Regarding “Young man’s suicide blamed on mother’s cult By Randi Kaye CNN” December 5, 2007
The Latest , trackbackTo friends and family - I know I’m being Captain Obvious with this post but it was written with the public in mind. Maybe no one who saw the program will read this but that won’t weigh on my conscience as heavily as not saying anything would. As Ron Burgundy would say “I wanted to shout it from a mountain but I didn’t have a mountain - I had a newsroom”. Ron Burgundy had a newsroom and I have a blog and we use what God gives us.
Apparently there aren’t enough current events happening around the globe for CNN to report on because last night they were forced drag a very old dead horse out of the archives and start swinging away at it. You’d think that with all that’s going on in our world….. and yet, there they go and here we are - so here’s what I have to say about it! It’s tiresome to have to think of new ways to say old things but for as long as the media is going to broadcast lies I’m going to stand on my little soapbox and speak my piece ‘cuz that’s just the way I is.’
If you know nothing about The Family International you probably watched that show and are walking away with the opinion that we’re a bunch of fanatic freaks with a pedophile for a leader and that you can’t leave our sex cult except by way of “escape”. If you don’t believe what you heard on CNN, I salute you - you know how to watch the news critically. If you do believe it, I don’t blame you - you were just sitting there watching CNN and CNN told you there’s a dangerous sex cult out there and CNN is one of the largest broadcasting stations in the US so heck, they must have gotten it right.
There are facts that have been said better than I can say it so I’m providing a number of links to them below. But this is what I believe; (I’m speaking specifically about World Services in this case as that is what was covered in CNN’s segment) I have heard the accounts of quite a number of people who grew up in World Services - the same World Services that Davida Kelley and Ricky Rodriguez grew up in, and have very positive accounts of their childhood. Having read their accounts of a happy, safe, abuse free environment in the same place and time that she lived in casts a very reasonable doubt in my mind about what she claims on TV. To imagine that she and Ricky (who himself never accused his mother of sexually abusing him) were subject to regular sexual abuse while their friends and Ricky’s own sister grew up right next to them and had nothing remotely similar happen to them - well, that’s a bit too far for my imagination to stretch. But that’s just me.
Of course, there’s always “Well of course no one the group says they were abused, they’re deluded, they’re browbeaten into denying it ever happened, there’s so much pressure in the group that people are afraid to ever admit that they suffered abuse - duh! It’s only once you leave the group that you can start looking at your upbringing objectively and recognize the abuse.” Puh leeze. If anyone currently in TFI had been sexually abused, especially the horrific abuse that we keep hearing about in the media, it is my firm opinion that they would have said something by now. Contrary to how we’re portrayed, TFI is not afraid of confronting abuse, we’ve been aggressively confronting it for two decades - see the links below. We can hardly get a breather from the whole issue. To think that after all the abuse-confronting and Family-defending we’ve done over the years, there are people currently in The Family who grew up in World Services who experienced horrific, CNN broadcast-worthy abuse and are hiding/denying/afraid to confront it, well, I’m not going to believe that one either until I see it.
There is so, so much more to say on this subject but the bottom line is that The Family is an insanely safe place for children, not to mention a fantastic place for thousands of missionaries to serve God and fellow man, but thanks to biased reporting, 800,000 viewers have just been giving a horrifying picture of a perfectly decent Christian missionary organization. Blessedly in this case, news is quickly and easily forgotten and we in The Family International will go on being the best counselors, missionaries, humanitarian aid workers, teachers etc. etc. that we can respectively be until someone decides the dead horse needs another thrashing, fishes out that god-awful Ricky video, and tries to make old news sound new again. At that point, we (well, we as in me. I can’t speak for everyone) will roll our eyes, drag out the old soapbox, and repeat this all over again.
Sheesh.
The promised links:
An Uncommon Life by Bethany Kelly
Dan on My Conclusion (this one’s really good)
Techi’s (Rick Rodriguez’s sister) on My Conclusion
Jon (Peter Amsterdam’s son) on My Conclusion
Comments
Thank you Julia for saying what I wanted to say. I only caught the end of the show but I can’t actually express how mad I am that this is being dragged up again and right before Christmas. And that I have to see such crap (excuse the language) all the way out here in Nepal. I couldn’t find even one thing they said that wasn’t some lie, twisted truth, or fabrication. but of course, I have long ago stopped believing CNN. I just feel sorry for all the ignorant people out there who still swallow this stuff.
Well, it has all been said before, but I’m glad you said it again.
Dear Julia,
I think you will have to live with this for a long time. Until justice is served on our parent’s generation for the horrible crimes they committed, I can assure you that I, and the many of use who suffered abuse at their hands will NEVER stop. We will use any and every legal means at our disposal to get it. Every year we become stronger, more educated, with more resources, and more connections. Thanks to search engines, our side of the story is now available to anyone with just a couple of mouse clicks. The media consuming public is astute, very few will be swayed by the internet ads you buy. I believe the availability of this material and the baseline understanding of The Family as a cult that is unable or unwilling to face and accept responsibility for its abusive history, has and will continue to play a significant role in future court cases involving Family members. I understand your desire to live in peace in the cult. I have never, in all the media interviews I have done, stated that the abuses of the past are in fact the norm for TFI today. But I have argued that crimes were committed and those who committed them remain in the group and worse yet, in positions of power in the group. Until they are purged, or until they accept responsibility for their actions, you and your (my) generation, will NEVER…I repeat NEVER….have peace. The sins of our fathers will indeed be visited on the second and third generations.
I can’t imagine you enjoy all this negative attention. In 2003 I gave my father (Ado..Hi Dad!) an opinion on what I thought was the way out of this mess. This was before Ricky and the media storm of 2005. I told him that we just wanted genuine acknowledgment for what we went through and a real attempt to help us find justice…working WITH TFI. I told him that approaching us not as enemies, but as their own wounded children would go a long way towards calming the anger we felt at our abuse. I also told him we needed help with paying for therapy for those who were the most wounded. TFI’s response was more of the same aggressive name-calling and rebuffs. We had no choice but to fight with the only means then at our disposal. We have yet to see anything from your leaders that we feel is genuine. And as the injured party, it is for US to determine what is genuine. Terms such as “we regret if any abuses…..etc,” do not cut it. I am sorry for you. You seem like a nice person who truly believes in the truth of the life she is living. But I, (and many like me,) am equality as dedicated…if not more, to the truth of our own experience and the need for justice. Whatever you think of Ricky’s action, you can not deny that there was enough anger and passion there to push him to what he did. While that level of violence may not be in me or in my peers, we do have strong a very determination to see justice done. …and WE WILL HAVE OUR JUSTICE!
Please explain to me how thousands of second generation ex members who do not all know each other could all have very similar stories as to how they were abused while in the cult? Personally, during the many years that I was a member, I had never met any one of the other ex members who are making the same accusations against the cult as I am, so how do you explain all of our stories matching up? Coincidence? As you said “Puh leeze” (BTW if you want to be taken seriously maybe you should try speaking as if you had an education, even though you didn’t)
Just as you find it insulting and hurtful to hear that we are accusing you of being brainwashed, we find it insulting and hurtful that you are accusing us of lying about the pain and abuse we suffered. Why exactly would we want to make up such stories if they weren’t true? If we all had such happy childhoods like you say we did, then why would we have wanted to leave and make up this horrible nightmare that we must suffer the pain of every day? Why would we want to trade such a (supposedly) happy and loving home for the outside world if it is as bad as your cult makes it out to be? I personally do not know anyone who would rather live in a miserable, dangerous, cruel world then in a wonderful loving home with a real family, like you try to make it sound like. I also don’t know anyone who would rather have had a cruel and abusive childhood then a happy one with a loving family.
Why would Ricky give up a happy home and the throne to the group, where he would have lived in the lap of luxury with anything he could ever want handed to him on a silver platter, in exchange for what ended up being his fate if he didn’t suffer any real abuse? Why would those who were the closest to your former leader be the ones who came to despise him so much if he was such a loving and good person? It just doesn’t make sense. Can you explain any of this to me? You don’t seem to be able to reason very well, because I can see none in any of your statements.
I would hardly call this issue an “old dead horse”, 2 years is not so long a time and this tragedy is not something that should be forgotten!
You must be too young to remember the Davidito Book, I remember it very clearly and it is cold hard proof that Ricky was seriously sexually abused. That it in itself casts serious doubts in my mind regarding the accounts of “a happy, safe, abuse free environment in the same place and time that she [Davida] lived”.
Don’t you find it strange that there are so many people that leave then come out with these “lies” of a abuse, as you call them?
Why does the issue of abuse keep coming up and why is that is it that TFI needs to keep “aggressively confronting it for two decades” if there never was any abuse to begin with?
Do you seriously believe that none of us have anything better to do with our time other than sit around making up stories about horrific things that happened when we where children? Speaking as an ex-member I know there are many other things I would prefer to focus my time on but the memories of the abuse I witnessed first hand aren’t going anywhere, and they demand that justice be served.
When you say, and I quote;
“If anyone currently in TFI had been sexually abused, especially the horrific abuse that we keep hearing about in the media, it is my firm opinion that they would have said something by now.”
They have said something; they have said things over and over and over again, and they where either not believed or where told to forgive and forget or to leave!
I know it is hard for you to see anything that is shedding a negative light on TFI as anything but the devils lies, because I used to think the same way, but I challenge you try to think about it from a logical perspective, what do all the people that have left have to gain from pretending they have been abused, either sexually, physically or mentally, other than being publicly pitied and humiliated?
Ah, the bugle sounds on Moving On and here they charge.
I’ll be getting back to you later on this when I have more than a minute to spare but until then, if anyone else feels compelled to comment here’s a few ground rules:
You must include your name and a valid email address; if I check and my email gets returned to me, your comments are getting the boot.
Absolutely no cussing beyond the use of the word “heck”. Sorry.
Actually…go to moving on. Check it out. No call went out for responses….unlike when myconclusion was set up. I know that after years in a cult, one gets to thinking that everyone else respond with the same slavish group-thing induced urgency…but it’s actually quite different in the real world. I think you may find that we and our objectives are a lot more reasonable than you might expect. Heck…some day you may even find that you will become one of us. Many like you have. And by all means, send me an email. You’d be the first in TFI to directly email me in ages.
The problem with the past child abuse committed by the leadership and current members of TFI is that it’s ramification is only now showing up in the adult lives of these childhood victims. I have spent an inordinate amount of my personal time and resources since Ricky’s murder/suicide in 2005 to help some of these very same young adults find jobs, housing, counseling, and healing from the abuse thrust upon them at such early ages. Here’s the irony that I find: many of those that were abused, including my two daughters, have asked for a thorough confession from their parent members of the group. What they desire most is that their parents confess with their mouths and believe in their hearts that they did indeed commit these abuses. In Christian mythology, the same requirement holds true for salvation: (Romans 10:9-That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.) Speaking the truth about what happened, and believing in one’s heart that it indeed did happen, would seem to me a good first step for anyone professing to be a Christian.
I thought I should add a few more things that I think you should put up as disclaimers when you so unreservedly stand up for the Cult.
1) You uncle Peter Amsterdam AKA Kelly, Smith, or King Peter, is the #2 leader in The Family.
2) Your mother Dr. Christine Mlot (according to the last information I have) brings a doctors salary into the Cult. This fact alone makes your experience in the Family markedly different from most other children born in The Family.
3) You were born a long time after many of the abuses we are referring to happened.
A reasonable person could be forgiven for believe that you have a vested interest in perpetuating the myth of the Cult as a harmless charitable organization, and/or that you may not be aware of what we are talking about. Many of the publications that contained evidence of our claims were ordered burned or redacted by your uncle and Zerby. The purging of those publications was done in part at the Media home in Hacienda Heights in the mid 90s. You were quite young then. Your father Ken Kelly aka Steve Tall, told me I was demon possessed when I pointed out that simply cutting out the offending portions would not protect The Family in the future. I mention these
things because I realize you may not be aware of all the efforts instituted by your uncle and Zerby to clean up and rewrite the history of TF.
I first learned about “The Family” several months ago after reading about the Noah Thomson HBO documentary. I researched online and have visited many of the websites supporting both sides, including many of your family members personal blogs, thinking that perhaps old news really was old news. I wish I could believe what you say, but how on earth, do you explain away Christina Doehler’s abuse by Gerald Curran and how her family failed to protect and support her?
look no one is re-righting history your looking at if from a 1 sided perspective no one really thinks that life during the 70s would be sanctioned by today rules and to compare them as you do is not fair I could bring out any number secular publications from the 70s and many of them would endorse things that would be no longer acceptable today. The laws your referring to were for the most part not even made till the early 90s, many document’s throughout the world are updated when the instructions become outdated or god forbid no longer “in the main stream” but the fact that there is a law against something now doesn’t make it wrong to have done it in the past. Its really convenient for you that you have a “cult” to blame for you child hood rather then just you parents (it doesn’t have the same ring) and if you mom forced you to do the dinner dishes or sent you to bed early that would be fine but if you claim a cult did it then you get to claim its a crime. Its just sad how you justify your life of hate-full vengeance you had your chance back in the early 90s to try to go to Cort and you failed miserably in fact we were able to claim settlements in many cases due to all the outright lies you all tyred to pin on us, now 15 years on you think you have a better case? you might as well join the people seeking “repentance” for Vietnam, the TFI as well as the rest of the world has moved on its just you left in your sad little corner moping about what you think is your horrible past just get a life and like you web sie says MOVE ON.
i have a few more things to say before i sign off on this subject.
I grew up in WS. I had a very similar childhood to Techi (Ricky was significantly older than me and I didn’t know him very well) I’m 26 which is a little younger than some of the older SGAs but not young enough to not remember the way things were back in those days or to have read a lot of what people are harping on. Were things different then? Yeah, obviously. There was a lot of free stuff going on, but hello! it was the same outside the Family as well. I wasn’t abused, and I never saw anyone else abused during my childhood. Sure I’ve heard the stories, and I’m sorry for anyone who suffered any real abuse, I’m not calling you a liar and I hope that you can get over whatever happened to you and find some kind of closure. But in all my years in the family I have never witnessed any kind of abuse of children, or actually heard about it first hand. So it can’t be as widespread as people claim.
I would like to point out a few lies from the program which is why I am so upset about it. First of all it’s a well established fact that Angela was not Ricky’s nanny and that he never accused her of abusing him. Nor did he accuse his mother of it either. so if people want to talk about all of his accusations against the Family they should at least get their facts straight.
I knew Angela very well. She was one of my best friends and the one who helped me the most in my life. It’s bad enough to see a close friend murdered by someone you knew, to know the family of the guy who killed her and then himself, and to feel for what they must be going though, much less to have to hear it dragged up time and again. I would like to be able to deal with my grief over this and go on with my life, and that is why this is all I have to say on the subject.
I’m too busy to want to spend my time rehashing old news (yes, 2 years is a pretty long time) and arguing with people who will never agree with me anyway.
@Johnny: Are you saying that before the late 1980s in “the system” it was fine to have sex with children? Incest was sanctioned?
Also, who is complaining about having had to wash dishes or go to bed early? Are you saying that the physical and/or sexual abuse suffered equates to washing dishes?
And yes, the cult is to blame because our parents believe(d) that Berg was God’s prophet, and what he said was essentially God’s word. So when Berg said (among many things) that “there’s nothing in the world at all wrong with sex as long as it’s practiced in love, whatever it is or whoever it’s with, no matter who or what age or what relative or what manner” and “as far as God’s concerned there are no more sexual prohibitions of any kind, except he sure seemed to hate sodemy…” and “There are no relationship restrictions or age limitations in His law of love”, he is responsible for the consequences as he essentially gave his subjects carte blanche to do “what they wilt” sexually, and all this sanctioned by God, seeing that Berg was his mouthpiece.
Of course, those are only a few of only the sexual ones. There are many others on the same and other subjects.
Note that I am not quoting “detractors”, but your prophet himself.
yes lets talk about abuse..lets talk about what’s been done to us, lay it all on the table and vent a little.
I think I too to deserve justice.
I was taught to belive that generally people who have been abused have a healthy loathing for abusing others.. but what I have seen disproves this.
after 20 years of not getting what you want you are still abusing my generation.
My generation that was not abused, that strives to be professional, that makes steps to live like the early disciples, and does not abuse others.
How are you abusing me you ask?
By discrediting my house of work, making others think badly of us and our profession, so that we get less in the way of supply, make less contacts, and lead less people to Jesus.
This is abuse.
I say you are not trying to get at the people who did this to you, but are attacking us as a whole.
Even if you don’t mean to, look at the consequences your actions bring to us today.
You must also see this and since you have chosen to do little or nothing of your part to stem it, you have chosen and are responsible in lending a hand in my abuse.
“johny,”
Your ignorance is simply astonishing. Your claim that the “laws your referring to were for the most part not even made till the early 90s” has no basis in fact unless by “early 90s” you mean the last decade of the 11th century rather than the last decade of the 20th century. While societal attitudes and laws regarding child sexual abuse have changed throughout history and there is still a lot of progress to be made (such as abolishing all criminal and civil statutes of limitations for child sexual abuse), there were laws making child sexual abuse a crime (punishable in some cases by death) hundreds of years before the Children of God was founded in 1968. If you are going to justify and support the cult’s practice of pedophilia and child sexual abuse by referring to the law and societal values and norms perhaps you can explain why The Family was so far behind the times that they waited until 1989 to make criminal acts of child sexual abuse an excommuncable offense. Perhaps you can explain why, at the end of 2007, The Family International still does not have an adequate child protection policy in place. Other cults, like ISKON (Hare Krishna), have, albeit belatedly, instituted adequate, effective and meaningful child protection policies, made restitution to child abuse survivors, expelled child molesters from their organization and done almost everything possible to make sure child molesters who had been in their organization are held accountable and the public informed about the threat they may pose to children in the larger community outside the cult. Why can’t The Family do the same?
Since you appear to be so ignorant about the long history of laws making child sexual abuse a criminal offense, here is some information (regarding laws prior to the 20th century) from “Prosecution of Child Sexual Abuse in the United States” by John E.B. Myers, Susan E Diedrich, Devon Lee, Kelly Fincher and Rachel M. Stern in Conte, Jon R. Critical Issues in Child Sexual Abuse Historical, Legal, and Psychological Perspectives. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications, 2002.
-quote-
Forcible rape is common throughout history (Brownmiller, 1975), and prosecution of rape is nearly as old as the offense itself (Brundage, 1987). Thus, rape is dealt with harshly in the Code of Hammurabi, the Bible, Greek and Roman law, and the Visigothic Code (Drapkin, 1989; Phipps, 1997). In England, rape was prosecuted long before William crossed the Channel in 1066. “Rape was from time immemorial a felony” (Neville, 1957, p. 223). Modest numbers of rape prosecutions occurred throughout English history (Carter, 1985; Hale, 1736/1971; Pollock & Maitland, 1968). Laws against forcible rape applied to children as well as adults.
Laws designed specifically to protect children from sexual abuse appeared by the end of the Middle Ages. These laws stipulated that children lack capacity to consent to sex. “Consensual” intercourse with an underage girl was rape (Laiou, 1993, p. 125). Phipps (1997) writes,
.’
‘The first significant discussion of sexual crimes against children occurred during the maturation of canon law in the Middle Ages. Teachers of canon law taught that sexual intercourse with a girl who was under the age of consent to marry was rape even if the girl consented and failed to protest the intercourse… Canon law from the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries continued to prohibit the sexual intercourse with children. (p.
In England, two influential acts of Parliament dealt with sex offenses against children. First, in 1275, the Statute of Westminister I provided, “The King prohibiteth that none do ravish, nor take away by force, any Maiden within Age, neither by her own consent nor without.” Ravish meant rape. “Within age” meant girls under 12, which was the “age of consent to marriage” (Coke, 1671/1979, p.163).
The second important child protection law was enacted in 1576. The Statute 18 Elizabeth provided, “If any person shall unlawfully and carnally know any woman child under the age of ten years, every such unlawful and carnal knowledge shall be felony.”
On this side of the Atlantic, American law always prohibited forcible rape. In addition to laws against forcible rape, American law prohibited statutory rape. Early statutory rape laws were based on England’s Statute 18 Elizabeth. For example, an 1828 New York law forbade carnally knowing any female child under the age of ten years” (Lewis, 1848, p. 557). Similarly, a Massachusetts statute punished with death anyone who “shall unlawfully and carnally know and abuse any female child, under the age of ten years” (Lewis, 1847).
Turning from legislation to the courts, prosecution for forcible rape of children occurred during the colonial period (Chapin, 1983; Wiliams, 1993) and the 19th century (e.g. Brauer v. State, 1879; State v. Gray, 1860). Statutory rape prosecutions occurred as well (e.g., People v. Benson, 1856; People v. Castro, 1882).
A useful way to study 19th century prosecution of child sexual abuse is with books on criminal law. Joel Bishop (1814-1901) was one of America’s leading 19th-century commentators on criminal law. The first edition of Bishop’s influential treatise titled The Criminal Law was published in 1856. It thoroughly analyzed forcible rape, citing numerous court decisions, some involving child victims. In addition to forcible rape, Bishop’s first edition discussed statutory rape. The entire discussion of child sexual abuse, however, appeared under the heading of rape; it did not discuss child sexual abuse that did not qualify as rape. By the third edition of Bishop’s treatise in 1865, the author included a new section titled “Carnal Abuse of Children” (ss 1088). Interestingly, however, in 1865, Bishop wrote that there were very few court decisions on “carnal abuse of children.”
During the 19th century, American law clearly prohibited forcible and statutory rape of children. Prosecution of these crimes occurred at a modest pace. In most 19th-century prosecutions for forcible and statutory rape, the accused was a stranger or acquaintance. Prosecution of incest occurred, but was not common.
-end quote-
Sorry moving on’ers, the fun’s over on this here blog. Explanation forthcoming and I will be answering some of you but until I get a chance to write it up (you caught me at a busy time - it’s Christmas, what can I say?) I’m putting a hold on the type of stuff that we could all just mosey on over to moving on to hear if we wanted to hear it.
Daniel, I emailed you last year..twice and you never responded. Hmmmm, maybe it went to your junk mail. lol