Cult apologist

The term cult apologist is used by opponents of cults and new religious movements to describe social scientists, religious scholars, and other persons who write about cults and new religious movements whose writings they consider as uncritical or not sufficiently critical. Scholars have referred to the term as "derisive"^[1] and a "handy ideological tool".^[2] Sociologists Ben Zablocki and Thomas Robbins say the term is used by critics of new religious movements to devalue scholars whose writings they consider too sympathetic or tolerant of such groups.^[3]

Uses of term

In 2000, Eileen Barker was criticized by Tom Sackville because "she refuses to condemn all new religions as 'cults'".^[4] She responded by pointing out that "we are not cult apologists. People make a lot of noise without doing serious research – so much so that they can end up sounding as closed to reason as the cults they're attacking. Besides, I imagine FAIR [Family Action Information & Resource of which Sackville is chairman] was disappointed not to get our funding."^[4] In her book Aliens Adored, Susan J. Palmer acknowledged that in some television interviews discussing Raelians, she "came across as a gullible cult apologist," while trying to "deconstruct the cult stereotype".^[5]

In a joint hearing before the United States Congress on the Waco Siege entitled: Activities of Federal Law Enforcement Agencies Toward the Branch Davidians, it was stated into the record that publicists for the New Alliance Party had circulated a report to Congress and the media called "What is the Cult Awareness Network and What Role Did it Play in Waco?".^[6] Testimony was also entered into the record stating that: "Their report relied on Linda Thompson, organizations created or funded by the Church of Scientology and the Unification Church.." and a "long-time cult apologist".^[6]

As reported by Singapore's The Straits Times in a 1997 article about the Central Christian Church, an attorney referenced a 1988 Milwaukee Journal report wherein an unnamed expert described religious scholar J. Gordon Melton as a "cult apologist who has a long association of defending the practices of destructive cults."^[7] In 1997, Melton was called an "apologist" for cults by Ronald Enroth.^[8] Anti-cult activists have also called Melton an "apologist" for Aum Shinrikyo because of his initial defense of the group after the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway.^[9]

Responses

Scholars accused of being cult apologists reply to the criticism in various ways, including expressing their concern for religious freedom and tolerance. Douglas E. Cowan wrote that he had been referred to as a cult apologist, along with Eileen Barker, Massimo Introvigne, Jeff Hadden, Irving Hexham, Anson Shupe, David G. Bromley, and Gordon Melton.^[10] Cowan stated that he felt this characterization was "inaccurate and insulting", and that these individuals actually stand for the values of religious tolerance.^[10]

Cowan and Bromley have stated that the use of the cult apologist label was part of a response by the anti-cult movement, notably the American Family Foundation (now the International Cultic Studies Association) and the old Cult Awareness Network, to the lack of academic support for the brainwashing hypothesis, and employed as a strategy to undermine social scientists' credibility.^[11] Cowan also refers to the term as a "pejorative" with potentially unhelpful consequences.^[12] Michael Kropveld agrees with Cowan that the term "cult-apologist" is pejorative but also adds "Anti-Cult Movement", "Pro-Cult Movement", and "anti-cultist" to a list of divisive labels that are not constructive towards productive dialogue between academics, and should be avoided.^[13]

Gordon Melton also dismisses these criticisms by stating that the usage of the term "cults" by what he calls "anti-cultists" reflects the negative evaluation that new religious movements have endured.^[14] He also objects to being personally labeled an "apologist" by the "anti-cult movement".^[15]

Anson Shupe has defined cult apologist as a "derogatory term employed by anticultists to refer to scholars and civil libertarians whose research conclusions and views disagree with the anticult movement's own suspicions or conclusions, to wit, that many religious movements are necessarily subversive to society and dangerous to individuals who join them."^[16]

Positive usage

The expression "cult apologist" was used in a different manner than its current usage by the evangelical Christian countercult movement writer Walter Martin in 1955, in Martin's Christian handbook The Rise of the Cults. Martin used the neologism in a positive and self-referential way to identify ministries that evangelize those involved in cults. He used the term again in his next book The Christian and the Cults (Zondervan 1956, p. 6). The positive use of the term cult apologetics by evangelicals recurs in the book by Robert and Gretchen Passantino, Answers to the Cultist at Your Door^[17] and also by Alan Gomes in his contributory chapter in the first posthumous edition of Martin's The Kingdom of the Cults.^[18]

References

1. ^ Robbins, Thomas (2004). "Introduction: Alternative Religions, the State and the Globe". In Philip Lucas. New Religious Movements in the Twenty-First Century: Legal, Political, and Social Challenges in Global Perspective. Routledge. pp. 15. ISBN 0415965772. 
2. ^ Lewis, James R. (2004). "Introduction". In James R. Lewis. The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements. Oxford University Press. pp. 7. ISBN 0195149866. 
3. ^ Zablocki, Benjamin; Robbins, Thomas. Misunderstanding Cults, Introduction, p. 26, University of Toronto Press, ISBN 978-0-8020-8188-9
4. ^ ^{a b} "Cult advisers in clash over clampdown", The Daily Telegraph, London, July 7, 2000.
5. ^ Palmer, Susan J.. Aliens Adored. Rutgers University Press. p. 12. ISBN 0813534763. 
6. ^ ^{a b} Activities of Federal Law Enforcement Agencies Toward the Branch Davidians, Joint Hearings before the United States Congress, House. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee on Crime, United States Congress. House. Committee on Government Reform and Oversight. Subcommittee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice., Published 1996, ISBN 0-16-053425-9 , Page 256.
7. ^ Evidence of expert witness attacked: "Jim Jones, Peoples Temple not a cult", The Straits Times, July 17, 1997
8. ^ 'Apologist' vs. 'Alarmist' Time Magazine, January 27, 1997 vol. 149 no. 4
9. ^ Giving Cults A Good Name, Esquire Magazine, June 1997, Jeannette Walls
10. ^ ^{a b} From Parchment to Pixels: The Christian Countercult on the Internet, Douglas E. Cowan, Center for Studies on New Religions, 2001, Conference, London.
11. ^ Bromley, David G.; Cowan, Douglas (2007). "The invention of a counter-tradition". In Lewis, James R.; Hammer, Olav. The Invention of Sacred Tradition. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-86479-8. 
12. ^ Cowan, Douglas E. "Cult Apology: A Modest (Typological) Proposal", Paper presented to the 2002 Society for the Scientific Study of Religion Conference “Boundaries and Commitments in NRM Research” November 1-3, 2002, Salt Lake City, Utah, p. 3.
13. ^ Kropveld, Michael (June 2002). "An Example for Controversy: Creating a Model for Reconciliation" (DOC). American Family Foundation Annual Conference. Orlando, Florida: International Cultic Studies Association. http://www.math.mcgill.ca/triples/infocult/ControversyCSR.doc. 
    The use of terminology such as “Anti-Cult Movement” (ACM) and “Pro-Cult Movement” (PCM), “anti-cultist” and “pro-cultist” or “cult apologist” are examples of divisive labels that are hardly conducive to encouraging dialogue or discernment.
14. ^ Melton, Godon J., Modern Alternative Religions in the West. pp.610, Penguin (1997), ISBN 0-14-013599-5
15. ^ Combatants in Cult War Attempt Reconciliation: Peacemaking conference is held near Seattle, San Francisco Chronicle, Don Lattin, May 1, 2000.
16. ^ Shupe, Anson; Darnell, Susan E. (2006). Agents of Discord. New Brunswick (U.S.A.), London (U.K.): Transaction Publishers. p. xv. ISBN 0-7658-0323-2. 
17. ^ Passantino, Robert (1981). Answers to the Cultist at Your Door. Harvest House. p. 13. 
18. ^ Martin, Walter (1997). The Kingdom of the Cults. Bethany House Publisher. p. 333. 

Further reading

• Amitrani, Alberto and Di Marzio, Rafaella: Blind, or Just Don't Want to See? Brainwashing, Mystification, and Suspicion
• Benjamin Beith-Hallahmi: O Truant Muse': Collaborationism and Research Integrity, in Zablocki and Robbins (ed.): Misunderstanding Cults, 2001, ISBN 0-8020-8188-6
• Janja Lalich: Pitafalls in the Sociological Study of Cults, in Zablocki and Robbins (ed.): Misunderstanding Cults, 2001 ISBN 0-8020-8188-6
• Susan J. Palmer: Caught up in the Cult Wars: Confessions of a Canadian Researcher, in Zablocki and Robbins (ed.): Misunderstanding Cults, 2001
• Thomas Robbins: Balance and Fairness in the Study of Alternative Religions, in Zablocki and Robbins (ed.): Misunderstanding Cults, 2001 ISBN 0-8020-8188-6

External links

• Reflections on Louisville: The Countercult in Conversation by Douglas Cowan