Whistle series (140510)

Why would any sane individual follow a mad man? Why would one give his life, wealth and wife to a cult leader? What makes a cult leader so attractive, seductive and irresistible to his followers? When we talk about cults, one recent leader comes to mind. His name is Warren Jeffs. He is the prophet and leader of the Church of Jesus of the Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints (“FLDS”). By his own standard, he is a self-proclaimed, one and only, true prophet representing God and all other churches and faith are apostasy. His words and sermons were treated with great authority by his many followers, even to the extent of having precedence over the Bible. In fact, Warren Jeffs was the one who uttered these words, which I guess should be adopted as a shining mantra for all cults, “Perfect obedience produces perfect faith, which results in perfect people.” This is the underlining theme of all cults and the reason why so many of them grow and flourish in such a short time.

Human beings are incurably religious, so they say. But more relevantly, we are incurably gullible, incurably lost and incurably impressionable. In our search for meaning in this world, we are ready to subscribe to anything and sacrifice everything to fill up the void, the emptiness in our hearts. That is why cults and occults cannot help but grow exponentially. When Jesus told Peter and Andrew that they would become “fishers of men”, my thoughts are immediately turned to these deranged cultic leaders using and twisting Jesus’ metaphor for their own selfish, and sometimes murderous, ends. Often it is the bait that hides the hook and the more attractive the bait, the more irresistible it is to the gullible fishes. Like fishes, cults have an ala carte of attractive ideas for its members. Often these ideas appeal to the lost because they have grown bore and restless with their own orthodox religion and practices.

The attractiveness, or I should say, the seduction, of cults is in their claims and their leaders. Their claims are not only simply exaggerated but fabulously sensational. Take Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, for example. His story is typical of the origination of most cults. According to Smith, an angel called Moroni appeared to him and instructed him to translate two golden plates. Smith did just that and the Book of Mormon was duly in circulation. He also claimed that John the Baptist appeared to him and ordained him to accomplish the divine work of restoring the one true Church. Next comes the unification church led by rev. Sun Myung Moon. Moon claims that in 1935 Jesus appeared to him on a mountain in Korea and told him to finish the work of establishing God’s kingdom on earth. The blasphemy did not end there. Moon further proclaimed that he is the messiah of the second coming and his wife is the Holy Spirit. But Moon was not alone in his megalomaniacal delusion. Another fanatic was David Koresh. He was convinced that he was the “Lamb of God” who would break the seven seals to herald in the Apocalypse and the second coming of Christ.

It is not difficult to see how these self-glorifying proclamations can be irresistibly attractive to those who are looking for the next religious wave to surf their deluded faith on. For this reason, many ex-cultists took many years to be rehabilitated into the society. Many said that they had difficulty adjusting to orthodox Protestant and Methodist churches or mainstream religious faiths because their pastors or church leaders were not charismatic or dynamic enough. Many missed their former cultist leader’s claim of having many visitations from the spiritual realm. They also missed the extra-biblical revelations from their former leaders. For example, Warren Jeffs was fond of scaring his members by telling them to sell all that they have to join him as the last days are drawing nigh. Traditional seven-day adventist churches were also obsessed with the end time crystal-ball gazing. Many so called end time predictions were made and dates set for the Christ’s second coming but none came true. But there was always a reason for the failed prophecies. One of the most used and abused reasons was that their god had decided to postpone the date of Christ’s second coming so as to give the misguided members more time to repent. Ridiculously, many members bought the lame excuse hook, line and sinker, and stayed on with the cult, waiting eagerly for the next end-time forecast.

But the apostle Paul had already warned us about these false prophets. 2 Corinthians 11:13-15 issues this warning, “For such false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostle of Christ. And no wonder! For Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also transform themselves into ministers of righteousness.”

The late scientist Carl Sagan once said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Logically, extraordinary claims made by these deviant cultist leaders naturally require extraordinary evidence. But somehow, the logic got lost with its members. Or maybe, it has nothing to do with logic. I always believe that the members cannot give up their cults because their cults define them, even to the extent that they have to pay an ugly price for continuing with the cults. Many members are lost without their cult, their rituals and their perverted beliefs. They draw their identity, their sense of self-worth, their communal spirit, and their reason for existence from their cults. As such, they are not so much concerned with the complete lack of evidence to support their leader’s ridiculous claims to divine falsehood and exclusive entitlements. The evidence doesn’t matter, not the slightest bit. It is the culture, community and lifestyle surrounding the cult that they cannot do without.

Essentially, we are looking for salvation. We are looking for another way to live our life – a way to escape the drudgery of daily grind, daily work and daily familiarity. Familiarity indeed breeds contempt. It is an empty heart that easily nurtures and harbors such contempt. Because we try to understand the gospel with our head instead of our heart, we become restless souls seeking for the next spiritual sensation to titillate our senses. But the Bible is clear about our endless quest for the next spiritual pick-me-up, it will inevitably end up more empty and meaningless than we first started.

If you compare materialism with the cults, you will note that they both share a common denominator: that is, discontentment. There is never a point of satisfaction for those who strive for one material goal after another. Possessing more only makes him want more; and wanting more pushes him to possess more. It is clearly an endless spiral down into the abyss of discontentment. Many forget that the self will never settle for what is enough. That is why materialism like the cults is wholly superficial and phony. This shockingly amusing quote from two American professors, Jean Twenge and Keith Campbell, which describes how phony the American materialistic culture, should shed a good light on the cults and their culture, “We have phony rich people (with interest-only mortgages and piles of debt), phony beauty (with plastic surgery and cosmetic procedures), phony athlete (with performance-enhancing drugs), phony celebrities (via reality TV and You Tube), phony genius students (with grade inflation), phony national economy (with $11 trillion of government debt), phony feelings of being special among children (with parenting and education focused on self-esteem above all else) and phony friends (with the social networking explosion).” I guess this is how a cult member feels about their deluded leader when all his lies and false promises are revealed.

Generally, members join cults because they are looking for an alternative to the Christian gospel. Boredom with the truth because church activities and preaching are becoming too predictable and too familiar is the one common factor for members to leave the church and join the cults. But Jesus has already made it clear about the way to salvation. It is inevitably the narrow gate. Matthew 7:13-14 puts it this way, “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” I guess GK Chesterton puts it best when he wrote that the problem with Christianity is not that it has been tried and found wanting but it has been found difficult and left untried.

The truth is this, there is no comfortable solution to our problems. We cannot conveniently go from one spiritual excitement to another to look for ways to fill our soul and spirit with meaning. Jesus had laid the foundation for a successful Christian life and it has nothing to with us, our interests or our goals. Jesus is asking for us to make a radical commitment to take the road often less traveled and invariably this narrow way demands our practical obedience, not just our verbal consent or intellectual understanding. It is radical because it has a price tag to it and requires our daily submission and sacrifice. It is therefore a relationship with Jesus that opens the narrow gate to our hearts. This relationship is not advanced by serving more, giving more and attending more. We have mistaken doing with just being; where doing more is to make us look good before others and just being with Jesus at His feet is to make Jesus look good in us. One is self-glorification and the other is God-magnification.

Of course, no one of us can achieve perfection or holiness in this short lifetime. But surrendering our heart is a voluntary act of the personal will and it can be cultivated. Its cultivation requires effort, discipline and perseverance. It takes time but it is not beyond reach. That is why Jesus commands us to make the radical commitment to be transformed like Him. This is the narrow gate that Jesus is talking about and only a surrendered heart can find it.

Dr Ravi Zacharias, in his book Can Man Live Without God, wrote about this story that gives an intimate sense of how a heart can experience true transformation.

“Dr E Stanley Jones, a famed and noted missionary to India who was respected and admitted even by Mahatma Gandhi, used to tell the story of a man, a devout Hindu government official, to whom he was trying to explain the concept of the cross. The man kept reiterating to Dr Jones that he could not possibly make sense of the cross and of the love of God. Their conversations on this subject were circular and seemingly unsolvable to his satisfaction.

One day, through a series of circumstances, the man involved himself in an extramarital affair that tormented his conscience. He could live with himself no longer, and finally, looking into the eyes of his devoted wife, he told her the heartrending story of his betrayal. The hours and days of anguish and pain became weeks of heaviness in her heart. Yet, as she weathered the early shock, she confessed to him not only her deep sense of hurt but also the promise of her undying commitment and love.

Suddenly, almost like a flash of lightning illuminating the night sky and the landscape below, he found himself muttering, “Now I know what it means to see love crucified by sin.” He bent his knees in worship of his Savior and embraced his wife anew with the solemnity of life’s binding commitment.”

Indeed, we will never experience our Savior’s love until we have experienced our very own. In the same way, we will never experience true transformation until our hearts are first surrendered to God.

Free your heart to soar on eagle’s wings this weekend.