Frankly Answered Questions - FAQs

My friend has joined a Christian "community." Is it a cult?

Q: I have a friend who has recently joined a Christian community. There are apparently a number of these communities around the United States. Each community is given the name of one of the tribes of Israel and they have a very Jewish flavor to them: Jewish dancing, bearded men, etc. My friend and her family were really taken in by these people and they were shown a lot of love. The community helped them out by paying their bills and coming to visit them often. I've looked over their doctrines and teaching and it seems to be in order for the most part. However, there were two things that raised concern in my mind.

First, in order to join the community you must give up all of your material goods. Money, cars, bank accounts are all signed over to and held by the community. My friend and her family sold everything and then went to live in the community. Everyone is ministered to from a common community fund. There are no needy people among them.

The second thing that concerned me was that these people believe that anyone who doesn't join them is not a believer. If you were a believer you would recognize that this is a call from God to unite with them. They believe that God is calling together their communities to prepare for the last days. Basically they believe that all other churches have missed the boat since the first century and they are the Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ spoken of in Scripture. They are purifying themselves for Christ's coming. I met with some of them a few times and they told me I was not a believer because I rejected their message.

Any thoughts?

A: Concerning the communities and your friend, I am very, very sorry to hear that your friend and her family are joining. The communities may have a lot of wonderful things, but any group that believes they are exclusively the Body of Christ gives the lie to Jesus' words about the kingdom as a mustard seed (Matthew 13:31-32). The kingdom of God fills the whole earth in the last days, not just a few communities (Daniel 2:34-35,44-45)! Pride is a great sin and causes great division among God's people: "I am of Paul. I am of Apollos. I am of Cephas. I follow Christ" (1 Corinthians 1:12). Drawing the Body of Christ too narrowly is just as wrong as drawing it too widely. The way is narrow and few find it (Matthew 7:14), but not that narrow! The Pharisees were followers of the law in every detail and every ceremony, yet Jesus rebuked them more strongly than He did the Sadducees, the liberals of the day, because of their pride and exclusiveness (Matthew 23:13-15). This exclusiveness is usually the mark of a cult: "Unless you join our church, you are not saved!"

Another sign of a cult is the requirement to sell all of your goods and place it in a community fund. Usually cults will appeal to Acts 2:44-45 and Acts 4:32-5:4. They say this shows that the New Testament church was a communal system. I'm always surprised by this, because a careful reading shows that people still held private property (4:34,37; 5:1,4). The sharing of goods was an attitude (see 4:32), not a system of economics. A communist system works well for cults, because it keeps the individual dependent on the cult and makes it difficult to leave.

I'll continue to research the communities and let you know what I find.