Customer Reviews

Life in the Family: An Oral History of the Children of God (New Religious Movements)

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Anyone reading this book must be careful not to accept at face value the conclusions Chancellor reaches about this extreme, fundamentalist, high-demand group. The methodology he used in writing this book is flawed, and so the picture he paints of this dubious new religious movement/cult is very distorted. The Family practices a doctrine referred to as "deceivers yet true," which they use to deceive outsiders as to their true nature and intentions, including scholars like Chancellor. Even the editors of this website have accepted Chancellor's claims in the book that The Family has changed for the better.

I strongly urge any reader of this book to do their own investigation of The Family on the internet, and not just blindly accept what Chancellor says about it. They will be shocked to learn the true nature of The Family, and it is not as Chancellor makes it appear.

This is mainly a comment on previous remarks on the book. I think it is helpful to know that Dr. Chancellor poured over six years of his life in unprecedented close contact with followers of the Children of God from all over the world. When he was done with his research, the manuscript was reviewed by Peter Amsterdam himself, second in leadership of the movement. Amsterdam found only two factual errors, which were corrected, despite the clear portrayal of the movement's self-admitted embarassing practices.

From Dr. Chancellor's own mouth, he does not in anyway support their practices. By stating that they have made improvements simply means just that. It is not the same as supporting them.

Dr. Chancellor has done something that most do not especially when investing an entity that most people refer to as a "cult". By spending more time with the group than anyone else in academia, Chancellor is able to offer insights that would otherwise be distant observations. How a group views themselves offers added detail that the normal objective theological observation does not. Chancellor is right when he said recently that he was not the nations leading cults expert, but that he is the leading authority on the Children of God.

This book is one of the best and most honest ones about the
"Family", a Christian humanitarian international movement that is out all over the world following Christ's commandment "to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature". The
"Family" lives communally like the early Christians in Acts lived and are really "succesful" because they put God's Love for mankind into action. I can only recommend this book.