Is The Church Of Christ A Cult?

Is The Church Of Christ A Cult?

Dear Mr. Waddey:
When I spoke to my brother about my interest in the Church of Christ he said it was a cult. This shocked and surprised me. Is this true?
-Trisha

Dear Trisha:
Your brother is wrong. The Church of Christ is in no way a cult. The word cult, though widely used by religious people, has no precise definition. The meaning attached depends on who is using it and those who hear it. The word carries with it a pejorative and judgmental meaning. It is never used as a compliment. To call a group a cult is to indict and convict them without a trial, without having to bother with facts or proof. Some folks, often preachers, use it to scare people away from religious groups that they do not understand or approve of. It is often used to blacklist a body of people who are winning converts and growing rapidly. Those who are unwilling or unable to consider the teachings of a group and show by scripture where they are wrong, often resort to "name-calling" by labeling the group a cult.

There are religious groups which can rightly be described as cults. Cults are of two major types. There are those that think of themselves as Christians, who claim to justify their teaching and practice by the Bible. Then there are those whose roots can be traced to other world religions such as Hinduism. Since we are discussing the Church of Christ, we will consider the marks of cults that claim to be Christian.

Characteristics of cults are of two kinds: theological and behavioral. Under the last group we find:

Most cults are of recent origin. Many American cults date to the youth revolt of the 1960s.

Cults are generally led by a dynamic, charismatic person whose word is law for the group. He or she often claims to be a prophet with special access to God or even messiah or God.

They demand absolute commitment to their groups. Often this means working full-time without pay for the benefit of the cult.

Cults tend to isolate converts from their fleshly family and friends as they seek to control every aspect of their lives.

Cults routinely employ a never-ending stream of mind-bending lectures and indoctrination, meditations, retreats and prayers. These displace the convert's old values and beliefs and further solidify their control over his life.

Cults are often communal in nature. They encourage converts to "escape" their old life and come live with fellow-members of his new group.

Cults are often secretive in their deepest and truest teachings. They have a public face and a private face which are often different. Outsiders find it difficult to discover what the group really believes and practices.

Some cults control and abuse their converts.

It is clear to anyone knowledgeable of the Church of Christ that it bears no resemblance to a cult. Theologically a cult is a perversion of biblical Christianity. It rejects or perverts some or all of the fundamental beliefs of Christianity as revealed in the Bible.

In cults the Bible is subjected to the ideas of the cult leader who often claims divine inspiration. Most of them have other writings which they consider to be of equal authority with the Bible.

Most cults have a faulty view of Christ. Some deny his humanity others his deity. Some reduce him to the level of a human teacher rather than the Son of God.

Most cults question or deny the biblical doctrine of the triune nature of God.

Most distort the Bible's teaching about the Holy Spirit either by denying his personhood or by claiming that they are in full possession of his miraculous gifts.

Most cults are apocalyptic in that they are constantly teaching that the end is near and the great suffering is just around the corner.

Cults teach that salvation is won or earned by doing the things they prescribe. It is a common characteristic of cults to deny that salvation is by the grace of God.

Cults view the church and true Christians as enemies to be defeated and overcome.

None of these theological aspects of cults are applicable to the Church of Christ. We worship the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We serve Jesus the Son of God who became flesh and dwelt among us. We honor the Bible as the final, complete and authoritative word of God. We acknowledge no other man or book as equal to or superior to the Word of God. We understand and teach that the Holy Spirit is a divine person who guided the apostles into all the truth and led them in the establishment of the church. He is the divine gift promised to every person who confesses Christ and becomes a Christian (Acts 2:38). We teach that no man knows the day nor the hour of Christ's return (Matt. 24:36) therefore, we must be busy caring for our own personal needs and those of the Lord's church. We teach that man is saved by grace through obedient faith (Eph. 2:8-9; Gal. 5:6). We honor and seek to imitate in every way the church we read of in the Bible. We respect as God's child and our brother every person who has truly become a Christian and is living to the best of his ability by the precepts of Jesus.

The Church of Christ is not a cult. To call us a cult is pejorative and judgmental. It is an attempt to indict and convict us without a trial, without facts or proof. Preachers call us a cult to scare people away from us without having to show from scripture that their charges are true. It is an attempt to blacklist a body of people who might win converts from the accuser's denomination. To call the Church of Christ a cult is either meanness or ignorance. In either case it is totally wrong.

Sincerely,

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