Cult News

Many Davidian followers of David Koresh remain in denial a decade after their “sinful messiah’s” demise.

Despite failed prophecies and an end Koresh did not predict, some still expect a “resurrection,” which would allow the cult leader to somehow fulfill his supposed supernatural role.

Davidian Catherine Matteson now 87 is still waiting. She claims, “Things are going to change soon. He is going to return. He is going to be resurrected,” reports the Waco Tribune-Herald.

Matteson insists her one-time leader was the “last prophet” and that he knew “God’s mind.”

But Koresh’s explicit prophecies long ago expired. And the judgement that he claimed would immediately follow his death never came.

However, this doesn’t deter determined Davidians, who have invested their lives into the now essentially defunct group. Many lost family members and it’s difficult if not impossible for them to face that such a loss was for nothing.

Davidian Clive Doyle still lives near Waco and is waiting devotedly for the return of the man responsible for the death of his 18-year-old daughter.

Doyle like Matteson clings to a belief in a coming Koresh resurrection, hoping his lost daughter will also return to life. He says, “There will be a resurrection, and those of us who died in the past will be brought back,” quoted the Dallas Morning News.

Ironically Doyle himself may have been personally involved in the fire that took his daughter’s life.

Davidians who spread fuel oil and ignited it at three different locations started the fire. This was recorded by infrared aerial photography and additionally substantiated by audio recordings recovered through bugging devices within the compound.

According to court testimony Doyle had traces of fuel on his clothes after he escaped. But the loyal Davidian refuses to accept what happened. And says instead, “I’m not ashamed of who I am and what I’ve been.”

But shouldn’t Davidians like Doyle be ashamed of David Koresh?

The cult leader was certainly a criminal and sexual predator. Some Davidians even cooperated with the purported pedophile, at times providing him with their own children for his sexual gratification.

How do Davidians today deal with such facts?

Koresh’s once estranged mother Bonnie Haldeman now seems to be a true believer. She attempts to explain away her son’s sexual abuse of women and children by claiming it was somehow “justified by scripture.”

Haldeman says, “He showed it to us…We had studies and studies and studies and had to accept that.”

But weren’t those “studies” just “brainwashing“?

DNA evidence has firmly established Koresh fathered at least one child with a minor and the testimony of a teenager established that he molested children as young as ten.

Doyle makes it clear that Koresh’s “Golden Rule” regarding his behavior was essentially, “My way or the highway.”

He states, “We have had to wrestle with that, but we got to where we accepted it as God’s instruction. If people couldn’t accept it, they walked away.”

Bonnie Haldeman also believes her son was a benign influence and a kind man. She told a reporter, “David didn’t have a mean bone in his body. David did not believe in murder,” reports Associated Press.

McLennan County Sheriff Larry Lynch sees things differently. He negotiated a cease-fire with the Davidians and says, “There was no religion as you and I understand it. He was using religion to stir up hate against the federal government. He preached if you die fighting the beast, you’ll be immediately translated to heaven.”

But Davidian Sheila Martin who lost her husband and four children in the standoff insists, “We could see the logic in all these things.”

Former ATF spokesman Jack Killorin concluded, “It’s not surprising that Osama bin Laden could employ people to commit suicide and fly planes into buildings. … Waco is a monument to our understanding that such things can and will happen,” reports the Dallas Morning News.

Not only the Davidians lost loved ones in the 1993 raid and subsequent standoff. Four BATF officers were killed.

Jane McKeehan the mother of one of those officers says of Koresh and his followers, “They were wrong. They were breaking the law.”

But Clive Doyle doesn’t see it that way and probably never will. He claims, “People died here for what they believed in, so for those of us who are living, it would be a dishonor to their memory to give it up.”

No doubt Daividians died for something they sincerely believed in, but as Killorin observed so did the followers of Osama bin Laden on September 11th.

Doyle commented that the Davidian compound today is “like a magnet for would-be prophets…poor deluded souls.”

Expect the remaining Davidian diehards to soldier on much like al Qaeda, “poor deluded souls,” invested so deeply in their delusion that as Doyle says, they will never “give it up.”

Catherine Wessinger, a religious studies professor that has been called a “cult apologist,” offers her analysis of another so-called “new religious movement.”

This time it’s David Koresh’s Branch Davidians.

It seems Wessinger can be depended upon for an apology no matter how bizarre and/or destructive the cult.

Today in the Waco Tribune-Herald’s second installment of its nine part series about the Branch Davidians she once again offers her unique spin on a cult’s demise.

What does Wessinger make out of the Davidian cult tragedy?

Well, she says it was largely about “the militarization of law enforcement and the problems … and abuse that arise from such militarization.”

Right.

Apparently this college professor doesn’t wish to acknowledge the implications of a purported “psychopath” leading a cult group.

Wessinger admits, “I’m not trained in psychology so I don’t articulate those opinions…I’m sure he [Koresh] had some psychological issues.”

What an understatement.

Wessinger offers her usual apologetic spin. She has previously attempted to explain away cult tragedies such as Heaven’s Gate and Jonestown.

Wessinger once said, “If Jones and his community had succeeded in creating their Promised Land, they would still be here. But due to the attacks and investigations they endured, they opted for the Gnostic view that devalued this world.”

Again, no meaningful blame is placed upon the deeply disturbed cult leader and the inherent destructive dynamics of his control over the group.

Apparently almost any cult and/or cult leader’s behavior may be largely excused according to Wessinger’s reasoning under the general heading of “persecution.”

The professor’s new book is titled “Millennialism, Persecution and Violence: Historical Cases (Religion and Politics).”

Wessinger’s conclusions about the Branch Davidians within this context come as no surprise.

The supposed scholar says, “Koresh would have emerged from the compound peacefully, as promised, once he completed his work inside interpreting the Seven Seals in the Book of Revelation. To have come out earlier, she says, “might have compromised Koresh’s need to conform to strict biblical prophecy.”

Obviously such a conclusion strains credulity and ignores the facts.

Koresh broke the law, failed to comply with a warrant, murdered federal officers and then refused to surrender for 51 days, despite the repeated pleas and guarantees of law enforcement. In the end he chose instead to kill himself and all his followers within the compound.

The cult leader’s behavior had little if anything to do with “biblical prophecy” and his “work” was really more about criminal violations of gun laws and sexual abuse than the “Book of Revelation.”

However, “apologists” like Wessinger apparently ignore such facts in favor of speculation based upon specious, but supposedly “politically correct” views, instead of reality.

A United Pentecostal Church International (UPCI) minister has been named in a lawsuit regarding sexual misconduct reports the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

Rev. James Manning of Solid Rock Ministries is accused of sexually abusing a girl beginning at the age of 12.

Manning denies the claims and no criminal charges have been filed.

But the Pentecostal preacher has resigned from his position as district superintendent of the Missouri office of the UPCI.

Manning continues to pastor his church. And that church has also been named as a defendant in the suit.

This is the second sex scandal to rock the UPCI in less than a year.

The first hit when the denomination’s worldwide Sunday school Director Rev. Oree Nation, was arrested for sexual misconduct in a public park.

Nation plead guilty to a misdemeanor and was given probation. He was initially suspended without pay, but quickly opted for retirement.

The UPCI is known for its stringent code of “holiness” that mandates members must dress and groom in a certain conservative manner. For example, women usually wear no makeup and don’t cut their hair. Men are typically clean-shaven and wear short haircuts.

The denomination also believes that Christians who accept the trinity are in error and will be damned, unless they renounce that belief and accept the UPCI proscribed doctrinal formula for baptism.

Salvation is a fairly exclusive club according this Pentecostal group, but it looks like a few of its ministers need to worry about more than their haircuts.

For more than a hundred years teenage girls have been married off to polygamist men in the United States, often old enough to be their fathers.

But Lu Ann Kingston rejected her lot as a polygamist wife and walked out. Now she is sharing her history in an effort to promote legislation and make such practices a serious felony, reports the Salt Lake City Tribune.

Kingston who became a fourth wife at the age of 15 says, “Polygamists know there is a penalty, but it’s not that great.”

Under the proposed legislation marrying a second wife who is a minor will become a second-degree felony, with a possible 15-year prison term.

The legislation cleared the Utah House Judiciary Committee this week and seems likely to become law.

Such legislation is long overdue in Utah, which contains large groups of polygamists.

There are about 50,000 polygamists living in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The largest concentration of adherents is in Arizona and Utah.

But what about the leaders who make these girls marry?

Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff claims, “We’re not bluffing. We’re not just going after the husband, but also the prophets or leaders — whoever is commanding these young girls to get married.”

And after decades of ignoring polygamist abuses Utah has taken some action in recent years, but only after much media coverage and corresponding outrage.

In 1999, David Ortell Kingston was convicted of two felony counts for having sex with his niece. Kingston is a key leader of one of Utah’s largest polygamist groups. He was sentenced to prison, but will be released soon in June.

David Kingston’s brother was also sentenced to 7 months in jail for beating up his daughter when she refused an arranged marriage with her uncle.

Lu Anne Kingston, once a member of the same notorious sect, says that at 15 she was forced into marriage and had two babies by the age of 20.

She said, “It’s not easy to leave. There’s such a great fear of leaving [the girls] are told that [plural marriage] is the way to heaven.” And failure to submit to such practices potentially places that person in “outer darkness” for eternity.

Because of such unreasonable fears, which are indoctrinated from earliest childhood, few polygamists seriously question their lot in life and/or rebel against group authority.

Polygamist sects are most often ruled over by authoritarian “prophets” who essentially speak for “God.” They are absolute authoritarian leaders not unlike those that head purported “cults.”

Though the modern Mormon Church reflects an evolution of devolving power and greater accountability, these polygamist “prophets” remain much like the early Mormon leaders of the 19th Century, such as Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.

Both men were polygamists and their word was law amongst Mormons.

Perhaps Mormon history has made it difficult for Utah to face the dilemma of polygamy today?

Japanese cult leader Shoko Asahara, once the head of Aum, the group responsible for the 1995 poison gas attack upon Tokyo’s subway system, is still on trial.

Asahara, whose real name is Chizuo Matsumoto, has been sitting in court for almost seven years, reports Kyodo News Service.

Japanese justice grinds very slowly, but finely.

But now the man once revered as a virtual god and whose bath water was sold to followers refuses to speak.

Asahara who can barely see has chosen to also become mute, refusing to cooperate even with his attorneys. It seems the man who once spoke endlessly now thinks by not responding he is somehow in control.

Whatever.

Delusion dies hard. And Asahara’s variety of megalomania, relatively common amongst cult leaders, seems irrepressible.

However, whether Asahara deigns to speak or not the overwhelming evidence and testimony presented by prosecutors speaks for itself.

Asahara will be convicted and then probably sentenced to death.

Arrest warrants have been issued for the leader of a controversial church in Georgia called the “House of Prayer” and two of his followers, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Rev. Arthur Allen Jr. has apparently violated the terms of his probation, the result of a criminal conviction for “cruelty to children.”

Allen and church members routinely engaged in brutal beatings and whippings of children.

The leader and his followers had agreed to stop such discipline as a term of their probation. But it seems the fanatical Allen and his flock may have failed to follow that agreement.

Throughout the trial and subsequent press coverage Allen always appeared arrogant and unwilling to submit to any authority other than “God.”

However, Allen like many other fanatical leaders, seems to rely upon his own interpretation of what “God” wants, based upon his understanding of scriptures.

It appears the pastor has no meaningful accountability to a denominational authority, or an independently elected board that may fire or discipline him.

In what seems like an effort to retaliate against child protection services and the courts House of Prayer members have recently filed a federal lawsuit, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Regardless of whatever litigation his followers may file Allen seems destined to spend time soon within jail. Perhaps the pastor may make the jailhouse, his new “house of prayer.”

A California university established by a controversial Japanese Buddhist organization, which has been called a “cult,” is having serious problems.

25% of the faculty at the newly established Soka Gakkai University in Aliso Veijo, California have been dismissed and/or walked out. And students are dropping out in protest, reports the Orange Country Register.

Japanese businessman Daisaku Ikeda is the founder and leader of the modern Soka Gakkai sect. His organization seems to be in the midst of a public relations meltdown regarding its newest school in the United States.

The controversial Buddhist sect spent nearly a half billion dollars to get the 103-acre campus up and running.

But despite the group’s wealth and expensive effort it seems that teachers and students alike don’t appreciate the way it runs the school.

Soka Gakkai previously promised the new university would not be focused on its beliefs, proselytizing and religious indoctrination, but instead would reflect “an open, nonsectarian environment.”

However, professors and students say, “most decisions are made by an administration composed entirely of Soka Gakkai Buddhists.”

One professor said the university is “secretive, hierarchical, coercive and deceitful.” Another who was fired has taken legal action, alleging “religious discrimination.” And the university’s Dean of Faculty is gone, seemingly as the result of a purge.

There is a sharp divergence of opinion between those faculty and students affiliated with Soka Gakkai and others outside the group. Those within the organization essentially deny the seriousness of allegations.

It seems Soka Gakkai is having considerable difficulty adapting to an academic setting based upon openness and dialog. The organization is instead historically known for its autocratic and authoritarian tendencies.

A lawyer for one former teacher said, “In a university environment, you’re supposed to be able to ask questions.” One teacher added, “This is the least powerful faculty I have ever seen in my life.”

But the sect and its political party known as Komeito in Japan has a deeply troubled history of aggressive proselytizing, allegations of abuse and purported blind reverence and obedience to its leader Ikeda.

Maybe these academics and students should have done their homework before going to Soka U?

Fresh from the oven and conveyer belt, Krispy Kreme donuts have been a spectacular commercial success. The company has also proven its savvy marketing skills and developed a cult following.

However, some market analysts say it’s time to dump the donut stock, while others claim this cult phenomenon has “staying power,” reports Knight Ridder.

Krispy Kreme sold more than a half billion donuts to its faithful last year alone, which represented a 27% sales increase over the previous year.

Can there be any doubt that these donut devotees are diehards? And does this mean that Dunkin Donuts is doomed?

Sarah Michelle Geller, has decided to make this the last season for “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” reports Associated Press.

Seven years is a long run and Geller knows that after only five syndication residuals start rolling in. Geller 25, was only a teenager when she started in her role as Buffy, which quickly made her a star.

The show will certainly have a lucrative afterlife though through re-runs.

No doubt Buffy’s demise will dissappoint the cult following of devoted fans that the series developed over the years.

Pundits and reviewers have regularly mused if there was some deeper significance to the show’s success, such as “girl power” and/or a fascination with “witchcraft.” This has even been a focus for academic research, reported the University of Warwick in Britain.

However, the success of the show was not unlike any other television series, largely it was about well-defined and likable characters. And the vivid special effects certainly didn’t hurt its ratings.

But now it’s time for Geller to hang up her stake and move on. She will probably always be remembered as Buffy, even if she eventually marries her real life “angel” and becomes Mrs. Freddie Prinze Jr.

At least one group called a “cult” has been the recipient of substantial government funds in the United States–and without President Bush’s “faith based initiative.”

Millions of taxpayer dollars have already flowed into the coffers of one guru’s pet projects.

The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, who supposedly created Transcendental Meditation (TM), has a university called, what else, “Maharishi U.” The school in Iowa has received “$20 million dollars in state and federal funding for TM-related research,” reports Canada’s National Post.

Maharishi’s town in Iowa known as “Vedic City” was also recently granted $29,000 by the state for a salaried consultant.

The consultant “will research and coordinate energy saving technology into new construction at Vedic City, as well as for older buildings on the Maharishi University of Management campus,” reports the Fairfield Ledger.

The clever guru also managed to make a lucrative land deal late last year in the Bush family home state of Texas.

The Texas Department of Transportation paid the “Maharishi Global Development Fund” $14 million for acreage necessary to complete a highway, reported the Coppell Gazette.

It’s interesting to note that a guru, who controls a vast financial empire worth billions, can rely upon state and federal agencies to help him out.

At 92 Maharishi is as astute about money as ever and he doesn’t need to stand in line like evangelist Pat Robertson for any presidential “faith based initiative” funding.

Maybe it’s the guru’s vaunted meditation discipline or some special money mantra that enables him to so successfully scoop up government cash?