David Brandt Berg

The Early Years

"Even as child, I knew God had a very important mission for my life..."

A Heritage of Faith

David Brandt Berg was born to Hjalmer and Virginia Brandt Berg in Oakland, California on February 18, 1919.

Virginia Brandt Berg, one of the best known spiritual teachers and healers of the United States in the early 20th century, undoubtedly had the greatest impact on David's s life He said:

My mother undoubtedly had the greatest influence over me of anybody in my whole life, and helped to make me what I am today. I can never remember her teaching me anything but the Bible and about the Lord and true spiritual values. My mother was in love with Jesus, thank God, and she instilled that love in me.

But Virginia Brandt Berg wasn't always the enlightened soul. Although raised in a God-fearing home, Virginia became an atheist and wild society girl during her college years. But years of riotous living and the husks of empty materialism left her despairing. Sick of her frivolous lifestyle, she devoted her life to social work. However, shortly after the birth of her first child, she broke her back in an accident and spent the next five years as a bedridden invalid, often hovering near death.

After a profound experience with Jesus, she was miraculously raised from her deathbed, and spent the rest of her life with her husband, Hjalmer, in active Christian service, sharing her experiences and praying for those in need.

It was shortly after her miraculous healing that David was born.

Early disenchantment with organized religion

David was in some ways a product of the churches, but as time went on he grew increasingly aware that many churches were a far cry from the Early Church of the New Testament.

Most of these worshippers in our churches didn't even faintly resemble the Early Christians! Most of the church members were a bunch of old hypocrites who weren't the slightest bit interested in getting the Gospel to the lost, but much more interested in getting a fancier church building ... and showing off fancy clothes at fancy meetings. Church membership had become a status symbol and a business necessity for the affluent society

It was a dilemma that David would grapple with for several years. He longed to serve God, and yet the only place where it seemed he could do this was within a church system that he saw as largely inbred, self-satisfied and unwilling to engage in the task at hand.