Cult Studies, Free Online, Course 3, Lesson 2
Cult Studies, Free Online, Free Online Course 3, Lesson 2
How Are Cults Growing So Fast
Many sincere Christians are surprised and even shocked at the high rate at which False Cults are proliferating and growing everywhere. These believers feel that it is Bible-believing Churches that should grow so fast seeing that it is these Churches that teach and preach the Scriptures faithfully. However, numerical growth does not result automatically.
People are not automatically attracted to the group or movement that teaches truth. Rather, Evangelical Christians ought to go out and draw people’s attention to divine truths. Unfortunately most of us are very lax in this matter while most of the Cults consider this as the area that needs the greatest attention. Thus while most of the custodians and stewards of Truth continue in a state of coldness, the peddlers of error keep trapping people through their strategies. Many of these Cult strategies are unethical and unacceptable to Bible-believing people and we cannot use them. At the same time, plenty of acceptable strategies are still left.
An investigation into the growth strategies of the Cults would help us not only to become better witnesses of Truth, but would also help us to avoid the pitfalls in our Churches that are exploited by the Cultists.
1-They Exploit Spiritual Vacuum: Every Church passes consecutively through periods of revival and lethargy. During the latter stage the Church is not in a position to serve hope and joy to the struggling masses.
As population increases, the number of people looking for joy and peace also increases. But when the Church fails to rise to the occasion, False Cults exploit this vacuum. What they offer is often worse than what these lonely people have been facing, but the Cults package their message so attractively that these victims are unable to realize it till it is too late.
Mental, Spiritual, and social vacuums exist in all societies at all times. Cults have a mastery in detecting these needs, and soon they tailor their message to suit the prevailing need of their audience. Using this strategy, they have been able to steal people even from Bible-believing Churches and families.
A greater sensitivity to the needs of people around us and a willingness to pay the cost to help these people would surely help us in arresting Cultistic advances. Further, it is us the Evangelical Christians who ought to be identifying the spiritual and mental vacuum is society for offering Christ as the ultimate solution.
2-They Offer Friendship And Fellowship: People struggling for answers need help not only orally but also practically. The Cults know this very well and they offer a good deal of personal attention to prospective members and also to the new converts. By the time these converts mature, they would change from care-receivers to care-givers, maintaining a continuity of personal relationship. Almost all False Cults exhibit this close-knit family relationship, making them very attractive.
Personal attention given by Cultists can take many forms, including individual friendship, family-friendship, peer-support, prayer groups and home Bible classes . The forms might vary but what makes them effective is the personal relationship which makes the clients feel wanted, loved, and important. All this gives them a sense of belonging.
This feature of the False Cults is to be highly appreciated. In fact this is a behaviour that is a must for Bible-believing people. Yet many of us often become so self-satisfied with our “secure” life in Christ that we hesitate to pay the cost that is involved in caring for people. Unless we translate our theoretical answers into practical demonstration, False Cults will continue to trap people looking for family and social relationships.
3-They Are Sensitive To Needs: Every person has needs, and more so when he is passing through the “struggle” stage of life. Further, the range and intensity of such needs have become great today because of the changing society and breaking families. Cults are quite sensitive to these needs of people and offer many kinds of helps.
Most Christians become quite sensitive to the needs of others when these Christians themselves pass through periods of needs. Some of them might even become socially active during this stage of their lives. Yet once they settle in life, most Christians have a tendency to totally forget their period of struggle. With that forgetfulness goes away another opportunity to minister in the lives of those who are struggling.
On the other hand, most Cults know that pains and problems are a definite entry point deep into people’s lives. There are always drug addicts, frustrated and lonely people, runaways, students, the sick, and the heartbroken. There are people struggling with family problems, loneliness, fears. The problems are as numerous as people themselves, yet certain universal needs and many common strands among the struggling mankind can definitely be identified. The Cults not only make such identifications, but also develop strategies to meet these needs and solve the problems.
Psychological/Sociological and medical help provide the Cults the universal tools needed to face these universal problems. They might offer such help through pastoral, institutional, or print- media counseling. They might also help through relief and medical ministries. Ultimately they are able to minister to most common needs, pains, and aspirations of people, and this helps them to consolidate their hold upon their converts.
Individual believers involved in helping others on their own might eventually become insensitive to the needs of others, as most lamps eventually fade out. On the other hand, an organized Cult-based ministry can always keep the fire burning. The spirit of the organization and the sensitivity to the needs of people can be kept alive through training and also through recruiting new manpower. This way the Cults are able to be sensitive to the needs and pains of others, and are also able to win plenty of converts through this legitimate concern.
4-Every Member Is A Missionary: Almost all Bible-believing Churches stress the need for believers to share the gospel with others. This motivates many new believers to win others for Christ, but eventually most believers drop out of such practices. However, Cults ensure that all their members remain missionaries till the end of their lives.
All Evangelical Churches preach the gospel of grace where the “works” of a person do not contribute to his salvation. In these churches many post-salvation activities are expected from believers, but since salvation does not depend upon these activities, these activities are son viewed by believers as “optional”. The Cults, however, proclaim many of these activities as a “must” for salvation, and this ensures life-long compliance from their sheep.
Most Cults emphasize that working as a missionary is an essential and compulsory part of the individual Cultist’s salvation. Thus once a person is trapped by a Cult, for the sake of his own salvation he is forced to trap others for the Cult all his life. This strategy turns almost the entire population of the Cult into missionaries, a manpower which none can match. Eventually this manpower takes the Cult to a point from where it starts enjoying sudden and very large (geometrical) growth. This is one way in which many Cults are growing very rapidly today.
Hiding the gospel of Grace and substituting the gospel of grace with a system of work-based salvation is deplorable and even heretical. No Evangelical Christian can endorse this strategy. At the same time, the missionary commitment (out of compulsion) of Cults should motivate each one of us to renew our own missionary commitment (out of concern for lost souls, and based upon Grace).
5-Sacrificial Giving Is Mandatory: While almost all Bible-believing groups encourage giving, very few of them have made it mandatory. Even in those Evangelical groups where systematic collection of gifts takes place, most of the moneys thus collected are spent only for the needs of the collecting local Church. Thus no central pool with large resources is built up. Cults have just the opposite practice.
First of all, they connect sacrificial giving with the eventual salvation of the giver. Second, they have effective setups both for motivating and also for collecting money. Over the years this coercive mechanism builds up huge financial reserves. This vast central pool is then strategically invested for the Cult’s growth and welfare. While Evangelical churches perpetually struggle to raise money even for day-to-day operations, the centralized money-pool built by using inducement and coercive tactics give the Cults a lot of economic, social, and even political power to attain the desired growth. What’s more many discerning Cults have invested substantial capital (billions of rupees) into successful business corporations that help them in turn to further support their goals. For example the Roman Catholic Church is the largest Multi-National business corporation today, having business wealth that goes into trillions of rupees.
Imposing compulsive tithing and a developing a massive centralized pool of money is neither easy for Bible-believing Churches, nor is this practice Biblical. Thus Evangelical churches cannot compete wit Cults in this matter. However, the minimum that we can do is to learn to give more sacrificially for the Lord, which should in turn be used more faithfully.
6-They Have A Massive Literature Ministry: We all talk much about literature as an important component of Christian ministry, but it is the Cults who exploit this tool to maximum benefit.
The ultimate method to control a person is to control his mind. Grown-up human minds can be controlled only by employing much persuasion, manipulation, and constant pressurization. While all of this can be done orally, through audiovisuals, and through social interaction, none of these devices is convenient or economical for capturing the masses. On the other hand, books and magazines can help attain all these goals — and much more — economically, silently, and conveniently. Further, the approach is very efficient because even today people have a special awe and reverence for anything that they see in print. Thus any false message circulated in print can have great impact upon people.
Cults exploit these psychological and economical facts to their advantage by investing billions in producing the most attractive, illustrated, and cheaply priced literature. These materials, written by the most outstanding professionals, deal with all conceivable subjects. Thus even the least interested person gets some material that attractive to him.
Cultist literature includes books, magazines, textbooks, Bible- study books and even encyclopedias. Often the subject is non- religious, and their doctrinal errors are hidden deep inside such material. Once such publications reach a person, he reads them often for the non-spiritual content like political analysis, but he spiritual leaven inherent in all these seemingly technical articles eventually poisons his mind.
While most Evangelical churches produce literature without sufficient planning or mutual coordination, the Cults do it in a systematic and centralized manner. Their large pool of money often goes to subsidize the final cost of this material.
Once the Cultistic literature enters a house , it wins their hearts silently, gradually, and stealthily. Consequently, Christians should be taught to refuse all such literature, even if these are given free of cost. Else, a little fascination today can turn into a deep slavery tomorrow.
7-The Strategic Correspondence Courses: As mentioned in a previous point, to control a person it is necessary to control his mind first. Books, magazines and other publications are very effective for mind-control, but correspondence-courses have many advantages over them.
Once a person enrolls in a course, he is forced to study the content in a systematic manner from beginning to end. Thus an expert Cultist can design the course in such a subtle way that the student’s mental resistance is broken down gradually and in an imperceptible way. By the time the student reaches the last stages of the course (10 to 50 lessons later), mentally most of them are totally in the clutches of the Cult.
As mentioned before, most Cults have a centralized pool of money and experts. This combination is very effective for developing courses for mind-control. Thus correspondence courses offered by Cults are far more destructive than what anyone can imagine. What’s more, most courses pretended to be something other than doctrinal material, throwing the students off guard.
For example, a common strategy is to offer courses on health, personality development, or any other seemingly non-religious subject. Once the student begins to enjoy the course, and once his mental defenses are down to minimum, their perverted doctrine is sneaked in. By that time the student is totally in their clutches, and he is not able to discern the leaven polluting his mind.
Though Evangelical Christians also offer correspondence courses, the lack of coordination and planning makes most of them very shabby in comparison to what the Cults offer. The only solution is to make our courses better, and also from discouraging Evangelical Christians from enrolling in Cultistic courses.
8-They Effectively Use Mass Media: Though Mass Media can never take the place of personal contact, it can create a vast pool of faithful listeners: This in turn provides a very large number of people ready for personal contact and eventual absorption into the Cult. Thus almost all False Cults exploit Mass Media to the maximum.
Mass Media requires substantial resources. The centralized pool of money, experts, and management of the Cults makes it relatively easy for them to make a permanent presence on the best of Mass Media. It also helps them to hire the most experienced hands, establish the most professional studios, and produce the most attractive programmes.
In comparison to the above, Evangelical Christians face a tough task even to make their presence felt in media. However, due to the increasing threat from Cults they must try to do the best that is possible. Also we all must discourage our people from getting exposed to Cultistic media and propaganda.
9-They Have Numerous Institutions: Academic and social service institutions offer great opportunities for Cults to grow and multiply. Both of the above types of establishments can help them to brainwash people, and also to offer jobs to converts.
The centralized administration ensures the availability of resources, technical guidance, and all needed legal help. Thus Cult-based educational and social service institutions tend to offer the best and most professional service, attracting hosts of people to the Cult.
Further almost all Cult-run institutions pay only a below-normal salary, all the while extracting an above average service (in the name of God). Thus the Cults are able to build up vast institutional empires using this totally willing and committed slave-labour. Obviously it is impossible for Evangelical Christians to match all this, yet we can definitely do a better job in this field than what we have been doing so far.
At the same time, we should repeatedly caution believers against the ways in which students and others coming in contact with these institutions can be brainwashed. Many people thoughtless send their children to study in these institutions. It is better to avoid indoctrination rather than trying to repair after damage takes place by studying in these institutions.
Cult Studies, Free Online, Free Online Course 3, Lesson 2
How Are Cults Growing So Fast
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