LDS:
1. The Latter-Day Saints (LDS) are less likely to home school or attend religious schools than the general public.
2. LDS (83%) and Hindus (90%) are the most likely to be married to someone of the same faith.
3. 90% of LDS are Anglo in the U.S.
4. LDS converts tend to be less educated and earn lower incomes than lifelong LDS.
5. 57% of LDS say that their faith is the one true faith while 39% of LDS disagree with this statement.

LDS and JW comparison:
1. LDS make up 1.7% of US population and JW make up .7% of the population.
2. 26% of LDS are converts while 67% of JW are converts.
3. 70% of those raised LDS remain in the church while only 37% of those raised JW remain in the faith.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries many Protestant missionaries failed to contextualize the Gospel. Missionaries, knowingly or unknowingly, often exported not only the Gospel message but also western culture. This often led to syncretism, theological confusion, and surface-level Christianity. Therefore, in many of these places Christianity remained a foreign religion.

Thankfully, since that time, missionaries have realized the need to contextualize the Gospel. The Gospel message stays the same, but the ways in which it is communicated should take different forms depending on the context. However, contextualizing how the Gospel is communicated is not enough.

The ways in which Christians live and worship must also be contextualized. This type of contextualization, although assisted at the start by a missionary, should ultimately be done by the local believers. Local believers, under the guidance of the Bible and the Holy Spirit, are able to best determine how the gospel and their churches are to look in their context. When local believers contextualize the Gospel and their churches, Christianity has a far greater chance of not being seen as a foreign religion. A great resource on Contextualization is David Hesselgrave’s Communicating Christ Cross-Culturally

1. Pre-existence of humanity:
LDS: All humans pre-existed in the spirit world before being born on earth.
Scientology: People were thetans in past lives + belief in reincarnation.

2. Unlimited potential for humans:
LDS: Heavenly Father (God) is an exalted man and LDS men may become gods with omnipotence and omniscience.
Scientology: People may become thetans again, regaining their freedom from matter, energy, space, and time (MEST).

3. “Salvation” only through their Church:
LDS: Exaltation and godhood only through the LDS Church.
Scientology: Recovering one’s thetanhood only possible through Church of Scientology.

Differences:

1. Religious terminology:
LDS: Use of biblical and Christian terminology.
Scientology: Develops own terminology; appealing to science, technology, eastern religions, and the New Age.

2. Knowledge of truth:
LDS: Divine revelation received by Joseph Smith and later LDS prophets.
Scientology: L. Ron Hubbard’s findings through his own studies.

3. God and gods:
LDS: Worship of Heavenly Father, but belief in the existence of multiple gods.
Scientology: Minimal reference to God; not the focus in Scientology.

4. Spirit and matter:
LDS: A physical body is necessary for exaltation to godhood. Heavenly Father has a body with flesh and bones.
Scientology: Being trapped in matter is the problem; the goal is to be set free from a physical body.

5. Attaining “salvation:”
LDS: Faith in Jesus Christ, baptism into the LDS Church, receive Holy Ghost, receive temple endowment, be married in a LDS temple, and follow LDS teachings.
Scientology: Through auditing sessions one’s engrams are erased, making one “clear,” and then by taking additional classes one can become an “Operating Thetan.”

6. The final goal:
LDS: Exaltation to godhood with wife and children.
Scientology: Returning to thetanhood as a disembodied powerful being.

I recently came across an intriguing concept while reading Encountering New Religious Movements: A Holistic Evangelical Approach (ed. Hexham, Rost, and Morehead II). According to the introduction, the various authors in this book intend to bridge the gap between apologetics and contextual missiology. As part of this project, they contend that Christians should approach those in New Religious Movements (NRM) in the same way as they would approach unreached people groups on the mission field.

On the one hand, this might not be a good idea because it might cause confusion. A “people group” is usually understood as an ethnolinguistic group with a shared identity, language, history, and culture. In missions, a people group is the largest group through which the gospel can flow without encountering significant barriers of understanding and acceptance.

On the other hand, seeing NRMs as unreached people groups might help in evangelism. Many Christians unfortunately tend to see those in NRMs (i.e. LDS, Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc) as opponents that need to be proven wrong. As would be expected, this approach usually closes the door to evangelism. In contrast, Christians tend to approach unreached people groups around the world with a greater sense of understanding and compassion. Maybe by seeing those in NRMs like we see those in unreached people groups, we will be more likely to encounter them with love rather than with contention.

In addition to this popular definition you also have theological and sociological definitions of a “cult.” In some religious circles, the term “cult” is used of groups that have unorthodox theology. For example, in the Evangelical Christian tradition, the organization of the Jehovah’s Witnesses is understood as a cult since it claims to have sole access to God and because it claims to follow the Bible, yet denies orthodox Christian beliefs.

Sociologists and scholars of new religious movements tend to reject the term “cult” altogether because of its pejorative connotations. Instead, they use the term “New Religious Movements.” However, the term still may be useful in the cult-sect-church paradigm. In this framework, a “cult” is a minority religious group which is in high tension with society at large. A “sect” is a group which experiences less tension and is usually an offshoot of a “church.” A “church” then is a religious group which is fully accepted by society. Under this definition, for example, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints was a “cult” in the nineteenth century but today is more of a “church” in American society.

Do you think using the term “cult” is still useful? If so, how would you define it?