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The thread about the Charity ministries has me considering a line of thought I cogitate on from time to time:
When does a "cult" become an established church or fellowship.

By cult I'm using the definition "a small group of people who share religious practices that are different from other fellowships, churches, or denominations." I'm not referring to the negative definition of the word.

The original Christians were considered a cult both by Rome and the Jewish hierarchy. It can be argued that Reformers and Radical Reformers all started as cults.

I'm interested in the thoughts of others on this.

Just for clarification, Charity was never really a cult by established standards of what a "cult" is.

To further discuss this we would need to clarify what we mean by "cult".

Josh wrote:Just for clarification, Charity was never really a cult by established standards of what a "cult" is.

To further discuss this we would need to clarify what we mean by "cult".

Max did define what he meant, but you evidently skipped that part?

By cult I'm using the definition "a small group of people who share religious practices that are different from other fellowships, churches, or denominations." I'm not referring to the negative definition of the word.

gcdonner wrote:

Josh wrote:Just for clarification, Charity was never really a cult by established standards of what a "cult" is.

To further discuss this we would need to clarify what we mean by "cult".

Max did define what he meant, but you evidently skipped that part?

By cult I'm using the definition "a small group of people who share religious practices that are different from other fellowships, churches, or denominations." I'm not referring to the negative definition of the word.

That part wasn't there when I made my reply. I'm guessing he edited his post?

MaxPC wrote:The thread about the Charity ministries has me considering a line of thought I cogitate on from time to time:
When does a "cult" become an established church or fellowship.

By cult I'm using the definition "a small group of people who share religious practices that are different from other fellowships, churches, or denominations." I'm not referring to the negative definition of the word.

The original Christians were considered a cult both by Rome and the Jewish hierarchy. It can be argued that Reformers and Radical Reformers all started as cults.

I'm interested in the thoughts of others on this.

i think you've pretty well answered your own question in your OP.
we just need to remember where we came from.

I don't define cult as being synonymous with "different"

MaxPC wrote:The thread about the Charity ministries has me considering a line of thought I cogitate on from time to time:
When does a "cult" become an established church or fellowship.

By cult I'm using the definition "a small group of people who share religious practices that are different from other fellowships, churches, or denominations." I'm not referring to the negative definition of the word.

I'm not sure if I understand your definition or not. Most churches continue to be groups that share religious practices different from other fellowships, churches, or denominations. Your definition specifies "small", but could otherwise be applied to most churches. Using this definition, do you consider a church a cult or not?

What's the difference between a church and a cult, using your definition?

KingdomBuilder wrote:I don't define cult as being synonymous with "different"

KB how would you define it?

To all: Note that I'm also differentiating a cult from an "established church or fellowship." As in
"When does a 'cult' become an established church or fellowship."

This is the crux of the query.

MaxPC wrote:To all: Note that I'm also differentiating a cult from an "established church or fellowship." As in
"When does a 'cult' become an established church or fellowship."

So in this definition, the difference is whether it is established or not? If so, what do you mean by established and how can you tell if it is established or not? If you can answer that question, then it should answer the question in your OP - it becomes a church when it becomes established.

KingdomBuilder wrote:I don't define cult as being synonymous with "different"

Did you read Max's whole post? He was setting the parameters of the definition for this thread alone, not for general purposes.
The term "cult" has many different meanings, and not all of them are the negative connotation that we have attributed to the term in our generation.
As Max stated, Christianity was a cult, and viewed as a negative when it was born since it was an offshoot of Judaism. Judaism still views Christianity as a "cult" with the negative view. Islam views any religion other than it's own as a cult.

The use of the term is determined by it's context and Max has set the context for this discussion in particular. Do you understand and agree?