"Every intelligent man under heaven who, being aware of it, does not acknowledge that Joseph Smith is a prophet of God, such a man is in darkness, and is opposed to us, and to Jesus, and to his kingdom on earth" (Brigham Jr., Journal of Discourses 8:223).

"What does Christendom know about God? No problem... Why, as soon as the question concerns God, they are notorious fools in it; they know neither God nor the things that come from God" (John Taylor, third President of the Mormon Church, Journal of Discourses, 13:225).

We cannot ignore accusations of this type. They must be answered. In doing so, in responding to accusations made by cult and non-Christian groups, we want to avoid invoking specific names and sarcasm. It is quite possible to disagree with a person's beliefs and love a person who professes these beliefs. What we argue with are the teachings of the groups, but not the members of those groups and not their right to believe what they believe. We say this because the Bible exhorts us to "contend for the faith which was once delivered to the saints" (Jude 3). And finally, the Apostle Paul urged us: "Try all things, hold fast to what is good" (1 Thess. 5:21).

1. What is a cult?

Over the past century, the term "cult" has acquired various interpretations. This became especially evident when, beginning in the 1950s, the secular media began to study various groups and refer to them as cults because of their hostile behavior. Time magazine (Sept. 3, 1951, p. 51) called the eccentric adherence to L. Ron Hubbard's book Dianetics a cult two years before he registered it as the Church of Scientology. The reason for calling it a cult for Time magazine was apparently the good demand for this book in the book market. We should never give up on the correct use of a term just because someone has misused it. Psychologists have tried to define a cult as a group of people who have the power to change someone's behavior and psychological outlook on life. Sociologists have defined a cult as a group that does not conform to the norms of a given society.

Both of these attempts are untenable in defining the most essential thing for all cults - theology. So, we will use the theological definition as the only one that encompasses all aspects of life, thought, and behavior.

The word "cult" comes from the Latin word "cultus", which literally means "to worship" or "honor" something. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it came into circulation in the 17th century and then again in the mid-19th as a designation of a distinct religious group. The first book to deal with some cults was William Irwin's Timely Warnings (1917), later retitled Heresy Exposed (1919). In this edition, Irwin correctly points out the need to view cults from a theological point of view, based on the Bible, which allows us to separate truth from falsehood. "Almost every heresy," he writes, "in the light of its later analysis, does just that: it draws the veil between the needy man and the waiting God" (tenth redaction, p. Irwin's book says that "the great truth of Scripture will be rejected" by the cults (p.

There were other authors who gave an assessment of some cults. There is no author better known in this regard than Dr. Walter R. Martin, who during the 40 years of his life exposed the fallacies of the cults. He wrote:

"A cult, then, is a group of people united around someone's interpretation of the Bible, and it is characterized by significant deviations from orthodox Christianity that concern the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith, especially the fact that God became man in the form of Jesus Christ" (Martin on Cults, p.

What Irvine, Martin, and others have said about cults is true. We must start our study from the Word of God, because the Apostle Paul warned that false Christs and false teachings would appear who would try to deceive the true church and the world at large:

"For if any man were to come, and begin to preach another Jesus, which we did not preach, or if you received another Spirit which you did not receive, or another gospel which you did not receive, you would be very lenient to him... For such false apostles, evil workers, take the form of apostles of Christ. And it is not surprising: because Satan himself takes the form of an angel of light, and therefore it is not a great thing if his servants also take the form of ministers of righteousness; but their end shall be according to their works" (2 Cor. 11:4, 13-15).

Although it is possible to give a clear definition of modern religious cults, it is difficult to characterize this phenomenon definitively because of the constant changes in the parameters of the groups with which we are dealing. With each new group, we have to refine our definition. Some cults reject the Bible as such. Other cults do not claim to revise the Christian church, since they proceed from a different view of the world. The definition we offer is suitable for any cults, regardless of whether they are offshoots of Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism or Islam...

DEFINITION: A cult is a group of people whose beliefs are based on the idea of superiority of a particular leader, which inevitably entails the rejection of the central doctrines of Christianity as set forth in the Bible.