This man's father founded the Children of God. His sister claims years of

HIS father, self-styled successor to an Old Testament king, is said to be hiding out in Japan from the world's press. His sister maintains she was sexually abused as a child for years.

One of his two ''wives'' admits to sleeping around ''for Jesus'' - known as ''flirty fishing'' in the parlance.

But Jonathan Berg, one-time member of the notorious Children of God, son of its founder and now ''shepherd'' to a sect known as ''The Family'', shrugs off allegations of mixing child sex and religion, claiming it is just persecution.

And, ironically, he points to his own children as proof. ''I know I've done something right because of the way my kids have turned out,'' he said. ''They are all good people who don't smoke or take drugs and are spreading the word all over the world.'' The 43-year-old American's sect, repeatedly renamed since the Children of God was officially disbanded in 1978, is based around a rambling 100-year-old, ivy-covered, 15-room Chinese cottage in Hac Sa, a village tucked away on the island of Coloane.

Hac Sa is an unlikely setting for a small community whose very name is enough to strike fear into so many people. Worldwide, the 15,000-strong Children of God is associated with sexual assaults on young children, incest and mass brain-washing; it has been expelled from China, harassed in Hong Kong and physically assaulted in the United States.

At the zenith of the local movement a few years ago, the sleepy Macau village played host to 70 members of The Family, once called the Family of Love.

It was to Berg that recruits from around the world gravitated for a grounding in the ways and writings of his father - self-styled Father David Moses, the founder of the Children of God - before moving on to begin their own Families in places as far flungas Russia, South America and Europe.