A Cult?

In my last post I talked about how the blog owner (BO) is claiming to launch her smear campaign against her sister's "cult" message board not to be mean, but to "glorify God" even though her methods are certainly less than savory. 

Let's start with, "My sister was led astray...." in the first post on the blog. The main assumption in this statement and in later statements throughout her blog appears to be that her sister is somehow incapable of choosing to leave her reportedly abusive husband without needing to be "led astray" or "brainwashed" by a "cult-like mentality." Wow. Online cults do exist, but they're generally offshoots of established in real life cults and not message boards about attachment parenting. It's also relatively difficult to control someone's else's behavior over the internet. 

This sister apparently did have some "in real life" GCM friends, but we are not told how many or even how often she spent time with them. Making a leap from, "My sister left her abusive husband" to "She must be involved in a cult because she has some friends and goes on a message board!" seems alarmist to me, at best, so let's see what else the BO has to say about her assumptions:

What were some of the other "signs" the BO noticed that allegedly pointed towards a cult?

Well, first of all her sister apparently withdrew from most of her old friends and family members and didn't choose to spend time with ("cast aside") people who disagreed with her parenting style. I'm at a bit of a loss about how the BO could've found out that her sister had withdrawn from "most" of her old friends. I certainly do not know *most* of the friends - old or new - that my siblings have ever had (and yes, at least one of my siblings is a sister). This knowledge that the BO seems confident in having seems to me to be excessively controlling for a sibling.

Another thing that the BO hasn't seemed to consider is that becoming withdrawn from friends in general and family members can be a sign of being in a controlling and abusive relationship. Low self-confidence, Depression, and Stress/Anxiety, which can ALL result from being involved in or getting out of an abusive relationship, are all listed as possible reasons for Social Withdrawal or Relationship Conflicts. 

Perhaps the BO doesn't have as much information about the situation as she thinks she does and was misinformed as to why her sister stopped being around certain people - most women in abusive relationships aren't terribly open about the situation out of fear or embarrassment. Perhaps old friends in her life were beginning to inquire about signs of abuse they were seeing that she wasn't ready to hear yet. Maybe there was so much stress in her life already that the sister couldn't handle the added stress of being around people who were vocal in disagreeing with her beliefs and lifestyle. 

The possibilities are endless! Why on earth would someone jump to the assumption of "cult?"

Moving on - Her sister's theology changed and, presumably grew, over the years. This is honestly the most baffling reason of all, to my mind. One of the signs of a cult is an unchanging theology that members adhere to with fanatical devotion. On the other hand, growing in faith and gaining a deeper understanding of theology is a healthy progression of faith and is likely to cause changes in lifestyle and theology as time goes on. Not everyone progresses in faith at the same rate either. 

The Bible is very clear in 1 Corinthians 3:2 as well as Hebrews 5:11-14 that believers are to move from the "milk" of the gospel to the "meat" of theology. As with a baby too young to digest solid food properly, someone who was still subsisting on gospel "milk" would likely not be able to digest the "meat" of theology completely or properly and may not understand why certain beliefs are held by others.

The sister also apparently had some interpersonal issues with some of the members of the GCM message board. The BO reportedly knows this by hearing about it from her sister. Just going by the public new post page, GCM appears to be a rather large and active message board - something that the BO alludes to as well - and it would seem much more cult-like to me if someone *never* had any conflicts whatsoever with other people in the "cult."

The BO talks a fair amount about something called Dress Your Truth (DYT) which is something that she reports her sister to have been interested in. Sticking to the surface information about DYT, the parts that don't in any way violate the GCM statement of beliefs, it appears to be a way to figure out what clothes are flattering on different types of people. For anyone who has a job that involves looking professional, it would seem to be an excellent resource. 

Vanity and belonging to a cult are not the only reasons someone might want to look nice and dress in a flattering manner. Goodness knows, the sister could've been trying to *save* her marriage by trying to please her (reportedly) abusive husband by dressing more nicely.

Of course the BO offers no actual proof that her sister was even interested in DYT to an unhealthy degree... the sister picked up some fashion advice from a new friend and she and her friends apparently went and got some piercings. Okay. People who aren't in cults do those things all the time. It's certainly not proof of belonging to a cult, but it could possibly indicate the sorts of changes in behavior that can come with getting out of an abusive relationship.

The BO also alludes to some "too personal" reasons for thinking that her sister was in a cult. If those "too personal" reasons are anything like the reasons she has chosen to share with us, I'm simply not inclined to give them much weight.

Irony

i·ro·ny

Literature .

a.

a technique of indicating, as through character or plot development, an intention or attitude opposite to that which is actually or ostensibly stated.

An Introduction before getting to the other blog:

Hypocrisy is a form of irony. It is indeed ironic to state an opposition to behaviors, which one is currently engaging in or then proceeds to engage in.

There is currently a blog owner whose sole purpose is to "expose" an online message board in order to "bring glory to God" and not to be mean or attack anyone. However, that does not appear to be the case. 

I have no dog in this race, having learned about the message board in question (Gentle Christian Mothers or GCM) by reading the blog claiming to "expose" it, but it seems to me that the act of joining a message board under apparent false pretenses in order to then rake them over the coals publicly would certainly fall under the category of being "mean" or "attacking." At the absolute least, it falls under the category of dishonesty. 

In my humble opinion only someone with a lack of integrity would pretend to be someone she isn't in order to get information that doesn't appear, so far, to be any of her business.

On to the fun part! 

In her introductory post, the blog owner (which will be shortened to BO for the rest of this post in order to facilitate easier typing) states: "My sister was led astray because of some of the women on this site and their bad theology." This is given as her reason for starting the blog and "exposing the dangers behind this site." 

I must here admit that I don't actually have a problem with people choosing to expose bad theology, even publicly, but nothing the BO has written so far has convinced me that "bad theology is rampant" on GCM. In fact, the BO's exegesis seems to be rather flawed in more than a few places. 

I do, however, have a problem with not supporting women in getting out of abusive relationships. Nobody deserves to be abused by anyone - let alone someone who claims to love him or her. The BO goes one step further than that and publicly blames a message board "cult" for leading her sister "astray" - by which she apparently means, "Getting out of her reportedly abusive marriage." I definitely have a problem with that.

A - My name is Alice

Since this blog is not going to be about myself, I'm going to get the pertinent details out of the way in this post. I'm Alice! Welcome to my blog. I haven't really been interested in starting a blog, but I recently stumbled across a gem of a blog that I just felt compelled to respond to. I will, most likely, not restrict myself to commenting on that particular blog, but it will always hold a special place in my heart as the blog that inspired me to finally join in on the blogging madness.

I'm a wife, a mother, and a teacher. I'm fascinated by human behavior and by hypocrisy, in particular. The act of speaking out against doing something while doing the same thing or something similar oneself. The practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform. Having a pretense of being something you're not. Honestly, this hypocrisy doesn't make any sense to me.

I understand falling short of one's own goals and aspirations, that seems to be simply a part of being human and fallible, but the actual act of saying, "This is wrong!" while carrying on in the same or a similar manner oneself is rather baffling to me - particularly the hypercritical practice of holding others up to a higher standard than the standard to which they hold themselves and/or of expecting everyone else to conform to their own personal standards.

In the interest of full disclosure, I will probably not be disclosing much more personal information. This is intended to be an anonymous blog, in so much as one can be anonymous on the internet. There is no pretense here, however. I simply wish to examine certain instances of hypocrisy and I don't mind if the internet comes along for the ride! Not that I assume many people will read this, but I could very well be wrong about that, which would be fine.

In my next post, any readers I might actually have will find out the name of the blog that so thoroughly inspired this one.