How cults aren't like religions

Q: What's the difference between a cult and a religion? Discuss the gray area where a cult transitions into a "legitimate" religion. Surely Christianity at first was considered a cult; it still is by some.

A: In a nod to current events, I would offer perhaps a cynical answer to your question: The difference between a cult and a religion is in some ways the difference between a candidate and an elected official. In other words, a religion is a cult that has official status.

Cults tend to have distinguishing characteristics:

• Cults focus on a charismatic leader. n Cults offer ideas or doctrines considered outside the norm.
• Cults tend to attract people who are disenfranchised.
• Cult rituals and practices focus primarily on devotion to the cult's leader.
• Cult leaders teach that their interpretation of events, texts or history is "real" or "true" and that any other interpretation is false. Cults tend to isolate and insulate their adherents.

Religion is more difficult to define, but it differs from a cult perhaps in scope and influence:

• A religion has adherents over a broader geographic area.
• A religion has a well-defined set of doctrines and beliefs that are more universal.
• A religion can trace its beginnings to a founder but has leaders other than the founder.
• Religions are generally able to tolerate some diversity of expression of core beliefs and practices, but cults tend to be intolerant of diversity of expression.
• Religions tend to have millions of adherents, not hundreds.

Perhaps the most important difference is that cults tend to ask their followers to be ultimately concerned about the success of the cult. In contrast, religions tend to ask followers to care about the outside world (other people, creation and issues and needs of the world's people) by following the practices of faith.

For example, Christianity is about 2,000 years old and has one billion adherents that span the globe. There are three main expressions of Christianity -- Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism. Though within these branches there exists a variety of expressions of faith practices, all three branches trace their core identity to a belief in Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah and Son of God.

A cult transitions to a religion gradually as its influence spreads across time and place, and religions usually take on some local flavor as their core beliefs are embraced by people of different cultures. However, most cults do not become religions; they flourish for a while in a specific place or time under a particular leader but then die out.

Christianity began as a sect within Judaism focused on renewing Jewish faith in response to Jesus. It became an established religion toward the end of the 4th century as it gained support from King Constantine and other rulers of the Roman Empire.

Those who study cults and religions look for common identifying characteristics. However, those within a particular cult or religion may have difficulty acknowledging that other expressions of faith claim legitimacy.

Your last comment suggests that many of us look at any religion or faith practice other than our own as a cult. I wonder whether the challenge of honest interfaith dialogue may help us seek to honor those places of agreement as people of faith, while striving to respect those places of disagreement with charity toward one another. Admittedly, that is hard to do when each claims to have the only inroad to ultimate truth.

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Do you have a question you've always wanted to ask a rabbi, a priest, an imam, a pastor or another faith leader? Do you wonder what role religion should play in your day-to-day life? Send us your questions, and we'll try to find an area clergyperson to answer them. We'll publish some of the questions and answers in our Faith pages. Send questions to debra.boyette@newsobserver.com or mail them to Debra Boyette, The News & Observer Features Department, 215 S. McDowell St., Raleigh, NC 27601.