In October of 2008, an episode aired in the Criminal Minds® television series was called “Minimal Loss”. I did not see it then since I still did not own a television even though I came out of Word of Faith Fellowship (WOFF) in July of 2008. Not until August of 2009 did I purchase a television. Some teachings of WOFF and Jane Whaley were hard to measure against the reality of “new” freedoms. Change was hard to come by after 16 years. “Minimal Loss” depicts two of the shows main characters as they attempt an investigation into a religious cult. Yes, I know the whole premise was conjecture and very much “Hollywood”. However, after watching it a few times, I began to see it as a composite of several true aspects of religious cults of years past. A conversation with a cult expert over this question confirmed my thoughts as they agreed the show was a composite depiction of certain known characteristics of cults.

    In brief, the local authorities become suspicious after a phone call is made accusing one of the male leaders of inappropriate contact with underage females. That is not unlike Tony Alamo of Alamo Ministries, Warren Jeffs of FLDS or Michael Tessner of Strong City. All of whom we have written about before and last I checked each was serving prison time for convictions on these types of crimes. The religious cult in the show lives on a compound set in many ways similar to the one the Branch Davidians lived on in Waco, TX. There are weapons and explosives and the like used during the show. Two FBI agents from the BAU team go in undercover to assess the situation and interview the younger females. The whole plan blows up literally when a State leader orders a raid based on an ongoing weapons investigation he was leading. The raid goes bad and I will not go into a lot more detail of the sequence of events except to draw out some interesting content that pertains to the theme of this blog.

   Let me acknowledge here that I am sure I do not recognize all the similarities between the show content and other cults. Even after watching it four times, I see new things. I am also sure I am set to key in on certain things that relate to my experience in WOFF and under the teachings and directives of Jane Whaley. After the State raid goes bad, the BAU is called in to negotiate with the cult leader for the best ending possible. The title of the show comes from the strategy used. Minimal Loss is the chosen strategy otherwise known as the “trickle theory”. Moves are plotted to get one person released, then maybe one or two more and then more. If at any time the negotiations break down the team would go in the extract as many as possible recognizing they will not save everyone. Some will die and in this show some did as we will mention later.   

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