In the sociological classifications of religious movements, a cult is a religious or other social group with deviant and novel beliefs and practices.[1] However, whether any particular group's beliefs and practices are sufficiently deviant or novel enough is often unclear, and thus establishing a precise definition based on these criteria is problematic.[2][3] The English word often carries derogatory connotations[4][5] and is used selectively by proponents of mind control theory.[6]
The word "cult" has been controversial. One reason is that it (as used in the pejorative sense) is considered a subjective term, used as anad hominem attack against groups with simply differing doctrines or practices, and without a clear or consistent definition.[7]
Beginning in the 1930s cults became the object of sociological study in the context of the study of religious behavior.[8] Certain groups have been labeled as cults and opposed by the Christian countercult movement for their unorthodox beliefs; and since the 1970s by the secular anti-cult movement, partly motivated in reaction to acts of violence committed by members of some groups. Some of the anti-cult claims have been disputed by other scholars, leading to further controversies.
Terminological history[edit]
Further information: Cult (religious practice), Sociological classifications of religious movements, Holiness movement, Faith healing,Anti-cult movement and ritual abuse panic
The word "cult" was originally used not to describe a group of religionists, but for the act of worship or religious ceremony. It was first used in the early 17th century, borrowed via the French culte fromLatin cultus (worship), from the adjective cultus (inhabited, cultivated, worshiped), derived from the verb colere (care, cultivate).[9]
While the literal sense of the word in English is still in use, a derived sense of "excessive devotion" arose in the 19th century. The termscult and cultist came to be used in medical literature in the United States in the 1930s for what would now be termed faith healing, especially for the US Holiness movement which experienced a surge of popularity at the time, but extended to other forms of alternative medicine as well.[10]
The concept of "cult" as a sociological classification was introduced in 1932 by American sociologist Howard P. Becker as an expansion of German theologian Ernst Troeltsch's church-sect typology. Troeltsch's aim was to distinguish between three main types of religious behavior: churchly, sectarian and mystical. Becker created four categories out of Troeltsch's first two by splitting church into "ecclesia" and "denomination", and sect into "sect" and "cult".[11] Like Troeltsch's "mystical religion", Becker's cults were small religious groups lacking in organization and emphasizing the private nature of personal beliefs.[12] Later sociological formulations built on these characteristics while placing an additional emphasis on cults as deviant religious groups "deriving their inspiration from outside of the predominant religious culture".[13] This is often thought to lead to a high degree of tension between the group and the more mainstream culture surrounding it, a characteristic shared with religious sects.[14] In this sociological terminology, sects are products of religious schism and therefore maintain a continuity with traditional beliefs and practices, and cults arise spontaneously around novel beliefs and practices.[15]
By the late 1930s, the Christian countercult movement began using the term cult to what would formerly have been termed heresy.[16]From this time, i.e. from the perspective of the Christian anti-cult movement, the term "cultist" acquired the connotation of Satanism.[17]This usage became mainstream by the 1960s, e.g. via the best-selling The Kingdom of the Cults (1965). This terminological development which had so far been characteristic of the religious sociology of the United States entered international use with the "ritual abuse" moral panic of the 1980s, which originated in the United States, but by the late 1980s to early 1990s saw international spread throughout most of the Anglosphere, and some parts of Europe.[18]
Also from the 1990s, as part of the discrimination discourse at the height of the US "culture war", US neopagan, especially Wicca, literature began to protest the classification of these movements as cults as discriminatory,[19] and usage of "cult" began to be discouraged in favour of the neutral new religious movement in sociological literature.[20] Proponents of such an approach within the study of new religious movements, have in turn been denounced as "procult apologists" by adherents of the Christian anti-cult movement.[21] "Cult" in the sense of groups using manipulative brainwashing techniques to control adherents and induce excessive devotion or dedication to the group or its leader is still used in the anti-cult movement, e.g. by the International Cultic Studies Association (so renamed from "American Family Foundation" in 2004). An anti-cult movement comparable to the one in the United States originated in Russia in the 1990s.[22] In 2008 the Russian Interior Ministry prepared a list of "extremist groups" which included groups adhering to militant Islamism as well as "Pagan cults".[23] At the height of the counter-cult movement and ritual abuse scare of the 1990s, some governments published lists of cults;[24] The US Project Megiddo specifically addressed concerns over millennialist cults in the time leading up to the year 2000. Since the 2000s, some governments have again distanced themselves from such classifications of religious movements.[25]
http://clles.blogspot.com/2014/08/newer-and-old-religious-movement-s.html