An Open Letter to Don Ferguson a.k.a. Zen Gardner

20 August 2016

 - Over the past week I have received many messages from people asking me about Zen Gardner’s recent “confession”. He was a member of the Children of God (The Family) cult for 27 years, including being in leadership position.

I have kept quiet over the past week since the news broke and wanted to talk to Zen personally about it since I had some questions. I have “known” Zen since April this year. He liked my work, reposted some of my blogs on his site and I was on his “Now and Zen” show in May. We stayed in contact, changed a few Skype messages and had two Skype video chats. The last time I talked to him via Skype was when he was in Spain last month, hanging out with my friend Benny Wills (from Joy Camp) and others.

I was quite shocked when I first read his article “My Missing Years”. At first I was glad to see that he shared this hidden aspect of his personal life and opened up. It triggered empathy and compassion within me. However, as I was doing more research into the COG cult and also discovered why and how his “confession” actually came about, many things he talked about (and especially the way he handled it) didn’t add up. There was a lot of avoidance, white-washing and not addressing big questions that sit like multiple “elephants in the living room”.