c. 1997 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ The suicide of 39 members of Heaven’s Gate _ a quasi-religious group that mixed elements of apocalyptic Christianity with sci-fi space travel _ has once again focused attention on what scholars call new religious movements and critics refer to as cults.

Despite it’s unique theology _ which included the belief that a UFO trailing the Hale-Bopp comet would transport members to a”Level Above Human”_ Heaven’s Gate was not unusual in one regard:

It is just one of many new religious movements that have been spawned over time by America’s open, pluralistic approach to faith. And while Heaven’s Gate met a tragic end, other new religious movements have flourished. Some have even achieved mainstream status.

Scholars say the separatist notions of groups such as Heaven’s Gate may be responsible for their doom, while groups like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Rev. Sun Myung Moon’s Unification Church _ both of which have, at times, been vilified as dangerous cults _ have found success by “being in the world but not of the world.”

Lonnie Kliever, chairman of religious studies at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said new religions have had a”remarkable history”in this country over the last 150 years.”We’ve been a bit of a greenhouse for innovative and original new religious movements and that’s allowed by our pluralistic approach to religions in our society and the constitutional guarantees,”he said.

Many new groups disappear after a few years without the sort of deadly exit orchestrated by Heaven’s Gate simply because they fail to sustain themselves. But others become”fully integrated into the mainstream of religious life,”Kliever said.

The Unification Church is one such example. Its control of the Washington Times, a prominent conservative newspaper in the nation’s capital, has gained the church a large measure of acceptance. Church-sponsored”family values”conferences held around the globe attract world leaders and such mainstream figures as Ralph Reed of the Christian Coalition.

In the mid-19th century, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known more commonly as the Mormon Church, was considered by most established U.S. Christian churches as a dangerous cult that practiced polygamy. Today, 14 Mormons are members of Congress.

Once-ridiculed Hare Krishnas, members of a Hindu sect transplanted to the United States during the spiritually turbulent `60s, today are members of mainstream interfaith organizations and are taken seriously by religion scholars.

Heaven’s Gate, on the other hand, remained a small group, isolated and relatively mobile. Its members ended their time on Earth at a rental property in an exclusive San Diego County community.”There’s all the difference in the world in a group that says the world is so evil that our only hope is to escape this world,”said Kliever,”and a religion which says this Earth is God’s creation and although it has erred and strayed from God’s will … through his church in the latter days, God will re-establish a kingdom of heaven on Earth.” On Heaven’s Gate’s Website, an introduction to the group’s beliefs affirmed what it called”separation from the world.”Distinguishing Heaven’s Gate from other religious groups, the introduction said:”Unless you are currently an active student or are attempting to become a student of the present Representative from the Kingdom of Heaven _ you ARE STILL `of the world,’ having done no significant separation from worldiness, and you are still serving the opposition to the Kingdom of Heaven.” The introduction was signed by Do,”The Present Representative”_ one of the names reportedly used by Marshall Applewhite, the former opera singer who went on to lead and die with the Heaven’s Gate group.

Frank Flinn, adjunct religious studies professor at Washington University in St. Louis, said religious groups can be categorized four ways.

Most groups have their roots in a church or other religious body that claims to be the only true religion, such as the Roman Catholic Church and Orthodox Judaism.

A second category would be sects that splinter off from a larger group. One example is the Puritans, who separated from the Anglican Church. Sects choose to be separate from the larger entity, go their own way and claim they have sole possession of the truth.

Denominations, which do not put forth claims of exclusive truth and remain connected to a larger body, are a third category.

New religious movements, which are often form around a charismatic leader such as Applewhite, are the fourth category.”What tends to happen to religion in America,”said Flinn,”is everybody gets shoved into the denomination box over time. … When you start having children, then you start becoming a denomination.” Kliever, of Southern Methodist University, also said groups lose their sense of exclusivity as children and grandchildren are born.”Once a new religious movement persists through a generation or two, there are always accommodations made that usually temper the austerity and the urgency and the exclusivism of the original … movement,”he said.

Christianity itself was once castigated as nothing more than an irrational cult, noted H. Newton Malony, a psychology professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif.

Seventeen centuries later, Malony’s Methodist denomination was also considered unusual because co-founder John Wesley said Methodists should let their lives be guided by the Holy Spirit.”People fell … over backwards, danced around, barked and all,”said Malony.”One of the records of one of the mental hospitals in London reported in the 1890s that it had admitted 93 people in the last year for madness and Methodism.” Now, with more than 8 million members, the United Methodist Church is considered in the middle of the American religious spectrum.

Malony said there are various markers that move groups from sects or new religious movements into what are seen as more respectable denominations.”What we feel makes it acceptable is when nobody talks about it anymore and when its services are listed on the Saturday church page,”he said.”I think you have a social phenomenon here that goes beyond religion. Culture always tries to reject that which is different from the mainstream.” Another societal seal of approval is recognition by the Internal Revenue Service. The Church of Scientology, notorious for its battles with the IRS and attacked even today in Germany as more a destructive money-making scheme than a true religion, trumpets its 1993 winning of tax-exempt status to justify is right to mainstream respectability.”When the smaller groups justify their ministry enough to get their tax breaks, then you know they’ve moved over and become churches,”Malony said.

But Malony said even if society becomes more accepting of unusual beliefs, it is less likely to welcome unorthodox practices.

Mormons at one time practiced polygamy, but the church renounced it in 1890. Unification Church members, who believe Jesus failed in his messianic mission when he was crucified, have toned down their aggressive evangelistic measures, which once included inviting lone young people arriving at bus stations to dinner and weeklong retreats.”We don’t have freedom of absolute practice,”Malony said.”Either homicide or suicide are anathema in our society.”

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