Saturday, April 9, 2022

So, You Want to Join a Cult -Part XXVII - No Kool-Aid Necessary

One of the things that people misunderstand about cults is that what makes a cult cultish isn't what they believe, it's what they do. You want to believe that the earth was populated by aliens from the planet Xrts'dic 3 billion years ago, or that you get reincarnated as a rabbits? So what?, as long as those beliefs aren't hurting anyone.  Most Christians believe a number of things in common, despite differences in church governance and ritual. One of those things is that God exists as something called The Trinity, which oversimplified means that God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit are all God, not three separate gods and that neither is superior to or pre-existed the other. The doctrinal nuances and niceties are over most people's heads and what people actually believe would probably be considered heretical. The Way International didn't believe that God was a Trinity, but that Jesus was simply a man. For many mainstream Christians this was enough to label them a cult. Just as those same Christians labelled Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses as cults due to their non-mainstream view of God and Jesus. I'm not going to discuss the details of why The Way International believed that Jesus wasn't God, because I don't think it is relevant to their categorization as a cult. My own view is that the writers of the gospels and epistles, far from being inspired by God to put together a coherent narartive, were all fallible human beings who had different ideas about the nature of God and Jesus. Their disagreement needed to be explained somehow, early orthodox Christians harmonized the contradictions by coming up with The Trinity; unitarians, ignoring or explaining away verses they didn't like, came up with their own doctrine. 

No, what makes a cult is something that has little to do with the minutia of doctrine. Is there a charismatic leader who is deferred to? Does it claim to have special knowledge that no one else has access to? Does it work to cut you off from previous ties? Does it attempt to regiment and control aspects of your life? By no means does it have to be as extreme as the People's Temple in Guyana. It doesn't have to require you to dress in yellow robes like the Hare Krishna group. You aren't necessarily locked away in a "compound" like David Koresh's Branch Davidians. Usually the signs are a lot more subtle. 

When I was first involved in The Way while living in New York the cultish nature wasn't as apparent. The Long Island fellowships had grown quickly and organically and for a long time were functionally independent. When I was in the WOW Ambassador program I rationalized the level of control being because I was in a structured program, it wasn't until I moved to Lincoln that I saw that living a normal life, i.e. job, education, relationships, etc, was going to be hampered by involvement with The Way. 

Start from the beginning

Part XVIII

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