 |
| - I´m God, bro, just trust me! |
A disturbing list of traits which may mark a group as a cult. They sound...familiar, somehow.
Was early Christianity a cult? What about the Catholic Church 100 years ago? Certain political organizations would also fit the bill, some more than others.
Either the list was compiled by the Devil himself to sow doubts in our puny little minds about the Ultimate Ruchira Avatara. Or something to that effect.
Or cultism is forever with us. Thank God for the routinization of charisma!
Early Christianity did have some kind of accountability structures. For instance, when Paul and James disagreed, a Church Council was called in Jerusalem to solve the problems. Also, in the Didache it says that the congregations should test supposed apostles to see if they were really apostles! Somewhat ironically, Paul´s constant admonitions of the various Churches shows that he wasn´t firmly in charge. On many other points, however, I think early or even later Christianity had precisely the traits enumerated. Freedom in Christ, it seems, requires eternal vigilance...
ReplyDeleteThe most basic definition of cult would be something like "high-demand group with an authoritarian leadership which manipulates, abuses and exploits its own membership".
ReplyDelete