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The relationship between clients and the leaders of client cults resembles that of patients and therapists. Cult movements, which seek to provide services that meet all of their adherents' spiritual needs, although they differ significantly in the degree to which they use mobilize adherents' time and commitment.
The term "cult" first appeared in English in 1617, derived from the French culte, meaning "worship" which in turn originated from the Latin word cultus meaning "care, cultivation, worship". The meaning "devotion to a person or thing" is from 1829. Starting about 1920, "cult" acquired an additional six or more positive and negative definitions.
To some extent, the relationship between Christianity and other faiths has been encumbered by this history, and modern Christians, particularly in the West, have expressed embarrassment over the violence which existed in Christianity's past. The conversion of adherents of other religions is widely accepted within Christianity. Many Christian ...
Cult is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as "A relatively small group of people having (esp. religious) beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister, or as exercising excessive control over members."
Christianity has been intricately intertwined with the history and formation of Western society.Throughout its long history, the Church has been a major source of social services like schooling and medical care; an inspiration for art, culture and philosophy; and an influential player in politics and religion.
Christianity began as a Jewish sect and remained so for centuries in some locations, diverging gradually from Judaism over doctrinal, social and historical differences. Despite the persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire , the faith spread as a grassroots movement that, by the third century, was established both in and outside the empire.
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion, professing that Jesus was raised from the dead and is the Son of God, [7] [8] [9] [note 2] whose coming as the Messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible (called the Old Testament in Christianity) and chronicled in the New Testament.
Map of the Roman Empire with the distribution of Christian congregations of the first three centuries AD. The growth of Early Christianity from its obscure origin c. AD 40, with fewer than 1,000 followers, to being the majority religion of the entire Roman Empire by AD 400, has been examined through a wide variety of historiographical approaches.