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An unfortunate term, commonly used by individuals when discussing or analyzing religion, is the word, ‘cult’. The reason this happens is really quite easy to see.

For Christian Protestant fundamentalists, if you are not adhering to the concepts from the Christian faith strictly, you're a cult. Their original intention might have been to only demean the other ‘misguided’ Christian denominations, but by their narrow guidelines, all Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, etcetera (nearly 2/3 of the planet’s people) are, in their eyes, cults.

But, the issue goes even further than that. The Protestant fundamentalists have further expanded their list by including Roman Catholics as well as all Easter Orthodox faiths, over a disagreement over the number of sacraments there are. By those standards, 93% of humanity are involved in cults. To take it another point further, they also think the majority of other Christian Protestant groups to have fallen out of compliance with biblical fidelity. By their definition, the lone group who are not in cults are them!

From the outside, believers and followers of such strict doctrinal interpretations must clearly have lost their ability to think for themselves, so MUST belong to a cult. To much of the rest of the planet, it is actually these biblically strict, narrow groups who are the genuine cults. Taken together, that’s everybody. Everyone on the planet is in a cult — according to somebody! The Baptists are pointing fingers at the Catholics who have been pointing fingers towards the Protestants – and everyone is pointing fingers at the Mormons.

What good is a distinction which applies to everyone?

So, is it possible to provide that word a more clear meaning? The main thing is that those creating the definitions are lacking neutrality. They have an agenda. What we need is another person to present us a neutral means for identifying a cult — someone with no personal interest What we need is a neutral rule book -- A referee, of sorts.

An 'anthropologist of religion' is someone who studies the field of religion from a scientific standpoint. If, however, the anthropologist is a member of a religion — any religion — the others scream “bias! bias!”, which means that everything the anthropologist says has got to be wrong because they've got this personal bias.

On the other hand, if the neutral party doesn’t partake in a specific religion, the others shout, “Atheist! Atheist! – making anything claimed irrelevant on the basis of an automatic opposition to all religious beliefs. But, the fears and accusations of the faithful aside, what do those anthropologists have to say about cults?

Generally, the majority of them define a cult using a specific ‘five point system’. Ask the following 5 questions so you will be able to draw your own personal conclusions.

The Questions are:

One. Is there a charismatic, powerful leader in control?

Two. Does it display a group mentality which denies individuality and personal, independent your mind?

Three. Does the group pressure members to end/steer clear of friends and relatives who don’t belong?

Four. Do they apply financial pressure or abuse towards the welfare of the group, even at the personal expense of the adherent?

5. Does the group keep its members separated from their surrounding community?

The problem with this method is that it is still not fully black and white. In the event you get five resounding yes’s, then it’s absolutely a cult. If not a single one of these questions are answered “yes”, then it's undeniably certain that the group isn’t a cult. If it were only The confusion is when you find some ‘maybes’ and ‘kindas’ to the questions. you are unlikely to find any solid answers, so the best we can do is usually a type of sliding scale.

1 Case Study of a Cult -- The A Real CULT: Rev. Jim Jones with the People’s Temple. Well over nine hundred individuals drank the Kool-Aide at Jonestown, Guyana in the year 1978.

Use the ‘five questions’:

(a.) They had a powerful, charismatic leader (Jones);

(b.) They thought like a group and weren’t allowed to have any ideas to call their own.

(c.) They had been encouraged strongly to exclude their friends as well as relatives from every aspect of their lives and their church pursuits.

(d.) The members more than tithed, they basically gave everything everything they owned to the church, and were in turn cared for by the church (the group was entirely communist);

(e.) When their separation from the surrounding community began to break down, they moved to a distant area inside the jungles of South America.

There is no doubt that this group is a cult.

Up next, let’s look at the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Founded during the late 1800's by Charles Taze Russell, these are the folks that you are likely to come across when they knock on your door.

Again, use the ‘five criteria’:

(a.) There is no powerful, charismatic leader (a person might argue that there was, but although Russell certainly had been charismatic, he actually held little or no power over his followers);

(b.) Because independent Bible examination is the core of their religion, they do not have any type of ‘group think’ policy.

(c.) As their persistent door-knocking shows, they feel strongly about sharing what they've learned.

(d.) While it is often true that Witnesses devote a good deal of their time and effort trying to convert others, there does not appear to be any financial pressure – not more so than any other church promotes tithing.

(e.) It is their lack of separation from their surrounding community that frequently can have them at odds with their neighbors.

Some might find them a bit pushy, but they are definitely NOT a cult.

The bottom line is that prior to labeling a group as being a cult, specific sociological points, unconnected to their specific beliefs, (regardless of how ‘weird’ they may possibly be) have to be met.