why do people think my church is a cult?

I guess that the proper definition of a cult in the realm of Christianity is a "movement or church that strays from the clear teachings of the bible." Now here is where it gets a little tricky. Many people study the bible and come away with differing interpretations. If they see that your interpretation puts you in variance with theirs...its easy for them to judge themselves superior and simply dismiss you as a cult member. People find themselves in cults for a variety of reasons. Sometimes people put more stock in a charismatic leader than they should. Sometimes they pick churches like they would a box of cereal on the cereal isle. You know how some get the cereal for the prize inside. Some get the sugary kind. Some older folks may want the kind to help facilitate better health. However, the only reason to join a church and accept a teaching as truth is based soley on the correct interpretation of the written word. Never join a movement because this is where mama went to church or because they have a good music service or even because they have a nice childrens program. We all want those things but they are not the main reason to pick a church. The qualifying factor in picking a church is how closely do their teachings line up with the word of God. When they sing it may sound like feeding time at the zoo. Some of the members may be a bit grumpy. But if the word of God is taught in context with the teachings of the bible...that's where one should be. Don't fret too much my friend. I'm a Seventh-day Adventist and I've often been accused of belonging to a cult. I was not raised in this movement but studied my way in. I was simply looking for the church whose teachings more closely followed those revealed in the bible. Soon, I learned about the 4 commandment. I learned that Saturday is still the sabbath and that no where in the bible had God changed it. Man did that some 300 years after his ressurrection. I also remembered reading in James 2:10 that if your break one of the 10 commandments that you are guilty of breaking them all. There are literally hundreds of texts dealing with the sabbath in the bible and no where did God or Jesus do away with it. I decided that its better to obey God rather than man and let the chips fall where they may. Some will call you names if you do not follow the established norm. Do not let that deter you. The bible also councils not to "follow a multitude to do evil". I believe that the great majority of people will find at the end of time that they themselves have been members of a cult all the while thinking that someone else was. Look at how the religious leaders in the days of Christ judged his disciples. They were in the very presence of the Son of God and yet in the minds of these leaders...they were tangled up in a cult. I do not share you particular brand of faith but I do share your struggle to overcome the stigma the majority places on those making different choices. May God bless you.

I study cults and embed myself in them. I have been embedded in the Unification Church and find it to be a quintessential cult.

The term 'cult' is not arbitrary or even a pejorative. It is a quality present in all groups. All groups have a cult temperature, and the Unification Church is red-hot. There are many metrics for determining the cult status of a group. Here is one:

http://www.prem-rawat-talk.org/forum/uploads/CultC...

From my own investigation of the group, the culpable element I found was the use of a well known brainwashing method. It is a 5 step method as follows:

1)State uncontroversial facts

2)Create group identity

3)Create pride in identity

4)Identify threat to group

5)"Call to action"

In the Moonies, the threat is the self, one's desires. This creates an infinitely regressive struggle in the individual. This is an insidious nuance of the formula. The plan for world peace is also very strange because it involves converting the entire world to resolve sectarian conflicts... but that's what every sectarian conflict seeks to do, eliminate all others. In this sense even Hitler was for peace.

The Unification Church are famous for recruiting members and then isolating them from family and friends. They have a youth group where young adults are sent across the country and indoctrinated. During this time they walk around the downtown areas of the cities the are in selling trinkets to strangers. Perhaps you are not familiar with this program, but is is current.

Lives and families have been destroyed by this organization. The same goes for Scientology and the Hare Krishnas. These groups destroy a person's sense of individuality and make them dependent on the group. Cults tend to have living charismatic leaders who profess themselves divine (though in a different sense, David Koresh and Rev. Moon both allege themselves to be the Second Coming of Christ).

On a side note, the metaphysical dualism thing is hogwash. What is the opposite of yellow? The philosophies which first asserted dualism and many philosophies since warn that dualism is a delusion of the mind and that belief in it harms a person. What is the opposite of yellow?

All cults promote good and noble values. That's how they work. In the case of the Unification Church, the virtue they exploit is altruism. People have an altruistic instinct, and often seeing the maladies of the world can be frustrating. Taking that sadness and turning it into the worship of a man is the cult modus operandi. Speaking of which, it is a tell-tale sign of a cult when it instructs people to refer to the leader as "Father".

Little individual things do not qualify a group as a mind-destroying cult. The military isolates people out of necessity, Catholics call the Pope the Holy Father, but these are not cults. Scientology, Hare Krishnas, Heaven's Gate, Jim Jones' group, and the Unification Church are deemed cults because of their outstanding reputations. I don't mean to upset you, but the Unification Church is the archetypal model of a cult. It is the most obvious cult of all. The question is, do you believe cults exist? If you do, the groups I just mentioned are cults.

Stay curious. Remember, being in a cult feels great a lot of the time. That's how it works. The same goes for a lot of other unhealthy lifestyles.

This is a good resource on cults:

http://www.apologeticsindex.org/

So, you're a Moonie?

You believe that Sun Myung Moon, basically some random Asian man, is the Messiah.

The Unification Church dictates that the more money you spend in this life, the better your afterlife is. This is so obviously a scam - they just want to gain more money. People are thus encouraged (more like coerced) to buy expensive things from the church. A settlement of $150 million was made to former members who had been subjected to pressure and coercion to buy these worthless trinkets.

The Unification Church claims that critics of their cult are, in fact, Satanic and working for Evil.

The Unification Church basically teaches things from the bible - which is fine. But it is the deviations mentioned above - and these are only ones I know of; there are probably more - which separate it from RELIGION to CULT.

I'm not in the media, so I don't know. PEOPLE are quite familiar with the Unification Church...

The media is very judgmental and so they would call any Church outside of the more acceptable churches a cult or a sect.

The difference is that a church enjoys tax exempt status.

Any religion is a cult.

Want to follow God? Get away from religion.

Start reading a KJV Bible, and keeping God's laws, statutes, commandments, and holy days. You also got to have the faith in Jesus.

It is a cult

'Cuse me? Did you forget someone?

"Christ" in that "Christianity"? Yeah. Him. Oops.

Sheesh, even an atheist could see that one coming.

Because all churches are cults, whether our government acknowledges them as such or not.