Brief Family Explanation

If you have stumbled on this site from somewhere in netspace, a brief word of explanation. The Family is a new religious movement founded in America in the late 1960’s. It has been known as ‘The Family’, ‘The Family International’, ‘The Family of Love’, ‘The Children of God’ and other names. While it purports to be a Christian movement, it has attracted a great deal of controversy due to its radical interpretation of Scripture. It is that radical interpretation that this web site examines in depth.

For more general information on the Family, you could read the entries in Wikipedia, although as Wikipedia is public domain, the entries tend to favour the most recent editor. There is a detailed history of the Family here, and an even more detailed, although unfinished history here. Both histories are hosted by exFamily.org.

A note on Family government

As an organisation, the Family walks an uneven line between autocracy and autonomy. An autocracy is defined as a system whereby ultimate authority rests with a single individual, and an autonomy is a system when individual people or groups are self-governing.

The basic unit in the Family is the ‘Home’. This is a group of Family members who actually live together. They have chosen to live with each other and have agreed to put the welfare of the Home in which they reside above their own personal desires. The Home has a degree of autonomy in that it may choose the particular ministries it engages in, it may choose its own leadership, Home members vote to accept or reject people who want to join their Home, they vote over certain financial matters, they vote over matters of discipline and punishment for infractions of the rules.

However, the autonomy each Home enjoys is severely limited in that all Home decisions must fall within the boundaries set for it by the Family’s Charter, and should be aligned with the directions given by the latest internal Family publications. The Family’s Charter of rights and responsibilities outlines numerous rules and guidelines governing almost every aspect of daily, weekly, monthly and yearly life in a Home, and any person who wishes to join a Home must agree to abide by and uphold these regulations, as well as any Home-specific rules that the Home members choose to put into place. The internal Family publications give detailed instructions regarding spiritual and practical matters, on almost every topic conceivable.

Therefore, although a Home may choose its own ministries, those ministries should fall within those approved by the Family’s administration, ‘World Services’ (WS’). Although a Home may choose its own leadership, those Home leaders are subservient to area leaders, who are appointed by WS. Whatever financial decisions a Home makes must agree with the financial rules as outlined in the Charter. For example, a Home may decide whether or not to purchase a new computer, but they may not decide whether or not to send their tithe money to WS on a particular month, or how much to send, as that is a mandatory requirement detailed in the Charter.

Ultimate authority in the Family, therefore, lies at the top. The founder of the Family, David Berg (known to current members as ‘Dad’ or ‘Grandpa’) instituted the autocratic nature of Family government. After his death in 1994, full authority passed to Karen Zerby (known to current members as ‘Maria’ or ‘Mama’). In the event of her death, leadership will pass on to those designated by the Family’s Charter. There are numerous details about such a transfer of power.

A condition to Family membership is obedience to leadership. Any person who wishes to continue as a Family member agrees to obey his or her leaders, whether they are the leaders of the Home in which he or she resides, the leaders of his or her area or country, the corporate authority of WS, or the person at the top (Maria/ Zerby).

A point of clarification is necessary here. As stated in the introduction to this site, it is not the purpose of the authors to attack any Family member personally, including past or current leadership. This site does not and will not contain testimonies denigrating the founder of the Family or anyone else. Information regarding Family individuals is available on other sites, and there are some links posted here. There is a detailed article on Wikipedia, although it must be qualified by the knowledge that as public domain, the article may be edited by anyone who wishes to add their own bias, whether positive or negative.

This site does not address the issues of politics, power and control. It does not examine the balance between autocracy and autonomy found in the Family, or analyse the degree of dominance that leadership exerts over members. It does, however, look at the biblical foundation for the autocratic nature of the Family, including the principles of obedience to leadership.

About this site

This site does not as yet provide extensive information about the Family, its history, founder, current leadership, methods, or even explanations of its doctrines. The authors of the pages published here have written with the assumption that the general readership will be those who are familiar to some degree with Family beliefs, practices and lifestyle. Most will have spent or are considering spending time as a Family member.

This site will not be used as a means of launching personal attacks against any current or former Family member. The focus will be exclusively on the truth or error contained within Family doctrines, when measured against the Word of God in the Bible.

This site is not intended and will not attempt to be a general catechism for believers. It will not give you a well-rounded grounding in Christianity, because its purpose is to investigate specific Family doctrines and interpretations to see ‘whether these things be so’ (Acts 17:11). Therefore if you are a new believer, this site will not suffice for your general walk with the Lord. Indeed, no matter how long you have been a Christian, it is your responsibility to gain a thorough understanding of the Bible, and this site will not accomplish that goal. However, if you are interested in the scriptural backing behind various Family doctrines, or if you wish to understand how Family members interpret the Bible, this site may be of great assistance.

Home