A 25 Year Retrospective
On The Impact Of The Anti-Cult Movement
On Children Of The Twelve Tribes Communities
Introduction
The Twelve Tribes Communities began in Chattanooga, Tennessee
in 1972 as a loose fellowship of disaffected youth trying to obey
the Jesus of the Bible. Today their members number around 2500
in twenty-five Communities in eight countries on four continents.
Under the leadership of its founder Elbert Eugene Spriggs, his
wife Marsha and others, local community governments have been
established to function independently, but in an affiliated network
adhering to the beliefs and practices that produce the life demonstrated
in the Book of Acts.
Beginning as early as 1978 and spanning the last twenty years,
activists of the anti-cult movement have plagued and pursued the
group. Their activities include attempted deprogrammings in the
late '70s and interference in child custody battles in the early
'80s where children were uniformly taken from the Twelve Tribes'
parent. The most dramatic attack was the orchestration of the
illegal seizure of 112 children from their homes and families
by the State of Vermont in 1984. As a consequence of these events,
in the '90s two Twelve Tribes' fathers have suffered the loss
of their three sons and months in jail as the result of unsubstantiated
criminal charges that were eventually dismissed, but at a tremendous
human cost. Anti-cult activists were largely responsible for both
the false charges and the unjust custody orders that provided
the basis for them.
While child custody battles are not nearly as frequent in the
Community as they are in the larger society, they are complicated
by the activities of anti-cultists who, often for monetary gain
or a personal vendetta, seek to prejudice state agencies and judges
against the parent who remains in the Community. The results have
been uniformly tragic for the children.
One of the favorite tactics of the anti-cult movement is to work
through disaffected, ex-members of the Twelve Tribes' Communities,
using their testimony to manipulate government agencies and the
media. Consequently, families are separated involuntarily by biased
government interference. Children have been violently and forcibly
estranged from their parents, not by supposed "cult members,"
but by the supposedly protective agents of government themselves.
These officials were led to action by anti-cult propaganda, which
deliberately disregards the truth to manipulate the use of the
awesome power of the government, to influence - or even ruin -
lives. Yet rarely does anyone investigate the credibility of their
stories, much less the harm and disruption caused by these biased
activities to innocent families of an unfamiliar faith.
The focus of this paper is the fact that most all of the children
who were the subjects of these early anti-cult controversies in
the '80s, are now adults who have chosen to return to the Twelve
Tribes' Communities. They are marrying, raising their children
and choosing the faith of their parents who taught them according
to the Word, including the command to discipline by spanking,
a practice that has provoked the wrath of many and has provided
fodder for the anti-cult movement to charge abuse.
Looking back over 25 years, however, despite the tactics of the
anti-cult movement, claims of abuse and mind control remain unsubstantiated.
The evidence is that the children are coming home and in increasing
numbers. What these young adults are saying about what happened
to them is that who they needed to be protected from as children
were the anti-cult activists and the government officials misled
by them, not their parents who were Twelve Tribes' members.
As The Children Come of Age
When the Twelve Tribes' members initially started to gather in
the early '70s, there were only several couples and increasing
numbers of single people, both men and women. By 1975 and 1976
the first children of young couples who had surrendered their
lives to obey the gospel of Yahshua, the Son of God, had been
born and these disciples who took seriously the command to "be
fruitful and multiply" did just that. Today, nearly twenty-five
years later, approximately half of the population of the Community
consists of children fifteen and under. Meanwhile, the children
of the first-generation are reaching adulthood in increasing numbers.
While not every child raised in a Twelve Tribes Community remains
faithful, the vast majority of them do.
Significantly, part of the gospel that Twelve Tribes' parents
strive to obey is to be devoted parents, "raising their children
up in the way that they should go, so that when they are old they
will not depart from it." Prov. 22:6 While controlled discipline
by spanking in love during the early years is routine for disobedience
and disrespect, the mandate for the fathers to "turn their
hearts to the hearts of the children" is recognized as essential
to being a good parent. Mal. 4:6
Since husbands and wives vow to stay together in a marriage covenant
that values love, unity and fidelity, the mothers strive to be
of "one heart and mind" with the fathers. The husbands,
in turn, need the diligence and support of their wives to raise
offspring who will bring honor, and not shame, to their parents.
This effective restoration of the hearts of the parents and children
is essential for the prophetic future of the Twelve Tribes' Communities
in order to signal the return of Yahshua to this earth to establish
His kingdom.
However, in spite of the Community members' devotion to the family,
Twelve Tribes' parents have been repeatedly subject to state intervention,
prosecution, discrimination, and public harassment. These consequences
are largely the result of anti-cultists and their effectiveness
at creating suspicion in the minds of public servants: social
workers, elected officials and judges alike. However, judges who
have taken the opportunity to listen to the truth and weigh the
evidence have repeatedly exonerated Twelve Tribes' members from
the charges leveled at them. It is worth noting that packets of
anti-cult literature distributed throughout the world do not contain
these legal decisions which undermine the anti-cult propaganda
as untrustworthy.
Twelve Tribes' members constantly appeal to jurisprudence by
appealing to the conscience of rulers and judges to make decisions
based on the evidence, the actual spiritual "fruit",
in the lives of the parents and children at issue. Members see
that the foundation of the struggle over the children is a spiritual
one with spiritual consequences, based upon a conflict of interest
between the evil spiritual ruler of this world in this age and
the ruler of the coming kingdom in the next age when Yahshua will
rule.
Backdrop to the 1984 Raid on the Church in Island Pond
In the early 1980s eleven children were taken from three mothers
in the Community in Island Pond, Vermont in the context of three
custody battles when, in each instance, the husband defected.
The cases of Alexander v. Alexander, Gregoire v. Gregoire and
Mattatall v. Mattatall were all decided in Essex County, nestled
in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont prior to the 1984 Raid. In
1982 the Citizen's Freedom Foundation (predecessor to the now
bankrupted "old" Cult Awareness Network) held a public
meeting in nearby Barton Vermont and fomented fear and controversy
surrounding the group and their practice of corporal punishment,
judiciously administered. Apostates such as Juan Mattatall and
anti-cult activists influenced these hearings in Family Court.
In these three custody cases charges of physical abuse were leveled
at the mothers despite the fact that there was no specific evidence
against any of them.
Newspaper stories rapidly spread through Vermont, painting the
picture that some children were being rescued from an abusive
and mind-bending cult. The anti-cult network played a major role
in these cases, strategically manipulating the courts and the
media to arouse fears and nurture the stereotype of an abusive,
destructive cult. Their specific and stated intention was to "bust
up the Northeast Kingdom Community Church." Galen Kelly,
the notorious C.A.N. deprogrammer who served jail time for erroneously
kidnapping the wrong target, boasted that this plan was "full-proof."
The experienced Kelly, with his tactics of the anti-cult program
firmly outlined, and Juan Mattatall, with his dynamic and charming
personality, persuaded a willing media that the Community was
a dangerous and destructive cult. They enlisted the active support
of both private and public individuals in their crusade. Together,
the citizen activism motivated by the anti-cult propaganda proved
to be a promising combination, especially with public officials
ready to be heroes in an election year, 1984.
The two components functioned together. The anti-cult movers
enlisted the State officials to endorse their biased beliefs about
the group. By using press coverage that they had generated, they
convinced public servants that it was in the general welfare to
send state investigators at public expense to gather information
to prove that there was child abuse in the Community. With the
anti-cult motive of destroying the group already determined, it
follows that the investigators produced only "bad" affidavits,
gleaning only negative aspects from what defectors had to say
and forming molded accounts to accomplish their influenced goal:
stop the abuse of the children at the Church in Island Pond. This
laudable state purpose, however, was merely the façade for the
anti-cultists clearly articulated motivation: "to destroy
the Northeast Kingdom Community Church." While some officials
may have been unwitting participants in this scheme, the legitimate
state goal of protecting children in danger became indistinguishable
from the illegitimate and illegal anti-cult motive of destroying
a religion they don't like. No one bothered to recognize the difference
and the story of Juan Mattatall's custody battle fueled in the
press by the anti-cult movement provided the rallying point. The
State of Vermont was lead into police action by the anti-cult
agenda.
These three divorce cases, which removed eleven children from
their home in the Twelve Tribes' Community, and the media attention
they received, served to make the public wary of the quiet and
peaceful group. The stage was set for a public outcry to demand
a political response. "What about the other children, the
ones nobody sees?" was the fearful theme. The anti-cult plan
was working.
The 1984 Raid Itself
Directly following the pressure of several devoted anti-cult
activists, both local and national, Governor Richard Snelling
and his council decided to conduct a massive round-up of 112 children
from the Church in Island Pond. Such seizure was later judged
"the worst state-sanctioned violation of children since Herod
the Great," a term used by Judge Frank Mahady who dismissed
all the cases, condemning the state's action for its "Draconian"
approach This massive police attack at dawn on families at home
making breakfast with their children was the effect of anti-cult
activism on public servants.
On June 22, 1984, as the power and might of the State of Vermont
was brought to bear on this little rural village, it seemed as
if the airtight plan had been executed. Ninety state troopers
in flak jackets and fifty social workers arrived with a search
warrant and took 112 children into protective custody planning
to examine them for signs of abuse. But after forty individual
detention hearings on that sunny, summer Friday afternoon in Newport,
Vermont, the State's Attornies were unable to produce any evidence
whatsoever. When called to prove their claims of abuse before
the court, they had not one witness to make their case. The state's
request for a blanket detention of the children to have them all
examined based on the faith of their parents was denied. There
was no lawful basis for any emergency action. All the children
were sent home with their parents and the Raid made national news.
The entire scheme was found to be "grossly unconstitutional"
in an eloquent and scholarly judicial opinion by Judge Frank Mahady.
Although the State filed a perfunctory appeal, which made the
headlines in an election year, after the appointment of an independent
special prosecutor, the appeals were quickly abandoned.
While the state did not succeed in taking the children in 1984,
the significance of the Raid remains. The inflammatory and libelous
publicity which surrounded it, with its charges of atrocious abuse
stories, is still circulated today, as members celebrate the 15th
Anniversary of their deliverance that day. Those whose lives have
been, and continue to be, affected by the distribution of such
misinformation, cannot simply consider the Raid a mere historical
footnote because it was a legal victory. The role the media reports
and their distribution played to portray the Twelve Tribes' as
an abusive cult continues to harm both children and adults today.
Stale and faulty newsclippings still circulate throughout North
and South America, Canada and Europe, instead of the solid legal
opinions based on the facts presented to the court. The judicial
decisions expose the religious discrimination that resulted at
the hands of government agents who were fueled by anti-cult hysteria.
The fact that anti-cult groups do not include these and other
judicial decisions, belies the anti-religious agenda that is not
looking to communicate the truth.
The Specific Children in the Custody Cases
However, the Alexander, Gregoire and Mattatall children already
removed from the care of their Community parent by divorce orders
in 1982 were not protected by the decision denouncing the Raid
as a serious violation of Constitutional rights in 1984. What
happened to these families and children whose lives were disrupted
by the activities of the anti-cult movement?
In 1982 Mason and Jeremiah Alexander, ages 11 and 9, were sent
by the court to live in southern Vermont with their father who
was a prison guard. For the next eight years, until the early
'90s, Mason, Jr. barely saw his mother and was disinterested in
Community life. Jeremiah, in contrast, persuaded his father to
allow visits and trekked to Island Pond every chance he could
to spend time with his mother and her friends. While still 17,
his father finally agreed that Jeremiah could return to the Community
and pursue the proven desire of his heart, to live in the Community
he could not forget. The older brother, Mason, graduated high
school and within a couple of years also chose to return to the
life that he had been taken from as a pre-teener. Mason Jr. is
now 28, married with a young daughter, raising his family in the
Community in Hyannis, Massachusetts. His father came to his wedding
several years ago. He was pleased to be there, thankful that his
son was in the Community and acknowledged that it was his own
pride and selfishness that caused him to leave Island Pond fifteen
years earlier and not anything bad that was happening to his sons.
He went along with the orchestrated campaign to paint the Community
as an abusive cult to get custody of his sons. Their mother Susan
has been in the Community Church nearly twenty years now and is
overjoyed with her children and her grandchild and pleased with
the obvious change of heart in her former husband.
Three of the four children of Tommy and Eileen Gregoire now live
in Community households spanning the East coast from Boston to
Florida. They range in age from 17 to 27. The fourth visits on
occasion. Despite a 1982 custody order that found the children
to be victims "of systematic abuse," embroiled in some
sort of "holy war between the parents," the children
have returned. 27-year-old Paul testified in court in 1994 that
when he read the 1982 order about himself he could not identify
or recall any disciplinary mistreatment coming to him as a child.
The contents of the order initially stunned, and later perplexed
him. Defectors who became apostates, such as Juan Mattatall testified
at the 1982 custody hearings, so that testimony was most likely
the basis for the court's comments.
The two older children, Paul and Charity, have married in the
Community and have chosen their life's course, following in the
faith and footsteps of the mother they were taken from by the
courts. Their father Tommy, has a similar tale to tell as Mason
Alexander. Attending the wedding of his son in the Community in
1997, he is satisfied at the choice his children have made to
reside in the Community and makes it clear that he left because
of doctrinal differences having nothing to do with harsh treatment
of children.
The most dramatic family history by far is that of the Mattatalls.
Juan Mattatall became a charismatic "career apostate"
who made it his purpose to remove his wife and five children from
the Church in Island Pond when he was sent away for a time in
1982 when several (relatively minor by today's standards) incidents
of child molestation were uncovered and he would neither admit
them, nor receive help. He then joined with Galen Kelly, a Cult
Awareness Network deprogrammer, in his plan to "to destroy
the Northeast Kingdom Community Church." The activities of
Kelly and Mattatall provide a telling example how anti-cultists,
with the help of disaffected ex-members, are able to manipulate
state agencies and the media, and how, as a consequence, innocent
people are made to suffer.
Cindy Mattatall was, by all accounts, a loving and devoted mother
who was unwilling to move out of the Community with her five children,
ages infant to seven years, to live with her husband Juan, whose
pedophiliac tendencies she was keen to. She kept losing in court
as the judges refused to weigh the evidence against her husband
as significant in determining "the best interests" of
her children Desperate, she planned to take her children to Europe,
when on the eve of her departure, the Citizens' Freedom Foundation
helped Juan grab the children from her at gunpoint with the aid
of the New Jersey State Police. The children were taken from their
mother and embarked with their father, Juan, on an eight-year
course of foster homes and orphanages, denied visits with their
mother, despite the fact that visits were ordered by the court.
Juan Mattatall effectively persuaded social service agencies to
distance the mother, even while he faced criminal charges for
his behavior with children.
Finally, in April 1990, his own mother shot him dead in the head
as he napped in her home in Oveido, Florida, before turning the
gun on herself. Her husband testified that she did it because
her son's life was a non-stop series of problems with "children
and the law" and she wanted to spare both him and herself
further shame. The remarried Cindy went to Florida and regained
custody of all five of her children, then aged 9-16. They all
returned to the Community in Island Pond. Today, at ages 17-24,
four live in Messianic Communities. Of those who do, all but the
youngest boy are very happily married and raising families, following
the teachings they were born into.
Nine out of these eleven children have returned to the Community
as adults, the news accounts of the early '80s alleging abuse
continue to be distributed internationally when a new Twelve Tribes'
Community begins. Despite the efforts of anti-cult activists,
however, new Communities begin and continue to be established.
These children, once portrayed as "silently abused",
are now adults and no longer silent. They are coming home.
Custody Sagas of the '90s
In 1994 when a Community in Rutland, Vermont was just starting,
a divorced mother who had custody of her four daughters, ages
4-12, moved in and became a believer. Her husband, a college English
professor who retained custody of their two teenage sons, failed
to return the girls after a weekend visit. He went to court seeking
custody of the girls, alleging abuse. Lavin began receiving anonymous
phone calls warning him of the dangers of the "cult",
as well as unsolicited anti-cult information packets in the mail.
For six months Stuart and Rosemary Lavin were in the news whenever
they appeared in court. The father vowed to protect his girls
from the hands of the abusive cult and the mother took her stand
in the truth of her right to keep custody of her daughters and
practice the religion of her choice without losing her girls.
After days of contested hearings, the court ordered a comprehensive
psychological assessment of the entire family. The practitioner
judged by what he saw and heard first-hand. His report concluded,
he found the Community to be safe for children, albeit a viable
departure from the mainstream culture. He visited several Communities,
talking to children of all ages. He found them to be secure, social
and well adjusted. While the mother voluntarily agreed to joint
custody and the girls lived with their father for a time as a
result of fears generated by anti-cultists, the psychologist and
the court supported the children's visits in the Community without
reservation. The results are quite noteworthy.
Now, five years later in 1999, all four girls reside in the Community
with their mother, each of their own choosing and with the indispensable
consent of their father. Once he had physical custody of the girls,
he became simply curious about why they wanted to return to the
Community in Rutland. He made it his business to become a regular
visitor and find out. He was welcomed. In 1998 the reconciled
family members appeared on a Boston TV program, the Chronicle,
in a featured documentary entitled "Community or Cult,"
with the girls detailing the reasons for their choice. When the
girls, now ages 9-17, proclaimed the benefits of spanking and
rejection of the pop culture, their father wholeheartedly agreed.
He remains outside the Community, a frequent visitor. Even his
two older sons are periodic guests at the Messianic Communities.
However, not all cases involving anti-cultists in which children
are taken from parents as a consequence of their membership in
the Community end happily. In the intervening years since the
1984 Raid, two Messianic Community fathers have faced criminal
prosecution, having been accused of abducting their sons from
two mothers who used the courts to execute their anti-cult agenda
in order to take custody from the fathers because of their faith.
These two men, Stephen Wootten in Vermont and Edward Dawson in
Canada, were both acquitted of any criminal wrongdoing after each
spent months in jail and suffered the loss of their sons. In both
instances although the father had sole legal custody of the boys,
the mother persuaded the authorities to lay criminal charges without
first making adequate investigation into the status of the boys.
Such undue influence being brought to bear on the legal system
is a deliberate and often effective tactic of anti-cultists. It
can have devastating and life-determining consequences.
The provincial and state governments involved could have saved
tens of thousands, if not more, of taxpayer dollars had they taken
the time to educate themselves to anti-cult tactics. If they had
investigated the facts and looked behind the hysteria, they would
have seen that charges were not even justified. Government agents
and courts would not have fallen victim to a calculated agenda
aimed at destroying families, robbing the right to free exercise
of religion, and discrediting a viable and safe alternative way
of living.
Edward Dawson spent five years defending himself against a parental
kidnapping charge while he had legal custody of his son Michael
the entire time. Nevertheless, the boy lived with his mother for
five years, 1994-1999, by default as the lame criminal charges
prohibited Dawson from contact with his son. He won an acquittal
by a judge in 1994. After the Crown appealed this Nova Scotia
decision and the case went to the Supreme Court of Canada, Dawson
got a second "Not Guilty" verdict in 1997 from a jury
after a two-week trial where he represented himself. His son Michael
testified on his behalf.
The trial court judge determined that Dawson had been the target
of religious discrimination when his wife, her lawyer, and an
anti-cult witness, falsely claiming to be an expert, effectively
deprived Dawson of his right to be heard at a critical hearing
concerning the custody of his son in 1992, prior to the laying
of the charges. The tragedy is that after five years in the unlawful
custody of his mother in Montreal, the governmental authorities
have intervened, alleging her to be unfit, while Michael's future
rests with the very authorities who wrongfully took Michael from
his father in the first place. The government agencies don't even
know or acknowledge the fact of the unjust anti-cult influence
or its monumental effect on the life of Michael Dawson. At 16,
he sits in juvenile detention, a very angry and confused young
man. Michael Dawson lost his relationship with his father because
of religious discrimination by the provincial government who was
persuaded to believe lies by anti-cult activists who are not held
accountable for their lies and the damage they cause.
Stephen Wootten's two sons, Nathan and Seth, now 19 and 15, remain
with their mother in upstate New York, after 1-2 weeks of "exit
counseling" by Rick Ross in 1997 at the hands of their mother,
an avid apostate from the Messianic Communities. The dismissal
of the custodial interference charges is precious little comfort
to their father who had been their lifelong primary caretaker
until their seizure upon his arrest. The Wootten boys were also
taken from their custodial father as a consequence of ungrounded
charges founded in the biased story of their mother, a former
Community member who convinced authorities that Wootten was a
criminal because of his faith, without evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
It is interesting to note that the very judge who gave custody
to the defecting mother at an ex parte hearing in 1990 where the
father was not present is the same judge who dismissed the criminal
charges eight years later in 1998.
The case of Twelve Tribes' member Amy Brown is another family
tragedy fostered by anti-cultists, but with a new twist. As the
custodial parent of 6 year-old Ian, she joined the Boston Community.
When his father wanted to take him for his annual month's visitation
of summer sailing, she was reluctant. Her son's paternal grandfather
had been persuaded against her faith by anti-cult literature and
activists in action. He had a high-powered lawyer named Herbert
Rosedale of the American Family Foundation. Amy Brown was threatened
repeatedly and intimidated, told she had better transfer custody
of the boy "or else there would be trouble." Amy did
not succumb to the pressure to turn over custody, but she did
allow the visit in July 1996 after a supposed "mediation"
session. The "mediator" turned out to be an undisclosed
anti-cult activist, on hand for the occasion to "lend his
services" to set the stage to kidnap her son. Her former
husband has yet to return the boy. An arrest warrant for the father
Jonathan Brown remains outstanding in Massachusetts for the crime
of parental kidnapping. The boy Ian, now 10, has not seen his
custodial mother who raised him since she released him for his
1996 summer visit. It seems others who are aware of the charge
seem to know where the boy is and are not telling. Despite knowledge
of Amy Brown' custody order, Herbert Rosedale has tried to persuade
the Boston police to drop the charges against the father, regardless
of the fact that he has deprived the mother of lawful custody
for three years.
ACM Attempts at Criminal Convictions: Decisions Finding Religious
Bias
A retrospective look at the anti-cult movement's efforts to paint
Twelve Tribes' members as criminals is revealing. A pattern of
religious discrimination in the prosecution of the cases, all
involving children, is documented in the judicial decisions since
1984. The Raid decision, State of Vermont v. Charles Wiseman (1985),
The Queen v. Edward Frank Dawson (1997) and State of Vermont v.
Stephen Wootten (1998) found serious fundamental violations of
Twelve Tribes' member rights, ranging from denial of 1st,
5th and 6th Amendment rights (of freedoms
of religion, association, due process and fair trial) to unethical
conduct in the prosecution's handling of witnesses favorable to
the Twelve Tribes' member. State prosecutors have made a practice
of relying on the statements of anti-cultists themselves, or defectors
who have been exit-counseled or deprogrammed by them, including
some who have become "career apostates."
One graphic example of a child abused by the tactics of the anti-cult
movement is Darlynn Church, the alleged 12-year-old victim in
the 1983 pre-raid simple assault charge against Eddie Wiseman.
She supposedly endured a "seven-hour beating resulting in
89 welts" on her back side. This one case is probably the
single most sensational, untrue and graphic misrepresentation
of the Twelve Tribes. It continues to be circulated today despite
the fact that the case was dismissed in 1985 for lack of a speedy
trial due to the state's delays in deliberately trying to obtain
only evidence of guilt, not innocence. A little - known fact is
that the court found the State of Vermont guilty of ethical misconduct
because its prosecutors refused to call Darlynn Church once she
was available as a witness, because she made known the fact that
her original testimony had been coached and persuaded by anti-cultists
to distort the facts and escalate them to a contrived charge.
The 1984 judicial decision denouncing the Raid found religious
discrimination at the hands of the State of Vermont. In June 1998
Stephen Wootten filed a motion to dismiss his custodial interference
charge alleging selective prosecution by the state, a continuing
pattern as evidenced in the Wiseman case and the Raid.
One thing about children is that they grow up and that they have
memories. Darlynn Church is now 29 years old with three children
of her own. She has no gripe or complaint against Eddie Wiseman.
She tells of the intense pressure she was under from anti-cultists
and state officials to make things "worse and worse."
Over the past fifteen years she has not been in the Community
and has been sought out repeatedly to speak against the Twelve
Tribes. As recently as September 1998 the Attorney General's office
of Vermont phoned her. They wanted her to cooperate in reinstituting
the charges against Eddie Wiseman, fifteen years later. In the
midst of facing Stephen Wootten's claim of selective prosecution
based upon a pattern of religious discrimination, the Attorney
General told her they knew that "justice had not been served"
in her case. Darlynn Church told the State she wasn't interested.
Conclusion
In all the cases described, anti-cult activities have separated
children from parents largely because of a parent's adherence
to the life of The Twelve Tribes. In each instance, judicial decisions
were initially made largely on the prejudicial evidence supplied
by anti-cultists and/or ex-members whom they recruited. Yet rarely
did state agencies or the media, that were often instrumental
in propagating false stereotypes of Community life, conduct follow-up
investigations on the lives of children or members that their
actions disrupted.
Looking back as the century turns over, the evidence shows that
many of the children who were tragically and unjustly removed
from the Twelve Tribes' Community have voluntarily returned to
the Community. (as have several defectors whose testimony was
used critically by anti-cult activists) It is significant also,
that in other cases, such as that of Michael Dawson, children
continue to seriously suffer as a consequence of anti-cult activities.
The reality is that the Twelve Tribes' children are coming home,
one at a time, returning to the faith of their Community parent.
The efforts of the anti-cult movement, while troubling, inconvenient,
discriminatory and expensive, have not prevented the growth of
the Twelve Tribes.
Written by Jean A. Swantko, Esq.
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