rrmoderator Wrote:
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> The driving force of a cult and its most salient
> single feature is an absolute authoritarian leader
> that becomes the defining element of the group.
>
> See [
www.culteducation.com]
>
> Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton...defined a cult as having the
> following three characteristics:
>
> 1. A charismatic leader, who increasingly
> becomes an object of worship
>
> 2. A process [is in use] call[ed] coercive
> persuasion or thought reform.
>
> 3. Economic, sexual, and other exploitation of
> group members by the leader and the ruling
> coterie.
So you're saying that the truest followers of Jesus Christ are a cult.
Christian doctrine asserts:
1. Just as an image represents an object, Christ represents God. "He is the image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15, cf. 2 Corinthians 4:4). A word represents a thought. Christ, who is from everlasting to everlasting, is called "the Word of God" (Revelation 19:13) because He is the perfect expression of the will and mind of God. Analogies are representational. Symbols are representations. Radiance expresses glory in symbolic terms. Scripture says, "He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature" (Hebrews 1:3).
2. "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect" (Romans 12:2).
3. “Truly I tell you,” Jesus replied, “no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age: homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—along with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life.” (Mark 10:29-30).