How it Feels

Cult, okay, what is a cult? The Oxford Concise English Dictionary has, 1 “a system of religious worship esp. as expressed in ritual. 2. a devotion or homage to a person or thing (the cult of aestheticism). 3 denoting a person or thing popularized in this way (cult film; cult figure).

This works for many no doubt but, in my view, these fall short. Let me tell you why.

In 1976 I began a doctoral program at San Francisco Theological Seminary in San Anselmo, California. (Presbyterian U.S.A.) There were fourteen of us in the doctoral program, and our major professor was Dr. Louis Rambo, a recognized expert on the subject of cults and conversion. Taking a course on this subject with him in my second of the four years, I learned that there were four categories of cults: religious, political, economic, and educational/psychotherapeutic. It was an edumacation let me tell you.

I was somewhat aware that there were political centered groups that seemed to be of a dangerous nature, okay religious too, a bunch of them for sure. Economic and educational/psychotherapeutic –– I had never heard of these.

During the school year, each of us in the program met almost every week for a brief period with Dr. Rambo. During the course of the semesters, we talked about various things that related to the congregational pastoral ministry.

At one of these meetings, sometime in 1978, Lou stated, and gently, that the church I was senior pastor of was cultic. I was utterly floored, near to devastated. To our next meeting I brought a copy of our church’s doctrinal statement, which Lou said was “just fine,” but he went on to explain that the cultic adjective was relevant due to the way we looked at other groups and churches: we thought of ourselves as more spiritual, more biblically centered, and really more all out for the Gospel twenty-four seven than other churches and ministries.

This began a “dark night of the soul” for me, which eventually lead to my resigning from the pastoral ministry just two years later, and also resulted in a divorce. This devastating period led to my going to law school in San Francisco. (I ended up being a private investigator and summons server for many years.)

In 1984 I went back into the pastoral ministry, where I am still, the Miller Avenue Baptist Church in Mill Valley, CA, yet was still involved in my legal business for another eight years, “Service for the Legal Profession,” which I dearly loved. In 1988 I put together a twenty-three-week course I titled “The Cult Recovery Workshop.” I run this program twice a year for six years. (I placed ads in the Independent Journal and the San Francisco Chronicle.) It was a life saver for me and many others. Some of the members of the church I had pastored, a couple of pastors as well, were part of the workshop. There were Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Christian Scientists, Adventists of various persuasions, as well as numbers of folks from other groups.

Now I have a very dear family member involved in an economic cult, which I will not mention here, but I suspect most readers will know the primary name for this group. Now you know the reason for my writing this little essay. Both my former wife and I are trying desperately to get her away from this group, but so far, no success. And I think I know a reason for this, which came to me about one hour ago.

“Cult” is a word that caused a shattering in me when Lou Rambo told me the church I pastored, one that emerged out of the Jesus People Movement, was cultic. The word hit me like a bomb. How could things get any worse; me in a cult, me a Jesus preaching, Bible teaching Christian, and senior pastor, the one most responsible. A deep angst was powerfully with me for many years, and still to this day, haunts me to some degree.

So just a while ago it hit me how my loved one must feel when confronted with the idea that she was emersed in a cult, and not just a small one, which tends to dominate and distort the lives of so many that get mired in it.

What must I do? Or, maybe better, What can I do?

Cults, of whatever persuasion or category, indoctrinate their adherents slowly and effectively: the leaders know how to counter attacks and accusations from those who oppose them. In my experience, after engaging with a cultic group for a year or more, it is very difficult to dislodge a person from that group. Some will give up their wife or husband, even with children, in order to remain in the toxic group. Strange it could be so, but it is.

Some will remain in a dangerous cult for many years before he or she will wake up to what is going on. And the aftermath, a recovery time, may last for many years. It is extremely difficult to admit that years of one’s life has been siphoned away, family and friends lost, health in decline, and mental anguish of various sorts still clinging. Even thinking about the years in the group, the lost years, may trigger serious anxiety. Now is a time for love, compassion, and patience.

I do recommend a book by Rick Alan Ross, Cults Inside Out: How People Get In and Can get Out, self-published in 2014. Rick is not a Christian. I have spoken with him on the phone, and we may do a television interview with him. He functioned as a paid professional in helping extricate members from cults for many years. It is a long and involved process, one which I would not attempt to emulate, but some good insight may be gained by reading his book.

Another helpful source is the Cult Education Institute, which Rick is very much a part of.

Just hours ago, a couple, a man and a woman, knocked on our door. I had spoken with the woman on the phone before, she is a Jehovah Witness, and she was attempting to win me over. This was the second such experience this very month of December 2022. The first was from a guy named Hal, lives on the east coast, and he told me that he was focusing on Baptists as the Witnesses said many even Baptist pastors were becoming a part of their Kingdom Hall. For several weeks we sparred on and on, but he gave up on me when I presented how incredibly impossible it was that Jesus is the archangel Michael. (He was shocked that I even knew about this.)

Where am I going with this? It seems to me that followers of Jesus need to be made aware of the existence of the many cults in our world today, how they operate, and how we can reach out to their members.

I encourage each reader to go to Christianbook.com and order a book or two on the cults. One that I saw at the site at Rose Publishing is a brochure kind of booklet listing the main American type cults. And there were many others.

For me and our MAC, I intend to teach a class on the cults on Sunday mornings beginning to as close to 9:30am as I can, starting in February. We followers of Jesus must be aware of the teachings of the various cults. Wherever you are, study up, be prepared, not only to protect family and friends from falling prey to cultic groups, but also to expose error to those who have been captured by various cults. This is indeed evangelism.