Posted by:
Greyfort
(
)
Date: April 04, 2012 08:04AM
I worked for the Church. It is definitely a Corporation. Their product is their brand of eternity and gee, it'll only cost you 10% of your gross income, plus fast offerings to be a member of the Club.
But it definitely has a lot of features which still makes me feel that it's at least cult-like in many ways as well.
I've told this story before, but the day I decided that it was a cult was when I was out walking with my Mom. It took me many months to resign, because the Bishop (who I'd never even met) kept dragging his feet and I had to nag and nag to get it done. I think it's easier to get out now.
But anyway, my mother said to me, "I don't understand why you're going through all of this trouble to officially resign. When I left the Catholic Church, I just walked away."
I said, "Well that's because the Catholic Church won't track you down, for the rest of your life, trying to bring you back. They won't assign you Visiting Teachers, try to give you a calling, send you cookies, assign you fake friends, etc." (I know a family who left the Church in 1962. They still receive regular contact from their Visiting Teachers and they're still on the Ward List).
My mother said, "That sounds more like a cult." That's when a light bulb went off in my head and I went, "It is! It is a cult." Before that time, I'd always defended it against such accusations.
There are also the guilt trips, the call for members to be perfect. There's an "us vs. them" mentality. There's the elitist thinking, where they're God's only true church and the rest of the world is an abomination.
The second biggest thing to me would be the fear instilled in you should you ever leave. I know that kept me in much longer than I could have been.
And last, but not least, there's singing, "Praise to the Man," about Joseph Smith - the charismatic leader. I don't think I need to say more about the Joseph worship.
That to me, spells c-u-l-t. But yeah, definitely a Corporation. Maybe a cult-like Corporation, as 'anybody' said, something like Amway or Mary Kay.