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Staff photo by Shane McMillan--Twelve Tribes leaders Jean, left, and Ed Wieseman, listen to participants in the group's open forum at the Yellow Deli on McCallie Avenue.
Michael Mosteller doesn’t know what the strangers said on the day he began to lose his daughter.
He imagines her, with a book or a Frisbee or a guitar, alone on the front lawn of her UTC dorm, as was her custom.
A curious, first-year philosophy major with blonde curls and a tiny frame, the student wondered about the hippie-clad men and women who strolled by her dorm, walking closely, even prayerfully, to and from the new restaurant down the street, a place called the Yellow Deli.
She asked questions, and introductions on a sidewalk soon became daily visits to the restaurant, free meals and late-night conversations about the meaning of life. Her phone calls home made her father believe a spell had been cast over her.
“The more she talked, the more nervous I got,” he said.
Then at the beginning of the summer, when his daughter was supposed to return home, tension mounted. She wanted to stay. Her friends at the Yellow Deli, who live communally and work without pay, wanted her to be one of them.
In a time of iPods and Facebook, it was hard for Mr. Mosteller to believe his daughter would abandon her earthly possessions and her education to join a communal Christian sect, one critics have labeled a cult.
“This is supposed to happen in California. It is not 1960 anymore,” he said.
His concern is echoed by others. Officials at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga have received several calls from parents worried the Yellow Deli and its message too easily may influence impressionable and experimenting students.
But leaders of the Twelve Tribes of Israel, the deli’s owners who are well versed in controversy, say parents, including Mr. Mosteller, would do well to respect the religious choices of their adult children.
“We have seen parents take radical actions against the children they love in a way that betrays their children, alienating them and separating their children till death,” said Ed Wiseman, a local leader who sits on the Twelve Tribes apostolic council.
INSIDE THE DELI
Ask Mr. Wiseman if he is a cult leader and a smile crawls up his face.
“I think Jesus was a cult leader,” he said, staring with sky-blue eyes through gold-rimmed spectacles. “He was outside the camp of organized religion.”
Mr. Wiseman, who has just returned to Chattanooga after five weeks of travel abroad offering business training to followers in Europe, is well aware of what people say about him and the Twelve Tribes patriarch, Gene Spriggs.
TIMELINE
May 1973 The first Yellow Deli, owned by Gene and Marsha Spriggs, opens on Brainerd Road.
January 1975 The group decides to leave First Presbyterian Church and starts having its own service.
February 1975 Chattanooga residents began to speak out against the group.
October 1979 The group decides to leave Chattanooga and moved to Island Pond, Vt.
2006 A community is founded again in Chattanooga and two reunions are held.
April 2008 The Yellow Deli opens on McCallie Avenue, a stone’s throw from the UTC campus.
“In the past, I was much more threatened,” Mr. Wiseman said. “I took it personal.”
They left the city more than 20 years ago after several members of the group were taken by cult deprogrammers. Since then, Twelve Tribe communities have been accused of racism, sexism, homophobia and child abuse, according to the group’s Web site, which claims the allegations were not substantiated. Members also have been embroiled in child custody battles.
Mr. Spriggs started the Twelve Tribes in Chattanooga in the mid ’70s, and the group’s communities now are scattered throughout the Midwest and West Coast as well as in Germany, France, Spain, Argentina and England. Members home school their children, endorse the traditional nuclear family and support themselves through cottage industries such as organic farming, carpentry, hostels, small stores and delis.
Legally, they are members of a nonprofit entity that is allowed to operate a for-profit business because they share their money, Mr. Wiseman said.
In some ways, time seems to have stopped for the Yellow Deli and the people who work there. Women with waist-length hair wear no makeup and balloon pants or skirts; the men have beards and tight, slicked buns of long hair.
The appeal of the Twelve Tribes is subtle. Members don’t evangelize lunch patrons. The group’s literature is on display but not offered, and Yellow Deli events such as the biweekly free speech forum held on the garden patio only touch on the beliefs of the Twelve Tribes when guided by visitors, Mr. Wiseman said.
Nick Cooper, a UTC student who participated in the group’s free speech forum last week and is thinking about joining, is one of many students who share their angst about personal relationships with community members.
“I just came back from a family reunion where I tried to talk to my dad and just got one-word answers,” he shared with the group. “I tried to tell him about wanting to join the community, but he didn’t care.”
The few new followers — only one person has been baptized into the local Twelve Tribes community since it opened the deli on McCallie Avenue in April — are drawn by witnessing community and love, not force, said Mr. Wiseman.
“There is no agenda,” he said. “It is not us there, promoting what we believe. We want to start a free-speech movement. The status quo is built around, ‘Shut your mouth and get in line.’”
Yet the basic message of Twelve Tribes has tough requirements: To find salvation people must believe in a savior followers call Yahshua, give up everything they own and get a room in the group’s big house.
“To truly be in the new covenant, a person has to obey what God said,” said Mr. Wiseman, referring to biblical passages about the early church. “They were never supposed to have money and have a house and go to church.”
It is not surprising that parents would be concerned about their children’s involvement with the group, Mr. Wiseman said, but the group does not use emotional manipulation to bypass people’s will. A book the group recently published called “Cult Scare” could help parents concerned about their children’s involvement, he said.
Mr. Mosteller’s daughter “responded to love and the love she found here caused her to give authority to the words that came from here,” Mr. Wiseman said. “We just loved her, just like anyone else who wants a sandwich.”
OUTSIDE THE DELI
UTC administrators’ hands are tied when it comes to the Yellow Deli.
“We have to acknowledge that our students are 18,” said Chuck Cantrell, a spokesman for UTC. “They are adults, and they have to be allowed to make their own decisions.”
All UTC can do to appease worried parents is equip students with information to make decisions, he said. Student programs can teach what is and what isn’t a healthy spiritual relationship, but UTC cannot come out against a religious group that has not been charged with anything illegal.
DeeDee Anderson, dean of students at UTC, said university staff and campus ministries have met about the Yellow Deli’s influence on students, but there are no plans for cult awareness programs. But if parents continue to call, the university’s message regarding the Twelve Tribes may shift, she said.
“They are right there (near campus),” she said. “It is something that we are keeping an eye on.”
The Twelve Tribes is not a cult like Jonestown, the Branch Davidians or Heaven’s Gate, but they are a high-control group that can destroy people’s lives, said Bob Pardon, director of the New England Institute of Religious Research. The institute is an anti-cult organization that runs a transitional facility that has helped many former members of the Twelve Tribes.
Individuals are drawn in by a simple message of love and community, but they should seek to understand what Mr. Spriggs truly teaches before signing their lives away, he said.
“There is a seamy underbelly,” Mr. Pardon said. “The group is racist and controls you from the beginning. As time has gone on, they have gotten raked over the coals and have learned to turn a phrase and make what they believe more palatable.”
For now, Mr. Mosteller sits on pins and needles. His daughter left UTC to study in Oregon for a year but has plans to return to the Chattanooga campus when her program has finished. She continues to communicate with workers of the Yellow Deli via e-mail and, at one point, was offered a plane ticket to return for the wedding of a couple in the group, said Mr. Mosteller.
“I am petrified. I am horrified,” he said. “I was trying to contact anyone and everybody that I knew. It is not just about my daughter. There are more (girls like my daughter) out there.”
He said he doesn’t know whether his daughter will adopt Mr. Spriggs and his teachings. In the end, though he can take her car and her weekly allowance, he can’t stop her.
“They think they know better about the salvation of my daughter than I do,” Mr. Mosteller said. “There is a certain appeal because they live in a structured environment, and every day is a beautiful day. You don’t have to worry about the grade. You can lay in the grass and look at the stars, and life is beautiful. You don’t have to worry about banking, cell phones or rent.”
“My greatest fear is that she end up there.”
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Yellow Deli
Joan Garrett McClane has been a staff writer for the Times Free Press since August 2007. Before becoming a general assignment writer for the paper, she wrote about business, higher education and the court systems. She grew up the oldest of five sisters near Birmingham, Ala., and graduated with a master's and bachelor's degrees in journalism from the University of Alabama. Before landing her first full-time job as a reporter at the Times Free Press, ...
Mr Mosteller your worries are not unfounded. I lived in the "Vine Christian Community"/Yellow deli as a child. My family turned over our house and cars to move into a house with 27 other people. It began with my family going to visit and eat in the restaurant. We then were working in the restaurant without pay. I worked, everyone did. The time spent in this group was a very traumatic time for me and my family.
Elbert Eugene Spriggs is the leader and claims the titles of "Apostle" and "the prophet Elijah." Spriggs says of himself, "I must begin by saying that the only authority I have to be called an apostle is my fruit. Of course authority comes from God, but is recognized by men according to its fruit its practicality". (Apostolic Role)
Elbert Spriggs also claims a "direct pipeline to God", and that he is a special messenger with a unique revelation! "Yoneq (Spriggs) expressed how there have been several things which our Father has spoken to him which have kept us on course." (Letter from Yoceph to Jonathan and Caleb).
I recently visited and talked with some people there. One of the gentlemen there asked me a question:
"If you can't really face the selfishness within yourself, then what business do you have trying to address the selfishness in others?"
I wasn't sure exactly what he was suggesting to me, but he proceeded further, stating to me the following:
"You don't need to be concerned with figuring out what things God's people are supposed to be doing. What you need to be concerned with is the call of the gospel that's being presented to you. Apart from receiving that call, you'll never be anything more than a hypocrite, doing nothing more than putting a Band-Aid on a gaping wound. The only hope for the Evil One being bound for a thousand years, and for Yahshua (Jesus) to come back for His Bride, is that he would have a People (every member of His Body -- the Bride) address the selfishness within themselves. And you can't do that on your own. That's why you need to be here. You need to go through the process of Salvation. You need to be saved from the power that selfishness has over you. You cannot overcome this apart from being saved from it. We are saved out of a situation where we are helpless to take a stand against selfishness, and thus brought into a place where we can take a stand. Then we go through a process of Salvation, where day after day we have responsibility. You start to see things about yourself that you didn't realize was there. That is what you are being called to do. The call of the Gospel is to give up your whole life -- your time, your energy, your opinions, and of course, all your possessions, and yes, even your relationships, and whatever hinders you from being fully devoted to Yahshua (Jesus). That is what it means to be a disciple. You have to forsake all in order to obey Him, just to trust His leadership, His authority, as delegated in the Body of disciples, and not merely what you think you should be doing, but trusting in His judgment. Those who have received the Gospel have given up their lives for a whole new life of loving one another and having faith. This is what we are calling you to do, and to be where God's Will is actually being done. But don't get so focused on or caught up in doctrine, because it will just lead you astray. It has to be from your heart.
He continued:
"Every single day we do what we do in faith because we hear faith, we hear direction, what God wants us to do for each day. We don't try top reason or figure out on our own what God wants us to do, saying what we think we should be doing. If you desire in your heart to serve God and to do His Will, you won't find it being fulfilled anywhere except for where His Will is actually being done. But keep things simple. Listen to your heart. Don't let my message be dissolved by a tangent of thoughts for a whole different subject. You need to be saved from that, too. You put too much trust in your mind, and in your understanding."
I then asked him to provide me his definition of a disciple. I also asked him is it just his interpretation of what a disciple is, or what a disciple truly is.
He got defensive and said, "Do you believe you are a member of Messiah? Who has more authority to tell you who the Body of Messiah is -- the Body of Messiah or some people that are not part of the Body of Messiah? You seem to be completely in an intellectual realm. That's all it is with you. And it's not going to do any good for me to keep talking to you if what I'm saying is not going to reach your heart." I asked him if what God's Will is for us cannot be found in Scripture.
He retorted:
"The Scriptures were written for the Body, and does not apply to those who are not part of the Body. You haven't responded to the Gospel. It's a call, not just what you read in a book or understand in your mind. It reaches your heart. It then produces fruit."
I explained to another member of this organization that we are told to occupy until the Lord returns. This other member responded:
"Yeah, but are the things we are to occupy with what seem right to you or are you directable? Are you leadable? Can you follow?"
I replied to him saying that we are to be responsible stewards as we were told to do in the Great Commission. That means we are to get involved, and to be salt and light, if anyone claims to be a disciple.
I then asked him a hypothetical. I said to him:
"What if someone were to raid your home? What would you do?"
They gave a predictable answer: to turn the other cheek. So he continued to make excuses for his pacifism, apathy, and continued to justify this, calling the issue I raised to his attention a "distraction" or an "obsession". Obviously, these folks do not hesitate to neglect what it says for us to do in I Timothy 5:8.
This member also accused me of "not obeying what their Master is asking me to do".
So I asked, well, what about them? Are they protecting the unborn from abortion? Are they exposing homosexuality as an abomination, witnessing to homosexuals and lesbians, and pulling them out of their sinful lifestyle?
He avoided my question, calling me a "coward", saying that I'm "stepping around" the "call of the gospel".(Ha! Just like this person STEPS AROUND MY CHALLENGE TO HIS COMFORT ZONE! He totally went over my question!)
He then said to me:
"Do you realize that the only answer to what we seeing going on all around us is that our Master comes back? And the longer you delay from obeying the Gospel, the longer it perpetuates it. There is only one ultimate solution, and not to be distracted by anything else. Our Master didn't come to bring peace, but a sword. And we are here to end the reign of the Evil One."
WHAT A COP-OUT!
So I said to him:
"Sir, don't you think it is our responsibility to not ignore the opportunity to defend the defenseless, or "be a voice for the voiceless (as it says in the book of Proverbs), and to Cry aloud and Spare not (as it says in the book of Isaiah)? Or are we to keep turning a blind eye?"
He replied: If you turn your back on the call of the Gospel, you are not worthy to call yourself a disciple. Period."
("What??? YOU turn YOUR back on the UNBORN, sir!" That's what I felt like telling this fellow.)
I then said to him:
"What about all this you keep saying in your literature about "laying down your lives" for others? Remember?"
He said:
"We are not following YOUR wisdom. Our Master has a plan. Our Master has the wisdom."
(Really? The "plan" and "wisdom" to IGNORE MURDER???)
My head was feeling like it was going to explode. I couldn't believe the foolishness I kept hearing from this guy.
He went on to say:
"You have an idea of what you think we should be doing, but you're not doing what our Master is asking you to do."
(HA! Talk about being a "hypocrite"!)
I said to him, "But what about you? Are YOU doing it, EITHER??? Are YOU protecting the unborn children being slaughtered in the womb every day?
You say you "lay down your lives" for each other. What about the unborn baby? Don't they matter as well?"
He said:
"Don't be a coward. The Gospel is calling you. If you try stepping around" --
"You're NOT ANSWERING MY QUESTION!" I interrupted.
"YOU KEEP GOING AROUND IT, CHANGING THE SUBJECT WITH ALL YOUR RHETORIC! ADDRESS MY QUESTION!! STOP AVOIDING IT!"
Who are the cowards??? Those who constantly sidestep what I address them with. Those who claim to be "disciples", yet neglect the responsibility to defend those whom they "lay down their lives for"!
Hear ye hear ye, listen up all you fellow mouth breathers and those weak in mind or spirit. BEWARE THE CULT!!
Haha, anyone who needs your money and offers something they don't own as compensation is feeding you one whopper of a line.
Hey! I got a bridge I'll sell ya. A really big one.. It's in Brooklyn.
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