Cult
Cults are social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term has different, divergent and often pejorative, definitions both in popular culture and academia and has been an ongoing source of contention among scholars across several fields of study.
Beginning in the 1930s, new religious movements became an object of sociological study within the context of the study of religious behavior. Since the 1940s, the Christian countercult movement has opposed some sects and new religious movements, labeling them cults because of their unorthodox beliefs. Since the 1970s, the secular anti-cult movement has opposed certain groups, which they call cults, accusing them of practicing brainwashing.
Groups labelled cults are found around the world and range in size from small localized groups to some international organizations with up to millions of members.
Definition and usage
The word cult is derived from the Latin term, which means 'worship'. In modern English, the term cult is generally a pejorative carrying derogatory connotations. The term is variously applied to abusive or coercive groups of many categories, including gangs, organized crime, and terrorist organizations.An older sense of the word cult, which is not pejorative, indicates a set of religious devotional practices that is conventional within its culture, is related to a particular figure, and is frequently associated with a particular place, or generally the collective participation in rites of religion. References to the imperial cult of ancient Rome, for example, use the word in this sense. A derived sense of "excessive devotion" arose in the 19th century, and usage is not always strictly religious.
Sociological classifications of religious movements may identify a cult as a social group with socially deviant or novel beliefs and practices, although this is often unclear. Other researchers present a less-organized picture of cults, saying that they arise spontaneously around novel beliefs and practices. Cults have been compared to miniature totalitarian political systems. Such groups are typically described as being led by a charismatic leader who tightly controls its members.
In its pejorative sense, the term is often used for new religious movements and other social groups defined by their unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or their group belief in a particular person, object, or goal. This sense of the term is weakly defined, having divergent definitions both in popular culture and in academia, where it has been an ongoing source of contention among scholars across several fields of study. According to Susannah Crockford, "he word 'cult' is a shapeshifter, semantically morphing with the intentions of whoever uses it. As an analytical term, it resists rigorous definition." She argues that the least subjective definition of cult refers to a religion or religion-like group "self-consciously building a new form of society", but that the rest of society rejects as unacceptable.
The term cult has been criticized as lacking "scholarly rigour"; Benjamin E. Zeller stated "abelling any group with which one disagrees and considers deviant as a cult may be a common occurrence, but it is not scholarship". Religious scholar Catherine Wessinger argued the term was dehumanizing of the people within the group, as well as their children; following the Waco siege, it was argued by some scholars that the defining of the Branch Davidians as a cult by the media, government and former members is a significant factor as to what led to the deaths. However, it has also been viewed as empowering for ex-members of groups who have had traumatic experiences. The term was noted to carry "considerable cultural legitimacy".
In the 1970s, with the rise of secular anti-cult movements, scholars began to abandon the use of the term cult, regarding it as pejorative. By the end of the 1970s, the term cult was largely replaced in academia with the term "new religion" or "new religious movement". Other proposed alternative terms that have been used were "emergent religion", "alternative religious movement", or "marginal religious movement", though new religious movement is the most popular term. The anti-cult movement mostly regards the term "new religious movement" as a euphemism for "cult" that loses the implication that they are harmful.
Scholarly studies
Beginning in the 1930s, new religious movements perceived as cults became an object of sociological study within the context of the study of religious behavior. The term "cult" in this context saw its origins in the work of sociologist Max Weber. Weber was an important theorist in the academic study of cults, which often draws on his theorizations of charismatic authority, and of the distinction he drew between churches and sects. This concept of a churchsect division was further elaborated upon by German theologian Ernst Troeltsch,who added a "mystical" categorization to accommodate more personal or individual religious experiences.
American sociologist Howard P. Becker further bisected Troeltsch's first two categories, splitting church into ecclesia and denomination; and sect into sect and cult. Like Troeltsch's "mystical religion", Becker's cult refers to small religious groups that lack organization and that emphasize the private nature of personal beliefs.
Later sociological formulations built on such characteristics, placing an additional emphasis on cults as deviant religious groups, "deriving their inspiration from outside of the predominant religious culture." This is often thought to lead to a high degree of tension between the group and the more mainstream culture surrounding it, a characteristic shared with religious sects. According to this sociological terminology, sects are products of religious schism and therefore maintain a continuity with traditional beliefs and practices, whereas cults arise spontaneously around novel beliefs and practices.
Scholars William Sims Bainbridge and Rodney Stark have argued for a further distinction between three kinds of cults: cult movements, client cults, and audience cults, all of which share a "compensator" or rewards for the things invested into the group. In the BainbridgeStark typology, a "cult movement" is an actual complete organization, differing from a "sect" in that it is not a splinter of a bigger religion, while "audience cults" are loosely organized, and propagated through media, and "client cults" offer services. One type can turn into another, for example the Church of Scientology changing from audience to client cult. Sociologists who follow the BainbridgeStark classification tend to continue using the word "cult", unlike most other academics; however Bainbridge later stated he regretted having used the word at all. Stark and Bainbridge, in discussing the process by which individuals join new religious groups, have even questioned the utility of the concept of conversion, suggesting affiliation as a more useful concept.
In the early 1960s, sociologist John Lofland studied the activities of Unification Church members in California in trying to promote their beliefs and win new members. Lofland noted that most of their efforts were ineffective and that most of the people who joined did so because of personal relationships with other members. Lofland published his findings in 1964 as a doctoral thesis entitled "The World Savers: A Field Study of Cult Processes", and in 1966 in book form by as Doomsday Cult: A Study of Conversion, Proselytization, and Maintenance of Faith. This work is considered to be one of the most important and widely cited studies of the process of religious conversion.
J. Gordon Melton stated that, in 1970, "one could count the number of active researchers on new religions on one's hands". However, James R. Lewis in 2004 wrote that the "meteoric growth" in this field of study can be attributed to the cult controversy of the early 1970s. Because of "a wave of nontraditional religiosity" in the late 1960s and early 1970s, academics perceived new religious movements as different phenomena from previous religious innovations.
Some Stanford University research published in 1994 has documented and discussed "cultism" and "cult-like" characteristics
in "visionary companies".
Types
Destructive cults
Destructive cult is a term frequently used by the anti-cult movement. Members of the anti-cult movement typically define a destructive cult as a group that is unethical, deceptive, and one that uses "strong influence" or mind control techniques to affect critical thinking skills. This term is sometimes presented in contrast to a "benign cult", which implies that not all "cults" would be harmful, though others apply it to all cults. Psychologist Michael Langone, executive director of the anti-cult group International Cultic Studies Association, defines a destructive cult as "a highly manipulative group which exploits and sometimes physically and/or psychologically damages members and recruits."In Cults and the Family, the authors cite Eli Shapiro, who defines a destructive cultism as a sociopathic syndrome, whose distinctive qualities include: "behavioral and personality changes, loss of personal identity, cessation of scholastic activities, estrangement from family, disinterest in society and pronounced mental control and enslavement by cult leaders." Writing about Bruderhof communities in the book Misunderstanding Cults, Julius H. Rubin said that American religious innovation created an unending diversity of sects. These "new religious movements…gathered new converts and issued challenges to the wider society. Not infrequently, public controversy, contested narratives and litigation result." In his work Cults in Context author Lorne L. Dawson writes that although the Unification Church "has not been shown to be violent or volatile," it has been described as a destructive cult by "anticult crusaders." In 2002, the German government was held by the Federal Constitutional Court to have defamed the Osho movement by referring to it, among other things, as a "destructive cult" with no factual basis.
Some researchers have criticized the term destructive cult, writing that it is used to describe groups which are not necessarily harmful in nature to themselves or others. In his book Understanding New Religious Movements, John A. Saliba writes that the term is overgeneralized. Saliba sees the Peoples Temple as the "paradigm of a destructive cult", where those that use the term are implying that other groups will also commit mass suicide.