In late 1969 Paul Cooke became one of the first one hundred members of the communal religious group later known as the Children of God (the “C.O.G.”). Cooke would spend nine years with the C.O.G. Soon after he joined them in Houston a young Christian minister who was instrumental in Cooke’s conversion months earlier, Pastor Joe Wall, came to the group’s campsite seeking to talk to him about his joining, but he was roundly rejected by the group and by Cooke himself. Years later, after Cooke reestablished his ties to Pastor Wall, the pastor told him, “Paul, all I wanted to tell you that day I came out to the campsite was that it’s important for a man to think for himself.” At the time, Cooke was sure he was thinking for himself, yet in truth he wasn’t. Now Cooke has written a memoir detailing both how much this was the case and what it took for him truly to begin to think for himself.  

He had joined himself to the creation of the forty-nine year old David Berg—later known as Moses David—who in 1968 had launched his little group at Huntington Beach, California, telling them he was leading a “Revolution for Jesus.” The young believers and dropouts he led—while he seemingly kept in the background—began to be known for their radical ways. Cooke decided to “forsake all” and go with them, not realizing that in joining these hippie Christians he was following not Jesus, but David Berg, a man Cooke learned a decade later wasn’t who he seemed to be. Under this man’s flattering and deceptively charming leadership Cooke soon thought that only with the Children of God was there true joy, true Christianity, and full meaning and purpose. 

As time went on the Children of God grew to some 8,000 members and became almost a perfect specimen of the phenomenon that came to be known as the cult. Cooke learned to see all opposition to his involvement—especially his parents’ opposition—as a test sent from God to see if he was serious about his religious commitment. The opposition of his parents ran so deep that his father founded FREECOG, “Free Our Children from the Children of God” a year after his involvement began. Annoyed by FREECOG, the group subsequently sued Cooke’s father and three other leaders of his organization for $1.1 million. In connection with these things Cooke was interviewed by Ted Fiske, Religion Editor for the New York Times in 1972. Cooke wasn’t fazed by any of this and continued loyally with the Children of God. 

He left them finally from Santiago, Chile, just two months after the Jonestown, Guyana tragedy. His leave-taking was prompted by that event—and by Berg’s shocking defense of Jim Jones. Yet Cooke’s physical departure was only the beginning of leaving the Children of God behind, and he brooded about his cult life for many years. In 2022 Cooke began publicly sharing the story of how he was monumentally deceived, doing so before the congregation of his old friend, Pastor Joe Wall: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HReHEXbsON4&list=PLrQQG5dsC7hhGV3-IXtG9RigRGOJHMhXx&index=1&t=3196s. 

Cooke hails from a Jewish family. His paternal great-grandfather was a leader in his Jewish community in Poland. On his mother’s side, Cooke’s uncle became an award-winning screenwriter, winning an Oscar for his screenplay for the novel “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Cooke had literary ambitions himself as a schoolboy, founding his high school literary magazine and serving as its editor for two years. 

Cooke left Texas for Brown University in the fall of 1967. Influenced by his reading of such works as Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, he was prompted to drop out of Brown to “look for the truth.” He turned then to carpentry because, he says, he’d heard Jesus was a carpenter; he felt something good would happen if he imitated him. He soon met two Christian carpenters and a minister who together led him to becoming a Christian. Then, at age 20, he joined the C.O.G.   

After leaving the group he returned to Brown, graduating magna cum laude in English and American Literature. Shifting then to study political theory, Cooke applied to Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. He was accepted and spent nine years there, coming to regard his years at Harvard as an antidote to his nine years in the Children of God. There he met and married his wife.  

Ph.D. in hand, Cooke joined the faculty of the University of Houston; while there his book, Hobbes and Christianity, was published. After six years of teaching Cooke was involved in winning a large grant which led to his becoming the founding director of the Houston Teachers Institute. Appointed formally by UH President Arthur K. Smith, he sought to replicate the successful teachers institute model pioneered by Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Cooke traveled often to Yale and raised $1.25 million for the Institute above the initial grant of $347,000. His article on the role of teacher leaders in the Institute appeared in the journal On Common Ground.

In 2004 he moved to New England with his family, wishing to involve himself more in religious pursuits, taking courses at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, becoming involved in a local church and writing a novel—as yet unpublished. A story taken from the novel was published in 34^th Parallel magazine in 2016. From 2007 to 2018 Cooke ran his small business, Great Books Tutoring. Cooke lives in Lexington, Massachusetts with his wife of 35 years and near their daughter, a practicing physician.