ABSTRACT
The bad fruit of ‘unhealthy’ religion can be all too apparent: broken lives, financial or sexual scandals, abuse of power. A number of publications in recent years have detailed various kinds of unhealthy religion: the disasters of Jonestown and Waco, the alleged brainwashing tactics of cults, the cognitive control of fundamentalist sects, sexual abuse in the ‘alternative’ Nine O’Clock service and in mainline denominations, ‘heavy shepherding’ practices in charismatic house churches. The longterm damage of those affected is hard to estimate. Sometimes it is irreversible. Trust, at its very core, has been shattered.
