Cindy K

Cheryl mentions “milieu control” in this post, and the topic of what actually defines a cult came up on Wade Burleson’s blog discussing the same thing.

This is a comment I just posted (a little late to the dance over there) that I thought might be helpful to people who want to learn more about milieu control and the significance of it.

I just posted the following at “Grace and Truth To You“:

A few have expressed some concern over what actually defines a cult…

Dr. Paul Martin said that there were two kinds of fruit: that of the doctrine preached and that of the life lived. In that respect there can be two kinds of cults — those that teach false doctrine and those that use coercive and manipulative means to recruit and control membership.

In terms of doctrine, a cult denies the central teachings of Christian orthodoxy, primarily always denying the Trinity.

(Do we have anyone in the SBC arguing subordinationism in the Trinity? Hmmm. A comment for another day and another thread, but a reasonable one.)
In terms of behavior, a Biblical Christian church can manifest the characteristics of cultic manipulation and thus be considered a mind-control or thought reform cult while still claiming sound basic doctrine.

One can use a couple of different criteria for determining cultic behavior. One is the “Spiritual Abuse” model according to Henke, wherein a group demonstrates the following:
Authoritarian Systems and leaders over-emphasize authority
Image Conscious Maintains high standards to validate specialness to God
Suppresses Criticism No questioning of doctrine or leadership is permitted
Perfectionistic Blessings come through performance and noncompliance is punished.
Unbalanced/Elitist Abusive religions must distinguish themselves from all other religions so they can claim to be distinctive and therefore special to God

….

The other criteria generally used to evaluate whether a group demonstrates cultic behavior is Robert Lifton’s Thought Reform model:
Milieu Control — The control of information and communication, and generation of propaganda
Mystical Manipulation — The manipulation of experiences that appear spontaneous but in fact were planned and orchestrated
Demand for Purity — The world is viewed as black and white and the members are constantly exhorted to conform to the ideology of the group and strive for perfection
Cult of Confession — Sins, flaws and shortcomings (as defined by the group) are to be confessed to the group
Sacred Science — The group’s doctrine or ideology is considered to be the ultimate Truth, beyond all questioning or dispute
Loading the Language — The group interprets or uses words and phrases in new ways so that often the outside world does not understand
Doctrine Over Person — The member’s personal experiences are subordinated to the sacred science and any contrary experiences must be denied or reinterpreted to fit the ideology of the group
Dispensing of Existence — The group has the prerogative to decide who has the right to exist and who does no

There’s plenty more to read on my blog and website if you want more information about this topic.

I’ve seen varying degrees of all these characteristics at work in the SBC in recent years. I’m still shocked to see it, and I rejoice that it is not true of all Southern Baptists. Sadly, sound doctrine does eventually get a person out of these groups and makes us less likely to get caught up into them, but we are all vulnerable to manipulation and these power of these group dynamics because they exploit both the good and bad aspects of human nature. Sound doctrine is not immunization against these ideas, otherwise I don’t think we would be hearing teachings that Jesus does not have the authority or either hear or answer prayer because He does not possess the Father’s supreme and ultimate authority within an ontologically hierarchical Trinity. I think that the social aspects of cultic behavior within the SBC have paved the way so that SBC seminaries are willing to allow these questionable views of Trinity to be entertained. Poor fruit of the life lived generally begets aberrant doctrine and vice versa.