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Jesus Freaks: A True Story of Murder and Madness on the Evangelical Edge
by Don Lattin
Product Group: Book
Publisher: HarperOne (2007-10-01)
ISBN: 0061118044
EAN: 9780061118043
Dewey Decimal #: 299
Binding/Media: Hardcover - 256 pages
Edition: First Edition
Release Date: 2007-10-09
SKU: KV-HVO1-XCFV
Condition: As New
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Editorial Reviews
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Product Description
In the tradition of Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven, Don Lattin's Jesus Freaks is the story of a shocking pilgrimage of revenge that left two people dead and shed new light on The Family International, one of the most controversial religious movements to emerge from the spiritual turmoil of the sixties and seventies. Some say The Family International—previously known as the Children of God—began with the best intentions. But their sexual and spiritual excesses soon forced them to go underground and follow a dark and dangerous path. Their charismatic leader, David "Moses" Berg, preached a radical critique of the piety and hypocrisy of mainstream Christianity. But Berg's message quickly devolved into its own web of lies. He lusted for power and unlimited access to female members of his flock—including young girls and teenagers—and became a drunken tyrant, setting up re-indoctrination camps around the world for rebellious teenagers under his control. Thousands of children raised in The Family would defect and try to live normal lives, but the prophet's heir apparent, Ricky "Davidito" Rodriguez, was unable to either bear the excesses of the cult or fit into normal society. Sexually and emotionally abused as a child, Ricky left the fold and began a crusade to destroy the only family he ever knew, including a plot to kill his own mother. Veteran journalist Don Lattin has written a powerful, engrossing book about this uniquely American tragedy. Jesus Freaks is a cautionary tale for those who fail to question the prophesies and proclamations of anyone who claims to speak for God.
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Customer Reviews
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Superb Account
Rating  (5)
Date: 2010-03-19
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
Jesus Freaks / 978-0-06-111804-3
Sometimes you're walking through the "True Crime" section of the bookstore, and a book leaps out at you, and you realize that it's the true account of that one Law & Order episode you caught that one time that totally wasn't based on a true story or anything, except of course they all are. And because you thought the episode (Season 15, Episode 19, "Sects") was interesting (in a horrifying kind of way), you take the book home and you read it, and you find a gripping tale of horror and sadness. That's what this book is.
I knew I would like "Jesus Freaks" right off the bat, when I saw that the author had thoughtfully included a 'cheat sheet' of important personas as the first page. Having just spent this winter reading through the labyrinthine family trees of the Warren Jeffs' FLDS cult, I appreciated immediately that the author of "Jesus Freaks" recognized how difficult it can be to keep straight all the names when plumbing decades of cult behavior. What I hadn't expected, however, was that the writing and characterization here would be so clear and memorable, that I would rarely have to refer to my cheat sheet.
Although this book deals with some truly horrible human behavior, Lattin does a wonderful job of keeping the material accessible. He has a very careful way of zooming into the terrible history of this cult, but then zooming back out to cover some other, less distasteful history in order to let the reader get their bearings back. It takes a careful hand to write about the history of a cult, and Lattin manages wonderfully - he is careful never to blame the victims, he humanizes the adult members of the cult wherever possible, he carefully outlines the blame on the leaders, and how they gained and maintained control over the others, and he understands how to keep the subject gripping without becoming so heavy that the reader can't go on.
What was most fascinating for me, however, was seeing how closely the cult of the Children of God parallels the Warren Jeffs' FLDS cult, despite the fact that the two seem, superficially, to be so different. Whereas the FLDS cult is ostensibly about 'conservative' polygamous marriage, contracted at a young age (on the part of the women and girls, at least), the Children of God professed to be ostensibly about free love and polyamory. However, in practice, both cults boiled down ultimately to the complete control of the leader over the followers, with the women being ordered to sleep with whomever the leader desired - the Children of God had their 'flirty fishing' and the FLDS have their 'priesthood prostitutes' (due to the Warren Jeffs' habit of "reassigning" wives frequently - and on multiple occasions - when their current husband falls out of favor with the cult leader). And, of course, both cults involved the systematic abuse of the children within their community. (I was surprised, though, to note that both David Berg (founder of the Children of God) and Warren Jeffs were child abusers *prior* to their ascension of power over their respective cults; I had expected the timeline to be otherwise in that regard.)
If you have any interest in true crime and cults, this book is a superb addition to the genre, and is worth a read. Lattin deserves special mention for his ability to present so infuriating, appalling, and horrific a history in such a lucid manner, such that the reader is left stunned and shocked, and yet hopeful that perhaps we can learn from this past and prevent such abuses in the future.
~ Ana Mardoll
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freaks inside and out
Rating  (4)
Date: 2010-03-09
Cult--THE CHILDREN OF GOD
aka THE FAMILY
Founder David Brandt Berg 2/18/19 to 10/1/94-PERVERT
Next prophet to be Ricky Rodriquez 1/25/75 to 1/9/2005-
ABUSED CHILD,SUICIDAL MURDERER
What they believed-CHILD ADULT SEXUAL CONTACT and
PROSTITUTION of some female members to bring in new
male converts. WHORES for GOD. (flirty fishing)
This is a very interesting but sad/ugly read. The story is
horrific. It contains info on the beginning of the Cult and info
up to the point of Ricky's death in 2005.
The Cult is still active today. It is estimated they have 11,200
members and 4,000 of those are children. They are active in
about 90 countries.
Today they say the sexual contact never happened and does not
happen now.
READ THIS BOOK AND FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENED TO
RICKY AND THE CHILDREN.
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Come On, A Little Incest Never Hurt Anyone
Rating (4)
Date: 2009-10-21
4 out of 4 customers found this reveiw helpful
Don Lattin's JESUS FREAKS is the well written, well researched, and well documented account of a fringe Christian cult called The Children of God. The church, which began in the 60s and was designed to appeal to street hippies and to lost souls who were searching for meaning in their lives, was of the apocalyptic persuasion. The world would end in a specified period of time - 7 years, 38.5 months, whatever seemed right at the time - and the members of The Children of God, founded and led by one David Berg, would attain their rightful place in heaven. The rest of you? Not so fast there, Marty.
It appears that The Children of God, like many other cults, was begun with good intentions, but eventually Berg established himself first as the group's connection to God and then as God himself. And, as God, anything that Berg decreed was not only okay, it was positively sanctified. And what Berg, the alcoholic son of itinerant fundamentalist preachers, mainly decreed was sex - often mandated - between adults, their marital status notwithstanding; between adults and children; and between children. Incest? No problem. That was encouraged as well. Berg also had young women in his congregation engage in what Berg called "flirty fishing" which was basically prostitution designed to deliver money and converts to The Children of God. As Lattin writes, "Berg was to become God's pimp."
JESUS FREAKS, Lattin's history/expose of the cult, revolves around the story of Ricky Rodriguez, a child born into the cult who, though not biologically related to David Berg was raised by Berg and Ricky's mother as his own son and who was designated the boy king who would assume leadership when Berg passed on to that great orgy in the sky.
Rodriguez was presented to the increasingly far-flung legions of cult children as the perfect child and the pressures on him, as well as other inner circle kids, were intense and ultimately unsupportable. He along with thousands of other children born into The Children of God ultimately left the church, a practice the church tolerated, and as a young adult suffered the intense emotional trauma and suicidal ideation common to the defectors. Rodriguez sought and obtained revenge.
The only complaint I have with the book is that it sorely needs a comprehensive cast of characters section. Such a section exists, but it is wholly inadequate. The book has a large number of important characters who would be hard to keep straight under normal circumstances, but who, in addition to their real names had one or more cult names.
The list of players we are given has a total of 11 names on it. There should be around 50 or 60, and the manner in which this alleged instrument of help is provided is unhelpful and cavalier.
But the pictures at the beginning of each chapter are excellent.
JESUS FREAKS is not even-handed and leans heavily toward the side of the defectors,
But it is also intelligently written, and is closer to 4.5 than to 4 stars. I found it to be a fast and enjoyable read that should appeal to anyone interested in the subject.
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No Happy Medium
Rating (4)
Date: 2009-09-13
3 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
I joined the Children of God in August 1971 and became an independent disciple in October 1973. I had found a spouse in the organization and got married to her shortly after we decided to become independent disciples. We sent in reports until mid 1976 when we felt it was no longer worth our bother.
One of my goals in leaving the organization was to mediate between the supporters and the detractors of the group. Lattin felt there was some happy medium between the two camps, but such a medium appears to be elusive.
I wrote a booklength manuscript while in my twenties about the group entitled "Strange Fire," writing under the pen name Mick Bysshe which was derived from my name while in the Children of God. One chapter is available online.
It is interesting to note that David Berg, Ricky Rodriquez, and Sigmund Freud were all sexually molested by their nannies while they were toddlers.
David Berg followed in the vast excursions from monogamy that Joseph Smith and John Humphrey Noyes charted before him. Little by little the current Children of God has to deal with their own legacy of misconduct and poor leadership in matters of sexual behavior and family structure.
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Very Scary, but you need to know
Rating (4)
Date: 2009-07-13
2 out of 3 customers found this reveiw helpful
As with many of the books that interest me the most, this one raises rather more questions than it answers. That's OK; I have two more about the same basic topic (the Children of God aka The Family International), and lots of material culled from the Internet. I'm preparing a Power Point tentatively titled "But What About the Children?" to be presented at the Ethical Society on August 31.
Author Don Lattin has studied cults , and especially destructive cults, for some 30 years, covering the People's Temple, Branch Davidian, Heaven's Gate and the Family. He's also studied fundamentalist Christians and Muslims. In fact, he's had the writing career I ought to have had!
This line from the front inside dust cover sums it up neatly: "Jesus Freaks is a cautionary tale for those who fail to question the prophesies and proclamations of anyone who claims to speak for God." Or as I put it myself in trying to explain my 20+ years with Steve Holzman: I came to trust his judgment more than my own. Very, very dangerous, and I'm beginning to think I was lucky that Steve's magick failed.
Ricky Rodriguez was not so lucky. Having been raised as cult leader David "Moses" Berg's hand-crafted successor, he was told from the beginning that he was destined to be a martyr for the cause of bringing on the Rapture. He was also the guinea pig for Berg's pedophilia ideas of child-rearing, being pampered and petted -- oh, very much petted! -- from infancy. His mother and three or four other women of the cult were in the habit of performing oral sex on him as a way to relax him to get to sleep, as well as masturbating him, offering their bodies to him to play with, and offering his infant female cousin to "hump."
Due to these and other unconventional ideas about "sacred sex," including what they called "flirty fishing," but which was nothing short of using sex to lure in male members [sorry; the puns are part of the story, unfortunately], the group moved from home to home constantly, in all different countries, involved in child custody battles with the enraged spouses of Family members, issues of fraudulent financial practices, and so on.
One of the most amazing things about the story of Ricky Rodriguez, called "Davidito" (Little David) by the Family, was that while he was about three years old, the Family published a book entitled The Story of Davidito which was distributed throughout the organization as a manual for how to raise children. It was lavishly illustrated with pictures of the toddler Davidito and his "nurses," explicitly engaged in sexual conduct! Obviously, the censors considered it kiddie porn.
I said one of the problems was that the book raises at least as many questions as it answers. For one thing, the organization still exists, under the name The Family International. For another, if Davidito was so pampered and indulged, and the pictures show he did a lot of smiling, why did he rebel?
The answer goes to the heart of the question "But What About the Children?" that I mentioned earlier. The people who joined the cult as adults were mostly OK with the sexual part. Indeed, I almost joined myself when I heard about it in the early 1970s. The religion is otherwise very much fundamentalist, evangelical Christianity, with much "praise the Lord" and all of that. Indeed, I sympathize with the idea that sex can be a pathway to spiritual enlightenment, and calling on God at peak experiences is not necessarily inappropriate.
But the children did not choose; they were born there, or joined as little ones when their parents did. They didn't find out until they were nearly adult that the way they lived was not only not the norm, but was the reason they had to hide from everyone and be constantly on the run. Also, discipline was sometimes quite severe, and could be due to unwillingness to engage in specific acts with specific adults. For girls especially, being unwilling to do their share of "flirty fishing" could get them beaten black and blue, or sent to "victory camp," which is to say victory over the demons that cause them to disobey. They were exposed to "exorcism" which involved being sufficiently brutal to them that the demon possessing them would consider it no longer worthwhile and would depart.
And they developed the view that sex was all about using and controlling and being so open that they were criticized for wanting to close the bedroom door and not let anyone watch! One girl was told that if she left the group, she would be good for nothing but prostitution and drug addiction and disease and an early death.
So what about the children? Just when is it appropriate for the Child Protective Services or the courts to interfere between parent or guardian and child? Where do we draw the line?
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