“Sinner!” Review: What is the boundary between religion and cult?

What is the boundary between religion and cult? It definitely includes money. And control who you can see and what you can say. And also narcissistic leaders. However, the line can still be fuzzy soon. Mainstream churches had a dark history of abuse and exploitation. One of the most engrossing elements of Nicole Cuffy’s second novel, “O Sinners!”, is how it comfortably lives in fuzziness, making both clever literary mystery novels and meditations on the nature of faith.

The novel’s protagonist, Falk, is almost custom designed to stick to these questions. A skilled journalist in a New Yorker-style publication with specialisation in culture and race, he is a Muslim who is a late father but does not grieve his soldiers and lament his soldiers. As a way to eat up burnout, but continue his job, he pursues a more relaxed assignment and heads to 16,000 acres of compound in Redwood, Northern California, home to “nameless” led by Odo.

And, as well as catchy phrases: “Nameless” attracts thousands of followers on Instagram, using honey images and all the right wellness hashtags. Faruq is, of course, skeptical of everything. In particular, ODO is a way that appears to be talented in deriving donations from very wealthy and committed followers. One of them says they are simply rejecting the world and its “distortion,” but to outsiders it’s much like captivity.

“Sinner!” Spans across three story tracks. The first focuses on a trip to Redwoods in Faruq. His initial plan to spend six weeks after ODO turns into months of immersion in the community. The second is the script for a documentary about the conflict between “unhonored” and the conservative Christian town of Texas, which has turned into a legitimate fire over sexual abuse and honour loss. The third was Saga, a US Army company in Vietnam in 1969 and 1970. A group of men crossing the jungle lands in a shootout and uses their downtime to fight Josh, God, Country, Race and more.

One of those soldiers becomes Odo. Cuffy’s neat trick is that he can’t decide which one until the end of the novel. It could be a religiously crooked preacher. Or a new recruit with a bigger, life-like presence. Or war-tired silk, already having a purple heart. Or an offensive crazy horse. Philosophically suggests that cult leader wood men have some of those characteristics. But one thing all of those men shared was trauma and the ability to restrain it. Whichever person, he can cover almost anything in a refined layer, and master “it becomes as smooth and gentle as the Sphinx.”

Falk’s role as a story hero is to tunnel into Odo’s past and motivations, despite taking into account his own feelings about the development of Muslims and how it still shapes his life. “He formed a theory of, or lack of, distinction between cults and their nascensey religion,” Kaffi wrote. And of course, the same goes for Kaffi. “NAMENSERING” does not have sexually greedy leaders like NXIVM, exploitative financial schemes like Scientology, or an apocalyptic philosophy like Gate of Heaven. Faruq is unable to find one former member who is disillusioned. ODO is a subtle person. His “18 Remarks” are Jewish-Christian and Islamic Gourash borrowed from the Ten Commandments and beyond, but they appear almost benign.

But what encourages us to “scatter with oneness” and “train other vision” is the dark faint light in places where the lines of cult religion are blurred. The ODO commandment, “Death Doesn’t Despair” is read on the surface like compassion – acceptance of loss is something that everyone, including Falk, needs to be managed. However, compounds also encourage certain ruthlessness of not intervening when the worst happens. Faruq sees it when forced to help with the birth of a compound stable, but he witnesses it transfer around humans. Religion aims to respect death and guide followers through the sadness it causes. Cults see death as merely evidence that life is cheap.

Cuffy is talented at showing that distinction empowers Odo and Baffles Faruq, how some of the script empowers the novel (a particular drama), and without it, it could turn into Woollier, Talkier, and Dramatic Book. (Many of Faruq’s stays are consumed by conversations with ODO, where he can stake direct questions, giving Faruq the announcement of “Scholar”, a sleazy nickname.) Still, Cuffy’s “Nameless” treatment is completely unconvincing. What makes ODO so appealing is that people will give up millions of people to him. With Odo spending his days posing for Insta with Benisons delivered, it’s hard to see how effectively he manages what is a city. And readers wonder what’s going on in the “deep” situation where militias patrol the grounds.

But “Sinner!” is as much a spiritual thinking exercise as it is a realistic novel. “Nameless” is clearly in the cusp of something – ready to invade the direction of mainstream religion or succumb to its darkest instincts. In that respect, Kaffi suggests, we humans need not be skeptical about what faith offers, but what we don’t stand up to in order to be servants. ODO may offer “a web of fairy tales and other religions,” but it doesn’t require a cult leader to sell it. And all kinds of people can fall into it.

Athitakis is a Phoenix author and author of “The New Midwest.”