So far I have addressed briefly how the perception that something "makes sense" influences people to get involved in cults and touched upon how participants are made to feel that they are involved in something greater than themselves. Now we're going to look at how outside pressure, perceived as persecution, serves to cement someone's decision to remain in a cult.
Throughout most of 1978 few people had heard of the term cult, especially as it applied to Christian groups. Certainly there were fringe groups, notably the Unification Church, colloquially known as "The Moonies", and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKON), which most of us knew as "The Hare Krishnas", but it wasn't until the mass murder-suicide at The People's Temple outpost in Guyana in November 1978 that there was an awareness of "cults", that not only were they different, but that they were dangerous. A cottage industry of "cult experts" sprung up, with numerous books about cults, as well as those billing themselves as "deprogrammers", who, for a fee, would un-brainwash a loved one and "free" them from the cult. More on that later, but first my own experience with pushback from my own family.
As I related in a previous post, I was raised Catholic. The neighborhood where I grew up was predominantly Catholic, and Catholicism was, even for the non-religious, part of the background noise of life. All through high school all of my friends were Catholic, and if I knew any Protestants, I can't remember any of them. (I did date a girl for a few years who had a Catholic father and a Jewish mother, but other than that...). Catholicism was assumed. So, when I began to move beyond casual attendance at Bible studies and toward replacing my Catholicism with membership in The Way, my parents began to get concerned. Not, I emphasize, because they thought I was in a cult, that term had yet to become popularized to describe fringe religious movements, but because I was involved in something not-Catholic.
When you're excited about something new, whether it's a new love in your life, a fun hobby, that alternative band that no one has ever heard of, or really anything that's new and fresh and exciting in your life, you want to share it with others, you want to talk about it. You're excited about it. And I was without a doubt excited about what I was learning in the PFAL class. Understand that at this stage I wasn't considering leaving the Catholic Church, but was pretty psyched about seeing details of the Bible that I hadn't known about before. Most Catholics don't bother overmuch with the theological details and couldn't care less about the minutiae of the nature of Christ or what happens to you after you die, or how apostolic succession works. I certainly never thought about it, but once I was presented with these details I was won over. After the initial few sessions of PFAL that hammered home the premise that the Bible was the Word of God and inerrant, the second week of class started throwing out information that was new. I'd come home from class bubbling with enthusiasm about what I was learning. My mom, more often than not, would be in the living room watching television or reading a book and I'd be excited about telling her what I was learning "Did you know...?" I'd gush about some obscure bit of Biblical lore that had been presented that night. Mom's reaction was disappointing at best. Rather than sharing in my excitement, or at least exhibiting polite interest, her reaction was one of barely disguised discomfort at what I was saying. This may not seem like much, but I had always been able to talk to my mother, and was closer to her than to my dad, who seemed to have more in common with my younger, more sports-oriented brother. Tight lipped indifference from mom was as bad, in my mind, as overt condemnation. Of course, this parental disapproval was hardly persecution. But The Way played on this, pointing out verses where Jesus said that true followers would have to leave their old lives behind, leaving their parents and siblings for the gospel and portraying disapproval by family as proof that we were on a godly path.
As I moved into my second "Way year" (Way years went from August to August, I took the PFAL class in Way Year 1977-78) in the Autumn of 1978 I started to become more active. A few months previously I stopped attending church, seeing enough of a disconnect between what I was being taught in The Way and the positions of the Catholic Church. This caused a confrontation with my father, who, when he deigned to express his opinion, did not leave any room for doubt about his position. Where my mother would express her disagreement with uncomfortable silences my father was more volcanic in his disagreement and let me know in no uncertain terms what he thought. He did not approve. Even though I became aware at the 1978 Rock of Ages that The Way was The Way International, and not just some local Bible study groups, it was still possible at that time to be involved only peripherally. The local Twig Fellowship that had met at Tom & Joe's apartment in our Rosedale neighborhood had dissolved. Tom had left to serve as a WOW and Joe had moved to a Way Home (several Way roommates dedicated to running fellowships and classes, similar to the WOW program with fewer rules) in the Queens Village neighborhood. While at the Rock of Ages I stayed in a hotel room with two guys, John Lalor and Joe Meehan, who had been WOW Ambassadors the previous year and were returning to their home neighborhood. Joe, John and I, as well as a handful of other Rosedale "believers" would occasionally drive up to Queens Village or to Bayside to attend Way fellowships, but mainly we would meet in a public park or mall (we all lived with our parents) and "witness".
During this time I was still living a "normal" life. I was attending college, going out to see local bands on weekends, dating, and drinking too much at times. We managed to convince a few people to take the PFAL class including my girlfriend Lori, my childhood friend Joe, and a couple of musicians - Mike and Billy. I was living in some respects in two worlds. I still had my old friends, my old bad habits, was attending college, living at home. My friends thought I was weird, my parents disapproved...mildly, but I was, on the side, engaged in an enterprise that I viewed as important: speaking what I believed was "The Word of God" and bringing others into that knowledge. It was, in many ways, the perfect balance.
Of course it couldn't last.
Four months into this phase of life 918 people died at a remote settlement near Georgetown, Guyana and things were never the same.
Start from the beginning
Part IX
