Ehh … The definition of a cult includes things like isolating you from your friends and family, and having secret teachings that only the initiated have access to. I.e. the Freemasons: secret teachings, but does not try to isolate you from friends and family. Secret society, but not a cult. Religion is a cult in terms of the original sense of the word: organised worship, but not a cult as we think of them. Though some subsets definitely do get pretty culty. Don’t know about these days, but when I was at university the Campus Crusaders for Christ definitely had the love-bombing and isolating you from your friends and family going on.
As a Catholic by baptism and family tradition I do sometimes find Christianity a bit outdated, but I still think it’s capable of renewing.
I don’t really have time to go to church nowadays but for example when I last got to go at Easter the priest was a Russophile of all things (this happened in Hungary) and he very much made that part of his speech. Something about the Russians doing The Good Lord’s job in Ukraine, just as they did back in WWII. I’m not even kidding.
Then again when I got to regularly go to the youth service a few years back it was basically just singing to the guitar band and looking at the Bible which was really fun, the priest was very educated and seemingly didn’t have any hateful opinions, which is sadly more than you can expect from most of the clergy nowadays.
So yes TL;DR Christianity can be very fun and inclusive without acting like a cult, but the people who make up the Christian community come in all shapes and forms and sadly most of them aren’t people you would want to spend much time with, and that includes some of the priests as well whose job it should be to make people more friendly in my opinion.
Well at least these are my experiences but I haven’t ever been an integral part of any Christian Club or something like that.
Checks out with mine. There are a bunch of nice people who genuinely try to spread the whole love thy neighbour thing, and there are a bunch of weirdos who like being part of the “better” group.
Ehh … The definition of a cult includes things like isolating you from your friends and family, and having secret teachings that only the initiated have access to. I.e. the Freemasons: secret teachings, but does not try to isolate you from friends and family. Secret society, but not a cult. Religion is a cult in terms of the original sense of the word: organised worship, but not a cult as we think of them. Though some subsets definitely do get pretty culty. Don’t know about these days, but when I was at university the Campus Crusaders for Christ definitely had the love-bombing and isolating you from your friends and family going on.
As a Catholic by baptism and family tradition I do sometimes find Christianity a bit outdated, but I still think it’s capable of renewing.
I don’t really have time to go to church nowadays but for example when I last got to go at Easter the priest was a Russophile of all things (this happened in Hungary) and he very much made that part of his speech. Something about the Russians doing The Good Lord’s job in Ukraine, just as they did back in WWII. I’m not even kidding.
Then again when I got to regularly go to the youth service a few years back it was basically just singing to the guitar band and looking at the Bible which was really fun, the priest was very educated and seemingly didn’t have any hateful opinions, which is sadly more than you can expect from most of the clergy nowadays.
So yes TL;DR Christianity can be very fun and inclusive without acting like a cult, but the people who make up the Christian community come in all shapes and forms and sadly most of them aren’t people you would want to spend much time with, and that includes some of the priests as well whose job it should be to make people more friendly in my opinion.
Well at least these are my experiences but I haven’t ever been an integral part of any Christian Club or something like that.
Checks out with mine. There are a bunch of nice people who genuinely try to spread the whole love thy neighbour thing, and there are a bunch of weirdos who like being part of the “better” group.