The Curse of the Cargo Cult
2 TImothy 3:1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
We are in a perilous time!
We are in a dangerous time!
We are endeavoring to placate the imperiled.
We are telling people that everything is all right when everything is not all right.
Perilous times: troubling times, fierce times, difficult times.
We are in such a day - “A day in which it is difficult to know what to do”.
Parents are confused.
Pastors are perplexed.
Schools are frustrated.
A perfect storm of worldliness and sinfulness and desire for freedom from all rules and restrictions.
It is not that we don’t care, or want to see bad things happen, we just don’t know what to do!!
Denying the power thereof!
Not simply the power of the faith itself, but its power to exert any influence in their lives.
There is no restraint on their own passions or carnal desires.
It is all about appearance, without an understanding of what is really needed to make the Christian faith work.
The Curse of the Cargo Cult.
First noticed in the late 19th century, the concept of the cargo cult came to prominence in the years immediately following WWII.
As the Japanese and American armies began to island hop their way to victory and defeat across the Pacific, they literally took over these small territories from people who had little or no contact with the Western world.
In the midst of this war, there was a collision of cultures that was taking place.
In areas such as Vanauatu, across Melanesia, from New Guinea to the Solomon Islands to Tanna's archipelago, the New Hebrides, dozens of unconnected communities, thousands of miles apart and speaking unrelated languages, seemed spontaneously to generate the same set of bizarre beliefs.
The classic account was by the Australian anthropologist Peter Lawrence who went out to the Madang district of New Guinea in 1949 to conduct field research into the traditional social relations of people who, despite colonial rule, were still living much as they had in the recent Stone Age. Lawrence gradually discovered that his presence in Madang had become woven into an extraordinary complex of beliefs. Persistent rumours abounded that a cargo ship was about to arrive in the harbour with huge consignments of goods for him, and the local people asked him to help them supervise the clearing of an airstrip. When he asked what the airstrip was for, he was told that cargo planes were about to arrive bringing tinned meat, rice, tools, tobacco and a machine for making electric light. And when he asked who was sending this cargo, they replied 'God in Heaven'.
Cargo cult activity in the Pacific region increased significantly during and immediately after World War II, when large amounts of manpower and materials were brought in by the Japanese and American combatants, and this was observed by the residents of these regions. When the war ended, the military bases were closed and the flow of goods and materials ceased. In an attempt to attract further deliveries of goods, followers of the cults engaged in ritualistic practices such as building crude imitation landing strips, aircraft and radio equipment, and mimicking the behaviour that they had observed of the military personnel operating them.
Notable examples of cargo cult activity include the setting up of mock airstrips, airports, offices, and dining rooms, as well as the fetishization and attempted construction of Western goods, such as radios made of coconuts and straw. Believers may stage "drills" and "marches" with sticks for rifles and use military-style insignia and national insignia painted on their bodies to make them look like soldiers, thereby treating the activities of Western military personnel as rituals to be performed for the purpose of attracting the cargo. Cult behaviors usually involved mimicking the day to day activities and dress styles of US soldiers, such as performing parade ground drills with wooden or salvaged rifles. They carved headphones from wood and wore them while sitting in fabricated control towers. They waved the landing signals while standing on the runways. They lit signal fires and torches to light up runways and lighthouses. In a form of sympathetic magic, many built life-size replicas of airplanes out of straw and created new military-style landing strips, hoping to attract more airplanes. The cult members thought that the foreigners had some special connection to the deities and ancestors of the natives, who were the only beings powerful enough to produce such riches. Interestingly, there are no reports of villagers mimicking the Japanese army. It was quickly understood by villagers that the white (US) tribe had won the conflict.
Based on this definition, the term "cargo cult" also is used in business and science to refer to a particular type of fallacy whereby ill-considered effort and ceremony take place but go unrewarded due to flawed models of causation as described above.
All over, islanders were downing tools, clearing airstrips in the jungle, building imitation radio masts out of bamboo, scouring their bibles for hidden messages, even sitting around politely drinking afternoon tea. If it worked for the white man, so the theory went, it would work for them.
They’re doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn’t work. No airplanes land. So I call these things Cargo Cult Science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential, because the planes don’t land.
Anthropologists note that the common point among all of the cargo cults that existed throughout the years is a desire for “stuff”.
Their imitation of what they have observed is the means to get the stuff.
Their failures are blamed on the stronger magic that others have, but they continue to see themselves as the rightful recipients of the cargo, as they are the only people who matter, and therefore the planes are coming from heaven, from their ancestors.
How sad, that these people went for years (and some actually exist today) thinking that by simple imitation they could get equal results.
The Curse of the Cargo Cult
I watched the videos with great amusement:
Todd Bentley, tattoo covered Charismatic preacher: BAM-ing people to the ground.
By his side are those who carefully cover the people with a cloth.
No idea that there was a reason for the cloth.
In the days of the early Pentecostal movement, as ladies were slain in the Spirit - coats and cloths were laid over those under the power, to maintain their modesty.
Now it is done, after a “courtesy fall”, just because that is what you are “supposed to do”.
The Curse of the Cargo Cult.
The rise of Contemporary Services - emulating the music of the Pentecostal world - if we can sound like them, we can have what they have.
If we can preach like them, we can have what they have.
What is our response:
Do we stop singing, because others are singing like us?
Do we stop preaching because others try to preach like us?
Do we stop our style of worship because others try to worship like us?
It truly is, the Curse of the Cargo Cult
The Latter Rain movement was proof that the imitators can influence the genuine.
As people began to use “Gifts” of the Spirit to direct marriages and business decisions, people withdrew from and resisted the operation of what are legitimate Gifts!
However, we cannot stop being who and what we are because of misuse and abuse by those less informed.
But there is a difference.
There is a mandate upon the church of the 21st century to avoid 2 dilemmas:
Stop being the church because of the misuse of legitimate spiritual gifts and tools by others.
Fall into the trap of being a cargo cult: imitating what prior generations have done, what the book of Acts, yet only being the shell or skeleton of the church that God has truly called us to be.
One can see the great Methodist revivals, “The First, Second and Third Great Awakening”, of the 18th & 19th centuries.
The Wesleys, George Whitefield, Charles Finney, and others stirred thousands.
In Cane Ridge, Kentucky, (late 1700‘s, early 1800‘s) the revival caused the construction of the largest single room log structure at the time. Manifestations of the spirit in this revival included speaking in tongues, shaking, quaking, falling out, and laughing in the Spirit.
Today the remnants of these once great “revival” movements are strewn across the country side, splintering shells of their former glory.
Preserving Pentecost
In order to prevent this from happening, let us identify three areas where we must continue to place emphasis:
Prayer - being a spiritual group of believers.
We are to be worshippers in spirit and in truth.
We are to walk in the spirit, pray in the spirit, abide in the spirit.
We are to have a daily communion with God.
“When you fast....”, “When you pray”... NEVER “IF”!!
In 1906, in the midst of the Azusa Street revival, there was a prophecy that went forth that said:
In the last days three things will happen in the Great Pentecostal Movement. There will be an over-emphasis on power, rather than on righteousness; there will be an over-emphasis on praise to a God to whom they no longer pray; there will be an over-emphasis on the gifts of the Spirit, rather than on the Lordship of Christ.
Holiness - the very concept of Church - “called out ones”
II Corinthians 6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,
The marks of separation upon our men and women can never be considered a weight and a burden to revival.
Our messages preached from pentecostal pulpits must declare the necessity of renouncing the sins of the world and the weights of worldliness that can attach themselves to our spirits.
I Peter 2:9: But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light: Covenant - We are the People of the NAME.
II Chronicles 7:14: If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
We must recognize that the name of Jesus - through faith and baptism - mark the people of God.
As circumcision was the sign of the covenant in the OT, so is baptism in Jesus name the sign of the covenant in the NT.
It is the “Name of Jesus” that shall cause men to hate us.
It is the preaching of the “Name of Jesus” that will cause men to demand that we cease to preach.
It is the praying of the “Name of Jesus” that will cause; demons to flee, the sick to be healed, the dead to be raised.
The Philistines could do things with the ARK, that the people of God never could.
Let us not be imitators, let us strife to be Authentic Apostolics!!
