Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism

by Amanda Montell

Koresh was absolutely not innocent in all this. He was maniacal and violent (in fact, he may have lit the fatal flame), and his dogmatism was largely what led to so many casualties. But, as some experts including Burton and Goodwin have pointed out, perhaps so was the fear surrounding the word “cult.” Catherine Wessinger, a religion scholar at Loyola University in New Orleans, suggested that if the FBI had used such aggression against a religious group not labeled a cult, even one with similarly harmful leadership, the public may have responded with more alarm. While power abuse can show up in any religion, fringe or mainstream, the “cult” label can have a dehumanizing effect. Once followers are branded as such, it becomes easier to justify brutality towards them. “Religion is a constitutionally protected category . . . and the identification of Waco’s Branch Davidians as a cult places them outside the protections of the state,” Wessinger explained. The FBI may have gone to save the compound, but when seventy-six civilians ended up dead instead, most everyday Americans blamed the Branch Davidians themselves, because they weren’t a church—they were a “cult.”