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
What will be most awakening is that day of reckoning when those who denied those who were Christians LDS and for those who thought they were Christians and the Lord says I never knew you!
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Resty, what will be “most awakening” is the day of reckoning when those who have placed their faith in Christ alone to save them and have done good works for HIS GLORY ALONE are ushered into heaven with “Well done, good and faithful servant;...enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” while those who place their trust in the LDS church to save them, and spent their whole lives on the LDS ‘hamster wheel’, doing “good works” for their own glory (exaltation) are told by the Lord, “depart from me, I never knew you”.
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!
So the JST is just another "we believe it insofar as it has been correctly translated" work, too?
Turning my words and saying things where the LDS place their faith bla bla.
I have stated many times My conversion came by the Power of the Holy Ghost before I ever knew anything about the Church or Joseph Smith etc.
stop spinning my words there is nothing that the main stream religion has has that I want nor need.
It is not the primary source it is secondary
The spirit of sarcasm is alive and well I see!:)
ping to 21
An amazing list. They obviously knew how to SELL (hardsell) their cults. LOL!
Bumping that comment.
C.S. Lewis once said:
“There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, “All right, then, have it your way”
I think the Lord will say to Mormons, “You put your trust in works and ordinances instead of my Grace? All right then, have it your way”
My mother passed away 3 weeks beofe my mission started. We had the funeral two weeks before. I has the option of delaying my entry date but decided that she would probably want me to go ahead anyway instead of sitting around the next few months feeling badly for myself over our family's loss.
The funeral was before I went into the MTC. But I was able to visit her grave site after I went in the MTC. A wind storm blew through the cemetary after she had been buried, but before the headstone was placed by the company. Subsequently I was not able to see her headstone placed. I was able (by my own choice) to leave the MTC and travel to the cemetary (My grandfather picked me up) to see her gravesite.
I know a personal friend who was sent home two months early (honorably) because his mother contracted cancer and was in the terminal stages, she subsequently passed away. A missionary companion of mine's mom had MS. He made the choice to come on his mission knowing the possiblity she could die at any time, or that she could live 10 more years. It was his choice to go or not.
From my days in the military they do pretty much the same thing. You can go home to see immediate family member funerals (but not grandparents) with emergency leave, which you have to pay for yourself. But you do technically have to have permission from your command.
Emergency leave isn't always granted. What if you are in the South China Sea in an undisclosed location? They don't have to bring in a chopper for you. Also there is the problem of timing. Even with permission you can't always get stateside quickly enough even if you have permission. IOW, there are many cases of military men and women who miss the funeral. Some soldiers make a personal choice to stay in their warfighting capcity and don't take emergency leave. They may reason that "dad" or "mom" would rather have them continue to serve.
As for the difficulty issue. It is a difficulty for Missionaries (and Soldiers) but in my experience both are willing to work with you. I was offered free counseling from a professional in the MTC about the loss (which I chose not to take) and also offered professional counseling from a psychologist while in the field (who I did talk to a few times about losing my mom). Interestingly he had worked for 20 years as a military psychologist before opening his private practice in the area I served. He was LDS as well.
Sometimes parents get divorced while their son is on a mission, or family members die. I'm not trying to minimize the issue or personal pain that can be experienced by a missionary over such family upheavals but if your story is accurate and the mission president did tell him no I assume it is similar to a commander who does not want to grant emergency leave (which can occur as well). My Mission pres. was an old rancher. Some miltary commanders are real bastards (which is why they are such good soldiers and commanders).
Again I'd like to see the official policy you are referring to as my personal experience contradicts your assertion of that policy.
(Oh, and that never happened with the Bible, eh? And so, the KJV Bible is "untrustworthy," too?)
Oh, and what about the "many hands" on the Book of Mormon? Joseph Smith didn't make those almost 3,000 edits. Edits where King names were changed. Edits where "the Son of" was inserted, etc.
Any other lame excuses?
I really fine it amazing how those who claim there is no such thing get this up set!
Smile!:)
I often think restornu is obtuse on purpose. Basically I take her post to mean:
The syntax and attitude reminds me of someone else.
There is no more to this story than I am letting on. His father passed away 3 years ago, his mother is dying and he wanted to see her. He has no other immediate family to insist he be sent home. And was told NO, that the “Lord wanted him to remain in the mission field” rather than go home for a couple of weeks to see his mom.
I am not sure there is an official policy. That said, the 2006 Handbook of instructions says this about a family member dying:
“If a member of a missionary’s immediate family dies, the Church ENCOURAGES THE MISSIONARY TO REMAIN IN THE FIELD. However, if the FAMILY insists that the missionary return home, the missionary MAY be allowed to return at the family’s expense.” (Page 99, empahsis mine)
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Mormon_Church_Handbook_of_Instructions%2C_full%2C_2006
Also according the the Missionary rules in the The Missionary Handbook (AKA “white bible”), one of the rules is: Do not leave your assigned area without permission (”District leaders must approve travel outside your area within the district; zone leaders must approve travel outside your district within the zone; and the mission president must approve travel outside the zone.”)
http://www.lds4u.com/Missionaries/rules.htm
So, yes this young man did leave his area without permission. He asked permission and was denied. Does this happen to everyone? No. Do mission presidents vary in how they handle these situations? Of course. Are some MPs great guys and some jerks? Yeah.
Nevertheless, that does not change the fact that this young man felt he had to choose between his mission and his mom. And he chose his mom. Now is is considered “dishonored”.
One can denied and dismiss as much as they want it don’t change what is!
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What is it?
You asked — What is it?
—
A clue here... “They” know..., but they don’t want “you” to know... :-)
[definition: “they” = Mormons; “you” = anyone not Mormon ...]
And is the same point that is being made about the Bible it was so far removed from the original word of the Lord. (snip)
In the Bible the Lord warn many time that his gospel was being changed many are dreamers and want to believe the book the Bible is infallible. (snip)The words of the Lord is infalliable but what men do with the Words of the Lord is not infallible to think that the designs of men could not happen. (snip) One of he mission of Joseph Smith was to restore the Plain and Precious Truths that was removed or alterd in the Bible.
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Prove it, Resty. SHOW ME how it is ‘far removed’ from the original word of the Lord. SHOW ME what “plain and precious” truths were removed, SHOW ME what has been corrupted, SHOW ME HOW the bible is not infallible. SHOW ME what JS “restored” in the bible.
You make these claims time and time again, and you never show us. SHOW US. Time to put up, Resty.
Oh and BTW, If you read VERSE 2 of Galatians Chapter 1, you will see Paul is speaking specifically of the local churches in Galatia, not of a total apostasy. The “other gospel” that Paul speaks of is the gospel of the “Judaizers”, those who sought to add WORKS to the gospel of grace, just like the LDS.
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? The infallablity of the word of mormonism is based upon one man -smith. The Bible is based upon God. something to ponder.
Some have such strong feeling against the LDS which has never been shown against Atheist or Satanist nor did the founding fathers infringe upon these views…
Yet some today if could would recind the same rights to the LDS as was allowed to those who are Atheist or Satanist!
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I cannot speak for others here, but I have equally strong feelings against atheism and satanism that I do against the LDS. Although, I do think that Satanism is less of a threat than the LDS, because it is so obviously against Christianity, whereas LDS doctrine tries to place itself within Christianity while maintaining contrary beliefs.
Freedom of religion is a good thing, but freedom of religion does not mean I have to agree with you, or that I have to let your beliefs go unchallenged. And you, as an American, have the right to believe as you wish, I also have a right to speak out about your beliefs.
Ain’t America great?
A good example of a modern cult is The Episcopal Church. They have disavowed the authority of Scripture in favor of supposed new direct revelation from God (”the Spirit is doing a new thing”). They have incorporated all sorts of new age beliefs into their teachings, as well as radical feminism and pagan rituals such as Wicca, shamanism, and nature worship. (Look at videos of the “consecration” of the current Presiding Bishopess as an example, complete with Native American medicine men “smudging” and “vestal virgins” dancing in the service; this Bishopess is also known for intoning prayers to “Mother Jesus.”)
They teach that the Gospel is fulfilled in the UN Millenium Development Goals. They are also looking at getting their first Buddhist bishop. How wacky can you get?
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