Twelve Tribes continue to reject cult label while physically, intellectually and spiritually abusing their children

Boulder Weekly   -  Colorado      May 12, 2011

Father, son & holy toast

By Jefferson Dodge

Rumors have been circulating that The Yellow Deli, which opened about a month ago near the corner of Ninth and Pearl streets in Boulder, is operated by a religious “cult.”

The establishment that took the place of Heidi’s Deli is part of a chain of restaurants that has been both lauded for its Reuben sandwiches and chastised for its fundamentalist Christian point of view.

The group behind the Yellow Deli is an international organization called Twelve Tribes. And an Internet search of Twelve Tribes turns up all sorts of claims, including allegations of child labor, racism and homophobia.

While the group has continually rejected the “cult” label, its members have been accused of suppressing women’s rights, abusing children and sending their founder money to support a lavish lifestyle.

But a visit to the Boulder Yellow Deli reveals a group that is open and eager to dispel what they say are misconceptions about the Twelve Tribes perpetuated by the media and others.

ROOTS OF A MOVEMENT

Gene Spriggs formed the Twelve Tribes in 1972 in Chattanooga, Tenn. The group created the Yellow Deli soon after because, according to the group’s website, they hoped to create “a place where they could work for a living and still be together, learning all about their Saviour and his Teachings.” The menu proclaimed, “Our specialty is the fruit of the Spirit. Why not ask?” Over the years, Twelve Tribes has been accused of both child labor and child abuse. Members attribute it to the anti-cult movement and their homeschooling practices, which include having kids do chores alongside parents and disciplining their children by smacking them with thin wooden rods, or “balloon sticks,” adhering to a biblical passage about using “reeds” for the same purpose.

They have been accused of forcing women into the roles of subservient wife and child-bearer, and forbidding contraceptives and the use of drugs during childbirth. New members are expected to give up all of their belongings and wealth once they join the Twelve Tribes, so that the entire community can share the resources equally. Some also give up their previous relationships. According to their website, new members get “new friends, a new job, a new hairstyle, a new address and, most importantly, a new Master, who will direct every aspect of your life.”

The group is known for being a sort of hippie Jesus commune, one in which all members live together, have an equal voice, share the work and share the rewards, a community in which no one is rich or poor. They take biblical passages literally, believing that they should recruit others to their point of view, that adultery and the use of drugs or alcohol are wrong. Outside influences such as television and video games are frowned upon.

The group reportedly wants to propagate extensively, so that there are 144,000 virginal males to serve as the bride of Messiah when Judgment Day comes.

In addition, the Twelve Tribes has been accused of lying to government and court officials to protect their own. They justify it by comparing it to lying to the Nazis about the location of Jews during the Holocaust, saying that the Bible does not require the truth to be told to evil men who aim to hurt the innocent.

According to a page on the group’s website attributed to a female member of the group, “God created woman to be a friend and a helper for man. She was created to be a wife and a mother, to raise children who would in turn know who they were created to be. In this she would find peace and rest. Sadly enough today though, many women strive to be something ‘better.’ But the good news that we’ve found is that there is nothing better than becoming who you were truly created to be. In this we are learning to have true modesty, that is, a true estimation of ourselves. We are not pitiful little housewives that are bossed around all day by overbearing men, but we are happy, liberated women who willingly submit ourselves to our loving husbands.”

According to a news article posted on the group’s website, Twelve Tribes marriages are arranged by the families of the bride and groom with their cooperation, and during the ceremony, the groom does not kiss the bride — she kisses him, as a symbol of her submission.

Former members say the group is, indeed, a cult that separated them from their family and friends. Websites like www.twelvetribes-ex.com and groups such as “Ithacans Opposed to the Twelve Tribes Cult” urge against patronizing their establishments.

BLENDING IN

One would scarcely detect any of these elements upon entering the Yellow Deli in Boulder. It resembles a number of local establishments, with its herbal scents and all-natural offerings. According to custom, all of the men sport ponytails and beards; the women have their hair pulled back and are dressed modestly. The restaurant features hippie-infused religious artwork and inspirational sayings on the walls, with partial thatched roofs jutting out over booths.

Each Tribe member has been given a special name.

Zach “Chaiyim” O’Keefe is one of the managers, although he is quick to point out that there are two others, since “a three-stringed cord is hard to break.” He is joined by another manager, Joseph “Dayag” Fisher. Both have come from the Twelve Tribes’ longstanding Manitou Springs establishment, the Maté Factor, where they met. Given the perceived mistreatment the group has received from other media over the years, they confer briefly before talking with a reporter. But when they return, they openly address the ques- tions that have been raised about their group in its nearly 40-year history.

While there are several piles of Twelve Tribes publications on shelves in the restaurant, Fisher says that Yellow Deli employees are not actively proselytizing.

“People can mind their own business, and we’ll serve them and not push anything on anyone,” he says. “We’re not putting what we believe on other people.”

They say the current community lives in two houses in the Boulder area, but they are looking for a bigger spot, like a farmhouse.

Curiously, the Yellow Deli is open 24 hours a day from noon on Sunday until Friday at 3 p.m. Fisher says the schedule is not intended to avoid the party crowd, but to serve as a place where “people can go and not worry about being chased out,” even in the wee hours. In the age of artificial communities created by Facebook, Twitter and email, he says, customers are sometimes “looking for a friend or someone to talk to, instead of popping on the headphones or getting on the computer. People are thirsty for that.”

They are quick to defend founder Spriggs against claims that he takes a percentage of all profits and jetsets around the world visiting his numerous mansions.

“If he gets any money, he uses it to buy shoes for the single brothers,” says Fisher, who lived with Spriggs for four years. “He helps widows and orphans.”

If there are any mansions, he says, “we all have mansions,” and Spriggs has many members living there with him. They insist that no money is sent to Spriggs, although one Twelve Tribes community might choose to help another community if it is in financial trouble.

“This stuff is no more true for him than it is for me or Zach,” Fisher says of the claims about Spriggs.

O’Keefe adds, “He spent the last two years busing tables at the Yellow Deli in Vista, Calif.”

TREATMENT OF WOMEN

The two say that men and women are given an equal voice in the community and are encouraged to speak their minds.

“Outspokenness is what keeps this lifestyle alive,” Fisher says.

And Deborah Wolfe, who has been a member of the group for 30 years, agrees.

“I would be happy to talk to any feminist women about the choices I made by having my six children,” she says.

Wolfe and her husband, Andrew, or “Sehyah,” were the first Twelve Tribes couple to arrive in Manitou Springs, traveling from a community in Island Pond, Vt., to establish a presence in Colorado because Andrew was born in Fort Collins. (It is custom for leaders to return to their birthplace to set up a community.) They now live with the new community in Boulder, but one of their sons is a manager at the Maté Factor in Manitou Springs.

They acknowledge that natural childbirth at home with a midwife is preferred, but hospital deliveries are not uncommon, especially when there are complications, and those deliveries are completely at the discretion of the couple. Four of Deborah’s kids were delivered at a hospital, as was Fisher’s 18-month-old son, Roeh.

“Nothing in our life is forced,” Fisher says. “We’re not into condemning.”

Deborah says natural, medication-free childbirth makes mothers even more connected to their babies.

“You work hard for that baby, and it helps that bonding process,” she says, adding that there are many alternatives for making childbirth more bearable, from relaxation techniques to having the support of family and close friends present.

As for contraception, Andrew Wolfe describes it as “limited, not prohibited,” and Deborah adds, “We want children.” Natural forms of contraception are used, they say, during the months immediately following childbirth, for instance.

When asked about the goal of creating thousands of virginal males to serve as Messiah’s bride on Judgment Day, Andrew says the idea is to have a critical mass of followers by the time Jesus, or “Yahshua,” as they call him, returns. It goes back to a biblical verse about the rest of the world witnessing disciples’ love for one another on that day of reckoning, he says.

They agree that while homosexuality is discouraged, gays are not expelled from the group. The group has had members “struggle” with homosexuality, they say, and gays have joined the group in the past, although their sexual orientation, like their belongings and wealth, is something they are expected to leave behind when starting their new life.

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

While the Twelve Tribes doesn’t subscribe to the strict biblical idea that the earth is only 6,000 years old, they don’t believe that man evolved from apes. They teach their home-schooled children about subjects like physics and biology, but special emphasis is placed on music and communication skills like reading and writing.

Twelve Tribes members use computers for things like communication, bookkeeping, research and shopping, but not for getting the latest celebrity news.

“Sitcoms are for people who don’t have an entertaining life,” Fisher says, explaining that his community gets satis faction from discussions, music, dancing, hiking and other wholesome activities.

Asked about the allegations of child labor, Fisher says the group “abides by the laws of the land” and that some have misinterpreted the Twelve Tribes custom of involving kids in chores at an early age, just as was common on farms in past decades.

As for the child abuse claims, Fisher says the group disciplines youngsters not out of anger, but to provide guidance. The word discipline, he says, refers to “being discipled, or being brought along by a master or a teacher. It’s not a punishment, it’s a correction, and it’s gaining access to the heart and the true bond made between student and teacher, parent and child.” As an example, Andrew Wolfe describes a 3-year-old who is told not to run into the busy street in front of his house. When the child heads for the street anyway, a quick slap from the thin wooden rod, or what he calls a “spanking,” is appropriate.

“The consequences of getting spanked are much less than getting hit by a car,” he says.

He adds, however, that the smack is immediately followed by a hug, reassuring the child that he or she is loved. The rod is used instead of the hand because the hands are used for love, for the hug that follows, he says. Deborah adds that a spanking might also be warranted when a child takes cookies that he or she knows are being saved for social time.

RACISM CLAIMS

Spriggs has been accused of saying inflammatory things about Martin Luther King and about slavery being a result of the biblical curse of Canaan. Twelve Tribes leaders readily admit that they discourage interracial marriages, even though they say they welcome non-white family units to join their group.

Spriggs reportedly said King could not offer true freedom to blacks because of the biblical curse, but according to Andrew Wolfe, Spriggs simply meant that joining the Twelve Tribes is the only real path out of racism.

“We see this life of love as the ultimate way to do away with prejudice, and other efforts are not going to cut it,” he says.

Fisher says the Twelve Tribes has had some interracial marriages.

“If it’s true love, no one is going to stand between them,” he says.

But Andrew acknowledges that the group prefers to have blacks marry blacks and whites marry whites. He is quick to add that a black or Asian family is welcome to join the community.

“Our solution to the race problem is not to inter-marry everybody,” he says.

Fisher adds, “Our goal is not to create one gray human being. The creator allowed man to be so diverse for a reason.”

As for other, non-restaurant occupations that are acceptable to the group, Fisher lists wood-working, produce delivery, construction and tree care as vocations that have been held by community members.

What about being a lawyer? A professional athlete?

“Our life is a life of living for each other,” Andrew says. “We glorify one another, not ourselves. We wouldn’t all be able to be on your team if you were a football player.”

And while the Twelve Tribes dismisses all other denominations, Andrew says, “we do not believe we are the only ones who will have eternal life.”

People will be judged on their own deeds, their own conscience, how they treated others, he says. Fisher adds that it will be about what is in their heart. The group doesn’t subscribe to the traditional heaven/hell dichotomy, instead believing in “three eternal destinies,” including a “lake of fire” for the “filthy and unjust.”

But Fisher says those who are not members or who have never even heard of the Twelve Tribes are not necessarily headed for that lake.

“They’re judged on the highest standard they’re aware of,” he says.

Asked about whether members are expected to sever ties with their nonconforming family and friends when they join Twelve Tribes, Fisher points to his in-laws in an adjacent Yellow Deli booth, who do not belong to the group but remain part of his family’s life. He explains that joining the community requires you to put Yahshua ahead of everyone else, so that sometimes causes problems with people who used to exercise authority over you. In addition, he says, members sometimes don’t see their extended family and friends as much as they used to before joining the group.

If it gets to the point that family members are destructively set against Twelve Tribes, an individual may have to sever ties, they agree.

“Relationships with family are encouraged, unless the family is dead set against us,” Andrew Wolfe says.

His wife adds, “If it’s not bearing good fruit.”

Andrew delivers one final message, asking people to avoid judging Twelve Tribes on what they read online until they’ve had a chance to come into the Yellow Deli.

“We encourage people to come meet with us themselves,” he says.

Besides, Fisher concludes, one recent customer described their Reuben sandwich as the best in the world.

Divine, in fact.


This article was found at:

http://www.boulderweekly.com/article-5583-father-son-holy-toast.html

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Spanish man claims his son has been kidnapped by Twelve Tribes cult

Typicallyspanish.com - December 15, 2008

by h.b.

Iván Méndez says his son has been taken by his mother into the Doce Tribus cult which has a base in Nerja.

A Órgiva man, Iván Méndez, has told the La Opinión de Málaga newspaper that he has not seen his nine month old son Rafael for two months, since his mother joined a spiritual organisation, Los Doce Tribus.

The group is considered to be a sect by many and has hundreds of followers around the world, and runs a wholefood restaurant on the Balcón de Europa in Nerja. Iván says that his child has been taken to Asturias where the organization runs a farm.

Los Doce Tribus, the Twelve Tribes, do not watch television, listen to the radio or read newspapers. Their life is inspired on the old testament, work from dawn to dusk and educate their children at home. Iván says they practice corporal punishment on their children.

Iván has now contracted a lawyer and the Children’s Defender in Andalucía has opened an investigation.

This article was found at:

http://www.typicallyspanish.com/news/
publish/article_19273.shtml

Twelve Tribes cult worries parents

Chattanooga Times Free Press

September 7, 2008

Chattanooga: Yellow Deli draws interest, worries some

by Joan Garrett


Michael Mosteller doesn’t know what the strangers said on the day he began to lose his daughter.

He imagines her, with a book or a Frisbee or a guitar, alone on the front lawn of her UTC dorm, as was her custom.

A curious, first-year philosophy major with blonde curls and a tiny frame, the student wondered about the hippie-clad men and women who strolled by her dorm, walking closely, even prayerfully, to and from the new restaurant down the street, a place called the Yellow Deli.

She asked questions, and introductions on a sidewalk soon became daily visits to the restaurant, free meals and late-night conversations about the meaning of life. Her phone calls home made her father believe a spell had been cast over her.

“The more she talked, the more nervous I got,” he said.

Then at the beginning of the summer, when his daughter was supposed to return home, tension mounted. She wanted to stay. Her friends at the Yellow Deli, who live communally and work without pay, wanted her to be one of them.

In a time of iPods and Facebook, it was hard for Mr. Mosteller to believe his daughter would abandon her earthly possessions and her education to join a communal Christian sect, one critics have labeled a cult.

“This is supposed to happen in California. It is not 1960 anymore,” he said.

His concern is echoed by others. Officials at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga have received several calls from parents worried the Yellow Deli and its message too easily may influence impressionable and experimenting students.

But leaders of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, the deli’s owners who are well versed in controversy, say parents, including Mr. Mosteller, would do well to respect the religious choices of their adult children.

“We have seen parents take radical actions against the children they love in a way that betrays their children, alienating them and separating their children till death,” said Ed Wiseman, a local leader who sits on the Twelve Tribes apostolic council.

INSIDE THE DELI

Ask Mr. Wiseman if he is a cult leader and a smile crawls up his face.

“I think Jesus was a cult leader,” he said, staring with sky-blue eyes through gold-rimmed spectacles. “He was outside the camp of organized religion.”

Mr. Wiseman, who has just returned to Chattanooga after five weeks of travel abroad offering business training to followers in Europe, is well aware of what people say about him and the Twelve Tribes patriarch, Gene Spriggs.




“In the past, I was much more threatened,” Mr. Wiseman said. “I took it personal.”

They left the city more than 20 years ago after several members of the group were taken by cult deprogrammers. Since then, Twelve Tribe communities have been accused of racism, sexism, homophobia and child abuse, according to the group’s Web site, which claims the allegations were not substantiated. Members also have been embroiled in child custody battles.

Mr. Spriggs started the Twelve Tribes in Chattanooga in the mid ’70s, and the group’s communities now are scattered throughout the Midwest and West Coast as well as in Germany, France, Spain, Argentina and England. Members home school their children, endorse the traditional nuclear family and support themselves through cottage industries such as organic farming, carpentry, hostels, small stores and delis.

Legally, they are members of a nonprofit entity that is allowed to operate a for-profit business because they share their money, Mr. Wiseman said.

In some ways, time seems to have stopped for the Yellow Deli and the people who work there. Women with waist-length hair wear no makeup and balloon pants or skirts; the men have beards and tight, slicked buns of long hair.

The appeal of the Twelve Tribes is subtle. Members don’t evangelize lunch patrons. The group’s literature is on display but not offered, and Yellow Deli events such as the biweekly free speech forum held on the garden patio only touch on the beliefs of the Twelve Tribes when guided by visitors, Mr. Wiseman said.

Nick Cooper, a UTC student who participated in the group’s free speech forum last week and is thinking about joining, is one of many students who share their angst about personal relationships with community members.

“I just came back from a family reunion where I tried to talk to my dad and just got one-word answers,” he shared with the group. “I tried to tell him about wanting to join the community, but he didn’t care.”

The few new followers — only one person has been baptized into the local Twelve Tribes community since it opened the deli on McCallie Avenue in April — are drawn by witnessing community and love, not force, said Mr. Wiseman.

“There is no agenda,” he said. “It is not us there, promoting what we believe. We want to start a free-speech movement. The status quo is built around, ‘Shut your mouth and get in line.’”

Yet the basic message of Twelve Tribes has tough requirements: To find salvation people must believe in a savior followers call Yahshua, give up everything they own and get a room in the group’s big house.

“To truly be in the new covenant, a person has to obey what God said,” said Mr. Wiseman, referring to biblical passages about the early church. “They were never supposed to have money and have a house and go to church.”

It is not surprising that parents would be concerned about their children’s involvement with the group, Mr. Wiseman said, but the group does not use emotional manipulation to bypass people’s will. A book the group recently published called “Cult Scare” could help parents concerned about their children’s involvement, he said.

Mr. Mosteller’s daughter “responded to love and the love she found here caused her to give authority to the words that came from here,” Mr. Wiseman said. “We just loved her, just like anyone else who wants a sandwich.”

OUTSIDE THE DELI

UTC administrators’ hands are tied when it comes to the Yellow Deli.

“We have to acknowledge that our students are 18,” said Chuck Cantrell, a spokesman for UTC. “They are adults, and they have to be allowed to make their own decisions.”

All UTC can do to appease worried parents is equip students with information to make decisions, he said. Student programs can teach what is and what isn’t a healthy spiritual relationship, but UTC cannot come out against a religious group that has not been charged with anything illegal.

DeeDee Anderson, dean of students at UTC, said university staff and campus ministries have met about the Yellow Deli’s influence on students, but there are no plans for cult awareness programs. But if parents continue to call, the university’s message regarding the Twelve Tribes may shift, she said.

“They are right there (near campus),” she said. “It is something that we are keeping an eye on.”

The Twelve Tribes is not a cult like Jonestown, the Branch Davidians or Heaven’s Gate, but they are a high-control group that can destroy people’s lives, said Bob Pardon, director of the New England Institute of Religious Research. The institute is an anti-cult organization that runs a transitional facility that has helped many former members of the Twelve Tribes.

Individuals are drawn in by a simple message of love and community, but they should seek to understand what Mr. Spriggs truly teaches before signing their lives away, he said.

“There is a seamy underbelly,” Mr. Pardon said. “The group is racist and controls you from the beginning. As time has gone on, they have gotten raked over the coals and have learned to turn a phrase and make what they believe more palatable.”

For now, Mr. Mosteller sits on pins and needles. His daughter left UTC to study in Oregon for a year but has plans to return to the Chattanooga campus when her program has finished. She continues to communicate with workers of the Yellow Deli via e-mail and, at one point, was offered a plane ticket to return for the wedding of a couple in the group, said Mr. Mosteller.

“I am petrified. I am horrified,” he said. “I was trying to contact anyone and everybody that I knew. It is not just about my daughter. There are more (girls like my daughter) out there.”

He said he doesn’t know whether his daughter will adopt Mr. Spriggs and his teachings. In the end, though he can take her car and her weekly allowance, he can’t stop her.

“They think they know better about the salvation of my daughter than I do,” Mr. Mosteller said. “There is a certain appeal because they live in a structured environment, and every day is a beautiful day. You don’t have to worry about the grade. You can lay in the grass and look at the stars, and life is beautiful. You don’t have to worry about banking, cell phones or rent.”

“My greatest fear is that she end up there.”

This article was found at:

http://timesfreepress.com/news/2008/sep/07/chattanooga-yellow-deli-draws-interest-worries-som/

The practices of messianic Christian sect The Twelve Tribes continue to divide opinion

Blue Mountains Gazette - Australia

August 6, 2008

Controversy continues to brew over sect cafe

by Shane Desiatnik


The practices of messianic Christian sect The Twelve Tribes continue to divide opinion in the Blue Mountains, with an ex-member and a potential new member throwing another log into the fire of debate.

The group established a small community in Katoomba in February to run the popular Common Ground Cafe.

In April the letters section of the Gazette was peppered with expressions of support and concern about the sect, sparked by allegations in a Sydney Morning Herald article by ex-members from Picton that child beatings and slave-like working conditions occurred.

These claims were immediately rejected by Katoomba members Campbell Macklow and Peter Baker as “a load of rubbish” in a story in the Gazette.

An ex-member quoted in the Herald article, Winmalee resident Matthew Klein, is sounding another warning to Mountains residents to recognise the Twelve Tribes as a potentially destructive cult.

“The Twelve Tribes is up there with a textbook cult,” Mr Klein said.

“They can dismiss me as a disgruntled former member, but I've seen what goes on.”

The Winmalee father of three lived in the Picton community with his then wife from 1999 to 2001, but was separated from her and sent to a community in Canada with one of his sons, he claims as punishment for his parents “making too many noises and asking too many questions.

“If you don't tow the line, you get cut off from your family.

“I have all three kids now because I demanded that when I left, but their mother hasn't spoken to them for six years.”

Mr Klein said while members like to say there are no barbed wire fences restricting them, he maintains members are trapped not by their surrounds, but by mind and financial control.

“You are not paid wages, super or any worker’s compensation, you work long hours six days per week, sometimes doing dangerous work you're not qualified to do.”

Mr Klein, a qualified teacher, describes the education provided to Twelve Tribes children as abysmal.

“They don't want to expose children to anything outside of the cult, they don't get taught critical analysis and are disciplined for using their imagination.

“Their Child Discipline Manual is not handed out anymore, but they still tell you how to follow it.

“The manual says stripes or marks from disciplining shows love — the stripes are from hitting with a bamboo stick that leaves welts.

“I saw that going on in Picton at the time.”

Mr Klein said he has nothing against the people in the Twelve Tribes, but the structure itself.

“They are there to prey on vulnerable people and that's why they are in Katoomba,” he said.

“Supporting their business is supporting their lifestyle.”

Another qualified teacher, Katoomba resident Bruce Stevenson, joined the Twelve Tribes on a trial basis in June and describes allegations made against it as “just nonsense”.

“I was hearing negative things about the Twelve Tribes around town and the only way to find out about it was to spend time there,” Mr Stevenson said.

“I'm mightily impressed, I intend to stay and I'm very open to the idea of joining.

“The kids here are happy and well-adjusted, I feel so at home and cared for.

“Speaking for myself, it is an incredibly worthwhile life and cause.

“As a high school teacher for 15 years and a widely travelled cultural explorer, I am yet to see a better example than the Twelve Tribes community anywhere in the world.”

Mr Stevenson acknowledged members work very long days and don't have an easy life.

“As far as I'm concerned, people who join put in everything, they make a commitment to the life, they choose to do it.

“You get provided for all your needs. You are told all this before you join — they won't let me do it unless I understand what is involved.”

Mr Stevenson said he doesn't know Mr Klein and does not want to judge him.

“But someone with an axe to grind lacks credibility. He is misrepresenting what's going on.”


This article was found at:

http://bluemountains.yourguide.com.au/news/local/news/general/controversy-continues-to-brew-over-sect-cafe/
1236847.aspx

1984 Twelve Tribes cult raid had similar judicial conclusion as Texas case

Times Argus - Vermont

June 5, 2008


by Wilson Ring | Associated Press

MONTPELIER — Before dawn on June 22, 1984, 90 Vermont State Police troopers and 50 social workers descended on the Island Pond homes of about 400 people belonging to the Northeast Kingdom Community Church to investigate allegations of child abuse.

Authorities had received reports children were being beaten, sometimes with sticks, as part of the strict discipline imposed by church parents. The 112 children taken into custody were to be examined for abuse and if none were found they were to be returned to their parents — if the parents agreed to cooperate with the state.

But within hours a judge returned the children to their parents, calling the state's effort a "grossly unlawful scheme."

While there are many differences between the Vermont raid on Island Pond and the decision by Texas officials to take into custody 430 children amid allegations underage girls were being forced to marry older men, there are many similarities, said one of the former officials involved in the Vermont case. "It's very apparent from these two cases that at least two courts are looking for specific, direct information regarding each family unit," said Washington attorney John Easton, who in 1984 was the Vermont attorney general and involved in the decision to launch the Island Pond raid. "To remove a child from a family is a high burden. The courts are going to be looking for a substantial amount of proof" of abuse.

On April 3, Texas Child Protective Services removed all the children from the Yearning For Zion Ranch run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints after a 16-year-old mother claimed she was being abused by her middle-age husband. The state charged all the children were at risk because church teachings pushed underage girls into marriage and sex.

Last month, The Texas Third Court of Appeals said the state went too far. The Texas Supreme Court has since upheld the decision and almost all the children have been returned to their parents. Church leaders are promising not to sanction underage marriages.

Vermont law school Professor Peter Teachout said he'd read the Texas court decisions and the 1984 Vermont rulings, which reached the same conclusions:

"Lawyers who practice family law will know to say the burden is on the state in these cases," Teachout said. "The underlying principle is whenever you take a child away from his parents, that you do so when there is serious risk of abuse."

The Northeast Kingdom Community Church took root in Island Pond, a small, rural community in northern Vermont, in the summer of 1978 after a resident invited a church leader to town. Almost immediately, the Island Pond group tripled in size from its 20 original members to 60. The church is now known as the Twelve Tribes, which has 50 communities in nine countries and about 3,500 members.

From the beginning the relationship between Island Pond in a part of Vermont called the Northeast Kingdom and the bearded men and their women in kerchiefs was uneasy. In some circles the word "cult" was used to describe it and state officials began to hear reports of physical abuse of children.

So the state decided to act, got an order from a judge to seize the children and secretly assembled the police and social workers, said Easton, the former attorney general.

After they were taken, Judge Frank Mahady, who has since died, interviewed them and sent them home. His scathing opinion is still available on the church's Web site.

James Richardson, a sociologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, who has studied efforts by governments to control minority faiths, said the Texas and Vermont cases were among almost two dozen similar cases scholars have identified around the world.

He said in many cases organizations get caught up in investigating allegations of child abuse and they overreach. In Vermont and Texas the efforts were stopped by the judge.

"Concern about children trumps all other considerations in most western nations, and usually overcomes even religious freedom concerns," Richardson said in an e-mail.

Even from the perspective of 24 years, Easton said there wasn't much he would have done differently.

"We were put in a difficult position. We had rather serious allegations from people who had directly observed activities inside the church," Easton said. "To not act would have been irresponsible."

In 1984, Jean Swantko was a public defender assigned to represent the people of the Island Pond church. Now she's a member.

"Maybe a lot of people don't realize the 1st Amendment protects freedom of association. You don't find groups guilty, you find people guilty," said Swantko, who splits her time between Twelve Tribes communities in Vermont and Tennessee.

She said many of the children seized in 1984 are now adults raising their own children in the church.

"Now, 24 years after the raid they are between 24 and 32. Most of them are still in the community. They are taking on the faith of their parents," Swantko said. "You can judge a tree by its fruit."

This article was found at:

http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/
article?AID=/20080605/NEWS02/
806050368/1003/NEWS02

Harsh discipline of children is a central tenet of Twelve Tribes cult

Sydney Morning Herald

March 24, 2008


Spare the rod and spoil the …

Harsh discipline of children is a central tenet of a religious sect operating in Picton, writes Tim Elliott.


In 1999 Matthew Klein had a revelation. Fed up with mainstream Christianity, the then 30-year-old industrial chemist, his wife and two young children went to live on a nine-hectare commune at Picton run by a Christian sect called the Twelve Tribes. "I wanted to be a good Christian, and I admired what I thought was this group's commitment."

Klein sold his house and business, emptied his bank account and surrendered it all to the "community", whose members were only known by biblical names. "When you join you abandon your 'worldly name' and adopt a Hebrew one," he says.

"I became Lev Qadash, which is Hebrew for 'dedicated heart'."

But it wasn't long before Klein began noticing "odd things" about the group. He knew that the 60 or so members weren't allowed to marry outsiders or to vote, and that they had no access to newspapers, magazines or TV. But questioning the elders was also strictly prohibited. "We were told that reasoning was the same sin as witchcraft," he says.

Then there were the "ridiculously long" work hours. "The group owns bakeries and cafes and operates a restaurant at the Royal Easter Show. Sometimes you were working 20-hour days, for no pay. There's plenty of money coming in, but no one who works there ever sees any of it."

Most disturbing of all, however, was the child discipline. In an effort to keep their minds pure, Twelve Tribes children aren't allowed to have toys, play games or make-believe. If a child disobeys these rules or fails to respond to an adult, he or she is hit on the bare bottom or hand with a 45-centimetre, reed-like stick, one of which is kept above the door ledge in every room.

"One spanking generally consisted of three to six hits," Klein says, with the rod regarded as "an instrument of love, not punishment".

"One day I left my two-year-old boy with an elder while I went and worked. When I came back, I asked how it went and he said, 'We had a few problems but we got over them'. He said that my boy wouldn't come to him so he'd spanked him. When he still wouldn't come, he spanked him again. I asked him how many times that happened and he said, 'About 10 or 12'. So he'd hit my boy about 60 times in the course of the day."

It was then that Klein realised something was "majorly wrong". But such was the sect's power that he spent another year with group, during which time he and his family were moved to a community in Canada, to avoid the attention of his parents. "That's what they do: if you talk out against them, you get cut off from family members who are still in there. And if you kick up too much of a stink, they just move you overseas."

Klein finally left in 2001, and has since regained custody of his children. But he hasn't seen his wife for seven years. "The kids wonder why she doesn't get in touch. I'm not even sure where she is."

FOUNDED in 1976 in Chattanooga, Tennessee, by a former high school guidance counsellor, Elbert Eugene Spriggs ("Yoneq"), Twelve Tribes now has 3000 members worldwide, with communities in the US, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, France, Germany, Spain and England. Australia has three, including at Katoomba, where the Twelve Tribes recently bought a $1.7 million property that it is converting into a Common Ground cafe.

Following a hybrid of Judaism and Christianity, the group's aim is to re-create the 12 tribes of Israel, thereby ushering in the return of Yashua (Jesus), who will arrive like "a King coming for his Bride when she is fully prepared for Him". Members claim to use the Old Testament as a blueprint for their lives, but guidance also comes from Spriggs's prolific and frequently bizarre teachings, many of which, it is said, come directly from God. (Spriggs claims the Lord first spoke to him while he was working at a carnival in 1969.)

Spriggs's teachings include assertions that "submission to whites is the only provision by which blacks will be saved", and that the civil rights leader Martin Luther King was "filled with all manner of evil" and "deserved to be killed".

BUT it is the Twelve Tribes' attitude towards children that has proved most controversial. Harsh discipline is one of the group's central tenets, as detailed in its 267-page Child Training Manual, copies of which have been handed out to parents at Picton. Written by Spriggs, the manual codifies when, why and how to hit children, saying "you must make it hurt enough to produce the desired result" and that "stripes or marks from loving discipline show love by the parent".

Peter Baker ("Nathaniel"), an elder of the Picton community, would not answer questions about the manual. But he defends the Twelve Tribes, saying "we are devoted believers in Jesus Christ". Baker, who came to the Twelve Tribes from the Exclusive Brethren, says no staff get paid, explaining that members "work only for love, like the disciples of old". They don't vote, he says, "because we look forward to the Kingdom of God coming to Earth, so we don't involve ourselves with government business". As for the sticks, "we have found them to be more effective than wooden spoons."

Yet others say the community is a law unto itself. "Once, when I was making some food in the kitchen, I saw an eight-month-old boy being repeatedly hit with a stick for 40 minutes by his mother," George, a former member from Picton, says. "All because the kid kept dropping a lid that she'd given him."

David Pike, a former member from the tribe of Mannasah, in the US, told of seeing a two-year-old "switched" for eight hours "because she didn't want to eat a bowl of millet, which is what they eat all the time. I also saw young boys who couldn't sleep on their backs because their buttocks were so welted and bloody."

The group has been embroiled in several high-profile scandals overseas, with members in the US recently convicted of child-sex offences and child labour violations. In 2000 two members in France were sentenced to six years in jail for negligence after their 19-month-old son died of malnutrition.

"It's particularly harmful to children because there is no one who can be an advocate for them outside the system," Ros Hodgkins, a counsellor who has treated former Twelve Tribes members, says. "And by claiming to have the sole path to salvation, the group exerts considerable power over members."

Other control mechanisms include the systematic informing by wives on husbands and children on parents. "If you don't inform on your family, you're told you don't love them and you won't receive salvation," a former member, Michael Curry, says.

Curry, who now runs a picture-hanging business in Coogee, spent a year with his wife and daughter at Picton, but left in 2001. "My wife and daughter stayed inside - they were totally brainwashed, and I couldn't convince them to leave. I haven't seen my wife for seven years. I've heard that she's living with them in America and has remarried someone from the Tribes. My daughter would be 22 now. I saw her a few years ago at the group's cafe at the Royal Easter Show, but she told me that I was evil and to get away from her."

THOUGH numerically small, the Twelve Tribes is remarkably well resourced, especially in the US, where it operates furniture stores, leather shops, soap and candle factories, wholefood outlets, cafes, bakeries and several building businesses, the biggest of which, BOJ (Builders of Judah) Construction, specialises in nursing homes. A former member in the US says BOJ grosses $US15 million ($16.6 million) a year, most of which is used to finance the sect's property acquisitions.

In Australia, Twelve Tribes has run a range of businesses, from demolition, plumbing and painting to import-export, plus several Common Ground cafes, mobile versions of which have made appearances at events such as the Royal Easter Show, the Woodford Folk Festival and the Sydney Olympics. ("They recruit at some very reputable places," Hodgkins says.)

The group's holding company, The Community Apostolic Order, has assets worth $4.55 million but claims tax-exempt status as a charitable institution. Though "members' equity" is at $2.8 million, only one former member the Herald spoke to had managed to recoup anything on leaving, and only after threatening legal action.

Each Twelve Tribes "community" sends a 10 per cent tithe to the US which is spent on evangelical pamphlets or "freepapers", and on purchases such as the Avany, the Tribes' 38-metre private yacht, which features Limoges porcelain, spas and handcrafted mahogany finishings.

"This is one opulent boat," David Pike, who worked on the Avany's restoration, says. "We used to take it for evangelical tours to Savannah and ask people for donations, until the Coastguard told us that was illegal."

The US cult investigator Rick Ross has called Spriggs a "jet-set cult leader. There is no question he controls millions of dollars. Where is it? Only [Spriggs] knows."

When Zeb Wiseman, a son of the Twelve Tribes second-in-command, Charles "Eddie" Wiseman, defected in 2001, he told of Spriggs's extravagant lifestyle, travelling by chauffeured car and going on shopping junkets with his wife. Spriggs is thought to travel almost constantly, staying in homes in the US and France.

"But the houses are always in someone else's name," Pike says.

Pike insists, however, that Spriggs is "not doing it to get rich. He actually believes God speaks to him, that he is doing God's will and building the Kingdom and gathering the Bride and the Chosen Ones to bring about the return of the Messiah."

Both Klein and Curry complained to the Department of Community Services about the group's treatment of children. "But they said they can't do much because it's hard to get evidence," Curry says. Klein says approaching the authorities about the group's work practices proved similarly fruitless: "They wanted stuff that I couldn't give them like official names of the companies and directors."

So the group keeps operating.

"There are lots of families who've been ripped apart," Klein's mother, Maree, says. "And they can't speak out, because they're scared of losing contact. They're still hoping their kids will come home one day."


This story was found at:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/
spare-the-rod-and-spoil-the-133/
2008/03/23/1206206927458.html

Twelve Tribes cult recruits at Easter show

Sydney Morning Herald

March 24, 2008

Sect woos recruits among the fairy floss at Easter Show

by Tim Elliot

AMONG the fairy floss and fun rides at this year's Royal Easter Show, one of the most popular attractions is the Common Ground cafe, a wholefood outlet that specialises in organic breads and barramundi burgers.

The show's website touts the cafe's "unique flavours and energy", calling it "a must for every showgoer".

But the Common Ground cafe is one of several businesses owned and operated by the Community Apostolic Order, also known as the Twelve Tribes, a messianic Christian sect accused by former members of harsh child discipline which in some cases could amount to child abuse, family break-up and thought control.

"The Twelve Tribes is a destructive cult that tears families apart," said a former member, Matthew Klein. "They're using the Easter Show to recruit new members and hand out their pamphlets."

Founded in 1971 in Tennessee by a former carnival barker called Elbert Eugene Spriggs, the 3000-strong group has been embroiled in several high-profile scandals overseas. Members in the US were convicted recently of child sex offences and child labour violations.

"This is a secretive group that's causing grief to a lot of people," said David Millikan, a Uniting Church minister and cult expert. "Their whole history is surrounded by untold stories of destruction."

In Australia, former members tell of child beatings and slave-like working conditions. "It's exploitative," says George, a former ex-member who worked at the cafe in 2001. "You're brainwashed, working up to 20 hours a day baking bread and setting up the cafe, and you don't see a cent."

Mr Klein, who helped set up the cafe in 2001, said there was never any "workers' comp, insurance or superannuation paid … and it's dangerous work: we were all sleep-deprived and carrying around pieces of steel that weighed up to 500 kilograms, with no proper training and no crane."

The group has 60 members in Australia. Most live on a nine-hectare property at Picton. Members are encouraged to surrender all possessions upon joining. They cannot marry outside the group, and have no access to newspapers, magazines or TV.

"You're told that if you leave the cult you'll go to hell," Mr Klein said. "If you talk out against them, you get cut off from family members who are still in there. And if you kick up too much of a stink, they just move you to one of their tribes overseas."

Harsh discipline is one of the group's central tenets, as detailed in their 267-page Child Training Manual. Written by Spriggs (aka Yoneq), the manual claims that "the rod is an instrument of love", and that "you must make it hurt enough to produce the desired result".

Beatings are administered with a balloon stick on the bare bottom or hands, which, the manual claims, produces a pain "that goes deep into the child, right to the heart, like electricity".

"The beatings were quite constant," said Michael Curry, who spent a year at the Picton commune.

"When I got out I went to DOCS with my complaints, but they said I needed evidence."

He also raised his concerns with the Royal Easter Show, "asking whether it was appropriate that this group be at such a family friendly event. They just shrugged their shoulders."

The show's chief executive, Michael Collins, said he was not aware of any complaints. "All I know is that the cafe has been here for 10 years and they're one of the most popular outlets. Everyone loves their food."

Peter Baker (aka Nathaniel), an elder of the Twelve Tribes in Picton, defended the group: "We are devoted believers in Jesus Christ, and we use the Old Testament as the blueprint for our lives."


This story found at:

http://www.smh.com.au/news/
national/sect-woos-recruits-among-
the-fairy-floss-at-easter-show/
2008/03/23/1206206934258.html

Twelve Tribes: Community or Cult

FOR MANY MORE ARTICLES IN THIS ARCHIVE ON TWELVE TRIBES SEE THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE AND COMMENTS:


Twelve Tribes continue to reject cult label while physically, intellectually and spiritually abusing their children


************
The following video is from the ABC Boston Chronicle Show

First generation of children born into a controversial communal theology called the Twelve Tribes

Sarasota Herald Tribune - July 15, 2007

The path of righteousness

BY BILLY COX


ARCADIA -- The girls in their scarves and flowing cotton dresses are up by 4:30, long before dawn's light glistens on the dew.

There are goats to milk and feed, as well as cattle to tend to, and turkeys, and chickens, and biddies, and eggs to gather. They check the traps for sneaky nocturnal varmints.

At ages 17, 14, and 10, the Peterson girls know how to prevent B2 vitamin deficiencies in their birds, and understand the importance of purifying water with drops of iodine. They know how to make fresh bread in the electric mixer with yeast and flour and eggs and water and oil. They keep an eye on the incubation schedules of the eggs protected in the Quonset-hut barn.

By 7 a.m., alongside parents Tom and Susan, this first generation of children born into a controversial communal theology called the Twelve Tribes will have arrived in Arcadia's historic residential district for the daily breakfast gathering. They will join about 22 fellow members in song, perhaps variations of traditional Israeli folk dancing, and offer blessings for the day ahead.

Then they will return to the Tribe's rustic, 27-acre Peace River Farm for home studies and more farm work. "Our family," says Susan, "has a burden for the animals and the chores." They will reconvene for supper at the house in Arcadia by 7 p.m. By 8 p.m., the Petersons will be ready to retire.

Their birth-certificate names are legal constructs; their adopted fraternal names are Hebrew. They follow the teachings of Jesus, but they do not consider themselves Christians, not in a contemporary sense. They call him Yahshua, the original Hebrew name.

At Peace River Farm, the road to self-sufficiency amid the approaching end times is being paved, for now, with two dump trucks, a chipper, a stump grinder, a lift, three Bobcats, a Bush Hog landscaper, and the Quonset hut.

"This is the last Tribe to be established before the fulfillment of the prophecy," says Tom Peterson, whose Benyamin Tribe is affiliated with half a dozen other clans scattered east of the Mississippi River and south of the Mason-Dixon Line.

Like most of his adult male colleagues, he sports a full beard and his hair is pulled back into a modest ponytail. If he and his family were to leave Peace River Farm, they would be utterly destitute. But that idea is inconceivable.

"We are a living demonstration of the spiritual Israel," Peterson says. "You've got to plan ahead for what's to come. That's why it's so wonderful to live together the way we do."

"All the believers were in one heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had." -- Acts 4:32

An argument could be made that California's Summer of Love in 1967 was the high-water mark for hippie utopians, and that the Jesus Freaks who spun off in its immediate aftermath were a short-lived Christian fad.

But then, you would have to factor in the legacy of Elbert Eugene Spriggs.

In the early 1970s, the young Tennessean returned from California disillusioned by the way a generation's egalitarian bromides had degenerated into "hippie-crit" materialism. Spriggs imported his own vision of Christianity to Chattanooga, which he circulated through a chain of health-food restaurants called the Yellow Deli.

The vision called for reconstituting the Twelve Tribes of Israel -- in Scripture, descendants of the 12 sons of Jacob -- to set the stage for the Messiah's return. According to the Book of Revelation, each tribe will dispatch 12,000 messengers to warn the world of imminent tribulation. Spriggs' formula, based on "first-century Christianity" before church hierarchies were institutionalized, requires believers to surrender their possessions to the group at large.

"The difference between this and Marxism is, Marxism is forced secular-humanism," says Rick "Aquila" Kendrick. "This is for the glory of God."

"So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple." -- Luke 14:33

Although the Twelve Tribes forbid a clerical establishment, the gregarious Kendrick is the de facto spokesman of the Arcadia community. His Bible is well worn and ink-lined; verbatim Scripture rolls conversationally from his tongue.

He and about 17 others share a grand old 19th-century home, called the John Lee & Mourning Jones House, just outside the commercial district. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the roomy manse was built by a niece of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Out back are the cabanas where the single men reside.

No sooner had the Tribe acquired the Jones House in 2004 than Hurricane Charley tore it apart. Today, the place is a showcase of expert restoration and landscaping. It is the backdrop for weddings and celebrations; nonmembers attend open houses.

The Tribe migrated to sleepy Arcadia when its original surroundings in West Palm Beach became, according to Kendrick, "more secular, more sensual, and more and more degraded. This is a much better environment to raise children."

In essence, they felt too crowded by growth.

Kendrick, a Chattanooga native, is a charter member of Spriggs' movement. In 1973, he and his wife, Prisca, were the first couple married under its auspices.

"In a very down-to-earth way, Gene talked a lot about love, about caring for one another and even laying down your life for one another," Kendrick, 54, recalls. "But it's one thing to talk about it, and quite another to actually live the word of God. Unless you surrender your life to Yahshua, you can't sustain that vision. But that's what Gene was doing."

"And all that believed were together, and had all things common; and they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, according as any man had need." -- Acts 2:44-45

Exactly how many people belong to the Twelve Tribes is a guess. Its twelvetribes.com Web site estimates anywhere from 2,000 to 3,000 members. From its original niche in communal homes in suburban Chattanooga, the group now counts 32 clans spread across the United States, Canada, Germany, England, Spain, France, Argentina, Brazil and Australia.

Unlike churches listing their tax-exempt status as 501(c)(3), the American Tribes pay taxes as a 501(d), despite being registered as a "religious or apostolic association or corporation."

According to the Internal Revenue Service office in Jacksonville, the designation -- which recognizes "a common treasury" -- is so obscure that only 20 applications for it were filed in the United States in 2006, and six were granted.

Bill Hinchcliff covers the business end of the Arcadia branch. Its prime source of revenue is a tree service called Forest Keepers, LLC. It also works construction contracts as far away as Fort Myers.

"All the money we make on trees goes into a household checkbook, so that all of the needs here are met," Hinchcliff says. "Yahshua said, 'Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's,' so we don't want a bigger tax break than anybody else. We want to pay our fair share."

Just how Caesar spends that money does not much matter to Hinchcliff. He says he never voted in an election.

Kendrick says he visited the polls once: "I voted for Jimmy Carter. That," he says with a chuckle, "was a mistake."

"In like manner, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefastness and sobriety; not with braided hair, and gold or pearls or costly raiment, but through good works. Let a woman learn in quietness with all subjection. But I permit not a woman to have dominion over a man, but to be in quietness." -- 1 Timothy 2:8

Fresh-cut gardenia blossoms perfume the sitting room of the quiet, air-conditioned Jones House. The men have left for a construction job outside town. Some of the women and girls are still puttering in the kitchen. Between preparing meals for two dozen people, and the laundry and the housework and the yard, their labors are never truly finished.

There are no TV sets in evidence on the ground floor. Or computers, for that matter. Those distractions are upstairs.

"Television is very defiling," says Prisca Kendrick, who dropped out of the "hypocrisy" of church, school, and practically everything else as a teenager. "It teaches your children to be idiots."

Eschewing makeup, hands folded in the lap of her ankle-length dress, Kendrick says meeting Spriggs and his wife, Marsha, in 1972 after wallowing in a druggy, itinerate haze "was like going from dark to light."

Sacrificing her possessions for the Tribe? "I didn't have any possessions to give up," she says. "I was 19. I was a hippie. There was no adjustment to make."

She and her husband have raised and home-schooled three children within the Twelve Tribes' system. One 20-year-old daughter has moved on to another community; their teenagers remain in Arcadia. Sewing, cooking, gardening, how to select natural foods, home repairs -- as the tribulation approaches, the old skills will prevail.

Prisca Kendrick knows the world.

"It's an uncontrolled environment for us," she says. "I'm not saying it's all bad, but there's so much violence and drugs and abusive language. It's like First Corinthians says, bad company corrupts good character."

She says the Tribes' lifestyle has taught her about reconciliation. After committing to it, she recalls with a vestige of an Alabama drawl, "I came back to my mother with tears of repentance for all the pain and hurt I brought her."

"But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people of his own, so that you may announce the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light." -- 1 Peter 2:9

The Twelve Tribes own printing presses, psychedelic-painted buses and mobile health-food restaurants. They set up at rock concerts and mass gatherings, where they distribute recruiting papers situationally edited for readers as diverse as fans of Pink Floyd and Promise Keepers.

With elevated visibility comes elevated criticism. While the Tribe's views on issues such as abortion and homosexuality are consistent with conservative Christian denominations, Spriggs has been called racist, anti-Semitic and a master of mind control.

"You can accomplish a lot of things if you exploit free labor," adds Rick Ross, whose nonprofit institute of the same name in Jersey City, N.J., studies cults in America. "There's no transparency. And what's sad is, a significant number have been around for 25, 30 years and they're getting up in age. It's a pyramid; they desperately need new members to support them."

Yet, the Tribes remain standing after enduring some high-profile body blows.

In 1984, state police raided their homes in Island Pond, Vt., and seized 112 youngsters as prosecutors investigated allegations of child abuse. A court ordered the children returned within 24 hours and tossed out all charges.

In 2001, the Tribes lost manufacturing contracts with the likes of Estée Lauder, L.L. Bean and Robert Redford's Sundance catalog after getting busted in the state of New York for child-labor violations. They received slap-on-the-wrist fines of $2,000.

Attempts to contact Spriggs at his home in North Carolina were unsuccessful. But in Asheville, Tribes spokesman Michael Porterfield says Spriggs "doesn't do a whole lot of interviews."

"God knoweth your hearts, for that which is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God." -- Luke 16:15

Bill Hinchcliff protested the Vietnam War as a college student in Ohio. He liked to smoke dope, and he immersed himself in the counterculture.

He moved to California for a lucrative "sellout" career as a reactor technician in a chemical plant. An accident on one job spilled 100 gallons of hydrochloric acid in San Francisco Bay. "I was such a hypocrite," he says. "I couldn't stand it."

Today, Hinchcliff, a plumber, is monitoring the progress on a construction site at a horse rancher's home outside the crossroads village of Nocatee. He thinks about John Lennon singing "Imagine" and wonders why the ex-Beatle didn't walk the walk by giving up his own possessions.

At age 55, Hinchcliff is not looking for a Social Security check because "I haven't paid anything into it in 30 years." His family's covenant is with the Tribe.

"My whole life has been based on trusting relationships," says the man who rejected his country-club roots for a social experiment. "If this isn't true, then my whole life has been a sham."

"Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." -- Matthew 28:19

The Tribe is expanding its presence in Arcadia, slowly and systematically. This year, it purchased an old bed-and-breakfast within a stone's throw of Jones House. The place was ruined by Hurricane Charley, but the Tribe is planning a massive restoration. And downtown, they have bought a derelict dry-cleaning building they intend to turn into a Yellow Deli restaurant.

"Well," says Arcadia City Manager Ed Strube, "they're a pretty quiet bunch, but they were very aggressive in helping clean up city and county properties after Charley. I think you have to respect their initiative."

"And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except the 144,000, who had been redeemed from the earth." -- Revelation 14:3

Nightfall Friday at Peace River Farm, the beginning of the 24-hour Sabbath. Twenty members have gathered inside on this humid evening, along with four guests.

Festivities begin with the blowing of the shofar (a horn made from the antler or horn of any kosher animal, except a cow or calf), followed by a lively hora, a traditional folk-dance circle.

A piano carries the melodies, but Hinchcliff says the Tribe wants to build its own percussion, string and woodwind instruments.

"We've researched all this, and we've learned so much," he says, as members sing or rotate in and out of the dance circle. "Sometimes we'll use the Hebrew words, or sometimes we'll put in the English words. But we're starting to write our own music and create our own dances."

Following prayers for unity and expressions of gratitude come tasty meals of roasted potatoes, cole slaw, spelt-flour bread, smoked mackerel and a dessert of custard pie. No one works tomorrow. Members linger a little longer.

"God prophesied the restoration of all things by the third generation of the Twelve Tribes of Israel," says Kendrick, as he contemplates how many of the children here have grown into young adults, ready to start their own families.

"You're seeing the second generation," he says in anticipation, as a woman's discreet hands clear his empty plate.


http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20070715/FEATURES/707150305

Community Embraces Twelve Tribes

"If they're a cult they're pretty nice."


By Jonathan Mummolo Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 28, 2007


They pool their finances, home-school their children -- whom they sometimes discipline with small reeds -- and have been accused in other parts of the country of being a cult and breaking child labor laws.

But in western Loudoun County, their neighbors wouldn't trade them for the world. After all, they're keeping the land free from development.

In 2003, the Twelve Tribes, a religious group founded in Tennessee, came to Hillsboro, a historic town of about 100 people 50 miles west of the District.

Many of the residents don't take kindly to the McMansions that have sprouted up in formerly rural parts of Northern Virginia. In such postage stamp communities in eastern Loudoun, for example, "you look out your kitchen window into your neighbor's kitchen window," said Belle Ware, a Hillsboro resident for more than 50 years.

But the Tribe, as some in town affectionately call its members, has, in the meantime, staved off such growth by choosing to use its 35 acres as a communal farm. Fending off the developers has thus endeared members to locals who admit to having been suspicious upon the group's arrival.

"There's obvious curiosity whenever a group like that comes around," Hillsboro Mayor Roger L. Vance said. Even so, "it was, frankly, a real relief when they were able to acquire that property and put in the farm they've got. It's a great plus for the town."

Since 2003, the group's now-25-member chapter has amassed its land, which straddles the incorporated town's boundary with Loudoun County. On a farm the group hopes will soon be certified as organic by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, bearded, ponytailed men and women in long homemade dresses plant crops, tend to goats and cows and follow the teachings of Yahshua (Jesus) through prayer, song and work.

A far cry from the hippie communes of the 1960s, the group owns for-profit landscaping and construction companies in Purcellville and plans to open a coffee shop in Hillsboro in spring.

Group members say they are monogamous, pay taxes, abstain from drugs, alcohol and premarital sex and possess no firearms.

To anti-growth locals, it sure beats an ominous proliferation of flags in the ground -- the telltale sign of land surveyors.

"I've been watching this garden grow with anticipation," said Francesca Edling of Loudoun Heights, as she purchased beets, lettuce and onions from the group's food stand on the side of Route 9. "I am delighted that it's a garden instead of a development."

Next-door neighbor Marion Virts, 85, said she has watched Tribe members from her porch at 4:30 a.m. pick lettuce as the growing number of commuters begin their trek from nearby West Virginia along Route 9, a juxtaposition she finds amusing.

"I was a farmer's wife for 50 years, but it was so funny to see that," said Virts, who is glad the group's land is being preserved. "I thought, 'What in the world?' "

Over the years, the Twelve Tribes, which according to its Web site has a membership of 2,000 to 3,000 worldwide, has not always been so well received.

In 1984, one of its communes in Island Pond, Vt., was raided by state police amid reports of alleged child abuse. Authorities removed 112 children to examine them, but a judge ordered the children returned home after refusing the state's request for emergency detention orders. The case was dropped.

In 2001, the New York State Department of Labor fined the group $2,000 for violations of child labor laws after the agency found teenagers working in the group's candle and furniture shops. The group appealed the fines twice to the state Industrial Board of Appeals but lost, said Leo Rosales, spokesman for the Labor Department.

Luke Wiseman, one of the commune's leaders in Hillsboro who was at Island Pond during the raid, denies all the accusations. Wiseman said that the group's discipline techniques never amount to abuse and that charges of child labor and cult-like behavior stem from ignorance of their lifestyle.

"We have nothing to hide, and our life is open for anybody to come and observe any time they want," said Wiseman, 32, who was born and reared in the Twelve Tribes.

On a recent afternoon, those who took Wiseman up on his offer entered the lush Hillsboro property to find members young and old preparing crops and fertilizer, while giggling children just let out of school dashed to a nearby pond and took turns launching off a rope swing. Nonmembers were greeted with smiles and warm hellos.

Every Friday, the commune hosts a musical open house, welcoming town residents for food and song.

While the group is always looking for new members, and has been known to recruit at Grateful Dead concerts and at music festivals on the Mall in Washington, Wiseman said the decision to join should not be made lightly, because it requires people to contribute all their possessions to the common pool and to dedicate their life to Yahshua.

"Faith is voluntary," he said.

As for the locals who were nervous when the Tribe first came to town, they say it's been more than just land preservation that has since won them over.

"We had an ice storm here this winter," recalled Claire Cutshall, a Hillsboro jewelry store owner. "I hired a fellow to come plow for $60, and he only did one car length. Then Luke [Wiseman] drove up with his plow and said, 'Want me to move your ice?' I said, 'How much?' He said, 'Oh, nothin,' [plowed it] and just kept on going."

"If they're a cult," she said, "they're pretty nice."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/27/AR2007062702855.html

Sect Forbids Post-Secondary Education and Right to Vote

Members of religious sect want to open cafe, market in Hillsboro

Loudoun Times-Mirror

By: Jason Jacks     06/19/2007


As trucks rumbled and cars whined behind him, seemingly nonstop, Luke Wiseman, bent over a small stack of architectural drawings, was explaining his vision.

"Sixteen-thousand cars drive by here every day," the 32-year-old said, his back to two-lane Route 9 in Hillsboro.

Fine. But how does he intend to get them to stop? Well, with coffee, of course.

Wiseman, who sports a short beard and ponytail, and his large group of partners want to open a coffeehouse in a gutted stone building on the western edge of this town of about 100 residents.

Called Common Ground Cafe, the rustic-designed shop, which could be open by next spring, will be an oasis of relaxation along a noisy thoroughfare, Wiseman hopes.

It will feature a spiral staircase and large stone hearth and will sell espresso, tea, smoothies, sandwiches and soups. In the back, near a babbling stream and rusted bridge, will be a patio. A perfect setting for live music performances, Wiseman predicts.

Surely, work to make this vision a reality will be hard and expensive, especially considering the dilapidated state of the building. However, once the cafe does open, money will be saved on labor costs. How? All the work there will be done by Wiseman and the others from the commune.

Wiseman is a member of the Twelve Tribes, a religious sect where members live together in small groups throughout the United States and in eight other countries, many in rural areas and small towns.

The sect was founded in Tennessee in the early 1970s by Elbert Eugene Spriggs, a former high school guidance counselor. The sect, whose members are devoted to Jesus (who they call "Yahshua"), claims, according to the Twelve Tribes' Web site, about 3,000 members, though exact numbers are not known.

In each community, where men have beards and ponytails, and women wear long, flowing dresses, work is shared, money and possessions are pooled, and children are home-schooled.

Spanking children is permitted, and attending college and voting are out of the question. Meanwhile, marriages are strictly monogamous. Wiseman, himself, is married with two children.

In Loudoun, just south of the Hillsboro town boundary, about two dozen adults and children, Wiseman said, live in a compound of several buildings on Ashbury Church Road, a short walk from Route 9. "It matched our ideals," he said of Hillsboro. "It's just perfect."

Besides the cafe, the group in November bought 21 acres of farmland in town, where they are now growing tomatoes, lettuce, broccoli, cantaloupes and other produce. Members want to build an organic food market near the corner of Route 9 and Hillsboro Road adjacent to their sprouting crops.

"We've been hoping people would do something along these lines for a long time," said Roger Vance, mayor of Hillsboro, talking of the projects the Tribes community has in store. "I think we have had a very open relationship. And they seem to fit in very well."

Mark Ware, president of the Hillsboro Community Association, said he has been impressed with the "work ethic" of the group's members since they moved to town more than three years ago.

However, when they did arrive, he said there was some uneasiness among town residents, mostly because they knew so little about the group and its beliefs.

And now? "They keep that part of their lives their own personal business," he said of the group's religion. "It never comes up."

Common Ground Cafe, when it does open, will be the only eatery in town, and will blend in with the town's historic architecture, explained Wiseman, who moved to Hillsboro from Vermont in 2004.

He added that he hopes the business will spur additional development on the west side of town, especially on land directly behind the former gas station.

And while the cafe will be a respite for coffee lovers in this town short on such places, he promised it won't be a venue for recruiting new members.

"We believe in keeping our businesses and our religion separate," said Wiseman, who also owns a landscaping company. "We like our work to speak for us."

http://www.timescommunity.com/site/tab1.cfm?newsid=18495430&BRD=2553&PAG=461&dept_id=507589&rfi=6