What Makes a Religious Group a “Cult?” Part 1

Last updated on: May 13, 2019 at 7:44 am by Roger E. Olson

What Makes a Religious Group a “Cult?” Part 1 2019-05-13T07:44:41-05:00 Roger E. Olson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

One of the questions I am asked most often is whether a specific religious church is a cult. Most often the questioner is not satisfied with my answer. That’s because they want a simple “yes” or “no” and, is so often the case in matters religious (and other matters), there is usually no such simple answer. And a big part of that is the change in the meaning of the word “cult” in the past forty years—beginning especially with “Jonestown” in 1978.

I became obsessed with “cults” when I was in high school. I had heard about “cults” in church many times. Our church library, which I perused and borrowed from often, contained several books about cults. Back then, 1960s, for the most part, a cult was an extremely unorthodox form of Christianity. That is, a group that called itself Christian but was not really Christian—from the point of view of most traditional Christians.

One day, while perusing a used bookstore in town, especially its “Religion” section, I discovered a book about Christian Truth and Religious Delusions. In effect, the Lutheran author labeled my church, the whole Christian movement of which it was a part (viz., “Full Gospel”) a cult. I gradually became aware that many people in our small Midwestern city considered my church a cult—probably without being able to express exactly why. (It was Pentecostal-turned-charismatic-turned Jesus People church.) Most of the church-going people in our city were either Lutheran or Catholic. To them, I discovered, we were a “cult.”

The books in our church library, mostly standard books about “sects and cults,” tended to restrict that category (or those categories) to Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Christian Scientists and Seventy Day Adventists. One book that I read in high school was The Kingdom of the Cults by Walter Martin. Of course, that book included more than “the four major sects” mentioned above. I became intrigued by the subject of “cults” and made a major presentation in a high school class about the subject. (The class was about sociology and had a mini-course within it about religion.)

Then I came across another book in a Christian bookstore and heard the author speak. The book, which I bought and devoured, was The Marks of a Cult. I really wanted to know whether “my church”

*Sidebar: The opinions expressed here are my own (or those of the guest writer); I do not speak for any other person, group or organization; nor do I imply that the opinions expressed here reflect those of any other person, group or organization unless I say so specifically. Before commenting read the entire post and the “Note to commenters” at its end.*

Now, bear with me as I step back and add a few factoids about my obsession with “cults.” I remember even as a kid in elementary school, fourth and fifth grade, being fascinated by a particular author and his books. Some of them were in our church library or in the pastor’s library (to which I had access as he was my father). The author in question was Marcus Bach—a professor of religion at The University of Iowa’s School of Religion. I discovered in him a kindred spirit in that both he and I were obsessed with little known religious groups (in America) like ours. The closest he came to writing out ours was a chapter in one book about Aimee Semple MacPherson and The International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. Our denomination was an offshoot of that and so I grew up hearing stories—both flattering and not very flattering—about “Sister Aimee.”

Again, even in fifth grade, I was devouring every book by Marcus Bach I could get my hands on. (Later, when I was in college, he came and spoke at a Unity church near the college and I attended and met him and we had a brief but fascinating conversation. I found him to be a very gentle and gracious man who was actually more interested in me and my denomination than in himself and his work. He was retired at that time.) Bach did not call any of the unusual sects he wrote about “cults.” He strictly avoided that word (so far as I can remember) which piqued my curiosity. So many others who wrote about the same kinds of churches and religious groups had no hesitation calling them “cults.”

One other thing I must mention here that helps explain my fascination, even obsession, with cults and unusual religious groups is this: As I was growing up I had an uncle who belonged to what my father and others called a cult. His two boys were near my age and I played with them at family reunions. I noticed one time that when the family prayed over a meal that uncle got up from the table and walked away. He came back when the prayer was ended. I asked my father about that and he explained that his brother belonged to a religious group that did not believing in praying with unbelievers—people who didn’t belong to their sect of Christianity. Then, at some point, my father labeled his brother’s group a cult. I once tried to ask my uncle about his religious faith and church (which met in his home) and he declined to discuss it with me. My father explained that this particular heterodox Christian group did not talk about their religious beliefs or practices with outsiders who were asking out of curiosity.

So my obsession with “cults” began very early—sparked by a book that more or less labeled the church I grew up in a cult (by implication if not using that exact label), given impetus by my uncle and cousins, set on fire (so to speak) by Walter Martin’s The Kingdom of the Cults, informed somewhat by the book The Marks of a Cult, and then…really deepened into my bones by encounters with “new religious movements” (the later proper term for cults used by scholars) that flooded the American scene in the 1970s.

During that decade, my eyes opened to the phenomenon of so-called “cults” and still extremely curious about the subject, I came into direct contact with several groups that I suspected were cults (by the definitions given by Martin and Breese and implied by Bach) that other people, Christians, seemed not to notice (at first)—except perhaps with some curiosity. Among them were emissaries from Korea selling flowers door-to-door and on street corners and talking about a Korean prophet who they considered the “Lord of the Second Advent.” Among them were young men wearing clerical garb (but too young to be priests) wandering the streets of downtown inviting mostly young people to come to their “house” to learn about the religious teachings of a San Francisco based prophet of the New Age. Among them were strange looking and acting young men and women wearing saffron colored robes dancing and chanting and handing out literature about a Hindu guru who they believed was in touch with the god Krishna. Among them were followers of an American Bible teacher who denied the deity of Christ and seemed to condone free sex among his followers. Among them were the devoted followers of a man who organized numerous converted “hippies” into communes and claimed to be a special prophet or apostle of Jesus Christ. He also seemed to condone if not encourage sex outside of marriage.

These and other groups “like them” were obviously, to me, the new crop of “cults” and I felt it my calling to study them and teach Christians to avoid them or at least be knowledgeable about them. One thing that sparked that “calling” in me was that I discovered many of this new “crop of cults” hid things about their religious beliefs and practices from outsiders and sometimes even from insiders! Some of them pretended to be orthodox (or at least “biblical”) Christians but held and taught beliefs that were anything but orthodox. And word began to leak out that some ex-members of some of these groups were claiming they had been “brainwashed” with tactics like “love bombing” and then abused by leaders or members of the group. Some of them talked about “escaping” the group and one man even offered his services to kidnap and “deprogram” young people who joined a “cult.”

There was no internet or world wide web at that time, so discovering dependable information about many of these “new cults” (or “new religious movements” as scholars preferred to call them) was not easy. Somehow, I don’t remember exactly how, I stumbled across the name of a man in the Chicago area who was known as an “expert” and even a “scholar” in this area. I quickly made contact with him and asked about the church of my uncle. He provided me with the first printed information about it and he and I kept up a correspondence about “cults and new religions” for several years. He was (and still is) a walking (and writing and speaking) encyclopedia of information about non-mainstream American religious groups and movements.

In 1978 I graduated from seminary—after trying my best to inform the ministers of the city about that new religious group whose local leaders wore clerical garb and believed in reincarnation but claimed to be orthodox Christians—and moved to one of America’s largest cities to pursue doctoral work in religious studies at a nationally recognized research university.

Around that time I began to worry that I might have grown up in a cult. Well, it was perfectly orthodox in doctrines, but in practice “loyalty”—to the group—was strongly expected of members and any questioning of leaders was quickly labeled “disloyalty” or “being negative” which meant exclusion from the group (or at least marginalizing that I call “inside shunning”). I found that during my college career I had asked too many and the wrong questions and was labeled “disloyal” and virtually excluded from any chance of ever pastoring a church within the denomination. The board of the college even considered refusing to grant me my earned degree because of my “harassment” of teachers and administrators with questions. (As it turned out, some of the teachers and administrators were of extremely dubious character or extremely unqualified to teach!) I think the board could not decline to grant me my earned degree because my uncle was president of the denomination.

I cannot say that the denomination or churches I grew up in were/are cults, but I do believe the college I attended had several marks of cults—the main one being arbitrary and authoritarian religious leadership and practice of spiritual abuse toward students who dared to ask unwelcome questions.

When I found myself firmly settled into my new place—away from the denomination of my birth and childhood and youth—I began seriously to consider the possibility that, in some ways, I had been brainwashed. Not by “love bombing” or sleep deprivation or any of the tactics so many anti-cult experts talk about but by spiritual abuse that shut down any questioning. I was always an “inquiring mind” and could not help asking questions when I saw or heard things that didn’t seem right. The common response was shaming and marginalizing. I tried conforming but was simply unable to accomplish it. I saw and heard and knew things that were wrong and couldn’t help pointing them out.

One of my first assignments as a first year doctoral student in religious studies at a major secular research university was to teach an undergraduate course called “Deity, Mysticism, and the Occult.” I jumped at the chance and dived eagerly into it. That was just the opportunity I had been looking for.

Next up—my experiences of “cults and new religions” during the late 1970s and early 1980s and how I became an “expert” on cults and new religions, at least locally, throughout the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s.

*Note to commenters: This blog is not a discussion board; please respond with a question or comment only to me. If you do not share my evangelical Christian perspective (very broadly defined), feel free to ask a question for clarification, but know that this is not a space for debating incommensurate perspectives/worldviews. In any case, know that there is no guarantee that your question or comment will be posted by the moderator or answered by the writer. If you hope for your question or comment to appear here and be answered or responded to, make sure it is civil, respectful, and “on topic.” Do not comment if you have not read the entire post and do not misrepresent what it says. Keep any comment (including questions) to minimal length; do not post essays, sermons or testimonies here. Do not post links to internet sites here. This is a space for expressions of the blogger’s (or guest writers’) opinions and constructive dialogue among evangelical Christians (very broadly defined).

Uncategorized

Previous Post

May 10, 2019

A Great Evangelical Theologian to Read: Donald G. Bloesch

Next Post

May 16, 2019 What Makes a Religious Group a Cult? Part 2

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Against Liberal Theology Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

In Revelation, what is the correct sequence of events in the End Times?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Dragon cast to earth, beast rises from sea, false prophet rises from earth, mark of the beast given False prophet rises, dragon cast to earth, beast rises from sea, mark of the beast given Mark of the beast given, dragon cast to earth, beast rises, false prophet rises Beast rises from sea, dragon cast to earth, mark of the beast given, false prophet rises