Doug Cowan vs. Christian countercult ministries

In the aftermath of our participation in the Louisville conference, a number of things happened–all of which speak to the insular nature of the Christian countercult as it is currently constituted, and the conflict that obtains within the countercult over efforts to mitigate that provincial mindset. A number of circumstances specifically speak to this.

First, prior to the conference, John Morehead had contracted with a conservative, evangelical press to edit a collection of essays on the current state of the countercult. He specifically asked that a chapter drawn from my presentation at the EMNR be included, and I provided a detailed abstract, which was accepted by the publisher. Shortly after the conference, the publisher informed John that my chapter was not to be included, and that the publication contract hung in the balance of his decision. The publisher also insisted that all contributing authors sign an evangelical statement of faith as a condition of their contract–something I, obviously, couldn't do. While no other chapter was to be excluded, and mine was the only one specifically critical of countercult apologetics as a religious enterprise, the publishers made it clear they were not going to be party to promulgating the views of a "self-proclaimed agnostic."

Which is interesting since that’s exactly the phrase that was used to critique at least my presence after the conference was over. A number of people, including EMNR board members, argued that there is nothing that can be learned from a "self-proclaimed agnostic." Whether there is a connection between this, and the demand from the publishers that my chapter be dropped, I leave to be pondered by Mel Gibson driving his taxi cab in Conspiracy Theory.

One of the ways in which John Morehead has tried to disseminate the proceedings of the EMNR is through the publication of conference papers on their website. Shortly after the conference, when I contacted him about this, I learned that John had been refused permission to include either my paper or Gordon's in those proceedings. Regardless of any disclaimer that might precede our papers, "cult apologists" were simply not going to be given another forum.

Which raises interesting possibilities for the EMNR conference in 2004, which is scheduled to be held in Kansas City. John wants to make Bearing False Witness? the subject of an "Author meets Critics" roundtable. It remains to be seen whether, at that conference, "cult apologists" are on the program, or on the menu.

The utter inability of apologists like Hein to distinguish between scholarly support for particular beliefs, and scholarly support for the right of individuals and groups to hold those beliefs is an important point, but a paper topic for another time.

Some cult apologists and their supporters [...] spend much time and energy attacking the very term "cult apologist." It is telling that, for the most part, they refuse to deal with the very serious issues surrounding cult apologists. These issues include (but are not limited to):

• active promotion (intended or unintended) of cults (e.g. Gordon Melton's booklet on Scientology reads like part of that organization's press kit),
• actual collaboration with cults
• financial entanglements
• a destructive agenda
• support and promotion of heresy
• faulty research, unsupported conclusions and/or outright misrepresentation

Douglas Cowan of the Department of Religious Studies recently became the first scholar to complete the U of C's new Religious Studies PhD program, the only program of its kind in Western Canada.

Cowan's PhD thesis, entitled Bearing False Witness: Propaganda, Reality-Maintenance, and Christian Anti-cult Apologetics, explores the body of Christian literature which examines so-called cults. He is the first scholar to examine this subject in detail.
(...)

Cowan concluded, however, that the authors of these works do indeed systematically manipulate information in order to reinforce their points of view. However, it is done for a target audience that is often looking to merely validate their own preconceptions of other religious traditions.

"It is a common belief among fundamentalist Christian groups that if they can invalidate another's worldview they have somehow validated their own worldview."

I was newly settled in a predominantly Mormon community, and I became intrigued by the utter dissimilarity between the Mormons I encountered on the streets every day and the description of Mormons and their religion in Christian anti-Mormon publications, notably The God Makers, by Dave Hunt and Ed Decker. (3)  I began to collect Christian anti-cult materials, hoping that, someday, the chance would come to do exactly the kind of research I have now done.