Dragonman73 Posted July 27, 2015 Share Posted July 27, 2015 My wife has made references in the past to Jehova Witnesses and Mormon's being a cult. But it got me thinking....why isn't Christianity considered a cult when it clearly shows the signs of it being one? If I am not mistaken, thousands and thousands of years ago it was considered one when it had a small number of members before it went mainstream...correct me if I am wrong? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Super Moderator florduh Posted July 27, 2015 Super Moderator Share Posted July 27, 2015 No cult member considers himself to be in a cult. The biggest cult in America is Christianity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mymistake Posted July 27, 2015 Share Posted July 27, 2015 It is all about size. A religion is a large, popular cult. A cult is a small, unpopular religion. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pratt Posted July 27, 2015 Share Posted July 27, 2015 mormons was a cult until billy graham says mitt romney is christian 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daffodil Posted July 28, 2015 Share Posted July 28, 2015 It's thanks to Emperor Constantine, if I remember correctly. He made it the state religion and legitimized it for the rest of history. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest immoralchristian Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 My wife has made references in the past to Jehova Witnesses and Mormon's being a cult. But it got me thinking....why isn't Christianity considered a cult when it clearly shows the signs of it being one? If I am not mistaken, thousands and thousands of years ago it was considered one when it had a small number of members before it went mainstream...correct me if I am wrong? I think all groups that have a religious preoccupation are all cults until they become institutionalised, as in the case of Christianity I think in the beginning love was their preoccupation until it got turned into a religious preoccupation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geezer Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 Christianity exhibits characteristics associated with cults, especially the more conservative versions. Secular scholars often refer to Christianity as a cult, so to say that no one refers to Christianity as a cult would no be accurate. The media & the religious community do not refer to Christianity as a cult. The version I was associated with is most definitely a cult. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExCBooster Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 I honestly think the whole thing comes down to Jonestown, and other belief-motivated murders/atrocities etc of the 1970s. All of these people drink the flavor-aid, and die, and the question then becomes "was People's Temple a church?" Before that, a "cult" was just an anthropological and historical term for a small religion or belief system, from the Latin cultus (also the source of cultivation or culture). After Jonestown, there's a lot of distancing effort from mainstream religions: it wasn't a legitimate religion, it was a cult. After this, the word cult gains its current, more casual meaning: controlling, unhealthy, scary, dangerous belief system (that isn't one of our own). As an interesting exercise in the former use of the term, I'd seriously read one of the landmark works on cognitive dissonance in religion, the book When Prophecy Fails, about a UFO worshiping cult, and how they cope when the aliens do not, in fact, come for them on the appointed day. So, yeah, any small belief system is an (anthropological!) cult. Therefore, all religions absolutely are or were (anthropological!) cults in the most literal possible sense. However, in the colloquial sense, only the scary ones that people don't like need apply. (The shift happening in the 70s and early 80s to distance mainstream religion from the ones that put bacteria in the salad bar is precisely why all of the mass hysteria about satanic cultists and cults in general happened in the 1980s, once people had a chance to articulate it in books...) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WarriorPoet Posted August 4, 2015 Share Posted August 4, 2015 A cult has a charismatic leader that knows it's all bullshit. A religion is exactly the same, except that the previously mentioned person has been dead for at least a few centuries. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
disillusioned Posted August 5, 2015 Share Posted August 5, 2015 It's partly about size, but I think its also about specificity. Christianity encompasses so many different things that I don't think "cult" can properly be applied to it. The Christians can never seem to agree with one another about what they do and do not believe. My understanding is that this is not the case in a cult. A cult is a specific sect with a very specific set of beliefs and practices. Some of the different branches of Christianity could be considered cults, but Christianity as a whole is not specific enough anymore to fit the definition of a cult. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PurpleStarGirl Posted August 16, 2015 Share Posted August 16, 2015 It's thanks to Emperor Constantine, if I remember correctly. He made it the state religion and legitimized it for the rest of history. I was about to say we could thank the Roman Empire's influence due to conquering many nations for that but Daffodil beat me to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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