“Cult” in the New World Encyclopedia: bit.ly/3wzdd7r
“Do Latter-day Saints belong to a cult?” by Jeff Lindsay: bit.ly/3g3MFph
Methodist author Andrew Tevington responds to the question, “Is Mormonism a cult, as is widely taught in some circles?”: bit.ly/3s12aQZ
“Why No One Should Ever Use the Word ‘Cult,’” by Guy Harrison in Psychology Today: bit.ly/3sZkT0p
Transcript/additional notes: bit.ly/3oci4Yk
Notes:
-One common list of characteristics used by critics to argue that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a cult is Steven Hassan’s BITE Model of Authoritarian Control. The model describes “the specific methods that cults use to recruit and maintain control over people.”
The “B” stands for Behavior Control. “I” for Information Control. “T” for Thought Control. And “E” for Emotional Control. According to his website: “Destructive mind control can be determined when the overall effect of these four components promotes dependency and obedience to some leader or cause; it is not necessary for every single item on the list to be present.
“Like many techniques, it is not inherently good or evil. If mind control techniques are used to empower an individual to have more choice, and authority for their life remains within themselves, the effects can be beneficial. ... Mind control becomes destructive when it undermines a person’s ability to think and act independently.”
As expressed in this video, the problem is that pretty much any religion is going to check off many of the boxes on this list. It seems to me quite the challenge to label our faith as a cult without doing the same thing to Christ’s early church, or pretty much any existing faith. Isn’t the goal of all of Christianity to promote a certain sense of “dependency and obedience” to God? And the fact that “it is not necessary for every single item on the list to be present” leaves the question of who does and does not meet a minimum standard open to interpretation. There is no minimum standard of boxes that need to be “checked.” Thus, all one must do to label any out-group a dangerous cult is draw a few parallels and voila!
It’s extremely difficult for our Christian friends to apply the label “cult” to Latter-day Saints without creating a very noticeable double-standard. Source for quotes: bit.ly/3cW0YKf
From letter by George Albert Smith: “I am pleased to assure you that you are right in your attitude that the passage quoted does not express the true position of the Church. Even to imply that members of the Church are not to do their own thinking is grossly to misrepresent the true ideal of the Church, which is that every individual must obtain for himself a testimony of the truth of the Gospel, must, through the redemption of Jesus Christ, work out his own salvation, and is personally responsible to His Maker for his individual acts. The Lord Himself does not attempt coercion in His desire and effort to give peace and salvation to His children. He gives the principles of life and true progress but leaves every person free to choose or to reject His teachings. This plan the Authorities of the Church try to follow.”
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