Category: Twelve Tribes

When Lynn’s son Bryce went to the annual Harvest Crusade, a Christian music and evangelism event, she had no way of knowing he would be lured into a cultic group known as the Twelve Tribes.

As Lynn discovered to her dismay, behind the quaint “freepapers” and homespun clothing is a religious system marked by exclusivism, racism, manipulation, and the spiritual domination of a man who calls himself “Yoneq.”

Seventh-day Adventists are among the other groups that chase down Crusade attendees.

Theologically the Twelve Tribes religious movement is a cult of Christianity, but sociologically cult experts see some cult-like problems as well.

Among other things critics have drawn attention to the group’s recruitment practices, its strict rules and the lack of wages paid to members.

“It’s very apparent from these two cases that at least two courts are looking for specific, direct information regarding each family unit,” said Washington attorney John Easton, who in 1984 was the Vermont attorney general and involved in the decision to launch the Island Pond raid. “To remove a child from a family is a high burden. The courts are going to be looking for a substantial amount of proof” of abuse.

The general manager of the Royal Easter Show said he would not be surprised if a cafe run at the event by a Christian sect was inspected by the state’s workplace watchdog after revelations its workers were not being paid.

The Common Ground cafe is one of several businesses owned and operated by the Community Apostolic Order, also known as the Twelve Tribes, a messianic Christian sect accused by former members of harsh child discipline which in some cases could amount to child abuse, family break-up and thought control.

The Twelve Tribes, theologically a cult of Christianity, supports itself in part by running restaurants.

They pool their finances, home-school their children — whom they sometimes discipline with small reeds — and have been accused in other parts of the country of being a cult and breaking child labor laws. But in western Loudoun County, their neighbors wouldn’t trade them for the world.