The Cult Next Door
And just what do I mean by "cult"?
I’ve come to understand that I grew up in a cult. But before I get into all the gory details, let’s talk for a minute about what I mean when I say “cult”.
Most dictionaries agree that a cult is a group of people, often considered weird or non-mainstream, who are highly-devoted to a person, idea, or body of work (like a book or a movie). That’s an unsatisfyingly broad definition which could encapsulate a lot of things, including, but not limited to, SoulCycle, ComicCon, WeWork, etc. Amanda Montell’s excellent book Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism is an invaluable resource into the etymology and application of the term across a range of applications. Most scholars don’t like to use the term anymore because of it’s loaded meaning in society, which is not helpful when you’re trying to find out if you did in fact grow up in a cult.
For the sake of this conversation, however, I’m going to use cult expert Dr. Janja Lalich’s guidelines for what defines a cult:
Charismatic leader
Transcendent belief system
Systems of control
Now, I’m sure you’re already thinking “well, couldn’t all these apply to all organized religion?” No. Most, if not all, non-cult religious organizations have some sort of leadership hierarchy in place to prevent this sort of thing. They may be cultish (again, see Amanda Montell) without crossing the line into cult. “What about Jesus?” I’m not the expert here, but the historical Jesus didn’t ask people to walk, dress, think, or speak exactly like him and then face consequences for not complying, which brings me back to the church I grew up in.
Like most kids raised in the Bible Belt, I went to church weekly. This was back when Sunday morning and Sunday night services, and Wednesday night prayer meetings were standard for most people who attended a Southern Baptist, Baptist, or more broadly Evangelical church. I realize for many people who might have, say, only gone to Mass once a week or only on Christmas and Easter, this sort of Evangelical baseline might sound extreme, but it was just how things were done. Constant church attendance was normal. Everyone went to church or used to go to church or had a daddy/grandaddy/uncle who was a pastor. Even by these standards, my church was extreme.
My family was at church around 9-10 hours on Sunday (Sunday School, Morning Service, Prayer Meeting, Evening Service), Monday night for door-to-door soul winning outreach, Wednesday night Bible study, and Wednesday night service. There was a fall Missions Conference that had services every morning and night for a week, a spring Bible conference with services every morning and night for a week, a winter Faithful Men’s Meeting with services morning and night for a week, and often summer revival meetings at the camp. It was a lot of church.
If you walked into my church, you would probably think it was a more conservative Southern Baptist church. More conservative because none of the women wore pants, all the men wore suits, and there was an orchestra instead of a praise band. But it wasn’t Southern Baptist, it was a Fundamental Independent Baptist Church, a ultra-conservative Baptist offshoot that thought Southern Baptists were too liberal and Catholics weren’t Christians.
These churches are everywhere in more rural parts of the South. All you have to do is hop off the interstate, drive down a highway, and you’ll see more than one church sign proclaiming Fundamental Independent Baptist. The last time I did this, I saw at least three in a one-hour period. Most of these churches are small. Some add Missionary to their list of adjectives. All say they are only accountable to God, but are really only accountable to their pastor.
My former pastor often talked about how our church believed in the fundamentals of the Bible. He loved to talk about how we were not accountable to any denominational board, but how we could trace our beliefs all the way back to Jesus and the disciples. We only took answers from God – not some man, not the Pope. We did not come from the Protestant Reformation, which polluted Jesus’s teaching, apparently. We were the true Christians. Catholics, Presbyterians, Southern Baptists, Methodists, none of those people were Christians. We had the capital-t Truth. Everything else was a distortion.
I believed him. I didn't have a reason not to. Not only was I just a kid, but this “us vs. them” mindset was already common parlance in my house. Why? Because I was also raised in the Institute for Basic Life Principles founded by Bill Gothard. Though technically non-denominational, they too believed that Christianity was under attack by worldly forces. My aunt actually called my church an IBLP church.
Also, our church was huge. My pastor liked to talk about our two-thousand-person membership. He built a huge church auditorium modeled after British evangelist Charles H. Spurgeon's Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. It had custom carpet, custom pews, and more than a dozen chandeliers in the main auditorium that came from the Opryland Hotel in Nashville (a fact my pastor mentioned often). It all seemed believable.
The mayor would come for special services. The state senator would drop in. A few presidential candidates stopped by. It all seemed to have the hand of God on it, as they would say. Sure, we did weird things compared to other people, but they were “in the world” and we were separated. It made sense what was normal to us was abnormal out “in the world”.
It was normal to only read the King James Version of the Bible (all others were corrupt). It was normal for women to only wear skirts. It was normal to only listen to music either published by the church or approved by the church. It was normal to not go to theaters. It was normal to be at church “every time the doors were open”. It was normal for my youth group to knock on doors in neighborhoods and ask people "if they knew for sure if they died today they would go to heaven." It was normal to think that movies and novels and other forms of pop culture were sinful. It was normal for me to think that my only purpose in life was to marry a preacher boy and have a large family. My life was laid out before me. I didn’t even think to question it. To question it was to question God and I was devout enough to know not to cross that line.
My normal was not most people’s normal, but did that make it a cult? Let’s revisit Dr. Lalich’s tenets:
Charismatic leader
My pastor was the de facto god. Our church did have deacons, but it was well known that they all did what the pastor wanted. More than half of the books in the church’s bookstore were books he had written. Much of the music was music published by the church. He edited and published our church’s hymnal. He always used a green fountain pen and so many of the congregation did as well. We copied his phrasing, his mannerisms, and his attitude towards others. When people disagreed with him, he shut them down. If someone did something he didn’t like in a church service, he would publicly shame them. He was untouchable. He was a god unto himself.
Transcendent belief system
Dr. Lalich says that most religions have transcendent belief systems, but what makes a cult different is that they “have their way to get you there. It’s what I call the recipe for change. In order to be part of the group, you have to go through a transformational process.” I’ve heard thousands of sermons about how to be the “right kind of Christian.” It wasn’t enough to believe, you have to pray every day, read your Bible every day, tithe and give offerings, witness, and attend church faithfully. You also had to dress a certain way, talk a certain way, and act a certain way or it was widely believed that you weren’t a true Christian. It was belief plus a complete lifestyle change. If you didn’t conform to the lifestyle, you left the church. Once you left, you were dead to us.
Systems of control
I was told what to wear, where to go, where not to go, how to think, how to talk, and I was punished if I didn't obey. Families who would transgress against one of the beliefs of the church were kicked out. Families who had a “wayward child” disappeared overnight. When my parents left the church, someone started a rumor that my family left because my mom was in a mental institution. The problem, obviously, was us. People were always watching you and since the church was so big you had to be on your best behavior all the time in case someone from the church saw you. I know the former chairman of the deacons and he’s made more than one offhand comment to me about how my pastor has “fixers” who will “take care of things.”
The evidence is pretty damning. I’ve tried over the years to find people who went to this church and attended the Bible college affiliated with it and no one will talk to me. I’ve had several people who will talk, but not on the record. Everyone is afraid to speak out against this man and this ministry.
It took being emotionally and physically abused by "good Christian preacher boys" for me to start asking questions. It took watching my pastor silence one of my Bible college classmates for asking a legitimate question for me to start wondering if I was in the right place. It took thinking that it would be easier to drive my car into a telephone pole than to find a way to escape.
It’s easy to look at “fundies” and laugh. It’s easy to make fun of their lifestyle and beliefs. It makes us feel better about ourselves. As Zoë Heller so eloquently said in a recent New Yorker essay, “We harbor a general sense of superiority to those who are taken in by cults.” It’s easy to make fun of some thing when you’re on the outside, because it’s not the water you live in. But for those of us who grew up inside of it, we didn’t know any better. We knew people laughed at us. We just thought it was persecution. Really.
I wish, instead of laughing, someone would have told me the truth. I wish, instead of glorifying this way of life on a popular TLC show, someone would have sounded the alarm. I’m glad someone finally is. And I’m glad I found a way out.