an article in the on-line edition of the Atlantic Monthly (linked by InstaPundit.Com) concludes with this wild claim: “the big ‘problem cult’ of the twenty-first century will be Christianity.”
When will these idiots learn?
A cult is a cult because it uses coercive techniques on its followers. A cult is not a cult because it has something vaguely to do with religion, no matter how eager enemies of religion are to have it that way. While many (yes, most) organizations identified as cults use religious teachings in some way, many don’t: you can cobble together a belief system out of Star Trek and build a cult around that if you want (Heaven’s Gate;) Lalich and Singer found one that used Art History as its foundation. It’s not a teaching that makes a cult, it’s the use of techologies of coercion.
That being said, it’s a good thing that Christianity is beginning to supplant Islam in Sub-Saharan Africa.
My impression was that he didn’t mean it literally, ie: Christianity as it is today will be reduced to a wacky cult. Rather, that religions are morphing so quickly that we can’t know what’s going to happen…Regards, John W.