JUDGEMENT OF LORD JUSTICE WARD CONCERNING THE FAMILY : PT 3
Click Here For A Warning Concerning This Judgment
THIS IS THE JUDGMENT OF LORD JUSTICE WARD IN THIS CASE WHICH
HE GAVE IN CHAMBERS ON THE 26TH MAY 1995 BUT WHICH IS BEING
HANDED DOWN IN OPEN COURT TODAY. IT CONSISTS OF 295 PAGES
AND HAS BEEN SIGNED AND DATED BY THE JUDGE.
THE JUDGE HEREBY DIRECTS THAT NO TRANSCRIPT OF THE JUDGMENT
NEED BE TAKEN AND THAT THE VERSION HANDED DOWN MAY BE
TREATED AS AUTHENTIC.
THE JUDGMENT IS BEING DISTRIBUTED ON THE STRICT
UNDERSTANDING THAT IN ANY REPORT OF IT NO PERSON (OTHER THAT
COUNSEL AND THEIR INSTRUCTING SOLICITORS AND THOSE PERSONS
IDENTIFIED BY NAME IN THE JUDGMENT ITSELF) MAY BE IDENTIFIED
BY NAME AND THAT IN PARTICULAR THE ANONYMITY OF THE CHILD, A
WARD OF COURT, AND THE MEMBERS OF HIS FAMILY MUST BE
STRICTLY PRESERVED.
SIGNED:
THE RT. HON. LORD JUSTICE WARD DATED 19TH OCTOBER 1995
W 42 1992 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
FAMILY DIVISION
PRINCIPAL REGISTRY IN THE MATTER OF ST (A MINOR)
AND IN THE MATTER OF THE SUPREME COURT ACT 1991h
Lord Justice Ward
THE ROLE OF THE MO LETTERS
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.
THE FAMILY'S VIEW OF THE OUTSIDE WORLD
I read in their "Statement of Faith" that through Adam and
Eve's fall from grace through sin, all mankind are now
sinners absolutely unable to attain to righteousness without
the saving power of Jesus Christ. They see Satan as the
usurper who now rules as an unholy God of this world. He is
an active force for evil in the world. They follow Biblical
teaching literally on this matter. They believe that Satan
actively subverts the lives of those who do not know Christ
as Saviour, that he continues to harass the lives of those
who are saved and to undermine their faith and obedience to
God. So, writes Dr Millikan, "there is great emphasis within
the literature of The Family on trust, obedience, "resting
in the Lord" and "yieldedness." Since the world is
essentially hostile to the Gospel and to all who are its
representatives, they reject "the unchristian pursuits and
practices of the world" and believe they should "avoid
conformity with worldly attitudes." In their earlier
literature they painted horrific pictures of the system and
the systemites and the literature abounds with the
"traumatic testimonies" of those who leave the group and
come to unspeakable harm when in the world.
THE FAMILY'S PERCEPTION OF PERSECUTION
They believe that Christians who actively witness and live
for Jesus Christ will receive persecution. Quite the most
frightening persecution has been the action taken by the
authorities in Argentina, Australia, Spain, France, and by
me. Persecution was the main matter of discussion at their
summit '93 and GN 539 of February 1993 acknowledges that
benefits have flown from the Court actions taken across the
world because "all things work together for good to them
that love God" and that "includes persecution."
THE FAMILY'S ATTITUDE TO LIES AND DECEPTION.
One cannot have listened, as I have listened to over 30
members of The Family without being impressed by and in many
ways filled with admiration for their total dedication to
their discipleship, to their belief in the teachings of
their master, Jesus Christ, and to their spreading of His
Gospel. Believing, as they do, in an active Satan, their
inclination is, as Berg expresses it: "for God's sake, speak
the truth". They are, however, a beleaguered group facing
what they consider to be persecution by this litigation.
Consequently, they permit an exception to telling the truth
when doing so will result in tragic consequences to The
Family. In his letter to me, Peter Amsterdam defines that as
"being injury, loss of life, severe loss of freedom, or
permanent cessation of one's ability to preach the Gospel."
that is not necessarily a complete list of occasions when
deception is permitted. In "Deceivers yet True", June 1979,
Berg seemed to countenance deceit and sometimes outright
lies to accomplish God's purpose. In an undated "Deceivers
yet True" comic for children, the stories depicted:
"show that the Lord allowed His people to deceive their
enemies - and even tell them outright lies - when it was
necessary to save His work or the lives of His people."
Caution is urged before doing so. In "More Examples of
Deceivers Who were True" The Family were told:-
"We're in a dangerous war and when it is necessary to
protect the security of the Lord's work and his children,
you may have to lead people to believe that something is a
certain way when it's really not that way."
There are, therefore, words of much wider application than
Peter Amsterdam suggested and they are certainly wide enough
to cover The Family's approach to this litigation.
That is made clear from a letter from Creations to those
then involved in the Australian litigation. The Creation
team were then in April 1992 creating valuable guide lines
on how to tackle tricky questions and answer the accusations
that were being made against The Family. In separate
publications, one for adults and early adults only and the
other as required reading for teens aged 14 and up, "False
Accusers in the Last Days" The Family were prepared for
having to make the choice between believing God's word or
man's word. They were warned of the enemy's dirty tactics
and his goal of trying to discredit Dad, the Word and The
Family. Advice on how to handle accusations, controversies
and concerns was set out in a 48 page document for the
adults, "Contending for the Faith" and in 56 pages of "Wise
Witnessing Replies", required reading for all over 11 years
of age. I find that a huge effort has been made to prepare
The Family generally and to prepare the witnesses
specifically in how to deal with the challenges to their way
of life. The fact that they have been prepared does not, of
course, mean that they have been prepared to lie and Peter
Amsterdam wrote that as yet unpublished remarks from Maria
were passed on to those involved in this litigation to this
effect:-
"The Court is a place where they must be honest no matter
how embarrassing or threatening to The Family they feel
their answers are going to be ..... I would rather have then
saying something that would supposedly "hurt" The Family
than to ever perjure themselves and destroy their
credibility."
Nonetheless, I regret to find that in many instances there
has been a lack of frankness and a failure to tell the
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. By way of
example:-
1. Answers to the Official Solicitor's interrogatories
were less than full and frank in material respects which I
will deal with later.
2. EM who has important child care responsibilities, was
frank enough to admit that she would lie to protect the
children and I regret to find that is at times exactly what
she did.
3. The Family's Australian lawyer considered it
appropriate to make a video recording of conditions in
various homes in various countries to place before the
Australian Court as evidence of what life was like in a
typical home. MA was recorded saying that "The barrister has
asked me to describe the surroundings of the 271ò2 acre plot
that we live on." He continued, "We live in a very
productive part of England ... When we first moved in, this
place was completely overgrown and unusable ... We have
managed to clear it and make it a place for the children
.... In the back garden over here we have our fourth
daughter KAS playing with the ferrets." No one listening to
that recording could think otherwise than that that was MA's
home. It was not. His wife LA told the listener that "in all
my experience all these years in The Family, I have found
the children to be happy well adjusted children." She said
the same to me in her affidavit sworn in these proceedings
and repeated that all children she has met were happy and
well adjusted. There was no mention of the Victor programmes
to deal with difficult children that had been running in her
homes as well she knew.
4. In another video prepared for the Australian Court,
film was made of a home in Denmark and the children were
asked, more than once, whether they had heard of silence
restrictions. No one raised a hand. SC remained mute. He
knew about silence restriction. He had been on silence
restriction himself. I had been impressed by his evidence
until that point and there was much about him which was
likeable. When pressed about this discrepancy, he tried at
first to shrug it off as not being a "life or death
situation." When pressed he explained that he had not told
the truth because of his embarrassment for he had no wish to
explain why he had been placed on silence restriction and
that he was "a rotten apple." What is disturbing, therefore,
about this evidence is not only the lack of frankness in
presenting material to another Court but also the
psychological pressure that had been put upon the boy by the
experience of being put on silence.
5. Another transcript prepared for Australia included an
apparently enthusiastic JG telling the Australian Court how
happy he was. He was not happy. He lied because he could not
stand up to the shepherd and tell them that in fact he
wished to leave The Family. It is again an example of a lack
of candour together with emotional pressure being put upon
the young members of the group.
6. In September 1990 a boy SM ran away from a Family
home, Burnt Farm in Hertfordshire. He was apprehended at
Ramsgate trying to cross the Channel. When the Social
Services Department investigated the matter, and called
Burnt Farm, a shepherd, RM, denied that he had anything to
do with the Children of God, It was a blatant lie.
Significantly, also, the home was closed in a hurry and the
members dispersed. Could there be a clearer example of
Deceivers yet True? From the children comic I quote:-
"If you knew that enemies would persecute you and your
Family and all your brothers and sisters and chase you out
of their city, if you didn't have to, would you tell them
who you are?" (Their emphasis.)
It is an example of a practice I find to have been
widespread. "Selah" is a word known to all members of The
Family. It means secret. The system must not know it. It is
an attitude of mind which prepares them to hide, run away,
remove the trunk with The Family literature, take their
packed "flee-bag" containing a minimum of essential personal
possessions and escape.
Things have probably changed over the past 4 years. The
Family are more open. The best evidence of that is their
willingness to contest this litigation. It was a matter
which was the subject of the Summit 93. But even now, The
Family still cannot be fully frank, even with their own
lawyers. They write:
"We have given some of our legal counsellors nearly full
sets of Mo letters so they can properly prepare our
defence." (The added emphasis is mine.)
They do not trust even their own lawyers. They do not fully
trust their own experts and I gained the impression that
Doctor Millikan was less than pleased and Doctor Heller was
certainly deeply dismayed because be felt he had been misled
by The Family.
These are worrying examples and they are not the only ones
of the ingrained habit of lying if they have to and of
telling half the truth if they can get away with it. I shall
in due time have to give careful consideration to the extent
of change within The Family and to the crucial question of
whether I am able to trust them.
As I begin the process of evaluating the evidence and
arriving at decisions on the disputed matters of fact, I
remind myself again not only to be on guard that pressures
from the anti-cult movements may have caused distortion of
the Plaintiff's evidence but also that the examples I have
set out above demonstrate to me quite clearly a pervasive
tendency on the part of The Family to be economical with the
truth. I turn, at last, to deal with the disputed matters of
fact.
SEXUALLY INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOUR
I shall judge the oral evidence I have received against the
background of Family literature.
GENERAL ATTITUDES TO SEXUAL MATTERS:
Berg was born in 1919. He married mother Eve in 1943 when he
was about 24 years old. He met Maria in January 1969 shortly
before his 50th birthday. He has written that he had been
faithful to his wife for 25 years "until that faithfulness
began to stand in God's way and hinder the work. So then God
had to raise up someone who could fit the bill in this great
new ministry in our lives ... The answer was Maria." So
began their menage a trois. This ran counter to the
prevailing sexual mores of the group. It was primarily a
group of hippies who by all accounts had had their fill of
the promiscuous life which the permissive sexual age had
opened up to them. The "Revolutionary Rules", which I have
not seen, had been written in 1968 and outlined the basic
requirements for membership. Those rules clearly stated,
apparently, that no dating, kissing or sexual involvement
whatever was allowed outside monogamous marriage. I am not
sure how Berg managed to make himself the exception to the
rule but he found some scriptural justification for it. The
"All Things Revelation" that "All things are lawful unto me
and that to the pure all things are pure", was set out in a
letter "The All Things Tree" which has not been disclosed to
me. Those texts were constructed literally in order to
confer freedom to engage in sexual relationships outside
marriage - even if at that time only the leadership enjoyed
the privilege. By 1973 The Family was being exposed to more
revolutionary sex teaching that
"the normal, healthful, natural God-created, God-given and
God-permitted attitude to sex should be absolutely no
different from our attitude toward any other normal physical
activity such as eating, exercising or even sleeping. ... If
it is in love it is lawful as far as God is concerned."
Berg informed his followers that he found little girls just
as fascinated with his erections and quite as willing to
feel them as he was to attempt to explore their bodies. He
had his first intercourse at the early age of 7. An older
boy taught him to masturbate at the age of 8. He wrote:-
"Children should be taught the same: that there is nothing
wrong with their bodies, and nothing evil about sex and
nothing catastrophic about masturbation, but that all are
perfectly normal necessary natural and God given natural
physical functions, but that Our bodies in no respect must
ever be abused or misused or overused or used in such a way
as to offend or hurt others or the uninitiated unenlightened
unliberated or sexually uneducated or inexperienced. They
should be encouraged in nude mix bathing and nude mix play
where socially, legally and climatically permissible and
acceptable and advisable. They should also not be prohibited
from mutual sexual examination, experimentation or interplay
when playing or sleeping together where legally possible and
social and housing conditions permit. ... But it must be
made very clear to your children that such sexual freedom
must never be indulged in or practised openly in the
presence of visitors, strangers or uninitiated relatives and
friends who have not been properly re-educated in the
revolutionary sexual freedoms of natural living. From
personal experience I can tell you that I have accomplished
much more and done greater things and achieved greater
success in God's work since I have become more sexually
liberated and enjoyed greater sexual activity than ever
before."
The message of this letter is in its conclusion:-
"Hallelujah, I am free - Jesus gives us liberty - Amen? -
Now try! - You'll like it! - and thank God for it! Amen? Its
a revolution! - For Jesus! Power to the people! - Sex power!
- God power! - Can be your power! Amen? - Be a sexual
revolutionist for Jesus! Wow! There we go again! Hallelujah!
Are you comin'?"
Later he wrote "Come on Ma Burn your Bra" in which he told
the young:
"We have a sexy God and a sexy religion with a very sexy
leader with an extremely sexy young following! So if you
don't like sex, you better get out while you can."
He was paving the way for sharing and Flirty Fishing.
THE LAW OF LOVE
His philosophy was encapsulated in "The Law of Love" written
in March 1974. The copy exhibited to the Plaintiff's
affidavit contains a singularly disgusting picture. I find
it blasphemous. In the background was Christ crucified,
"God's lamb." Lying in similar cruciform position on her
back was a naked lady with a large nail driven into her
vagina ("Your lamb?"). The captions were, "Can a couch be
your cross? Are you willing to be nailed? The law of love!"
A similar picture appeared some 4 years later in the letter
"You are the Love of God", written to encourage Flirty
Fishing, with this passage:-
"Every one of you girls who spreads out your arms and your
legs on the bed for those men are just like Jesus, exactly
like Jesus."
"The Law of Love" is another letter on "All things" He wrote
in March 1974:-
"We are the last church! We are God's last church, the last
step in God's progress towards total freedom for his church
and the last chance to prove that the ultimate church can be
trusted with total freedom in this last generation".
To understand that one has to remember that Berg is the End
Time prophet who will lead his people into the millennium
where they will enjoy a thousand years of sexual freedom.
Then followed an important passage:-
"This last generation of the church will probably have as
much trouble in handling such freedom as did its first
generation. It's like giving a growing child a little more
liberty at each new stage of development, a little more
complicated and possibly even more dangerous toy" (his
emphasis but also mine!) "ushering in a new stage of growth
and responsibility to see if he can be trusted with it. If
he uses it wisely, he will be given more. If he plays with
it foolishly and dangerously it may be taken away from
him.... Can you handle this new toy safely so as to bring
joy and pleasure to yourself and others around you without
endangering anyone or harming anyone or infringing on anyone
else's freedoms and others rights? Can you be trusted with
it, or will you abuse it and use your liberty as licence to
do wrongfully and lustfully instead of rightfully and
lovingly? Will you use it to heal and help or harm and
hinder? The answer is up to you. Are you so ruled by His
love that he can liberate you from the rules or do you have
to be kept under the law of works because you cannot be
trusted with the liberty of his grace? The answer is up to
you."
He went on to draw a crucial distinction between lust and
love:-
"Lust is merely to gratify your own selfish appetite, like
eating a meal. You may need it, but if you are stealing it
from someone else and taking the food out of their mouth to
stuff your own, this is selfish lust, not love! But if you
are taking the food out of your own mouth and giving your
own meal to satisfy and feed another who is hungry and
starving for love and needs it desperately and might not
survive without it, then this is real love.... Can you
handle it? Are you revolutionary enough? We shall see!"
We shall indeed!
On July 29th 1977 The Children of God published the letter
"God's Only Law is Love! - What the Bible says about true
free love!" (his double emphasis.)
"All things are lawful for me including our sexual freedom,
as long as it is done in the unselfish, sacrificial love of
God. No, we do not have to keep the Ten Commandments! For us
they are no more! for us they are gone forever! Thank God!
We now only live to keep God's law of love, his only law -
love! For the laws of Moses are no more to the believer in
Jesus! We now only have the law of Jesus, God's only law,
his love! - a stronger law than Moses' is! Therefore
whatsoever you do in the unselfish sacrificial love of Jesus
is right and lawful! Whatever you do in love is the law -
and that's all, that's it! God's only law is love! We are
totally utterly free of the old mosaic law, thank God! we
are delivered from the old mosaic law and are no longer
bound by it - we are free! Now all things are lawful to us
in love, praise God! As long as it's done in love it keeps
God's only law of love!"
It is difficult to reconcile this freedom with The Family's
attempt to answer "Interviu's 202 Lies about the Children of
God" written on 12th June 1977, i.e. six weeks before this
letter explained to his disciples what the bible said about
true free love. There the answer was given:-
"Lie number 19, they say "we enjoy free love": we have
condemned "free love" in any of our homes or colonies and
have forbidden any kind of what is normally known as free
love among certain communities, meaning total promiscuity,
in which we do not believe."
No doubt the pedant within World Services would contend that
The Family do not believe in "total promiscuity" because it
would no doubt be defined by The Family as sexual activity
born of lust. But The Family do believe in sexual activity
freely enjoyed by consenting parties who can convince
themselves that they are each sacrificing the sanctity of
their body in order "lovingly" to satisfy a need of the
other. In its way this is an example of dissembling the
truth - deceiving yet true.
On 20th May 1980 Father David wrote "The Devil Hates Sex! -
but God Loves It!" The Family were coy about producing this
letter. It came very late in the day and was produced from
the archive of Dr Melton. One can understand the reticence.
There are passages on incest and "child sex". Mo's theology
is that God made Adam and Eve male and female, not the
devil.
"God blessed them and said, be fruitful and multiply!" - in
other words, "go to it, start fucking! right out here in the
open, in public, in the garden, on the grass!" I suppose
some narrow-minded blue-nosed church people would say, "Oh
yes, but that's before sin entered in. That's before they
discovered sex and how wicked it was! - and after all, that
was also really in private because there wasn't anyone else
around yet!" Boy oh boy oh boy! that makes me so mad. The
thing that makes me mad is that man has allowed the devil to
deceive him like that and has been such a stupid idiot as to
believe the devil's lies that sex is evil and sex is the
worst sin of all and must be the most prohibited. The devil
would certainly like to prohibit it completely if he could,
and he has restricted it so that things have not moved as
fast as they should have..... The only way to get free of
(the devil) and his lies and his prohibitions and guilt
complexes about sex is to get rid of his lies and his lying
propaganda, his anti-sex propaganda, and believe the Lord
and his word and his creation and God's love and his
freedom! - that there is nothing in the world at all wrong
with sex as long as it's practised in love, whatever it is
or whoever it's with, no matter who or what age or what
relative or what manner (my emphasis) - and you don't hardly
dare even say these words in private. If the law ever got a
hold of this, they would try to string me up! They would
probably lynch me before I got to the jail! When Paul said
"All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not
expedient" (1 COR 6: 12), he was as good as saying, "I can
indulge in any kind of sex I want to, but I've got to watch
out for the system because its against the law!" (Maria: At
least not let'm find out if you do it!)... We are free in
privacy, and that's about all, and we mightn't be free if
they discovered what we do in private!... There are no
relationship restrictions or age limitations in his law of
love.... If you hate sex you are one of the devil's crowd!
If you think it's evil, then God and love are evil, for he
created it! Come on, let's love and enjoy it like God does!
he loves it.!"
I have added that the emphasis in these passages. They need
to be emphasised. The meaning is perfectly plain. Berg
advocates the enjoyment of this new freedom to engage in
sexual activity with whomsoever one desires regardless of
the age of that person or the closeness of the relationship
to that person subject only to such restraint as is
encapsulated in the admonition that the activity must be
engaged in love and that is to say "without endangering
anyone, or harming anyone, or infringing on anyone else's
freedoms and other's rights", quoting from the original Law
of Love.
[ Click Me ] Go To Part 2 . . .
[ Click Me ] Go To Part 4 . . .