The Cult Test
The C word has come up on this blog. It is not easy to accept, even for those who have left, it involves painful soul searching and honesty. These simple ten rules may help you determine if you have been in, or are in a cult.
1. The Pastor is always right.
The Pastor, his church, and his teachings are always right, and above criticism, and beyond reproach.
2. You are always wrong.
The individual members of the cult are told that they are inherently small, weak, stupid, ignorant, and sinful, and are in no way qualified to judge the Pastor or his church. Should you disagree with the leader or his cult about anything, see Cult Rule Number One.
3. No Exit.
There is simply no proper or honorable way to leave the cult. Period. To leave is to fail, to die, to be defeated by evil. To leave is to invite divine retribution.
4. No Graduates.
No one ever learns as much as the Pastor knows; no one ever rises to the level of the Pastor's wisdom, so no one ever finishes his or her training, and nobody ever graduates.
5. Cult-speak.
The cult has its own language. The cult invents new terminology or euphemisms for many things. The cult may also redefine many common words to mean something quite different. Cult-speak is also called "bombastic redefinition of the familiar", or "loading the language".
6. Group-think, Suppression of Dissent, and Enforced Conformity in Thinking
The cult has standard answers for almost everything, and members are expected to parrot those answers. Willfulness or independence or skeptical thinking is seen as bad. Members accept the leader's reality as their own. Ask a candid question, get a canned answer.
7. Irrationality.
The beliefs of the cult are irrational, illogical, or superstitious, and fly in the face of evidence to the contrary.
8. Suspension of disbelief.
The cult member is supposed to take on a childish naïveté, and simply believe whatever he is told, no matter how unlikely, unrealistic, irrational, illogical, or outrageous it may be. And he does.
9. Denigration of competing groups, or organizations.
This is common, and hardly needs any explanation.
10. Personal attacks on critics.
Anyone who criticizes the Pastor, the cult or its dogma is attacked on a personal level.
Rather than honestly and intelligently debating with critics, using facts and logic, the cult will resort to low personal attacks on the critic, using name-calling, slander, condescending put-downs, libelous accusations, personal slurs, accusations of bad motives, and casting aspersions on the critic's intelligence and sanity --
"You are just an atheist, a liar, a dummy, a sinner, a drunkard, stupid, crazy, only in it for the money, etc... And you have bad taste in music and an ugly hair-cut, too."
Adapted from http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-cult_q0.html.
24 comments:
Having been at LFF during its "heyday" (all of the 90's) I would NOT characterize LFF as a full blown "cult". LFF was not the Jehovah's witnesses, Branch Davidians or Jim Jones mind you.
However, and this is a big however, most of the above do apply (or did when I was there) yet in softer forms and therefore I was state on a continuim between a healthy true church and a cult proper, LFF was many notches towards the cult end.
Call it cult-lite.
I disagree with the above comment. LFF is a cult by all definitions. This simplified list of 10 covers a lot of cultish characteristics taht LFF possess. If more proof if needed read the huge list of characteristics/warning signs at the back of the book 'Twisted Scriptures' LFF fits 99.9 percent of them to a T.
It's a cult plain and simple, to say that it's just "cult-lite" is almost justifing them as not being "all bad"
The longer I've been away from LFF, the more I've seen that it truly was a cult (at least while I was there). It has been very freeing to be able to admit to myself and others that I was in a cult.
My buddies always called it a cult when I went there. I'd be about to leave for some wednesday/friday/any night thing, and my friends would ask, "Hey Andrew, going to the cult?/Going to hang out with culties/etc?"
When I worked at KRLF, I'd tell them what I was doing, and one friend asked, "What station is that?" and I'd tell them "K-U-L-T"
If LFF came out with a "Cult Lite," I'd probably drink it
K-U-L-T Thats funny. I concur completely.
And I think Kari Vance is a modern David Koresh.
Wow! LFF gets 10/10 on that list! You would think just one of those things present at LFF would cause us and current attenders to wake up. But LFF gets ALL TEN!
I think the hardest thing for me was to admit that I (a fairly intelligent person) was totally taken in. Not only that, but my whole family knew what was going on and told me so! Now I have to go to them in humility and admit that I was wrong and they were right. 18 years of my life. I did come out of it with a wonderful family (I'm now divorced, but still on good terms with my ex. (in fact she told me about this blog! thanks H). I know that I am who I am because I went through the things I did at LFF.
In fact as I was riding the bus to work today, I started thinking about my favorite scriptures. I have always loved
Phil. 3:10-11"I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."
What occurred to me is that maybe some of what we did was to share in his suffering. I know that we aren't supposed to suffer because of our leaders, but still, I know Jesus better than ever now. Maybe they meant it to harm (I can't say what their motivation was) but God can bring good from it.
Does this sound like LFF to you? Can we say DISCIPLESHIP?
39. Mentoring.
The group has a system of mentoring, where newcomers are taken under the wing of an elder, and indoctrinated and trained in the ways of the group. It is a given that the "old-comers" must supervise the newcomers, and educate and train them and make them think properly, and make them follow the rules and conform to the group's standards.
In a cult, the newcomers are abused by their mentors or the guru, or both, until they graduate to the inner circle, at which time they can then abuse others as they were abused. Robert J. Lifton, the author of the classic study of Chinese Communist brainwashing, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of 'Brainwashing' in China, called this "the psychology of the pawn." Abused, tormented personalities get their kicks not by rebelling against their oppressors, but rather by graduating to become one of the oppressors, and doing it all to someone else.
"The dearest ambition of a slave is not liberty, but to have a slave of his own."
-- Sir Richard Burton
In the classic science fiction novel Stranger In A Strange Land, Robert Heinlein told the story of Michael, a human child who had been orphaned on Mars, and raised by Martians. When he was brought back to Earth, Michael was unable to understand humans or laughter until he was at a zoo one day, and saw the monkeys fighting. A medium-sized monkey had a banana, but a bigger monkey came over and punched him and took the banana. The medium-sized monkey immediately ran over to a smaller monkey and punched him. Michael collapsed laughing, because he felt that he had finally come to understand humans.
Cult members make that story all too true.
Some cults, like Heaven's Gate and David Berg's Children of God, called the mentoring system a "buddy system." In both groups, new inductees could not go anywhere without their buddy, not even to the bathroom. The C.O.G. cult leader's daughter, Deborah (Linda Berg) Davis, described the system in COG like this:
All new members were placed under the strict scrutiny of an older disciple. This was the "buddy" system. At such a time that they proved to be strong, mature disciples, they were no longer considered "babes" and were free to be on their own. This period usually lasted about three months. One girl told me in later years, "Oh, I had the worst trial of my life at TSC [The Soul Clinic]; I was constantly with my 'buddy.' I couldn't do anything without her. I couldn't even go to the bathroom alone. Beds were in short supply, and I even had to sleep in the same bed with her!"
Ironically, without any prompting from the Chinese Communists, we unconsciously incorporated many of the same conditions used by the Chinese in their Thought Reform programs. Many of these mind-control techniques seem to erupt "spontaneously" in cultic organizations. We boasted that we were "heartwashing" new converts.
Everyone who came to TSC as a dropout or hippie or college student left with a new identity. Everyone took a new name from the Bible -- this was part of Forsaking All. God was making "new creatures" out of us; all the old things were done away with. A new convert broke all relations with the past, both family and friends. The break with one's former life had to be complete, absolute, because that's what Jesus wanted.
This sudden loss of identity often brought deep conflicts for disciples who suffered the after-pains of leaving their former life-styles and families. This was why everyone had a buddy. When the older disciple perceived that the younger one was wavering and suffering doubt, he was right there to pick him up. Although it was never revealed, the older disciple often harbored the same doubts. By encouraging the younger convert, the older member strengthened himself. It was a good system that accomplished its purpose well.
The Children of God: The Inside Story, Deborah (Linda Berg) Davis, 1984, pages 81-82.
Ms. Davis said that the Children of God were allowed to separate from their buddy after about three months. In the Heaven's Gate cult, they were never allowed loose. They stayed paired right up to the time when they committed suicide together.
Note that Deborah Davis touched on a couple of other indoctrination and conversion techniques besides just mentoring: milieu control and self-sell. Milieu control means that the environment and information intake of the convert are controlled. When the new convert is cut off from family and former friends, he cannot receive any negative information about the cult that might lead him away from the cult, and he can't even get any 'common-sense' messages that might "bring him back to Earth" and interfere with his indoctrination. At the same time, the older buddy is busy selling himself on the cult and assuaging his own doubts by selling the cult to the younger buddy. That's self-sell.
Andrew Logsdon
Oh, and this goes with it as well:
40. Intrusiveness.
The cult is very intrusive, and pokes into members' personal lives. Often, the guru and his helpers want to totally run the member's lives, dictating everything from what work the followers will do, where they will live, what they will eat, when they will sleep, with whom they may communicate or associate, to what they will wear. Sometimes, members need permission to visit their families. Sometimes, the cult even goes so far as to dictate when and with whom members may have sex or marry. Many cults also feel entitled to take people's children away from them and put the kids into special "schools" where they are beaten and abused, and brainwashed into being the next generation of true believers.
In many cults, especially recovery cults, the elders will proclaim that you simply cannot have any kind of privacy or private life -- that you will just commit sins, or drink, or take drugs if you have the freedom to do so -- so they won't let you have any freedom or privacy. Such cults want to own you; they want all of your time; they want to dominate your whole life. No part of your life is not subject to their inspection and their "guidance".
The less justified a man is in claiming excellence for his own self, the more ready he is to claim all excellence for his nation, his religion, his race, or his holy cause. A man is likely to mind his business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people's business.
The True Believer, Eric Hoffer
At Synanon, the leader Chuck Dederich ordered everyone to get divorced and marry someone else. His logic was that everyone eventually breaks up and gets divorced anyway, so why not get it over with now? Then they had a new Game, Changing Partners, where women were auctioned off each evening for a one-night stand. Then Chuck ordered all of the men, except for himself, to get vasectomies, and all of the pregnant women had to get abortions, so that there wouldn't be any bothersome children around.
Jim Jones was personally very sexually promiscuous, intrusive, and exploitative, but at the People's Temple commune in Guyana, everyone else had to follow his strict rules of sexual conduct:
The Jonestown code of sexual conduct prohibited casual sexual encounters. A couple who desired to enter into a sexual relationship was obliged to apply to a Relationship Committee, and then endure a three-month nonsexual waiting period, at the end of which, if suitable accommodations could be found, the relationship could finally be consummated.
Awake in a Nightmare, Ethan Feinsod, 1981, page 117.
Werner Erhard's est was just the same:
Throughout est's existence, Erhard had treated sex as simply another form of human behavior to be controlled and manipulated in ways that enhanced his own overpowering control over the lives of others who inhabited the est culture. Long before he ever started est, Werner Erhard -- even when he was still Jack Rosenberg -- used his powerful sexual appeal and charismatic energy with women to intensify their own sense of loyalty and devotion to him. During his bookselling days, Erhard maintained the nucleus of a dedicated, and predominately female, staff partly by showering his romantic attention from time to time on some of the women who followed Erhard first into Mind Dynamics and later into est.
Inside the emerging est culture, Erhard continued to view sex as an integral part of his obsessive demand that others around him pledge their devotion. He required staff members to divulge the most intimate details of their personal lives as part of a series of policies aimed at controlling their thoughts and behavior. A staff policy imposed in the mid-1970s instructed est staffers to "stay in communication" with Erhard about their personal relationships, particularly those of a sexual nature.
Although the policy was designed to proscribe sexual relations between staff members, exceptions were possible in cases in which Erhard was informed about existing affairs. These relationships could continue to include "fucking," the staff was told, but only as long as the trysting staffers got their jobs done and showed no signs of "upsets." The policy made it clear to the staff that Erhard would attribute declining job performance to the fact that "you are fucking whomever you fuck" and would ask the offending party to leave est.
Erhard generously added a "family policy" to the est rules governing sexual conduct, mindful of the occasional desire among married staff members to enjoy dalliances with other partners besides their spouse. The policy, which otherwise prohibited extramarital affairs, allowed such liaisons as long as Don Cox received a letter from an est staffer's wife or husband allowing their spouse "to fuck someone else." The letter also had to include "guidelines" aimed at identifying those with whom the spouse could enjoy sexual intimacy.
In the early years of est, Erhard had a habit of announcing strict rules proscribing sexual liaisons among staff members, only to drop them at particularly opportune times and reinstate them at a later date. While treating the staff to a weeklong Mexican cruise in 1974, Erhard abruptly lifted the sexual ban, delighting many along for the trip. After an amorous week at sea, Erhard reimposed the no-sex rules back in San Francisco.
...
No such self-reporting sexual rules applied to Erhard. Instead, he entrusted to his closest aides the confidential role of assisting in the steady, though usually clandestine, flow of women in and out of his private black-painted bedroom on the second floor of the Franklin House. Sometimes his partners came from the ranks of celebrity est enthusiasts, including actress Cloris Leachman, with whom Erhard maintained a relationship for a few years. Otherwise, Erhard helped himself to the sexual favors offered to him by an assortment of attractive staff members and est volunteers. A comely Franklin House assistant once confided to an est trainer that another Erhard aide "schedules Werner's cock" and that she planned "to get on the schedule."
Outrageous Betrayal, The Dark Journey of Werner Erhard from est to Exile, Steven Pressman, pages 143-145.
Synanon, The People's Temple, and the Hari Krishnas (ISKCON) all took members' children away from them, and brutally beat and abused those children. Many people found that they couldn't even get their kids back when they tried to leave the People's Temple. Timothy Stoen, who had been a lawyer for the Temple before he quit the cult, never did succeed in getting his own son away from Jim Jones, who argued in court that the kid was his, and refused to give the kid up. Timothy Stoen's son and 275 other children were murdered during the Jonestown massacre/mass suicide, given cyanide Kool-Aid to drink, on the orders of Jim Jones.
And at the Branch Davidian compound of Vernon Howell, also known as "David Koresh", in Waco, Texas,
According to Koresh, sexual life was fine in past ages; indeed, it was necessary for the propagation of the species. However, just before the end of time, those who have purified themselves for the new creation and for the Kingdom of God must separate themselves from this passing, obsolete state of life. Celibacy was hard for the other Davidians to accept, to put it mildly.
...
Once in a Bible study session Koresh had one of the women stand and lift up her dress, exposing her legs and underpants. He told everyone to look at her for a moment, then asked how many of the men had been aroused or distracted although they had no legitimate reason to have sexual thoughts toward this particular woman. Such a demonstration attempted to illustrate how human sexuality is an untamed force that actually leads to deceit and disruption in human relationships. Koresh stressed the ideal potential of the liberated person, free from lust, which even when legalized by marriage is a distraction from higher and ultimate purposes. He emphasized that the group, as part of the vanguard of the age to come, needed purity. Most went along with this teaching, and the men and women of the group began to live separately.
Why Waco?, James D. Tabor and Eugene V. Gallagher, 1995, page 71.
However, a little later, "David Koresh" promulgated his "New Light" revelation, which gave him a sexual claim upon all of the women in the group -- in fact, he said that only he had the right to procreate, because he was the Son of God, and he was entitled, even biologically and spiritually obligated, to have all of the women and post-pubescent girls sexually, to create the new Grandchildren of God. (What's really amazing is that most of the other guys in the cult went along with it and handed over their wives and daughters. Only a couple of guys quit the cult over that.)3
ASL
In reference to the characteristics and facts of some real cults listed above it is clear LFF does not meet those criteria. Like the initial "cult-lite" comment, LFF had strong cultish overtones but was not full blown cult with a capital "C". But a church with serious error, confusion and social disfunction (domineering and controlling leadership and the people who self-selected to be under that leadership).
Karl Barden was not another Koresh. He was a bad spiritual leader that led people away from the central truths of Christianity and the true purpose of His Church - but it didn't go as far as some of the above comments might imply.
I agree...I think I would classify it as cult-like, but it's tough to say that every aspect of it was a cult.
I think every cult reflects the specific eccentricities (sp?), personality, and paranoias of its leaders.
I am wondering, though, is there a particular profile that describes a typical cult member? Are there certain things that make some of us suceptible and others able to see the cult for what it is and resist it?
Cult-Lite Less craziness More fooling
Common Issues in Post-Cult Recovery
Some of the recovery issues that keep recurring in my work with ex-cult members are:
1. Sense of purposelessness, of being disconnected. They left a group that had a powerful purpose and intense drive; they miss the peak experiences produced from the intensity and the group dynamics.
2. Depression.
3. Grieving for other group members, for a sense of loss in their life.
4. Guilt. Former members will feel guilt for having gotten involved in the first place, for the people they recruited into the group, and for the things they did while in the group.
5. Anger. This will be felt toward the group and/or the leaders. At times this anger is misdirected toward themselves.
6. Alienation. They will feel alienation from the group, often from old friends (that is, those who were friends prior to their cult involvement), and sometimes from family.
7. Isolation. To ex-cult members, no one "out there" seems to understand what they're going through, especially their families.
8. Distrust. This extends to group situations, and often to organized religion (if they were in a religious cult) or organizations in general (depending on the type of cult they were in). There is also a general distrust of their own ability to discern when or if they are being manipulated again. This dissipates after they learn more about mind control and begin to listen to their own inner voice again.
9. Fear of going crazy. This is especially common after "floating" experiences (see point 18 below for explanation of floating).
10. Fear that what the cult said would happen to them if they left actually might happen.
11. Tendency to think in terms of black and white, as conditioned by the cult. They need to practice looking for the gray areas.
12. Spiritualizing everything. This residual sometimes lasts for quite a while. Former members need to be encouraged to look for logical reasons why things happen and to deal with reality, to let go of their magical thinking.
13. Inability to make decisions. This characteristic reflects the dependency that was fostered by the cult.
14. Low self-esteem. This generally comes from those experiences common to most cults, where time and again members are told that they are worthless.
15. Embarrassment. This is an expression of the inability to talk about their experience, to explain how or why they got involved or what they had done during that time. It is often manifested by an intense feeling of being ill-at-ease in both social and work situations. Also, often there is a feeling of being out of synch with everyone else, of going through culture shock, from having lived in a closed environment and having been deprived of participating in everyday culture.
16. Employment and/or career problems. Former members face the dilemma of what to put on a resume to cover the blank years of cult membership.
17. Dissociation. This also has been fostered by the cult. Either active or passive, it is a period of not being in touch with reality or those around them, an inability to communicate.
18. Floating. These are flashbacks into the cult mind-set. It can also take on the effect of an intense emotional reaction that is inappropriate to the particular stimuli.
19. Nightmares. Some people also experience hallucinations or hearing voices. A small percentage of former members need hospitalization due to this type of residual.
20. Family issues.
21. Dependency issues.
22. Sexuality issues.
23. Spiritual (or philosophical) issues. Former members often face difficult questions: Where can I go to have my spiritual (or belief) needs met? What do I believe in now? What is there to believe in, trust in?
24. Inability to concentrate, short-term memory loss.
25. Re-emergence of pre-cult emotional or psychological issues
26. Impatience with the recovery process.
I'm having issues with the comments about how LFF is "cult-like" it's nota grey area issue its either a cult or it's not....
Most of us will agree that it is
the way i see it is that lff is everything taken too a way funky extreme. I mean, tithing is biblical, but not like they did it. Serving is biblical, but again, not the way they made it. i hope that makes sense.
I agree with last point. LFF took things like tithing, water baptism, service, prayer, worship, etc. and tweaked them - mostly by re-interperting the theology behind these biblical and historical church practices. But that theology was openly taught, with rational and proof texts. It was wrong in most cases but it wasn't totally out there compared to other cults.
LFF also taught errors like perfectionism (Holiness movement), Armininism and an inappropriate reliance upon and use of the gifts of the spirit - but there are many churches that fit that criteria today too that are not cults proper.
I think the cultish aspects of LFF derived from the Barden family's need to control others but also as a logical outworking of many of the doctines openly held - like perfectionism. I think Karl Barden truly believed he had to drive sin out of peoples lives and make them "perfect" in order to ensure they got in the door of heaven and he would be counted a good "shephard" in doing so.
WOW is this all old stuff. Not every church is perfect. I do think that there are things that LFF can improve on, and they have in these years, the pastors have said that themselves. There may have been a bad past, with the first pastors, but LFF has been a well-rounded non denominational church as others in the area.
I have attended LFF and will continue to attend because GOD is in my life. I've been attending for two years. They have never forced anything on me. As Christians, we need to be all considerate of other churches as well as LFF.
I read that post on how u know if a church is a CULT. I know a religious group that fits that description, however LFF doesn't fit these descriptions.
I'm really sorry that any people have to think these things about LFF, it really makes me sad. Regardless where you go to church, I pray that we see through things and not depend on the church so much in defining our lives in Christ.
You're not in deep enough yet, give it some time. It starts out great, and you feel like you're growing and learning, and then it suddenly turns around, it turned into a nightmare for me. I love Jesus, but I ended up feeling like running as far away as possible if that was the way I had to live it. You can't discount all these comments as being hateful. We lived it too and for a lot longer than a few years. We know the current Pastors as well as the old. We all felt good about lff initially. That's why we stayed. I think todays latest post about life after lff says it all. Freedom.
To 11/29 1:57:
You are quite right compared to the MORMON church LFF is as free as a runner without a jockstrap.
THis is ME, the person who disagreed with yall.
You said, "give it some time". I am in the JCD program. And u know what, it's not the focus of my life and ministry by any means. And I do NOT want to depend on the church on my relationship with the Lord. I am depending on God alone to move me and make me and mold me. When GOd moves in you, it doesn't mean it is all fun and games, not at all comforting sometimes. Through my time spent with Jesus, he has brought some deep issues from my past life that I needed to take to him. My friends, in bible study, from LFF , and some who are from other churches, have helped encourage me in my walk with the Lord. It has just pushed me on, and I feel like I am on my own. When I first started as a Christian, things seemed really really awesome, God was blessing me with so much. Now, I feel like I am on a different level with more challenges to face. Right now life is not easy. But I want to use my knowledge and relationship with Christ to KNOW what we believe. I've already disagreed with several things, but hey, no church is perfect.
I think cult is too strong for LFF. Heritics, paranoid, greedy - yes. God was still trying to reach them (at least when i was there) but the influence of the Holy Spirit was quickly being crowded out. Like Saul, to whom shall they resort? They said they had non-christian spiritual books in the leadership library. Anyone know what those were?
George N. Sally
After reading more on this blog i've come to the conclusion that LFF fully deserves the classification of CULT (spelled in caps). Like vicious crows in the branches of a large tree - waiting to take advantage of what the tree provides - they are not part of the tree. Wheat amoungst the tares. May their (eventual) downfall serve as a warning to those who would follow their pernicious path.
Converted, George N. Sally
Post a Comment