A pastor supporting Rick Perry calls Mormonism a "cult." Is that
untrue?  Well, what's the difference between a "cult" and a
"religion"? Not easy to say. Many people think they know the
difference when they see it. Scientology and the Rev. Sun Myung
Moon's Unification Church are cults — aren't they? And Judaism
and Christianity are surely religions.  But in fact, early
Christianity was considered just a cult by both Jews and Romans;
Islam was long considered just a cult by medieval Christians;
and, of course, many Protestant groups, from the Baptists to the
Quakers, were considered cults by other Christians.  Moreover,
if your definition of "cult" is a group with a charismatic and
very odd leader who thinks he or she has direct access to the
divine and spreads a theology that seems both heretical and
confused to the established religions around it, then
Christianity and Islam and Buddhism were certainly cults when
they began — and no doubt the Jews were as well.  Here, I
suggest, is the real difference betwee