Have you ever heard of the metaphor of a frog in boiling water?
It goes something like this: If a frog is dropped into a pot of boiling water, it will immediately jump out, because the water is obviously dangerous. However, if a frog is put in room-temperature water that slowly comes to a boil, the frog will not notice the gradual rise in temperature. It will not be able to sense it is in danger until it is too late.
That is what it was like being in a church that slowly became a cult.
The church my family and I began attending when I was a teenager did not start out as a cult. It was a small community of believers that cared for each other and sought “to make Jesus known” above all. It truly felt like what the local church is supposed to be. However, after a few years, the burner turned on, and the temperature of the water began to rise.
My mom first noticed signs, then my dad, then me. It was at this church that we first experienced spiritual abuse. We did not know a cult could be in our backyard, let alone appear in our own church.
Two Points of Clarification
- When we hear the word “cult,” our minds might go straight to the Peoples Temple in Jonestown or the Branch Davidians in Waco. While both had tragic outcomes, they are also extreme examples of how a cult can operate. Cults are much more common than we think, and they often masquerade as churches. Hence the term, “cultic church.”
- All the red flags I am giving are ones that my family and I witnessed in the cult we left. This is not an exhaustive list of signs of a cultic church. I will provide links to other resources that can touch on other signs throughout and at the end of the post.
Cults are in our small towns and big cities. Their products are on our Spotify playlists and our bookshelves. So, how do we identify them?
Red Flag #1 – Emphasis on One (Human) Leader
Many cults disguised as Christian churches can more specifically be described as cults of personality. The telltale sign of these is one leader being revered above all other humans, like a god, or like a modern-day apostle or prophet that is specifically chosen by God. These leaders are usually quite charismatic, and often narcissistic. A church leader’s personality and image should be separable from the church itself. Church leaders are to model what it means to be a reflection of Christ, and nothing more.
Some examples of how my church qualified as a cult of personality:
- Other pastors told us congregants that the lead pastor (LP) was the only person who heard from God, so therefore, we were to listen to him.
- LP had a hard time giving up the pulpit to the many other capable pastors he hired.
- LP’s images and quotes saturated the church’s social media. It was less about Jesus and more about him.
- LP’s leadership had a toxic trickle-down effect. His narcissistic leadership style seeped into the leadership style of his staff. More than anything, this happened due to his abuse of his staff behind the curtain.
Red Flag #2 – Superiority Complex
Cult leaders like to ingrain into their members that their cult is the best and everyone who has not come into the cult is less-than and missing out. This usually stems from the narcissism of the leadership. This sign can reveal itself in the common language used by leaders and members alike. Personal examples include: “We have the best volunteers in the world… Our pastor is the greatest communicator on the planet… Our staff are the best and most hard-working people around.” While the people may be excellent, it is the self-promotion and claiming to have the “secret sauce” (I know, I cringed as I wrote it. Sorry.) that shows an unhealthy level of superiority.
This level of superiority was also shown in those we were encouraged to associate with. If members were in a small group that was outside the covering of the church, there was thinly veiled, passive-aggressive retaliation from the pulpit.
Another personal example of this complex is being told by LP from the pulpit that our church was the best around and if we wanted to leave, it was fine, but we would not be able to find a better church. “There’s the door,” we were told.
This characteristic is an overall theme that will be evident in the rest of the red flags I list.
Red Flag #3 – Questionable Financial Practices
This is one of the more well-known signs of a cult. A famous example is how the Cult of Scientology financially exploits its members for “a quarter of a million dollars minimum” according to former member, Leah Remini. A lesser-known but equally important example is how Bethel Church in Redding manipulates their attendees with their Word of Faith jargon by leading the group in “declaring” financial blessings as the offering is collected during service. Examples of these “offering readings” can be found here.
There are many different ways financial issues can present themselves in cults:
- No financial transparency. 501c3 organizations are legally required to have their Form 990 information available to the public at any time. However, when someone asks a member of cult leadership any questions about the church’s finances, there is usually resistance in the form of gaslighting, shaming, and/or threatening to or actively kicking that member out of the church.
- Mini-sermons on money during the service. Churches that are secure in their financial practices and theology of giving money will not be repeatedly preaching the importance of giving financially like their paychecks depend on it. They will be confident in what the Lord will provide through their members. Guilt-tripping is often subtly used here.
- Staff lifestyles are suspiciously lavish. Toward the beginning of Hillsong’s massive downfall, an article was published in the New York Post that detailed the gross misuse of church funds by leadership. It is important to recognize that these practices are not exclusive to megachurches. There were some noticeably suspicious spending habits within the leadership of my < 400-member church, whose congregation was made up of mostly young families. Some more obvious signs of this are expensive clothing and accessory choices of pastors (It is not a good sign if your pastor could be featured on the Instagram pages of @PreachersNSneakers or @ProphetsNWatches). Expensive houses, cars, vacations, cosmetic treatments, electronics, home renovations, and meals can all be red flags.
- The richest members of the church are given the most attention. For some cultic churches, it looks like blocking off the front rows of seats for the richest members on Sundays. For others, it is the pastors choosing to “do life” (another phrase I could go without) with the richest members and making sure to post about it on social media (e.g. Carl Lentz and Judah Smith with Justin Bieber). Rich members might even be given leadership roles they may or may not be qualified to fulfill.
- 90-Day Challenge. The 90-Day Challenge has become popular among churches of all denominations. They take Malachi 3:10-11 out of context and use it to justify a 90-day, no-strings-attached contract for new givers to give 10% of their income. If they do not receive a blessing from God in those 90 days, they get their money back, “no questions asked.” As if God is a genie that works on man’s timeline. It was pointed out in 2014 that these churches all use the same language about this challenge on their websites, word for word.
- Prosperity/Word of Faith theology. Whether or not they use the 90-day challenge model, prosperity gospel churches will have a constant emphasis on the promise of blessings if congregants give financial donations. Common words and phrases used are “sow a seed,” “abundance,” “we claim and declare,” “decree and declare,” etc. As I said earlier, guilt-tripping and shaming are common here. Tim Challies wrote an excellent article that gives more signs to look for when discerning what the prosperity gospel is and if it has any influence on a church. I also recommend watching American Gospel: Christ Alone for a full breakdown of Word of Faith theology. You’ll find it all to be cleverly intertwined with New Age practices.
While traveling home from a missions trip in Thailand, LP told my dad that he left behind a $200 pair of jeans as a donation and that his wife was not going to be happy about it. The Thai orphanage they worked with was reliant on shipments from Feed My Starving Children to provide for their kids. Why own a $200 pair of jeans, let alone wear them in a place where children are living in poverty?
Less than a year before I left the cult, the congregation was told by LP that we had received a $1 million gift from an anonymous donor to finally move into a permanent building after being a mobile church for several years. In the weeks that followed, the story changed and the gift became a loan, then a gift again, then a loan, and so on. When my dad met with LP to ask for clarity on whether the church was $1 million in debt or not, his questions were not received well. Instead, my dad was threatened. LP told him, “people have been kicked out of the church for less.”
Red Flag #4 – Hyper-focus on Numbers
In alignment with the last point, cults can get hyper-focused on numbers. How often does your leadership brag from the pulpit and social media about how many salvations or baptisms occurred in a given period? How often is a certain dollar amount mentioned, that has either already been raised or is a goal set to reach? Do you think each number given is accurate?
My mom would keep track of the dollar amounts given from the stage about our fundraising effort to get into our new building before the $1 million “gift,” but the numbers were not adding up from week to week.
Steven Furtick’s Elevation Church was heavily criticized nearly ten years ago for admitting they would plant people to come forward for spontaneous baptisms to encourage others to follow suit. They never showed regret for their actions, but instead, defended them. They went on to boast large baptism numbers. Unfortunately, LP idolized Steven Furtick — narcigesis and cult-leader tendencies included.
While I would be playing keys behind LP at the end of sermons, he would regularly do calls to accept Christ “with every eye closed and every head bowed.” He would ask people to raise their hands if they were accepting Christ. I found it interesting that he would acknowledge more people giving their lives to Christ than I saw hands go up.
A way this emphasis on numbers plays out week to week is the pressure on members, especially lay leaders, to invite people. I was a student leader for my youth group, and we were given graphics to post on social media every week and were told to consistently text people, inviting them to come that Wednesday. Looking back, I see myself as annoying instead of helpful to the Kingdom during that time, so I am grateful those invitations were mostly ignored.
Red Flag #5 – Ranking of Members
I do not know how common this is in other churches, but LP got this idea from an unnamed business book. In a secret leadership meeting with over 100 members in attendance, LP laid out a ranking system he and leadership used to classify congregants with a 1-7 scale.
Congregants who were 7s were the model members. They gave their time and money regularly and were consistent in attendance and inviting others. These are the people who just got it.
Members who were in the 4-6 range were those who were lacking in one or more of these areas. LP emphasized the importance of paying these people special attention. His sentiment: “They are the ones we need to focus on so they can become 7s.”
If members fell into the 1-3 range, LP said, “We will ignore them, but we aren’t going to ask them to leave.” Imagine if Jesus looked at us this way.
The slogan of this church was “Everybody’s Welcome. Nobody’s Perfect. Anything’s Possible” (which was not unique to them). Yet, this statement was not true in practice. The elitist culture operated in direct opposition to this statement.
Red Flag #6 – Board of Yes-Men
An essential part of having a healthy, Bible-based Church is an advising board of elders that governs the church body. They must be qualified according to the standards of 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 and elected by the church body to serve as a checks-and-balances system for church leadership. If there is any sign of partiality within the board, it is useless.
Two red flags with the cult I left were that the board was 1) personally put together by LP, and 2) kept secret from the congregation. He thought he created a board of yes-men so he could continue acting as he pleased while making himself look accountable in the eyes of the denomination. While some board members did fill the role of “yes-men,” others stood up to him when they uncovered his corrupt practices.
Red Flag #7 – Poor Treatment of Staff and Volunteers
As I mentioned in the introduction, this cult is where my family and I first experienced spiritual abuse. We did not know what it was before it was named for us by my mom’s therapist. See my Instagram post here for a detailed definition of spiritual abuse.
We as congregants did not know how badly staff was being abused until they had a mass exodus months before the organization imploded. It makes sense that we were not aware of the abuse because if we were, those staff members would have most likely been fired. However, the toxic culture that LP created for his staff trickled down into how volunteers and attendees were treated.
Cults often think they can play God with people’s lives, including relationships. They may try to dictate who members can and cannot interact with, which news sources they listen to, books they buy, clothes they wear, etc. They can even become so bold as to attempt and sometimes succeed at pulling members away from their families and friends. This can certainly happen if the people in a member’s inner circle are causing the member to question the cult and its leadership.
In a later point, I will further explain the role of false teachings in cults, but one of the teachings we heard more than once that directly relates to this topic is that “You are the common denominator of all your problems.” This was a way we were subtly conditioned and manipulated to question ourselves before possibly questioning anyone else, especially cult authority. LP deliberately sowed doubt into our minds with this tactic. This is a damaging teaching that took me years to fully eradicate from my mind.
A few more personal examples:
- New people were love-bombed at an expert level. The church was small enough that new people were pretty quickly noticed, so it was easily accomplished.
- There was exploitation and expectation of free labor beyond regular volunteering hours. I, among many others, worked there at a level equivalent to a part-time job. I was 16 when I became an informal intern, which was supposed to be a weekly opportunity for me to learn more about the many different aspects of being a worship leader in a church. Instead, I became their personal song machine. I would spend 2-3 hours every Tuesday in the green room, by myself, writing songs. One of my mentors would come in for a few minutes to add enough input to the song I was working on so it could be branded as the church’s, then leave me to it.
- When I tried to set up some boundaries for myself regarding where I was and was not led to serve, my servant’s heart was questioned and I was accused of not being a team player.
- After getting into the permanent building, LP bragged that its 40,000 square feet got flipped in 4 weeks by mostly volunteers. Some volunteers and all staff were putting in extremely long hours to get the building ready for the grand opening. The deadline did not have to be so tight, but LP and his wife thought otherwise, so there did not seem to be another option at the time.
Red Flag #8 – Shunning of Ex-Members
The true colors of cults come out in how they treat people who leave after asking too many questions. The classic response is shunning. Either subtly or overtly, staff and members of the cult are given the message to no longer be in contact with those who leave. This goes as far as avoiding ex-members when seeing them in public, no matter how close the relationship prior.
Some cults go further by smearing the reputation of those who leave. Ex-members may be badmouthed from the pulpit, in staff meetings, and/or in personal conversations—sometimes mentioned by name, sometimes not. Other times, the leaders are too cowardly to say anything because it is not in their best interests. Too many questions could be brought up, and that would be bad for business.
My family and I lost our entire community when we left. LP lied to staff members and told them that we did not want to be reached out to after we left, and they were later told that we were “toxic.” It was a devastating shift for us. While we were glad to be free, we did not expect to lose every single relationship we built there.
Red Flag #9 – False Teaching + No Discipleship
While this is the last item on the list, it is the most important. You may catch a cult in its early development stages if you start noticing unrepentant false teaching from the pulpit. Poor theology is the sandy foundation upon which cultic churches are built.
Teachings may slowly become less and less focused on the Bible in an existing church, or a new movement/organization can be founded on a blatantly false set of beliefs that are made from cherry-picking Scripture. Either way, sermons can become more like motivational speeches or TED Talks with some comedy mixed in. The goal often becomes about weaving one-liners into the so-called sermon so they can later be posted on the teacher’s and church’s social media for higher reach and engagement.
Remember, false teaching is often not easily detectable. It is important to take notice of the discernment the Holy Spirit gives all believers and to test everything as encouraged in 1 Thessalonians 5. As Charles Spurgeon said, “Discernment is not knowing the difference between right and wrong. It is knowing the difference between right and almost right.”
One specific way poor theology shows up in cultic churches is a lack of true discipleship, as we are told to conduct in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20). I and others that left the cult truly believed that if we had been biblically discipled while there, we would have seen through the many erroneous beliefs we were being taught and have made too much noise by asking too many questions. LP even admitted in an interview that discipleship was not his “thing.” True, biblical discipleship would have meant the end of the church (which eventually happened for other reasons).
Final Thoughts
While the cultic church I attended no longer exists, that is not the case for many in America and around the world. Some are so popular, they are topping the Christian music charts and are nominated for Grammys. Their leaders publish books that make the New York Times Bestseller list and they host and speak at the largest Christian conferences in the country. However, other cultic churches are small and unassuming like mine, and their damage can be just as harmful.
If you can relate to any of the red flags here and have experienced great hurt because of cultic leaders, I am so sorry. You have done nothing to deserve this. Abuse at the hands of those who use the name of God to rule with a worldly hand is never acceptable and always devastating to the abused and the Kingdom. You are not alone, and you are not weak. You are still so loved by the God who created you, and He wants to keep loving you through your journey of healing—the good, the bad, and the ugly.
If you do not relate personally but find yourself discouraged by this, I encourage you to not lose heart. As the Apostle Paul said to Timothy in 2 Timothy 4: “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” (vv. 3-5). Until Jesus returns, these cults will exist, but their leaders will all one day have to give an account before God for all the people they led astray because those “who teach will be judged with greater strictness” (James 3:1).
We should call out these false teachers and false churches, but not seek vengeance (Romans 12:19). God is not surprised by any of this, and He has the final say.
Additional Resources
Cultwatch – “How Pastors Get Rich”
Cultwatch – Church Risk Survey (This website in general is a great resource.)
Steven Hassan’s BITE Model of Authoritarian Control
Something’s Not Right: Decoding the Hidden Tactics of Abuse – and Freeing Yourself From Its Power by Wade Mullen
