Sex Cult Nun: Breaking Away from the Children of God, a Wild, Radical Religious Cult

Named a Best Book of 2021 by Newsweek and Recommended by People, TIME, USA Today, Real Simple, Glamour, Nylon, Bustle, Purewow, Shondaland, and more!

Educated meets The Vow in this story of liberation and self-empowerment—an inspiring true story and stranger-than-fiction cult memoir of growing up in and breaking free from the Children of God, an oppressive, extremist religious cult.

Faith Jones was raised to be part of a religious army preparing for the End Times. Growing up on an isolated farm in Macau, she prayed for hours every day and read letters of prophecy written by her grandfather, the founder of the Children of God. Tens of thousands of members strong, the cult followers looked to Faith’s grandfather as their guiding light. As such, Faith was celebrated as special and then punished doubly to remind her that she was not.

Over decades, the Children of God grew into an international organization that became notorious for its alarming sex practices and allegations of abuse and exploitation. But with indomitable grit, Faith survived, creating a world of her own—pilfering books and teaching herself high school curriculum. Finally, at age twenty-three, thirsting for knowledge and freedom, she broke away, leaving behind everything she knew to forge her own path in America.

Honest, eye-opening, uplifting, and intensely affecting, Sex Cult Nun is a must-read memoir and a complicated family story mixed with an intimate coming-of-age narrative that brings to life a hidden world that’s hypnotically alien yet unexpectedly relatable.

How does a girl raised to be a soldier for God find the courage to save herself?

• An Unbelievable True Story: What it was like growing up as the granddaughter of David Brandt Berg, the controversial prophet of the notorious Children of God cult.
• Survival Against the Odds: How a young woman, denied a formal education, secretly taught herself a high school curriculum and planned her escape from an isolated farm in Macau.
• The Courage to Leave: The harrowing decision to break away at age twenty-three, leaving behind her entire family and the only world she had ever known to start over in America.
• Inside an Extremist Cult: An honest, eye-opening look at the infamous sex practices and exploitation within the Children of God, told from the inside.