What is the difference between a Cult and a Religion?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m trying to keep this as a GQ and away from GD if possible…

I remember watching some TV show in my youth (mid 80s) that was a about “cults.” I think it was produced by the Lutheran church, if I recall.

A couple things that made me wonder was that they called the Jehova Witnesses (JWs) and Mormons “cults”… whereas I thought they were both relatively mainstream, full blown religions.

Where would say, the Branch Dividians or Scientologists cross the line from Cult to Religion? What makes them different? Is it as simple as number of followers?

2

You’re going to get a number of experts weighing in on this, I presume, so here’s a non-expert view fwiw: cults tend to be viewed as extremist or relatively farther from the mainstream. They also are, as you suggest, smaller in number. I think it’s safe to say that Christianity began as a cult - a few followers of a local preacher. I could see how a tv show produced by a particular church might refer to LDS (Latter Day Saints - Mormons) as a cult, but that’s indicating their own view that the Mormons are far from the mainstream, I’d say. Now, let’s sit back and see what people who are actually informed have to say.

3

Cults are far from the mainstream, and somtimes can be destructive.

4

I don’t see much of a difference - when I was fundamentalist Christian, my parents got scared that I had joined a cult. My youth group pastor was happy about that - he said they were doing their job!

5

This quote was taken directly from a leaflet from a (will go unnamed) college’s campus ministry.

“Cults prey on the wounded, the weak, and the confused.”

I added, “So come join the Cult of the Cranberry. Get all of the free juice you want!”

…somehow Campus Ministry didn’t like my idea. :smiley:

6

You’re assuming that the terms “cult” and “religion” are mutually exclusive, which is not the case. A religion can be a cult, or a group or practice within a large religion can be a cult.

Furthermore, the term “cult” has several meanings, not all pejorative. But it is most commonly used in a pejorative sense, to describe a religious movement that the speaker doesn’t like. Usually it’s a shorthand for ascribing certain qualities which the speaker considers undesirable to a religious group - he thinks it is secretive, exclusive, oppressive or exploitative of its members or just has strongly-held beliefs that he regards as bizarre.

The term is fairly flexible, depending on the views of the speaker, but it does have some boundaries. No matter how much you disliked the Episcopalians or the Unitarians, you probably wouldn’t describe them as cults. But religions as mainstream as the Catholic Church are sometimes described as cults by those who oppose them.

Very often the use of the word “cult” tells you as much about the person using the word as it does about the group being described.

7

I tend to think of a cult this way–if it was made recently, especially in the 19th or 20th centuries, has a unique doctrine based on specious use of whatever religious text being used or uses visions/hallucinations/visitations/golden plates as a reason for whatever doctrine. Using this doctrine makes me classify the ones that are pretty obvious–Heaven’s Gate, Branch Davidians, Scientology–in with ones that some people I know would be angry with me classifying them as–Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, etc. Also, I think a really radical, superliteral, and otherwise just whacked interpretation iis a good sign–like the Jehovah’s Witnesses and refusing blood transfers. I believe the reasoning is a overly-literal, out of context, reading of some parts of the Bible.

Now I know that, for example, the Protestant churches are newer than the Catholic and Orthodox churches and what have you, but I don’t think they can be classified as a cult because they are taking basically the exact same beliefs and works and just see them slightly differently. It’s just a different way of answering questions like “How is one saved?” where the answers, depending on the particular denomination are generally either by good works, worship, etc. or salvation through the grace of God alone.

That’s why I throw in some of those other groups. Mormons have that whole Book of Mormon thing going on, for example. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect to put next to the Bible, a book that has had hundreds of years of oral tradition before any of it was written for the Old Testament, with it being a little bit of everything, not just a religious text, and the New Testament, which has not had as much editing before writing as the OT, but then again half of it is the history of Jesus and his disciples, and the rest are letters on interpretations of the Gospel. To put next to that something that was written in the 19th century, claiming that it was written by God on golden plates and translated by a divinely-inspired and guided American is ludicrous. I mean, the Bible wasn’t divinely inspired or guided, and yet some guy who comes out of nowhere and to claim that this, also, is the Word of God and then expecting for the mainstream to accept it is complete fantasy.

Sorry, I got off on a bit of a rant there.
Anyway, I’ll suggest you try reading James W. Sire’s Scripture Twisting: 20 Ways Cults Misread the Bible and go from there.

I got to hand it to Hubbard, though. He said the best way to make money was to invent a religion, and he’s done that. Why can’t I make up a BS religion and get Hollywood to flock to it?

8

One of the profesors at my college once was quoted in the Chronicle of Higher Education saying something like…
“A cult is any religious weirder than your own…”

9

The American Hertiage Dictionary suggests some salient features, including:

  1. Religious extremism
  2. Having followers living in unconventional manner under the guidance of
  3. A charismatic and authoritarian leader.

I think the key for determining whether a group is a cult is the degree of coerciveness and authoritarianism. Demanding that followers sever ties with family and friends is a common characteristic, as is the requirement that a person’s wealth be handed over to the leadership of the cult ostensibly for for the good of the group and/or to show total allegience.

10

I’ll weigh in:

How about this; a cult is a group who actively seeks to add members to it’s group, whether by direct recruitment or more secretive means.

A religion would, I think, tend to let it’s followers come to IT rather than having IT go to find followers.

11

I think it’s all a matter of relative size and what the dominant religion in the area happens to be.

12

[url=“http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mcult.html”]The master speaks[/url.

13

The master speaks.

And by master, I mean Euty.

14

As UDS has pointed out, the word has more than one meaning.

In last Spring’s Defining a cult there are some good points raised, including my note that there are at least four common definitions. (Unfortunately, there were also some poor comments made and some inter-denominational sniping that trailed on for a few more pages as couple of posters tried to insist on Mormon-bashing–but it was in Great Debates, after all.)

15

And exactly what are your qualifications to be an expert on this issue, asterion? I ask this becuase you basically blew it in your snide comment above.

16

Depends on what’s in the chalice–wine or Kool-Aid. :slight_smile:

17

A cult is what all of you are in, a religeon is what I’m in.

not me personally, but this is the essence of it.

18

Which snide comment was that? I made a lot of them.

19

As I think about it, I think I also associate trappings of various sorts with cults. For this reason, I think I could understand someone referring to Catholicism as a cult. The special cups, the wine, the wafers, the clothing, the staffs, incense smokers, etc. (I’ll apologize if that seems crude - I just don’t know the terms, but that’s sort of my point). Maybe this is more the connotation than the denotation.

20

I don’t remember where I first heard this, but a definition I like is based on the difference in how they primarily get new members. A cult mostly recruits converts, while a religion has more people born into it. All religions started out as cults, until the membership reached some critical mass where more families were raised in the faith than heathens converted, and they became mainstream.