After reading through several of the Reboot documents, I wasn't able quit thinking about 2 Corinthians 6: 8, the passage where the words “deceivers yet true” is found. The folks at makestraightpaths.com did a great job of explicating this passage in context and examining The Family 's concept of honesty in light of Biblical principles and values. Not surprisingly, the masterminds behind the Reboot have not chosen to examine how deception for the sake of the mission has played out in Family history, culture, and their own appraisal of the current state.
Peter and Karen are the personification of “deceivers yet true,” except they don't limit their misleading statements and outright lies to unbelievers. For the sake of the mission—their continued mission as the anointed leaders--they have chosen to deceive themselves. With the Reboot, they've adopted an appearance of honesty about the situation in which they find themselves--leaders of an diminishing organization that lacks legitimacy as a Christian church. They rightly attribute The Family's alienation from the rest of Christendom to the founder, David Berg, but they cannot disavow him, because doing this calls the legitimacy of their leadership anointing in question. They must discredit David just enough to address some of the more egregious aspects of Family culture that expose them as imposters to broader Christian community. Simply put, members of a cult view themselves as superior to or separate and apart from other Christian believers; members of a church view themselves as part of a Mystical Body. It makes sense to confront that particular “cultural flashpoint” if you see your survival depending on gaining legitimacy as a Christian church.
The Reboot masterminds are attempting to facilitate what is known as “second order change,” to use the language organizational psychologists. Rather than continuing with incremental or first order change along the same line as the past 15 years, their strategy is to make change that is calculated to affect the overall direction and slope of the line. In a great act of paternalism, Mama and Papa appear to be emancipating the children. But what they're not offering is the possibility of third order change, where the organization builds the capacity to determine for itself where the line should go. Lest the kids wander too far off the Family Farm and leave their sainted Mama in the dust bowl of irrelevance, tithing members are reminded why they should continue to honor and revere God's anointed prophets, priests, and royalty:
“We love Jesus with all our hearts. Our personal commission is to serve Him and others however and whenever we can. We are committed to living a Christian life that personifies the beauty of Jesus’ love, forgiveness, mercy, and truth.“
Loving Jesus with all your heart is classic Family-speak, what Peter might call the organization's cultural propensity for “extreme” language. Can anyone who follows Jesus honestly claim to do this? An honest person, in my opinion, will say he or she loves Jesus as best as she knows how, praying daily for God to remove all those defects of character that stand in the way of service to Him and others. In a preceding paragraph to the one cited, Peter and Karen admit that “We have fallen short at times in providing you with what you need and deserve.” If they have fallen short in their service to others, how can they claim to love Jesus with all their hearts? It's that same faulty rationale David Berg used: “I'm only human, and I make mistakes, but I am a man after God's own heart and His anointed prophet. My intentions are always good, even if some my actions have bad outcomes. Even when some of my actions had horrific outcomes—such that there could be no question that my intentions were depraved and despicable—the good I have done far outweighs the bad.”
Here's the problem with this rationalization: Humans are prone to self-deception. Only God discerns our true intentions. As human beings, we can only evaluate the effect our actions have on others. Saying we want what's best for others and have only acted out of loving concern doesn't make it true just because we say it's so. If what Peter and Karen have counseled or done has caused damage, then what they claim to be good intentions should be questioned. With honest self-examination, repentant Christians admit they are deceived about their intentions and blind to the true nature of their actions.
While there is an admission of missing the mark, of shortcomings and failures, Peter and Karen never offer a true confession of sin. They never plainly state that they thought they were following Christ, but were in fact completely cut off from God and deceiving themselves. They appear to believe their anointing and eternal salvation preclude the possibility that the human proclivity for sin has lead them into a way of life that looked right at the time, but is now revealed as a dead end at best and pure hell at worst.
There is such a profound dishonesty in everything Peter and Karen have to say about themselves and their understanding of Christianity that when I finished reading Backtracking through TFI History, I was tempted to exclaim, “There is no God!” Truly, it appears as though the God of salvation history was run over by David Berg's prophet bus and left to die alongside the road in Peter and Karen's faith journey. There's probably no wound to the soul so devastating as the outright betrayal of trust, no psychic pain so powerful as the realization that you've been taught to believe is a lie. This may be why some people in the Family have chosen to avoid facing the truth about the organization's founder, David Berg, and why they will choose to accept Peter's absurd declaration that “Following what he taught worked. The majority of the fruit that David’s teachings and words have borne has been good.”
Following what David Berg taught did not work for any of the children raised in his household, including those who have remained affiliated with The Family and now survive among the walking wounded. It is no longer a secret what he did to his biological and adopted children in the forty years between 1950 and 1990—his own words and the testimonies of dozens of victims and witnesses are a matter of public record. Murder, suicide, alcoholism, addiction, prostitution, estrangement, abandonment, alienation, enmity, frailty, poverty —these are fruits of David's spirit bear witness to the world each and every day the leadership deceives itself for the sake of their mission.
Turning a deaf ear for 20 years to the cry of those oppressed by David's teachings has not worked. Vaguely worded apologies to those who survived the cultural flashpoint of exploitation and abuse promoted by David's words will not repair the catastrophic damage that was done to a generation. Peter and Karen's attempt to minimize criminal insanity by calling it a “fiery personality” demonstrates a desperation that borders on the bizarre. Chose to ignore or deny the truth about Peter and Karen's shameful participation in David's perversions at your own risk: Over time, your spirit will be consumed by the same massive black hole that sustains their dishonesty and self-deception.
For those Family members who take the Reboot as an opportunity to reach out to the broader Christian community and grow in their understanding of scripture and the Kingdom of God which is here and not yet, the Message found in 2 Corinthians 6:11-13 is a good place to conclude and begin again: ”...I can't tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn't fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren't small, but you're living them in a small way. I am speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!”