Christianity a Cult?

History and Etymology for the world CULT

early 17th century (originally denoting homage paid to a divinity): from French culte or Latin cultus ‘worship’, from cult- ‘inhabited, cultivated, worshipped’, from the verb colere.

Definitions of the word Cult from Merriam Webster

a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious
- also: its body of adherents
  - the voodoo cult
  - a satanic cult
great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (such as a film or book)criticizing how the media promotes the cult of celebrity
- especially: such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad
- the object of such devotion
  - usually small group of people characterized by such devotion
    - the singer's cult of fans
    - The film has a cult following.
system of religious beliefs and ritual
- also: its body of adherents
  - the cult of Apollo
formal religious veneration: WORSHIP
a system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator
- health cults

Walter Martin’s Definition of a Cult

“Any group focused around a person or organization's misrepresentation of the Bible. Centrally focused around their denial that Jesus is God come in the flesh.”

Christian’s Response to Sociological Definition of Cult

To the modern sociologist, the term “cult” has a negative connotation, one of which the sociologist is not comfortable with. They do not want to label groups or movements that are offshoots of mainstream religious movements with a term that comes with baggage.

Sociologists argue that when the word cult is used, it implies a distinction between normal to absurd and from safe to dangerous. In our “modern era,” mass media has escalated the absurd and the dangerous through “vitriolic” movie productions, television broadcasts, books, news, and so on and so forth.

According to sociology.iresearchnet.com

“Many scholars of contemporary religions, especially sociologists, have now chosen to drop the term cult as a descriptor of a type of religious group, concluding that it is a conceptually polluted concept, and replaced it with a morally neutral term, such as new religious movement or alternative religious group.”

However, could this scholarly so-called New Religious Movement’s “neutral” re-definition and re-terming be helpful to delineate between truly dangerous beliefs and legitimate worship?

Let’s stop for a second and think, rear ends are not neutral, something always spews from the bastion of ickiness and it is never nice, pleasant, or pleasing. The choice of words is gross right? Isn’t it because it describes something that we associate with “not good” or “pleasing”. The point is this, in terms of worship or belief, any claim of objective truth can never be “neutral”. It is either true or it is not true, it cannot be both true and false.

In other words, the term New Religious Movement is not neutral, the modern sociologist worldview does not come out of a vacuum. They do not sit on the impartial objective throne of the Most High, they do not have the authority to make benevolent judgments on behalf of their creatures, and creation doesn’t leap into existence from the utterances of their mouths. Instead, trying to label New Religious Movements as “dangerous” on their own merits relies on the assumption that something “dangerous” to an individual is something meaningful and it means that the one who determines what is and what is not “dangerous” is now the standard of truth in itself.

This is truly a dangerous tightrope to walk. Do you really want highfalutin scholars defining what is and what is not dangerous based upon the zeitgeist of the era in which they exist? Is that how truth develops? Is it only true because the scholars agree? Is it only true because it was agreed upon by a group or system of people?

If that is how truth develops then there was nothing wrong with Nazi Germany and the killing of millions of Jews, because the German society agreed as a whole that Jews are less than human. They agreed that the Aryan blood was supreme, that this was the essential form that humanity was to evolve to in order to usher in the propagation of the master race, leading to Germanic world domination through murder, eugenics, and genocide.

“Sociologists who specialize in the study of cult movements through field research or direct observations typically find that most groups they investigate, while espousing beliefs or practices that may seem outlandish, restrictive, or otherwise unappealing to outsiders, generally develop a core of sincere and committed followers whose right of religious choice ought not be trammeled by indiscriminate negative labeling. The term new religious movement (NRM) has been widely adopted as a substitute for cult by many sociologists in order to neutralize the negative connotations that have accumulated around the term cult and to emphasize the need to examine every group on its own observable merits rather than simply stigmatizing unconventional religious organizations on the basis of a pejorative stereotype (1).”

To be extremely clear, the danger is not that the Sociologist wants to have a more objective definition/term than the word “cult.” That can be understood, the danger is when we have people determine the morality of a religious belief. Therefore, the objective perspective on any belief system does not come from within our human experience, but from without. Morality, ethics, logic, and reason all exist independently from our human sense experience. They stem from the consistent and unchanging character of God; through which he has revealed to us in His word. Since the character of God is unchanging and the creation in which we exist is wholly dependent upon Him, we can then and only then observe, and repeat our experiences with a logically and wholly consistent foundation of belief - knowing that the future will be like the past since it wholly dependant on God and not chaos.

Neutrality the Poison to Christianity

This is the presuppositional basis of science, morality, ethics, logic, and mathematics; this also is the reason why true cannot be false at the same time it is true. Repeatable, objective truth is derived by thinking God’s thoughts after Him, a phrase derived from Johann Kepler.

In order to have a justification on why something is morally indignant or evil, it must conform to Scripture. Someone can make many claims but not have a justification or the consistency to which the claim can hold any water.

Examples:

Being against Homosexuality is Evil and All People have the Right to get Married
Transgenderism is Good and People Have the Right to Define Gender
Abortion is Good for Women’s Rights

All three of these are truth claims to morality and include moral oughts in which their morality should be a right given under personhood. However, one can make claims such as these but have no justification, for the validity of the claims. With regard to each argument, we can use the Socratic method to show the inconsistencies

Where does humanity come from?
What justification do you have for calling anything evil?
For what reason ought you have the right to anything?

The error that the majority of our culture makes today is the assumption of belief without the understanding of the very basic foundations that make any moral claim true.

If humanity arose from nothingness, if we were once amoebas and now people, that consciousness is an accidental evolutionary happening, then there is no such thing as evil or good.

Typically with the first three arguments given, when asking these basic questions 99% of the time the foundation of the person’s worldview relies on those basic presuppositions (even the pagan person who holds some Americanized form of Gnosticism and eastern spirituality will hold to the modern scientific theory of Darwinism evolution.

There is no God
Life as we know it developed from unguided processes.
Consciousness is an accidental byproduct.
What can be known is what can be seen.

With regards to the word cult, it is noted that there is a gaslighting effect that the word has. It is used to discredit a person, as an Ad-hominem. As noted above, they have no true justification for their claims however in order to justify the sinful action of one of the three arguments people have the urge to label Christianity as a cult because:

Homosexuality is against the Created Design
Gender is the Same as Sex; Defined by God and given in the Womb.
Abortion is Murder

Since the people who hold to atheist/agnostic and eastern-pagan religion all hold to the similar assumption that people and society determine moral truth (which it has already been demonstrated that, the relative assumption to cultural morality is absurd) people then hold the keys to morality “or so they think”. The only difference between the atheist/agnostic and the blatant pagan is the assumption that moral relativism either derives its authority from the state or from the self. Either the state is a god or the self is god. However, both fail at their own assumption because both assumptions stem from the idea that humanity has the authority to determine morals - hence the fact that the same Socratic method can be used to show the absurdity of their worldview.

That is why we see today that many people are stating that Christianity is just another cult, that is a dangerous offshoot of meaninglessness. That there is no God or ultimate form of truth, and that Christianity is offensive to the freedoms of sex, love, and gender. It is now being used as a gaslighting term with no actual basis of consistent morality or logic. This is the danger of the secular world trying to capitalize on the definition of cults and the highfalutin Sociologists analyzing what is and what is not dangerous.

False Religion vs Cult

Being lovers of the truth, wanting to walk in the truth, reading the word of Truth with a Saviour who is the physical embodiment of truth, we as Christians want to speak the truth. Since we were created to name things and create distinctions in terms of categories when examining the differences between false religions and cults.

The very basis of Ultimate Evil and Good with true justification in the West comes from Christianity. Morality derives from the Ultimate Consistent Moral Giver, it is not developed out of a vacuum. Christianity with all justification and consistency can actually label all false religions as truly false because anyone who believes in a god that does not exist, or who holds to a worldview with no logical consistency can be labeled as false.

Furthermore, is believing in something that is false just because it makes you feel good, and not physically harming you a good thing? The Christian can argue that believing in any false god or system is cognitive dissonance and that it is bad regardless of how nice it looks on the outside for it does not comport to reality.

All false gods lead to a real Hell, all false religions stem from a central person or idea that is counteractive to the God of the Bible. Therefore all false religion is damaging to the person’s eternal state and it puts a spiritual yoke on the person, whether or not it can be seen on the outside.

Therefore false religion is categorized as a spiritual damning system of beliefs that deny the supremacy of Christ, the word of God; subsequently worshipping any other god other than the God of the Bible.

Examples of False Religions are as follows: Hinduism, Islam, Buddhism, Shinto, etc.

We then should make it known that Cults are within the realms of false religion, they are deviations within false religions, however, they are not exclusive to false religions. Let us first make some distinctions.

Hinduism has many cultish offshoots, one example would be the Rajneesh cult. Hinduism is labeled as a false religion while the Rajneesh belief system would be labeled as a cult. Why the distinction?

Though false religions are spiritually dangerous, the characteristics of a cult deviate from the root of false worship. Think of false worship as a tree trunk, false religion, and cults all branch out from this trunk. When God states “You shall have no other gods before Me” He means it, and it is because no good can come from idolatry. In terms of the Hinduism example, we have a false religion branch coming from the trunk of the tree and then the Rajneesh cult branching out from Hinduism.

What makes the cult different from a false religion is the following: deviates from orthodox false-religions core tenants, lead by either one person or an organization, demands physical and monetary obedience from followers through indoctrination.

This leads to many different types of bondage to the individual which differs from the false religion. One can think of many examples from suicide cults, to wealth cults all of which command the utmost commitments from their followers or else damnation or bankruptcy.

Characteristics of a cultish movement: separation from family and outside influences, demands physical and monetary commitment, led by one person or organization, learning can only be done through the leader or organization, outside resources are damning to the individual.

We see that it is important to have a distinction between false religion and cults, for it gives us the ability to think in categories and have meaningful conversations with people who adhere to false religion and people who are part of the cults.

I can hear it now, the argument passing through the air with such veracity, it is electric, storming through the atmosphere like a freight train ready to mow down my biased Christian definitions.

“What about Christian cults? Cults like Heaven's Gate, the People’s Temple, the Branch Davidians, are deviations of Christianity, if your argument is consistent, wouldn’t these groups branch off of the true worship trunk? How can a good tree bear bad fruit?”

At first glance this argument is compelling, however, let us continue to think in categories. In terms of worshipping God, there are two trees; True Worship and False Worship. There are only two categories of worshippers, all atheism, paganism, or neo-paganism/agnosticism stem from the false worship trunk. Whereas Christianity stems from true worship, therefore thinking in categories a good tree cannot produce bad fruit. So how do we resolve the historical accounts of so-called “Christian cults”?

Every cult that uses Jesus’ name and Biblical terms, redefines the definitions of terms set forth by God in the Bible, through their own personal/organization esoteric revelation.
Different Jesus, different god, and different spirit.
Therefore it is not Christian

Let’s give an example.

Jim Jones believed that Christ is not a person, but a consciousness, one that could be tapped into in order to bring about divine economic socialism.
Ti and Do from Heaven’s Gate believed that Jesus was just one avatar for an era of armageddon. To them Buddha was one, Zoroaster was one, Muhammed was one, etc. They were to usher in the same message that Ti and Do preached in order to be beamed up to not face the recyclement of planet earth.
Mormonism believes that God was once a man who lived on a different planet and was obedient to the gospel ordinances and principles and became a God and now His offspring inhabit a planet in order to reach godhood.

The point I am making is that, though they claim the name of Jesus it does not make them Christian. They do not stem from the Christian tree for they first delineate themselves by worshipping a Christ that does not exist, which means it stems from the false-worship tree and not the true religion tree.

There is no category error here, upon true and deeper reflections on the beliefs and theology of the cult who claims Christ you will see that they all lean more towards paganism/neo-paganism than they ever would Christianity. These so-called “Christian Cults” should be called “Non-Christian Cults” for by their own definitions they remove themself from any inkling of true Christianity.

Since Christianity is true and the only fully logically consistent religion, whose terms come objectively from God it cannot be a cult. Christianity is the only special revelation given to us from God in the flesh in order to worship God in spirit and in truth.

Christianity is the Fulfillment of Judaism

As Christians we often hear the argument:

Like Mormonism to Christianity, Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism.
Therefore Christianity is a Cult of Judaism.

This argument at its surface seems compelling but it is missing any real context to what Christianity is and the claims of Christianity.

Christian Claims

The Messiah was prophesied throughout the Old Testament beginning at Genesis.
There was a specific time-frame in which the Messiah would appear
Jesus appeared within the book of Daniel’s timeframe for the coming of the Messiah and He fulfilled all of the prophecies spoken about him from the OT Scriptures.
The Temple was destroyed in 70AD - Ending the Timeframe in which the Messiah would come and that the Temple would be destroyed Daniel 9:24-27
People who hold to Judaism today do not have a timeframe in which the Messiah will come, he came and the temple was destroyed in 70AD fulfilling the prophecy in Daniel. - If Modern Jews were consistent they would be in the position of nullifying Daniel as a false prophet since His prediction is a precise prophecy.
Therefore Christianity is the fulfillment of Judaism and true Spiritual Israel always differed from those within the visible Israelite Church - Justification was always by grace through faith looking forward to the promised Messiah.

We will dive into detail about each of the four points above.

There is no question that throughout the Old Testament there is a mystery that is slowly being revealed. It starts with God and his curse on the serpent (Gen 3:15), then it slowly develops throughout the OT testament into the coming of the Messiah. Jews and Christians alike believe in the coming of the Messiah, they just disagree on who the Messiah is. However, for the modern Jew, it will be argued that they missed the time frame and will be forever waiting - that is until God regrafts the natural branches of the Olive Tree back into it. Romans 11:23-24.

Here is an exhaustive list of OT Prophecies Speaking of the Messiah we will only go through a few for the sake of time.

Genesis 3:15 (the Lord speaking to the Serpent) “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.” - Born from a woman - to crush the serpent
Genesis 49:10 (Jacob’s Prophecy) “The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until tribute, comes to him; and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.”
Genesis 12:3 (God’s Promise to Abraham) “I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors who I will curse, and in you, all of the families of the earth will be blessed.
Genesis 22:18 (God reaffirming Promise to Abraham after the sacrifice of Issac) “and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.”
Numbers 24:16-17 (Oracle of Balaam) “The oracle of him who hears the words of God, and knows the knowledge of the Most High, who sees the vision of the Almighty, falling down with his eyes uncovered: I see him, but not now; I behold him, but not near a star shall come out of Jacob, and a scepter shall rise out of Israel;
2 Sam 7:12-16 David’s throne established forever through his offspring.
Psalm 22 Pretty much this whole Psalm declares that the Messiah will, “Suffer agony, thirst and that he will be bruised, bones out of joint but not broken (v14-15), be pierced in his hands and feet (v16), stripped before men and garments will be gambled for (v17-18), the resurrection was declared (v22), he will be the governor of nations (v27-28).
Psalm 110:1 Son of David, ascend to the Right Hand of the Father where he will be ruling and reigning until all things are placed under his feet.
Psalm 118:22-23 That the rejected stone is the head cornerstone of Israel.
Isaiah 9:6-7, “For to us a child is born, to us, a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace, there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.
Isaiah 53: the whole chapter details the life and death of the messiah of Israel and the world. He was despised and rejected (v3). He took our infirmities and carried our sorrows (v4), He was pierced for our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, by His stripes we are healed (v5), the Lord laid upon Him the iniquity of us all (v6), He was cut off from the land of the living (v8), and assigned a grave with the wicked though he was sinless (v9), He was made a guilt offering, pleasing to God, and the LORD will prolong his days (v10), his death he will be restored and see the light of life, He will justify many and bear their iniquities (v11). He will then be a ruler and lifted to glory (v12).

There are hundreds of more prophecies in the OT about the coming of the Messiah, the point illuminated here is that both Modern Jews and Christians expect a Messiah from the OT Scriptures, one group thinks that He has come and another denies it.

We can then argue that Jesus was not a cult leader or a person that led a movement that was unexpected or sacrilegious. Instead, He came at the right appointed time and time in which most Jews were expecting the Messiah to come because of the prophecy of a time-frame given to the Jews by Daniel.

Timeframe of the Messiah

Daniel 9:24-27 “Seventy weeks are decreed about your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to put an end to sin, land to atone for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal both vision and prophet, and to anoint a most holy place. Know therefore and understand that from the going out of the word to restore and build Jerusalem to the coming of an anointed one, a prince, there shall be seven weeks. Then for sixty-two weeks it shall be built again with squares and moat, but in a troubled time. And after the sixty-two weeks, an anointed one shall be cut off and shall have nothing. And the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. End shall come with a flood, and to the end there shall be war. Desolations are decreed. And he shall make a strong covenant with many for one week, and for half of the week he shall put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall come one who makes desolate, until the decreed end is poured out on the desolator.”

The book of Daniel specifically in Chapter 9 gives a timeframe for the coming of the Messiah. Daniel was corrected by the Angel Gabriel for his misunderstanding of the 70 years. He was corrected into viewing these as sets of years. Jews for Jesus gives a wonderful explanation of the sets of the seven:

“The 70 sevens are divided into three separate units—seven sevens, 62 sevens and one seven. During the first time period (49 years) Jerusalem would be "built again, with street and moat, even in troubled times." The second block of time (62 sevens, a total of 434 years) immediately followed the first for a total of 69 sevens, or 483 years.
It is at this point that we are told what the ending point is of the 69 sevens: "unto Messiah the Prince." As clearly as Daniel could have stated it, he taught that 483 years after the decree to rebuild Jerusalem had been issued, the Messiah would be here on earth.
The obvious conclusion is this: If Messiah was not on earth 483 years after a decree was issued to rebuild Jerusalem, then Daniel was a false prophet and his book has no business being in the Hebrew Scriptures. But if Daniel was correct and his prophecy was fulfilled, then who was the Messiah of whom he spoke?”

What about the events between the 69th and 70th seven?

Perfectly stated from Jews for Jesus:

“Stepping back in time and looking ahead from Daniel's perspective in verse 26, we see first that "the Messiah shall be cut off and shall have nothing." The Hebrew word translated "cut off" is the common word used in the Mosaic Law and simply means "to be killed." The implication of the term is that the Messiah would not only be killed, but he would die a penal death by execution. The Hebrew expression translated "and shall have nothing" has two meanings. It may mean "nothingness," emphasizing Messiah's state at death. It can also be translated "but not for himself," and the meaning would then be that he died for others rather than for himself, a substitutionary death. The latter meaning would be much more consistent with what the Prophets had to say about the reason for Messiah's death (e.g. Isaiah 53:1-12). The first three purposes of the 70 sevens—to finish transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity—have to be accomplished by an atonement. The Law of Moses decreed that atonement is made by blood (Leviticus 17:11). It appears that Messiah's death "not for himself" but for others would be the means by which Israel's transgression, sins and iniquity would be atoned for. The point of this phrase is that between the end of the second subdivision (the 69th seven) and before the start of the 70th seven, Messiah would be killed and would die a penal, substitutionary death.”

We can see here that the first 69 sets of seven were a total of 483 years, from the rebuilding of Jerusalem to the birth of the Messiah. The first set is 49 years, Seven Sevens. And the 62 Sevens which is 434 years, the total is 483 years.

We have the issuing of the Decree of Artaxerxes from Nehemiah 2:1-8 and Dan 9:25 at the latest being 444 BC, it was exactly 69 sets of seven from the decree to the baptism of Jesus at the Jordan, 483 years.

Remember Daniel still remains in Jewish Scripture, the question then remains, who was the Messiah?

Finally, the new temple that was constructed would be destroyed.

Jews for Jesus again puts this very clearly:

“Secondly, during this interim period it would also happen that "the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood.…" The city and the temple that were to be rebuilt because of the decree by which the 70 sevens began would now be destroyed. So sometime after the Messiah was cut off, Jerusalem and the temple would suffer another destruction. Our knowledge of history during this period is extremely clear: the people responsible for this deed were the Romans, and Jerusalem and the temple were destroyed in the year 70 C. E. Based upon this verse, it is also clear that the Messiah should have both come and died prior to the year 70 C.E. If such an event did not take place, then Daniel was a false prophet. If such an event did occur, then the question must be answered, who was that Messiah who was killed before 70 C.E.?”

The question for the Jew is, this all occurred, and within the prophesied timeframe. Where is the Messiah? What exactly are you waiting for?

The point of this is that Christianity and the belief of the Messiah founded wholly on the Old Testament, that Christ is the fulfillment of Judaism, and that He came exactly when Daniel through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit alluded that He would. It is true that there is the mystery of the Messiah all throughout the OT but the beauty now is that He has been revealed, Jesus was the fulfillment of the mystery (Col 1:27; Eph 3: 1-13).

The rejection of Jesus as the Messiah by Modern Jews leads them to the rejection of the fulfillment of Judaism outright!

The argument is as follows:

Jesus was the fulfillment of OT Prophecy of the Messiah
He came within the timeframe prophesied by Daniel
Jesus is the Messiah

Now

Jesus is the Messiah
Modern Jews reject Jesus as the Messiah
Modern Jews therefore then reject the belief system of the Patriarchs, Moses, and the Prophets
Modern Jews are a cultic offshoot formulated through the Pharisaical rejection of Jesus’ divinity.
Pharisees are the group/organization of fundamental Israelites that rejected the Messiah and influenced the people of Israel during and after the life of Christ. Through their misinterpretation of Biblical texts and their rejection of Jesus as the Messiah.
Christianity is therefore the true Religion - not an offshoot of modern Judaism.

(1) http://sociology.iresearchnet.com/sociology-of-religion/cult/

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