Thread by @mpgPhD, classtime, #NUcults! I'll keep an eye out for your AMA questions, but [...]

classtime, #NUcults! I'll keep an eye out for your AMA questions, but your Medium responses include a lot of

what do I call these groups if I can't call them cults

what if these groups really ARE dangerous

so I'ma tweet about that today

so I went into Great Detail about why "cults" is a problem for the podcast y'all listened to last week

#NUcults https://keepingit101.buzzsprout.com/810974/4113314-smart-grrl-summer-cults

And I've talked about it a bit on our Medium site as well

#NUcults https://medium.com/cults-sects/cults-3e19ca471a6c

Cults?

Full disclosure, y’all: I hate this word.

https://medium.com/cults-sects/cults-3e19ca471a6c

and a number of you were like

BUT WAIT

WTF DO I CALL JONESTOWN, THEN

#NUcults

which is a bigger question that I think a lot of you realized

#NUcults

#NUcults

a of all: Jonestown wasn't a cult
it wasn't even a group
it was a PLACE

where a group of people (Peoples Temple), many of them Black women, worked themselves to exhaustion trying to create a better, more just world

here's what Jonestown was:

here's what you (think you) know about Jonestown

#NUcults

here's how your parents probably think of Jonestown

#NUcults

but this isn't a thread about Jonestown or Peoples Temple

it's about why the word "cult" matters

I'm not telling you not to use it bc it's not polite

I'm telling you not to use it because words DO things, and cult DOES the wrong thing when we think about religion

#NUcults

it MATTERS that when you hear "cult" you think

* pile of bodies
* brainwashing
* charismatic leader
* (some? all?) religion is dangerous

#NUcults

it matters that "cult" makes you go like "ooh, if I click this headline I'm going to read some weird shit about freaky sex, manipulative assholes, and people too dumb to know they're being taken advantage of"

(yes I DID pause to make this image just for y'all)

#NUcults

I once taught an entire class called "How to Do Things with Words" (ask @ThePookyJ) so this is a theme for me

but I'm not the only one making this argument

#NUcults https://religiondispatches.org/culting-from-waco-to-fundamentalist-mormons/

“Culting”: From Waco to Fundamentalist Mormons

When the media labels a religious group a “cult,” it fans the flames of intolerance and can endanger the group’s most vulnerable members.

https://religiondispatches.org/culting-from-waco-to-fundamentalist-mormons/

Wessinger: "'cult' can also be seen to imply that it is only in small, unconventional religious groups that believers commit hurtful and illegal actions; socially dominant religious groups are somehow let off the hook, as if their members never transgress in this way"

#NUcults

#NUcults *super* short version?

"cult" is a misdirect

it's smuggling in all sorts of assumptions about religions

it's three sexist, classist, white supremacist toddlers in a trench coat

#NUcults - we read @IjeomaOluo for today, so you know racism and white supremacy aren't just about intentions

looking at minoritized religions and calling them cults has a long, white supremacist history in the US

we're covering some of that history this semester

for today, though, let's get our definitions straight

whether you mean it to or not, "cult" (especially in what's now the US) makes people think

* dangerous
* pervy
* controlling + greedy + manipulative leaders
* stupid or trapped members
* RELIGION BUT BAD

#NUcults

"cult" smuggles in the idea that "real" religions are inherently good

and--as we've already discussed quite a bit--Americans' ideas of "real" religions just so happen to resemble white mainstream Christianity

#NUcults

you know I have so many readings on this for y'all, #NUcults

but basically, "real/good" American religion is:

- private
- individual
- belief-based
- civil
- reserved
- text-based
- limited to certain times/locations
- pro-United States

you know, like this fellow:

all of those things are sound a lot like white supremacy (as @tylergabriel_ observed in @BucarLiz's Reporting Religion class)

and that is because they ARE components of white supremacy, #NUcults

religions in America that are

- community-focused
- ecstatic / enthusiastic
- practice-oriented
- uncivil / impolite
- experience, orality, and revelation-based
- not bounded by time/location
- critical of American imperialism

those are the ones that get called... #NUcults

it just so happens that a lot of folks who join these groups are

- not white
- not men
- not wealthy
- not straight (OR just not doing sex in "normal" ways)
- not traditionally Christian

when I say "cult" is racist, sexist, classist, etc?
this is what i mean

#NUcults

so what do you say if you can't say "cult," #NUcults?

there's an easy (less good) answer
and a harder-but-better answer

(which is basically school in a nutshell, sorry)

I wrote about this on our #NUcults Medium site, but the easy answer is "new religious movements"

that's what the textbook I use in my world religions class calls these kinds of movements, for example https://medium.com/@me.goodwin/generally-scholars-use-new-religious-movements-benjamin-but-then-we-tie-ourselves-in-knots-7faca93f0c1a

Generally scholars use “new religious movements,” Benjamin, but then we tie ourselves in knots…

I uploaded a slideshow for last time that goes over some of the basics, if you’re interested in learning more about NRMs in general.

https://medium.com/@me.goodwin/generally-scholars-use-new-religious-movements-benjamin-but-then-we-tie-ourselves-in-knots-7faca93f0c1a

but imo NRMs doesn't actually get at the real issues here

for example: scholars still talk about the Shakers (founded 1770) as an NRM

we do NOT talk about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (founded 1830) as an NRM

so I ask you, #NUcults

these groups aren't important bc math, #NUcults

they're important bc they tell us something abt how America defines religion: who counts & who doesn't

who the 1st amendment protects

who can put their monument on the grounds of a state capitol, say https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/26/606029241/arkansas-installs-a-new-ten-commandments-monument-at-its-capitol

Arkansas Installs A New Ten Commandments Monument At Its Capitol

The first version of a Ten Commandments monument at the Arkansas Capitol lasted less than 24 hours before it was destroyed by a car last June.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/26/606029241/arkansas-installs-a-new-ten-commandments-monument-at-its-capitol

and whose non-normative sexual practice gets used as an excuse to invade a community with armored personnel carriers and take all the community's children away from their families

#NUcults https://therevealer.org/abusing-religion-polygyny-mormonisms-and-under-the-banner-of-heaven/

Abusing Religion: Polygyny, Mormonisms, and Under the Banner of Heaven — The Revealer

The first installment in a three-part series about stories of abuse in minority religious communities and how they have influenced American culture

https://therevealer.org/abusing-religion-polygyny-mormonisms-and-under-the-banner-of-heaven/

so yeah, NRMs is never going to be it for me

bc this isn't about who's the new kid on the block

it's about power

it's about who is protected and who is made a legitimate target of state violence

#NUcults

BUT

if "cult" is a dang problem (and it is)

and NRM doesn't really get the job done (and it doesn't)

then what DO you call these groups?

#NUcults

here's the harder and (I think) better move:

think about what questions you're trying to answer when you're asking about these groups

#NUcults

I look at "American minority religions," for example

because I'm interested in the overlaps b/w how we treat a marginalized but not new group, like Islam, and how we treat a marginalized new group, like FLDS

#NUcults http://rutgersuniversitypress.org/abusing-religion/9781978807785

Book Details - Rutgers University Press

http://rutgersuniversitypress.org/abusing-religion/9781978807785

my central question was about abuse, how abuse happens in minoritized religious communities, and how we respond differently to abuse in those communities than to abuse that happens elsewhere

and the conclusion I came to is: religion doesn't cause abuse

#NUcults

abuse HAPPENS in minoritized religious communities, of course

but that's because abuse happens EVERYWHERE

religion doesn't cause abuse

people cause abuse

#NUcults https://sojo.net/articles/abuse-happens-because-let-it-Menlo-Park-John-Ortberg-Lavery

Abuse Happens Because We Let It

Menlo Church pastor John Ortberg Jr. knew his son was attracted to children and failed to restrict his access.

https://sojo.net/articles/abuse-happens-because-let-it-Menlo-Park-John-Ortberg-Lavery

so the central question of the semester

"is religion dangerous?"

is a trick question

bc no, religion isn't dangerous

PEOPLE are dangerous

and people use religion to DO dangerous things

#NUcults

but that's just one way of looking at this!

#NUcults is reading a lot of @JLWeisenfeld this semester, too

_New World_ uses "religio-racial identity" to think more carefully about how religion and race, especially US Blackness, make space to reimagine history & belonging

I didn't make y'all read JZ Smith's "religion, religions, religious," but that's the punchline

and to adapt for our purposes: there isn't one good word for these groups

there are infinity ways of describing them, bc there are infinity ways of doing religion

#NUcults

I want us to resist the urge to think religion is simple

that there are easy ways of describing it

I want us to know that HOW we talk and think about religion MATTERS

and that getting it wrong can have dire consequences

#NUcults https://www.vox.com/2018/4/19/17246732/waco-tragedy-explained-david-koresh-mount-carmel-branch-davidian-cult-25-year-anniversary

The Waco tragedy, explained

25 years later, the siege of David Koresh’s Branch Davidians challenges our definition of "cult."

https://www.vox.com/2018/4/19/17246732/waco-tragedy-explained-david-koresh-mount-carmel-branch-davidian-cult-25-year-anniversary

we're going to spend the rest of the semester unpacking these issues, but this should be enough to get us started

thanks for hanging in, #NUcults, and feel free to AMA #onhere, Medium, or in the chat!

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