From The Pastor’s Heart By DR. ROBERT KENNEDY, OP-ED
Over the last few weeks, I have heard the terms “personality leadership” and “cult leadership” being used to describe what is currently taking place in the United States. Such usage has allowed me to reflect on the common phenomenon in many other parts of the world – from communist countries to the Islamic nations – and other countries that are struggling to find a model for their leadership.
In fact, when one thinks of the cult of personality leadership, one can go back to Nimrod, the leader of those who built the Tower of Babel in the land of Shinar. According to the historical records, Nimrod’s kingdom included Babel, Erech, Akkad, and Calneh, in Shinar (cf. Gen 10:10).
One can also go back to the Pharaohs of Egypt, who enslaved the Jews. The Pharaohs assumed the title of divine kingship, and declared themselves children of the Sun god Ra. And of course, one cannot bypass Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, who built a statue 90 feet to represent himself. And he used the statue to threaten with death, anyone who would not bow down to worship it (Daniel 3).
One can also think of Herod Antipas, who killed John the Baptist, and the Caesars of Rome who thought of themselves as divine. The historical and contemporary lists are long but too prominent to forget are Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Saddam Hussein, and the current dictatorships worldwide.
While I have mentioned leaders in the political realm, I would be negligent not to mention, at least three religious cult leaders who caused so many Americans’ lives to be lost. Firstly, James Warren Jones, the American preacher, civil rights activist, faith healer, who turned cult leader and conspired with his inner circle to direct the mass murder – of his followers in his jungle commune that he had set up in Jamestown Guyana. More than 800 of his followers died.
Secondly, we cannot forget Vernon Wayne Howell, who took the name David Koresh, claiming to be a prophet of the Branch Davidians. He and his followers built their commune in Waco, Texas. The end of their story is that many died in a great inferno as they sacrificed their lives in obedience to Koresh. They got into one of the most extraordinary confrontations with the civil authorities that America has ever seen.
Finally, Marshall Applewhite, the leader of the Heaven Gate (religious group) in Texas. He was a self-proclaimed prophet, drawing rhetoric from science fiction and scripture. He led his group to commit mass suicide in 1997 in hopes of being lifted into a spaceship, which they supposedly thought was attached to the tail of the approaching Hale-Bopp comet. This spaceship, they thought, would take their spirits to a final resting place in heaven.
It is quite fascinating how many persons can be drawn into a cult of personality leadership. But here is what interested me why I began to reflect on the theme this much. I heard one person saying, “Cult leaders are those who act as saviors, but want their followers to die for them rather than them dying for their followers.”
Such leaders are usually very charismatic; that is, they project domineering personalities; they have no positive guiding principles, values, vision, or character, but they use their narcissistic personalities, power, popularity, manipulation, lying, cheating, and all kinds of dysfunctionalities to have their way. In the political realm, such leaders will use arguments of loyalty, patriotism, mass, and social media, (the most contemporary) propaganda, art, organized demonstrations and counter-demonstrations, spying, resentment, rage, and the poisoning of their enemies literally, or by demonization, and threats of every kind in order to have their way.
The blindness with which people are following personality cult leaders today is profoundly disturbing. Whether it is a pop star personality, political leader or religious leader, it needs to be understood that the same disaster that took place at the Tower of Babel (that is why it is called Babel, the seat of confusion), or in Germany with more than 6 million Jews killed, numerous Christians, Gypsies, and many others, we will never know.
Or whether it is Cambodia where Pol Pot killed more than 2 million of his citizens, Jamestown in Guyana with more than 800 deaths, the Waco inferno with David Koresh, or the Heaven Gate group, the result of following a cult leadership is always disastrous. When a whole nation or a large part of it follows such a leader with heedlessness, there will be a grave calamity.
My real reason for this reflection is to ask the following twelve questions:
1. Who are you following?
2. What is the nature of the character of the one you are following?
3. What principles does such a person hold?
4. What are the moral standards and values of such a person?
5. What is the vision of such a person? Is the person following the Hale Bopp Comet?
6. What kind of loyalty is the person demanding of you? Unquestioning loyalty?
7. Is the person narcissistic?
8. Is the person asking you for the worship and the reverence reserved for the divine?
9. Is the person asking you to put patriotism above the freedom of conscience?
10. Is the person standing for the absolute truth, or is that person a peddler of lies?
11. Is the person stirring up anger, hatefulness, and resentment, or is that person a bringer of peace?
12. Is the person a prostitute of religion by using the name of God (“In the name of God”) to carry out evil actions?
If you are serious about your individuality, freedom, and relationship with God, let me advise that you take a second look at every person who comes along, pushing charisma or personality above character and positive principles. In fact, let me suggest that you ask the Lord for guidance in following any leader, from the world of business to the political and religious, arenas these days.
It has always been and still is the devil’s dream to cause the world to “wonder” after personalities and powers that have no interest except to promote demonism. John of the Revelation says this is how it is going to be in the last days. People are going to “wonder after the beast” (Revelation 13:3). Is this what is happening in our present time?
