What is a Cult?

[strangersmind]

I use to listen to  Ravi Zacharias not to learn but to see what he say is of Christ. I can tell you he is very deceptive. He always quotes, from people like c.s lewis. If you listen to him long enough you will also noticed he makes this drawn out hissing sound after quoting certain phrases like some kind of serpent.

[Jackie]

Ravi Zacharias has also appeared in at least one conference with Todd White, Bill Johnson, Francis Chang and other Charismatic crazy guys. Increasingly he has been showing his true colors over the years.

[MeganIA]

You have me interested now in checking out the history of the word cult. This would be conjecture, but words have been used before in kind of a derogatory fashion for people questioning the majority (conspiracy theorist, anti-vaxxer,etc). It makes me think that there is at least some story to how that word was originally used if it wasn't in the dictionary before. Good catch Christopher! I will have to reconsider my use of the word going forward.

This isn't the first place I have heard criticism for Ravi and the other preachers mentioned. To be honest, I had not even heard of them up until the last year, and it was from others criticizing them that I first heard their names.

[Jeanne]

I looked up the word on etymology.com and here is what it says:

1610s, "worship, homage" (a sense now obsolete); 1670s, "a particular form or system of worship;" from French culte (17c.), from Latin cultus "care, labor; cultivation, culture; worship, reverence," originally "tended, cultivated," past participle of colere "to till" (see colony).

The word was rare after 17c., but it was revived mid-19c. (sometimes in French form culte) with reference to ancient or primitive systems of religious belief and worship, especially the rites and ceremonies employed in such worship. Extended meaning "devoted attention to a particular person or thing" is from 1829.
Cult. An organized group of people, religious or not, with whom you disagree. [Hugh Rawson, "Wicked Words," 1993]

Cult is a term which, as we value exactness, we can ill do without, seeing how completely religion has lost its original signification. Fitzedward Hall, "Modern English," 1873]

I especially like the definition given by Hugh Rawson. That sounds like the way most people use it...

'Conspiracy theory' or 'conspiracy theorist' is another interesting term. I think it was invented in Soviet Russia but it was popularised in the US by the CIA and used in terms of people who disagreed with or did not accept the findings of the Warren Commission, which was the official story on the assassination of JFK.