Thank you for all your e-mails! Evidently, as I dare to become a little more contentious, I am hitting on a few more raw nerves and my modest blog is becoming more widely read.

This week I have received many questions along the lines of, “How do I know whether I am in a sect?” Although I wrote back to most of you with a few web links that, in my opinion, answer that question, still the request often came back as to whether I could provide my own personal top four.

Why four? No idea. Obliging as ever, here we go then, with my top four sect-testing criteria:

Theology

Is the overall theology of your church in line with the majority of the established churches around the world?

A classic checklist here would include your church’s interpretations of the Bible with regards to: a) women governing churches, b) non-believers going to hell, c) giving at least 10% of your gross income to the church, d) attitudes towards homosexuality, e) the mission:social engagement ratio, and  f) democracy.

In the church I belonged to, for example, in contrast with the majority of churches around the world, women were not allowed to govern churches, all those who did not personally accept Jesus as their saviour were condemned to eternal hell, you were expected to give at least 10% of your gross income to the church, homosexuals were regarded as demonic deviants, evangelism/mission took precedence over social engagement and leaders made all the decisions.

What does your church look like?

Change of expectations

Sects, like businesses, are always looking for recruits who can ultimately help pay the bills and fund their leaders. Tactics are used to win new recruits. Therefore, you will notice, if you are in a sect, a change of the ground rules between before and after joining your church that you would not find in a mainstream church. For example:

Money: before joining the church, you will be invited, for example, to an Alpha Course, where for several weeks you receive a free dinner and warm hospitality and are told that everything is free and that the church is not after your money. Once you are in the church, you will hear a different message: namely that you should give to “God” at least 10% of your gross income.

Salvation: if the church you are looking to join is a sect and you turn up initially with the question, “My husband/teenage daughter has just died and did not believe in God/Jesus, is he/she now in heaven or in hell?”, you will get an answer along the lines of, “We cannot be sure, but God knows the secrets of our hearts and He will graciously judge you husband/daughter upon their death.” Once you join the sect, however, you will find out the truth, namely that everyone who does not believe in Jesus is being punished in eternal hell fire. That includes your husband/daughter. But by then, however, you will no longer be thinking about them since you will only be concerned about your own salvation. Phew!

Sex: if you are already in a, even faithful, long-term, extra-marital relationship when you first start going to your church, you will be told that that’s okay. Once you want to join the church, however, you will be told that people having sex outside marriage cannot join the church. The same applies to prostitutes, homosexuals or trans-gender people, in the unlikely event that they ever get as far as even visiting a church.

Drugs: if you smoke cigarettes or cannabis (or whatever) when you first start going to your church, you may be lucky enough to be told that that’s okay. Once you want to join the church, you will be told that you should not smoke/consume drugs any longer.

There are more, but these examples should suffice for now …

What does your church look like?

Transparency

If you are in a sect, it will appear at first to be completely transparent. Yet if you begin to ask straight-forward questions that require genuine transparency, you will be at best turned away without an answer or otherwise told that you are being out of order. I can 100% guarantee you this.

As a litmus test, try, if you dare (and “dare” is evidence in itself that you most probably in a sect), to ask some of the following transparency questions of your church/sect leaders: a) Exactly how much do your leaders earn? (The salaries of teachers, civil servants and politicians are freely available on the internet). b) Can you see the balance sheet and profit and loss statement of the church’s accounts for the last three financial years? c) Can you see exactly how much of your church’s income (all funds) is given to the organisation that oversees your church? (By the way, if there is no organisation overseeing your church, you are definitely in a sect!)

What does your church look like?

Adherence before genuine friendship

This is a bit tricky, since you may need to do something wrong in order to put this issue to the test, as I did. When I did something wrong in the church (VERY wrong, by the way), every single friendship closed down on me. Adherence to the sect ultimately took precedence over genuine friendship. Just two examples: a) When I got into difficulty, I desperately needed at least two long-term friends from my church to come to visit me. They wanted to, but their leaders didn’t allow them to, so they never came. Result = sect adherence > genuine friendship. b) Please remember that I have four dear children whom I had dragged into my obedience to church-planting in Berlin. Once the crisis came, the church sect completely wrecked my family by coercing my wife and four children to return to England. The two older ones rightly refused to get on the plane and remained in Berlin. The sect promised in writing support for our  two older children which it later without further notification suddenly withdrew, leaving our two children literally to live on the street and in the subway for two months until I was free to help them. Once my wife had come to her senses six months later, she returned with the younger two children to begin the long-haul process of rebuilding our family. We continue to rebuild and to pick up the pieces from the consequences of belonging to a sect. In the meanwhile, has any friend from the church come to visit? Of course not.

What does your church look like?

So, to those who have written to ask whether or not they might be in a sect, I recommend that you work through the above issues. And if the result is that you are in a sect, even though you thought you were in a wonderful, grace-oriented church, for God’s sake, get the hell out. It will be the best decision you ever made.

“If there is a God, atheism must seem to Him as less of an insult than religion.”  Edmond de Goncourt