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Monitoring Religious Groups
When I first sought an inquiry into cults in the NSW State Parliament in 1992, I had a
perception that there was a difference between groups pejoratively described as destructive
cults and genuine or authentic religions. To my mind, the term cult conveyed negative
connotations and should attract government concern, whereas religion was something
beneficial and positive, probably deserving of government support. However, in the course
of researching my doctoral dissertation, I came to understand that cults and religion form
part of the same continuum, particularly for the purposes of legal definition, which has
profound public-policy implications.
As in Japan, where the 1995 sarin gas attacks led to a fundamental rethinking in the way in
which the state privileges and monitors religious entities, and where post-Aum amendments
have been made to the Religious Corporations Law of 1951, ―which presumes religions‘
potential to do harm and casts the state as a monitor of religion to protect the populace,‖
the 9/11 tragedy has similarly resulted in a greater awareness throughout the world of
religions‘ potential to do harm. Although this is often perceived by liberal academics to be a
negative and unfortunate trend, which may have an unfair impact upon benign or beneficial
religious groups, I see it as a healthy scepticism that legitimately questions the hitherto
sacrosanct and privileged position of religions howsoever defined—and particularly because
the concept is so loosely defined.
But just how do we go about monitoring religious groups that have the potential to do
harm? This in an era in which lawyers are preoccupied with debates about international
human rights and religions have managed to get widespread support for the notion that
they deserve especial protections and privileges from the state—a form of special pleading
that goes well beyond the freedom of an individual to believe in and practice a religious
faith. At the pointy end of concern, governments have shown little hesitation after 9/11 in
proscribing religious groups designated ―terrorist.‖ Hence, in Australia, for example, we
have new legislation under which a number of undeniably religious groups have been
designated ―terrorist‖ and have been banned. All sorts of serious criminal offences are
incurred for membership in or dealings with these groups. The Australian Attorney-General
has claimed in support of harsh security laws that the basic right to security is a
fundamental right that trumps other rights.
Conversely, there has been only cautious movement to seek to monitor the myriad not-for-
profit religious organisations that benefit from government largesse in the form of tax-
exempt status and a myriad other perquisites yet are hardly accountable at all to the
general public from who they derive their financial support.xxiv With respect to the United
States, a contributor to the Cultic Studies Review, Christopher Centner, has written that
The United States is very circumspect about monitoring religious movements.
The Constitution makes faith an individual choice not subject to government
scrutiny. Consequently the intelligence community does not monitor religious
movements, nor would it be feasible to do so. It monitors terrorist groups
and calls them such only when they enact violence. Americans cannot expect
their government to detect potentially violent religious movements early in
their development. The academic community might, however, be well
positioned to warn the government when a religious or ethnic movement is
moving toward violent action.xxv
If this constitutionally required circumspection is impregnable, that is unfortunate for the
United States—although there is a world of difference between covert surveillance of
specified targets and general indirect monitoring based on a regulatory regime that does not
target any specific religious group and operates to protect the integrity of all groups.

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I believe that Australia does not have the same constitutional impediments as the United
States, such as they might be, although a certain amount of sensitivity to religious paranoia
is a prudent political choice. In any event, I support an indirect form of scrutiny that does
not involve the type of intrusive surveillance that one might expect of intelligence agencies.
Surveillance is resource intensive, both in personnel and equipment, and certainly not a
feasible means of achieving coverage without the type of pervasive state apparatus
associated with totalitarian regimes.
In addition, despite some claims of past success, from my own observation of the tin-pot,
hand-to-mouth nature of most academic research units in the social sciences
(notwithstanding the brave efforts of many researchers), I don‘t believe the academic
community is in a position, without government structural assistance, to provide the type of
effective forewarning system that might be hoped for.xxvi However, a great deal might be
achieved by government in partnership with the academic community, and in particular the
international network of cult-watch groups and academics presently operating under the
informal leadership of the ICSA.
The imperfect but promising working model I examined for my doctoral dissertation is the
Charity Commission for England and Wales, which provides a gate-keeping model for the
admission or otherwise of third-sector groups to the nirvana of tax-exempt and
government-favoured status. It also provides some mechanisms for the disqualification of
groups previously admitted, although, in my view, both these functions would be improved
with a more straightforward mechanism for the receipt of objections and complaints about
privileged groups.
In the course of my research, I came across an interesting observation from a member of
the Legislative Council of the parliament of the state of Victoria in Australia. In 1982, the
Honourable Haddon Story noted that
there is a large file in the Attorney-General‘s Department of complaints about
all sorts of sects or pseudo-sects in the State, and about the harm that can
be caused to people who allow themselves to be ―sucked in‖ by them, to
their detriment. No country that I know of has been successful in finding a
formula for dealing with these sorts of problems.xxvii
A formula has been elusive because in a contest between damaged individuals and
organisations claiming religious status, the political process tends to favour the organisation
and the so-called human-rights lobby tends to favour the freedom of religious groups to
exploit individuals over the rights of complainants—such is the nature of politics. However,
now that the propensity for some religious groups to do harm has been well and truly
scorched onto the psychology of the West, it is time to lobby for the establishment of
regulatory frameworks for third-sector entities that deal with these complaints in a serious
and systematic way.
When a nascent religious organisation wishes to claim third-sector privileged status, a
system of notification advertising for objections should be implemented, with an
adjudicative process established to deal appropriately with any complaints. The same
avenue for complaint should be facilitated with respect to existing religious groups that
enjoy a financially privileged status. Any adjudicative system, whether it is a judicial, or
quasi-judicial tribunal, or another administrative commission, should be supported with a
research arm to advise on the level of complaint relative to the statistical size of an
organisation. Advice could also be provided on the seriousness and frequency of such
complaint. Of course it goes without saying that instead of sitting in departmental files, any
evidence of criminal activity should be referred to the appropriate policing authority for
immediate action.