THE CHILDREN OF GOD IN BRAZIL
The international cult known as the Children of God (COG), the
Family of Love, or Heaven's Magic, has become famous for its
radical rejection of conventional social values while maintaining
a "Christian" facade. Founded by "Moses" David Berg in the late
1960s as a deviant segment of the "Jesus People" movement, the
group eventually plunged into paranoid secrecy and nearly every
known form of sexual excess. Despite receiving heavy publicity in
years past, outside observers know little about the cult's present
inner workings.
Dalva Lynch was a member of the Children of God for 15 years
and left the cult in July 1988. She was once a top leader in the
Brazilian COG and worked for three years as a translator for World
Services, the group's elite administrative branch. Now she is
trying to recover the three children the cult took from her in
1985.
In an unpublished manuscript, _A Elite Celestial_ (The Heavenly
Elite), Dalva offers a rare glimpse into the cult's shadowy
underworld and reveals Brazil's unusual status in the movement's
structure.
*Special Freedoms*
According to Dalva, though the AIDS epidemic caused the cult to
cut back on some of its extreme sexual practices elsewhere in the
world, in Brazil things continued unabated. She cites as an example
"the famous 'GAFMs' (Greater Area Family Meetings), which were
nothing more than gigantic bacchanals, with three days of wine,
group sex, erotic dances, strip-teases, and every sort of
debauchery, in which all members of all the greater area [COG]
homes participated. These orgies were prohibited in all other
countries of the world as of around 1980, but in Brazil the
practice was only recently abolished."
As is true in other countries, the COG in Brazil protects
itself by winning the support of key military and civilian
officials through sexual favors. But the practice of "flirty
fishing" (proselytization through prostitution), though once
widespread, has been severely cut back....
Source File: crn0020a.txt
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