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Negative experiences of New Religious Movements?

Eddi

Agnostic
Premium Member

I wasn’t sure where to post this but I thought here would be best. If it should be somewhere else then perhaps it could be moved?

Although I’m a member of a congregation and believe in God I consider myself a seeker: I’m always interested in what other religious traditions have to offer and have always been open to changing my beliefs and affiliation in light of reason and evidence. My mind is always open and always will be but I will always be critical of claims and arguments designed to win me over and will approach these using both my intuition and reason.

I’d like to share my negative experience/involvement here with an unusual NRM (New Religious Movement) and would be interested to hear from people who have had similar negative experiences or involvements. I will not name the organisation I encountered. Here is the Wikipedia article about the concept of the NRM:

New religious movement - Wikipedia

I have a friend who has been entirely won over by a NRM. It is a major part of his life. I think he even gives 10% of his income to them. They have heavily coached him (and I mean HEAVILY) into being able to evangelize for them, using the bible. He can come over as being very persuasive. One day invited me to their church and I accepted. I was genuinely curious and approached it with an open mind. A mutual friend of hours had already converted; by being baptised in his own home by a mobile pastor.

When we got there, basically what happened was that they wanted me to undergo a rite of baptism, and become one of them. They put a lot of pressure on me to do this. This set alarm bells ringing. I didn’t want to do this; I had then and have now my own religious affiliation and saw no good reason to abandon these spiritual commitments in favour for what this NRM had to offer. So they sat me down in a little room all by myself and for over half an hour and they went to work on me, trying to demonstrate how the bible says their church is the one true church: they related bible passages to other bible passages from different parts of the bible to justify their belief that their church is mentioned in the bible. It all seemed very tenuous and convoluted but they obviously believed it all. They had a big book of “evidence” to support their interpretation of scripture. The whole thing didn't sit right with my instincts and they failed to successfully appeal to my reason.

I wasn’t having any of it. I made it perfectly clear I was not interested in joining them and declined their advances. For over half an hour they took it in turns trying to win me over, and were obviously going through every trick in their book and were desperately taking turns and trying to figure out different approaches and ways of appealing to me. I just sat there, politely declining as they tried to brow-beat me into having some water poured over my head. They’d obviously never had someone put up such a resistance before. I could tell from their faces. Eventually they gave up on me. I think what got them was that I strongly believed in God and somewhat in the historical Jesus and the validity of the bible as a holy text yet wasn't up for joining their church.

One thing in their favour though: they served up some nice food.

Anyone else experienced anything similar? Without naming names, of course.​
 

David T

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
I wasn’t sure where to post this but I thought here would be best. If it should be somewhere else then perhaps it could be moved?

Although I’m a member of a congregation and believe in God I consider myself a seeker: I’m always interested in what other religious traditions have to offer and have always been open to changing my beliefs and affiliation in light of reason and evidence. My mind is always open and always will be but I will always be critical of claims and arguments designed to win me over and will approach these using both my intuition and reason.

I’d like to share my negative experience/involvement here with an unusual NRM (New Religious Movement) and would be interested to hear from people who have had similar negative experiences or involvements. I will not name the organisation I encountered. Here is the Wikipedia article about the concept of the NRM:

New religious movement - Wikipedia

I have a friend who has been entirely won over by a NRM. It is a major part of his life. I think he even gives 10% of his income to them. They have heavily coached him (and I mean HEAVILY) into being able to evangelize for them, using the bible. He can come over as being very persuasive. One day invited me to their church and I accepted. I was genuinely curious and approached it with an open mind. A mutual friend of hours had already converted; by being baptised in his own home by a mobile pastor.

When we got there, basically what happened was that they wanted me to undergo a rite of baptism, and become one of them. They put a lot of pressure on me to do this. This set alarm bells ringing. I didn’t want to do this; I had then and have now my own religious affiliation and saw no good reason to abandon these spiritual commitments in favour for what this NRM had to offer. So they sat me down in a little room all by myself and for over half an hour and they went to work on me, trying to demonstrate how the bible says their church is the one true church: they related bible passages to other bible passages from different parts of the bible to justify their belief that their church is mentioned in the bible. It all seemed very tenuous and convoluted but they obviously believed it all. They had a big book of “evidence” to support their interpretation of scripture. The whole thing didn't sit right with my instincts and they failed to successfully appeal to my reason.

I wasn’t having any of it. I made it perfectly clear I was not interested in joining them and declined their advances. For over half an hour they took it in turns trying to win me over, and were obviously going through every trick in their book and were desperately taking turns and trying to figure out different approaches and ways of appealing to me. I just sat there, politely declining as they tried to brow-beat me into having some water poured over my head. They’d obviously never had someone put up such a resistance before. I could tell from their faces. Eventually they gave up on me. I think what got them was that I strongly believed in God and somewhat in the historical Jesus and the validity of the bible as a holy text yet wasn't up for joining their church.

One thing in their favour though: they served up some nice food.

Anyone else experienced anything similar? Without naming names, of course.​
NRM happens all the time inside main religions and has a long history so because it has a long history and NRM happens inside major religions, i dont think the term is accurate. scholars are the worst to rely on in regards to such topics they are the last to figure it out but the first to publish scholarly papers on it.

I was a part of a "fellowship" a long time ago that got so bad even pat robertson said it was nonsense, by the king of nonsense. This was in the middle of what was called the charismatic movement or hippies who love jesus, and they called themselves new wine. They started to call themselves apostles or to be truthful little dictators calling themselvs apostles and omg it blew up. I was gone by then to college and this was happening on an ivy league university campus and extremely popular. Smart folks can be really really stupid as well. I have proof. Btw scholars were attending.

Religion expresses at times for some, how we experience, but tends to be overrun by nuttiness of others cluelessly bumping into the furniture pretending to understand these experiences. I call these folks "normal"... A terrible disability.

I see very very little evidence of actual understanding going on and mostly its bumping and bumbling along by people playing make believe in leadership. . Also most of it is extremely psychologically unhealthy and if you are hypo-numinous it might not be the right place and infact may be dangerous actually because the emphisis is on what one thinks rather than on even basic requirements to breathe. These trends tend to lack air, but heavy on intellectual abstracting into virtual realities.
 
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sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
They put a lot of pressure on me to do this. This set alarm bells ringing.

There are some that are little more than brainwashing cults as you found out. But in using the Bible etc, the one you encountered seemed less like a new movement and more like a cult using the Bible and other techniques to brainwash you.

I have not run into such groups personally but the worst have been in the news such as Jim Jones' Jonestown mass suicide and a few others like that over the years.

The tremendous variation in such groups can be seen from the list available at List of new religious movements - Wikipedia
 
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