Cultish

Back then, it simply meant “homage paid to divinity,” or offerings made to win over the gods. The words “culture” and “cultivation,” derived from the same Latin verb, cultus, are “cult”’s close morphological cousins.

The tide of change away from mainstream establishments and toward nontraditional groups is not at all new. It’s something we’ve seen all over the world at several different junctures in human history. Society’s attraction to so-called cults (both the propensity to join them and the anthropological fascination with them) tends to thrive during periods of broader existential questioning. Most alternative religious leaders come to power not to exploit their followers, but instead to guide them through social and political turbulence. Jesus of Nazareth (you may be familiar) arose during what is said to be the most fraught time in Middle Eastern history (a fact which speaks for itself). The violent, encroaching Roman Empire left people searching for a nonestablishment guide who could inspire and protect them. Fifteen hundred years later, during the tempestuous European Renaissance, dozens of “cults” cropped up in rebellion against the Catholic Church. In seventeenth-century India, fringe groups grew out of the social discord that resulted from the shift to agriculture, and then as a reaction to British imperialism.

I like Burton’s way of looking at it, which is less about what religions are and more about what religions do, which is to provide the following four things: meaning, purpose, a sense of community, and ritual. Less and less often are seekers finding these things at church.