Cults Have Nothing to Do with "Separation
of Government from Religion"

By Jia Fang

While exposing and criticizing "Falun Gong" in a deep-going way, more and more people, including former "Falun Gong" practitioners, have gradually realized that "Falun Gong" is a cult in essence. But some people with ulterior motives, utilizing the assumption that "government should be separated from religion" and on the ground that "most of the modern countries practicing the rule of law have not given any definition of cults," have said that the Chinese Government cannot define "Falun Gong" as a cult. Their logic is obviously untenable.

First of all, a cult is not a religion at all. One of the common features of cults all over the world is to distort and make use of some factors of religious belief, get involved in illegal and destructive activities and seriously harm society. How can we call such a force or organization a religion? A lot of lamentable facts have proved that Li Hongzhi's "Falun Gong" is not a religious organization at all, as they seduced people, amassed dirty money and killed people. In the West, cults can be found everywhere. According to incomplete statistics, there are more than 20,000 cults all over the world. For instance, in France alone, there are more than 170 cults with nearly 300,000 followers, such as Christian Science, the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Solar Temple. In order to distinguish cults like the Branch Davidians from other worship organizations, Westerners sometimes describe cults as extreme cults or destructive cults. In Japan, they call a newly-established religion a new religious group; for those which are somewhat isolated and mysterious and maintain their activities by "supernatural power," they call them neo-religious groups. (The notorious Aum Shinrikyo cult is included in this type.)

In addition, in order to strengthen the restrictions and control on cults, some countries have made efforts to perfect legislation and administration. Australia, Belgium, Germany, France and Britain have paid great attention to the cult problem and drawn up relevant laws to restrict "heresies" of Christianity. In Belgium, there are 187 determined heresies, in Germany, 800, in France, 172. After Aum Shinrikyo's sarin gas attack in the Tokyo subway, the Japanese government amended the Law on Religious Bodies as follows: restraining the areas under jurisdiction: 544 religious legal persons formerly under the jurisdiction of cities and prefectures are now under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Education; strengthening supervision and control, requiring religious legal persons to improve the degree of openness of their activities and accept exterior supervision; perfecting the administration of religions, exercising centralized control of religious legal persons throughout the country, and strengthening special administrations and staff. According to law, Japan has strengthened supervision and control over cults. For example, the Japanese police investigated the residences of the Aum Shinrikyo followers in the name of checking residence cards, in accordance with the Law on Basic Residence Census Register, and confiscated a dozen facilities of the cult, including their computers. In 1998, the French government set up the Interministerial Committee to Monitor Cults, consisting of representatives of the departments of justice, internal affairs, education, employment and national defense. It aims at strengthening the harmony and unity among different departments and effectively cracking down on the activities of cults. At the same time, in order to highly effectively control and crack down on cults, the French government also closely cooperates with Interpol, and Europol in particular. In accordance with international practice, China is strengthening legislation, perfecting administration, punishing key followers of the "Falun Gong" organization, and educating citizens and improving their ability to combat cults.

(Compiled by New Star Publishers, Dec., 1999)