James M. Rochford
Cult groups have spread rapidly across the United States in recent years. Secular author Margaret Thaler Singer estimates that in the last two decades roughly 20 million Americans have been involved in a cult.1 Christian cult expert Ron Rhodes concurs with this estimate, claiming that this has been a 3,000 percent increase over the last 150 years.2 Rhodes writes, “It is for good reason that every book in the New Testament except Philemon has something to say about false teachers, false prophets, false gospels, or heresies.”3 While cults have certainly proliferated over the last century, many have had difficulty clearly defining what they mean when they use the term cult. Atheistic critics have grouped all religious groups together.