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GIVE TODAY >>Twins who escaped apocalyptic cult, 'Children of God' share cult's terrible secrets
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Growing up as members of the controversial apocalyptic cult, known as, "The Children of God," a pair of twins revealed what their former lives were like and what causes them to freeze in fear. With their reclusive childhood, as well as witnessing horrific incidents inside the sect, one of them admitted that she has considered killing herself to end her agony.
Highlights
Catholic Online (https://www.catholic.org)
6/2/2015 (1 decade ago)
Published in Marriage & Family
Keywords: Twins, Childhood, The Children of God, Cult, Religious, Apocalypse, Abuse, Fear
MUNTINLUPA, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) - "I wanted to take my life. I first of all wanted to escape what was going on. Second of all, I really didn't want to go through the apocalypse," shared Tamar Edwards in their interview with the ABC News.
Now both 34, Tamar and her sister, Flor, are no longer parts of the reclusive apocalyptic sect, after it was disbanded following the death of founder David Berg in 1994. According to the Edwards twins, "The Children of God" isolated the members from the rest of the society by rallying not to delve with the mainstream.
They grew up in a nomadic and communal way of living, promoted by the cult, in the belief that those who adhere to the orders on doing such will be the chosen to be saved by God in the foretold upcoming rapture of the earth.
However, they felt the fear of the coming apocalypse by the time they were 12 years old, as the twins explained in the interview. "We were supposed to be God's martyrs. I was going to die at 12. I would spend a lot of my time as a child thinking of that, frozen in fear - just absolutely frozen by it," said Flor.
Tamar and Flor claimed that they were never sexually abused, but they witnessed some incidents that allegedly led into forms of abuse, by the adults engaging in intercourse in front of the children.
"Sex was the thing that drove people. They didn't do any alcohol, no drugs, so sex was kind of the way to freedom. God's creation of love and beauty," explained Tamar.
"The Children of God" never ceased, the group was rebranded into "The Family International."
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