Matthew
Paulson in Breaking the Mormon Code,
in an attempt to claim “Mormonism” is a “cult,” wrote the following:
The American
Heritage Dictionary of the English Language provides six characteristics of
groups that are classified as “cults”:
1. The followers of such a religion or sect.
2. A system or community of religious worship and ritual.
3. The formal means of expressing religious reverence; religious ceremony and ritual.
4. A usually nonscientific method of regimen claimed by its originator to have exclusive or exceptional power in curing a particular disease.
5. Obsessive, especially faddish, devotion to or veneration for a person, principle, or thing the object of such devotion.
6. An exclusive group of persons sharing an esoteric, usually artistic or intellectual interest.
2. A system or community of religious worship and ritual.
3. The formal means of expressing religious reverence; religious ceremony and ritual.
4. A usually nonscientific method of regimen claimed by its originator to have exclusive or exceptional power in curing a particular disease.
5. Obsessive, especially faddish, devotion to or veneration for a person, principle, or thing the object of such devotion.
6. An exclusive group of persons sharing an esoteric, usually artistic or intellectual interest.
The problem
with this definition of “cult” is that Protestantism
would fall under the category, and most other faiths too. Paulson, using
this definition of “cult” would be a member of such a group. Consider:
#1: Paulson
is a follower of Protestantism and claims to follow the person of Jesus of
Nazareth
#2-3: He
belongs to a group that engages in religious worship and ritual, such as the
Lord’s Supper and water baptism
#4: Protestantism
believes in the “internal witness” of the Spirit vis-à-vis the self-authentication
of the Bible, such as the Westminster Confession of Faith. For more, see the
section “A Self-Attesting, Self-Authenticating, Formally Sufficient Scripture?”
in Not
By Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura
#5: Paulson
believes one is to worship the person of Jesus Christ; indeed, on p. 198, he
condemns as non-Christian anyone who does not worship Jesus en par with, and alongside
with, the Father.
#6:
According to Paulson, there is no salvation outside his (theologically-driven)
understanding of “Christian.” Furthermore, he and others within this sliver of Christianity
produce many books, article, tracts, youtube videos, etc., defending tenets of
their faith and critiques of tenets of other groups.
Interestingly,
Paulson further shoots himself in the foot with the following:
It would be shown that Christianity has the
same characteristics of a cult. In fact, Judaism has declared Christianity a “cult”
Judaism has the prerogative, because Christianity grew out of Judaism.
Likewise, Mormonism grew out of classical Christianity. Thus, Christianity
reserves the same right to describe Mormonism as a non-Christian church or
cult. (Ibid.)
In other
words, Paulson admits that (1) his definition of “cult” can be used to describe
any religious movement and (2) being honest and consistent, Christianity (as defined by Paulson) is
a “cult” too.
For more,
see:
Mormonism as
"Cult": The Limits of Lexical Polemics in Daniel C. Peterson and
Stephen D. Ricks, Offenders for a Word: How
Anti-Mormons Play Word Games to Attack the Latter-day Saints
Jeff
Lindsay, Do
Latter-day Saints Belong to "The Mormon Cult"? (Cult Definitions, the
Trinity, the Bible, Jesus Christ, and Other Issues)
