In the United States, fundamentalist religious movements flourish. Tuning into any news station in the last fifteen years, one can see and hear anti-Muslim rhetoric twenty-four hours a day. One of the most widely criticized elements of radical Islam is it’s portrayal and treatment of women, yet anywhere in North America, there are sects claiming the bible as their backing for institutionalized misogyny and abuse. Fundamentalist churches began as a backlash to the modern woman who rose out of the midcentury. Women began working, waiting to have children and defying the white, puritanical roles that had existed for them for generations. From suffrage to the Pill, many conservative movements began to see holes in the walls of their culture that …show more content…
The effect of religious cults on women is often debated but the root in the mindset of young men is frequently overlooked. Americans looking to poke a stick at religious issues draw attention to the sexual abuse done by Catholic priests to young boys as a great example of abuse of power and the detriments of religion. The idea that these men either seek out priesthood in order to commit rape is not normally mentioned, but the idea that the chastity that priests follow causes them to become sexually deprived is almost always put to blame. This idea that men need sex to not only be a man, but not to become violent, enraged or abusive fuels the mind of abusers and creates a confusing and dangerous place for young men to grow up in. Outside of religion this attitude is present as well, headlines across the country show young men gang raping teenage girls with their friends and college freshmen lacking the knowledge of the definition of consent. Seldom does one see research into why boys and men commit rape that is not a backwards attempt at victim blaming, and even rarer is the notion that a pressure to perform sexually and be normal is present. With that hyper-sexualization of teenage boys as well as girls mixed with extreme religious rules about living a patriarchal lifestyle, it is no surprise how young men living in fundamentalist households behave. Men aren’t just …show more content…
Although there are many very traditional aspects and unique beliefs in the LDS church, the group that most people are thinking of when they make snide comments about Mormons and “sister wives” in the FLDS or the Fundamental Ladder Day Saints. Like Quiverfull, the FLDS utilizes practices such as homeschooling and rural living to isolate it’s members to promote a very specific life-style. In the last few years FLDS communities have been in the news for practicing their own twisted form of polygamy involving underage girls. Leaders like Warren Jeffs have been arrested and girls have been freed from the compound they were living on in dramatic made for TV moments. Grabbing national attention for such drastic allegations put a lot of members and mainstream Mormons in a very uncomfortable place, where they had to question their faith and practices. The way that extremists take advantage of young women is no new concept, but the extent that the FLDS church was taking sexual abuse was unlike anything most Americans had ever thought of. Not only had Warren Jeffs had begun to implement a systematic, forced impregnation process where he and fifteen other high ranking members, referred to as the “Seeders” were the only men who were allowed to father children but he also began to kick as many men as possible out of the community. Jeffs himself had an estimate of over 80 wives himself, but as
The FLDS is a breakaway sect from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and was established after a group of Mormons refused to renounce polygamy, which in their eyes, was the only way to reach salvation. According to the FLDS mindset, the only way a man could reach heaven and have status in the community is through having multiple wives. The FLDS community functions as a hierarchy, at which the prophet stands atop of the pyramid as the crowning jewel of God’s favored people. For the past few decades, Rulon and Warren Jeffs have ruled over the church as the prophets, taking unprecedented power over...
Religious scholar, Stephen Prothero, sees religion as a major organizing ideology to the social and political reality of the nineteenth-century. For Prothero, there is a close and intimate ideological relation between theological beliefs and a culture; therefore, they are not separable from characterizing the religious mood of the nineteenth-century. Prothero argues that many Americans were, “inspired by [the] republican rhetoric of liberty and equality, and by a popular revolt against deference and hierarchy” (47). This liberalizing spirit applied to the religious, political, and domestic spheres inspired women to protest against the narrow role to which they had been consigned by the existing hierarchy. The well-defined strictures of religion, like the law, were structured in dominance; black women encountered its hegemony in both their gendered and racial construction and white women principally by their gender.
Individuals with certain preexisting or underlying psychological issues can render them more likely to join a cult. It’s evident that there are severe psychological problems originating in childhood including physical, sexual and emotional abuse and neglect in the cult members. There seems to be a life-long pattern of self-destructive patterns of behavior that manifests in early childhood, which include self-mutilating behavior, chronic substance abuse, absent parents, and sexual perversion. Placing these individuals in emotionally and physically vulnerable situations such as in a cult seems to have adverse effects. The severity of the cult members’ psychological problems...
Cults Each year, hundreds of North Americans join one of the increasing, estimated 3000 unorthodox religions that exist across North America. The increasing number of cults, to date in North America, is due to the fact that cults are a social movement that attempts to help people cope with their perceived problems with social interaction. Cult recruiters target those who perceive themselves as different from the rest of society, and give these individuals the sense of belonging that they crave. Cult literature lures potential cult members by appealing to their desperate need to socially fit in. Cults provide a controlled family environment that appeals to potential cult members because it is a removal from the exterior society.
Mystery cults greatly influenced the development of Pythagoreanism as Pythagoreans adopted many of their traditions, behaviors and beliefs. Pythagoras, the founder of the Pythagoreans, established a school in which he developed and taught these adopted cultural behaviors and beliefs. "The nature of daily living in the school, both its moral and its intellectual disciplines, can perhaps best be understood as an intellectualized development from earlier mystery cults such as the Eleusinian" (Wheelwright 201). The Pythagoreans and the mystery cults were not identical, but they shared many similar beliefs on subjects such as the soul, transmigration and reincarnation, and they practiced many of the traditions of initiation, ritual and secrecy. Pythagoreans combined the mystery cults' views on these subjects with philosophical thought as a foundation to develop their own unique beliefs.
Fundamentalism and Religion For a vast majority, the term “fundamentalism” evokes images of hostage crises, embassies under siege, hijackings, and suicide bombers. But these images hardly present a comprehensive picture. People in the west associate fundamentalism with Islam, this is indeed a mistaken belief. Fundamentalism is defined as " the affirmation of religious authority as holistic and absolute, admitting of neither criticism nor reduction; it is expressed through the collective demand that specific creedal and ethical dictates derived from scripture be publicly recognized and legally enforced ." (Lawrence) Therefore the essence of fundamentalist belief is doctrinal confirmity, of not only oneself but the conformity of the rest of society too .While
For many years, cult leaders always had a psychological hold on their followers' minds. Whether it was to kill other people or to kill themselves, they did it without question. Some cult leaders used fear, violence and guilt as a means of a weapon to control the minds of their followers. Other cult leaders used persuasive and spiritual speeches that made their followers believe they were doing good and fulfilling God's plan. Because cult leaders are powerful through psychological offenses, the people that belong to their cults are brainwashed into doing things they wouldn't normally do in their right state of mind.
The second part of the essay is call for reform from the current state of sexual ethics as it relates to the most vulnerable social group– teenagers. I conclude that current christian attempts within sexual ethics are failing teenagers and suggest ways in which my ordering of sexual ethics might prove more effective.
I have always found the role of women in religion to be a fascinating and diverse subject, varying from community to community. Sometimes, the role of a woman in society is so closely linked to her religious role, that the two are indistinguishable. For example, why is it that some women are expected to upkeep the home and children without question? How are such gender roles assigned? Are these gender roles created by religion and upheld by culture or created by culture and upheld by religion? Where do such social expectations stem from? What does the daily life of a woman in religious groups that hold such expectations look like? And given these questions, is it possible for such roles to evolve? Has social change within gender roles occurred in the context of religion? In order to find the answers to these questions and questions like them, one must seek further insight of religion itself and the social context within which it exists.
Since the September Eleventh attacks by Islamic extremists at the World Trade Centers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania, Islamic culture has come under scrutiny by Americans more so than at any other period in the history of the ancient religion. One area that is often criticized by the American main stream media is the role of women in Islamic culture; it is almost common knowledge now that Islam subjugates women to a degree not seen since the Medieval Ages, and is backwards in all aspects of gender relations. Like many stereotypes, this one is overblown, exaggerated, and often completely incorrect. Women have been a fundamental part of Islamic culture since the founding of the Muslim faith. Women have had tremendous influence in all areas of Islamic culture including education, politics, economic concerns, and religious interpretation; by examining each of these four areas, it become clear that women have tremendous opportunities within mainstream Islam. Of course, certain hardline regimes like the one currently holding power in Iran will always oppress women, as well as gays and other minorities. It is important to not focus on the few areas where Islamic culture is practiced and women are subjugated, but to look at the broader Islamic culture where women are a critical component.
The civilization of men is called chivalry and is earned by women at the price of their own civilization. “For the female, civilized behavior means chastity before marriage and faithfulness within it. Chivalrous behavior in the male is supposed to protect that chastity from involuntary defilement” (Griffin, 516). Unfortunately, the definition of civilization for women requires them to be feminine, dainty, and submissive while men are strong and dominant. This robs women of the mentality that they can be strong and independent and forces them to seek protection from men instead of finding it in themselves. This mentality and dependence deprives women of the ability to protect themselves from men creating a world of fear for them to live in. It also keeps women submissive because they do not want to step out of line and risk being hurt. Essentially, men keep women submissive by defining womanhood and using it like a cage to restrict their behavior and thoughts. In addition, their chivalrous protection does not apply to women who step outside of their required behavior. This means that women who act independently cannot be raped, they are beyond violation and an open target for all men. This double standard serves to make rape an acceptable and even encouraged behavior while keeping women quiet and well-behaved, lest they be mistaken for a bad girl worthy of
The John Jay College of Criminal Justice found that 4% of all priests who had served in the US from 1950 to 2002 had allegations of child sexual abuse made against them (John Jay College, 2004; Terry, 2008). Most victims were male and older in age compared to victims in the general population (Terry and Ackerman, 2008).The John Jay College study of child sexual abuse in the US Catholic Church found that 81% of the victims of abuse were male. Richard Sipe, a leading expert on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, reported that of the priests with a tendency to abuse young children, about three-quarters had a preference for abusing boys. The gender preference was more equal among the group of priests who targeted adolescents (Sipe, 1995: 27). Rossetti, (1995) reported on the results of a questionnaire that was sent to more than 7000 adults. Of the 25% that responded, most of the people who completed the questionnaire were either priests, nuns or actively involved in the Catholic Church. 3.3% of the men said that they had been sexually abused by a priest before the age of 18, and 1.7% of the women reported being a...
To begin let’s delve into the world of Gilead. Right Wing Fundamentalists had killed the president and massacred all of congress. With the government gone they then set into a war ending with a whole new, church based government. In this new government men ruled and “protected” at any costs, destroying anything and anyone that got in their way of the “perfect society” they created. Women were made slaves to their own homes, and revoked of any prior rights....
...agarin, “There are symptoms that can identify whether or not a family member has been influenced by a cult member or leader, such as personality changes, dramatic shifts or values of belief, changes in diet or sleep patterns, refusal to attend important family events, inability to make decisions without consulting a cult leader or guru, sudden use of a new ideology to explain everything, simplistic reasoning, a new vocabulary, insistence that you do what he or she is doing.”(Sagarin) The victim never really goes back to the person they were before they were recruited into a cult. They are mentally unstable and vulnerable. Most families force their beloved family members into dull therapy sessions when they really need is a caring, nurturing environment. The family members of many clan victims are left to collect the broken pieces of their beloved family member.
The boys’ pose appear as competition, “...while boys are seen by older men as competition for the girls”(Vere). As part of the polygamy beliefs, the young boys’ develop the idea that, they themselves are “Satan’s temptations”(Jessop). Many cases, young boys’ are abandoned and rejected from the compound. The FLDS serve as a community called The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a well known polygamous compound. This polygamous community is well known in North America, “Although the practice is widespread across cultures, we know it best in North America as characterized by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS)”(Mack). The FLDS in many cases, will find rather ridiculous offenses to banish the boys’. Clearly, the main goal here is to simply eliminate the competition, “FLDS leader Warren Jeffs 's insistence that parents expel their young male children from the community to eliminate competition for wives”(Billie 127). These youthful boys’ are forced into a society they are unaware of and with no family to guide them, a challenge young boys may