The word ‘cult’ has been thrown around recently in light of Republican presidential candidates Mitt Romney and Jon Huntsman both being Mormons. “Mormonism is a cult” the critics say. It’s good old-fashioned mudslinging and ad-hominem attacks, pure politics. With that in mind, let’s have a quick look at what exactly a cult might be these days.

The dictionary on my computer, the Oxford American Dictionary, defines the word ‘cult’ as such:

• A system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object: the cult of St. Olaf
• A relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister: a network of Satan-worshipping cults
• a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing: a cult of personality surrounding the leaders
• [usu. as modifier] A person or thing that is popular or fashionable, esp. among a particular section of society: a cult film

Geographic Breakdown of World Religions

Like many words in the English language, the word ‘cult’ has several meanings and connotations affixed to it. However, it seems fairly clear through context that its use in the discussion of Romney and Huntsman’s religion, that definition two is the one implied. So let’s have a closer look at definition two, “a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister”. Mormonism isn’t exactly small, but in contrast to the Catholicism (1.18 billion adherents), the collected varieties of Protestantism (800 million adherents), Buddhism (500 million adherents), and Islam (the mack daddy with around 1.6 billion adherents), Mormonism is pretty rinky-dink with a paltry 14 million adherents worldwide.

Rep. Keith Ellison (DFL-MN). First Muslim elected to Congress and full-time sexy man.

I was not yet born when John F. Kennedy was serving as President of the United States, but it seems pretty clear from the fact that in 235 years and among 44 presidents he is the only Catholic one, the people of the United States don’t seem too keen on elected officials who sway too far beyond a “safe” level of Protestantism. When a Hindu priest offered an opening invocation on the floor of the Senate, there was a bit of a brouhaha betwixt the masses. When Keith Ellison was elected by the people of Minnesota to represent their state, there was a right kerfuffle among the populous about the fact that he is Muslim. And of course when Obama was elected president, there was the non-stop rhetoric from right-wing pundits who claimed he was not only Muslim, but that he wasn’t even born in the United States (two obnoxious and entirely baseless claims that still haven’t been put to rest). No, it seems that many Americans really aren’t too comfortable with folk who stray too far beyond “white Anglo-Saxon Protestant”. However if we have a quick look at the historical white Anglo-Saxon Protestant in the form of the Pilgrims who were essentially kicked out of England because they were too up-tight for the English, we see something that a handful of folk might find a little uncomfortable: By definition two above, the Pilgrims were a cult.

Freedom of religion, as long as it's OUR religion!

The King James Version of the Bible was compiled in 1611, a short nine years from the time Pilgrims would be landing in the New World in order to freely practice their prudish traditions as they saw fit. This Bible was translated into the English of the day specifically for the Anglican Church, that crazy Church which Henry VIII founded just about a century earlier which if you recall, wasn’t related to the Protestant reformation whatsoever. He invented it so that he could divorce his wife, something which wasn’t allowed in Catholicism. Well the Puritans weren’t too pleased with the changes Henry, and later his daughter Elizabeth, made to the way Christianity was practiced in England, so they decided they were going to practice it their own way by breaking away into their own small religious sect, or dare I say: cult. In order to avoid increasing awkwardness with the dominant Church of England, they left, first going to Holland, then to the New World. Americans like to look at the Pilgrims as “the people who broke away so that they could practice freedom of religion”, but that’s a pretty naive understanding of them at best. It was perfectly fine to practice freedom of religion as long as the religion was the one they practiced. Sounds like the kind of mentality that persists today in the United States.

Lose the glasses and grow out that beard, and I think we have a winner.

Our contemporary understanding of the word ‘cult’ usually conjures up things like the Branch-Davidians, Heaven’s Gate, or Jonestown. Few tend to recall other cults of long-ago and far-away times such as the Cult of Dionysus, the Cult of Cybele, the Jewish Sicarii at Masada, or the Christians for nearly four hundred years (until the Christian religion was declared “no longer taboo” in the Roman Empire with the rise of Constantine as emperor). These days, cults are looked upon as dangerous groups led by charismatic leaders who brainwash individuals into believing ridiculous claims of direct descent from God or a purer world beyond the realm of the physical or other unverifiable nonsense. Of course, by that snarky definition, all religions are cults.

Perhaps that’s the point to be made. All religions are cults. Some just have a greater attendance rate than others. For a presidential candidate to make an ad-hominem attack on someone’s religion because it’s different from the status quo is just absurd. It’s arguing that a Baptist’s unverifiable claims and beliefs are somehow better than a Mormon’s unverifiable claims and beliefs on the sole basis of number of people practicing each religion. It’s a numbers game, and politicians know it. And if there’s anyone who knows how to play as dirty as a priest, it’s a politician.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to watch the epic “Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai” on my precious Apple iMac. (I had to get some other definitions of ‘cult’ in here somehow.)