David Berg’s Perversion of Biblical Bridal Theology in the Children of God /The Family

In this article, I examine the religious concept of mystical marriage between God and believers in the context of biblical bridal theology. I discuss its scriptural basis in the Old and New Testaments and their doctrinal disputes. I then describe how David Berg, the self-declared end-time prophet and founder of the notorious Children of God, twisted those scriptures to formulate his perverted version of Christian bridal theology. I present the chronology of sexual doctrines in the Children of God, later known as The Family. I show how Berg gradually began to groom his followers to accept extra-biblical sexual doctrines that led to total sexual permissiveness based on his antinomian belief that Christians were no longer bound by Mosaic or secular laws governing certain sexual relationships. Those doctrines led to the widespread break-up of marriages and families and the sexual exploitation and abuse of women and children. I end with a discussion of how difficult it is for religious trauma survivors to find therapists knowledgeable about spiritual abuse and indicate that Christian-related abuse, as occurred in the Children of God, has significant similarities with forms of domestic abuse.