Chapter One: “Finding meaning in abnormal things”
1.6 Subjectivity and the quest for objectivity
As my relationship with Grace Gospel Church prior to initiating formal research was critical, it is possible to argue that this might influence the objectivity of the research.
Three responses can be offered to this proposition:
Firstly, all research is to a greater or lesser extent subjective. As German sociologist Max Weber pointed out, all research is to some degree tainted by the values of the researcher.34 Schram elaborates on this theme by contending that qualitative inquiry is guided by two assumptions.35 The first is that the researcher gains an understanding of the social world through direct personal experience in natural circumstances which involves a subjective perceiving and describing of data.36The second assumption is that the nature of the engagement with others filters and affects what counts as meaningful knowledge for the inquiry. As it is impossible to replicate the complexity of any research object, the researcher is forced represent this phenomenon selectively according to a judgment of what is most meaningful. In doing this, the researcher interprets and shapes data. Schram argues that qualitative inquiry
is not a search for knowledge for knowledge’s sake…but a search for the significance of knowledge…in this sense, interpretation really has nothing to do with proving things right or wrong, predicting or controlling. Interpretation demonstrates its worth through how effectively it explains things and whether it impacts or inspires the practice of others.37
In terms of the particular research into Grace Gospel Church, and in light of limited availability of data, information on the group was sourced from the websites of each GGC and CTMI - specifically the statements of faith and testimonies of members on
34 D. Silverman, 2001. Interpreting Qualitative Data: Methods for Analysing Talk, Text and Interaction.
(2nd Edition). London: Sage Publications. p. 270.
35 Schram, Qualitative Research, pp. 8 -14.
36 Schram, Qualitative Research, p. 11.
37 Schram, Qualitative Research, p. 12.
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these websites. The data obtained in this way reflects the organisation in natural circumstances – if not in an enhanced and promotional way.
Other data was drawn from the Concerned Parents’ Group (CPG) website forum which contains testimonies of former members and those affected negatively by GGC and CTMI. Obviously, there may be a tendency to portray GGC and CTMI critically in this data but it is proposed that a dialectic is created between data sources that may cance l out their respective biases. Furthermore, Lalich contends that former members can provide a valid source of data, and that to avoid former-member informants on the assumption that they are “angry and unreliable apostates” is a “harmful” notion that results in limited, shallow and sanitised perceptions of groups.38
It must also be noted that the data largely reflects others’ perceptions of GGC and CTMI, rather than my own, although I was obviously responsible for selecting material.
In this way, an attempt was made to promote objectivity in the research.
As described above, further data was obtained through a questionnaire based on cult expert Janja Lalich’s book Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults.39 It was anticipated that this questionnaire would provide a technical and objective measure of cultic dynamics within GGC, as a questionnaire mitigates the possibility of interviewer bias.
A possible methodological concern is that respondents to this questionnaire might have encountered my open letters to the community, and that this exposure would have contaminated the data. While it is possible that respondents had read these letters, they do not contain any reference to Lalich’s text or the notion of bounded choice which precludes them being a confounding influence.
38 Lalich, Bounded Choice, p. 4.
39 Lalich, 2004. Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults. Berkeley/Los Angeles/London:
University of California Press.
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Secondly, the academic rigours inherent in producing a thesis require careful research, argumentation and presentation of data, which minimises the potential for simply producing a subjectively polemical tract against GGC and CTMI. During the course of research I was open to disconfirming evidence of my pre-research experiences and knowledge. As Schram contends, there needs to be potential for the perspectives and understandings of both researcher and participants to be changed during the course of the inquiry.40 Although there was an openness to change my perceptions, I found that research tended to confirm my initial conceptions of the group.
There is no avoiding the fact that the researcher had an enmeshed and hostile relationship with GGC and CTMI, and this will always raise concerns about subjectivity. Eileen Barker, a sociologist known for her research into new religious movements and cults, argues that it is difficult and methodologically inappropriate for researchers to adopt a clinically detached position with respect to new religious movements. She argues that only by becoming part of the data can certain information be gathered and while it can be argued that this will contaminate reporting there is often no better way of investigating. Barker also notes that this type of research also gives the researcher the opportunity to be politically active - to make a difference in fighting bigotry, injustice and unnecessary misery.41
It was not possible for me to start formal research into GGC with a tabula rasa, and the interactions that occurred between GGC and me prior to, and during, the research process lend texture to the data gathered. By initially taking a stance against GGC and CTMI, and by drawing attention to them through open letters and this thesis, I acknowledge a political dimension to the relationship whereby I used my status as a Pastoral Therapist and researcher to oppose what I saw as an organisation that sowed division and discord in society, and could develop into a life-threatening cult.
40 Schram, Qualitative Research, p. 9.
41 Barker, Cults and New Religious Movement, p. 8.
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While future researchers of GGC and CTMI should avoid the mistakes that have precluded more intimate research, it was only through engagement with these two groups that motivated the desire to research GGC more fully.