RELIGST 2QQ3 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Korban, New Religious Movement, Eucharist
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Published on 19 Sep 2018
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What is a cult? A conspiracy theory ?
To find articles
- McMaster library
- Go to database ; jstor
- Search keywords
“Cult”
- Means different things in different contexts
Sociology: Church, denomination, sect, cult are all terms used for different religious
organizations
- A group of like-minded people; different types of religious organizations
History: Cult refers to specific practices devoted to one deity or religious specialists/saint
- Ancient Israelite religion revolved around a sacrificial cult; sacrifice was central and
there were regulations about who could be sacrificed, who could do it, when it could be
done, etc.
Culture: Usually a perjorative term to refer to marginalized religious groups considered to be
dangerous
- There was a professor who started a class called ‘cults of north America’ when there
was a lot of talk about these dangerous groups (i.e. moonies)
- Tend to be selective about which groups we label ‘cults’ and which ones we give
another name (i.e. New religious movements NRM)
TE PANTA EN CHRISTOI SYNESTEKEN; picture of McMaster code of arms
- Translates to “All things cohere in Christ”
- McMaster university started as Christian Baptists
Rome 82 C.E. image
- Arch of Thaddeus which depicts roman soldiers carrying away the loot (i.e. Menorah)
from the Jewish temple after they destroyed it; catastrophic to Jews
- Romans were pleased that they had defeated the Jews so they built this monument
- After Jesus was crucified by Romans people associated with Him and the claims that
people were making on his behalf so Romans were getting worried about this.
Second Century Evaluations for Christianity
- There is a group, hated for their abominations, called Christians by the people. Christus,
from whom the name comes, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius
at the hands of one of our officials, Pontius Pilate.
- The Christians are a class of men given to a new and wicked superstition
Did Christianity start as a cult? The way we think of it today
- Romans thought so as they saw it as a threat and a “superstition”
- Christianity spread quickly to Rome, Italy, Turkey, etc
- ‘Pliny the younger’ writes to emperor and talks about this problem he saw of
Christianity saying it’s spreading everywhere and there’s a way to stop it. People who