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scandalized "many religious institutions", The Family maintained that "many people, most of whom would never even go near a church, were reached and won to Christ through this very humble, honest, open and intimately human approach to witnessing." A Family spokesman John
Francis describes the main "fish" involved as "lonely traveling businessmen" staying in hotels.
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money, food, clothing, housing, and other needs, including legal advice, help in immigration, and protection against social and political repression. It was not uncommon for some women to spend considerable amounts of time with their "fish", sometimes leaving their husbands and children for weeks or months at a time.
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Flirty
Fishing has been compared to prostitution. One scholar, (Susan Raine) describes its "terminology and ... imagery" as "saturated with the rhetoric of prostitution". Describing a couple of images from internal Children of God literature on FFing sent by Berg to Children of God communes and later
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In some areas of Asia, Europe and Latin
America, female disciples went to work for escort services, providing sex for a fixed fee. Though conceding that escort service work (ESing) perhaps crossed the line, Family leadership insists that Flirty Fishing was not prostitution because the ultimate goal
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Researcher Bill
Bainbridge obtained data from TFI suggesting that, from 1974 until 1987, members had sexual contact with 223,989 people while practicing Flirty Fishing. As the women were expected to keep exact records of their "fruits" (successes), a 1988 statistic showed that more than 223,000 men
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by the organization. According to Don Lattin, between 1971 and 2001 "more than 13,000" children were born to followers of David Berg; "women with six, eight, 10, 13 kids were not uncommon" in the Family. The "first child conceived through 'flirty fishing', was born to Berg’s common-law wife, Karen
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Witnessing and disciple winning were by no means the only focus of Flirty
Fishing. Even before 1978, FFing had become a primary source of financial support and political protection. Many female disciples established long-term relationships with wealthy or influential men. These men often provided
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According to The Family's history, "Father David arrived at the rather shocking conclusion that
Christians were therefore free through God's grace to go to great lengths to show the Love of God to others, even as far as meeting their sexual needs." While acknowledging that this interpretation
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Critical ex-members of CoG also point to Family publications from this period. A 1987 "Basic
Training Handbook" offers "explicit advice on sex among prepubescent teens. There's also something called 'My Little Fish' containing nude photographs of a young boy and an adult woman embracing."
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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 200,000 men were "fished" and over 10,000 babies were born to cult women between 1971 and 2001. The practice was curtailed as
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extrapolated from this that women in his movement should be "flirty fishers" (also called "bait" or "fisherwomen"). The targeted men were called "fish". The cult published several documents with exact instructions. Flirty
Fishing was defined as using sex appeal for
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Ex-member and critic, David
Hiebert, states the practice was "used to curry political favor" in countries CoG had migrated to. "They would target special people—in the media, lawyers, in the government." According to James Chancellor,
391:, it did follow Christian beliefs when it came to birth control. Sources differ on whether birth control was forbidden or simply discouraged. The practice also resulted in numerous pregnancies, the offspring of which were termed
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The financial benefit of Flirty
Fishing soon advanced from mere flirting/"loving sexually", to "escort servicing" (ESing)—described as "making FFing pay" by Berg—in which female cult members would work as regular
326:(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 and seek donations.
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released by ex-members, Raine says one is "of a woman wearing hot pants, a bra, and high-heeled boots ... dangling a fishhook from her hand ... the caption below reads 'FISHERS OF MEN!
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had been "fished" since 1978—and that FFing had nevertheless continued into 1988. Though the cult had no problem ignoring Christian norms on
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The Children of God practised flirty fishing and escort servicing from 1974 until 1987, when it was officially abandoned, in part because of the
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Berg, David. (1974a). "The Flirty Little Fishy". Mo Letter No. 293 (January 3). Reprinted in Berg, 1976c, p. 535, (pp. 527–534)
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by sexual intimacy practised from around 1974 to 1987 by the cult Children of God, currently known as
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or freelance, and "witness" (proselytize) to their clients merely when the occasion offered itself.
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spread through the cult, and then abandoned in 1987, reportedly because of the spread of
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Religious prostitution method formerly used by the Children of God/Family International
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Zerby", but was fathered by "a waiter she picked up in the Canary Islands".
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tells two fishermen that he will make them "fishers of men". Cult leader
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265:. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed.
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The History and Theological Premise of Flirty Fishing (1977-1987)
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was always to bear witness or support the witness for Jesus.
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Life in The Family: An Oral History of the Children of God
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about the Children of God. Warning: Explicit drawings.
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532:. Syracuse University Press. pp. 16–7.
64:Learn how and when to remove these messages
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219:Learn how and when to remove this message
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426:According to author James Chancellor,
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672:The Sociology of Religious Movements
101:where they are used inappropriately.
572:Burgarino, Paul (1 November 2007).
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1001:Prostitution in the United States
670:Bainbridge, William Sims (1996).
45:This article has multiple issues.
649:"'The Family' and Final Harvest"
602:Gardner, Simon (13 March 2016).
487:"'The Family' and Final Harvest"
342:Etymology, definition, rationale
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53:or discuss these issues on the
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526:Chancellor, James D. (2000).
332:sexually transmitted diseases
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963:Sex, Slander, and Salvation
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674:. Routledge. p. 223.
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144:relies excessively on
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763:(14 February 2001).
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568:Jesus Freaks
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873:Researchers
848:Karen Zerby
761:Lattin, Don
389:fornication
354:, in which
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842:David Berg
835:Leadership
606:. CBC News
503:2008-04-27
474:References
468:Love Jihad
417:call girls
383:epidemic.
360:David Berg
320:evangelism
255:improve it
179:newspapers
146:references
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844:(founder)
717:2 October
655:1 October
545:2 October
350:from the
259:verifying
56:talk page
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814:History
253:Please
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