1) The group is focused on a living leader to whom members seem to display excessively zealous, unquestioning commitment.
REPLY: it is common knowledge that every organization expects loyalty from its members. Loyalty can only be earned and cannot be forced. If loyalty and questioning is absolutely forbidden the ex-disciples who left would not have left so easily. There was no oath taken as done in pagan setting. No blood covenant entered into. As people/ disciples enter freely and go away freely. The claim that SCOAN is a cult is therefore wrong.
2) The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
Madelaine: “My family has never tried to recruit me because I think they know that I am a lost cause. But they have put huge amounts of effort into publicizing SCOAN”
REPLY: Madeleine should realize that bringing in new members is not done in SCOAN by ordinary publicity; rather it is done by the work of the Holy Spirit by way of miracles when the gospel is preached and the work is confirmed by the Holy Spirit by way of miracles signs and wonders following. Does the work of the Holy Spirit Make SCOAN a cult?
3) The group is preoccupied with making money.
Here Madeleine suspects that her friends sold their property in England and gave it to the SCOAN, Granted her suspicion is true, was the family forced to do so? Mark you this is mere suspicion. Granted that her suspicion is correct does a gift to SCOAN justify saying that they are busy asking for money? Not at all, SCOAN cannot be called a cult on this ground.
Giles under this heading is of the opinion that giving members who pay their tithes regularly the opportunity by way of issuing them with passes to SCOAN’S prayer mountain to pray and worship over those non-serious Christians is wrong. He sees the action as money making. What would he call the youths who do not pay tithe but go there to pray as well? Loosing money?
Regulating the number of people who go to the mountain my issuing those who endeavour to obey Gods instruction and also regulate the number since the space at the mountain is very limited in comparison to the number of people who want to go there. Giles himself in the concluding paragraph of his write up said:
“Again it has to be said here that there is definitely a need to regulate people in some way though”
There are thousands of members waiting to get into that particular bit of land so thy obviously have to take turns but money and control play a big part of the whole thing. If you ever stopped paying your tithes or fall foul of the ministry in anyway, you don’t get to go there anymore” what type of regulation does Giles want the ministry to employ? The use of good standing in the church is most appropriate; this does not make SCOAN a cult, does it?
4) Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
REPLY: Giles: when I was a boy, I was told in the Sunday school class that obedience is the first rule in heaven. From the account you have given of yourself on TB Joshuawatch, it looks as though you were disobedient all through. You resented being corrected. Reporting each other is a mechanism the disciples must have devised to check and make sure they were behaving properly, some of the disciples who mean business, whose conscience blame them when a fellow disciple does something that brings shame to them must have devised the method. Thank God you even commended the system when you said
“to be fair, sometimes that disciple might have been approached beforehand and given opportunity to change, like it says in the Bible” it might actually BE THE BEST WAY to deal with a particular sin, I mean its possible that a lot of people never again did whatever it was they were doing out of sheer fear of being reported again”
Thank you again that you commended TB Joshua for not taking sides. What then are you quarrelling about? When Lucifer rebelled in heaven, he was punished by being expelled from heaven. Rebellion ought to be punished. Your conduct brought shame to your fellow disciples, hence according to you, as you said
“I was ostracized by the foreign disciples and banned from the dinning room”
5) Mind-numbing techniques (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, debilitating work routines) are used to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s)
ANS; the Bible encourages meditation: Joshua 1:8
This book of the law shall not depart out of thy mouth; but thou shall meditate therein day and night, that thou mayest observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then thou shalt make thy way prosperous, and then thou shalt have good success.
Psalm: 1:2-3
But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night
1 Timothy says:
meditate upon these things, give thyself wholly to them that thy profiting may appear to all.
Chanting was practiced during the time of David and speaking in tongues is the gift of the Holy Spirit which fell on the day of Pentecost. Acts 2: 2-3. The Bible supports speaking in tongues, whats wrong with them? Is meditation and speaking in tongues cultic?
And as for Giles, following the link provided to the original article, it is right for a trainee disciple to concentrate on God’s work rather than socializing while training, the Bible in Philippians 4:8 says
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.
Madelaine under this heading said she visited the hope that she would have an opportunity to spend time her son who was there as a disciple but they were always busy and had no time to stop.
I wonder why Madelaine went there to disturb and distract her son from concentrating on his training...
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