Justin asked:How do you respond to someone when they say the Catholic church is a cult? Are there any scripture verses to help defend the church? What's the definition of a cult?Jimmy Akin replied:"It depends entirely on the person you are talking to and the reason for that is that there's no established meaning for the word cult ... I'm not a fan of the word cult ... In my experience it adds more heat than light ... The word as it's normally used is as an insult term.I'd rather say well let's not talk about the word. Let's talk about what the concrete problems are that you see ... If a person says 'Well you guys don't believe in sola scriptura.' Well ok then let's talk about sola scriptura ... 'Well you don't believe in sola fide.' Ok let's talk about that. Or 'you Catholics have some practice that I don't like that I think you shouldn't have.' Ok fine let's talk about that practice and see does it have a rational basis or is there another way to look at it?" Copyrights:Catholic Answers, "Open Forum" (San Diego: Catholic Answers, 2013)Editor's note: This is an excerpt of the answer provided. For the complete response download the podcast. |  Click icon for archived podcast answering this question in its entirety. Show air date: September 5, 2013 Name of show: Open Forum Guest comments by: Jimmy Akin Question appeared in show: 49:12 |
