This article is an electronic version of an article originally published in Cultic Studies Journal, 1994, Volume 11, Number 2, pages 135-188. Please keep in mind that the pagination of this electronic reprint differs from that of the bound volume. This fact could affect how you enter bibliographic information in papers that you may write.

Lustful Prophet: A Psychosexual Historical Study of the Children of God’s Leader, David Berg

Stephen A. Kent, Ph.D.

Abstract

Religious figures have played a minor role in the psychohistorical tradition, despite Erik Erikson’s studies of Luther and Gandhi and frequent psychological insights that are woven into religious biographies. This study, however, focuses specifically on a recently deceased religious leader, David Berg, who founded a worldwide religious organization in the late 1960s known as the Children of God (COG). Using both autobiographical material from Berg’s letters to followers and interviews with former members who knew him personally, this essay argues that the group’s controversial sexual practices are a direct reflection of early sexual trauma that Berg experienced within his sexually repressive and punitive family environment. After years of Berg’s relative failure as a Christian minister, the death of his overbearing mother during the period in which he was successfully proselytizing California hippies allowed his repressed sexuality to appear in the form of innovative social mores for his group. In Berg’s case, formerly repressed, then unbridled sexuality served as the basis for the group’s ideology and deviant social behavior.

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