No Sects, No Cults

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"In his Varieties of Religious Experience, William James noted that in order to understand phenomena we must catalogue and label and categorize, but must also know that we miss something. Thus, if you could interview a crab, he said, the creature would protest being categorized as a crustacean: "I am not a crustacean. I'm a crab. I'm not even only a crab; I want to be taken for MYSELF, MYSELF." Give his or her SELF a chance to define herself, is the best advice."

That's good advice. However try and telling it to some of the editors of Wikipedia. It seems that despite significant evidence to the contrary many editors still try to deny the existence of religions that they don't particularly care for. Matrixism and the Jedi Knight religion are two cases in point.

TO ANONYMOUS: I guess what you wrote is what Bertrand Russell thought, are your thoughts identical or do you have some of your own? It is very easy to make something or someone a scapegoat if you only look at the warts so to speak, but if you actually look at the world, doesn't it seem that there seems to be something to the fact that evil exists and no matter how convenient, you really can't blame it all on religion, it does seem that people do things that aren't very nice and I would say that includes all of us. Of course, it does seem to be human nature to say, well at least I didn't do as bad as that other person. People seem to get off on moral superiority by looking down at others, doesn't that seem to be the case at times? I either heard or read once where Mohatma Gandi, who thought very highly of Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, would not become a christian at least partly because of people that called themselves christians. I ask does that reflect on Jesus and what He did and taught or on people who claim to be christian? By the way, whether you or anybody else believes in God, He is real and so is satan. Take Care. Sincerely, Thomas Paul Moses Baum.

Bertrand Russell

Fear,the Foundation of Religion

Religion is based,I think,primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes.
Fear is the basis of the whole thing-fear of the mysterious,fear of defeat,fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty,
and therefore it is no wonder if religion and cruelty have gone hand in hand.It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things,and a little to master them by help of science,
which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion,against the churches,and against the opposition of all the old precepts. Science can help us to get over this craven fear in which mankind has lived for so many generations. Science can teach us,and I think our own hearts can teach us,no longer to look around for imaginary supports,no longer to invent allies in the sky,but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in,instead of the sort of place that the churches in all these centuries have made it.

Why I Am Not A Christian. page 22

Sorry about the duplicate posts. I tried to stop the first one when I realized that meant to say "denotative" not "connotative." I refreshed the page several times and didn't see the original post, so I figured I had successfully stopped it, then when I posted the second one, they both showed up. Grf.

TIM:
**So Aum Shinri Kyo, Jonestown and Heaven's Gate are just like other religions? You can't call them cults?**

ALL religions are cults if you use the strictly denotative meaning of the words.

The ones you mentioned are simply religions led by psychopaths. Acts of violence/coercion are not protected as religious liberty, even if performed in the name of a deity.
The First Amendment protects the right of any adherent of any religion to BELIEVE that non-adherents should die, but it does not give them to carry out that sentence.

TIM:
**So Aum Shinri Kyo, Jonestown and Heaven's Gate are just like other religions? You can't call them cults?**

All religions are cults based on the connotative meaning of the word.
The ones you mentioned happen to be cults (or simply religions) led by psychopaths. The religion itself is constitutioanlly protected, but acts of violence and/or coercion are not considered an aspect of religious liberty. So while an adherent of Faith A is free to BELIEVE that all non-adherents should be killed, he is NOT free to kill them, or to encourage others to kill them, or to encourage them to kill themselves.

Steve Ferry:

"Regardless of whether an organisation is called a sect, a cult or a religion the bottom line is money."

Had you said power, of which money is a means, you'd be closer to the mark. Still a jaded view, you're right that those with power have an interest in holding it. Power over others' behavior has a special lustre to it, and the fundamentally unverifiable nature of religion provides easy means of tweaking moral norms. This can be said of any system not primarily governed by rationality, consensus, and historical consciousness.

Thus Prof. Marty offers something radical. A member of and influential thinker within a large mainline American denomination, he argues for a shift in power. The terms "cult" and "sect," which he notes in recent history aim to marginalize, are inappropriate to our times and thinking. As Midorihafu notes above, all religious groups begin as "cults." While not per se legitimizing NRMs, he suggests granting them space to exist in the world and in our thinking.

In short, change our language and love our neighbors. There's no money in that and that's fine.

RELIGION POISONS EVERYTHING!!

"The near-total silence by U.S. Catholic clergy about the ruinous, immoral, illegal, illegitimate, disastrous occupation of Iraq the "godly" Bush now has us embroiled in speaks volumes about their lack of authentic spiritual compass and the great void that separates the apparatus of a full-blown "religion" from the religious experience William James wrote about."

The Catholic pope openly condemed Operation Iraqi Freedom as soon as it started, nevermind the occupation.

Not that this has anything to do wiith the topic at hand.

Now, on the actual topic... I think the word cult should be used much more sparelingly than it is today.

Sincerely,
-Fipher
fipher.blogspot.com

So Aum Shinri Kyo, Jonestown and Heaven's Gate are just like other religions? You can't call them cults?

i firmly believe that religion is nothing more than a time honored and life long good luck charm. what better thing to believe in as such, than religion. there are many stories and myths that if followed, can lead you thru a good and decent life. while i am not an "at heart" religious follower, i am more of a philosopher, so i tend to look at thinge a bit more as a realist. cults, in my opinion, are a form of religion like christianity, budhist, muslim, etc. it is something to not be compared side by side with the term religion, but rather the branches of religion. forms of religions or "cults" are only veried by the individual decipherings of religious lessons taught. like religion, news broadcasts, and media text, we may all take something different in meaning from what we see, hear, and experience. some poeple try to read too far into it all, but just keep in mind, the bottom line is simple, "it is what it is".

If you take away all the negative emotion associated with the term cult, it is simply a small religion. All religions started out small and were therefore cults. The age of the group also enters into the definition of cult. Even though some native American Tribes are small, they would not be considered cults because their origin is precolonial. New and small definitely equals bad in the minds of more orthodox religious people. Some conservatives like the word cult because it has just the right connotation to make groups into alien outsiders who are suspicious and should be feared. In a Manichean world, it is all important to separate the good groups from the evil ones (the cults).

"To me a "cult" or "sect" was defined as a group that had secrets.
If you weren't a member you generally were not invited to various religious ceremomnies. For example people who are not members of the morman church are not allowed inside a temple (after it had been closed to the public) even if it was your daughter being married.
The only non members to get inside are firemen when there is a fire inside the temple."

This comment doesn't make sense. So, by that same standard Judaism is a cult since only certain people in ancient times were allowed to enter the holy of holies.

A few years ago, some colleagues & I tried to provide guidance on the issue to law enforcement. I'm not sure if we hit the mark, but you can see our thoughts at (pp. 16-24):

http://www.fbi.gov/publications/leb/2000/sep00leb.pdf

A few years ago, some colleagues & I tried to provide guidance on the issue to law enforcement. I'm not sure if we hit the mark, but you can see our thoughts at (pp. 16-24):

http://www.fbi.gov/publications/leb/2000/sep00leb.pdf

I'd like to throw my hat in with those who define a cult as a religious group that has secret practices or ceremonies that are open only to "in-group" members, and is coercive or deceptive in recruiting or maintaining adherants.

I don't feel it's appropriate or helpful to throw the baby of the cult out with the bathwater of intolerance.

I Can't Hear God Anymore: Life in a Dallas Cult is the true story of the author's experience in a Bible-based cult in Dallas, Texas.

The cultic group, the Trinity Foundation, portrays itself as the watchdog of the televangelists and investigator of ministry fraud. Trinity Foundation and its charismatic leader, Ole Anthony, rose to fame in the early 1990's when it assisted Dianne Sawyer’s PrimeTime Live program in exposing Robert Tilton and two other Dallas televangelists as religious charlatans. Ole Anthony has been involved in investigations of numerous religious figures, working with programs such as NBC Dateline and 60 Minutes. Anthony’s group has been lauded in US News & World Report, The LA Times Magazine, and The New Yorker. He has been a near-ubiquitous commentator on all things religious for both local and national media outlets, but little has known about the inside workings of his own group.

There's money to be made on both sides of the debate, is there is or is there ain't a God. Looks like a case of the pot calling the kettle black to me. Maybe the debate should be about something besides God. The Bible maybe?

Is the Bible God's word? The Bible is a proved hoax so anything associated with Bible based religion is a fraud. Cults are most often the product of some kind of criminal activity aren't they? Someone raking in the bucks from the ignorant, naive, people of great faith? Thank God that Christian sects aren't cults otherwise we'd must to notice their criminal side.

Mr Marty's desire that we "Lose" the terms sect, and cult, especially in their truly pejorative uses, is exactly what religious leaders should not do. When some movement within a defined religion begins to drift outside the established (for Jews, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians) or agreed upon tenets of that religion, the main body of that religion needs to be told. When such a movement gets to the point where it meets the Sociological definition of a cult, its parent religion needs to openly identify it as a cult. The Seventh Day Adventists should have early on declared David Koresh and his Branch Davidians as a cult. That might have protected a few of the Adventists who drifted to Koresh through Adventist channels from being absorbed.

The problem that confronts all those who don't want cult, especially, or sect to be used is that, should they drift off in their own interpretation of their particular belief system, they don't want the Parent body to so classify them. When Martin Luther denied the Pope his authority, he denied every other preacher on earth HIS authority as well. Now outside the Catholic Church if you seek a church whose teachings you can rely on, you are on your own, because any Preacher can drift to his own level of understanding, and his original religion (provided he isn't making it up on his own) will be loath to label him an outsider, lest in so doing they lose the outsider and his followers. Every time some greater organization of supposedly like minded co religionists declares some of its members heretic, or some other equivalent label, it only succeeds in reducing the numbers of church members the organization can report.

Religious organizations need to define openly what they teach, and openly disassociated themselves from members who choose to deny some subset of those teachings. If that makes every denomination its own little Roman Church, so be it.

Mr Marty's desire that we "Lose" the terms sect, and cult, especially in their truly pejorative uses, is exactly what religious leaders should not do. When some movement within a defined religion begins to drift outside the established (for Jews, Catholics, and Orthodox Christians) or agreed upon tenets of that religion, the main body of that religion needs to be told. When such a movement gets to the point where it meets the Sociological definition of a cult, its parent religion needs to openly identify it as a cult. The Seventh Day Adventists should have early on declared David Koresh and his Branch Davidians as a cult. That might have protected a few of the Adventists who drifted to Koresh through Adventist channels from being absorbed.

The problem that confronts all those who don't want cult, especially, or sect to be used is that, should they drift off in their own interpretation of their particular belief system, they don't want the Parent body to so classify them. When Martin Luther denied the Pope his authority, he denied every other preacher on earth HIS authority as well. Now outside the Catholic Church if you seek a church whose teachings you can rely on, you are on your own, because any Preacher can drift to his own level of understanding, and his original religion (provided he isn't making it up on his own) will be loath to label him an outsider, lest in so doing they lose the outsider and his followers. Every time some greater organization of supposedly like minded co religionists declares some of its members heretic, or some other equivalent label, it only succeeds in reducing the numbers of church members the organization can report.

Religious organizations need to define openly what they teach, and openly disassociated themselves from members who choose to deny some subset of those teachings. If that makes every denomination its own little Roman Church, so be it.

Regardless of whether an organisation is called a sect, a cult or a religion the bottom line is money. There are only so many people who are willing to pay for their salvation and a lot of priests, rabbis, mullahs and fakirs who want to sell it. Monotheistic religions would traditionally drive out other religions where they got established. Charlemagne slaughtering a few hundred thousand Saxons or the Israelites ethnic cleansing the holy land etc. Now the world is so open that they can't easily do this there is huge competition for the holy dollar. If a group is labelled a 'cult' by a more established group it can reduce their money making ability.

So anyway where previously fire and sword would be used to clear out the competition now religions are reduced to slandering each other. If you feel you have to believe in God then you don't need to pay some charlatan in a frock to do it, just believe in him or her or them or it.

Professor Martin’s remarks are disturbing. I understand there are nuances to any concept, but a spade is a spade. When we try to be too politically correct, we end up being less than accurate and less than authentic. Before I joined a Bible-based cult in Dallas, Texas, I called several cult awareness groups and asked about this group. The response from all of the calls was that the group was eccentric, but not considered a cult.

Well, after spending seven years there and doing considerable research into the cult phenomenon, I can tell you I was definitely in a cult. Maybe if those “cult awareness” groups had had an ounce of the courage or had not been so concerned about liability issues, I might have been saved from almost losing my relationship with God.

I was a seminary graduate from a conservative theological seminary, a licensed social worker, and had many years of experience in the mental health field. I should have been the last person to join a cult! But, I did. Now, my mission is to educate others on the reality and danger of cults.

Peace.
Wendy J. Duncan
Author: I Can’t Hear God Anymore: Life in a Dallas Cult
http://www.dallascult.com

Professor Martin’s remarks are disturbing. I understand there are nuances to any concept, but a spade is a spade. When we try to be too politically correct, we end up being less than accurate and less than authentic. Before I joined a Bible-based cult in Dallas, Texas, I called several cult awareness groups and asked about this group. The response from all of the calls was that the group was eccentric, but not considered a cult.

Well, after spending seven years there and doing considerable research into the cult phenomenon, I can tell you I was definitely in a cult. Maybe if those “cult awareness” groups had had an ounce of the courage or had not been so concerned about liability issues, I might have been saved from almost losing my relationship with God.

I was a seminary graduate from a conservative theological seminary, a licensed social worker, and had many years of experience in the mental health field. I should have been the last person to join a cult! But, I did. Now, my mission is to educate others on the reality and danger of cults.

Peace.
Wendy J. Duncan
Author: I Can’t Hear God Anymore: Life in a Dallas Cult
http://www.dallascult.com

The followers of Jesus were a Jewish cult or sect when founded and were closer to authentic spiritual insight than the elaborately ritualistic, hidebound, dogma-encrusted "religion" that Catholicism eventually became. The near-total silence by U.S. Catholic clergy about the ruinous, immoral, illegal, illegitimate, disastrous occupation of Iraq the "godly" Bush now has us embroiled in speaks volumes about their lack of authentic spiritual compass and the great void that separates the apparatus of a full-blown "religion" from the religious experience William James wrote about. Whited sepulchers, all.

To me a "cult" or "sect" was defined as a group that had secrets.
If you weren't a member you generally were not invited to various religious ceremomnies. For example people who are not members of the morman church are not allowed inside a temple (after it had been closed to the public) even if it was your daughter being married.
The only non members to get inside are firemen when there is a fire inside the temple.
Scientology is another example of a sect.

Charlie:

I believe what we are all searching for is a way to have safe sects.

Yeah and we're also searching for divine religious sex because we have faith in the supernatural - don't want to be shut out of heaven.

Safe sects?

Thanks, Charlie. That was way funny! :)

in addition to being the most correct response.

This column betrays a lack of knowledge regarding the proper use of the terms 'cult' and 'sect.' Both terms are legitimate sociological and theological labels. Their usage is confusing to many precisely because cults and sects can be defined theologically and/or sociologically. Additional confusion stems from the fact that both terms are often wrongly used interchangeable. Furthermore, in many countries the term 'sect' is used instead of 'cult.'

Theologically, 'sect' is used of a movement that has broken away from a mainstream religion over one or more important issues -- while said movement is still considered to be within the boundaries of the belief system it indentifies with.

Theologically, 'cult'is used of a movement whose teachings and practices deny or contradict one or more of the essential, key doctrines of the belief system it claims to represent.

Sociologically, the term 'cult' refers to various high-control groups -- often those that engage in deceptive recruiting and/or make it very difficult to leave once joined.

The number of religion professionals who have abandoned these terms is actually small. They have been influenced by religion scholars such as J. Gordon Melton, who due to his work on behalf of many destructive cult groups has earned him the moniker of 'cult apologist.'

Indepth information about the terms 'cult' and 'sect' can be found at cultFAQ.org

Prof. Marty is correct that the word "cult" as used in modern discourse has little purpose other than to marginalize. I constantly fight against that trend in my own classes where I use the word in what I believe to be its original, non-derogatory sense, for example to talk about the "Marian cult" or the more general "cult of the saints" in the Roman Catholic Church, or the cults to various bodhisattvas in Mahayana Buddhism, such as the "Kannon cult" (Jp. Kannon shinkō 観音信仰). These refer to currents of devotion to specific individual figures (whether human or divine) usually within a greater religious tradition, without any sense of discrimination or censure. In that sense, Christianity was originally a "Jesus cult" within the larger tradition of Judaism, just as Buddhism can be seen starting as a cult of practice (and devotion to Gautama) within Hinduism. In a developmental sense, a so-called "cult"--whether of ancient or modern times--is little more than the incipient stage of what may or may not later turn in to a full-blown religious tradition of its own. To use it to refer only to those groups one considers "heretical" or illegitate is a misuse of the term.

I think part of the problem with this question of popular connotation/accusation vs new and old definitions of the word 'Cult' is that people, when evaluating 'cults' are rather trained to focus on beliefs they may find odd... ...'cult' has in fact, to many, become synonymous with 'small, odd religions,' ...even if, in fact, most 'cults' are actually hardline Christians with a different authority structure, ...whose beliefs are certainly no more extreme than those of 'Left Behind' fans...

It's not really so unreasonable to liken some major authoritarian religions to cults, ...just bigger ones, but to confuse 'cults' with 'new Religious Movements' in the first place is to embrace certain negative and inaccurate characterizations in the first place.

When it comes down to it, the modern sense of the term 'cult' refers to an organizational structure, in, really, a content-neutral way.

A lot of things may be called 'New Religious Movements' while lacking any of the structures of a 'cult,' whereas true cults in the worst sense of the term may be in full theological agreement with 'mainstream' religious ideas and nonetheless represent controlling cults.

If you're going to accept that the word's gotten a little out of control, you can't really go back to ancient etymylogical sources to prove anything about what it means now... Only tell the story of where it came from.

I believe what we are all searching for is a way to have safe sects.

spninja:

The content of a belief structure is protected by the first amendment; a person is free to believe whatever they want. A person or group is NOT, however, free to act however they want.

You hit at the core of the situation. There's no such thing as controlling belief. Only actions may be controlled and even there only public actions may be controlled. In China it's unlawful to preach the Gospels in public. It's not unlawful to believe what the Gospels say and no government may stop people from reading, to each other in private.

Cults do what they accuse governments of doing, control beliefs. China does not control religious faith but does control cult formations and propagation. I can only guess why but it's an educated one. Cults influence politics, tend to take over governments. We are experiencing just that at the present time in "free election" USA where a trillion dollars is enough to get Lassi elected president.

F Marty is in denial. He doesn't think the RC Church is a cult. Wants to cancel the word. A rose by any other name...

Fr M wants to say goodbye to the word cult so I'll take my case to a higher court, The Center For Bhakti Studies.

At their web site this statement, "The general principles of the soul, the creation, God, and His manifestations are surprisingly similar in all spiritual traditions" struck a nerve so to speak.

Those things, souls, creation stories, God and His manifestations have a common tap root. Unfortunately it involves a word F Marty wants to speak adios to, cult.

The oldest references to the above list as a common one including all items is a sun-god cult. I know the Bible goes back to before there was anything but God, however. Witnesses are hard to find for God saying, "let there be light." There is witness, in writing for soul, creation, God and His manifestations. It's a little tattered and torn but there none the less.

The place, the historical tap root of faith is called El Amarna today. It was originally called Akhetaten and appears in the Bible as many places, Garden of Eden, Tower of Babel, Nod to where Cain was banished by God, Jericho, Jerusalem and others I can't recall at the moment. The full list can be extracted from http://www.hoax-buster.org by the patient.

"The Center For Bhakti Studies" sounds like an international corporation of some kind. I wonder what products and/or services, (things people need) they sell. Could it be one like the mafia, no product, no service, just money? That's what the "tap root" of faith was all about and little or nothing more, money and the power it can buy.

I think hell is the most significant aspect of cults. F Marty had the gun of hell held to his head while he was still just a sprout and it became a permanent fixture. Of course that wasn't done by a cult.

"It is not the substance of any belief system that is at issue but how it is achieved... a group's behavior has no special protection."

Indeed. While I agree that the term 'cult' gets thrown around very often and is used pejoratively, I agree with Margaret Singer's analysis with the term, that is not MEANT to be used pejoratively, but rather to describe the actions, behavior, and organization of a group. A group that can be described as a cult, or as cult-like, need not be religious in nature. Groups like est and Landmark Education certainly fit the bill, and neither is religious in nature. The content of a belief structure is protected by the first amendment; a person is free to believe whatever they want. A person or group is NOT, however, free to act however they want.

The Center For Bhakti Studies

Hi,

About 6 months ago the Chief Rabbi of Israel and 60 Hindu groups signed a declaration of respect and acceptance that both were worshiping the "One Supreme God" etc.

We have been researching ancient Jewish and Hebrew philo. for 30 years and have traveled through out India visiting most of the Jewish centers there.

As a resourse for students we have developed a website to support the this interfaith dialogue.

http://equalitybasedonthesoul.com/default.aspx


thanks,
Bill Glick
386 462 9029

Professor Marty needs to re-examine the literature in the Sociology of Religion where the terms "sect" and "cult" have more descriptive reliability than he may care to admit. One of the primary concerns with those who have studied groups characterized as sects or cults is their authoritarian nature and under what circumstances their practices represent a viable harm to unsuspecting members. At least in some cases. It is not the substance of any belief system that is at issue but how it is achieved. Because of the two religious clauses of the 1st Amendment there is a veil protecting religion not available to other groups of citizens, however, strict separation between religion and state it not absolute. The term "cult" may be pejorative and law gives it no recognition. But a group's behavior has no special protection.