I try generally to avoid the term “cult” because it’s almost always pejorative, and that puts me in the position of adjudicating matters that people hold dear. Besides, I’ve yet to encounter anyone in my travels throughout North America who said, “Yes, I’m a member of a cult!”

Having said that, however, I reserve for myself the option of referring to groups that tightly regulate their members’ behavior as “cults.” I’m not speaking here simply of groups that encourage – or even demand – spiritual discipline of one sort or another: regular reading of scriptures, prayer, and the like. Nor would I include monasteries (Christian, Buddhist, et al.) in that category.

I’m referring instead to those groups that demand a regular, strict accounting of their members’ activities, especially how they spend their time. The Shepherding Movement, popular among some evangelicals in the 1970s, would be one example. Here at Columbia a few years back, to take another example, there was a (Christian) group active among the students that required its members to give a weekly accounting of how they spent their time: how many hours sleeping, studying, reading the Bible, evangelizing, etc.

I consider that cultish behavior because the individual is so deeply submerged within the group’s identity and mores as to have abdicated completely her own individuality and sense of self.