No witness called on behalf of the Defendant has repudiated the Law of Love. It is the cornerstone of The Family's creed. NT's closing words to me were to plead with me not to denigrate the Law of Love. It was an extraordinary observation from her. I would have expected her to plead with me not to remove her son. Many mothers, often totally hopeless mothers, have begged for that mercy. But NT did not. It was as if the integrity of the Law of Love was more important to her than S. Where is her sense of priorities?
The oral evidence was overwhelming that the members of The Family generally adopted a freer lifestyle than was the norm in any of the countries in which they live. I am satisfied and I find that the attitude of the members of The Family towards all forms of a sexual conduct was that it was a God-given gift to be engaged in without embarrassment. Nudity was not uncommon and sexual activity was not discreet. I find the Law of Love to be a pernicious doctrine because in liberating the ordinary sexual inhibitions, the Law of Love empowers those with strong sexual urges but poor judgment to act indiscriminately and it put pressure upon the weak to succumb to that which does in fact harm them and infringe their freedom. In short the Law of Love was liable to be abused and was calculated to be abusive.
Whilst living in London late in 1973, David and Maria went ballroom dancing. Many at their dancing club were lost and lonely. It was an opportunity to witness to them. Recollecting how in the Gospel of St. Matthew 4:19, Jesus said to his disciples, "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men", Berg cast his bait, the lure of Maria's sexual appeal, to hook a fish on God's word. As the family literature explained,
"Sex and actual love making (became) a means of witnessing to and showing them (those with whom they wanted to share their faith) a tangible sample and proof of the sacrificial love of God."
Not surprisingly when the practice became widespread, the media coined the phrase "Hookers for Jesus". The Family seemed offended by the description. They should not have been. Berg himself in the letter "God's whores" disclosed that:-
"I threatened to call one of those first chapters we wrote "God's whore". I was going to really shock people! I love shocking titles that provoke people and wake them up".
One of the earliest letters was "Flirty Little Fish" in January 1974. It is important to note that the letter is an account of a prophecy Berg received from God, which gives the letter special authority. Not surprisingly, not many who read it and then understood its implications and how allegory was soon to be translated into action. The letter contained these passages recording his prayer:
"Help Maria to catch this fish. Give her, Lord, thy web. In Jesus' name! Make the lure so attractive he cannot resist it! He's hypnotised! He's fascinated in that which he dreams of, the materialisation of a dream of love, the spirit embodied in her flesh for which he hungers! He hungers for the flesh, Oh God, but he hungers more for the spirit. Help her to catch him with her fingers of flesh that she might impart unto him thy spirit, Oh Lord, for which he hungers. Oh God, in Jesus' name! Each one of them seek after her, suck of her, dream of her, drink of her! Help her, Oh God, to catch the fish faithful to be a fisherman of men. Help her Oh God to catch men! Help her to catch men, be bold unashamed and brazen, to use anything she has, Oh God to catch men for thee! Even if it be through the flesh, the attractive lure, the delicious flesh on a steel hook of thy reality, the steel of thy spirit! Hook them through her flesh! Crucify her flesh, Lord, on the barb of thy spirit! Oh God, even if it penetrate and crucify her flesh, impale her on the point of thy spirit that she may die, that those who feed on her flesh may be caught to live! Oh God, help her, Oh Jesus to be willing to be the bait!"
In this way Maria and Becky and others close to the leaders began their seduction of the men in the clubs in London. In a series of letters called "King Arthur's Knights" the disciples and friends were given some explicit instruction. I say explicit for chapter 7 could not be more plain. In it Maria asked Berg how she should proceed and she got the answer: "Fuck the daylights out of him!" and the drawings which accompany that message demonstrate, as if graphic demonstration was needed, how she should "grab his dick out of his pants." In January 1977 they published the "FFer's Handbook" which is 31 closely typed pages of the "complete instruction manual on FFing." I condescend to this nasty detail only for the purpose of making the point that literature of this kind, and it is one of an infinite number of filthy examples, lay about on the bookshelves of The Family for years and years until the literature purge began in April 1990 and so was freely available to the children in the homes. The children were well aware of this ministry and knew full well what their mothers and sometimes their fathers were up to. They knew all about "Jesus babies", the children born to the FFers who, as a group, did not believe in contraception. One sees this in the "Life with Grandpa" and "Beauty and the Beast" comic series written for children. In the comic "Real Fathers", the children are introduced to Davidito and Techi, Jesus babies born to Maria. Grandpa i.e. Berg, is seen explaining to Davidito and Techi sitting on his lap, that:
"God just used Timothy and Carlos only to fuck Mama so that I could have you both! They were just like an instrument or tool that Jesus used to help create you wonderful little children for his kingdom! Praise the Lord!"
He went on to explain how the farmer used a big plough to open a furrow for the seed to be planted and how the farmer thereafter tended the crop. He asked who was the real father of the crop? The farmer who loved it and took care of the crop until it was fully grown or the plough that just opened the furrow for the seed to be planted? The children answered the farmer, of course! Berg then explained that a penis was like a plough and a woman's womb was like a furrow in which the man planted his seed and the comic then had drawings of the plough in the soil and the penis in the vagina. I have had to look at text like that and pictures like that over these many months but still I recoil from them. I find that children exposed as they have been to widespread activity of this kind and to literature as crude as that are children who have been abused for they have been robbed of their childhood sensibilities and have been exposed to that from which they should be protected.
FFing was undoubtedly a widespread activity. I accept that it was voluntary and that Berg had "said time and time again, FFing is not for everybody. It's only for special people who really have the guts and the time and the talent and so on. It's not for everybody!" There was, however, very great pressure on the disciples to take part in this "ministry." The very failure of the "chain" leaders fully to implement it, led to the RNR. Berg wrote that it was not for "old bottles" and so, as Prof. Richardson wrote "The FFing involvement is thought of as a test of commitment for the members. Only the "absolutely 100%ers" would be involved, Berg said, and he did not seem to mind if some left over FFing." The women involved had to be willing to go to the length of having sexual intercourse in order to show the love of God to the men they witnessed to. That was their sacrifice. So in the letter "You are the Love of God" published in 1978 the sacrifice was described. This letter was another with the drawing of the naked woman spread-eagled on the bed which I find so utterly repugnant to decency.
I am quite satisfied that most of the women who engaged in this activity and the subsequent refinement of ESing, (which was finding men through escort agencies), did so in the belief that they were spreading God's word. But I am also totally satisfied that that was not Berg's only purpose. He and his organisation had another and more sordid reason. They were procuring women to become common prostitutes. They were knowingly living in part on the earnings of prostitution. That was criminal activity. Their attempts to deny this must be dismissed as cant and hypocrisy.
To deny that the girls were acting as prostitutes because "we are not charging but we expect people to show their thanks and their appreciation and they ought to give more for love than if we charged them" is an unacceptable form of special pleading. The "FFers handbook" told the girls that fishing could be fun but fun did not pay the bills. "You've got to catch a few to make the fun pay for itself. So don't do it for nothing." To add that, "We're not in it for the money, but we are in it for the men" was an addition to deceive the gullible girls. In volume 4 of "Heavenly Helpers", "Bought with a Price", Berg wrote that:
"Many homes need more financial support at this time to prepare for their survival as well as their day to day needs and this kind of ministry has really given the homes the boost they needed to tide us through some very tight financial spot."
That is more like the truth. But once again truth had to be dressed up in half truth. In asking "Does FFing Pay", in January 1978 Berg wrote:-
"Now we have claimed and we have said with conviction and it's the truth, that our girls never accept money. We have told the kids and we have told the magazines and we told the authorities, "Our girls are forbidden to accept a penny. They have never received anything for their sexual services". And that's the truth as far as I am concerned. Whatever the man donated was for the work. ... It's a nice way of doing it really. "Well, here's a donation for the work. Here's for the piece of furniture. Here's to help on the meal you gave me last night, your food," or whatever. Not a direct payment to the woman just for a fuck, which causes and makes it crude and about as low as you can get, just like the rest of the world, but if they can feel like they are not just paying a prostitute but that they are actually giving it to the Lord and the work, this I think we would all feel very acceptable, including the fish themselves, right? It has got to come to this sooner or later. ... We can't afford just continuing supporting some kind of religious brothel, ministering to men who don't pay their way."
Eventually in 1986, it was realised that:
"Sex only has to be a last resort, and if you can (witness to them) any other way, you should. Usually all the other ways are a lot easier and a lot less time consuming so why deliberately try to get involved in a sexual relationship with them?"
Although it is claimed that between 1977 and 1987 over a hundred thousand people, fifty per cent of all those who were F Fed, had been personally led to Jesus Christ as a direct result of the FFing ministry, that represented only one per cent of the recorded total of over ten million souls won world wide over that ten year span.
In 1986 a new "Daily Food" ministry was developed through the publication and distribution of a series of booklets entitled "Daily Food" and "DFing" replaced FFing. As the spectre of Aids loomed over the world, Berg officially put an end to FFing in September 1987, by declaring:-
"All sex with outsiders is banned! - unless they are already close and well known friends! - we are now D -Fing instead!".
I am satisfied that the practice has indeed ceased.
The evidence called revealed these facts:-
1. Almost without exception (SF being the only exception I now recollect) the adult women who gave evidence practised FFing.
2. Those who remain within The Family would do so again. Those within The Family, men and women, and this includes NT and CT, see nothing wrong with it. They do not see it to be immoral; they do not see it as destructive of personal relationships; they are offended when it is described as prostitution. For them it is a sacred, sacrificial ministry. They believe that no greater love hath anyone than this. And for the men that included "laying down their wives" for another. No challenge to their common sense shifts any one of them from those fiercely proclaimed convictions.
3. I find that fervour disturbing. It demonstrates the power which Berg wields through his letters to suborn the will of his disciples so that they do not know right from wrong. The error of her chosen way hit MCH when it suddenly dawned on her how "atrocious" it would be if her father were to be the next fish. Then she felt ashamed not privileged that her prophet had chosen her to break up families. VJ now looks back with equal horror to her activities. I have no doubt that the ambience of the hotels and restaurants where she hooked her fish was a good deal better than the cramped quarters of the communes where she lived and that it was a respite from oppressive surroundings but I find that it was an unworthy attack on this lady by The Family to suggest that she engaged in Flirty Fishing because she enjoyed it. I accept that at the time she assumed Berg to be a man of God, as the current members still assume him to be a man of God, and so it seemed to her to be "incomprehensible he could be evil or the Bible used for evil." She spoke convincingly of her deep horror and regret at having taken part and it has made her very angry.
4. I also find it disturbing that The Family cannot see that the practice of FFing was harmful to the children in The Family. Such harm arose from these matters:-
(a) The children were exposed to the explicit literature as I have set out above.
(b) I am perfectly satisfied that many, many children were full aware that their mothers were away FFing and were aware, therefore, that their mothers were engaged in sexual activity with strangers.
(c) I am satisfied that the "Jesus babies" suffer from the knowledge that their father is unknown to them and that they have had no contact with their father.
(d) I am satisfied that some Jesus babies will suffer future harm for some have not been told the truth about their paternity yet, and when the truth is revealed to them, they will suffer deep distress.
(e) I am satisfied, therefore, that this practice was inimical to the welfare of the children. In my judgment the end never could justify the means.
I am satisfied, however, that it has ceased and I judge there to be no substantial risk that it will be resumed. This finding must be given its proper weight. It is a sensational part of The Family's history which has helped to give them such notoriety. But it is now a matter of history and however reprehensible and misguided it was, it is not a matter which impinges directly on the well-being of my ward.
The "Revolutionary Rules" written in 1968 laid down a strict code of no sexual activity outside of a monogamous marriage. That was relaxed by the "All Things" revelation in 1970 but the liberty to engage in sexual relationships outside marriage was one taken only by the leaders. Within a year Berg realised that some of his leaders were misusing those freedoms and he had to rebuke some who had been "more interested in pleasing the flesh .... and even causing some of the weaker brethren to stumble." "Sin in the Camp" MO143 dated 1971. I note this as an early lesson from which Berg ought to have learned that his flock would abuse the freedoms which his teachings offered them. There is no evidence that he did learn from it. The "One Wife" letter published in 1973 alluded to the possibility that sexual relations outside of monogamous marriage could be permissible. He planted the idea that the marriage of the individual to the group was the only true marriage. The message was not widely received. In 1974 the FFing experiment began. The result of freeing the women to go outside to have sexual relations imposed a strain on the men within and it became anomalous to expect the married men to remain faithful to their wives or the single men to remain celibate. The RNR threw off the shackles of past inhibitions. The leadership were no longer in control of the sexual activity of the members. The members were free. So Berg wrote in February 1978, the "Happy Re-birthday" letter in which he declared:-
"Family sex: no permission needed for sex! - if legal and with mutual consent. No servants (leaders) need to be consulted. Fire away! Praise God!"
In a document compiled by World Services on behalf of The Family being SPM's 56th exhibit, The Family acknowledged that:
"a period of great sexual liberation ensued. Single adults who had not had their sexual needs met for years had the opportunity to have sexual fellowship with consenting partners, who cheerfully and sometimes sacrificially chose to give of themselves to help these brethren. .... The ability to sexually share with other members within the community brought a degree of unity that was hitherto unknown. Family members discovered that having sexual fellowship with others of the opposite sex, regardless of whether they were single or someone else's mate led to much deeper emotional relationships and a greater understanding and love for one another. Singles were extremely grateful when married family members would allow their wive's husbands to share with them so that they could have their sexual needs met. Married couples who ventured to occasionally swap partners with other married couples broke out of their own private personal marriage relationships and suddenly found themselves much more in tune to an understanding of others' needs and relationship. All of this fostered a more caring understanding and loving atmosphere in our communities which is what Father David had envisioned all along. ... In the euphoria of long awaited change, everyone was eager to exercise their new freedoms. Revelry and renunciation of the former repressive system and its restrictions were the order of the day. In many cases, caution was thrown to the wind."
In 1981 the Fellowship Revolution called for Family homes to meet together regularly for spiritual fellowship. It was becoming clear to Berg by 1973 that in some areas The Family had apparently lost sight of the original purpose of those meetings and that "many adults had become preoccupied with personal intimate relationships." Sexually transmitted diseases were being passed between the homes at such meetings and Berg responded by placing a ban upon inter-home sex at any area fellowship. Within the home sharing continued. The scriptural exhortation to "Love one another without partiality" (1 Timothy 5:21) was taken literally in the belief that the sexual needs of all members should be met as equitably as possible. Implementing that was complex. If anyone was unable to manage to arrange a satisfactory sharing relationship with another, he or she was able to seek the help of the overseer of the home's sharing schedule. These sharing schedules were not universally found in every home and they were never part of Family policy. As the scheme reported in the "Jumbo Story" in 1988, it enabled members of the home to "get to spend love-up time with specific partners at least a couple of times a week". Sharing arrangements are said to be strictly voluntary and I do not doubt that, but I am equally satisfied that once again great pressure was put upon members to submit to requests because not to do so was selfish and selfishness was not to be tolerated. Sharing, like FFing, is another example of sacrificial love. Indeed The Family use the sacrificial nature of sexual sharing to defend themselves against the charge of promiscuity. World Services in their history of the sexual policies of The Family say this:-
"Learning that The Family engaged in FFing and continues to share sexually among members of the group, can cause a non-member to draw the conclusion that we inspire indiscriminate promiscuity or "Free Love". Such a conclusion indicates a lack of understanding of the true dynamics of sexual sharing within The Family. Sharing a mate or loved one with another requires a great deal of sacrificial love for the third party. ... A large degree of sacrificial love is also necessary when mates share with others within The Family today."
Sexual intercourse between adults whether a sacrificial or a promiscuous activity is not a matter of major concern to the court if it takes place in private but where the welfare of children is paramount, then any sexual activity in the presence of children must be a matter which arouses the Court's anxiety. I have already referred to the basic philosophy of The Family that when God commanded Adam and Eve to go forth and multiply, he meant that quite literally and that it was therefore wholly right that they might do it in public without embarrassment and without pretence. From the writings of The Family it does, however, seem that children were to be included among the members of the public in whose presence sexual intercourse might blatantly take place. I must refer later and in detail to "The Story of Davidito", a detailed account of the early life of Davidito, Maria's Jesus baby, written by Sara, his nanny, but here is a passage written when Davidito was aged seventeen months.
"Sex!: Little David stood watching through the pool fence as a couple made love in the water. He imitated every motion by wiggling his bottom and his right hand up and down then went into the house to show mommy the story of how to goose a girl! He is still jealous when Alfred and I love up - Daddy says he has been in love with me since the beginning! When he saw he wasn't getting our full time attention because we were "busy" in bed, he left the room and hid under the dining room table to pout. He knew that if he hid, we would have to stop and find him ..."
If that picture is accurate, then it gives some idea of the sexual ethos of the place - the couple engaging in sexual activity in the pool and the nanny and her boyfriend having sexual intercourse in the bed in the boy's presence. It gets worse. When Davidito was three years two months old this appeared to have happened:-
"One night after a real good dinner talk by Dad on the importance of sharing and how timidity is really just pride, Dad suggested we have a "come-union". (The nauseous play on words only struck me after several readings.) "He set up a place for Maria and Timothy on the floor, we had the couch, and a sister took care of sweet Alfred upstairs. Of course it was really good for everybody to just love one another, and was especially new and humbling for dear Timothy, God bless him!" (The text is then interrupted by a small photograph of a couple having sexual intercourse above the caption "A Love-demo". The text continues:) "So Davidito just wandered around from one group to another for a long while. While watching all four of us in the living room, he said aloud to try and get our attention, "Ah-hum! I would like to play with my cars now", as if someone should stop the fun and join him. Then he thought about getting my attention and said in a very self righteous, straight way, "Sarah, I want to go upstairs and read a book about Jesus!" - how "saintly" and sweet! - he figured that he'd really get me to pay attention to such a good little boy! Ha! He did a few favours for Daddy such as turn off the lights, bring us more wine, then he went upstairs to watch Alf in action. Whenever Dito had ever seen me with Daddy before he'd always act very jealous and sometimes naughty, so, hoping not to offend him, Daddy suggested a while later that I better go find Dito and pay him a little special attention now! And guess where I found him? Sitting on the stairs peeking down at us! So when I offered to read with him he told me, "I have already read this book because with this "Love-make" going on, Alf just threw me the book when I was in my bed and said here, read this! So I have already read it. It's about the first airplane that men flew." (It was about the Wright Brothers!). So next he wanted his turn, and as soon as I got into bed he jumped on me and said, "Sarah, love me!" He specifically asked for several swigs of wine, and got "happy" real quick, so we really had a good time! Alf, Tim and Mommy were outside the door listening to him. "Sarah, now kiss it!", and then he began to laugh and laugh. "Oh, it flopped in your nose! ...!
I have no doubt from the context of the book as a whole that what Sarah was required to kiss was his penis. Exposure of a young child to a sexual activity of that kind is in my judgment utterly deplorable. Those guilty of abusing Davidito by wholly inappropriate exposure to sex included the leader and his likely successor. Their attitude to these matters was fully set out in the letter "My Childhood Sex" in which it was written:-
"In nearly all families they watch couples making love and parents fucking etc - so what? it's perfectly natural! (Sara: Davidito's seen it too; he knows what it is. He knows the results too! He sees pregnant girls' big tummies. He's seen it in books, he knows all about it. He knows you get up and wash afterwards and everything, he knows all about it! So what's new, what's "wrong"? why is it bad?) I think it's so much better that they just learn that way naturally ... (Maria: But we never knew about our parents' relationships, because they did it behind closed doors!) Yes, they hide it! isn't that terrible! They leave you so ignorant of one of the most important things in life, and act just like it was something evil it's all they're teaching that it's bad, wicked, sinful, dirty, nasty!"
As if to emphasise that it is God's will for man, the comic "Heaven's Children" has a cartoon of Heaven or the Millennium with a little girl nestling against a Lion. They are watching a naked couple in intimate contact in a pool, the man saying, " Love you" and the woman saying, "That was terrific". The Lion says, "They are really having fun" and the girl replies, "Yes it's called sex"
I can make these findings:-
1. Sharing between adults over 21 does take place within the United Kingdom. It can be voluntarily arranged between the couple and the home team-work become involved in the mediation of any disputes that may arise in the arrangements for sharing. A married partner may share but that is a decision requiring more prayer and discussion. Sharing schedules are not the norm.
2. NT has shared. S's father is WA, a married man. An issue arose during the course of the trial when it appeared that SPM had also shared with NT at or about the time of the child's conception. Blood tests were needed to resolve the question of paternity. SPM was excluded.
3. At the end of the hearing I was disconcerted to learn that NT was again pregnant. The stress of this litigation not surprisingly took its toll upon her and she needed to get away for some rest and relaxation. I can sympathise with that need! It was arranged that she should have a weekend away with RB, another married man. He is the putative father of the child born to her on 5th January, 1995, a boy named S2.
4. I have no evidence to suggest and I do not find that sharing, as practised in this country at this time, is flagrantly conducted in public. I have no evidence and do not find instances of group sex occurring here and now in this country though I am utterly convinced it took place elsewhere, not least in Berg's own home, and frequently within sight and sound of the children.
5. More specifically, I accept that NT has been discreet in her enjoyment of sexual relations and has not exposed S to them. Although she, like all members of the movement exults in the glory of their sexual freedom so that she, like all others, proclaims that there is nothing wrong with sex, I accept her protestation that she will not knowingly permit her son to be a witness to sexual activity.
6. I also utterly and totally satisfied by the evidence called by the Plaintiff from the young teenagers who grew up in the family in the 1970's and 1980's that it was common place for children living within The Family during those times to have grown up seeing and hearing their parents engaged in sexual intercourse not only with each other but with various and numerous partners. Berg, Maria and Sara practised what they preached and what they preached was practised by their flock. Children should not have been exposed to blatant and indiscriminate sexual activity. It was an early experience for many, many children. It robbed them of them of the precious youth. It defiled them. It was abusive. It was deplorable.
