Father David had two roles in The Family, one as its administrative head and the other as its spiritual leader. Age and failing health, and possibly other factors, gradually reduced his administrative duties. He changed from friendly Uncle Dave to stern but loving Father David and then Grandpa. That notwithstanding, as Peter Amsterdam wrote to me in May 1994, his "role as spiritual leader has remained constant". He said:
"The Family holds Father David to be a prophet of God. It is part of our religious belief that Father David often "speaks by divine inspiration". He is a "person gifted with profound moral insight and exceptional powers of expression," and is a "predictor". He is also "the chief spokesperson of a movement or cause." We also believe that he is inspired in his "forth telling". By both our sincerely held religious beliefs and a definition of the word we rightly consider Father David a prophet".
"We revere and love him because of the profound effect he has had upon our lives, and we credit him with having created an organisation that allows us to live our religious faith and to accomplish what we feel is a great deal for the Lord."
Those sentiments have been echoed time after time in the evidence to which I have listened. His disciples did revere and love him. He is, said the expert Doctor Susan Palmer, an icon. To the faithful members he is a godly person. Some of the Plaintiff's witnesses who have now left the movement, though they are still supportive of their friends who are in it, were less flattering and I recall SD, whose evidence was refreshingly candid, telling me, with all the innocence of youth, that:
"He's a nice guy who has dedicated his life to help others to reach a goal in life but he is a few straws short of a bale."
What is significant for the purpose of this Judgment is my clear finding that this mother loves him and venerates him and so do the national shepherds and the home shepherds and such is that unquestioning devotion that they cannot bring themselves to contemplate any ill of him. Their loyalty is total.
Amsterdam explained it:
"To understand Family members' reluctance to speak disparagingly of Father David, one must bear in mind that Family members love him and are deeply appreciative of the extremely salutary effect he and his ministry have had on their lives....Although most people respect and love their fathers, in most cases they will admit their fathers are flawed individuals and not above criticism. Some may even openly voice that criticism amongst members of their own family. Nevertheless, most family members would naturally come to their father's defence and close ranks with other family members should that same criticism or worse originate from an outsider. I believe this is the position adopted by those Family members who have testified in these proceedings."
The members of The Family live communally. Communal life breaks down unless its members accept a large measure of discipline and refrain from carping criticism because it is destructive. I understand that. Every institution needs its rules and regulations and depends upon the members' compliance be it at school, in the army or in a learned profession. So it is with The Family. The army metaphor is not uncommon in their writings, e.g. in July 1989 Berg was writing:
"We are a very select army, we are God's crack troops. We are the tough uncompromising insistent members of Christianity who refuse to compromise! We are strictly loyal to our leader Jesus Christ and our officers! We are willing to obey tough rules and undertake tough assignments."
When facing the need to tighten up The Family in July 1989 and listing the various offences and sins for which the guilty parties might even be excommunicated he included:-
2. "Unbelief in the letters. People who are ashamed of what we believe and ashamed of what I write ought not to be in this army, they ought not to be with us! If you want to be part of this man's army, you had better believe what I have to say and what I have said and what God has given me and shown me; or for God's sake, get out."
3. Critical of Dad, Family or the letters. We don't believe in supporting people who don't support us and our works and our ways.
4. Murmurers, troublemakers and bad apples. Excommunicate them.
5. Weak sisters and brothers .... who poisoned the minds and hearts and spirits of others ... get rid of them.
6. Failure to obey Family rules: people who don't obey, people who ignore the Letters, who ignore all my extensive counsel and advice on security, they don't even belong in The Family! Give me obedience and absolute adherence to the rules of The Family or get them out!
7. Failure to obey leadership: insubordination and rebellion against leadership cannot be countenanced in any man's army. ... If people don't obey and don't do what they are told to do and don't follow the Letters and disregard leadership and disrespect all the laws and rules, they are not one of us! We can't have disobedient rebellious wilful stubborn soldiers who can't take orders and even follow suggestions, not in this man's army."
This reference to a suggestion confirms evidence I received that "a suggestion is an order in love." In order fully to understand the significance of this document I must point out now that offence 14 is "sex with minors" and offence 17 is "excessive reading of worldly books, magazines....spiritual junk food."
In October 1991 (GN 482) Dad blasted a young man Tony or Zack Attack. The letter is called "Grumblers Get Out" and that is the strong message of the communication. A month later in GN 485 excommunicable offences were divided into those which were "spiritually polluting problems", namely a chronic murmuring and voicing doubts; those which were "physically polluting problems" which are (a) sodomy and (b) sex with outsiders and thirdly "security risks" which were (a) taking illegal drugs (b) having sex with minors (c) repeatedly yelling and going into angry rages and (d) giving DO literature to outsiders.
SPM produced for me Creations' advice to The Family's lawyers who have been "blown away by a sudden dose of Mo letter shock". That document points to the need "rightly to divide the word" and not to give every letter literal interpretation. It must be obvious that the threat of excommunication for failure to obey a Mo letter is hardly likely to apply when the subject of the Mo letter is "how to clean a swimming pool" or even when the stricture is against being longer than three minutes on the telephone or using more than three pieces of toilet paper! In interpreting the letters it is, therefore, necessary to bear in mind the intended shock treatment because as Berg writes,
"I'm an extremist, a radical, a fanatic, and in order to pull some people half way, you have got to go all the way in the opposite direction! Then you pull some of the people too far and you've got to go to the opposite extreme, the other way, to try to get some of the extremists back on centre again! Till finally, like a pendulum, you sort of get to where you are more in the middle and more on centre than the opposite extreme".
This letter written in January 1982 is an echo of the "shock treatment" letter he wrote in March 1971. I shall assume, therefore, that he was well aware of this pendulum effect, and that he intended to bring it about when he wrote the letters, about which more later, conferring sexual freedoms upon the former hippy members who had forsaken sex or the straight-laced members who had grown up in a strict Evangelical tradition where sex was regarded as "dirty". The document "Understanding and Interpreting Father David's Letters" informs me that they are "a continually expanding collection of writings and are intended to be read and understood in context, as a body". I shall, therefore, endeavour to follow the instruction and look at the collection of letters on sexual freedom in the context of the whole philosophy they were expounding. I will bear in mind some are just:
"fun and entertaining, some informative, some mysterious, some practical instructions, some prophetic, some correctional, some are personal commentary, speculation or opinion, some are meant for the moment, others are eternal, some are divine, and others are just Dad".
In his letter "Bearing False Witness" Berg acknowledged that he "could be wrong when it's only my personal opinion and it's not the word of God... Unless I say, "God said it!", I could be wrong." I must assume he had that in mind when he wrote "God's Only Law is Love", July 29th 1977, because that letter is about "what the Bible says about true free love." At the end of the day, however, I must accept, and the evidence laid before me confirms that I should accept that any "application of counsel contained in the Mo letters is a matter of personal faith and conscience." Nevertheless in judging the extent to which ordinary members are free to act according to their faith or to listen to their conscience, I must assess the extent to which the letters have fortified that faith and shaped the individuals conscience.
In that regard I note a consistent thread from the following letters:-
(a)January 1978 the RNR letter.
"We have heard of quite a few instances where leaders have changed the meaning of my letters by their actions or verbal interpretation. My letters mean exactly what they say, literally, and they don't need explaining away, spiritualising or re-interpreting by anyone!"
"The letters are going to be the leaders and will be obeyed better if they don't have any other officers interfering. "
(b) May 79: You Are What You Read
SPM says this letter is of continuing relevance. Timothy, a member of Berg's household, is being told not to read "those ridiculous text books in college full of lies and distortions of man". Even if they were not lies, "it was just a waste of time on foolishness." He says:-
"I don't see what business you've got being in our Family if you are not interested enough to read the Mo letters, including the old ones to see where we came from and how we got this way."
"I am God's man for this hour and I am the prophet of God for you, and you had better believe it or you are in serious spiritual trouble."
"This is the time when you ought to be studying your bible and Mo letters, the word of God, and not wasting your time on ridiculous words, lies, deceits and distortions of man and the devil."
(c) Also May 79; "Book Burning - You are What you Read: Part 2.
This continues his talk to Tim and the theme is the same. He says:-
"Why don't you read the old letters that you have never read? You will find there is a lot of truth in every one of them. If you find anything wrong with them, please let me know. If you are right, I'll be glad to correct it. .... You either believe the letters or don't. Don't tell me, "I believe parts of it, I believe some of it" .... You can take it or leave it. But if you want to survive in this Family you better take it! Or leave!"
(d) August 1989 "D.O. is for DOers."
I have already quoted from this letter which lists the excommunicable offences.
(e) September 1989 Heavenly Security - Part 3
This lists "personal problems" which include worldliness (which means hankering for the world outside), murmuring (voicing doubts or criticism) and backsliding. A backslider is "anyone who says that they don't accept the letters." They are scorned as "God's vomit".
(f) February 1992 (which is when the Ward was born) Summit 92 - "Our Problems and the Lord's Solutions"
Whereas the letters "You are what you read" are clear expressions of opinion and, according to the passage I have already cited, could be wrong, what is reported in this Good News 495 is the word of God speaking through prophecy. This letter should therefore command obedience from the faithful. It contains these passages:-
"Over and over again the Lord emphasised the point that he had already given us the direction we need through the words of David. The main message ... was that we should go back to the basics, back to the plan he has so clearly revealed to Dad, and obey and do what is already written. During the last meeting the Lord said: "... Doth thou not see that obedience unto the words of David is the key?..." He seemed to want to re-emphasise to us all, through these prophecies, the importance of reading obeying and living the Letters."
The words are capable of wide application, as I am sure they were intended to be, but the narrower issues which confronted that summit meeting related to the progress of the DTR, the Discipleship Training Revolution, to deal with the difficulties being experienced with the young at that time, 1991. The message to the Teens is to obey.
It is difficult to come to an easy or confident conclusion about how influential the letters were. SPM, on behalf of The Family, conceded that they were influential but asserted that the members were at liberty to disagree. The expert Doctor Millikan was is convinced that members believe they have freedom to make their own assessments, which must be right, but the heavy emphasis on obedience leads me to conclude that the choice will be exercised in favour of submitting to rather than rejecting Berg's writing. I agree with Doctor Millikan when he writes:
"but they also live with a belief that gives them no expectation that David Berg could ever lead them astray."
I bear that conclusion in mind when I assess the influence the writings have had on the sexual mores and practices of The Family.
