Todays Bereans

Jim Roberts & The Garbage Eaters

They are known as The Brothers and Sisters, The Brethren, The Roberts Group, and much more commonly, due to their reputation as dumpster divers, the Garbage Eaters; they are a King James Version Only nomadic group, roaming around the United States – making the occasional stop in Canada or Mexico – in groups that can be as large as twelve people. This religious group was founded by a former Pentecostal preacher named Jim Roberts whom the Brothers and Sisters refer to as the Elder or Brother Evangelist.

Roberts has complete control over his members, from telling them how they may dress and style their hair to forbidding them to engage in relationships with one another beyond that of a brother/sister relationship. Roberts constantly moves the members around from group to group to avoid the members becoming too attached to one another or being taken by a family member who may have tracked down their loved one's small group. Being paranoid of the police, Roberts is virtually impossible to track down but it is believed that he took up residence in New York for a while.

The members of this particular group will be quite easy to spot. The men sport short hair and long, untidy beards and wear long tunics, usually with slits on the side to make for easy cycling from town to town. The women wear long dresses with long sleeves and closed necks. Their hair is typically grown long, and they are not permitted to braid their hair, wear makeup or jewelry.

The Roberts Group is fairly strict one in practice and in doctrine. They hold faith to be the power that makes or breaks their very lives. It is because of the deep drive that is programmed into the members from the beginning that being faithful is more important than commonsense that members will refuse to see doctors/dentists regardless of the extent of the health problem and they refuse to take any kind of medication beyond the occasional herbal remedy.

Gender roles are maintained quite strictly. The brothers' roles are to gather food, protect the sisters, and witness. The sisters' roles are to cook, serve meals to the brothers, clean, sew, and witness. They are expected to always be subservient to the brothers.

Salvation hangs upon fulfilling the requirements of such rules of “holy living”. Members are also forbidden from any drugs, tobacco, or alcohol use.

Typical of many cults, the Roberts Group holds that salvation does not exist outside of their group. This of course leads to serious problems for members that may end up being excommunicated from the organization on Jim Roberts' orders. Often the ex-member's small group will send the member on ahead of them to the next town with a promise they will meet up with him or her, but with no intention to ever show. The heavily indoctrinated person then is left to live a life of serious uncertainty, being kicked out of the one group he or she knew to be the only path to salvation and yet unable to return home to the family they were programmed to believe was living in Satan's grasp.

True also of many cults, members are required to give up their money and possessions upon joining the group, believing they are following Christ's command:

Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.” - Mark 10:21

Another common mark of the cult is found in the Roberts Group. Upon joining the group, all members are required to cut all ties with their families and friends. Usually they will allow for about three letters to be sent to the families and will have the letters sent from different cities than the group is actually in so as not to be traced by the postmark.

A myriad of verses is given to justify the complete rejection of all familial support such as:

Now the LORD had said to Abram:
“Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you. - Genesis 12:1

and:

“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. - Luke 14:26

The recruit is often required to write home to their family. This usually happens in the first week. The letter is general, just telling the family everything is all right. Another letter might follow a few weeks later. This letter may contain many of the scripture passages that support the Roberts Group's lifestyle. Follow-on letters may become critical of the parents as the Roberts Group members work to sever the ties to family and make the recruit emotionally dependent on the Roberts Group. These early letters are intentionally designed to delay searching by the family and to throw them off the trail while it's warm and traceable. Some recruits never write home. Many families receive letters marking a complete detachment, with no more communication, cruelly declaring, "This is the last letter you will ever get from me."- The Roberts Group Parents Network

Recruiting is intense with the Roberts Group. They will evangelize on the streets, but they typically target colleges and universities where they are more apt to run into vulnerable people who are hungry and eager to embrace a worthwhile value and belief system. Potential members are given a quick rundown of the group's gospel and are pressured into making a quick decision for Christ. People who attempt to take the smart approach and go off to think about what they have been told are given an emotionally manipulative argument to persuade him or her to make the decision right then or risk falling into Satan's traps. People who do end up joining will do so anywhere from a few hours of meeting the recruiters to one week.

Its a sad reality when even one person chooses to hand over control for their own mental and spiritual lives to any one person, such as we see the brothers and sisters of the Roberts Group doing with Jim Roberts and other 'elder brothers' of the organisation. Such a practice is not a Biblical one:

And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not carnal? - 1 Corinthians 3:1-4

The Bereans were commended and are an example for us to follow in this regard. They did not allow Paul to tell them what to believe or how to live their life, instead they went off and studied what the Bible actually said before accepting what he taught. Study preceded acceptance, an important step in the building of doctrine that each of us would do well to remember.

Then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. Therefore many of them believed, and also not a few of the Greeks, prominent women as well as men. - Acts 17:10-12

The practice of pressuring someone into making a quick decision in joining the group is obviously another unBiblical practice. If the Bereans were commended for thoroughly studying to ensure that what Paul said was truth then the same should be expected of people today. To join the group and then choose to study what Scriptures they lay before the recruit is, to put it simply, ridiculous. That only serves to ensure that the recruit will be reading into the Bible the doctrines that the group wants him or her to see. Being allowed to make an informed decision is, as Acts 17 puts it, the best route to go and should never be overlooked or overshadowed by the pressure of joining any group.

Cutting ties with family members is a disturbing yet popular trend with many cults. It serves to remove the recruit from their safe environment and support system, thus making him or her more vulnerable and open to whatever the cult wants him or her to believe. And by forcing the recruit to reject that safety net, they are also forcing the recruit to reject Biblical principles such as honoring their father and mother (Exodus 20:12, Deuteronomy 5:16). Such was the principle that Timothy followed as he grew in faith. He did not reject his family but allowed them to be instrumental in shaping who he was in Christ (2 Timothy 1:3-7).

Context and proper hermeneutics of the many verses they give to show that God requires His followers to abandon their loved ones will prove that God does not actually require that of all followers. For example, lets look at one of the verses already shown in this article.

Now the LORD had said to Abram:
“Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you. - Genesis 12:1

The Roberts Group uses this as Scriptural backup to abandon one's family. But the context shows this verse cannot possibly apply to any person today. It is a telling of how God separated Abram from some of his family to bring him to the promised land and lead him to become the father of countless people (Genesis 22:17). But even in this case he was not called to abandon his entire family, he was just called to leave his father's house. He took his wife and nephew and 'and the people whom they had acquired in Haran, ' (Gen 12:5) and left according to the Lord's leading, not man's.

Another verse they'll use is:

“If your brother, the son of your mother, your son or your daughter, the wife of your bosom, or your friend who is as your own soul, secretly entices you, saying, ‘Let us go and serve other gods,’ which you have not known, neither you nor your fathers, of the gods of the people which are all around you, near to you or far off from you, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth, you shall not consent to him or listen to him, nor shall your eye pity him, nor shall you spare him or conceal him;but you shall surely kill him; your hand shall be first against him to put him to death, and afterward the hand of all the people. - Deuteronomy 13:6-9

Which is actually a disturbing verse to use in todays context. The passage itself serves to show God's utter disdain towards deception. This was spoken to the people of Israel, whom God had chosen to be separate from the world and to be a people unto Himself. To have that nation go off and worship other gods was akin to adultery which, under the old covenant, was punishable by death.

There are obvious problems in using this particular passage to justify cutting off all family ties. First, the verses do not assume that all family members and friends are going to deceive us. If that were the case then we could have no fellowship with other believers at all, because any coming together of the saints would result in lies and deception. If this verse is applicable towards friends and family members of the recruit, it would also be just as applicable to the Roberts Group itself, they've refuted themselves by the pushing of this one passage.

Second, there's no reason to believe that verse applies to us today in any direct sense other than to teach us how horrible and ugly lies and deception is to the Lord. Under the new covenant we do not kill people for attempting to deceive us. We're to correct them in love (James 5:19-20, Galatians 6:1). Cutting off all ties to the family only ensures no lines of communication are open to reason things through with one another.

One last thing i want to touch on in this article is the drive that members in the Roberts Group have to live holy and pure lives to earn their salvation. Sadly this too is not uncommon to see in cults. Members are weighed down with the unbearable burden of living sinless lives in order to please God and become good followers of Christ. What they fail to take into account is that God doesn't require us to be perfect, what He requires of us now and has always required of us is to have humble contrite hearts that love truth and yearn to serve Him.

Thus says the LORD:
“ Heaven is My throne,
And earth is My footstool.
Where is the house that you will build Me?
And where is the place of My rest?
For all those things My hand has made,
And all those things exist,”
Says the LORD.
“ But on this one will I look:
On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit,
And who trembles at My word.
“ He who kills a bull is as if he slays a man;
He who sacrifices a lamb, as if he breaks a dog’s neck;
He who offers a grain offering, as if he offers swine’s blood;
He who burns incense, as if he blesses an idol.
Just as they have chosen their own ways,
And their soul delights in their abominations,
So will I choose their delusions,
And bring their fears on them;
Because, when I called, no one answered,
When I spoke they did not hear;
But they did evil before My eyes,
And chose that in which I do not delight.” - Isaiah 66:1-4

For I desire mercy and not sacrifice,
And the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings. - Hosea 6:6

The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart,
And saves such as have a contrite spirit. - Psalm 34:18

O Lord, open my lips,
And my mouth shall show forth Your praise.
For You do not desire sacrifice, or else I would give it;
You do not delight in burnt offering.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,
A broken and a contrite heart—
These, O God, You will not despise. - Psalm 51:15-17

“ Blessed are the poor in spirit,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
For they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
For they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
For they shall be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
For they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
For they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
For they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. - Matthew 5:3-10

Outward actions clearly do not and cannot please God and certainly will never land us eternal salvation. To teach that we can be saved by keeping the law is to miss the point of the law entirely.

For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God; for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain.” - Gal 2:19-21

What purpose then does the law serve? It was added because of transgressions, till the Seed should come to whom the promise was made; and it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator. Now a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one. Is the law then against the promises of God? Certainly not! For if there had been a law given which could have given life, truly righteousness would have been by the law. But the Scripture has confined all under sin, that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed. Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. - Galatians 3:19-25

Righteousness comes through faith in Christ alone (Hebrews 11) and it is only through being covered in His righteousness that we can have hope for eternal life (John 3:15-18, Hebrews 10:11-14).

For more information on this group or if you have information to help find members taken by the Roberts Group, please visit:

The Roberts Group Parents Network

Apologetics Index

Rick Ross

Help Find Ben