The Children of God

By Randy Waltrip, Staff Writer, The 49er, California

December 6, 1968, North America

“We challenge the Christian churches of America to join us like the early church and sell all they have, have all things in common, and preach the Gospel.” With these words Miguel Ward, a former CSLB student, promulgated the doctrine of the pioneering Teens for Christ to an audience Wednesday at CSLB.

The Teens for Christ, whose headquarters are located at the Light Club on Main Street in Huntington Beach, visited the Long Beach campus Wednesday in an attempt to convince students that theirs is a cause worth joining. Small, printed tablets containing phrases from the Bible were handed out to passing students nearly the entire day. Heated confrontations between skeptic students and members of the organization continually attracted students from their classes.

“We have three causes.” Ward excitedly told students. “We hope to win souls, we hope to warn people about the Communist move within this country, and we …

By Richard Buffum, Los Angeles Times, California

December 4, 1968, North America

Some are barefoot. Some wear sandals and the casual garments and hirsute adornment associated with hippies. They have been paying surprise visits to local churches on Sundays, in most instances disturbing the starched decorum of conventional congregations.

There is an elemental quality about the visitors that reproaches—even desecrates, some of the over sensitive feel—the calm, middle-class respectability of their sanctuaries.

The team, as they prefer to call themselves, is currently paying surprise visits on Sundays to conventional churches. “We are doing this,” says Mr. Berg, “to show that hippies aren’t ogres.” And to protest the “folderol, hypocrisy and emphasis on constructing new buildings that obscure the true meaning of the Gospel. Buildings have become the curse of the church.”

The Bergs’ 19-year-old son Jonathan began “preaching at 5 with a Bible in his lap,” says his mother proudly. He is the director of the teen club, a seedy store front …

By James McNabb, Jr., Daily Pilot Staff, The Daily Pilot, California

December 2, 1968, North America

Huntington Beach’s church-hopping “Teens for Christ” struck again this Sunday—hopping in and out of the drive-in Garden Grove Community Church.

The 50 Bible-carrying young people who wear hippie-like garb were ejected after their surprise appearance, apparently because they violated church dress and seating regulations.

One of the band, bearded 21-year-old Miguel Ward, at first ignored the exit order, leaped to the altar steps and shouted at the 1,000 worshipers that their church is “a temple of hypocrisy.”

Ushers ordered the bead-draped band outside after the so-called “Christian revolutionaries” marched up a side aisle and sat on the floor at the front of the steel and glass sanctuary minutes before the 11:15 a.m. processional hymn started.

Ward and a companion, Joseph Langford, almost immediately were corralled by a quartet of the beflowered officials and with their arms pinned to their sides hustled out a side door.

The remaining number left peaceably …