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What is a cult?

Helen

New Member

If we are going by what the definition is...then most if not ALL denominations are a Cult.
Definition

a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister.


a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.

SYNONYMS for Cult ...Audience, followership, following...

To the world we are all a cult and each denomination looks upon those 'not with them' as a cult.

My two cents ...
 

Heather Frank

restricted access
The meaning of that word has changed a lot. Cults have always been illegal. Even before the time of Christ in pagan Rome, you could get in trouble for some things. One was celebrating the Saturnalia, an Egyptian rite of Isis. In Rome in those days, a cult was a foreign religion. To compare that word (it does have a Latin etymology) to the Bible writings, it's parallel to idolatry. For the Hebrews, that meant to worship any other God than God as we know him today, or to use images of alleged other Gods in your home in private ceremony or as the Romans also has it, to go to another countries temple or shrine.

Most people I meet in modern America really don't use the word cult correctly in proper historical context. A lot of people think a cult is just a false teaching out of the Bible, but technically that is supposed to be termed either heresy or blasphemy. A cult is a religion that's actually totally false, and not even based in part on approved worship and authorized scriptures.
 

Heather Frank

restricted access
Another meaning of cult, during the times of high Christendom, was that it venerated a saint, meaning a martyr who died specifically for his Christian faith. There have been many such saints communions, and people would form into orders and dedicate them to the memory of that saint. The orders did different things. There were scribal orders who translated scriptures and wrote local histories. There were cloistered orders who just said prayers, orders would build churches and schools around the churches. In the real sense, it's not a cult unless it venerates and remembers a Christian Saint. However, in modern America most people don't believe in saints anymore (saints tended to be local, and also nationalist European heroes who had died fighting either local Roman oppression, or while away in the crusades, or had been killed while preaching and trying to convert local heathens. Most Christian saints are European, in other words, and part of a European patriotism.
 

Matthias

Advanced Poster
If your deity is any deity other than the one whom Jesus of Nazareth calls his deity, you might be in a cult.
 

Matthias

Advanced Poster
Jesus called the father, son and holy spirit God.

Jesus didn’t call his God, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Jesus has a God. His God is the Father alone..

The God of Jesus is only one person.

Jesus himself, by definition, is a unitarian.
 

Matthias

Advanced Poster

If we are going by what the definition is...then most if not ALL denominations are a Cult.
Definition

a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister.


a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object.

SYNONYMS for Cult ...Audience, followership, following...

To the world we are all a cult and each denomination looks upon those 'not with them' as a cult.

My two cents ...

That’s excellent -> cult defined in the best sense of the word.

Judiasm is a cult. A person whose religion is Judaism is someone who is in the cult of Judaism.

Christianity is a cult. A person whose religion is Christianity is someone who is in the cult of Christianity.

There can be unity and diversity in a cult.

Christianity began as a sect in the cult of Judaism.
 
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