NOTICE: THE FOLLOWING IS MY PERSONAL OPINION. (Signed) Sam Cook WHAT IS A CULT? According

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       NOTICE: THE FOLLOWING IS MY PERSONAL OPINION.  (Signed) Sam Cook
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                                WHAT IS A CULT?

According to Walter Martin in his widely acclaimed book,  "The Kingdom of  the 
Cults", a cult is hereby defined: 

  Quoting Dr.  Charles Braden,  Emeritus Professor,  Northwestern Univ.,  from 
  his book "These Also Believe" 

    "By the term cult I mean nothing derogatory to any group so classified.  A 
    cult,  as I define it,  is any religious group which differs significantly 
    in some one or more respects as to belief or practice from those religious 
    groups  which are regarded as the normative expressions of religion in our 
    total culture".  I may add to this that a cult might also be defined as  a 
    group   of   people   gathered   about   a  specific  person  or  person's 
    mis-interpretation of the Bible....  From  a  theological  viewpoint,  the 
    cults  contain  many  major  deviations  from  historic Christianity.  Yet 
    paradoxically,  they continue to insist  that  they  are  entitled  to  be 
    classified as Christians." 

He further states....

From his study, I present here a (not all-inclusive) list of those groups 
meeting this description: 

  Baha'i Faith
  Christian Scientist
  Church of New Jerusalem - Swedenborgianism
  Islam
  Jehovah's Witnesses
  Mormons - Latter-day Saints
  Rosicrucian Fellowship
  Scientology
  Seventh-day Adventists
  Theosophical Society
  Unification Church
  Unitarians
  Unity School of Christianity
  Way International
  Worldwide Church of God
  Zen Buddhism
  
For a definition of a Christian, please see the file CHRISTIA.DEF.