No Sacred Cows

by David G. McAfee

  43. Stephen R. Deputy, “Arm Weakness in a Child Following Chiropractor Manipulation of the Neck,” Seminars in Pediatric Neurology 21, no. 2 (June 2014):124–126.

  44. Meg Alexander, “30-Year-Old Dies after Visit to the Chiropractor,” KFOR, November 4, 2014, kfor.com/2014/11/03/30-year-old-dies-after-visit-tothe-chiropractor/.

  45. E. Ernst, “Deaths after Chiropractic: A Review of Published Cases,” International Journal of Clinical Practice 64, no. 8 (2010): 1162–1165.

  46. Paul Benedetti and Wayne MacPhail, Spin Doctors: The Chiropractic Industry under Examination (Toronto: Dundurn, 2003).

  47. Linda Rosa et al., “A Close Look at Therapeutic Touch,” JAMA 279, no. 13 (1998): 1005–1010.

  48. Danica Collins, “Heal with Quantum Entanglement,” Underground Health Reporter, undergroundhealthreporter.com/heal-with-quantum-entanglement/.

  49. “Diabetic Boy, 7, Dies after ‘Slap Therapy’” Yahoo7 News, May 1, 2015, au.news.yahoo.com/a/27503140/diabetic-boy-7-dies-after-slap-therapy.

  50. Helen Manber and Matthew Kanzler, “Consequences of Cupping,” New England Journal of Medicine 335, no. 17 (1996): 1281–1281.

  51. Scott Logan, “Otter Calls for Legislative Review of Faith-Healing Law,” KBOI, February 11, 2016, kboi2.com/news/local/otter-calls-for-legislative-review-of-faith-healing-law.

  52. It should be noted that the natural progression of unchecked religious exemptions to criminal laws tends toward abuse and confusion. In April 2017, for instance, an appeals court ruled against an inmate who argued his twenty-seven-year sentence on drug charges should be reversed because it was his religious duty to sell heroin. The judges rejected his argument not because it was ludicrous, but because Anderson was “distributing heroin to others for non-religious uses.”

  53. “Child Faith-Deaths in Idaho,” Child Abuse in Idaho: Deadly & Legal, idahochildren.org/articles/worst-in-nation/.

  54. Joseph Liu, “Faith Healing and the Law,” Pew Research Center, August 31, 2009, www.pewforum.org/2009/08/31/faith-healing-and-the-law/.

  55. “David G. McAfee Interviews an Attendant at a Christian Science Reading Room,” YouTube video, uploaded by David G. McAfee, September 15, 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dg-GC26aQg.

  56. I noticed that the attendant had a so-called “lazy eye,” also known as amblyopia, a lifelong condition. When asked why she hadn’t sought a spiritual healing for the impairment, she replied that it “wasn’t a priority.”

  17

  CULT CRISIS

  “Among other things Jonestown was an example of a definition well known to sociologists of religion: a cult is a religion with no political power.”

  —Thomas Wolfe

  You hear a lot about individual cults in the media, like when a member of the Grail Movement is accused of skinning her son and feeding him to relatives,1 or when the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) is sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting a 12-year-old,2 but how much do you really know about cults themselves? Did you know that every single religion that exists now or has existed at any time in human history began as a cult? In fact, there is no real difference between the two, except for that a religion is more widely accepted. This shouldn’t scare you. Sure, there are some dangerous and destructive cults,3 but, just like with religions, there are others that are not deadly or even harmful to others in any way.

  A lot of people don’t believe that all religions begin as cults, but it’s not up for debate. Historians can trace various faiths back to their original roots when they had only a handful of supporters and were seen as evil or strange by outsiders. Take Christianity, for instance, the world’s most popular religion.4 What we know today as the Christian religion began as a small sect of Second Temple Judaism in the middle of the first century. There were several Jewish sects around this time, including the Christians, Pharisees, Sadducees, and Zealots.5 Members of the Christian sect were persecuted early on, as is the case with most minor religious groups and cults within a culture engulfed by a larger tradition, and eventually Christianity became a distinct religion of its own. Historian Shaye J. D. Cohen, the Littauer Professor of Hebrew Literature and Philosophy in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University, says Early Christianity “ceased to be a Jewish sect when it ceased to observe Jewish practices” such as circumcision.6

  Religions arising without divine intervention or communication may seem like a complicated process, but nothing makes it easier to understand than the existence of cargo cults. These “cults” are actually just local religious traditions that tend to spring up under certain stressful conditions, including in areas where colonizing groups interact with native people. Cargo cults believe in assistance from ancestral spirits and they often have charismatic leaders, but these groups are most well known for their belief that an abundance of food and supplies—or cargo—will appear if certain rituals are performed. Some cargo cults imitate soldiers and create mock airplanes, airports, or radios out of local materials like straw and wood as a means of attracting supply drops. People belonging to one particular cargo cult, dubbed the Prince Philip Movement,7 even believe that Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, the husband of Queen Elizabeth II, is a divine being. This phenomenon, perhaps above all else, demonstrates how easily cults (and eventually religions) can arise without any help from gods.

  LESSER-KNOWN CULTS

  Christianity is the most popular religion and we understand a lot about its roots as a Jewish cult. We also know a lot about Jim Jones and his devastatingly fatal Jonestown settlement where more than 900 people died,8 as well as some other modern cults, such as the FLDS, which has been under public scrutiny for many years. Popular media covered when FLDS leader Warren Jeffs was placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List,9 when he was arrested,10 and even when the cult’s new leaders pleaded not guilty to allegations of food stamp fraud.11 If you were around in the 1990s, you probably also remember hearing about the Heaven’s Gate group, which became infamous when its founder convinced almost 40 people to commit mass suicide while wearing black-and-white Nike sneakers.12 The members of that group believed they were extraterrestrials who needed to kill themselves to reach an alien spacecraft. We can see that news agencies do enjoy covering some cult stories, but what you may not know is that most minor religious factions (and their activities) fly well under the radar. According to a review by the International Cultic Studies Association, there are approximately 5,000 cults with about 2 million adherents in the United States alone,13 but we rarely hear about many of them.

  Lesser-known groups include Lafayette Morehouse, a decades-old commune in California that has been called a “sex cult,”14 the Brownsville Assembly of God, which hosted annual “revival” services attended by more than 2.5 million people,15 and Gloriavale Christian Community, a small group in New Zealand whose members are often referred to as “Cooperites” after their founder Neville Cooper, who was sentenced to jail in 1995 on sex abuse charges.16 There’s also the Sterling Institute of Relationship, a for-profit counseling business that New York–based psychotherapist and deprogramming expert Kathryn May unequivocally calls a cult.17

  “Any therapy that promotes itself as the answer but won’t tell you what they actually do is suspect. It’s mind control and mind control is always dangerous. Getting out from under such group-supported thinking is a long, hard process,” she said. “It means the person getting out has to face the fact that they’ve been living a fantasy, and nobody wants to know that they’ve been duped. Sterling presents himself as the good father these men and women are convinced they never had. And he preys on people’s wish to find quick fixes for everything. He attracts people who are vulnerable.”

  While some may say these small groups are unworthy of mention, it should be noted that every religion began as a cult—a small group of people with similar religious ideals, usually characterized by devotion directed toward a particular figure or object. It is only a
fter time passes and belief becomes more commonplace that a cult obtains special standing as a “religion.”

  TWO BY TWOS

  One of the most interesting low-key cults, in my opinion, is known as the Two by Twos. This group, which gets its name based on its practice of sending out preachers in twos, in accordance with the Bible,18 was founded in Ireland by a man named William Irvine in the late nineteenth century.19 Members of the Two by Two community often call it “The Truth” or “The Way,” but there are a number of other monikers, as well, including “Cooneyites,” a pejorative term derived from the name of one-time coleader Edward Cooney. The Two by Twos, which used its missionary methods to spread all around the world, is different from most other cults or religious groups in that it has no statement of belief other than the Bible itself. Not much is known about this particular community,20 but some of its rules, including the 1903 requirement for members to give up their worldly possessions and commit themselves to celibacy and obedience, have been controversial. I was able to talk to Kenton Mills, a 34-year-old former member from Canada, who said the church members (or “friends”) in his old group live normal lives, “except most don’t have a TV.” The ministers, or “workers,” he said, must still give up their possessions.

  “They literally have everything in a suitcase,” Mills told me in an e-mail interview, adding that the group claims to be “the modern continuation of the original ministry of Jesus.”

  “I was taught as a child that this ministry is a continuation of the Jesus’s original preachings and we are just living the modern-day version,” Mills said. He left the church seven or eight years ago after being “disciplined” for having a child out of wedlock.

  “Even though the mother was my fiancé; it still was a big deal to them,” Mills wrote.

  He also said he had doubts since he was young, and he rebelled due to the “boring” nature of the services themselves.

  “I was kept in line though through indoctrination and the fear of a literal hell. The fear of hell coupled with childhood brainwashing are powerful tools. I can attest to that,” Mills told me. “As I got older the fear of hell constantly weighed on me and eventually led to me to ‘profess’ at the age of 16 and then be baptized when I was about 21. These are requirements to be able to avoid hell and be eligible for heaven.”

  Mills explained that he only stuck with the church because of his family and the “real fear of hell.”

  “Thinking back on it now brings feelings of anger and outrage that an organization would see the fear of hell tactic as a blessing,” he said during the interview.

  THE POWER OF INDOCTRINATION

  If you weren’t raised in a cult, or by extremely religious individuals in general, you probably aren’t aware of just how powerful the process of indoctrination can be. You might ridicule people who “drink the Kool-Aid” of a specific person or group,21 but you likely don’t understand the psychology behind their adherence. Are they gullible? Dumb? Guided by their emotions? Possibly, but not necessarily.

  Cults rely heavily on indoctrination, and sometimes on multiple generations of children being exposed to the same brainwashing techniques. Adolescents are often thought of as the most valuable members in cults because they will (more often than not) believe what they are taught growing up and help spread that message. This is an anthropological observation that can be confirmed by a basic review of ancient and modern religions and cults, and it was known to at least one author of the Hebrew Scriptures, who wrote, “Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it.”22

  When a religious parent teaches only his or her religious tradition, the child will usually grow up believing in it. In fact, you can teach your children to worship a head of lettuce and—provided there’s the right amount of fear instilled in those who doubt it—the belief will likely persist until it’s exposed to the scrutiny of skepticism. After all, what reason would the child have to doubt his or her parents, especially in the face of devastating consequences? In the kid’s mind, why would the family lie?

  I like to use the hypothetical Lettuce Cult as an example of the power of indoctrination. Imagine a like-minded man and woman with three children, two daughters and a son, whom they teach all about the Lettuce God that was shredded for their sins. They tell their kids that Lettuce deserves worship and praise, and that it was responsible for life itself, all while cautioning them against doubt. “The Lettuce does not like to be questioned! You owe everything to it,” the parents tell their children, adding that those who are skeptical simply “hate the Head of Lettuce.”

  Everything revolves around Lettuce for the family. They won’t eat it for dinner, but they do begin every meal with a thankful incantation, often involving the phrase, “Lettuce pray.” They might even get upset and protest when they see people on TV mistreating their leafy deity. This belief doesn’t just persist, but it thrives over time. The children might be homeschooled, or perhaps they are taught that everyone else at school is completely wrong about their beliefs, as is the case in many heavily religious families. Either way, the Lettuce belief lives on because their community, in this case a small and trusted family, strongly advocates it.

  The parents might use established religious concepts to give credence to their fringe beliefs and ensure their children retain them. They might say, for instance, that Christianity got everything right except for when its early scribes omitted that Jesus was actually a head of lettuce. “The devil has caused all other Christian denominations to make this huge error, even blaspheming by declaring that a cracker can be our lord’s body, but do not be deceived!” the parents might say. “For if you are, you will be boiled for eternity.”

  Under the right conditions, the Lettuce Cult could theoretically grow and become a full-fledged religion. After a number of years, over the course of which numerous other families may join the first group’s community (or compound), the beliefs that once seemed ridiculous and laughable could be accepted by dozens, or even hundreds. Perhaps one day, after a disagreement with the Lettuce Cult leadership, a couple of families could split off to create their own group, one that properly interprets romaine lettuce—and not iceberg—as the divine creator. Welcome to the first Lettuce-based Holy War, which sparks hundreds of years of disputes over scriptural interpretations and housing and land rights. Thousands of years later, when all of the original context is forgotten and the majority of the country worships Lettuce as a result of aggressive missionary work, we may even see the first Lettuce-worshiping President of the United States. Kale to the chief!

  WESTBORO BAPTIST CULT

  One of the most prominent groups that is classified as a cult is Westboro Baptist Church (WBC), a Kansas-based fringe religious group founded by Pastor Fred Waldron Phelps Sr., who died of natural causes at age 84 on March 14, 2014.23 WBC has become synonymous with extreme Christian fundamentalism—especially as it relates to the group’s attitude toward homosexuals.24 The church purports to represent primitive Baptist and Calvinist principles, and its members travel throughout the United States (and sometimes elsewhere) picketing funerals of soldiers, known members of the LGBTQ community, and anything else likely to gain media attention. They have held more than 50,000 protests in more than 915 cities, according to their website.25

  WELL-WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH HEADQUARTERS IN TOPEKA, KANSAS. PHOTO TAKEN DURING MY TRIP THERE IN 2015.

  WBC members, some of whom have been barred from entering Canada26 and the United Kingdom,27 often preach against the “God loves us all!” mentality that some cultural or liberal Christians have adopted, instead choosing to highlight the many times in the Bible in which God expressed his “divine hate.” Due to their unorthodox beliefs and the actions that result from them, the WBC has been labeled as an anti-LGBT hate group—one of just five hate groups in Kansas—by the Southern Poverty Law Center.28 Here are just a few of the church’s frequently cited biblical passages about hatred from God:

  L
eviticus 20:23: “And ye shall not walk in the manners of the nation, which I cast out before you: for they committed all these things, and therefore I abhorred them.”

  Deuteronomy 32:19: “And when the LORD saw it, he abhorred them, because of the provoking of his sons, and of his daughters.”

  Psalm 5:5: “The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.”

  Romans 9:13: “As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.”29

  On January 12, 2014, a few months after Fast and Furious movie franchise star Paul Walker died in a fatal car accident,30 members of WBC made stops throughout Los Angeles picketing various “Whorehouses,” “Dog Kennels,” and “Child Rapists,” also known as liberal Protestant and Catholic churches. The group ultimately made their way to the Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills, where they protested those who will “try and preach Paul Walker into Heaven.” During the WBC’s exhibition, I met up with lifetime member Isaac Hockenbarger, who was 19 at the time of the interview, to ask a few questions about cults, faith, and science.31

  McAfee: Would you consider the Westboro Baptist Church a cult in any way?

  Isaac Hockenbarger: I don’t care what you want to call us. If we’re a cult, well then our charismatic empathic leader is Christ.

  McAfee: So, you don’t have a problem with the technical term “cult”?

  Isaac Hockenbarger: I don’t care what you call us because, quite frankly, what Christ said was “If you love me, the world is going to hate you.” How awful a thing is it to call someone a cult? It’s pretty bad. The world hates us.

  McAfee: I for one don’t hate WBC or any other church. And there’s a factual definition that determines whether or not it’s a cult, but I argue that any major religion is just a larger version of that.