"Extremist Authoritarian Sects": What
are they?
Not all personal and group expressions of religion or
spirituality are harmful. A primary aim of the DialogCentre UK is to offer help
to people harmed by what we call "extremist authoritarian sects" (hereafter
EAS).
We use this term for several reasons.
First, not all groups that have a religious
basis have the same tendency to be harmful.
Second, not all groups that can be harmful are
religious in nature.
Third, the term "extremist authoritarian sects"
focuses upon characteristics we find to be most common and most significant in
groups which create relationships, structures, mechanisms or procedures that
tend to harm their members and others.
Fourth, we wish to distinguish between groups
which may serve their members as part of a search for spiritual or personal
fulfilment, which we respect, and groups which exploit this spiritual or
personal quest, or in some other way cause harm, which we oppose.
Terms like "cult" and "new religious movement" do not
serve these purposes adequately. On the one band, the word "cult" often tells
us as much about the attitude of the person using it as about the group to
which it is applied. To members and ex-members it can be emotive and offensive.
For our purposes, "cult" makes little positive contribution to understanding
and it can hinder communication.
On the other hand, "new religious movement" is a term
better applied to a group prior to making any distinctions or forming any
conclusions about the nature of the group being discussed. Also, the term lumps
all movements together using words generally recognized as not universally
accurate: "new" and "religious". Taken at face value, the term "new religious
movements" confuses and conceals some important issues in modem
spirituality.
We use this term in the DialogCentre UK to describe
those groups that can have a detrimental effect on those they recruit or on
those closest to them, because it focuses on the characteristics most
significant in determining the likelihood of problems. These characteristics
are three:
- Extremism, the tendency to reduce all
situations to simple black-and-white decisions that reinforce the 'rightness'
of the group's leader and the 'wrongness' of dissent. As a part of this the
sect often presents its teaching in a context which suggests that uncertainty =
unbelief, and unbelief = sin. This has the effect of stifling questions and
driving members towards unconditional and unreasoning commitment. It also can
produce intolerance of others, especially outsiders.
- Authoritarianism, the tendency by members to
depend solely upon the leader(s) for the data by which decisions are made,
convictions are arrived at. Initially this may be subtly encouraged by holding
up as examples those who never question the leader(s), but in a number of
groups authoritarianism is openly enforced by blatant condemnations of
'independent thinking', 'Individualism', and similar expressions. Hand in hand
with this is the frequent practice of certain groups to withhold information
which new recruits need in order to decide intelligently about the nature and
extent of their involvement in the group.
- Sectarianism, the tendency of the leadership
to exercise its considrably authority to isolate members from a wide variety of
people whom that leadership may stigmatize as 'unspiritual', 'demonic',
'backward thinking', 'left brain, 'Piscean', 'reactionary', amd other
dismissive terms. Side-by-side with this they will often use negative language
about outsiders (which may include immediate family access they are sympathetic
to the sect), and exalted language about the group, like 'God's SAS'. 'True
Family', 'the Initiates', 'gods', 'the Inner Circle'.
Although an extremist authoritarian sect derives its
activities from its doctrines, this list focuses on how they treat their
members as the key to recognising abusive groups, and not on the beliefs
themselves.
For some, the end result of these three
characteristics, and of the techniques for producing them, can be a combination
of harmful effects touching every area of the lives of members/ex-members and
their families and friends.
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