Classifying the "Cult"
The American Heritage Dictionary lists three meanings of the word cult. The first is "a system of religious worship and ritual." With this definition in mind, all religions, whether major or minor, can be considered cults. The second definition is "a religion or sect considered extremist or false." This definition presents the label of "cult" as one based on public opinion. The third definition, "obsessive devotion to a person or principle," is again based on public opinion, since it is hard to say what constitutes an "obsessive devotion" when religion is involved. Defining what is and what is not a cult is obviously a very complex operation. While "cult" is simply a quantitative theological term, its use is almost always based on the labeler's perception of the situation. Thus, a fundamentalist Christian would label a cult differently than would an agnostic or atheist. The subjectivity of this term makes an unbiased assessment of it difficult.
There are several characteristics of a cult that would be accepted by most people. One is the group's size. A cult is generally a small group of people averaging from one-hundred to three-hundred followers, although some cults number into the thousands. If a cult thrives, it may be upgraded to "sect" status, although this usually only occurs when the cult is an offshoot of another major religion. At a certain size, the cult becomes a religion. A perfect example of this phenomenon would be Christianity. In its earliest days, it was extremely small, starting with one person, but has become one of the largest religions in the world. It has itself become the basis for many different belief situations, which fall into three categories: denominations, which are the largest groups; sects, which are somewhat smaller; and cults, which are the smallest. An example: Orthodox Christianity is a religion, Mormonism is considered a sect of Christianity, and Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church is considered a cult.
Widespread disapproval of the cult's message and beliefs is another part of this variable. Christianity, to use the example again, was so widely despised among the Jewish and Roman communities that its leader was executed by the particularly grisly mechanism of crucifixion. In today's society, the same animosity (though to a different degree) is often shown to cult groups and minority religions in general. Thus, one could say that the degree of social acceptance of the group is important to the definition of "cult."
A second characteristic is the use of mind control techniques in inducing people to join and stay in the cult. Cults use many methods of control, from simply asserting that non-believers are punished in Hell to threatening or even hurting their members. Some cults require members to sign property or even children over to the cult to force them to stay, and others shun ex-members. A simpler way to state this might be that cults are often authoritarian and controlling.
The problem with simplifying the definition of cult to these two variables—size/social acceptance and control/authoritarian—is that groups inevitably perceive the situation differently. A possible way of illustrating the concept of using these variables is to actually create a table, or matrix, using them on different axes; size/social acceptance on the X axis and control/authoritarian on the Y axis.
controlling
authoritarian
|
|
|
accepted ------------------- unaccepted
large-sized | small-sized
|
|
free
individualistic
This setup allows religious groups to be placed into four quadrants relative to their beliefs. First, it must be decided what kinds of groups would be placed into each quadrant.
controlling
authoritarian
FUNDAMENTALISM | MIND-CONTROL CULTS
ORTHODOXY | "RADICAL SECTS"
| VIOLENT GROUPS
|
|
accepted ------------------------ unaccepted
large-sized | small-sized
|
| SOME CULTS
| SOME SECTS
INDIVIDUALIST RELIGIONS | FREETHINKERS
free
individualistic
Of course, the placing of groups in this system is again difficult because of differing perspectives. Since all religions believe that their doctrine is the true one, none will agree with their placement. A fundamentalist doesn't regard his religion as authoritarian, he simply regards it as the capital-T Truth and as law that he must follow. A cultist, however, believes exactly the same. Such a rigid classification system is sensitive territory for anyone who is religious. Some placements are more or less obvious, however:
controlling
authoritarian
Fundamentalist Christianity | Puritans, Jehova's Witnesses
Fundamentalist Islam | Scientology, People's Temple
Southern Baptist |
|
|
accepted ----------------------------- unaccepted
large-sized | Wicca, Satanism small-sized
| Zen, Taoism
Buddhism | Atheism, Agnosticism
Methodism | Humanism, Quakers
Unitarianism | Freethinkers
free
individualistic
One can see the difficulty in classifying such groups. Fundamentalist Christians would certainly abhor being placed in the same category as Fundamentalist Islam, and Jehova's Witnesses would be disgusted with their proximity to Scientologists and the People's Temple. The reverse is also true for each example. The truth is, classifying religious groups is inherently dangerous, as someone is bound to be offended. When viewing such a diagram, however, one must keep in mind that other factors besides size and control play a part. This system is a simplification of a complex problem. Also, groups can be placed in various locations within each quadrant. For example, Quakers would likely be in the upper left-hand area of the second quadrant, while Atheists and Agnostics would be in the lower right-hand area.
There are several other characteristics peculiar to cults that are completely ignored in this system. Many cults, especially in the ancient world, worshipped a specific deity within a pantheon, such as the cults of Apollo and Dionysus in ancient Greece. Often, cultists worship or deify a living leader. These cults are called "charismatic" cults. Examples of these include the Grand Unification Church, whose followers revere the leader Sun Myung Moon, and the People's Temple, who so trusted their leader Jim Jones that 900 of them committed suicide on his command. Christianity, too, was a "charismatic" cult in its earliest years.
This has been adapted from a paper I wrote for Honors American Literature. I have removed a conclusion paragraph that talked about the necessity of protecting religious freedom, because it was U.S.-centric and I think this works better as a purely informational piece anyways, especially on e2. I realize that it over-simplifies religion in general by attempting to quantify it, but I think it can be a valuble starting place for the study of world religions.
See the website "http://www.politicalcompass.org" for the inspiration of this rough classification system.