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This article is an electronic version of an
article originally published in Cultic Studies Journal, 1993, Volume 10, Number
2, pages 100-102. Please keep in mind that the pagination of this electronic
reprint differs from that of the bound volume. This fact could affect how you
enter bibliographic information in papers that you may write.
Introduction
Paul K. Eckstein
Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus
In April 1990 the American Family Foundation (AFF), in conjunction with
L'Association pour la Defense de
I' Individu et de la Famille, convened a meeting
in Paris, France. Attending were representatives of cult education organizations
from more than a dozen countries. Participants exchanged information about their
activities and discussed common problems, which included increasing
international cooperation.
One of the participants was Dr. Johannes Aagaard, who represented the Dialog
Center International, headquartered in Denmark. A professor of missiology and
ecumenical theology at the University of Aarhus, Dr. Aagaard articulated a
religious perspective on cults that differed fundamentally from the secular
perspectives of nearly all other participants. Because the Paris meeting focused
on practical issues, Dr. Aagaard had little time in which to advance his
perspective. However, conversations at lunch and dinner convinced Herbert
Rosedale, AFF's president, and Dr. Michael Langone, AFF's executive director and
editor of the Cultic Studies Journal, that their perspectives on the cult issue,
as well as the perspectives of their American colleagues, could be enriched by
the challenges posed by Dr. Aagaard's views.
An opportunity for further dialogue arose one year later in May 1991 when Dr.
Aagaard's schedule permitted him to attend the AFF's annual meeting in
Philadelphia. In the two days prior to the meeting, Mr. Rosedale arranged for
Dr. Aagaard to speak to the New York Interfaith Coalition of Concern about Cults
(ICCC) and to participate in a one-day symposium at Mr. Rosedale's law office.
Dr. Aagaard's lecture to the ICCC was later published in the Cultic Studies
Journal (vol. 8, no, 2, 1992) under the title "Conversion, Religious Change, and
the Challenge of the New Religious Movements." This article distinguished
between conversion, which is a change in faith and one's personal relationship
with God, and religious change, which refers to alterations in the fundamental,
underlying orientation, or "code," that gives meaning to culture. Dr. Aagaard
further maintained that Western culture has witnessed three overlapping
religious changes: The first, the emergence of the "Mediterranean paradigm," was
the change from classical paganism to the medieval culture of Roman Catholicism.
The second, the "Atlantic paradigm," was the change brought about by the
Protestant Reformation, the growth of capitalism, and the Enlightenment. The
third, the challenge of a "Pacific paradigm," is going on right now. The Pacific
paradigm is a trans-syncretism that fuses Eastern mysticism and Western
capitalism.
Dr. Aagaard maintains that traditional churches are largely unaware of this
shift and are derelict in their duty to challenge the new religious movements (NRMs)
that represent the paradigm. Those who do challenge them tend to focus on
illegal and unethical deeds of NRMs, rather than their creeds. But, according to
Dr. Aagaard, this creed-neutral perspective is superficial because it ignores
the fundamental shift in the religious code, which NRMs emanate from and
contribute to.
This perspective was the special challenge that Dr. Aagaard brought to Herbert
Rosedale's office on May 9, 1991. Participants included Dr. Aagaard, Mr.
Rosedale, Dr. Langone, Michael Caslin (a development/management consultant),
David Clark (an exit counselor from Philadelphia), the Rev. Walter Debold
(Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Seton Hall University), the Rev.
Richard Dowhower (Pastor of All Saints Lutheran Church in Bowie, Maryland), Paul
Eckstein (Adjunct Professor of Philosophy at Long Island University, Brooklyn
Campus), Dr. David A. Halperin (Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at
Mount Sinai School of Medicine), Dr. John Hochman (Assistant Clinical Professor
of Psychiatry at UCLA Medical School), Dr. Herbert Nieburg (a psychotherapist
associated with Four Winds Hospital in Katonah, New York), and Rabbi A. James
Rudin (Director of Interreligious Affairs, American Jewish Committee, New York
City).
Fortunately, Dave Clark audiotaped the meeting (although the tape ran out
prematurely, so the transcript ends abruptly). I was so stimulated and impressed
by the daylong discussion that I volunteered to edit a transcript of the tape
and prepare this special issue of the Cultic Studies Journal.
The transcript of the symposium will enable the reader to participate
vicariously in our fascinating and wide-ranging exchange with Dr. Aagaard. Being
a conversation, the transcript offers the reader the rare opportunity of
"hearing" experts discuss at length their differences and deepen their
understanding of their own and their colleagues' points of view. The invited
essays that follow the transcript reflect this deepening of perspective and
celebrate the opportunity to have had a dialogue with the president of the
Dialog Center International.
Cultic Studies Journal
Volume 10 * Number 2 * 1993
Special Issue
Introduction 100
Paul K. Eckstein
Symposium with Johannes Aagaard 103
Pluralism, Deeds, Creeds, and Cults 195
Michael D. Langone
An Exit Counselor's Perspective 203
David Clark
Religious Recoding 207
Rev. Walter Debold
Returning to Cosmology: The Logic of the Discussion
and the Language of the Soul 216
Paul K. Eckstein
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