Cult definition

r/ChristianApologetics has/ accused the Padgettites, AKA the Divine Love Church, of being a cult. This is supposed to dismiss my case that the Padgettite account of the crucifixion is correct. (E.g. it happened at Caesarea maritima, not at Jerusalem which would have rioted.)

If by "cult" r/ChristianApologetics means "small and heterodox", that is true but not prejudicial. History shows that the minority is often correct, as Protestants must admit. Power is more popular than truth. (If the Bible itself is corrupted, it was done by powers equivalent to the serpent Satan or greater.)

"Cult" here is clearly meant in the popular negative sense. Such cults are characterized by exclusivity of revelation and insularity of personnel. Wikipedia elaborates:

Secular cult opponents belonging to the anti-cult movement usually define a "cult" as a group that tends to manipulate, exploit, and control its members. Specific factors in cult behaviour are said to include manipulative and authoritarian mind control over members, communal and totalistic organization, aggressive proselytizing, systematic programs of indoctrination, and perpetuation in middle-class communities.[167][168][169][170][171][172] In the mass media, and among average citizens, "cult" gained an increasingly negative connotation, becoming associated with things like kidnapping, brainwashing, psychological abuse, sexual abuse and other criminal activity, and mass suicide

Scientology is an excellent example of a powerful cult that perpetuates itself via the above tactics.

Padgettites are not organized, let alone a cult

I am not aware of any Padgettite behavior that fits the above. The Padgettite movement's impact is diffuse because it is non-exclusive and does not attempt to perpetuate itself as an organization. The Padgettites are not a cult; they are barely organized religion.

I have been aware of the Padgettites for less than a year, so perhaps someone can show evidence of cult-like behavior. I have read a lot of their stuff and don't see how it would work. Nobody is in charge. I know of no scandals. They're tolerant of my theories so they're really open-minded!

For those who wish to dig up some dirt on Padgettite "cultists", good luck. They seem to be mostly past the age of indiscretion. I can only point to their two main websites:

• https://divinelovesanctuary.com
• https://new-birth.net

While Googling for scandal I found this fraud: Alan John Miller. He claims to be reincarnated Jesus and rips off some of the Padgettite content. It's unclear whether he has actual followers though.

The Padgettites say that no one in Earth's afterlife has ever reincarnated. Even spirits who believe in reincarnation are still waiting for it to happen. Therefore Padgettites ignore Miller.

This Quora question correctly classifies the Padgettites as heretical mysticism, not a cult.

Biblical Christianity has cultish characteristics

I grew up as a middle-class conservative Christian, and experienced a certain amount of "manipulative and authoritarian mind control over members, communal and totalistic organization, aggressive proselytizing, systematic programs of indoctrination, and perpetuation in middle-class communities". Some of it was good, some bad. Nothing happened that would shock another conservative Christian, but it was more than I would apply to my own children. Those here should know what I mean.

Biblical Christianity has more cult-like characteristics than the Padgettites do. For example, the New Testament teaches the shunning of apostates, which is integral to cult cohesion. Scientologists are famous for it.

Is hostility towards heretics really from God, or is it merely a self-perpetuating meme, like the Catholic insistence on procreative sex which results in many children?

The Bible is as engineered as humans

The Bible is too organized to be accidental. Apologetics proves that it contains supernatural truth. For example, Genesis records the evolutionary eras in the correct order, counting dinosaurs as birds. The Genesis creation account of Eve describes surgical harvesting of the regenerating short rib for bone marrow stem cells to create an XX chromosome female clone from an XY chromosome male.

Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. The trans-medium, trans-temporal UFOs zipping around and ignoring momentum may rule the skies, but they are not God the Father.

We should be skeptical of Earth's position way out on the spiral, and consider whether perhaps gold is our planet's primary export. It is easier to mine here than in the asteroid belt. Just because someone made a bad movie doesn't mean it's not true. It takes a lot of fusion to create gold. Atomic number 79 is a long way from hydrogen. Where would you put all the energy? Why make a miniature star, when the Sun already did the work? Just create some people to mine it, and occasionally swing by to collect it from their vaults.

Those UFOs are very difficult to detect, probably so they don't get shot down. A giant fusion reactor making gold would be a very obvious target. (The laws of thermodynamics require it to dissipate heat somehow.) However, a bunch of people just living on a planet, happening to mine gold as a byproduct… killing them all would be difficult and also a war crime.

Think about the kind of religion the god of gold-mining would create. Something that encouraged prosperity and hard work? A Protestant work-ethic, perhaps?

I don't believe humanity as a whole was created to be miners, but maybe some specific ancient humans were. If your apologetics doesn't ensure you haven't been fooled by genetic-engineer gold farmers, then you're not trying hard enough. As history demonstrates, playing God pays.

Sola Scriptura, or Papal Inerrancy? Just because you caught a snake in one boot, doesn't mean the other one's empty.

Why Is The Papal Audience Hall Shaped Like A Giant Reptile? - by Geoffrey Grider