COMMENTARY: Honor your father and mother: Protect them from cults

c. 1996 Religion News Service (Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.) (UNDATED) Eighteen years ago this month the catastrophe known as”Jonestown”took place in a Guyana jungle. On orders from the Rev. Jim Jones, the People’s Temple leader, 912 members of his cult perished, along with U.S. Rep. Leo […]

c. 1996 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.)

(UNDATED) Eighteen years ago this month the catastrophe known as”Jonestown”took place in a Guyana jungle. On orders from the Rev. Jim Jones, the People’s Temple leader, 912 members of his cult perished, along with U.S. Rep. Leo Ryan of California, who was investigating the group. When the slaughter of innocents was concluded, Jones took his own life.


We usually assume that most religious cult members are college-age people searching for spirituality, yet more than one-third of the Jonestown victims were elderly men and women, some in their 80s and 90s.

We like to believe that America’s elderly are too experienced and too wise to become involved with cults, but unfortunately, our older population represents a highly vulnerable and lucrative target for eager recruiters. As a result, cult membership today is a family affair that includes the elderly.

As any adult child or geriatric social worker knows, the elderly are often lonely as they move through a time of painful transitions: the death of a spouse, retirement from a long-held job, or physical separation from loved ones.

In our mobile society, active synagogue or church members frequently move to retirement communities, where they run the risk of being recruited into a destructive cult.

The elderly are fearful of suffering financial or medical loss. They need constant reassurance about their fiscal security _ including the viability of their pensions, Medicare, and Social Security. The elderly also require continual expressions of love as tangible reminders that they are still worthwhile and useful members of society.

But when younger family members or elected public officials are unable or unwilling to provide the necessary assurances, the elderly feel abandoned and become frightened. Enter religious cults, offering the glowing lure of a caring community and an end to financial worries.

Anti-cult activists across the country tell the same story. In years past, middle-aged parents used to inquire about their 20-something children who had been deceptively recruited into a destructive cult.

Now, middle-aged children complain that their elderly parents are being manipulated into joining cults, where they are persuaded to give away to unscrupulous cult leaders their hard-won pensions, Social Security payments, and even their life savings.


Some experts cite painful cases of the elderly being physically and mentally abused by destructive religious groups. A common complaint is that cults permanently separate elderly parents from their adult children and grandchildren.

One cult recruiting tactic emphasizes a distinctively New Age appeal. Extravagant promises of long life, even the hope of living forever, are offered to older people. They are told that if they obey the cult leader in all matters of personal health, nutrition, meditation and exercises, they will live forever. But such bliss is gained at great cost.

Ecstasy and immortality in cult circles usually require the surrender of one’s decision-making abilities, the loss of personal privacy and the constant fear of being expelled from the cult if the rebellious elderly man or woman fails to follow the leader’s strict commands.

Total submission to a religious or political leader has always been an appealing alternative for people of all ages who feel the world is too much against them. The willingness to submit one’s life to a seductive cult leader is even more likely among bewildered elders who have lost a spouse or live far away from the secure love of their family.

Cult membership among the elderly is doubly difficult for their children to confront because middle-aged sons and daughters incorrectly believe they are somehow interfering with the autonomy and independence of their parents if they intervene.

Many adult children still perceive their parents as the omnipotent and highly self-sufficient figures of their childhoods. But the reality is that elderly parents require constant vigilance, love, and attention from their children. In this reversal of roles, children must now protect parents from the cults that would rob older people not only of their dignity, but of their money and freedom as well.


The Jonestown tragedy has added a new dimension to the biblical commandment,”Honor your father and mother.”We do them honor by protecting them from destructive cults.

MJP END RUDIN

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