"Cults" and "Religions" in a Continuum(<Special Issue>Religion and Ethics)

Abstract

This paper studies the "cult problem" and points out that both cults and religious groups have common features when they expand their membership. A religious community which specializes in a propagation system builds an authoritarian system that assumes a mentoring program in order to improve the ability of social ministry, fundraising, and controlling members' belief system as well as their daily lives. We can look at the repressive and exploitative action of cult leaders towards members as well as towards the general public, which has been recently criticized by pastors as an example of controversial churches and religions that are regarded as "cultic groups." The cult critics-such as counselors, attorneys, and scholars who supported cult victims-effectively criticized particular cults, and addressed their social problem, rather than philosophers and scholars who fundamentally insist on the compliance of morality and law. Social ethics that is constructed on the process of solving social problems develops a boundary between cults and religions, which clarifies the tension between ethics and contemporary religion.