Gillian McNally, The Sunday Telegraph

Members must relinquish all properties, possessions, wealth and “sovereignty” on joining to become “true disciples”, and live like members of the early Church.

The group has been dogged by allegations of child beating and child labour abuses overseas, one of the most high profile cases in Germany 2013, when a documentary showed children in a local branch being beaten so badly, the government removed them.

The Twelve Tribes has repeatedly denied allegations of child abuse and child labour and say their child-raising practices are not harmful.

Or Mathias, 26, who was raised in the Twelve Tribes and alleges he was beaten daily as part of the group’s strict child rearing doctrine, said it was not a charity and should be investigated.

“They say they are so they don’t have to pay taxes, and they don’t have to pay employees,” Mr Mathias said. “What they do is want is for others to donate to them in order to continue living their beliefs.”

He said visitors were being misled into believing the community was a “utopia” of communal life but “once a visitor decides to join and pass all their possessions to the Twelve Tribes that’s when they start to see the real life they have come into”.

“Then it’s too late. They’re broke and are trapped with no way out.”

Mr Mathias, who has lived in 10 of the Tribes’ communities including six years at Picton, alleges he and other children received harsh corporal punishment daily in the Tribes.

He said children received poor education, were frequently sent to work and “everyone has to work very long hours and are constantly being pushed to get more done”.

In Australia, about 90 members live communally in Twelve Tribes properties at Picton, Katoomba and Coledale near Wollongong, spending the bulk of their time working as volunteers in its commercial enterprises.

They live in accommodation forming part of the Tribes’ property portfolio, including Balmoral House in Katoomba and Peppercorn Creek Farm in Picton, where a large Georgian-style home is under construction.

On its website, Twelve Tribes states it “doesn’t use religious tax exemptions to avoid paying tax” but, in Australia, it claims tax exemptions as a charity for advancing religion.

Its holding company, The Community Apostolic Order, lists assets worth $5.64 million and seven businesses including the popular Yellow Deli cafe in Katoomba and Common Ground bakery in Picton, all of which receive GST concession, fringe benefit tax rebate and income tax exemption.

 According to figures lodged with the Australian Charities and Not For Profit Commission (ACNC), its businesses produced an annual trading income of $3 million in 2015 — half of that declared as profit, although in 2017 its declared income plunged to $245,000.

There were no details in the accounts to explain the change.

Members are not permitted to accumulate private wealth but documents cited by The Sunday Telegraph show some still hold assets in their name, including a 78.5ha tract of land near Bigga in NSW.

The Yellow Deli building at 214 Katoomba St, purchased for $1.5 million in 2004, is owned by Granite Investments, of which several members are shareholders.

Despite the religious charity’s assets and income, the six ex-members we spoke to said there was no financial accountability to members inside, and they had little or no access to money.

None recouped any assets or funds on leaving other than one, and only after threatening legal action. They received no pay, superannuation or financial support.

Rosemary Cruzado, who lived with the Twelve Tribes for 14 years and has been cut off from her daughter and four grandchildren who remain inside, said “common members” of the community had to “beg leaders” for basic things like shoes, clothes and doctor visits.

At the same time, she alleged leaders have access to cars, cash, credit cards, even holidays.

“There’s a lot of medical neglect, my kids never had dental check-ups, I never had dental check-ups. You had to get really bad so that you were in agony to go to the dentist,” Mrs Cruzado said.

“On a bigger scale, I lost a baby there and I believe that’s because I didn’t have enough resources to go and see a proper specialist to actually tell me what was going on.”

She said home schooling of children was “fundamentalist”, with work emphasized over study and her son was removed from education at 13 to work six days in the Tribe’s bakery.

“The point of education is for them to become a member, it’s not for them to know their rights in society, how they can participate in society,” she said.

Ros Hodgkins of the Cult Information and Support Group, which has supported a number of ex-members, said people who joined the group were enticed by the ideal of living a true Christian life in a sustainable community.

But she said many found themselves trapped in a group that dictated every aspect of their lives, from what they ate to how they parented, with no financial means to leave.

“It’s very painful once they come out and they realise this was a scam in a way, to get workers for their business, because it is a business,” Ms Hodgkins said.

She said there was a lack of political will to look at groups like the Twelve Tribes because of notions of religious freedom “but that’s not an excuse”.

“It goes against the grain of what spirituality is from the Christian perspective,” she said.

As a religious charity, the Twelve Tribes can legally raise revenue only to benefit members but it must show it is meeting or intending to meet purposes outlined in its governing document, created in 1995 and lodged with the ACNC in 2012.

That document states it will care for members’ wellbeing, undertake activities such as prison ministries and housing the homeless, assist charities with similar purposes and provide counselling ministries for people with emotional, psychological and “social disabilities”.

Locals who spoke to The Sunday Telegraph in Katoomba could cite no examples of charitable works by the group and several business owners said it was tough competing with a business not required to pay wages, tax, rent or super.

A spokesman for the ACNC said due to the secrecy provisions in the ACNC Act, they could not disclose if the commission had received any complaints, or was investigating the charity.

“Allegations of a charity causing harm to its beneficiaries would be of concern to the ACNC. We encourage people who think a charity is not acting appropriately to report it to the ACNC.”

The Sunday Telegraph contacted the Twelve Tribes several times and left a list of questions on Tuesday however at the time of publication the community had not responded.

The group states on its website that spanking is used on children, however it is not abusive, that leaders do not live off the labour of members and the group does not follow anti-social or oppressive rules.

Other episodes in the series

Chapter 1

Life inside the Twelve Tribes

Chapter 2

Escaping hell

Chapter 3

Paying the price

• Sect accused of using ‘slave labour’ to run cafes
• Escaping hell: Beaten with a bamboo stick

The second email Rosemary Cruzado sent in her life was in 2010 to the elders of the Picton Twelve Tribes religious community. It read: “I’m not coming back.”

After 14 years inside the strict Christian fundamentalist sect, Mrs Cruzado and her two daughters had gone to Auckland to visit her husband and son who had left.

Her eldest daughter, who was about to be married, chose to return.

“Straight off my daughter was told we were never allowed on any of their premises. She went really stiff on us, she was afraid to be alone in a room with me,” Mrs Cruzado said.

“I think if it was up to her she would have still continued to see us but they make a rule of separating those who left from those who are still in.”

Her daughter, now 29 and married, has four children in the sect that Mrs Cruzado cannot see.

“There’s only so much you can cry. It’s almost as if she has died. I know if she died, they probably wouldn’t let me know. I hope and pray she will get out some time,” she said.

Mrs Cruzado, along with fellow ex-member Matthew Klein and their families, have faced years of heartache after leaving the Twelve Tribes.

Mr Klein spent just two years in the group before leaving in 2001 with his three small children but another 18 years watching them grow up without their mother, Tysha, who chose to remain inside.

“My wife gave up a breastfeeding child, and she did it because she was told to do it. Then she didn’t contact them for 16 years. It doesn’t make sense.”

His children have tried reaching their mother several times, including his daughter Tessa, but meetings were cancelled or when she called, she was told her mother wasn’t available.

In 2011, after one attempt at contact, he said he was called by his ex-wife’s new husband.

“Tysha’s husband told me to stop calling and to leave them alone and that he didn’t care about my children suffering,” he said.

Recently his youngest son made contact with Tysha and then Tessa reached out but again meetings were cancelled.

“As she’s remarried and her husband is now the head, he has to permit contact,” Mr Klein said.

The family’s story is not unique among ex-members of the Twelve Tribes, which has communes in about 40 locations around the world.

Mr Klein, who spent time in a community in the US and in Canada as well as Picton in Sydney, said it was common practice for members to alienate family and friends outside, making it hard to leave.

“It’s surprising the number of people in there who are separated from the kids and it’s unusual for estranged parents to be given permission to visit,” he said.

“And no one outside the community ever gets child support from members

“Every year I’d ring up the Child Support Agency and contest the $0 child support she was required to pay, she’s working full time (in the Tribes’ businesses), she’s not getting paid in money but she’s getting paid in kind. She can’t do a thing for her kids,” he said.

“When I was in America there were a couple of Europeans who could never go home because of all the child support they owed.”

Counsellor Raphael Aaron, who is the director of Cult Consulting Australia, has helped several former Twelve Tribes members recover, including the Cruzado and Klein families.

He said the group’s indoctrination and subsequent splitting of families had caused significant trauma to ex-members.

“The most important aspect for me which defines them negatively is the way they deal with any families outside the organisation,” Mr Aron said.

“Families are estranged from children or parents and they’re doing nothing at all to do anything different and foster contact.

“It comes back to indoctrination and the sort of views being spread over there that children don’t need to be seen because they’ve left the organisation.”

It’s easy to dismiss people who join fringe religious movements as naive or foolish, but Mr Aron said people convert for all sorts of reasons.

In some cases, membership could also be benign early on. Addicts, for example, may go in and stop using drugs but it’s unlikely they deal with the issues behind that addiction. The group doesn’t believe in conventional medicine or psychiatry and “therefore people are at the mercy of its belief system”.

In the Twelve Tribes case, from the outside, their belief system seems old-fashioned and bucolic. Members live communally, praying and working together in the Tribe’s businesses and on the farm. Children are homeschooled, babies are born at home and modern books, TV and the internet shunned.

But the ex-members we spoke to said inside life is very different to that quaint picture. Following a doctrine of Christian fundamentalist, Hebrew and Messianic beliefs created by founder Eugene Spriggs, they say every aspect of life is controlled.

Marriages are arranged, corporal punishment of children mandatory and information from outside strictly controlled.

Having relinquished all their personal wealth to join, members also have no financial means, making it difficult to leave.

“There’s not one religious order anywhere in the world that would endorse them and would say they’ve got a legitimate path,” Mr Aron said.

“They’ve cobbled together all these different ideas, it’s a little bit alternative, it’s a little bit hippyish in a lot of ways, and it’s very attractive in that respect, the clothes that people wear, the whole thing I would say it’s almost seductive rather than attractive.”

Membership doesn’t happen overnight.

Most new recruits meet the community in the Yellow Deli and Common Ground cafes, or at their market stalls and festivals. Visitors are invited to attend the group’s Friday night dinner or Sabbath, then stay as guests. If they chose to join, they are baptised after relinquishing all their wealth and possessions, and often take a Hebrew name.

“On the Friday night, when we first went to the Peppercorn Creek Farm (in Picton), we were met by very friendly people,” Mrs Cruzado said.

“They had this huge tents, musicians, they had the table set up with candles, all very pretty. The impression was like they were a breakaway little society, which seemed very wholesome and beautiful when we first met them.”

She said her family were made to feel very at home and continually asked to stay for a bit longer — for the next festival, or event, or celebration.

Eventually, they joined the commune.

“They want to be self-sufficient, they don’t fight, they don’t divorce, they homeschool all their children. They seemed harmless, intelligent, spiritual loving people.”

But she said, once inside, she found she became a “willing slave” working all the time, depressed with a catastrophic view of the world as a result of the apocalyptic preachings inside. Every day was up to five hours of teaching, then work and no communication with people outside.

“They’re actively engaged in trying to convince you that you need their salvation, you need their community, their friendship, their God,” she said.

“When you’re cut off from all other sources of information, I didn’t talk to anybody, I was fully immersed in their life, I became convinced I was going to hell.”

Mr Klein said he was also drawn to the Tribes’ promise of an intentional, loving community, when he and his then wife Tysha joined in 1999. He also feared if he didn’t join, his marriage would fall apart.

Like Mrs Cruzado, he struggled with the demand to physically discipline his children, the hierarchal system which he said favoured leaders and their families over common members, the poor education offered to kids and the lack of medical care, which he said almost claimed his youngest son Peter two weeks after he was born, until he demanded his wife and child be taken to hospital.

“They did pressure me to put faith in God and to just pray for him rather than take him to hospital,” he said.

“At the hospital he actually stopped breathing in the emergency department and if we weren’t there, he would have been dead.”

Mr Klein said there were good people in the group but the elders should be held accountable.

“There’s no checks and balances, there’s nowhere to report concerns. There is no accountability. If you go against the system, you’re punished, and it’s psychological for adults — demoted, shunned, ignored, ostracised,” he said.

Labelled a disgruntled ex-member for repeatedly speaking out against the group, Mr Klein said the public needed to know the group’s practices were damaging families, especially children.

“They’re getting minimal education, little life or work skills. They’re damaged, damaged kids. They’re continually disciplined so some of them are getting spanked 10-20 times a day. Not just parents, but teachers and other elders in the community can administer spanking.

“I don’t want anyone else to suffer like my kids have suffered. Society gives them such an easy ride, and they need to be held accountable for the damage they do to people.”

The Sunday Telegraph contacted the Twelve Tribes several times and left a list of questions on Tuesday however at the time of Publication the community had not responded.

The Twelve Tribes has repeatedly denied allegations their child-raising practices are harmful. They also deny their leaders live off the labour of members, do not follow anti-social or oppressive rules and are simply trying to live like the first disciples.

March 22, 2018

The European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France

BERLIN — The European Court of Human Rights on Thursday upheld Germany’s decision to take away the children of families in a Christian sect to protect them from being disciplined by caning, agreeing the punishment constituted child abuse and authorities were left with no choice.

Bavarian authorities in 2013 raided the Twelve Tribes sect settlements near the towns of Deinigen and Woernitz and took 40 children, between ages 18 months and 17 years, into foster care after a hidden-camera media report showed the parents caning children as punishment.

The sect did not deny using the cane, saying on its website at the time that “when they are disobedient or intentionally hurtful to others we spank them with a small reed-like rod, which only inflicts pain and not damage.” It said they consider their children precious and wonderful and “because we love them we do spank them.”

In its ruling, the Strasbourg court found the sect had employed “a form of institutionalized violence against minors” and that even if social workers had stepped in, they “could not have effectively protected the children, as corporally disciplining the children had been based on their unshakeable dogma.”

a hearing at the European Court of Human Rights

The case was brought by four families, from whom eight children were taken, who argued Germany’s actions were a violation of European rules meant to ensure authorities’ respect for private and family life.

The court disagreed, however, saying German authorities’ “decisions had been based on a risk of inhuman or degrading treatment, which is prohibited under absolute terms under the European Convention.”

It noted that “the parents had remained convinced during the proceedings that corporal punishment was acceptable” and that German authorities concluded “they had had no other option available to them to protect the children.”

The sect was founded by a Tennessee high school teacher in the 1970s and today is thought to have some 2,000 to 3,000 members worldwide.

The sect’s practices have run afoul of the law in the U.S. as well, including in 2000 in Connecticut where a couple belonging to the group pleaded guilty to third-degree assault and cruelty for disciplining their children with a 30-inch (76-centimetre) fiberglass rod.

In 1984, authorities raided the group in Vermont and removed 112 children on abuse allegations. A judge later ruled the raid illegal and returned the children to their parents.

Before the raids in Bavaria it had already had other confrontations with German authorities for violating laws on homeschooling their children.

In 2015 an elder of the sect was convicted in Germany of causing serious bodily injury for hitting children in his care with a 1.2-meter (four-foot) switch and sentenced to probation.

Since the raids some of the children taken had been returned to their families after growing old enough to be no longer at risk. German media have reported that other children have been returned to parents who have left the sect.

The sect has posted periodic updates online with photos of children they say have been “set free from captivity.”

The court did not say how many children remain in the care of the state.

After the raids, the German group said it had decided to relocate to the Czech Republic in an area west of Prague, and it was not immediately clear whether any of the families still live in Germany.

The group did not immediately answer an email seeking comment or post an update online.

Human rights judges today endorsed German courts’ decisions to take children belonging to the Twelve Tribes Church into care.

In today’s Chamber judgments in the cases of Tlapak and Others v. Germany (nos. 11308/16 and 11344/16) and Wetjen and Others v. Germany (application nos. 68125/14 and 72204/14) the European Court of Human Rights held, unanimously, that there had been:

no violation of Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life) of the European Convention on Human Rights.

The cases concerned the partial withdrawal of parental authority and the taking into care of children belonging to the Twelve Tribes Church (Zwölf Stämme), living in two communities in Bavaria (Germany).

In 2012, the press reported that church members punished their children by caning. The reports were subsequently corroborated by video footage of caning filmed with a hidden camera in one of the communities.

Based on these press reports, as well as statements by former members of the church, the children living in the communities were taken into care in September 2013 by court order.

The proceedings before the European Court have been brought by four families who are members of the Twelve Tribes Church. They complain about the German courts’ partial withdrawal of their parental authority and the splitting up of their families.

The European court agreed with the German courts that the risk of systematic and regular caning of children justified withdrawing parts of the parents’ authority and taking the children into care.

Their decisions had been based on a risk of inhuman or degrading treatment, which is prohibited in absolute terms under the European Convention.

The court pointed out, moreover, that the German courts had given detailed reasons why they had had no other option available to them to protect the children. In particular, the parents had remained convinced during the proceedings that corporal punishment was acceptable and, even if they would have agreed to no caning, there had been no way of ensuring that it would not be carried out by other members of the community.

Therefore, the German courts, in fair and reasonable proceedings in which each child’s case had been looked at individually, had struck a balance between the interests of the parents and the best interests of the children.

TO SEE MORE INFORMATION click to OPEN PDF FILE: Judgments Wetjen and Others v. Germany and Tlapak and Others v. Germany – taking into care of children belonging to Twelve Tribes Church

By Alban Murtishi, MassLive.com
Follow on Twitter
on July 11, 2016 at 4:54 PM

Recent posts advocating for the return of slavery and corporal punishment of children have appeared on the Facebook page of The Blue Blinds Bakery in Plymouth leaving some question as to their origins.

The most recent post alleges that the page is being operated by a former employee that endured psychological and physical torture from a religious group he was born into called The Twelve Tribes. They refer to the group as a “cult” that brutally abuses children. They further charge that the controversial material posted on the page exemplifies the beliefs of The Twelve Tribes.

“I was born into the Twelve Tribes, which owns the Bakery, and over the time I grew up there, the things I have posted on this Page were all taught to me as being fundamental truths. Without access to internet or books that carried an opposing view, I knew nothing else,” the latest post reads. “It was only after I left that I started realizing how demented and twisted the views behind this religion are.”

It is unconfirmed if the posts are from the restaurant, a disgruntled employee, or another outside group. Blue Blinds Bakery declined to comment Monday, however, in short phone call to the establishment July 9, someone who identified as Lev said the restaurant is aware of the issue and is trying to resolve it, but that they consider it a prank.

“Right now we are in the process of dealing with it. At the moment we’re not too worried. We’re definitely not hurt in the business; lines have been out here all day. There’s some people who fell for it. It’s pretty ridiculous,” Lev said.

On July 7, the page featured a post that began with, “As promised, let’s talk about the blacks! One of the most frequent questions we get is, “Are you racist?” the answer is no. But we do believe that slavery is necessary. There’s a difference.”

The poster used passages from the Bible to justify the return of slavery.

The post has garnered about 280 shares and 380 comments, many of which condemn the establishment.

Another post published Sunday at 12:22 a.m. featured a similar theme, justifying whipping children with a cane or stick, referring to the act as “child training,” and saying the children “appreciate us for it.”

The post linked to a Daily Mail article that refers to The Twelve Tribes as being a cult that canes children.

“While we can not say what’s written there is incorrect, people erroneously think it means we abuse our children. This is wrong! Our children LOVE discipline! They crave it, just like the blacks crave subservience to Shem and Yapheth,” the post reads.

The Plymouth Police Department said there is no active investigation, and that the Blue Blinds Bakery is currently dealing with the issue themselves.

A nice little bakery in Massachusetts decides to ruin their business by posting their support for slavery and child abuse on Facebook.
What seemed to have once been a fairly nice, family-run bakery in Plymouth, Mass. decided, for some reason, that they were going to completely alienate customers and announce that they were going full-on whack job.
.

The Blue Blinds Bakery, apparently named for its blue shutters, posted the following on their Facebook page on Thursday: “we have decided to use our Facebook page as an active evangelism tool.”

And that would be great if it meant following the teachings of Jesus Christ of reaching out to the less fortunate, or handing out day out old muffins to the hungry, but it’s just a little bit weirder than that.

These folks have decided to publicly condone slavery and child abuse. You know, because the Bible says so.

On July 7th at around 7:30 am, the Bakery posted a long explanation about how the Bible says that “blacks” throughout history do better when they’re enslaved and that when they’re not, “they follow the ways of degradation.”

The caveat, added to the end of the post is what really makes it special. Ready for this? Here’s what they wrote:

Now, let’s discuss, but following the last post, we need to set some ground rules.

– Attacks on our character will not be allowed

– Attacks on others will not be allowed

And something about no tattoos.

A few days later there’s another post about “child discipline” or, as they like to call it, “child training” or,as the authorities would call it, “child abuse and child endangerment.” The post reads:

How are they disciplined? Usually a cane or a wooden stick. About 15-20 blows on the open palm or bare buttocks. Depending on the waywardness of the child, between 5-30 times a day. Some need it more than others. It can go on until they are 16 if they need it. If a child still needs discipline above that age, other measures are taken.

Great read, right? Especially when you scroll down to a post from June 30th at 7:57am that reads:

Now it’s not clear how old these kids are, but children working all night painting a house can’t be a good idea at any age.

The comments are on the posts are much of what you’d expect. Plenty of people vowing never to go to the bakery and some, of course, thanks to the recent vitriol in the political arena these days, are all too eager to agree with the attitude expressed by the bake

Another commenter seems to be all too familiar with “this cult,” writing:

“Blue marks” are bruises, of course, which members of the Tribes consider evidence of exemplary parenting. “I remember constant welts on my hands, thighs, and butt,” a woman who was raised in the Tribes told

me. Children are expected to obey “on the first command,” without talking back or complaining. They are not allowed toys or bikes, and cannot engage in fantasy play. They read only the Bible and the group’s dogma. The former members I spoke to claimed most children were beaten multiple times a day, for transgressions as innocuous as forgetting to raise their hands at the dinner table and “dissipation”—the group’s term for horseplay. Responding to these descriptions, a current leader of their California communities, Wade Skinner, echoed the brochure I read in Blue Blinds. “That wouldn’t be how we portray our life,” he said, “but we do believe if you love your child, you will be diligent to discipline them, and if you hate them, you will withhold the rod.”

According to the bakery’s “About Page” they are members of “Twelve Tribes,” which according to the Wikipedia entry, “can be traced to a ministry for teenagers called the “Light Brigade” in 1972. The ministry operated out of a small coffee shop called “The Lighthouse” within the home of Gene Spriggs and his wife Marsha.

In addition, the “Tribe” has been involved in several controversies involving, child labor, race, and homeschooling.

It’s hard to imagine that a convicted child rapist would be allowed to lead a church from prison, but that’s exactly what’s going on with Warren Jeffs….

…Brower said he was able to confirm similar reports of “seed bearers” through his own sources. “It’s ritualistic procreation,” Brower said, “performed on a ritualistic bed-slash-altar.” As part of this new system, Warren Jeffs has withheld any relationships between husbands and wives, Brower said. Any touching between spouses outside rituals like these, even a simple handshake, can now be considered adultery in the church….

READ ENTIRE ARTICLE HERE

go to:FULL ARTICLE PUBLISHED BY THE BUZZ FEED NEWS ON 28 AUGUST 2015

go to: TRAILER OF FILM PRODUCED BY JAIME PRATER: “NO PLACE TO CALL HOME”released in February 2014

Bringing down one of America’s happiest christian cult

Photo of Jamie with large caption: “THEY ARE NOT GOING TO SHUT ME UP WITH MONEY”

Usually, Jaime Prater felt excited on the first day of school. He’d get up early, put on the outfit he’d laid out the night before — he liked bow ties and sweater-vests — and hurry down the hall with the other kids in his building. But this morning in September 1989 felt different. This morning he was starting the eighth grade, and he felt something closer to dread.

For as long as he could remember, Prater had lived here among the Jesus People, about two blocks from the “L” train in Uptown Chicago. At first he had loved it, but things had changed since he turned 10. Lately he would lie awake at night, his window open to the muggy summer air, listening to the rattle of the train, and dream of escape.

Or he’d try to imagine the commune’s early years, back when they caravanned across the Midwest in an old school bus, the word “Jesus” painted in big, loopy letters on the side, winning souls for Christ. He loved hearing the stories from that time: the mass baptisms in the woods, the early members tracting at O’Hare among the Hare Krishnas, everyone strumming their guitars and singing early Christian rock back on the bus, enraptured with the glow of the Holy Spirit.

By the time Prater was born, the Jesus People had stopped touring and had transformed a dilapidated apartment building on Chicago’s North Side into the Friendly Towers, where all 400 of them lived in communal bliss, sharing meals, clothes, and pretty much everything else. They were God’s forever family, just like the Bible taught.

Friendly Towers in Chicago

Prater’s dad had an Afro back then, and his mom spoke of Jesus, peace, and love to whoever would listen; they had been legit hippies, Prater liked to think. But now they were different, stooped and beaten down by middle age, resigned to their middling status in the commune’s rigid hierarchy: His mom taught in the Jesus People school, and his dad worked as a mechanic. Prater hoped for some other kind of job when he grew up — maybe helping with the Cornerstone Festival — but that wasn’t up to him. The nine-person leadership council, half of them blood-related, decided everything — even whom he’d marry.

He wanted to believe the council spoke for God, but already he had his doubts. He’d heard dark and ugly rumors about their founder, a bearded Messiah-like figure, and he’d heard stories that horrified him about the Farm, a remote and secluded resort in the Missouri woods. But he knew better than to ask about any of that.

And yet, for as much as he tried to keep his troubles to himself, something was amiss. For weeks, he’d caught his parents whispering about him. He figured it had something to do with the day one of the men in the commune touched him. Prater had tried to forget that moment, the feeling of terror that washed over him, the searing shame when it was over, but he couldn’t move past it. Since then, he had been acting out in strange ways, desires he couldn’t control aroused inside him. Eventually he told the council, and now he wished he’d never said anything at all.

go to:FULL ARTICLE PUBLISHED BY THE BUZZ FEED NEWS ON 28 AUGUST 2015

go to: TRAILER OF FILM PRODUCED BY JAIME PRATER: “NO PLACE TO CALL HOME”

Following are links to other articles about Jamie Prater and his film and about JPUSA

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slowchurch/2014/03/01/jpusa-a-tragic-history-of-sexual-abuse/

http://culteducation.com/group/1264-jesus-people-usa/10737-jesus-people-usa-visitor-comments.html

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2014-02-27/news/chi-abuse-allegations-aimed-at-jesus-people-20140227_1_commune-alleged-abuse-legal-action

http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20140226/uptown/jesus-people-usa-hid-child-sexual-abuse-lawsuit-documentary-claim

http://www.christianitytoday.com/gleanings/2014/february/dozens-of-children-abused-at-evangelical-jpusa-jesus-people.html