Hardin County Enterprise

By Larry Walker, Enterprise Staff Writer, Elizabethtown, Kentucky

August 16, 1971, North America

Despite innovative rumors to the contrary, Elizabethtown’s Children of God colony has quietly and efficiently gone about its business since the arrival of the settlers last October. Its business is the Lord’s. The colony occupies a 74-acre tract of land off the Valley Creek Road on the LaRue side of the Hardin-LaRue County line.

(On the national level, the Children of God religious organization claims 1,400 members in 29 colonies. Started nearly three years ago, the base camp in Mingus, Texas has over 200 members on a 460-acre ranch).

Most of the colonies are concerned with reaching the youth with street witnessings and testimonials, but the Elizabethtown work deals with “training the brothers.”

Presently, nine young persons between the ages of 18 and 25 are at the camp. Five single men and two girls are undergoing a five-week crash course in Bible study to arm them with answers to back up their faith. Aquila (Ricky Smith), a 21-year-old Texan, and his wife Michal direct the studies.

There were 16 trainees and teachers at the colony in October, but after completing the course and “winterizing”, the colonists scattered to spread the Word. The new members of the Kentucky Youth Soul Clinic branch of the Children of God, most of whom are from the east coast, will finish their studies next week.

Like the arrival of their earlier counterparts, the newcomers’ arrival at the farm was considered by many locals to be an invasion. Some despised the Children of God members. At best, most people were wary of the strangers. The ever present rumors started slowly, but soon became more imaginative and sensational.

Doped Hamburgers?

“At first people thought we were a band of hippies holding land for a giant pop festival,” Aquila said Friday morning at the heavily wooded acreage. “And then they thought we stayed stoned on drugs and quoted the Bible as a cover,” Abarim added. Other resourceful tales mentioned sex orgies in the woods and credited the religious group with “shooting dope” into packages of hamburgers in Elizabethtown grocery stores. It was rumored that they were responsible for the mass slaughtering of domestic animals, used in wild sacrificial rituals.

The Children of God members giggled when relating the rumors, but recognized the threat. “The Devil would like to do everything he could to make us leave,” Aquila said. “I just wish that people would come out and talk to us instead of making things up behind our backs. Almost everyone that’s talked to us has been real receptive.”

Many area people have wondered why the worldly evangelists migrated to such an isolated area. Was it to be used as a hideout? A refuge for drug addicts and other undesirables?

Elementary, Aquila said. The 74-arce farm was made available through the father of a girl who was a former member of the Elizabethtown colony. “It’s a real good place for training the brothers and sisters,” Aquila said. “It’s a good place to study because it’s quiet and away from everything. And most of the kids are from the city and it helps them to forge their old environments and their old lives.”

Churches Aren’t Reaching Youths

He feels that the Children of God are more responsive to troubled youth than the church.

“The churches aren’t reaching the youth because the youth don’t go to church,” Aquila said. “At least the youth that need the most help—the ones on the streets and in the parks. That’s why we go out on the streets.”

The Children of God organization is not actually part of the fashionable, youth-oriented “Jesus movement.”

“Our group started before Jesus became popular.” Aquila said. “The way it seems with the Jesus Movement, it’s kind of like a fad. A lot of the people are serious, though. We just don’t go in for the bumper stickers and all that. We don’t expend most of our efforts cutting other people down. We just try to show them the Truth.”

And on the Truth, the Children of God members are well-versed. The Bible is studied at least six hours a day during the five-week course. Over 300 passages are memorized.

“Some people try to spiritualize the whole Bible,” Aquila said, “but it means just what it says. We use it as a rulebook. I guess you’d classify us as conservative Christians.”

Conservatism marks every aspect of life at the Kentucky Youth Soul Clinic. Premarital sex is taboo to the extent that dating and hand-holding are forbidden. To get married in the group, Aquila said, a couple must prove that they are putting the Lord first.

Living together, Aquila’s wife Michal said, is a good way to determine if a couple is compatible. Too often, explained Michal, dating portrays the parties as smiling, packaged objects, glistening with sexuality. Living together cancels this falseness.

“This way you’re with a guy all the time, Michal said, “and you see each other in bad moods as well as good. You’ve got a pretty good idea what you’re getting into.”

Preparing for their lives in evangelism, working in the field and “winterizing” the small frame house in the clearing of the farm is a full-time occupation for the Children of God members. Strictly a non-profit organization, the group does not seek employment to support the colony.

Many people in the area thought that the Children of God members would become discouraged in the winter months when the novelty of the “return to the land” movement wore off and the reality of piercing Kentucky winter set in. But the settlers prevailed.

“There are a lot of people who respect us (the original colonists) because we made it through the winter.” Aquila said. “It’s not like we were wandering nomads.”

Members are now busy chopping wood again prepare for the onslaught of the cold months. Plans have also been made to reinforce the foundation and strengthen the second floor of the old frame house. Besides the house, a broken-down is used for lodging.

Sharing chores, the group members divide their time between improving their homestead and tending the large garden. A surplus of corn, cabbage, tomatoes, and cucumbers will be canned for use in the winter. Elizabethtown merchants supply the colony with meat and other goods.

Labeled “hippies” by many people, Elizabethtown’s Children of God colonists wear their hair at a moderate length in order to “get along with people in this area.” They are sympathetic to the hippie movement.