When I wrote my book, Why We Left A Cult (Baker Books), I interviewed people who had been faithful members of religious organizations that the Christian world would call cults. The word “cult” has been used a lot in the media to refer to followers of Joseph Smith's teachings in west Texas: the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They believe the Book of Mormon, and count themselves as true Latter-day Saints.
Here is a truth about cults that has been higlighted by Warren Jeff's community, the FLDS. People who are happy in a cult would never use that word to describe their religious organization. To such people, the group offers structure, safety, and a rigid worldview that is comforting and defining. Only as such people escape the cult can they begin to see the restrictions on one's personal ability to relate to God.
That's why it is most often the ones who were most intimately involved with Mormonism as I was, who call it a cult when they leave. And that's why they won't go back. When the new “prophet” of the LDS Church recently offered an invitation to all ex-Mormons to return, my heart yearned for some of the security and comfort of Mormonism. But the thinking part of me, the part that cannot accept the anti-Biblical concepts of God, cannot accept that tradeoff.
For more information, see The Mormon Mirage 3rd Edition: A Former Member Looks at the Mormon Church Today (Zondervan, 2009). Also available as an audiobook and as an expanded-text E-book for Nook, Kindle and other reading devices.
