From the dust jacket- Educated meets The Vow in this story of liberation and self-empowerment—an inspiring and crazier-than-fiction 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 an elite 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.
A complicated family story mixed with a hauntingly intimate coming-of-age narrative, Faith Jones’ extraordinary memoir reflects our societal norms of oppression and abuse while providing a unique lens to explore spiritual manipulation and our rights in our bodies. Honest, eye-opening, uplifting, and intensely affecting, Sex Cult Nun brings to life a hidden world that’s hypnotically alien yet unexpectedly relatable.
Review- An interesting, at times horrifying, story of one young woman’s life and escape from the cult she was born in. Faith Jones was a second generation child of the Children of God with its founder as her grandfather. She was raised believing that the end of the world was coming soon and she needed to help save as many ‘sheep’ as she could. One of the ways ‘sheep’ could be saved was by flirty fishing, where female members of the sect would have sex with men to then preach to them about God’s love. Jones was raised to think that all women should be free with sex with all men who asked or demanded in too many cases. At times this book is very hard to read, as Jones talks about being molested at a young age and those acts being good and godly. The reader follows her from her earliest memories to coming into her own and free from the cult. If you think that you can stomach the darker parts of Jones’ story, then I would recommend this book.
I give this book a Four out of Five stars. I get nothing for my review and I borrowed this book from my local library.
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