http://www.elca.org/youth/helpsheets/cu ... #checklist
Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves, cult counselor Steven Hassan describes his "BITE model" stating that it is not necessary for every item or factor to be present for a group to be harmful, abusive, or exploitive of its members.:
* Behavior Control
* Regulation of individual's physical reality
* Major time commitment required for indoctrination sessions and group rituals
* Need to ask permission for major decisions
* Need to report thoughts, feelings, and activities to superiors
* Rewards and punishments (behavior modification techniques—positive and negative)
* Individualism discouraged; "group think" prevails
* Rigid rules and regulations
* Need for obedience and dependency
* Information Control
* Use of deception
* Access to non-cult sources of information minimized or discouraged
* Compartmentalization of information; Outsider vs. Insider doctrines
* Spying on other members is encouraged
* Extensive use of cult generated information and propaganda
* Unethical use of confession
* Thought Control
* Need to internalize the group's doctrine as "Truth"
* Use of "loaded" language (for example, "thought-terminating clichés"). Words are the tools we use to think with. These "special" words constrict rather than expand understanding, and can even stop thoughts altogether. They function to reduce complexities of experience into trite, platitudinous "buzz words."
* Only "good" and "proper" thoughts are encouraged.
* Use of hypnotic techniques to induce altered mental states
* Manipulation of memories and implantation of false memories
* Use of thought-stopping techniques, which shut down "reality testing" by stopping "negative" thoughts and allowing only "good" thoughts
* Rejection of rational analysis, critical thinking, constructive criticism. No critical questions about leader, doctrine, or policy seen as legitimate
* No alternative belief systems viewed as legitimate, good, or useful
* Emotional Control
* Manipulate and narrow the range of a person's feelings
* Make the person feel that if there are ever any problems, it is always their fault, never the leader's or the group's
* Excessive use of guilt
* Excessive use of fear
* Extremes of emotional highs and lows
* Ritual and often public confession of "sins"
* Phobia indoctrination: inculcating irrational fears about ever leaving the group or even questioning the leader's authority. The person under mind control cannot visualize a positive, fulfilled future without being in the group.
I think this checklist actually could make a case that the LDS Church is a cult. I don't know about mainstream Christianity. I would suppose it would depend upon the individual Church.
Yet, there are many groups that could fit under the cult terminology that we don't necessarily view as harmful to society or the individual. I think often times it would be helpful to rank the level of such a checklist as above. For instance put a 1-10 scale next to each one and see how strongly each trait is found in the Church.
To me, it doesn't really matter if the LDS Church is a cult or not (much like Alcoholics Anonymous), but rather if it is necessarily a harmful cult.
I'm not making a case that it is or is not harmful -- I don't know to be honest. I imagine it could be harmful to some, and not to others.