By Clete Hux –
In this video Rev. Hux discusses “What do you think of when you hear the word cult?” For many of us, that word conjures up images of Jim Jones and Jonestown, Guiana, where some 900 people in Jones’ People’s Temple followed his instructions and committed suicide by drinking kool-aid laced with cyanide. Or we may think of David Koresh and his Branch Davidians’ fatal encounter with federal agents. Even more recent was the suicide of 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate UFO cult. On the other hand, some people follow a more cynical definition of a cult as “the church down the street from yours.”
The Question of Definition
In actuality, there are four different definitions we need to consider. These are: the common dictionary definition, the sociological, the psychological, and the theological definitions.