| Answer
from Kim:
Dear GS, I wouldn’t
say anything directly to the person because he/she obviously isn't open
to finding spiritual teachings beyond his/her present beliefs. I don’t
see it as my calling to work with people who are not open to new teachings;
I see it as my job to provide information for people with open minds.
I have no problem with people disagreeing with me or the information
I bring forth. If someone doesn’t find this website useful or
disagrees with it, then I respect that person’s free will and
hope we can simply part in peace.
In other words, it is not my job to pull people out of their present
“support network;” it is my job to give information to those
who feel that their current support network no longer meets their spiritual
needs. Also, it is not my job to give people a new support network that
I am controlling. If an organization or community grows out of this
website, it will have to be a collaborative effort, and I wont be the
“supreme leader” because the supreme leader will be Jesus
working through the Living Christ in all of the members.
I have studied the topic of cults for many years, and my personal conclusion
is that the central issue is balance versus extremism. An organization
that exhibits cult-like characteristics is usually one in which the
members have become spiritually unbalanced, so they take extremist viewpoints
(black-and-white thinking) and a somewhat fanatical approach. I think
this website continually stresses the need to stay out of the relative
extremes of the carnal mind and to take a balanced approach to everything.
Obviously, the person could not see that and you might consider why
not?
When talking about cults, I think you need to be aware how the word
“cult” has been used and misused over the past several decades.
You need to know that there is not one single, official, definition
of the word, and a number of organizations have their own definitions
that are often used to stereotype the members of other organizations.
So when someone uses the word cult, you always need to take a careful
look at the person’s background and motivation. I think anyone
who will do a bit of research and look at some of the organizations
that used the word cult during the 1980’s and 1990’s will
find that at least some of them used the word in a way that was hateful
toward others and therefore showed a clear lack of religious tolerance
and a clear tendency toward extremism. For more on this, see the following
website.
As an example of how the word has been used, some fundamentalist and
evangelical Christian churches have basically used it to label any church
that does not agree with their literal interpretation of the Bible.
Some such groups have publicly labeled the Catholic Church and more
mainstream Lutheran churches as cults. Likewise, some consider Hinduism,
Islam and Buddhism as cults. Of course, anything labeled as New Age
is automatically seen as a destructive cult.
You also need to know that during the 1980’s and early 1990’s,
there were several groups of people who used the media frenzy about
cults (spurred by Jonestown, Heaven’s Gate and the Branch Davidians)
to get paid to forcefully kidnap and “deprogram” a number
of alleged cult members. The idea was that since cults supposedly use
brainwashing, it was justified to kidnap the cult members and brainwash
them in reverse to help them out of the mental prison of the cults.
Some people allegedly made big money on this, but the practice was eventually
stopped by a number of lawsuits that convicted some of the deprogrammers
for kidnapping.
I personally know a person who grew up in a Jewish family, and his parents
hired some deprogrammers to get him out of a Christian religion he had
joined. Needless to say this deprogramming frenzy created deep scars
in many of the involved families. How would you feel if your parents
had you kidnapped by people who aggressively tried to destroy your religious
beliefs?
The next thing I would say is that you might take the person’s
description of cult practices and apply them to Jesus. These are the
definitions:
- Tear down the subject’s
current support network. Convince them that their family, or the local
community of Christian believers, is somehow ignorant, or corrupt,
or not holy enough. When the subject is convinced of this, move on
to step 2.
- Give the subject a new
support network. Provide love and affirmation. And reveal special
“true revelations”, available only to those in the group.
Encourage a feeling of pride in these new revelations. After all,
the subject is “special” now.
Jesus met all of these criteria.
He told people to leave behind everything to follow him and he clearly
gave special revelations to his disciples. I could give you numerous
Bible quotes to support this, but here are just a couple.
Tearing down people’s
support network: If any man come to me, and hate not his
father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters,
yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:26)
Giving special revelation to the followers: But without
a parable spake he not unto them: and when they were alone, he expounded
all things to his disciples (Mark 4:34).
My point is that this is
a very general definition of a cult that you can apply to any new religion.
Jesus’ mission was to draw people away from the corrupt practices
of the scribes and Pharisees, and he also came to give people new spiritual
teachings. So, yes he had to appeal to those who were willing to consider
leaving their “support network” and become part of a new
spiritual movement. Just look at how Jesus was treated by the orthodox/fundamentalist
people of his time. Do you have any doubt that they would have labeled
him as an extremely dangerous cult leader if the terminology had been
in use back then?
So we might consider what happens to people who believe in the above
definition of a cult. They will obviously be afraid to leave their present
religion. Yet what if that religion has been corrupted – as most
religions of the past – and is now promoting a man-made interpretation
that will not help people win their salvation. Don’t forget that
Jesus said that unless our righteousness exceeds that of the scribes
and Pharisees, we cannot enter Heaven (Matthew 5:20). Would not the
modern-day scribes and Pharisees attempt to scare people into staying
in the religion they are controlling, as Jesus explains in this discourse?
I has been my observation that if you look at some of the groups that
use the term cult, you will see that they generally fit the profile
of a cult even better than the organizations they accuse. For example,
many fundamentalist churches believe it is their duty to save people
from false religions, which they truly see as anything but a fundamentalist
church. So they evangelize very aggressively, seek to tear down people’s
current support network and give them a new support network of true
believers.
They also fit two of the characteristics of cults not mentioned by the
person, namely that they encourage their members to isolate themselves
from others and they strongly discourage their members from leaving.
Most cults have a very clear barrier against people leaving, and the
person here even mentions, “And they won’t attempt to separate
you from your local churches. Or your family.” He/she also talks
about the importance of not leaving the “community of believers.”
I found a list of the most common characteristics of cults and applied
it to this website:
-
Apocalyptic
Beliefs: Teachings
focus heavily on the impending end of the world, and a great battle
between good and evil.
This website makes it very clear that the world will not end. It
does talk about the battle between good and evil, but so do most
established religions, including Christianity, Islam and Hinduism.
This website is very clear about the need to avoid fear and imbalance,
and it focuses on how we can bring about a better age here on Earth.
-
Elitism:
The group is expected
to play a major, elite role at the end time.
This website doesn’t talk about an end time. It doesn’t
have a clearly defined group of believers. It says that all spiritual
people – from a variety of traditional and new religions –
will play a role in bringing about a better age. It does not claim
that this website will save the world.
-
Charismatic
Leadership: They are led by a single male charismatic leader.
I am male, but I don’t see myself as a leader and think I
generally keep a low profile. besides, who would I be leading; where
is the “membership” for this website?
-
Control:
The leader dominates
the membership, closely controlling them physically, sexually and
emotionally.
Don’t quite see that happening.
-
Social Encapsulation:
They are
a small religious group, not an established denomination.
This does apply to the website—and to any new spiritual movement,
including early Christianity. However, do the visitor’s to
this website actually form an organized group?
-
Isolated community:
The group (or at
least the core members) lives together in an intentional community
which is isolated from the rest of society.
Don’t see the community, nor the isolation. Instead, this
website clearly states that people need to follow their inner direction
over the teachings on this website or the leader of any organization.
It does not encourage people to isolate themselves but to study
whatever they feel moved to study from within.
-
Paranoia:
There is often extreme paranoia within the group; they believe that
they are in danger and that they are being closely monitored and
heavily persecuted by governments or people outside the group.
I personally don’t feel persecuted, even though I do get a
lot of negative e-mails from certain Christians.
-
Us versus them:
People on "the
outside" are demonized. Information and contacts from outside
the group are severely curtailed.
I don’t see an us-versus-them mentality on this website. I
don’t see any attempt to prevent people from going to other
websites, and I sincerely doubt you could ever control people through
a website.
-
Weapons:
The group assembles guns, poison, or weapons of mass destruction.
They may prepare defensive structures.
I do own two 40-year old shotguns that I inherited from my father.
-
Theology:
They follow a form
of Christian theology (or a blend of Christianity with another religion),
with major and unique deviations from traditional beliefs in the
area of end-time prophecy.
This website does have a Christian theology. It does blend Christianity
with other religions. We do have major deviations with traditional
beliefs—as does any new spiritual movement. And you could
say we deviate in terms of end-time prophecy by not teaching an
end time. Does this make us a cult? Again, I think the issue is
whether an organization/teaching/group is balanced or unbalanced.
As I said above, I think
the central issue is balance. Some spiritual/religious organizations
clearly have a fear-based us-versus-them culture that makes it very
traumatic for people to leave. At this point, this website doesn’t
really have an organization, we don’t have a clearly defined membership,
the teachings on the site talk a lot about transcending fear and achieving
balance, they encourage people to treat others with love and I don’t
see any way in which people are discouraged from leaving the site to
study other teachings. I have a hard time seeing how offering information
on a website – that people must choose to visit, can visit anonymously
and can leave any time – can be labeled as creating a cult, but
I guess I shouldn’t be surprised any accusation.
Finally, let me give my personal definition of a cult. It is an organization
that causes its members to focus so much attention on the motes in the
eyes of the members of other organizations that they completely overlook
the beams in their own eyes. So, no I am not trying to start a cult.
If you have any doubts, read more about my personal motives here.
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Copyright
© 2005 by Kim Michaels |
