How to Start Your Own Cult
I've heard it said that there have been more religions started since the founding of America than were so in all of previous history. Further, even more in the last century. Now, I haven't researched these particulars, but it seems, given mere empirical evidence, to make sense.
Most of those religions are what a run-of-the-mill Christian would refer to as cults. I suppose "cult" is in the eye of the beholder, but it might simply be described as a group who has taken a hard turn form the traditional tenets of Christianity, who separate themselves from others and who view themselves as the end-all & be-all and everyone else as apostates.
There are many, many cults around the world. They worship a plethora of gods and/or men. They preach paganism, reincarnation, extra-terrestrial interaction, spirit connections and more. I am mostly thinking along the lines of starting a cult that would be on the outer-edges of the main-stream concepts of God as Supreme Being and as involved in some way with us. I'm thinking of those who would assimilate enough pseudo-orthodoxy, even if only an infinitesimal amount, to seem to be related somehow to what one my call Judeo-Christian soteriology.
Now, I've often pondered, as the man said, what exactly would be involved in "starting my own church with my own sound doctrine." Starting your own thing isn't really all that hard to do, it seems. I've often quipped that I could stand on any street corner in American, proclaim myself as Christ, God and/or Satan and I would gain three or four disciples johnny-on-the-spot!
So, I ask myself, what would be some of the essentials for starting my own cult? Although not everything that appears here would apply to every "cult," I think that this list would be consistent with most of them, "Christian" or otherwise, observed in our world today.
1. First and foremost: Get rid of that pesky divinity of Christ!
It's okay to revere Jesus as a prophet, good man, teacher or even miracle worker, but He must not be seen as truly God in the flesh.
You will find this view common among Muslims, Mormons, Jehovah's Witness and a multitude of others. Most presumptive Trinitarians, e.g. Catholics, Southern Baptists, in my never-to-be-humble opinion, neither understand on any primary level or actually preach true Trinitarianism.
2. Start it yourself...because God told you to do so.
Many, many cults/churches/denominations/religions were founded by men, rarely women, who proclaimed personal revelation from God, communicated to them and them alone. Mohammed, Joseph Smith and many more, asserted that God approached them directly, giving them knowledge, understanding and divination that He had granted no one else.
Alas, few men or women are willing to put themselves under the authority of anyone, let alone a local congregation. Many become disgruntled, disenfranchised and/or discarded from their congregations. Some acquire delusions of grandeur and convince themselves that they, in spite of the myriad of congregations, ministries and charities already in existence, should begin an all new mission to save the lost, feed the poor or just simply return truth to a world of sleeping Christians who have, in their minds, erred from it.
Some are sincere; some are insincere. Some are deluded; some are insane. Some are conniving; some are more open about their goals. Some, quite frankly, are just too lazy to work.
3. Declare yourself to be the only truth and that all others must join you to obtain salvation.
Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, etc. The list is near endless of those who believe they have a monopoly on salvation.
4. Declare that all other Christians, religions, etc., have become apostate and that you, after centuries of error, have now found the truth of God.
This is easily applied to most of the aforementioned groups, but could even be applied to groups like the Pentecostals who, as begun by preachers Charles Parham & A.J. Tomlinson, taught that the Church of Christ had become apostate and this movement was to bring "church restoration" through "Apostolic" Scriptural teaching.
Charles Taze Russell and Joseph Smith certainly taught that they had received Divine Revelation that no one had for centuries and they were the only true disciples of Christ.
5. Declare yourself to be Christ reincarnated.
Sun Myung Moon, David Koresh, Charles Manson, Jim Jones and a host of others have made this claim.
6. Declare yourself to be the mouthpiece and only spokesman for the Almighty.
Mohammed, Moon, Smith, Russell, et al. Sometimes, the declaration is enough. It impresses people. As the saying goes, the bigger the lie the more willing the gullible will be to accept it.
People don't like to think. It's painful for them. There are a plethora of sheep out there just waiting for a wolf to come along to guide them. They seem to never consider that they are nothing more than supper to him.
7. Quote the Holy Bible...a lot!
Use the parts that seem to prove that your claims, however outlandish, are supported by Holy Scriptures. Context is irrelevant.
Tyrants, cultists, heathens and atheists love to cite the Holy Bible. They suppose it gives credence to their assertions. They shrewdly understand the importance of quoting this book abundantly since it is accepted as authority by so many and actually studied by so few.
A certain local Independent Baptist preacher lead his remaining congregants to reject the divinity of Christ and become, in his word, "Noahides." (Yes, that was how he spelled it.) He rejected Christ, but for months afterward, he would post Jesus' quotes from the four Gospels on the marquee in front of his former, uh, church.
8. Adopt bizarre rituals and practices and/or adopt new and outlandish views and/or applications of the sacraments.
"Christen," barely wetting the forehead of a convert, or infant, and call it baptism. Require converts to be baptized using specific words or names. Be baptized repeatedly to "wash away sin." Be baptized for your family, friends or strangers, living or dead. Require men and women to dress peculiarly. Claim constant miracles, for example: healings, transubstantiations, tongues, visions. Fill your congregants with feelings of guilt and unworthiness concerning the sacraments, thus ensuring their malleability and subservience.
Catholics, Presbyterians, Mormons, Pentecostals, Charismatics, Churches of Christ and a host of others have taken the sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper, and twisted them into what they were never meant to be. They have even multiplied the sacraments, attached them to salvation and or/holiness and sanctification.
9. Adopt a fascinating and complicated eschatology.
Jehovah's Witness, Adventists, et al., have repeatedly attempted to pick a year, if not a specific date, for our Lord's return. They, of course, repeatedly get it wrong, but they provide convoluted explanations for their error and their indoctrinated, brain-washed parishioners gladly drink the kool-aid.
A congregation that is investing its precious time, energy and recourses in endless eschatological studies is altogether allowing itself to be diverted from the Great Commission given by Christ to His Church: that She baptize converts in His name and make them into His disciples.
10. Uniformity and Conformity
No dissenters! Everyone must goose-step to the beat of the same drum!
In a true cult, you can speak with any member of the cult, (even if that cult is nationwide or international,) asking questions about their beliefs and you will find consistency from member to member. Any deviation will be suppressed, purely accidental or the fault of a backslidden, (out of practice/study,) parishioners.
Mainstream Christian denominations are not immune to the temptation to enforce lockstep among their congregants. Anyone who has observed the takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention by Fundamentalists over the last few decades will realize that even those who once preached salvation by grace alone and the priesthood of the believer can fall prey to the siren call of coerced control and conformity.
11. Change some of the particulars of universally accepted doctrine/history.
It serves the establishment of a new cult to adopt most of the acknowledged stories of the Bible, but differentiate between your cult and others by putting enough twists and turns in them that will make them your own. This will also, of course, separate it from the more main-stream religions and denominations. Even better, it will garner the attention of those, and they are legion, who are constantly seeking to have their ears tickled with a new thing.
The Muslims accept Christ as a virgin born prophet, but claim he was born before the Baptist and that He was actually not crucified. (They also have some strange views concerning Isaac, Ishmael and Abraham.) The Jehovah's Witnesses accept the crucifixion, but say there was no cross-beam and that he was merely nailed to a pole. They also use the term "resurrection," not to refer to the literal bodily quickening of our Lord, but to His earthly body being actually replaced by a Glorified Body. The Mormons believe that Jesus is God's Son, but that God Himself, being no more than a superman, came to Mary and sired Jesus as any other child born would have been, thus rejecting the virgin birth they sing about every Christmas. (Not to mention making our Lord's mother an adultress.)
12. Grant authority to people and things that cannot bear the weight of it.
Call the Holy Bible the "Word of God." Treat it as if it is the fourth Person in the Trinity. Call the Pope the "Vicar of Christ." Say that bread and wine can literally become the Body and Blood of Christ. Say that olive oil purchased from the shelf of your local Bible book store, (or even the local grocery,) can bring about miracles when "anointing" a believer. Claim deacons have any authority at all in the church. Pray to deceased saints and angels.
It's easy to imagine things or people as holy when the Bible even speaks of "holy ground" and teaches that we should be holy like our Father in Heaven. Still, authority rests with no man or thing, but with the Bride and the Bridegroom. (Yes, there is a certain authority granted the Bride of Christ as with any wife of a husband. Remember, the authority derives from Her relationship with the Spouse.)
The cultist generally denies that the ultimate authority in the Church of Christ resides in the Person of the Holy Ghost. They inculcate that "authority" rests with a leader, council or presbytery of some sort. They seem to want the Holy Ghost to share authority with them.
13. Adopt heroes from other religions.
Muslims revere Adam, to Noah, to Abraham, to David, to Christ. They have angels and even Satan. Strangely, though, they claim Ishmael was the son nearly sacrificed by Abraham rather than Isaac.
Inserting commonly known characters from accepted religions lends a universality and pseudo-credence to a denomination or faction that, if it were too far removed from the main stream, it might lack. Familiarity doesn't always breed contempt. Sometimes, it makes a thing or group appear more comfortable and acceptable.
As I have stated, this list certainly doesn't include every earmark and all need not apply for an organization to qualify as a "cult." Frankly, Christianity itself, depending on your viewpoint, would almost certainly qualify a cult itself.
Most of those religions are what a run-of-the-mill Christian would refer to as cults. I suppose "cult" is in the eye of the beholder, but it might simply be described as a group who has taken a hard turn form the traditional tenets of Christianity, who separate themselves from others and who view themselves as the end-all & be-all and everyone else as apostates.
There are many, many cults around the world. They worship a plethora of gods and/or men. They preach paganism, reincarnation, extra-terrestrial interaction, spirit connections and more. I am mostly thinking along the lines of starting a cult that would be on the outer-edges of the main-stream concepts of God as Supreme Being and as involved in some way with us. I'm thinking of those who would assimilate enough pseudo-orthodoxy, even if only an infinitesimal amount, to seem to be related somehow to what one my call Judeo-Christian soteriology.
Now, I've often pondered, as the man said, what exactly would be involved in "starting my own church with my own sound doctrine." Starting your own thing isn't really all that hard to do, it seems. I've often quipped that I could stand on any street corner in American, proclaim myself as Christ, God and/or Satan and I would gain three or four disciples johnny-on-the-spot!
So, I ask myself, what would be some of the essentials for starting my own cult? Although not everything that appears here would apply to every "cult," I think that this list would be consistent with most of them, "Christian" or otherwise, observed in our world today.
1. First and foremost: Get rid of that pesky divinity of Christ!
It's okay to revere Jesus as a prophet, good man, teacher or even miracle worker, but He must not be seen as truly God in the flesh.
You will find this view common among Muslims, Mormons, Jehovah's Witness and a multitude of others. Most presumptive Trinitarians, e.g. Catholics, Southern Baptists, in my never-to-be-humble opinion, neither understand on any primary level or actually preach true Trinitarianism.
2. Start it yourself...because God told you to do so.
Many, many cults/churches/denominations/religions were founded by men, rarely women, who proclaimed personal revelation from God, communicated to them and them alone. Mohammed, Joseph Smith and many more, asserted that God approached them directly, giving them knowledge, understanding and divination that He had granted no one else.
Alas, few men or women are willing to put themselves under the authority of anyone, let alone a local congregation. Many become disgruntled, disenfranchised and/or discarded from their congregations. Some acquire delusions of grandeur and convince themselves that they, in spite of the myriad of congregations, ministries and charities already in existence, should begin an all new mission to save the lost, feed the poor or just simply return truth to a world of sleeping Christians who have, in their minds, erred from it.
Some are sincere; some are insincere. Some are deluded; some are insane. Some are conniving; some are more open about their goals. Some, quite frankly, are just too lazy to work.
3. Declare yourself to be the only truth and that all others must join you to obtain salvation.
Catholics, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, etc. The list is near endless of those who believe they have a monopoly on salvation.
4. Declare that all other Christians, religions, etc., have become apostate and that you, after centuries of error, have now found the truth of God.
This is easily applied to most of the aforementioned groups, but could even be applied to groups like the Pentecostals who, as begun by preachers Charles Parham & A.J. Tomlinson, taught that the Church of Christ had become apostate and this movement was to bring "church restoration" through "Apostolic" Scriptural teaching.
Charles Taze Russell and Joseph Smith certainly taught that they had received Divine Revelation that no one had for centuries and they were the only true disciples of Christ.
5. Declare yourself to be Christ reincarnated.
Sun Myung Moon, David Koresh, Charles Manson, Jim Jones and a host of others have made this claim.
6. Declare yourself to be the mouthpiece and only spokesman for the Almighty.
Mohammed, Moon, Smith, Russell, et al. Sometimes, the declaration is enough. It impresses people. As the saying goes, the bigger the lie the more willing the gullible will be to accept it.
People don't like to think. It's painful for them. There are a plethora of sheep out there just waiting for a wolf to come along to guide them. They seem to never consider that they are nothing more than supper to him.
7. Quote the Holy Bible...a lot!
Use the parts that seem to prove that your claims, however outlandish, are supported by Holy Scriptures. Context is irrelevant.
Tyrants, cultists, heathens and atheists love to cite the Holy Bible. They suppose it gives credence to their assertions. They shrewdly understand the importance of quoting this book abundantly since it is accepted as authority by so many and actually studied by so few.
A certain local Independent Baptist preacher lead his remaining congregants to reject the divinity of Christ and become, in his word, "Noahides." (Yes, that was how he spelled it.) He rejected Christ, but for months afterward, he would post Jesus' quotes from the four Gospels on the marquee in front of his former, uh, church.
8. Adopt bizarre rituals and practices and/or adopt new and outlandish views and/or applications of the sacraments.
"Christen," barely wetting the forehead of a convert, or infant, and call it baptism. Require converts to be baptized using specific words or names. Be baptized repeatedly to "wash away sin." Be baptized for your family, friends or strangers, living or dead. Require men and women to dress peculiarly. Claim constant miracles, for example: healings, transubstantiations, tongues, visions. Fill your congregants with feelings of guilt and unworthiness concerning the sacraments, thus ensuring their malleability and subservience.
Catholics, Presbyterians, Mormons, Pentecostals, Charismatics, Churches of Christ and a host of others have taken the sacraments, baptism and the Lord's Supper, and twisted them into what they were never meant to be. They have even multiplied the sacraments, attached them to salvation and or/holiness and sanctification.
9. Adopt a fascinating and complicated eschatology.
Jehovah's Witness, Adventists, et al., have repeatedly attempted to pick a year, if not a specific date, for our Lord's return. They, of course, repeatedly get it wrong, but they provide convoluted explanations for their error and their indoctrinated, brain-washed parishioners gladly drink the kool-aid.
A congregation that is investing its precious time, energy and recourses in endless eschatological studies is altogether allowing itself to be diverted from the Great Commission given by Christ to His Church: that She baptize converts in His name and make them into His disciples.
10. Uniformity and Conformity
No dissenters! Everyone must goose-step to the beat of the same drum!
In a true cult, you can speak with any member of the cult, (even if that cult is nationwide or international,) asking questions about their beliefs and you will find consistency from member to member. Any deviation will be suppressed, purely accidental or the fault of a backslidden, (out of practice/study,) parishioners.
Mainstream Christian denominations are not immune to the temptation to enforce lockstep among their congregants. Anyone who has observed the takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention by Fundamentalists over the last few decades will realize that even those who once preached salvation by grace alone and the priesthood of the believer can fall prey to the siren call of coerced control and conformity.
11. Change some of the particulars of universally accepted doctrine/history.
It serves the establishment of a new cult to adopt most of the acknowledged stories of the Bible, but differentiate between your cult and others by putting enough twists and turns in them that will make them your own. This will also, of course, separate it from the more main-stream religions and denominations. Even better, it will garner the attention of those, and they are legion, who are constantly seeking to have their ears tickled with a new thing.
The Muslims accept Christ as a virgin born prophet, but claim he was born before the Baptist and that He was actually not crucified. (They also have some strange views concerning Isaac, Ishmael and Abraham.) The Jehovah's Witnesses accept the crucifixion, but say there was no cross-beam and that he was merely nailed to a pole. They also use the term "resurrection," not to refer to the literal bodily quickening of our Lord, but to His earthly body being actually replaced by a Glorified Body. The Mormons believe that Jesus is God's Son, but that God Himself, being no more than a superman, came to Mary and sired Jesus as any other child born would have been, thus rejecting the virgin birth they sing about every Christmas. (Not to mention making our Lord's mother an adultress.)
12. Grant authority to people and things that cannot bear the weight of it.
Call the Holy Bible the "Word of God." Treat it as if it is the fourth Person in the Trinity. Call the Pope the "Vicar of Christ." Say that bread and wine can literally become the Body and Blood of Christ. Say that olive oil purchased from the shelf of your local Bible book store, (or even the local grocery,) can bring about miracles when "anointing" a believer. Claim deacons have any authority at all in the church. Pray to deceased saints and angels.
It's easy to imagine things or people as holy when the Bible even speaks of "holy ground" and teaches that we should be holy like our Father in Heaven. Still, authority rests with no man or thing, but with the Bride and the Bridegroom. (Yes, there is a certain authority granted the Bride of Christ as with any wife of a husband. Remember, the authority derives from Her relationship with the Spouse.)
The cultist generally denies that the ultimate authority in the Church of Christ resides in the Person of the Holy Ghost. They inculcate that "authority" rests with a leader, council or presbytery of some sort. They seem to want the Holy Ghost to share authority with them.
13. Adopt heroes from other religions.
Muslims revere Adam, to Noah, to Abraham, to David, to Christ. They have angels and even Satan. Strangely, though, they claim Ishmael was the son nearly sacrificed by Abraham rather than Isaac.
Inserting commonly known characters from accepted religions lends a universality and pseudo-credence to a denomination or faction that, if it were too far removed from the main stream, it might lack. Familiarity doesn't always breed contempt. Sometimes, it makes a thing or group appear more comfortable and acceptable.
As I have stated, this list certainly doesn't include every earmark and all need not apply for an organization to qualify as a "cult." Frankly, Christianity itself, depending on your viewpoint, would almost certainly qualify a cult itself.
Labels: Abraham, Adventists, cults, Fundamentalists, Jehovah's Witnesses
posted by The Preacher's Kid | 11:52 PM
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