50 International Journal of Cultic Studies ■ Vol. 3, 2012
abuse. Never is there mention of the
possibility that religion qua religion is
inherently, fundamentally disposed
toward the abuse of children, that
children are at risk not because someone
has made a travesty of religion, but
because religion has been faithfully
adhered to. What if religion qua
religion is inherently disposed toward
the abuse of children? What if it is not
just a matter of a few bad apples in
every basket, or just a matter of
institutional policies that might be
blamed for contributing to the problem,
but that religion qua religion places
children at risk of being the subjects of
abuse? This is the issue with which this
book is fundamentally concerned.
(Capps, 1995, p. xi)
It also is the issue with which this article is
fundamentally concerned, although I look for
evidence in very different places than did Capps.
Although I spend very little time examining
abuse issues within mainstream faiths, I have
been inspired by the growing number of studies
concerning clerical abuse in the Catholic Church
and elsewhere. At first slowly, reluctantly, but
eventually like a torrent, those issues came
forward, often by concerned members
themselves who feel that the abuses that have
occurred within their own denominations are
blights upon their respective faiths. What
investigative members do not uncover,
journalists—and occasionally academics—often
do. One thinks, for example, of the important
investigative research that journalist Jason Berry
and psychotherapist and former priest Richard
Sipe have done regarding child sexual abuse
within the Catholic Church (Berry, 1992 Berry
&Renner, 2004 Sipe, 1990 1995 2003). I
leave to others, therefore, the exploration of
child-abuse issues within major religious faiths.
I choose instead to examine child and teenage
sexual-abuse issues in unevenly charted
territory—groups variously called sects, cults,
and new religious movements. These alternative
religions tend to be far newer and smaller than
the established religions, and they often center
on the unorthodox teachings and personalities of
spiritual leaders who are either still alive or
recently deceased. It is a guessing game to
estimate how many groups fit this description
but in the early 1990s, psychologist and “cult”
researcher Michael Langone concluded that
“approximately two to five million Americans
have been involved with cultic groups”
(Langone, 2001, para. 5). People’s experiences
in these groups vary widely, depending upon the
period in their groups’ histories in which they
were involved, their level and duration of
involvement, and their own psychosocial issues
within their own biographies. Age and gender
also factor into people’s experiences, so two
people who underwent similar experiences may
have very different interpretations of them.
Some experiences, however, are collective, since
people find themselves in situations shared by
others whose reactions are more or less the
same.
In religious settings, people hope that their
experiences, and those of their loved ones, will
be positive and nurturing, and often they are.
No less memorable, however, are people’s
experiences of abuse, which also can be
collective in nature and suffered through by
many. All the examples of child sexual abuse
that I discuss in this study are collective ones,
not isolated instances of malfeasance that single,
unfortunate young people endured. Said
differently, children and teens in the same group
underwent similar privations, likely for the same
reasons. None of those reasons were the
children’s fault, even if in a few instances the
abuse may have become intergenerational if not
intragenerational (see Erooga &Masson [Eds.],
1999).
Not all studies share the opinion that I hold,
which is that child sexual abuse is a problem
greater in alternative religions than it is in
society at large. An American sociologist and
psychologist team, for example, undertook a
psychological assessment of children in the
Children of God/The Family, and in that context
wrote the following:
Because of the unfortunate level of
abuse in our country, the charge of
abuse has a high degree of plausibility
with the public and, as such, this charge
abuse. Never is there mention of the
possibility that religion qua religion is
inherently, fundamentally disposed
toward the abuse of children, that
children are at risk not because someone
has made a travesty of religion, but
because religion has been faithfully
adhered to. What if religion qua
religion is inherently disposed toward
the abuse of children? What if it is not
just a matter of a few bad apples in
every basket, or just a matter of
institutional policies that might be
blamed for contributing to the problem,
but that religion qua religion places
children at risk of being the subjects of
abuse? This is the issue with which this
book is fundamentally concerned.
(Capps, 1995, p. xi)
It also is the issue with which this article is
fundamentally concerned, although I look for
evidence in very different places than did Capps.
Although I spend very little time examining
abuse issues within mainstream faiths, I have
been inspired by the growing number of studies
concerning clerical abuse in the Catholic Church
and elsewhere. At first slowly, reluctantly, but
eventually like a torrent, those issues came
forward, often by concerned members
themselves who feel that the abuses that have
occurred within their own denominations are
blights upon their respective faiths. What
investigative members do not uncover,
journalists—and occasionally academics—often
do. One thinks, for example, of the important
investigative research that journalist Jason Berry
and psychotherapist and former priest Richard
Sipe have done regarding child sexual abuse
within the Catholic Church (Berry, 1992 Berry
&Renner, 2004 Sipe, 1990 1995 2003). I
leave to others, therefore, the exploration of
child-abuse issues within major religious faiths.
I choose instead to examine child and teenage
sexual-abuse issues in unevenly charted
territory—groups variously called sects, cults,
and new religious movements. These alternative
religions tend to be far newer and smaller than
the established religions, and they often center
on the unorthodox teachings and personalities of
spiritual leaders who are either still alive or
recently deceased. It is a guessing game to
estimate how many groups fit this description
but in the early 1990s, psychologist and “cult”
researcher Michael Langone concluded that
“approximately two to five million Americans
have been involved with cultic groups”
(Langone, 2001, para. 5). People’s experiences
in these groups vary widely, depending upon the
period in their groups’ histories in which they
were involved, their level and duration of
involvement, and their own psychosocial issues
within their own biographies. Age and gender
also factor into people’s experiences, so two
people who underwent similar experiences may
have very different interpretations of them.
Some experiences, however, are collective, since
people find themselves in situations shared by
others whose reactions are more or less the
same.
In religious settings, people hope that their
experiences, and those of their loved ones, will
be positive and nurturing, and often they are.
No less memorable, however, are people’s
experiences of abuse, which also can be
collective in nature and suffered through by
many. All the examples of child sexual abuse
that I discuss in this study are collective ones,
not isolated instances of malfeasance that single,
unfortunate young people endured. Said
differently, children and teens in the same group
underwent similar privations, likely for the same
reasons. None of those reasons were the
children’s fault, even if in a few instances the
abuse may have become intergenerational if not
intragenerational (see Erooga &Masson [Eds.],
1999).
Not all studies share the opinion that I hold,
which is that child sexual abuse is a problem
greater in alternative religions than it is in
society at large. An American sociologist and
psychologist team, for example, undertook a
psychological assessment of children in the
Children of God/The Family, and in that context
wrote the following:
Because of the unfortunate level of
abuse in our country, the charge of
abuse has a high degree of plausibility
with the public and, as such, this charge
