July 2008Unanswered Prayers: The Story of One Woman Leaving the International Church of Christ - by Drew Bratcher, Washingtonian Magazine, Washington, DC (Photos of Jenny Hunter included.)
A straight-A senior at Georgetown went to a Bible-study group. But the promise of heaven wound up turning her life into hell...
...Not long after joining the International Church of Christ, Jenny Hunter stood on Key Bridge considering whether suicide was better than life as a church disciple...
...The church recruited on college campuses...
...In January 2006, a year after returning home, Jenny entered Wellspring, a cult-recovery center in Ohio...In her two weeks at Wellspring, she found people who understood what had happened to her....
...She has also started a nonprofit, the Alliance for Cult Recovery & Education, to inform college students about cults...
The article above is currently being discussed on the ICC Discussion forum - July 16, 2008
Cults have never been a big problem at Syracuse University, but they are present, said Thomas Wolfe, dean of Hendricks Chapel...
..."We have (in the past) become aware of groups where it's clear they don't have the student's best interests in mind," Wolfe said...
...At first, cults offer unconditional love and acceptance, Wolfe said. They then slowly cause members to lose perspective. Members often feel safe telling secrets they would otherwise never reveal, and groups can use this to exert control over their members, he said.
Some try to make members drop out of college, Giambalvo said...
October 17, 2007Conquering coercion, Amanda Wilcosky, Staff Writer, The Post,
Ohio University
Wellspring Retreat helps former cult members recover...
...Wellspring is the only residential facility in the world that treats people who have been in cults or abusive relationships, said Donna Adams, Wellspring's clinical director...
...The Wellspring model describes to individuals how they were recruited and how group dynamics kept them from thinking independently, Martin said...
...Martin, Adams and Orchowski agreed that those who become involved with cults or abusive groups do not have a predisposed weakness and should not be stigmatized...
...As part of Parents Weekend, the USC Department of Sociology presented "Sects in the City: Protecting Your Children from Cults" ...with the aim of educating parents about how to help their children avoid cult recruitment techniques.
"Cults are known to recruit on college campuses," said the presenter, Doni Whitsett, a professor in the School of Social Work and an independent clinician...
...groups on and around USC's campus - including the LaRouche movement and the Los Angeles Church of Christ - have been accused of cult activity in the past...
...Los Angeles Church of Christ ... a branch of the International Church of Christ...
Revd. Elizabeth Davenport
Senior Associate Dean of Religious Life
...If it comes to the notice of the Office of Religious Life that a group
has violated the terms of the Ethical Framework, prompt action is taken to rectify the situation, and if any students feel that a religious group is making unreasonable demands on them, the deans of Religious Life strongly encourage them to come and talk about it.
June 28, 2007
Fellowship Or Foe?, Kelly Wilson, The Diamondback, University of Maryland, Maryland
The Washington University Bible Fellowship, a small, university-focused evangelical church on Metzerott Road, has become the home to a number of students, and is described by many of them as a "close-knit community."...
...recently accusations of member abuse and cult-like behavior have been raised by students at the university...
...Another student, who also asked not to be named because he is a current member of the local UBF, said the amount of control in the church makes it impossible for a trusting relationship to form...
...Denny Gulick, a mathematics professor at this university who runs a training session on cults for resident assistants, said the accusation is a complicated one.
The word "cult" has to do only with a pattern of behavior, Gulick said, and nothing to do with religious beliefs. He said such a group replaces the rules of typical society with its own, operating through the domination, manipulation, coercion and control of its members, which can have serious and detrimental effects on the people involved...
July 5, 2007Letters to the Editor, The Diamondback, University of Maryland, Maryland
...A pamphlet from the Interfaith Center stated that the groups tend to recruit students who are new to campus, missing their home, feeling unloved, overwhelmed, hopeless, lonely, hurting, looking for a friend or struggling
academically...
...Preventing students from joining these groups is important because it is not easy to leave, Langworthy said...
...Interfaith, Langworthy said, tries to help inform students about high-pressure groups on campus so that they don't get tricked into joining a group that they are not informed about...
...college officials say they view most of these groups as high-pressure organizations akin to cults. The groups have a history of recruiting vulnerable students and then alienating them from their parents and classmates. They say that the groups, many of which were banned from schools more than a decade ago, resurfaced on campuses this year...
...The Boston Church of Christ, which was founded in Lexington in 1979, and the LaRouche Youth Movement, a political group founded by former presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche, are the two groups appearing most often on local campuses, officials said.
The groups are considered high-pressure organizations because they have been accused of using strong-arm tactics to recruit and keep members...
I am concerned about cults recruiting on the Northeastern campus. You may see them on the street, on campus and outside the Marino Center. They may recruit you personally, in the residence halls, in classrooms, somewhere off-campus, online and they may even promote their organization in this very newspaper...
...College campuses are a main recruiting ground for cults, because of the availability of bright, energetic and passionate young adults who want to change the world...
...cult or not?
A good first step would be Googling the name of the organization along with the word "cult." You may get lots of hits, probably with competing opinions. You can check out cult-awareness Web sites like www.cultsoncampus.com or www.factnet.org. Finally, you will need to judge for yourself...
...Loomis -- a former Cornell University director of unions and activities who has studied cults for 35 years and speaks at colleges across the country -- said the International Churches of Christ (ICOC) is the most active cult at Penn State.
"ICOC is one of the most active cults not only at Penn State, but on campuses across the country," he said. "It was present when I was here four years ago, and I confirmed today that it still is."...
