I just found out that one of my online students is a current member of The Family International. I work for an online Christian high school, so I was actually shocked that one of my students is part of a pseudo-Christian cult such as this.
In the past, my own family was torn apart by a New Age doomsday cult, and I am still involved in helping with custody cases and freeing people from that cult. So I am completely aware of what I am dealing with.
I had asked a casual question about whether he had celebrated Easter with his family. This boy told me that he lives in a different part of the world than his parents and that his siblings are scattered throughout the world. My employer has a policy about not getting too personally involved with the students (of course), but I will be maintaining ongoing communication with him. It is OK for me to talk about what is going on in his life in general, but I wouldn't be able to directly say "Oh, you live in a cult and should run away and I will help you" or communicate with him outside of the confines of our curriculum program.
So I was just asking for some advice about what to say to him. I can't be direct, but since he did inform me that he didn't celebrate Easter with his family since they were scattered throughout the world, I felt like he was giving me an opening. I was thinking about something to start with along the lines of "That is sad that you are separated from your family, etc." That way I can kind of keep up the pretense that I don't really know what he is involved with, maintain a professional demeanor for my job, yet still appeal to the natural sadness a child would feel at being separated from his parents.
One more question: how Christian is The Family International? I am assuming that they just use the label to add legitimacy to their organization. Do they actually believe in Jesus and read the Bible?
