Heaven's Gate and the flurry of media commentary surrounding it reminded us again, if only for a few days, that the potential for violence and human tragedy is present in any group whose leaders are able to command unconditional obedience and total allegiance. It is a pattern that has recurred with unsettling regularity throughout history.

In the aftermath of the People's Temple horror, I remember responding to a question frequently asked by reporters: "Can this kind of tragedy happen again?" Following the fiery finale at Waco, I was asked the same question. Then, Heaven's Gate.

Once again I replied, "Yes, it can happen again." And it probably will—especially as we approach the end of a millennium and witness a surge of end-times speculation and craziness. Knowledge of cult dynamics, therefore, could provide clues for what may be just down the road.

Both these volumes are intended to provide what is suggested by the title of Fr. John Saliba's book, Understanding New Religious Movements. Both reflect an interdisciplinary perspective, and both are extremely critical of what Hexham and Poewe call "the Great Anti-Cult Crusade." In fact, all three authors, but especially Saliba, frame their discussion in the context of what Saliba describes as the "irreconcilable opinions" characterizing those within and outside the academic community who have been studying cults and new religious movements (NRMS).

Understanding New Religious Movements

By John A. Saliba

Eerdmans

240 pp.; $18, paper

New Religions as Global Cultures

By Irving Hexham

and Karla Poewe

Westview Press

194 pp.; $18.95, paper

As I see it, the value of these two contributions to an already crowded body of literature derives not only from insights concerning new religions but also from what is said about the people who research and write about NRMS. Taken together, these books confirm that there are indeed irreconcilable differences in research methodologies, disciplinary approaches, conceptual frameworks, and modes of understanding (read: biases) when it comes to this topic. These differences have produced two distinct and opposing "camps" regarding how we should characterize NRMS and how society should respond to their presence in our midst.

Saliba sees one camp assuming a largely negative stance, listing "the pejorative qualities" of cult ideology and behavior. The opposing side "adopts a somewhat neutral or cautionary optimistic perspective," which allows that there are "good features in the new religious movements, features that may outweigh, in the long run, the defective elements in their beliefs and practices." Those more favorably disposed to new religions are often labeled "cult apologists" and prefer using the more academically correct term new religious movement rather than the four-letter word cult. Those of us who attend professional meetings where the topic of nrms is debated have seen the touted objectivity of both sides more than a bit frayed and wanting.

I agree with Saliba when he observes that these differences in outlook "have assumed a crusading spirit that has intensified the split between the two groups of scholars studying the new religions. Rarely do members of each camp participate in joint conferences or discussions." And it is soon evident to the reader which camp Saliba identifies with. Throughout the book he makes repeated reference to "anti-cult tirades" and the "unrelenting diatribes" against NRMS by both secular and religious "crusaders," who use "confrontational" methods and tell "atrocity stories" about ex-members. He describes "anti-cult" activists as attempting to discredit cults through the dissemination of literature that is "untrustworthy," "inaccurate," "lopsided," and presenting a "frightening caricature of cult life."

Saliba states that sociologists who study new religions tend to be impartial, dispassionate, and nonjudgmental. This is in contrast to the "religious apologists and evangelizers" who are motivated by theological concerns and who scrutinize the behavior of cult members "so that their evil intentions and activities might be more readily exposed."

Indeed, some sociologists appear to be cult sympathizers and cult apologists because of their determined and, in my opinion, misguided efforts to avoid any negative criticism of cultic groups. They have been known to lose their scientific objectivity, however, when discussing the so-called anti-cult movement. In one situation with which I am personally familiar, a well-known sociologist of religion—the type who would refuse to give unequivocal answers to questions about which are the "good" and which are the "bad" cults—was less than neutral when giving his expert opinion about the American Family Foundation (AFF) in a legal deposition. The AFF is a respected research and educational organization whose members are psychologists, mental-health professionals, attorneys, and others who are concerned about destructive cults. In his professional capacity as an expert witness, this widely published scholar (who is quoted by both Saliba and Hexham/Poewe) called the aff "a sophisticated hate group" not far removed from the likes of the Ku Klux Klan, the Aryan Nations, and similar organizations of the kind that most Americans associate with the phrase hate group. Since I am a member of the AFF, and since we had recently put on a conference jointly sponsored by Denver Seminary, I asked this sociologist for the documentation for his outrageous characterization. He refused to respond to my repeated requests for the evidence.

And I wonder what evidence Saliba can offer in support of his contention that "evangelical and fundamental Christian churches seem more prone to violence than are those groups that bear the label of cults or new religions." He provided no footnotes for that interesting observation.

Another contentious issue separating the two "camps" is the matter of mind control, or brainwashing, as it relates, or fails to relate, to members of cults and new religious movements. Hexham and Poewe reject any notion of brainwashing as an explanatory framework for the behavior of some cult members. They, along with Saliba and many other scholars, feel that the mind-control thesis eliminates personal responsibilty and denies choice. According to Hexham and Poewe, "The notion of brainwashing is both anti-Christian and opposed to the entire Western tradition of philosophical, political, and social thought, which has always been grounded in the assumption that individuals are responsible for their actions."

Those who believe that some form of mind control may play a role in cult dynamics counter by saying that critics like Saliba and Hexham/ Poewe present an extreme and distorted model of brainwashing, describing victims as mindless robots, stripped of all decision-making ability, and devoid of all human accountability. Many cult-watchers would concur with the views expressed by Stanford University psychologist Philip Zimbardo that "Cult methods of recruiting, indoctrinating and influencing their members are not exotic forms of mind control, but only more intensely applied mundane tactics of social influence practiced daily by all compliance professionals and societal agents of influence."

Douglas Groothuis of Denver Seminary also argues that mind-control theory is antithetical to biblical anthropology: "As image-bearers of God, we are responsible moral agents who, though now fallen, cannot be programmed at the drop of a cult hat—or even several cult hats." But as I sat watching the chilling yet cheerful videotaped good-byes of members of Heaven's Gate, it was not difficult for me to conclude that these folks had been programmed! That feeling was reinforced as I watched Diane Sawyer on ABC-TV interview a follower of Marshall Applewhite, the cult's founder and leader, as he replied in regimented, packaged, emotionless ways to her questions. No programming there? No hint of mind-bending? Yes, people may join cults of their own free will, but they surely are subjected to diminished autonomy in a totalist environment like Heaven's Gate. They may not be mindless robots with a thousand-mile stare, but there is more than friendly persuasion at work behind those benign personas.

I find it interesting and a bit ironic that some evangelical Christian cult-watchers have little difficulty apprehending the dynamics of "spiritual" mind control—readily quoting biblical references to the "god of this age" blinding the minds of unbelievers—yet they strongly resist the possibility of psychologically induced manipulation of the mind. They affirm the warning of Colossians 2:8, "Be on your guard; do not let your minds be captured by hollow and delusive speculations," but they cannot conceive of cults exercising control over the minds of men and women.

Scripture frequently uses the imagery of darkness or blindness to refer to the machinations of God's adversary vis-à-vis the minds of humans. It seems to me that biblical allusions to the human mind being "unsettled" by false teachers can only enhance our understanding of more secular explanations of the influence of cults and nrms. It is not so much a matter of people being totally deprived of all decision-making ability (as Groothuis and others perceive it) as it is a subversion of the will. Helmut Thielicke in Man in God's World writes concerning Satan's role in "forming the will" through the instrument of propaganda. The modality of propaganda, he asserts, "does address itself to man as the bearer of a will, but nevertheless influences this will in such a secret and insinuating way that it is almost unconsciously changed and then accepts and carries out … suggested decisions as if they were its own."

As we approach the end of millennium, we will see on the freayed edges of our society an increase in cultic groups with leaders who promise more than they can deliver.

It is Satan's design to subvert the very image of God in humanity at all levels at which people function, whether by philosophical justification, psychological influence, or direct spiritual influence. It is the avenue of sociopsychological influence that troubles cult-watchers like Alan Gomes of Talbot School of Theology. He totally rejects the brainwashing/mind-control model, claiming that "cultists are spiritually blinded but not mind controlled." Gomes, in his book Unmasking the Cults, states categorically that cults must be defined theologically rather than from the perspective of the social sciences. "Examining the group's doctrinal system is the only way to determine whether it is a cult."

The disdain expressed toward the behavioral sciences by Alan Gomes, Robert and Gretchen Passantino, and Dave Hunt is typical of a segment of the evangelical and fundamentalist community that is wary of all things psychological. Unfortunately, it is Dave Hunt and Constance Cumbey who are cited by Hexham and Poewe as representative of Christian anticult writers.

In the Christian liberal arts academic community, we talk a lot about the need to integrate one's faith with one's discipline. That becomes problematic, if not impossible, for countercult evangelists like the Passantinos. Writing in Cornerstone magazine, they charge that in the work of many cult-watchers "sociological and psychological terminology has been substituted for Christian terminology." If that were not bad enough, we are told that "psychology and sociology are used to explain cult recruitment, membership, and disaffection."

Saliba doesn't much care for psychologists and psychiatrists either. While he applauds the "nonjudgmental approach" of sociologists, he feels that psychologists are not quite as value-free in that they consider "the good or bad effects of cult involvement on individual members." Everyone knows, says Saliba, that most mental-health professionals are antagonistic toward religion. "Judges should realize that trained psychiatrists may have little of worth to reveal about religion and that some of their negative testimony against the new religions is equally applicable to the major Christian churches."

The unique and helpful contribution of the Hexham/Poewe volume is their discussion of NRMS cross-culturally, from a global perspective. Seldom in books on this topic do we learn about new religions in Asia or about Africa's new religions. And they argue convincingly that religious conversion, whether it involves a church, sect, or cult, cannot be understood without taking into account the crucial role of primal experiences. In this regard, the influence of Emanuel Swedenborg on the growth of new religions in the nineteenth century makes for fascinating reading.

Hexham and Poewe remind us that there really isn't much that is new in new religious movements. I could not agree more with their conclusion that "It is because sociologists tend not to engage in comparative or historical studies that they have assigned an exaggerated importance to the newness of new religions in the West."

Whatever interpretive grid is applied to cults and new religions, it is certain that, as we approach the end of the millennium, we will see on the frayed edges of our society an increase in cultic groups with leaders who promise more than they can deliver. Somehow we must balance the insights from the cult sympathizers, especially when it comes to forming government policy, with the pointed perspectives of the anti-cult groups, especially when the issue is determining the church's response to cults. And we must do this work soon so that we are prepared to minister to the broken spirits such movements inevitably leave in their wake.

Ronald Enroth is professor of sociology at Westmont College. He is the author of many books, including most recently Recovering from Churches That Abuse (Zondervan).

Copyright(c) 1997 by the author or Christianity Today, Inc./Books & Culture Magazine. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or e-mail bceditor@booksandculture.com.

Nov/Dec 1997, Vol. 3, No. 6, Page 36