The Twelve Tribes

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The Twelve Tribes is a confederation of religious communities founded and led by Elbert Eugene Spriggs (now known as Yoneq) that sprung out of the Jesus Movement in the early 1970s in Chattanooga, Tennessee. ^[1] The group has also gone by the names The Church in Island Pond, The Commonwealth of Israel, and Community Apostolic Order.

Origins and History

The origins of the Twelve Tribes movement can be traced to small meetings held in the home of Elbert Eugene Spriggs and his fourth wife Marsha in the early 1970s in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In 1972, the Spriggs began a ministry for teenagers called the "Light Brigade." Around this time, members of the "Light Brigade" began to live communally and supported their lifestyle by operating the Yellow Deli. Until this time, Spriggs' group had not been a separate denomination, instead affiliating itself with several different local churches and denominations. However, this changed after Spriggs went to church one Sunday only to find the service cancelled due to the Super Bowl. The group then began having their own meetings on Sunday in a park, began calling themselves the "Vine Community Church", and started more Yellow Delis in towns around Chattanooga. The Delis were used for three primary functions: creating revenue for the group, evangelism, and mentoring new congregants.

During this period, the church came under suspicion by mainstream Christian groups and anti-cult groups. This opposition resulted in a series of attempted deprogrammings of Twelve Tribes members.

Around the time the climate turned negative in the South, Spriggs was invited pastor of a group of disaffected Christians in Vermont. Spriggs and his followers sold their businesses and homes and moved their base of operations to Island Pond, Vermont in 1977 calling themselves The Northeast Kingdom Community Church.

The community in Island Pond grew in size. Two German men joined the group, but their visas expired. In response, the group sent members to return to Europe and seek a place for a community. They wandered for a year, seeking a home, calling themselves the "Little Flock". Eventually, a woman named Tabitha offered a chateau, which became the first community in Europe. The chateau in Sus, France is called "Tabitha's Place". The group continued to grow during the 1980s and 1990s, opening branches in several different countries, including Canada, Australia, Brazil, Spain, Germany, Argentina, and the United Kingdom.

Around the turn of the century, the communities in the United States spread from New England to the West Coast and to the South. Many of the original members from the Southern United States returned to their home states to begin communities in Chattanooga, Savannah, Georgia, Brunswick, Georgia, and Asheville, North Carolina. Then in April, 2008, the community in Chattanooga opened a new Yellow Deli, nearly 30 years after leaving the city.

Beliefs and practices

According to a statement from their website^[2], the group seeks to live according to the primitive pattern of the early church described in Acts 2:38-42 and Acts 4:32-37. The Twelve Tribes follow the teachings of the Bible and Elbert Eugene Spriggs (Yoneq), they believe that all disciples must renounce all personal possessions concurrent with Luke 18:18-23. Group members live communally, sharing all assets and income in common.Members live communally and essentially function as members of an extended family. Members are given Hebrew names once they have been baptized. Twelve Tribes' members dress conservatively: the men wear beards, wear their hair bound in a short pony tail behind their head, while women wear their hair long, go without makeup or jewelry, and wear long dresses.

According to a 1998 article by the religious scholar Dr. Susan J. Palmer, who visited several communities, members are given Hebrew names that reflect their personality and their beliefs are closely related to Christian fundamentalism.^[3] There are many distinctions between the Twelve Tribes and Christian fundamentalism. For example, the Twelve Tribes believe and teach that denominations or divisions remove a church's validity and insist that the true church will be undivided in reality. Christian fundamentalism allows for differences and denominations in the non-essentials, and believe that the unity of the church is mystical, unseen, and unassailable.

The Twelve Tribes do not consider themselves part of any organized religion as such they do not view themselves as belonging to Catholicism, or any of the Protestant denominations of Christianity. They believe that the church changed considerably over the first two hundred years of its life, lost its love, and ceased to be a true church. They believe that since apostolic times, Christianity never returned to its foundation, but became more and more corrupt. Separating themselves from all other organized religions, the Twelve Tribes consider themselves to be the beginning of the restoration of original pattern of the church.

The group believes that humans are living in the end times, and that a faithful and pure church must be restored before Christ returns.

The group's teachings extend to the family and society. Wives are to respect and to be submissive to their husbands, while husbands should love and cherish his wife above all earthly things. Children should honor and obey their parents as their supreme authority. Homosexuality, divorce, adultery, fornication, child abuse, and pornography are all viewed by the Group to be sinful activities, which are given up when a person becomes a disciple. Respect, hospitality, and hope are extended to all people, regardless of past incidents.

The group estimates its current membership to be around 2500.

Controversies

The group has garnered controversy since their beginnings in the 1970s. The anti-cult movement warns that the "Messianic Communities, under the leadership of Spriggs, has tended towards an extreme authoritarianism."^[4] The group responds that they are a "simple people who live on Main Street USA" and that "all members can leave at any time, but choose to remain daily."

The group first aroused controversy because of accusations of child abuse, and later, child labor in their cottage industries. The most notable event was the 1984 Island Pond Raid. Anti-cult workers, Galen Kelly and Priscilla Coates, collected information from ex-members and provided this information to media and government agencies. In 1984, Vermont State authorities executed a full-scale pre-dawn raid of the 13 Twelve Tribes houses in Island Pond, Vermont, seizing all of the children. The search warrants contained no names, but gave permission to the police to seize all children in the specified locations as evidence. The case was dismissed the same day as the raid was unconstitutional.

In 2001, New York State [http://www.rickross.com/reference/tribes/tribes30.html fined two Greene County Twelve Tribes businesses for child labor law violations in 2001. The Twelve Tribes businesses appealed the decision, but lost. The group does admit that it uses corporal punishment, spanking children with a "small reed-like rod"^[5] and that the "children help their parents" in their cottage industries.

In Europe, the controversies centered on the issues of homeschooling, health, and religious freedom. On October 18, 2004, seven fathers from the community in Klosterzimmern, in the municipality Deiningen, Bavaria were arrested because they homeschooled their children, instead of sending them to regular school. ^{[6] [7]} In Germany, homeschooling is illegal. In France, the sect of Tabitha's place appears on the official list of sects^[8]. In England, a report from The Guardian accuses the Twelve Tribes of being racist and anti-Semitic, quoting an article published by the group. The article states that "murder is the very crime which the Jews are still cursed for" and that "multiculturalism increases murder, crime and prejudice". The Twelve Tribes deny charges of racism or Anti-Semitism, stating that they "look back to the Semitic roots of our faith with gratitude". They also have members of many races and cultures in their community, and a number of African-American members are also leaders in their communities. The Twelve Tribes encourages use of the Hebrew language, as a large number of member were Jewish or of Jewish background.^{[citation needed]}

Sources

1. ^ "We Make No Apology". The Twelve Tribes: Controversies. http://www.twelvetribes.com/controversies/noapology.html. Retrieved on 2005-10-23. 
2. ^ "Family FAQs". The Twelve Tribes: Family FAQs. http://www.twelvetribes.com/faq/family.html. Retrieved on 2005-10-12. 
3. ^  Palmer, Susan J. Apostates and Their Role in the Construction of Grievance Claims Against the Northeast Kingdom/Messianic Communities article in the book The Politics of Religious Apostasy: The Role of Apostates in the Transformation of Religious Movements edited by David G. Bromley Westport, CT, Praeger Publishers, (1998). ISBN also available online
4. ^  Alice Kreiner. "Twelve Tribes". Twelve Tribes aka Northeast Kingdom Community Church, Church in Island Pond, The Communities. http://religiousmovements.lib.virginia.edu/nrms/tribes.html. Retrieved on 2005-10-23. 
5. ^ "A Root out of Dry Ground". A Short History of The Twelve Tribes — The Commonwealth of Israel. http://www.twelvetribes.com/whoweare/ourbeginningsfull.html. Retrieved on 2005-10-23. 
6. ^ "Judge Frank Mahady's Opinion". In Re: Certain Children. http://www.twelvetribes.com/controversies/mahady-opinion.html. Retrieved on 2005-10-23. 
7. ^ "Cambridge Press Conference". The Twelve Tribes : Controversies. http://www.twelvetribes.com/controversies/pressconferencetoc.html. Retrieved on 2005-10-23. 
8. ^ "My Analysis of the Twelve Tribes". New England Institute of Religious Research website. http://www.neirr.org/conclusn.html. Retrieved on 2005-10-23. 
9. ^  "Pictures of the arrest". Slide show of arrested fathers in Germany. http://www.zwoelfstaemme.de/verhaftung_slideshow. Retrieved on 2005-10-23. 
10. ^  "Press Conference October 15, 2004 in Pfäfflingen, Germany". Press conference by Holger Röhrs, one of the seven arrested fathers. http://www.twelvetribes.com/controversies/pressconf-roehrs.html. Retrieved on 2005-10-23. 
11. ^  "French National Assembly: On Sects". http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/12/rap-enq/r3507.asp. Retrieved on 2008-05-09. 

External links

Twelve Tribes organization sites

• Twelve Tribes official website
• Twelve Tribes site about the Island Pond Raid
• "A Hippiecritical Analysis of the Sixties Movement"
• "Cult Scare: The Shocking Kidnappings of Kirsten Nielsen"

Sites professing neutrality on Twelve Tribes

• Religious movements Profile
• Intentional Communities Directory

Sites explicitly or largely critical of Twelve Tribes

• Twelve Tribes article compilation by the New England Institute for Religious Research
• Rick A. Ross Institute: articles and visitor comments on the Twelve Tribes
• Twelve Tribes-EX: accounts regarding beliefs and practices from an anonymous source claiming to have been former member.
• F.A.C.T.net (Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network) Twelve Tribes discussion forum
• Ithacans Opposed to the Twelve Tribes Cult: an organized boycott of Twelve Tribes businesses in Ithaca, NY.
• Yoneq and the Twelve Tribes: a blog with personal accounts of life in the Twelve Tribes

Other Sites

• Twelve Tribes Teachings: archive of teachings and in-house newsletter from an anonymous source
• ExTT: The Ex_Twelve_Tribes mailing list hosted at Yahoo Groups. An online meeting place for former members of the Twelve Tribes
• An account of a festival open to the public in Plymouth, Mass
• Maté Factor brand of Teas and Other Products affiliated with Twelve Tribes
• One of the cafés of the twelve tribes communities. Also contains links to many other twelve tribes sites
• An organization providing shelter, food and transportation to families who have been sent away from or have left the community.