I'll try to be brief: the account given of the student's "cell group" sounds suspiciously like G12, short for Governments of 12, a fast growing movement based in Bogota, Columbia headed by a former politician Cesar Castellanos. To my knowledge, G12 is not a recognized cult, though it ought to be noted that cult awareness and countering programs have mostly lapsed since the 80s. Most cult awareness programs are run by fundamentalist Christians today with a very unique idea of what constitutes a cult that turns a blind eye to their own number.

G12 is a sort of religious pyramid scheme. Each new recruit is assigned to a cell or family group, usually with one group leader in adult or children's groups, or a male/female pair in college age groups. They are not told about the program or the structure that they are put through, which is "Win, Consolidate, Disciple, Send." Winning pretty much means getting you to break down and be saved, which they accomplish through very high pressure tactics namely pseudo-exorcisms. Consolidating involves working you into the system and attending their retreat. Discipling means making you over through rigorous courses. Sending seems to be the stage this student has reached: when they are sent out to start their own cell.

Each cell starts out with just a leader, who is a member of a cell consisting of twelve people and a leader that has absolute "spiritual authority" over all members of the cell. They in turn are a member of another cell, all the way up to Cesar. The leader recruits their cell up to twelve people, puts those twelve people through the paces, and then sends them out like a cell ruptured by replicating viruses.

This group cheerfully uses thought stop activities such as "speaking in tongues," rocking, laying on of hands... Forced confessions and pseudo-exorcisms triggered by the slightest disagreement are de rigeur. They dominate your time with meetings and classes, and make no bones about expecting you to spend all your time with members of the group until you are dependent on them. If these don't bring you into line, they will ratchet it up to prolonged fasts, sleep deprivation, and enforced periods of silence. A search on line will find a few forums sharing testimonies of people who have left, some fundamentalist Christian sites expressing concern (although their main worry seems to be doctrinal), and lots of their own sites which are disturbing enough. You can read their own testimonials and literature, often listen to their sermons. Read between the lines just a little, understanding they *do* use jargon and it will be consistent across all churches, and you'll see what I mean. Testimonies often come right out and describe seeing demons or having God speak through them.

I know about this group because I was recruited while I was in college. It's very common on campuses and it nearly killed me. They had me not eating for thirty days straight, and I wasn't holy enough because I didn't go at least forty days. I think anyone approached by someone from a controlling religious background should keep this possibility in mind.

I teach Sunday school for high school students -- a bracing time in life, when they're re-entering the world of ideas and knocking their parents off their pedestals, or at least should be.

Many times now, I've had a student get to college and email me with tons of questions about the faith. I always answer, as you may expect, with an encouragement to doubt, question, and persevere, and not just to keep the faith but to inhabit it like never before.

It is the Christian tradition, with its insistence on an ordered, created world that could be explored and questioned, that paved the way for the vast scientific revolution. Too often we associate Christianity with the reactions of religious bigwigs in fancy robes and not with the exuberant confident faith of people like Galileo, who after all discovered that God created a universe far more amazing than we thought.

We sing a hymn called "Faith of our Fathers." While useful, the faith of your fathers just isn't enough. The fact is that you've got to forge your own faith, your idiofide, and while you of course practice in a community of belief that would be foolish to ignore, your faith is nonetheless yours.

The mythology is right with us on this one. Siegfried inherits his father's sword; he can't use it; he gets a mentor to fix it for him; it breaks again; he splinters it down into fragments and re-forges it; only then can he go forth to face the world outside the forest.

The original three Star Wars movies can be distilled as this journey in faith: Luke Skywalker inherits his father's light-saber innocently (our upbringing in the faith of our fathers); Luke tries to wield it against his foe, and loses (our first, often upsetting confrontations with the world of unbelief, usually in college); Luke forges his own light-saber from what he's been given, reconnects with the Jedi tradition on his own, and finally wins (our final, not-too-common arrival at idiofide).

It's not at all necessary, then, for this student to give up the faith entirely. It is necessary for him to explore and question. He may wind up a fundamentalist with footnotes -- something his fellow fundamentalists might not tolerate, but which will carry him forward. He may wind up in a community of faith very different from the one he grew up in. Again, they might not see it this way, but what better way to honor his father and mother, to honor his upbringing, than to call it to life?

For the record, I think it's entirely appropriate for a mentor to guide a student in these things, especially in academe (provided, of course, that university guidelines aren't broken or blurred).

My advice? Tell the guy to spend a few Sundays attending a church that's close to, but not identical to, his home church. Maybe a strongly evangelical place that puts emphasis on the divinity and authority of God's word but has slightly different doctrines. Or a church, like my own, that doesn't require a sign-on-the-dotted-line homogeneity, but rather treasures different points of view, while never rejecting the full-blooded Gospel of sin, sacrifice, and redemption. He can then interact with someone whose concept of, say, baptism is different from his, while still obviously walking in the faith.

This is an entirely natural stage in this person's life, and a chance for the letter-writer to let go of perhaps some personal history and offer balanced advice that may end up affirming the student's faith. Some of our greatest minds were devoted to God through Christ -- from Augustine and Anselm to Chesterton and Tolkien. How exciting for those of us who get to offer a hand in a person's emergence!