Are They Cults?

Since my article "Covenant Community: A failed promise" was picked up by Cultic Studies Journal several people have asked whether I thought that covenant communities such as People of Praise, The Word of God, Alleluia!, Sword of the Spirit, etc. are cults. Even though there seem to be 'cultish' aspects to them, I doubt that they are. Members are free to read the papers, go to the church of their choice, vote Republican or Democrat, work for secular firms, and join Rotary or Kiwanis. There is no physical restraint.

The restraints are spiritual. Members fear spiritual consequences if they leave -- loss of faith, falling into the hand of the devil, the moral corruption of their children, and so on. (And many legitimately fear the loss of friendships if they leave.)

The problem is not that these communities are cults but that they are founded on a heresy, specifically an ecclesiological heresy. I don't say that they teach heresy. Because these communities don't teach any Christian doctrine, they don't explicitly teach anything heretical. What they do teach, however, is based on a false understanding of the Church, the people of God. In fact their failure to teach any doctrine, heretical or orthodox, is one sign of the underlying heresy.

What is this heresy? The covenant communities falsely believe that the people of God, the Body of Christ, is constituted by the decisions of individuals to join into a 'fellowhip of the perfect'. They do not claim, of course, that members are perfect, but they do believe that Christian perfection—holiness—is achieved by living fully the life of the community under the direction of charismatic leaders, leaders whose authority flows not from ordination but from their own gifts (See Steve Clark's book Unordained Elders and Renewal Communities).

We see this manifested in a variety of ways. Steve Clark once stated (in writing) that members of the community can be holy only to the extent that their leaders are holy. The Word of God in Ann Arbor was named so because they believed that their community was to a just that—God's word spoken to the state of Michigan and to the whole Church. Paul DeCelles, overall coordinator of the People of Praise, said in 1984, in response to the questions 'who are we and what is our work?': "We are the People of God. Our work is to renew the face of the earth." These are claims only the Church can make. In his community's publication The Vine and the Branches, he once explained that he did not want the oversight of the local bishop, because it would not be helpful to have an "outside organization" involved in the life of the community. The Church is an "outside organization"?

So the fundamental problem with these covenant communities is not that they are cults but that they are heretical.