This or something like it, will be the preface:
In 1973, the year I graduated from college, I joined what sociologists now call a “high control religion,” what others would call a cult. Sixteen years later, my wife and I mailed a letter to the group’s headquarters formally ending our relationship with them. It had taken us a year to reach that decision, a decision that came with a price. When we left the religion, we left behind many close friendships and a few family members.
In the intervening years, many friends and associates have asked me to explain what it was like, and why it was so difficult to leave. For me, answering those questions has been an exercise in attempting to explain the inexplicable. Even those with a religious frame of mind find it difficult to grasp the difficulty involved in making that decision. The reaction of the secularly minded as been “who cares where you go to church.”
There are any number of personal and scholarly non-fiction works on this, and other similar religions. I have found that none of these can convey the emotional context of living within a completely different frame of reference. Members of these religions do not think the way you do, nor do they have the same emotional reactions. From time to time some event, Johnstown, Waco, or 9/11 focuses the world’s attention on religious extremists. But they remain inexplicable and most people prefer to think about things they can understand.
So I have written a novel to make that world more understandable. “Armageddon’s Disciples” is the story of a fictitious apocalyptic cult, and the forces that drive its members. The Disciples are not evil, or crazy or stupid. They truly believe they are serving God.
This religion and its adherents are products of my imagination. But the information control, social pressure and manipulated language that shape their lives are based in fact. They could be your neighbor, the one with the odd beliefs.
My hope is that you will understand his world (and mine) a little better.