Why do intelligent people stay in a cult?
- Ruth Wise
- 12 minutes ago
- 5 min read
Recently I had a very helpful conversation with someone who spent her childhood in "The Lord's Recovery", but who, by eleven years old, didn't believe what was being taught and never really followed the teachings and practices after that. She mentioned multiple times people she knew who still identify as being "in the Lord's Recovery" or "the local churches" and how they are intelligent people. It seems confusing.
How can intelligent people hear that they need to not hear negative things, when there are reports of sexual assault, financial corruption, and other abuses that can be proven as systemic issues? How can intelligent people read that a man who was touching the breasts of possibly hundreds of teenage girls was the manager of the Living Stream Ministry, and not demand a thorough outside investigation? How can intelligent people say "Amen!" loudly to words that are not supported by the Scriptures, yet claim to be following the Bible?
There are many experts on this topic. I encourage you to read Steven Hassan's BITE Model of Authoritarian Control (https://freedomofmind.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/The-BITE-Model.pdf) and other writings.
From my experience and observation and learning, I would point to a few key factors:
People value their community, and there is no way to leave a cult without losing one's precious relationships with people in the cult. These people may include close relatives and friends. There is no legitimate reason to leave a cult, by definition, and those who leave often forfeit people they hold most dear to them. One's identity is largely related to the people with whom they are close. To leave the group is to leave one's own circle of life-companions and even one's own identity.
By definition, cult leaders (even a cult of one - a narcissistic partner) CONTROL. Cult dynamics do not allow freedom of behavior, information-sharing, thoughts/thinking outside of indoctrination, and emotions/feeling. You are guided to despise yourself and your own choices, desires and thoughts, and to idealize the group's doctrine and leadership. One's behavior, thoughts and feelings are largely affected by the information they believe to be true.
Specific to "The Lord's Recovery," members are taught a central interpretation of the whole Bible - that there are only two trees - the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Tree of Life. If you are taking in knowledge, if you are considering what is good and what is evil, you are in death. Thinking is versus "Drinking" [the water of Life - God]. Thinking brings in death. And critical thinking is KEY to evaluating any group and teaching, and to confronting teachers, doctrines, behaviors and practices that do not align with your conscience, intuition, and fellowship. In "The Lord's Recovery," questions are said to be of Satan. Yet questions are key to properly understanding various teachings and whether or not they align with God's Word and Jesus Christ's living and ministry.
Also specific to "The Lord's Recovery" (though also a major doctrine in other groups such as followers of Bill Gothard, etc.) is the dangerous teaching of absolute deputy authority - that we must all submit to a person, and if we ever don't submit, we are rebellious, worthy of being shunned by the rest of the community (treated as leprous).... Submission in such groups is not mutual, as Ephesians 5:21 says, "submit to one another out of reverence for Christ,"but rather is very much a one-way, no-questions-asked, blind submission of members to their leader, wives to their husbands (even if they are abusive), children to their parents (even if they are cruel or negligent). It is taught that even if a leader is wrong, follow him/her, and God won't hold you accountable, but rather, your leader whom you followed will bear all responsibility. This obfuscates the truth that each of us must give an account to our Lord. In such as setting, everyone except the highest "deputy authority" (who answers ONLY to God Himself - having NO accountability to other members of the group) abdicates responsibility to the one above him/her - leading to violation of God's Word and man's conscience when leaders are corrupt - and EVERY person other than Jesus Himself can be corrupt, their hearts are deceitfully wicked, and they can fall into various temptations. If a leader is sexually immoral, or financially defrauds others, members are expected to submit, and taught to cover him as Shem and Japheth covered Noah their father who was naked in his tent.
There are threatening consequences for leaving the cult. These may include lack of resources and lack of a support network. Consequences for leaving a cult include loss of one's life as they have come to know it, including one's family and identity and goals and pursuits and values and beliefs and even aspects of one's personality and behavior. Consequences may also include supernatural punishments in this age and in the next. Members are told that people ruin their lives by leaving, that they often suffer major illness and calamities. Members are also told that they will not be an overcomer, and will miss the millennial reward - the wedding feast, the marriage of the Lamb.... Instead, they will be cast into outer darkness for a thousand years where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
So.... if you grew up in "The Lord's Recovery," you likely have dear ones - close relationships you would never want to lose, and you realize that there is no gracious way to "leave" and remain in good favor with those close to you - unless they leave, too. This is so painful to even imagine. You likely do not typically think critically or feel fully or choose freely, nor do you likely have access to accurate, complete information necessary for you to be able to think, feel, and choose knowledgeably. You are shamed and threatened if you question or address anything as being evil, told that you are on the wrong tree. And you are trained to submit to those over you - especially the "Blended Brothers" and the "Minister of the Age." (BOTH of these expressions are very misleading and unscriptural.) "Be one with the Ministry!" you have been exhorted innumerable times. And, if you leave, you are cursed. You are told those who "leave" are finished. Don't expect any goodness from the Lord if you leave His best, "His Recovery." Expect to regret and weep and gnash your teeth while those friends and family you "left," who remained in "the Recovery" are the pure spotless, Bride of Christ.... despite all the corruption that made you begin to question, and finally drove you away....
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