Reflective writing

Considering ONE of the groups or new religious 

movements listed below, write a paper that 

considers the following:

1)

What about this group do you not trust or accept?

2)

How might you defend this group from the point(s) that you make in the first part?

3)

Why does this group have, or had, followers? What does 

it appeal to in them? 

Given 

the 

point(s)

that you

made in the second part

, 

does it also appeal to you? Why

or why not?

Some questions you may want to consider as you approach these three questions are: 

What is 

their theological perspective? What may make them seem cultish to the population at large? 

What pre

judices/bias might you bring to these questions? 

Groups/New Religious Movements to choose from:

Family International 

Kashi Ashram 

Heaven’s Gate 

Eckankar 

Unification Church 

Twelve Tribes 

The Brethren 

Church of Satan 

Church of Scientology 

invited to use any other 

information that you can gather (you are not obligated to do the latter). Use any citation style 

that makes it clear where your information is coming from. 

Be aware that

this is to be understood as a reflection paper and not solely a research paper. 

By 

reflection I mean the following:

I want you to consider what the material you have discovered means to you in a thoughtful 

way. A reflection is not a quickly developed, or 

long held, opinion, it is a sign of personal 

engagement with what you are studying. For instance, in my discussion of Kashi Ashram

,

that the accusations made against this group fall under the category of hearsay. The reflective 

element of my lecture

demanded

that I 

share that I 

still felt a prejudice against this group 

that

I 

doubted that I could defend. The reflective element in this lecture sought to identify my 

responses to the group and encouraged me to ask about my own prejudices and motives tha

t 

lay behind my response. Reflective thinking is not

a

declaration of opinions; it takes seriously