I want to reflect on the latest (NZ) census results that “non-religious” has now become the majority. And, here, I also want to make some observations about cults – the first Australasian conference gathering cult survivors, academic experts, advocates and activists having taken place in my city recently (to be clear: I did not attend).
My reflection begins with an article by Dave Armstrong. He begins:
Hallelujah! For the first time in my life, as a non-believer, I’m in the majority in this country. According to the just-released 2023 census figures, 51.6% of New Zealanders have “no religion”.
The census question, of course, was not asking about belief in a god or gods, supreme being, love, purpose, or spirituality. “Spiritual but not religious”, I posit, is a growing group. Furthermore, it is now increasingly the norm to begin an event with karakia (prayer, incantation), to mark a death or trauma with a public spiritual act, and so forth.
Religion, I suggest, is the scaffolding that supports growth in spirituality. Religion provides the disciplines, teachings, rituals, and community as scaffolding – too often the focus becomes on the scaffolding rather than on the building.
Certainly, religion (like all powerful magnifiers, e.g. money, sex, power,…) can do and has done great harm. There is good religion and harmful religion. There is healthy spirituality; there is damaging spirituality. Many, many people respond to bad and evil religion and spirituality by abandoning religion, even becoming as evangelical in their antipathy as they were in their faith! I have always wanted to provide good and healthy religion, disciplines, and spirituality as a response to the bad and damaging.
There is a human yearning that cannot be satisfied by anything in this world. We are enfleshed yearning. And people attempt to fill this yearning with any number of substitutes for the one we call “God”. Or people attempt to dull the yearning with drugs, alcohol, money, certainty, being busy, etc.
Cults feed into our need – they provide community, certainty, leadership, … taking our time, money, freedom,… sharply dividing “us” from “them”…
I understand what they mean when people define cults as being “high demand” religions, but I would understand my own religion and faith as being “high demand”. I recently was discussing the census religious statistics with a psychology expert and she said, “I regard Anglicanism as more of a hobby than a religion.” Again (sadly?) I know what she means. I think it is better to refer to cults as “high demand, high control” religions. As well as having high demand of ourselves in our spiritual disciplines, we can have a lightness of touch, fun sense of humour, and not taking ourselves excessively seriously.
I used AI to create the image above. At first I put in “cults” as the cue and received weird images of robed people in forests doing arcane rituals. I created the above image because we can be drawn into cults by ordinary-seeming people. And anyone is vulnerable.
A lot of my ministry has focused on helping people be healthy, with a positive sense of self, and bringing one’s intellect to be congruent with heart and soul. Having a strong spirituality and sense of purpose in life, and disciplines that helps you to grow lifelong, disciplines that you work with religiously – these are positive foundations for fulness of life. They are inoculations against being drawn into a cult or cult-like religion. I am wary of and concerned about a culture of lauding and rejoicing in the diminishing of such scaffoldings and disciplines. With it comes an increasing focus on the self and diminishing of care for others – a tendency we are seeing all the way to the political level.
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Image source: visiolectio.com. More info on this resource here.
‘ With it comes an increasing focus on the self and diminishing of care for others – a tendency we are seeing all the way to the political level.’
I agree Bosco. It’s been a low integrity week in the United States, but one of my relatives shocked me in the UK, expressing similar racist and hateful sentiments relating to the ‘them and us’. It’s disheartening to say the least. And there will be dreadful consequences for innocent people caught up in cultish waves of racism and prejudice if history is a precedent.
Yes, Tracy – we need to be clear that cults are not simply a religious-faith phenomenon, this tendency is present in all spheres. Blessings.