From a purely sociological standpoint a cult is simply a new religious movement which arises independently from another tradition. The “charismatic leader” is called the “psychopathological model” of cult formation but it’s not the only model. Furthermore, just because a group has a charismatic or controlling leader doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a cult. The Branch Davidians, for instance, were a sect.
It’s all “religion” but religious groups are classified academically into three main types; Churches, sects and cults. A church is basically just a successful cult or sect and that particular line is often blurry. (I still have a college text on New Religious Movements which classifies LDS as a "cult,’ but they are better defined as a church, imo.) One distinction that is often made but is not absolute is the level of tension or integration with the larger culture. Cults will often have some tension with society while churches are more mainstream. Cults also tend to require greater “committment.” That is to say that the individual’s level of invlvement with (and perhaps the degree to which they are controlled by) the group tends to be greater than or more intensive than the “committment” to, say, the local Methodist church. These are not definitive characterics, though, just more like guidelines or “profiles.” The point at which a cult or a sect becomes a church is somewhat subjective.
Negative associations with the term “cult” as well as the cliche’s about Jim Jones style leaders come mostly from pop culture, uninformed religious propaganda, and media senationalization of incidents like Jonestown and Waco. As the word is applied by social scientists it has no value attached to it and is simply a designation for how the movement is formed.
grimpixie’s site is pretty much crap, btw. Nothing personal, grim, but that’s one of those misinformed Christian propaganda sites I was talking about. the definition cited there has nothing to do with any definition used by social scientists or religious academics.
A cult is anything that controls your thinking process. This would apply to religion as well as scientism. Any form of rules, laws, pronouncements and such that tells you what to think about life and how to live it.
Having said that, there is some value in looking at how the word is used by sectors of the population other than “social scientists or religious academics” so that we know what they (religious fandamantalist types) mean when they are waving the word around. And I would hazard a guess that there are more of the latter than the former. Language evolves, and regardless of what the word should mean, it may well soon mean what people use it to mean instead.
a religion has been around long enough for generations of children to be brainwashed into it. a cult has to brainwash adults which is usually more difficult.
Colin Clay (my town’s expert on cults) says that although the word did have non-negative connotaions at one point (the Apollo cult of Delphi, for example), it has now generally been adapted to be solely negative. He says that a cult is any religious group that harms its members. This can be by forcing large contributions of money, or by “brain-washing.”
The fallacy with this argument is that there are “Christian” groups that are generally recognized as being “Christian cults” due to their methods for recruitment & degree member control. My wife is a survivor (and former mid-level leader) of one of these cults.
As they have recently deposed their charasmatic & controlling leader, I’m interested in what will become of their group.
as I said, “season to taste”.