FLDS women (from the polygamous compound where the children were taken away) appeared in the media today to defend their cult... uh, I mean religion. Actually, it is a cult, by both theological definition (because it claims to be a religion that it isn't) and sociological definition.
It's the sociological that I'm going to focus on.
The women said they were free to leave the cult property at any time, but that they didn't want to.
Of course they didn't want to.
First of all, it would mean never being able to be with their children again. They'd be leaving the only life they've ever known.
But there are psychological factors at work besides that. They've been raised since birth to believe that:
1. They would be leaving the only true church, thus turning their backs on God.
2. They would be evil and lost people if they left.
3. The outside world is thoroughly evil and dangerous and would corrupt them.
4. They would be of no use (other than for evil) and unable to make a living in the evil outside world. I mean really- how much education have they had? How much job training?
These women believe they'd wither away without their busbands, and would be lost souls without their church leaders.
So, while they were perhaps free to leave (and perhaps they weren't after all - how do we really know?), they have been conditioned since birth to be severly averse to doing so.
Such is one of the problems with cults.
And where are all the boys? With polygamy as the FLDS practice, there is only room for so many men. After all, how is a man going to have multiple wives to himself if there are roughly the same men and women? So some boys get cast out, and I fear, worse. I wonder how many male births are "stillborn"?
Sad stuff.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
4 comments:
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Just for my benefit, could you give your theological definition of cult. Our society is so quick to call a group of outsiders who don't agree with mainstream culture a "cult" and then proceed to raid their homes, remove their children, deny their basic constitutional rights. As far as I've heard, the allegations of child abuse are insubstantial.
ReplyDeleteThe culture of the FLDS communities are crazy weird to our modern sensibilities and the practice of polygamy leaves 2/3 or so of their young men with no spouse, and forcing young girls, under 18, to marry and produce children is criminal, BUT in America we prosecute INDIVIDUALS for crimes, not assume a whole group is guilty before proof is provided.
Mrs. B. Roth...
ReplyDeleteI'm completely for freedom of religion, insofar as laws protecting individuals and their property are upheld. For example, of someone had a religion that called for murder... well, sorry, you can't commit murder under the freedom of relgion.
A cult comprised of voluntarily-associating adults and their children should be legally free to practice, as long as they don't violate laws in the way I described above.
In this case, if the FLDS group is conspiring to place underage girls into sexual situations, especially with older men, then there's a problem that the autorities should get involved with.
Under RICO and other conspiracy laws, the leadership of a group can be held responsible to some degree.
As for the FLDS' status as a cult... as I understand it, they are a cult in relation to their relationship to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I'm not a member of the LDS church, so please correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't the LDS church claim to be the true church in terms of authority, and thus other churches aren't? Isn't part of that the authority of the leadership? The FLDS claims to be the "true" LDS church, but has a different leadership, and thus is a cult in relation to the LDS church.
Here's a definition of a cult from a theoligical perspective:
A cult of is a group of people, which claiming to be of a known world religion, embraces a particular doctrinal system taught by an individual leader, group of leaders, or organization, which (system) denies (either explicitly or implicitly) one or more of the central doctrines of the world religion as generally recognized.
This says nothing about whether or not the "cult's" doctrines are true or not.
So, by your cult definition, would Christianity be a Jewish cult, Protestantism, a Catholic cult? Don't all religions think there leadership and doctrines are the "truth," and all the rest have it a little wrong?
ReplyDeleteCertainly, with the free exercise of religion, we have to limit "worship" to certain things - my right to worship ends where the next guy's nose begins, type of idea - so of course things like murder, child abuse, etc, must be prosecuted. But, as far as consenting adults making relationship choices, how does the government have a right to get involved and say "unacceptable"?
I still think the problem is these people are forced into isolation because polygamy is illegal and then they feel unable to pursue legal assistance when crimes are committed against them. It's like domestic violence with illegal aliens ... they're more afraid of the consequences of their existence than the crimes they have to endure.
I say, allow polygamy, but establish a federal legal age of marriage, regardless of parental consent - 18 is old enough to vote or enlist. Protect those women and children who would now like to leave the community and do not allow any further underage marriages, but you can't remove children from their homes saying it is all abusive unless you (the government) is also willing to say alcoholics are abusive for children, parents who've "allowed" their teen daughters to get knocked up are negligent, etc.
I agree that children and young girls need protected, but so does freedom of religious expression. The government might come in a start saying FLDS is bad for kids and expand it until it's saying all religion teaching obedience is bad. I think it's a slippery slope and the government's powers need to be pulled back.
>>So, by your cult definition, would Christianity be a Jewish cult, Protestantism, a Catholic cult?<<
ReplyDeleteProbably not. Christianity and Protestantism are not monoliths. Certainly, individual Christian or Protestant churches could be considered cults. For example, there are independent churches that claim to be the true Roman Catholic church. Really, they are by definition Protestant, even though they do not trace their roots to Luther or anyone else except Rome. If a Christian church today tried to pass itself off as a modern Jewish synagogue, then perhaps it could be considered a cult in relation to Judaism.
The FLDS was claiming to be the true LDS church. It wasn’t saying that “Hey, being in the LDS is fine, too.” It was saying “we ARE the true LDS church”. This has happened with Islam, too. There are groups in the U.S. that claim to be Muslim but have a different theology than Islam.
>>Don't all religions think there leadership and doctrines are the "truth," and all the rest have it a little wrong?<<
The logical ones, yes, otherwise they’d all be members of a different church. However, most religions that have different congregations/organizations within them accept the validity of the other groups, as long as they have the same core understandings about the nature of God, who we are in relation to God, etc. As I understand it, the official Roman Catholic position is that orthodox (notice small “o”) Protestant churches are part of the overall universal Church. Most Protestant churches tend to look at other Protestant churches the same way – “They’re different in how they run their organization, or their worship style, but they’re the same religion as us because they believe the same essential doctrines and have a relationship with Jesus Christ.”
>>But, as far as consenting adults making relationship choices, how does the government have a right to get involved and say "unacceptable"?<<
The government has no Constitutional authority to do that, unless the consenting adults are asking the government (the people) for something. For example: “Give us a marriage license.”
>>I still think the problem is these people are forced into isolation because polygamy is illegal and then they feel unable to pursue legal assistance when crimes are committed against them.<<
As I understand it, they haven’t committed polygamy in the eyes of the law because state-issued marriage licenses are not involved. As long as each man and each woman only had one active marriage license, they are not breaking the law as far as marriage is concerned.
These people are in isolation because that’s what the leadership wanted, and either the individuals or their parents agreed to go along with that.
>>I say, allow polygamy, but establish a federal legal age of marriage, regardless of parental consent - 18 is old enough to vote or enlist.<<
I see no compelling reason to legally sanction polygamy. I do see good reason to legally sanction marriage.
>>I agree that children and young girls need protected, but so does freedom of religious expression. The government might come in a start saying FLDS is bad for kids and expand it until it's saying all religion teaching obedience is bad. I think it's a slippery slope and the government's powers need to be pulled back.<<
I agree that, where there is not actual abuse of the children, the FLDS should be free to do what they want and the children should be with their families. The government should be very, very careful about breaking up families. Freedom of religion is in the very first Amendment. I see no specific instructions in the Constitution authorizing one of the three branches to break up families or religions groups.