Twelve Tribes Community: Divine Restoration or Human Reinterpretation

From its start in Chattanooga, Tennessee; to its years in Island Pond, Vermont; and today dispersed around the globe, “There is a people who woke up this morning with one thing on their minds—to love their Creator with all their heart, mind, and strength, and to love one another just as He loved them.”[1] Such is the simple, but bold assertion of the Twelve Tribes Community, a religious movement established in the wake of the early seventies’ Jesus Movement, now numbering an estimated three thousand[2] in fifty communities in nine countries.[3] Seven communities are in New England.[4]

The Twelve Tribes Community sees itself as the restoration of the New Testament Church. Their practice is deliberately committed to living the paradox of John 17:11-16, to not be of the world, but to remain in it. Its members renounce all individual property and live communally, homeschooling their children, supporting themselves from cottage industries, cafés, and natural food stores. The faithful are easily identifiable by their distinct wardrobe and grooming. Men wear their hair in ponytails and sport beards. Women were modest flowing dresses or loose pants and long hair. The community shuns worldly delights such as television, radio, movies, and even junk food. Yet, they are not reclusive. Their businesses thrive along some of the most well-trodden sidewalks in America. In Massachusetts, they operate restaurants and shops in the Lower Mills neighborhood of Dorchester and in the tourist-laden downtowns of Plymouth and Hyannis.

I first encountered the Twelve Tribes Community when they launched a new communal home in my hometown, Plymouth, Massachusetts. At the time, I worked at a local museum, Plimoth Plantation, and a group of youth and adults from the Community volunteered alongside me to clean up the museum’s grounds before our seasonal opening. In the ten years since they arrived in Plymouth, they have made friends and aroused suspicions. The men and women and children I met as good neighbors spending their Sabbath volunteering at a museum, have been portrayed by the media and their detractors as an evil cult. Indeed, both the movement itself and its fiercest enemies insist that the Twelve Tribes Community is something radically different from anything the world or mainstream Christianity offers. The truth is far less sensational: the Twelve Tribes Community is a unique blend doctrines and practices that, individually considered, are common in contemporary society and Christianity history. Too often this simple truth is obscured from all sides, because radical claims and accusations are more effective at both winning converts and selling newspapers.

Eugene "Yoneq" Spriggs, founder of the Twelve Tribes, with his wife, Marsha

The History of the Twelve Tribes Community

In the early seventies, a generation of young Americans faced an existential crisis. The era of the hippy was ebbing, and aging baby boomers no longer could stall their adult lives on the hopes of a future of peace and free love. Elbert Eugene Spriggs was one such meandering young adult. Both the Twelve Tribes Community and its detractors agree on Spriggs’ checkered past. He was charismatic and intelligent, occasionally successful in school and careers, occasionally entrapped by alcohol and drugs. He wavered between the hippy lifestyle, between straight-laced jobs as a factory manager and high school guidance counselor, and stints as a carnival barker. He was an aspiring, but failing, family man, twice divorced by his thirties.[5]

Spriggs’s path collided with the Jesus Movement, a post-hippy approach to Christianity, which emphasized personal relationships with Jesus, ministered through contemporary music, and functioned within the counterculture rather than opposing it. According the Twelve Tribes account, Spriggs life took a radical turn at age thirty-three: “In his distress he heard a question deep inside his soul, ‘Is this why I created you?’ It was a very disturbing question.”[6] Spriggs packed up his California life and moved with his brand new and third wife, Marsha, and returned to his hometown.

Boston Herald reporter Dave Wedge seconds the Twelve Tribes narrative, but with a decidedly critical slant. The Twelve Tribes Community, he writes, “founded by former carnival barker and high school guidance counselor Elbert Eugene Spriggs, the quirky Christian/Hebrew hybrid religion grew from the ashes of the drug-fueled hippie movement of the early 1970s. Formed in Spriggs’ hometown of Chattanooga, Tennessee, in 1976, the Twelve Tribes bases their religion on Spriggs’ haphazard New Testament interpretations.”[7]

In Chattanooga, Spriggs set up a Christian ministry called the Vine House, a combination of mission center, half-way house, and homeless shelter. Eventually Spriggs established a sandwich shop called the Yellow Deli, which funded the ministry, provided work for residents, and served as a community outreach.[8] Christian apologist and Community critic, Steven Tsoukalas writes, “In the beginning they were very Biblical and adhered to the historic Christian faith. Street people, drug addicts, and run-a-ways were led to Christ, given a purpose and place to live.”[9]

Shortly after, Vine House ministries and traditional Christianity had a falling out. In the Twelve Tribes account of the story, the animosity grew out the hypocrisy and shallow commitment of local churches:

“They still attended services at various churches, but problems were beginning to surface. Some people in the congregations complained about the ‘hippies’ and Black people who were invading their respectable gatherings. And it was very hard for Gene and Marsha to find fancy enough Sunday clothes to outfit everyone who stayed with them. The young disciples were starting to ask difficult questions, too. They wondered how these people that they went to church with could be so wealthy when there were so many poor people around. And why did they act so cold and distant?” [10]

Tsoukalas argues a simpler crisis emerged:

“The group quickly changed in doctrine and practice due to their ‘apostle,’ Elbert Eugene Spriggs. He claims to have a direct pipeline to God and is accountable to no one—a very dangerous mix.” [11]

The sudden withdrawal of Vine House from participation in local churches coincided with the timing of the 1978 Jonestown mass-suicide. Anti-cult hysteria led to random police searches and even abductions of community members by “deprogrammers,” experts—usually self-trained and self-proclaimed—at extricating individuals from communal religions. In 1980, at the invitation of a likeminded group of Christians in New England, the entire Chattanooga community packed up and moved to Island Pond, Vermont. [12]

With increasing isolation from mainstream Christianity, the Community’s doctrines and practices rapidly evolved. Communal living, at first a practical means for helping the wayfaring, became the norm. Motivated by their understanding of Acts 2 and 4, selling all possessions and donating all earthly wealth to the group become the norm. Strict standards of modesty, blended with their hippy past, led the group members to adopt an increasingly uniform appearance. The group’s perception of the ancient Church led to the use of the Hebrew name for Jesus, Yahshua, and its members to adopt Hebrew names for themselves within the Community. Most controversially, their literalist interpretation of scripture made them unapologetic advocates of spanking.

Their lifestyle has never ceased being controversial. They have been heaped with accusations of sexism, homophobia, racism, and homophobia. They have been virulently, and all too often inaccurately, attacked in the media. And from Vermont to Germany, they have been embroiled in intense legal battles over the religious rights of parents, the custody of children, and the state’s role in education. Through all the bad press, their shops and restaurants thrive and their communities grow. What about their doctrine and their lifestyle is so attractive, and so repugnant? How much of it is truly unique?

The Doctrine

“You may know Him as ‘Jesus’. We call Him by His Hebrew name, Yahshua. Our Master Yahshua was probably one of the most misunderstood men that has ever walked on the planet. Misrepresented a thousand times over by painters, poets, preachers and teachers, we have found Him to be, quite simply, the greatest and kindest of all men.”[13]

Jesus Christ, or in Twelve Tribes terms, Yahshua Messiah, is regarded as the leader, the master, of the movement. The Twelve Tribes affirms his status as Son of the Father, although does not explicitly accept or deny the Trinitarian view of Yahshua as Himself God. He is affirmed as supernal example and redeemer, or “liberator.”[14] This view of Jesus is at once Christian, but does fall short of the Trinitarian divinity by which many Christians measure Christianity. The language of affirming Jesus’ divine sonship and sacrifice, while not acknowledging Jesus’ divinity, however, has parallels with Jehovah’s Witnesses and historical Unitarianism.

While the Twelve Tribes has an arguably relatively low Christology, its expectations for Christian living, and salvation, are rigidly high. An evangelizing tract argues, “Eternal life results from a gospel that people actually leave possessions and relationships for. Obeying such a message leaves a person with no doubt that he is repenting from his selfish, sinful existence, because he gives up his own life and everything he has. Giving up all is the normal outcome of obeying the gospel.”[15] The sinner’s prayer is woefully insufficient, because repentance requires sacrifice of all worldly goods. Drastic though this requirement is, it is hardly unprecedented. In the twelfth century, Peter Waldo, insisted, “Since, according to James the apostle, ‘faith without works is dead,’ [James 2:20] we [must renounce] the world; whatever we had we have given to the poor, as the Lord advised, and we have resolved to be poor in such fashion that we shall take no thought for the morrow, nor shall we accept gold or silver.”[16] A more recent example is found in Early Mormonism, which unlike Waldensianism, and like the Twelve Tribes, did not expressly order the giving of goods to the poor, but rather to the community.[17] The impulse of restore ancient Christianity, and manifesting that impulse through rigid obedience to the Acts 2 and 4 example is not original or unique the Twelve Tribes. Once I had mentioned that fact to Yochanan Herrick, a member of the Twelve Tribes since 1993. He aptly responded by asking how the Waldensians and the Mormons act now. Nonetheless, the question of whether the Twelve Tribes can maintain their communal lifestyle as they grow, when Waldensians and Mormons did not, remains open.

A worship song in the Community eloquently insists that worldly riches are ultimately unsatisfying:

“If I could have all the riches of this world

If I could be what I ever dreamed to be

If I could be who this world would acknowledge

My heart would not be satisfied

Take the riches of this world away”

–From “Take the Riches,” A Twelve Tribes Community Worship Song[18]

Certainly Christianity in all its forms warns against materialism, but the Community strives to eliminate it as a temptation. The song lyrics are particularly noteworthy because they perhaps reveal the spiritual aching that the Twelve Tribes Community is particularly prepared to fulfill for seekers.

For the Twelve Tribes, the importance of Community cannot be understated. The Twelve Tribes, despite its young age and small membership, does not view its role modestly. They see themselves as “a brand new culture.” [19] Salvation is not an individual pursuit, nor it is it a gift which God gives individually. Conversion requires a radical change in life, both internally and externally. The renounciation of worldly goods is only the beginning. “This new culture is pure, so nothing strange or defiling from the old culture is allowed to come in. Everyone must give up everything to become a part of it, otherwise our new culture would become contaminated. It is not just material things that we give up, but also our strong opinions, philosophies, prejudices, politics, fears, and fantasies.”[20] In converting, the Community teaches, “the Holy Spirit makes you a member of Messiah’s Body on earth. You will then have a new life—not just a mystical ‘new life in Christ’ that is substantially the same as your old life, but an actual new life—with new friends, an new job, a new hairstyle, a new address, and most importantly, a new Master, who will direct every aspect of your life.”[21] The Community is certainly not hesitant to reveal the extremity of its social expectations for members.

The Twelve Tribes Community is suspicious of spiritual claims that cannot be externally witnessed. The bold theological assertion from which the Community’s name derives is that the gathering in which they are now engaged is in fact the literal restoration of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. “Our twelve tribes,” they argue, “have nothing to do with mystical tribalism, [as with] the Mormons, the Rastafarians, or British Israelism.”[22] Organizationally, the Community is divided into twelve geographic zones over the earth, each given the title of a particular tribe. The communities in New York state and New England consider themselves the Tribe of Yehudah.[23] On this point of doctrine, the Community recognizes its similarities with other religious claims, but perhaps underestimates its historical similarities with Mormonism’s claims of restored tribes. Today The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a perhaps mystical understanding of the restoration of the tribes, as each member of the church receives a patriarchal blessing that identifies their tribe, but the Mormon emigrés to Utah understood themselves as the true gathering of Israel. As with consecration of material goods, the Twelve Tribes is not unique in its foundational doctrine. Whether it can persist in literal expression of its doctrine where its ideological forebears did not remains a question for the future.

A host of other theological stances held by the Twelve Tribes that alienate them from mainstream Christianity are not unique to the Community. Its practice of kosher rules, infant and convert circumcision, and use of the Hebrew name for Jesus[24] have parallels in Messianic Judaism. The Community’s reticence (although shy of outright refusal) to accept modern medical assistance[25] is reminiscent of Christian Science. Its insistence on a Saturday Sabbath, is shared by Messianic Jews and Adventists. Its vision of a three-tiered afterlife is shared by Mormonism.[26]

Perhaps what is most problematic for the movement’s critics within Christianity is not that its doctrines radically depart from other traditions, but they are doctrines that the Twelve Tribes Community shares with other groups, such as Unitarians, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, that the Evangelical establishment already views with suspicion and disdain.

The Lifestyle

By 2003, I considered myself a friendly observer, perhaps even a friend, to the Twelve Tribes Community in my hometown of Plymouth. Each week the community gathers for a large Sabbath meal on Friday evenings. I was frequently invited to attend, and at the meetings I often sat alongside coworkers and downtown Plymouth shopkeepers. Curious neighbors are always invited; no veil of secrecy hides the community’s life to the open-minded. A worship service in which all members stand in a circle at first seems similar to Quaker meetings in its format. Anyone, men or women, young or old, even guest or member, is permitted to offer a prayer, or brief sermon, called a “teaching,” or to break out into a song. When one member begins to sing, the room electrifies as Community members join in. The musical style would be best described as acoustic Christian contemporary. Elaborate Israeli folk dances accompany the singing. The worship is spontaneous, energetic, and active.

Despite the open doors, the practices of the Community have been subject to endless suspicion, media attack, and government intervention. The authority of Spriggs, or Yoneq as he is now known in the community, is the first major theme of criticism. The New York times reports, “Spriggs convinces his flock that he is their only conduit to heaven, and former members fear they will die because they’ve left.”[27] A critical website maintained by former Community members argues Spriggs’ has an exalted view of himself as “Elijah” and compiles a list of his more bizarre teachings.[28] Quoting a document entitled, “Elders and Deacons,” the site claims, “If we have our Father’s choice of elders and leaders then we are to render absolute obedience to them. An elder doesn’t have to defend his authority. Attitude of elders is Fear and trembling. For they represent the authority of Yahweh on the earth.”[29] Unfortunately, most sources cited there are unverifiable as the Twelve Tribes own does not publish the quoted documents and portrays a much rosier, humbler Spriggs. Nonetheless, throughout media and anti-cultist portrayals he is portrayed as elusive and domineering. The San Diego North County Times calls him a “reclusive leader.”[30] The Boston Herald reports: “‘This man is viewed as being like Moses,’ says Robert Pardon, executive director of the New England Institute of Religious Research, which has extensively studied the Twelve Tribes. ‘You’ve got someone at the top who claims to have a direct pipeline to God and no accountability. When you have those two premises, you’ve got a deadly combination.’”

Having only been a frequent visitor to the Community, never a serious candidate for membership nor a member, I cannot argue against the claims of former members. However, the media portrayal as elusive or reclusive are unjustified. I have personally met and spoken at length with Yoneq on numerous occasions, in California and in Massachusetts. Finding him was never a challenge. While media portrayals insist on emphasizing his past as a carnival barker, rather than the more respectable and longer career he had as a high school guidance counselor, he is indeed both soft-spoken and well-spoken. Anti-Twelve Tribe websites consistently use poor quality, grainy, and darkened photos to create a more menacing image. In my conversations with him, he never assumed an air of authority. He insisted that the movement was collective, and early members like John Howley and Eddie Wiseman and he and their wives shaped the community together. His interactions with other members of the community at gatherings showed he was loved, but given the open style of the gatherings in which all may speak, it was never clear that he was in charge in any visible way. It was months after frequently seeing and speaking with him that I learned, online, that he was credited as founder and seen as the leader. This is not say that he may not secretly be pulling more strings or wielding unjust power, but if that is true, the media has not sufficiently made the case. New religious movements are not started by scary figures, but by profoundly charismatic ones. If Yoneq is indeed a threat, his critics would do well to portray him as the charming tall man with the light Southern drawl rather than the shadowy cult leader. If indeed Yoneq is the powerful final word of authority in the community, he is the least obvious about it of any religious leader and his proported claims to unique inspiration are not any bolder than commonly made by other hierarchal leaders such as the Catholic pope or the Mormon prophet.

Far more controversial than Yoneq himself is the role of children in the Community. From its inception, corporal punishment has been a known and indisputed tenet of the Twelve Tribes. John Howley, an elder I knew well in Plymouth, said in a Boston Herald interview, “We love our children and to not discipline your children is to not love them.”[31] Although I am not an advocate of corporal punishment, I knew Howley’s children well, and they were certainly among the most well-adjusted and eloquent youth I knew. On the Twelve Tribes website, Yoneq himself argues that when spanking stopped in society, “all hell broke loose.”[32] On principle, the Community’s stated position is the same as mainstream Evangelical psychologist James Dobson, whose 1970 Dare to Discipline remains a pro-corporal punishment bestseller. Yet among former members, claims of much more vicious abuse abound. In 1984, the Vermont State Police rounded up over 100 children from the Community in Island Pond on suspicion of child abuse. At court however, WCAX Television reports, “Judge Mahady, who has since died, interviewed dozens of kids, found no evidence of abuse and then sent them home. He offered a scathing opinion of the state’s actions and his decision is marked on his gravestone as one of the most important decisions of his career.”[33] Two of the children, now in their thirties, taken in the raid were Luke Wiseman and Kate Wiseman Herrick. Both are active members of the Community to this day. Luke told me that the accusations of the state government were “just crazy.” His older sister Kate echoed the sentiment. The raid, and the eventual ruling of its illegality, briefly put the community in the national spotlight. For a brief time, the backlash of public opinion against the state of Vermont proved helpful for the Community’s public image. However, the accusations of serious abuse have never stopped. In a 2001 Herald article, “The Cult Next Door,” Luke and Kate’s brother Zebulun, tells a radically different story. “‘Growing up in there, I saw the inside scoop. There’s a lot of things there that just weren’t right,” Wiseman, the 18-year-old son of the group’s second in command, Charles ‘Eddie’ Wiseman, said of living within the Twelve Tribes. ‘Spanking kids, locking them up. You can’t have your own money. They work you. I mean really work you. And you don’t get paid. The money goes to the group.’”[34] Zeb further claimed that “he was beaten, locked in rooms and mentally tormented by members who used his mother’s 1990 cancer death as an example of what happens to sinners.”[35] Further controversy has frequently erupted over child labor, routed in the practices of homeschooling and children working alongside their parents.

Unfortunately, corporal punishment remains a common, and biblically-justified, practice in contemporary American religion. The Twelve Tribes is not unique in this. The degree of abuse is debatable, both the group itself and its critics—ex-members, Evangelical apologists, and sensationalist mediea alike—have vested interests in selling certain narratives. However, there is perhaps a sliver of hope for the children. Though the Community often seems cloistered from the world, families within the Community have a higher degree of accountability to each other than Christian fundamentalists who live alone and advocate corporal punishment. Ironically, the Community which at once fosters a strongly pro-corporal punishment stance may be the child’s best protection from excessive parental punishment, since the community learned in 1984 that one accusation can endanger every family’s custody.

Reflection & Conclusion

The Twelve Tribes Community is a fascinating movement, both as a neighbor and as a religion scholar. It is a Community that has frequently opened its doors to me, allowed me attend worship, and even speak out of gratitude during its services for the hospitality I have been extended. For a few years, I felt as I was as close a friend to the young adults in the community as an outsider could be. Yet getting to know the Community from outside is an inevitably frustrating endeavor. Getting inside the Community, as welcoming as it is, cannot truly be done without experiencing it.

Certainly, the image they portray to visitors to their businesses and worship is of a deliberately quirky but wholesome people, a community of unparalleled love and mutual commitment. Studying the portrayals of the Community by the media and its ex-members is both enlightening and infuriating. The media is consistently shallow and extremist. One particularly irresponsible Boston Globe article was entitled, “The Doomsday Prophets on Main Street.”[36] The title was pure shock value. For all legitimate criticism of the group, there is nothing “Doomsday” about them or their eschatology. The title, though, along with the Herald’s free use of the word “cult” are representative a shortcoming in our society’s supposed pluralism.

The terms “cult” and even “brainwashing” are so freely and uncritically used in discussing the Twelve Tribes that they are useless. They scare and bias readers, rather than inform them. The media has demonstrated an irresponsible lack of curiosity in its frequent reliance on “cult experts” like Bob Pardon and Rick Ross, whose credentials, motives, and expertise are seldom questioned, but ought to be. The doctrinal claims and controversial lifestyle of the Twelve Tribes may be a unique and new form of religious expression, but none of the component parts are truly revolutionary. America has long tolerated anti-materialism, modest and distinctive dress, strict religious hierarchy, traditional family roles, corporal punishment, suspicion of modern medicine, and homeschooling. Various challenges the Twelve Tribes Community faces in its quest for public toleration, without sacrificing its self-consciously distinct character, are similar to challenges faced by other minorities, such as Muslims, orthodox Jews, and the Amish. The great flaw in contemporary American pluralism is that is ill-equipped to deal with religious ideas that have not been socially legitimized by centuries of history.

The Twelve Tribes Community is at once beautiful and deeply troubling to me. The worship is among the most beautiful I have ever experienced. The people are among the kindest I have ever met. Yet, questions about a dark underside are not baseless. And those who leave face serious practical hurdles. Children like Zeb Wiseman who grow and seek to leave are crippled by a lack of formal education. Adults who leave are financially destitute. However, until our society is willing to treat new and old movements with equal intellectual respect, the terms of “cult” and “brainwashing” and our innate fear of the new will cripple, not aid honest conversation about the Twelve Tribes Community. Pushing the Community further into the fringes of society with an intellectually dishonest, fearful conversation serves nobody’s interest.

[1] Twelve Tribes Community. Web. May 9, 2010. <http://www.twelvetribes.org>

[2] Dave Wedge. “Cult hoping expansion plans may flower with Plymouth café.” The Boston Herald. May 8, 2004. Available online at <http://www.rickross.com/reference/tribes/tribes58.html>.

[3] WCAX Television News. “The Island Pond Raid: 25 Years Later, Part 2.” Video. http://www.wcax.com/global/video.asp?clipId=3963796&autostart=true

[4] Twelve Tribes Community. <http://twelvetribes.com/whereweare/us/index.html#yehudah>

[5] See Twelve Tribes Community. “A Root out of Dry Ground: A Short History of the Commonwealth of Israel.” Available online at: <http://twelvetribes.com/whoweare/our-beginnings1.html>.

[6] Twelve Tribes Community. “A Root out of Dry Ground: A Short History of the Commonwealth of Israel.” Available online at: <http://twelvetribes.com/whoweare/our-beginnings1.html>.

[7] Dave Wedge. “The cult next door: Teen shares chilling tale of alleged abuse inside the Twelve Tribes sect.” The Boston Herald. September 4, 2001. Available online at <http://www.rickross.com/reference/tribes/tribes24.html>.

[8] Twelve Tribes Community. “A Root out of Dry Ground: A Short History of the Commonwealth of Israel.” Available online at: <http://twelvetribes.com/whoweare/our-beginnings3.html>.

[9] Steven Tsoukalas. “An open letter to a prospective member of the ‘Messianic Communities’ cult.” Web. May 9, 2010. <http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aiia/letter-messianiccommunity.html>.

[10] Twelve Tribes Community. “A Root out of Dry Ground: A Short History of the Commonwealth of Israel.” Available online at: <http://twelvetribes.com/whoweare/our-beginnings3.html>.

[11] Steven Tsoukalas. “An open letter to a prospective member of the ‘Messianic Communities’ cult.” Web. May 9, 2010. <http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aiia/letter-messianiccommunity.html>.

[12] Twelve Tribes Community. “A Root out of Dry Ground: A Short History of the Commonwealth of Israel.” Available online at: <http://twelvetribes.com/whoweare/our-beginnings4.html>.

[13] Twelve Tribes Community. “Our Master Yahshua.” <http://twelvetribes.com/whoweare/our-leader.html>.

[14] Twelve Tribes Community. “Our Master Yahshua: Liberator.” <http://twelvetribes.com/publications/the-man/liberator.html>.

[15] Twelve Tribes Community. “Frequently Asked Questions: Beliefs.” <http://twelvetribes.com/faq/beliefs.html>.

[16] Peter Waldo. “A Profession of Faith.” in Walter L. Wakefield and Austin P. Evans. Heresies of the High Middle Ages: Selected Sources Translated and Annotated. New York: Columbia University, 1969. p. 206.

[17] Doctrine & Covenants 42:30. <http://scriptures.lds.org/en/dc/42/39>.

[18] Twelve Tribes Community. “Take the Riches.” Song. Available online at <http://twelvetribes.org/audio/audioplayer2.html>.

[19] Twelve Tribes Community. “Our Culture.” <http://twelvetribes.com/whoweare/our-culture.html>.

[20] Twelve Tribes Community. “Our Culture.” <http://twelvetribes.com/whoweare/our-culture.html>.

[21] Twelve Tribes Community. “Frequently Asked Questions: Beliefs.” <http://twelvetribes.com/faq/beliefs.html>.

[22] Twelve Tribes Community. “The Commonwealth of Israel.” <http://twelvetribes.com/publications/commonwealth/>.

[23] Twelve Tribes Community. “Where We Are.” <http://www.twelvetribes.com/whereweare/>.

[24] Anonymous. “89 Reasons Why I Left.” <http://yattt.blogspot.com/2008/01/89-reasons-why-one-ex-member-left.html>.

[25] Anonymous. “89 Reasons Why I Left.” <http://yattt.blogspot.com/2008/01/89-reasons-why-one-ex-member-left.html>.

[26] Twelve Tribes Community. “What We Believe.” <http://twelvetribes.com/whoweare/our-beliefs.html>.

[27] Jeane Macintosh. “Sect children are used to abuse.” New York Post. April 8, 2001.

[28] <http://www.twelvetribes-ex.com>.

[29] “Authority.” <http://www.twelvetribes-ex.com>.

[30] Tanya Mannes. “North County group disputes ‘cult’ depiction.” San Diego Union-Tribune. January 18, 2010.

[31] Dave Wedge. “Cult hoping expansion plans may flower with Plymouth café.” The Boston Herald. May 8, 2004. Available online at <http://www.rickross.com/reference/tribes/tribes58.html>.

[32] Elbert Eugene Spriggs. “When Spanking Stopped, All Hell Broke Loose.” Video. <http://www.youtube.com/v/NRdrR0N5gjg&feature=PlayList&p=D853F315CD7446B6&index=1&playnext=1&rel=0>,

[33] WCAX Television. “The Island Pond Raid: 25 Years Later, Part 1.” <http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=10734093>.

[34] Dave Wedge. “The cult next door: Teen shares chilling tale of alleged abuse inside the Twelve Tribes sect.” Boston Herald. September 4, 2001.

[35] Dave Wedge. “The cult next door: Teen shares chilling tale of alleged abuse inside the Twelve Tribes sect.” Boston Herald. September 4, 2001.

[36] <http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2005/10/23/the_doomsday_prophets_on_main_street/>.