Cult Affiliation and Disaffiliation: Implications for Counseling

Between 2 and 5 million young adults are involved in cult groups in the United States. Psychohistorical influences, family dynamics, and religious values affect an individual's susceptibility to joining a cult. Cult affiliation affects the cult member and his or her family members. Although cults have high conversion rates, they also have high rates of disaffiliation. Counselors working with those who join and leave cults need to develop an awareness of clinical symptoms associated with doing so and use appropriate interventions.     

Community and Christianity in the Black Church

The authors explore the experience of Christian religion for many African Americans. In response to racial discrimination and prejudice within churches, African Americans developed a Christian tradition with distinct meanings, beliefs and practices. This tradition provides a foundation for social activism within the church, community and American society, as well as community among church members. The recent Black church burnings are discussed with respect to the more traditional Christian African American view of religion. Implications for incorporating the religious traditions of Christian African Americans into counseling practice are explored. (The authors use the term Black church or African American church as a surrogate for Christian African American church throughout the article. The terms Black and African American will also be used interchangeably).     

Moral Cosmology, Religion, and Adult Values for Children

We hypothesize that the religiously orthodox, who are theologically communitarian/authoritarian in seeing individuals as subsumed by a larger community of believers and as subject to timeless divine law, are more likely to value obedience in children over autonomy than are theological modernists, who are theologically individualistic in seeing individuals, not a deity, as the ultimate arbiters of right and wrong. We hypothesize further that differences in moral cosmology (orthodoxy vs. modernism) within faith traditions are more important for the values adults seek to instile in children than are differences between traditions. Through analyses of national data from the 1998 General Social Survey, we find strong confirmation of both hypotheses. Moral cosmology is the single-most important factor in valuations of obedience and autonomy in children. While evangelical Protestants differ from Catholics, mainline Protestants, and those with no religion in their values for children, moral cosmology is associated with differences in values for children within each of the faith traditions, including evangelical Protestants. We conclude that intra-faith differences in moral cosmology are key in explaining values for children, but have not completely supplanted interfaith differences .     

Beyond the “Birds and the Bees”: Gender Differences in Sex‐Related Communication Among Urban African‐American Adolescents

To read this article's abstract in both Spanish and Mandarin Chinese, please visit the article's full‐text page on Wiley InterScience ( http://interscience.wiley.com/journal/famp ). The current study examined gender differences in communication about sex‐related topics in a community sample of urban, African‐American mothers and adolescents living in impoverished neighborhoods with high HIV rates. One hundred and sixty‐two mother–adolescent dyads completed self‐report measures of sex‐related communication. Youth also reported on their sexual risk. We identified the range of sexual‐based topics that adolescents discussed with their mothers, fathers, friends, and at school. The relationship between the frequency of sexual communication and sexual risk was examined. We also investigated congruency between adolescent and mother report about whether sexual‐based discussions occurred. Consistent with prior research, girls talked to their mothers, fathers, friends, and at school about sex‐related topics more than boys. Findings indicated that mothers not only communicated more frequently about sexual issues with their daughters than sons but that parental messages for girls were more protective. Greater sexual communication with mother was significantly associated with decreased HIV risk in the past 90 days and increased protection from HIV. Inconsistencies between mother and adolescent reports about sexual communication were marginally associated with decreased protection from HIV. Findings reveal the protective effect of sexual communication and the general lack of congruence between mother and adolescent reports of sexual communication.