WHAT IS A CULT? (PART III)

CHARACTERISTICS OF A CULT

This is the third instalment in the series entitled, What is a Cult? Read the first here and the second here. In this episode, I will emphasize the characteristics of a Cult and I will try as much as possible not to characterize or stereotype any particular organization but rather, present demonstrable variables that will enable anyone (willing) to detect a Cult wherever it is and whenever it operates.

When Jesus was asked how we can tell false prophets, he put it simple and straight in these words in Mathew 7:16: Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Please note that Jesus never said that you shall know them by their works, for he knew public works can be staged and can be very deceptive.

Many Cults have big philanthropic organizations. Many cultic churches help widows, orphans and support the needy in various ways. In fact, all religions have relief organizations in which they spend millions of money helping people and enhancing development and progress of people. All these are just but works that are politically organized. They might have great impressions on the public but they totally have no impact on an omniscient God who knows the underlying intentions of all these works.

The defining characteristic of a Cult should not be traced in what the cult does or doesn’t (Works) but rather in the Fruit of that cult. A fruit is a natural inevitable product of something. It is a prototype and one of its kind. It is something not done but produced that represents something in its core natural attributes. Cults are not exclusively religious but they can be any of our various sociologies.

A Cult could be one of the following:

• Religious Cults: This is the type I discussed in the first two presentations. And it has dominated the definition of the word cult in the minds of many. Examples here could be: mainstream religions like Catholicism, Islam, Protestantism, Pentecostalism etc.
• Psychological/Enlightenment Cults: These are academic and scientific cults that have their origin in scholarly circles. They offer expensive “enlightenment” workshops; write rational scientific materials. An example here could be the Atheism, and New Age movements like Scientology, etc.
• Commercial Cults: These are economic groups, based on materialistic gain, that perform all sorts of rituals and sacrifices in hopes of garnering material wealth. These could include: Banking Systems, certain pyramid schemes, Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) organizations and other financial ventures that install easy and quick-money attitudes in the minds of the economically frustrated and gullible, and the vulnerable people.
• Political Cults: these are cults organized around a political dogma and person or family/Ethnicity. Examples in history could be: The Manson Family, Ku Klux Klan, Nazism, the Roman Jesuits and Knights Templar, the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda by rebel leader Joseph Kony, and many more in the past and present. All other ancestral cults fall under this category.

We shouldn’t limit our definition or understanding of what a Cult is to religion alone. A Cult can be any of the above sociologies. All the aforesaid are instruments of society which actually shape our lives both positively and negatively. This why the question of a Cult is a serious one and one we should be careful with.

Like I mentioned above, a cult is not detected or even determined by its Works (what it does or doesn’t) but rather its Fruits, who they really are and what they are about regardless of what they exhibit. Devoted Cult followers will:

• Consider you to be a god or at least god’s vicar
• Give their money and resources to you
• Leave their families, marriages, relationships and friends for you or their group
• Give their bodies to you, to use as you please
• Give up their careers and lives for you or the institution cause.
• And eventually kill for you or their institutional belief system.

All these are not things they do for the sake of doing but because of who they are, and this is why I argue that a Cult is defined by its core identity that influences action. Allow me now to state categorical fruits by which we shall know them Cults:

1. Deception: The opposite of truth is not lies but deception. Deception is a porridge whose mix is truth and lies. Someone once said: ‘A good conman takes a little bit of truth and a lot of lies and pulls the wool over the ignorant.’ This is what Cults do. They deceive, just like the snake did in Genesis 3. They pick up the Bible and twist the scriptures. Some cults restrict documents in a specific language, Roman Catholicism held the Bible hostage in Latin for ages even though English was widely spoken. Islam did the same with the Quran. And many other cults did so. Political cults bow to one interpretation and that is which is made in the inner circle. Biblical cults twist scriptures by misreading, inaccurate quotation, twisted translation, ignoring context and over specification, proof-texting etc.
2. Mystified Leader: The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader, and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law. Whatever your teacher says is right since you consider him and God to be in the same league. Cult leaders claim authority and some supernatural powers to change and affect your life. They constrain prayer to themselves and prayer works better only if they prayed for you, Believers seek forgiveness through their leaders, they are exclusively blessed when their leader blesses them. A leader can curse you and it holds unto your life until he/she cleanses you. People struggle to touch or have a piece of the cloth of the leader or anything he touches for a healing or a blessing. Believers carry posters and pictures of their leader as emblems of safety. Gradually God Phases out of your mind and this cult leader becomes a dummy-god.
3. Blind Faith: Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished. If not, then people are told what to ask and what not to ask, since some questions depict them as non-believers. You become a Blind Follower and in the process your personal decision capabilities are disabled to the extent that you cannot make decisions without consulting your Cult leader, Cult literature, pastor, priest, guru etc. You channel Faith through the heart to the Head where the process is: FEEL and UNDERSTAND instead of channeling faith from the Head to Heart in which the process is: UNDERSTAND and FEEL. Slowly by slowly, you start living a culture of: ‘if it feels good then it is right’. Other defend their blind faith with words like: ‘I know my faith is right because it works’
4. Time Consuming: Mind-altering practices (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, or debilitating work routines) are used in excess and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s). Cults take 75% of your time participating in its business and leave you with 25% of the rest just to think about your Cult. I spent 13yrs of my life in the Seventh-day Adventist Cult and for all those years, I added nothing to my growth. Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities knowingly or unknowingly. It just tunes your lifestyle. Your cult engages you early in the morning, invites you for an afternoon session, reminds you of its night prayers, organizes weekend retreats and conventions, isolates and groups you into small groups close to your address. Keeps spamming you on the internet and eventually your cult takes 16hrs of the 24hrs you have got.
5. Programmed Psychology: The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (e.g., members must get permission to date, change jobs, or marry. The leaders prescribe what to wear, where to live, whether to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth). Cults work with the mind of people and they approach your mind in three ways; (1) Some cults like enlightenment, emphasize rationalism and bombard you with baseless and inauthentic bogus scientific research and statistics, (2) others play emotionalism with your mind and in the process hypnotize you as they make you feel you are connected to the universe or some power. (3) Other cults totally discourage critical thinking by stereotyping it as the wisdom of the world and the unconverted. They encourage irrational faith as the process towards supra-wisdom. Cults then determine what you think, what you say and what you imagine. Cults change who you are bit by bit and they do this through repetitive acts and activities like: dancing, clapping, singing, spinning, chanting and over-breathing all in the name of solving or acquiring a certain degree in life.
6. People-Attitude: The group has a polarized, us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society. Political cults do not complement each other but rather strive to out-compete their opponents. Religious cults too do not entertain whoever doesn’t share the ideology, before you belong or even you are given a chance to address, it ensures you agree with its doctrines if not, you are not just another human being with a different view but an enemy to avoid and fight. Islam so-called extremists consider the act of killing people from other religions to be rewarded with heaven.
7. Self-Esteem: The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt in order to influence and control members. Often this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion. Cults feed on your self-esteem and gradually reduce it. This is done to make sure an individual is easily convinced and persuadable. Personal confidence is gradually eaten away and you begin to doubt even yourself. Cults fix your identity by changing your names and editing your significant others. Cults encourage dependency and conformity and they discourage self-sufficiency and individuality at all costs.
8. Membership: The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members. All cults are hyper with membership concepts. They run a theory of what I call triple R: RECRUIT, RETAIN and RECLAIM. Members in the cult are trained to feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave or even consider leaving the group. When a cult de-registers you, they make you feel like you are lost to hell and cult leaders make the remnants mourn for you and turn it into a big deal for them never to ever consider the option. Cults insist on uniformity, and dictate uniforms, stickers and badges, they determine diet, dress-codes etc.
9. Power: Cults are essentially founded on three foundational G-stones: (1) Gold/money, (2) Glory/Power, and (3) Girls/Sex. The Cult leaders are directly or indirectly worshiped. The group is preoccupied with not just making money, but profits. One of the core agendas of Cults is making money at all costs. Catholicism, for example, makes billions in its Vatican Banking system, investments and financial garnering institutions all over the world. The Seventh-Day Adventists cannot dismiss Ellen. G. White given the White Estates institution that brings in millions of dollars. So it is with the Jehovah Witness and the Watch Tower, etc. Majority Pentecostal pastors charge for prophecy, miracles, prayers, and all sorts of healings. You can only access the pastor depending on how much you are willing to pay. Indoctrinated cult members are willing to give their bodies sexually to their leader and fellow members.
10. Socialization: Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members. Your sense of belonging is fenced and restricted to a specific kind of people and in the process, your chances of exposure are denied. You become conditioned and limited in knowledge and experience. You are isolated from all sorts of general environments and closed to a specific one. Members are told that their friends and families won’t understand and so they shouldn’t waste time on them. They stereotype your old sociology as not good enough if they cannot support you on your new lifestyle. They give indirect ultimatums like: you are either with us or with them, if you can’t recruit them, cut them off, it is unhealthy to live close to negativity, why are you wasting your valuable time with non-believers?, avoid spirit quenchers,
11. Critical Thinking: The Bible says in 1John 4:1 that: “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are of God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world.” Cults do not help you think but rather encourage you to look at things in Black and White, cults oppose critical thinking, and they encourage simplistic reasoning. Your definition of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ becomes narrow and emotional. The shades of grey in which we all live are usually intolerable to a cult member.

Cults replace critical thinking with what they like calling Spiritual Awakenings which are practiced through prolonged hours of meditation or non-stop prayer sessions that place an individual in a trance state. At this level, a human being is not thinking but receptive to whatever the cult leader or literature suggests. The victim’s practice is then based in mindless obedience.

12. Ethos: Ethos means credibility. Cults emphasize public image and defend it at all costs, even at the expense of some of their members and workers. They give false confidence through continuous confessions by members who testify against their past life in relation to their present one. ‘I was this but now am this…thanks to the leader or this institution/group’. They do this and they are unable to see that the things they thank the cult for, other people outside the cult have more than they do. But cults do this with intentions to brand themselves in the market place.

Cults also disguise or hide behind credible organizations to influence and attract credible people. Cult leaders invite influential leaders, and once people see these elites at their place, they are convinced about the authenticity of the place. Many political heads do business and become shareholders of cultic churches to make sure these cults exist and thrive. Once these Cult leaders are charged with crime, their political connections bail them out. They influence the media and deflect all accusations.

Cults team-up with big organizations and partner with them in philanthropic activities and sometimes these cults, through back doors, own these organizations. An example is the Church of Scientology‘s acquisition of the Cult Awareness Network (CAN). This organization was previously a clearinghouse for crucial information about destructive Cults. But a Cult took it on. A cult owning an organization fighting cults, imagine!!!

There could be more defining characteristics of a Cult but the ones I have pointed out are exclusively those which define, not what the cults do, but what they really are. We shouldn’t be that confused to define a Cult by what it does (WORKS) but what it is in principle (FRUITS). That is what Jesus meant when he said “you shall know them by their fruits” in Mathew 7:16.

Cults can be outwardly appealing and convincing but we must be warned that these are beautified graves with skeletons inside. Satan, in Genesis 3, sounded more appealing than God but we realized he was a liar by the fruits. Cain did the right thing by sacrificing to the Lord. However, he offered his agricultural plantations instead of animal sacrifice. Cults stage manage and act out the fear of God but in reality deny his power as 2Timothy 3:5 puts it.

In Brazil and Europe, the Catholic Church paid heavily for its priests who were pedophiles. They posed clean, kind and gracious but under these white robes was a devouring spirit. Many Pentecostal pastors around the world have been involved in rape, pedophilia, financial scandals, homosexuality, etc.

Paul wrote once in 2Corinthians 11:13-15 and said: For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.

The cults, the false teachers, prophets, and religions look like the real thing. They appear to be ministers of righteousness but in identity, they are devilish. Now let me make myself clear here, am not saying that a preacher of the true gospel cannot fall victim of all these sins and crimes, but the issue in perspective here is two-fold: these crimes and sins in cults are doctrinally organized.

If a cult like the Catholic Church teaches celibacy which is Biblically declared as a cultic teaching (1Timothy 4:3), is it a surprise for its ministers to be involved in sexual scandals? If Pentecostals have turned prosperity gospel into the subject matter, why do we wonder when these preachers become corrupt and rob the flock? This not just what they do but who they are in principle and we shall therefore know them by their fruits, not just works.

Friends, like I said, true Christianity is not in what we do but rather in what we train and who we really are. The true doctrine of Christianity is the Five Solas (Scripture alone, Faith alone, Grace alone, Christ alone, and Glory to God alone). The Bible warns us against any addition, subtraction, division or multiplication of this truth. The apostles did not have kind words to cults and teachings opposed to this truth.

John said: If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house, and do not give him a greeting; anyone who welcomes him shares in his wicked work (2John 1:10-11).

This should not be understood as a text that calls us to close our relations with individuals in these cults, but rather the Bible forbids us to entertain them in gospel or biblical matters. We can deal with them in business, family matters, etc. but we should not listen or even give audience to their misleading spiritual teachings. We should, rather, dismiss and expose them.

The Bible forbids us to put up easily with these cults, we should stand against the occultic teaching of these cults every weekend. We must not sit back be silent, we must emulate Jesus, whenever he attended the meetings of these cults he disproved their teaching and pointed the People to the right teaching (Luke 4:16-23).

Paul said: I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough. (2Corinthians 11:2-4 NIV).

I always tell the people I preach to not to leave their religions/cults but to denounce all the false doctrines and speak out against the deception in them. These religions are good social clubs, which of course might hurt you if you are not careful. These cultic religions and social groups are the ones which God in a desperate world works with for relief of his people in their philanthropic missions, works within as he inspires individuals about him as individuals discover that they are not the way to heaven, and once these cults impose themselves on the glory of God and the salvation of man, God directly or indirectly fights these cults and dismantles them.

To be part of these cults whether religious, commercial, or political means being cautious. We must be careful and always detect these cults and limit them to their positive social use and deny them the chance to encroach on our freedom in Christ and salvation.

We must rebuke any religion that tampers with matters of our salvation for that is not their role. We must rebuke every cult leader who poses as a dummy-god or representative of God. We must go against all the so-called holy men for the Bible says: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, (Romans 3:23). Let no man say he is pure enough to bless others, for whoever says has no sin and needs no help himself, is a liar (1John 1:8).

God bless you, I invoke TRUTH, REASON, and FAITH

Am Pr. I.T.WHITE (+256-793-822833)

The Gospel Hawker