Creepy David Berg in the Philippines

Los Angeles Weekly: L.A.'s Five Most Powerful Cult Leaders
by Matthew Fleischer
October 28, 2008 1:00 PM

?Father? David Berg: Children of God ? ?The Family?

Jonesin? for sex with underage teens? What to do?what to do?? If you?re David Berg, you invoke the name of Jesus and start yourself an ?end of days? Christian cult.

Your cult has truly gone mainstream when you can molest kids for decades and get away with it ? which, according to a 2005 Rolling Stone expose, is exactly what David Berg and his Children of God have done in the L.A. area since 1968.

At their height, the Children of God were purported to have over 9,000 members across the globe. Actor River Phoenix and brother Joaquin were raised among its members. Aside from sheer numbers, organizational endurance and molestational chutzpah, Berg?s Children of God get huge cult points for creating the hilariously titled proselytizing technique ?flirty fishing,? whereby the more attractive female followers would seek out lonely businessmen and offer them sex and eternal salvation. ?Flirty fishers? were rumored to have a nearly 100 percent conversion rate until the practice was banned in 1987 with the spread of the AIDS virus.

Though Berg died in 1994, his Children of God still live on ? though not as he would have wanted. In 2005, after an alleged lifetime of molestation, including being forced to sleep with his own mother Karen Zerby, Berg?s chosen heir, Ricky Rodriguez, murdered fellow ?Family? member Angela Smith before committing suicide. Rodriguez, known among the Children of God as Davito, was a product of ?flirty fishing? and had been bred to battle the anti-Christ.

His mother Zerby now helms the organization.