Are Jehovah’s Witnesses part of a cult?
In recent years, especially since the advent of the Internet, the Watchtower Society has been increasingly cast as a secretive and dangerous cult. Various outreach groups have as their goal rescuing Jehovah's Witnesses from the clutches of the Watchtower. Some of those who accuse Jehovah's Witnesses of being members of a cult do so for the reason that Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in the Trinity. But that is simply ridiculous. Jehovah's Witnesses do not believe in the Trinity because it's not a biblical teaching.
For example, the "Christian answers"
website lists the Watchtower Society as the second most dangerous cult
in America, supposedly because "they deny the essentials of Christian
faith," which is to say Jehovah's Witnesses do not accept the babylonish
claptrap that churches consider to be Christian essentials.
However, other more credible sources of the same accusation come from ex-Jehovah's Witnesses, who claim to have “escaped.” These do not necessarily believe the Trinity either.
But what is a cult? And are Jehovah's Witnesses similar to the destructive cults such as Scientology or the infamous David Koresh or the Jonestown cult? To establish what is a cult I have referenced the criteria established, not by Trinitarians or ex-Jehovah's Witnesses, but by psychologists. An organization known as the International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) describes itself as “a global network of people concerned about psychological manipulation and abuse in cultic groups.” It has worked up a checklist that they describe as an analytic tool to help one discern the characteristics of an abusive cult. Over the course of the next two weeks I will consider one point each day. Here is the checklist
