Download or read book Run Brother Run written by David Berg and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2013-06-11 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A searing family memoir, hailed as “remarkable” (The New York Times), “compelling” (People), and “engrossing” (Kirkus Reviews), of a trial lawyer’s tempestuous boyhood in Texas that led to the vicious murder of his brother by the father of actor Woody Harrelson. In 1968, David Berg’s brother, Alan, was murdered by Charles Harrelson, a notorious hit man and father of Woody Harrelson. Alan was only thirty-one when he disappeared (David was twenty-six) and for more than six months his family did not know what had happened to him—until his remains were found in a ditch in Texas. There was an eyewitness to the murder: Charles Harrelson’s girlfriend, who agreed to testify. For his defense, Harrelson hired Percy Foreman, then the most famous criminal lawyer in America. Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, Harrelson was acquitted. After burying his brother all those years ago, David Berg rarely talked about him. Yet in 2008 he began to remember and research Alan’s life and death. The result is Run, Brother, Run: part memoir—about growing up Jewish in 1950s Texas and Arkansas—and part legal story, informed by Berg’s experience as a seasoned lawyer. Writing with cold-eyed grief and a wild, lacerating humor, Berg tells us first about the striving Jewish family that created Alan Berg and set him on a course for self-destruction, and then about the miscarriage of justice when Berg’s murderer was acquitted. David Berg brings us a painful family history, a portrait of an iconic American place, and a true-crime courtroom murder drama that “elegantly brings to life the rough-and-tumble boomtown that was 1960s-era Houston, and conveys with unflinching force the emotional damage his brother’s death did to his family” (The New York Times).
Download or read book Jerusalem 1000 1400 written by Barbara Drake Boehm and published by Metropolitan Museum of Art. This book was released on 2016-09-14 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medieval Jerusalem was a vibrant international center, home to multiple cultures, faiths, and languages. Harmonious and dissonant voices from many lands, including Persians, Turks, Greeks, Syrians, Armenians, Georgians, Copts, Ethiopians, Indians, and Europeans, passed in the narrow streets of a city not much larger than midtown Manhattan. Patrons, artists, pilgrims, poets, and scholars from Christian, Jewish, and Islamic traditions focused their attention on the Holy City, endowing and enriching its sacred buildings, creating luxury goods for its residents, and praising its merits. This artistic fertility was particularly in evidence between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries, notwithstanding often devastating circumstances—from the earthquake of 1033 to the fierce battles of the Crusades. So strong a magnet was Jerusalem that it drew out the creative imagination of even those separated from it by great distance, from as far north as Scandinavia to as far east as present-day China. This publication is the first to define these four centuries as a singularly creative moment in a singularly complex city. Through absorbing essays and incisive discussions of nearly 200 works of art, Jerusalem, 1000–1400: Every People Under Heaven explores not only the meaning of the city to its many faiths and its importance as a destination for tourists and pilgrims but also the aesthetic strands that enhanced and enlivened the medieval city that served as the crossroads of the known world.
Download or read book The Mo Letters written by David Berg and published by . This book was released on 1976 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Letters written by Moses David for The Children of God.
Download or read book Sex Cult Nun written by Faith Jones and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-11-30 with total page 442 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Named a Best Book of 2021 by Newsweek and a Most Anticipated by People, TIME, USA Today, Real Simple, Glamour, Nylon, Bustle, Purewow, Shondaland, and more! Educated meets The Vow in this story of liberation and self-empowerment—an inspiring and stranger-than-fiction memoir of growing up in and breaking free from the Children of God, an oppressive, extremist religious cult. Faith Jones was raised to be part a religious army preparing for the End Times. Growing up on an isolated farm in Macau, she prayed for hours every day and read letters of prophecy written by her grandfather, the founder of the Children of God. Tens of thousands of members strong, the cult followers looked to Faith’s grandfather as their guiding light. As such, Faith was celebrated as special and then punished doubly to remind her that she was not. Over decades, the Children of God grew into an international organization that became notorious for its alarming sex practices and allegations of abuse and exploitation. But with indomitable grit, Faith survived, creating a world of her own—pilfering books and teaching herself high school curriculum. Finally, at age twenty-three, thirsting for knowledge and freedom, she broke away, leaving behind everything she knew to forge her own path in America. A complicated family story mixed with a hauntingly intimate coming-of-age narrative, Faith Jones’ extraordinary memoir reflects our societal norms of oppression and abuse while providing a unique lens to explore spiritual manipulation and our rights in our bodies. Honest, eye-opening, uplifting, and intensely affecting, Sex Cult Nun brings to life a hidden world that’s hypnotically alien yet unexpectedly relatable.
Download or read book Life in The Family written by James D. Chancellor and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2000-07-01 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From a unique insider's perspective—including interviews with more than seven-hundred family members—James Chancellor charts The Family's course since its emergence as the most controversial group to grow out of the Jesus People Movement in the 1960s. Chancellor, who had extraordinary access to rare Family records, includes the experiences of members who have remained loyal to the community and to the founding vision of their prophet, David Brandt Berg. In the first book of its kind—comprising often painful personal histories and firsthand accounts—Chancellor focuses on the motivation and process of becoming a Child of God, the core beliefs of the community, the mission of the disciples, their shifting sexual mores, and the cost of membership in terms of internal discipline and external persecution. Intense confrontation with the legal, religious, political, and educational establishment marked the movement's activities from the beginning. The young disciples heeded the call of their prophet to flee a soon-to-be-destroyed North America. Dispersed throughout Europe, Latin America, Africa, and East Asia, they virtually disappeared from the American landscape. In the late 1980s, The Family had gone through extreme theological and lifestyle changes, including a radical reordering of their sexual ethos. The Children of God started to come home. Now a worldwide counterculture of some twelve thousand members, the movement's colorful history reveals a profoundly religious group that has tested the limits of human experience.
Download or read book Living in the Children of God written by David E. Van Zandt and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-14 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the height of the religious ferment of the 1970s, David Van Zandt studied firsthand the most vilified of the new radical religious movements--the Children of God, or the Family of Love. First feigning membership and later gaining the permission of the Family, the author lived full-time in COG colonies in England and the Netherlands. From that experience, he has produced an informed, insightful, and humane report on how COG members function in what seems at first to be a completely bizarre setting. The COG, an offshoot of the Jesus People movement of the late 1960s, was one of the first radical religious groups to be accused of "brainwashing." Led by the charismatic David Berg, known as Moses David, the group demands total commitment from its full-time members and proselytizes continuously. Until recently the COG used sex as a proselytizing tool, and it continues to encourage full sexual sharing among group members. Instead of examining the COG's ideology in the abstract, Van Zandt analyzes how its ideas are understood and used by ordinary members in their daily lives. For them the Family is its practical, day-to-day, and all-consuming activities, such as "litnessing" (the street sale of COG literature). This is a vivid eyewitness account that will fascinate anyone interested in life in modern radical communal religions, such as the Unification Church and the Hare Krishnas, as well as in other radical, Christian-based, total-commitment groups. Van Zandt's frank reflections on his near-conversion experience and on the ethics of his covert observation enrich our knowledge of doing research with such groups. Originally published in 1991. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Download or read book The Children of God written by Deborah Davis and published by Zondervan. This book was released on 1984 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The daughter of the founder of the Children of God religious movement traces the group's history and discusses her disillusionment with the Children of God
Download or read book The Children of God written by J. Gordon Melton and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Children of God emerged out of the hippie movement of the 1960s, and through the 1980s they came to blend Christianity with sexual freedom, communal living, and a rejection of materialism and "the system." The Children, or "the Family" as they are now called, modified their behavior in the 1990s in the wake of several child sexual abuse charges (all dismissed) and the need for direction among the rising generation of Family members. They continue to live communally, proselytize full-time (none hold traditional jobs) and engage in sexual "sharing." As a byproduct of their evangelism, they have produced a number of accomplished musicians. They receive guidance for their daily lives through periodic revelations passed to them by the Family's current leader, Maria (the founder's widow), and her associates. Despite their variance from traditional Christian beliefs and practices, their recent attempts to conform to some degree with cultural norms in whatever country they work has tempered criticism, and they continue as the most successful communal movement of an almost forgotten hippie world.
Download or read book The Children of God Cult aka The Family written by and published by Sam Ajemian. This book was released on with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Leaving Isn t the Hardest Thing written by LAUREN. HOUGH and published by Coronet. This book was released on 2022-04-12 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Not Without My Sister written by Celeste Jones and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2007 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The true story of three girls violated and betrayed.
Download or read book Precious Objects written by Alicia Oltuski and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-07-19 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the middle of New York City lies a neighborhood where all secrets are valuable, all assets are liquid, and all deals are sealed with a blessing rather than a contract. Welcome to the diamond district. Ninety percent of all diamonds that enter America pass through these few blocks, but the inner workings of this mysterious world are known only to the people who inhabit it. In Precious Objects, twenty-six-year-old journalist Alicia Oltuski, the daughter and granddaughter of diamond dealers, seamlessly blends family narrative with literary reportage to reveal the fascinating secrets of the diamond industry and its madcap characters: an Elvis-impersonating dealer, a duo of diamond-detective brothers, and her own eccentric father. With insight and drama, Oltuski limns her family’s diamond-paved move from communist Siberia to a displaced persons camp in post–World War II Germany to New York’s diamond district, exploring the connections among Jews and the industry, the gem and its lore, and the exotic citizens of this secluded world. Entertaining and illuminating, Precious Objects offers an insider’s look at the history, business, and society behind one of the world’s most coveted natural resources, providing an unforgettable backstage pass to an extraordinary and timeless show.
Download or read book Jesus Freaks written by Don Lattin and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2009-10-13 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the tradition of Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven, Don Lattin's Jesus Freaks is the story of a shocking pilgrimage of revenge that left two people dead and shed new light on The Family International, one of the most controversial religious movements to emerge from the spiritual turmoil of the sixties and seventies. Some say The Family International—previously known as the Children of God—began with the best intentions. But their sexual and spiritual excesses soon forced them to go underground and follow a dark and dangerous path. Their charismatic leader, David "Moses" Berg, preached a radical critique of the piety and hypocrisy of mainstream Christianity. But Berg's message quickly devolved into its own web of lies. He lusted for power and unlimited access to female members of his flock—including young girls and teenagers—and became a drunken tyrant, setting up re-indoctrination camps around the world for rebellious teenagers under his control. Thousands of children raised in The Family would defect and try to live normal lives, but the prophet's heir apparent, Ricky "Davidito" Rodriguez, was unable to either bear the excesses of the cult or fit into normal society. Sexually and emotionally abused as a child, Ricky left the fold and began a crusade to destroy the only family he ever knew, including a plot to kill his own mother. Veteran journalist Don Lattin has written a powerful, engrossing book about this uniquely American tragedy. Jesus Freaks is a cautionary tale for those who fail to question the prophesies and proclamations of anyone who claims to speak for God.
Download or read book Apocalypse Child written by Flor Edwards and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2018-03-13 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For the first thirteen years of her life, Flor Edwards grew up in the Children of God. The group's nomadic existence was based on the belief that, as God's chosen people, they would be saved in the impending apocalypse that would envelop the rest of the world in 1993. Flor would be thirteen years old. The group's charismatic leader, Father David, kept the family on the move, from Los Angeles to Bangkok to Chicago, where they would eventually disband, leaving Flor to make sense of the foreign world of mainstream society around her. Apocalypse Child is a cathartic journey through Flor's memories of growing up within a group with unconventional views on education, religion, and sex. Whimsically referring to herself as a real life Kimmy Schmidt, Edwards's clear-eyed memoir is a story of survival in a childhood lived on the fringes.
Download or read book God s Forever Family written by Larry Eskridge and published by OUP USA. This book was released on 2013-07-18 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Jesus People were an unlikely combination of evangelical Christianity and the hippie counterculture. God's Forever Family is the first major examination of this phenomenon in over thirty years.
Download or read book Rebel written by Faith Morgan and published by Hodder Paperbacks. This book was released on 2022-02-03 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book After Visiting Friends written by Michael Hainey and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-02-18 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A decade in the writing, the haunting story of a son's quest to understand the mystery of his father's death--a universal memoir about the secrets families keep and the role they play in making us who we are. Michael Hainey had just turned six when his uncle knocked on his family's back door one morning with the tragic news: Bob Hainey, Michael's father, was found alone near his car on Chicago's North Side, dead, of an apparent heart attack. Thirty-five years old, a young assistant copy desk chief at the Chicago Sun-Times, Bob was a bright and shining star in the competitive, hard-living world of newspapers, one that involved booze-soaked nights that bled into dawn. And then suddenly he was gone, leaving behind a young widow, two sons, a fractured family--and questions surrounding the mysterious nature of his death that would obsess Michael throughout adolescence and long into adulthood. Finally, roughly his father's age when he died, and a seasoned reporter himself, Michael set out to learn what happened that night. Died after visiting friends, the obituaries said. But the details beyond that were inconsistent. What friends? Where? At the heart of his quest is Michael's all-too-silent, opaque mother, a woman of great courage and tenacity--and a steely determination not to look back. Prodding and cajoling his relatives, and working through a network of his father's buddies who abide by an honor code of silence and secrecy, Michael sees beyond the long-held myths and ultimately reconciles the father he'd imagined with the one he comes to know--and in the journey discovers new truths about his mother. A stirring portrait of a family and its legacy of secrets, After visiting friends is the story of a son who goes in search of the truth and finds not only his father, but a rare window into a world of men and newspapers and fierce loyalties that no longer exists"--Provided by publisher.