{"id":6218,"date":"2019-05-13T07:44:41","date_gmt":"2019-05-13T12:44:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/?p=6218"},"modified":"2019-05-13T07:44:41","modified_gmt":"2019-05-13T12:44:41","slug":"what-makes-a-religious-group-a-cult-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rogereolson\/2019\/05\/what-makes-a-religious-group-a-cult-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"What Makes a Religious Group a “Cult?” Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

What Makes a Religious Group a \u201cCult?\u201d Part 1<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One of the questions I am asked most often is whether a specific religious church is a cult. Most often the questioner is not satisfied with my answer. That\u2019s because they want a simple \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno\u201d and, is so often the case in matters religious (and other matters), there is usually no such simple answer. And a big part of that is the change in the meaning of the word \u201ccult\u201d in the past forty years\u2014beginning especially with \u201cJonestown\u201d in 1978.<\/p>\n

I became obsessed with \u201ccults\u201d when I was in high school. I had heard about \u201ccults\u201d in church many times. Our church library, which I perused and borrowed from often, contained several books about cults. Back then, 1960s, for the most part, a cult was an extremely unorthodox form of Christianity. That is, a group that called itself Christian but was not really Christian\u2014from the point of view of most traditional Christians.<\/p>\n

One day, while perusing a used bookstore in town, especially its \u201cReligion\u201d section, I discovered a book about Christian Truth and Religious Delusions<\/em>. In effect, the Lutheran author labeled my church, the whole Christian movement of which it was a part (viz., \u201cFull Gospel\u201d) a cult. I gradually became aware that many people in our small Midwestern city considered my church a cult\u2014probably without being able to express exactly why. (It was Pentecostal-turned-charismatic-turned Jesus People church.) Most of the church-going people in our city were either Lutheran or Catholic. To them, I discovered, we were a \u201ccult.\u201d<\/p>\n

The books in our church library, mostly standard books about \u201csects and cults,\u201d tended to restrict that category (or those categories) to Jehovah\u2019s Witnesses, Mormons<\/a>, Christian Scientists and Seventy Day Adventists. One book that I read in high school was The Kingdom of the Cults<\/em> by Walter Martin. Of course, that book included more than \u201cthe four major sects\u201d mentioned above. I became intrigued by the subject of \u201ccults\u201d and made a major presentation in a high school class about the subject. (The class was about sociology and had a mini-course within it about religion.)<\/p>\n

Then I came across another book in a Christian bookstore and heard the author speak. The book, which I bought and devoured, was The Marks of a Cult<\/em>. I really wanted to know whether \u201cmy church\u201d<\/p>\n

*Sidebar: The opinions expressed here are my own (or those of the guest writer); I do not speak for any other person, group or organization; nor do I imply that the opinions expressed here reflect those of any other person, group or organization unless I say so specifically. Before commenting read the entire post and the \u201cNote to commenters\u201d at its end.*<\/em><\/p>\n

Now, bear with me as I step back and add a few factoids about my obsession with \u201ccults.\u201d I remember even as a kid in elementary school, fourth and fifth grade, being fascinated by a particular author and his books. Some of them were in our church library or in the pastor\u2019s library (to which I had access as he was my father). The author in question was Marcus Bach\u2014a professor of religion at The University of Iowa\u2019s School of Religion. I discovered in him a kindred spirit in that both he and I were obsessed with little known religious groups (in America) like ours<\/em>. The closest he came to writing out ours<\/em> was a chapter in one book about Aimee Semple MacPherson and The International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. Our denomination was an offshoot of that and so I grew up hearing stories\u2014both flattering and not very flattering\u2014about \u201cSister Aimee.\u201d<\/p>\n

Again, even in fifth grade, I was devouring every book by Marcus Bach I could get my hands on. (Later, when I was in college, he came and spoke at a Unity church near the college and I attended and met him and we had a brief but fascinating conversation. I found him to be a very gentle and gracious man who was actually more interested in me and my denomination than in himself and his work. He was retired at that time.) Bach did not call any of the unusual sects he wrote about \u201ccults.\u201d He strictly avoided that word (so far as I can remember) which piqued my curiosity. So many others who wrote about the same kinds<\/em> of churches and religious groups had no hesitation calling them \u201ccults.\u201d<\/p>\n

One other thing I must mention here that helps explain my fascination, even obsession, with cults and unusual religious groups is this: As I was growing up I had an uncle who belonged to what my father and others called a cult. His two boys were near my age and I played with them at family reunions. I noticed one time that when the family prayed over a meal that uncle got up from the table and walked away. He came back when the prayer was ended. I asked my father about that and he explained that his brother belonged to a religious group that did not believing in praying with unbelievers\u2014people who didn\u2019t belong to their sect of Christianity. Then, at some point, my father labeled his brother\u2019s group a cult. I once tried to ask my uncle about his religious faith and church (which met in his home) and he declined to discuss it with me. My father explained that this particular heterodox Christian group did not talk about their religious beliefs or practices with outsiders who were asking out of curiosity.<\/p>\n

So my obsession with \u201ccults\u201d began very early\u2014sparked by a book that more or less labeled the church I grew up in a cult (by implication if not using that exact label), given impetus by my uncle and cousins, set on fire (so to speak) by Walter Martin\u2019s The Kingdom of the Cults<\/em>, informed somewhat by the book The Marks of a Cult<\/em>, and then\u2026really deepened into my bones by encounters with \u201cnew religious movements\u201d (the later proper term for cults used by scholars) that flooded the American scene in the 1970s.<\/p>\n

During that decade, my eyes opened to the phenomenon of so-called \u201ccults\u201d and still extremely curious about the subject, I came into direct contact with several groups that I suspected were cults (by the definitions given by Martin and Breese and implied by Bach) that other people, Christians, seemed not to notice (at first)\u2014except perhaps with some curiosity. Among them were emissaries from Korea selling flowers door-to-door and on street corners and talking about a Korean prophet who they considered the \u201cLord of the Second Advent.\u201d Among them were young men wearing clerical garb (but too young to be priests) wandering the streets of downtown inviting mostly young people to come to their \u201chouse\u201d to learn about the religious teachings of a San Francisco based prophet of the New Age. Among them were strange looking and acting young men and women wearing saffron colored robes dancing and chanting and handing out literature about a Hindu guru who they believed was in touch with the god Krishna. Among them were followers of an American Bible teacher who denied the deity of Christ and seemed to condone free sex among his followers. Among them were the devoted followers of a man who organized numerous converted \u201chippies\u201d into communes and claimed to be a special prophet or apostle of Jesus Christ. He also seemed to condone if not encourage sex outside of marriage.<\/p>\n

These and other groups \u201clike them\u201d were obviously, to me, the new crop of \u201ccults\u201d and I felt it my calling to study them and teach Christians to avoid them or at least be knowledgeable about them. One thing that sparked that \u201ccalling\u201d in me was that I discovered many of this new \u201ccrop of cults\u201d hid things about their religious beliefs and practices from outsiders and sometimes even from insiders! Some of them pretended to be orthodox (or at least \u201cbiblical\u201d) Christians but held and taught beliefs that were anything but orthodox. And word began to leak out that some ex-members of some of these groups were claiming they had been \u201cbrainwashed\u201d with tactics like \u201clove bombing\u201d and then abused by leaders or members of the group. Some of them talked about \u201cescaping\u201d the group and one man even offered his services to kidnap and \u201cdeprogram\u201d young people who joined a \u201ccult.\u201d<\/p>\n

There was no internet or world wide web at that time, so discovering dependable information about many of these \u201cnew cults\u201d (or \u201cnew religious movements\u201d as scholars preferred to call them) was not easy. Somehow, I don\u2019t remember exactly how, I stumbled across the name of a man in the Chicago area who was known as an \u201cexpert\u201d and even a \u201cscholar\u201d in this area. I quickly made contact with him and asked about the church of my uncle. He provided me with the first printed information about it and he and I kept up a correspondence about \u201ccults and new religions\u201d for several years. He was (and still is) a walking (and writing and speaking) encyclopedia of information about non-mainstream American religious groups and movements.<\/p>\n

In 1978 I graduated from seminary\u2014after trying my best to inform the ministers of the city about that new religious group whose local leaders wore clerical garb and believed in reincarnation but claimed to be orthodox Christians\u2014and moved to one of America\u2019s largest cities to pursue doctoral work in religious studies at a nationally recognized research university.<\/p>\n

Around that time I began to worry that I might have grown up in a cult. Well, it was perfectly orthodox in doctrines, but in practice \u201cloyalty\u201d\u2014to the group\u2014was strongly expected of members and any questioning of leaders was quickly labeled \u201cdisloyalty\u201d or \u201cbeing negative\u201d which meant exclusion from the group (or at least marginalizing that I call \u201cinside shunning\u201d). I found that during my college career I had asked too many and the wrong questions and was labeled \u201cdisloyal\u201d and virtually excluded from any chance of ever pastoring a church within the denomination. The board of the college even considered refusing to grant me my earned degree because of my \u201charassment\u201d of teachers and administrators with questions. (As it turned out, some of the teachers and administrators were of extremely dubious character or extremely unqualified to teach!) I think the board could not decline to grant me my earned degree because my uncle was president of the denomination.<\/p>\n

I cannot say that the denomination or churches I grew up in were\/are cults, but I do believe the college I attended had several marks of cults\u2014the main one being arbitrary and authoritarian religious leadership and practice of spiritual abuse toward students who dared to ask unwelcome questions.<\/p>\n

When I found myself firmly settled into my new place\u2014away from the denomination of my birth and childhood and youth\u2014I began seriously to consider the possibility that, in some ways, I had been brainwashed. Not by \u201clove bombing\u201d or sleep deprivation or any of the tactics so many anti-cult experts talk about but by spiritual abuse that shut down any questioning. I was always an \u201cinquiring mind\u201d and could not help asking questions when I saw or heard things that didn\u2019t seem right. The common response was shaming and marginalizing. I tried conforming but was simply unable to accomplish it. I saw and heard and knew things that were wrong and couldn\u2019t help pointing them out.<\/p>\n

One of my first assignments as a first year doctoral student in religious studies at a major secular research university was to teach an undergraduate course called \u201cDeity, Mysticism, and the Occult.\u201d I jumped at the chance and dived eagerly into it. That was just the opportunity I had been looking for.<\/p>\n

Next up\u2014my experiences of \u201ccults and new religions\u201d during the late 1970s and early 1980s and how I became an \u201cexpert\u201d on cults and new religions, at least locally, throughout the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s.<\/p>\n

*Note to commenters:<\/em> This blog is not a discussion board; please respond with a question or comment only to me. If you do not share my evangelical Christian perspective (very broadly defined), feel free to ask a question for clarification, but know that this is not a space for debating incommensurate perspectives\/worldviews. In any case, know that there is no guarantee that your question or comment will be posted by the moderator or answered by the writer. If you hope for your question or comment to appear here and be answered or responded to, make sure it is civil, respectful, and \u201con topic.\u201d Do not comment if you have not read the entire post and do not misrepresent what it says. Keep any comment (including questions) to minimal length; do not post essays, sermons or testimonies here. Do not post links to internet sites here. This is a space for expressions of the blogger\u2019s (or guest writers\u2019) opinions and constructive dialogue among evangelical Christians (very broadly defined).<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What Makes a Religious Group a \u201cCult?\u201d Part 1 One of the questions I am asked most often is whether a specific religious church is a cult. Most often the questioner is not satisfied with my answer. That\u2019s because they want a simple \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno\u201d and, is so often the case in matters religious […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6218","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat Makes a Religious Group a "Cult?" Part 1<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What Makes a Religious Group a \u201cCult?\u201d Part 1 One of the questions I am asked most often is whether a specific religious church is a cult. 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