Each religious community experience is unique and resists generalization

Evidence

Beware of preconceptions about communities, whether positive or negative! Religious communities are complex and have many facets. For example, do not make assumptions about free churches from your own experiences with the Catholic Church. Don’t assume you understand a yoga guru group because you’ve taken a yoga class. Don’t judge a community solely on its neat self-promotion, but also don’t judge it solely on critical dropout reports. The experience in a cult-like community often shows certain typical characteristics, but is also individual like a fingerprint. Every case is an individual case. — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 558

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the universal caution against both positive and negative stereotyping found across the author’s earlier chapters. — connects to: Buddhist identity is circular and same-yet-other, resisting linear generalization. — Édouard Glissant, Poetics of Relation, 306; Evangelical conversion is usually a datable, emotionally charged event — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 32
• SEED: Angle idea: a practical guide to evaluating any closed community without falling into either gullible or cynical biases.