I recently read an article about "Apostates and New Religious Movements" by Oxford Sociology Professor Bryan Ronald Wilson. In this essay, Wilson rejects apostate testimonies as being biased since they are birthed from a desire to justify one's rejection of a religious group. While I can agree with Wilson that apostate testimonies are colored, I would imagine that other testimonies in support of the group are also just as likely be colored. The one advantage the apostate has that I feel that the believer does not is that the apostate feels that there is a real sense of moral wrongdoing in the group. They can then extrapolate on why they feel the group is wrong to do the things that they do. This is a privilege that the rose-tinted believer does not have.

The one thing I do not appreciate about the culture of religious scholars who are in support of using the term "New Religious Movement" seems to be their desire to paint the apostate as the villain. I imagine this might be because if they took a definite stand against a group, they could lose access to research them. However, I do not feel this is a good excuse. By doing so, they are causing undue psychological damage to those who felt they have been justifiably deceived. And while I can agree that anger could greatly exaggerate one's perception against any group, it seems no different than telling a rape victim that their testimony of the rape is an invalid source of evidence. Cult victims generally seem to feel a similar level of injustice that the rape victim does, that their autonomy was violated in an unacceptable way, and so I think the comparison is valid. I would imagine that there are tools that are used in concert with the rape victim's testimony to come to an objective understanding of the truth; in the same vein, I would imagine the cult expert would have similar tools to establish objectivity.

In particular, I am curious how a cult expert would gather testimonies against a group in order to establish objectivity. I believe that the more correlations there are between disparate testimonies, the more likely it is "true". Is this assumption valid? How does a cult expert establish objectivity?

Also, how does one address the academic study of religion? While my interests largely lie in Second Temple Judaism and Early Christianity, I do have interest in modern religions. In order to research these groups, I have to be on amicable terms with them or they will likely not allow me to research them. On the same note, I feel like I am being forced to bow to a value that I do not agree with and that value is that religions are reasonable explanations to the nature of existence (I do not think they always are, as an agnostic). So how does one resolve this Catch-22 situation? In order to criticize a religious practice, I must research it, but in order to research it, I must be on amicable terms with them.

I am curious as to how others have resolved these dilemmas.

Derek Rumpler
NOTE: The ZealforYahweh username was adopted at a time when I was a Christian. My bias is now agnostic. :)

I am a deeply committed agnostic, simply because I don't and cannot know the answers to the questions that religion and religious practices have attempted to address since the year dot.

Perhaps looking at the question from the angle, not of right or wrong beliefs, but of belief systems being constructed because of the very human need for stories with answers explaining this bewildering world would enable you to take a more tolerant view of others beliefs and still find out about them.

Nothing endures for long that does not fulfil very basic human emotional needs--which we all have--we have just found a myriad ways of catering to those needs. Mine is to admit that I don't know, and am highly unlikely to ever know. That satisfies me but would not suffice for another who wants a more concrete image of a god. Two ways of looking at a problem, neither will ever be proved indupitably correct.

Underneath it all we are very much alike in our basic human-ness. The differing responses to religious needs, cultural quirks and individual preferences, are secondary to that I think.

If you are genuinely open-minded and interested without condemnation in the people that you research they will likely respond to that.

(However, not so open-minded that your brains inadvertantly fall out)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/19/2011 08:27PM by Stoic.

I can agree with a lot of what you said. There's a lot of things that I can appreciate about ancient (and probably, by extension, modern) religions, one of those things being that their categories were prescientific; in other words, they tried to categorize and explain their world and some of those categories were based on observations of phenomena such as cause-and-effect. One of my favorite examples are Leviticus's kosher laws; if you look at what each of those creatures have in common, they generally fall along lines that are considered harmful to one's health. I hypothesize that they field tested this, saw that people died when they ate animals of those categories, and (falsely, instead of scientifically) attributed the death to upsetting their Creator and therefore compiled the categories of meat that are harmful to one's health. In this case, it is prescientific because while the conclusion is untestable and probably wrong, it does rely on some tools of science.

When I think of it along those terms, I can have more sympathy. As a Comparative Religion major, I have also learned that many groups of people, including nonbelievers in any religion, also have their own rituals; it seems to be a tendency that is coded into us.

However, I am mostly interested in how cult experts establish objectivity when it comes to testimonies against a group. I do believe religions can do things that are harmful to one's autonomy and I'm assuming autonomy (as long as it doesn't violate certain ethical boundaries) is a good thing since it allows people to thrive, come to a better understanding of reality, and help others as they apply their new found knowledge to that enterprise. It would seem that certain social science organizations, namely religion and sociology specialists, disagree with that, instead striving to protect their research subjects against the "cult" label. Hence, my comparison to the rape victim.

So once more, how does the cult expert gather these testimonies to provide conclusive evidence that a group is dangerous to one's autonomy? Can this be done without slandering cult victims so that they are not affected in any significant area, such as employment or psychological stability? I also feel that, aside from being socially ostracized, people fear the response their previous group will give them. They fear the hate campaign that will inevitably result. I am thus interested in many tools that cult experts utilize to present their case; I might also be interested in helping develop new tools further down the road.

Derek Rumpler
NOTE: The ZealforYahweh username was adopted at a time when I was a Christian. My bias is now agnostic. :)

zealforyahweh:

Destructive cults are determined to be destructive on the basis of their behavior.

See [www.culteducation.com]

As stated in his paper "Cult Formation" Robert Jay Lifton summarizes "Economic, sexual, and other exploitation of group members by the leader and the ruling coterie."

This may be recorded through public and/or court records.

See [www.culteducation.com]

"There are records, books, news articles, or television programs that document the abuses of the group/leader."

"Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances."

Some academics in the fields of religious studies and sociology have apparently become "apologists" for destructive cult groups. These academics often dismiss the testimony of "apostates" from cult groups. Some have also accepted research funding and/or expert witness payments from such groups, which has led to controversy and criticism.

See [www.culteducation.com]

Most former cult members don't speak out about their cult experience, but rather simply move on with their lives.

Whether or not an ex-member speaks out is an individual choice.

Many former members fear retribution from the cult, e.g. Scientology has a reputation for going after ex-members that speak out.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/20/2011 08:54PM by rrmoderator.

Thank you, Ross. I have decided in my mind that this is mostly an ethical issue and so I can understand why some sociologists are hesitant to use the label in order to ensure that they are able to continue researching a group; nonetheless, I do agree that people should stand up for things and this is one of those things that I believe they should stand up for. One of the things that drives me up the wall with social scientists is that they feel that they must remain uninvolved in ethical issues in order to be "neutral." This is a conflict that I am still undergoing in my own mind both as someone who is interested in the study of religion and as someone who was involved in a group many would deem cultic. I cannot say I have the answers right now, but I will continue to peruse your materials. I have come a long way since I began this journey, it just grates against my nerves when I read similar rhetoric in my University textbooks. Thank you!

Derek Rumpler
NOTE: The ZealforYahweh username was adopted at a time when I was a Christian. My bias is now agnostic. :)