Posted by Perry on August 17, 2011 at 17:56:11
On May 7th of this year Stephen Kent gave a presentation at a Polish conference on sectarianism entitled “The History of Credibility Attacks Against Former Cult Members”. Here is a link to an online pdf of his talk:
Here is an excerpt from the conclusion:
The total rejection of the ‘testimonies’ of former members is not social science, and future generations of scholars will look back on this rejection with incredulity. What should matter in the social sciences is that researchers obtain accurate information under ethical circumstances. Regardless of who provides it, social scientists simply should attempt to verify its content by comparing it to information that others provide or
that the researchers obtained in other ways—a process called triangulation. The more that independent sources point to the same facts, the higher the likelihood of the facts being accurate. Rejecting former members’ accounts, therefore, without checking them is more than simply bad social science, it actually is ideology. It is a refusal to question one’s basic assumptions that privileges the controversial groups—the cults— themselves. It privileges these groups by categorically excluding from research the wealth of information that people have who have seen these groups from the inside. Scientology,therefore, published Bryan Wilson’s statement in an attempt to discredit former members’ accounts of life within that
group. It is astonishing that so many social scientists bought into this uncritical, exclusionary process.
I cite this in a blog article I wrote: "Folie a deux: the insane prophets of the Seventh-day Adventists and The Family International" at:
Here is what I wrote in a Cultic Studies Review article about the issue of the credibility of former cult members.
By ignoring, downplaying, or misreporting certain inconvenient facts regarding sexuality in The Family, Melton undermines his purported expertise. Consequently, given the shortcomings of both Melton’s and Bainbridge’s studies of The Family, it is not surprising that Chancellor’s account is considered the most comprehensive and best overview of the group to date. However, as comprehensive as his work is, Chancellor does not tell the whole story, for he leaves out certain facts that are essential to an objective, academic understanding of The Family.
Regarding Chancellor’s book, Kent suggests that “[s]ocial scientists, feminists, and some former members may tell the same story very differently, and certainly they will provide less kind interpretations of many facts.” 30 What follows is a critique of Chancellor’s methodology as well as some “less kind interpretations of many facts” as he has presented them. Most importantly, Chancellor’s methodological decision not to consider the leadership structure of The Family necessarily excludes important details regarding past and current Family leaders, including their lack of integrity and their direct role in the abuse of numerous children and adolescents born and/or raised in the group. This article provides details of some of the most important omissions in Chancellor’s narrative of The Family’s history, details that must inform any account of that history.
...
Chancellor’s stated purpose is to provide a portrait of “…the every day thinking and doing, the hopes and fears and dreams of the ordinary Child of God.” 31 In doing so, however, he fails to adequately inform readers of the powerful, controlling influence the leadership has over regular members. The problem with his approach, which disregards the leadership structure within The Family’s complex, hierarchical social system, is that it gives a skewed portrait of life in The Family. This method is analogous to studying the body while disregarding the mind.
Chancellor does acknowledge that his book is not the whole story and that The Family requires a broader assessment from academics as well as former members. 32 It is unfortunate, however, that he does not include the voices of at least some former members to provide counterpoints to the more controversial aspects of life in The Family. Instead, he dichotomizes and characterizes former members pejoratively as being either “ the relatively few hostile career apostates” 33 — whatever that implies —or “the thousands of former Children of God who have little or no stake in the outcome.” 34 That kind of black-and-white thinking disregards the middle ground. Hundreds, if not thousands, of former members who are not “career apostates” do have a stake in the outcome because The Family had a negative impact upon either them or their loved ones, especially those of the second generation, or they still have personal family members and friends in the organization. Some former members might have provided useful insights to Chancellor’s effort to understand what life is like for ordinary members. Instead, their exclusion helps create a distorted picture.
The numbers within that excerpt refer to endnotes.
Here is endnote 33:
[33] Chancellor’s use of the phrase “career apostates” reveals his bias in the debate over the reliability of accounts by former members of cults or new religious movements. It appears that Chancellor sides with those scholars, such as Melton, who discount the validity of critical former members’ testimonies while naively accepting current members’ testimonies. There are scholars who disagree with that position. Benjamin Zablocki, for example, conducted an empirical study that showed that the reliability of former members is equal to that of those who stayed in one particular group. Zablocki, Benjamin. “Reliability and Validity of Apostate Accounts in the Study of Religious Communities.” Paper presented at the Association for the Sociology of Religion in New York City, Saturday, August 17, 1996. That paper is cited in Langone, Michael Ph.D., The Two “Camps” of Cultic Studies: Time for a Dialogue, C&S: Vol.1, No. 1, 2001 accessed 30 Oct. 2006