Replies to '08/24 The Family Cult'

Hey, thank you for your helpful post. You sound like someone I'd like to meet. You'd have added a good balance to the show if you'd been on.

But I am amazed. Not at the antagonistic ex members ("X-Men"--I like that), but at the Christians who don’t have the gumption to check people out for themselves—you know, like visit them or write them or check their web site (thanks for the URL) out. I mean leader of the X-men, Jim, who was on the show wrote in this forum, “I am Jim, the father who appears in this show. … I did not witness any abuse of children during my tenure with The Family.” (I think he said it was from 1970 until 1975 or so.) Then he goes to all ends to get his daughter out of the sect … and she is still alienated from him because he was once in the group—and lots of other reasons, especially the one mentioned by his daughter that he supposedly was trying to profit from exclusive rights to the wife of the guy (leader's son who left years ago) who brutally stabbed to death another former member (I guess she wasn't anti or anti enough), then shot himself to escape facing his crime.

And it doesn’t sound like anything is going to please these disaffected kids. They mock their former friends who are still in the sect, and one of them who grew up with the girl on the show wrote that their lives were nothing like China described. There’s got to be another side (thanks for presenting it!). However, I can see why no one from the sect went on, if they felt it would be so one-sided that they wouldn’t be able to present their side fairly.

Then the girl posts who knew them in Puerto Rico(?) back in 1997(?) and says they were great and very strict with the rules regarding sex. And that some kids were doing things behind the back of the adults. (Which kids these days don’t at least try?) :- )

I mean there could be much more than meets the eye (or ear). That rabbi quoted in the New Testament said regarding the early Christians (who got very bad press—the Bible says they were everywhere spoken against) to “leave them alone. If they’re a work of God, no one can stop them, and if they’re not, God will judge them.” Jesus said that in the last days children would rise up against their parents and cause them to put their parents to death and in another place He said a man’s foes would be they of their own household. How true indeed.

Look, in Dr. Phil’s blurb it says regarding this show that he “talks to people who escaped the group known as the Children of God.” It doesn’t seem that anyone had to escape. The sect made hard to stay in, not leave! It’s certainly not popular and I presume the membership requirements are very tough. From their site (thanks for the URL) I know they are very active and don’t hide from the public and probably a lot of people over the years joined and left—tens of thousands. It’s funny that all former members are not as vocal and anti as these X-Men. Seems there’s more at work here. The kid Ricky that murdered someone is not being condemned, and I find it odd that Dr. Phil didn’t more investigate how much his contact with his fellow X-men perhaps fed his emotions and affected him in a way that may have incited him to do a crime. Isn’t that a crime in itself? Come on people, there's got to be another side and this guy had the guts to present it. Thanks and more power to ya.

Hey, thank you for your helpful post. You sound like someone I'd like to meet. You'd have added a good balance to the show if you'd been on.

But I am amazed. Not at the antagonistic ex members ("X-Men"--I like that), but at the Christians who don’t have the gumption to check people out for themselves—you know, like visit them or write them or check their web site (thanks for the URL) out. I mean leader of the X-men, Jim, who was on the show wrote in this forum, “I am Jim, the father who appears in this show. … I did not witness any abuse of children during my tenure with The Family.” (I think he said it was from 1970 until 1975 or so.) Then he goes to all ends to get his daughter out of the sect … and she is still alienated from him because he was once in the group—and lots of other reasons, especially the one mentioned by his daughter that he supposedly was trying to profit from exclusive rights to the wife of the guy (leader's son who left years ago) who brutally stabbed to death another former member (I guess she wasn't anti or anti enough), then shot himself to escape facing his crime.

And it doesn’t sound like anything is going to please these disaffected kids. They mock their former friends who are still in the sect, and one of them who grew up with the girl on the show wrote that their lives were nothing like China described. There’s got to be another side (thanks for presenting it!). However, I can see why no one from the sect went on, if they felt it would be so one-sided that they wouldn’t be able to present their side fairly.

Then the girl posts who knew them in Puerto Rico(?) back in 1997(?) and says they were great and very strict with the rules regarding sex. And that some kids were doing things behind the back of the adults. (Which kids these days don’t at least try?) :- )

I mean there could be much more than meets the eye (or ear). That rabbi quoted in the New Testament said regarding the early Christians (who got very bad press—the Bible says they were everywhere spoken against) to “leave them alone. If they’re a work of God, no one can stop them, and if they’re not, God will judge them.” Jesus said that in the last days children would rise up against their parents and cause them to put their parents to death and in another place He said a man’s foes would be they of their own household. How true indeed.

Look, in Dr. Phil’s blurb it says regarding this show that he “talks to people who escaped the group known as the Children of God.” It doesn’t seem that anyone had to escape. The sect made hard to stay in, not leave! It’s certainly not popular and I presume the membership requirements are very tough. From their site (thanks for the URL) I know they are very active and don’t hide from the public and probably a lot of people over the years joined and left—tens of thousands. It’s funny that all former members are not as vocal and anti as these X-Men. Seems there’s more at work here. The kid Ricky that murdered someone is not being condemned, and I find it odd that Dr. Phil didn’t more investigate how much his contact with his fellow X-men perhaps fed his emotions and affected him in a way that may have incited him to do a crime. Isn’t that a crime in itself? Come on people, there's got to be another side and this guy had the guts to present it. Thanks and more power to ya.