Acceptable Cults

Part 2: The Cult

Cult-Colored Lenses

“Cult” is a sliding scale.  Like the difference between drinking an occasional glass of wine and being an “alcoholic”, it’s something you usually can’t judge until you have some distance from it.  And in the same way extreme alcoholics started out with a harmless drink or two, almost all extreme cults started out as perfectly normal, harmless, and even helpful organizations, led by good people.

The “org” is Freedom Christian School and Fair Oaks Open Bible Church / Lifepoints Church, run by the the group I describe as “the trinity”: Pastor Duane Coller, Mrs. Annette Coller, and Just Ryan. And almost all the people who been ejected from the org argue that it’s clearly a “cult”.  But I think the whole debate is pretty pointless and boring because it can be painted either way, by placing the threshold of “cult” on either side of what they do. 

If you’re looking for “cults”, you can see them everywhere, because every organization has some cult features.  For example, 

  • Every effective dictatorship is a political cult, for sure.
  • Most work places also attempt to be places where members are unhealthily committed.
  • Most fraternities attempt to break through individual boundaries as a gateway to acceptance in the group.
  • Republicans and Democrats are all cult members.
  • Gym rats are definitely cult members.
  • MLM “employees” are explicitly mini-cult factories.

Even most people who are dating are attempting to become a leader of a two-person cult, attempting to get someone else, slightly more marketable than themselves, who (1) has a desired quality and (2) is gullible enough, to make an unreasonable commitment to the presented image of themselves.  The two make a connection where their arcs of desired qualities and gullibility intersect.  It’s often little more than indoctrinating another person in order to take advantage of them and get what couldn’t be acquired honestly.

And that, my friend, is what most of our commerce and nearly all of our commercials are based on: “You suck, but we’ll help you cover it up so the world never finds out.  With us, you can acquire more than you’re really worth!”

The whole world is just a collection cults, if you want to see it that way!  Instead I find it more useful to look at the specific bad beliefs we had at our almost-a-cult.

Beneficial Lies

But sometimes bad beliefs have positive outcomes, so many of the characteristics of a “cult” can be found in relatively healthy cultures as well.  For example, believing that our company makes a better medicine than the competition, and that the competition is evil, will likely result in us working harder to make an even better product with an even better ethic and offering it for an even lower price, helping even more people, even if our competitors aren’t evil after all.

Religious institutions have tons of these terrible beliefs that have some really positive outcomes – a litany of rules that, if not followed, might get your toes a little closer to the eternal flames of damnation.  This is a mentally ill view of the world and the self.  But it also means a high percentage of Christians abstain from gambling, drinking, smoking, and a host of other activities that are fun in moderation, but are often difficult to keep moderated.  They literally say out loud “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,” and, ya know…I can see why, if being afraid of God’s wrath causes you to make choices with better outcomes.

Even cultural ideas that are more dangerous can have beneficial side effects. For example, a strong dose of racism might save your life if it helps you avoid a malicious sector of your hated race, even if that racism destroys your soul in other parts of your life. Likewise, sacrificing a virgin to the gods of harvest might be the only thing giving that community any hope during a multi-year drought.  It’s entirely possible an annual homicide or two prevented a whole lot more suicides during many a fruitless sowing seasons in millennia past.

To be clear, I’m not advocating bad beliefs for anyone. It would be ignorant to argue that the practical benefits make the unethical, ethical.  But it’s equally ignorant to think that all the effects of cult behaviors are negative.  In fact, if, while making my unwise decisions while exiting the org, I had the convenience of believing that what I was about to do was a “sin” (instead of only thinking it was a terrible, terrible idea) I probably would have avoided at least a lot of the mess I made.  I wasn’t willing to sin.  I was willing to take a risk.  An idiotic Christian interpretation of the Bible really could have really saved me.

Just a Dash of Cult-y-ness

An acceptable cult is just a “culture”. It’s “how we do things around here,” and it’s valuable. According to Steven Covey, the efficiency of communication (or any transaction) is proportional to the level of trust.  All cults have a culture, and all cultures provide the opportunity for a cult relationship.  Good cultures (acceptable “cults”) increase the inherent trust, and make human interaction much more efficient. Some of the other innocuous annoyances of cults include:

  • Specialized vocabulary.  The military goes crazy on this one, but don’t feel stupid when you join a new group and they all seem to have their secret code of acronyms and re-defined words. It’s very dumb. It’s very junior high. And apparently every organization does it.  Language has always been a pretty effective qualifier for who is like “us” and who is not. Think of literally any verbal “accent”, and you can immediately come up with 10 ways that people who talk like that are not like you.  Likewise, give me 5 minutes in a Bible study with any human, and I’ll be able to tell you with shocking accuracy how long he’s been a “believer,” and probably what denomination of church he attends.
  • Moral code. As long as it’s an encouragement and not a requirement, this can be a great thing.  Each cult considers their moral code to be a “high” moral code, but that just usually means a “strict” moral code.  They are very concerned about the things they are concerned about, and don’t give any attention at all to the “sins” they allow themselves to engage in.
  • Adherence to goals & commitment to the mission, especially written or pledged.  Mantras; vision statements; statements of faith. Banners and posters and written on our walls.  This keeps everyone on the same page, literally, and gives everyone clear expectations for the group.  Most people have some part of it they secretly disagree with, but at least everyone knows what they are supposed to claim in order to be a part of the group. (Also read “Catch-22” by Joseph Heller, or just listen to a few minutes of the “Dark Horse” podcast, episode 48, where, starting at about 5:00, they summarize the The Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade from Catch-22, but then apply the lesson to a completely separate topic.)
  • Implied rules that aren’t made explicit.  It’s just how we do things around here. It’s not mandatory and it’s not written down, but we’ve all been together so long that we kind of act the same. “Everybody knows…”  It’s “common knowledge!” Or, more arrogantly, “It’s just common sense.”  There is no way you could have known how to act without having been in the group, but you’ll be treated like an outsider until you repent whenever you breach the hidden contract.  Violation of an unknown rule is a test of your willful homogeneity – it signals to us the degree to which you are willing to violate yourself for the sake of the group.  (For more on conformity, check out the fascinating experiments of Asch, Milgram, or Zimbardo.)

Us vs. Them

This trait deserves its own section.  The whole point of a culture is to establish “in” groups and “out” groups by standardizing norms.  Differences can be good.  Competition can be healthy.  But a culture is only healthy to the degree that it resists the urge to villainize the “out” group.

In the private sector, the competition is explicit.

In government, the animosity between factions is just as strong, but the warring factions are seemingly more politically unified thanks to public sector unions.

In the church, the “us” is Christians and the “them” is the world.  It’s more of a fear of contamination and a mission to fix the world, than an outright hate (though the battle against the evil in the world is constantly laid out aggressively in war terminology and analogies). There are two groups: the “ministers” and those who are being ministered to. Cult Christians don’t have people in their lives who are messy (struggle with real problems) unless they are ministering to them.  Cult Christians cut off family and friends rather than set appropriate boundaries.  They disown, disdain, disrespect, and disassociate from anyone, even a hero of their own culture, if that hero continues their “malpractice” while struggling with anything that would qualify them as an outsider, who needs to be ministered to.

This is precisely why pastors keep all their struggles a secret. The culture demands that we crucify any minister at any level who breaks the rules, or thinks about breaking the rules.  They are “unfit” for ministry.  That’s right – they are not qualified to encourage or teach or facilitate in any capacity – even singing a song on a stage – if they have a known moral failing or question any part of the moral code. That would be too dangerous to the congregation, to hear the crooning of a questioner.

I have personally witnessed dozens of friends, who are perfectly wonderful people, be stripped of their jobs, their reputation, and much more, because they either made a dumb, out-of-character mistake, or even made a conscious decision to pursue what would, in any other context, be considered completely harmless.  Our org even fired several janitors because of their personal failings. You read that right: if you suck a dick on your own time, you are no longer worthy to show up after business hours and scrub our fecal smears off the toilet bowl.  True stories. But more about the org’s specific sins later, because it seems the global church has a similar culture.  Christians who are as old as me will remember the collective disowning of:

We should want some stigmas. Rape, theft, and murder should not be normalized. Some of those guys did reasonable time for understandably illegal acts.  But the additional devaluing of them as human beings is perfectly counterproductive for everyone involved.

Cults are bad at a lot of things, and shunning is right in their wheelhouse. This trait goes from reasonable to harmful pretty quickly.

Quick Reference Cult Test

In evaluating your church / work / family / meeting / group, here are some common traits that become more cult-like as they increase:

  • Questions are treated as dangerous
  • Lack of fresh perspectives
  • It’s all about honoring the leaders
  • In-groups and out-groups (“Others” are wrong, apologies required, favoritism for inner circle, relational enmeshment, isolation from out-group)
  • Micromanagement
  • Loyalty rewarded over competence
  • Operating outside of their expertise
  • Leaders doubling down on things they should be apologizing for
  • Black-and-white thinking
  • Culture of fear

Quick Cult Evaluation

Adapted from an unknown Instagram post, here’s a quick test to determine whether or not your organization is a cult (and keep in mind this is only as effective as any test would be to determine whether or not you’re an “alcoholic” – you can skew it either way based on where you hope to end up)

  • Does it punish you with demotion or isolation when you question?
  • Does it elevate its wellbeing over yours?
  • Does it try to distance you from other relationships?
  • Does it always speak and never listen?
  • Does it claim to have a near-monopoly on Truth?
  • Does it use shame to control behaviors?
  • Does it use guilt, shame, or fear to motivate?

Up next:

Extreme Cults