The Holiness of Lawlessness: Cults

I’ve been reading about how cults arise and evolve. In their early stages, they are marked by “apocalyptic enthusiasm,” i.e., unshakable conviction that the cult’s “messiah” will imminently “save” his followers by overthrowing the prevailing order and inaugurating a new kingdom—with either NO rules or, at least, NEW rules favoring the cult’s faithful. 

It is not entirely surprising, then, that this enthusiasm often manifests itself in brazen LAWLESSNESS regarding the current order—unabashed transgression of “old” laws and “irrelevant, oppressive, outmoded” legal conventions. All that stuff is viewed as fake and superannuated—something to be destroyed and discarded in order to hasten the arrival of the Golden Age. 

Usually the messiah himself makes a point of demonstrating this self-righteous, in-your-face lawlessness—as a kind of morality lesson for his followers, and as a gesture of contempt for enforcers of the existing (hence “crooked” and “disgraceful”) laws.

The Lament of an Ex-pat Iowan

My passport says that I was born in “Iowa, USA.” I am, therefore, an ex-pat Iowan, native of this town—Waukon, Iowa. When I was a kid, Waukon was a bustling county seat—lots of businesses, a first-run movie house, even a J.C. Penney’s. The churches were well-attended and the local farmers (like my grandparents) felt that their lives were “getting better” (indoor plumbing and telephones for the house, artificial insemination for the cows). Now, the town looks pretty tired, despite its single modern traffic light. Pretty empty. A few basic stores, but the pizza place burned down, alas. The schools are good, but once graduated, the kids move to Cedar Rapids or Des Moines or Minneapolis. Among many, then, there’s a sense that the “best” is in the past. (This is not necessarily true: the remaining population is pretty comfortably middle-class). But I understand the feeling of loss and (even) resentment—against, well, nobody in particular but everything in general—against the way things have changed. Trump and the MAGA crowd have tapped into this nostalgic hopelessness with promises of miraculous resurrection. Ultimately, of course, no messiah is going to bring Penney’s back to Main Street or crowds back to the First Presbyterian Church. Spilt milk can be wiped up, but not rebottled. Still, Trump (and nostalgia) won last night in Iowa—bigly. As an ex-pat Iowan, I am very sad. 😞