|
The Children of God
The Inside Story By The Daughter Of The Founder, Moses David Berg by Deborah (Linda Berg) Davis with Bill Davis, 1984
David descended from a long line of sincere Christian men and women, some of them notable pastors and evangelists. In 1745, thirty years before the American Revolution, three brothers—Adam, Isaac, and Jacob Brandt, set sail for the Colonies from Stuttgart, Germany. They were German Jews who had accepted Christ as their personal Savior. Their orthodox Jewish family had rejected them, declared them "dead, " and buried them in mock funerals, as was the Jewish custom. So the brothers struck out for the Americas in hopes of finding a new life, and the freedom to live their Christian faith. As peace loving Mennonite farmers, they settled in Pennsylvania and later moved to Ohio. The most notable of David's ancestors, John L. Brandt, was born in Somerset, Ohio, in 1860. He began teaching at the age of seventeen, and lecturing and preaching at the age of twenty-four. He experienced a life changing dedication to Jesus Christ when he was in his early twenties, and subsequently became a minister in the Methodist Church. David's grandfather seemed to be a man destined for success. He soon gained the position of president of Virginia College, and through his writings and investments, he became a millionaire. He joined the Campbellite movement of the Disciples of Christ in his later life, becoming one of the outstanding leaders of that movement, now known as the Christian Church. He was personally responsible for building and pasturing some fifty churches, and he authored sixteen books in his lifetime. John L. Brandt's daughter, Virginia—my grandmother—was raised in an atmosphere befitting the child of a wealthy minister. She was still a child when her father grew in fame as a popular lecturer, traveling more than four hundred thousand miles through the United States, Mexico, Canada, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Pacific islands. Virginia accompanied him on many of his tours. Because of her culturally enriched background, she was a very sophisticated and learned young lady. However, her relationship to Christ and Christianity was somewhat formal, despite the intense faith of her father. By her early twenties, this life of excitement, wealth, and pleasure had left Virginia Brandt empty and disillusioned. Her discouragement was turning to despair when a crisis engulfed her world: the death of her mother. Virginia was attending a party at the home of General Winfield Scott when depression overwhelmed her.* On the brink of suicide, she remembered the counsel her father had often given others: Instead of throwing your life away, why not give it to some good cause.
She did. Virginia Brandt became the Field Secretary for the National Florence Crittenton Mission. With the inherited determination and aptitude of her dynamic father, Miss Brandt engaged all her efforts into advancing the cause of the mission and helping the lost and wayward girls of the nation. It was said of her: "She is worth her weight in gold anywhere. She did most effective personal work in the homes and on the streets, and her consecration and Christ-like spirit were imparted to all who came to know her." She became one of the mission's most industrious speakers, traveling the country, speaking on behalf of the movement, and raising vast amounts of money for the establishment of the Crittenton Homes. In 1910 Charles Crittenton described the character of my grandmother in the following letter: It is an inspiration when we have young girls in our work whom God is making a success, and I thank Him from the depth of my heart that he has raised up Virginia Lee Brandt to work in this corner of His Vineyard. It wasn't long before Hjalmer Berg dedicated his life to the ministry under the influence of his new father-in-law, and enrolled in theological seminary in Des Moines, Iowa. Hjaimer was ordained a minister in the Disciples of Christ. In 1911, while my grandfather was still studying for the ministry, Virginia Brandt Berg bore her first child, Hjalmer Jr; but as she was coming home from the hospital with her newborn infant on a cold December day, tragedy struck. My grandmother describes the experience in her book, The Hem of His Garment: My heart was simply thrilled at the thought of home, husband, Christmas! There was a deep mantle of snow on the ground, and I exclaimed at the beauty of the trees, as their snow-laden branches reached out, glistening white, in the sunshine. I had always loved Christmas better than any other day. And home! We were almost there now—just in sight of the house—how good it looked! But—how strangely God works! How swiftly, unexpectedly, tragedy can come stalking across Life's path. . . . For just in sight of the little home almost there, there was an accident. I was thrown, and my back, hitting the curbstone, was broken in two different places. . . . 6 For months, Virginia was compelled to lie perfectly still until cartilage grew over the spinal cord. The operation brought a partial restoration of life to the lower part of her body which had been paralyzed; but because of her weakened condition, she suffered a complete collapse, and did not recover from the effects of the operation for several months. Then followed five years of invalidism. Her husband, Hjalmer, testifies in the same book, I walked that floor, it seemed, the happiest woman in the world. The burden of sickness, sorrow, and sin had all been lifted from my life! I had not only been born again spiritually, but I felt I had been made again physically.8 This is the story I was told all my life. As a result of her healing, my grandmother and grandfather eventually broke with the Disciples of Christ, because the church did not believe in faith healing or in women preachers. This also caused a serious rift in her relationship with her father; thereafter there was very little communication between them. Mr. and Mrs. Berg began working on their own as itinerant evangelists, giving the testimony of grandmother's miraculous healing and encouraging church congregations that God could do the same in their lives. In March 1925, the Bergs arrived in Miami, Florida. A year later, the newspaper headlines proclaimed: "FAITH—WOMAN—BUILDS CHURCH FOR ALLIANCE: Rev. Virginia Brandt Berg Credited With Tabernacle Success.". The article reads: The "power behind the throne"—Mrs. Virginia Brandt Berg—is the daughter of the Rev. John L. Brandt, preacher, author, and lecturer of Muskogee, Okla. She comes from a family of preachers, and is rearing another family of preachers. Mrs. Berg is the mother of two boys and one girl. The older boy is already studying in the Alliance Bible college at Toccoa Falls, Ga. Little David has preached at the tabernacle several times, and will enter the ministry as soon as he is old enough. The girl will follow in her mother's footsteps. . . . She married the Rev. H. E. Berg, who was active in the work of the Christian Church in Texas and Oklahoma. Then the case of Paul and Barnabas was repeated. Mr. Berg stepped back and let Mrs. Berg do the preaching. Now she is pastor, and Mr. Berg is her associate and director of Bible study. With a dying rustle of musical scores and instruments, an orchestra at her side composes itself to hear and not be heard. A discreet cough is stifled as the woman on the platform raises her hand: "The title of my sermon tonight will be 'From Deathbed to Pulpit.' " Older members of the church never tire of hearing it; new members come by the hundred to hear this exposition on the faith of a woman in the healing power of the Lord—a faith which often packs her tabernacle seating some 7,000, with followers. "Though not affiliated with any other church in the country, the tabernacle follows the religious principles of the Christian Missionary Alliance. Eventually, Virginia lost her place at the Tabernacle through a series of events that remain unclear. During the Depression, the Tabernacle was unable to meet its financial obligations, my grandmother was forced out, and leadership was assumed by someone else. She went on to start another church in Miami known as the Central Alliance Church of the Open Door; she went on from that church to become an itinerant evangelist full-time, lecturing, preaching, and holding revivals in churches throughout the United States. This is the environment in which David Berg grew up, along with his older brother and sister, Hjalmer Jr. and Virginia. My father was born on February 18, 1919. David Berg was drafted into the army in 1941 during World War II. He was discharged, however, because of a serious heart condition. In 1944 he met my mother, Jane Miller, in Los An- 22 geles. The "Berg Evangelistic Party, " now comprising grandmother, grandfather, and David, was holding a revival meeting in the L.A. area. Jane and David met at the Little Church of Sherman Oaks, where she was working as a secretary and helping with its youth program. During the revival, they fell instantly in love. They eloped and became Mr. and Mrs. David Brandt Berg on July 22, 1944, in Glendale, California. David did not consult either his mother or his father about the marriage; nor did Jane send word to her family asking permission or even seeking counsel. This was not in keeping with the character of her warm and loving Kentucky family. Raised in a fine Christian home of Baptist background, one simply did not get married without the approval of family. Failing to inform Jane's parents of the marriage plans was but one early sign of David Berg's rejection of authority that can be traced through his entire adult life. After his marriage, David continued to travel and work with his mother in her evangelistic ministry. He had two children by the time he finally stopped touring with his mother to become the pastor of a Christian Missionary Alliance church in Valley Farms, Arizona. He served there from 1949 to 1951. My dad built this, his first church, with his own hands. The building was constructed of old adobe blocks transported from nearby ruins. One of my first childhood memories is of riding atop those blocks in an old flatbed trailer. Valley Farms was a turning point in my dad's life, because it was there that he began to develop a deep-seated bitterness and hatred toward the established church. This hatred of the church system would later become one of the foundation doctrines of the Children of God. Dad was expelled from the very church he had built himself. There are two conflicting stories. My father's version is that he was endeavoring to witness to the Indians who populated a nearby reservation: "I would invite the dirty, barefooted Indians to the church service on Sunday and the 'white' members resented it. They were racist hypocrites! So they kicked me out." Another version concerns a sexual scandal in which he was allegedly involved. Until recently, I discounted rumors of this as hearsay. However, a cousin has told me that my dad sent a tape recording to his parents in California at the time of his dismissal. In the tape he categorically denied the charge of sexual misconduct and bitterly defended his position, calling the accusation a lie. Who knows the truth, except my father? My dad was always trying to be radical in his Christianity; this would explain why he would bring "dirty, barefooted Indians" into his church to which a white, prejudiced congregation would take offense. On the other hand, knowing my dad's sexual weakness, I believe there could certainly have been a scandal. Whatever the case, the event gave birth to a bitterness that grew into a deviant, consuming hatred of the established church. David wrote a letter to his mother on May 31, 1951, describing his departure from the Alliance and the "church system." It reads: The Lord finally answered me this time that He could tell me more that I needed to know in five minutes than if I spent the rest of my life trying to gain information through books and magazines! I believe He has also revealed to me that I'll never have the fellowship, inspiration, and power that I need if I stay in the Alliance—even if I have to go to work and earn a living some other way!—That may be a shock to you, but I believe it's true. I felt like a compromiser when I went into the Alliance back there when I applied... to get Valley Farms, but I knew I couldn't get a church in the Assemblies (Assembly of God Church) with the little I have—so I went back to the Alliance. It seems the Lord is showing me that belonging to anything other than the Lord Himself is too binding, too hindering, too man-made. It obligates you too much to the dictates of man rather than God. When you follow God instead of man, they kick 24 you out anyhow, so you might as well not stay in or get in. Praise the Lord! I can't tell you how wonderful it has been to be out from under that bondage at Valley Farms, even as light as it was there!—Free to do and go as we please, and witness as we choose, where we choose, without any fear of having to be obligated to anybody—not even ourselves—no one but the Lord! Evidently, I was never cut out to be a kowtowing, hypocritical, beating-around-the-bush, please-everybody pastor! I guess I'm really an evangelist or missionary at heart! I just can't stand sticking with the same little bunch, and trying to promote the same little fold—and the same hidebound hierarchy—and be compelled to string along with them on any deal because the society can do no wrong! I just can't stomach it! This attitude pervades my father's life from his childhood. It started a long time ago. When he was a little boy, my grandmother idolized him and treated him as if he could do no wrong. He was never brought under authority nor taught the strength of character to admit a wrong, accept guilt, ask forgiveness, and go on, strengthened through the humility of telling the truth. My father developed a persecution complex that persists to this day: "Everyone is misjudging me: no one understands me; I'm so mistreated and no one recognizes my true genius." My dad never learned the concept of true greatness. His self-image has been weakened through the deceitfulness of sin; consequently, he believes greatness is measured in how one stands on the scale of success, how well one competes in the arena of numbers, followers, statistics, and publicity. He has yet to learn that true greatness lies in the integrity of your heart, in the ability to be honest with yourself—to be willing to face your mistakes as your mistakes, not blaming personal failures on other people. Throughout his writings, my dad consistently blames others for his failings. In his inability to look at himself honestly and objectively, my dad never matured beyond adolescence. During his "communist sabbatical", my dad taught in junior high school for several years. At that time he also attended a three-month "personal witnessing course" at the American Soul Clinic; an organization directed by a man named Fred Jordan. The Soul Clinic's purpose was to train missionaries for the foreign field. This encounter was the beginning of a relationship between my dad and Fred Jordan that would last for fifteen years. From about 1952 to 1967, my dad was promoting Fred's TV program, "Church in the Home." (Fred Jordan can still be viewed on television in Los Angeles.) My dad and Fred seemed to have a good working relationship. Dad learned many business tactics from Fred Jordan, not all of them good. Dad developed the philosophy that it is okay to present facts in any way which will produce positive results, because "we are, don't forget, doing a good work for the Lord." Fred Jordan was second only to my grandmother as the major influence on my dad's life and character. My uncle recently said of my dad, "He was a man who would never be under authority. He always resisted authority." Dad had struck a happy medium with Fred, who himself was under no authority. After this fifteen-year working relationship, Fred dissolved my father's job, no longer needing his services. Without work, my dad drifted about the U.S., evangelizing with three of his children, now in their teens. I had married in 1963, at age seventeen, so I was not traveling with the rest of the family. Dad's team developed a rather effective system of witnessing to young people. It was so effective that three teenagers contacted in their ministry came to live and work with them full-time. All three are with Dad's work to this day; one of them, Arnold Dietrich, married my sister. After spending a little more than a year in this evangelism, Dad and his team traveled west to work with his mother, at her invitation, in Huntington Beach, California. Meanwhile, Dad had secured a job for my husband in Fred Jordan's central office in Los Angeles, where we had moved in 1964. Thus, our whole family was living in the L.A. area by Christmas 1967; and when Dad joined my grandmother's ministry, he persuaded me to come along too. My grandmother had developed a small seaside ministry, feeding sandwiches to the hippies and surfers gathered on the famous Huntington Beach Pier. In the late sixties, Huntington Beach was to Southern California what Haight-Ashbury was to the San Francisco area: the Counterculture pitted against the Establishment. There were long hair, drugs, surfing, sun, free love, free speech, free everything—and my grandmother added the missing ingredient: free peanut butter sandwiches. To this group of "unloved and unwanted" hippies and society dropouts, my grandmother devoted her last days. She purchased an electric cart to rove the streets of Huntington Beach, for much walking was too strenuous for a woman her age. She became quite a welcome figure to the hungry hippies. They loved her and she loved them. Throughout my grandmother's career as an evangelist, she was the center of attraction; especially in the days of the Miami Tabernacle, which was carried to the heights of glory on the wings of her miraculous healing. Yet with all the talk of miracles and power of the Holy Spirit, there seemed to be some profound inconsistencies in her life. These were most evident in her relationship with her husband and in the lives of her children. There is a striking ambiguity in the past glories and present tragedies of the Brandt-Berg family. A distinct imbalance developed in the family structure of Virgina Brandt Berg. Due to her domineering personality and great notoriety, her husband was slowly pushed into the background. As time went on, this relationship solidified into a matriarchal family. Hjalmer Jr., their oldest son, rejected his Christian upbringing and became agnostic as a young adult. Virginia, her only daughter, ran away from home and eloped at age sixteen. Both of their marriages ended in divorce. And then there was David; her youngest; her pride and joy over whom it had been prophesied—she wrote—that he had been "filled with the Holy Ghost since his mother's womb." It was her lifelong dream that one of her children would follow in the footsteps of her famous father, John L. Brandt, continuing the line of great preachers. She had fully hoped that little David would fulfill this vision. But by 1967, the possibility of fulfilling that dream had vanished. Her son David was, at age forty-nine, a complete failure by all social standards. He had no job and an incomplete education, had been expelled from his only pastorate in Valley Farms, and was—unbeknown to her—bound in the chains of lust and immorality. When I first encountered my father's problem of immorality at age seven, in his attempts at incest, I was too young to understand his motives. Rather, I was confused and frightened by his actions; yet my emotions told me he was trying to do something very wrong and evil. From that time on, I was terrified of being left alone with him. At age twelve, I was more consciously aware of the "strangeness of his actions," but I still had no understanding of what he was attempting. I determinedly resisted, threatening to jump out the window if he touched me. He tried to explain that he wanted me to fulfill special needs that my mother didn't completely meet. Unlike twelve-year-olds today, I was totally naive about sex; and it wasn't until I was married that I realized what his intentions had been. This was not the case with my younger sister, Faithy. In 1982, it was revealed to all the members of the COG (not just the Berg family) the facts of her incestuous relationship with Dad. During his years with Fred Jordan, Dad traveled around the country in a motor home promoting Fred's TV show. Faithy frequently trav- 28 eled with him. Unlike me, she did not resist him. I entertained the thought on several occasions when I was a teenager, "Could Dad be doing with Faithy what he tried with me?"; but he was my father; and I reasoned, "No, surely not."; yet the thought lingered in the back of my mind. Even in the mind of a child, the untutored conscience is never silent. Evil is not a "psychological development," and the difference between right and wrong is not learned only through courses in a theological seminary. When I was only seven, my conscience spoke loudly and clearly against the father whom I cherished. Right and wrong can be known through the spirit, and evil is resisted in the spirit; even by a seven year old child. My father has also revealed through his Mo Letters, that he was in no wise faithful to my mother in the years before Huntington Beach. Much of his adultery involved people living in our home, such as housekeepers, live-ins, and governesses."How did your mother put up with it?" people ask me. My father drew upon the philosophy of "exceptions." He looked to the Bible for cases that would apparently justify his actions and give him grounds for sexual liberty, such as the lives of Solomon, David, and Abraham—all men who had more than one wife. He interpreted these as God's exceptions for His special people, prophets, and anointed leaders. Since my mother couldn't completely satisfy his needs, an exception would have to be made. My mother was forced to accept this argumentation. Dad was a very persuasive man, and she had no choice but to receive his spiritual and theological reasonings. If she resisted such counsel, she felt she would be resisting the very counsel of God. It is this kind of evil genius that enabled my father to engineer a multinational cult. It is said that "a man's morality will dictate his theology." This was certainly true in my father's life. His "needs" amounted to lust, nothing more. My mother and father had a perfectly normal marriage relationship, and he had no "need" for extramarital involvement. This, then, was the scene as the remnants of the Berg Evangelistic Party gathered in Huntington Beach in 1967. But what was wrong? What was the cause of these family problems and disturbing inconsistencies? Why was there such disparity between the Christianity my grandmother preached in public, and the absence of Christian fruit in her own home? Why the deep-rooted sin in my father's life? I did not learn the answers to these questions until August 1982. In 1982, certain relatives explained to me that my grandmother had not been injured in an auto accident; nor had she been paralyzed for five years. Moreover, her daughter was born during the five years of supposed invalidism. I was stunned, and actually became physically ill for several days upon hearing this news. My grandmother was the person I held most dear in my life; her ministry was the one redeeming factor in my sordid past. The revelation of this delusion was just too much for me to cope with. I learned that there had indeed been an accident in December 1911, as my grandmother reported in her book, but it did not involve an automobile. Arriving home from the hospital on that Christmas day, my grandfather was carrying his wife from the ambulance to the house. The walkway was icy; he slipped and fell; and Virginia Brandt Berg was thrown out of his arms. Her back struck the curbstone. The back was broken and required an operation. I have read many personal letters referring to the suffering the accident caused her; but that she was a bedridden invalid for five years is simply not true. From 1911 to 1917, she was quite active in church affairs, and even attended graduate school at Texas Christian University. An article written in 1913 reported the arrival of the Rev. H. E. Berg and his wife in Weatherford, Texas, to pastor the Central Christian Church two years after the accident: It was in Ukiah that Grandmother's healing was to have occurred. How "miraculous" and "instantaneous" this healing was, I do not know; however, the pain she had suffered off and on for years was relieved; making it possible for her to live a more active life, as her busy evangelistic history testifies. She did, however, wear a brace for many years, and later in life replaced the brace with a sturdy corset. Was her healing truly "instantaneous"? Did she walk from "deathbed to pulpit"? Or was the healing gradual, occurring over a period of weeks or months, the compounded result of time and many operations? If my grandmother did have a miraculous healing, why was it necessary to stretch the truth, to falsify facts? Why testify of five years of "total" invalidism or an auto accident? Yet she did this repeatedly. A newspaper article dated August 30, 1927—two years after the start of the famous Miami Tabernacle—reads: I was instantly raised and made whole from a bed of unspeakable suffering. I weighed 82 pounds then. . . . Another, more painful question arises in light of my grandmother's lie: To what extent are parents responsible for the sins of their children? Most people would agree that in the final analysis, a child must himself choose between right and wrong, good and evil; ultimately he is responsible for his moral condition. However, if David Berg learned from his parents—through their lifestyle—a foundational principle that is contrary to Scriptural truth, then they will be responsible for teaching him a false standard for decision making. If David Berg grew up with an example of twisting or exaggerating the truth, then he would have learned by the course of nature that it is okay to present facts, even if altered, in such a way as to produce desired results. The result that Virginia Brandt Berg sought after was indeed positive: bringing souls to faith; therefore, what harm could a slight alteration of the facts do, seeing that it would benefit all, even the cause of Christ? Growing up in this environment, David Berg would have learned in effect that the end justifies the means—a principle that is contrary to everything Christ said and did. It is sheer foolishness to assume that wrong means can be used to gain right ends. The means pre-exist in and determine the ends! Every cult is founded on the premise that the end justifies the means. The use of Christianity as a tool to advance not only the gospel, but also one's own personality and personal goals—to build one's fame, popularity, and notoriety—is a subversion of truth. Yet how to separate the work of God from the work of "self" becomes a seemingly impossible judgment; but only impossible to a point. The dividing line between God and self can usually be seen in the personal life of the individual involved. Eventually, a person will reap what he has sown. The history of the Children of God bears stark testimony to this truth. If my grandmother had motives of personal ambition, fame, and glory—if she was in competition with the legacy of her father—she was guilty of deep spiritual error. Christ's command to His disciples was not to promote the kingdom of God first of all, but to seek the kingdom. In the years I spent with my grandmother, I saw that it deeply troubled her that her son Hjalmer was so distant. She was mystified why the life of her daughter was marked by great suf- 32 fering and tragedy. Nor could she understand or accept David's hatred of the church system and his involvement with a man like Fred Jordan. Moreover, she refused to see my dad's moral condition. I believe it was David Berg's own choice to follow sin. He is ultimately responsible for the degeneracy of his moral state. But I ask, did he learn from others to use Christianity as a vehicle to get where he wanted to go, to promote selfish desires? Heredity and environment—factors commonly labeled one's "social heredity"—are the horizontal issues that constantly affect a person's life; but a person's response to his social heredity defines the vertical issues that will take him up or down morally. Parents can greatly influence the horizontal issues of their children's lives, but they cannot determine the vertical issues; that is a matter of a child's personal choice. Yet as a parent, I feel responsible for the final moral outcome of my child. When I see one of my children on a downward trend, I ask myself, What have I done wrong? Where have I failed him? What could I have done differently? I begin to question where I have erred in providing a social heredity that produces wrongful decision making. I feel responsible for my child's mistakes, and voluntarily share blame for his actions. If a person uses the inherent powers of the gospel to promote his own ends, he bears an identical character with every cult leader on earth—every Jim Jones, Moses David, or Sun Myung Moon. The use of inherent power for the promotion of self is a common denominator of all cults. If using the gospel for the promotion of self was part of my father's social heredity, then his response to it was to adopt this principle as part of his mental and moral fabric. If he responded to Christianity as a vehicle for self promotion, then it would follow that he never learned the person of Jesus Christ. My father's character and actions do not reflect a person who has adopted the character and nature of Jesus Christ, nor the ethics of Christian doctrine. He reflects the image of a man bent upon promoting his own goals, fulfilling his desires. This distorted ethic, having found expression in a lust for sexual pleasure, soon led my father into the next stage of evolution toward satisfying self: power. David Berg's career as an evangelist and pastor left him bitter and resentful—a man at odds with himself and with the Christian faith he supposedly represented. He was bitter over what the Christian world had done to his mother and to him. He had failed as a pastor, and was in total conflict with scriptural morality. His response: Reject scriptural morality and redefine it. His feelings of inferiority greatly intensified as the compound failures of his life reached flood level, pushing him to achieve a position in which he would be the ultimate authority! The true condition of my dad in 1967 was that of a faltering ship tossed about on the sea of his own sinfulness. The magnificence and glory of Christianity and the gospel of Jesus Christ had degenerated to nothing more than a tool to advance his selfish purposes and perfidious desires. And then came the break my dad had been waiting for all his life. In his words, "The hand of the Lord was beginning to move!"
|
Responses
to this article:
6
Last response dated:
Dec 3, 2004
read/post
responses
[ homepage ]
