Cult
From The Encyclopedia of Mormonism
See this page in the original 1992 publication.
Author: Young, Lawrence A.
The word "cult" has usages that range from neutral to pejorative. It derives from the Latin cultus, meaning "care" or "adoration." A neutral usage of the word refers to the system of beliefs and rituals connected to the worship of a deity. By this definition, virtually all religions, including The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, exhibit some cultic aspects.
However, the term "cult" more commonly refers to a minority religion that is regarded as unorthodox or spurious and that requires great or even excessive devotion. While the term is commonly used by the mass media and anticult movement in the late twentieth century as a negative label for such recently formed groups as the Unification Church and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (the Hare Krishna movement), it has also been used to describe Pauline Christianity, Islam during the life of Muhammad, and mormonism in the nineteenth century.
The most common social-scientific definition identifies a cult as the beginning phase of an entirely new religion. As defined by this approach, a cult's central characteristic is that it provides a radical break from existing religious traditions (Roberts). The LDS Church's self-understanding of being a restoration movement that restored divine truths, rather than a reformation movement that purified existing truths, is consistent with the social-scientific understanding that nineteenth-century Mormonism was a cult due to its break from the existing religious traditions.
References to cult and other organizational classifications describe the characteristics of religious groups at particular moments in their history. Social scientists use these classifications to describe the normal process of religious evolution. Most groups that start as cults fail to survive more than a single generation; very few evolve into a developed new religion recognized by nonadherents as legitimate or conventional. Obviously, both Christianity and Islam successfully survived the transition from cult to new religion. Social scientists generally agree that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is no longer properly classified as a cult and should instead be viewed as a new religion. For example, sociologist Rodney Stark identified the LDS Church as the single most important case on the agenda of the scientific study of religion because it demonstrates how a successful new religious movement differs from the thousands of cults that fail to survive or develop into new religions. [See also Sect.]
[edit] Bibliography
Roberts, Keith A. Religion in Sociological Perspective, 2nd ed. Belmont, Calif., 1990.
Stark, Rodney. "The Rise of a New World Faith." Review of Religious Research 26, no. 1 (1984):18-27.
Stark, Rodney. "How New Religions Succeed: A Theoretical Model." In The Future of New Religious Movements, ed. D. Bromley and P. Hammond, pp. 11-29. Macon, Ga., 1987.
LAWRENCE A. YOUNG
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