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  %GIFT SECURITY FREE SAFE VULNERABLE LEADER HONEST 930505

     In the absence of familiarity with healthy  religious
communities  which  give  the gift of true security as the
freedom  to  be safely vulnerable,  often  religious  cult
leaders  evolve  who give to people what they need but  do
not  get in traditional churches;  a  deep and  satisfying
sense of personal belonging in a special and secure way to
a community of  people  who  are open and honest with each
other. Such religious cult leaders fill a deeply felt need
and create  around  them communities  of followers filling
each other's unmet  need for  the  gift  of  true security
known  as  the freedom to be  safely  vulnerable  in  each
other's presence.

     Religious cult leaders evolve because there are  many
people  who  are  not  familiar  with  healthy   religious
communities  which give the gift of true security known as
the  freedom  to be  safely  vulnerable.   Religious  cult
leaders  would  have  no  significant  followings  if  the
majority  of  religious communities gave the gift of  true
security known as the freedom to be safely vulnerable.

     Too  often  religious communities  offer  threatening
messages  of  conditional acceptance which must be  earned
through   some   particular   form   of   conformity    to
prohibitions, injunctions, taboos,  rituals, recitation of
doctrines,  agreement with statements of belief, etc.  The
messages are not messages of liberation.  The messages are
not  ones  which  offer true security  in a  community  of
integrative   people.   Too  often  the  message  is  that
acceptance may possibly come later, but only if conditions
are met; and that acceptance will most likely be withdrawn
if   conditions  are  not  constantly  met.   Most  people
recognize  that  such  conditions  are  disintegrative  of
people  and  communities;   and so many  people  look  for
religious  leaders who appear to be leading a more healthy
religious  community which is more accepting,  and  within
which each member has a real sense of being special.

     Religious cult leaders too often lead their followers
to  perceive  themselves as being special  in  ways  which
involve alienation between the followers  and the  rest of
the   surrounding  society.   In  such  a  cult  religious
community  being special does not involve working for  the
integrity  of  the religious  community and also  for  its
integration into the surrounding  society  as a witness to
the  surrounding society.  Being special  does not involve
personal  integrity in freedom and encouragement to be  in
uninhibited dialogue with  the  members of the surrounding
society.   Being  special  comes  increasingly   to   mean
conforming to special conditions and being  separated from
and alienated from those who are not special. The sense of
security in belonging to the special community is achieved
at  the  expense of alienation from the rest of the  wider
community.  Such alienative relationships lead to personal
and  communal disintegration,   and are the heart of  evil
realities.
                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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