The sad true stories behind "Family unity"

I was talking to an SG the other day and one of the things that fed him up so much, and why he left the Family, was the incredible disunity and internal strife he saw.

For example, when he was old enough to be considered an "adult" in the Family and told deeper matters, what happened was that adults of the older generation would come up to him and dump their years and years of hurt feelings and injustices on him. This surprised him. He expected after 20 years in the Family, they'd have so many testimonies to tell. Instead, they had tale upon tale of the times they'd been wronged and hurt and unjustly accused and put down by other Family members and leaders.

I don't blame them for hurting or sharing their pain. My point in sharing this is that as an SG he was expecting testimonies but the truth he discovered was that the Family was a very political place with lots of infighting and attacks on one another.

The other thing he shared was that EVERY Home he'd ever been in, whenever new Shepherds were voted in, one of the first things they did was to change every policy by the former leaders, even if the policies were working fine and the best way to do things. He said it was done almost in a spirit of spite, to completely erase the power and effect of the old shepherds. They felt the need to completely change everything to assert their own power. As an idealistic young SG, this self-centered politics deeply disturbed him. And it happened ALL the time.

It actually gets worse: he said that since the outgoing Home shepherds knew they'd be erased, they in turn did everything they could to sabotage the Home as they went out of power. Since they often left that Home and went to another as they were voted out, they literally ripped off the finances, deliberately left bills unpaid, etc. This SG only saw this as he became an adult and learned about the finances.

I think this very sad state of affairs--infighting, divisions, power-struggles and outright hatred of Family members by Family members is the direct result of the man-made rules and harsh treatment passed down by Berg and Zerby.

I'm not saying all Homes were/are like this, but I think most people, if they are honest, will have to agree with that disillusioned SG that this happened far too often.