Criticism of Mormonism/Mormonism is a cult

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Criticism

Critics claim that the Church is "a cult."

Source(s) of the Criticism

• The Utah Evangel 31 (May 1984): 1.
• The Utah Evangel 33 (May 1986): 3.
• Walter Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults, revised and expanded, (Minneapolis: Bethan House, 1985), 173.
• James R. Spencer, Beyond Mormonism: An Elder's Story (Grand Rapids: Chosen Books, 1984), 138.

Response

Websters Dictionary defines cult as a “great devotion to a person, idea, or thing”. So as the Jews revere Moses, Lutherans revere Martin Luther, Seventh-day Adventists have Ellen G. White, and mostly Christians reverence Jesus Christ. That would put them under the category of cult also.

Alan Gomes, who teaches at BIOLA University’s Talbot school of Theology, admits right up front that “our English word cult comes from the Latin word cultus, which is a form of the verb colere, meaning ‘to worship or give reverence to a deity” (Alan W. Gomes, Unmasking the Cults, pg. 7)

Fuller Theological Seminary President Richard Mouw said in Nov. 14 2004 conference in Salt Lake City for the unity of Evangelicals and Mormons that “I know that I have learned much in this continuing dialogue, and I am now convinced that we evangelicals have often seriously mis-represented the beliefs and practices of the Mormon community. Indeed, let me state it bluntly to the LDS folks here this evening: we have sinned against you. The God of the Scriptures makes it clear that it is a terrible thing to bear false witness against our neighbors, and we have been guilty of that sort of transgression in things we have said about you. We have told you what you believe without making a sincere effort first of all to ask you what you believe.”

The true Church has always come under the criticism of being a cult. Even the early Church was regarded as a cult. In Herbert Danbys, "The Jew and Christianity" on pg. 8, it reads “This new Jewish-Christian party in the eyes of the religious leaders of the time was, at the worst, simply regarded as guilty of minuth (cultism), namely, a variety of Jewish heresy, or rather, Jewish sectarianism...early passages in the Talmud still contain hostile references to the minim (cults), among whom were numbered the Jewish Christians...” Pliny, an early Roman leader also said that Christians were a “superstition, a foreign cult” this was re-iterated by two more Roman writers, Tacitus, and Suetonius. Tacitus said that is why the Christians were being killed, and also because “of their hatred toward mankind”. Tacitus also said that they were “an enemy to mankind”, and a “deadly superstition”. And also Suetonius who said that they were a “mischievous superstition” or in other words, a cult. (The Christians as the Romans Saw Them, pg. 22,49-50,66)

Conclusion

A summary of the argument against the criticism.

Further reading

FAIR wiki articles

• Logical fallacies
  • Ad hominem
  • Appeal to authority
  • Appeal to belief
  • Appeal to the majority
  • Appeal to tradition
  • Argument from repetition
  • Argument ad numerum
  • Bandwagon fallacy
  • Begging the question
  • False analogy
  • False premise
  • Ideology over reality
  • No true Scotsman
  • Poisoning the well
  • Straw man

• Latter-day Saints aren't Christians

FAIR web site

• FAIR Topical Guide: LDS Church as "a cult"

External links

• Orson Scott Card, "Hey, Who Are You Calling a Cult?" *
• Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christians? (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company, 1993). off-site FAIR link

Printed material

• Printed resources whose text is not available online