Cultish Is Culty
By Syran Warner
Cultish is a podcast with an abundance of resources created by a destructive Christian extremist group masquerading as allies in the fight against cult abuse.
If you’re interested in cult stories and you’ve got internet access, there’s an enormous reservoir of material to satiate your curiosity. Whether you’re a true crime obsessive, a victim of coercion trying to make sense of the phenomenon, or someone who just wants a little context before buying creepy dollhouse furniture, an ocean of content is a stream away.
Here’s one contemporary example of how much of this stuff is out there. What do you think about fundamentalist Mormon cults? They’re really having a moment right now. This summer you could fire up HULU and watch the popular new crime drama from FX that tracks a true story of “blood atonement” gone very wrong in the FLDS, and if watching Spiderman take down a cult for ten hours leaves you wanting more, you can chase it with the popular new Netflix documentary series about FLDS monster Warren Jeffs. They’re both great. If you’re the kind of person who looks at their phone while watching TV (pretty much all of us) it’s also worth it to jump on the frequently updated and vast exMormon SubReddit where the FLDS is discussed frequently. Need more? You could take a dive deep into a recently published article about the FLDS minister known as the “Mormon Manson” without leaving this website. There are popular podcasts* too.
No one who’s deeply interested in the FLDS in 2022 should be confused what makes the FLDS culty unless they’re literally a member of the FLDS. We live in the future. There are many sources of information on this topic and you’re bound to learn something from just about all of them. It’s typically rare that cult content totally fails the mission of being an educational resource in some capacity.
So long as the material doesn’t give consumers the impression that joining a cult is a wild, wild romp about the friends you’ll make along the way, or present a fictional story about a fake Satanic cult as a documentary, and so long as the content isn’t (heavy foreshadowing here) a deceptive indoctrination device created by an actual destructive cult, the proliferation of material is a net positive. If a million people learn about the FLDS and understand it’s something to stay the hell away from after watching Under the Banner of Heaven, no one in the cult education community is going to cry foul if it also increases HULU’s bottom line. Going a step further, if famous Scientology survivor and advocate Leah Remini inked a deal with Doritos for product placement in her mainstream TV show that spreads good information about what a terrible organization Scientology is, it would be very strange, but so long as the message stayed on track she wouldn’t be cancelled by any legitimate cult expert.
Cult-focused mass media provides an easy example that there are motivations beyond educating audiences about how dangerous these groups are. Hollywood is a business no matter the subject. These examples also illustrate that even in mass entertainment, it’s generally hard to screw up a cult story that’s based in reality because it will typically end with the cult being bad news for obvious reasons. Cult’s themselves don’t make a whole lot of mainstream content, and when they try the results aren’t great. That’s the big leagues. For the rest of this article we’ll explore a program in cult-media that exists a tier below the masses that’s a little more like the wild west. A lot of people are listening to their stories these days.
Cultish is a highly polished podcast about cults that looks totally legitimate from the outside. The design is cool, the production is crisp, the ad reads are brisk. That they combine commerce with telling cult stories doesn’t set off alarm bells at first. The problem is with the show’s intentions and where the money is going.
This is an unbelievable true story about a real cult that’s creating media about cults for bad reasons. It would be impossible to believe without all the other cult stories we consume that have proven there are truly no ethical boundaries in this universe and deception is limitless in the absence of truth. Still, holy shit. We need to talk about this show.
Cultish is one of the many podcasts out there that focuses on cult stories, but it’s unlike anything else you’re likely to find in the genre because it’s made by an authentic cult.
There are lots of great podcasts about cults to stream. Some “staff” favorites around here include Cult Vault, A Little Bit Culty, IndoctriNation, The Frankie Files, and The Influence Continuum. Each one of these shows is unique but they’re all united by their motivations to educate listers about cults. Each one of these podcasts regularly features guests who are legitimate cult survivors. Every one of these shows has a host (or hosts) who are intelligent, autonomous, and decidedly anti-cult. Some of them do make enough money to keep the lights on through things like Patreon, but you’d never listen to an episode of any of these shows and assume the projects were financially motivated. You’ll definitely never hear these people talk about finding Jesus on their shows, because people with skin in the cult fighting industry are generally quite an agnostic bunch. That’s not to say people can’t be religious and anti-cult at the same time, you just don’t really hear too many advocates evangelizing the word of God. You also don’t hear people on these shows calling abortion “murder” because, for one, that would be a really strange subject to cross streams with in a conversation about cults, and more importantly, people who devote their freetime to discussing coercive control are simply not the same kind of people who are interested in controlling the lives of women. Those concepts are philosophically at odds with each other.
Oh, yeah. And then there’s Cultish, a supposedly educational podcast about cults with a hard focus on the kingdom of Christ and right-wing extremism that’s the exact opposite of what it claims to be. Maybe it’s tangentially a podcast about cults if you want to get technical, but everything else is intentionally backwards. The show is a mind numbing crusade in bad faith opportunism and calling it garbage would be an insult to literal garbage which doesn’t hurt anybody intentionally. Everything about it beyond the packaging and production is profoundly, stupefyingly terrible. More than just being worse than garbage though, the show fails because it’s an indoctrination vehicle for a destructive cult. No cap.
We’ll get into the disgusting, coercive ministry that spawned this insane glitch in the Matrix soon, but it’s probably best to explain what’s going on in the actual content of the show first.
What kind of show is Cultish producing that gives credence to listeners calling it a trojan horse for a cult, anyway?
The tip about Cultish came from the account of a popular and legitimate cult podcast. That show is hosted by a licensed psychologist and it’s always been a reliable source in the realm of cult education. The message received had warning emojis and it read, “FYI, this cult podcast called “Cultish” is essentially a front to indoctrinate people into extremist right wing Christianity.”
The claim was so outlandish it was worth considering if the tipster had been hacked or was embattled in a previously unknown cult podcast ratings war that had compromised their decency. Not the case. The message came with a video containing a hipster looking, bearded millennial who was very excited about Roe V. Wade being overturned, and the gentleman spoke about being discriminated against before using the word “murder” in reference to reproductive freedom. The Cultish brand was familiar due to their social media savvy, but not known beyond the handsome design and title on Instagram. So, maybe Cultish had been hacked by a right-wing extremist? Also, not the case. Looking away from the gleeful man celebrating victory over choice, there was no mistaking where the content came from. The Cultish logo was displayed in a large neon sign in the background.
Impossible…
The show needed to be listened to immediately. What would a right-wing Christian podcast about cults even sound like?
An episode list confirmed that the show was indeed populated with topics you might hear discussed any number of legitimate cult podcasts. And then you hit play.
Cultish on Manson
One place to start is with the episode about the most notorious cult leader of all time: Charles Manson. Everyone knows what happened in that story, right?
The episode opens like lots of glossy podcasts open, with an ad read. It was curious to wonder why the show was getting sponsors if it was actually what the tipster said it was. Hmm. At first, the rapidly read, ambiguous word salad sounded sort of like a paid advertisement. Then there’s a line about supporting a ministry. Odd! Nothing sensational is mentioned in this “ad read” and there’s no disclaimer about the ministry being affiliated with the podcast so… Maybe the ministry is cool and they pay well for this kind of placement? Still weird.
The real tell here is that a podcast about cults with any self-awareness would never, ever do an ad read for a ministry in the first place. It’s not at all controversial to say that ministries are the most redundant offenders in the entire cultiverse. A serious cult podcast opening by shilling for a church is about as likely as a post office selling stamps with flattering images of Ted Kaczynski on them. We are off the rails and we haven’t even started.
After the ad and a brief episode description there’s an overly long sound collage of a bumper that seems very much like what an audio designer might imagine a show about cults would open with if they just heard about cults for the first time yesterday. Spoiler: that bumper will turn out to be the best part of the show by a mile. Now it’s time to chat about Manson.
What led Charles Manson, a psychopath who was abused as a child, to do bad things in the short window of his adult life he didn’t spend in prison? In the world of the supposed cult authorities at Cultish, sexual liberty got way out of hand and bad things happen when fornicaters are on the loose. In this part of the conversation the word “abortion” literally comes out of the mouth of one of the “guests,” or “co-host” or whoever the hell she is, while describing the circumstances that produced Charles Manson and his Family. Seriously, like it was a common piece of Manson trivia.
The episode isn’t all about sinners having sex and abortion resulting in cult slayings, which should make things more coherent. Not the case! The stretches that aren’t obviously nods to right-wing Christian ideology just do not include sentences from serious adults on the subject of Manson. The conversation immediately erodes into a wilderness of conspiracy theories as you find yourself listening to what might be the single dumbest “true” crime story ever told in front of microphones. It’s excruciating. The logic used to explain what the rest of us get wrong about Manson is so spectacularly ridiculous it’s impossible to nutshell. Imagine a podcast about American football where the hosts believe all the games are fixed by the FBI, no one understands the concept of fourth down, and descriptions of the games are dotted with nods to abortion.
These people are as close to becoming astronauts as they are being experts in the field of cults. Everyone in the room thinks Manson is a mystery. Yet, despite how little reality matters to these clowns (nothing but self-serving spin here,) resources are definitely not the problem. Below is a video where one of the hosts of Cultish is called upon as a legitimate, rational voice on the topic of cults, which would be screamingly hilarious had it taken place in anything close to an honest forum. However, the video happens to be the product of another media project from the same church that funds Cultish. The conversation is insane in the common sense of the word. The production is “insane” in the sense that it completely blows away expectations.
Listening to the Manson episode wasn’t much fun, nor was there a shred of good information to be found, but it seemed prudent to give another episode a chance. The title of this one was Is Christianity a Cult? There’s definitely room for an interesting conversation here, but that was lost in the desert, nowhere to be found. The conversation was just as intellectually bankrupt as the Manson episode.
We learn there are Christian enemies of God who are in cults, like the Catholics, for sure. But what about all the unorthodox theology the hosts themselves believe in? Well that’s not cult material in the slightest; couldn’t be. Nothing to see here, folks! Totally unprovoked, mind you. No dissenting opinion.
What we hear in this episode is the sonic equivalent of a toddler with chocolate smeared all over their face trying to deny they touched the candy dish.
The moment the episode was turned off for keeps came very shortly after one of the idiots on the show became exasperated that anyone would question anything about the “evidence based” story of Jesus, which was first recorded five full generations after the human being died! The moron, whose only cult education comes from listening to other morons, remarks that there’s such a war chest of “facts” available we know the “time” and “date” of events that occured in the bible. The time.
Not to patronize the shitty people responsible for this completely dishonest podcast, but anyone who tells you they know what time it was when anything happened 2,000+ years ago is 110% full of shit. Were the disciples wearing wrist watches or did they just pull out their iPhones to check the time like we do now’a days? How much is the story of The Flintstones being conflated with The New Testament here? Perhaps it was December 25th when Jesus was born, what date did the human being die on though, exactly? In this precisely accurate story, what time was it when the magician hero with super powers turned into a zombie, you lying dirtbags? Anyway, this show stinks.
Cultish is the product of a church that manipulates its followers with bogus translations of the bible in order to serve the hateful agenda of leadership. It’s got cult written all over it.
The creator of Cultish is Jeff D, who is also the minister at the Baptist Apologia Church in Mesa, Arizona. Apologia is not a conventional Baptist ministry as the church preaches Calvinism and Theonomy, checks notes, “a hypothetical Christian form of government in which society is ruled by divine law. Theonomists hold that divine law, particularly the judicial laws of the Old Testament, should be observed by modern societies.” This gets dangerous in a hurry as it’s used by pastor Jeff D (who also spearheads End Abortion Now) to spread violent concepts including the very strange idea that Jesus believes in Stand Your Ground and is pro-war and the idea that doctors who perform abortions and women who recieve them should be put to death. It’s classic manipulation of concepts that the human Jesus never actually talks about in the book, and it’s reminiscent of the kind of thing you’ll find in other Baptist cults.
The church leader responsible for Cultish also engages in culty behavior that’s beyond the standard twisting of scripture to convince believers his own agenda comes straight from God. Jeff is fond of secretly recording his members confessing their sins and then using those recordings to smear people who disagree with the way he runs the church. That’s not the kind of behavior a church that isn’t a cult would ever engage in. Another thing that sets off the ol’ cult-o-meter is that Jeff D requires new members to sign contracts upon entry, which again, you won’t find in any legitimate church. In the Apologia contract is an oath to be “faithful unto death.”
More information about Apologia can be found at checkmychurch.com and it’s noteworthy that Jeff D does not like Check My Church at all. When the fact based website made inquiries about Apologia, Jeff refused to cooperate and decided to instead go on a long tirade against the site and other critics on another Apologia podcast.
In episodes of Cultish, a podcast about cults with absolutely no intellectual value, you’ll find the hosts Jeff installed identifying many “cults” that are not actually cults, and the minister himself responded with the same tactic when his feeling were hurt by the evil, godless monsters at Check My Church. In Jeff’s eyes the website, which is a legitimate resource that is not a cult at all, is the real cult to watch out for. What’s funny is that after listening to his shitty podcast, you can almost give Jeff the benefit of the doubt and imagine he’s saying all this because, like the hosts of the show, he has no idea what a cult is in the first place. The author at Check My Church responded to the minister’s dumb smear with a fun article you can read here.
In the recent press release outing Cultish, Apologia is referred to bluntly as “a dangerous right-wing Christian extremist cult.” It’s hard to disagree with that assessment the more you learn about what Jeff D preaches at Apologia and the inner workings of the church, per former members. What’s more, there are signs in the actual product of Cultish that seem to indicate the presence of a cult leader behind the scenes.
Jeff D and his ideas are front and center, and he’s the mastermind of a show that’s full of very unconventional and dishonest views on cults. And again, when the show isn’t baldly hateful, it’s riddled with outlandish conspiracy theories. You might imagine that because there are other “hosts” and “guests” on the show there might be some descent from Jeff’s fantasies every once in a while, but that never happens. On the occasions where Jeff fills in as the proper host, nothing about the show changes. Control is the word that springs to mind. Also, if you’re looking for a sign of narcissism, well, the actual sign that lives behind Andrew S, the loudest voice on the show, speaks volumes.
We know the deceptive ad that opens the show is not actually sponsored by a paying company selling a product in the physical world, right? So how can this podcast afford an enormous custom vanity neon sign like that? How much do you suppose something like that would cost? Another thing that might blow a few minds in Arizona- podcasts are something you listen to with your ears. Why does this exist?
Real cult podcasts don’t have luxurious neon vanity signs because they’re podcasts for starters, and well, because they don’t have excess money to blow from churches. The sign seems to be there for video interviews, which almost exclusively come from other wings of Apologia’s well-funded media enterprise. Presumably, the sign is also there to lend credibility in Instagram videos about how “intolerant” people who believe reproductive freedom are. That one kind of makes sense though, because Cultish has no credibility in the cult education community. Improvisation was likely necessary. Apologia doesn’t have to report how much the people who work for the church are compensated because of ridiculous laws in this country, but it’s outrageous to imagine the money for this enormous vanity sign came from anywhere but donations to the church. And vanity is the operative word with Cultish. If it wasn’t malignant narcissism behind the wheel of this purchase, why wouldn’t they go for something a little more modest? For instance…
It’s odd too that such a small church has these resources. Double ridiculous that a podcast with so few listeners outside the hive that the good cult community is just finding out about it now would ever have the money to toss around on its own deceptive image. The probable reality here is that the image and perception of Cultish (as well as Jeff’s as a social media star for right-wing zealots) is really all that’s on the table besides hate when you boil it down.
The most serious problem is that there’s a vulnerable audience beyond the Apologia crowd that’s being targeted and may be predispositioned to mistake Jeff’s bologna for the truth.
Why do we think the podcast Cultish is truly diabolical?
At the top of this article it was mentioned that people seek out cult stories for a variety of reasons and one of the audiences who search for these stories are survivors of coercive groups. Cultish might come off as insulting to this group, but it’s also easy to imagine an outcome far worse than a proverbial slap to the face. The tipster who sent the press release about Cultish articulated their chief concern bluntly.
"The podcast itself seems to target ex-members of other Christian denominations that function as high control groups. As is the agenda of Apologia, the podcast specifically aims to "minister" to Ex-Mormons and Ex-JW's who want to keep their Christian faith and are looking to find "True Christianity". This podcast has no intention of actually helping victims of cultic abuse and in fact, only intends to recruit them. As someone who is an active participant in the community of cult-education podcasts, I find this tactic particularly disturbing as it could ultimately make it less safe for survivors to trust media enough [and] come forward with their stories. Not to mention they are actively encouraging the all too common phenomenon of "cult hopping" helping people move from the metaphoric frying pan straight into the fire.”
The link in the quote takes you to the Apologia shop where a pamphlet for redirecting lost Mormons is for sale. You can’t just buy a single pamphlet, which strongly indicates the product is not designed for members of Apologia to brush up on their bullet points for why all Mormons are going to burn in hell. The reason the pamphlets only sell in bundles, presumably, to be spread by the faithful to as many targets as possible. On the same page you can buy a variety of Cultish merchandise.
As previously mentioned, fundamentalist Mormon cults are having a moment in the cultural zeitgeist right now. That’s a good thing because people should know exactly how dangerous and controlling those groups are wont to become. Mormonism has spawned many cults. That’s true. That a deeply conservative faith full of arbitrary rules and elders with way too much control exists in the cult zone might just be the only thing it’s easy to agree with Jeff D about. However, Jeff’s argument is truly based in bad faith. It certainly doesn’t seem like he actually wants to educate anyone or help anyone out of a cult unless they join his. As you can imagine, the pamphlets aren’t the only vehicle for Apologia to spread its message about Mormonism and save the souls of those who are wandering. There’s an episode of Cultish about that.
It’s extremely rare for a member to exit a religious cult and immediately turn into an agnostic, secular citizen. You can’t just flip a switch and turn off years of indoctrination even if you realize you’ve been hoodwinked. The term “cult hopping” mentioned by the tipster is widely recognized in the cult education community because it’s a real phenomenon. Cults will always exist because people will always be searching for meaning and certain people will always want to exploit that. People who’ve lost their religion may be looking for meaning more than just about anyone when they’re in the early stages of recovery. Giving up God is like giving up your identity.
Cultish isn’t dangerous to anyone properly educated on cults because it’s transparent and the information contradicts every other resource. However, you can imagine there’s not a whole lot of cult education going on in the world of Mormonism, just as it also seems like a safe bet that Under the Banner of Heaven is not the most popular show in Utah right now. If you knew you had been involved with a cult, but didn’t know exactly what that meant and were predispositioned to prefer a Christian based form of cult education over the vastly more populated secular form, there are very few places to turn.
Do you know what the Mormon stance on abortion is? Unfortunately, there’s already common ground in place for Cultish. The views of Jeff D might not sound extreme at all to a former Mormon. Cultish is a trap set by a cult that’s very difficult to find a comparison for.
Cultish is worse than simply being garbage beyond garbage. It’s dangerous. And it’s true that all cults exploit people, or they wouldn’t be cults in the first place so there’s precedent in that respect. Still, holy shit. This podcast is terrible.
Correction: An earlier version of this article attributed Jeff D as the host of Cultish. Jeff is the creator of the show and occasionally fills in as a guest host.
