Wandering Children of God Spurn Drugs, Turn to Jesus!

Miami Herald, Florida

January 1, 1970, North America

Houston—(AP) “I ran into a man today who gave me $20,” said a quiet-voiced youth to a gathering at a campsite among pine trees north of Houston.

“He told me he didn’t ordinarily give to charity. I told him he was not giving to charity, but for charity.”

“Amen!” exclaimed many of the people assembled with the speaker around a pot-bellied stove in the tent.

Such a revival meeting atmosphere is one aspect of what happens when the “Children of God,” a nomadic flock of young people reach town.

They insist that theirs is the last generation and that revolution, either from within or from outside, will destroy the nation soon.

Thus their vigils and witnessing are of warning and mourning.

THE GROUP reflects a simultaneous looking back and looking ahead, a curious combination of old-time fundamentalist religion, monastic life confined to no one place, and modern underground church which is suspicious about established religions—all of it interlaced with pessimism about mankind’s future.