The history of the Church of Rome is a constant leakage of members into such breakaway cults, which go on splitting.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
When theology erodes and organization crumbles, when the institutional framework of religion begins to break up, the search for a direct experience which people can feel to be religious facilitates the rise of cults.
If you say that the history of the Church is a long succession of scandals, you are telling the truth, though if that is all you say, you are distorting the truth.
The trappings of a religious cult tend to fall into candlelit ceremonies and robes and group chanting and singing and prayer.
In the Church, considered as a social organism, the mysteries inevitably degenerate into beliefs.
Hold firmly that our faith is identical with that of the ancients. Deny this, and you dissolve the unity of the Church.
One person's religion is another person's cult.
Anybody who had come up with a new concept would have been under suspicion for being out of step with the tradition or out of step with the teachings of the church.
The church as a whole has strayed quite far from biblical evangelism; that is, sharing the Gospel in the way that Jesus did, the way the Apostle Paul did, and the rest of the disciples and prophets in Scripture.
We thought the church had withdrawn from interfering in Italian politics... but instead there is a terrible resurgence. These are ugly signs for freedom of expression.
Churches, by the very reason of their structures, are monolithic and do not adapt easily. But in many cases, they, too, have allowed themselves to become allied or even part of an unjust establishment or system.