The call of cult-calling

28 July 2010

The Lieutenant Governor of Tennessee, while responding to a constituent’s concern about a Muslim community center being built in Murfreesboro, remarked that while he is all in favor of freedom of religion, “you could even argue whether being a Muslim is actually a religion, or is it a nationality, way of life, cult, whatever you want to call it”. As others have already pointed out, this is free propaganda for al-Qaeda.

I, for one, would like to highlight that word “cult”, because when used among evangelical Christians, it does not always mean “organization that brainwashes its members”. Sometimes it means “organization that preaches heresy”.

Back when I was researching the Boston Church of Christ, I acquired a book by Walter Martin called The Kingdom of the Cults. Martin’s catalog of “cults” includes not only the Moonies and Scientology, but also Christian Science, Baha‘i, Buddhism, and Islam. In an appendix, he seriously examines the accusation that the Seventh-Day Adventists are a cult, but ultimately declares that they are legit. Judaism and Catholicism are not mentioned at all.

Ask not, fellow unwashed heathen, for whom the wingnut trolls; it trolls for thee.

via Washington Monthly

• Later: Wanted: digital passports
• Earlier: Translation from PR-speak to English of the Anti-Defamation League’s “Statement On Islamic Community Center Near Ground Zero”