Of course, as a former Evangelical Fundamentalist Pentecostal guy, I can tell you is that the first rule of the religion game is that you never respond to these sorts of approaches. These approaches are the exclusive purview of cults. Only cults use these tactics. Of course, every religious group will, at some point in its history, fulfill the several criteria we use to define cults. We ultimately fall back on how absolute, capricious, and arbitrary the power of the cult leader's command and commands are when we decide whether a group is a cult or not. If the leaders have the absolute right to issue an absolutely direct order--even to the point of transgression of the law--to a follower and make it stick with punishments, you are dealing with a cult.
Well folks, I have some other things to tell you about cults:
- Cults are run by bad men. I mean obvious miscreants and sociopaths, who have criminal records, have flagrantly used slimy immoral tactics in broad daylight. All of their followers absolutely deny all these 'alegations' but these transgressions are a matter of public record. Charles Manson, Tony Alamo, Jim Jones, L. Ron Hubbard all had this in common. Alamo ran around with L.A. hoods, did time for tax evasion, changed his name several times to evade connections to his past, etc.
- Cult leaders frequently lie like hell about their backgrounds, constructing a fanciful life-story which they turn to profit. Benny Hinn claimed to be a former Jew from Israel. I think he still does. It turns out that he and his family lived in Lebanon & Syria and never lived in Israel. He is of Persian stock. His family spoke standard Arabic. The family religion was Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Benny chose his false background because Israel is extremely popular in Evangelical Pentecostal circles, and he scored major political points for 'being a converted Jew'.
- Cult leaders enrich themselves greatly by running their own little private kingdom of religion. When you see TV evangelists with Patek Philippe wrist watches, Gucci shoes, and $10,000 custom tailored suits on, you know what you are dealing with. Most of these guys are ultra-nouveau riche. Benny Hinn and Ken Copland were certainly these kind of guys.
- Cult leaders have really bad sexual habits. They say Charles Manson demanded absolute freedom of sexual access to all the women in his cult. Jim Jones screwed everybody, man woman, child, stuck in the middle. He was an omni pan sexual. Tony married a woman who was already married to a small time L.A. hood. Tony Alamo decided he liked very young girls; At least 5 of them we know of.
- Cult leaders issue flagrantly false prophecies and get away with it. Manson claimed he was going to lead the Black uprising against the White man. It didn't work out like that. Jim Jones claimed he was going to build the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth. It didn't work out like that. Benny Hinn claimed that Jesus was visibly, physically materialize on stage with him in Kenya during his 2000 campaign. It didn't happen. Tony Alamo kept the body of his dead wife on display for 16 years, claiming she would be resurrected soon. It didn't work out that way.
