You can look at anything as a cult. Churches are cults in their own way.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
One person's religion is another person's cult.
A cult is a religion with no political power.
One man's cult is another man's religion.
This may sound insulting to some of my cult studies friends, but there's a lot of cult studies people who ignore, shall we say, the wider canvas - because they simply don't know about its existence or they don't know how it operates.
Churches can become places of cynicism, resistance, and pessimism.
People have really strong images of what church is, and it's almost certainly not the same as mine.
I don't think it takes much for a cult to be a cult. Many parts of our society are cultish, and you only need a charismatic leader and some teachings, and before you know it, you have a cult.
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.
Many cults start off with high ideals that get corrupted by leaders or their board of advisors who become power-hungry and dominate and control members' lives. No group with high ideals starts off as a 'cult'; they become one when their errant ways are exposed.
What's a cult? It just means not enough people to make a minority.