Chain The Dogma - May 3, 2010
The Cult With No Name
by Perry Bulwer
This past February there was a brief report in the Michigan newspaper, Huron Daily Tribune, on the sentencing of a Christian minister for the sex assault of an 11 year-old boy. It's the kind of story that is all too common these days, as my fast-growing archive of news articles related to religion-related child abuse demonstrates. The details in the article are similar to other cases of child sexual abuse in a religious context, except for one thing. The report makes no mention of the name of the organization to which the minister belonged, simply referring to “a non-denominational Christian organization” and “the ministry”. But have you ever heard of an organization with no name? When people organize themselves into groups, even for trivial purposes, one of the first things they usually do is decide on a name. So, who is this Christian organization and why do they claim to have no name?
One clue as to who this group is comes not from that news article, but from one of the comments posted at the end of it by a person named Sal who writes: "This ministry, known as the Two by Two's needs to be exposed.” Well, Sal, here's my little effort. After an easy web search, that clue leads to the revelation that this secretive group that claims to have no name does have a name after all; in fact, it has many names. It is referred to both by members and outsiders by many different names, including “The Truth”, “The Way”, “Two-by-Twos” and several others, and it is officially registered in the U.S. as “Christian Conventions” and in Canada as "Assemblies of Christians", and various other names in other countries. This particular religious ruse is used to perpetuate the conceit that this group has no modern founder, but can trace its origins back to the first Christians, and therefore it is the true church, not a sect or cult. However, as a survivor of a Christian fundamentalist cult I've heard that story before, so when I now hear people claiming to have "the only truth" and living "the only way" cult alarm bells sound off to warn me of the dangerous deceit.
When a reader of my blog recently alerted me to that news article mentioned above, she referred to some of those names for the group, but it was “The Truth” that most sounded familiar to me. I checked and, sure enough, just over two months ago I posted in my news archive an article from the student newspaper of the University of Illinois. It tells the story of a student, Jennifer Hanson, who escaped from the fundamentalist Christian sect she was born into so she could attend university and live her own life. Her's is a familiar story of religious repression, suppression, indoctrination, spiritual abuse and denial of human rights, but familiar only because of media reports of similar religion-related abuses in other more well known groups.
Having no name, or actually, many different names, helps this group fly under the radar by causing confusion as to who they really are and making it difficult for outsiders to 'connect the dots'. It is a common cult tactic, changing names or using many alternative names in different countries or for different aspects of their ministries. It appears to have worked for this no-name cult because “... none of the University professors of religion contacted had heard of Hanson's former group.” Get that? Professors (plural) of religion had never heard of this Christian organization that numbers at least in the hundreds of thousands and possibly in the millions worldwide.
So, is this no-name group a cult? According to the Apologetics Index, [see Update Note below] which keeps track of such groups, “... from an orthodox, evangelical Christian perspective, the movement is considered to be a cult of Christianity.” And according to a Canadian lawyer representing the father in a child custody case the group is a cult:
Of course, the absence of real threats or violence are not enough to determine whether or not a group is a cult. Furthermore, what does he mean by “real threats”? Melton seems to imply that spiritual threats, common in such fundamentalist groups, are not real threats, therefore they don't count. As the Canadian lawyer pointed out, he compiled a list of 47 cult characteristics and of those he mentioned none involved violence or real threats, as opposed to spiritual threats. There are many sociological and theological characteristics used to determine whether a group is a cult or not, which Melton, a supposed expert on religion, is well aware of, yet he simplistically dismisses the evidence. It's not the first time he's done that. Here's part of what I wrote about his working regarding the cult, the Children of God, now known as The Family International:
By the way, I used the term “researchers” lightly as the book of essays is merely propaganda that was entirely financed by The Family cult. In other words, they payed apologists like Melton to write favourable essays for public relations purposes in the wake of child sex scandals. So, if J. Gordon Melton says “The Truth” or the “Two-by-Twos” or the church with no name is not a cult, it probably is. From what I've read about it so far, and comparing it to other well-documented cults, there is no question in my mind it is. Jennifer Hanson's story provides enough details and warning signs for me to come to that conclusion, but there are also other stories out there that corroborate her's, many at the websites listed below. It turns out that a cult by any other name, or no name at all, is still a cult.
REFERENCES & WEBSITES:
Veterans of Truth - information about abuses in "The Truth" ministry.
WINGS For Truth - created by victims/survivors who have suffered sexual abuse within the "Truth" Fellowship along with individuals who have been both directly and indirectly impacted by CSA.
Christian Conventions - wikipedia entry
Apologetics Index - Two-by-twos [see Update Note below]
Apologetics Index - J. Gordon Melton [see Update Note below]
Rick A. Ross Institute on the Apologetics Index [see Update Note below]
University of Illinois student shunned by 'cult' for sake of education
Alberta Report, "Doubts About a Mystery Church", September 15, 1997
The Cult With No Name
by Perry Bulwer
This past February there was a brief report in the Michigan newspaper, Huron Daily Tribune, on the sentencing of a Christian minister for the sex assault of an 11 year-old boy. It's the kind of story that is all too common these days, as my fast-growing archive of news articles related to religion-related child abuse demonstrates. The details in the article are similar to other cases of child sexual abuse in a religious context, except for one thing. The report makes no mention of the name of the organization to which the minister belonged, simply referring to “a non-denominational Christian organization” and “the ministry”. But have you ever heard of an organization with no name? When people organize themselves into groups, even for trivial purposes, one of the first things they usually do is decide on a name. So, who is this Christian organization and why do they claim to have no name?
One clue as to who this group is comes not from that news article, but from one of the comments posted at the end of it by a person named Sal who writes: "This ministry, known as the Two by Two's needs to be exposed.” Well, Sal, here's my little effort. After an easy web search, that clue leads to the revelation that this secretive group that claims to have no name does have a name after all; in fact, it has many names. It is referred to both by members and outsiders by many different names, including “The Truth”, “The Way”, “Two-by-Twos” and several others, and it is officially registered in the U.S. as “Christian Conventions” and in Canada as "Assemblies of Christians", and various other names in other countries. This particular religious ruse is used to perpetuate the conceit that this group has no modern founder, but can trace its origins back to the first Christians, and therefore it is the true church, not a sect or cult. However, as a survivor of a Christian fundamentalist cult I've heard that story before, so when I now hear people claiming to have "the only truth" and living "the only way" cult alarm bells sound off to warn me of the dangerous deceit.
When a reader of my blog recently alerted me to that news article mentioned above, she referred to some of those names for the group, but it was “The Truth” that most sounded familiar to me. I checked and, sure enough, just over two months ago I posted in my news archive an article from the student newspaper of the University of Illinois. It tells the story of a student, Jennifer Hanson, who escaped from the fundamentalist Christian sect she was born into so she could attend university and live her own life. Her's is a familiar story of religious repression, suppression, indoctrination, spiritual abuse and denial of human rights, but familiar only because of media reports of similar religion-related abuses in other more well known groups.
Having no name, or actually, many different names, helps this group fly under the radar by causing confusion as to who they really are and making it difficult for outsiders to 'connect the dots'. It is a common cult tactic, changing names or using many alternative names in different countries or for different aspects of their ministries. It appears to have worked for this no-name cult because “... none of the University professors of religion contacted had heard of Hanson's former group.” Get that? Professors (plural) of religion had never heard of this Christian organization that numbers at least in the hundreds of thousands and possibly in the millions worldwide.
So, is this no-name group a cult? According to the Apologetics Index, [see Update Note below] which keeps track of such groups, “... from an orthodox, evangelical Christian perspective, the movement is considered to be a cult of Christianity.” And according to a Canadian lawyer representing the father in a child custody case the group is a cult:
"We compiled a list of 47 different cult characteristics," says lawyer Arends. "The Two-by-twos meet all the points. They are extremely secretive, have no written doctrine or records, you can't get a straight answer from them, and yet they claim to be the only path to salvation. Their 'friends' must give unconditional obedience to the workers, or they're guilty of backsliding. And if they backslide, they're damned." Mr. Arends says his case is bolstered by California academic Ronald Enroth's work Churches That Abuse, Port Coquitlam author Lloyd Fortt's In Search of 'the Truth', and the testimony of a dozen former members in Alberta.
But it is the next paragraph in that magazine report that convinced me that the cult designation is an appropriate one. That paragraph cites J. Gordon Melton, a notorious cult apologist who thinks there is no such things as cults, only 'new religious movements':
However, Gordon Melton, the California-based editor of the Encyclopedia of American Religions, argues the Two-by-twos are simply an "old-line, 19th-century Christadelphian sect," an isolated subculture of non-Trinitarian Christians. They are not a cult because "there's no real threats or violence," he says.
Alberta Report, "Doubts About a Mystery Church", September 15, 1997
Of course, the absence of real threats or violence are not enough to determine whether or not a group is a cult. Furthermore, what does he mean by “real threats”? Melton seems to imply that spiritual threats, common in such fundamentalist groups, are not real threats, therefore they don't count. As the Canadian lawyer pointed out, he compiled a list of 47 cult characteristics and of those he mentioned none involved violence or real threats, as opposed to spiritual threats. There are many sociological and theological characteristics used to determine whether a group is a cult or not, which Melton, a supposed expert on religion, is well aware of, yet he simplistically dismisses the evidence. It's not the first time he's done that. Here's part of what I wrote about his working regarding the cult, the Children of God, now known as The Family International:
In both the 1986 edition and the revised 1992 edition of the Encyclopaedic Handbook of Cults in America, Melton wrote critically about The Family for five pages, concluding that “The sexual manipulation in the Children of God has now been so thoroughly documented that it is doubtful whether the organization can ever, in spite of whatever future reforms it might initiate, regain any respectable place in the larger religious community.” 20 Yet just two years later, in 1994, he co-edited a collection of essays favourable to The Family entitled Sex, Slander and Salvation; Investigating The Family/Children of God. 21 Kent and Krebs describe 22 how that book was a result of Family representatives seeking advice from certain scholars, including Melton, on how to create a positive public image in the face of negative publicity revolving mostly around allegations of sexual abuse and exploitation. They also describe the substantial efforts The Family took to make sure any potentially discrediting information, such as sexual material involving children, was not available to researchers, and that researchers had access only to special, sanitized ‘media homes’ that were not at all representative of regular Family homes. Unsurprisingly, The Family touts that book, which they offer for sale on their Website, as “…proof of its legitimacy and the group has distributed copies to media in an attempt to gain favourable press.” 23 The Family considers Melton, as well as Chancellor, experts on the group, 24 and in 2000 Melton received USD $10,065.83 from The Family. 25
A Response to James D. Chancellor's "Life in The Family: An oral history of the Children of God"
By the way, I used the term “researchers” lightly as the book of essays is merely propaganda that was entirely financed by The Family cult. In other words, they payed apologists like Melton to write favourable essays for public relations purposes in the wake of child sex scandals. So, if J. Gordon Melton says “The Truth” or the “Two-by-Twos” or the church with no name is not a cult, it probably is. From what I've read about it so far, and comparing it to other well-documented cults, there is no question in my mind it is. Jennifer Hanson's story provides enough details and warning signs for me to come to that conclusion, but there are also other stories out there that corroborate her's, many at the websites listed below. It turns out that a cult by any other name, or no name at all, is still a cult.
REFERENCES & WEBSITES:
Veterans of Truth - information about abuses in "The Truth" ministry.
WINGS For Truth - created by victims/survivors who have suffered sexual abuse within the "Truth" Fellowship along with individuals who have been both directly and indirectly impacted by CSA.
Christian Conventions - wikipedia entry
Apologetics Index - Two-by-twos [see Update Note below]
Apologetics Index - J. Gordon Melton [see Update Note below]
Rick A. Ross Institute on the Apologetics Index [see Update Note below]
University of Illinois student shunned by 'cult' for sake of education
Alberta Report, "Doubts About a Mystery Church", September 15, 1997
A Response to James D. Chancellor's "Life in The Family: An oral history of the Children of God"
xFamily.org - a collaboratively edited encyclopedia about The Family/Children of God cult.
exFamily.org - a source of truthful information about The Family
Cult survivor reveals deceptive recruiting tactics used by Scientology and similar cults
Update on Friday, May 7, 2010 by Perry Bulwer
Note on the Apologetics Index, a source cited in the post above
After asking the question, "So, is this no-name group a cult?", in the post above, I provided two sources to illustrate two different perspectives on that question. One source is a lawyer who provides an answer from a sociological point of view. The other source, the Apologetics Index, provides an answer from a particular Christian perspective. My purpose was to show that regardless of their position, many people would view this group as a cult.
However, it has now come to my attention that the person behind the Apologetics Index, Anton Hein, is a fugitive from U.S. law and is a registered sex offender in California for committing "lewd or lascivious acts with a child under 14 years.” That child is his niece, who was 13 at the time. There is an outstanding warrant for his arrest should he ever attempt to enter the U.S. again.
Hein is not a credible source of information, and I should have been more careful to check into his website before citing it. I was in a hurry, but that's no excuse, because a quick search of cult expert Rick Ross's website would have alerted me to the problem with Hein. He has a page on Hein that would have been enough for me to omit any reference to or quotation from him. Lesson learned.
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