GROUPS, SECTS AND CULTS
Some broad definitions.
Groups. There are many religious groupings for example within Christianity, such as Roman Catholics, Methodists, and Anglicans. All these are seen as legitimate groups, with different emphases, accents and traditions within the broad spectrum of Christianity. They may not al- ways see eye to eye, but generally recognise each other’s legitimate existence.
Sects. These are usually short lived, small groups or factions. They may arise as the result of a charismatic leader, or out of disaffection with the status quo. They may be small or large in number and may be quite active and vocal. They may decay on the death of the leader or be re absorbed into a mainstream group. Examples of this include Primitive Methodism or Puritanism. Sometimes they go on to achieve legitimacy, becoming a group in their own right. Christianity was originally a Jewish sect.
Cults. This is a negative term. It generally refers to a group or sect that has sinister aspects to it, such as attempts at coercion. In various ways they are dysfunctional, unhealthy groups.
CULTS
There are four main types: Religious, Political, Therapy/educational, and Commercial.
They do not carry out brainwashing. Brainwashing is overt, coercive and it is plain who the enemy is. Rather they carry out mind control or thought reform. Here, the perpetrators are
a) regarded as friends or peers making the candidate less defensive.
b) The candidate participates unwittingly with their controllers, for ex- ample by giving private information.
c) The new belief system is internalised into a new identity structure. d) The group may use hypnotic processes and group dynamics.
THE COMPONENTS OF MIND CONTROL
1).BEHAVIOUR CONTROL
By regulating the environment:
a) Where you live
b) What clothing you wear
c). hat food you eat
d). ow much sleep you have
e). hat jobs and goals you have.
f). Rituals and indoctrination
g). Restriction of free time – sometimes an apocalyptic sense of urgency
h). inancial dependency
i). Permission required to do things, i.e. phone relative
j). Suppression of individuality to group conformity
k).Pyramidical authoritarian command structure
l). Use of punishment and reward, often keeping members off balance – praised one day, punished the next.
m) Use of mannerisms of speech and posture
n). egulation of interpersonal relationships – emotional allegiance to leader – no real friends because if the person leaves they may take others with them.
o). roup activities which creates privacy deprivation and thwarts reflection.
2).THOUGHT CONTROL
By indoctrination, such that beliefs are internalised.
a). roup has the Truth – the only map of reality. This moulds and filters incoming data. The doctrine is reality, the most effective being those which are unverifiable – global yet vague but apparently consistent. Reality is externally referenced via an authority figure and other members who are looked to for direction and meaning.
b). lack and white thinking – Group is good, outsiders bad. Thus good vs evil, Us vs them, Spiritual vs physical. No pluralism or multi perspective taking.
c). roup beliefs are scientifically proven and explain everything
d). oaded language. E.g. A Cain and Abel problem
e). locking out critical thoughts by:
i). enial: “What you say is not happening at all”
ii). Rationalisation: “It is happening for a good reason”
iii). Justification: “It is happening because it ought to”
iv). Wishful thinking: “I would like it to be true so maybe it is”
v) Demonising: “Lies put about by Satan/Persecution that we would expect”.
vi). Thought stopping: By chanting/ tongue speaking
vii).. unishment: Being given the silent treatment or transfer to another group e.t.c.
3).EMOTIONAL CONTROL
Emotions are controlled by the use of:
a). Guilt: in order to produce conformity and compliance. Guilt takes a number of aspects:
i)...Historical guilt. – We dropped the bomb on Hiroshima
ii).. Identity guilt – “I’m not living up to my potential”
iii).. Past guilt – “I cheated on a test” A persons past is rewritten: everything is dark
iv).. Social guilt – People are dying of starvation
v).. Quality guilt- not meeting standards
b). Fear: By creating an outside enemy – unbelievers, Satan, therapists.
Of discovery and punishment by leaders
A major motivator.
c). appiness: As defined by the group. Obtained by good performance and/or confession.
d). oyalty and devotion.
e). onfession of past sins – this is often used against the person.
f). Phobia indoctrination. Induced panic reaction at the thought of leaving. Dark stories are told of those who have left both in lectures and informal gossip. The idea of the Devil waiting to seduce and tempt, kill or drive insane. The more vivid and tangible, the more intense the cohesiveness it fosters.
4).INFORMATION CONTROL
The control of destabilising information by:
a).Denial of information so that sound judgements cannot be made. E.g. minimal access to T.V., non-group magazines, newspapers or radio. Partially achieved through busyness.
b).Criticism of the leader with peers not allowed
c).Members report improper activities to leader.
d).New converts do not talk to one another without a chaperone
e).Contact with ex members and critics avoided.
f). Compartmentalisation of information so that members do not know the ‘big picture’.
g) Multi evelled truth- the higher you are, the more is revealed.
i) For outsiders
ii) For members
iii) For leaders
iv) For high leaders
THE PROCESSES OF MIND CONTROL
There are three steps:
1).Unfreezing
2).Changing
3).Refreezing
1).UNFREEZING.
This is a shaking up and disorientation. A breaking up of the frames of reference used by the person for understanding themselves and their surroundings. This disarms the person’s defences against concepts that challenge reality.
Approaches include:
a). hysiological disorientation via sleep deprivation, new diets and eating schedules. Often best accomplished in a totally controlled environment such as a retreat at a country estate.
b). Hypnotic processes such as the deliberate use of confusion via contradictory information.
c).Sensory overload – being bombarded with material faster than it can be digested.
d).Use of double binds – “I am putting doubts in your mind”.
e).Group exercises –
1).Guided meditation.
2).Personal confession
3).Prayer sessions
4).Group singing
5).Vigorous callisthenics
Group activities enforce privacy deprivation and reflection.
f). As people weaken – A bombardment with the idea that the per- son is badly flawed, mentally ill, incompetent or spiritually fallen. Any identified problems are blown out of all proportion. There may be humi- liation in front of the group.
2).CHANGING
The imposition of a new identity, a new set of thoughts, emotions and behaviours to fill the void of unfreezing. This takes place:
a).Formally – in lectures, seminars and rituals
b).Informally –in spending time with members, reading, listening to tapes, watching videos.
The approaches to change include:
a). Repetition, monotony and rhythm – the hypnotic cadences in which formal indoctrination is delivered
b).A focus on central themes:
1).The world is bad.
2).The unenlightened do not know how to fix it
3).The old self keeps you from experiencing the new truth fully.
4).Old concepts drag you down.
5).The rational mind holds you back – let go.
c). he material for the new identity is given out gradually – “Tell him only what he can accept."
"Milk for the baby, meat for the adult”
d). Artificially induced spiritual experience. Private information is secretly passed and revealed at the appropriate time as an ‘insight’.
e).Asking for God’s will for them. Via prayer and study. The im- plication is that joining the group is God’s will, leaving is not.
f). Group processes:
1).Being surrounded by people who are convinced that they know what is best for you.
2).Via cells or small groups- questioners and doubters may be isol- ated into their own group.
3). Sharing sessions with ordinary members, where past evils are confessed, present successes told and a sense of community fostered.
3).REFREEZING.
This is the building up of the new person, giving them a new purpose and new activities to solidify the new identity. New beliefs are internal- ised by the person.
Approaches include
a). Denigration of the old self, maximising sins, failings, hurt and guilt.
b). Modelling. The new member is paired with an older member whom they should emulate.
c).The group is the member’s new family. d).Possible giving of a new name.
e). Turning over the bank account – subsequently it may be too painful to admit this mistake.
f). Sleep deprivation, lack of privacy, diet changes continued.
g). New location – no links with the past – only the new identity here.
h).Evangelising/prosteletizing – selling one’s own beliefs to others to firm up one’s own beliefs.
i). Difficult and humiliating fund raising. Can provoke a sense of glorious martyrdom.
General comments
There is no legitimate way to leave a cult.
The result of these processes is a dual identity - the old self does not disappear, but occasionally surfaces in humour, and greater emotional range and spontaneity. But it is clothed in the new cult self such that the person is more robot-like, rigid and cold-eyed. But the real identity holds the key to escape and to the inner desires. These emerge via psychosomatic illness, requiring outside treatment, dreams of being trapped, concentration camps e.t.c. and spiritual experiences, of voices telling them to leave e.t.c..
Problems in the group are always the fault of the member, due to:
a). is weakness
b). is lack of understanding c).Bad ancestors
d). vil spirits
e). is inadequacies.
ANALYSING AND ASSESSING GROUPS
Look at what the group does, not at what it believes. They have the right to believe what they want, but they do not have an automatic li- cence to act on those beliefs, else white supremacy groups would kill all blacks for example. Destructive groups undermine individual choice and liberty.
TOWARDS A TWENTY FIRST CENTURY CHRISTIANITY INTRODUCTION
For a number of years I was a Christian Fundamentalist. I whole- heartedly accepted a Calvinistic framework of Christian theology and led Bible studies and preached in my local church, serving there as a deacon. However, the advent of bi-polar disorder which caused severe mood changes from acute anxiety to acute depression coupled with a fear for my very sanity and other issues from my upbringing all served to put a severe stress on my Christian Fundamentalist conceptual frame- work of the Divine. In many respects, my Christian faith proved to be a firm rock and foundation during those very uncertain and unstable years, providing me with an anchor and stability when all else seemed to be collapsing. Furthermore, personal mystical experiences served to strengthen and establish this framework of belief. But, my trauma and vulnerability during these years, coupled with an insistent questioning of the nature of revelation and inspiration as a result of my mystical spir- itual experiences brought me to question the whole foundation of Chris- tian Fundamentalism – the Bible - and therefore its view of Jesus. For thirty-five years, the impact of Christian Fundamentalism and its views, strengthened and deepened by my heightened spiritual experiences, could not be fully let go of. It is only recently that I have finally got somewhere near the foundation of my study on revelation, inspiration and the Bible – a Bible claimed by Christian fundamentalists to be the in- spired revelation of God – to be God’s very Word. Only as the result of a tenacious and determined exploration of theology and psychology in or- der to get at the root of these things has the pathway finally opened up for me to be able to reappraise the founding teacher of the Christian faith
– Jesus.
I miss the camaraderie and fellowship of those ‘heady’ days in the 1970’s. I had a sense of direction, purpose, identity, meaning, value and friendship that I have not recovered or improved on since. I guess other institutions such as the armed forces may provide similar experiences and certainly I do not think that such sentiments are limited to religious experience. So of course, there is part of me that would love to go back to such a sense of meaningful spiritual community but I cannot do so by embracing the ideas that I once did. I have moved on and cannot return to that philosophy. Perhaps though I could cut through the Christian Fundamentalist mentality to embrace a more realistic set of ideas about Jesus, - who he was and what he taught - and to use this revised theo- logy, this new theology, this neo-orthodoxy as a new spiritual conceptual framework that has enough commonality with conventional Christian fellowship to enable me to join a Christian community again. Hence this study – an attempt to get to the roots and foundation of who Jesus was and what he taught – an attempt to strip away the layers of institutionased theology and centuries of assumptions and presumptions – an at- tempt by a spiritual minded pilgrim to get back to the basics and foundation of Christianity.
THE HEBREW CHISTIAN SECT
When we look at Christianity, we see that Jesus Christ, the founder of the movement, had been an itinerant preacher, teacher and faith healer and had pursued this ministry for about three years after being baptized by John the Baptist. Though popular with the people he was nearly al- ways at odds with the religious establishment and he caused quite a stir amongst them. They eventually found him guilty of blasphemy, handed him over the governor of the province who sentenced him to death by crucifixion. However, the body of Jesus was soon missing from the tomb and there were claims that he had risen from the dead. The Jews who fol- lowed Jesus, his disciples, were initially full of fear and anxiety, but fol- lowing some experiences whereby they see Jesus after his death, a Jewish Christian sect becomes established in Jerusalem where they remain. They meet in the temple for worship – and become one of a number of Jewish groups or sects.
PAUL – HIS CONVERSION, CALLING AND TEACHING
However, these Jewish Christians were not always readily accepted by mainstream orthodox Jews, with one Jew in particular, a Jewish Pharisee and expert in Jewish law, named Saul, taking particular exception to what he saw as a corrupting group within Judaism. He decided to make it his business to eradicate this troublesome deviant group within Judaism and thus keep the purity of the Jewish religion and practice. He obtained authority to arrest and punish any Jewish Christians that he found and whilst on this purifying mission he too had a vision of Jesus while he was walking on the Damascus Road. In the vision, Saul (later known as Paul) is called by God to be an Apostle to the gentiles or non- Jews. This visionary event occurred about two to three years after Jesus had been crucified. Paul himself tells us that in response to this vision: ‘my immediate response was not to consult any human being. I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus. Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days. I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother. I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie. Then I went to Syria and Cilicia. I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only heard the report: ‘The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.’ And they praised God because of me.
Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain. Yet not even Tit- us, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. This matter arose because some false believers had infilt- rated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves [to the Hebrew Law and practice of circumcision]. We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you. As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favouritism—they added nothing to my message. On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised, or Jews. For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.
(Paul’s letter to the Galatians Ch1 v 11 – Ch 2 v 10)
PAUL AND THE HEBREW CHRISTIAN APOSTLES
The Council of Jerusalem (or Apostolic Conference) is a name applied by historians to this early Christian council that was held in Jerusalem and it is dated to around the year 50 AD. The council decided that Gentile converts to Christianity were not obligated to keep most of the Mosaic law, including the rules concerning circumcision of males, however, the Council did retain the prohibitions against eating blood, or eating meat containing blood, or meat of animals not properly slain and against fornication and idolatry. Descriptions of the council are found in Acts of the Apostles chapter 15 (in two different forms, the Alexandrian and Western versions) and also possibly in Paul's letter to the Galatians chapter 2 which I have just quoted. Some scholars dispute that Galatians 2 is about the Council of Jerusalem (notably because Galatians 2 describes a private meeting) while other scholars dispute the historical reliability of the Acts of the Apostles. Paul was most likely an eyewitness, a major person in attendance, whereas Luke, the writer of Luke-Acts, who was a later follower of Paul, may not have been in attendance and thus may have written second-hand, about the meeting he described Acts 15.
PAUL’S MESSAGE AND THEOLOGY
Paul says that the Jewish Christians did not add anything to his message, which, after the Damascus Road experience can be summarised as something like:
Repent and have a new mind and turn to God
Demonstrate repentance by your deeds. Jesus Christ is God’s Son.
Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures. He was buried
He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures
But over seventeen years, Paul receives more visions – more teaching – and elaborates on his initial theology to produce a more complex theo- logy and to a basic message that declares:
God is Creator of all things and Sovereign
God is alive
God is transcendent of created things and Self-sufficient
God is present everywhere
God is not without a witness as to His existence.
f). God's provision of rain, crops, food and joy is a witness.
g). reation is a witness.
God is Just
God is a moral judge:
c). f the whole world
d). e will judge the world by a man
h). e has appointed a time for judgement
i). He has given proof of the coming judgement to all men or nations
j). Christ's resurrection from the dead is the proof and we are witnesses of this
God is kind – His kindness is shown in His provision of life and food
God's desire for us is that–
d). e should seek Him
e). e should reach out for Him f). We should find Him.
God commands all men, everywhere, all nations a).To repent
b). o turn from worthless idols
c). o turn to the living God. Demonstrate repentance by your deeds. Jesus Christ is God’s Son.
Christ died for our sins. He was buried
He was raised on the third day
CHRISTIAN WRITINGS AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT
It is at about the time of this Jerusalem Council in A.D. 50 that we find the oldest Christian writings – which are in fact the writings of Paul – a series of letters and epistles written from A.D. 50 to A.D. 62 – seventeen to thirty years after the death of Jesus. It is a theology that has developed and matured over this time. From his visions and revelations, Paul elaborated a theology concerning Jesus whereby he is the Messiah/Redeem- er and God’s supreme sacrificial offering to pay the price for the sins and transgressions of believers. Jesus is presented as eternally co-equal with God, humbled in time and space to come to us in the likeness of flesh, but, following his crucifixion, he is raised up from the dead as a guarantee of the future resurrection of humanity to the Final Judgment and the restoration of all things. Whereas the old Jewish Law was powerless to accomplish this, in the New Covenant established by Jesus, these Laws, both ceremonial and moral, are superseded and transcended by a new relationship to God through Jesus and a righteousness gained not by our works and obedience to the law, but rather imputed to us by and through faith in God. The True Israel is not the Jewish nation with its sign of circumcision, but rather it is the spiritual Israel – those who have faith in God. Thus all Israel will be redeemed, having a righteousness by faith, imputed to them and credited to their account. This exalted view of Jesus is further developed and elaborated in the tradition of John’s later gospel.
We should remember that none of the gospels present in our Bible had been written when Paul was writing his own epistles which is why he does not refer to them. Indeed, they will not be written for another ten to twenty years. There is possibly a ‘sayings’ gospel – a book of the words of Jesus – but not a gospel describing his life and works. Also, the different groups within Judaism and the newly emergent Christianity mean that writings with different emphases begin to emerge – some emphasising the Jewishness of Jesus and his adherence to the Law for example, others emphasising views of his Divinity and his miraculous works and yet others claiming to be written by the Apostles out of reverence for them and following their particular teaching, though they were actually written by their followers. All the time, the idea of the Divinity of Jesus is growing and thus as a general trend we may speculate that the later the gospel is written, the more references they tend to have to events such as the virgin birth, miracles and so on – until we end up with the gospel attributed to John written about A.D. 90-100 – containing the most of these kinds of references – where Jesus is the pre-existent Word of God made incarnate flesh for example. John presents a higher Christology than Matthew, Mark or Luke, describing Jesus as the incarnation of the divine Logos through whom all things were made. Only in John does Je- sus talk at length about himself and his divine role, conversations that are often shared with the disciples only. Against the other gospels of the canon, the gospel attributed to John focuses largely on different miracles, given as signs that are meant to engender faith. Synoptic elements such as parables and exorcisms are not found in the gospel attributed to John. The gospel attributed to John presents a more realized eschatology in which salvation is already present for the believer.
VISIONS, REVELATION AND GNOSTICISM
What is important for us to consider here is the foundation of this early Christian teaching. The original foundation in both the cases of the disciples of Jesus and the Apostle Paul is visions. It is through visions and appearances that Paul and the other Disciples/Apostles are persuaded that Jesus has risen from the dead. It is through visions and appearances that they have further teaching/revelation. It is through an appearance that Jesus is seen as ascending to the clouds. Paul describes his Damas- cus Road experience as such himself: ‘So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven.’ (Acts 26). In these accounts, Jesus appears and disappears, enters locked rooms such that they think they have seen a ghost and so on. We can discover what the Apostles them- selves understood concerning the nature of these visions and appear- ances by looking at one of the groups within the early church – the Christian Gnostics.
Early Christianity was not one simple group but very quickly con- sisted of a wide variety of groups emphasising different traditions and aspects. One such group within Christianity was the Gnostics – them- selves a diverse group who had esoteric beliefs with origins in paganism – but who began to adopt and merge some Christian ideas with their own, creating a strand of Christian Gnosticism. Valentinus (also spelled Valentinius) (c.100 - c.160) was the best known Christian Gnostic and for a time the most successful early Christian Gnostic theologian. He founded his school in Rome and according to Tertullian, Valentinus was a candidate for the bishop of Rome, but started his own group when an- other person was chosen for this role.
The word ‘esoteric’ means ‘pertaining to the more inward’: mystical. The dictionary defines ‘esoteric’ as information that is understood by a small group or those specially initiated, or of rare or unusual interest. Esotericism therefore refers to the holding of secret doctrines, the prac- tice of limiting knowledge to a small group, or an interest in items of a special, rare, novel, or unusual quality. ‘Mysticism’ is ‘the pursuit of communion with, identity with, or conscious awareness of God through direct experience, intuition, instinct or insight’. Mysticism usually centres on a practice or practices that are intended to nurture such spir- itual experiences or awareness. ‘Gnosticism’ (Greek: γνῶσις gnōsis, knowledge) refers to a form of mystical, revealed, esoteric knowledge and this notion of immediate revelation through divine knowledge seeks to find absolute transcendence in a Supreme Deity. The ancient Nag Hammadi Library, discovered in Egypt in the 1940s, revealed how var- ied the Gnostic movement was. The writers of these manuscripts con- sidered themselves ‘Christians’, but their syncretistic beliefs borrowed heavily from the Greek philosopher Plato.
PAUL’S CHRISTIANITY AND CHRISTIAN GNOSTICISM