At the heart of every cult is arrogance; that sense of spiritual superiority where one considers himself superior to others spiritually. Let us examine the varying levels of that sense of superiority.
- Level 1: The heart: I am IT. This is the thought process of the leader of a cult. The thinking that the cult leader has the way, and no one else has it, and he needs to show it to the world.
- Level 2: My group is IT. It is the superiority mentality of the followers. They are not arrogant enough to think THEY are "it", but their leader is, and they are among the few that is smart enough to have figured that out.
- Level 3: Your group is NOT "it". This is where one is smart enough to realize they have not uncovered the one and only WAY aside from THE WAY (our Savior), but there is something wrong with every other group other than the one I am in, therefore, they criticize those "other" groups on a frequent basis.
All of these levels involve cultic thinking of some sort, and spiritual superiority thinking. Some legitimately Christian people are in Level 2. I ran into a guy once who said if you are not Church of Christ, all your worship is in vein, because God does not accept worship that includes musical instruments. He really believed all those other groups out there would burn in hell forever.
Most Christians are smart enough to realize that if you begin imposing requirements for salvation God does not require, that you yourself may be in trouble. So they don't. Instead, they stick with level 3 when their minds have a spiritual superiority problem. They simply can't stop talking about how bad the Catholics are or how bad the Baptists are or how bad those Charismatics are or how bad certain translations are. It is what people who think this way do.
Most Christians realize that if they try to engage in level 1 or 2, they'd violate the Gospel. But there are cults out there and level 3 is true of someone, right? So if you have a superiority problem, it can be hidden behind level 3 arrogance for at least a while. I say "at least a while", because even though there is a time and a place to talk about cults, that time is not ALWAYS. And when people can't shut up about it and it dominates their conversation, it is obvious what category they are in.
Often people with this problem do not realize that others see through them. Part of the reason they don't is because people rarely confront them. The reason they don't is because when you see someone constantly criticizing others, you know if you rebuke him, you move to the top of his hit list as to who he is going to criticize.
But the Kingdom of God is not built up with mere critcism. We need to be providing the right answer, not just talking about what is wrong with all those wrong answers.
People who are constantly criticizing selective denominations or groups or translations are invoking the same sort of cultic thinking that cults are, it is just not as severe of a level. But it is still there, and it still damages the body of Messiah.
And if you are a pastor, you need to watch out for these people. Because the same folks who can't shut up about how bad the Methodists are or how bad the Lutherans are will be the same folks who will shout the loudest about how bad of a job your son is doing as youth pastor, or how bad a job your wife is doing running the nursery, and why the board needs to get rid of them. These folks cause divisions in a body, because it is what they do. This is why Paul warned us about these people. Don't put people in leadership positions, like your board of elders / deacons / etc, unless they are the type who build people up rather than tearing down all those folks in error. Those kind will cause division, it is simply a matter of how much, how often, and to whom.
Shalom,
Joe