Founder | |
---|---|
Paul Erdmann aka Love Israel | |
Regions with significant populations | |
United States | |
Religions | |
Christianity |
The Love Family, or the Church of Jesus Christ at Armageddon, was a U.S. communal religious movement formed in 1968 and led by Paul Erdmann, who renamed himself Love Israel.
After a fractious conflict in 1984, the community was reduced to a small fraction residing on their 300-acre (1.2 km2) property in Arlington, Washington. The Love Family flourished on that acreage from 1984 until 2004, when they were forced to sell the properties due to bankruptcy. [1] [2]
The group practiced meditation (often with the use of hallucinogenics) and believed that life was eternal and all people were one. [3] Because life was 'eternal', the group did not observe birthdays or perform marriages. [4] They placed personal revelation above traditional doctrine. [3] The group was committed to living in the present – "Now is the time" was one of their mottoes – to the point that they avoided making appointments or incurring debt. [5]
Additional prohibitions including smoking, owning clocks, mirrors, or watches, and reading books or magazines other than the Bible. [6] The group did not use driver's licenses. [6]
The group ate a predominantly vegetarian diet that they sustained in part through gardening and gleaning. [5]
"Love Israel" is a play on one of the fundamental affirmations of the group, "Love is real". Equally important to the remaining members are three other commonly used affirmations: "We are one", "Love is the answer", and "Now is the time". [3] [5] These three 'fundamental belief' statements were used to stave off deeper curiosity and invoke a deeper discussion into the role of humanity on this earth.
The community practised group marriage, although Love Israel was the only husband. [2] Unauthorized sexual relationships were not allowed, nor was birth control. [1] [6]
The group supposedly "eliminated the need for women's liberation by being righteous with each other". [6] Women were expected to do housekeeping and cooking, serving the men first at meals. [6] They were supposed to bow when entering a room occupied by a man and were not allowed to speak unless spoken to. [6]
Children were raised communally with strict discipline. [7]
Paul Erdmann, a former television salesman from California, moved to Seattle in 1968. [8] The Love Family began in October 1968 as a communal household on Queen Anne Hill, Seattle, with their charter being written in 1971. [3] [9] Shortly after its founding, Erdmann renamed himself Love Israel; many of his followers adopted the "Israel" surname and biblical or virtue first names. [3]
Within the first ten years, the community expanded to a network of about twelve communal homes and businesses. [3] As more people arrived and settled in the surrounding neighborhood, Erdmann, as the leader, continued to inherit land and homes (primarily from those who joined) in other, more rural areas of Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii. [5]
In 1972, two members of the family died after ritually breathing toluene fumes out of a plastic bag. [2] [6]
In 1974, plenty of Love Israel Family members danced and sang on stage at the World’s Fair in Spokane, Washington. [9]
By 1979, the group had about 300 members. [6]
In 1983, a conflict emerged within the family, led by members such as Logic Israel (Brian Allen), one of the principal elders in the family. [3] This culminated in 1984, when the family returned $1.6 million and 14 Seattle properties to former member Daniel Gruener (Richness Israel) as part of an out-of-court settlement. [9] [10] Membership dwindled from 500 to 100 as the group was forced to give back assets and money to disenchanted members. [3]
After the conflict, about 40 remaining members moved to properties in Arlington, and around 30 moved to Los Angeles. [1] [9] The Arlington commune supported both a local organic restaurant and an annual festival open to the public called the Garlic Festival, which drew crowds to the property.
In early 2004, the family sold their Arlington properties to the Union for Reform Judaism due to bankruptcy. [1] [2] [8] In 2007, the former Arlington family grounds became Camp Kalsman, a Jewish summer camp. [11] The remaining members moved to China Bend, a property along the Columbia River, in April 2004, and later to a property in Bothell, Washington. [1] [8] [9]
Love Israel died in February 2016, less than a month after it was reported he was diagnosed with cancer. [12] [2] Daniel Gruener died in 2019. [13]
This article needs additional citations for verification .(December 2022) |
The small remaining core of Erdmann's community continues to this day. [14]
The Love Family evolved from being a highly concentrated communal society with a shared economy to what some non-members[ who? ] call a cult with their own laws and ways. The greater community became a social network of autonomous households that interacted through a shared culture they have continued to create together, without the robes and peer-enforced order. Presently, those that continue to claim membership in what remains of the Family are concentrated in homes and lots on the shore of the Columbia River (Lake Roosevelt), where they own the China Bend Winery, just south of Canada.
Remaining family members still maintain they were called together to help each other cultivate love, oneness and the presence of God in everyday family life. Very little is spoken about the continuing belief that Love Israel is a leader directed through his vision from God. They also believe that their gathering has Biblical roots and that their purpose is to help fulfill directed prophecies to benefit man and the promises of Jesus.
The current members still claim to view themselves as both the spiritual tribe of Israel and the Church of Jesus Christ at Armageddon, where Armageddon means the time and place of the gathering of God's family. A few family members continue to be renamed (and newborns named) to remind all that each person's character is gifted with a predominant attribute such as Charity, Honor, Honesty or Contentment, that may already be who they are or part of where they need to be.
A film It Takes A Cult, about the Love Israel Family (directed by Eric Johannsen, who grew up as part of the Love Family), was shown at the 2009 Seattle International Film Festival. [4] [15] [16]
Rachel Israel, who spent 8 years of her childhood as part of the family, published a memoir on her experiences in 2018, called Counterculture Crossover: Growing up in the Love Family. [7]
The Family International (TFI) is an American new religious movement founded in 1968 by David Brandt Berg. The group has gone under a number of different names since its inception, including Teens for Christ, The Children of God (COG), The Family of Love, or simply The Family.
The Jesus movement was an evangelical Christian movement that began on the West Coast of the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s and primarily spread throughout North America, Europe, Central America, Australia and New Zealand, before it subsided in the late 1980s. Members of the movement were called Jesus people or Jesus freaks.
James Michael Palosaari was an American evangelist and performer, one of the leaders in the Jesus Movement of the late 1960s and 1970s.
The Bruderhof is a communal Anabaptist Christian movement that was founded in Germany in 1920 by Eberhard Arnold. The movement has communities in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Austria, Paraguay, South Korea and Australia. The Bruderhof practises believer's baptism, non-violence and peacemaking, common ownership, the proclamation of the gospel, and lifelong faithfulness in marriage. The Bruderhof is an intentional community as defined by the Fellowship for Intentional Community.
An intentional community is a voluntary residential community which is designed to have a high degree of social cohesion and teamwork. 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.
The Unification Church (Korean: 통일교) is a new religious movement derived from Christianity, whose members are called Unificationists or sometimes informally Moonies. Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) began gaining followers after the Second World War. On 1 May 1954 in Seoul, South Korea, Moon formally founded the Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity (HSA-UWC), the Unification Church's full name, until 1994, when it was officially changed to the Family Federation for World Peace and Unification. It has a presence in approximately 100 countries around the world. Its leaders are Moon and his wife, Hak Ja Han, whom their followers honor with the title "True Parents".
The International Peace Mission movement is a religious movement that was founded and led by Father Divine. Father Divine was worshipped by his followers as a God. Thus, the core belief of the International Peace Mission Movement is that everyone is treated equal in the eyes of God. Father Divine preached against sexism and racism. He was most renowned during and following the Great Depression in the 1930s. Thus, the International Peace Mission movement is now known to be an important precursor of the Civil Rights Movement. The International Peace Mission movement emphasized its opposition to violence and war. Also the movement has a very strong focus on spiritual development through meditation and prayer.
The Koreshan Unity was a communal utopia formed by Cyrus Teed, a distant relative of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. The Koreshans followed Teed's beliefs, called Koreshanity, and he was regarded by his adherents as "the new Messiah now in the World". After moving from New York to Illinois, the group eventually settled in Estero, Florida. The last person to officially admit membership to the Koreshans died in 1982.
Stephen Gaskin was an American counterculture Hippie icon best known for his presence in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco in the 1960s and for co-founding "The Farm", a spiritual commune in 1970. He was a Green Party presidential primary candidate in 2000 on a platform which included campaign finance reform, universal health care, and decriminalization of marijuana. He was the author of over a dozen books, a political activist, a philanthropic organizer and a self-proclaimed professional Hippie.
A chavurah or havurah is a small group of like-minded Jews who assemble to facilitate Shabbat and holiday prayer services and share communal experiences such as life-cycle events or learning.
The Twelve Tribes, formerly known as the Vine Christian Community Church, the Northeast Kingdom Community Church, the Messianic Communities, and the Community Apostolic Order, is a new religious movement founded by Gene Spriggs that sprang out of the Jesus movement in 1972 in Chattanooga, Tennessee. The group calls itself an attempt to recreate the 1st-century church as it is described in the Book of Acts. The group's origins in Chattanooga led to planted churches in surrounding areas. In the late seventies, the group began a community in Island Pond, Vermont. As their relationship with the Chattanooga community deteriorated, the group eventually left Tennessee and moved primarily to Vermont.
Black Bear Ranch is an 80-acre intentional community located in Siskiyou County, California, about 25 miles from Forks of Salmon. It was founded in 1968, with the watchword "free land for free people". It has been considered by some participants and commentators to be one of the more radical examples of communal living/intentional communities that grew out of the counterculture of the 1960s.
The hippie subculture began its development as a youth movement in the United States during the early 1960s and then developed around the world.
Theodore "Ted" Roosevelt Patrick, Jr. is an American deprogrammer and author. He is sometimes referred to as the "father of deprogramming."
Rick Alan Ross is an American deprogrammer, cult specialist, and founder and executive director of the nonprofit Cult Education Institute. He frequently appears in the news and other media discussing groups some consider cults. Ross has intervened in more than 500 deprogramming cases in various countries.
David Koresh was an American cult leader who played a central role in the Waco siege of 1993. As the head of the Branch Davidians, a religious sect and offshoot of the Seventh-day Adventists, Koresh claimed to be its final prophet. His apocalyptic Biblical teachings, including interpretations of the Book of Revelation and the Seven Seals, attracted various followers.
Collective farming and communal farming are various types of "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member-owners jointly engage in farming activities as a collective; and state farms, which are owned and directly run by a centralized government. The process by which farmland is aggregated is called collectivization. In some countries, there have been both state-run and cooperative-run variants. For example, the Soviet Union had both kolkhozy and sovkhozy.
The Friends of Perfection Commune is an American Utopian community in San Francisco, California. The commune was founded in 1967 on principles of a common treasury, group marriage, free anonymous art, gay liberation, and selfless service. They were originally called the Sutter/Scott Street commune, and commonly referred to as the Kaliflower commune, after their newsletter of the same name. Because the commune's publishing activities helped spread their philosophy, they became a significant influence on Bay Area culture. Many members of The Angels of Light, a free psychedelic drag theater group, originally lived in the Kaliflower commune. The name Kaliflower referenced the Hindu name for the last and most violent age of humankind, the Kali Yuga.
Love Has Won is an American new religious movement which was led by Amy Carlson, referred to within the group as "Mother God", who described herself as, among other things, the creator of the universe. The group has been described as a cult by many, including ex-members and media outlets. The group had between twelve and twenty full-time members who lived with Carlson at the time of her death.