In his apology J.A. writes thus (quotation from English PDF version):
"For Jesus, spiritual relationships have priority over family relationships.
“And pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." (Matthew 12:49-50)
We can only share our lives with others who follow the same Lord. But an obligation to break off all family relationships, as has been imposed from time to time in the Catholic monastic orders, does not exist in the Church of God."
This is the most hurtful topic for parents, whose children joined community. When parents didn't wan't to 'follow the same Lord', then almost without exception it meant, that after several months they hadn't anymore much in common to speak about.
Community didn't oblige somebody to break off family relationships and members are allowed to answer to the phone calls from parents. But taking it by and large - when somebody joins community, then the breaking off family relationships just will happen. Of course, it was also a bit up to parents - the more hostile they were towards community, the less they had chance to see their children. Under-age children could remain in their parents' home, but in general the recruited adults moved to community's flat / house. We may take it as a logical and practical step of community to spare money in this way, and surely, they have more time and possibility to share their lives, too. It's true. But my message to everybody, who first time hears about this community - if you start to "follow the same Lord" with this community, then very likely you will have extemely rare contacts with your family/parents and very likely you will live with community in their flat. And based on the facts without exceptions - you will not marry there. Nobody has got married there in the community, since the beginning years, 1970's. This is just for information. These are just a simple facts. And it is just so because of their life-style and consequence of their understanding about holy life, where 'God's love' causes such results.
Community can only share their lives with others, who 'follow the same Lord', as J.A. expresses. I think, the word 'can' is here very significant. It implicitly means, that they would share their lives with others, but they think, that they can't, because they don't have the 'common ground' with each other.
Community want's to distance from them, who don't want to 'follow the same Lord'. And once the community's mindset (which differs much from 'worldly' or 'religious' way of life) is dominating in the brain of the recruited one (don't worry, community takes care of it), then soon it seems not anymore so awful for him to admit, that it would be the best for him to live together in community's flat and consecuently have less and less in common with his/her parents, family.
He will but have the 'spiritual family' instead of this, which understands him well. He acquires soon the distinct speech of the community, so that if he has been there for several months, one will discern this speech from the remote distance. The thoughts and arguments of them are not beaten into his head, but he just sees their arguments very logical, because he doesn't have much supply of thoughts from outside.
Might be, that soon he will not discern very well, which thoughts are originally his own and which are from community. At least it was in my case. But occasionaly I still recognized in my missionary work, that it was easier to use arguments, which I got from community, and my own mind was only the processor of community's thoughts. It is easier to use ready-made thoughts from community, about which you have got arguments, and also arguments to the further questions, that these arguments might cause. The more you are in the community, the more your brain recalls first the thoughts of community.
Again, it is logical consequence of community-life, where community's thoughts will be more and more your thoughts. I don't want to judge, whether it is a sign of God's love, which brings his followers into deep unity, or is it something else. But I think, it is also not right to be silent, not saying my opinion here, that it is rather 'something else', and has quite little to do with God's love. Why I think so?
The first reason is again the different understanding of love, which I have recognized from God by now. I would turn back to the J.A.'s sentence already quoted above:
"We can only share our lives with others who follow the same Lord."
We share our lives everywhere we are. When we are in the working place or at school, we share something of our lives with them, even we don't agree with their worldly life. Even our sharing of love with outsiders is not mutual, it does not mean, that we cannot share our lives with them. Jesus expressed very well in Mt 5:38-48, how we can share not only our lives, but also our love, and that even with our most hostile enemies. So, community can share their lives with outsiders, because we are living beings and don't live double life. It is also against community's teaching, to live double life: the life where we follow Jesus and the everyday-life without doing that. As I explained in chapter 3: Jesus didn't say, that we need 'a certain common ground' for showing warmth and friendliness.
The second reason for thinking, that community's type of love isn't from God, is, when we use our 'human' mind, that gives a warning signal. What kind of love is that, which makes us 'unable' to share it even with our parents? We liked to search from the Bible those passages, which supported our 'narrow path', that is not easy to go. We found also passages, where Jesus admits, that there are only few of them, who are ready to follow him. I think, our community is quite unhappy one right now. God's word caught them and has made them unable to love those, who don't accept our community's teaching. Therefore we liked also to comfort each other with the passage of Mark 10:28-30:
28 Peter said to him, "We have left everything to follow you!"
29 "I tell you the truth," Jesus replied, "no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel
30 will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields--and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life.
We had lost our parents and brothers-sisters of world, but gained really a hundred times as much of them in the 'spiritual family'. However, community is decreasing rapidly, and soon this passage will not have such an effect in encouraging each other as it had some years ago. Because the number of members is becoming already less than 100.
What kind of love is that of our community, which is less able to love than that of their parents? Wherever children are going, they always protect, always trust, always hope, always persevere. They are alway ready to go side by side, to help, even if the parents don't accept their children's decisions. Their love abandons every kind of proud, it is not pointing at faults of their children, They try to contact their children. IF ONLY their children would contact them... This is the love, that is very close to 1 Cor 13. Not by accident we can find the parable of father and his lost son (Luke 15:11-32), where the conditionless love is so superbly expressed. Nothing of this is love is extant in community's love. The love of parents is comparable to Jesus' love. Jesus' love makes us able to share our lives and love with everybody.
Brethren in the community - your parents don't know anything about your 'spiritual love' towards them. Let alone that they don't perceive your love, they don't know almost anything about you. You might think, that you love them, but they don't even know, whether their children are still in the community or excluded already. Because you neglected them, practising the God's commanment to love on somebody else and because you have seen them unworthy to share your lives with them. Many of you haven't contacted your parents months or even years long. But they try to contact you. I think here fits well the passage of Mk 7:10-13:
10For Moses said, 'Honor your father and your mother,' and, 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.'
11But you say that if a man says to his father or mother: 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is Corban' (that is, a gift devoted to God),
12then you no longer let him do anything for his father or mother.
13Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that."
Even if you think, that your 'love to truth' has the base in the Bible, and it makes you too special to practice your love towards your parents in any way, or that throwing your 'bitter pills of love' onto their feet is the only love-deed you could do, or that you try to throw these 'bitter love pills' to every person without favouritism, showing the ultimate love, or that through neglecting them you 'give them freedom' - then my healthy mind says, that it fits well with the 'assessing love' and with love through widely used exclusions, but it doesn't fit with Mt 5:38-48 and 1 Cor 13.
Of course, community's 'love to truth' is too bitter to their parents and there were surely weak moments, when parents were led to desperation. They might have done something, that community has regarded as a sign of enmity towards community. But nevertheless you can see the main difference between the love of parents and the love of community: first of them is conditionless (but imperfect) and the second is the 'perfect one', which has built a certain preconditioned 'common ground' for love.
And if you think, that among community members there is peace and harmony, then you err gravely. Of course, there is certain stability, which community guarantees for those, who are inside. e.g. if one loses job, then it is not tragedy, because community supports you. You are never let alone with your problems, community helps you. This is what those outside from community could learn from this community, This is the 'sugar', which helps one to swallow daily the 'bitter pills of truth'. But constantly in the background there is also certain tension because of teasing out daily each others' sins and consequently because of the rapid decrease of members (especially in recent years), which gives a hint, that you could be easily the next subject for the experimental shock therapy (i.e. loving excommunication).
Community might say, that these excommunications could be avoided, if one is 'obedient to God'. Whatever is meant under the 'obedience to God', the fact is, that very probably you'll find soon this community's type of 'perfect love' too exhaustive. The God's love, forgiveness and mercy, which you maybe expected in the beginning of joining this community, seems unreachable for reason of your sins, which they very skillfully winkle out from your life today and tomorrow.
By the way, I think that our exhibitions of sins were the most impressive ones. The collection of these sins was rather a common heritage, and not restrained to a certain closed group of 'accountability partners'. Those brothers, who lived in Vienna, could know well the sins of brother in Riga. Therefore it was not something strange, that in the decisions to exclude somebody from Riga there could take part also some brother from Vienna. The exception was concerning sexual sins: brothers confessed these sins only to brothers and sisters only to sisters. But in the similar way - sexual sins of a member was not limited only with certain brothers or certain sisters.
Coming back to the topic about love to parents - we may imagine the embarrassing situations, when also parents would have joined the community, together with their children (and there were such cases), and children could ask about their parents' sexual sins and maybe also take part in exclusions of their parents. I really hope, that these imaginations decribed here will never become true.