The Children of God (COG) was started in 1968 in Huntington Beach, California, USA. Many early converts were drawn from the hippie era and Jesus Movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The group later changed its name to the Family of Love, The Family and recently The Family International. It has also used a significant number pseudonyms and front organizations for its activities. After a number of image makeovers, The Family International now refers to itself as a church, and prefers to be known as a wholesome, family-values New Religious Movement (NRM), albeit with alternative views and counter culture. It is however, still widely referred to as a cult in the media, often as the free-love sex cult or The Family Cult.

The Children of God created controversy with its ideas of apocalypticism and revolution against the outside world that they call "the System," along with its central tenet that true disciples must drop out and "forsake all." Forsaking all literally entails abandoning all responsibilities and cutting ties with any and all—job, school, family, friends, and selling all that they have, handing over the entire proceeds to the group. Disciples assume a new biblical name and identity—true legal names are often kept a secret even from each other. Like deep cover role play without any possibility of debriefing, some members who joined as teenagers in the late 60s are still incognito today.

In 1974 the group launched a new form of so-called evangelism called Flirty Fishing—using sex to win converts and support. The practice was supposedly discontinued in 1987 due to fears of the AIDS epidemic.

The group’s liberal sexuality—its publication and distribution of writings, photographs and videos advocating and documenting adult-child sexual contact and the sexualisation of children—led to numerous reports of child sexual abuse. A major judicial