Don’t Be Drawn Away by Cults.

March 29, 2023

Unless you’ve been there, you may not ever understand that sometimes things just have to be done. You, yourself, may not choose to live this way, but at the same time, you may know someone who has. You’ll want to pray for them and remember it’s possible it wasn’t their choosing to go this route.

Take a moment and think about this. Maybe there was a time you sat on your front porch, rocking the day away. Or, you may have been chatting quietly with a friend across the fence. Or could be you stepped outside to light the grill and your ears perked up at the sound.

You’d heard the rhythmic pulse before. You probably related it to bygone years and events. Sometimes they were happy, sometimes they were sad. As you stop what you’re doing, the sound often comes and goes with the wind. More a vibration than anything. You hear it—then you don’t.

While the sounds generate memories for you, glory days, or days you’d just as soon forget, please know there are people, some, your neighbors hidden away, doing the things that just have to be done. When I tell you who they are, you’ll not readily recognize them as a cult. You’re not likely to think, “Hey, I knew there was something going on with them.”

But, then again, you may.

I’m talking about “band parents.”[1]

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That’s right. The little-known cult that changes the way you react when you hear a marching band practice, or see a band performing at a parade or football half-time show.

I’m joking of course. My wife and I joke about once belonging to the “band parent cult” as a result of seven straight years of having daughters in the high school marching band.

Seven marching band seasons. Each beginning in August with band camp and running through football season, with all home games on Friday, marching competitions on Saturday, and parades thrown in here and there for good measure. Then there were the band parent meetings, the fund raisers, prop construction, and the role my wife loved and did with such great commitment, “Uniform Mom.”

We often wonder how we got it all done. Of course, our girls spent way more time and energy actually being in the band, but I found one high school website that has a helpful fourteen page “Unofficial Guide for Rookie Marching Band Parents.” Should it take fourteen pages to just be the parent?

Of course, I say all this in jest. Those seven years were great years. To this day, we say our girls were the most productive and organized during marching band season than any other time. The girls made lifelong friends and many of the band parents are also great friends because of being band parents. Our family wouldn’t trade the experiences for anything. Also, it’s probably not surprising my wife and I were both in the band when we were in high school. 

But, when it comes to our lives here on earth and more importantly, how we spend eternity, cults are no joke.

Cults have been around since the time of Jesus. Paul warned the early Christians (and us) to be on the lookout for cults. Look what he says in Acts Chapter 20.

“I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them.” (Acts 20:29-20, NASB)

I’m not identifying or listing cults here. I want to encourage you to know the truth and judge all other religious organizations by God’s standard.

“In a Christian context, the definition of a cult is, specifically, “a religious group that denies one or more of the fundamentals of biblical truth.” A cult is a group that teaches doctrines that, if believed, will cause a person to remain unsaved. A cult claims to be part of a religion, yet it denies essential truth(s) of that religion. Therefore, a Christian cult will deny one or more of the fundamental truths of Christianity while still claiming to be Christian. The two most common teachings of Christian cults are that Jesus was not God and that salvation is not by faith alone. A denial of the deity of Christ results in the view that Jesus’ death was insufficient to pay for our sins. A denial of salvation by faith alone results in the teaching that salvation is achieved by our own works.”^[2]

We find the Biblical truths in the one place you would expect—the Bible. The Bible, inspired by God, and written by those anointed by Him, is our only source of truth. Others may try to share their version of the Bible either written by someone other than God, or words they claim were given to them by God.

So we don’t get drawn away by cults, or as Paul says, “savage wolves speaking perverse things to draw the disciples after them”, I pray we all spend quality time in God’s word, to know His truths.

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[1] The photo for this week is of band parents trotting props out onto the field during one of our seven years of service.

[2] https://www.gotquestions.org/cult-definition.html