Our Life Together Vol. 3 Nr. 15 April 15, 1975

The controversy over our Ministering Community was just beginning as this issue was published. Ken's article gives the particulars delineating how we got to the position that we were in at that time. Shortly after this issue my wife and I called on one of our neighbors asking them to sign the petition. They were friendly people and we had talked with them before. Linda and I had been asked to talk with them because our neighbor was a Commander in the Navy. We went to their house and had friendly small talk; then we asked them to sign the petition. After this everything was changed. They were no longer friendly. In fact they treated us like criminals. What changed? Why were our neighbors against us? Why were so many people in the city against us? I think that the biggest issue was fear. There were three basic issues fueling this area of fear:

• Fear of the presence of a "licentious, hippy commune" in their neighborhood,
• Fear of lost property values because of the above issue,
• Fear of an unknown cult in the community.

No matter how much we talked about living together as a family, people tended to equate our community with what was seen in the newspapers about "hippy" communes in places like Haight-Ashbury. Since we were living together and sharing in common, we must be the same as one of these places. It didn't matter that we were connected with a church. Since we were one of those communes, we must live in licentiousness with "free sex" -- and there were probably drugs as well. It wouldn't be long before there would be police busting in to those communes. The people vociferously said that we weren't wanted in their neighborhoods. I personally walked through a crowd at one of the hearings listening to people saying that if the city allowed us to continue, they would burn us out. Some angry people -- but mainly because of fear caused by a mistaken idea of who and what we were.

Actually the fear of falling property values was related to the above. People felt that we were going to let our property to deteriorate and, of course, the neighborhood would deteriorate too. "There goes the neighborhood." "Our property values are going down." Actually the properties didn't deteriorate. I really credit the heads of household for this. They worked hard themselves -- and motivated others -- to keep the property up. The problem wasn't lazy people. The problem was that most of the young people living in the houses didn't have the experience to know what needed to be done to maintain the property. Thus it was a task for the head of house. I lived with Ken Pagaard for seven years. Ken was diligent in this area. My first task after returning from the Navy was to dig terraces in our large, sloping back yard. Then a retaining wall was built on each terrace. This was a big job; and a big learning experience for me. I am sure that this actually increased our property values.

Finally the fear of a new cult in town was a big issue. This was an age of young people joining groups, parents losing control, and deprogramming young people who had been lured into one of these cults. One of the cults where this was happening was "The Children of God." The leader of the anti-children of God cult, lived in Chula Vista. At one point he had asked us to watch a couple of people pulled out of the cult, until they could be deprogrammed. Well, we didn't hold them by force, so they left. We were then on his list as a major cult. He helped fuel the fire. This actually continued for many years. I graduated from Bethel Seminary in 1981. Because of complaints that I was a member of a cult, I almost didn't graduate. I was actually in my cap and gown and standing in line for the ceremony while the Board of Regents was meeting to decide my fate. Yes, they let me graduate, but that was close.

There will be more on this controversy in future postings. It was an interesting time.