For the first decade of the 2000s I was a vicar in suburban southwest London. Part of my inheritance from the previous regime was a church with close links to a cult.
It was a very British kind of cult, with an emphasis on high culture, old-fashioned values and the 1662 Prayer-Book. A sepia-tinted nostalgia for old England was combined with an eclectic mix of Eastern mysticism and esoterica dredged from the freakier wilds of Victoriana. They ran a number of schools, including one in the parish. In a world of shallow culture and declining values, the schools proclaimed virtues of politeness, courtesy, truthfulness and honesty. In addition to the schools, the group ran courses offering insights into wisdom, ethics and self-understanding.
I inherited close ties to this school, who for years had held regular events in church and now expected me to support their activities. But the closer I investigated, the more disturbed I became. I severed the link.
With the passing of time, it became clear that the professed values of the group were not all they had claimed to be. Years later, an independent inquiry found that pupils had been ‘criminally assaulted’ while at the school. The inquiry uncovered examples of pupils being kicked and thrown across the classroom. Significant sums were paid in compensation for historical abuse at the hands of the cult and its schools.
I recently met up with a survivor who had attended one of the schools. We walked and chatted in Bushy Park, a few miles from the school she attended as a child, and the tale she told was harrowing. Yes, there had been extreme physical and verbal violence. But more devastating was the mental torture. The worst of it has never been made public, she said. She was still in recovery decades later, and her hands shook as she remembered.
As we spoke, I remembered the anger expressed by some members of my congregation after I had severed links to the cult. How could I possibly distance the church from values of politeness, courtesy, truthfulness and honesty? What kind of monster was I?
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Weaponised Kindness
I’ve remained intrigued by the language of cults and new religious movements (a). In particular, I’m fascinated by the gap between benign-sounding rhetoric and a more brutal hidden reality. I’ve come to think of the language of the cult as Weaponised Kindness.
In an era of memes and social media, rhetoric triumphs over substance. As long as the label on the tin says kindness, the tin never needs to be opened or its contents examined. In such a culture, values degrade into badge-wearing, flag-flying and sloganeering. Nuanced ethical debates become polarised. My side is self-evidently good, your side evil. I’m motivated by kindness; you, by hate. If I vilify a hater, I’m on the side of virtue because I’m fighting for goodness. The language of kindness is weaponised.
Compassionate Christians with a concern for social justice seem particularly vulnerable to weaponised kindness, and seem curiously unable to spot it in others. Maybe I’m oversensitive to it after my adventures with the cult. I’ve sometimes wondered if I’ve become a little obsessive. My recent conversation with the cult survivor in Bushy Park reassured me I’m not.
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Trump & the Washington Sermon
My weaponised kindness alert went off recently during the sermon of Bishop of Washington Mariann Budde, at Washington National Cathedral, following the inauguration of Donald Trump as President. The sermon polarised public opinion. The MAGA faithful found it offensively ‘woke’, symptom of a Church that defers to social justice platitudes and waters down historic Christianity. From the progressive side, the Bishop was hailed as prophetic, speaking truth to power.
The clearest expression of this polarisation came in an article by evangelical social justice activist Shane Claiborne. For Claiborne, public response to the sermon revealed that there are now two versions of Christianity in the USA: a nationalistic, supremacist pastiche of the Gospel, and an authentic Christianity that takes its model from the historical Jesus.
‘Between the Christianity of Trump and the Christianity of Christ, we recognize the widest possible difference — so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure and holy is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt and wicked. I can see no reason to call this Christianity.'
I agreed with much that Bishop Budde said in her sermon. She was brave to speak out in the presence of power. There was something morally exhilarating about her focus on unity and her references to human dignity, honesty, humility and mercy. I was heartened that the sermon was given by a prominent woman in church ministry.
I was less happy with Claiborne’s demonisation of everybody who raised questions, or felt sympathetic to any of Trump’s policies, as the ‘cult of Trump’ (b). In his article he cites only the most rabid reactions from the MAGA faithful. At no stage does he concede that huge swathes of America might have agreed that Trump is a deeply morally-flawed character – even found the man repellent – but still found his policy proposals in particular areas to be more moral (and more authentically Christian) than those of the Democrats.
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Polarised Debate
The phrase, ‘in war, truth is the first casualty’ is attributed to Aeschylus, father of ancient Greek tragedy. The first casualty in Christian polemics is nuance.
Claiborne’s description of the Trump faithful as a cult felt ironic, since the latter part of the Bishop’s sermon set off cult language warning bells in my own head. I found one of the Bishop’s phrases to be a prime example of weaponised kindness:
‘In the name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now. There are transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families who fear for their lives.’
I immediately queried the Bishop’s use of the term ‘transgender children’ in a social media post, and was told I was missing the point. Her message was mercy and compassion. Nobody with a conscience could possibly object to a focus on mercy and compassion. Fair enough. I was zooming in just two words, not the broad sweep. But this was precisely my point. Those words were delivered in passing, as an uncontroversial example of the mercy and compassion she was highlighting. Nobody with a concern for social justice could possibly object. Could they?
To challenge the Bishop on those two words signalled to many that I was on the wrong side of history. I’d chosen the wrong type of Christianity. In the words of Shane Claiborne, I’d chosen the version of Christianity that was ‘bad, corrupt and wicked’. I’d chosen the Christianity that did not deserve to be called Christianity.
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The Language of the Cult
My reason for focussing on those two words was a concern for language, particularly euphemisms that normalise the unacceptable. I’m convinced today’s language of ‘protecting’ the ‘trans child’ is a cultish euphemism, designed to mask something creepy and abusive. That it could be dropped in as something uncontroversial in a sermon on mercy left me unsettled. It reminded me of the cult school that promised politeness, courtesy, truthfulness and honesty. What’s not to like about that? Well, in retrospect, quite a bit.
My concern about cultish language is twofold:
It’s a language of ‘us’ and ‘them’. There’s no nuance, no middle ground. You’re committed to the cause, or you’re evil.
It twists meaning. There’s a kind of language favoured by cult groups that sounds benign and compassionate. It borrows a radiant language of kindness, authenticity and self-discovery, only to twist their meanings. It can mask horrors. There’s something especially horrific about borrowing and twisting the language of personal authenticity, because our watchful dragons have been taught not to stir when that language is used.
A characteristic of cult language is what linguists call a thought-terminating cliché. This is a platitude that signals virtue, but stops discussion. No kind person could possibly disagree with it – if you do, you’re a hater. Thought-terminating clichés have become commonplace today: ‘Just be kind’, ‘The only thing I’m intolerant of is intolerance’, ‘Finding my true self’. And one of the most widely weaponised thought-terminating clichés of our day: ‘Trans kids’.
It all sounds so benign and affirming. But a medical ethicist I know describes the medical harm done to children in the name of gender ideology as the worst medical scandal of the 21st century. A gay friend tells me there is no such thing as a trans child, only a transed child.
Children from pre-school age onwards are being encouraged to believe they might have been born in the wrong body. Colourful, cartoony books pack the shelves of bookshops and libraries, telling young children their perfectly healthy body may be a mistake, that they might have some speculative and unfalsifiable true self at odds with their physical body. Books that challenge this narrative are cancelled. I recently read the wonderful My Body is Me!, by poet Rachel Rooney and illustrator Jessica Ahlberg. It’s a gentle, empathetic book for 3- to 6-year-olds that celebrates diversity. Black children, white children, disabled children, girls playing football, boys making art and baking. Its message: it’s good to be myself; my body is me.
But its author was branded transphobic and vilified. She subsequently left the world of publishing, and has been banned from literary events. A book that fosters self-acceptance was rebranded as hate. Your body is not the real you, say activists to small children. It’s a kind of costume.
Coincidentally, at the same time as the Bishop was delivering her sermon, new stats were released on the numbers of UK children who think they’re the wrong gender. Analysis of GP records shows that in the 10 years from 2011 to 2021 there was an astonishing 50-fold rise – and this only includes cases which reached the GP. Even if we grant that there remains a tiny number of people who have genuine gender dysphoria (historically around 0.01% of the population), it’s hard to imagine a clearer example of a social contagion, spread among a vulnerable, impressionable population through peer groups and social media.
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Thought-Terminating Clichés Translated
Earlier I cited examples of thought-terminating clichés. With my Bushy Park conversation fresh in my mind, I offer some translations:
‘Just be kind’. Means: Just be kind – as long as you agree with my definition of kindness, or I’ll brand you a hater, and hateful people deserve no hearing or compassion.
‘The only thing I’m intolerant of is intolerance’. Means: If you tolerate the same things as me, you’re on the right side of history. If you have views my peer group finds unacceptable, you’re by definition intolerant; you’re a hater and nothing you say should be taken seriously.
‘Finding my true self’. This is a staple of cults and marketing departments. It separates an inferior, everyday self from an aspirational authentic self, which can be discovered at a price. That price might be buying a product, or surrendering your money and life choices to a manipulative leader who claims to know your true self better than you do.
‘Trans child’. Means: A child encouraged by adults to think they may have been born in the wrong body. That their perfect, perfectly healthy, body – the only body they will ever have – might be a mistake. A child told by people they trust, at a vulnerable and impressionable age, that drugs and irreversible surgeries might make them more authentic – despite the fact that they can't possibly grasp the long-term implications of this.
Don’t get me wrong. I believe there’s a great deal that all Christians and all people of goodwill can agree with in Bishop Budde’s sermon. I’m not remotely implying she had dubious motives. In many ways I admire her. But once you’ve been up close with a cult, and walked with a cult survivor, you learn to recognise thought-terminating clichés – even when the speaker is unaware they are using them. And you feel a shiver down the spine whenever you hear the weaponised language of kindness.
It’s a language that sounds benign, even as it polarises, distorts and harms.
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(a) For example, Amanda Montell, Cultish: the Language of Fanaticism (Harper Wave, 2021).
(b) Trump does, of course, have a cult-like core of faithful believers. See Carl Hoffman, Liar’s Circus: A Strange and Terrifying Journey Into the Upside-Down World of Trump's MAGA Rallies (Harper Collins, 2020) for a fun dive into this world. Less often noted is how cultish the progressives who attack the cult of Trump can sound, apparently without realising it. That’s the irony that interests me here.
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© Mike Starkey 2025
Pic: Mike Starkey. Victor Orsel – Good and Evil: the Devil Tempting a Young Woman (detail), 1832. Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon.
