Urban Saints - imparting Christian values to teens or cult?

[yearofthehorse]

Was wondering if anyone or their children have any experience of this Christian movement and how they feel about it. It's very popular amongst teens in our town but there's something about it that makes me feel slightly uncomfortable.

All religion is a cult to me so I wouldn't see thgis as any different.

Urban Saints is the new name of the Crusaders Union, a Christian mission group formed in 1906. They run youth activities, camps and so on, and are well known as an evangelical Christian organisation. Are you asking because one of your children goes, or because you've heard of them and want to know more, in which case their web site may help you here. Or is this a suspicious 'they're evangelical Christians out to get our young people' kind of query?

They have been around a while. They used to be called 'The Crusaders' but changed it to avoid offending Muslims.

They won't kidnap them - not that kind of cult, but yeah they are 'out to get our young people' that being the point.

That's not to say they won't do interesting things in the meantime.

Thanks, will check out the website.

You can tell its not a cult, because they encourage their young people to go to local churches.

If you are non-christian you might not approve. ITs relatively harmless, but then my DS didn't want to go and our local one is boys only (they were talking about starting one for girls but I'm not sure what happened to that).

My friend works for them. Yes they are quite evangelical in a proselytising way, but people who send their kids along know what they ar getting into. They want to spread the Gospel but they are not a cult. As pp said, the encourage youngsters to go along to their local church, whatever stripe of Christianity that may be.

They organise a lot of fab things for young people.

I grew up & became a christian through Crusaders/Urban Saints, they are certainly not a cult but are committed to teaching the christian faith in a careful & thorough way alongside providing lots of activities like sports to join in with. There approach has sustained me throughout my life so I am very thankful & would encourage any parent to let their kids join Urban Saints.

Anything that attempts to corrupt impressionable teenagers is to be discouraged. Cult in my view.

do they encourage the young people to cut themselves off from their families?
do they encourage young people to give them large sums of money?
do they claim to have the only correct interpretation of scripture, which is somehow at odds with everyone elses?
do they encourage unquestioning loyalty to a charismatic leader?

it's too easy to call something you disagree with a cult

You can tell its not a cult, because they encourage their young people to go to local churches.

Wow. Really?

Cult: a system of religious veneration and devotion directed towards a particular figure or object.

do they encourage the young people to cut themselves off from their families?

Not necessary for being a cult.

do they encourage young people to give them large sums of money?

Not necessary for being a cult.

do they claim to have the only correct interpretation of scripture, which is somehow at odds with everyone elses?

I imagine they claim to have the only correct inturpretation. But even so, not necessary for being a cult.

do they encourage unquestioning loyalty to a charismatic leader?

Their leader would be God. So I expect so.

it's too easy to call something you disagree with a cult

It's too easy to dismiss something of being a cult when you're already engrained in the world view.

The word religion and the word cult have very similar definitions but for some reason, cult has negative connotations and religion does not. It's amazing how hard people will argue that their sect is not a cult when they think it's ok.

I agree with newt on the difference between the two, and would add secrecy to that - a religion will be open and indeed often evangelical about their beliefs, while a cult will be secretive to the point where even members won't be aware of them until being promoted to the next level, which makes them easy to exploit.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2009/may/27/cults-definition-religion
interesting article on what a cult is

The thing is, if you're outside of a religion, they look pretty indistinguishable from what you would call a cult. If you're inside it, you just think it's a religion. Whatever your definitions, they are both as poisonous as each other.

How do you perceive the radical Islamic groups who convince kids to leave their families and travel to Syria to join terrorist camps under the guidance of the one true interpretation of Islam? Because I'm pretty sure they wouldn't call themselves a cult.

I don't agree at all
I'm a humanist, so outside of all religions.
I see plenty of religious people who are humane, open minded and a force for good in the world, who would describe their motivation as religious in origin (our religion teaches us to....insert prosocial act here) and who am I to argue with them.
The fact that some people can take elements of a religion and corrupt it is not the fault of the religion. I guess all cults use religious framework that is more or less identifiable as coming from a religion (eg ISIS claim to be true Islam, Bhagwan spouted a mishmash of Hindu and other stuff) - what is important is what the effect of that ideaology is on the adherents and the outside world.

Well, I already posted a definition of cult, but I'll put it here again: Cult: a system of religious veneration and devotion directed towards a particular figure or object.

This applies to pretty much any religion. However, general usage seems to lean towards people claiming that the cults which they like and think are good, they call religions and those which they think are destructive they stick to calling cults. Just because millions or billions of people around the world believe in something, doesn't stop it being a cult, it's just a very successful one.

I think what you have there is one particular meaning of cult, as in 'the cult of St somebody" where within a mainstream religion a particular figure or place is venerated by some adherents, I think RC do this especially (like on Father Ted where they upgrade the relic)
Can you really not tell the difference between Baghwan and Martin Luther King?

Here is a clip to help give a flavour of an Urban Saints group www.urbansaintsguildford.org/about/

Here is another clip of the Urban saints group for boys in Guildford, who would not want to be a member. vimeo.com/105960531

I went to Crusaders in the late 1960s/early 1970s. I remember it with lots of affection although we didn't do anything like the fun activities that the Guildford lot are doing. When I came back to Christianity after my angry atheist teen years I found that the grounding in the Bible stories that I had from Crusades was really helpful. I know a lot of cheesy choruses that date me.

I think what you have there is one particular meaning of cult, as in 'the cult of St somebody" where within a mainstream religion a particular figure or place is venerated by some adherents

That's not what I mean at all. There is only a significant difference between two different types of cults, those for whom the central figure is alive and those for whom the central figure is dead or fictional.

I had a look around the net as I've only really come across across the term cult in academic settings (the cult of Mary in Orthodoxy for example) and in work I've done around new religious movements. It seems there are a number of different definitions out there. This site is academic and the comment that the term cult says more about the attitude of the speaker than the movement in question is interesting inform.ac/when-is-a-religion-a-cult

I suspect that to some hard line atheists any religious group that runs a youth group is a cult. For those of us working in religious settings then the advice from Inform looks good inform.ac/node/14

This site is academic and the comment that the term cult says more about the attitude of the speaker than the movement in question is interesting

Actually, you're quite right, and as the link eludes to, words have usages rather than intrinsic meaning.

To me (and for clarity this a general description rather than my specific definition) a cult is any group who rally around a single/central person or idea and especially those who create a group within which there are rituals to follow as part of being included within that group.

I see religion as a sub-set of cults under which the central person or idea is one of a 'supernatual' disposition.

I suspect that to some hard line atheists any religious group that runs a youth group is a cult.

I wouldn't for a moment suggest that a group needs to have a 'youth' element at all to qualify as a cult. Although the indoctrination of children is abhorrent, cults can and do attract adults through similar means.

As different groups assign different meanings to the word cult it makes it hard to have a discussion. To some people all religions are cults so Urban Saints would qualify as a cult as it as an evangelical Christian foundation. To other people cults are those groups which aim to cut people off from their families such as Charles Manson's The Family.

So I suppose the question to,the OP is what is it that makes you uncomfortable about Urban Saints? If it is that they are an evangelical Christian group then that might be what makes you uncomfortable. Or it might be something else.

I think this is a zombie thread but as it has been resurrected then I will just add that when I went to Crusaders( now Urban Saints) as a child and later helped as a leader, we were a non denominational Christian youth group and had leaders from every church in town from Catholic to Brethren. It was great.

Any atheists amongst the leadership group?