No… not that one you naughty people…….
I’m talking about a different “C” word, one possibly just as insulting to some.
Cult.
There, I’ve said it. If you’ve been in one, it’s probably the thing you least want to talk about. If you haven’t been in one, then you’re probably fascinated to find out more. If you’re in one right now, chances are you won’t fully realise it. So, you may close this blog immediately and go away and pray for me. Thank you in advance (she said politely). However, do me a favour and read on. Be brave. What have you got to lose?
First, can I say that I know the word is heavily loaded and triggering. It is often used inaccurately. There is no legal definition of a cult or legal difference between a cult and a religion. The Catholic Church, for example, is not a cult, but there are expressions of it that are cult-like in some contexts. Some cults are not religious at all, but some religious expression is cult-like. There are Netflix series galore on the subject, even one daring to accuse Mother Teresa of using cultish tactics. But aren’t some faith expressions healthy and helpful. Don’t they add to our lives and enhance our spiritual journeys? How do we dip into these murky waters and make sense of it all, without losing the good stuff and how, most importantly, do we know if we’re in a cult or not?
When I first left London over ten years ago, I ended up going to a church in the area. I hadn’t been there long when the Vicar laughingly referred to the fact that people had been saying the church was “a cult”. He found this hilarious. So did his congregation. Sitting quietly in the back row, I found it alarming and worrying. In my personal experience, if local people are openly accusing your group of being “a cult” I would say that’s a bad sign. The Vicar did what many group leaders do when they are accused in this way – he denied it and blamed the “gossip” on “Demonic activity” against his church. What self-respecting group leader wants to admit to himself or anyone else that he’s running his organisation like a dictating guru. My alarm bells had already started ringing, however. Suffice to say I left that church.
I’ve been there before as many will already know. I was in a covenant community for 20 years that was and still is accused of being a cult. I ignored people when they told me I was being brainwashed. I laughed at the very idea of it. I recognised cultish tendencies in other groups but reassured myself I was not in one. I had no idea I had been brainwashed and groomed. I had no idea my marriage had been largely arranged. Our family left the group in 1998, but it’s taken me this long to process properly what happened to me between the ages of 15 and 35. Over the past two years I have educated myself a little more on what cult-like behaviour and cult-like leadership look like. So here are some thoughts (and results of nearly two years of counselling and research).
QUESTIONS
I’ve compiled a list of questions that I’m entitling HOW DO YOU KNOW IF YOU’RE IN A CULT? Here goes:
1. Are people/family outside your group saying you might be in one?
2. Are people leaving your group? In particular, is it primarily one demographic who are unhappy (eg single women, 2nd generation members)?
3. Is your faith expression all-consuming, leaving little time for hobbies or friends outside? Count up how many strong, equal peer friendships you have that are not in the group, people you would turn to in a crisis.
4. Are you encouraged to put yourself and your happiness/well being last?
5. Are you being asked to “honour the unity of the body” or some such phrase by not questioning or criticising? Are you being told your opinion or suggestion is “not the community way” or “not in our group DNA”?
6. Are you wondering why focus of teaching seems to be on behaviour rather than primarily recognised truths about your religion (eg the Gospel message)?
7. Are your leaders saying God has revealed something to them exclusively that you’re being called to obey? Is that thing in line with your own personal experience of faith/values?
8. Is your body telling you everything is not ok (depression, anxiety, stomach problems, sleeplessness etc etc )? Do you feel confused? Are you being told confusion comes from the Devil/ evil source?
9. Do you feel like everything you say has to be filtered, and you’re treading on egg-shells, and you’re exhausted because being a member is such hard work? Do you feel like you’re losing yourself?
10. Are your young adult children at odds with you about your belief system or decision to stay in the group? Are they leaving as soon as they can? Are they refusing to participate in family activities that stem from the group? For me this is a key question. I believe that the current generation of young adults have been taught to be very perceptive with regards to personal boundaries and manipulation. In other words, their cult radar is strong.
11. If you came across the group now, knowing all that you know about it, would you still join it?
I hope some of these questions have got you thinking. They are not exhaustive but I know I would like to have read them decades ago when I was feeling confused about this stuff.
LIFTON
In his book “Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism”(1961), Robert Lifton shared the results of a study. In a series of interviews Lifton identified tactics used by Chinese communists to cause drastic shifts in a person’s opinion and personality, also known as brainwashing. He identified eight components of thought reform.
1. Milieu Control – this is the control of communication within the group environment. In other words, keeping outside information on the outside. It also includes encouraging members to doubt themselves and their instincts/emotions, which cuts off the inner dialogue and crucially begins the process of actively supressing themselves. Milieu Control can be as obvious as requiring members to live completely cut off from general society or as subtle as recommending that people not trust the advice of family who are not part of the group, or even demonising a person who is questioning the status quo. The group environment is also controlled by keeping members so busy that they have no time left for outside activities, outside family or real friendships on the outside. The hardest part of my journey has been to listen to my instincts and value my emotions, as well as engage in making complex life decisions without allowing others to make them for me. Old habits die hard.
2. Mystical manipulation – the quality of being special in a mysterious and attractive way is attributed to the groups’ main guru/gurus. The group I was in had two men who are spoken about as if they are saints and direct lines to God. Their names were always mentioned in the same breath. One of them is spoken about as having a superior intellect and saint like qualities. The other (recently deceased) was thought to have an extraordinary gift of prophecy/ knowing what God was thinking. After years of being subconsciously influenced by these men’s world view, I am in a place where it is clear to me they are/were just men with a strong opinion and uniquely warped interpretation of many parts of the Bible. They have no power or influence over me anymore, but the unravelling is slow and long term.
3. Demand for purity – This is the demand for purity in every sense of the word which manifests itself in the pursuit of perfectionism. In a cult-like environment purity is redefined as being attainable, but only within the confines of the group eg if you stay in this group you stand the best chance of being spiritually successful, protecting your children from the evils of the outside world etc… Everything that has gone before (the old self, the old friendships, the old ambitions) are no longer relevant because they are “impure” “selfish” and “broken”. The Covenant Community I was in also demanded sexual purity (from celibate and married members) teaching that celibate people should certainly not have sex before they got married, but also if they were married that their sex life be seen as “service” to one another, usually male-initiated, not focusing on passion or lust (god forbid) or expressing need or want or preference. There was no room for conversation about experimentation or adventure. And don’t even mention the LGBTQ community. I still struggle with the need to do everything perfectly, particularly in terms of moral decisions and my relationship with sex has been seriously damaged because of what I was taught to believe when I was in the group.
4. Confession – Lifton talks about how serious and not so serious “sins” as defined by the group, are confessed either privately to a personal monitor or publicly. “In totalist hands, confession becomes a means of exploiting, rather than offering solace”. In the covenant Community this confession was a daily activity. I had a personal monitor to whom I confessed all my weaknesses and sins and also did the same thing in a larger group of about 6 or 7 women every week. I loved the dopamine hit from these “sharing groups” because they made me feel supported and connected. But, it also meant that leaders knew everything about me and had control over every part of my life because of that, information which they discussed between each other. The strict silencing code (ie don’t gossip) was not adhered to by the leaders who told everyone’s secrets to each other. I know this, because I was a leader myself. The habit of confession has been one that I have found hard to break, often feeling I need to tell people everything about myself for them to fully understand me or accept me. This is a natural part of my personality anyway (I am a Myers Briggs NF for those interested) but Covenant Community reinforced it to another level.
5. Sacred Science – “The totalist milieu maintains an aura of sacredness around its basic dogma, holding it out as the ultimate moral vision for the ordering of human experience.” In other words, the leader builds a narrative around himself that he has been given the key/answer to ultimate peace or whatever he is offering as the reward for following his teaching. The Covenant Community I was in believed it was/is called to be an example to the worldwide Church. It believes it is a place of moral purity and excellence and has been given this call by God himself. In order to make a “public commitment” to this group (a life-long promise) you have to have “turned away from serious wrongdoing and turned to obedience in Christ” and to have “been delivered from all serious bondage to evil spirits” (Leaders Manual 2015) among many other criteria. In other words, it calls its members to elite, bespoke Christianity that is a cut above the average church going Christian. Which to me is at odds with the Gospel message which welcomes all. I have spent years undoing self-blame and self-loathing as a result of being on “the outside of God’s grace” since I left the community, as well as fear that I was disobedient, rebellious, backslidden, going to hell etc.
6. Loading the Language – Anyone who has watched “The Handmaid’s Tale” will know they have their weird-sounding sentences that they throw around (Blessed Be The Fruit) that only they understand. The Community I was in had many of these. Suffice to say, that to an outsider they sound pretty weird. The language is conveyed through music, and through teaching and preaching which filters down into the daily vernacular of members. Big words like unity, humility, surrender, covenant, repentance, authority, are full of meaning and used to keep members in line e.g. ”Sister, your questioning is threatening the unity of the body and what God is doing in our midst”; “Brother, you need to submit to the authority of your coordinator and allow God's will to be manifested.” Both of these sentences, when translated mean "Shut up and do as you're told" - but when loaded with language they are given authority and nuance that weighs them with other meaning.
7. Doctrine over person. The teaching and the ideals of the group take precedence over the well-being of an individual, or any opinion from outside the group. This has, in many cases, led to the covering up of illegal activity within Covenant Communities, because of distrust of outside agencies and carte blanche being given to certain male members. When I was in the cult I was friends with four different men who now have allegations of sexual misconduct against them, some of them from children as young as five. The behaviour of these men was known by leaders and covered up for decades. The group identity is so strong that when one man was eventually exposed the leaders issued a letter calling the whole community into a time of “repentance”. In other words, the mistakes they had made in covering up the man’s illegal activity was projected onto the whole community, as if it were the fault of the whole community.
8. Dispensing of Existence – This is that aspect of cult behaviour that is so famous – the decision that some should be killed/ commit mass suicide because the Guru decides this for them. Obviously in the group I was in, nobody was killed to my knowledge, (although, tragically, there have been many suicides of ex-members). Also elite leaders did have to promise they would “die for each other if God called them to”. However, the expression of this component was subtle. Essentially in covenant community this means that if you leave the group you cease to exist to them. That doesn’t mean nobody talks to you or contacts you or cares about you. All of those things sometimes happen. But the friendship is no longer equal – you are at best pitied and prayed for; your opinion is certainly not valued or relevant and you are not trusted, even by family. At worst you are actually shunned or asked to leave. I have talked to many people who have experienced shunning, under the guise that members were “giving them space”. Often it transpires that leaders tell members not to contact ex-members because they fear they’ll be a negative influence.
So that is Lifton’s list. I know if I had read it when I was still in the covenant community I would recognise many of these things but perhaps have concluded that Lifton was twisting things, focusing on the negative and had a typically “worldly” view about religious groups. So I may or may not have realised he was talking about me and mine. But if you’ve read this to the end, (thank you, I know it’s a long one and a little academic for some) and anything rings a bell with you I’d encourage you to talk to people who are speaking out against your group. I would also encourage you to speak to survivors of alleged crimes perpetrated by members of your group, if you are able to. Especially if they have left. And I would not take answers from your leaders at face value. Dig deeper. Don’t’ be scared.
Thanks for reading.
Jess