Twelve Tribes Communities - Controversies

Controversies

Since its inception, the group has ignited controversy and garnered unfavorable attention from the media, the anti-cult movement and governments. The Twelve Tribes has been cited by Stuart A. Wright as a group suffering from "Front-End/Back-End Disproportionality" in media coverage. According to Wright, the media often focuses on unsubstantiated charges against the group, but as charges are investigated and cases fall apart, the media cover them significantly less than at the beginning. Wright then asserts this leaves the public with the impression that the group was guilty of the disproven charges.

The ministry New England Institute of Religious Research's Executive Director the Rev. Bob Pardon warns in his report that "Messianic Communities, under the leadership of Spriggs, has tended towards an extreme authoritarianism and a "Galatian heresy." The Tribes have responded with a line-by-line response to the report and continue to contend its large "errors, distortions, misunderstandings, and misjudgments", while criticizing the heavy use of apostates in his report. In France, the group was listed on the 1995 Governmental Report by the Parliamentary Commission on Cults in France under the name "Ordre apostolique – Therapeutic healing environment."

Twelve Tribes members Jean Swantko and husband Eddie Wiseman have made effort to combat social control and anti-cult movement by engaging in dialogue with hostile ex-members, the media and government authorities. Swantko has presented at scholarly conferences including CESNUR Communal Studies Association and Society for the Scientific Study of Religion as well as chapter in James T. Richardson's Regulating Religion: Case Studies from Around the Globe.