What is a Cult?

[Socialite]

Originally Posted by Praxeas

The word cult, before the evangelicals and psychopa....eh psychologists took it over, meant the same thing as a sect. Cult meant any group or believe in the supernatural, any religion essentially.

The word cult is ever expanding by Trinitarians to include some group or belief that is not theirs

I don't have a single translation that refers to the followers of Jesus as a cult.

#1 I understand there is a pejorative context today in the word, which can't all be blamed on mean, pesky evangelicals and fundamentalists. Or even those who have made "cult" an equivalent to "unorthodox." I think Jim Jones, David Koresh, Heavens Gate and the FLDS have done a good enough job at branding themselves.

#2 The post is a look inward. Instead of settling for a general name-calling, based on the definitions gives above, do we see this among us?

#3 No one has posited that Jesus and his followers were referred to in scripture (you said "translation") as a cult. In looking back, it could fit the description (and that's what was posted). Cults can be generally defined as people completely submissive to a man or woman, usually religious in nature. Jesus fit the bill. He breaks the bill with the ways today's traditional "cult-like" groups preserve themselves: fear, control and manipulation. We find none of that with Jesus.