Children of God book covers

Every Book Ever Written About the Children of God Cult 📚

Posted on by Steven Levithan

Following is a list of every book about the Children of God cult, also known as the Family. Since I was raised in this cult, I’ve been compiling this list for years now. Here they all are, for anyone who’s interested in finding their next great read or wants to dig into the whole lot.

I’ve organized the books here based on whether the authors were born into the cult, joined on their own, or were outsiders (academics, journalists, etc.). I’ve also included a couple of bonus novels authored by ex-members with stories that are heavily modeled on the Children of God.

  • Books marked with 🎧 are available as audiobooks.
  • Books marked with 🗄️ have digital copies available to borrow for free after signing up at Archive.org.
  • Books published since 2020 are marked 🆕.

Memoirs by People Born & Raised in the Children of God

Here are all the books describing experiences in the Family that have been written by people who, like me, were raised in the cult as kids. We’re often called the second generation, in contrast to the first generation who joined on their own.

Book cover: Leaving Isn't the Hardest Thing, by Lauren Hough

🆕 Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing: Essays, by Lauren Hough

  • Released: April 2021
  • Pages: 320
  • 🎧 Audiobook read by Cate Blanchett and author Lauren Hough. Could Cate’s involvement mean there’s a movie adaptation in the works?

Lauren Hough’s memoir in essays is one of the books about the Family I’d most recommend. It’s also the one I most closely relate to from those I’ve read, partly because we’re close in age and therefore experienced the same era of the cult’s history. It covers her upbringing in the Family, but also her time as an airman, cable guy, bouncer, and more. It’s a well-written and brutally honest exploration of the ways the cult influenced her life, and it’s excellent throughout.

Check out this interview with Lauren about the book on NPR’s Fresh Air podcast:

Book cover: BRAVE, by Rose McGowan

BRAVE, by Rose McGowan

  • Released: May 2019
  • Pages: 272
  • 🎧 Audiobook read by author Rose McGowan

My life, as you will read, has taken me from one cult to another. BRAVE is the story of how I fought my way out of these cults and reclaimed my life.

The second cult Rose is referring to in this quote is Hollywood.

Actress and activist Rose McGowan’s family left the Family when she was still fairly young, so this book’s coverage of the cult is limited. But similar to Lauren’s book, there are numerous other fascinating aspects of Rose’s life that she covers here. Among other things, Rose emancipated herself from her parents at age 15, rose to movie and television stardom, was engaged to Marilyn Manson for a couple of years, and helped start the Me Too movement—so there’s plenty to cover. Her book is fantastic.

Book cover: Not Without My Sister, by Kristina Jones, Celeste Jones, and Juliana Buhring

Not Without My Sister: The True Story of Three Girls Violated and Betrayed by Those They Trusted, by Kristina, Celeste, & Juliana

  • Released: July 2007
  • Pages: 432
  • 🗄️ Borrow

Written by sisters Kristina Jones, Celeste Jones, and Juliana Buhring, this book details their experiences growing up in the Family and was the first such book to be published by anyone born into the cult. It became a bestseller in the UK and Australia and was published in 10 languages.

Steven Levithan and Juliana Buhring at a bar
Me and Juliana Buhring in Naples, Italy, 2011

You can read press coverage, listen to radio interviews, and see the cult’s public reaction to the book at XFamily.org.

I have a personal connection here because I’m friends with five of the Jones/Buhring siblings, including coauthors Celeste and Juliana. Oh and by the way, Juliana is a badass ultra-endurance cyclist who set the Guinness World Record for the fastest woman to cycle around the world (a title she held for six years). She wrote about that in another book that I highly recommend.

🆕 Sex Cult Nun: Breaking Away from the Children of God, a Wild, Radical Religious Cult, by Faith Jones

  • Released: November 2021
  • Pages: 400
  • 🎧 Audiobook

Author Faith Jones was one of cult founder David Berg‘s granddaughters, and she tells a fascinating and inspirational story of coming of age, self-discovery, determination, overcoming trauma, and ultimately going on to be very successful in her education and career. If you’re looking for a book where the cult is a primary focus (which excludes e.g. the excellent memoirs by Rose McGowan and Lauren Hough), this is easily one of the best.

Listen to an interview with Faith about the book on NPR’s Fresh Air podcast:

More Books by Cult Babies

Self-published:

Memoirs & More by People Who Joined & Left the Children of God

Although the first book about the Family by someone born into it didn’t come until 2007, first-generation members who joined and left the cult had been writing about them for years.

Growing up, we mostly weren’t allowed to read books that weren’t written by the cult. But it went beyond that with these books. Books unfriendly toward the cult were either unknown or exceptionally taboo.

  • Not For a Million Dollars, by Una McManus & John C. Cooper — 1980; borrow 🗄️
    • The title of this book alludes to how author Una McManus successfully sued the cult and its founder David Berg in the USA for one and a half million dollars. Berg never paid. Read more about the book at ExFamily.org.
    • David Berg’s reaction to the verdict: “She had joined the Family & claimed that it had harmed her irreparably, psychologically & blah blah, & she went to a System court & that stupid idiotic damn Satanic diabolical System judge awarded her the million dollars damages. Do you think I paid?—Of course not! They can’t find me!—But I’d better never go to Ohio!”
    • The same authors published a second book, Dealing with Destructive Cults, in 1984.
  • The Children of God: The Inside Story, by Deborah Davis & Bill Davis — 1984; borrow 🗄️
    • Author Deborah Davis was one of cult founder David Berg’s daughters, and in 1972 at age 25 she was crowned by Berg as the “Queen of God’s New Nation.” She defected a few years later and renounced her dad.
    • Available to read for free at ExFamily.org.
  • Children of Darkness, by Ruth Gordon — 1988; borrow 🗄️
  • Heaven’s Harlots: My Fifteen Years in a Sex Cult, by Miriam Williams — 1998; borrow 🗄️
    • In its first printing, this book used the title Heaven’s Harlots: My Fifteen Years as a Sacred Prostitute in the Children of God Cult.
    • Read an intro by the author, press coverage, and the Family’s official response to the book at XFamily.org.
  • 🆕 Misguided: My Jesus Freak Life In a Doomsday Cult, by Perry Bulwer — 2023

Self-published:

Books about the Children of God by Outsiders

These are books written by academics, journalists, deprogrammers, parents of Children of God members, and more.

Notable

More Books by Outsiders

The remainder are listed in the order they were published.

During the ’90s and 2000s, the Family went through a period of outreach toward academics. Several of them, including J. Gordon Melton, James R. Lewis, Williams Sims Bainbridge, and Eileen Barker, became apologists for the cult. At least one book (Sex, Slander, and Salvation) was funded by the cult, and in other cases, researchers’ access to members depended on approval from cult leaders. These academics were invited to well-funded “media homes” where members rehearsed their interactions in advance and were trained to hide their more sensitive beliefs (see: deceivers yet true).

Books that cover multiple cults including the Children of God:

Fiction Based on the Children of God

Book cover: The Innocent, by Taylor Stevens

The Innocent, by Taylor Stevens

  • Released: August 2012
  • Pages: 352
  • 🎧 Audiobook

The Innocent, book two in the bestselling Vanessa Michael Munroe series of thrillers, has the story’s heroine, Vanessa, infiltrating a cult called the Chosen. You can read a seven-page excerpt online.

Although the storyline and characters are fictional, the cult closely resembles the Family. That’s no accident since author and personal friend Taylor Stevens grew up in the Family.

People keep asking me what my life was like, so I can tell them — if you want to know what it was like growing up, read this book, that’s what it was like. […] Everything that happens in the book happened to someone.

Self-published:

So that’s it. I’ll be keeping this list up to date as I learn of any that are missing or newly written. If you’ve read any of these, let me know what you thought of them.

See books from this list that I’ve read and my ratings
  • Misguided, by Perry Bulwer — 2023 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
  • Uncultured, by Daniella Mestyanek Young — 2022 ⭐⭐
  • Sex Cult Nun, by Faith Jones — 2021 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
  • Not For A Million Dollars, by Una McManus & John C. Cooper — 1980 ⭐⭐⭐
  • Rebel, by Faith Morgan — 2021 ⭐⭐⭐
  • Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing, by Lauren Hough — 2021 ⭐⭐⭐⭐
  • BRAVE, by Rose McGowan — 2019 ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
  • Apocalypse Child, by Flor Edwards — 2018 ⭐⭐⭐
  • The Innocent, by Taylor Stevens — 2012 ⭐⭐⭐
  • Not Without My Sister, by Kristina, Celeste, & Juliana — 2007 ⭐⭐⭐
  • The Children of God Cult, aka The Family, by Sam Ajemian — 2005 ⭐⭐

If you’re doing research on the cult’s history, you might also be interested in the extensive archive of press coverage of the Children of God at XFamily.org that I and others contributed to. Although it hasn’t been maintained since 2008, it’s by far the largest collection of its kind.

Bonus: If you prefer video over reading, check out this series of short memoir videos by second-generation ex-member Angel DeSantis on YouTube:

Want to learn more about the cult?

15 thoughts on “Every Book Ever Written About the Children of God Cult 📚”

  1. Hi Steven. As you noted about press coverage added to the xfamily site, there hasn’t been new ones added since 2008. I have archived dozens of news reports since 2011 that are specifically about TFI on these two pages of a blog I keep of news articles on religion related child abuse. One of these days I intend to format all those TFI articles in way that will make it easy to add them to xfamily. For now they are at: https://religiouschildabuse.blogspot.com/p/family-international.html and https://religiouschildabuse.blogspot.com/2011/03/denied-education-in-family.html

    1. Thanks for collecting those, Perry.

      Aside: Perry helped identify a few books I was missing and also inspired the categorization I used here (born vs joined vs outsiders). So thanks for that, too!

  2. Thank you for this list. I have been reading the latest article regarding this subject from the Times UK.

  3. With Cult Following now in production will this be the first movie outside of documentary about the Children of God?

    1. Chris, two other non-documentary film productions come to mind. There’s a low-budget movie named Last Testament (2021) that is specifically about Ricky Rodriguez’s murder-suicide. There is also a Law & Order episode (S15E19: Sects) from 2005 that was clearly inspired by Ricky, Zerby, etc., although fictional characters and events were substituted in (e.g., the fictional Zerby stand-in is tried and convicted). I’m interested to see how true-to-life the TV miniseries based on Cult Following will stay and how much it will focus on the CoG versus other cults.

  4. Steven,
    You’ve compiled an outstanding resource! Thank you.
    Do you happen to know of anything similar for materials about COG/TFI that are in Japanese? I happen to live in an area of Japan that has some active TFI “missionaries,” and it would be nice to point people here toward information about the cult that’s in Japanese.

    1. Thanks, Dave! My lack of coverage for non-English books about the cult is a good callout. That said, I’m currently not familiar with books about them in other languages, apart from some translations of books I’ve included here that were bigger sellers (e.g., Not Without My Sister was translated into Dutch, Estonian, French, German, Greek, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, and Swedish).

      A couple of things I can point you to are XFamily’s English-language page (from 2005) about The Family in Japan and the fairly basic page about them on Wikipedia Japan.

  6. Hi there
    I am writing from Italy because I am looking for some books written by Moses Berg (such as THE LETTERS OF MO) and for the book THE STORY OF DAVIDITO

    Can anybody help me?
    Do you know anybody who got the books and want to sell?

    Thank you so much
    Kind Regards

    Giancarlo

  8. Hi Steven,
    Does anyone have a physical copy or ebook link to “Passing for normal: Memoirs of a cult child”? It seems all references to the book online are now non existent including all links on the author’s social media are broken.

  10. I met the COG in August of 1971 in Colorado. I was 16 at the time. I began living with them in a 1972 and went to the group’s
    high school just outside of Crockett Texas. There was no hooking-up , that I witnessed . The betrothed couples had individual little trailers they lived in. Males and females had separate dorms and we had GED prep classes and bible studies all day . Singing and Mo letters at night. In the beginning of 1974 I went to Amsterdam you know because the End of the world!! Babylon the Whore would be destroyed. I worked with the toddlers in the Netherlands for two years . We had a disco in central Amsterdam with all the popular music of the times . People came in and we witnessed to them . It seemed very innocent.
    I was still a virgin until I was 20. 1975 a series of things happened. I was asked to pose for a nudie calendar for Mo. I was quite shy so I put on a see through nightie. All for the glory of God. That same year I met and fell in love with a fellow member a British man named Josh (Michael Murphy) . We wanted to get married but leadership did not authorize it. No explanation . Shortly after another member named Paul Michael came to Amerstdam from Paris . He played with Jeremy Spencer in a band of COG . I later learned he had close ties to Faith Berg. He seduced me with blessing of leadership I believe I was being groomed.. Our relationship was short lived.He left . Some months later I was mysteriously summoned to Italy. I was put on an airplane. This was all very strange to me .I had always travelled everywhere by train . In fact a year earlier I went by train to Italy to study the Montessori method but did not study at all. Spent time in witnessing travelling around. I think I was being vetted. This trip I went by plane to Rome was given money. There, waiting for me was Rachel ,now a duchess by marriage to Emmanuel Cannevaro. . We actually immediately liked each other . She was very nice to me . I guess I passed the interview . I was soon to embark on my first boat voyage from Genova Italy to Tenerife in the Canary Islands. All top secret or Selah in cog speak. With me was a married couple who were to work in the headquarters .Also with us a girl named Beverly who would go on to be one David’s girls. But I am getting ahead of myself. We did not know where we were going until at sea . It was not a luxury cruise it was mainly a cargo ship with a few passengers we stopped in Napoli and Barcelona . Dictator Francisco Franco had been dead for less than a year . Spain was going through a lot of changes. When we got off the ship ,we walked into a demonstration between Catalan people on one side and guardia civil on the other. We got in a cab and got out of there fast. I was seasick a lot but I guess I got used to it because at night Barbara ( Rachel) and I would go to the bar and drink Tom Collin’s and dance with fellow passengers . The other family members stayed mostly in their cabins but we were partying . I guess it was weird I was trained not to ask questions and I didn’t .I was having fun. When we arrived in Tenerife the couple along with Beverly went to headquarters and I went to live in David’s house. A nice home with heated pool beautiful garden surrounded by banana plantations not far from Puerto de La Cruz . A tourist hot spot in Europe at the time. David and Karen had moved there from London .David hated the cold . I believe they went there for a break originally but fell in love with place. They lived in the Bellaire aparthotel . There they began their experiments with fishing and Karen got pregnant from a local hotel worker named Carlos. That’s how I come into the picture. I worked with kids . Sarah was Davidito’s nanny and she was very pregnant .She and her husband Freddy were expecting their first child. I was brought in to care for their soon to be born child .It was March 1976 I had just turned 21, single and atttractive. I had already been in the family since I was 17 mostly taking care of other people’s kids which I loved doing. I had dreamed of being a teacher growing up. Within two months I was pregnant with my own child having had sex with Freddy (David thought he needed it due to Sara’s condition ) and the man he paired me up with. Bernardo .Bernardo was restaurant owner and originally born in Catalonia .David especially liked the food at his place . Bernardo spoke great English and 5 other languages as well . They liked him and decided he was a good candidate for the family. They had gone dancing with him and Karen took him to bed. David and Karen lived in the pool house separate from the main house. The main house had a basement which is where Karen took her conquests.Meanwhile I was in bed with David in the pool house.He had an intercoms set up to he could call or listen to what was happening anywhere in the house. He liked to listen while she had sex with other men He would get drunk and speak in tongues while diddling some young women trying to get off himself .I thought of him as being so old but he was only in his 50’s . They hadn’t yet invented viagra. I think he got drunk every night .His perversions getting worse. I think people in the family would have been shocked to know that a lot of the “Mo letters “ were the ravings of drunk man obsessed with sex but no longer able to perform. Twisted !
    I don’t know if you ever heard ever read “The Bait that fell in love with the Fish” . Well it was not that simple I did fall in love with him but our relationship was pushed on me by David . He was far too old for me .I married Bernardo in January of 1977 .Fifteen days before the birth of my beautiful son Andres. I was 21 and he was 43 . There was never a DNA test but he was most definitely the result of a one time sexual encounter with Freddy. I have another son, Samuel born in December 1978 .Instead of me bringing Bernardo into the family , he and many of my experiences brought me out. It didn’t happen overnight but was a gradual waking up. Our marriage failed and I left him . I have been living in the USA since 1994. My son Sammy lives nearby with his wife and my beautiful granddaughter .He remembers very little about the COG. Neither did Andres. Sadly, Andres was killed by a drunk driver while riding a motorcycle in Tenerife on April 15, 1996.
    I am now almost 72 and have tried to forget all the things that happened. I remade my life and married for the second time in 2011. I don’t know if it is because we are close to Andres’s 50 th birthday I have been reflecting on my life and after a lot of therapy .I decided to write someone about some of my experiences. I don’t talk to many people about what happened to me. It’s hard to admit to being so naive but we were young and damaged. I met some wonderful people and had some good experiences. We thought we were saving the world. At least I made the decision to join the Chilren of God . I feel terrible for the kids who were born into the cult . I was born into Christianity I never knew any other religion. I have been agnostic for many years now . If there is a God I don’t care .I see no evidence of one. If he exsists he created us and moved on to other universes and left us to our own devices or vices ?
    Love your neighbor as yourself . That is all I need to know. Treat people the way you wish to treated. I don’t need religion to tell me that.
    Please feel free to contact me if you want.
    In Spain everyone knew me as Linda . I was born Brenda Lynn but I didn’t like Brenda so I wanted to be called Lynn which got converted to Linda . I am in the infamous photograph published in Europe of David Berg and Karen Zerby and some his girls and a few men also. Of course he fled as soon as it was published and the press descended on Tenerife.

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