This week’s self-glory celebrations confirm that the leadership (who are the SAME leaders for 50+ years) will not listen or address or process ANY of what we’ve discussed in just under 20,000 comments here on this blog.

Time to wake up and smell the cult coffee people.

I can immediately “hear” UBFers dismissing this outrageous similarity. The most obvious objection is “the pimps are trafficking sex, but we shepherds are discipling students and teaching them the Bible.”

The “problem” I see is that many in the church are unable to “see” or acknowledge that they are using guilt tripping and fear tactics to “shepherd” their Bible students.

Just today I heard that a missionary had threatened his native student leader saying, “If you don’t attend the Friday fellowship meeting, you are not a Christian!”

The missionary completely ignored and disregarded the fact that the student leader was suffering from grief and sorrow from the recent death of a dear loved one.

It’s almost surreal and unbelievable hearing such accounts happening in 2015 in the U.S. after UBF missionaries have been here for three decades!

The sadder and more painful reality is that when such accounts are shared, they might be dismissed, disregarded, hushed up, excused, minimized or ignored.

In sad fact, when such stories are shared, the one who shared the story is often treated like the offensive culprit, because “how dare you complain about missionaries who have sacrified sooo much for you and for selfish American students!”

I’m sorry for sharing this painful account. But when can and will such stories be seriously addressed and discussed so that it does not ever happen again?

Steven’s book points out that such people represent only a small fraction of cult phenomena. He asks us to imagine a different set of images about cults.

He writes that we should see:

“Business executives in three-piece suits sitting in hotel ballrooms for company-sponsored ‘awareness’ training, not permitted to stand up or leave, even to go to the bathroom. Housewives attending ‘psych-up rallies’ so they can recruit friends and neighbors into a multi-level marketing organization. Hundreds of students gathering at an accredited university, being told they can levitate and fly through the air if only they meditate hard enough. High-school students practicing satanic rituals involving blood and urine, being directed by an older leader who claims he will help them develop their personal power. ‘Troubled’ teens being sent off to boot camps by their deceived parents, unregulated by the government, some run by religious groups who seek to convert them.” loc 1491

“While most people usually think of cults as religious—the first definition of cult in Webster’s Third New International Dictionary is “religious practice: worship”—they are often completely secular. Webster’s also defines cult as “a usually small or narrow circle of persons united by devotion or allegiance to some artistic or intellectual program, tendency, or figure (as one of limited popular appeal).” That second definition comes closer to the meaning of a modern cult, but still falls a bit short. Modern cults have virtually unlimited popular appeal. For the sake of brevity, from here on I will refer to any group in which mind control is used in destructive ways as simply a cult.” loc. 1543

Steven mentions business cults, sex cults, political cults, marketing cults and of course religious cults. The similarities are uncanny. Steven is gifted with an ability to discern the basic principles applying broadly to all kinds of undue influence.

BTW, I’ll be speaking with Steven soon :)

I see many similarities between UBF and other cults, especially sex trafficking victims. I volunteer at Rose of Sharon in Chicago for sex trafficking victims and many of the women are under cult mind control. Many don’t even know that they are trafficked and think that their pimps love them. It’s necessary to be aware of the fear tactics that people use. It’s not just in church, it’s in abusive relationships, it’s in schools, it’s anywhere where fear is used to coerce and manipulate. I don’t know how Hassan defines cult, but my definition would be very broad. I would define it as anywhere fear is used as leverage, whether from a Pastor, parent, friend, teacher, family member, etc. But I haven’t read Hassan’s book so I don’t know his definition of cult. Maybe I have to coin a new word for it.

Steven encouraged me to compare UBF to other mind control cults. Doing that would make my new book, Identity Snatchers, a widely appealing and important contribution to this field. I don’t have the capacity to do that right now, but the similarities between UBF and many cult groups are striking (again, you see these common traits very easily after you look under the unique holy paint each group has)

When I read the book, each time, I confirmed all my suspicions and realized UBF is essentially the same as the Moonies once you remove the covers.