Word: cult
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Deep within the drab concrete headquarters of thecult Aum Shinri Kyo, Japanese police today discovered a hidden chemical lab and a storeroom filled with the ingredients for nerve gas. The cult is the chief suspect in last week's nerve gas attack on the Tokyo subway system that killed 10 and injured thousands, with hundreds still hospitalized. In another cult building, police found underground rooms that they believed were used to imprison people who tried to flee the sect. Police found millions of dollars worth of yen, piles of gold bars and tons of chemicals in cult buildings, including theingredients...
VLADISLAV LISTYEV BECAME A posthumous cult hero in Moscow in less than a week. At his funeral Saturday, March 4, thousands of mourners piled his grave with mounds of mimosas, roses, carnations and spruce boughs. As thousands more continued to arrive in Moscow's historic Vagankovskoye Cemetery and place flowers beside the crepe-trimmed portrait of the TV journalist gunned down in the stairwell of his apartment building, they were sending Russia's leaders a powerful message. This callous murder, like no other, has demonstrated to every citizen that President Boris Yeltsin and the men in the Kremlin are facing...
Groups that have no place at the Ministry include cults, as the Boston Church of Christ (BCC) has been called. The characteristics o these "DESTRUCTIVE RELIGIOUS GROUPS," according to the Ministry's brochure, include "a leader who claims divinity or a special relationship to God." One could logically include almost every religion now sanctioned by the Ministry in this definition, at least in their early stages. Webster in fact agrees with this all-encompassing usage of cult. In the 10th Collegiate edition of Merriam-Webster, a cult is described as "a system of religious beliefs and ritual...
Perhaps we would be more enlightened about the position of the United Ministry by redirecting our attention to Webster's second definition for cult: "a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious." The factor that currently differentiates the religious groups recognized by the Ministry from cults is that the groups have been around for a while--long enough, at least, not to disturb the current theological balance of power...
...first is: So what? Why is the "cult-like" BCC any worse a choice than the Swedenborgian Chaplaincy, which is recognized by the United Ministry? Will its members not go to heaven? This should really not be Harvard's concern. Does the BCC destroy students' lives? Those students make their own decisions about submitting to the groups' practices and policies...