Part XIV – What is a Cult?

The term “cult” is one of those words that gets filled with meanings that vary widely depending on who is using it and in what context. Although some have used the term as simply a way of labeling those on the fringes, I believe that there are important sociological and spiritual patterns that form a true cult.

First off, let me say that being in a cult is not about doctrine, and it’s not even exclusively religious in nature. Being in a cult is about being robbed of personal freedom and morality by a demonic system. In fact, I would go so far as to say that a cult is simply a manifestation of the devil’s Kingdom on earth. The devil will try to set them up wherever he can and make them as large as possible. Therefore the the demonic patterns described by the word “cult” apply regardless of scale.

• The cult could be national: Both Communism and Nazism were cults which robbed entire regions of personal freedom and morality.
• The cult could be a relgious group within a free society.
• Abusive/Dysfunctional families are microcosms of a cult. Personal abuse lacks many of the larger sociological elements of cults, the basic psychology of fear is the same.

The goal of any of these situations is to isolate, control, and destroy people, and the same psychological levers are used to make it happen. Here are some features that I see as indicative:

• A militant corporate goal. The physical establishment of the “Kingdom” is a key uniting feature. Even political cults are based on some kind of millennial vision. Hitler wanted to restore the German people and purge the earth from what he saw as everything impure. Communism was to free the workers around the world.
• Elitism. The cult believes they they are the best of any comparable group because they are the ones who are really pursuing the pure vision that no one else is. Religiously this leads to doubting the salvation of other more mainstream groups and eventually moves from thinking they are just the BEST to thinking that they are the ONLY group with the truth.
• “Enemies” — associated with its elitism and corporate goal, every cult must have enemies. These enemies are often phantoms of the imagination of the leadership, and when they are not, they are enemies created by the sinful behavior of the leaders. These “enemies” serve as the explanation for bad things that happen, as well as why everyone must stick closer and closer together and only obey the leader.
• It’s own historiography. The cult will have its own version of history to support both it’s future goal and its elite status. The radical fundamentalist Baptists for example have a story which explains why they are the only true church.
• Exaltation of a single person. Within a cult, although it may start around an ideal, a single person always gets more and more power, and this power is used to implement the other aspects.
• No Freedom of Speech. In a cult there are always things you are not allowed to say or talk about. Sometimes pastors use sermons on “gossip” to shut down the freedom of speech of the parishoners. A pastor has a sin and it has been discovered, so rather than repent, he admonishes the people not to gossip. In the meantime he gossips by gathering all of his allies together to support him and attack those who are bothered by the situation. If they accept it, it sets up a culture where people are not comfortable with telling the truth.
• Inability to leave. This develops over time. Sometimes the barrier is physical, but often times it is mostly psychological: If you leave you will lose your salvation, your family relationships, your friends, etc.
• Summary Excommunication. Those who they cannot keep silent or who refuse to obey must be either killed or disfellowshiped immediately. So basically the plan is to keep you from leaving, and if you cause trouble take you out.

Many Christian groups that are not cults exhibit some degree of this behavior in the early and milder stages. If you are in a position to influence the direction away from these tendencies you should do so before things get worse, otherwise take it as a warning and get out. There are always several groups of people associated with the cult:

• The committed. The core of the cult is those who have no morality except advancement of the cult. This minority is what makes it work.
• The promoters. Unlike the committed, the promoters are not “in on” the sin in the system, and unlike the compromisers, they are not particularly bothered by what is going on. Instead they are tied in because of relationship. They “trust” and “believe in” the leader or leaders in the committed circle and that is enough for them to basically be blind to anything that occurs. When a victim raises their hand, the promoters basically rally to the defense of the committed almost in spite of any evidence that can be presented.
• The compromisers. This is a group who sees flaws with the cult but are still proponents because of what they see as the good things about it. These people can be some of the most dangerous because they form an important link between the committed, and the victims.
• The validators. These are people outside the system who are used or manipulated by the committed to legitimize the activity of the cult. They are not exposed to all of the problems but are deceived by the leaders into thinking everything is OK. They might be brought into participate in some way or just referenced as a sympathetic voice.
• The victims. Every cult has victims. The system is designed such that the victims cannot speak out. Their testimony may be discredited, or their abuse is legitimized, or they are just reduced to non-human status.
• The escapees. These people have managed to escape the power of the cult and are calling it out for what it is. They fight it from the outside. They can come from either the compromisers or the victim groups originally. Compromisers reach a point where they “see the light,” and victims reach a point where they have had enough. When a committed person defects it is almost always to take over the cult or start a new one.
• “Persecutors” — The often imaginary people who are “out to get” the cult because they have some kind of “agenda.”

Basically the way the devil takes people out is by isolating them. Start with the weak, and blame them for their faults. They “deserve it” for some reason. In the process everyone else in the system becomes more corrupt. Deceive, Isolate, and Destroy.

My wife made an interesting point too about how this happens invisibly The deeper you are in the cult (the higher on the list) the more layers you are aware of. The people at the bottom tend to see everyone above them on the list as a monolithic group. The people near the top tend to realize that there are other groups less committed than themselves.

Part XII – The Party System

God’s Kingdom advances through a pattern of successive reforms. When a reform is completed, people who were believers in the reform, but who themselves are not reformers, but institutionalists, take over. With time it becomes a “party” system, where those who are in power reinforce their power against those who are not in power, not primarily because of an ideal, but because of the power itself.

The “party” system is simple. To be a member of the party you must believe in what the party believes. This protects it from any possibility of internal reform. If the party has fundamentally compromised on a certain issue it is impossible to reform from within because in order to become a member of the part, you too must also compromise on that issue to be accepted within and move up. Party systems operate on a scale from idealogical purity to plain mafia. An idealogical purity party system is primarily based on making sure everyone holds to a shared ideal. Now as long as the ideal is a true one, this can be a good thing — much like ascribing to the core tenants of the Christian faith in a denomiation. On the other hand, the mafia system is based on a shared sin. Once you do your first “hit” for the mafia, you are one of them. You are basically all in on it together, and the bond you have to the party is stronger than any other bond you have, partly because people who have seared their conscience take ease in the presence of others who have seared their consciences in the same way, and partly because the other people “have your number.”

A truly demonic system will always have concentric circles of sin indoctrination designed to slowly move from from an idealist to a completely compromised operative. As you move deeper you become more compromised, more beholden to the system, less likely to repend, and more of an oppressor to the truth. Some parties have enough power to show who they are, but often times they exist as a hidden elite within a particular organization They may not be “hidden” if they are the official leaders of the organzation, but the basis of their shared corruption is. Everyone thinks they are just an elected member of the group, when in reality they are a part of the hidden party.

Now this sounds more conspiratorial than it is. I’m not talking about conspiracies that people knowingly take part in here (althought they work in similar ways) but primarily about how any power functions within a system even beyond people’s conscious understanding. You may be moving into the party and you don’t even really know it. You will really only know the party exists when you try to defy it and see what happens. This happens to fringe political candidates all of the time. When they try to bring an alternative message to the stage, the party will do a lot of things to try and stop or dismiss them. Ghandi said it extremely well when he said “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”

An Eschatology in a Nutshell

There are three basic systems for eschatology. Rather than elaborate on all of the nuances, I wanted to give the super simplified list to keep things clear. The most popular system has these basic features:

1. Jesus is coming back to get the church and judge the world at any time.
2. This will be followed by a golden age of his rule upon the Earth while Satan is bound.
3. This will be followed by Satan’s release and a final judgement of both the devil and the wicked.

That is called premillennialism. It has several core problems. The biggest one for me is that it basically repeats history. First of all there are two completely separate judgements. After the righteous stand before God, they return to Earth with Jesus and rule over everyone who is left after Jesus judges the world. If you’ve read Revelation, it’s hard to imagine anyone being left, and it’s even harder to imagine that these people are going to repopulate the Earth so we can rule over them and finally have them judged. Then you have three defeats of Satan: Jesus defeated the devil at the cross, he will defeat him again at the end of this age, and then again at the end of the thousand years. So we need another alternative. Hard core Reformed types have proposeed the following:

1. Satan was already bound and judged at the end of the Jewish era in 70AD.
2. The golden age that the Old Testament prophesied is now. If you look closely you’ll see that things are in fact getting better and better, it’s just taking a long time.
3. After the church has literally taken over the world Jesus will return to rule it.

That is called postmillennialism. First, John would have had to write Revelation before 70AD for this to work, and that’s very unlikely. Secondly, it all too conveniently puts everything bad in the past, while leaving a few goodies for the end. Third, it sees Theonomic rule by the church as good, which in reality has always been bad historically. Fourth, a LOT more time may be needed to fulfill it, maybe several more millenia. The final system and one I follow has these features:

1. Jesus is currently ruling the world through the church, having bound Satan at the cross.
2. The Kingdom is essentially a spiritual reality, so while there are outward signs of it, the primary battle is spiritual.
3. After the church has reached every nation, Satan will be released and there will be a final showdown between his kingdom and God’s Kingdom.
4. Jesus will return in the midst of this battle and Satan will be finally defeated, the wicked will be judged, and there will be a new heavens and new earth.

This is called Amillennialism. Right off the bat, people have trouble with the idea that Satan is bound. If you look closely at the text it says that Satan was bound so that he could no longer deceive the nations (same Greek word for Gentiles), and that is exactly what you see. We are no longer enslaved by demonic lies, but the Gospel is expanding in the Gentile world wherever it goes. Secondly, people complain about “spiritualizing away” the prophecies of the Bible. If you look at the things that are being “Spiritualized away” like Ezekiel’s temple, and the millennium itself, I think it is pretty easy to see that these are prophecies, intentionally given in images and word pictures.   It is actually proper to interpret passages like this “spiritually” rather than in the most literal fashion.  After all Joseph didn’t tell Pharoah that his dream about 7 cows was really about 7 cows did he?

Part XI – How the Kingdoms Advance Geopolitically

Although the governments of men are legitimate political actors who influence history by seeking their own self interest, behind all political power is ultimately the war between the Spiritual forces of God and those of the devil. The devil’s goal is consolidation of power under one head in order to control and eradicate all of mankind, and God’s goal is bring people out of the devil’s Kingdom and into relationship with him, which politically means less consolidated power and more in the hands of the righteous in order to protect God’s goals.

There are many different factions on the planet which are pursuing the devil’s goal. In fact it is pretty natural for man to desire this kind of power and desire to push out other rivals. It is a complex game of brinksmanship. Although history itself is teleological (directed) the role that a specific political actor plays at a given time may shift. The direction of history is seen only from a distance as the net direction emerges.

The devil wants to use evil governments to set up increasingly evil governments. This is the phenomenon I call “twice the son of the devil.” It is a spiritual principle that Jesus lays out in Matthew 23:15. It is an extension of the phenomenon we observed with the Haman behavior. Haman is a ruthless man who deceives and kills (literally or figuratively) in order to take power. Haman is not the end goal however. As evil as he is, those who are discipled by his regime are even more evil. This is because they have no exposure to good like Haman did in his early days. They only have exposure to evil, and evil being done to them. Therefore, eventually Haman himself will be destroyed by a man more wicked than himself. For example, Stalin was more wicked that Lenin, although Lenin himself was quite evil. I believe that Satan’s goal is to set up a succession of Hamans in order to usher in the Antichrist.

On the other hand whenever one of these Haman figures is defeated, God’s Kingdom will experience a great advance, just as Mordecai and the Jews did at that time. When the US defeated Hitler and later the Soviet Union, what seemed to be the most dire possible future suddenly became a future much brighter than had been imagined. As US political power provided greater shade for the Gospel, the Gospel experienced major advances after each of these two victories. The political power, however, was only a manifestation of the greater Spiritual power after removal of Haman and his empire.

You cannot use the devil’s methods to defeat the devil. Lies and Murder will only give his kingdom more power even if the people who you take out are evil. God’s Kingdom advances through the principle of resurrection. When God raises up a seed, the devil and his Kingdom do everything they possibly can to kill it. If the devil is unable to kill the seed, the seed will come back and do more damage than it did the first time. So while the devil’s kingdom advances through spiritual and physical killing, God’s Kingdom advances by the principle of resurrection. If you play by God’s rules, the devil’s attempts to stop you will fail, and you’ll own the board at the end of the day. The evils you do, however, will reap a harvest in the end. If the devil can make you compromise, he can stop or kill you, but if you don’t compromise, his attempts to kill you will make you more damaging to his kingdom. Therefore more the devil “raises the stakes” the more a victory will accomplish for God’s Kingdom, or a defeat will cost it.

Why Your Problem Won’t Go Away

When I was younger I was so zealous to be free of my sin, I think I would have done anything. Before we were married, I drove my wife an hour into some dump in New Jersey to a church that specialized in deliverance. They proceeded to cast the devil out of us and encourage us to read John Bevere books, but I don’t think anything happened, excepted creeping out my bride to be. I resorted to this sort of thing because I knew we both had problems that needed help, and I thought if I could just get a lightning strike from heaven, it would get fixed. I thought it was bad enough that it must be a demon, so all I needed was somoene who really could cast one out and I’d be great.

After a long time in searching these things out, I’d like to offer a basic reason why many people struggle: they are fighting against themselves. Many people try to fix the fruit of a problem without fixing the root of a problem. When you cut out the root, you’ll get somewhere. Now there are different kinds of roots, but the one I’m thinking of specifically is your real belief about something.

Simple example for men. So you see a worldly woman, and you look at her, and you think, “Boy she’s attractive.” That’s true, right? Wrong. She’s not attractive. The Bible says she’s a one way ticket to destruction. Does that sound attractive to you? But when you look at her, you have these feelings, and then you think these irrational thoughts. The battle is really to keep a Biblical view of these women. If you already think they are attractive, then you will have a compulsion to run after them, because underneath you’re starting with a lie. When you develop and maintain a Biblical view of beauty, no one will be more attractive than the wife of your youth.

Or say you have trouble confronting your children. Now you “believe” in strict discipline but yet you can’t confront them. You can spend all of the effort in the world, but you won’t be able to confront them. The reason is because deep down, there is some false belief which keeps you from confronting them. Perhaps you think it would be damaging to them to tell them to make them feel bad. As long as you believe that, you can forget being able to confront them.

Last example, let’s say you go to bed too late like me. Now you can say to yourself “I need to go to bed earlier” but you really don’t believe it. When you really believe it, you’ll start doing it.

So our beliefs are very powerful. And many times we don’t realize that we have put some kind of veneer on what we really believe about something deep down. And that thing we believe deep down is out of line with the Word of God, but what we believe on the surface is correct. This is the essence of what it means to be in works. When you change your heart, that behavior stuff is not too hard, because all of your actions flow out of it. The solution is to identify what the false beliefs are deep down and repent of them. Then instead of behavior modification you have personal transformation.

This is not to dimish the role of relationships, systems, your past, or demonic presences. Those all have their place, but this is I believe a major missing key for a lot of people. They are trying to “fix” themselves on the outside, without changing their hearts on the inside. They don’t even realize that this is the case, but it is. If you think it might be you, then the first step is to get really honest with yourself and find out if you are not in fact your own worst enemy.

Part X – Authority and the Two Kingdoms

Since the rise of the shepherding movement in the 1970’s the church has been uniquely aware of spiritual authority. The Shepherds looked over to the Jesus Movement, saw the born again hippies and their anti-authority view of the world, and realized that something was wrong with the picture. The answer was to teach people that you could not be submitted to Jesus if you were not submitted to man. What formed around this teaching then was a heirarchy with members submitted to cell group leaders who were submitted to pastors, who were submitted to one of the shepherds, who were in theory submitted to each other. What no one really expected is the ungodly results such a system would produce. Rather than lead people into a healthy respect for and use of authority, it led to a strange web of abuse, which those who played the role of abusers in the system will deny to this day.

What is interesting is that if you look, you’ll find that all demonic systems are set up in just the same way — heirarchies of submission, leading up to one person with all of the power. Each person on the level below owes his position to the person above and is therefore beholden to him. Now in a corporation this kind of heirarchy seems to work at least reasonably well, but in church or government it seems to consistently lead to something unhealthy. Why is that? Because in a corporation people voluntarily submit. If you don’t like things, you can leave. On the other hand, if you don’t submit to an authoritarian government you will be shot, and if you don’t submit to an authority in an authoritarian church, even worse, you’ll lose your salvation. When people involuntarily submit to something because they feel they have no other choice, the person over them has absolute power. This is in fact the structure of the devil’s Kingdom — a heirarchy of fear. Individual impulses are crushed by obedience to the “system.”

The shepherds had observed that the basis of the devil’s kingdom was rebellion. This is true and of course it made even more sense at the time, when they were watching the greatest cultural rebellion in American history and its attempt to overthrow everything that was decent about our country. What perhaps they failed to recognize was that if the rebellion had won, a new totalitarian system would have been set up. The devil’s kingdom may be made up of rebels, but he only allows them to express it in reference to God and Godly authority. In his kingdom, absolute obedience is demanded and individuality is punished.

God’s Kingdom, inaugurated in the New Testament, is not this way. As God and King, Jesus wants to and has the ability to be in direct contact with all of his subjects. Not through an endless hierarchy, but directly. He comes to live in each one of us and rule over our consciences. This means that people have internal government. The more internal government people have, the less is external government is needed. Sin is in the heart, so no external authority can remove it, all it can do is make it hide in fear. The presence of such fear prevents the grace of God from working. The gospel is based on human choice to voluntarily submit to Jesus and everything good. Does this mean that anyone can just do anything they want in the church? No. The devil will always use chaos to bring in dischord, then rebellion, then his autocratic kingdom of fear.

Since the shepherding movement it has been popular to say that “God’s Kingdom is not a democracy, it’s a monarchy.” The inference is that because we have a King, we should have a top down heirarchy. Like worldly kings, Jesus does designate subordinates to carry out his will and lead his people, but becaues of internal government, they function quite differently. The authorities in the church are put in place to keep the devil out and the Holy Spirit in. Whenever forcible submission or rebellion appear, Jesus’ government is deminished, because the instrument of his authority is the voluntary submission of His subjects.

The leaders in his church are compared to shepherds because it is their job to protect and feed Jesus’ sheep from wolves. They also lead them to water and herd them, but if Jesus wanted an analogy of a submissive hierarchy, he would not have chosen a shepherd (pastor) as his description of this leadership. We are a flock of individuals that Jesus and his shepherds care about by name.