Cults - What's in a Name

Panorama:

BBC's Panorama Versus Scientology Panorama

Summary: Panorama (Scientology and Me) is a documentary on Scientology.  The BBC show a version of this documentary on Scientology, while Scientology counters with a film about how the documentary was filmed by the BBC.

Because of the one-sided nature of both videos, I learned more about the character of the filmer than about Scientology itself.  From the Scientology version, it was plain to see that Scientology is just like many other religious with regards to manipulating media by showing only the positives aspects of Scientology.  This is not to say that Scientology is a horrible religion or, from the BBC's position, cult.  It is understandable that no religion would want to point out its negatives.  In fact without overwhelming evidence, most churches will not admit a problem (sometimes not even with overwhelming evidence).  What happens in a religion stays in that religion.  *cough* Catholics *cough*


The BBC's version wasn't much better with controlling bias.  It was amazingly clear (without the Scientology guy pointing it out every chance he could get) that the journalist didn't see Scientology as a religion.  This, however, could be contributed by the journalist's country, Britain.  Here, the British state has already decided that Scientology was not a religion.  The journalist goal seemed to be to determine if Scientology was a dangerous cult, not whether or not it was religion.  Moreover, the journalist didn't take into account the feelings of the members of Scientology with his usage of cult in the negative imagery.  How would you like for someone to refer to your religion as a cult, whether it is one or not?  Think, for a moment, the shoes of the Scientologists.  Some how I don't think you would enjoy someone calling your religion a cult with its negative meaning in popular culture.  Thus, to continue to call the religion a cult to the members was not a neutral approach to filming this documentary.  It no surprise that the Scientology response was aggressive and provocative.

Brainwashing & Cults:

There was two repetitive theme throughout the Scientology response to BBC's Panorama.  The first one being the idea that Scientology brainwashes its member.  I thought that my Sociology professor had one the subject of religions brainwashing its members deserves repeating here.  

"If these religions are so good at brain washing its members, then why don't they attract many members and why do they have such a low retention rate?"

I would say that Scientology does 'brainwash', but so does every other religion and for that matter country.  The only difference that I find is the degree to which they socialize (brainwash).  I don't know the rituals or practices of Scientology, so I can't put into perspective the degree of brainwashing that Scientology does with comparison to other religions.  I'd just like to point my reader to the documentary "Jesus Camp".  Some how I think Scientology would be a little less intense.


The second theme involved the usage of cult to describe Scientology.  When labeling one needs a reference.  In this case the reference for normal is a functional society, while abnormal is dysfunctional society, where normal is considered here as the social norm.  The problem with this definition of normal versus abnormal is the fact that not all abnormal things are dysfunctional.  A good example here is polygamy, which is abnormal in today's society.  However, the practice still survives today and has for centuries.  How can something that has survived for centuries by dysfunctional?  After all, dysfunctional things are unstable, and unstable things go toward the stable position naturally.  I think that the idea of abnormal is more of something being dangerous the social norm.  Abnormal 50+ years ago was the idea of women working.  It was dangerous to the social norm.  It would change the very way people think.  Cults are similar here.  They are dangerous to mainstream religion, but that doesn't make them dangerous to the populous.  They could even have a positive effect.

This brings me to the creation of religions.  When Judaism was first created, it was a cult.  Today, no one would openly call Judaism a cult.  Maybe incorrect or outdated, but not a cult.  The same can be said of Christianity, both Catholicism from Judaism and Protestantism from Catholicism.  

What is a Cult?

So far, I've used the word cult, but I have yet to define it.  There have been many definitions of cult through out the year.  From Becker:

A “cult” is a loose association of persons sharing a private and eclectic religion that originated out of popular devotions to holy men or holy shrines. They are individualistic in orientation with little in the way of set doctrine and that they were inclusive, pluralistic, and loose in their membership. Cults were often in tense relationships with their broader religious environments since they “threatened” dominant religious authorities and were, as a result, often persecuted because of their perceived threat to the religious social order (Systematic Sociology, 1932).

To Stark and Bainbridge:

"Cults” were either new or transplanted religious groups or movements which were in a tense relationship with the broader social and religious environment (The Future of Religion, 1985).

The common component of both of these definition that Panorama does not take into account is religion.  In both definitions, cult is always considered a religion.  The BBC journalist is not using cult in this way (since he don't believe Scientology to be a religion).  The Scientology spokespersons also don't use the definition of cult to their advantage.  I would have been impressed if Scientology had said, "Yes, we can be considered a cult because of our tense relationship with mainstream religion as shown be Britain not approving Scientology as a religion." or something like that.  However, even I can see that editing could make that into something else entirely.


Now that we are getting into typologising religion, let's consider the Stark and Bainbridge's definitions for church, sect, and denomination:

“churches” are organizations which dominate society, “denominations” are organizations which accommodate to society, and “sects” are schisms within churches or denominations which attempt to purify the church or denomination and restore it to its “original” primitive pristine form  (The Future of Religion, 1985).

What says that a religion can be only one of these?  Does this make the definitions too flexible?  We as human are hard to catalog.  When we are young we can be in one category, but as we grow and mature so does that label.  A child can be nerdy, but in the teen years become athletic.  While a young fit man in his twenty, but lazy and fat in his forties.  The same principle applies here.  Who says a religion cannot be all of these as time and place varies?  If humans are this way, and humans create religion, then it logically follows that religion can also have more than one category.  Whether is helps individuals is another matter completely.  An example of this is any religion from Asia in America.

Buddhism, Hinduism, Yogis
It doesn't matter which Asian religion we are talking about.  They all could be considered cults at the time of their founding in America.  The different Yoga styles, however, have a more every day place in American society.  One will find a devote Catholic who practices a style of yoga, or an Evangelical who might have yoga class once a week.  This is an example of the difference between popular religion and official religion.  One doesn't really consider Yoga as a religion.  

Unification Church 

The Unification Church, or Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, founded in Korea, and like the Buddhism and Hinduism can be considered a cult upon it's introduction to American society.  Despite being Christian in origin, founder Sun Myung Moon's interpretation of both old and new testament make it farther from traditional Christianity than the Latter Day Saints.  Moon's interpretation on original sin in Divine Principle places the Unification Church firmly in the cult category in America for several years to come.  In fact, the Unification Church has been accused of brainwashing just like many other cults in spite of the high drop-out rates and low interest.  The future of the Unification Church is still uncertain as Moon still lives.  It will be interesting to see the progression of this religion.  Will it be able to transition from a cult to a church?