WE SURVIVED Life after a child sex cult
Just kids when their families joined the secretive Children of God cult, Christina Babin and Jemima Farris endured rape and assault, all under the guise of worship
Growing up in the Children of God cult, Christina Babin learned early that nothing mattered but the cult. “We were told we were slaves,” she says. “We didn’t belong to anyone but the cult; we didn’t own anything. We didn’t even own ourselves.” But it wasn’t until Babin was 11 years old that she discovered with heart-wrenching clarity how much her life was not her own. After cult leader David Berg decreed that all sex – even with children – was ordained by God, a married couple in the group took Christina
into their bedroom and sexually assaulted her. Afterwards, she went into their bathroom. “I felt bad about myself that I didn’t like it,” she says. “I thought there was something wrong with my heart and my soul. That I wasn’t right with God.”
Brainwashed and battered, Babin, now 44, would need another 10 years to extricate herself from the twisted teachings of Berg, a former evangelical Christian preacher who led the group from 1968 until his death in 1994. The group’s inner workings – as well as its impact on famous members like Hollywood rising star River Phoenix (see box) – are
explored in the second-season premiere of People Magazine Investigates: Cults. The organisation, which now operates as The Family International, said in a statement to WHO last year that since 2010 it has existed “only as an online network of 1900 members, with no formal structure beyond its websites”. The group acknowledged that “minors were exposed to sexually inappropriate behaviour between 1978 and 1986”.
Survivors say the level of abuse – both physical and sexual – was extensive and deliberate. “The lengths that they went to was so far removed from anything that was human,” says Babin. “I started feeling this scream inside of me saying, ‘This is wrong!’ ”
Young families flocked to the communal lifestyle of Children of God in the early 1970s, seeing it as a wholesome – if somewhat unconventional – way to live with strangers as a “family”. That dream was what led Jemima Farris’ mother – pregnant with Jemima at the time – to the group. “She wanted peace and harmony, what all the hippies wanted,” says Farris, now 46. “She thought this was the best way to raise children and serve the Lord.”
Farris remembers dutifully learning scriptures and happily playing with other children in the commune until, at age 12, she was put on a “sexual rotation”, expected to have sex with multiple men. “We were taught it was a privilege,” she says through tears. “Once, we had a little tent with a fortune teller who looked into a crystal ball to tell us who our sex partner was for the night. You were not allowed to say no.”
Farris and Babin cut ties with the cult in the 1990s – Farris was excommunicated for marijuana use, and Babin left when she was not allowed to marry – and both say that the process took an emotional toll on them. “I was in no way prepared to face the world,” Farris says. “I had pill addictions and meth addiction. The rage just took over.” For Babin, an artist and mother of four who lives in Louisiana, speaking out about her experience has brought her a sense of strength – but she admits to still having dark days. “I felt so much freedom when I left,” she says. “But I’ve struggled. The wounds have healed, but I have some deep scars.”
Farris, now married with a daughter and a job as a cook in Idaho, understands. “I have complex PTSD,” she says. “I don’t think it’s something that never goes away.” Both women say they’ve found healing in helping others. “My goal is to encourage victims to move into being a survivor,” says Babin. “You can’t control what happened, but you can find joy in life.”
“We were told sex was how to show God’s love” —Christina Babin