What's a Cult Today?

By Ruth Tucker

By Ruth Tucker

I apologize for getting the wrong book in this post; the correct one is now here.

Cults. Who’s in and who’s out these days? Christianity began as the “cult of Jesus.” I was once asked by a student if I thought the Roman Catholic Church was a cult. In the 1990s I wrote an article in Christianity Today arguing that the Worldwide Church of God had transitioned from cult status to evangelical. Cult-watchers pounced, suggesting that I might be about as heretical as Herbert W. Armstrong himself (then deceased and presumably no longer heretical). A lot of water has gone over the dam since then and since the publication of my text, Another Gospel. It was a serviceable title, alternative religions avoiding the pejorative nature of the c-word. Today, however, New Age has lost much of the sparkle its crystals once had.

In 1986, with advance money from Zondervan, I took a double “cults” tour. The first leg from Grand Rapids out East, the second out West. By the end of that summer, our 12-year old son was well educated on the subject, and he still occasionally mentions things he learned 35 years ago.

Beginning with the Boston Mother Church of Christian Science, the Brooklyn Watch Tower of Jehovah’s Witnesses and the New York headquarters of the Unification Church, we circled down to a Philadelphia Hare Krishna ashram and on to their Golden Temple in West Virginia, completing our first leg in New Knoxville, Ohio, headquarters of The Way International. Our trip West took us to the Rajneesh compound (Antelope, OR), the Worldwide Church of God (Pasadena), Scientology (Los Angeles), Salt Lake City and all things Mormon (already having visited LDS early sites in Palmyra, NY), Unity School of Christianity (Lee’s Summit, MO), Reorganized Church of Latter-Day Saints (Independence, MO), ending our long trek at the Baha’i Temple (Wilmette, IL).

Several groups seem to be visible today only on Wikipedia. Where, for example, have all Moonies gone? Likewise, The Way International, the Children of God, Rajneesh, and Hare Krishnas. Back in the day, they scared us silly. Christian Science and Unity are dying as fast as their elderly members. And large segments of the RLDS and Seventh-day Adventists have become close kin to Evangelicals. The LDS has also presented itself in more evangelical terms, though certainly not scrapping its heterodox doctrines or extra-biblical scriptures. Social media push-back against strict rules, however, is animated—everything from tithing and ill-fitting ladies’ temple garments to the banning of hot coffee. Jehovah’s Witnesses have remained essentially unchanged, though often in the news relating to charges of sexual abuse.

My text sold well, but never gained the readership of Walter Martin’s Kingdom of the Cults. Even though it’s focus was largely biographical and wrong-headed beliefs, it was seriously out of date within a dozen years. Professors contacted me requesting a revision but Zondervan turned the proposal down. Not enough interest anymore in cults.

So, is the term “cult” useful today, or dare we use it only cautiously as I did more than three decades ago? Is it useful in speaking of denominational or independent churches that have cultic characteristics? Some people use it both politically and religiously for what they term a herd mentality of lemmings going over the cliff. The term is controversial and imprecise, but it’s stubborn and simply doesn’t want to be deleted from the English lexicon.

I haven’t kept up on the subject like I should, but I’d be interested to learn from our readers about new movements springing up on campuses or rural compounds or on the Internet. Or are new cults hiding in the form of evangelical churches? That perhaps is the paramount question.

Was Mark Driscoll’s empire, for example, cultic? The marks of a cult were certainly evident. And I don’t call his Mars Hill a church (as opposed to a church called TOV). One of the many characteristics of a cult is its authoritarian leader who is worshipped almost alongside God. Driscoll ranked high on that scale. And Bill Hybells? Perhaps not so much—if you discount his post-scandal standing ovations from worshippers.

Another mark of a cult is disfellowshipping, putting those who disagree out of the group and dissing them. I have talked with Jehovah’s Witnesses who cannot even be in the company of disfellowshipped members. A neighbor of mine cleverly skirted the rule from inside her screened porch, talking with her daughter and grandson parked in the driveway. But what about Mark Disfellowshipper Driscoll? Listen to his words:

Over the years, I’ve just accepted that if I do not quickly open the back door when God is trying to run people out of our church, I am working against God by keeping sick people in my church so that they can infect others. Indeed, the church is a body, and one of the most important parts is the colon. Like the human body, any church body without a colon is destined for sickness that leads to death.

Indeed. His words are chilling: “There is a pile of dead bodies behind the Mars Hill bus, and by God’s grace, it’ll be a mountain by the time we’re done. You either get on the bus or you get run over by the bus. Those are the options. But the bus ain’t going to stop!”

Many cult-like organizations reverse this bus analogy by mandating legal covenants for membership, making it virtually impossible for people to get off the bus. A bus is indeed an apt metaphor.  Intoxicated by power, a boozy bus driver wields a dangerous weapon. And the passengers? Whether mindlessly singing A hundred bottles of beer on the wall, or pulling the cord to get off, or being pushed out the emergency door, the dead bodies pile up. Suburban Jonestowns. Toxic preachers. Spiritually poisonous cool aide.  

If I were to update my 35-year-old cults tour, any ideas on where my road trip should take me? Or, should I just follow the busses?

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