Posted on 04/15/2009 6:12:41 AM PDT by Alex Murphy
An American cult is what happens when radical individualism meets religion and philosophy.
A cult becomes cut off from the mainstream of traditional religion and the global community of faith. It begins to converse only with self. This dangerous isolation is an important topic, as American religious communities such as the Episcopal Church drift in this direction. Mainstream global Christians do not delight in this drift as they recognize the temptations of the cult all too well from their own temptations to isolation.
Extreme stories litter the paper every day that show the consequences of isolation. Cults begin to delight in their edgy behaviors and to call what the rest of the world calls “wrong” something good.
Why is America a particular breeding ground for cults?
The root is in a misapplication of good American ideas.
Americans rightly rejoice in their heritage of legal and political equality, but the usefulness of an idea can have limits. Positive political ideas can be toxic when misapplied to other areas. Treating the ideas of individuals equally is excellent for society in the voting booth, but not so good in the laboratory or the parish.
Liberty is a very good thing, but so is excellence, and there is noteworthy tension between these two goods. American society mostly has done a good job allowing for moral excellence, virtue, while being cautious about imposing too much virtue on dissenters.
There is much to fear when culture gets the balance wrong. Liberty can always devolve into the merely libertine while excellence can become the tyranny of the experts. Humane society cannot survive either extreme for long.
Traditional Christianity asserts the importance of both liberty and excellence. Christianity asserts the essential freedom of human to choose his path. God Himself let Adam and Eve choose and face the consequences of that choice. Christianity also asserts that while human beings are created equally in the image of God, all human ideas are not equal. Some ideas are true and some are false.
No king, rich man, or mob can decide what is true, good, and beautiful.
A cult gets the proper tension wrong in two ways. First, in its relationship to the outside world it is radically autonomous, defying dialogue with the broader community in the name of what it claims to know. Second, internally it often demands a rigid suppression of thought and dissent in the name of community standards.
This is dangerous, because religion, like any field of knowledge, is powerful, complex, and fraught with peril for small communities. Cults have at least two characteristics that make them likely to go bad: they refuse to defend their beliefs using reason and they never or rarely change their minds based on external ideas.
All of us are tempted to talk only to a small group of like-minded folk, but, as recent revelations about left-of-center media lists reveal, such conversations become dull and predictable. Fringe members of the community begin to press the envelope and if the community is not careful then dangerous ideas can be “mainstreamed” in the small group.
Too little dissent can create a groupthink that slowly allows genuinely frightening ideas to gradually gain credence. The lazy tolerance for anti-Semitism that manifests itself in certain leftist web sites is one example of how otherwise sane groups can be hijacked by too much conformity.
Much of the “new” atheism presently suffers from the perils of this intellectual inbreeding. Of course, traditional Christians can give this warning, because they have bitter experience of these dangers.
There is another danger in talking about “cults” for more mainstream religious and non-religious people. We can misuse the term by applying it to any person with strong religious beliefs, especially if they are in the minority. If cults are in danger of close-mindedness, some Americans avoid this error by going to the opposite extreme. They associate any strongly held religious opinions with close-mindedness or cultic behavior.
This is a dangerous mistake that can cut off valuable conversations.
For example, while most reasonable Americans believe in God, it would wrong to say that all strong-minded atheists are in a secular cult. A few extreme secularists may fall into the “cult trap,” as the founders of the American Atheist organization did, but their failure is not because they have unpopular views or express them forcefully.
Cult members are very opinionated, but that does not mean every religiously opinionated person is part of a cult. Thinking you are right is normal, having disdain for everyone who disagrees with you is cult-like. My own strong religious views have benefited by being tested by reading scholars who disagree with me, ranging from Pope Benedict XVI to Michael Ruse. Both the Pope and Ruse hold their views strongly, but reasonably, and are not isolated from a global conversation.
Overuse of the term “cult” in the public square sometimes substitutes for actual arguments with thoughtful dissenting groups. As a traditional Christian I have serious theological disagreements with my friends in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons), but it is wrong to label them a cult.* Any quick search will show LDS are willing to defend their views using arguments accessible to non-LDS. These arguments have changed under pressure from counter-arguments from non-LDS scholars and improved. I am not persuaded, to say the least, by these arguments, but LDS willingness to produce careful and responsive scholarship is a nearly infallible sign that they are no cult.
America has long operated with hazy, but generally Christian, moral consensus. America has typically tried to provide maximum liberty to those who dissent in a way that is consistent with social order. For example, the government would not allow polygamous marriages, but would tolerate some types of religious dissent from forced government schooling.
Hopefully, if this consensus changes over time, the tension between religious liberty and social order will be maintained and continue to tip ever so slightly in favor of dissenting views. Today’s cult, after all, might be tomorrow’s received wisdom. The humility to recognize that this is true is also an important part of a good and reasonable society.
*The word “cult” has popular, technical philosophic and theological uses. Some technical theological uses of the word “cult” might apply to LDS, but I am speaking of the use of the term in newspapers like the Washington Post. ExileStreet
Those who find fault with the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints do so out of ignorance for they fail to realized the original copy of the JST was handle by many hands before The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints received a copy!
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PROVE that the JST was “handled by many hands” before the LDS church got a copy. I do not see how that can possibly be since JS made the changes with his scribes and they had total control and possession.
And IF the JST was corrupted (which I seriously doubt), the how can you trust ANY OF IT, including the parts that are used as footnotes in the LDS KJV and in the Pearl of Great Price? If the JST is unreliable, then it should be thrown out, right?
And I find fault with the LDS church, not from ignorance, but from personal KNOWLEDGE and found the LDS church to be a fraud.
“been there...done that...read the Book...saw the movie...wore the garments”
stop spinning my words there is nothing that the main stream religion has has that I want nor need.
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How am I “turning” your words? Hmm?
Regardless of how your “conversion” took place, you place your faith in the LDS church. If you did not, then there would be no point in belonging to the “only true church”, would there?
Everything the LDS believe hinges on the reliability of Joseph Smith as a prophet. If he is a prophet, then the LDS church is the “restored” church of Christ. If however, he was a false prophet, or a con man, then the ENTIRE LDS church crumbles. There is no middle ground there.
And there is something the mainstream Christian church has, that you may not want, but you DEFINITELY need. That is the Jesus Christ of the Bible. A Christ who is SINLESS (contrary to Orson Pratt), fully God and fully man (not one who had to “earn” his godhood), who has the power to cover ALL sins (contrary to past LDS leaders view that some sins are not covered - like murder), and who doesn’t need our “help” by our works to ensure our place in the presence of God.
You may not want this Christ, but you need Him, you need him badly, for eternity without Him is a VERY, VERY long time.
“You put your trust in works and ordinances instead of my Grace? All right then, have it your way”
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Very true. Too many people (and not just LDS) add works to the equation because the think Grace is “taking the easy way out”. Salvation by grace alone through faith in NOT easy, it is simple but not easy. It was NOT easy for Christ to go to the Cross, it was NOT easy for Jesus to take upon himself ALL of the sins for ALL of humanity, it was NOT easy for Jesus to have the Father turn His face away from Him.
Being humbled and admitting to myself and God that I could do absolutely NOTHING AT ALL to save myself,that I NEEDED Christ to save me, was one of the most difficult things I have ever done. It was also the most rewarding.
Reaganaut,
Please join those of us who have designated thuRsdays as Resty thuRsdays!
ampu
You hit the nail on the head and the truth is this: Joseph Smith failed the two tests outlined in the Bible for a true prophet of God:
1) A true prophets prophecies had to come true 100%, 100% of the time: Deuteronomy 18:20-22
2) Even if the prophets prophecies came true 100%, a false prophet would draw his followers away from worshiping the true and living God as presented in the Word of God to worship "other gods": Deuteronomy 13:1-5
Joseph Smith failed BOTH of these biblical tests. He is therefore a false prophet and the founder of a false "religion" that worships a false christ.
ping to #41
Does that include the un-lds-canonized JST/IV? What about the 3000+ changes to the bom since 1830? How about the changes to Moses after Young died?
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Good point. So if we throw out the BOM, PGP, Bible and JST, then that just leaves the D&C and there are many changes in that from the original “Book of Commandments”. Hmmm, guess that has to go, too. So what are the LDS left with?
Reaganaut,
Please join those of us who have designated thuRsdays as Resty thuRsdays!
ampu
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I would be glad to. I pray for her (and other LDS freepers on a daily basis, but will make thuRsdays a particular day for intercessory prayer for our dear Resty.
reaganaut,
You got the “dear” part exactly right.
I’m with you, standing in the gap for
dear resty regularly. thuRsdays, I hope
I’m joined by many of the Inmans who realize
that God alone opens hearts and changes lives.
You can’t argue someone into the kingdom.
That takes the Holy Spirit.
ampu
God alone opens hearts and changes lives.
You can’t argue someone into the kingdom.
That takes the Holy Spirit.
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Amen, Ampu. I often say that I “thought my way out of” the LDS church, but that is only half of the equation. There was much more that God was doing in my life to lead me into His kingdom.
My research into the history and doctrines changed my mind about the LDS, but the Holy Spirit is the one that changed my heart and led me to faith in the Jesus Christ of the Bible.
Actually, the biggest cult is the Southern Baptists.
Historic Christianity - isn’t that where you buy indulgences from the Church so you can sin all you want?
You’re confusing a particular church with the Bible... :-)
Well, that’s a novel idea..., must have come from one of the cult groups... :-)
ROFLOL. When I get a few minutes, I will write up all the crap that goes on in the protester churches that makes them the very definition of cults. Of course, if you smear anything as innocuous as Boy Scouts, you can make them appear as a cult.
And that is what you are good at: smear jobs.
I, of course, welcome all prayers. I will even add your names to the temple prayer list this week.
I think this is an outright lie.
A warm feeling in their chest?
Okay, about you people and the Niceans.
WHERE DO THEY GET OFF WITH THEIR TRINITY STUFF SINCE IT IS NOT IN THE BIBLE?????????????????????????????????????????????
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