ISSN: 2710-4028 DOI: https://doi.org/10.54208/0008 119
relationships, any projected sexual associations
should have the willing consent of all parties
concerned or affected, including the approval of
leadership and permission of the Body. If this
is lacking in is going to be harmed or unduly
offended, then your action is not in love nor
according to God’s law of love!45
1
Children of God leadership (including Berg) now
had the authoritative power to significantly control
members’ sexual activities.
However, nowhere in Berg’s or Zerby’s writings
are there any discussions of the fact that children
and adolescents are incapable of freely or legally
consenting to sexual activity with an adult, especially
in the coercively controlled culture of the Children of
God. Their writings revealed a complete ignorance of
the concept of informed consent concerning sexual
conduct between adults and minors.
After David Berg died in 1994, Karen Zerby took
control of The Family along with her long-time lover,
Peter Kelly. In 1996, they experimented with a new
sexual doctrine called The Marriage of the Generations,
“which encouraged young Family adults to have sex
with Family members of their parents’ generation.
Maria [Zerby] hoped this experimentation would help
break down the barriers between the two generations.
The pilot project occurred at the Family Leadership
Summit of 1996 in Maryland. Peter [Kelly] encouraged
young Family leaders to spend time in bed with older
Family leaders.46
2
When Zerby received feedback from regional leaders
that Family members might resist the new doctrine,
she realized she needed to groom them first, using
prophecies to spiritually coerce her followers (like her
demented mentor Berg had done). So before revealing
that doctrine to them, Zerby insisted that members had
to become even more sexually active by obeying and
living the Law of Love more fully. In 1998, she wrote a
12-part series of letters entitled “Living the Lord’s Law
45 “The Devil Hates Sex.”
46 James Penn, “No Regrets,” XFamily.org, accessed January 14, 2025.
https://www.xfamily.org/index.php/No_Regrets
47 Maria (Karen Zerby), “Living the Lord’s Law of Love,” ExFamily.org.
http://www.exfamily.org/cgi-bin/pubindex.pl?3201
of Love,” which was required reading and came with
special instructions ordering the series to be read by
each Family home as a group, not individually, thus
increasing the peer pressure to conform.47
Sex With Jesus: The Loving Jesus Revelation
One year after Berg died, Karen Zerby, eager to prove
herself as The Family’s prophetess by emulating
her immoral mentor, formulated and introduced to
members a radical new sexual doctrine based on bridal
theology called the “Loving Jesus Revelation” (LJR).
Loving Jesus was a term that members of the Children
of God/Family International cult use to describe their
sexual relationship with Jesus. Leadership introduced it
in 1995, and members were exposed to it as young as 12
but more fully from 14. The Family described the Loving
Jesus teachings as a radical form of “bridal theology,”
based upon an interpretation of the Bible in which
the followers of Christ are his bride, called to love and
serve him with the fervour of a wife. They took bridal
theology further than other Christians by encouraging
members to imagine that Jesus was having sex with
them during sexual intercourse and masturbation.
This radical teaching instructs male members to
visualize themselves as women to avoid a homosexual
relationship with Jesus (male homosexuality was
an offence warranting excommunication). It also
instructed members to say “love words,” or talk dirty,
to Jesus as they have sex. Karen Zerby published a list
of sexually explicit expressions that her followers could
use during sex with Jesus.48
1
All of The Family’s public and private publications
have been available online for the past two decades on
two websites operated by former members working to
expose the abuses in that cult. Before those publications
were publicly available, Family leaders gave certain
academics studying the group access to some of them
as part of an early 1990s public relations ploy to paint
a positive portrait of the group in the face of negative
publicity. For example, James R. Lewis indicated that the
reason that Children of God leaders initially contacted
him and other “scholars of alternative religion was
that they were on the verge of ‘going public,’ and were
seeking advice on how to combat the negative publicity
and other attacks they felt certain would result from
48 Xfamily, “Loving Jesus.” https://www.xfamily.org/index.php/
Loving_Jesus
relationships, any projected sexual associations
should have the willing consent of all parties
concerned or affected, including the approval of
leadership and permission of the Body. If this
is lacking in is going to be harmed or unduly
offended, then your action is not in love nor
according to God’s law of love!45
1
Children of God leadership (including Berg) now
had the authoritative power to significantly control
members’ sexual activities.
However, nowhere in Berg’s or Zerby’s writings
are there any discussions of the fact that children
and adolescents are incapable of freely or legally
consenting to sexual activity with an adult, especially
in the coercively controlled culture of the Children of
God. Their writings revealed a complete ignorance of
the concept of informed consent concerning sexual
conduct between adults and minors.
After David Berg died in 1994, Karen Zerby took
control of The Family along with her long-time lover,
Peter Kelly. In 1996, they experimented with a new
sexual doctrine called The Marriage of the Generations,
“which encouraged young Family adults to have sex
with Family members of their parents’ generation.
Maria [Zerby] hoped this experimentation would help
break down the barriers between the two generations.
The pilot project occurred at the Family Leadership
Summit of 1996 in Maryland. Peter [Kelly] encouraged
young Family leaders to spend time in bed with older
Family leaders.46
2
When Zerby received feedback from regional leaders
that Family members might resist the new doctrine,
she realized she needed to groom them first, using
prophecies to spiritually coerce her followers (like her
demented mentor Berg had done). So before revealing
that doctrine to them, Zerby insisted that members had
to become even more sexually active by obeying and
living the Law of Love more fully. In 1998, she wrote a
12-part series of letters entitled “Living the Lord’s Law
45 “The Devil Hates Sex.”
46 James Penn, “No Regrets,” XFamily.org, accessed January 14, 2025.
https://www.xfamily.org/index.php/No_Regrets
47 Maria (Karen Zerby), “Living the Lord’s Law of Love,” ExFamily.org.
http://www.exfamily.org/cgi-bin/pubindex.pl?3201
of Love,” which was required reading and came with
special instructions ordering the series to be read by
each Family home as a group, not individually, thus
increasing the peer pressure to conform.47
Sex With Jesus: The Loving Jesus Revelation
One year after Berg died, Karen Zerby, eager to prove
herself as The Family’s prophetess by emulating
her immoral mentor, formulated and introduced to
members a radical new sexual doctrine based on bridal
theology called the “Loving Jesus Revelation” (LJR).
Loving Jesus was a term that members of the Children
of God/Family International cult use to describe their
sexual relationship with Jesus. Leadership introduced it
in 1995, and members were exposed to it as young as 12
but more fully from 14. The Family described the Loving
Jesus teachings as a radical form of “bridal theology,”
based upon an interpretation of the Bible in which
the followers of Christ are his bride, called to love and
serve him with the fervour of a wife. They took bridal
theology further than other Christians by encouraging
members to imagine that Jesus was having sex with
them during sexual intercourse and masturbation.
This radical teaching instructs male members to
visualize themselves as women to avoid a homosexual
relationship with Jesus (male homosexuality was
an offence warranting excommunication). It also
instructed members to say “love words,” or talk dirty,
to Jesus as they have sex. Karen Zerby published a list
of sexually explicit expressions that her followers could
use during sex with Jesus.48
1
All of The Family’s public and private publications
have been available online for the past two decades on
two websites operated by former members working to
expose the abuses in that cult. Before those publications
were publicly available, Family leaders gave certain
academics studying the group access to some of them
as part of an early 1990s public relations ploy to paint
a positive portrait of the group in the face of negative
publicity. For example, James R. Lewis indicated that the
reason that Children of God leaders initially contacted
him and other “scholars of alternative religion was
that they were on the verge of ‘going public,’ and were
seeking advice on how to combat the negative publicity
and other attacks they felt certain would result from
48 Xfamily, “Loving Jesus.” https://www.xfamily.org/index.php/
Loving_Jesus
