PLEASE NOTE: The questionnaire survey for the thesis has ended. If you choose to fill out the questionnaire anyway, the answers cannot be included in the statistical analysis, but can only be used as additional comments.

Welcome!

You have been invited to participate in a survey for former second generation members of The Family, once known as the Children of God. On the following page you will find a questionnaire in three sections:

1. Your use of the internet
2. Growing up in The Family
3. Leaving The Family

Present members of The Family are welcome to participate as well - without filling out section 3, of course.

All participants will remain anonymous in my study.

The collection of survey responses was completed by the end of May 2004.

I am a student at the Department of the Study of Religion at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, and I am currently working on my final thesis for the Master's degree. The main topic of this study is former second generation members of The Family and their use of the internet, especially the site MovingOn.org.

I am interested in finding out why so many young people have chosen to leave the group in which they grew up, and how the internet has been of importance to the individual before and after leaving The Family. It is my impression from following the debates on MovingOn that the experiences members have had while in TF, as well as their reasons for leaving, vary according to their age - and perhaps also the places they have lived.

Within the field of sociology of religion, several scholars have made studies of children in The Family and even more scholars have studied former members of different religious groups. I am aware that former members have sometimes felt misunderstood or misrepresented by these studies, and I am also aware of the tendency among some scholars not to place great value upon the testimonies of so-called 'apostates'. In this study, I assure you, that will not be the case.

I would be most grateful to you for taking the time to fill out the questionnaire and thereby making this study possible.
And you are, of course, more than welcome to recommend participation in the survey to others.

Christina Puhakka Egholm

Click here to go to the questionnaire

Feel free to email me if you have any questions.