The Twelve Tribes (a simpler way?)
April 29, 2007
We just finished up our day at Washington after seeing the National Art Gallery and some of the Smithsonian, and were about to head back to Darcie’s cousins’ house for supper when we decided it would be nice to get a good photo of the Capitol. We headed down the ‘mall,’ which is really no mall but a big grassy park, to the end where the Capitol was. While we rested a bit after our walk and taking the photo, we looked closer at the large ‘earth day’ tent that was set up close to the Capitol. We noticed it when driving through D.C. but now we paid some attention. To the left there were some hippie-types playing songs in one tent, while in the large tent there was a forum going on where anyone could attend. I overheard some Bible references that were brought up, but I wasn’t sure what that was about. Then a young man started to hand out a “freepaper” (rudely interrupting my videotaping of the surroundings, I might add). It was called “The Voice” and had Hebrews 13:12-14 on the front. There was a “Warning” on the front that said “The ideas expressed in this paper may cause the reader to have deep thoughts, which could be life changing.” It looked pretty interesting, so I flipped to the back to see who penned the article. The Twelve Tribes community claims to be “a spiritual nation of those who ‘earnestly serve God night and day. (Acts 20:7). The paper says that they “live a simple life in community working together, eating together, sharing all we have….Our aim is to love each other as our master Yahshua (Jesus) loved us, to love our Creator with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.”
It all sounded pretty interesting, so Darcie and I wandered past the large tent where we overheard some of the discussions about how to preserve the earth, to live more naturally and simply, etc. Then we noticed the large maroon and tan bus, with a prominent “welcome, come on in!” sign posted on the door. If we could learn about these people and their beliefs, I figured this was it. It seemed a bit odd to be welcomed right into their private living space without them even knowing us, but perhaps that is due to our exaggerated sense of possession and ownership.
We stepped up into the travel bus and found a seat across from a friendly-looking man with long hair, a beard and a guitar. Everyone from the community had simple, somewhat old-fashioned clothes – the women wearing baggy dresses that made them look pregnant and the men in basic plaid or patterns without any flashy symbols or logos. As I found out later, they either buy their clothes at thrift stores or sew their clothes. The man introduced himself – a Hebrew name that I forget, I believe it started with a Y, but then again most of them do. The people in the community usually (but not always) adopt Hebrew names, apparently. I must admit, I was pretty skeptical at the start, expecting these communal people to be involved in a cult based on following a comet or something, but as we talked, the man’s (we’ll call him Yosha) conversation was filled with Scripture. Yoshi had a guitar on his lap, and seemed more than happy to share with us what the Twelve Tribes community believed and how they began.
They offered us homemade cookies, which Darcie and I both refused, still a bit hesitant. Looking back, they were probably delicious, as Yosha described the life he and his friends sought to live. They had grown uneasy with the laziness, commercialism, and like-warmness of the Church and were part of the much larger Jesus Movement back in the ’70’s (counter-culture Christian hippies, Jesus Freaks, that kind of thing). He gave the examples of walking in with a homeless person to church and the looks that were given, and churches being closed for major sporting events, and elaborated on how corrupt the church had become. We could certainly identify with their critique of the Western Church, and listened as Yosha said that at the heart of the Twelve tribes movement was a desire to return to Acts 2 Christianity – where all the believers had everything in common and tried to live out the literal interpretation of Scripture.
Darcie and I listened intently. Yoshi used many verses to illustrate the mission of the Twelve Tribes communities and seemed like he possessed an in-depth knowledge of God’s Word. He especially liked John’s writings, and emphasized that love was at the foundation of everything.
In short, we found out that Twelve Tribes has communities all over the world, including three in Canada (one in Winnipeg and two in B.C.).
I tried to find out where Twelve Tribes stood doctrinally. I agreed with him that the Church has a lot to act on, but I wanted to know how Twelve Tribes saw themselves within the Body of Christ, so I asked what happened when people from different denominations moved into Twelve Tribes – whether they were just accepted as they were, or whether there was a lot of discussion and debate. He moved on from this question because denominations and split-offs indicate that the churches are not truly following Christ and unity.
Through the discussion I tried to probe a little deeper into their belief system, but questions on how their doctrine related to evangelical doctrine wasn’t getting far, so I started talking about Christ (who they call Yahshua). Yosha talked about Christ’s death and resurrection, how He lived a sinless life and was tempted, how he was filled with the Word and the divine spirit. This part sounded interesting, so I dug a bit deeper. Yosha acknowledged that Jesus was the Son of God, and started quoting John, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God….” he stopped, so I continued “and the Word was God.” He described how Christ was sinless from birth and how he was the second Adam, born from a sinless seed. I knew I was pushing far into their doctrine, but I asked more questions about their Yahshua. “Jesus never claimed to be God,” Yosha said, “he only claimed to be the Son of God.” It suddenly occurred to me how intense Yosha’s eyes were and how straight his teeth were. He never seemed to lose his smile, and neither did the young man with an imitation beard sitting to his left, a young man hanging on his every word. I brought up where Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am,” and how all the Jews took sought to stone him for claiming divinity and for blasphemy. He moved on. They don’t believe that Christ existed before he was born on earth. He was not God, Yosha said. He was given a sinless seed. Apparently, the community believes the angel brought Mary the sinless, physical seed. My skin was crawling and I just wanted to get out of there, but I couldn’t resist, “So was he fully angel and fully man?” I asked. Darcie dug me imperceptibly in the side because she knew I was getting sarcastic.
When we managed to get a word in after a long and gushy monologue on the greatness of the Twelve Tribes community, we thanked them for their time and said we needed to get going. “Come and visit us!” they called after us. “Not likely!” I thought as we walked away. I was a bit shaken, and I’m sure Darcie was too. We never felt comfortable in their “Peacemaker” bus (as I later found out it was called). Everything he said sounded right, but we never could shake the feeling that all was not well.
There is a devotion and a passion that comes from pure love for a God who descended from heaven, who did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made Himself nothing and took the form of a man. There is also a devotion and a passion that comes from believing in an impotent risen man who has always been a man. You say that he has the power to save humankind, but you can never fully believe it because he wasn’t God, so you still depend on good works to make things right in the world.
The Twelve Tribes don’t believe much differently than the heresy of Socinianism, except the Socinians at least were intelligent enough to know that if Christ wasn’t God than His death and resurrection didn’t have the power to save them. The Tribes take us back to just after the early church, but not in the way that they’d like. They believe that since Acts the church has been corrupt – only those who sell everything they own, and give the money to Twelve Tribes, and join the movement are saved. All they inherited from the period after the early church were the heresies that ran rampant. It is a tribal cult, bereft of the simple knowledge of Scripture that they claim to have.
“He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross” (Colossians 1:15-19
The leader of Twelve tribes, Elbert Eugene Spriggs or “Yoneq,” is a thrice-divorced, self-anointed messenger of God who spends most of his time touring his religious empire of shops, cafes, workshops and communes with his fourth wife, Marsha, aka “Ha-emeq.” While members live humbly in clusters of 50 or more, Spriggs has his own private quarters in several locations, including a secret four-bedroom getaway pad overlooking Canoe Pond in Brewster (worth $402,000).
You see, while living in community may be a good thing for some, it can also be a terrible thing for others. “They call us brainwashers.” I guess we do wash brains,” an elder admitted speaking with Eddie Wiseman to a reporter in 1978. “We must because if we don’t there will be no changing in a person’s life,” he then rationalized. There is tremendous power in communal living (just see the story of Babel for an example), but it is never commanded in Scripture, we are just given an example of the early believers living in this way, probably because it can either be a good thing or a terrible thing. Jesus prays that we will all be one and that we will be united, but He never says that we must live together. However, Proverbs indicates the practical benefits of close fellowship with one another (a cord of three strands is not quickly broken), and if done moderately and with the common goal of glorifying Christ then it can be a powerful testimony of the unity that God gives. The simple Way is an example of this practical advantage.
In the same way, the Twelve tribes fall so short because they have separated themselves from the head, Christ, and His Body, the Church. They are like a resounding gong because they have an impotent love based on an incomplete gospel; which is not Good News at all – only a town crier with nothing to say. If we, who know the Truth, do not keep the risen God as the focus and the reason for all we do, we will fall into an impossible legalism that is at the same time tossed as the waves on the sea, without hope and without reward for all our striving.
