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Cults and New Religious Movements
Date: 2023
From: Gale Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection
Publisher: Gale, part of Cengage Group
Document Type: Topic overview
Length: 2,138 words
Content Level: (Level 5)
Full Text:
In popular usage, cult commonly refers to a group of people organized around a shared set of spiritual or philosophical beliefs,
typically involving a charismatic leader or teacher who plays a central role in the cult’s creation and administration. However, the term
has often been used to describe new religious movements (NRMs), or religions that have emerged since the 1800s, such as the
Church of Scientology and Jehovah’s Witnesses, as well as applied to more established organizations that are viewed as enduring
social institutions or mainstream religions. Nonetheless, not all NRMs are cults, and not all cults are religious in nature. Expert
definitions of cults include distinct characteristics that distinguish them from legitimate religions or NRMS.
Many organizations identified as cults are not religious. Cult-like organizations may require members to devote themselves to the
group and adhere to its governing rules. Religious movements that include extraterrestrial elements as part of their mythology, such
as the International Ra‘lian Movement, may be referred to as UFO cults, a reference to the popular initialism for unidentified flying
objects. Political leaders may also attract or actively seek to create a cult following around them, referred to as a cult of personality
and commonly used to describe autocratic leaders such as Adolf Hitler, Kim Il Sung, and Saddam Hussein. Some critics have
asserted that Donald Trump commands a cult of personality.
Detractors often apply the term “cult” pejoratively to discredit emerging or narrowly practiced movements and distinguish them from
mainstream religions. Experts point out that its usage often has to do with outsiders’ perception of the group in question, connoting
extremism, violence, or abuse that is not always present in NRMs. Members’ zeal and devotion to NRMs has historically aroused
suspicions in outsiders, who worry that the movement may undermine local values and place community members at risk. In
numerous high-profile instances, investigations into NRMs have uncovered widespread abuse, criminal activity, and other
questionable practices, contributing to a climate of distrust surrounding them. Defenders point out, however, that similar high-profile
scandals also occur within more broadly accepted religions. NRMs seeking religious protections or tax exemption have encountered
challenges in establishing themselves as legitimate religions. Religious freedom advocates note that the First Amendment enshrines
protection for the religious activities of NRMs in the Constitution. Defenders of NRMs have criticized the media as sensationalizing
their activities and creating a moral panic, arguing that NRMs are not inherently abusive.
Main Ideas
Cults have several characteristics that make them distinct from religions, including dependency on the group; adherence to
dogmatic beliefs; isolation and hostility toward the outside world; and veneration of a central, authoritarian leader. Cult
members are vulnerable to abuse and manipulation, and are not allowed free expression or free movement.
The term new religious movement (NRM) describes religions that have emerged since the 1800s, including the Church of
Scientology, the LDS Church, and Jehovah’s Witnesses. NRMs have varying levels of public acceptance, often tied to the
group’s level of secrecy or perceptions that it is abusive or dangerous. Many religions that began in the United States
struggled for decades before obtaining mainstream recognition as legitimate faiths.
NRMs have historically encountered public opposition and been subject to government persecution. The term cult is often
used when outsiders have a negative perception of the group in question. However, not all NRMs are cults, and not all cults
are religious in nature.
Cults engage in destructive behaviors, threatening the safety of their own followers and the communities in which they
operate. Cult members’ devotion to and dependency on the group leaves them open to physical, emotional, sexual, financial,
and psychological abuse.
As new religious movements grow, sects of the new religion may deviate from the original teachings. In some cases, the
leader of a sect may adopt an extreme position or exert an unhealthy influence, threatening the safety of the cult or its
members. Investigations into some cults have revealed widespread physical and sexual abuse.
New Religious Movements and Social Acceptance
As public perception of an NRM changes and suspicions fade, the “cult” label tends to be used less often to describe such groups.
The United States has been the launching ground for several NRMs, including Pentecostalism, Seventh-day Adventism, and
Christian Science, that have become accepted as legitimate religions over time. These religions typically faced opposition from the
communities in which they formed, sometimes being driven to settle in different parts of the country. For example, during its early
history, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, founded in 1830 and commonly referred to as the LDS Church or Mormon
Church, repeatedly came into conflict with state and federal authorities for, among other factors, practicing polygamy, which refers to
marriages involving more than two spouses. Among several laws targeting Mormons, Congress passed the Edmunds-Tucker Act of
1887, which granted the federal government authority to seize Mormon property and required every eligible voter in Utah, the territory
in which Mormons predominantly settled, to take an oath against polygamy. Three years after the law was passed, the president of
the Mormon Church, Wilford Woodruff, announced that he had received a revelation in which God warned him that allowing polygamy
would bring bad fortune upon the church, leading the church to officially end the practice. While the LDS Church continues to prohibit
polygamy, some fundamentalist offshoots, including the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Apostolic
United Brethren, have continued the practice. By the first decades of the twenty-first century, most Americans recognized the LDS
Church as an established religious community.
Other NRMs, particularly those with especially unusual beliefs or persistent allegations of abuse, do not gain increased public
acceptance over time and continue to be broadly considered to be cults. Founded by science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard in 1954,
the Church of Scientology has struggled to achieve widespread recognition as a religion, due in large part to the ongoing allegations
of abuse against the church and its tendency toward extreme secrecy. Since its founding, the church has allegedly hidden its core
beliefs even from many followers and engaged in proactive efforts to silence critics, particularly former members. These efforts, which
reportedly include intimidation, legal action, and the creation of videos and websites that serve only to discredit the organization’s
critics, have increased alongside public skepticism. Further, the church has faced numerous lawsuits, including charges of human
trafficking and forced labor brought up by three former members in 2022. Scientologist and actor Danny Masterson was convicted of
two counts of rape in September 2023, with his victims claiming that though they reported the crimes to the church, church policy
prohibited them from reporting them to law enforcement.
NRMs such as Mormonism and Seventh-day Adventism build upon the beliefs of Christianity, but many other NRMs are based on
other mainstream religions or unique and original mythologies. The predominance of Abrahamic religions—which include Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam—in the United States has contributed to a limited understanding among Americans of both established and
newly formed Eastern religions. This has led some Americans to treat such religions with suspicion, while others have responded with
curiosity and enthusiasm. In 1966 Indian teacher A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, established the International Society of
Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON) in the United States, promoting an alternative interpretation of Hinduism that attracted criticism
from mainstream Hindus. Initially, ISKCON attracted mostly native-born Americans, who forsook their material possessions, resided
in communes, and distributed reading materials and flowers at airports. In 1972 ISKCON launched Hare Krishna Food for Life, the
world’s largest vegetarian food relief program, which continues to feed people in over sixty countries. However, the group was widely
condemned after an internal investigation that began in 1996 revealed decades of physical and sexual child abuse at schools run by
ISKCON monks. In the first decades of the twenty-first century, however, ISKCON has become increasingly popular among Indian
immigrants.
Critical Thinking Questions
What types of opposition have new religious movements (NRMs) encountered in the United States? Do you believe this
opposition has usually been warranted? Why or why not?
In what ways are cults distinct from religions and NRMs? In what ways are they similar?
In your opinion, for what reasons do cults so often resemble religious movements? Explain your response.
Cults as Destructive NRMs
Experts generally define cults as having several characteristics that make them distinct from established religions or NRMs. These
include dependency on the group; close and unquestioning adherence to dogmatic beliefs; isolation from and hostility toward
nonmembers; and veneration of a central, authoritarian leader. Cult members’ devotion to the group leaves them vulnerable to abuse
and manipulation, and they are not able to freely question or express doubts about the group’s beliefs or leader, or to leave the group
at their leisure. Common cultic abuses include physical and sexual violence, controlling members’ personal finances, sleep and food
deprivation, and denial of medical or psychological care. Cults often choose to settle in remote areas, where they can avoid unwanted
interference from law enforcement, social welfare agencies, and other groups that may be viewed as a threat.
Self-empowerment company NXIVM has faced accusations of operating as a cult since 2003, when a series of investigations by
journalists, as well as the Cult Education Institute, alleged that NXIVM founder Keith Raniere had promoted himself as a messianic
figure and engaged in psychological abuses. Clients, primarily women from wealthy families, prominent businesses, and the
entertainment industry, paid thousands of dollars for special sessions and were required to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs)
about these sessions. The US Department of Justice launched an investigation in 2017, after further revelations of a sect within
NXIVM known as Dominus Obsequious Sororium (DOS), which former members described as a cult that required women to submit
incriminating material about themselves, limit their food intake, be branded, and engage in sexual activity with Raniere. Raniere, his
assistant, actor Allison Mack, and other members of the organization faced sex trafficking, forced labor conspiracy, wire fraud,
racketeering, and identity theft charges. In 2020 Raniere was sentenced to 120 years’ imprisonment.
The prejudices and fears surrounding NRMs largely stem from concerns over the safety of their members and the communities in
which they operate. Some NRMs, including the People’s Temple of the Disciples of Christ (Jonestown) and the UFO cult Heaven’s
Gate, have engaged in mass suicide, believing that suicide will deliver them to the next phase of existence. In the case of the
Jonestown mass suicide, many members who tried to flee were murdered. People may worry that a loved one who has joined an
NRM may, in fact, be in a cult and at risk of participating in such a ritual or being driven to engage in other harmful or destructive
behavior.
In 2010 Larry Ray moved into his daughter’s dormitory room at Sarah Lawrence College in New York after being released from
prison, attracting the admiration of his daughter and her friends, and manipulating them into sharing an apartment in New York City
with him. Over ten years, Ray abused them physically, emotionally, and sexually, forcing them into sex work and encouraging them to
abuse each other until Ray was convicted on charges including sex trafficking, extortion, conspiracy, and racketeering.
In 2016 former sex worker Eligio Bishop, also known as Natureboy, founded Melanation, later called Carbon Nation, a naturalist cult
that promoted nudism, polyamory, and veganism and discouraged bathing. Making heavy use of social media for recruitment, the
group moved around the United States, Honduras, Panama, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, frequently coming into conflict with local
populations before relocating to Bishop’s native state of Georgia. There, in 2022, he was charged with false imprisonment, rape, and
distributing sexually explicit material without the subject’s consent.
In 2019 activist Gazi Kozdo, born Augustus Romain, founded a radical leftist group called the Black Hammer Organization, through
which they promoted racial separatism and antisemitism. In 2021 Kozdo attempted to establish a commune called Black Hammer
City in Colorado, but it was shut down by law enforcement, and the organization relocated to Georgia. In 2022 authorities arrested
Kozdo on charges including false imprisonment, kidnapping, aggravated sodomy, and assault. With Kozdo’s arrest, members of the
organization who were being held against their will were able to leave.
Conflicts between cults and outsiders have at times also turned violent, sometimes resulting in significant loss of life. For example,
repeated clashes between residents of the town of Antelope, Oregon, and a nearby cult called Rajneeshpuram ultimately led to
revelations that cult members had attempted political assassinations, successfully poisoned large segments of the local population,
and engaged in other criminal activity. In 1993 a Waco, Texas, cult called the Branch Davidians, facing weapons hoarding, sexual
abuse, and other charges, engaged in a standoff with law enforcement that ended in over eighty deaths, including over twenty
children. Some observers have asserted that public hostility toward the Branch Davidians exacerbated tensions leading up to and
during the standoff.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2024 Gale, part of Cengage Group
Source Citation (MLA 9th Edition)
“Cults and New Religious Movements.” Gale Opposing Viewpoints Online Collection, Gale, 2023. Gale In Context: Opposing
Viewpoints, link.gale.com/apps/doc/PC3010999222/OVIC?u=asuniv&sid=bookmark-OVIC&xid=63c475aa. Accessed 29 Jan.
2024.
Gale Document Number: GALE|PC3010999222
345
29 Organizing Your Writing,
Guiding Your Readers
Traffic lights, street signs, and lines on the road help drivers find their way.
Readers need similar guidance — to know, for example, whether they’re
reading a report or an argument, evaluation, or proposal. They also need to
know what to expect: What will the report be about? What perspective will
it offer? What will this paragraph cover? What about the next one? How
do the two paragraphs relate to each other — and to the rest of the essay?
When you write, then, you need to organize your ideas and provide
cues to help your readers navigate your text and understand the points
you’re trying to make. This chapter offers advice on organizing your writing
and guiding your readers through it by organizing the text and its paragraphs; creating strong thesis statements, clear topic sentences, and helpful beginnings and titles; ending appropriately; and tying ideas together
with transitions. See also the genre chapters for advice on organizing
texts in specific genres.
79
Outlining
At some point as writers develop their ideas and collect their information,
they often create an outline as a plan for drafting a text. You may create
an informal outline by simply listing your ideas and numbering them in the
order in which you want to write about them. You might prefer to make
a working outline to show the hierarchy of relationships among your ideas.
Or you might need to create a formal outline, which shows the hierarchy of
your ideas through a system of indenting, numbering, and lettering. And
you might use an online organizing tool.
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Beginning
57
Whenever we pick up something to read, we generally start by looking
at the first few words or sentences to see if they grab our attention, and
based on them, we decide whether to keep reading. Beginnings, then,
are important — both for attracting readers and for giving them some
information about what’s to come. How you begin depends on your
rhetorical situation , especially your purpose and audience. Academic
audiences generally expect a text’s introduction to establish context,
explaining how the text fits into some larger conversation, addresses
certain questions, or explores an aspect of the subject. Most introductions also offer a brief description of the text’s content, often in the form
of a thesis statement. The following opening paragraph of a report on
cyberloafing — that is, using an employer’s internet access to do nonwork-related tasks — does all of this:
Increased technological advances and widespread internet access
have revolutionized the workplace. But all this innovation has come
with at least one questionable stowaway: cyberloafing — the act of
browsing the internet for personal use while at work. It’s becoming essential for organizations to understand cyberloafing: what it
is, which factors lead employees to do it, and how it affects productivity. At its worst, cyberloafing can jeopardize an organization’s
information security, so awareness about cyberloafing is essential to
both employees and employers in order to prevent its most negative
consequences.
— Rocia Celeste Mejia Avila,
“Cyberloafing: Distraction or Motivation?”
If you’re writing for a nonacademic audience or genre — for a newspaper or a website, for example — your introduction may need to entice your
readers to read on by connecting your text to their interests through shared
experiences, anecdotes, or some other attention-getting device. Cynthia
Bass, writing a newspaper article about the Gettysburg Address on its 135th
anniversary, connects that date — the day her audience would read it — to
Lincoln’s address. She then develops the rationale for thinking about the
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speech and introduces her specific topic: debates about the writing and
delivery of the Gettysburg Address:
November 19 is the 135th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. On
that day in 1863, with the Civil War only half over and the worst yet to
come, Abraham Lincoln delivered a speech now universally regarded as
both the most important oration in U.S. history and the best explanation — ”government of the people, by the people, for the people” — of
why this nation exists.
We would expect the history of an event so monumental as the
Gettysburg Address to be well established. The truth is just the opposite.
The only thing scholars agree on is that the speech is short — only ten
sentences — and that it took Lincoln under five minutes to stand up,
deliver it, and sit back down.
Everything else — when Lincoln wrote it, where he wrote it, how
quickly he wrote it, how he was invited, how the audience reacted — has
been open to debate since the moment the words left his mouth.
— Cynthia Bass, “Gettysburg Address: Two Versions”
Thesis Statements
A thesis identifies the topic of a text along with the claim being made about
it. A good thesis helps readers understand an essay. Working to create a
sharp thesis can help you focus both your thinking and your writing. Here
are four steps for moving from a topic to a thesis statement:
1. State your topic as a question. You may have an idea for a topic,
such as “gasoline prices,” “analysis of ‘real women’ ad campaigns,” or
“famine.” Those may be good topics, but they’re not thesis statements,
primarily because none of them actually makes a statement. A good
way to begin moving from topic to thesis statement is to turn your
topic into a question:
What causes fluctuations in gasoline prices?
Are ads picturing “real women” who aren’t models effective?
What can be done to prevent famine in Somalia?
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2. Then turn your question into a position. A thesis statement is an
assertion — it takes a stand or makes a claim. Whether you’re writing
a report or an argument, you are saying, “This is the way I see . . .”
or “My research shows . . .” or “This is what I believe about . . .” Your
thesis statement announces your position on the question you’re raising about the topic, so a relatively easy way of establishing a thesis is
to answer your own question:
Gasoline prices fluctuate for several reasons.
Ads picturing “real women” instead of models are effective because
most women can easily identify with them.
The threat of famine in Somalia could be avoided if certain measures
are taken.
3. Narrow your thesis. A good thesis is specific, guiding you as you write
and showing readers exactly what your essay will cover. The preceding
thesis statements need to be qualified and focused — they should be
made more specific. For example:
Gasoline prices fluctuate because of production procedures, consumer
demand, international politics, and oil companies’ policies.
Dove’s “Campaign for Self-Esteem” and Aerie’s ads featuring Iskra Lawrence work because consumers can identify with the women’s bodies
and admire their confidence in displaying them.
The current threat of famine in Somalia could be avoided if the government and humanitarian organizations increase the availability of
water, provide shipments of food, and supply medical and nutrition
assistance.
337
A good way to narrow a thesis is to ask questions about it: Why do gasoline prices fluctuate? How could the Somalia famine have been avoided?
The answers will help you craft a narrow, focused thesis.
4. Qualify your thesis. Sometimes you want to make a strong argument
and state your thesis bluntly. Often, however, you need to acknowledge
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that your assertions may be challenged or may not be unconditionally true. In those cases, consider limiting the scope of your thesis by
adding to it such terms as “may,” “probably,” “apparently,” “very likely,”
“sometimes,” and “often.”
Gasoline prices very likely fluctuate because of production procedures,
consumer demand, international politics, and oil companies’ policies.
Dove’s and Aerie’s ad campaigns featuring “real women” may work
because consumers can identify with the women’s bodies and admire
their confidence in displaying them.
The current threat of famine in Somalia could probably be avoided if
the government and humanitarian organizations increase the availability of water, provide shipments of food, and supply medical and
nutrition assistance.
Thesis statements are typically positioned at or near the end of a text’s
introduction, to let readers know at the outset what is being claimed and
what the text will be aiming to prove. A thesis doesn’t necessarily forecast
your organization, which may be more complex than the thesis itself. For
example, Notre Dame University student Sarah Dzubay’s essay, “An Outbreak of the Irrational,” contains this thesis statement:
The movement to opt out of vaccinations is irrational and dangerous
because individuals advocating for their right to exercise their personal
freedom are looking in the wrong places for justification and ignoring
the threat they present to society as a whole.
The essay that follows this thesis statement includes discussions of herd
immunity; a socioeconomic profile of parents who choose not to have their
children vaccinated; outlines of the rationales those parents use to justify
their choice, which include fear of autism, fear of causing other health
problems, and political and ethical values; and a conclusion that parents
who refuse to have their children vaccinated are being unreasonable and
selfish. The paper delivers what the thesis promises but includes important
information not mentioned in the thesis itself.
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More Ways of Beginning
Explain the larger context of your topic. Most essays are part of an
ongoing conversation, so you might begin by outlining the context of the
subject to which your writing responds. An essay exploring the “emotional climate” of the United States after Barack Obama became president
begins by describing the national moods during some of his predecessors’
administrations:
Every president plays a symbolic, almost mythological role that’s hard
to talk about, much less quantify — it’s like trying to grab a ball of
mercury. I’m not referring to using the bully pulpit to shape the national
agenda but to the way that the president, as America’s most inescapably powerful figure, colors the emotional climate of the country. John
Kennedy and Ronald Reagan did this affirmatively, expressing ideals
that shaped the whole culture. Setting a buoyant tone, they didn’t just
change movies, music, and television; they changed attitudes. Other
presidents did the same, only unpleasantly. Richard Nixon created a
mood of angry paranoia, Jimmy Carter one of dreary defeatism, and
George W. Bush, especially in that seemingly endless second term, managed to do both at once.
— John Powers, “Dreams from My President”
Forecast your organization. You might begin by briefly summarizing the
way in which you will organize your text. The following example from a
scholarly paper on the role of immigrants in the US labor market offers
background on the subject and describes the points that the writer’s analysis will discuss:
Debates about illegal immigration, border security, skill levels of workers, unemployment, job growth and competition, and entrepreneurship
all rely, to some extent, on perceptions of immigrants’ role in the U.S.
labor market. These views are often shaped as much by politics and
emotion as by facts.
To better frame these debates, this short analysis provides data on
immigrants in the labor force at the current time of slowed immigration,
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high unemployment, and low job growth and highlights eight industries
where immigrants are especially vital. How large a share of the labor
force are they and how does that vary by particular industry? How do
immigrants compare to native-born workers in their educational attainment and occupational profiles?
The answers matter because our economy is dependent on immigrant labor now and for the future. The U.S. population is aging rapidly
as the baby boom cohort enters old age and retirement. As a result,
the labor force will increasingly depend upon immigrants and their
children to replace current workers and fill new jobs. This analysis puts
a spotlight on immigrant workers to examine their basic trends in the
labor force and how these workers fit into specific industries and occupations of interest.
— Audrey Singer,
“Immigrant Workers in the U.S. Labor Force”
Offer background information. If your readers may not know as much as
you do about your topic, giving them information to help them understand
your position can be important, as journalist David Guterson does in an
essay on the Mall of America:
Last April, on a visit to the new Mall of America near Minneapolis,
I carried with me the public-relations press kit provided for the benefit
of reporters. It included an assortment of “fun facts” about the mall:
140,000 hot dogs sold each week, 10,000 permanent jobs, 44 escalators and 17 elevators, 12,750 parking places, 13,300 short tons of steel,
$1 million in cash disbursed weekly from 8 automatic-teller machines.
Opened in the summer of 1992, the mall was built on the 78-acre site
of the former Metropolitan Stadium, a five-minute drive from the
Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport. With 4.2 million square feet
of floor space — including twenty-two times the retail footage of the
average American shopping center — the Mall of America was “the largest fully enclosed combination retail and family entertainment-complex
in the United States.”
— David Guterson,
“Enclosed. Encyclopedic. Endured. One Week at the Mall of America”
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A roller coaster in the Mall of America.
Visuals can also help provide context. For example, Guterson’s essay on
the Mall of America might have included a photo like the one above to
convey the size of the structure.
445–55
Define key terms or concepts. The success of an argument often hinges
on how key terms are defined . You may wish to provide definitions up
front — as an advocacy website, Health Care without Harm, does in a report
on the hazards of fragrances in health-care facilities:
To many people, the word “fragrance” means something that smells
nice, such as perfume. We don’t often stop to think that scents are
chemicals. Fragrance chemicals are organic compounds that volatilize, or
vaporize into the air — that’s why we can smell them. They are added to
products to give them a scent or to mask the odor of other ingredients.
The volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) emitted by fragrance products can
contribute to poor indoor air quality (IAQ) and are associated with a
variety of adverse health effects.
— ”Fragrances,” Health Care without Harm
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29 Organizing Your Writing, Guiding Your Readers
Connect your subject to your readers’ interests or values. You’ll always
want to establish common ground with your readers, and sometimes
424
you may wish to do so immediately, in your introduction, as in this
example:
We all want to feel safe. Most Americans lock their doors at night, lock
their cars in parking lots, try to park near buildings or under lights,
and wear seat belts. Many invest in expensive security systems, carry
pepper spray or a stun gun, keep guns in their homes, or take selfdefense classes. Obviously, safety and security are important issues in
American life.
— Andy McDonie, “Airport Security: What Price Safety?”
Start with something that will provoke readers’ interest. Writer and
columnist Anna Quindlen opens an essay on feminism with the following
eye-opening assertion:
Let’s use the F word here. People say it’s inappropriate, offensive, that
it puts people off. But it seems to me it’s the best way to begin, when
it’s simultaneously devalued and invaluable.
Feminist. Feminist, feminist, femi
