Christian Cults: Mormons and Jehovah Witnesses

What About Christians Cults?

Not because of their size, but because of their active presence especially in North American society, the identity of some “Christian Cults” should also be discussed briefly.

Cults such as Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Scientists and so on, are considered varieties of Christianity. Indeed, in their views Jesus plays a more or less important role, but none of these groups acknowledges Christ as God and/or their savior; therefore these groups are not Christian. The confusion between such organizations and Christianity, is often a marketing tool used to the advantage of cultists to improve their image and open more doors as they search for proselytes.

Cults are almost always build upon their founder and his (or in some instances, her) claim to a form of latter day revelation beyond the Scriptures. After a person joins the cult, he is subjected to an effective system of indoctrination, policing, and mind control. In general, cults share most of these characteristics: [13]

Their founder claims additional, special revelation from God.
They reject the Trinity. They recognize Jesus as a teacher and prophet, but deny His deity.
They believe all Christian churches are wrong, and only they know the whole truth.
They claim to believe the Bible, but distort its teachings or make changes to it.
They deny people can be saved by faith alone, but require good works and strict adherence to their teachings.
Many times they will use Christian terminology, but assign it a different meaning.

For a brief and very limited overview of two of the largest and most active cults, Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses, see the table below (table 29-1).

Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses
	Mormonism, Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS)	Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW)
Number of followers	10-11 million worldwide, about 5 million in the USA [14]	6-7 million worldwide, 1 million in the USA [15]
Founder	Joseph Smith, 1823	Charles Russell, 1879
Main Scripture	Book of Mormon	Watchtower books and magazines
Role of the Bible	“The Word of God, as far as it is translated correctly”	The Watchtower translation of the Bible (“the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures – NWT)
Nature of God	A supreme being who acquired that position by a perfect, righteous life	God – Jehovah – is a single being, there is no Trinity. He is not all-knowing nor all-present
Jesus Christ	One of the sons of God, Mormons can become like him	Michael became man in the form of Jesus. Jesus returned invisibly in 1914 and now rules from heaven
Nature of man	Eternal spirits who can become gods	Sinful, no salvation apart from the teachings of the Watchtower
Salvation	Through works through the LDS church	Through works, especially evangelism
Life after death	Different levels of kingdoms can be attained	Heaven is reserved for only 144,000 JW’s

Table 29- 1 : Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses

[13] Based on Fritz Ridenour, So What’s the Difference? (2001), pages 111-112.

[14] Various sources, including www.adherents.com.

2. The Flavors of Christianity (5)

What About Christians Cults?