This article is taken from the April 2025 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.
“God’s in the business of breaking up little selfish private worldly families,” David Berg wrote to his followers, combining the worst and most credulous aspects of evangelical Christianity with the worst iconoclastic impulses of the hippies.
Berg was the leader of the Children of God, also known as “The Family” and “The Family International”, and he was another charismatic narcissist selling abusive nightmares as emancipatory dreams.
Berg features in Bad Grandpa — a new series from the prolific true crime podcaster Naomi Channell. Channell is a tireless true criminologist — digging her microphone into the mud of history. In the Children of God, she has found one of the fatter worms in the garden.
They provided postwar trauma therapy in the form of musical and drama performances in the former Yugoslavia
An eccentric evangelical Christian who decided that evangelism would be more fun if he was effectively Jesus, Berg celebrated free love — which, as always, tended to entail “loose sex”. As was often the case, this soon devolved into loose sex for some and exploitation for others.
Berg did not just exploit his wide-eyed followers — he encouraged the women to seduce rich men in a practice that he called “flirty fishing”. What a fundraising initiative. Gradually, and without anything to hold it back, the moral arc of the Children of God descended into the swamp of child abuse.
Some true criminologists adopt a bright and bubbly tone that makes one feel as if they are having just a little too much fun with their subject matter. Channell has a sombre, even funereal style. It’s more appropriate, though it can feel over the top. Let’s face it — we wouldn’t be listening if we weren’t interested. If all I wanted were reasons to be sad then I’d look in the mirror.
Some of Channell’s asides are heavy-handed too. “What you’re about to hear is liable to stick with you forever,” she says. Will it? Does she realise how many true crime podcasts I have listened to?
Still, Channel’s research is good, and her tone is respectful. She understands that a lot of her source material will speak for itself — not least when she introduces “Davidito”, Berg’s adoptive son, who was groomed — in more ways than one — to be a prophet and who would reappear with a shaven head, a knife and a grudge.
Cult podcasts — by which I mean podcasts about cults and not podcasts with niche but dedicated followings — make up their own interesting genre. Sometimes, as in the case of the Children of God, religious sects veer into obviously dangerous and even criminal territory. Sometimes things get hard to define.
One of my dad’s favourite podcasts was Cult Hackers — a father and daughter podcast from the perspective of an ex-Jehovah’s Witness. I found a lot of it interesting, as someone who largely knows about the Witnesses from the nice ladies who sometimes turn up at my door asking if I’ve ever wondered if there is anything more to life.
But it makes me wonder if there is a clear phenomenon that can be defined as “cults”. At one point in an episode on the wacky evangelical group Last Days Ministries, a guest offers a fairly orthodox account of Christian beliefs in the tone one might reserve for the higher reaches of Scientologist thought.
Of course, one has the perfect right to criticise Christian theology. But there are intelligent distinctions between the Children of God and the Anglican Church.
My dad argues that you can place organisations and communities on a scale of cultishness. The Children of God might get a 10, for example, while the Anglican Church would, depending on your experience of it, fare rather better.
Digging through the internet after listening to Bad Grandpa, I found that the Family International still has a web presence. Their website claims that they have “a colourful history”, which is something of an understatement.
Apparently, they have provided “postwar trauma therapy in the form of musical and drama performances” in the former Yugoslavia. Frankly, that sounds more terrifying than the Bosnian War.
I wonder if the scale of information that is readily available online has made us less vulnerable to cults. It is easier to find people talking about the Children of God than it is to find the Children of God themselves. Certainly, it is impossible to imagine a society falling under the spell of mass delusions and persecuting dissent. Impossible.
Reclaiming with Monica Lewinsky asks the question: what if a very normal, rather boring person became famous for bizarre reasons, then went back to being a very normal, rather boring person.
You can’t blame Ms Lewinsky for having a confused sense of self after she was hurled into the limelight at the age of 24. What makes that interesting to other people is never quite addressed.
Then again, who is interested in Bill Clinton nowadays? “Slick Willie” is best known as the awkward husband of a failed presidential candidate — proving that anyone can become irrelevant within their lifetime.
Bill had a podcast as well, which appears to have spluttered after a couple of years, despite interviews with the likes of Bernard-Henri Lévy and Tony Blair. It was called Why Am I Telling You This? I’m damned if I know.
