Cults

CULTS

CULTS. Scholars and religious leaders, as well as the public, often have debated the defining characteristics of religious groups known as cults. Many Christian leaders, disturbed by the increase in such groups, label almost all variations from mainstream religion as cults, contending that they have a disruptive effect on society and on their followers. Others divide religious movements into three categories: churches, sects, and cults. All agree that churches represent mainstream religious authority. Mainstream religious leaders disagree on the characteristics of sects and cults. Some contend that sects represent a variation of Western religions and that cults adopt belief systems from non-Western sources. Others argue that all religious movements, Western or non-Western, begin as cults and, as they grow in popularity and power, evolve into sects and, finally, churches. Using this second argument, one could identify the Seventh-Day Adventists, the Mormons, and the Christian Scientists as groups that successfully shed their cult status and acknowledge utopian communities like Oneida, Amana, New Harmony, and the Shakers as religious groups that failed to survive as churches. Basically, the categorization of religious alternatives as cults rests on the extent to which they challenge mainstream religious institutions.

Historically, the United States has seen a variety of religious movements. Since the earliest years of European colonization, tension has existed between members of churches and adherents of smaller and less empowered religious beliefs. The nation's ensurance of disestablishment (that the state would not designate a particular religious group as favored by civil authorities) and the First Amendment guarantee of religious freedom allowed a number of alternative religious groups to take root and flourish in the United States. Indeed, the same national guidelines that allowed nontraditional religious groups to establish themselves in the United States also created a climate favorable to religious expression and may account for the generally religious character of most Americans. Religious groups identified as cults proliferated during the twentieth century. Decline of religious authority, increase in contact between people of diverse backgrounds, and development of mass communication allowed cult leaders to gain personal followings through newspapers and other periodicals, radio, television, and computerized mailing lists. Cults appeared in all regions of the United States, often in areas receiving an influx of migrants. In the early 1900s the West Coast, a region experiencing massive immigration, became known for religious experimentation. Mainstream religious denominations were not well established there, and migrants formed groups with beliefs reflecting their new lives. Cults often arose from groups virtually excluded from mainstream denominations and even from society at large, such as people of color, women, the young, and the poor. Marginalized, they found strength through religious alternatives. Cults also appealed to people seeking to restore their physical and mental health, having found little hope from mainstream religion.

One of the first mass cults was Father Divine's Peace Mission Movement. An African American minister who taught the power of positive thinking and encouraged his disciples to recognize him as God, Father Divine built a national and international following beginning in the 1930s and lasting through the 1950s. Known for elaborate ceremonies that often consisted of extravagant banquets, he attracted much attention. Other African American religious leaders, such as Daddy Grace, founder of the United House of Prayer for All People, and Guy W. Ballard, leader of the I AM, came to national prominence during these same years.

Cults increased tremendously in the 1960s and 1970s. In this era of rebellion and reform, many people were inspired to question authority. A variety of faiths appeared, with Eastern mysticism gaining much popularity. Probably the most notable new group was the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), better known as the Hare Krishnas. A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada had established the ISKCON in India and brought it to the United States in 1965, when he began proselytizing in New York City's Tompkins Square Park and attracted followers associated with the hippie movement. He opened a temple and commenced publication of Back to Godhead, devoted to yoga, meditation, and vegetarianism. A resurgence of interest in Christianity in the 1970s led to the Jesus People movement, which sponsored Bible studies and revivals. Several of its groups established communes. Out of this cult came the Family of Love, better known as the Children of God. A highly controversial group, the Children of God borrowed features from the Christian holiness movement. The cult was accused of recruiting by brainwashing and through a technique

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known as flirty fishing, which involved securing converts through sexual favors.

Of all groups to gain prominence during this era, the Unification Church, founded by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon, proved the most controversial. Oriented toward fundamentalist Christianity and politically conservative, the Unification Church supervised the lives and activities of followers and focused on preparing the world for God's kingdom on earth. On joining the church, single members practiced celibacy and devoted themselves to missionary work. At the end of their initiation, church leaders paired members with suitable mates and married them in mass ceremonies. Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, the Unification Church recruited on college campuses and gained a foothold in publishing through ownership of the Washington Times, while building a large portfolio of business investments. Reverend Moon alarmed many members of mainstream churches through the authority he exerted and his claim of being the Lord of the Second Advent, a role analogous to Christ.

An anticult movement developed during this time, targeting so-called destructive cults. According to anti-cultists, destructive cults exhibited three characteristics: demand for unquestioning acceptance of a leader, recruitment through brainwashing, and maintenance of secrecy. Anticultists received enormous attention in the mid-1960s with the publication of The Kingdom of the Cults by an Evangelical Christian author, Walter Martin. The book underwent thirty-six printings between 1965 and 1985 and was still in print in 2001. It heightened concerns about the possible use of brainwashing in cults.

The anticult movement developed methods of de-programming, designed to reorient cult members toward mainstream spirituality, but in many ways the methods of deprogrammers resembled the tactics of the supposed programmers. In the 1970s there were frequent reports of families who hired deprogrammers to kidnap their children from a cult, take them to secluded places, and spend days, sometimes weeks, breaking down their acceptance of cult teachings.

The rise of the anticult movement in the United States led to tensions and sometimes even violence. One of the most alarming incidents occurred in Guyana, South America, where the San Francisco cult minister Jim Jones had relocated his Peoples Temple in the hope of establishing an interracial religious commune and farming cooperative. In November 1978, shortly after U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan and four members of his party were killed by Jones's cult members, Jones presided over a suicide ceremony in which his followers drank cyanide.

Academics who study groups targeted by anticultists prefer the term "new religious movement," to the term "cult" and criticize anticultists for jeopardizing religious freedom in the United States. They emphasize that destructive cults are rare, that few cult members are coerced into joining, and that most cult followers leave groups of their own accord.

Incidents at the close of the twentieth century again increased fears of cult activity. Concern over the dangers presented by cults that stockpiled arms achieved national prominence in 1993 when a clash occurred between federal authorities and the Branch Davidians, a Bible-based cult led by a former rock musician named David Koresh, who claimed to be a messiah. Another armed cult, the Church Universal and Triumphant, led by Elizabeth Clare Prophet, received attention for its activities and ownership of bomb shelters in Paradise Valley, Montana. The group's presence generated a great deal of hostility from the local population. In March 1997, members of the Heaven's Gate cult engaged in a mass suicide, believing their souls would enter higher beings in a spaceship traveling behind the comet Hale-Bopp. The group, led by Marshall Herff Applewhite, used the Internet to recruit members and supported itself by designing World Wide Web sites. Its use of contemporary technology led many anticultists to fear the potential reach of the Inter-net as the millennium approached, but nothing on the scale of the Heaven's Gate suicides ocurred in the United States between 1997 and 2001.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bromley, David G., and Anson D. Shupe, Jr. Strange Gods: The Great American Cult Scare. Boston: Beacon Press, 1981.

Melton, J. Gordon. Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults in America. Rev. and updated ed. Religious Information Systems Series, vol. 7. New York: Garland, 1992.

Melton, J. Gordon, and Robert L. Moore. The Cult Experience: Responding to the New Religious Pluralism. New York: Pilgrim Press, 1982.

Washington, Joseph R., Jr. Black Sects and Cults: The Power Axis in an Ethnic Ethic. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday Anchor, 1973.

Jill Watts / f. b.

See also African American Religions and Sects ; Jonestown Massacre ; Nativist Movements (American Indian Revival Movements) ; Religion and Religious Affiliation ; Waco Siege .