Cult Favorite

It's relaunch week here at Cult Favorite! You might notice some changes and some new things as we roll into the fall. So keep checking in!
On this episode we discuss the summer's biggest "cult documentary," Trust Me: The False Prophet from Netflix. This story of an abusive FLDS leader who emerges in the wake of Warren Jeff's incarceration and the woman who gains his trust in order to bring him down raises a lot of important questions. Why is the word "cult" used so little in this documentary compared to others? What does it mean when someone says they are "called" to something? What is the role of trust in this story?

Join us as Merinda and Mike try to answer some of those questions and ask a lot more.

Follow us on the socials at @cultfavoritepod.
Special thanks to the REL Digital Lab in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama for production assistance.
The views expressed in this episode are our own as experts and researchers in religious studies and do not represent the University of Alabama.
Theme music produced with Udio. Special thanks to Julianne Losacco for help with our logo.
Our production intern is Sierra Ruden

In our final episode of our summer mini-series, Merinda and Mike discuss how people online are thinking about the "cult documentary" genre. What do the ways people talk about "cult docs" tell us about how the term "cult" functions in our current discourse? Listen in and find out!

Follow us on the socials at @cultfavoritepod.
Special thanks to the REL Digital Lab in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama for production assistance.
The views expressed in this episode are our own as experts and researchers in religious studies and do not represent the University of Alabama.
Theme music produced with Udio.

The summer is almost over but we still have one more episode from the archives for your last days of vacation travel. In this episode from last spring Mike and Merinda talk about the first season of Amazon's Shiny Happy People and why certain kids of Christianity get the "cult" label.
Follow us on the socials at @cultfavoritepod.
Special thanks to the REL Digital Lab in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama for production assistance.
The views expressed in this episode are our own as experts and researchers in religious studies and do not represent the University of Alabama.
Theme music produced with Udio.
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Pull up a chair or twenty, and join us for a conversation about Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets (2023). Made famous in the mainstream for their TLC reality show 19 Kids and Counting, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar presented a very specific image of a very large family within the “Quiverfull” movement whose children were reliably obedient and mild-mannered. Behind the literal and figurative scenes, however, the line between authority and abuse was often a blurry one, both for the family and for the Institute in Basic Life Principles, whose teachings were reflected by the Duggars at every turn. Merinda has logistical questions about big families and returns to the mundane workings of power. Mike watches cartoons and muses about strategies within group mobilization. As always, we think together about how/when/why “cult” rhetoric appears, who wields it, and what its effects are.

Links:
Danielle Lindemann, True Story: What Reality TV Says about Us (2022) ⁠https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374720964/truestory/⁠
Nathan O. Hatch, The Democratization of American Christianity (1991)
⁠https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300050608/the-democratization-of-american-christianity/⁠

We have another episode in our summer series of meta conversations about cults, cult documentaries, and the cult discourse of our current moment. This time we talk about some of the very unhelpful terms that get used to talk about those groups that get labeled as "cults." Mike and Merinda breakdown "belief," "brainwashing," "intent," and "authenticity." Listen today so you can understand what's up with the ways people talk about "cults"!
Follow us on the socials at @cultfavoritepod.
Special thanks to the REL Digital Lab in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama for production assistance.
The views expressed in this episode are our own as experts and researchers in religious studies and do not represent the University of Alabama.
Theme music produced with Udio.

We are diving back into the archives again this summer while Mike goes surfing and Merinda is writing and conferencing. We take you back to the first year of our show in November 2024 and this episode reviewing Netflix's Escaping Twin Flames docuseries. It's a great example of the "cult documentary" tropes we discussed in our last episode. Check it out!
Follow us on the socials at @cultfavoritepod.
Special thanks to the REL Digital Lab in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama for production assistance.
The views expressed in this episode are our own as experts and researchers in religious studies and do not represent the University of Alabama.
Theme music produced with Udio.