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DMcFadden · #19 (**permalink**) 04-08-2008, 09:54 PM

Michael,

Part of the problem relates to the varied legitimate uses of this word like many others.

Merriam Webster defines cult thusly:
1. Formal religious veneration
2. A system of religious beliefs and ritual; also: its body of adherents;
3. A religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also: its body of adherents;
4. A system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator;
5. Great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book).

In OT scholarship, "cult" refers to the ritualized religion of ancient Israel without any negative connotation whatsoever.

In other contexts, as you observe, it carries the connotation of one "sect" among other sects of various belief systems. Again, it has no negative notions or associations at all (e.g., baptists vs. methodists vs. presbyterians). This use is not terrribly well attested here in the U.S.

Finally, with the rise of Christian-based heresies (e.g., J.W.s and Mormons), conservative Christians have taken up the term with very negative connotative associations. This was how Walter Martin famously defined cults: "By cultism we mean the adherence to doctrines which are pointedly contradictory to orthodox Christianity and which yet claim the distinction of either tracing their origin to orthodox sources or of being in essential harmony with those sources. Cultism, in short, is any major deviation from orthodox Christianity relative to the cardinal doctrines of the Christian faith."

The conservative Christian meaning is a development from the sociological sense of a clearly defined set of beliefs and practices. In this sense the Mormon cult believes X,Y, and Z. It is a very short distance to travel from saying "The Mormon cult" to "Mormonism is a cult." That, in my view, is how we got here. Since orthodox Christians oppose and denigrate the beliefs of Mormonism, the "cult" of Mormonism became a very negative thing in Christian circles.