Writing / Journalism · Aliquo Journal · July 2021 · 19 min read
How the Twelve Tribes’ Multi-Generational Plan to Return the Messiah Results in Child Abuse
“It’s a cult,” the locals whisper as they walk past a yellow café in Savannah. With Katie Woodworth, I looked at how the group’s plan to return the Messiah results in the abuse of its children.
Written with Katie Woodworth.
In Savannah, Georgia, nuzzled into the corner of Habersham and East Hall St sits a popular, yellow café dressed in ornate carpentry. The bold ochre exterior and exposed wood are alluring, while soft frilly drapes and warm, red-trimmed windows beckon a closer look. When you enter the café, fresh-baked bread and spices fill your olfactory as you make your way to a bar to order. Your eyes graze the chalk-covered blackboard of eco-conscious menu items and flowers before ordering from an amiable staff. Natural wood laces the interior with little coves carved into it for eating and drinking tea. Furniture, bound in leather, takes on a handmade appeal, as do the walls adorned with hand-woven decorative drapery and colorful murals. While you wait for your yerba maté or coffee, you can peruse local pottery or the “Twelve Tribes Freepaper,” advertising a unique community lifestyle and references to Old Testament verses.
Men and women, both similarly dressed in plain, modest clothes, with hair parted down the center and ending with a ponytail, wander in and out of the café. Occasionally, you can spot an umber and cream-colored hybrid of a 1955 GMC Scenicruiser and a 1949 General American Aerocoach, titled the “Peacemaker II,” parked beside and towering over the café. Its unique appearance is arrestive, using itself as a mobile advertisement. For those whose curiosity has been piqued, it bears a sign encouraging people to come inside the vehicle. It sits outside for days, and then it is gone
It becomes increasingly apparent that this humble abode is more than a café but a community of like-minded people. “It’s a cult,” the locals whisper as they walk by, circulating the rumors everyone seems to know. However, the accusations do not dampen its customer base; the café’s delicious, naturally sourced food and drinks and down-to-earth aesthetic are popular among foodies and college students.
The neighboring buildings are similarly colored, with residents dressed like the servers at the café. And you would be right; it is not a local affair but an international messianic community based in Chattanooga, Tennessee. From São Paulo to England, Czechia, Canada, Australia, and all over the United States, you can find either a café called The Maté Factor, Common Ground Café, or, most commonly, The Yellow Deli. The Twelve Tribes runs these facilities, whose word-by-word interpretation of Old and New Covenants values brought controversies and legal battles over child abuse allegations. These allegations became prison sentences for some; the convictions, recorded videos of abuse, and The Twelve Tribe’s articles, papers, and speeches elucidate the disturbing allegations of a community centered around “love” and paint a chilling picture of what The Twelve Tribes stand for and why its continued existence is a concern.
Who Are The Twelve Tribes
Like many people today, the followers of The Twelve Tribes have lost their faith in mainstream religion. While many are turning atheist, agnostic, or just spiritual, the members of The Twelve Tribes took a different route. In 1972, Elbert Eugene Spriggs founded The Twelve Tribes under the impression that Christians had lost their way from Old Testament Times. He and a group of friends dove deep into the Old Testament, or what they refer to as The Old Covenant, to decode how a real believer should behave and plan to restore the Confederation of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. As of today, this messianic group has denounced Christianity and its ways, claiming that they have been following a false messiah, influenced by Satan, and have strayed too far to be saved.
All those who believe in this new interpretation and join must first leave their old life and occupation. Then, they enter a bond with other believers “just as a husband and wife enter into a marriage covenant ‘till death do us part” and become a new person. In this bond, followers are encouraged to transform their likeness to Messiah Yahshua, the Hebrew name for Jesus. At first glance, it is easy to mistake these teachings as Christian, especially through their Freepapers, but these similarities fall increasingly short of the strict, cherry-picked lessons that The Twelve Tribes teach.
As explained in their manifesto, The Twelve Tribes endeavor to bring back old Israel—providing the fruit of Genesis 18:19—so that the Messiah will return. However, Yahweh, the God of the ancient Kingdom of Israel, only returns for those who remain pure and faithful. Therefore, the Twelve Tribes believe that they can remake the Kingdom of Israel by raising generations of pure, faithful children—children that are shaped in the image of the Messiah and will walk the way of Yahweh. By rearing these children and reforming the Kingdom of Israel, they aim to be chosen by the holy spirit to ascend into heaven before the great war of Revelation. Meanwhile, the Messiah will establish His throne in Jerusalem with the twelve apostles ruling over the Twelve Tribes of Israel.
“Let’s face it. It is just not reasonable to expect people to live contentedly alongside of others who are culturally and racially different. This is unnatural, and sometimes forces people to go against what they instinctively know in their conscience. They are told, ‘You can’t discriminate.’”
— Multicultural Madness, The Twelve Tribes
When the time comes, those who haven’t overcome their vices may not ascend with Yahshua, as their inequities are equivalent to impure silver and cast away. Specifically quoting Jeremiah 6:28-30, The Twelve Tribes manifesto preaches that some people are impure or “reprobate silver”—a sinner predestined for damnation, no matter the trials and tribulations, “for some it is in vain that the process goes on.” Reprobate means rejected as worthless, not standing the test—an unacceptable sacrifice. Part of the Process is purity, a reference to virginity; the first fruits (people) The Twelve Tribes will procure are 144,000 men “who did not defile themselves with women,” as written in Revelation 14:1-5. In the Freepaper, *The Last Day,*the End is represented by Yahshua’s disciples living in unity. The Twelve Tribes believe that creating a community of like-minded believers, all with love for their god and each other will bring on the end of days—their love will end the world as we know it.
However, in Mark 13:32, Jesus uses the language of betrothal—erusin in Hebrew—ceremonies to talk to his disciples about his return. After a betrothal, the bridegroom would leave his betrothed to make a home for her in his father’s homestead. The bride could only wait while her bridegroom labored, a period that could last 30 days to a whole year, as described in Nedarim 73b. Only his father knew the exact day and hour the groom could return to claim his bride. Their reunion would be a grand celebration because he finally returned to take her home. Jesus teaches that, like the bridegroom’s father, only the Father—God—knows the day and hour of his return. No matter how much the bride, or the people of Earth, may become desperate and plead, they cannot know the day of His return.
Women play an integral part in bringing back the Messiah by producing and raising children in His image. Despite women’s important role in the group, they are defined as stereotypical housewives. Their article, Modesty, describes that “God created woman to be a friend and a helper for man. She was created to be a wife and a mother, to raise children who would, in turn, know who they were created to be.” They further proclaimed that women are not “bossed around” by men and are instead “happy, liberated” women who willingly submit themselves to their loving husbands. But, of course, they are quick to point out that women can do anything they please but choose not to; physical exertion, as they claim in the article, The Role of Women, is not suitable for women’s childbearing years and is best not compete with men. Put simply, supporting men is the core of their identity. They also critique the women of today, saying that they are confused by pursuing jobs that do not involve children, saying that “sadly enough today though, many women strive to be something ‘better.’” Even in their Freepapers, they do not hide their misogynistic tone by lumping widows with orphaned kids together, claiming that they are saving the helpless. This tone toward women, however, is not surprising. Exodus 20:17, along with servants and donkeys, lists the wife as a man’s possession. In Hebrew, the man is described as Ba’al, or “master” of his wife, just as he is a master of his land. As Roland de Vaux pointed out in his book *Ancient Israel, “to marry a wife,”*as described in Deuteronomy, is expressed by the verb, Ba’al, “to marry” is to “become master.”
Spriggs believed the world was evil, and his communities provided a sanctuary from it, allowing his people to become closer to God’s image. He decried the current “I-me-my-mine” culture, thinking it would lead to a one-world government—a “worldwide Gestapo,”as they call it—that would welcome the anti-Christ. Forced multiculturalism, described frequently in their articles, is a core element moving society towards this one-world government.
The denunciation against multiculturalism goes against their statements in their Freepapers; in A Brand New Culture, they mention that The Twelve Tribes communities are “a place where many races dwell together as the prophet Ezekiel foretold.” One such example advocating cultural homogeneity is their article, MulticulturalMadness, calling the “forced” integration of other races, cultures, and religions “unnatural.” Their manifesto also subtly suggests that they were fine with slavery; it stated that “savage men” deceived by Satan conspiring war and division triggered the American Civil War, comparing the Union’s invasion of the South to Satan conspiring bloodshed against the church in the first century. These segregationist and racial viewpoints are backed by old misinterpretations of Genesis’s “Curse of Ham.”1
To further separate and elevate his teachings from existing Christian sects, Spriggs referenced his religion as “true” and “pure.” The descriptor’s purpose doubles as an excuse to isolate themselves from modernity. A pastor, who respectfully asked to remain anonymous, explained that this purity refers to the worship of the one true God, not, for example, the multitude of gods in the Roman religion; it was not telling people not to partake in the rest of society. The pastor noted that “they’re taking it to this extreme that you can’t nearly live except maybe in this little square box that they’ve created, and so the polluting of the world, the world becomes this great big evil rather than seeing that God is still at work in the world… By separating ourselves, sometimes we’re doing the very opposite of what they’re desiring to do.” The pastor holds a Ph.D. in Christian education, teaches at an academic divinity school, and focuses on the historical context of theology.
Despite the impossibility of controlling or prophesying the return of the Messiah, the group attempts to do so anyway through its distorted interpretation of cultural unity. Male-subservient women devote their lives to giving birth and rearing Messiah-like children for Revelation. Their societal and religious isolationist beliefs to fast-track the return of the Messiah quickly became problematic and ultimately a legal liability for the community.
- Ham, Noah’s son, after seeing his father drunk and naked, was cursed by him. As a result, Ham’s youngest son, Canaan, will be “servants of servants” to his brothers. Genesis also mentions that Canaan is the father of the Canaanites, who God later instructed Moses in Deuteronomy to destroy after they expanded outside their allotted land. God did not mention the color of Canaan’s or Ham’s skin color or that the curse was passed to his children; however, one etymological misstep assumed that the name “Ham” relates to the Hebrew word ḥwm (ḥum), meaning “black.” Historically, the Curse of Ham was used as an excuse to enslave people with black skin. Canaan’s descendants are to be forever slaves of the descendants of Noah’s other sons, Shem and Japeth.
Raising Children in the Image of the Messiah
Much of The Twelve Tribe’s writings are filled with hundreds of biblical references; however, verses defining their reason for harsh child discipline are lacking, left to only a scant few. In the manifesto, of the 275 references across 34 books, we counted only 1 reference that provided the full context of the passage. Most verses were isolated and short, and 20 were pulled from the middle of a sentence. The isolated verses across so many books allow The Twelve Tribes to develop a doctrine both separate from the source content yet validated by it.
“[Discipline] is vital to a child’s self-image, his self-esteem, and his self-worth,” Eugene Spriggs said during a 24-minute-long speech in 2000. He casually talked behind a wooden podium brandishing an illustrated “1984 Revisited” banner while wearing a plaid button-down shirt and baggy, faded jeans. Although he mentioned George Orwell’s book in his speech—including other mentions of Brave New World and Prozac Nation—the reason for gathering on that hot Tennessee June day was for the anniversary of a Vermont-led raid on their community sixteen years prior. Vermont challenged one of its core beliefs: how The Twelve Tribes discipline their children. Vermont brought charges against the communities’ elder, Charles Wiseman, over evidence of frequently whipped children at the compound. The State then dispatched state troopers and social workers to seize 112 children. The catalyst for the investigation came from thirteen-year-old Darlynn Church and her father, Roland Church. They reported to authorities in 1983 that Charles Wiseman beat her with a wooden rod. The serious accusation stated that Charles Wiseman hit her over several hours, causing 89 welts on her skin. In another case used as evidence in the search warrant, a 4-year-old boy, Jeremy Smith, was struck 15-20 times with a wooden rod for pretending a block was a toy truck. It was reported that playing or even fantasizing about toys was wrong within the community.
The haste to remove the children came from fear after Michigan officials consulted Vermont’s social services over a raid of the House of Judah a year prior; a mother beat her 12-year-old boy, John Yarbough, to death, resulting in a raid and all 66 children to be brought into foster care. Vermont could not follow through with the same swift action; a judge intervened in the State’s ability to check the sect’s 112 children for abuse, who said that the operation was “grossly illegal.” Jean Swantko, the public defender—and future wife—of Charles Wiseman, claimed in 2009 that there was a collaboration between the media, state agencies, law enforcement, and anti-cult operatives to dismantle and discredit the group. Swantko filed five motions for case dismissal. The State brought the case to trial without the Church family as evidence, bringing unsigned depositions instead, causing a suspension of the case. The case then sat with the Supreme Court for six months until Swantko filed affidavits that the Church family could testify. On April 18, 1985, the Churchs eventually testified in court. Between the time of the beating and June 1985, nearly two years went by. At that point, the father, Roland, “wanted to forget the whole thing” and later retracted earlier testimony that Wiseman beat his daughter severely. The judge ruled to drop the case against Charles Wiseman because of a “lack of a speedy trial.” Darlynn’s mother was “overjoyed” over the court dismissal, also claiming that her previous testimony was false.
The photographer who documented the raid and the court case, Toby Talbot, provided us with scanned negatives to review. Unfortunately, we could not confirm showing them in time with this article due to spotty communication. This article will be updated when we get them. On June 22, 1984, Talbot captured a rare moment of the kids seized from the church compound the day of the raid. Ten parents and fifteen kids piled onto the stairs leading to the side entrance outside the Newport, Vermont, police department; they are smiling at each other or at the camera, conversing or looking bored. Charles Wiseman stands on the top step, his arms folded, staring down at the children with a smirk. Given the disturbing allegations, the number of church members smiling in most photos is unnerving.
The prominence of harsh disciplinary action within the Twelve Tribe’s doctrines elevates the concern that the children within the community are perpetually at risk. The act of disciplining their children is spiritual, and they are “commanded” by God as interpreted from the often-quoted passage from Proverbs 22:6, “if you spank him with a rod, you’ll deliver his soul from eternal death.” They push the idea that if a child is not disciplined, they will feel that nobody, not even God, cares about them. At its worst, an undisciplined child becomes an “illegitimate offspring;” the child neither has a father nor the father a child. Their beliefs conveniently leave out the part of Luke 15, where the father does not disown a child who wishes to leave, and when—or if—they return, the father welcomes them with compassion and a celebration.
The Twelve Tribes’ article, Twelve Tribe Communities on Child Discipline, further stresses the importance of authority and discipline, citing Proverbs 13:24: “Whoever spares the rod hates his child, but the one who loves his child is careful to discipline him.” The article states that the “moral foundations have been all but destroyed” because of the lack of child punishment. Since they oppose striking a child by the hand, they choose to use a rod as it “does not require physical strength to deliver its sting.” A pain caused by the rod sends the message straight from their “little bottom” right to the “child’s heart,” thus concluding the discipline.
“Discipline is vital to a child’s self-image. It makes him feel worthwhile. Discipline is essential to this end. What makes for appalling behavior is the feeling that no one cares about you, that nobody gives a damn about you—not even God.”
— A plaque next to Elbert Eugene Spriggs during a speech on June 22, 2000.
In the United States, The Twelve Tribes have not been convicted of child abuse; however, the story is different in Germany. In 2013, the German police seized 40 children from the community in Klosterzimmern and Wörnitz after concerning footage produced by RTL, the German TV channel, of child beatings in The Twelve Tribes compound. RTL reporter Wolfram Kuhnigk joined The Twelve Tribes under a false identity, using a hidden camera to record adults hitting children in the basement with a rod. One hidden camera captured a top-down view of a small child leaning over, exposing their underwear, while a Twelve Tribe member holding onto their flower shirt struck their bottom with a rod. Another hidden camera shows a boy kneeling on the floor in a dark basement, his bottom exposed and continually struck by a community member offscreen. In one of The Twelve Tribes articles, Diary of an Abused Child, in reference to the video, they claim it was misunderstood: “you could also have considered that as positive, as it really is.”’ They also stated that the video cut away before showing the “reconciliation, the encouragement, the embrace, the restoration of the mother-child relationship, where no feelings of separation remain.”
In January 2015, the Twelve Tribes said the recording the RTL reporter made was not admissible in court because it was recorded secretly. It was admissible. At this point, the municipality of Wörnitz bought the Twelve Tribe’s community house. The remaining members left for the Czech Republic, where laws against corporal punishment are less strict, and they can home-schooled. By early 2017, the Twelve Tribes fully migrated themselves to a town in Skalná in Chebsk, and as of 2021, they have since expanded their operations to the town of Mšecké Žehrovice. Back in Germany, the court battles still raged.
In January 2016, the district court of Nördlingen sentenced a 56-year-old Twelve Tribes member to two-and-a-half years in prison without parole for the beating of six children. She abused one child up to eight times a day, while another boy received 30 blows with a rod because of his stutter or reading vocalization issues. Nördlingen court Judge Schamann sentenced another member in 2018 to a 15-month prison sentence for causing “grievous bodily harm” for thirteen children. Here, a ten-year-old boy testified and said the man beat him in the basement of the Klosterzimmern estate after he refused to eat. They placed the boy on a pommel horse in the basement: “My mom pulled me by the hands, the teacher held me by the feet. The [defendant] then beat me with the rod.” The boy said that children were queuing in the basement to be disciplined. Though the German courts gave some Twelve Tribes members prison time, many of the children seized in 2013 went back to their parents. Some parents who fled to the Czech Republic never showed up for their court cases, reducing the possibility of further convictions.
Is Corporal Punishment Abuse
Based on the information we know on The Twelve Tribe’s disciplinary methods, can we discern whether it is unhealthy for childhood development? It is complicated. In a 2002 meta-analysis of 88 studies across 62 years of data, Elizabeth Thompson Gershoff, Ph.D., of the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University, found that corporal punishment can be associated with ten negative child behaviors and experiences: mental health, aggression, antisocial behavior, abuse to own children, immediate compliance, and others. Although the child’s experience will vary from parent to parent, she claims that corporal punishment often leads to adverse outcomes and will not teach children right and wrong, and instills a fear in the child to disobey in the presence of their parent. In 2016, Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor wrote another meta-analysis spanning 160,927 children, strengthening the claim that there are consistent associations between corporal punishment and inferior cognitive development and maladaptive behavioral issues.
Gershoff’s correlational methods to conduct her studies found a predictive link between physical discipline and behavioral issues, which is not the same as cause and effect. Dr. Robert Larzelere, who specializes in family studies, in a 2018 comment, criticized that the evidence Gershoff provided was ineffective in defining the connection between any disciplinary response and behavioral problems in children. Larzelere also did a meta-analysis in 2005 with 26 studies across 50 years. He found that physical discipline was not better or worse than any other disciplinary tactic. His research discovered a method for non-abusive discipline for 2-to-6-year-olds called “conditional spanking”: “two open-hand swats to the buttocks when a parent is not angrily out of control.” Larzelere again critiques Gershoff’s second 2016 meta-analysis by saying she failed to solve the “chicken-and-the-egg” problem and still based evidence on simple correlations. Larzelere claims he solved this “chicken-and-the-egg” problem by comparing the outcomes of physical punishment with alternative disciplinary tactics. He says conditional spanking should be mild and not be done often and claims that conditional spanking should lead to even milder discipline, such as timeouts. He also emphasizes that all children are different, so no catch-all disciplinary solution exists. Even with some conclusions and intentions appearing similar to The Twelve Tribes, the group explicitly in their text abstains from hitting their children with their hands; instead, they make discipline intimately bound with love and use rods to induce harsh discipline in a catch-all manner.
You can better define parents in The Twelve Tribes by reading Diana Baumrind’s work, the “godmother of parenting styles.” Based on her descriptions, they demonstrate an authoritarian parenting style: coercive, manipulative, confronting, and power assertive. The authoritarian parent also precedes a child’s autonomy while exerting psychological control. Baumrind also defines the authoritarian style as the “use [of] control of children’s behavior not only to obtain immediate compliance with a specific directive but also to induce their child by coercive means to become more dispositionally compliant.” Baumrind encourages an authoritative parenting style similar to authoritarian but lacks psychological control and coercion and is more communicative and responsive to their child’s cues. You can read more from her book, Authoritative Parenting Revisited: History and Current Status.
The Twelve Tribes are not exclusive in their belief in harsh discipline; a staggering number of people in the United States still believe it is a proper disciplinary tool. The State’s religious history, mixed with the sacrosanct status of the family—parents know best—are critical factors in this mindset. As of 2021, 19 states allow corporal punishment in schools. According to the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, 106,055 students in 2013-2014 and 92,479 students in 2015-2016 were subject to corporal punishment in public schools. Unfortunately, in the United States, the line between corporal punishment and abuse is blurry, making the accusation that The Twelve Tribe’s physical and emotional correction methods are abuse legally uncertain.
This is Abuse
It is frightening that the Twelve Tribes have existed without significant repercussions in the United States. The World Health Organization (WHO) states that social and cultural norms supporting corporal punishment increase child maltreatment risk. In a 2020 report, WHO said that only 43% of countries have laws prohibiting corporal punishment in all settings; the United States is not part of that percentage, as only some legislation covers corporal punishment. WHO has labeled the United States’ perceived enforcement as low. If you want to strengthen your local laws on child abuse, the Global Initiative to End Corporal Punishment against Children has a helpful guide on child law reform. You can also check the status of your country and understand how you could help on their site.
The focus on homogeneity, purity, and rigid, cherry-picked interpretation isolates The Twelve Tribes not just from the religion they attempt to represent so accurately but from the rest of society at the expense of those persuaded to join—especially vulnerable children. The United States, unlike Germany, does not have national legislation to prevent groups like the Twelve Tribes from committing child abuse. The secretive nature of their communities makes reporting additionally hard. The children within The Twelve Tribes are raised that this treatment is considered love, and the outside world is evil, tainting any possible testimony in court. It is not valid to define all corporal punishment as abuse, but there is a consensus that the community’s disciplinary actions put children at high risk for abuse. Even if physical discipline is ruled out, the concept that a “child’s self-image, his self-esteem, and his self-worth” is defined by people disciplining them or risk becoming an “illegitimate offspring” strays deep into psychological abuse. The children are robbed of independent thought and growth, taught to comply with authority, and resentful of the outside world. The children are not children but messiahs in training to rebuild old Israel and bring about the End. This is abuse.