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Is a cult more irrational or dangerous than a mainline religion? (Added 27 Jan 01.)
Consider a family that belongs to a mainline church. Their teenage daughter joins a cult, and changes her lifestyle. The parents and pastor are shocked, arguing that she has been brainwashed into joining a cult -- that is, a group that is distinctive not so much by way of the nature of its religious beliefs as it is by way of using brainwashing techniques and the alleged exploitation of mental illness to make their daughter into a victim.
Could the parents argue that the daughter is a victim of a cult that is a religion whose beliefs are irrational, or at least more irrational than those of the mainline church? I would say no. By definition, all religious belief is irrational. It is just as irrational to believe in one god than in thirteen of them, two of which live under a volcano. (No apologies to the Scientologists, but I will refrain from describing Thetans; nor to the Christians, but I will not dwell on the rites of demonic exorcism.)
Could the parents argue that the beliefs of the cult are a manifestation of mental illness? The author of the subject article does not seem to think so. Therefore, he would argue that the parents have no right to kidnap their daughter to save her from such persuasion. In essence, he would argue that what the parents call brainwashing is no different than religious evangelism. How, therefore, could a mainline church argue against evangelists, one of whom was Jesus Christ?
Should the parents expect the police to intervene to "rescue" their daughter? I should hope not. Under the Constitution of the USA (and, to a lesser extent, that of Canada) freedom of religious belief is a protected right of the individual. To argue that their daughter had no right to join an authoritative cult with very strict beliefs and conduct guidelines would be to argue that she has no right to join the Roman Catholic Church or the US Army, for example. Besides, if the parents believe that the police should intervene to help them kidnap their daughter, what is to prevent the daughter, using the same logic, from expecting the police to intervene to help her kidnap her parents for their differing irrational religious beliefs?
I agree with the author's conclusion that there is no essential difference between a cult and a religion, at least in their degrees of irrationality. As to his conclusion that "Nor is it possible to identify cult membership with mental illness", I disagree. I think that religious belief of any kind is a manifestation of a kind of mental illness, or at least of a kind of mental derangement. At the very least it is illogical, irrational belief, by definition. For the pastor and parents to argue that the cult represents mentally ill beliefs would be for them to have to admit that their religion does so also.
That the parents and the pastor should complain about the recent religious indoctrination of their daughter, and yet not acknowledge that the most powerful religious indoctrination, and one carried out against the daughter's will at a very tender age, was that inflicted upon her by her parents and the church, is but one more manifestation of the irrationality of not only the religious beliefs, but of the so-called logic of the parents and the pastor. Some would go so far as to say that such indoctrination by parents amounts to mental child abuse.
Here is the article. (Accessible also from the home page of Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance: http://www.religioustolerance.org/welcome.htm#new .)
Joining a Cult: Religious Choice or Psychological Aberration? http://www.religioustolerance.org/cult_art.htm The following paper was written by Dr. Coloquially Davis and published by Cleveland State University's Journal of Law and Health . . . . Extracts: America has always been fertile ground for a multiplicity of religious groups, whether homegrown sects like Mormons, Shakers, and Jehovah's Witnesses, or immigrants from abroad like Mennonites, Quakers, and Jews. In the 1970s and 1980s we saw an explosion of new religious groups in America, many of which came to be labeled by their detractors as "cults."
The parents of these converts, as well as the defenders of mainstream religions from whom the young people were defecting, had some hurdles to overcome in their fight against the "cults." The young converts were almost always legal adults, and the parents -- much less the mainstream religious leaders -- could hardly claim to be against religious commitment per se, so on what grounds could they forcefully object to their children's new allegiance? The answer they found was to claim that these were not "genuine" religious movements -- i.e., not worthy of tolerance and respect -- and the converts' choices were not actually free choices at all, but the result of "brainwashing," sometimes called "coercive persuasion," "thought reform," or "mind control." (2) Thus, the parents were not interfering in the converts' right to choose their religion, but rescuing their adult children from the clutches of evil people who had rendered them powerless.
The "brainwashing" theory has important legal implications. After all, the religion clauses of the First Amendment forbid government from preferring some religions over others, and from interfering in a person's religious practice without a compelling reason. (3) Thus, if parents are to have the law on their side while engaging in activities that are normally illegal -- e.g., kidnapping and imprisoning an adult in order to "deprogram" her -- they have to find a way to describe these "cults," and the conversion experience, as completely divorced from our usual understanding of religion.
In this article, I will analyze the different theories about "cult" membership and conversion, specifically focusing upon whether or not conversions to cults ought to be respected by the law in the same way that the law respects conversion to and membership in, mainstream religions. In section II, I attempt (unsuccessfully) to define a "cult." In section III, I discuss the civil liberties issues surrounding "cults" and the public furor they have engendered. Section IV deals with medicalizing of a political issue. In section V, I discuss the different and competing theories about why young people join "cults," and the implication of those theories for public policy responses. Finally, in section VI, I conclude that none of the arguments which attempt to draw distinctions between "cults" and mainstream religions are solid enough to ground legal interventions against those who choose to join new religious movements. . . .
VI. CONCLUSION
New religions which demand a high degree of commitment from adherents are bound to be disturbing to outsiders, especially to family members of those who join. The existence of a dramatic "threat" to middle-class families inevitably evokes responses from psychologists, therapists (both licensed and self-proclaimed), legislators, and mainstream clergy. Some of these responses are undoubtedly sincere, others are clearly self-serving. Most of these responses (e.g., deprogramming, conservatorship laws) rely for their logic on a stance of delegitimizing the "cult" as a religion which can command the respect and protection afforded to mainstream beliefs. By the same token, the conversion experience is explained, not in terms of religious belief, but in terms of "brainwashing" and mental illness. This allows the cult member to be identified, not as a maverick family member who has chosen a different path, but as the victim of coercive persuasion in need of rescue.
As this paper has shown, none of these contentions can survive scrutiny. It is impossible, on both theoretical and empirical grounds, to draw a bright line between "real" religions and "destructive cults," or between sincere conversion to a religious belief and being the object of "coercive persuasion." Nor is it possible to identify cult membership with mental illness. Therefore, courts ought not to accept arguments, e.g. in the context of claims for unlawful imprisonment, that adults who join "cults" are to be treated any differently than those who choose to join other high-demand groups, such as Roman Catholic convents or the U.S. Army.
[This ends the Extract of the article, which is rather long.]
End of part 410 of 60 of Religion Page 410. More articles on Page 415.
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