The Lord's Hookers - The Children of God
They looked like hippies - at least what media portrayed hippies as being. You'd see them on street corners during the early 70s, handing out "Mo Letters" containing the musings of their founder, "Moses" David Berg. Many people called them "Jesus Freaks," although their teachings (especially about sex!) were very different from what the other youth missionaries were preaching.
The Children of God came out of California in the late Sixties. (Why did so many of these sects come out of the Golden State?) Mixing doomsday preaching with long hair, communal living and (later) unorthodox notions of who-can-sleep-with-whom, they were familiar sights. I remember being handed one of their "Mo Letters" in 74 or so by a spaced-out, friendly young woman with really long hair and a maxi peasant skirt.
The Children of God came out of California in the late Sixties. (Why did so many of these sects come out of the Golden State?) Mixing doomsday preaching with long hair, communal living and (later) unorthodox notions of who-can-sleep-with-whom, they were familiar sights. I remember being handed one of their "Mo Letters" in 74 or so by a spaced-out, friendly young woman with really long hair and a maxi peasant skirt.
Green Pig Blows Bank to Bits!
So read the lead article, based upon a dream which Mo had in which a large green pig ran into a bank and exploded. He interpreted this as meaning that the economic system would soon collapse. The way to escape the soon-to-come Apocalypse? Well, join the Children of God, of course.
The CoG soon got a reputation for what Mo termed "flirty fishing" - women who would come on to men in order to try and bring them into the fold. Mo figured that, since Jesus hung out with prostitutes, then it was holy to be one. I never met one of these "Hookers for Christ," as the media termed them.
A short while later, the Children packed up and moved abroad.
posted by Tony the Tour Guy | 5:24 PM
2 Comments:
I last met one of these CoG types in Lausanne, Switzerland in 1975. He was a fairly typical "hippie-type" character handing out literature. I remember the "Mo Grams" and "flirty fish." Needless to say, their theology and ethics wouldn't cut it in your average church! Or would they? :-)
Doug
The CoGs acted like hippies in public, but the sense I got was that, like most cults, they were really authoritarian.
As for Flirty Fishing, that seems to have a precedent here in NYC. Been reading about Henry Ward Beecher, the famous Abolitionist preacher from Plymoouth Church in Brooklyn Heights. The Reverend Mr. Beecher had many adoring female congregants, all of whom were attracted to him (I am certain!) strictly because of his social and religious teachings. And of course the good preacher's pastoral visits to these devout ladies were done entirely in the spirit of "agape" and not "eros." Just ask Lib Tilton, whose husband sued Beecher (his own pastor!) for alienation of his wife's affections.
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