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.
Good answer.