User:Laleena~enwikiversity/Cults and Christianity

What is a Cult?
One of the best definitions of the word Cult can be found on the website www.religioustolerance.org.

Cult: From the Latin word "cultus" -- meaning worship. Cult is a word with many religious meanings (and some secular as well) which should be used with great care to avoid misunderstanding. We recommend the neutral term "new religious movement" be used in its place. Even better is to refer to a religious group by its name:

1. Traditional theological usage: a style of worship and its associated rituals. It can be applied to any faith group. 2. Sociological usage: a small religious group that exists in a state of tension with the predominant religion; e.g. Christianity in Pakistan. 3. General religious usage: a small, recently created religious group; not a variant of an established religion. Often headed by a single charismatic leader. 4. Evangelical usage: a religious group that considers themselves to be Christian but which denies one or more historical beliefs of Protestant Christianity. 5. Counter-cult movement usage: Same as Evangelical usage. 6. Anti-cult movement usage: a small, evil religious group, often with a single charismatic leader, who engage in deceptive recruiting, brainwashing and other mind control techniques 7. Popular belief: A doomsday, dangerous, destructive religious movement whose members risk their life to belong.

Cults
Christianity: Dangerous Cults

A look at some of todays Doomsday, Destructive Religious Cults

Christian based religions
Mormonism properly denotes a group of restorationist religions which trace their origins back to their founder Joseph Smith Jr. There are now almost one hundred religious denominations within the Mormon classification. The largest denomination within the restorationist group, by far, is the Utah based Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). Each of these denominations share some common characteristics:

1. The belief in an apostasy. This is the belief that the original church of Jesus Christ fell into error after the deaths of the apostles and that the true priesthood authority was lost.

2. The belief that as a result of an apostasy the true church of Jesus Christ needed to be restored, and indeed was restored by a modern day prophet, Joseph Smith Jr.

The Mormon denominations are considered by some evangelical christians to be a cults, in the evangelical usage of the word. This attribution is as result of many doctrinal differences that the restorationist sects hold in contrast to traditional mainstream Protestantism. These differences include, but are in no way limited to, non-tradition views on the nature of God, God's purpose for mankind, modern revelation and additional scripture such as the Book of Mormon.

Mormonism is considered by many religious studies scholars to be a new emerging world religion based on traditional protestant Christianity in the same sense that Christianity is based on Judaism.

Adherents of the LDS faith assert that they are indeed Christians and pursue religous scholarship and historical works that support their doctrines