Posted on 02/10/2018 7:10:14 AM PST by tiredofallofit
When I tell people about my childhood church, they will usually insist that I was in a cult. While I strongly suspect that they are correct, I never thought of myself as a cult member. Sure, my church may have shunned the outside world and taught that it alone possessed “the truth” but we never had to swear our undying loyalty to the leaders or live in a compound or drink poison. Should you wish to stop attending the church, you were free to do so, but you had to accept that the members who remained were no longer your brothers in the Lord or even friends; you were automatically disfellowshipped and labeled an apostate.
Most who hear my story (and there is much more to it) shake their heads and tell me how unlucky I was to end up in such an “extremist” church. That is not normal they tell me. Why would your parents go to a church like that?
Frankly, I believe that these types of churches are far more “normal” then people think. Thousands of small independent fundamentalist churches dot the American landscape; you probably drive past a couple every week on your way to church. I know that I do. You don’t know about them because you don’t attend them; you have your own place of worship. But yet, these churches do exist and each one has a story. Granted, not every one has a story like mine – but many do.
“There are churches like that?” I remember a close friend of mine asking me a few months ago after hearing my story. “I’ve never heard of such a thing”. Well of course not. He grew up in a well-structured denominational church that had little contact with these smaller churches.
(Excerpt) Read more at runningawayfrommychurch.com ...
Anyone whoa actually BELIEVES a DemocRAT !
“Q”
+1
Just believe in the power of transformation of Jesus Christ
You don’t need a group a church or anyone else
I’ve been invited to join several liberal churches here
Declined them all politely saying that I believe in Jesus
and that’s enough for me !
Mostly the word has gone astray with group-think
Look at the Catholic Church. The Presbyterian church
The Bible is the word of G*d. It is like the rock of Gibraltar
It does not change Will not change. Cannot change. Should not change
Marriage is sacred and the key to the world as we know it
Hi, this was already established and I acknowledged it. Thanks.
The word “cult” is a club those holding to a majority belief use to bash minority beliefs.
Judaism, the majority view, saw early Christians as a cult, and worthy of being stoned to death.
Roman Catholicism, the majority view in the middle ages, saw dissenters from that view as a cult, and worthy of being burnt at the stake.
The RC in Florence, Italy, burned Savonarola for condemning the Renaissance for its wickedness. They felt justified in doing so because of his conservative views.
Both RC and Protestants burned at the stake, and drowned every Anabaptist (today’s Mennonites, Amish, Hutterites) they could get their hands on, for their minority view that infant baptism was unscriptural the majority view felt justified in persecuting them.
Once Lutheranism had become the majority in Germany, the Lutherans began persecuting other protestants who dissented from Luther...especially the Anabaptists.
The Calvinist Protestants at Geneva, Switzerland, considered Michael Servetus worthy of being burned at the stake for his minority view, and burned him.
Nowadays Christians know its not “Christian” to stone somebody to death, or burn them at a stake (except for some RC’s), the club in the hand of majority view evangelicals now is the word “cult.”
Historic Premillennialists (post-trib) today are shunned and kicked out of their majority view churches. In many pretrib dispensationalist denominations, if a preacher does not hold to their majority pretrib view, he is sent home from the foreign missionary field. They sometimes use the club (”cult”) on them .
Most Christians today don’t know their history, nor the scripture. This is America, where we have freedom to believe the scripture as we see it. We are not Italy, Germany, or England of the middle ages with their national churches. Not everybody is going to see it the same.
What we have today is a bunch of offended snowflake Christians, content in following their particular majority view, ready to wield the “cult” club on dissenters.
When Mormons or JW’s come to my door, they don’t offend me, I have studied the scripture for myself, I stick with the truth I see in the scripture, others have the freedom to see it differently. What people call “cults” are only a problem to the snowflakes, who don’t know the scripture for themselves.
I know of a church that many people call a cult
because they follow the church which we can see
that started on the day of Pentecost.
Some people believe they have to be a cult because
they do not believe the Christian church has any
authority to collect tithes.
They believe the gospel has already been preached and
it is the preachers job just to read what it says.
They do not push their doctrine down any ones wind pipe
they believe if you are not smart enough to figure it
out you can ask.
And much more which I liked so I will just say “ if it
is a cult” it is a darn good one.
If we have been any thing to fear it is from the big
religious institutions.
A lot of nonsense here. First and most importantly, the author is incorrect. His church was not a cult. There are extremely few churches that are cults. Cults are typically not churches. More commonly they are communes.
The distinguishing characteristics of a cult are:
1 - an all powerful leader who demands absolute obedience in all matters large and small.
2 - members are physically isolated from outside family, friends and community. This requires living in a designated place.
3 - leaving the cult is a death sentence, whether emotionally or physically.
4 - all of each member’s belongings become the absolute property of the leader.
5 - all attention is paid to the leader, all eyes are turned inward with no influence from the outside world permitted.
6 - membership involves initiation that puts the mew member in a totally compromised position. This may involve committing an immoral or criminal act.
7 - Membership requires the absolute sacrifice of the self to the leader, becoming his (or her) chattel slave.
If your church adheres to these conditions it is most certainly a cult. If it does not it is not a cult.
Nope. Just superstitious cultists arguing the finer points of their bigoted hypocrisies.....
“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”......[Stephen Roberts]
Calling a group a cult does not make it a cult. There are a million Pentecostal churches in the world that adhere to some form of Sondergaard’s teachings. They are not cults. Nor are they cultic.
Nor do false teachings qualify as cultic. The democrat party is drowning in false teachings. It is not a cult. A criminal enterprise, perhaps, but not a cult.
I absolutely agree. Muslim fundamentalism is a cult. It is the very best example of a cult. It satisfies every condition listed in my earlier post.
None of which has anything to do with being a cult. False teachings (whatever I or tradition disagree with) are not a distinguishing characteristic of a cult.
Not bad. Beware. Might be just a sex club. But you never know.
Good answer.
Only when it allows someone power and control over someone else and people stop thinking for themselves. A very common story in cults.
Yes, anyone posting their own blog an article only about 700 words should post the whole thing, if it is Truth. The rest of the article hardly provides much depth.
Of course not.
You were probably taught that ALL the others were cults; not your organization; which finally discovered what GOD had kept hidden from the others.
After all, we believed that we were the only church correctly interpreting the Bible. We were unique. Everyone else was cultish or cult like because they subscribed to the “wrong” doctrines.
The problem is; if (when) these young men DO come to realize just how false MormonISM is; they may shy away from ALL religion; instead of trying out others.
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