You can see the same accusations of today at 2 Corinthians 7:2
“We have wronged no one, we have corrupted no one, we have taken advantage of no one.”
Why would the apostle Paul say this other than to counter accusations that they had?
The C-word is the latest twist in a narrative that has always been. It was the case when Paul visited Rome in the first century. ‘Anybody been talking trash about me?’ he asked. His answer?
“They said to him: “We have not received letters about you from Judea, nor have any of the brothers who came from there reported or spoken anything bad about you. But we think it proper to hear from you what your thoughts are, for truly as regards this sect, we know that it is spoken against everywhere.” (Acts 28:21-22)
It was “spoken against everywhere” then. It is “spoken against everywhere” now. It was a “sect” then. It is a “cult” now.
It is even the case that a prime proponent of cult-accusation has moved on to politics, as though to broaden his power base. The BITEman’s (a well-known cult-buster) latest book is ‘The Cult of Trump.’ When you think that half the country belongs to a cult, it is evidence that you have drunk too much of the Kool-Aid yourself.
It also reflects what is, at root, the evolutionist view that everything is based upon the struggle to survive, and that the only way to do that is to prevail over others trying to manipulate, if not control you. See the paradigm at work in areas having nothing to do with religion. Politicians do whatever they do to cater to their “power base.” Nobody is seen to do anything with good motive anymore. Developments and actions are typically either framed as one party’s caving to the other’s increased power, or escaping from their control. Transfer that thinking to the field of religion and you have everyone who is not mainstream accused of being a cult set out to control people.
The Bible frames it EXACTLY the other way around. It is not a religion like JW that is a cult, its members “misled.” It is the one hurled down from heaven fulfilling that role:
“So down the great dragon was hurled, the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan, who is misleading the entire inhabited earth . . . “ Revelation 12:9
The “entire inhabited earth” is the cult that would mislead, not ones who would run counter to it. As to it’s power and intention to “control,” one need only look to the counsel of Romans 12:2 to
“stop being molded by this system of things, but be transformed by making your mind over, so that you may prove to yourselves the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” It is not the minority religion that would detrimentally mold. It is the overall “system of things.”
It is even in popular song, this matter of who is doing the molding. The children sing in the Pink Floyd song:
“We don’t need no education. We don’t need no thought control.”
Is it the thought-control of a minority religion they protest? No, it is the thought control of the established school system, spewing the traditional pablum that has historically failed human kind, nevertheless determined that no one should stray from that path.
****** The bookstore
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