THE WORLD LARGEST CULTS 

Hi Rick, thank you for your email. Just a short time to answer your question about how to recognize a cultic group.

Historic Christianity has considered groups that do one or more of the following to be classed as cults:

Deny the deity of Jesus, which of course is a rejection of the Trinity 
Create an alternate means of salvation except through the work of Christ on the cross 
Declare they are the only true church, and therefore, the only means of salvation 
Create alternate sources of authority, i.e., Book of Mormon, Quran, a special prophet or teacher, 
claiming new improved truth.

Following the Second Great American Awakening, 1799-1835, a number of groups developed that began to the classified as cults: Watchtower Society or JWs for short, Mormonism, Christian Science, and the Adventists. Each claimed special revelation or the only accurate understanding of the Bible whereby they and they alone had the truth and so on. The Adventists have largely morphed into a sect rather than a cult when they denied that worship on Saturday was alone the sign of the truth. Their prophetess, Ellen White, had said that Sunday worship was the mark of the beast. The Adventists will now have fellowship with other Christians whereas before they would not—thinking everyone else was deceived. By the way, separating from others who have the Bible as their authority is a clear mark of the cultic mentality.

Christians have many differences, mainly because the Bible opens the door to varying interpretations, but these are relatively meaningless and most Christians don’t much concern themselves with them.

So a departure from historic Christianity is key, but also there is another means of reckoning a cult.
Means of recruitment. 2. Means of motivating followers. 3. Means of retaining followers. 

Here some groups that are theologically cultic may not be with this new definition. Jehovah’s Witnesses do definitely fall into this category however as do Scientologists and many others. Recruitment--to get people in they are not initially told all the doctrines, is one example. Motivation--only good members, who work hard and never run afoul of the leaders and elders, will do well in the next life, and other complicated mechanisms of motivating and enforcing conformity. Retention--the shunning and general demeaning of anyone who leaves, for whatever reason, including hanging out at the 7-11 smoking cigarettes. Mormons are like this to some degree. Consider Islam—death or discrimination if you leave the religion in many Muslim dominated countries. 

Many Christianity based cults are now trying to be seen as just other Christian denominations, chief among these are the Mormons, especially now that Mitt Romney is running for president. My view is that in fifty years the Mormons will have dropped the Book of Mormon and demoted Joseph Smith, and will adopt orthodox theology—there are thousands of Mormons who have already come to this already. Jehovah Witness—maybe in one hundred years, due mainly to the fact they change so slowly. Some 40,000 witnesses exit each year, and there are hundreds of fellowships of ex-JWs around today who have rejected the teachings of Russell and Rutherford and hold to orthodox Christian doctrine. The governing board has a built in destruction—things must happen within a certain period or they are in violation of published doctrine. Of course, these folks are good at deflecting these problems as their history has amply shown. I remember in 1976, after the failed end of the world did not happen in 1975, and over one million American JWs left. Now if you talk to a JW, they hardly know about this or it has been conveniently covered up. But I remember folks who suffered a great deal in their preparation for the final battle—which never happened. And, this is another mark of a cult—a constant rewriting of their history. They cannot afford to look like they made an error since the organization is truth itself.

Kent Philpott