A cult apologist is a term to describe a scholar of cults and/or new religious movements perceived as responding to the movements they study with advocacy instead of with neutral scholarship. In religion and sociology, a cult is a cohesive group of people (often a relatively small and new religious movement) devoted to beliefs or practices that the surrounding culture or society considers to be far outside the mainstream. ... A new religious movement or NRM is a religious, ethical, or spiritual grouping of fairly recent origin which is not part of an established religion and has not yet become recognised as a standard denomination, church, or religious body. ... Advocacy is a parasol term for organized activism related to a particular set of issues. ...

In some scholarly literature (Zablocki and Robbins, 2001) the term is used neutrally to denote the pro-cult camp in the scholarly disputes about cult questions compared to cult bashers as term for the anti-cult camp. Other terms used are cult critics and cult sympathizers, "mental health coalition" and "religion coalition" (Bromley, 2005), pro-cultists and anti-cultists.

When used by opponents to cults it is often considered pejorative.

The words apologist derive from the Greek apologia (Greek: Ἀπολογία), meaning the defense of a position against an attack (and not from the English word apology, which is exclusively understood as a defensive plea for forgiveness for an action that is open to blame). Early uses of the term include, Plato's Apology (the defense speech of Socrates from his trial) and the early Christian Apologists, defending their faith. In military science, an attack is the aggressive attempt to conquer enemy territory, installations, personnel, or equipment or to deny the enemy the use of territory, installations, personnel, or equipment, for example by destroying the equipment. ... The Apology is Platos version of the speech given by Socrates as he defends himself against the charges of being a man who corrupted the young, did not believe in the gods, and created new deities. ... (The) Apology (of Socrates) is Platos version of the speech given by Socrates as he defends himself against the charges of being a man who corrupted the young, did not believe in the gods, and created new deities. Apology here has its earlier meaning (now usually expressed by the... As a noun, Christian is an appellation and moniker deriving from the appellation Christ, which many people associate exclusively with Jesus of Nazareth. ...

Other uses of the term 'apologetics' includes the field of Christian study that defends biblical truth against anything that opposes it. [1]

The expression cult apologist may derive from a related neologism that was coined by the evangelical Christian countercult movement writer Walter Martin. In 1955, Martin had published a Christian handbook The Rise of the Cults. In Martin's discussion about developing theological resources and responses to cults he remarked: The Christian countercult movement, also known as discernment ministries is the collective designation for many mostly unrelated ministries and individual Christians who oppose non-mainstream Christian and non-Christian religious groups, which they often call cults. ... Walter Ralston Martin (September 10, 1928 – June 26, 1989), was an American Evangelical minister, author, and Christian apologist who founded the Christian Research Institute in 1960 as a para-church ministry specialising as a clearing-house of information in both general Christian apologetics and in countercult apologetics. ...

"We have proposed, therefore, that an inter-denominational Bureau of Information be formed … This Bureau of Information has recently been realized with the inauguration of a special division of Zondervan Publishing Company entitled The Division of Cult Apologetics." (Martin, The Rise of the Cults, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1955, p. 106).

Martin used the neologism Cult Apologetics in a positive and self-referential way to identify ministries that evangelize those involved in cults. He used the term again in his next book The Christian and the Cults (Zondervan 1956, p. 6). Martin's relationship with Zondervan continued until 1966, which is when the Division of Cult Apologetics ceased as a publishing operation. Martin ruefully alludes to the break-down of this relationship with the publisher in his fictional book Screwtape Writes Again (Vision House 1975, pp. 79-80).

The positive use of the term cult apologetics by evangelicals recurs in the book by Robert and Gretchen Passantino, Answers to the Cultist at Your Door (Harvest House, 1981, p. 13) and also by Alan Gomes in his contributory chapter in the first posthumous edition of Martin's The Kingdom of the Cults (1997 ed., p. 333).

However, in view of the persistent and negative use of the term cult apologist by various evangelical countercult apologists, it appears that the neologism cult apologetics has both fallen into disuse and also metamorphosed into a word of opprobrium.

See also Apologetics. Apologetics is the field of study concerned with the systematic defense of a position. ...

Definitions

Christian countercult Anton Hein's "Apologetics Index" website defines a 'cult apologist' as:

"someone who consistently or primarily defends the teachings and/or actions of one or more movements considered to be cults - as defined sociologically and/or theologically." [2]

Tilman Hausherr a noted critic of Scientology, wrote: Tilman Hausherr is a german citizen living in Berlin, Germany. ...

"In general, cult apologists are people who are not cult members, but who support cults and defend their unethical activities." [3]

Some allegations against cult apologists are:

• biased studies (Kent + Krebs)
• accepting statements from cults at face value while generally mistrusting statements from former cult members.(Zablocki, Beit-Hallahmi)
• methodical errors (Zablocki)
• in some cases accepting funds or benefits from cults (Kent + Krebs, Beit-Hallahmi)

In some cases these allegations have been heavily substantiated. In May 1995, after the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, American scholars James R. Lewis and Gordon Melton flew to Japan to hold a pair of press conferences in which they announced that the chief suspect in the murders, religious group Aum Shinrikyo, could not have produced the sarin that the attacks had been committed with. They had determined this, Lewis said, from photos and documents provided by the group.[4] However, the Japanese police had already discovered at Aum's main compound back in March a sophisticated chemical weapons laboratory that was capable of producing thousands of kilograms a year of the poison.[5] Later investigation showed that Aum not only created the sarin used in the subway attacks, but had committed previous chemical and biological weapons attacks, including a previous attack with sarin that had killed seven and injured 144.[6] Lewis openly disclosed that "AUM [...] arranged to provide all expenses [for the trip] ahead of time", but claimed that this was "so that financial considerations would not be attached to our final report".[7]. The Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, usually referred to in the Japanese media as the 地下鉄サリン事件 (chikatetsu sarin jiken subway sarin incident) was an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by members of the religious group Aum Shinrikyo on March 20, 1995. ... J. Gordon Melton is the director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion and is a research specialist with the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. ... Aum Shinrikyo (also spelled Om Shin Rikyo) was a religious group which mixed Buddhist and Hindu beliefs and was based in Japan. ... Sarin or GB (O-Isopropyl methylphosphonofluoridate) is an extremely toxic substance. ... The Matsumoto incident was an outbreak of sarin poisoning that occurred in Matsumoto, Japan, in the Nagano prefecture, on the evening of June 27 and the morning of June 28, 1994. ...

Scholars who have been accused of cult apologism include Dick Anthony, Eileen Barker, David G. Bromley, Douglas E. Cowan, Jeff Hadden, Irving Hexham, Massimo Introvigne, Gordon Melton, and Anson Shupe. Eileen Barker is a professor in sociology and is an emeritus member of the London School of Economics, and a consultant to that institutions Centre for the Study of Human Rights at. ... David G. Bromley is a professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA and the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA. Education and Career Bromley received his B.A. in sociology (1963) from Colby College. ... Douglas E. Cowan Ph. ... Jeffrey K. Hadden (1937 - 2003) was a Professor of Sociology who began teaching at the University of Virginia in 1972. ... Professor Massimo Introvigne, a lawyer and social scientist (B.D. Philosophy, and Dr. Jur. ... J. Gordon Melton is the director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion and is a research specialist with the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. ... Anson D. Shupe American sociologist who studies religious groups and the anti-cult movement. ...

Groups accused of cult apologism

Protagonists in the Christian countercult such as Anton Hein (apologeticsindex.org [8]), anti-cult activists such as Rick Ross [9], Scientology critic Tilman Hausherr[10], and professor of psychology and author of several books and articles on cults Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi [11], accuse certain groups to be cult apologists, including: Rick Alan Ross (born November 1952 in Cleveland, Ohio) is a private consultant and lecturer in the area of cults who maintains a website with an extensive listing of articles about destructive cults, controversial groups and movements, and related research about mind control theories. ... Tilman Hausherr is a german citizen living in Berlin, Germany. ... Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi is a professor of psychology at the University of Haifa, Israel. ...

• Cult Awareness Network (the "new CAN")
• CESNUR (see Massimo Introvigne)
• AWARE
• The University of Virginia Religions Movements project [12] by Jeffrey Hadden and Douglas Cowan
• The Institute for the Study of American Religion [13] by J. Gordon Melton
• INFORM [14] by Eileen Barker

Cult Awareness Network - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... CESNUR is a center for studies on new religions, based in Turin, Italy. ... Professor Massimo Introvigne, a lawyer and social scientist (B.D. Philosophy, and Dr. Jur. ...

Counterpositions

Scholars accused of being cult apologists, in turn, reply to the criticism levelled at them by stating that they consider themselves champions of religious freedom and tolerance. Douglas E. Cowan writes: Douglas E. Cowan Ph. ...

Some of us--myself, Eileen Barker, Massimo [Introvigne], Jeff Hadden, Irving Hexham, Anson Shupe, David G. Bromley, Gordon Melton--are listed on [Anton] Hein's site as dedicated "cult apologists" of varying degrees of prominence. While his characterization of the understanding, motives, and expertise of these "cult apologists" is by-and-large inaccurate and insulting, it serves the agenda of the Countercult by placing these characterizations in the public library of the Internet. "Cult apologists," by the way, are those "claiming to champion religious freedom and religious tolerance." [15].

In a paper paper presented to the 2002 Society for the Scientific Study of Religion Conference[16], Douglas Cowan presents the political, ethical, economic and personal impact of such distinction and the range of opinion about what "cult apologist" means in the context of three basic domains as follows: Eileen Barker is a professor in sociology and is an emeritus member of the London School of Economics, and a consultant to that institutions Centre for the Study of Human Rights at. ... Professor Massimo Introvigne, a lawyer and social scientist (B.D. Philosophy, and Dr. Jur. ... Jeffrey K. Hadden (1937 - 2003) was a Professor of Sociology who began teaching at the University of Virginia in 1972. ... Anson D. Shupe American sociologist who studies religious groups and the anti-cult movement. ... David G. Bromley is a professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA and the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA. Education and Career Bromley received his B.A. in sociology (1963) from Colby College. ... J. Gordon Melton is the director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion and is a research specialist with the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. ...

1. The Evangelical Christian countercult: [I]n the context of the evangelical countercult, it seems that one does not actually have to "defend cults" to be labeled a "cult apologist." Rather, in the manner of "the one who is not for us is against us," as a second indicator simply critiquing the critics is sufficient.
2. The secular anti-cult: While the evangelical Christian countercult has very little use for the brainwashing or thought control hypothesis, the secular anticult movement's deployment of "cult apologist" is almost exclusively concerned with maintaining either the viability of that hypothesis or the validity of ex-member testimony as part of its anecdotal mainstay.
3. The secular scholarship: I take it as a simple axiom that we, as a scholarly community, are probably not going to come to consensus on most of these issues. We are not going to agree in our assessments of new and controversial religious movements, and in our own personal scholarly scales, the balance of freedom of religion vs. the potential danger posed by groups or "types of groups" is going to weigh differently.

Brainwashing or thought reform is the application of coercive techniques to change the beliefs or behavior of one or more people for political purposes. ... Mind control (or thought control) has the premise that an outside source can control an individuals thinking, behavior or consciousness (either directly or more subtly). ...

References

• Amitrani, Alberto and Di Marzio, Rafaella: Blind, or Just Don't Want to See? Brainwashing, Mystification, and Suspicion
• Benjamin Beith-Hallahmi: Dear Colleagues: Integrity and Suspicion in NRM Research, 2001 [17]
• Benjamin Beith-Hallahmi: O Truant Muse': Collaborationism and Research Integrity, in Zablocki and Robbins (ed.): Misunderstanding Cults, 2001, ISBN 0802081886
• Douglas E. Cowan: Cult Apology: A Modest (Typological) Proposal, 2002, [18]
• Douglas E. Cowan: From Parchment to Pixels: The Christian Countercult on the Internet [19].
• Stephen A. Kent and Theresa Krebs: When Scholars Know Sin, Skeptic Magazine (Vol. 6, No. 3, 1998). [20]
  • Response by Gordon Melton [21]
  • Response by Anson Shupe [22]
  • Response by James R. Lewis [23]
  • Rejoinder to the above by Kent & Krebs [24]
• Janja Lalich: Pitafalls in the Sociological Study of Cults, in Zablocki and Robbins (ed.): Misunderstanding Cults, 2001 ISBN 0802081886
• Susan J. Palmer: Caught up in the Cult Wars: Confessions of a Canadian Researcher, in Zablocki and Robbins (ed.): Misunderstanding Cults, 2001
• Thomas Robbins: Balance and Fairness in the Study of Alternative Religions, in Zablocki and Robbins (ed.): Misunderstanding Cults, 2001 ISBN 0802081886
• Benjamin Zablocki: Methodical Fallacies in Anthony's Critique of Exit Cost Analysis, [25]

Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi is a professor of psychology at the University of Haifa, Israel. ... Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi is a professor of psychology at the University of Haifa, Israel. ... Douglas E. Cowan Ph. ... Douglas E. Cowan Ph. ... Stephen A. Kent, Ph. ... J. Gordon Melton is the director of the Institute for the Study of American Religion and is a research specialist with the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. ... Anson D. Shupe American sociologist who studies religious groups and the anti-cult movement. ... Thomas Eugene Robbins (born July 22, 1936 in Blowing Rock, North Carolina) is an American author. ... Benjamin Zablocki (b. ...

External links

• Anton Hein: What you should know about cult apologists
• Rick Ross: Cult Apologists?
• Reflections on Louisville: The Countercult in Conversation by Douglas Cowan
• Cult Apologism essay written by anonymous critical ex-followers claiming that Prem Rawat's article on Wikipedia is an example of cult apologism.
• 'Apologist' versus 'Alarmist' a 1997 article by Jordan Bonfante in Time Magazine compares 'cult apologist' J. Gordon Melton with 'alarmist' Ronald Enroth
• Questions from the Balcony:A Critique of Dick Anthony Article by Herbert Rosedale

Douglas E. Cowan Ph. ... 1997 (MCMXCVII) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... (Clockwise from upper left) Time magazine covers from May 7, 1945; July 25, 1969; December 31, 1999; September 14, 2001; and April 21, 2003. ...

See also

• Cults, Opposition to cults and new religious movements