Beloved Brethren! I’ve tried to reason. I’ve tried to cajole. I’ve tried to get you to see the downward spiral you are on with this madman you currently have at the helm. Frankly –I don’t know what else to say. You people are intelligent. You have the same brains as the rest of us and yet you sit there and take it! And you keep taking it. You don’t think there is anything strange about having a leader who is deluded about his importance and who has made a business out of your church to specifically aid his extended family and mates. It’s a fact folks! And there is not a murmur of complaint from any of you.
You don’t think it strange that he spends millions on his own private jet. Or hundreds of thousands on other non- essentials. You don’t raise a whimper when he installs a 27 year old shonky spokesman as your mouthpiece to the world. You don’t bat an eyelid when he opens a BruceMart where he sells you all manner of stuff that would –and did -get people withdrawn from 10 years ago. You don’t care a fig when he put his claim on every church you built. You don’t raise an eyebrow when he comes into that church and demands you stand for him? You sit there and follow blindly at his fractured statements and demands. You believe him when he says his father did no wrong. How many of you have been withdrawn from three times?? You have read Taylor’s Aberdeen meetings and yet you think that was an ambush! By people that no one has ever identified. Have you all gone mad??
So today I have decided to go back to an old sermon of mine to try and help you see the light and bring you back to reality. You are not a church anymore. Heaven knows you did used to belong to one. Until some people started getting too big for their boots and started calling themselves God. At the end of the day you know, Paul was just a servant of the Lord- not a replacement of the Almighty.
You are members today of a cult. A nasty, invasive cult that breaks up families and breaks a lot of hearts. For every thoroughly bad egg that you got rid of in the last 60 years – there are a hundred more who did nothing to warrant the dire judgements that your leaders handed down. You withdrew from thousands of people wrongly. A wicked, wicked thing.
Not content with that – you stopped men from ever seeing their families again. You took all of their assets. You fought them through the courts and when you lost those cases – you poisoned wives against husbands and children against fathers. God is not happy about that. It defies everything he says in the bible.
You don’t forgive. You let your past leaders get rid of good men that they perceived as potential threats. Another wicked thing. And now you have another leader who is treating you badly. He is disrespectful to you. If you have money – he is interested in you. If you don’t you languish in the back rows. True? What will it take for you to see the light and to live the life of a good Christian? The world is full of Christians – God is wherever three or four are gathered in his name. Remember that?
I feel sorry for many Brethren. Symington did a wicked thing to you when he brought in his austerity ministry- and made you dumb down and move out. He told John Hales to ‘move you out to the plain country’. That was the quote. And in cities all over the world the saints got moved to dreadful suburbs and environments that they had never experienced. I read a book last night about a series of murders in Melbourne Australia. Know where they happened? Just round the corner from several Brethren churches in the dreadful northern suburbs. It took John Gadsden’s non- compliance re-entry ‘package’ to get them all moved to leafier streets. And they probably lost hundreds of thousands through the experience. And yet they sat there and took it….without a solitary whimper. Why?
So you believe you are in a church. Trust me Dear Brethren – you are in a cult. And to prove it – I am going to run some facts past you. See if anything gels here.
Recognise a cult when you see one. Get some clarification of how you got sucked in, brainwashed or came to be there in a state of total compliance?
Luckily possums, I have prepared a ready reckoner for people like you. Cult spotting is not hard. In fact it is remarkably easy. Apply these five golden rules and you will have your answers in a heartbeat.
Let’s run the old Cultometer (Pron. Cul-TOMM-eeter) over this lot for starters.
1. Cults always have a divinely appointed Prophet or Elect Vessel.
Check any cult. They are not run by a quorum. Or a governing body. Or a board. They are always run by one bloke who has delusions of grandeur and is appointed by God himself (although how they know this is anyone’s business.) Sadly God doesn’t speak to refute this. Which makes him a great partner.
And now for the old Culto-meter…… Yup! A reading of 10.
· Exclusive Brethren – YES
· Mooney’s YES
· Branch Davidian’s –YES
· Fundamental Latter Day Saints – YES
· Assemblies of God –Yep! And when one gets exposed – God quickly appoints another one from his stockpile.
2. Cults always have some bloke (who believes he is a prophet) and who wants all your lovely money as a consequence. Money and religion go hand in hand. Like ……like love and marriage. And a horse and carriage.
Some people call these KPI’s. I call ‘em KCI’s. Key Cult Indicators. Without going into the reasons why here – let’s apply the old litmus paper test to a few Cults we know have prophets who love the green stuff.
· Exclusive Brethren – Abso-lootly. (Excuse the pun.)
· Branch Davidian’s – Yup. In fact their prophet- not content with bank balances said “Sell your houses and give me all your money”.
· Fundamental Latter Day Saints. You betcha! It’s mandatory!
· Assemblies of God. Pffft! They even take credit cards!
3. Cult prophets often feel the need to annex follower’s wives. Why? Because they can!
Not much to say here. They’ve got your attention. They’ve got your money. What’s left? The missus. And your daughters. They also give amazing reasons why they need to sleep with other women and how God told them to do so. In fact a couple of cult leaders even suggest that these women are sleeping with God himself. On this one I will wing it– as I don’t like running the old Cult-ometer over naked-idity. It makes the dial mist up.
Branch Davidian Cult – You’d better form a queue girls. And take a number. Because Koresh loved nothing better when he wasn’t ramming scripture and verse down people throats –than to have a roll under the divine doona with someone else’s missus. In fact – he made it mandatory.
Fundamental Latter Day Saints. Get a grip and bring your own pillow. Although this bastard liked the daughters better. And to prove it - he’s now serving hard time for doing just that. Now he knows he should have stopped at the moolah.
The Exclusive Brethren. Just when you thought you were exempt – JTJnr blows your perfect record. Having made his saints sit through one of his almost unintelligible meetings in Bonnie Scotland, the Man of God felt like a bit of comfort in the form of another man’s wife. While not all Men of God followed suit – er they are tainted by association and for refusing to believe it. Despite eyewitness reports. And a post coital grin on Big Jim’s boat race you couldn’t wipe off with a wettex.
The Rajneeshees or Orange People Cult. Thought I’d forgotten the old Bhagwan didn’t you? Not only did he get all their money, but he freed up every sheila in the cult by saying that marriage was an illegal bond. Which gave unquestioned access to every woman in the camp –sorry – congregation- for the old Bhagwan to run his devious old Indian mitts over. Which he did ad nauseum until his ticker gave out. And his number one girlfriend took off with the loot. He’d have been better off buying a Seven Eleven.
So- we can agree that –cult leaders like to push the boundaries when it comes to pressing their luck. And the flesh. Agreed?
4. All cults feel a need to withdraw from the evil world.
No doubt about this one. They are all singing from the same hymnbook here. Pull out of the world (well- apart from the money making bit) and set up communes to cloister the devotees and stop them being influenced by any reason or rhyme and wicked worldly people.
Exclusive Brethren. They invented it! Withdraw from the world. Or we will withdraw from you. Just keep those orders rolling in though. We need the dough. For the MOG.
Branch Davidians. They took it a step too far. Their commune to escape the wicked influences of the world included packing a fair bit of hardware of the bang bang kind. Sadly – Texas coppers don’t like arse-en-alls. So they waved their big guns and divinely appointed Prophet Koresh set fire to the joint. Very sadly he incinerated his followers.
The People’s Temple. Forgot about these buggers didn’t you? Jim Jones- not content with slapping religious ankle bracelets on his followers to keep them in line – whisked them off to a far-flung island to ensure separation. Then they killed themselves. Now they are totally separate from the world. Poor deluded Brethren that they were.
FLDS – yup! They were cloistered. Forced to withdraw from the evil world they were practically locked up in a communal family. With big Daddy – Warren Jeffs playing prophet and husband. Running from bedroom to bedroom. Rumour has it he is now playing wife to someone with forearms like a gorilla called Mister T Bone who is doing 60 to life for murder. So before he reaches the Promised Land he will have a fair idea of what hell is like.
And as a bonus category – let’s throw Bling into the mix.
5. Prophetic or Man of God bling. God given trappings.
The cult list here could go on and on. If there’s one thing a divinely appointed Prophet or Man of God likes – it’s a bit of bling. To reinforce the position of course! It can range from anything like private jets to bodyguards and Rolls Royces.
Exclusive Brethren. (Lick’s pencil) Let’s see. A Lear Jet. Limos. A Driver. A bodyguard or two to protect him from his Brethren. And the mongrel media. A personal Spokesman. Or two. Gifts on a never ending basis. Of cash if possible please. Lovely lovely folding! (Thinks- does Bruce - when the little envelopes get delivered every month – empty them all over his bed and have a roll in the gorgeous green stuff like they do in the movies? Sorry….mental picture …..that’s all.) Property. People's businesses... OneFocus. BruceMart…. I could go on....
The Bhagwan – divinely appointed prophet of the Rajneesh Cult. Get outa here! 100 Rolls Royces. Rose petals strewn before his every step by Sari clad virgins. This bloke loved the shiny stuff and the green stuff so much he used to smoke it.
AOG Cult. Sorry Church. Bling? Try an air-conditioned dog kennel for openers. Not to mention quarter of a million dollar payouts for mistresses. Divinely anointed Prophet Jimmy Bakker and Prophetess Tammy loved everything shiny that religion could bring. They rolled in the stuff. Sadly Jimmy is still paying a good deal of it back to the IRS. His successor – another Divinely appointed prophet – Jimmy Swaggert liked the green stuff too. He was kinder though. He gave a great deal of his to poor ladies in New Orleans and all he wanted in return was to preach the gospel and get a full body massage.
Creflo Dollar Ministries. Now this bloke (yes he is for real!) is as least honest. As well as being a divinely appointed prophet like the rest of them – he admits he likes the folding stuff so much – he even calls himself after it. Just so there can be no mistake. And not content with raking it in like Bruce does in little envelopes and via credit card – his congregation even gave him a Rolls Royce. And his plane’s much bigger than Bruce’s. And he’s got a Rolex. And crocodile shoes…….
And – and I haven’t even mentioned loads of other cults either. Trust me – apply rules 1 through 5 here to them all and the old Cultometer will be buzzing its head off. Because all cults are driven by Power- Greed and base desires - and are ultimately corrupt because of it.
There’s one thing you should ultimately do too. Get the hell outa there!
