Children of God — The Cult That Shocked the World with Sex, Fanaticism, and Survivors
From Sacred Prostitution to Satanic Panic: The Real Story Behind the Cult That Used Faith to Control, Violate, and Destroy Families.
“They told us we were saving souls. All I saved was a fistful of trauma.” — Anonymous survivor, 2003.
The 1970s smelled like rebellion. Hippies preached peace. The sexual revolution rewrote rules. And in the shadows of California’s sun-soaked chaos, a new kind of cult bloomed. The Children of God didn’t just promise salvation—they demanded your body, your children, and your silence. On the surface, they were radical Christians. Underground, they built an empire of abuse, manipulation, and sacred prostitution.
They vanished children into communes. They called rape “divine love.” And for over two decades, the world looked away. This isn’t a story about religion. It’s about how charisma corrupts, how faith fractures, and how monsters wear halos.
David Berg: The Failed Preacher Who Sold God for Power
David Berg was a nobody until he decided to be a prophet. A washed-up pastor from Oakland, he blamed society for his irrelevance. Then the 1960s handed him an opportunity: lost kids, hungry for purpose. He traded sermons for sex, scripture for control, and rebranded himself as “Moses David”—a messiah with a taste for young disciples.
By 1970, Berg’s cult had nests in California. His pitch? The apocalypse was coming, and only his followers would survive. He lured runaways and idealists with promises of communal utopia. But utopia had rules. Women were “flirty fishers,” using sex to recruit men. Children were “gifts to God,” raised in isolation. And Berg? He wrote letters. One, to his teenage daughter, justified incest as “a holy fire to burn away sin.”
He wasn’t a madman. He was worse—a salesman. He sold God like a drug, and his followers paid with their lives.