Hello friends of Multifaith! Last Thursday, we had an interesting conversation on religion and its influence on pop culture. Celebrities that are religious and non-religious often have some sort of impact on how we see certain religions.
Scientology is one that has been noted in the public sphere for some time now. There are quite a few celebs who have been (fairly or unfairly) associated with Scientology, including John Travolta, Will Smith, and Tom Cruise. Unfortunately, Tom Cruise may be the one that comes to mind first. His very odd public outbursts have made people think that it’s the religion that’s making him “crazy”. Being in the public eye can cause a lot of false information to develop and it’s very easy to get wrong ideas traveling fast.
In the case of Scientology, because there was so much media attention, the true meaning of the religion was lost. When looking into what Scientology actually consists of, it is heavily weighed on helping your community and striving to be the best that you can possibly be. The most important thing is to make yourself a better person, and helping whenever you can along your own personal journey. The morals of the faith are lost when looked at from a public lens, and it shows that it’s important to educate ourselves before we jump to conclusions based on what we’ve heard.
In the case of Scientology, for example, what makes a religion or its practitioners authentic? When unraveling this question, a large amount of our time was spent discussing cults. What makes a cult… a cult?
The word usually has a negative connotation to it, but in reality, a cult is simply defined as followers of an exclusive system of religious beliefs and practices. So, technically, Christianity and Buddhism are cults, along with all the other beliefs and religious systems in the world.
But why have we come to have negatives ideas with the word cult? A lot of the time, we throw that word out there because the thing the group is practicing is uncommon and unfamiliar to us. It doesn’t go with the usual belief system that one might follow. It’s something that’s ‘strange and not normal’, so you instantly put a label to it, usually ‘cult’ because it’s a word that should spark fear and unease to a person.
For example, we talked a lot about Branch Davidians, Heaven’s Gate, and other cults – what makes them uncommon, unfamiliar, strange, abnormal? What makes them incite fear and unease? What crosses the line, and who decides?
So while discussing religion, pop culture, and public opinion – and developing a deeper conversation about public opinion, cults, and connotations – the real question becomes: What makes a religious tradition authentic, what makes cults abnormal, and who decides?
