Of course, I don’t think the Church is a cult; that’s silliness and whackjob territory. St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Francis, John, St. John Chrysostom, etc, etc. were not what we call cultists today. The Church has existed since Pentecost, wrote, preserved and protected Holy Scriptures, the teachings of Our Lord from the apostles through the one, holy and universal Church, the visible Body of Christ today with a billion members and Christ as their head.
Those that say ‘cult’ here are worthy of ridicule. Check out the list of those and you’ll see some pretty funny characters.
And no, that’s not a particularly good list. For example, it assumes sola scriptura which is a foundation of a great many cults, virtually all the Christian ones such as Jim Jones and Koresh. “Christian” cults are heretical offshoots, usually non-Catholic offshoots.
These are heretics to the orthodox Christian faith. That’s missing from your list - and it’s a key factor in a cult. I find it revealing that it’s left off.
However, I do think it ironic that according to the list, you’re a cult. It adds more humor to the topic.
How could I be a cult? I revere no one as leader but Christ. I have no followers. Not one of those things on the list applies to me. On the other hand most apply to the RCC.
The best we Protestants can come up with is that we consider that Catholics do a lot of extraeous stuff that really has no bearing on a persons salvation.
Jesus answered, “The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent.”
1 John 3:21-24
Dear friends, if our hearts do not condemn us, we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we keep his commands and do what pleases him. And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us. The one who keeps God’s commands lives in him, and he in them. And this is how we know that he lives in us: We know it by the Spirit he gave us.