The Wound and the Worship: Where Cults Are Born

A reflection on John Brusseau’s diagnosis of our misplaced trust and the desert where God reclaims it.

Mar 10, 2026

Sometimes you encounter another’s words that feel pulled straight from your own silent observations of the world. This article had that effect on me.

I’ve distilled it below, in my own terms, to process it more deeply.

Read John’s full piece. I’m only pulling threads; he provides the entire tapestry.

John Brusseau

HOW TO FORM A CULT OF PERSONALITY

HOW TO FORM A CULT OF PERSONALITY How does a group of people who began as people who felt God’s love and followed Jesus become a cult of personality following a man into spiritual death? Most people believe that the reason this happens is that the religious system these people existed within was non-denominational. And without the support and protection of a larger religious system and its policies and regulations, this opened them up to the seduction of an evil person. And certainly it will always be more difficult to seduce a larger group of people and more groups of people than a smaller group of people. This is an obvious thing. Yet, the policies and regulations of denominational systems do not actually prevent the rise of a cult of personality. There have been many such cults that have taken shape within denominational settings. And they are simply hidden by the denominational system. Many of us have run into leaders who compulsively make everything about themselves and insist …

10 days ago · John Brusseau

We have forgotten how to spot the poison in the well. We point to the cult leader, the charismatic figure devouring his followers, and we cluck our tongues. We blame the lack of denominations, the absence of bylaws and oversight committees. We build taller fences, draft stricter policies, and sleep soundly, believing the beast is outside the gate.

We are wrong. The beast is not outside. It is inside the human heart. It is the same beast in the leader and the led. John’s article isn’t just a warning about them. It is a mirror for us.

The cult of personality does not begin with a monster. It begins with a wound. A soul, brutalized in its earliest hours, learns one terrible lesson: it has no value. From that abyss grows a desperate, tyrannical need to be proven wrong. To be worshipped. To be the source, the savior, the singular answer. This person does not set out to deceive. They are driven by a terror only adoration can soothe.

But a wound alone is not enough. It requires a culture ready to be infected. And we have built that culture. We have, as John writes, watered down the scandalous wine of grace with the flat water of self-righteous legalism. We say we believe we are saved by faith alone, but we live as if we are sustained by performance alone. We preach “Jesus paid it all” on Sunday, and on Monday we trust our own grit to overcome our sin, our own strategies to secure our provision, our own wisdom to interpret our worth.

This is the apostasy. The great falling away. It is not a rejection of doctrine. It is a slow, quiet transfer of trust. From the nail-pierced hands of Christ to our own.

And into that vacuum of shame, the shame of never being good enough, holy enough, disciplined enough, steps the wounded one with the answer. They offer a method. A program. A path. A visible, tangible source of validation to replace the invisible, seemingly absent God we have ceased to trust. We cling to them not because we are fools, but because we are starving. We have ceased to believe the bread of heaven is sufficient, so we grasp for the crumbs of human approval.

This is not a problem out there. It is a condition within. In our own heart. How often have we, in my fear, looked for a man to follow? A voice to explain it all? A system to guarantee our safety? This is the soil where the cult grows.

John names the cure, and it is not a better system. It is the desert. The wilderness. It is God, in His fierce mercy, taking us to a place where our resources fail. Where our strategies crumble. Where our willpower runs dry. He strips away the things we trusted instead of Him. The job. The reputation. The health. The plan. The comfort. He leaves us with nothing but the crushing, beautiful necessity of relying on Him alone.

“Looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2 ESV). Our path is the same. We endure the cross of our own insufficiency. We despise the shame that tells us to scramble back to our own devices. We let the things we leaned on be taken, so we can learn to lean on Him.

The global cult of personality is coming. The Antichrist will not be a cartoon villain. He will be the ultimate answer to humanity’s accumulated shame, the final, desperate refuge for a species that has rejected the forgiveness of God. He will be everything we think we want. He will offer the validation, the safety, the cures, the purpose we stopped trusting God to provide.

The only vaccine is the wilderness now. The surrender now. The confession now: “Lord, I have trusted in my own strength. I have sought life from every source but You. Forgive me. Take me into the desert if You must. Strip me of every crutch. Leave me with nothing but Your promise, so that I might have everything in You.”

The defense against the cult leader is not a tighter doctrine. It is a heart so utterly satisfied in the finished work of Christ, so thoroughly weaned from the need for human approval, that it has nothing left for a savior to offer. It already has one.

That is the summary. The diagnosis is in our mirror. The prescription is in our surrender.

That is all, and thank you for reading.

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