The Family International
The Family International (TFI) is a Christian New Religious Movement founded in Huntington Beach, California, USA, in 1968 by David Berg that has been criticized as an authoritarian cult. Originally named Teens for Christ, it has gone under a number of different names. It gained notoriety as The Children of God (COG). It was later renamed and reorganized as The Family of Love (1978–1981), which was eventually shortened to The Family. As of 2004, it has gone by The Family International. Former members have accused the group of child sexual abuse, physical abuse, exploitation, the targeting of vulnerable people, and creating lasting trauma among children raised in the group. Overview According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, "at its height" the Family movement had "tens of thousands of members, including River and Joaquin Phoenix, Rose McGowan and Jeremy Spencer". TFI initially spread a message of salvation, apocalypticism, spiritual "revolution and happiness" ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ohioan
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The state's capital and largest city is Columbus, with the Columbus metro area, Greater Cincinnati, and Greater Cleveland being the largest metropolitan areas. Ohio is bordered by Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the west, and Michigan to the northwest. Ohio is historically known as the "Buckeye State" after its Ohio buckeye trees, and Ohioans are also known as "Buckeyes". Its state flag is the only non-rectangular flag of all the U.S. states. Ohio takes its name from the Ohio River, which in turn originated from the Seneca word ''ohiːyo'', meaning "good river", "great river", or "large creek". The state arose from the lands west of the Appalachian Mount ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Flirty Fishing
Flirty Fishing (FFing) is a form of evangelism by sexual intimacy practised from around 1974 to 1987 by the cult Children of God, currently known as Family International (TFI). Female members of Children of God, or "fisherwomen" would apply their sex appeal on "fish", men from outside the cult (often but not always having sex), using the occasion to proselytize for Jesus and seek donations. The practice was "a primary source of financial support and political protection" for the cult, and criticized as religious prostitution. Children of God have defended it as a way of "bearing witness" for Jesus to people who would not otherwise be open to it. According to some sources, over two hundred thousand men were "fished", and over 10,000 babies were born to cult women from 1971 and 2001. The practice was curtailed as sexually transmitted diseases spread through the cult, and then abandoned in 1987 reportedly because of the spread of AIDS. Etymology, definition, rationale The term ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Missionary
A missionary is a member of a Religious denomination, religious group which is sent into an area in order to promote its faith or provide services to people, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care, and economic development.Thomas Hale 'On Being a Missionary' 2003, William Carey Library Pub, . In the Bible translations into Latin, Latin translation of the Bible, Jesus, Jesus Christ says the word when he sends the disciples into areas and commands them to preach the gospel in his name. The term is most commonly used in reference to Christian missions, but it can also be used in reference to any creed or ideology. The word ''mission'' originated in 1598 when Jesuits, the members of the Society of Jesus sent members abroad, derived from the Latin (nominative case, nom. ), meaning 'act of sending' or , meaning 'to send'. By religion Buddhist missions The first Buddhist missionaries were called "Dharma Bhanaks", and some see a missionary charge in the symbolis ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Love-bombing
Love bombing is an attempt to influence a person by demonstrations of attention and affection. It can be used in different ways and for either positive or negative purposes. Psychologists have identified love bombing as a possible part of a cycle of abuse and have warned against it. It has also been described as psychological manipulation in order to create a feeling of unity within a group against a society perceived as hostile. In 2011, clinical psychologist Oliver James advocated love bombing in his book ''Love Bombing: Reset Your Child's Emotional Thermostat'', as a means for parents to rectify emotional problems in their children. Definition and analysis The expression "love bombing" was coined by members of the Unification Church of the United States during the 1970s and was also used by members of the Family International. Psychology professor Margaret Singer reported on the concept. In her 1996 book, ''Cults in Our Midst,'' she writes: Abusive relationships Modern soc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Commune (intentional Community)
An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork from the start. The members of an intentional community typically hold a common social, political, religious, or spiritual vision, and typically share responsibilities and property. This way of life is sometimes characterized as an " alternative lifestyle". Intentional communities can be seen as social experiments or communal experiments. The multitude of intentional communities includes collective households, cohousing communities, coliving, ecovillages, monasteries, survivalist retreats, kibbutzim, hutterites, ashrams, and housing cooperatives. History Ashrams are likely the earliest intentional communities founded around 1500 BCE, while Buddhist monasteries appeared around 500 BCE. Pythagoras founded an intellectual vegetarian commune in about 525 BCE in southern Italy. Hundreds of modern intentional communities were formed across ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Proselytism
Proselytism () is the policy of attempting to convert people's religious or political beliefs. Proselytism is illegal in some countries. Some draw distinctions between ''evangelism'' or '' Da‘wah'' and proselytism regarding proselytism as involuntary or coerced but it can also be understood to merely be a synonym. Etymology The English-language word ''proselytize'' derives from the Greek language prefix (, "toward") and the verb (, "I come") in the form of (, "newcomer"). Historically, in the Koine Greek Septuagint and New Testament, the word ''proselyte'' denoted a Gentile who was considering conversion to Judaism. Although the word ''proselytism'' originally referred to converting to Judaism (and earlier related to Gentiles such as God-fearers), it now implies an attempt of any religion or religious individuals to convert people to their belief. Arthur J. Serratelli, the Catholic Bishop of Paterson, New Jersey, observed that the meaning of the word ''proselytism'' has ch ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Orange County, California
Orange County is located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 3,186,989, making it the third-most-populous county in California, the sixth-most-populous in the United States, and more populous than 19 American states and Washington, D.C. Although largely suburban, it is the second-most-densely-populated county in the state behind San Francisco County. The county's three most-populous cities are Anaheim, Santa Ana, and Irvine, each of which has a population exceeding 300,000. Santa Ana is also the county seat. Six cities in Orange County are on the Pacific coast: Seal Beach, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, Dana Point, and San Clemente. Orange County is included in the Los Angeles-Long Beach- Anaheim Metropolitan Statistical Area. The county has 34 incorporated cities. Older cities like Old Town Tustin, Santa Ana, Anaheim, Orange, and Fullerton have traditional downtowns dating back to the 19th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Huntington Beach
Huntington Beach is a seaside city in Orange County in Southern California, located southeast of Downtown Los Angeles. The city is named after American businessman Henry E. Huntington. The population was 198,711 during the 2020 census, making it the fourth most populous city in Orange County, the most populous beach city in Orange County, and the seventh most populous city in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area. It is bordered by Bolsa Chica Basin State Marine Conservation Area on the west, the Pacific Ocean on the southwest, by Seal Beach on the northwest, by Westminster on the north, by Fountain Valley on the northeast, by Costa Mesa on the east, and by Newport Beach on the southeast. Huntington Beach is known for its long stretch of sandy beach, mild climate, excellent surfing, and beach culture. Swells generated predominantly from the North Pacific in winter and from a combination of Southern Hemisphere storms and hurricanes in the s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Christian And Missionary Alliance
The Alliance World Fellowship is the international governing body of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (The Alliance, also C&MA and CMA). The Alliance is an evangelical Protestant denomination within the Higher Life movement of Christianity, teaching a modified form of Keswickian theology. The headquarters is in São Paulo, Brazil. History The Alliance has its origins in two organizations founded by Albert Benjamin Simpson in 1887 in Old Orchard Beach, Maine, in the United States, The Christian Alliance, which concentrated on domestic missions, and The Evangelical Missionary Alliance, which focused on overseas missions. These two organizations merged in 1897 to form the Christian and Missionary Alliance.Randall Herbert Balmer, ''Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism: Revised and expanded edition'', Baylor University Press, USA, 2004, p. 156 The ''Missionary Training Institute'' (now Alliance Theological Seminary), founded in 1882 by Simpson in Nyack, near New York, contributed ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hippies
A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around the world. The word ''hippie'' came from '' hipster'' and was used to describe beatniks who moved into New York City's Greenwich Village, in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, and Chicago's Old Town community. The term ''hippie'' was used in print by San Francisco writer Michael Fallon, helping popularize use of the term in the media, although the tag was seen elsewhere earlier. The origins of the terms '' hip'' and ''hep'' are uncertain. By the 1940s, both had become part of African American jive slang and meant "sophisticated; currently fashionable; fully up-to-date". The Beats adopted the term ''hip'', and early hippies inherited the language and countercultural values of the Beat Generation. Hippies created their own communiti ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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New Testament
The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christianity. The New Testament's background, the first division of the Christian Bible, is called the Old Testament, which is based primarily upon the Hebrew Bible; together they are regarded as sacred scripture by Christians. The New Testament is a collection of Christian texts originally written in the Koine Greek language, at different times by various authors. While the Old Testament canon varies somewhat between different Christian denominations, the 27-book canon of the New Testament has been almost universally recognized within Christianity since at least Late Antiquity. Thus, in almost all Christian traditions today, the New Testament consists of 27 books: * 4 canonical gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John) * The Acts of the Apostl ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Book Of Revelation
The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament (and consequently the final book of the Christian Bible). Its title is derived from the first word of the Koine Greek text: , meaning "unveiling" or "revelation". The Book of Revelation is the only apocalyptic book in the New Testament canon. It occupies a central place in Christian eschatology. The author names himself as simply "John" in the text, but his precise identity remains a point of academic debate. Second-century Christian writers such as Papias of Hierapolis, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Melito of Sardis, Clement of Alexandria, and the author of the Muratorian fragment identify John the Apostle as the "John" of Revelation. Modern scholarship generally takes a different view, with many considering that nothing can be known about the author except that he was a Christian prophet. Modern theological scholars characterize the Book of Revelation's author as "John of Patmos". The bulk of traditional sources ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |