#theBITEModel

[ex-cogtfi]

This is part two of a look at the context of the word “security” in the cult.

The Family International (formerly the Children of God and the Family of Love) have spent over 50 years avoiding prosecution for their crimes, conning donors, and developing and honing strategies to handle legal attacks and combat public criticism.

They’ve worked to create a carefully curated image of a wholesome missionary group, misunderstood by the public and maligned by detractors. Through setting up charitable fronts, befriending people with influence, and coaching members to practice the doctrine of “deceivers yet true”, TFI have attempted to publicly distance themselves from policies that resulted in the physical, sexual, and emotional abuse of children. TFI has been so successful in their rebranding campaigns and coverups that they were invited to perform at the White House during the administrations of two United States presidents.

Meanwhile, TFIs internal publications show that the cult’s leadership have no remorse for the harms they have and continue to cause. Internal documents by the current leader and co-founder Karen Zerby explicitly state that the cult still believes there is nothing inherently wrong with adult-child sex and adult-child sexual interactions.

(The content of these posts has been adapted and excerpted from articles on exfamily.org, especially “The Family - Official Policy on Lying & Deception”. Underlining is consistent with the original cult publications.)

#deception #cogtfisurvivors #cultsurvivor #karenzerby #davidberg #childrenofgod #thefamilyinternational #groupthink #coercivecontrol #indoctrination #cultpropaganda #freedomofmind #theinfluencecontinuum #theBITEModel #undueinfluence #gaslighting #trauma #igotout

[ex-cogtfi]

This post outlines COG-TFI’s long, consistent, and ongoing history of denying sexual abuse, including a public denial of child sexual abuse in 1988 that they were forced to walk back in 1994 when compelled by a UK court to acknowledge that because of cult teachings and writings, more children in the cult than outside it had become victims of child sexual abuse.

The cult’s campaign of denial and coverup included brainwashing and training children to deny the abuse perpetrated against them. With cult literature and comics that children were forced to read from a young age, children were taught to be watchful of their words around non-members to avoid disclosing abuse. Internally, COG-TFI continued to defend its sexual practices and sexualization of minors, even as it declared to the world that it had completely renounced such doctrines and strived to falsely portray such abuse as a thing of the past.

Moreover, little known to the public is the 2004 publication “Renewal: Amnesty” by current COG-TFI leaders Karen Zerby and Steven Kelly that proves ongoing sexual abuse in the cult and leadership’s awareness of it. In an effort to motivate members to confess to offenses including sexual abuse against minors, Zerby and Kelly enacted a period of “amnnesty” for excommunicable offenses including what in many jurisdictions is statutory rape, and the sexual molestation of minors. This "amnesty" also allowed excommunicated sexual offenders back into the cult. The cult’s awareness of the criminality of these offenses is seen in its statement in the aforementioned 2004 publication that this amnesty “does not absolve anyone from legal ramifications of breaking laws of the country in which they live”.

(The content of these posts has been adapted and excerpted from an article on exfamily.org: “The Family - Official Policy on Lying & Deception” and references the 2004 COG-TFI publication “Renewal: Amnesty” found at pubs.xfamily.org)

#deception #cogtfisurvivors #cultsurvivor #karenzerby #davidberg #stevenkelly #childrenofgod #thefamilyinternational #groupthink #coercivecontrol #indoctrination #cultpropaganda #freedomofmind #theinfluencecontinuum #theBITEModel #undueinfluence #childsexualabuse #childabuse #gaslighting #trauma

[ex-cogtfi]

Following threats of legal investigation due to reports of sexual abuse of minors in COG-TFI, cult leaders Steve Kelly and Karen Zerby decided that children and teenagers in the cult needed to be indoctrinated to lie to protect the interests of the cult.

The infamous “Deceivers Yet True” comic was thus written, with strategies learned from military campaigns, to teach children that lying about the cult's practices and beliefs was a righteous act in God’s eyes. The comic used Scriptures and Bible stories (some of which were fabricated) to support this idea. The concepts in the “Deceivers Yet True” comic became an integral part of drills and role plays that the cult forced children to undergo in preparation for possible police raids and interaction with legal authorities, and became integral to a cult culture of incessant deception and suspicion of non-members.

(The content of these posts has been adapted and excerpted from an article on exfamily.org: “The Family - Official Policy on Lying & Deception”. The full comic referenced in these posts can be found at xfamily under “True Komix - Deceivers Yet True”. Underlining in the comic excerpts is consistent with the original publication.)

#deception #cogtfisurvivors #cultsurvivor #karenzerby #davidberg #childrenofgod #thefamilyinternational #groupthink #coercivecontrol #indoctrination #cultpropaganda #cultliterature #freedomofmind #theinfluencecontinuum #theBITEModel #undueinfluence #childabuse #gaslighting #trauma

[ex-cogtfi]

In 1992, a custody battle between a COG-TFI member and her mother over the custody of the former's child resulted in a lengthy legal investigation into the cult by Lord Justice Ward. In his judgment, he details his experience of dealing with COG-TFI members, children born into COG-TFI, and COG-TFI’s legal representatives.

Notably, he repeatedly found COG-TFI leadership and members to be obscuring the truth, twisting facts, and outright lying under oath in order to prevent the court from knowing the full extent of the cult’s practices and doctrines. Even in the face of overwhelming evidence, COG-TFI denied the sexual abuse that took place in the cult on a massive scale and the sexually explicit content it had created for its members. Lord Justice Ward found COG-TFI leaders and members to be completely untrustworthy.

(The content of these posts has been adapted and excerpted from sources on exfamily.org: “The Family - Official Policy on Lying & Deception”, “The Family - Lying Under Oath”, and “The Judgement of Lord Justice Ward”.)

#deception #cogtfisurvivors #cultsurvivor #karenzerby #davidberg #childrenofgod #thefamilyinternational #groupthink #coercivecontrol #indoctrination #cultpropaganda #freedomofmind #theinfluencecontinuum #theBITEModel #undueinfluence #childsexualabuse #childabuse #gaslighting #trauma

[ex-cogtfi]

COG-TFI founder, David Berg, orchestrated a fake disbanding of The Children of God in 1978 and rebranded the cult as The Family of Love in response to what he perceived as the increasing persecution of cults.

Berg and his followers falsely claimed that The Children of God had disbanded and ceased to exist, in the hopes that they would be able to distance themselves from the negative publicity and criminal charges that The Children of God had attracted. Meanwhile, behind closed doors, COG members continued to receive and follow Berg’s writings.

Internal publications from this period contain first hand accounts of Berg and his followers lying to authorities about their connection to The Children of God, and concealing and destroying evidence.

(The content of these slides has been adapted and excerpted from an article on exfamily.org titled “The Family - Official Policy on Lying & Deception”.)

#deception #cogtfisurvivors #cultsurvivor #karenzerby #davidberg #childrenofgod #thefamilyinternational #groupthink #coercivecontrol #indoctrination #cultpropaganda #freedomofmind #theinfluencecontinuum #theBITEModel #undueinfluence #gaslighting #trauma

[ex-cogtfi]

The Family International (formerly known as the Children of God) has been highly organized in its lies and deceit, complete with international PR boards that were formed to network for the cult, seek out local protectors and connections, and train cult members in the use of deception, coverups, and lying.

In this account, a COG-TFI survivor recounts attending a PR training session in which members were taught how to sidestep and feign ignorance when being asked about the cult’s sexual practices and beliefs.

#deception #cogtfisurvivors #cultsurvivor #karenzerby #davidberg #childrenofgod #thefamilyinternational #groupthink #coercivecontrol #indoctrination #cultpropaganda #cultliterature #freedomofmind #theinfluencecontinuum #theBITEModel #undueinfluence #gaslighting #trauma

[ex-cogtfi]

“Deceivers, yet true” is a deliberate misapplication of Scripture that is used by COG-TFI as justification for lying and deceiving to protect the interests of the cult. COG-TFI members are taught that lying is not a sin in God’s eyes if it is for the purpose of protecting the cult from negative media publicity, public scrutiny, or legal consequences.

As with all the cult's nefarious doctrines and practices, COG-TFI misuses the Bible to grant divine authority and blessing to the concealment and denial of illegal practices and crimes perpetrated against members, including against children and minors, claiming that such lying serves God’s purposes and follows a Biblical precedent. In reality, to COG-TFI, whether a lie falls into the category of “deceivers yet true” depends merely on whether the lie serves the interests of the cult or not.

(The content of these slides has been adapted and excerpted from an article on exfamily.org titled, “The Family - Official Policy on Lying & Deception”.)

#deception #cogtfisurvivors #cultsurvivor #karenzerby #davidberg #childrenofgod #thefamilyinternational #groupthink #coercivecontrol #indoctrination #cultpropaganda #freedomofmind #theinfluencecontinuum #theBITEModel #undueinfluence #gaslighting #trauma #igotout #cults

[ex-cogtfi]

(Underlining is consistent with the original publication.)

In this 1995 publication, COG-TFI co-founder and current leader Karen Zerby discusses co-leader Steven Kelly’s severe heart problems, including multiple heart attacks, and whether to seek medical advice. Zerby promotes the idea that cult members should seek God for guidance on medical matters rather than consulting a medical professional, floating the notion that God “can tell us much better than a doctor can, from whom it’s possible we’ll get a misdiagnosis anyway”. Zerby further declares that a medical diagnosis is merely a label that causes fear and thus God may not even want people knowing their diagnoses.

Zerby utilized Steven Kelly’s severe heart problems to reinforce the cult’s harmful doctrine of faith healing and of requiring clearance from God to even get a doctor’s diagnosis. For cult members, the fact of the cult’s co-leader deciding against medical care despite potentially life-threatening heart problems underscored the cult’s stance against seeking medical attention, making members even less likely to break ranks and seek medical care.

#medicalneglect #cogtfisurvivors #karenzerby #stevenkelly #childrenofgod #thefamilyinternational #religiousabuse #spiritualabuse #groupthink #coercivecontrol #medicaltreatment #freedomofmind #theinfluencecontinuum #theBITEModel #undueinfluence #cults

[ex-cogtfi]

The tragic story of Hugh J. Fowler’s (Peter Puppet’s) preventable death, as told in the previous posts, is one of many stories of the unjustifiable suffering and loss of life caused directly by David Berg and Karen Zerby’s detrimental doctrines prohibiting COG-TFI members from – and publicly condemning and shaming them for – accessing modern medicine and receiving life-saving treatment and medical care.

David Berg and Karen Zerby’s malicious public attacks on Hugh J. Fowler for his choice to undergo cancer treatment, their callous desertion of him in his time of greatest pain, and their vicious characterization of his death as being his fault and God’s punishment upon him, caused unspeakable anguish to him and his loved ones.

This video is a memorial for Hugh J. Fowler, showing how he loved his family, his passion, and his talent. Please take a moment to watch this memorial to honor the memory of a beautiful soul whose life was cruelly cut short and who suffered so much, both physically and psychologically, due to the inhumane actions of the cult’s leaders.

#medicalneglect #cogtfisurvivors #davidberg #karenzerby #childrenofgod #thefamilyinternational #religiousabuse #spiritualabuse #untimelydeath #coercivecontrol #medicalabuse #psychologicalabuse #cancertreatment #hodgkinslymphoma #freedomofmind #theinfluencecontinuum #theBITEModel #undueinfluence #memorial #cults

[ex-cogtfi]

(Underlining is consistent with the original publication.)

In this 1989 publication, the late COG-TFI cult founder and leader David Berg and the co-founder and current cult leader Karen Zerby shame a cult member for her concerns about her life-threatening high blood pressure (185 over 130, indicating a hypertensive crisis) and alarming symptoms that include right side numbness and dizziness. Although the cult member clearly states the urgency of seeking medical attention to prevent her high blood pressure from causing a stroke and expresses her fears of dying from a medical emergency, Berg and Zerby belittle her concerns as baseless fears of the Devil to be rebuked and disregarded. They also dismiss her discussion of her family health history, which includes a fatal stroke, claiming that “God doesn’t give a damn about her family history”.

Berg and Zerby frame going to doctors as a weak-minded habit of those lacking faith in God, and the cult member’s fears about her health as the likely cause of her high blood pressure, thus blaming her and making the only acceptable “treatment” prayer and religious rituals.

In responding thus to a cult member looking to them – and in the cult by extension God – for permission to seek life-saving medical care, David Berg and Karen Zerby showed a blatantly willful and irresponsible disregard of common sense and the value of human life, seriously endangering this woman’s life by effectively barring her from seeking medical care.

#medicalneglect #cogtfisurvivors #davidberg #karenzerby #childrenofgod #thefamilyinternational #religiousabuse #spiritualabuse #groupthink #coercivecontrol #medicalabuse #medicaltreatment #highbloodpressure #stroke #hypertension #cults #freedomofmind #theinfluencecontinuum #theBITEModel #undueinfluence

[ex-cogtfi]

This is a heartbreaking account from one of Peter Puppet’s (Hugh J. Fowler’s) daughters, sharing her memories of her father and what he suffered at the hands of the COG-TFI founders and leaders, David Berg and Karen Zerby (see the previous two posts, "Healing and Rewards" and "Trust God", which document the public attacks and abuse that Berg and Zerby inflicted on Peter).

In the end, after publicly humiliating, attacking, and maligning Peter, and profiting handsomely off his talents and labor via the Luvvets puppet show, the cult discarded Peter, excommunicating him to die alone. He died in physical agony, daring not to even use pain relief, and in psychological anguish and fear, believing he had angered God, without even his family by his side. The injustices and abuses that Peter suffered in the cult are heart wrenching. After his passing, Peter’s family was ordered to burn their photos of him and were told that God was punishing their family.

This unimaginable suffering, this preventable death, this generational trauma – all of this and more are the unapologetic acts of the founders and the current leader of The Family International, the “family of love” committed to “sharing the message of God’s love”.

#medicalneglect #cogtfisurvivors #davidberg #karenzerby #childrenofgod #thefamilyinternational #religiousabuse #spiritualabuse #untimelydeath #coercivecontrol #medicalabuse #cancertreatment #psychologicalabuse #hodgkinslymphoma #freedomofmind #theinfluencecontinuum #theBITEModel #undueinfluence #cults #father #losing dad

[ex-cogtfi]

(Underlining is consistent with the original publication.)

In 1983, COG-TFI cult founder David Berg and co-founder (and current leader) Karen Zerby launched a public campaign of condemnation and vilification of Peter Puppet (real name: Hugh J. Fowler). Peter was a talented artist in the cult suffering from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma; the cult continued to profit off of his labor and talent whilst viciously attacking him.

In the first of two lengthy publications castigating Peter Puppet, “Trust God!” condemns Peter for receiving cancer treatment instead of relying solely on prayer. These days, Zerby attempts to distance herself from Berg’s harmful teachings and portray her cult as a loving Christian group, but this publication documents her agreeing with, contributing to, and egging on Berg’s attacks. In fact, Zerby takes the attacks further by stating that even drinking natural juices qualifies as failure to trust God, though by this time Peter could hardly swallow. Berg and Zerby make clear that cult members should not use modern medicine even for terminal illnesses and that to do so is to resist God’s will. Berg and Zerby even callously discuss that God may intend to let Peter die and whether his would be a quick or slow death.

Berg and Zerby outrageously accuse Peter of abusing his body by receiving cancer treatment and being guilty of self-righteousness by accessing medical care. Self-righteousness was a cardinal sin in the cult and thus a devastating accusation. Peter was shamed into ceasing all treatment, resulting in devastating prolonged suffering for him and his family, causing his untimely death, and contributing to a culture of shame in the cult around seeking medical care.

#medicalneglect #cogtfisurvivors #davidberg #karenzerby #childrenofgod #thefamilyinternational #religiousabuse #spiritualabuse #untimelydeath #coercivecontrol #medicalabuse #cancertreatment #psychologicalabuse #hodgkinslymphoma #freedomofmind #theinfluencecontinuum #theBITEModel #undueinfluence #cults

[ex-cogtfi]

In this quote from a 1983 publication, the late cult founder and leader David Berg urges an expecting cult member to disregard the advice of medical professionals if they recommend a C-section delivery. He cites the anecdotal experience of unspecified cult women who had successful deliveries in disregard of medical advice to undergo C-sections.

Berg equates having a natural delivery with trusting God, making it spiritually superior to undergoing a C-section. In Berg's commentary, doctors are denigrated to money-hungry individuals whose medical recommendations are purely profit-driven. As a cult leader with coercive control and influence over thousands of members, Berg’s reckless and harmful directives had devastating consequences for the health and safety of many women and infants in COG-TFI.

#medicalneglect #cogtfisurvivors #davidberg #childrenofgod #thefamilyinternational #religiousabuse #spiritualabuse #groupthink #coercivecontrol #medicalabuse #medicaltreatment #freedomofmind #theinfluencecontinuum #theBITEModel #undueinfluence #cults

[ex-cogtfi]

In this 1977 cult publication, David Berg and Karen Zerby promote the doctrine that taking medication is against God’s purposes and will result in the withdrawal of God’s blessing from cult members’ lives. Berg condemns medicine as “unnatural and unspiritual and unscriptural”. He and Zerby frame consulting doctors and receiving medicine as an affront to God and an indication of spiritual failure. Berg and Zerby go so far as to claim that God will deliberately cause the medicine to be ineffective to prove the superiority of His power.

Berg and Zerby urge cult members to rely wholly on God and shun human interventions, including medication, even if doing so leads to death, as this purportedly allows God’s plan to be accomplished. If an illness results in death, it is God’s will and must be accepted as such. Berg and Zerby go as far as to compare taking medication to idolatry and mockingly sing a parody of the hymn “On Christ the Solid Rock”.

“If He wants to heal you, He doesn’t need any help, but if He doesn’t want to heal you, nothing would help!” – This sums up COG-TFI’s doctrine on faith healing. Members felt forced to choose between prescription medication (the pill) and the cult’s interpretation of God’s will (the pilgrimage of faith). This all-or-nothing doctrine caused extensive damage as members were unduly pressured not to seek medical care, even for chronic or severe conditions.

#medicalneglect #cogtfisurvivors #davidberg #karenzerby #childrenofgod #thefamilyinternational #medication #religiousabuse #spiritualabuse #groupthink #coercivecontrol #medicalabuse #weaponizedlanguage #thoughtstopping #theinfluencecontinuum #theBITEModel #undueinfluence #freedomofmind #cults

[ex-cogtfi]

Did you ever experience an ear infection as a child? Most of us did, in most cases it can be resolved with a simple treatment readily available in most chemists with no long-term effects. As a parent, if your child had an ear infection which became worse and caused concerning symptoms such as a high fever and bleeding it goes without saying that you’d seek medical advice and care to ensure your child is OK and monitor them for any further developments.

Due to the cult's twisted beliefs regarding medical care, this didn’t happen for little Jamie. Instead, at only four years old, she was punished and confined to a room in isolation. Following this, she suffered years of physical abuse for “not listening” as nobody noticed that she had become permanently deaf as a result of their medical neglect.

Please read and share Jamie’s story and sign our petition to bring this vile cult and its abusive leaders to justice: bit.ly/3rt5Bms

#childabuse #childneglect #medicalneglect #childrenofgod #thefamilyinternational #cogtfisurvivors #davidberg #karenzerby #highcontrolgroup #cult #igotout #theinfluencecontinuum #theBITEModel #undueinfluence #freedomofmind

[ex-cogtfi]

The 1975 publication “The Rebellious Woman” details David Berg’s condemnation of a cult mother due to her baby falling gravely ill and suffering what appeared to be epileptic fits. Berg’s declaration that the epileptic fits were attacks of the Devil and an indication of the mother’s spiritual rebellion set a precedent of blaming seizures and epileptic disorders on members’ spiritual condition – a belief which held firm in the cult for decades – and a pattern of framing children’s illnesses as the consequences of their parents’ sins or lack of closeness to God.

In his discussion, Berg betrays knowledge of the legal consequences of denying minors medical attention, as he states that he urged the baby’s parents to call a doctor to avoid being charged with medical neglect if the baby died.

Condemning parents for their children’s health conditions and indoctrinating members to falsely spiritualize physical ailments fostered deep-rooted guilt and shame around physical illnesses. Overwhelmingly, members were far more likely to focus on “rectifying” their spiritual states than seeking medical care for themselves or their children, leading to prolonged suffering, complications, and at times tragedies.

#medicalneglect #cogtfisurvivors #davidberg #childrenofgod #thefamilyinternational #epilepsy #religiousabuse #spiritualabuse #groupthink #coercivecontrol #medicalabuse #childendangerment #FreedomOfMind #cults #theinfluencecontinuum #theBITEModel #undueinfluence