Both of my mormon friends on Facebook posted links to this story today:

http://worldblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/18/6292170-in-japan-the-mormon-network-gathers-the-flock

At first it almost made me a little meloncholy. I thought, "how nice it would be in a disaster to know someone was going to check on me and make sure I was ok." I remembered living in Provo when the river was flooding and how within 15 minutes our whole ward had been mobilized and we were filling sandbags and how much comraderie I felt and all the warm fuzzies I felt about being a member of God's one and only true church.

But then I realized what the other side of the story is...

They have that network in place because it is a CULT, in the truest sense of the word. They have that network set up because you are assigned a congregation, you have no choice. There IS no choice in cults. They have that network set up because they need to have a way to be in complete control of the cult membership, to know everything they can about your life, to make sure the cult keeps in contact with you, to use peer pressure to exact conformity, to keep track of you at all times, to make sure if you move, they will still be in control, to assure you that if you leave, they will never leave you alone.

What was once one of the few real signs to me that God must be leading the mormon church, is now one of the thousands of clear messages that I was a victiim of cult mind control.

But does that mean that the fact that the mormons could round up all their members in Japan, offer them aid, find all the missionaries, etc., is a bad thing? Of course not. Maybe it means that other communities, whether faith communities or others, should follow the good parts of the mormon example and have systems in place to aid their members in a disaster.

Good point on how being in a controlling cult can sometimes feel good in the moment.

That is the thing that was most difficult for my wife in leaving. She's not American, though she is now a citizen. So for her, there is more of a sense of being out there all alone. She felt comforted being part of a group; having 'her people" in a sense. She didn't want to have to go back to being alone, without a group.