Dinner for Vampires: Life on a Cult TV Show (While also in an Actual Cult!)

Bethany Joy Lenz was born in the 1980s and raised in the context of the burgeoning evangelical, charismatic Christian movements in the United States. Her parents had been part of what is called the “Jesus movement” in the late 1960s and early 1970s which capitalized on the popularity of counter-culture movements of the time and presented Christianity as similarly revolutionary and counter-cultural, embracing the values of love, hope, and peace. In the 1980s, around the time when Joy was born, the evangelical movement utilized trends of marketing and merchandizing to spread its message. Joy describes, for instance, having a Melody doll that sang a Christian spiritual when its string was pulled. An understanding of the history and culture of 1980s evangelical Christianity provides the spiritual context for Joy’s experiences.

In Protestant Christianity, of which evangelical Christianity is a part, it is not necessary to pray in a church or with a formally ordained spiritual leader (such as a priest or pastor) to communicate with God. In some practices, members of the movement gather together in homes or other informal spaces for Bible study or prayer sessions with lay leaders. It was this Bible study practice that first introduced Joy to what would become the cult. She notes that the cult represents an extreme form of the practice not representative of all peoples’ experiences. The leaders of the group used an idiosyncratic interpretation of evangelical Christianity to control its members.

Joy describes the Family as a “cult,” rather than “high-demand group” or “high-control group,” which are more technical and less stigmatizing ways of describing new religious movements with beliefs outside of the mainstream. In the Author’s Note, she says that “cult” “portray[s] my personal experience” (ix). Cults are commonly associated with extreme rituals due to sensationalized portrayals in the media. Joy asserts that the Family cult did not promote unusual behaviors, but did use the language of evangelical Christianity to isolate its members from the outside world and exert control over them.