The Twelve Tribes, formerly known as the Vine Christian Community Church, the Northeast Kingdom Community Church, the Messianic Communities, and the Community Apostolic Order, is a cult and new religious movement. It was founded by Gene Spriggs and it sprang out of the Jesus movement in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 1972. The group calls itself an attempt to recreate the 1st-century church as it is described in the Book of Acts.
The group's origins in Chattanooga led to planted churches in surrounding areas. In the late seventies, the group established a community in Island Pond, Vermont. The group eventually left Tennessee and primarily moved to Vermont. The Twelve Tribes's beliefs resemble those of Christian fundamentalism, the Hebrew Roots movement, Messianic Judaism, and the Sacred Name Movement; however, the group refuses to align itself with any denomination or movement because it believes that all other denominations are fallen. Additionally, the group exclusively uses its own recreation of the original Hebrew name of Jesus, "Yahshua". Believing that the name "Yahshua" represents the nature of Jesus, the group gives each member a Hebrew name that is meant to reflect the personality of the individual.
The group has been criticized for its beliefs and practices, including its supremacist views towards Black and Jewish people. The group's teachings have been characterized as racist, misogynistic and homophobic, and ex-members accuse it of inflicting excessive corporal punishment, failing to stop child sexual abuse, and exploiting members for labor. Authorities removed forty children from the group in Germany after a journalist showed evidence of child abuse. The action was upheld by the European Court of Human Rights.
Common sources of funding that enable the group to interact with the public include restaurants like The Yellow Deli and community marketplaces.
History
Origins The origins of the Twelve Tribes can be traced back to the "Light Brigade for Jesus Christ," a 1972 teenagers' ministry. The ministry operated out of "The Lighthouse," a small coffee shop in the home of Gene Spriggs, also known as Yoneq, and his wife, Marsha. The Light Brigade began living communally and opened a restaurant, "The Yellow Deli", while its members were attending several churches, before they decided to join the First Presbyterian Church. Members of the Light Brigade, while affiliated with First Presbyterian, caused friction within its establishment by bringing in anyone who was willing to come with them, including members of different social classes and racial groups, a practice which was not engaged in at that time. On January 12, 1975, the group arrived at First Presbyterian only to find out that the service had been cancelled for the Super Bowl, leading the group to form The Vine Christian Community Church. During this time, the group "planted" churches, each with its own Yellow Deli, in Dalton and Trenton, Georgia; Mentone, Alabama; and Dayton, Tennessee.
Their withdrawal from the religious mainstream turned what had been a friction-filled relationship into an outcry against them. They began holding their own services, which they called "Critical Mass" in Warner Park in Chattanooga, Tennessee, appointing elders and baptizing people outside any denominational authority. The deteriorating relationship between the group and the religious and secular Chattanooga community attracted the attention of The Parents' Committee to Free Our Children from the Children of God and the Citizen's Freedom Foundation who characterized the group as a cult and described Spriggs as a cult leader. Starting the summer of 1976, anti-cultist Ted Patrick began a series of deprogrammings that sought to convince Twelve Tribes members to leave the Twelve Tribes community. The group nevertheless largely ignored the negative press and the wider world in general, and continued to operate its businesses opening the Areopagus café and a second local Yellow Deli in downtown Chattanooga. In 1978, Bryan College in Dayton, Tennessee, Tennessee Temple University in Chattanooga and Covenant College located in Georgia near Chattanooga, issued edicts banning students from patronizing the Yellow Deli.
In 1978, an invitation was received from a small church in Island Pond, Vermont, for Spriggs to minister there; the offer was declined but the group began moving in stages to the rural town, naming the church there The Northeast Kingdom Community Church. One of Patrick's last deprogramming cases in Chattanooga occurred in 1980; it involved a police detective who, according to Jean Swantko, had his 27-year-old daughter arrested on a falsified warrant to facilitate her deprogramming, with the support of local judges. The group continued moving, closing down all of its Yellow Delis and associated churches except for the one in Dalton. At one point, a leader conceded that the group was deeply in debt before closing the Dalton church down and moving the last members to Vermont.
Move to Vermont
The move to Vermont, combined with an initial period of economic hardship, caused some members to leave. The Citizen's Freedom Foundation conducted several meetings in Barton to draw attention to the group. The Citizen's Freedom Foundation had made allegations of mind control in Chattanooga, but now it made accusations of child abuse. In 1983, charges were brought against Charles "Eddie" Wiseman (an elder in the group) for misdemeanor simple assault; this, combined with multiple child custody cases, formed the basis for a search warrant. On June 22, 1984, Vermont State Police and Vermont Social Rehabilitation Services seized 112 children. Forty cases were dismissed as the parents refused to give the names of their children. Due to what the group perceived were a massive misunderstanding of the events and concerns leading up to and surrounding the raid, its members began formal relationships with their neighbors. Two months after the raid, the case against Wiseman fell apart after the main witness recanted, saying he was under duress from the anticult movement. The case was later dropped in 1985 after a judge ruled that Wiseman had been denied his right to a speedy trial. Eddie Wiseman's public defender, Jean Swantko, who had been present during the raid, later joined the Twelve Tribes and married Wiseman.
The group had become more isolationist after the group's departure from Chattanooga. Now realizing that this had caused outsiders to view the group with suspicion, the group changed tactics and became more open, establishing more cordial relationships with neighbors and authorities.
In about 1985, Gene Spriggs said he had received revelation about the Book of Daniel. Spriggs believed that his community would bring about the return of Jesus. The group started to believe that it was the spiritual Israel. About this time the community began referring to Jesus by his likely name in Hebrew, Yahshua, and members of the community started being given Hebrew names—Spriggs took the name "Yoneq". The group also started to incorporate Israeli dancing and folk music into their traditions. In the summer of 1987 the entire community in Island Pond was baptized in a ritual that, one scholar wrote, "[washed] themselves from the perceived flaws of contemporary Christianity."
During the 1980s, Twelve Tribes members followed Grateful Dead tours by bus, recruiting members from their concerts.
Expansion
By 1989, the church had become widely accepted in Island Pond and grew substantially during the 1980s and 1990s, opening branches in several different countries, including the Czech Republic, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Spain, Germany, Argentina, and the United Kingdom. During this expansion in the early 1990s, the group used the name Messianic Communities, until 1995 when the group became known as the Twelve Tribes.
Through the mid-2000s, the group remained controversial, with allegations of child labor, custodial interference, and illegal homeschooling. In 2006, the Tribes re-established a community in Chattanooga. This group also established its 12th and final tribe, Benjamin—named after the historical Tribe of Benjamin of Israel—centered around the American southeast. In 2006, the group held a reunion in Chattanooga commemorating the occasion. The Tribes opened a new Yellow Deli in Chattanooga in 2008, nearly 30 years after leaving Chattanooga.
Death of the group's founder The founder of the Tribes, Elbert Eugene Spriggs Jr. (May 18, 1937 – January 11, 2021), died in 2021 while visiting his Hiddenite, North Carolina, property. Within the Tribes, Spriggs was also known as "the anointed one" and by the Hebrew name "Yoneq".
Marshall Fire
In December 2021, a fire broke out in Boulder County, Colorado. In June 2023, the Boulder County Sheriff's Office issued its investigative summary of the fire in which it concluded that the Marshall Fire originated from two sources, one of them being a slash burn intentionally started on the Twelve Tribes residential property six days prior on December 24, 2021, the second later fire being ignited by sparking power lines operated by Xcel Energy. The slash burn was visited by local firefighters after a community member noted the size of the fire. However, the responders were reportedly unconcerned with the fire. A resident at the property told detectives that he allowed the fire to burn to coals at which point he covered the fire with dirt, but did not extinguish the coals with water. Criminal charges were not brought against those at the property as slash burning was not illegal in Boulder County. In September 2025, Xcel agreed to pay $640 million to plaintiffs in a civil lawsuit. The Twelve Tribes was not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
Beliefs and practices
Scholars have described the Twelve Tribes as a communal new religious movement, a Christian-based nontraditional movement, and a cult. The Twelve Tribes' beliefs resemble those of Christian fundamentalism, the Hebrew Roots movement, Messianic Judaism and the Sacred Name Movement; however, the group believes that all other Christian denominations are "fallen" and it refuses to align itself with any denomination or movement. The cult's practices include child labor, which has resulted in legal action against it. It believes that for the messiah to return, the Church needs to be restored to its original form as described in Acts 2:38–42 and Acts 4:32–37. This restoration is not merely the restoration of the 1st-century Church, but the creation of a new Israel consisting of Twelve Tribes, which would be located in twelve geographic regions. Part of this process of restoration is the return to observing the sabbath, maintaining some of the Mosaic law, including dietary laws and the Jewish holidays. Its interpretation of the restoration of Israel has led the group to believe that the end times have arrived. On April 22, 2022 (Passover), the Tribes began a 49-year "race". The Tribes expects Yahshua to return in the 50th year, which will be a year of Jubilee. The Tribes attaches significance to this as the year 2070 is about 100 years since the founding of the Light Brigade.
One noted aspect of the group is its insistence on using the name "Yahshua" for Jesus. Believing that the name "Yahshua" represents the nature of Jesus, the group bestows upon each member a Hebrew name that is meant to reflect the personality of the individual.