Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1986 Page 72
in the face of ―libertarian‖ claims that activist judges and ―broad constructionists‖ who
represented certain selected social policies were imposing their views and curtailing
individual freedoms.
It serves no purpose to conclude simplistically that whenever a person asserts a religious
motivation for behavior, but finds that the behavior is curbed, that society has done him
wrong and that the First Amendment has been violated. Society is a compact among
people behavior is not, and cannot be viewed, as an uninhibited expression of individual
desire. The impersonal effects of actions on other persons‘ rights must be considered.
Religious behavior, according to Professor Shepherd, can only be curbed when there is a
―dire emergency warranting its restriction‖ (p. 53).
While one may not quarrel with that position in the abstract, the fact is that even when
presented with so dramatic a situation as Jonestown, the author equivocates. His conclusion
is that perhaps (my emphasis) if the government knew for a certainty in advance what was
going to happen at Jonestown it might have a right to intervene to prevent the slaughter.
(It is in the face of such an analysis that one understands the analogy that ―anti-cultists‖
draw between popular attitudes toward certain activities of some ―new religions‖ and the
equivocation and inactivity of many people in the face of totalitarian-led holocausts.) One
wonders what the author‘s approach would be when evaluating alleged infringement of
religiously motivated conduct when activist courts intervene to restrain and inhibit the
abuse of women and children, or the corporal punishment meted out to minors without their
consent, or the withholding of appropriate medical care. Are the courts also imposing in
these cases strongly held majoritarian values at the expense of individual equality and
liberty?
One reads this entire book without finding any discussion of the rights of individuals who
have been stripped of volitional control without their informed consent. One looks in vain for
any recognition of the need for redress when rights are violated by a coercive totalitarian
group motivated by strong religious goals. One looks in vain for any recognition of the basic
underlying rights of privacy, integrity, and freedom of thought which are judicially
recognized as precedent to all other individual rights, and without which other individual
rights have neither legal nor ethical meaning.
The book, although thoughtful, well written, and well considered when looking through the
glass of historical perspective, changes radically when it deals with the ―new religious
movements.‖ Here, the author simply accepts uncritically the ―horror stories‖ about the
activities of deprogrammers who, in his view, are always crassly motivated and relentlessly
seeking to take advantage of distraught parents. Similarly, the complaints of ex-members
are always seen by Professor Shepherd as blasphemous bigotry. And yet the author accepts
the view that all current members of ―new religious movements‖ speak freely, without
rancor, prejudice, bias, or fear, and that their hired advocates and experts are entitled to
the presumption that they are acting evenhandedly and with professional objectivity, a
presumption not extended to those who take the contrary view.
It has been very difficult to find unbiased, objective material in the area of ―new religions,‖
and this continues to be so, especially when those who defend the .new religions‘ seek to
shelve the First Amendment and discourage views critical of the ―new religions‖ by
discouraging dialogue, discussion, and tolerance of widely diverse opinions. The publication
of this book by the American Academy of Religion, with funding from the National
Endowment for the Humanities and additional financial contributions from the Crossroads
Publishing Company and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, makes me despair
of an adequate opportunity to rebut it. Yet I believe that discussion and disagreement will
continue. It is only through a commitment to this process, through the dissemination of
contrary information and the maintenance of a critical perspective, that more evenhanded
in the face of ―libertarian‖ claims that activist judges and ―broad constructionists‖ who
represented certain selected social policies were imposing their views and curtailing
individual freedoms.
It serves no purpose to conclude simplistically that whenever a person asserts a religious
motivation for behavior, but finds that the behavior is curbed, that society has done him
wrong and that the First Amendment has been violated. Society is a compact among
people behavior is not, and cannot be viewed, as an uninhibited expression of individual
desire. The impersonal effects of actions on other persons‘ rights must be considered.
Religious behavior, according to Professor Shepherd, can only be curbed when there is a
―dire emergency warranting its restriction‖ (p. 53).
While one may not quarrel with that position in the abstract, the fact is that even when
presented with so dramatic a situation as Jonestown, the author equivocates. His conclusion
is that perhaps (my emphasis) if the government knew for a certainty in advance what was
going to happen at Jonestown it might have a right to intervene to prevent the slaughter.
(It is in the face of such an analysis that one understands the analogy that ―anti-cultists‖
draw between popular attitudes toward certain activities of some ―new religions‖ and the
equivocation and inactivity of many people in the face of totalitarian-led holocausts.) One
wonders what the author‘s approach would be when evaluating alleged infringement of
religiously motivated conduct when activist courts intervene to restrain and inhibit the
abuse of women and children, or the corporal punishment meted out to minors without their
consent, or the withholding of appropriate medical care. Are the courts also imposing in
these cases strongly held majoritarian values at the expense of individual equality and
liberty?
One reads this entire book without finding any discussion of the rights of individuals who
have been stripped of volitional control without their informed consent. One looks in vain for
any recognition of the need for redress when rights are violated by a coercive totalitarian
group motivated by strong religious goals. One looks in vain for any recognition of the basic
underlying rights of privacy, integrity, and freedom of thought which are judicially
recognized as precedent to all other individual rights, and without which other individual
rights have neither legal nor ethical meaning.
The book, although thoughtful, well written, and well considered when looking through the
glass of historical perspective, changes radically when it deals with the ―new religious
movements.‖ Here, the author simply accepts uncritically the ―horror stories‖ about the
activities of deprogrammers who, in his view, are always crassly motivated and relentlessly
seeking to take advantage of distraught parents. Similarly, the complaints of ex-members
are always seen by Professor Shepherd as blasphemous bigotry. And yet the author accepts
the view that all current members of ―new religious movements‖ speak freely, without
rancor, prejudice, bias, or fear, and that their hired advocates and experts are entitled to
the presumption that they are acting evenhandedly and with professional objectivity, a
presumption not extended to those who take the contrary view.
It has been very difficult to find unbiased, objective material in the area of ―new religions,‖
and this continues to be so, especially when those who defend the .new religions‘ seek to
shelve the First Amendment and discourage views critical of the ―new religions‖ by
discouraging dialogue, discussion, and tolerance of widely diverse opinions. The publication
of this book by the American Academy of Religion, with funding from the National
Endowment for the Humanities and additional financial contributions from the Crossroads
Publishing Company and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, makes me despair
of an adequate opportunity to rebut it. Yet I believe that discussion and disagreement will
continue. It is only through a commitment to this process, through the dissemination of
contrary information and the maintenance of a critical perspective, that more evenhanded
