Church or Cult? How to Recognise Spiritual Abuse and Leave

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1. Introduction: "Is my church a cult?"

Church or cult? That is Sandrine's question. We answer it not with a label but with criteria that can be checked: how to recognise spiritual abuse and control, understand what makes them possible, talk about them and, if need be, get out.

1.1. A composite scene: the night the question was born

Disclaimer: the scene that follows is a composite. It describes no real person and no real church. It brings together situations and phrases that the literature cited in this article describes again and again (see parts 4, 5 and 7).

It is almost midnight. Sandrine (the name is invented) is leaving a prayer vigil in a rented hall at the back of a business park. She has two children and a part-time job, and she has attended this congregation for six years. The leader has himself called "the Apostle". He was consecrated, so people say, by his "spiritual father", a man they see once a year and to whom the church sends a "seed" every month.

Tonight, the Apostle announced a "breakthrough seed". Everyone was to give an amount that he set himself in order to "unlock" their situation. Sandrine gave her rent money. Two months ago, a prophecy promised her a new job "before the summer". Nothing came. She was told she had "lacked faith".

Her sister left last year. Since then, it has been said from the pulpit that she has "stepped out from under the covering". People are advised not to speak to her. When Sandrine timidly asked who the church was accountable to, a leader answered her with a phrase she hears often: "Touch not the Lord's anointed."

On the bus home, she types into her phone: "how to know if my church is a cult".

1.2. A legitimate question, badly framed

This article is written for Sandrine and for everyone who, in an independent "church" led by an unaffiliated apostle or prophet, senses that something is wrong without being able to name it.

The question "is my church a cult?" is legitimate, but badly framed. The word "cult" wounds those who are accused and wrongly reassures those who are not. We propose to shift the question: what matters is whether the power exercised there is accountable, and whether it harms people.

1.3. Thesis: three claims

This article defends three claims.

First, the word "cult" (French secte) does not make it possible to distinguish a healthy church from an abusive group. Sociologists have abandoned it as a verdict; French and Belgian law have replaced it with criteria of harm to persons: dérive sectaire (cultic deviance), sujétion (a state of subjection), organisation sectaire nuisible (harmful sectarian organisation). That is the ground on which judgement must be made, not the ground of beliefs.

Second, the main risk factor is structural. It is charismatic authority without checks and balances, isolated from any institution, exercised over people in fragile situations; it is not fervour, moral demands, or the African or migrant origin of the faithful. Abuse also occurs in affiliated churches, and many diaspora churches are healthy.

Third, the Bible, read in context, does not protect a power that refuses to be examined. It subjects that power to scrutiny: it requires that leaders be recognised by the community, that they have proven character before any spectacular gift, that they serve without domineering, and that every prophetic word be tested. Examining is a right and a duty; leaving is a freedom.

1.4. Vocabulary: cult, cultic deviance, control, spiritual abuse

• Church / "church": we put "church" in quotation marks when the very status of the group is in question.
• Sect / cult: French uses a single word, secte. In sociology it is a type of religious organisation, with no moral judgement (in English, "sect"); in everyday language, it is a dangerous group (in English, usually "cult") (part 2).
• Dérive sectaire (cultic deviance), sujétion (subjection), emprise (control, a psychological hold): a state of psychological or physical dependence created or maintained by a group or an individual (Miviludes, 2005). We do not include the idea of "brainwashing" in these terms (2.4).
• Spiritual abuse: a lasting pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour in a religious context (5.1).
• Accountability: having to answer to a body that can correct and discipline (French redevabilité).
• Affiliation: a local church's membership of a union of churches that belongs to a recognised federation (French rattachement) (3.5).

1.5. Method and the author's position

This article was written solely on the basis of a research dossier compiled in October 2026, covering the sociology of religion, the psychology of spiritual abuse, the anthropology of African diaspora churches in Europe, and theology. We gave priority to peer-reviewed articles, then to academic monographs, official texts, church documents and the press. Each reference was given a verification status. We only put in quotation marks passages that have been checked in their source. When a quotation has been verified only through a secondary source or a summary, we paraphrase it.

Quotations from English-language works are given in their original wording; quotations from French-language sources are given in our translation. One article often cited in this field was set aside because it was retracted for plagiarism.

This article does not target any particular group, apart from the published facts examined in part 7. It does not draw up a list: it provides criteria that each reader can apply to their own situation. It does not replace legal advice, or psychological or pastoral support.

The author writes from an evangelical Protestant perspective, that of historic Protestant Christianity. This explains the place given to Scripture and to the confessions of the Reformation. But we carefully distinguish two registers: description (what sociology, anthropology and psychology observe) and theological judgement (what Scripture requires). We want to remain compassionate towards sincere believers and firm towards abusive practices. And we want to say what has not been proven. Rigour is a form of charity.

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2. What is a cult? The word and its pitfalls

2.1. Church and sect in sociology: two types, not a verdict

Classical sociology contrasts the "church" and the "sect". But it is not talking about a good group and a bad group. It describes two ideal types, that is, two simplified models that help us think about reality.

Ernst Troeltsch (1912), following Max Weber, describes the church as a broad institution into which one is born, and which comes to terms with the institutions of the world. The sect, by contrast, gathers volunteers. It aims at moral perfection and adopts a critical stance towards society.

Benton Johnson (1963) reduced this typology to a single axis: the church accepts the social environment in which it lives, the sect rejects it. Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge (1979) turned this rejection into a degree of tension with the environment. They distinguished the sect, which arises from a schism within an existing tradition, from the "cult", which is an innovation with no link to an established tradition. Bryan Wilson (1959) classified sects according to the way they respond to the world.

These typologies also describe a movement. Over time, groups born in rupture settle down, become organised and turn into denominations. Eileen Barker (2014) observes this process among new religious movements: their boundaries become more porous and more negotiable as they accommodate to the outside world.

The consequence is important for an evangelical reader. By these criteria, a large part of evangelical Protestantism, and Pentecostalism in particular, is sociologically "sectarian" (voluntary membership, conversion, discipline of life, critical distance from the world). The church/sect typology therefore cannot distinguish a healthy church from an abusive group. This is the first point of agreement in the literature. It is also a lesson in humility: fervour is not a symptom.

2.2. From technical term to insult

The second point of agreement concerns the drift of the word. James Richardson (1993) described, for the English word cult, the shift from a sociological-technical definition to a popular-negative one. The French word secte has followed the same path.

To escape this trap, Eileen Barker (1989) preferred to speak of "new religious movements". In 1988 she founded the INFORM centre, which documents each group case by case. Barker (1995) also showed that the "truth" about cults is produced by actors with diverging interests: researchers, movements, anti-cult associations, the media, the courts.

In France, Danièle Hervieu-Léger (2001) analysed the "cult question" as a symptom of the deregulation of belief rather than as mere deviance. Françoise Champion and Martine Cohen (1999) examined the tension between the fight against cults and democratic freedoms. Other researchers, such as Massimo Introvigne and Gordon Melton (1996) or Susan Palmer (2011), are harshly critical of French policy. Their position is partisan, but their argument deserves a hearing: official lists and criteria risk stigmatising religious minorities, including evangelicals and Pentecostals.

This debate is not closed. We follow the path that judges not beliefs, but harm done to persons.

2.3. What is cultic deviance? French and Belgian law

Public authorities have drawn the same lesson as sociologists. A cult cannot be defined in law without violating the State's neutrality towards religions.

In France, the National Assembly's commission of inquiry into cults, whose rapporteur was Jacques Guyard, expressly acknowledged this in its report of 22 December 1995 (Assemblée nationale, 1995). It therefore adopted not a definition but ten indicators of dangerousness. These are mental destabilisation, exorbitant financial demands, induced rupture with one's original environment, harm to physical integrity, the indoctrination of children, a more or less anti-social discourse, disturbances of public order, the extent of legal proceedings, the possible diversion of traditional economic channels, and attempts to infiltrate public authorities.

The Interministerial Mission for Vigilance and Combating Sectarian Aberrations (Mission interministérielle de vigilance et de lutte contre les dérives sectaires, Miviludes), the French government body responsible for this issue, then shifted the vocabulary. It no longer speaks of "cults" but of dérives sectaires (cultic deviance). Its guide for public officials states that cultic deviance is "to be sought wherever individuals or groups create or maintain a physical or psychological subjection in their followers" (Miviludes, 2005, p. 16, our translation).

The same guide insists that a cluster of criteria is needed, not just one (Miviludes, 2005, p. 14). On its website, the Miviludes defines cultic deviance as pressure or techniques aimed at creating, maintaining or exploiting a state of subjection that deprives a person of part of their free will. It offers a list of seventeen criteria, "an indicative list which is not exhaustive" (Miviludes, n.d., our translation).

Since Law No. 2024-420 of 10 May 2024, article 223-15-3 of the French Criminal Code (Code pénal) also punishes placing or keeping a person in a state of psychological or physical subjection that seriously impairs their health or leads them to an act or omission that is seriously harmful to them. The penalty is three years' imprisonment and a fine of 375,000 euros. It rises to five years and 750,000 euros in certain circumstances, notably when the offender leads a group that exploits this subjection, and to seven years and one million euros when several of these circumstances are combined or in the case of an organised gang (France, 2024).

Belgium made the same choice. The Law of 2 June 1998, which created the Information and Advice Centre on Harmful Sectarian Organisations (Centre d'information et d'avis sur les organisations sectaires nuisibles, CIAOSN), does not define the cult. It defines the organisation sectaire nuisible (harmful sectarian organisation) as "any group with a philosophical or religious purpose, or claiming to be such, which, in its organisation or practice, engages in harmful illegal activities, harms individuals or society, or undermines human dignity" (Belgique, 1998, art. 2, our translation).

When this law was brought before it, Belgium's Court of Arbitration (Cour d'arbitrage) stressed that the Centre has "no competence that would allow it to control and prohibit a priori the expression of an opinion" (Cour d'arbitrage, 2000, B.2.9, our translation).

The question is therefore no longer "is it a cult?", but "does this group harm people?". This framework protects freedom of belief, not abuse.

2.4. "Brainwashing" or mind control: the debate

The term "brainwashing" is also problematic. In the 1980s, a working group of the American Psychological Association (APA) on these techniques drafted a report whose first signatory was the psychologist Margaret Singer. On 11 May 1987, the APA board responsible for reviewing it rejected it, judging that the report "lacks the scientific rigor and evenhanded critical approach necessary for APA imprimatur" (APA, 1987).

Dick Anthony and Thomas Robbins (1992) then criticised the use of the notion of "brainwashing" in the courts. Singer and Lalich's book (1995) remains a useful clinical description, but it should be read with this caution in mind.

Recent models have changed perspective. Janja Lalich (2004) speaks of "bounded choice". The member does not lose their free will: they make choices that seem rational to them, within a framework that the group has gradually closed in around them.

In this article, therefore, we will speak of observable mechanisms of influence and control, not of "brainwashing". The pastoral consequence: a person under control is neither "mad" nor "possessed". They have made reasonable choices in a world whose doors have been closed, one by one.

2.5. Key takeaways

First, being a small, fervent, demanding and independent church does not make a group a "cult" in the everyday sense. Second, the law and the administration judge acts and their effects on persons, not doctrines. Finally, no indicator is sufficient on its own: what counts is their accumulation and their duration. The grid in part 8 is built on these three ideas.

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3. Self-proclaimed apostles and prophets: power without checks and balances

3.1. Charismatic authority according to Weber

Among the three types of legitimate authority that Max Weber (1922/1971) distinguishes, charismatic authority rests on the recognition, by disciples, of extraordinary qualities attributed to a person.

This authority is unstable by nature. It has two possible destinies. Either it becomes routinised: it turns into an institution, with rules, mandates and councils. Or it must constantly prove itself anew: through miracles, prophecies that come true, successes, money. An apostle without an institution lives under this second constraint: every unfulfilled prophecy, every departure, every question threatens his legitimacy. Hence the difficulty in accepting challenge.

Anthropology confirms this fragility. Damien Mottier (2008) followed for several years a church founded in December 2000 in the Île-de-France region (Greater Paris) by a Congolese prophet, which had around sixty members. He describes the church from the beginnings of the prophet's activity to the crisis of legitimacy that eventually discredited him. A general lesson can be drawn from it, which remains an interpretation: a power based solely on personal charisma has no institutional recourse in a crisis. It tends either to harden in order to protect itself, or to collapse.

3.2. Why structure protects: Chaves

According to Mark Chaves (1993), a denomination superimposes two structures on local churches. The first is a religious authority structure: it says who may teach, who ordains pastors, who settles conflicts. The second is an "agency" structure: it manages shared finances, ministries and property.

An affiliated local church fits into both structures: its pastor answers to a body that can correct him, and its accounts are examined by others. Conversely, an independent "church" founded by an apostle often concentrates both structures in a single person or a single family. The same man teaches, appoints, judges, collects and spends. No one, above him or beside him, can say no.

3.3. Apostolic networks and the "New Apostolic Reformation"

This model is peculiar neither to Africa nor to the diaspora. It first developed in the United States. Christerson and Flory (2017) describe there the rise of Independent Network Charismatic Christianity: leaders who call themselves apostles or prophets, without any denominational structure, linked by vertical or horizontal networks. In vertical networks, spiritual authority flows down from the top to the base, while money and loyalty flow up to the top. In horizontal networks, relationships look more like the provision of services for payment. In both cases, accountability mechanisms are weak.

This movement was theorised by C. Peter Wagner under the name New Apostolic Reformation (NAR). Weaver (2016) has written its history. In French, Gagné (2020) offers the main synthesis. Resane (2016) points out a decisive feature of Wagner's ecclesiology: apostles are neither self-appointed nor elected by a church body, but chosen directly by God. The consequence is serious: if the apostle is chosen by God alone, any human oversight becomes suspect, and any criticism can be presented as rebellion against God.

3.4. Where do "covering" and "spiritual fatherhood" come from?

Two notions come up often: covering and spiritual fatherhood. The believer is "under the covering" of their pastor, and the pastor under that of his spiritual father. Stepping out from under it would, it is said, expose one to the enemy's attacks.

These notions go back largely to the Shepherding Movement, which arose in the United States in the 1970s. Moore (2003), who wrote its standard history, describes its abuses of authority and the public apologies of some of its founders. Resane (2021) traces the legacy of this movement in South African neo-Pentecostalism: submission to authority, apostolic and prophetic ministries. "Covering" is therefore not an ancient African tradition but, to a large extent, the legacy of an American movement that some of its own founders disowned.

Spiritual fatherhood then takes local forms. Zorodzai Dube (2018) shows that in Zimbabwe, "spiritual parenting" in urban Pentecostalism creates a substitute kinship for people uprooted by migration to the cities. It also reinvents patriarchal models in Christian form.

Vincent Fenga (2025) sees in the title "Papa" the meeting point of African ancestral mediation, biblical spiritual fatherhood and centralised prophetic authority, and he raises the question of these "fathers'" accountability. In France, Mottier (2012) showed how the vocabulary of "spiritual kinship" (fathers, sons, mothers) structured the internal hierarchy of a congregation led by a pastor-prophet, and how this vocabulary proved fragile in the face of conflict.

Spiritual mentoring, however, is not abusive in itself. Paul presents himself as the father of those he brought to faith: "you don't have many fathers. For in Christ Jesus, I became your father through the Good News" (1 Cor 4:15). The relationship becomes dangerous when the "son" can no longer challenge the "father", when a leader is appointed simply by spiritual descent, without examination by a community, and when money flows upwards in exchange for spiritual protection.

3.5. What is an "affiliated" church? France and Belgium

In France, evangelical Protestantism gradually organised itself into networks and unions of churches, until it acquired common bodies (Fath, 2005).

Today, the National Council of Evangelicals of France (Conseil national des évangéliques de France, CNEF) states that it represents more than 70% of the country's evangelical churches. It does not directly admit an isolated local church. It admits unions of churches. To join, a union must bring together at least five churches, have existed for at least two years, be recommended by two unions that are already members, and declare its full agreement with the CNEF's founding documents (CNEF, n.d. a). An "affiliated" church is therefore a member of a union which is itself a member of the CNEF or of the Protestant Federation of France (Fédération protestante de France, FPF).

In Belgium, Protestant and evangelical worship is recognised by the State. For a local community to be recognised, only the Administrative Council of Protestant and Evangelical Worship (Conseil administratif du culte protestant et évangélique, CACPE) can submit the application. The criteria include an appropriate legal structure, the leaders' capacity for administrative and financial management, and respect for democratic values (Wallonie, n.d.).

Affiliation thus brings three safeguards: a shared confession of faith, peers who have examined the church, and an outside body to turn to.

In South Africa, the public commission responsible for the rights of religious communities (CRL), faced with abuses by independent "prophets", chose not prohibition but a mechanism of peer self-regulation, announced in April 2025 (CRL Rights Commission, 2025).

3.6. What affiliation does not guarantee

Affiliation is an indicator, not a guarantee. First, abuse also occurs in affiliated churches. Part 7 gives examples: a church in the Paris region affiliated to an evangelical union that is a member of the CNEF, and a recognised Swiss Reformed church. Second, protection mechanisms often remain weak. Lisa Oakley, Kathryn Kinmond and Justin Humphreys (2018) show that safeguarding policies against spiritual abuse are still underdeveloped in British Christian organisations. In their survey, only 33% of respondents said that their church or Christian organisation had a policy covering this type of abuse (Oakley and Humphreys, 2018).

Finally, some evangelical communities thrive in isolation, without any affiliation, as an anti-cult association's journal notes (Unadfi, 2018). Lack of affiliation is not a fault in itself. It simply removes a means of recourse.

The decisive difference lies elsewhere: in an affiliated church, when abuse becomes known, a body exists that can act. Under an apostle who answers only to a distant spiritual father, no such body exists, and the victim has only two options: keep silent or leave.

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4. African diaspora churches: precariousness, isolation, control

4.1. A diverse landscape

Many of our readers attend churches that have grown out of African migration to Europe. The literature first stresses one point: these churches do not form a single bloc. Sarah Demart (2008) estimates that the Pentecostal and evangelical churches stemming from the Congolese Revival (Réveil) number, across Europe, in the hundreds or even thousands, and she describes a diverse and fragmented movement. Damien Mottier (2014) places the emergence of African charismatic churches in France in the 1980s.

Several types of church coexist. There are large transnational denominations with oversight bodies, such as the Church of Pentecost, which comes from Ghana and is present in some fifteen European countries (Fancello, 2007; Oppong-Konadu, 2023). There are "prophetic" churches stemming from the African independent churches, such as Kimbanguism or Celestial Christianity (Fancello and Mary, 2010). And there is a nebula of small congregations founded by a pastor-prophet, often without affiliation. Afe Adogame (2010, 2013) shows that these churches live in a state of simultaneous embeddedness in the country of origin and the host country.

Abuse is therefore neither "African" nor peculiar to the diaspora. The model of the unaccountable apostle was born largely in the United States (3.3 and 3.4). The public cases in part 7 involve churches of all origins. The relevant criterion is structural: is the power accountable, or not?

4.2. The founding prophet and "reverse mission"

A theme often recurs in these churches: that of "reverse mission". Africa, evangelised yesterday by Europe, is said today to be bringing the Gospel back to a de-Christianised Europe (Fancello and Mary, 2010; Währisch-Oblau, 2009). Mottier (2017) shows that Congolese and Ivorian prophets in the Paris region built their visionary charisma around this imaginary of evangelising France. This discourse is often more claimed than practised: Oppong-Konadu (2023) observes, in the Church of Pentecost in Belgium, a mission directed mainly at members of the community itself.

In Brussels, Maïté Maskens (2012) shows that African and Latin American Pentecostal pastors present themselves as chosen by God for their immigrant compatriots. Their legitimacy springs from a narrative: a journey guided by God, migratory miracles. It rests neither on training nor on institutional recognition. This narrative may be sincere. But when it is the sole source of authority, no one can verify it.

4.3. Migrant vulnerability: why leaving is costly

Maskens (2014) shows how the Pentecostal narrative reinterprets exile: geographical movement and divine action are intertwined in it. The change in status is real: "from a mere believer in his country of origin, the newcomer becomes a 'migrant-missionary'" (Maskens, 2011, p. 70, our translation). But the same study also describes a couple of believers living "in relative precariousness due, in large part, to their situation of illegality" on Belgian territory (Maskens, 2011, p. 79, our translation). David Garbin (2013) adds that these churches are often invisible in the city: they meet in warehouses or rented premises, apart from other communities.

The church then offers a home, a network, a meaning for the ordeal of migration, sometimes housing or a job. That is a real good. It is also what makes leaving costly. An undocumented person whose entire network runs through the church does not easily leave an abusive pastor. It is not their origin that makes them vulnerable, but their precariousness, combined with the group's institutional isolation.

4.4. Money, "seed" and the economy of giving

Money is a sensitive issue. Garbin (2019) speaks of sacred remittances to describe giving in a transnational Congolese church. The money given circulates within a system of meanings, moral expectations and entitlements, embedded in relations of status and power. Claudia Währisch-Oblau (2011) describes, in migrant churches in Germany, a view in which healing and prosperity are part of a material salvation, obtained through "breakthrough" and spiritual warfare.

When giving is presented as the condition for a breakthrough, the boundary between generosity and extortion becomes porous. Asonzeh Ukah (2007) notes that financial mobilisation in West African Pentecostalism remains a blind spot in research. Adedibu and Igboin (2019), two Nigerian theologians, argue from the inside for leaders' accountability and financial probity. Lecomte (2012), an analyst at the CIAOSN, identifies in some neo-Pentecostal churches in Brussels a theology that links the believer's spiritual greatness to the amount of their giving. Her text appears in a journal published by a campaigning association: caution is needed.

4.5. Why do people stay? "Consented abuses"

Demart (2013) notes, in the Congolese Revival churches of Kinshasa and the diaspora, recurring scandals involving money and sex on the part of leaders. She shows that the church is at once a moral utopia and a place of practices that contradict it.

In Ghana, Golo and Benyah (2025) interviewed young Christian adults about neo-Pentecostal deliverance practices. These young people knew about the abuses, but accepted them as the price of a solution to their existential problems. Hence the title of their article: Consented abuses?

Knowing that there is abuse is not enough to get out of it. One can see, and stay. This is not stupidity. It is the "bounded choice" described by Lalich (2004): when everything that matters runs through the group, staying seems more reasonable than leaving.

4.6. Counter-examples

The risk factors are real (institutional isolation, authority without checks and balances, precariousness), but they are not linked to any origin. Counter-examples abound. The Church of Pentecost is a structured African church, with oversight bodies, present throughout Europe (Fancello, 2007). African theologians are among the sharpest critics of prophetic abuses (part 7). Conversely, the Reformed Church of Neuchâtel, an old and recognised Swiss institution, had to remove a woman pastor accused of spiritual control from ministry in 2026 (7.6). Control has no colour or nationality. It has a structure.

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5. What is spiritual abuse? The psychology of control

5.1. Spiritual abuse: a definition

Research on spiritual abuse has two origins. The first is pastoral and evangelical: David Johnson and Jeff VanVonderen (1991) define it as the mistreatment of a person who is seeking help, with the effect of weakening their spiritual life. They describe performance-based systems and a rule of silence.

The second is academic and British. Lisa Oakley and Kathryn Kinmond (2013) define spiritual abuse as the coercion and control of one person by another in a spiritual context. Its manifestations include exploitation, censorship of personal decisions, requirements of secrecy and silence, use of Scripture or the pulpit to control, demanded obedience, the abuser's claim to a divine position, and isolation.

They turned this definition into a safeguarding policy for churches (Oakley and Kinmond, 2014). In their most recent formulation, spiritual abuse is a form of emotional and psychological abuse, characterised by a systematic pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour, exercised in a religious context or with a religious justification (Oakley, Kinmond and Blundell, 2024).

The word "pattern" is essential. It comes from Evan Stark's (2007) work on coercive control in intimate relationships: domination is not a series of isolated incidents but a system of isolation, intimidation and control of daily life. Mulvihill and colleagues (2023) explicitly apply this notion to religion.

David Ward (2011) gathered the experiences of former members. For him, spiritual abuse is a misuse of power in which spiritual authority itself is distorted, to the detriment of those it leads. He identifies six themes: the leader as God's representative, spiritual bullying, acceptance conditional on performance, spiritual neglect, a growing gap between what one lives and what one shows, and inner manifestations, extending even to the body.

5.2. Signs of control: six families of mechanisms

The most useful tool comes from the University of Barcelona. Álvaro Rodríguez-Carballeira and colleagues (2015) consulted thirty-one experts. They define group psychological abuse as "a process of systematic and continuous application of pressure, control, manipulation, and coercion strategies for the purpose of dominating other people in order to achieve their submission to the group" (Rodríguez-Carballeira et al., 2015, p. 34). This definition makes no judgement about doctrine: it describes practices.

The authors classify twenty-six strategies into six categories:

1. isolation: being cut off from family, friends, work or studies;
2. control and manipulation of information;
3. control over personal life: money, time, relationships, health;
4. emotional abuse: guilt-tripping, humiliation, intimidation, threats;
5. indoctrination into an absolute, Manichaean belief system;
6. imposition of a single, extraordinary authority.

The experts judge the emotional strategies to be the most serious. These categories were used to build a measurement scale, the PAEGS, validated with former members (Saldaña et al., 2017). An earlier scale of this kind, the Group Psychological Abuse Scale, had been proposed as early as 1994 (Chambers et al., 1994). Koch and Edstrom (2022) validated, with more than three thousand people, a spiritual abuse scale with six dimensions, including maintaining the system and controlling leadership.

5.3. Lifton and Lalich: theoretical frameworks

The psychiatrist Robert Lifton (1961) described eight criteria of "ideological totalism": milieu control, mystical manipulation, the demand for purity, the cult of confession, "sacred science", loading the language, doctrine over person, and the "dispensing of existence", that is, deciding who has the right to exist in the eyes of the group. Lalich (2004) describes four interlocking dimensions: charismatic authority, a transcendent belief system, systems of control and systems of influence.

These are theoretical frameworks that help understanding, not validated measurement instruments.

5.4. BITE and "religious trauma": popularisation tools

Steven Hassan's BITE model describes control of behaviour, information, thoughts and emotions. Very widely circulated, it rests for its validation mainly on a doctoral dissertation (Hassan, 2020), and not on a scale published in a peer-reviewed journal. It is a popularisation tool, not a validated instrument.

"Religious trauma syndrome", proposed by Marlene Winell (2011), describes fear of hell, guilt and disorientation after leaving. It was presented in a professional magazine, not peer-reviewed. It is not a recognised diagnosis. It can help to put words to an experience, no more. In an American survey of 1,581 adults, 27.7% of respondents said they had experienced religious trauma (Slade et al., 2023). The authors themselves state that their subgroup results are only indicative, and their journal could not be confirmed as peer-reviewed.

5.5. When prophecy fails to come true

What happens when a prophecy does not come true? A famous thesis, that of Leon Festinger and his colleagues (1956), claimed that believers then redouble their proselytising to reduce their discomfort. This thesis is now disputed. Kelly (2026) showed, on the basis of archival evidence, that the group studied was already recruiting before the announced date, and that one of the researchers had influenced events.

Dawson (1999) offers a sounder explanation: it is "successful rationalization, and not proselytization, that is the most important factor contributing to the maintenance of beliefs and the survival of the group" (Dawson, 1999, p. 64). The rationalisations are familiar: it was a test, you didn't have enough faith, it's the fault of those who doubted. Sandrine heard this. The prophecy did not fail: she did. This reversal of blame is a major warning sign.

5.6. The consequences of spiritual abuse

The more intense the abuse, the greater the suffering. Saldaña and colleagues (2017) observed, among 138 former members, distress above population norms. Those who sought psychological help after leaving had suffered more abuse. Among 706 people, the abuse score and the emotional distress score are very strongly linked (Saldaña et al., 2019). Another study classifies the after-effects observed in survivors (Saldaña et al., 2018). The systematic review by Ellis and colleagues (2022), covering twenty-five studies, confirms negative psychological and spiritual effects.

A British survey gathered 1,591 responses, including 1,002 from people describing themselves as victims of spiritual abuse. The phenomenon also affects ordinary churches. The main characteristics identified were coercion and control, manipulation and pressure on individuals, control through the misuse of biblical texts, and the "divine" justification of behaviour (Oakley and Humphreys, 2018). Even the counsellors who support victims can be affected by secondary trauma (Gubi and Jacobs, 2009).

These data have limits. The samples are self-selected, often recruited through associations: no valid percentages for the whole population can be drawn from them. And there are almost no studies of French-speaking independent churches.

5.7. The evangelical objection

An objection comes from our own spiritual family. In 2018, the Evangelical Alliance UK judged the term "spiritual abuse" ambiguous. It fears the term might be used to criminalise ordinary religious practices, such as exhortation or church discipline. But it very clearly acknowledges the seriousness of emotional and psychological abuse committed in a religious context (Evangelical Alliance UK, 2018).

The objection is useful: it forces us to build behavioural criteria, not doctrinal ones. A pastor who preaches repentance abuses no one. A pastor who humiliates, isolates, threatens and demands silence does. Fernández (2022) also recalls a point that victims need to hear: the victim of spiritual abuse is not guilty of it, and the institution bears its share of responsibility.

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6. False apostles, false prophets: what the Bible says about authority

6.1. The marks of the Church

The Reformation did not define the Church by its size or by its founder's charisma, but by marks. The Augsburg Confession says that the Church "is the assembly of all believers among whom the Gospel is taught in its purity and the Holy Sacraments are administered in accordance with the Gospel" (Augsburg Confession, 1530, art. 7, our translation from the French version). Calvin gives the same two marks: wherever the Word of God is sincerely preached and heard, and the sacraments are administered according to Christ's institution, there can be no doubt that a Church exists (Calvin, 1559/1560, IV.1.9).

In a "church" under control, the Bible is quoted a great deal. But it is often the prophet's word that judges Scripture, rather than Scripture judging the prophet. The first mark is then struck at its heart.

6.2. Regular call versus self-proclamation

This is probably the most useful criterion for our reader. According to the Augsburg Confession, "no one should publicly teach or preach in the Church, or administer the Sacraments, unless he has received a regular call" (art. 14, our translation from the French version). The Confession of La Rochelle is clearer still: "no one may claim an ecclesiastical office on his own authority, but this must be done by election" (Confession of La Rochelle, 1559, art. 31, our translation).

It also states that "all true pastors [...] have the same authority and equal power under one Head, one Sovereign and one universal Bishop: Jesus Christ" (art. 30, our translation). In fairness, let us note that article 31 allows for extraordinary callings when the Church is in ruins: this is an exception, not a model of government.

These confessions follow the New Testament. Paul asks Titus to "appoint elders in every city" (Titus 1:5): elders, in the plural. An accusation against an elder may be received "at the word of two or three witnesses", and those who sin are to be reproved "in the sight of all" (1 Tim 5:19-20), "without prejudice, doing nothing by partiality" (1 Tim 5:21).

When a serious question divides the Church, "the apostles and the elders were gathered together to see about this matter" (Acts 15:6), and the decision is taken "with the whole assembly" (Acts 15:22). Even the apostles deliberate. No leader in the New Testament is above examination.

6.3. Character before charisma

The lists of qualifications for leaders do not ask for miracles or prophecies, but for character. The overseer must be "without reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, sensible, modest" (1 Tim 3:2), "not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous" (1 Tim 3:3). He must not be "a new convert, lest being puffed up he fall" (1 Tim 3:6). He "must have good testimony from those who are outside" (1 Tim 3:7). He must not be "greedy for dishonest gain" (Titus 1:7).

Peter sums it up: "Shepherd the flock of God [...] not for dishonest gain, but willingly; neither as lording it over those entrusted to you, but making yourselves examples to the flock" (1 Pet 5:2-3).

In many "churches" under control, the order is reversed. The gift, the anointing and the "results" validate the man; his character is never examined. Banda (2021), in a study of South African neo-Pentecostalism, sees in certain prophetic abuses a shift: God's holiness gives way to human needs and to the cult of celebrity.

6.4. "Apostles" and "prophets" today: a foundation, not a rank

According to Paul, believers have been "built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the chief cornerstone" (Eph 2:20). In the strong sense, the apostle is a witness of the resurrection: someone had to be found who would "become a witness with us of his resurrection" (Acts 1:22). Paul defends his apostleship in these terms: "Am I not an apostle? Haven't I seen Jesus Christ, our Lord?" (1 Cor 9:1). Yet a foundation is laid only once.

Evangelicals acknowledge that Christ continues to give a variety of ministries "for the perfecting of the saints" (Eph 4:11-12), including missionary ministries of an apostolic kind. But Budiselić (2008), in an evangelical theological journal in Zagreb, draws the useful line: an apostolic ministry today can be influential and spiritual, but not governmental and hierarchical. Geivett and Pivec (2014) set out a comparable biblical critique of the NAR. The New Testament, moreover, knows of "false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as Christ's apostles" (2 Cor 11:13). The title proves nothing.

6.5. Jesus and titles

Jesus contrasts two models of authority. "You know that the rulers of the nations lord it over them, and their great ones exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you, but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant" (Matt 20:25-26). The model is his own: "the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve" (Matt 20:28).

He goes further regarding titles: "But don't you be called 'Rabbi,' for one is your teacher, the Christ, and all of you are brothers. Call no man on the earth your father, for one is your Father, he who is in heaven" (Matt 23:8-9). This text does not forbid calling one's biological father "Dad", and Paul calls himself a father in the faith (1 Cor 4:15). It targets titles that place a man above the brothers and remove him from fellowship. "But he who is greatest among you will be your servant" (Matt 23:11).

6.6. Abusive shepherds in the Bible: Ezekiel, Diotrephes, Corinth

Ezekiel prophesies: "Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves!" (Ezek 34:2), who have ruled over the sheep "with force and with rigor" (Ezek 34:4). Paul warns against "men who overthrow whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for dishonest gain's sake" (Titus 1:11). Peter foretells false teachers who, "in covetousness [...] will exploit you with deceptive words" (2 Pet 2:3).

Paul speaks ironically to the Corinthians: "For you bear with a man, if he brings you into bondage, if he devours you, if he takes you captive, if he exalts himself, if he strikes you on the face" (2 Cor 11:20).

The most precise portrait is that of Diotrephes, "who loves to be first". Not only does he reject the authority of the apostle John, but "neither does he himself receive the brothers, and those who would, he forbids and throws out of the assembly" (3 John 9-10). Everything is there: love of first place, imposed isolation, the exclusion of those who do not fall into line. Paul had warned the elders of Ephesus: men will arise "to draw away the disciples after them" (Acts 20:30).

6.7. "Touch not the Lord's anointed"? The right to examine

One phrase often comes up to silence questions: "Touch not the Lord's anointed." It turns any checking into sacrilege. The New Testament says the opposite. The Jews of Berea are praised for "examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so" (Acts 17:11), and it was Paul himself they were examining. "Don't despise prophesies. Test all things, and hold firmly that which is good" (1 Thess 5:20-21). "Beloved, don't believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God" (1 John 4:1).

Jesus gives the criterion: "By their fruits you will know them" (Matt 7:16). Paul goes so far as to say that even "an angel from heaven" preaching another Gospel must not be followed (Gal 1:8).

Finally, one word sets free those who are afraid: "When a prophet speaks in Yahweh's name, if the thing doesn't follow, nor happen, that is the thing which Yahweh has not spoken. The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You shall not be afraid of him" (Deut 18:22). An unfulfilled prophecy is not the fault of the one who received it. It judges the one who uttered it.

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7. Cultic deviance in churches: critical voices and public cases

7.1. African and Pentecostal voices

The sharpest criticism often comes from within. Adedibu and Igboin (2019) call, in the name of Christian eschatology, for the accountability of neo-Pentecostal leaders. Banda (2021) denounces the cult of prophetic celebrity. Fenga (2025) questions the title "Papa". Dube (2018) shows what "spiritual parenting" owes to patriarchy. Resane (2016, 2021), writing from South Africa, criticises Wagner's reading of Ephesians 4 and the legacy of the Shepherding Movement.

The Lausanne Movement, which brings together evangelicals from all over the world, has also taken a clear position. The Cape Town Commitment calls the Church back to humility, integrity and simplicity and to reject the idolatry of power; it places the prosperity gospel under the idolatry of greed (Mouvement de Lausanne, 2010).

In 2014, a global consultation held in Atibaia, Brazil, took this reflection further: according to its organisers, the prosperity gospel has, for several decades, seriously undermined a true theology of work, wealth and poverty, sickness and health (Mouvement de Lausanne, 2014). In France, the CNEF published in 2021 a good-practice guide against sexual abuse, and in October 2022 opened a listening service, "Stop abus" (CNEF, 2021).

7.2. Methodological precautions for the cases

The following cases are public, dated and documented. We report only what published sources establish, distinguishing established facts (by a court decision, by the church itself, or by the person concerned) from allegations. Anyone implicated is presumed innocent until convicted by a court. We omit any unnecessary personal detail.

7.3. The MFD Church, Montreuil (September 2026)

At the end of September 2026, the MFD Church in Montreuil published a statement on Instagram announcing the removal of its "Apostle", Axel Levi, and of pastor Laurine Levi "from all their ministerial functions", for "very serious acts" (our translation). Two online media outlets report this, without dating it in the same way: 29 September according to Infochrétienne (Boukorras, 2026), 28 September according to Camer.be (Onana, 2026a).

In an open letter published on social media, Axel Levi states that he was first suspended on 27 September; he admits having had sexual relations, which he describes as consensual, with women from the church and from outside it, and speaks of the sin of adultery (Boukorras, 2026; Onana, 2026a). The two outlets do not report this letter in the same terms.

A former head of communications has, moreover, publicly denounced manipulation and abuse of power. These are allegations. No legal complaint is mentioned in the sources consulted. The head of the MFD branch in Montreal, presented as a prophetess, was also stripped of her functions by the board of directors, for misconduct described as very serious, without further public detail (Boukorras, 2026; Onana, 2026b).

7.4. My Gospel Church, Paris region (December 2024)

On 6 December 2024, the Perspectives union of churches, a member of the CNEF, to which My Gospel Church (Paris region) was affiliated, ended the ministry of the founding pastor for "serious moral misconduct" (our translation), after gathering testimonies. The acts mentioned by the president of the CNEF (manipulation, control, abus de faiblesse — abuse of a person's weakness or vulnerability, an offence under French law — and multiple sexual relationships over some ten years) are allegations. On 15 December 2024, the church was dissolved. The CNEF referred victims to "Stop abus", the police or the Miviludes (Métreau, 2024; Westphal Perrier, 2025).

7.5. Lyon (2019) and Vaud (2022): money before the courts

In June 2019, the criminal court (tribunal correctionnel) of Lyon sentenced a pastor and his wife to eight months' suspended imprisonment and a three-year ban on managing an association. They had misappropriated more than 152,000 euros of believers' donations through four associations. The report had come from Tracfin, the French financial intelligence unit, in 2017 (Nelra, 2019; Boche, 2019). This is an adjudicated fact.

In Switzerland, the Cantonal Court of Vaud handed down, on 29 June 2022, two rulings in criminal proceedings for usury and coercion against the founding pastor of an evangelical church (Tribunal cantonal vaudois, 2022). According to the charges, believers were allegedly induced to sell their property, give away their inheritances and withdraw their retirement savings, after a charismatic discourse had established a relationship of submission. These are charges, at a stage when the investigation was ongoing. The outcome of the trial is not known to us.

7.6. Neuchâtel (June 2026): an institution that acts

In June 2026, the Reformed Evangelical Church of the Canton of Neuchâtel (EREN) withdrew from a former woman pastor, accused of spiritual control, sexual assault and harassment, the right to exercise ministry in its name. Its Synod decided this unanimously, after an internal inquiry conducted by a four-person commission. Criminal proceedings are under way, and another cantonal church has suspended her (ATS/Blick, 2026). In criminal terms, the facts remain accusations.

7.7. What these cases teach: the role of an outside body

These cases do not prove that independent churches are more dangerous. They teach three things. First, abuse affects churches of all origins and statuses. Second, money and sexuality come up again and again, as Demart (2013) noted. Finally, and above all, what changes everything is the existence of a body able to act: a union of churches that removes a pastor, a federation that directs victims to help, a cantonal church that investigates, a court that judges. Where no such body exists, abuse can go on for a long time.

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8. How do I know if my church is a cult? 24 questions

8.1. How to use this grid: a cluster, not a single sign

This grid is not a validated test: no scientific instrument measures the governance risk of a congregation. It brings together criteria drawn from sociology, psychology, official texts and the Bible, each with its source.

For each question, answer honestly: never, sometimes or often. Then look at the whole picture. A single "often" does not make a group a place of control. What should raise the alarm is the lasting presence of several criteria, in several blocks, especially blocks A, E and F. This is the cluster-of-indicators logic adopted by the Miviludes (2005) and by Rodríguez-Carballeira et al. (2015). The underlying question is always the same: can I say no, ask a question, check the accounts or leave without being punished, humiliated or threatened?

8.2. Block A. Governance: who holds the leader to account?

1. Did the leader give himself his title, or receive it from a single "spiritual father", without any community having examined him? Sources: Resane (2016); Maskens (2012); Augsburg Confession, art. 14; Confession of La Rochelle, art. 31; Titus 1:5.
2. Is there a council of elders that he does not appoint alone, and that can genuinely correct or remove him? Sources: Weber (1922/1971); Chaves (1993); 1 Tim 5:19-21; Acts 15:6, 22.
3. Is the church affiliated to a union of churches that is a member of the CNEF or the FPF, or recognised via the CACPE in Belgium, with an identified outside recourse? Sources: CNEF (n.d. a); Wallonie (n.d.); Rodríguez-Carballeira et al. (2015), category 6.
4. Are titles ("Apostle", "Papa", "Prophet") used to place the leader above the rules he imposes on others? Sources: Matt 23:8-11; Fenga (2025); Rodríguez-Carballeira et al. (2015), category 6.

8.3. Block B. Money: giving and accounts

5. Are the accounts presented to members, within a genuine legal structure (an association cultuelle, or religious association, in France; an ASBL, or non-profit association, in Belgium)? Sources: Chaves (1993); Ukah (2007); Adedibu and Igboin (2019); Wallonie (n.d.).
6. Is giving presented as the condition for a blessing or a "breakthrough", with an amount set by the leader? Sources: Währisch-Oblau (2011); Garbin (2019); 1 Pet 5:2; 2 Pet 2:3; Assemblée nationale (1995).
7. Does money flow up to a "spiritual father" or a network in exchange for "covering"? Sources: Christerson and Flory (2017); Moore (2003).
8. Have you been pushed to sell property, go into debt or give away your savings? Sources: Miviludes (n.d.), exorbitant financial demands; Rodríguez-Carballeira et al. (2015), category 3; Tribunal cantonal vaudois (2022), charges.

8.4. Block C. Information and isolation

9. Are you discouraged from seeing your family, your friends or other Christians, who are presented as "religious", "dangerous" or "under a curse"? Sources: Rodríguez-Carballeira et al. (2015), category 1; Assemblée nationale (1995), rupture with one's original environment; 3 John 10.
10. Is reading or listening to other teachers discouraged, and any outside criticism presented as an attack from the enemy? Sources: Rodríguez-Carballeira et al. (2015), category 2; Lifton (1961), milieu control.
11. **Does an in-house vocabulary cut questions short ("spirit of rebellion", "Jezebel spirit", "touch not the Lord's anointed")?** Sources: Lifton (1961), loading the language; Koch and Edstrom (2022).
12. Are you asked to keep what happens secret, including from your family or the authorities? Sources: Oakley and Kinmond (2013); Johnson and VanVonderen (1991).

8.5. Block D. Personal life and emotions

13. Does the leader decide about your marriage, your job, your housing or your medical care? Sources: Rodríguez-Carballeira et al. (2015), category 3; Oakley and Kinmond (2013); Miviludes (n.d.).
14. Do meetings, vigils and fasts leave you no time for rest, family or studies? Sources: Rodríguez-Carballeira et al. (2015), category 3; Miviludes (n.d.), gruelling living conditions.
15. Are there humiliations or public accusations in front of the congregation? Sources: Rodríguez-Carballeira et al. (2015), category 4; Ward (2011); Ezek 34:4.
16. Is every illness, failure or unfulfilled prophecy blamed on your lack of faith or submission? Sources: Ward (2011); Dawson (1999); Deut 18:22.
17. Must you confess your faults to the leader, with no guarantee of confidentiality? Sources: Lifton (1961), cult of confession; Rodríguez-Carballeira et al. (2015), category 4.

8.6. Block E. Word and doctrine

18. Is contradicting the leader the same as contradicting God? Sources: Ward (2011); Oakley and Kinmond (2013); Lifton (1961), mystical manipulation; Mouvement de Lausanne (2010).
19. Can his prophecies be examined publicly, without sanction? Sources: Acts 17:11; 1 Thess 5:20-21; 1 John 4:1; Deut 18:22.
20. Does the group claim to be the only place where God truly acts, other churches being "dead"? Sources: Rodríguez-Carballeira et al. (2015), category 5; Lifton (1961).
21. Is Scripture used mainly to demand obedience to the leader, rather than to submit the leader himself to the Word? Sources: Oakley, Kinmond and Blundell (2024); Augsburg Confession, art. 7; 1 Pet 5:3.
22. Is asking a question treated as sin or rebellion? Sources: Koch and Edstrom (2022); Rodríguez-Carballeira et al. (2015), category 5.

8.7. Block F. Exit: can you leave?

23. Are those who have left defamed, cursed or placed off-limits? Sources: 3 John 9-10; Lifton (1961), dispensing of existence; Rodríguez-Carballeira et al. (2015), category 4.
24. Do you feel fear, and not just sadness, at the idea of leaving: fear of a curse, of an accident, of losing your salvation? Have those close to you noticed a radical change in you, exhaustion, anxiety? Sources: Miviludes (n.d.), difficulty leaving the group and radical change in behaviour; Saldaña et al. (2018, 2019).

8.8. What is not, in itself, a sign of a cult

The grid does not target everything. Fervour, expressive worship, high moral standards, fasting, a freely proposed tithe, critical distance from the world, small size, independence alone, the language or origin of the members: none of these traits is an indicator of control. They are "sectarian" traits in the sociological sense, shared by many healthy evangelical churches (2.1). The grid targets practices of control, not a way of believing.

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9. How do I leave an abusive church?

This part gives general guidance. It does not constitute legal advice or personalised medical advice.

9.1. Do not stay alone

The first step is to put words to what you are experiencing, and to tell someone you trust outside the group: a relative, a friend, a Christian from another church. Isolation is the first mechanism of control (5.2). Breaking it, even through a conversation, is an act of freedom. Oakley, Kinmond and Blundell (2024) show that what helps victims is being listened to and believed, without minimisation or defensive reactions. And the victim is not guilty of what they have suffered (Fernández, 2022).

9.2. Check your church's affiliation

Simply ask: which union of churches do we belong to? Who can receive a complaint against the leader? Then check the answer with the union or federation named. In France, an affiliated church belongs to a union that is a member of the CNEF or the FPF (CNEF, n.d. a). In Belgium, ask whether the community is recognised via the CACPE (Wallonie, n.d.). An "apostolic network" that answers only to a spiritual father is not a union of churches. A refusal to answer is in itself information.

9.3. Get informed and report: Miviludes, CIAOSN, "Stop abus"

In France, the Miviludes publishes its criteria and resources; it is to the Miviludes that the CNEF itself refers victims of cultic deviance. The CNEF also offers a page "Victim of or witness to abuse: what should you do?" (Victime ou témoin d'abus : que faire ?) and the listening service "Stop abus" (CNEF, n.d. b; CNEF, 2021). In Belgium, the CIAOSN, created by the Law of 2 June 1998, provides information and issues opinions on harmful sectarian organisations (Belgique, 1998). In the event of danger or an offence, the police and the courts remain competent. For any specific legal question, consult a legal professional.

9.4. Get support

According to Saldaña and colleagues (2017), those who sought psychological help after leaving had suffered more abuse. Asking for help is therefore not a weakness: it is a response proportionate to what one has been through. Langone (1993) was one of the first to describe support for people leaving abusive groups. It is helpful to choose a psychologist who understands coercive control, and a pastor from an affiliated church who will not try to "win the person over".

9.5. Leaving without losing your faith

Many believe that by leaving the group they are leaving God: that is exactly what control makes people believe. But the prophecy that does not come true allows the believer not to be afraid (Deut 18:22). Christ came "to serve" (Matt 20:28), not to enslave. Fear of a curse can persist for a long time; the notion of "religious trauma" (Winell, 2011), without being a diagnosis, sometimes helps people understand that this fear is an after-effect, not a divine warning. It takes time, and a safe community.

9.6. For relatives, friends and pastors

Knowing is not enough (Golo and Benyah, 2025): arguments alone rarely convince. It is better to keep the relationship going, without ultimatums, because rupture with one's circle is precisely what control seeks. Those who provide support must also take care of themselves: listening to these stories can hurt (Gubi and Jacobs, 2009).

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10. Conclusion

10.1. Back to the scene

Sandrine was looking for a label. This article offers her questions instead. Who called the Apostle, and who can correct him? Where does the rent money go? Why did the unfulfilled prophecy become her fault? Why can she no longer speak to her sister? If several answers worry her, it is not her faith that is at issue. It is a power that refuses to be examined.

10.2. What the article establishes

First, the word "cult" settles nothing; law and sociology judge harm to persons. Second, the main risk is structural: charismatic authority without checks and balances, isolated from any institution, exercised over people in precarious situations, whatever their origin. Third, Scripture and the confessions of the Reformation subject all authority to the community, to character and to the Word. They make examination a duty.

10.3. Limitations and further research

There are almost no peer-reviewed studies of abuse in French-speaking independent charismatic churches. The psychological data rest on self-selected samples. Several anthropology articles were read only through their abstracts. No validated tool measures a church's governance risk. Field research on these churches in France and Belgium, conducted with the federations and with former members, would be valuable.

10.4. What this article refuses

It refuses to essentialise: Africa, the diaspora and Pentecostalism are not risk factors. It refuses to confuse fervour with control: a demanding faith is not a deviance. Finally, it refuses to sacralise power: no title, no anointing, no "covering" places a man above examination by his brothers and sisters and by the Word of God.

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Frequently asked questions

How do I know if my church is a cult?

No single sign is enough. What should raise the alarm is the lasting presence of several criteria, in several areas (governance, money, isolation, personal life, word, exit): this is the cluster-of-indicators logic (Miviludes, 2005; Rodríguez-Carballeira et al., 2015). The grid in part 8 (24 sourced questions) makes this assessment possible.

What is the difference between a church and a cult?

In sociology, "church" and "sect" are two types of organisation, not a verdict (Troeltsch, 1912; Johnson, 1963): by these criteria, a large part of evangelical Protestantism is "sectarian". French and Belgian law do not define the cult; they judge harm to persons (Miviludes, 2005; Belgique, 1998). See part 2.

What is spiritual abuse?

It is a form of emotional and psychological abuse: a systematic pattern of coercive and controlling behaviour, exercised in a religious context or with a religious justification (Oakley, Kinmond and Blundell, 2024). It is a system, not an isolated incident, like the coercive control described by Stark (2007). See part 5.

What are the warning signs of a cult?

The Miviludes (n.d.) speaks of a state of subjection that deprives a person of part of their free will (dérive sectaire, cultic deviance). The 1995 French parliamentary report adopted ten indicators (Assemblée nationale, 1995). Research distinguishes six families of mechanisms (Rodríguez-Carballeira et al., 2015). See 2.3 and 5.2.

How do you recognise a false apostle or a false prophet?

The title proves nothing: the New Testament knows of "false apostles" (2 Cor 11:13). Scripture requires proven character before any charisma (1 Tim 3; Titus 1; 1 Pet 5) and prophecies that are tested (1 John 4:1). An unfulfilled prophecy judges the one who uttered it (Deut 18:22). See part 6.

Is a non-denominational (unaffiliated) church automatically a cult?

No. Lack of affiliation is not a fault in itself: it removes a means of recourse. Affiliation is an indicator, not a guarantee; abuse also occurs in affiliated churches (3.5, 3.6 and part 7). The decisive difference: an outside body able to act when abuse becomes known (Chaves, 1993).

How do I leave an abusive church?

First, talk to someone you trust outside the group: being listened to and believed helps victims (Oakley, Kinmond and Blundell, 2024). Next, check the church's affiliation, get informed and report: the Miviludes and "Stop abus" in France, the CIAOSN in Belgium. Finally, get support (Saldaña et al., 2017). See part 9.

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Sources

A. Journal articles

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2. Adogame, A. (2010). "Transnational Migration and Pentecostalism in Europe". PentecoStudies 9(1): 56-73. https://doi.org/10.1558/ptcs.v9i1.56
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4. Banda, C. (2021). "Whatever Happened to God's Holiness? The Holiness of God and the Theological Authenticity of the South African Neo-Pentecostal Prophetic Activities". Verbum et Ecclesia 42(1). https://doi.org/10.4102/ve.v42i1.2323
5. Barker, E. (1995). "The Scientific Study of Religion? You Must Be Joking!". Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 34(3): 287-310. https://doi.org/10.2307/1386880
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7. Budiselić, E. (2008). "New Apostolic Reformation: Apostolic Ministry for Today". Kairos: Evangelical Journal of Theology 2(2): 209-226. https://hrcak.srce.hr/215446
8. Chambers, W. V., Langone, M. D., Dole, A. A. and Grice, J. W. (1994). "The Group Psychological Abuse Scale: A Measure of the Varieties of Cultic Abuse". Cultic Studies Journal 11(1): 88-117. https://articles2.icsahome.com/articles/the-group-psychological-abuse-scale-csj-11-1-1994
9. Chaves, M. (1993). "Denominations as Dual Structures: An Organizational Analysis". Sociology of Religion 54(2): 147-169. https://doi.org/10.2307/3712137
10. Dawson, L. L. (1999). "When Prophecy Fails and Faith Persists: A Theoretical Overview". Nova Religio 3(1): 60-82. https://doi.org/10.1525/nr.1999.3.1.60
11. Demart, S. (2008). "Le 'combat pour l'intégration' des églises issues du Réveil congolais (RDC)" [The "struggle for integration" of churches stemming from the Congolese Revival (DRC)]. Revue européenne des migrations internationales 24(3): 147-165. https://doi.org/10.4000/remi.4840
12. Demart, S. (2013). "Genre et transgression des normes morales et sexuelles dans les Églises de Réveil à Kinshasa et en diaspora" [Gender and the transgression of moral and sexual norms in Revival churches in Kinshasa and in the diaspora]. Cahiers d'études africaines 212: 783-811. https://doi.org/10.4000/etudesafricaines.17503
13. Dube, Z. (2018). "Patriarchy Reinvented? 'Spiritual Parenting' within African Pentecostalism in Zimbabwe". Verbum et Ecclesia 39(1): a1777. https://doi.org/10.4102/ve.v39i1.1777
14. Ellis, H. M., Hook, J. N., Zuniga, S., Hodge, A. S., Ford, K. M., Davis, D. E. and Van Tongeren, D. R. (2022). "Religious/Spiritual Abuse and Trauma: A Systematic Review of the Empirical Literature". Spirituality in Clinical Practice 9(4): 213-231. https://doi.org/10.1037/scp0000301
15. Fancello, S. (2007). "Réveil de l'ethnicité akan et pentecôtisme 'indigène' en Europe" [The revival of Akan ethnicity and "indigenous" Pentecostalism in Europe]. Diversité urbaine 7(1): 51-67. https://doi.org/10.7202/016269ar
16. Fenga, V. F. (2025). "The Appropriateness of the Title 'Papa' Used within Neo-Pentecostal Christianity in Zimbabwe: A Practical Theological Reflection". Stellenbosch Theological Journal 11(2). https://doi.org/10.17570/stj.2025.v11n2.10
17. Fernández, S. (2022). "Victims Are Not Guilty! Spiritual Abuse and Ecclesiastical Responsibility". Religions 13(5): 427. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13050427
18. Garbin, D. (2013). "The Visibility and Invisibility of Migrant Faith in the City: Diaspora Religion and the Politics of Emplacement of Afro-Christian Churches". Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 39(5): 677-696. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2013.756658
19. Garbin, D. (2019). "Sacred Remittances: Money, Migration and the Moral Economy of Development in a Transnational African Church". Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 45(11): 2045-2061 (published online in 2018). https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2018.1433528
20. Golo, B.-W. K. and Benyah, F. E. K. (2025). "Consented Abuses? Analyzing Perspectives of Christian Young Adults Regarding Human Rights Concerns in Neo-Pentecostal Deliverance Practices in Ghana". Transformation 42(2): 144-160. https://doi.org/10.1177/02653788241290135
21. Gubi, P. M. and Jacobs, R. (2009). "Exploring the Impact on Counsellors of Working with Spiritually Abused Clients". Mental Health, Religion & Culture 12(2): 191-204. https://doi.org/10.1080/13674670802441509
22. Johnson, B. (1963). "On Church and Sect". American Sociological Review 28(4): 539-549. https://doi.org/10.2307/2090070
23. Kelly, T. (2026). "Debunking 'When Prophecy Fails'". Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 62(1): e70043 (published online 4 November 2025). https://doi.org/10.1002/jhbs.70043
24. Koch, D. and Edstrom, L. (2022). "Development of the Spiritual Harm and Abuse Scale". Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 61(2): 476-506. https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12792
25. Maskens, M. (2011). "Récits de conversion, identité narrative et dispositif d'évangélisation pentecôtiste à Bruxelles" [Conversion narratives, narrative identity and the Pentecostal evangelisation apparatus in Brussels]. Uzance 1: 68-87. https://patrimoineculturel.cfwb.be/fileadmin/sites/colpat/uploads/GRAPHISME/Publications/Patrimoine_immateriel-mobilier/UZANCE_1/Uzance1-integral-MaiteMaskens.pdf
26. Maskens, M. (2012). "Mobility among Pentecostal Pastors and Migratory 'Miracles'". Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines 46(3): 397-409. https://doi.org/10.1080/00083968.2012.739414
27. Maskens, M. (2014). "'C'est Dieu qui nous a voulus ici...'" ["It is God who wanted us here..."]. Cahiers d'études africaines 213-214: 341-362. https://doi.org/10.4000/etudesafricaines.17687
28. Mottier, D. (2008). "Pentecôtisme et migration" [Pentecostalism and migration]. Archives de sciences sociales des religions 143: 175-193. https://doi.org/10.4000/assr.17283
29. Mottier, D. (2012). "Le prophète, les femmes, le diable. Ethnographie de l'échec d'une Église pentecôtiste africaine en France" [The prophet, the women, the devil: an ethnography of the failure of an African Pentecostal church in France]. Sociologie 3(2): 163-178. https://doi.org/10.3917/socio.032.0163
30. Mottier, D. (2014). "Sociogenèse des Églises pentecôtistes africaines en France" [The sociogenesis of African Pentecostal churches in France]. Social Compass 61(1): 73-91. https://doi.org/10.1177/0037768613514310
31. Mottier, D. (2017). "Prophétisme et pentecôtisme africains en migration" [African prophetism and Pentecostalism in migration]. Cahiers d'études africaines 228: 973-992. https://doi.org/10.4000/etudesafricaines.21618
32. Mulvihill, N., Aghtaie, N., Matolcsi, A. and Hester, M. (2023). "UK Victim-Survivor Experiences of Intimate Partner Spiritual Abuse and Religious Coercive Control and Implications for Practice". Criminology & Criminal Justice 23(5): 773-790. https://doi.org/10.1177/17488958221112057
33. Oakley, L. R. and Kinmond, K. S. (2014). "Developing Safeguarding Policy and Practice for Spiritual Abuse". The Journal of Adult Protection 16(2): 87-95. https://doi.org/10.1108/JAP-07-2013-0033
34. Oakley, L., Kinmond, K. and Humphreys, J. (2018). "Spiritual Abuse in Christian Faith Settings: Definition, Policy and Practice Guidance". The Journal of Adult Protection 20(3/4): 144-154. https://doi.org/10.1108/JAP-03-2018-0005
35. Oakley, L., Kinmond, K. and Blundell, P. (2024). "Responding Well to Spiritual Abuse: Practice Implications for Counselling and Psychotherapy". British Journal of Guidance & Counselling 52(2): 189-206. https://doi.org/10.1080/03069885.2023.2283883
36. Oppong-Konadu, K. (2023). "Missionary Ventures of Ghanaian Pentecostals in Europe: An Exploration of 'Reverse Mission' within the Church of Pentecost in Belgium". Missionalia 51 (published online 1 February 2024). https://doi.org/10.7832/51-0-497
37. Resane, K. T. (2016). "The New Apostolic Reformation: The Critical Reflections of the Ecclesiology of Charles Peter Wagner". HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies 72(3): a3240. https://doi.org/10.4102/hts.v72i3.3240
38. Resane, K. T. (2021). "The Influence and Legacy of the Shepherding Movement on the Current Neo-Pentecostal Movement in South Africa". Journal for the Study of Religion 34(2): 1-18. https://doi.org/10.17159/2413-3027/2021/v34n2a2
39. Richardson, J. T. (1993). "Definitions of Cult: From Sociological-Technical to Popular-Negative". Review of Religious Research 34(4): 348-356. https://doi.org/10.2307/3511972
40. Rodríguez-Carballeira, Á., Saldaña, O., Almendros, C., Martín-Peña, J., Escartín, J. and Porrúa-García, C. (2015). "Group Psychological Abuse: Taxonomy and Severity of Its Components". The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context 7(1): 31-39. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpal.2014.11.001
41. Saldaña, O., Rodríguez-Carballeira, Á., Almendros, C. and Escartín, J. (2017). "Development and Validation of the Psychological Abuse Experienced in Groups Scale". The European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context 9(2): 57-64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejpal.2017.01.002
42. Saldaña, O., Antelo, E., Rodríguez-Carballeira, Á. and Almendros, C. (2018). "Taxonomy of Psychological and Social Disturbances in Survivors of Group Psychological Abuse". Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma 27(9): 1003-1021. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926771.2017.1405315
43. Saldaña, O., Antelo, E., Almendros, C. and Rodríguez-Carballeira, Á. (2019). "Development and Validation of a Measure of Emotional Distress in Survivors of Group Psychological Abuse". The Spanish Journal of Psychology 22: e33. https://doi.org/10.1017/sjp.2019.32
44. Slade, D. M., Smell, A., Wilson, E. and Drumsta, R. (2023). "Percentage of U.S. Adults Suffering from Religious Trauma: A Sociological Study". Socio-Historical Examination of Religion and Ministry 5(1): 1-28. https://doi.org/10.33929/sherm.2023.vol5.no1.01
45. Stark, R. and Bainbridge, W. S. (1979). "Of Churches, Sects, and Cults: Preliminary Concepts for a Theory of Religious Movements". Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 18(2): 117-131. https://doi.org/10.2307/1385935
46. Ukah, A. (2007). "Piety and Profit: Accounting for Money in West African Pentecostalism (Part 1)". Nederduitse Gereformeerde Teologiese Tydskrif 48(3-4): 621-632. http://hdl.handle.net/2263/4090
47. Ward, D. J. (2011). "The Lived Experience of Spiritual Abuse". Mental Health, Religion & Culture 14(9): 899-915. https://doi.org/10.1080/13674676.2010.536206
48. Wilson, B. R. (1959). "An Analysis of Sect Development". American Sociological Review 24(1): 3-15. https://doi.org/10.2307/2089577
49. Winell, M. (2011). "Religious Trauma Syndrome: It's Time to Recognize It (Part I)". Cognitive Behaviour Therapy Today 39(2), May 2011. Text reproduced by the author: https://www.journeyfree.org/rts/rts-its-time-to-recognize-it/ (Professional magazine, not peer-reviewed.)

B. Books, reports and church documents

• Adogame, A. (2013). The African Christian Diaspora: New Currents and Emerging Trends in World Christianity. London, Bloomsbury Academic.
• Assemblée nationale (Guyard, J., rapporteur) (1995). Rapport fait au nom de la Commission d'enquête sur les sectes [Report on behalf of the Commission of Inquiry into Cults], No. 2468, 22 December 1995. Paris. https://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/rap-enq/r2468.asp
• Barker, E. (1989). New Religious Movements: A Practical Introduction. London, HMSO.
• Calvin, J. (1559/1560). Institution de la religion chrétienne [Institutes of the Christian Religion], book IV, ch. 1, § 9. Consulted in the English translation by H. Beveridge (CCEL). https://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/institutes.vi.ii.html
• Champion, F. and Cohen, M. (eds.) (1999). Sectes et démocratie [Cults and democracy]. Paris, Seuil.
• Christerson, B. and Flory, R. (2017). The Rise of Network Christianity: How Independent Leaders Are Changing the Religious Landscape. New York, Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190635671.001.0001
• CNEF (Conseil national des évangéliques de France) (n.d. a). "Devenir membre" [Becoming a member]. Institutional page, accessed 4 October 2026. https://www.lecnef.org/page/509740-devenir-membre
• CNEF (n.d. b). "Victime ou témoin d'abus : que faire ?" [Victim of or witness to abuse: what should you do?]. Institutional page, accessed 4 October 2026. https://www.lecnef.org/page/1558360-victime-ou-temoin-d-abus-que-faire
• CNEF (2021). Guide de bonnes pratiques pour lutter contre les abus sexuels [Good-practice guide to combat sexual abuse] (44 pp.); listening service "Stop abus" (launched in October 2022). Reported by Evangelical Focus, 7 June 2021 and 6 October 2022.
• Confession d'Augsbourg [Augsburg Confession] (1530), arts. 7 and 14. French translation published by the Église protestante unie de France. https://epudf.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/confession-dAugsbourg.pdf
• Confession de foi de La Rochelle [Confession of Faith of La Rochelle] (1559), arts. 30 and 31. Edition in modernised French, Kerygma, 2nd ed., 1998. https://fr.ligonier.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/conf_larochelle.pdf
• CRL Rights Commission (South Africa) (2025). Media Statement Issued by the CRL Rights Commission Launching a Peer Review Mechanism Section 22 Committee for the Christian Sector, 15 April 2025. https://www.crlcommission.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Media-statement-issued-by-the-CRL-Rights-Commission-announcing-a-peer-review-mechanishm.pdf
• Evangelical Alliance UK, Theology Advisory Group (2018). Reviewing the Discourse of Spiritual Abuse. Press release of 5 February 2018. https://eauk.org/current-affairs/media/press-releases/new-report-highlights-risks-of-incoherent-spiritual-abuse-terminology.cfm
• Fancello, S. and Mary, A. (eds.) (2010). Chrétiens africains en Europe. Prophétismes, pentecôtismes et politique des nations [African Christians in Europe: prophetisms, Pentecostalisms and the politics of nations]. Paris, Karthala.
• Fath, S. (2005). Du ghetto au réseau. Le protestantisme évangélique en France (1800-2005) [From ghetto to network: evangelical Protestantism in France (1800-2005)]. Geneva, Labor et Fides.
• Festinger, L., Riecken, H. W. and Schachter, S. (1956). When Prophecy Fails. Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.
• Gagné, A. (2020). Ces évangéliques derrière Trump [The evangelicals behind Trump]. Geneva, Labor et Fides.
• Geivett, R. D. and Pivec, H. (2014). A New Apostolic Reformation? A Biblical Response to a Worldwide Movement. Wooster (OH), Weaver Book Company.
• Hassan, S. A. (2020). The BITE Model of Authoritarian Control: Undue Influence, Thought Reform, Brainwashing, Mind Control, Trafficking and the Law. Doctoral dissertation, Fielding Graduate University. https://www.proquest.com/openview/7fa398f305ee71066cb663e7d97f57bc/
• Hervieu-Léger, D. (2001). La religion en miettes ou la question des sectes [Religion in pieces, or the cult question]. Paris, Calmann-Lévy.
• Introvigne, M. and Melton, J. G. (eds.) (1996). Pour en finir avec les sectes. Le débat sur le rapport de la commission parlementaire [Putting an end to cults: the debate on the parliamentary commission's report]. Paris, Dervy.
• Johnson, D. and VanVonderen, J. (1991). The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse. Minneapolis, Bethany House.
• Lalich, J. (2004). Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults. Berkeley, University of California Press.
• Langone, M. D. (ed.) (1993). Recovery from Cults: Help for Victims of Psychological and Spiritual Abuse. New York, W. W. Norton.
• Lifton, R. J. (1961). Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism: A Study of "Brainwashing" in China. New York, W. W. Norton (repr. University of North Carolina Press, 1989), ch. 22, pp. 419-437.
• Miviludes (2005). Guide de l'agent public face aux dérives sectaires [Guide for public officials dealing with cultic deviance]. Paris, La Documentation française. https://www.miviludes.interieur.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/rte_upload/arbo/etre-aide/agent_public-2.pdf
• Miviludes (n.d.). "Comment identifier une dérive sectaire ?" [How to identify cultic deviance]. Institutional page, accessed 4 October 2026. https://www.miviludes.interieur.gouv.fr/comprendre-prevenir-et-lutter/comment-identifier-derive-sectaire
• Moore, S. D. (2003). The Shepherding Movement: Controversy and Charismatic Ecclesiology. London, T&T Clark International (Journal of Pentecostal Theology Supplement Series 27).
• Mouvement de Lausanne [Lausanne Movement] (2010). L'Engagement du Cap (The Cape Town Commitment), part II-E: "Calling the Church of Christ back to humility, integrity and simplicity". https://lausanne.org/statement/ctcommitment
• Mouvement de Lausanne [Lausanne Movement] (2014). "Global Consultation on Prosperity Theology, Poverty, and the Gospel", Atibaia (Brazil), 30 March-2 April 2014. Presentation page. https://lausanne.org/gathering/global-consultation-on-prosperity-theology-poverty-and-the-gospel
• Oakley, L. and Humphreys, J. (2018). Understanding Spiritual Abuse in Christian Communities (summary report). CCPAS / thirtyone:eight. https://thirtyoneeight.org/media/gbsj1haw/spiritualabusesummarydocument.pdf
• Oakley, L. and Kinmond, K. (2013). Breaking the Silence on Spiritual Abuse. London, Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137282873
• Palmer, S. J. (2011). The New Heretics of France: Minority Religions, la République, and the Government-Sponsored "War on Sects". New York, Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199735211.001.0001
• Singer, M. T. and Lalich, J. (1995). Cults in Our Midst: The Hidden Menace in Our Everyday Lives. San Francisco, Jossey-Bass.
• Stark, E. (2007). Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life. New York, Oxford University Press.
• Troeltsch, E. (1912). Die Soziallehren der christlichen Kirchen und Gruppen. Tübingen, Mohr.
• Währisch-Oblau, C. (2009). The Missionary Self-Perception of Pentecostal/Charismatic Church Leaders from the Global South in Europe. Leiden, Brill. https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004175082.i-430
• Währisch-Oblau, C. (2011). "Material Salvation: Healing, Deliverance, and 'Breakthrough' in African Migrant Churches in Germany". In C. G. Brown (ed.), Global Pentecostal and Charismatic Healing, pp. 61-75. Oxford, Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195393408.003.0004
• Wallonie (n.d.). "Demander une reconnaissance en tant que communauté cultuelle locale" [Applying for recognition as a local religious community]. Administrative page, accessed 4 October 2026. https://wallonie.be/fr/demarches/demander-une-reconnaissance-en-tant-que-communaute-cultuelle-locale
• Weaver, J. (2016). The New Apostolic Reformation: History of a Modern Charismatic Movement. Jefferson (NC), McFarland.
• Weber, M. (1922/1971). Économie et société [Economy and Society], vol. 1. Paris, Plon.

C. Primary, legal and press sources

• APA (American Psychological Association), Board of Social and Ethical Responsibility for Psychology (11 May 1987). Memorandum to the members of the Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Methods of Persuasion and Control. Text reproduced by CESNUR, a research centre committed to one side of this debate. https://www.cesnur.org/testi/APA.htm
• ATS / Blick (10 June 2026). "Emprise et harcèlement : une ex-pasteure ne pourra plus exercer à Neuchâtel" [Control and harassment: a former pastor will no longer be able to practise in Neuchâtel]. https://www.blick.ch/fr/suisse/romande/emprise-et-harcelement-une-ex-pasteure-ne-pourra-plus-exercer-a-neuchatel-id22017900.html
• Belgique [Belgium] (1998). Loi du 2 juin 1998 portant création d'un Centre d'information et d'avis sur les organisations sectaires nuisibles [Law of 2 June 1998 establishing an Information and Advice Centre on Harmful Sectarian Organisations], art. 2.
• Boche, J. (28 June 2019). "Lyon : un prédicateur détournait l'argent de ses fidèles" [Lyon: a preacher was misappropriating his followers' money]. Lyon Capitale. https://www.lyoncapitale.fr/?p=170604
• Boukorras, M. (30 September 2026). "Les pasteurs de l'Église MFD Axel et Laurine Levi destitués pour des 'faits très graves'" [MFD Church pastors Axel and Laurine Levi removed for "very serious acts"]. Infochrétienne. https://www.infochretienne.com/articles/les-pasteurs-de-leglise-mfd-axel-et-laurine-levi-destitues-pour-des-faits-tres-graves/
• Cour d'arbitrage (Belgique) [Court of Arbitration, Belgium] (2000). Judgment No. 31/2000 of 21 March 2000, B.2.9. https://fr.const-court.be/public/f/2000/2000-031f.pdf
• France (2024). Loi n° 2024-420 du 10 mai 2024 visant à renforcer la lutte contre les dérives sectaires et à améliorer l'accompagnement des victimes [Law No. 2024-420 of 10 May 2024 to strengthen the fight against cultic deviance and improve support for victims]. Journal officiel No. 0108 of 11 May 2024. Creates article 223-15-3 of the Criminal Code. https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/codes/section_lc/LEGITEXT000006070719/LEGISCTA000006165293/
• Lecomte, A.-S. (2012). "Néo-pentecôtisme et vulnérabilité aux dérives sectaires" [Neo-Pentecostalism and vulnerability to cultic deviance]. Bulles No. 114 (reprinted from Agenda interculturel No. 297, November 2011). https://www.unadfi.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Neo-pentecotisme-et-vulnerabilite-aux-derives-sectaires.pdf
• Métreau, D. (20 December 2024). "Le pasteur de My Gospel Church destitué pour 'faute morale grave'" [My Gospel Church pastor removed for "serious moral misconduct"]. Evangeliques.info. https://www.evangeliques.info/2024/12/20/le-pasteur-my-gospel-church-destitue-pour-faute-morale-grave/
• Nelra, J. (28 June 2019). "Lyon : un pasteur et son épouse condamnés pour avoir détourné des dons de fidèles" [Lyon: a pastor and his wife convicted of misappropriating believers' donations]. 24matins.fr. https://www.24matins.fr/lyon-un-pasteur-et-son-epouse-condamnes-pour-avoir-detourne-des-dons-de-fideles-1068451
• Onana, N. (2026a, 29 September). "France – Axel Levi destitué : le pasteur passe aux aveux" [France – Axel Levi removed: the pastor confesses]. Camer.be. https://www.camer.be/94924/10:1/france-axel-levi-destitue-le-pasteur-passe-aux-aveux.html
• Onana, N. (2026b, 30 September). "Canada – Église MFD : Déborah Valetudie déchue de toutes ses fonctions" [Canada – MFD Church: Déborah Valetudie stripped of all her functions]. Camer.be. https://www.camer.be/94937/10:1/canada-eglise-mfd-deborah-valetudie-dechue-de-toutes-ses-fonctions.html
• Tribunal cantonal vaudois, Chambre des recours pénale [Cantonal Court of Vaud, Criminal Appeals Chamber] (29 June 2022). Published and anonymised rulings, proceedings PE18.025095. https://prestations.vd.ch/pub/101623/api/decision/download/9989e7c1-fc2f-45c8-971d-2876b4d5a7c9
• Unadfi (2018). "Évangéliques et dérives sectaires" [Evangelicals and cultic deviance]. Bulles No. 137. https://www.unadfi.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Evangeliques-et-derives-sectaires.pdf
• Westphal Perrier, C. (7 August 2025). "My Gospel Church dissoute après des accusations contre son fondateur : l'affaire Matthieu Koumarianos" [My Gospel Church dissolved after accusations against its founder: the Matthieu Koumarianos affair]. Infochrétienne. https://www.infochretienne.com/articles/my-gospel-church-dissoute-apres-des-accusations-contre-son-fondateur-laffaire-matthieu-koumarianos/

Scripture references cited

Deut 18:22; Ezek 34:2, 4; Matt 7:16; Matt 20:25-28; Matt 23:8-11; Acts 1:22; Acts 15:6, 22; Acts 17:11; Acts 20:30; 1 Cor 4:15; 1 Cor 9:1; 2 Cor 11:13; 2 Cor 11:20; Gal 1:8; Eph 2:20; Eph 4:11-12; 1 Thess 5:20-21; 1 Tim 3:1-7; 1 Tim 5:19-21; Titus 1:5; Titus 1:7; Titus 1:11; 1 Pet 5:2-3; 2 Pet 2:3; 1 John 4:1; 3 John 9-10.

Note on source quality

Solid. The core of the argument rests on peer-reviewed articles whose DOIs have been checked: Rodríguez-Carballeira et al. (2015), Saldaña et al. (2017, 2018, 2019), Oakley et al. (2018, 2024), Ward (2011), Koch and Edstrom (2022), Ellis et al. (2022), Dawson (1999), Chaves (1993), Richardson (1993), Barker (1995), Resane (2016), Dube (2018), Adedibu and Igboin (2019), Golo and Benyah (2025), as well as the anthropological work of Mottier, Maskens, Demart and Garbin. The French and Belgian official texts (the 1995 report, the Miviludes guide, the 2024 French law, the Court of Arbitration judgment, which reproduces the definition in the 1998 Belgian law) were consulted in their official version or in a full reproduction.

Standard monographs. Weber, Troeltsch, Lifton, Lalich, Moore, Christerson and Flory, Hervieu-Léger, Palmer, Fath and Adogame are recognised academic works. Several were consulted only through catalogue entries or reviews; we quote no passage from them in quotation marks.

Acknowledged limitations. Some anthropology articles published on OpenEdition and Cairn were read only through their authors' abstracts; we paraphrase them. The BITE model (Hassan, 2020) and the notion of "religious trauma" (Winell, 2011) have not been validated by peer-reviewed journals: they are presented as popularisation tools. The Cultic Studies Journal (Chambers et al., 1994), Uzance (Maskens, 2011) and the journal of Slade et al. (2023) could not be confirmed as peer-reviewed. The journal Bulles (Lecomte, 2012; Unadfi, 2018) is published by a campaigning association. The books by Introvigne and Melton (1996) and by Palmer (2011) defend an openly critical position; the 1987 APA memorandum is cited from its reproduction by CESNUR, a centre committed to one side of this debate. The public cases rely on the press and, for Vaud, on a court decision; no final judicial outcome on the merits is known for the MFD, My Gospel Church, Vaud and Neuchâtel cases. Quotations from English-language works are given in their original wording; quotations from French-language sources are given in our translation. One article often cited in this field, retracted in 2021 for plagiarism, was deliberately set aside.

Bible quotations follow the World English Bible (public domain) unless otherwise noted.

Article written for Au cœur du Silence, Research section. Orientation: Protestant Christianity.