
current members (but not ex-members) a platform from which to express their perspectives
on life in COG/The Family.