David Berg

Berg's maternal grandfather was Rev. John Lincoln Brandt (1860–1946), a Disciples of Christ minister, author, and lecturer of Muskogee, Oklahoma.[2] Brandt had a dramatic conversion in his mid-twenties and immediately entered full-time Christian service. For years he was a Methodist circuit rider. He later became a leader of the Alexander Campbell movement of the Disciples of Christ, a restoration movement that developed into the current Protestant denomination Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).[3]

Berg was born on February 18, 1919, in Oakland, California.[4] During his early years, he usually lived in or around Florida.[5] He was also the youngest of three children born to Hjalmer Emmanuel Berg and Rev. Virginia Lee Brandt; both parents were Christian evangelists.[6] His father was Swedish.[7] Berg credited his mother for influencing him the most. Although raised in a Christian home, Virginia became an atheist during her college years. However, shortly after the birth of her first child, she broke her back in an accident and spent the next five years disabled and bedridden, often hovering near death. Eventually she recovered and spent the rest of her life with her husband, Hjalmer, in active Christian service as a pastor and evangelist.

Virginia and Hjalmer were no strangers to controversy. They were expelled from the Disciples of Christ after publicly testifying of her "divine healing," which was contrary to church doctrine. They subsequently joined a new denomination, the Christian and Missionary Alliance, shortly before David Berg's birth. In later years, their missionary zeal and disdain for denominational politicking often set them at variance with the conservative faction of that church's hierarchy, causing them to work largely as independent pastors and evangelists.[8]

David Berg spent his early years traveling with his parents, who pursued their evangelical mission with a passion. In 1924, they settled in Miami, Florida, after Virginia successfully led a series of large revivals at the Miami Gospel Tabernacle. This became Berg's home for the next 14 years, while his mother and father were pastors at a number of Miami churches.[8] As is the case with many pastors and their dependents, the Berg family depended entirely on the generosity of their parishioners for their support, and often had difficulty making ends meet. This instilled in Berg a lifelong habit of frugality, which he encouraged his followers to adopt.[9]

David Berg graduated from Monterey High School in 1935 and later attended Elliott School of Business Administration.[6] Like his father, Berg became a minister in the Christian and Missionary Alliance in the late 1940s, and was placed at Valley Farms, Arizona.[5] Berg was eventually expelled from the organization for differences in teachings and for alleged sexual misconduct with a church employee.[6] In Berg's writings he claimed the expulsion was due to his support for greater racial diversity among his congregation.[6]

Fred Jordan, Berg's friend and boss, allowed Berg and his personal family to open and run a branch of his Soul Clinic in Miami, Florida as a missionary training school. After running into trouble with local authorities over his aggressive disapproval of evolution being taught as fact in public schools, Berg moved his family to Fred Jordan's Texas Soul Clinic, in Western Texas.[10]

David Berg, along with his wife and children, founded the organization known as the Teens for Christ, operating out of Light Club coffeehouse in Huntington Beach, California, in 1968.[11] While in California, after receiving strong resistance from local churches due to his followers picketing them, he took the whole group of 40–100 people "on the road." It was while they were camped in Louis and Clark Park that a news reporter first called them "The Children of God."[12][13][14]

In the mid-1970s, Berg began preparing his followers for a "revelation" he had about "Flirty Fishing" or winning important, influential men through prostitution.[15][16][17]

In 1975, after letting everyone know via one of his letters that his mistress, Maria (Karen Zerby),[18] gave birth to a so-called "Jesus baby" (as his cult called babies born within the cult), Berg changed the name to "The Family of Love" or "The Family." Eventually in 1991, this was changed to "The Family International."

Berg lived in seclusion, communicating with his followers and the public via nearly 3,000 "Mo Letters"[19] ("Mo" from his pseudonym "Moses David") that he wrote on a wide variety of subjects. These typically covered spiritual or practical subjects and were used as a way of disseminating and introducing policy and religious doctrine to his followers. Berg's letters admonished the reader to "love the sinner but hate the sin." His writings were often extreme and uncompromising in their denunciation of what he believed to be evil, such as mainstream churches, pedophilia laws, capitalism, and Jews.[20]

Berg had been in hiding since 1971 and died in November 1994 in Portugal. He was buried in Costa de Caparica, and his remains were cremated.[21]

After his death in 1994, his wife Karen Zerby (also known as Maria Berg) led The Family, and there were 6,000 adults and 3,000 children as members of The Family worldwide, in 50 countries.[21] There were investigations of The Family for child abuse and prostitution in Argentina, France, Spain, Australia, Venezuela, and Peru.[21]