The Challenge of the Cults Requires a Strong Response

by John Mackin

Churches and missions faced with the challenge of destructive, deceptive cults must take, effective action to expose the cult’s teachings, inform the public, and mobilize the community. The danger of cults is too serious to meet it with worried prayers and feeble knees.

Churches and missions faced with the challenge of destructive, deceptive cults must take, effective action to expose the cult’s teachings, inform the public, and mobilize the community. The danger of cults is too serious to meet it with worried prayers and feeble knees.

When a cult begins a large campaign, local Christians and missionaries can feel threatened and inadequate. Cults often pour large sums of money and many people into their promotion. They disguise their true beliefs with Christian-like jargon and deceptive terms. Pastors, church members, and missionaries get frustrated when they see naive people fooled into accepting a cult.

In suggesting that we must rise to meet the challenge of the cults, I am not advocating intolerance. There are many ways to respond in love: prayer, legal counsel, and education among them. This article attempts to develop’ a reasoned, biblical approach.

No part of the world is from the cults. Some do their work quite openly, with high-tech media campaigns, while others creep in virtually unnoticed. Whatever their methods, they depend on great sacrifices and lots of hard work to spread their messages.

For example, in 1982, "an average of 627 new members were added daily" to Mormon rolls. The Way International "sends out some 2,000 missionaries each year." The International Society for Krishna Consciousness (Hare Krishnas) has branches in Hong Kong and the major cities of Europe. Altogether, "there are more than 30 million persons involved in cults."

WHAT IS A CULT?
Walter Martin defines a cult as "a group of people polarized around someone’s interpretation of the Bible and is characterized by major deviations from orthodox Christianity relative to the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith, particularly the fact that God became man in Jesus Christ." While any group that deviates from Scripture concerns the church, some cults are especially difficult to handle because they are so deceitful and destructive. Much as we might like to ignore them, "The cults simply will not go away, and neither can they any longer be ignored."

DESTRUCTIVE EFFECTS
There is more than theology at stake, because cults are destructive in several ways. One danger is physical abuse. Sometimes cult members are kept so tired that they can no longer keep a proper perspective on life. One former cult member testified that there was "no time nor energy to read, to contemplate, to interact with other people, to build personal or familial relationships. . . . they lived more and more in a zombie-like state of obedience too exhausted to care."

Guilt and fear are two more destructive effects. Members are sometimes controlled by mental and verbal punishments. They are ridiculed in front of others when they step out of line. Beatings and sexual abuse have also been reported.

Members may also lose not only their freedom but also their possessions. A number of cults require members to turn all of their money and belongings over to the group. One member of the Children of God (also known as Heaven’s Magic) was required to sign an application that stated: "I promise to give all my goods and income, let you open my mail, obey rules and officers."

Families of cult members are also adversely affected. "Marriages have been strained, financial resources depleted, and physical health impaired because a son or daughter got involved in a cult." One father of a cultist became a "totally broken man. He was absolutely torn apart while (his daughter) was gone."

One’s ability to think rationally may be impaired. For this reason, a medial center in Florida set up a program to help ex-cult members to learn to think critically again.

Negative effects have also been discovered in cults promoting Transcendental Meditation (TM). TM alters consciousness in a cumulative way that tends to convince the meditator of Eastern philosophy. It desensitizes the conscience and masks guilt by relieving its physical symptoms. TM also induces a passive state of mind and body that opens the meditator to demonic incursion.

DECEPTIVE METHODS
Misuse of Scripture is one of the most common forms of cult deception. David Hesselgrave comments on the interpretation of one Filipino cult: "It is based upon faulty hermeneutical principles. It used Scripture references out of context and without regard to the intent of the original authors."

Some cults deny their affiliation with an organized group. An unsuspecting person can get involved without realizing that the cult may contradict his own religious and moral beliefs. New members may not know that they will be asked to give up their beliefs to stay with the cult. A former member of the Children of God confessed, "I had absolutely no idea how they lived and what they were really into."

Members of the Unification Church also deny affiliation when it serves their purposes. They call this "heavenly deception." One former member says that while raising money, "many times people would say, ‘You’re not working for Moon, are you?’ I’d say, ‘Oh, no.’" Only then would he receive a donation.

Many cults believe that the ends justify the means. The New York State Attorney General’s office reported that "when a parent visits a commune … the child is secreted out… the parent is delayed by ‘greeters’ who tell the parent that either they never heard of the child, or the child was elsewhere." At the People’s Temple of Jim Jones, "chicken parts were displayed as cancers removed miraculously from dying bodies," and "spies were sent from the congregation to the home of visitors to collect information on the unsuspecting seeker, which Jones would then use in his personalized prophecies." These examples show that church member, pastors, and missionaries must be aware of such tactics and learn how to help people avoid them.

Missionaries agree on the importance of teaching sound doctrine and refuting those who teach error. But in some cases, where deceit and destructive consequences are involved, more work is needed. The cultists’ deeds must be exposed to the community at large. We must distribute to the public any secret information that would help them to understand the cult’s beliefs, history, and methods.

As Walter Martin says, "The response of the church must be immediate and positive, if this rise is to be checked and perhaps contained." Overseas, cults may wage major campaigns against the Christian community. Because of their vast sums of money, they can gain influence and political power quickly, and perhaps impose restrictions on the churches and missionaries. If they gain control of the educational system, they can influence the curriculum. We should not wait until the cult is established. We must expose them early on; a forewarned public is forearmed.

A CASE STUDY IN MANILA
As an example of what can be done, I will relate events that occurred in Manila between September November, 1984. I was an eye-witness and a participant. We took six steps to combat effectively the threat of a deceptive cult: (1) researched the cult’s beliefs and practices; (2) developed a summary of our findings; (3) distributed material to community leaders; (4) informed a broader segment of the community; (5) mobilized the community; (6) explored legal action.

In September, 1984, a group associated with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi began a large campaign in the Philippines. Some 700 foreign members began to try to influence Filipinos by teaching Maharishi Technology of the Unified Field, which in the U.S. is Transcendental Meditation. Being open to new ideas, the Filipinos welcomed them. The cult spent huge sums of money, rented the Philippine International Convention Center and many hotel suites in downtown Manila, and ran full-page ads in the Manila Bulletin and other newspapers. Even former President Marcos supported the Maharishis.

Much of what they taught centered on the argument that anyone who practices TM will live a less stressful, more productive life. They also claimed that if enough people practiced TM, there would be a decrease in violence, typhoons, and earthquakes in the Philippines. They documented these claims with charts and graphs. Those who taught had doctorates in education and science. The Filipinos were duly impressed.

The Maharishis focused on the University of the East, one of Asia’s largest universities. They offered to buy the university to save it from impending collapse. The public knew nothing about this deal until it was exposed in the Manila Bulletin.

From the beginning, Maharishi leaders denied that there was anything religious about TM. They held that people of any religion could practice it without compromising their own beliefs.

We decided that in the light of such falsehood, we needed to expose this cult. We researched information about its true nature. We discovered that the Maharishi group, under the guise of science, was in fact a form of Hinduism that practices TM and requires a Hindu ritual as part of its initiation ceremony. The Maharishis said that the word "mantra," which describes a word or phrase used in personal meditation, was a meaningless symbol, but we learned that it’s the name of a Hindu deity.

Then we developed our findings, using reliable, authoritative sources that would be credible to community leaders. One particularly effective article was written by a religious leader highly respected by the majority of Filipinos.

We took our findings to key leaders, to the university president, to an influential Catholic priest, and to the guidance department. With a cover letter, we sent a packet to the Minister of Education, who is responsible for all schools in the Philippines. We also included churches, denominations, and university student clubs. We wanted to advise those who had the greatest potential to counter the Maharishis and to protect the students.

On September 28, the Maharishis held a question-and-answer session with the university faculty. They wanted to promote their beliefs and to allay fears about their purchase of the university. However, because of the information packets we had distributed, the faculty was prepared to raise tough questions. Looking back, we saw how crucial it was to do our research and get it out to the people before the cult gained a foothold. It is much harder for cults to make converts among people informed about their practices. As Martin states, "Cultism thrives principally upon two factors: ignorance uncertainty."

We decided to expand our information program to a wider audience. On October 1, the local Christian radio station (Far East Broadcasting Company) held a day-long program about the Maharishis. As a result, many pastors and lay people began to pray for the situation at the University of the East.

Next, we engaged a Christian expert on cults to speak at a public meeting at the university. On October 4, some 600 students and faculty heard what the Maharishis stood for. On the same day, at the university’s main gates we passed out about 15,000 flyers summarizing the differences between TM and Christianity. By now other Christian and non-Christian groups were rushing to distribute information about the Maharishis.

The movement began to snowball. A number of Filipino Christian leaders issued a position paper on the issue. On October 8, we held more seminars on campus. The one conducted outdoors attracted much attention.

Now it was time to mobilize the community with a high profile public event. On October 9, we staged a mass rally to protest the Maharishis. Over 20,000 students and faculty took to the streets, in peaceful marches, carrying signs. We converged at the offices of the Minister of Education. He granted a private meeting with our leaders.

There were also some other avenues open to us. On October 12, the government held a public hearing to investigate the Maharishis and what they were doing in the Philippines. I was among those who testified about the group’s religious nature.

Several weeks later, the government found some discrepancies in the cult’s financial operations in the Philippines. The purchase of the University of the East was prohibited, largely because of public pressure that grew out of our information campaign. The Maharishis rapidly lost their influence throughout the country.

This case study shows what pastors, church members, missionaries, and Christian groups can do to thwart cult invasions. When they show up, we must expose their hidden beliefs and practices. The successful influence of the Christian community in the Philippines resulted from research, the publication and distribution of the research to key people and the community at large, mobilizing the community, and using the established legal means available.

Perhaps for too long we have been content to study cult doctrines. Now is the time for us to make our teachings available and swing into effective public relations.

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