Family International
The Family International (TFI) is an American new religious movement founded in 1968 by David Brandt Berg. The group has gone under a number of different names since its inception, including Teens for Christ, The Children of God (COG), The Family of Love, or simply The Family. A British court case found the group was an authoritarian cult which engaged in the systematic physical and sexual abuse of children, resulting in lasting trauma among survivors. The group has also been accused of targeting vulnerable people. Overview According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, "at its height" the Family movement had "tens of thousands of members, including River and Joaquin Phoenix, Rose McGowan, and Jeremy Spencer". TFI initially spread a message of salvation, apocalypticism, spiritual "revolution and happiness", and distrust of the outside world, which the members called ''The System''. Like some other fundamentalist groups, it "foretold the coming of a dictator called t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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David Brandt Berg
David Brandt Berg (February 18, 1919 – October 1, 1994), also known as King David, Mo, Moses David, Father David, Dad, or Grandpa to followers, was the founder and leader of the cult generally known as the Children of God and subsequently as The Family International. Berg's group, founded in 1968 among the counterculture youth in Southern California, gained notoriety for incorporating sexuality into its spiritual message and recruitment methods. Berg and his organization were accused of a broad range of sexual misconduct, including child sexual abuse. Life Family heritage Berg's maternal grandfather was John Lincoln Brandt (1860–1946), a Disciples of Christ minister, author, and lecturer of Muskogee, Oklahoma. Brandt had a dramatic conversion in his mid-twenties and immediately entered full-time Christian service. For years he was a Methodist circuit rider. He later became a leader of the Alexander Campbell movement of the Disciples of Christ, a restoration movement tha ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of newspapers in the United States, sixth-largest newspaper in the U.S. and the largest in the Western United States with a print circulation of 118,760. It has 500,000 online subscribers, the fifth-largest among U.S. newspapers. Owned by Patrick Soon-Shiong and published by California Times, the paper has won over 40 Pulitzer Prizes since its founding. In the 19th century, the paper developed a reputation for civic boosterism and opposition to Trade union, labor unions, the latter of which led to the Los Angeles Times bombing, bombing of its headquarters in 1910. The paper's profile grew substantially in the 1960s under publisher Otis Chandler, who adopted a more national focus. As with other regional newspapers in California and the United Sta ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Excommunication
Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to deprive, suspend, or limit membership in a religious community or to restrict certain rights within it, in particular those of being in Koinonia, communion with other members of the congregation, and of receiving the sacraments. It is practiced by all of the ancient churches (such as the Catholic Church, Oriental Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodox churches and the Eastern Orthodoxy, Eastern Orthodox churches) as well as by other Christian denominations; however, it is also used more generally to refer to similar types of institutional religious exclusionary practices and shunning among other religious groups. The Amish have also been known to excommunicate members that were either seen or known for breaking rules, or questioning the church, a practice known as shunning. Jehovah's Witnesses use the term disfellowship to refer to their form of excommunication. The word ''excommunication'' means putting a specific indiv ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Missionary
A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group who is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Missionary' 2003, William Carey Library Pub, . In the Bible translations into Latin, Latin translation of the Bible, Jesus, Jesus Christ says the word when he sends the disciples into areas and commands them to preach the gospel in his name. The term is most commonly used in reference to Christian missions, but it can also be used in reference to any creed or ideology. The word ''mission'' originated in 1598 when Jesuits, the members of the Society of Jesus sent members abroad, derived from the Latin (nominative case, nom. ), meaning 'act of sending' or , meaning 'to send'. By religion Buddhist missions The first Buddhist missionaries were called "Dharma Bhanaks", and some see a missionary charge in the symbolism ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Commune (intentional Community)
An intentional community is a voluntary residential community designed to foster a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork. Such communities typically promote shared values or beliefs, or pursue a common vision, which may be political, religious, utopian or spiritual, or are simply focused on the practical benefits of cooperation and mutual support. While some groups emphasise shared ideologies, others are centred on enhancing social connections, sharing resources, and creating meaningful relationships. Although intentional communities are sometimes described as alternative lifestyles or social experiments, some see them as a natural response to the isolation and fragmentation of modern housing, offering a return to the social bonds and collaborative spirit found in traditional village life. The multitude of intentional communities includes collective households, cohousing communities, coliving, ecovillages, monasteries, survivalist retreats, kibbutzim, ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Proselytism
Proselytism () is the policy of attempting to convert people's religious or political beliefs. Carrying out attempts to instill beliefs can be called proselytization. Proselytism is illegal in some countries. Some draw distinctions between Christian evangelism and proselytism, regarding proselytism as involuntary or coerced; the two terms can also be understood to merely be synonyms. Etymology The English-language word ''proselytize'' derives from the Greek language prefix (, "toward") and the verb (, "I come") in the form of (, "newcomer"). Historically, in the Koine Greek Septuagint and New Testament, the word '' proselyte'' denoted a Gentile who was considering conversion to Judaism. Although the word ''proselytism'' originally referred to converting to Judaism (and earlier related to Gentiles such as God-fearers), it now implies an attempt of any religion or religious individuals to convert people to their belief. Arthur J. Serratelli, the Catholic Bishop of Paterson ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Orange County, California
Orange County (officially the County of Orange; often initialized O.C.) is a county (United States), county located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third most populous county in California, the county statistics of the United States, sixth most populous in the United States, and more populous than 19 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. Although largely suburban, it is the second most densely populated county in the state behind San Francisco, San Francisco County. The county's three most populous cities are Anaheim, California, Anaheim, Santa Ana, California, Santa Ana, and Irvine, California, Irvine, each of which has a population exceeding 300,000. Santa Ana is also the county seat. Six cities in Orange County lie along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast: Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Dana Point, and San Clemente. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Huntington Beach
Huntington Beach is a seaside city in Orange County, California, United States. The city was originally called Pacific City, but it was changed in 1903 to be named after American businessman Henry E. Huntington. The population was 198,711 as of the 2020 United States census, making it the fourth most populous city in Orange County, the most populous beach city in Orange County, and the seventh most populous city in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Located southeast of Downtown Los Angeles, it is bordered by Bolsa Chica Basin State Marine Conservation Area on the west, the Pacific Ocean on the southwest, by Seal Beach on the northwest, by Westminster on the north, by Fountain Valley on the northeast, by Costa Mesa on the east, and by Newport Beach on the southeast. Huntington Beach has a long stretch of sandy beach, mild climate, conditions considered ideal for surfing, and a strong beach culture. Swells generated predominantly from th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Christian And Missionary Alliance
The Alliance World Fellowship (or The Alliance, also C&MA and CMA) is an evangelicalism, evangelical Christian denomination It includes 6.2 million members throughout 88 countries within 22,000 churches. History The Alliance has its origins in two organizations founded by Albert Benjamin Simpson in 1887 in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, in the United States, The Christian Alliance, which concentrated on domestic missions, and The Evangelical Missionary Alliance, which focused on overseas missions. These two organizations merged in 1897 to form the Christian and Missionary Alliance.Randall Herbert Balmer, ''Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism: Revised and expanded edition'', Baylor University Press, USA, 2004, p. 156 In 1887, in a series of sermons called The ''Full Gospel, Fourfold Gospel'' in New York (state), New York, United States, which would characterize his teaching, Simpson summarized the Gospel in four aspects; Jesus Christ Savior, Sanctifier, Healer and Soon Coming King. The '' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hippies
A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture of the mid-1960s to early 1970s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States and spread to different countries around the world. The word ''Etymology of hippie, hippie'' came from ''Hipster (1940s subculture), hipster'' and was used to describe beatniks who moved into New York City's Greenwich Village, San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, and Chicago's Old Town, Chicago, Old Town community. The term ''hippie'' was used in print by San Francisco writer Michael Fallon, helping popularize use of the term in the media, although the tag was seen elsewhere earlier. The origins of the terms ''Hip (slang), hip'' and ''hep'' are uncertain. By the 1940s, both had become part of African-American culture, African American Glossary of jive talk, jive slang and meant "sophisticated; currently fashionable; fully up-to-date". The Beats adopted ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Book Of Acts
The Acts of the Apostles (, ''Práxeis Apostólōn''; ) is the fifth book of the New Testament; it tells of the founding of the Christian Church and the spread of The gospel, its message to the Roman Empire. Acts and the Gospel of Luke make up a two-part work, Luke–Acts, by the same anonymous author. Traditionally, the author is believed to be Luke the Evangelist, a doctor who travelled with Paul the Apostle. It is usually dated to around 80–90 AD, although some scholars suggest 110–120 AD.Tyson, Joseph B., (April 2011)"When and Why Was the Acts of the Apostles Written?" in: The Bible and Interpretation: "...A growing number of scholars prefer a late date for the composition of Acts, i.e., c. 110–120 CE. Three factors support such a date. First, Acts seems to be unknown before the last half of the second century. Second, compelling arguments can be made that the author of Acts was acquainted with some materials written by Josephus, who completed his Antiquities of the J ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |