Is it a cult?

“My cult is cultier than your cult.” I love it.

No, the LDS Church is not a cult – except when “cult” is defined very broadly. When that is done, EVERY religious denomination is a cult.

It really is that simple.

While mainstream journalists and news sources don’t tend to refer to the Mormon Church as a cult, I am not comfortable that we try to close the discussion with a clear “no”. That disenfranchises some sincere people with real grievances.

I think “cult” is personal and local. Your LDS experience may be culty. Mine may not be. Or vice versa.

As with most things, I feel it’s best to leave the question open-ended, and perhaps unanswered. “What is culty about my religion?” “What can I do better?”

“Lord, is it I?”

Tom

I’ve had someone accuse me several times of belonging to a cult. I was wondering what everyones thoughts were on this subject. I know there are times when it can seem cult like but I have to really laugh when I hear this accusation. My dh had me read an article several times about how the LDS church is a cult. I laughed out loud at the part where it said that girls camp was part of the cult like behavior. Maybe my experience was different from others because I loved girls camp. My leaders were awesome and would go swimming in the lake with us at 3 a.m. They never pressured us to act like the well-behaved house wives or anything.

I think it is the WofW and the temple secrecy that leads to the conclusion that the LDS church is a cult. Here my focus is the WofW. Cults do things like control the behavior of their members. I have Catholic priest friend whom I’ve had many discussions with about our two religions and the world in general. I never really understood why people saw the church as a cult until discussing the issue with him. It wasn’t the subject of our conversation but at one point he asked or made a comment about how he just didn’t understand what, say, alcohol consumption had to do with spirituality or the teachings of Jesus. And, while I can’t articulate the insight I got from that comment, it just suddenly became very clear to me why people outside the church would look upon that as cult-like behavior. To be sure, plenty of Protestant denominations prohibit or preach against the evils of alcohol but it is rarely as circumscribed as it is in Mormonism. I don’t think the LDS church is a cult but I think that this also might be a case of the myopia many Mormons live in, where they can’t see themselves as other do, and therefore don’t understand why others characterize them as they do.

Cult is too often the word used to describe “other” religions, particularly “newer” religions. In fact, the term “NRM” or “New Religious Movement” is often used synonymously with “cult.” Any religion looks like a cult when it’s new or from the vantage point of someone outside of that religion, but in reality only the ones that really don’t let you leave or do mind-control are actual cults. Catholicism can look like a cult to outsiders, too–anybody read Dan Brown’s books??

In reality, all religions are “tribal.” There are rules for belonging (even if there aren’t rules for membership, there are unwritten norms that indicate you belong).

I find this site:

http://www.orange-papers.org/orange-cult_q0.html

an interesting read on the cult subject. It is fairly inclusive, meaning most religious movements qualify as “cultish”, but it definitely gives food for thought on what goes too far.

Looking back I see my early years in the church as moderately cultish – in other words I got the message that dissenting views were poisonous words from the devil and there was some fear around hearing the wrong message. In my mind a non-cultish view is that truth can hold its own, fear itself is the tool of the devil, and if you’re swayed by error it’s because you don’t have enough good information – not because you have too much bad information.