German police raid Christian sect, with U.S. roots, on child abuse suspicion

[SecularMotion]

BERLIN — Police raided a Christian sect in southern Germany, taking 40 children into foster care on suspicion they were being physically abused and seizing sticks allegedly used to hit them, authorities said on Sept. 6.

Augsburg prosecutors said they had opened an official investigation into an undetermined number of the adult members of the so-called "Twelve Tribes" sect on suspicion of causing serious bodily harm and mistreatment of children.

"The suspicion is that they hit their children — with sticks, for example," said spokesman Christian Engelsberger. "We don't know who it was, though, so the investigation is against unknown persons."

The sect, founded by a Tennessee high school teacher in the 1970s, today has about 2,000 to 3,000 members worldwide, according to its website, http://twelvetribes.com/

http://www.masslive.com/living/index.ssf/2013/09/german_police_raid_christian_sect_with_us_roots_on_child_abuse_suspicion.html#incart_river_default

[cbayer]

1. Never heard of them, but it's certainly not their first run in with the authorities.

Looks like it goes a bit further than spanking.

[dimbear]

2. Germans are a bit rough on strange religions re-imported from here.

The folk that I have in mind are returning Amish, who one would expect to have easy entree since they speak a sort of antique German and clearly have German roots. As it turns out, the Germans take an attitude, referring to them as stone age people, and they have had some run-ins with the law. Their massive families of course aren't socially acceptable over there. Lovely word I see pop up for them 'lacherlish.' 'Ridiculous' we would say. Of course the other dark side of it is that the last significant Amish presence in Germany ended in the Hitler days. Brrrrr.