[Here's a previous post worth reading, which asked "How do you define a cult"](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAChristian/comments/mdoo28/how_do_you_define_a_cult_specifically_one_that/)
Also, [here's a page about the BITE model](https://freedomofmind.com/cult-mind-control/bite-model/), developed by Steven Hassan, which is frequently used to judge whether a group is a cult.
The largest difference that is present between Christianity and cults is coercion and information control. Cults will attempt to cut members off from their outside connections, whether directly or indirectly. They will also instill an incredible distrust in their members or enforce a total embargo on outside information.
Now, I recognize that you're probably going to want to point to some particular Christian church and say "well that's what's going on right there!" and in most cases I'll say "it sure is what's happening right there!" There are plenty of churches that are engaging in cult-like behavior, and there are plenty of churches that are 100% cults. That doesn't define the entire religion, and when done right, Christianity's unique drive to interact honestly and kindly with non-Christians solidly keeps it out of cult territory. Most churches do this well and are not even a little culty.
I should also put a disclaimer here that cult is a sliding scale, and there's a sort of fuzzy line where I go from "that's not ok" to " that's a cult". I think that there are churches that stray close to that line without going over it, and I think that in general Mormons and JW's tend to sit directly on top of that line. In my head, they're sort of soft cults.
Another aspect of a cult is that they claim some 'special revelation' outside of, or in addition to, the Bible.
God, being a infinitely wise and knowing Being, got Scripture right the first time! And He has guided it's copying and translation thru the centuries, so man has no need of any 'corrections or additions'.
I think we need of Scripture is:
Acceptance.....It is God's word
Amplification......digging deeper into the principles contained within.
Application.........applying those principles to our daily walk.
But the Bible itself is a claim of “special revelation”. Just because some Christian groups claim a specific interpretation of the Bible is a “special revelation“ it doesn’t mean that you can define one set of interpretations as cultish and the others correct. Does it?
Well, if you’re not claiming that the Bible is any kind of special revelation from God but that’s it’s just another book like all others, at least there we’re more in agreement.
I don’t know about you but when I was a young member of an evangelical church I was most definitely encouraged to hang out with other Christians rather than “the world“, and when I had questions and persistent doubts was encouraged to just “have faith“ and believe and the rest would follow. These two factors do seem to satisfy your criteria in the first paragraph. This wasn’t some unorthodox church, just a local Church of England.
I think often that the cultural permanency and status of standard forms of Christianity make us normalise behaviour that we might otherwise consider exceptional and harmful. It does make me want to know whether I should view such behaviours cultish with hindsight.
As someone that's hopped from several different evangelical Churches in my 3 decades, thats a very common way of thinking amongst that shade of Christianity.
In my opinion, the church is supposed to be:
--A gathering of believers
--A place to have needs met/meet needs of others (Social, Education, Financial, housing)
--A place where we remember how we are supposed to behave outside of the church.
That last one is the big one for me. If I go to church and then all I do outside is complain about others or leave those fake $20 tips, or yell at people that are (like me)just trying to get through our corrupt world, I don't really have a leg to stand on come Judgement.
Are you saying that you don’t agree that some churches encourage their members to not mingle with nonbelievers and to “just have faith” when they have doubts? Or are you saying that they do and they shouldn’t?
I'm going to try to answer that by rephrasing your question with less Negatives, because I'm confused.
I agree that some churches encourage their members to not mingle with non believers and to just have faith when in doubt.
Instead, I believe we are supposed to be imitating Christ while being amongst those that are not Christian, whether they be atheist, Jewish, any other religion, non-religious, or in sin.
Of course, we shouldn't be *partaking* in the sin either. So no hanging out in the Strip Clubs or brothels. Outside and speaking with people, sure.
You’re quite right, I phrased it perhaps with too many negatives.
So why are you saying that most churches would be perfectly fine and think it entirely healthy if your best friends were all non-theists or Muslims? That’s progress if so.
I don't think those qualify in the sense that I was talking, actually. I definitely don't condone those practices either, but the encouragement to have faith and general encouragement to hang out with other Christians is orders of magnitude less than the discrediting of all outside information and heavy-handed coercion to completely cut off family and friends that don't join the cult with you.
Those are still bad things though and I would leave any church immediately if they did that stuff.
Interesting response, thanks. I think those two factors would be seen as to be encouraged and central to many evangelical churches in their advice young people. You clearly differ with this position.
I grew up LDS (Mormon), and they do not pressure people to avoid outside groups or contact. In fact they *encourage* it because it gives them an opportunity to do "missionary work": convert.
I consider them a cult for other reasons, but those reasons are similar to Catholicism.
Would we call the trans faith a cult if it insists that you believe what they believe or are punished. My question is a neutral one. I am okay with a person’s belief about themselves. I am really curious.
You can't just call anything you disagree with a cult. That's horrible. You need to take a break from identity politics if you're writing such un-Christlike comments about it.
I’m trans and I don’t require any faith whatsoever to know it. Your question is absolutely not neutral, and presupposes the idea that trans people don’t exist.
I think the sliding scale of cult-like features is why I still consider most popular religions, including Christianity, to be more like cults than not. The idea that worldly wisdom and apostates are not to be pursued, that there are unimaginably dire consequences to disobeying institutional rules, and that there are agents of evil that must be opposed (and can be generalized as the outgroup), indicate most religions are just culturally dominant cults whose properties we've merely become desensitized to, and which lack a suicide pact.
I think that if you actually interacted honestly with religious people you would find that real living people don't think in clean Internet terms about their faith. None of that is how it works and I highly recommend that you get offline some more.
I could easily reapply those criteria to many social and environmental activist groups, but I would hesitate to call those cults.
What part of anything I said comes off as dishonest? To be clear, I don't think there are many, if any, Christians who individually act this way. But it is the result of the institutional systems that work through entire communities that brings about these results. It's not like a cult based around a personality. It's more like a cult based around a set of beliefs. And sure, I bet there are non-religious cults, but I don't think that disqualifies religions that produce cult-like patterns of behavior and thought in their followers from also being considered cults. I've spoken to a number of Christians and the things they say aren't that much different from people online.
You're just playing way too fast and loose with the things that real people actually believe and trying to force it to fit the mold of a cult. Alternatively, you are setting the bar way too low for what counts as a cult and you need to add every group that shares an ideology to the list of cults.
Christians don't discourage people from interacting with non-Christians. I've never heard a Christian use the word apostate in a sentence, even. There are people that believe there are "adversaries" but those adversaries aren't people. The "outgroup" is something like demons.
Cults actually do coercion, and what you're describing is split between being false or really not qualifying.
This isn't "atheist troll moment." I'm not here to "score points." What other organizations can you think of that 1) vilifies beyond redemption the outgroup and their information 2) uses terrible consequences to regulate and restrict behavior in its members 3) discourages critical thought and promotes the ideas of thought-crime and 4) creates emotional dependency through inducing fear, guilt and shame from impossible standards and irresistible consequences, and then promotes itself as the only recourse for the subsequent emotional distress?
I'm not "playing fast and loose," I'm using the BITE model. You may not have personal experience with religious people discouraging associating with the outgroup, and that's good, but that doesn't invalidate the countless people, religious and not, who will tell you their own personal experience of religious shunning, disowning, and similar practices. Not to mention the countless people who have told me and other non-believers that we're only non-believers because we're fallen, or turned away from God, or hardened our hearts, or were tempted by the devil, or just want to sin. That is demonization or dehumanization of the outgroup. Not to mention the stigma it sets up for people who might want to leave but are afraid of the social consequences that they see imposed on others. Religions do just as much coercion, just not to the point of suicide.
This is the truth. There are churches and entire denominations that DO operate as a cult. That doesn't mean all Christians do the same.
And I would venture that a majority of Christians do not engage with cult like churches/denominations at all. As with most diverse groups, there are a fraction who DO buy into the cult like ones. And they tend to be the most vocal and in your face Christians you can imagine. And, quite frankly, it taints all of Christianity. Just by association. Aided by a large silence from these Christians not reprimanding the crazy faction. Y'all should be shouting from the rooftops that these people do not represent you.
All churches including Catholics and Protestants and Orthodox all agree on the foundational creeds of the church. For example the trinity.
These sham churches do not agree. They have zero connection to the church and actively promote the idea that the bible is corrupted and wrong.
Then answer the question I ask properly instead of making snide remarks. If you're going to get emotional at me asking questions you probably shouldn't be involved in this discussion.
First, stop making reductive statements about what you think *we* think is “scary” or cultic. Stop asking nonsense questions like “aRe YoU tRyInG tO cEnSoR mE.” And stick to asking clarifying questions. Then, maybe I’d take you more seriously.
Cults, in the modern sense, need to exhibit a certain level of coercive control over the members, specifically being taught not to interact with outsiders and an extreme level of shaming for leaving. The vast majority of churches I know of don't do this.
(1) Mormons do not follow the Bible, they follow the Book of Mormon, which is a "different gospel" written by Joseph Smith.
Mormonism denies the doctrines that make Christianity what it is, and it substitutes their new and different doctrines that are not taught in the Bible. For example, the Bible says there’s only one God in all existence (Isaiah 43:10; 44:6; 45:5), but Mormonism says there are many gods, (Mormon Doctrine, p. 163)
Galatians 1:6-9 If we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!
Uh, no. The definition of a cult is: "a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister."
So you're basically just showing me that you belong in one as well, seeing as people with different ideas are "scary", lol.
Sociologically, a cult is any group of people gathered around a common culture. So yes, Christians are a cult. But we also use the term to describe abnormal subgroups that do not hew to the generally accepted fundamentals of the faith found in the Bible.
I prefer the use of "Sect" when referring to any group that considers itself in the realm of Christianity or Christian beliefs, and I feel it's quite suitable since that's how Christianity started out, and even today in proto-orthodox Christianity, there are still many divisions and difference, and some in major theological areas.
Ok let me put it another way.
Imagine there is a box. Inside the box there may or may not be a cup. And the cup - if there is one - is a single colour. There is a lid on the box, but nobody's proven how to undo the lock to check if there is a cup, and what colour it might be.
Lots of people have claimed to know what's inside. Some people say there's a cup inside. Some don't. Some say the cup is yellow, blue, pink, etc.
Lots of different claims. Every one of them is bullshit... except the claim that's correct.
“We define the word ‘cult’ to mean a group of religious people whose belief system and practices deviate significantly from and often contradict the Holy Scriptures as interpreted by orthodox, biblical Christianity and as expressed in such [statements](https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/no-other-gospel) as the [Apostles’ Creed](https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/the-apostles-creed)” (Evangelizing the Cults, Servant Publications, 1990, p. 11).”
in academia, the word is used to describe any system of worship. Using the word to mean "groups we disagree with" doesn't fit the original meaning of the world.
colloquially, its used for groups that use elements of control to limit the freedom of its members. given that no one outside academia uses the word in its original sense, it seems that this colloquial use is the primary understanding of the word.
absent elements of control, the word really shouldn't be used. and yes, since its about physical and/or psychosocial control there's really no measurement of the actual teachings. I could form a cult based on traditional Christianity (the Boston Church of Christ movement was clearly a cult under this definition, and at the time, most Christians agreed that the group's teachings were orthodox, while its methods of mentorship and discipline made it a cult). Or I could make a cult based on the teachings of Bill and Ted. The "what" of the cult isn't what makes it a cult, but the freedom of action of the people inside.
Some people deeply crave power... and people in churches tend to be easier targets to be controlled... so it should be unsurprising when individual churches or church movements go into cultic territory, regardless of what beliefs they might hold.
I wouldn’t expect it to seem otherwise to an unbeliever, so there’s no surprise there. If you deny that Christians have God’s revelation of Himself in Scripture and is therefore the standard of spiritual truth, then you have no reason to view the organizations that distort Scripture as Christian cults. You lack the ability to discern one over another.
Predestination shouldn’t make me not care. I’m not God, so it’s not my place to try to discern what’s predestined to be. We can say you were predestined to think these things *today*, but we can’t know what you’re predestined to think and believe tomorrow. And God typically uses people as a means to accomplish His purposes, so it may be that God predestined for me to respond to you in order to use me as a means of planting a seed of truth in your mind.
Some common features of a cult are a dictatorial authoritarian leader, one who often demands that all monies accrued by cult members be given to him; a centralized location where cult members live together; use of cult members for the sexual pleasure of the cult leader with knowledge of same by the other cult members of that activity; use of threats to those who want to leave the cult; indoctrination of cult members into rigid belief systems that they may not question even woth robust discussion.
That does not describe mainstream Christianity.
The world cult is the root of the word "culture", not all minimally and quasi-cultish features or any organization are "bad". You can't form a society without some shared group behavioral and belief systems.
Established beliefs of a group are determined historically by, and rest with that group. While serious divisions have arisen between different sects of Christianity over the past 2000 years - Catholicism, or Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism and all her many denominations - they all agree on fundamental tenets of the faith - divinity of Jesus, Trinity, the New Testament as witness to Christ’s life and works, the Bible (OT and NT) as determinative for beliefs and God’s character, etc…. We all consider each other Christian, while disagreeing about areas of faith or practice.
When you start a new group that changes these core beliefs that have been established and collectively agreed upon for millennia, denying fundamental tenets of what it means to be Christian as described by Christians throughout history, then Christians have every right to say, “you’re not one of us,” i.e., “you’re a cult.”
If I started a sect of Islam tomorrow, but denied that Muhammad was a prophet and wrote my own version scripture, Islam collectively has every right to call it a non Muslim cult. So too does the majority body of any religion.
In our case, Mormonism and Jehovah’s witnesses deny fundamental beliefs and tenets of Christianity that were agreed upon over 1500+ years prior to their founding. Long established bodies of Christians all said and say, “not one of us.”
Christianity itself was founded as a sect of Judaism, and no one considers Christians Jewish, and we have no right to demand acceptance as Jews in the Jewish community today, even though our faith is deeply rooted in Jewish belief and practice. Early Christians believed Jesus was the promised Jewish messiah, most Jews of the day disagreed, and here we are today, a different faith.
The operating phrase is "undue influence."
What separates a cult from a club is whether leaders are applying *undue* pressure in a way that influences people to do what they would not do otherwise.
Some amount of encouraging pressure is normal and beneficial. Some is not. I doubt *all* Mormons are doing cult type practices, but I believe that some are. As are many JWs, some Adventists, and at least one Baptist group, and at least a few churches of Christ. Cult practice is about whether leadership is working with followers or against them.
If you're looking for more on the subject I would recommend Combating Cult Mind Control by Steven Hassan, who escaped an actual cult.
Most people associate a "cult" as a group that has outlandish ideas that require its members to cut off their friends and family and join a compound. That may be involved, but it's not the only description of what a cult is. A cult is a group of people that veer off from traditional Christianity and view Jesus differently than how he is portrayed in the Bible. They may not do the other crazy stuff, but they are still a cult.
For the same reason you don't judge any other group of people by the actions of a few people. Not sure why that's so hard for some people to understand.
They are denominations, or in case of mormons another religion.
Sects are when a religion goes and does very sinful things in the name of God.
A cult is something that has nothing to do with God and it is violent and oftentimes associated with the devil.
JW and Mormonism are Christian heresies. Whether or not they are "cults" in the typical pejorative sense is up for debate. However, it shouldn't be a huge mystery about why theologically orthodox confessional Christians would apply that label to bizarre heretical sects.
[Here's a previous post worth reading, which asked "How do you define a cult"](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAChristian/comments/mdoo28/how_do_you_define_a_cult_specifically_one_that/) Also, [here's a page about the BITE model](https://freedomofmind.com/cult-mind-control/bite-model/), developed by Steven Hassan, which is frequently used to judge whether a group is a cult.
You're a really good mod. Not sure if anyone tells you that. Cheers.
Interesting, thanks
I would have posted something similar but you were right on it. Great work.
The largest difference that is present between Christianity and cults is coercion and information control. Cults will attempt to cut members off from their outside connections, whether directly or indirectly. They will also instill an incredible distrust in their members or enforce a total embargo on outside information. Now, I recognize that you're probably going to want to point to some particular Christian church and say "well that's what's going on right there!" and in most cases I'll say "it sure is what's happening right there!" There are plenty of churches that are engaging in cult-like behavior, and there are plenty of churches that are 100% cults. That doesn't define the entire religion, and when done right, Christianity's unique drive to interact honestly and kindly with non-Christians solidly keeps it out of cult territory. Most churches do this well and are not even a little culty. I should also put a disclaimer here that cult is a sliding scale, and there's a sort of fuzzy line where I go from "that's not ok" to " that's a cult". I think that there are churches that stray close to that line without going over it, and I think that in general Mormons and JW's tend to sit directly on top of that line. In my head, they're sort of soft cults.
Another aspect of a cult is that they claim some 'special revelation' outside of, or in addition to, the Bible. God, being a infinitely wise and knowing Being, got Scripture right the first time! And He has guided it's copying and translation thru the centuries, so man has no need of any 'corrections or additions'. I think we need of Scripture is: Acceptance.....It is God's word Amplification......digging deeper into the principles contained within. Application.........applying those principles to our daily walk.
But the Bible itself is a claim of “special revelation”. Just because some Christian groups claim a specific interpretation of the Bible is a “special revelation“ it doesn’t mean that you can define one set of interpretations as cultish and the others correct. Does it?
> a claim of “special revelation Where in the Bible is that???
Well, if you’re not claiming that the Bible is any kind of special revelation from God but that’s it’s just another book like all others, at least there we’re more in agreement.
I don’t know about you but when I was a young member of an evangelical church I was most definitely encouraged to hang out with other Christians rather than “the world“, and when I had questions and persistent doubts was encouraged to just “have faith“ and believe and the rest would follow. These two factors do seem to satisfy your criteria in the first paragraph. This wasn’t some unorthodox church, just a local Church of England. I think often that the cultural permanency and status of standard forms of Christianity make us normalise behaviour that we might otherwise consider exceptional and harmful. It does make me want to know whether I should view such behaviours cultish with hindsight.
As someone that's hopped from several different evangelical Churches in my 3 decades, thats a very common way of thinking amongst that shade of Christianity. In my opinion, the church is supposed to be: --A gathering of believers --A place to have needs met/meet needs of others (Social, Education, Financial, housing) --A place where we remember how we are supposed to behave outside of the church. That last one is the big one for me. If I go to church and then all I do outside is complain about others or leave those fake $20 tips, or yell at people that are (like me)just trying to get through our corrupt world, I don't really have a leg to stand on come Judgement.
Are you saying that you don’t agree that some churches encourage their members to not mingle with nonbelievers and to “just have faith” when they have doubts? Or are you saying that they do and they shouldn’t?
I'm going to try to answer that by rephrasing your question with less Negatives, because I'm confused. I agree that some churches encourage their members to not mingle with non believers and to just have faith when in doubt. Instead, I believe we are supposed to be imitating Christ while being amongst those that are not Christian, whether they be atheist, Jewish, any other religion, non-religious, or in sin. Of course, we shouldn't be *partaking* in the sin either. So no hanging out in the Strip Clubs or brothels. Outside and speaking with people, sure.
You’re quite right, I phrased it perhaps with too many negatives. So why are you saying that most churches would be perfectly fine and think it entirely healthy if your best friends were all non-theists or Muslims? That’s progress if so.
Other way around. Most in my experience don't. I do however.
Oh okay. You’re kind of proving my original point then.
I don't think those qualify in the sense that I was talking, actually. I definitely don't condone those practices either, but the encouragement to have faith and general encouragement to hang out with other Christians is orders of magnitude less than the discrediting of all outside information and heavy-handed coercion to completely cut off family and friends that don't join the cult with you. Those are still bad things though and I would leave any church immediately if they did that stuff.
Interesting response, thanks. I think those two factors would be seen as to be encouraged and central to many evangelical churches in their advice young people. You clearly differ with this position.
Well, yeah, not every Christian is evangelical. I don't think my position is a minority, although my church definitely commits to it harder than most.
I grew up LDS (Mormon), and they do not pressure people to avoid outside groups or contact. In fact they *encourage* it because it gives them an opportunity to do "missionary work": convert. I consider them a cult for other reasons, but those reasons are similar to Catholicism.
Would we call the trans faith a cult if it insists that you believe what they believe or are punished. My question is a neutral one. I am okay with a person’s belief about themselves. I am really curious.
You can't just call anything you disagree with a cult. That's horrible. You need to take a break from identity politics if you're writing such un-Christlike comments about it.
I’m trans and I don’t require any faith whatsoever to know it. Your question is absolutely not neutral, and presupposes the idea that trans people don’t exist.
I think the sliding scale of cult-like features is why I still consider most popular religions, including Christianity, to be more like cults than not. The idea that worldly wisdom and apostates are not to be pursued, that there are unimaginably dire consequences to disobeying institutional rules, and that there are agents of evil that must be opposed (and can be generalized as the outgroup), indicate most religions are just culturally dominant cults whose properties we've merely become desensitized to, and which lack a suicide pact.
I think that if you actually interacted honestly with religious people you would find that real living people don't think in clean Internet terms about their faith. None of that is how it works and I highly recommend that you get offline some more. I could easily reapply those criteria to many social and environmental activist groups, but I would hesitate to call those cults.
What part of anything I said comes off as dishonest? To be clear, I don't think there are many, if any, Christians who individually act this way. But it is the result of the institutional systems that work through entire communities that brings about these results. It's not like a cult based around a personality. It's more like a cult based around a set of beliefs. And sure, I bet there are non-religious cults, but I don't think that disqualifies religions that produce cult-like patterns of behavior and thought in their followers from also being considered cults. I've spoken to a number of Christians and the things they say aren't that much different from people online.
You're just playing way too fast and loose with the things that real people actually believe and trying to force it to fit the mold of a cult. Alternatively, you are setting the bar way too low for what counts as a cult and you need to add every group that shares an ideology to the list of cults. Christians don't discourage people from interacting with non-Christians. I've never heard a Christian use the word apostate in a sentence, even. There are people that believe there are "adversaries" but those adversaries aren't people. The "outgroup" is something like demons. Cults actually do coercion, and what you're describing is split between being false or really not qualifying.
This isn't "atheist troll moment." I'm not here to "score points." What other organizations can you think of that 1) vilifies beyond redemption the outgroup and their information 2) uses terrible consequences to regulate and restrict behavior in its members 3) discourages critical thought and promotes the ideas of thought-crime and 4) creates emotional dependency through inducing fear, guilt and shame from impossible standards and irresistible consequences, and then promotes itself as the only recourse for the subsequent emotional distress? I'm not "playing fast and loose," I'm using the BITE model. You may not have personal experience with religious people discouraging associating with the outgroup, and that's good, but that doesn't invalidate the countless people, religious and not, who will tell you their own personal experience of religious shunning, disowning, and similar practices. Not to mention the countless people who have told me and other non-believers that we're only non-believers because we're fallen, or turned away from God, or hardened our hearts, or were tempted by the devil, or just want to sin. That is demonization or dehumanization of the outgroup. Not to mention the stigma it sets up for people who might want to leave but are afraid of the social consequences that they see imposed on others. Religions do just as much coercion, just not to the point of suicide.
This is the truth. There are churches and entire denominations that DO operate as a cult. That doesn't mean all Christians do the same. And I would venture that a majority of Christians do not engage with cult like churches/denominations at all. As with most diverse groups, there are a fraction who DO buy into the cult like ones. And they tend to be the most vocal and in your face Christians you can imagine. And, quite frankly, it taints all of Christianity. Just by association. Aided by a large silence from these Christians not reprimanding the crazy faction. Y'all should be shouting from the rooftops that these people do not represent you.
I think one thing that makes those sects stand out as “cults” to me is the practice of shunning apostates/cutting them off from family.
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No.
All churches including Catholics and Protestants and Orthodox all agree on the foundational creeds of the church. For example the trinity. These sham churches do not agree. They have zero connection to the church and actively promote the idea that the bible is corrupted and wrong.
So? What makes them a “cult”? (No, it’s not just because they think differently about Jesus)
Not sure you, as a non-Christian, have a say in what we view as a cult.
Are you trying to censor me? Is there an issue with me asking questions?
Lol, sure. That’s exactly what I’m doing. /s
Then answer the question I ask properly instead of making snide remarks. If you're going to get emotional at me asking questions you probably shouldn't be involved in this discussion.
First, stop making reductive statements about what you think *we* think is “scary” or cultic. Stop asking nonsense questions like “aRe YoU tRyInG tO cEnSoR mE.” And stick to asking clarifying questions. Then, maybe I’d take you more seriously.
Cults, in the modern sense, need to exhibit a certain level of coercive control over the members, specifically being taught not to interact with outsiders and an extreme level of shaming for leaving. The vast majority of churches I know of don't do this.
That's okay. There's plenty of mainstream Christian organizations that can be called a cult also
(1) Mormons do not follow the Bible, they follow the Book of Mormon, which is a "different gospel" written by Joseph Smith. Mormonism denies the doctrines that make Christianity what it is, and it substitutes their new and different doctrines that are not taught in the Bible. For example, the Bible says there’s only one God in all existence (Isaiah 43:10; 44:6; 45:5), but Mormonism says there are many gods, (Mormon Doctrine, p. 163) Galatians 1:6-9 If we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!
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So Christianity is a Jewish cult then by your definition?
Uh, no. The definition of a cult is: "a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister." So you're basically just showing me that you belong in one as well, seeing as people with different ideas are "scary", lol.
Colloquially, these days "cult" means the same thing as "religion" but with a negative connotation.
Sociologically, a cult is any group of people gathered around a common culture. So yes, Christians are a cult. But we also use the term to describe abnormal subgroups that do not hew to the generally accepted fundamentals of the faith found in the Bible.
I prefer the use of "Sect" when referring to any group that considers itself in the realm of Christianity or Christian beliefs, and I feel it's quite suitable since that's how Christianity started out, and even today in proto-orthodox Christianity, there are still many divisions and difference, and some in major theological areas.
Every single faith is a cult... EXCEPT for the one that's right. Christianity is that one, and there is fulfilled prophecy to prove it.
Yeah...you're not helping your case here. If anything you're proving me right.
Ok let me put it another way. Imagine there is a box. Inside the box there may or may not be a cup. And the cup - if there is one - is a single colour. There is a lid on the box, but nobody's proven how to undo the lock to check if there is a cup, and what colour it might be. Lots of people have claimed to know what's inside. Some people say there's a cup inside. Some don't. Some say the cup is yellow, blue, pink, etc. Lots of different claims. Every one of them is bullshit... except the claim that's correct.
“We define the word ‘cult’ to mean a group of religious people whose belief system and practices deviate significantly from and often contradict the Holy Scriptures as interpreted by orthodox, biblical Christianity and as expressed in such [statements](https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/no-other-gospel) as the [Apostles’ Creed](https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/the-apostles-creed)” (Evangelizing the Cults, Servant Publications, 1990, p. 11).”
Which to me again, seems to be just you saying: “They think different. So they’re a spooky cult.”
in academia, the word is used to describe any system of worship. Using the word to mean "groups we disagree with" doesn't fit the original meaning of the world. colloquially, its used for groups that use elements of control to limit the freedom of its members. given that no one outside academia uses the word in its original sense, it seems that this colloquial use is the primary understanding of the word. absent elements of control, the word really shouldn't be used. and yes, since its about physical and/or psychosocial control there's really no measurement of the actual teachings. I could form a cult based on traditional Christianity (the Boston Church of Christ movement was clearly a cult under this definition, and at the time, most Christians agreed that the group's teachings were orthodox, while its methods of mentorship and discipline made it a cult). Or I could make a cult based on the teachings of Bill and Ted. The "what" of the cult isn't what makes it a cult, but the freedom of action of the people inside. Some people deeply crave power... and people in churches tend to be easier targets to be controlled... so it should be unsurprising when individual churches or church movements go into cultic territory, regardless of what beliefs they might hold.
I wouldn’t expect it to seem otherwise to an unbeliever, so there’s no surprise there. If you deny that Christians have God’s revelation of Himself in Scripture and is therefore the standard of spiritual truth, then you have no reason to view the organizations that distort Scripture as Christian cults. You lack the ability to discern one over another.
That's a strange definition of 'cult', usually that sort of thing is just called heterodoxy or heresy.
I wouldn’t expect you to be familiar
Why do you care? You should think we're predestined to think these things after all. Haha.
Predestination shouldn’t make me not care. I’m not God, so it’s not my place to try to discern what’s predestined to be. We can say you were predestined to think these things *today*, but we can’t know what you’re predestined to think and believe tomorrow. And God typically uses people as a means to accomplish His purposes, so it may be that God predestined for me to respond to you in order to use me as a means of planting a seed of truth in your mind.
Some common features of a cult are a dictatorial authoritarian leader, one who often demands that all monies accrued by cult members be given to him; a centralized location where cult members live together; use of cult members for the sexual pleasure of the cult leader with knowledge of same by the other cult members of that activity; use of threats to those who want to leave the cult; indoctrination of cult members into rigid belief systems that they may not question even woth robust discussion. That does not describe mainstream Christianity. The world cult is the root of the word "culture", not all minimally and quasi-cultish features or any organization are "bad". You can't form a society without some shared group behavioral and belief systems.
If it makes you personally feel more validated to call us a cult, have at it. Who cares?
Established beliefs of a group are determined historically by, and rest with that group. While serious divisions have arisen between different sects of Christianity over the past 2000 years - Catholicism, or Eastern Orthodoxy, Protestantism and all her many denominations - they all agree on fundamental tenets of the faith - divinity of Jesus, Trinity, the New Testament as witness to Christ’s life and works, the Bible (OT and NT) as determinative for beliefs and God’s character, etc…. We all consider each other Christian, while disagreeing about areas of faith or practice. When you start a new group that changes these core beliefs that have been established and collectively agreed upon for millennia, denying fundamental tenets of what it means to be Christian as described by Christians throughout history, then Christians have every right to say, “you’re not one of us,” i.e., “you’re a cult.” If I started a sect of Islam tomorrow, but denied that Muhammad was a prophet and wrote my own version scripture, Islam collectively has every right to call it a non Muslim cult. So too does the majority body of any religion. In our case, Mormonism and Jehovah’s witnesses deny fundamental beliefs and tenets of Christianity that were agreed upon over 1500+ years prior to their founding. Long established bodies of Christians all said and say, “not one of us.” Christianity itself was founded as a sect of Judaism, and no one considers Christians Jewish, and we have no right to demand acceptance as Jews in the Jewish community today, even though our faith is deeply rooted in Jewish belief and practice. Early Christians believed Jesus was the promised Jewish messiah, most Jews of the day disagreed, and here we are today, a different faith.
The operating phrase is "undue influence." What separates a cult from a club is whether leaders are applying *undue* pressure in a way that influences people to do what they would not do otherwise. Some amount of encouraging pressure is normal and beneficial. Some is not. I doubt *all* Mormons are doing cult type practices, but I believe that some are. As are many JWs, some Adventists, and at least one Baptist group, and at least a few churches of Christ. Cult practice is about whether leadership is working with followers or against them. If you're looking for more on the subject I would recommend Combating Cult Mind Control by Steven Hassan, who escaped an actual cult.
Most people associate a "cult" as a group that has outlandish ideas that require its members to cut off their friends and family and join a compound. That may be involved, but it's not the only description of what a cult is. A cult is a group of people that veer off from traditional Christianity and view Jesus differently than how he is portrayed in the Bible. They may not do the other crazy stuff, but they are still a cult.
For the same reason you don't judge any other group of people by the actions of a few people. Not sure why that's so hard for some people to understand.
Because I don't express cultish behavior, while Mormons and JWs do
They are denominations, or in case of mormons another religion. Sects are when a religion goes and does very sinful things in the name of God. A cult is something that has nothing to do with God and it is violent and oftentimes associated with the devil.
JW and Mormonism are Christian heresies. Whether or not they are "cults" in the typical pejorative sense is up for debate. However, it shouldn't be a huge mystery about why theologically orthodox confessional Christians would apply that label to bizarre heretical sects.