If I Were a Cult Leader

If I were a cult leader

I would start by telling everyone they can’t trust themselves. That their hearts and minds are deceitful, they are inherently sinful and bad and therefore need an outside source of discernment to understand the ways of the god I spoke for. I would assemble a council who believed the same as me, hated the same things as me, to be the voice of discernment FOR them, keeping them from ever thinking for themselves.

If I were a cult leader

I would tell them I knew the secret to living forever since death is the universal fear that bonds us all. The problem I would be solving–the Good News I would be sharing–would not be communal pain and suffering but the individualistic need for comfort from death. If I told them I could guarantee eternal life with their loved ones, they’d be in.

If I were a cult leader

I would warn everyone about “The World.” I would make outsiders feel like enemies by claiming their differences were threats to our way of life. I would emphasize their deficiencies, their failures, their sadnesses, to contrast that to the “Good Life” I promised. I would warn them that others wouldn’t understand because they were “of the World,” so if anyone dared dissent they would be written off as “the ones they warned us about.”

If I were a cult leader

I would add to their emotional and social distrust by throwing in an invisible enemy I could blame for … everything. Questioning the system? It’s the enemy. Doubting my teachings? It’s the enemy. Dissension? It’s the enemy. Any time they dared interfere with my agenda, I would actually call them the Enemy. Fear of the enemy, the world, and their own heart and mind would completely strip them of their own intuition.

If I were a cult leader

I would make sure we were together ALL THE TIME. I would throw parties and events—the greater the time, the greater the influence. I would manipulate them with increasingly emotional rituals that would bond them to me and each other. I would pinpoint what each person needed And meet that need to ensure unwavering loyalty.

If I were a cult leader

I would create a severe punishment for defection. I would scare them into never leaving by telling them eternal fires loomed after death, that they would be fully aware, consciously burning for the REST OF TIME if they ever went astray. Which is perfect because it could never be disproved.

Most of all, if I were a cult leader

I wouldn’t call it a cult.

Because who knowingly joins a cult?

That would be crazy.

BUT. If I were a church leader,

I would emphasize that when God is everywhere that means God is within us too, that when something feels off it probably is, and they can trust the still, small voice inside them leading them towards love and goodness.

I would tell them the secret to life is bringing the Kingdom of Heaven down to earth, that Jesus never spoke about the kind of Hell we preach about but he cared a lot about how we treated people in THIS life.

If I were a church leader,

I would warn them about gatekeeping, that it’s so easy to label who is “In” and who is “Out,” but that those labels are what keep the “outs” in a spiral of shame and the “ins” in a spiral of pride, that the “sin” we see in others is usually just pain, trauma, unhealth, or figuring life out, and the best cure is belovedness.

I would call the enemy what it was: the opposite of love. If God is Love, the Enemy is the opposite of that. So chase love in all forms.

If I were a church leader,

I would tell them they could come if they wanted but the church isn’t a building. That there are a million ways to experience God and his creation, both alone and corporately and that sometimes the systems we’ve built make it harder by putting up walls and boxes, making rules and prerequisites.

But most of all, if I were a church leader,

I would fail. Because I wouldn’t be able to compete with the fear, exclusivity, and power other churches offered.