Cults

A VISIT to Silver Street Mission in Marrickville from John and David Ayliffe on Sunday 14 February will help us understand the problem of cults in our world and in our country.

For 16 years, David was involved in a cult headquartered on Sydney’s northern beaches. During those years, he was alienated from family and friends, lost vast sums of money to the cult, and was entirely devoted to a destructive lifestyle under the control of a woman who claimed to be Christ.

Cults surround us. For several months the manse received regular calls from a young man who had left the so–called Sydney Church of Christ (no links with Marrickville Church of Christ which is, like us, an ordinary evangelical church.) He had been so abused by this cult that he could’nt trust another church, yet he really wanted a genuine faith.

Sometimes we are so accustomed to a cult that it seems little more than slightly off–beam. Yet a closer look reveals the classical features of groups like the Waco–based Branch Davidian or some of the sexually abusive groups reported recently.

Some of the features of cults are:

• Strong, centralised control

• Isolation from former associates including

  family and friends

• Financial control, often requiring income

  to be signed over to the group

• Strict lifestyle control

• Elevation of a secondary source of

  authority (eg., founder’s writings,

  traditions, pronouncements of a “Guru”)

  over the Bible and its revelation of Jesus.

• Severe penalties for trying to leave the

  group, including disassociation from

  family, loss of money or housing

Groups like Mormons and Muslims have been criticised for relying on authorities outside the Bible; Scientologists (who reject the Bible) and Muslims penalise attempts to leave their circles.

Some cults adopt names similar to those of mainstream churches so as to hide their real identity. An elderly lady with poor hearing and eyesight was taken in once by the Mormons, because their name, Church of Jesus Christ (of the Latter Day Saints) resembles Church of Christ. She got out when they asked her to sign a document committing her to tithing.

The underlying problems with a cult usually begin with a leader’s damaged sense of self, often caused by childhood abuse. For example 4th Century Arians went far beyond the idea that we are God’s good creatures, damaged by sin, and thought that we are rotten to the core. So, they taught, nothing human could ever have real contact with God.

Where did Arius get those ideas?

We look forward to what David and John have to tell us.

[10:30 am, Silver Street Baptist Mission, cnr Silver and Calvert Streets, Marrickville. All welcome.]