A 10:002 or 10:003 Unit ~ Cults and Controversy

Overview	Schedule		Activities		Formal Assignments		Resources
	Weeks 1-2	Weeks 3-5	Ads	Scenarios	Paper	Speech

Schedule: Weeks 1-2

Note: This unit runs just shy of 5 weeks (i.e. one-third of the semester, when one accounts for first-week introductory activities and university breaks). I’ve divided the readings and activities into 50-minute blocks (i.e.”days”); a 2 day-a-week class will cover two “days” of work in a single period.   I’ve designated “Questions for discussion and reading” for most days so that the instructor can adjust the pace of the class. Mine was a 2-day a week class. Students had a brief reading response due on most days they had reading (2 days a week). I wouldn’t have anything too time-consuming due on the days they also had drafts of the essays and speeches, but did at least ask them to look at a web-site and be ready to discuss it (“low-impact assignments”) so that we could fill up the other 50 minutes in the period. Note: DAY = HOUR Week 1 (Preparation for Essay) Day 1: What is a “cult”?  Read: Survey the web sites and see how each defines “cult.”  Questions for discussion or writing might include:  How is the web-site defining cult? Who is defining it this way (i.e. who runs the site)? Why might the group be defining the word this way? How is its agenda apparent from the definition? You might also consider the terms New Religious Movement  (NRM) and “alternative spirituality,” also used to describe cults. This exercise will not only give students a quick survey of the controversies surrounding cults. It will also allow them to come to terms with their own preconceptions about cults and the connotations of the word “cult.” Day 2: Writing about faith, religious experiences, and alternative ways of knowing  Read: excerpt from Kierkegaard for Beginners (pages 109-27).  This excerpt explains his discussion of the Abraham and Isaac story from Fear and Trembling.  My students struggled with this because many of them did not want to believe that Abraham, this Old Testament patriarch, was “crazy” because he listened to God. Discussion helped, as did the questions below in which they both had to understand the perspectives of “religious crazies” (i.e. the Heaven’s Gate people) as well as discuss personal experiences that evade “rational” explanation. Questions for discussion and writing might include: Explain, in your own words, what the terms “double movement,” “movement of infinite resignation,” “movement of faith,” “divine madness” and “leap of faith.”  Think of a historical or current event that could be explained in terms of this Kierkegaard’s philosophy. Day 3 Read: the following excerpts from St. Paul and St. Theresa of Avila (note that St. Paul and St. Theresa are also referred to the Gallanter readings in Week 2). Saint Theresa of Avila, Christian mystic: I saw an angel close by me, on my left side, in bodily form…I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron’s point there seemed to be a little fire.  He appeared to me to be thrusting it as times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God.  The pain was so great that I made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain that I could not wish to be rid of it.  The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. St. Paul, Acts 22:6-16: Now as I neared Damascus on my journey, suddenly about noon a brilliant light from heaven flashed around me. I dropped to the earth and heard a voice saying to me, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” “Who are you?” I asked. He said to me, “I am Jesus the Nazarene, and you are persecuting me.” (My companions saw the light, but they did not hear the voice of him who talked to me.)  I said, “What am I to do?” And the Lord said to me, “Get up and make your way into Damascus; there you shall be told about all you are destined to do.” As I could not see, owing to the dazzling glare of that light, my companions took my hands and so I reached Damascus. Then a certain Ananias, a devout man of the Law, who had a good reputation among all the Jewish inhabitants, came to me and standing beside me said, “Saul, my brother, regain your sight!” The same moment I regained my sight and looked up at him. Then he said, “The God of our fathers has appointed you to know his will, to see the Just One, and to hear him speak with his own lips. For you are to be a witness on behalf of all men, a witness of what you have seen and heard.  And now, why delay? Get up and be baptized and wash away your sins, invoking his name.” Also read the “exit statements” of Heaven’s Gate members (N.B. the original web-site http://www.heavensgate.com seems rather hit-or-miss. It has been archived by several other sites. Please get on it by whatever means, e.g. through the religious movements web site.  Questions for discussion and writing might include: 1) Consider what affects you the most as a reader in the following accounts of faith experiences. What details make these accounts most credible? What details make these accounts incredible? 2) Describe the actions of Heaven's Gate members, using these terms from Kiekegaard’s philosophy. 3)    In Rhetoric, you’ll be studying and mastering the arts of advocacy, argument and persuasion. Think now about the problems a young, promising rhetorician might encounter when trying to write about faith. You might recall and record a strange experience or a “leap of faith” you yourself endured.  What would be your goal in chronicling this experience for an audience? How would you achieve this goal? (Note: In my course, this was actually the first essay assignment in 10:002. I think it’s important to include such activities that address personal experience that cannot be explained by traditional, “rational” means so that students acquire some perspective and come to terms with the fact that in a given context they might be branded “crazy” for their beliefs.  I’ve also included with this essay assignment a brief explanation of the “baggage” they bring to the topic, anything that they think influences their study of cults and religious movements, since such awareness of impediments to objectivity is important.) Day 4 Our class watched the last half hour or so of Contact, which many of them had seen. I started it at the part in which the Jody Foster character “takes off” in the space ship and has an experience that she cannot explain in the “rational” means in which she is accustomed. Granted, some might say that the movie seems to come down on the side of religion, but Carl Sagan was a scientist after all. I thought it was a bit sketchy that, once she is stripped off her usual means of rational explanation, that then she is also domesticated, falling into the arms of the mystical hunk (Matthew McConaghey.) But this does raise an interesting question about faith/science and gender; the paradigm seems to be flipped here, as it is on the “X-Files” show, which will be familiar to many of them. (I’ve seen it only once myself, but there’s probably an episode out there that would fit in this unit.)  This excerpt really helped students visualize a scenario in which supposedly reliable forms of explanation fail. Week 2 Day 1: Objectivity in a Controversial Field? Read: Thomas Robbins, “Balance and Fairness in the Study of Alternative Religions” from Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field. (71-98). Robbins is a self-identified “cult apologist.” He lays out lots of the nuances of the debate as well as a cult lexicon: destructive cult, mind control, brain-washing, coercive deprogramming, charismatic leadership etc.  Robbins explains why objectivity is difficult in this charged field.  He uses the word “controversy” a few times, which may impress upon the students the immediacy of the issue. Questions for discussion and writing might include: 1)    Why does Robbins allege that cults generate such controversy?  Why does the very topic of cults make objectivity (a “neutral” standpoint) hard? Do you think this difficulty is unique to this topic?  What other topics (or “controversies”) are difficult to view objectively? 2)    What mini-controversies do cults give rise to? 3)    Explain what Robbins means by: destructive cult, mind control, brain-washing, coercive deprogramming, charismatic leadership. (These are just a few of the “buzz terms” that you might want students to know so they can have a vocabulary by which to discuss cults.) Day 2 Continue discussing the Robbins article because it’s really filled with lots of good information. Have students find evidence to support Robbins’ claim by finding news stories (say, about the Raelians) that illustrate how and why it’s hard to talk objectively about eccentric religious beliefs. (Even examples of cultural differences, such as different religious practices in other times and cultures like the Middle Ages, might work.) Day 3: The Charismatic Group Read: Gallanter (1-12) “The Charismatic Group” and  (227-9) “The Charismatic Group: A Summary.” Gallanter tends to explain cult conversion as compensating for a person’s weaknesses—where they are coming from rather than the cult’s own unique attractiveness. He studies the cults as social systems, and doesn’t do any close readings of cult literature and rhetoric, which is where students can fill in the gap. When I taught this course, helpful analogies between cults and any membership in any group began to be made here. Questions for discussion and writing might include: 1) Summarize briefly some of Gallanter’s reasons why people join cults. 2) Why would he say that people join one cult and not another? 3)  What is Gallanter’s bias? Is there a perspective on why people join cults that he misses? Explain. Day 4 For this period, have them survey the religious movements web site. Have them work in groups and report to each other about a cult or two that piqued their interest. Other students will ask questions about the selected cults. This will inspire their preliminary thinking on the cult on which they will focus their paper and speech and get them talking about their plans in a relaxed environment.

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