“How to Spot a Cult”
(Colossians 2:8-23)

June 7, 2009

Patsy’s Dilemma

A member of Corinth came to see me this week.  I have her permission to tell this story, but I won’t use her real name.  I’ll call her Patsy (because I can’t think of anyone else at Corinth with that name!).

Patsy is traveling out of state this weekend to visit her mother, and she finds herself in a bit of a quandary.  Her mother attends a church that can be fairly described as fundamentalist.  In this case, that means that they are rather narrow in what they believe on a number of issues, but the issues that most directly affect this story are divorce and remarriage and the role of women in the church.  It isn’t just that women should not be ordained or serve as leaders in the church.  Women also are segregated in the worship service, are not allowed to “speak” in church, and have no influence at all in the life of the congregation.

Patsy’s been attending this church for decades with her mother, but a recent conflict in the church has given her a fresh dilemma.  The small, rural, declining congregation does not have a regular pastor, so visiting ministers lead the worship services on a rotating basis.  Recently one of these visiting ministers learned that Patsy’s cousin, also a longtime member of the church, has been divorced and remarried.  The minister knew nothing else of the circumstances, and they didn’t matter.  He asked a deacon (another of Patsy’s cousins) to inform her cousin that he should not take communion, which is offered weekly in the worship service.

So here’s Patsy’s dilemma.  She is divorced and remarried as well.  But since she attends only infrequently when she visits her mother, most members of the church, and certainly the ministers who lead worship, don’t know about her divorce.  Should Patsy take communion?  Should she do so to honor her mother, who thinks she should and doesn’t want Patsy to upset the situation further if she noticeably refrains?  Or should she not do so because obviously in the minds of some in that church she has no right – or maybe even as a silent protest against church doctrine that enforces rules that go well beyond the Bible’s teaching and are, in fact, destroying the church?

I have titled this morning’s sermon, “How to Spot a Cult.”  Is this church a cult?

The goal of today’s sermon is to refine our discernment to other religious groups, particularly groups related to the Christian faith.  I wanted to begin with that illustration because most of us don’t have a lot of interaction with extremist groups like those associated with names such as Jim Jones or David Koresh.  We do, however, along with our family members and friends, come across groups that seem to be extremist or unorthodox in what they believe or practice.    We may work or play or conduct business with them.  Perhaps from time to time we even wonder if they’ve discovered something we might need to complete our sense of spiritual fulfillment.

How do you respond when you interact with a member of a group that seems weird – or when someone you know is involved?  There are some common examples – Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses.  Another layer would be the Church of Scientology, Moonies, and various New Age cults.  Then there are groups that some identify as cults and others take strong exception – Seventh Day Adventist, Christian Science, and Freemasonry.  Some Protestants call the Catholic church a cult.  Would you agree?  What about Patsy’s mother’s church?  Is an extreme fundamentalist church a cult?  What about an extreme liberal church?

How many of you at least one person involved in one of those religious groups?  How do you spot a cult?  And what should you do if you do spot one?

The Colossian philosophy

The best way to address those questions is to take a fresh look at Colossians 2:8-23.  Here we learn more about the cultic threat to the church in Colosse than anywhere else in the letter.  We don’t have time to dig into every word and phrase of this complicated passage, and scholars hotly debate the meanings all through the text.  I will append to my sermon manuscript a few additional notes on this passage, but for now, let’s hit the highlights.

Some of you are familiar with the term Gnosticism, which comes from the Greek word for knowledge.  What Paul was facing in Colosse was not exactly Gnosticism, because that set of ideas really didn’t develop until the second century.  With Paul’s writings we are still dealing with the first century.

These Christians to whom Paul was writing had come to Christ out of their Roman/Greek pagan ideas, which in themselves were a mix of many different ideas about God.  Chief among those ideas was that every city had its own god and its own way of worshiping that god.  So “religion” was personal and local.  A Greek living in Colosse wouldn’t think about telling one in Athens that he was worshiping all wrong.  Religion and philosophy evolved differently in different places.  One common Greek idea was that the basic elements on the universe – thought to be earth, air, water, and fire – were themselves gods who ruled over individuals and nations.

Paul had taught the people, by contrast, the gospel of Jesus Christ.  There is only one God, and he has come to us in Christ.  He is supreme, and he is unique.  He has no rival.  Our salvation and our eternal life depend fully and only on him through his death and resurrection.  It was a freeing release for these Greek and Roman seekers to find at last one answer to the human longing for meaning and immortality. Search over.

When Paul left, however, some clever spiritual charlatans began appealing to the young Christians with a new set of ideas.  They said they had seen visions of angels who brought a secret message.  Trusting in Christ was not enough.  They needed to observe some additional rules – circumcise their males, keep annual festivals, honor the Sabbath day, don’t eat certain foods, don’t drink alcohol, deny your body its pleasures.  If they would keep all the rules, they would advance into a deeper level of faith.

If that sounds like the Jewish faith, there’s a reason for that.  These false teachers probably were Jewish.  But they apparently much more subtle than other Jewish Christian teachers in Acts 15, for example, or in Galatia.  They didn’t say they were turning the people to Judaism, and Paul didn’t mention that either. They were apparently capitalizing on the pagan background of these young Christians and speaking to them as if they had invented a unique religion for Colosse – a combination of Greek philosophy, Christian faith, and Jewish laws.  Further, they were smooth and persuasive in their presentation.

Marks of a cult

In response to them, Paul identifies at least four red flags about groups we should keep at arm’s length.

First, a suspicious origin.  Paul uses a series of words and phrases that describe where these false teachers got their ideas.  “Human tradition and the basic principles of this world” (8).  “Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen” (18). “Based on human commands and teachings” (22).

When the leader of a religious group claims to have some private revelation that cannot be independently verified, that’s a huge warning sign.  When the leader comes across with an attitude that says, “I’ve got a corner on the truth” (or a clever new way to explain it), be careful.  Usually we can trace such “innovations” to some heresy that’s been around for hundreds or even thousands of years.

Sometimes there is also a “secretive” nature to cultic groups.  That is also a warning.  If one has to be drawn into the life of the organization before one can fully know all it teaches, that’s a red flag.

Second, distortion of Christ.  The false teachers present ideas that are “not according to Christ” (v. 8, literal translation).  Paul insists in verse 9, “In Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.”

The message of Jesus is strikingly simple.  He is God in human form – Creator of all who by his death has removed the record of our sins (14) and won by conquering death (15).  He is enough.  Any group that takes away from his uniqueness as Son of God or his sufficiency to save by his death and resurrection – in other words, any group that adds to Christ or takes away from him – should alarm us greatly.

Third, excessive control.  It’s one thing to say that a group believes a certain behavior is right or wrong.  But when morality turns to coercion, that’s a danger sign. 

Paul warns in verse 8, “see that no one takes you captive.”  In verse 16, he mentions rules about eating and drinking as well the annual, monthly, and weekly celebrations that were required by these teachers.  In verse 21, he’s probably being sarcastic when he mocks their words and tone: “Do not handle!  Do not taste! Do not touch!”

Let me reiterate, and we’ll say more about this next week.  Paul is not arguing that Christianity means no discipline, do whatever feels good, throw morality out the window and please yourself.  He will list some dos and don’ts in chapter three.

But when the organized group imposes its will and forces conformity in minutiae that go way beyond what Scripture says, that’s the danger sign.  In the most extreme examples, brainwashed cult members live in communities tightly controlled to cut off outside influence.  But there are lesser variations in many religious groups that pressure members to obey rules about food, drink, rites, relationships, and more that rightly makes us squirm.

Finally, arrogant independence.  Sometimes this is seen in the leader, and sometimes in the followers.  True religion is about seeking God and loving others.  It is about submitting to God and being part of a community.

Paul uses the phrase “false humility” twice (18, 23).  He speaks about an egotistical leader whose “unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions” (18).  Further, “he has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows” (19).  And finally, in verse 23, he speaks of “self-imposed worship” and “harsh treatment of the body” that lacks “any value in restraining sensual indulgence.”

In each case, what he’s saying is that these individuals are so narcissistic that they are better than anyone who ever lived or lives in knowing the mind and ways of God. Pride, condescension, and an extreme sense of self-importance are brightly-colored, wildly waving red flags.

Back to Patsy

So let’s get back to Patsy’s mother’s church and her decision.  Would you call that church a cult?

There is certainly what I’ve called excessive control and as well as arrogant independence on the part of some leaders.  On the other hand, I can give the church the benefit of the doubt that they believe they are preaching Christ and following the Bible to the best of their ability.  So I would not call it a cult.

What I hope would not be a result of this sermon is that we become too quick to label other groups with the word “cult.”  If we get comfortable labeling any who disagree with us as a “cult,” we ironically come closer to being cultic ourselves – arrogant, independent, critical, narrow.

I encouraged Patsy to take communion at her mother’s church this weekend.  Because the church does honor the person and work of Jesus Christ, Patsy is not participating in false teaching.  This is not the time and place for Patsy to make a protest about the role of women in the church or about the church’s narrow understanding of divorce and remarriage.

But to say that the church is not a cult, and that it probably isn’t Patsy’s place to challenge the church, is not to say that we should accept the validity of all religious viewpoints. 

The problem is that there are degrees in all of the marks of a cult I’ve listed today.  Degrees of control, for example, over what people think and how they act.  Degrees of arrogant independence.

If we take a pejorative word like “cult” and use it to refer to any group that makes us uncomfortable or seems strange is not what I suggest.  We tend to go either to the extreme of pride and disdain, leading to avoidance and judgmentalism toward anyone who disagrees with us, or to naivete.

The balance we need is humble discernment.  We need to understand what we believe so that we can recognize false teaching when we come across it.  But it’s not your job or mine to correct every person we see taking a wrong path.  God himself gives us a remarkable degree of freedom, even freedom to choose a wrong path.

Humble discernment will lead us to ask the Holy Spirit’s guidance in choosing the right moment and the right time to lovingly confront and invite to the truth.  Amen.