A hilarious collection in the Album there too, ALN!

What a ghastly visage the snake, has developed over the years, courtesy of the hatred and deceit he constantly harbours within himself.....

Thank-you for your effort and the link......!!!

Pardon me, for quoting myself here, however I'm wondering if dear old "Abel" might be able to provide some ready information on Tyrannus for us....the numbers in Aust. would not have been that great...McKay always being one to "beat his own drum" as loudly as he could, to the world at large....hence:

Born 17th May 1944, Rochester New York Sate. Marries Cherry in 1964

Immigrates to Aus. 3rd May 1967 ...living in Peats Ridge initially (God knows why!). Moves to just outside Canberra,...

Residing in Queenbeyan '68 - 73 Working for the Bible Society at some point ...would have met the Children of God in Aus. over this period. The article must be an early "outreach" on his part and would thus be the start of the "eight years" of child rearing that he once remarked of to me....

Broken Hill '73 -77.....Employment with the local media (where working for "mammon" would seem to conflict with his earlier "vow of poverty" and non compliance with the "system"that he would have obviously already made as a "paid up" member of the Children of God....however I note I am dealing with the pathological deceit of hypocritical McKay).....actively promotes the COG's and publicly identifies with them....(Flirty Fishing introduced in '74, and McKay, TWO FULL YEARS later at the very minimum(?) "leaves" the COG's....more due to Cherry's intransigence than from any pangs of his own "conscience"....)

ABEL's testimony...."District Shepherd" indeed...which district I'd love to know...

[www.cifs.org.au]

Alice Springs 1977 ....again (hypocritically by the standards he applies to others, when he "denigrates" them as lacking the guts to "live by faith" aka his own glorious example) in full employment of the Aboriginal Congress.

Wollongong 1979...Church inflitration....the brief fling John McFarlane had with him! Graffiti in mass of several of the churches who had "wronged" him.

Tallangatta 1980 -82....when clearly he considers his "cult" to have "taken off"...Neville, Ross, I, Roland, Ross....and several shorter term members coming in fairly rapid succession....


In 1982, David shows me his leather bound collection of the Mo Letters, at Tallagatta....I'm wondering now, if in fact David ever in fact actually "left" the COG's....after the RNR(Reorganization Naturalization Revolution) in 1978, Able describes how he was ultimately "booted out" as it became increasingly impossible for him to tenably be true to himself and the demands that COG's made on him ....McKay of course was never "booted out" (we know he moved out and "set up shop" elsewhere...that that does not necessarily mean that he disassociated himself).......hence couldn't it have been possible for him to have simply described himself as "independant" yet "affiliated" family of the COG's to the new organization, the Family of Love...hence he continues to receive the newsletters....

For a period of time, Berg was uncertain about the loyalties of his followers. The dispersion of adherents made solidarity difficult to achieve. He sent out feelers in the form of surveys, and asked for help to gather his scattered flock, through a "Dear Friend or Foe" Mo Letter.
Members now received the Mo Letters mailed directly to their homes, and were encouraged to send written correspondence to Berg himself if they felt their rights or the rights of other members were being infringed upon.

[www.exfamily.org]

He remarked to me that the introduction of "Flirty Fishing" had been the "final straw"....(for Cherry as it turns out, not for McKay despite the pretence he made to me, at the time, of his "principles").....but is there any hard evidence that David actually ever abandoned membership of the Children of God/Family of Love?...he would realize that they are "bad press" and wouldn't then, of course, publicly admit that he's associated with them....and once he began acquiring a "flock" of his own...then he was in a position to "forget" the COG's (...and he NEEDED to "disown" them as he would otherwise risk being seen to being plagiarizing Berg's materials as he was doing).......but where is the hard evidence McKay ever officially abandoned membership?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2011 12:24AM by Malcolm Wesley WREST.

I read Abel's testimony, particularly the COG decision to move into proselytising in SE Asia:

'It was about this time that a new direction of the family was introduced, a push into SE Asia. We took up the challenge and went to India where we stayed for four years. During this time I had a lot of job satisfaction. We constantly performed in schools and colleges taught Religious Education in schools and colleges and did a lot of what I thought missionary work was all about. We were sponsored (mostly by mainstream Christians) while we were there, and much of our time was un-supervised by leaders. This meant that we were able to focus more on what we deemed important and not so much on the group’s'


What struck me is how closely Tyrannus/Davejc has followed the COG progression---despite claiming to have renounced membership. The JC's moved into India as 'missionaries' sponsored mostly by mainstream Christians also.

Malcolm, the article on Berg that you link to above, gives an even clearer picture of how closely Davejc has followed the progression of the COG with his Jesus Christians, including or sort of underground, deceptive restructuring of the colonies to avoid the bad publicity that the COG was by now garnering in the press:

[www.exfamily.org]


'Berg kept the movement on its toes, explaining to his followers that the only thing they could be certain of was continual change, and that revolution meant cyclic change.

In February 1975, Berg launched a "New Revolution" and restructured what he called "the chain" of command he had created, thereby opening up new leadership positions and the possibility of some amount of voting and elections.

Berg returned the emphasis to recruitment and personal proselytization, set limits on colony sizes, and implementing quotas which forced members to leave and "pioneer" new colonies.

With his Mo Letters established as a means of direct leadership and control in the lives of each member, Berg was now correctly confident that his followers would spread out, start up new colonies on their own, and still maintain allegiance to him and the movement.

By 1976, the group claimed to have 725 colonies in 70 countries with 4,215 full-time members, all operating under a hierarchical leadership, reporting and tithing upwards, in order to receive Mo Letters.

Sensing a change of era, with the hippie movement losing its steam after the Vietnam War, Berg ordered his members to focus more on recruiting the educated and privileged classes, and less on the dropouts of society.

As new younger converts (still attending school) were won, rather than risk additional backlashes from parents, a new category of Catacomb membership was created. Catacombers were part-time and associate members, often living at home, below legal age and unable to drop out.'



There were directives on 'Flirty Fishing' from the COG from the mid-70's, with this rationale which may explain Cherry's strange need to provide a solution for the perverse predilictions of paedophiles:



The Family describes the practice of Flirty Fishing as follows: "In the latter part of the '70s and early '80s, [David Berg], responding in part to the sexual liberality of that time period, presented the possibility of trying out a more personal and intimate form of witnessing which became known as 'Flirty Fishing' or 'FFing'. In his Letters at that time, he offered the challenging proposal that since 'God is Love' (1 John 4:8), and His Son, Jesus, is the physical manifestation and embodiment of God's Love for humanity, then we as Christian recipients of that Love are in turn responsible to be living samples to others of God's great all-encompassing Love. Taking the Apostle Paul's writings literally, that saved Christians are 'dead to the Law [of Moses]' (Romans 7:4), through faith in Jesus, [Berg] arrived at the rather shocking conclusion that Christians were therefore free through God's grace to go to great lengths to show the Love of God to others, even as far as meeting their sexual needs."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2011 08:54PM by Stoic.

[www.exfamily.org]



Another internal purging: the RNR
In January 1978, Berg restructured the movement's hierarchical system of leadership to that of centralized command hubs, and removed leaders at the top who opposed the practice of Flirty Fishing and who, according to him, had abused their authority. This shift was called the "Reorganization Nationalization Revolution" or RNR.

New definitions for colony sizes were created, allowing as few as 2 or 3 members to form a colony. New leadership couples called Visiting Servants (VS) supervised the scattered colonies, now called "homes," in their geographical area, and reported directly to Berg. In addition, King and Queen Servants (KQS), appointed representatives of Berg, ran errands and moved between geographical regions freely.


Although Berg supposedly dismissed over 300 of the movement's leaders, declaring the general dissolution of the Children of God structure, most ex-leaders remained the movement.


Homegoing II
By 1979, all members, with the exception of World Services (WS) personnel and a small group of select leadership, had been told to return home to their parents, and announce that the group had disbanded. They were advised to take on jobs, look respectable, and "invade the system," and even "invade the churches." During their furlough, they were expected to stay in touch through the mail, by leaving their contact addresses with their KQS.

"It's a whole different kettle of fish now: Our average member today is now one of a young couple with small children & some kind of a home... If you are therefore settled down in a community with a job, home & family, in some ways the community will respect you much more & say, 'Well, now you have come to your senses!'..." ("The Maturation of a Movement!--NRS 14", ML 770, Jan.5, 1979)

"...go some place else and open a totally new underground unknown selah [secret] Home that they don't know anything about, and get jobs and go to work to support yourselves in order to survive." ("Where to Now?--NRS 3" ML 749, Dec.14, 1978)

For a period of time, Berg was uncertain about the loyalties of his followers. The dispersion of adherents made solidarity difficult to achieve. He sent out feelers in the form of surveys, and asked for help to gather his scattered flock, through a "Dear Friend or Foe" Mo Letter.

Members now received the Mo Letters mailed directly to their homes, and were encouraged to send written correspondence to Berg himself if they felt their rights or the rights of other members were being infringed upon.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/13/2011 09:05PM by Stoic.

At which point did the COG introduce paedophilia?

Were the COG practicing paedophilia whilst Tyrannus led his colony, supporting and developing the movement?

Kevin McKay claims the cult were not associated with paedophilia at that point but my guess is they just hadn't been caught.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2011 04:57AM by Apollo.

According to this time-line, Berg had been practising paedophilia since the early 60's, molesting young children family members.

'Berg also began making sexual advances to his daughters Faithy and Linda (a.k.a. Deborah). At least six women, including members of his immediate family, would eventually come forward claiming that Berg molested them as children.'

It seems they went public in 1980, although the paedophilia had been an inner circle practice for some years before:


'Mass Media: Music With Meaning
In 1980, a radio program called Music With Meaning (MWM) was created and DJ'd by a member calling himself "Simon Peter," and broadcast in Sri Lanka. He was called to Greece to start a new music show together with returning prodigal musicans. Former celebrity musician Jeremy Spencer of the Fleetwood Mac, who had joined the group in 1972, was made one of its main attractions.

Members around the world were sent lo-fi cassettes of the show, and encouraged to promote them in their local radio stations. They were largely unsuccessful due to the low quality and untrendiness of the music.

Jingles plugged for listeners to join the MWM club. Those who wrote in were greeted with fan publications, including testimonies of their stars, all of whom had "found happiness through Jesus." Persistent writers were encouraged to meet up with representatives of the show, and those who were attracted to the group's message, were to be drawn into the group in stages.

MWM was franchised and a Spanish equivalent or Musica Con Vida was created, along with other language versions of the show. Berg sent his daughter Faithy to re-recruit musicians on the outskirts of the "new" Family of Love, and many of them began working on the Spanish version of MWM called Musica Con Vida.
MWM Greece—regularly scheduled orgies and pedophilia

MWM marked the groups first mass media fronting and facade. Promoting a free youth radio program about love, made by volunteers, was intended to lend respectability to the group. Unbeknown to the general public however, the MWM team based in Greece, was the location spearheading free sexual practices, such as pedophilia, orgies and partner swapping. They were officially a WS unit under direct supervision from Berg, and expected to implement Berg's teachings abut how to raise and sexualize children.'




This article also gives an explanation as to why Tyrannus carried on receiving the 'Mo' letters for so many years.
(From 1970, 'Members now went only by new biblical first names and new tribal identities', hence the monikas Tyrannus, Lebanon etc)

In 1978, there was another faked disbanding which was in fact a form of restructuring to avoid the bad PR and lawsuits. Since I cannot see Davejc tithing to anyone, such is his greed, he must have remained as at least an IRF member in order to continue receiving the Mo letters. Davejc has previously claimed that the letters continued to be sent to him as some kind of oversight--an oversight that he made no attempt to correct, in fact he used the material in the letters to run his own little colony:




'TRF vs. IRF
This period in the movement's history may have marked the height of the its democratization—members were allowed to choose their level of involvement, with little or no supervision. A democratic form of association was created—members could opt to be TRFers, send in a Tither's report Form together with 10% of their pre-tax income, to a P.O. box address in Switzerland, and receive full mailings of uncensored DO Mo Letters. Alternatively, they could choose to be IRFers, send in an Independent Report Form together with a minimal flat fee of $10 per month, and receive only DFO and GP mailings.

IRFers were considered part-timers. Members were discouraged from being IRFers through a series of Mo letters condemning their lack of obedience to God, the strongest of which was the "IRFers Beware" Mo Letter, where Berg told his followers that an IRFer who was brutally murdered, had been punished by God.'


Berg displayed more sympathy for the murderer than he did the victim or her family, accusing her of being a bad FFer, disobeying God and refusing to sacrifice her body to a man in need of sex. He refused to send her surviving family any aid, and instead used the opportunity to send a clear message: God had punished her for being an IRFer, for withholding her money from God.

By August 1980, IRF mailings were discontinued—all members had to tithe 10% or they were excommunicated.




Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2011 05:28AM by Stoic.

I can quite understand Kevin's defence of his mother. It's a natural reaction to defend ones family. He did not choose to become a McKay, he was born one and to his credit has distanced himself from his parents for a number of years now. Quite often when family members do wrong we are unable to look at things rationally and that's why we see mothers supporting the lies of their mass murdering children in jail. Even when the evidence is beyond doubt they just do not want to accept that their own flesh and blood has commited such vulgar crimes.

Dave (former ''Shepherd'' of the notorious ''Children of God'') and Cherry (former member of the notorious ''Children of God'') are not mass murderers but they are two despicable creatures who have ripped apart numerous families for the best part of three decades. As a partnership they have ''successfully'' built up an extremely dangerous and destructive cult. They have literally thousands of victims. They have offered a safe haven for paedophile's to commit some of the most vile crimes. A minimum of 19 children have been abused at the hand of the JCs cult. That figure is only what we know of, there may be numerous other child sex abuse victims.

Cherry at this point in her life seems unable to show any kind of remorse for the part she has played. She staunchly supports her maniac of a husband. She presents herself in an extremely bitter and twisted manner. You only need to look at her communications with other mothers like Mrs Johnson to see how vile and nasty she is. I quite simply have no sympathy for this woman. She is not a victim, she is a lieutenant.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2011 05:28AM by Apollo.

Since the 60's you say Stoic?

Well that blows Kevin's argument out of the water!

The second generation children of such cults are in a terrible bind, either they break completely with the group which means losing their family or they have to accept the groups teachings to some degree in order to maintain hope of some kind of contact with the parents ( and with siblings and childhood friends.)
It is a horrendous conflict for a young person--already very confused by the parental deception and betrayal that is so difficult to admit to themselves---to contemplate starting again in a new world that they have been taught to see as totally hostile, with no family support system to look to for guidance.

Its a no-win situation except for those very determined to escape and willing to deal with the hellish psychological fall-out that it usually entails.
Denial is a necessary defence mechanism.
Notwithstanding a defensive inability to admit how fully and willingly the parents were involved, I can only sympathise with anyone trying to come to terms with such a personal bind.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/14/2011 06:04AM by Stoic.