Hi Isabel,

The question you raise about people being taken advantage of is a really important one! Because here’s the thing: people making choices we don’t agree with is not people being taken advantage of.

You raise mass suicides, which I’m assuming is a reference to Peoples Temple? Except that wasn’t a mass suicide: it was a massacre; those people were coerced at gunpoint. We’re going to spend a lot of time on PT this semester, bc it’s an important moment in American religious history. If this is about Heaven’s Gate, they didn’t think of leaving their bodies as suicide:

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ef7e852fba9045450c845e2/t/5f0e7fd8362e23738bd2ff12/1594785753214/Goodwin_Staying_after_Class_Memory_and_Materiali.pdf

Assuming that people who act in ways that might seem strange or irrational to outsiders is what led to things like the anti-cult movement kidnapping and detaining people against their will, or the ATF and FBI accidentally setting fire to the Branch Davidian compound in Waco. We can’t do this work if we assume the people who join these groups are being taken advantage of, or are stupid and that we know better. I have lots of readings on this — many of which we’ll be looking at this semester! — but if you want to get a head start, I’m happy to send you some links.

We need to start our inquiries into unconventional religious behaviors by assuming that people make choices for reasons that make sense to them, even if they don’t make sense to us. Assuming that people who join “cults” are irrational or naive often leads to a lot of damage.

This isn’t to say that abuse doesn’t happen in marginalized religious communities. It absolutely does. But it doesn’t happen because the groups are religious. It happens because abuse happens everywhere. This is, btw, the literal subject of my book:

https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/abusing-religion/9781978807785

I want us to be very careful about assuming that religion is what makes abuse happen, or what makes abuse possible. It’s not. Religion can complicate abuse, make it harder to recognize or address or escape — but religion does not cause abuse.

I’m glad you’re raising these questions and issues! We’re going to spend a LOT more time on them this fall.