There's a word getting thrown around a lot in regarding churches, ministries, an other faiths. It's a word I've seen used flippantly, jokingly, and sometimes with what I see as an appropriate level of gravity. Often it's a word spoken, and probably rightly so, by broken and hurting people. It's a word used by a commenter recent previous post in Provoketive Magazine, Slap on a Little Lipstick, You'll Be Fine. If I am being completely honest, it's a word I've used, sometimes quickly in anger and pain, and also after great prayer and thought.

That's right, I am talking about the 'C' word. Cult.

It's used by many Christians to describe Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, Christian Scientists, and many other fringe religious groups and doomsday groups. It's also used against many other Christian churches and ministries that have an authoritarian structure, rigid rules, and apparent spiritual abuse. The commenter from my last article used it in reference to what he thought was a minister requiring me to wear lipstick (as a note, I never stated whether that incident occured at a secular or religious organization).

But what is a cult, really?

Merriam-Webster Dictionary gives the following defininition:
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<div class="scnt" style="margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 20px"><span class="ssens">: formal religious veneration : <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/worship">worship</a></span></div>
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<div class="scnt" style="margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 20px"><span class="ssens">: a system of religious beliefs and ritual; also : its body of adherents</span></div>
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<div class="scnt" style="margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 20px"><span class="ssens">: a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also : its body of adherents</span></div>
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<div class="scnt" style="margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 20px"><span class="ssens">: a system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator <span class="vi">&lt;health cults&gt;</span></span></div>
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<div class="scnt" style="margin-bottom: 10px;margin-left: 20px"><span class="ssens"><span class="sn">a</span> : great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book); especially : such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad</span><span class="ssens"><span class="sn">b</span> : the object of such devotion</span><span class="ssens"><span class="sn">c</span> : a usually small group of people characterized by such devotion</span></div>
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Going by this definition, which is pretty much what you will find in any general dictionary, any religious group or faith is a cult. That's right, by this definition, any Christian church or group, mainstream or otherwise, is a cult. And it doesn't stop at religion: any fad or craze with a following could be called a cult, like the cult of Mac.  And, with the exception of the third definition above that describes cult as a religion "regarded as unorhtodox or spurious", the term 'cult' doesn't necessarily have a negative connotation.

Even sociologist and psychologists tend to disagree over the use of the word "cult", given that what is generally a neutral term has become to bring to mind only pictures of poisoned Kool-Aid of Jonestown infamy or the Charles Mansen cult murders. However, most agree that there is really a continuum between what constitutes "cult" and "non-cult", which is why many have given to adding further descriptors, such as "dangerous" or "benign" to cults. Because of this, for the purposes of this article, I have gotten the majority of my information on cults from the International Cultic Studies Association.  They focus on the damaging aspects and practices that often occur in damaging cults, but they are careful not to specifically list possible cultts on their webpage, as there are many gray areas where groups may contain some aspeccts of cults, but not really be a full blown cult, or a dangerous cult.

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Furthermore, it can be difficult to be fully objective when determining what is "unorthodox" regarding religious beliefs and doctrine. And, who gets to decide? If you asked a Lutheran, Catholic, Pentacostal, Charistmatic, Bretheren, Mennononite, and Episcopalian about what constituted orthodox veruses unorthodox beliefs in other denominationsI thin it is likely each denomination would find themselves stuck with that label by another one.

That being said, here is a list of characteristics found with damaging cults, according to the ICSAv

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Even with this list, I think it is important to be careful before immediately labeling a group a "cult", given the current negative connotation that it immediately brings  to peoples' minds. This is not a checklist to determine if a group is a cult for certain or not, but is merely a guideline of  characteristcs that cults often display. It is possible for a dangerous cult to not display all of these, and I think it is also possible for a group that is not a cult by today's current usage of the word to display some or even many of these traits.

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For example: