A major study shines light on American religion, profiling a rising star in Christian higher education, political scientists reflect on how animus shapes American politics, and more.
Keith Raniere "physically abused followers and committed crimes," huh? No way, that sounds really familiar to a certain branch of the Christian faith that has it's headquarters in a certain area of Rome. It is important to understand that while cults use the same tactics, cults all are highly individual. Mormonism, for example, is a cult started by a practicing magician and known fraudster that had built-in update mechanics so it was able to survive persecution, and now it enjoys relative social parity with Christianity. Heaven's Gate, on the other hand, while using all the same tools of forced isolation, utilized the depression of a few individuals and the ego of one leader to drive all of them to suicide because they couldn't stand to face the harshness of reality that abandoned the free love, drugs, and peace of the 60s. Cults depend on who starts them. Joseph Smith wanted to have sex with a bunch of women and get money, while Marshall Applewhite of Nike Decade fame didn't want to have a job and hated the world.
The term cult goes back to occult—read hidden knowledge—which references the deepest levels of Western religious history. Cults claim hidden or secret knowledge, and claim that their teachers are the only purveyors. If we think about Christianity, it actively rooted out the Gnostic secret schools of the early church period. There lies the slight difference between cult and religion. Priests aren't really claiming to have secret knowledge à la The Rosicrucians or The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. They definitely fall into the some of the same pitfalls though. The only reason why there's a debate about applying the label "cult" is because it hurts people's feelings to have their perspective shifted about their own behavior/beliefs. Often people aren't really aware of the things that they profess to believe. (See the postscript for some elaboration on this.)
TL;DR, Christianity didn't go the secret schools route, but it's origins are certainly steeped in cultic behavior.
P.S. I highly recommend the following video for anyone interested on the "cooler" sides of the Bible that gets lost in the weeds. Very neat stuff. https://youtu.be/kwvguW8xBx0 If people fully accepted that the biblical parts of the video were 100% real, I have a feeling that they would act differently. Just my humble opinion.
Keith Raniere "physically abused followers and committed crimes," huh? No way, that sounds really familiar to a certain branch of the Christian faith that has it's headquarters in a certain area of Rome. It is important to understand that while cults use the same tactics, cults all are highly individual. Mormonism, for example, is a cult started by a practicing magician and known fraudster that had built-in update mechanics so it was able to survive persecution, and now it enjoys relative social parity with Christianity. Heaven's Gate, on the other hand, while using all the same tools of forced isolation, utilized the depression of a few individuals and the ego of one leader to drive all of them to suicide because they couldn't stand to face the harshness of reality that abandoned the free love, drugs, and peace of the 60s. Cults depend on who starts them. Joseph Smith wanted to have sex with a bunch of women and get money, while Marshall Applewhite of Nike Decade fame didn't want to have a job and hated the world.
The term cult goes back to occult—read hidden knowledge—which references the deepest levels of Western religious history. Cults claim hidden or secret knowledge, and claim that their teachers are the only purveyors. If we think about Christianity, it actively rooted out the Gnostic secret schools of the early church period. There lies the slight difference between cult and religion. Priests aren't really claiming to have secret knowledge à la The Rosicrucians or The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. They definitely fall into the some of the same pitfalls though. The only reason why there's a debate about applying the label "cult" is because it hurts people's feelings to have their perspective shifted about their own behavior/beliefs. Often people aren't really aware of the things that they profess to believe. (See the postscript for some elaboration on this.)
TL;DR, Christianity didn't go the secret schools route, but it's origins are certainly steeped in cultic behavior.
P.S. I highly recommend the following video for anyone interested on the "cooler" sides of the Bible that gets lost in the weeds. Very neat stuff. https://youtu.be/kwvguW8xBx0 If people fully accepted that the biblical parts of the video were 100% real, I have a feeling that they would act differently. Just my humble opinion.