What makes mormons a cult

Mass suicide or doomsday expectations may seem like something that we can dismiss out of hand as not part of Mormonism. I certainly did, until a non-Mormon friend of mine mentioned how uncomfortable he was with my gung-ho attitude toward food storage accumulation.

He felt that the only reason to accumulate that much food was because I was expecting some kind of doomsday event in the future. Now, the Mormon church has gone to great lengths to assure people this isn't the only or even the most common use for food storage. Food storage is used for stocking up when things are cheap and for planning food, both of which can help stretch budgets. Food storage can also be a kind of savings plan for when unexpected life events happen, like a lost job.

And emergency preparedness goes beyond food storage to 72 hour kits in case of flood, fire, or any kind of emergency, including terrorist attacks. It also means being aware of who to call and what to do, having a plan of where to meet, and so on.

These are good things, things the government knows that Mormons do well. But take them too far, as some of us do, and we start to sound like we're planning for the apocalypse. Armageddon is part of our scripture, but I think we shouldn't be gleeful or casual in talking about how we're going to beat it. Mormons have a semi-annual General conference in which the twelve apostles and the first presidency speak to the worldwide membership, as well as other authoritarian figures in the church heirarchy.

Many Mormons enjoy conference weekend. All other church meetings are canceled and most of us now get to stay at home in our pajamas to listen to church leaders give us advice and counsel and sometimes simply offer comfort. But to those outside the church, it can seem as if we are being "programmed" and told what to do, instead of being encouraged to use our own minds to think things through.

I fear that when we perpetuate the idea that the prophet would never tell us to do the wrong thing or say that even if he does, God will bless us for being obedient, we lean too far to the side of obedience and looking like Mormons are robots rather than free-thinkers. Just consider this when you talk about the church. One of the things I love most about Mormonism is the community that we create. I love home teachers and visiting teachers. I love that the Relief Society brings meals in to women who've had a baby and to families in need for any reason.

But these services we provide to other members of our ward can seem cult-like to those not in the ward, and perhaps not for reasons we understand. Creating a community that thrives independent of the civic community can seem strange to those who are not part of it.

It can feel like they are being excluded and that we do not pay attention to neighbors who are not Mormons. It can make us seem very isolated from the rest of the world.

I think it is one thing to separate ourselves from behavior we do not approve of, and another thing to live so much in our communities that non-Mormons feel like we are aliens. Aggressive Proselytizing? I am pretty sure we don't threaten people with physical violence if they don't join our church, but the way we talk about missionary work can sometimes be a little over the top.

Young Mormon men are expected to serve a two year mission and while we don't ostracize those who don't, there are stigmas attached to not serving or coming home early. I think sometimes we imagine that these stigmas are a good thing because they encourage young men to serve who might not have otherwise, but I don't think it's true.

And "every member a missionary" means that our proselytizing efforts aren't confined to missionaries alone. It is one thing to offer to explain Mormon things to the curious, but it's another to make every contact with a non-member about joining the church.

And counting baptisms to prove anything? In my book, that's always wrong. When I was a teenager, I heard of the way the Amish "shun" those who leave the flock and thought it was horrible. We Mormons never do anything like that, of course. Except that we do. It's not formal, but it happens. When people try to leave the Mormon church, we often make it difficult.

In what we think is an expression of love, we continue to send visiting and home teachers. But this can feel like a way of keeping tabs on people who do not want to associate with us anymore.

It can feel like we are refusing to let people go. Say "Alexa, enable the Pew Research Center flash briefing". It organizes the public into nine distinct groups, based on an analysis of their attitudes and values. Even in a polarized era, the survey reveals deep divisions in both partisan coalitions. Pew Research Center now uses as the last birth year for Millennials in our work. President Michael Dimock explains why. The vast majority of U.

Use this tool to compare the groups on some key topics and their demographics. About Pew Research Center Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions.

It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts. Newsletters Donate My Account. Buddhism and Christianity are both named after a charismatic leader. Islam, originally called Mohammedanism, is also named after its leader. Religions and cults often follow a leader who claims divine, or at least special, access to different models of knowledge and revelations. Many are martyred. Jesus of Nazareth was famously crucified.

End days is another consistent theme in cults and religions, both new and old. Nirvana, heaven, Zion, or outer space are a guiding principle in their scriptures. The 20th century saw a shift as translated Buddhist and Islamic texts from the East became available amidst a new religious landscape. In the s, Hubbard established the self-help group based on reincarnation of the self, called Dianetics. Look at Rajneeshpuram and its leader, Osho.

He was popular in India, then came to the U. Around this time, deprograming and anti-cult movements sprouted. This would be diagnostic of a semantic change. Jim Jones was an anti-segregationist Christian preacher from Indiana who envisioned a mixed-race church.

Jones and his followers left Indiana for California in search of a utopian community. When those family members discovered the move overseas, they appealed to the government for intervention.

A delegation went to Jonestown—Congressperson Leo Ryan, his aid Jackie Speier, journalists, and cameramen from network news. What started as a fact-finding mission ended with five dead on the tarmac at Port Kaituma airfield, when Ryan and his delegates fled Jonestown along with a handful of defectors. Ryan was shot and killed, along with three members of the press and one defector, and the rest of the delegation were attacked.

In spite of all that I've tried, a handful of our people, with their lies, have made our life impossible. Jones died of a gunshot wound to the head. Pictures of the dead bodies were on the cover of Time magazine. In Waco, Texas in , the Branch Davidians were attacked by law enforcement in their compound.