MovieChat Forums > The Rapture (1991) Discussion > An attempt to explain this movie/the end...

An attempt to explain this movie/the ending (It's really happening)

posted 13 years ago by rexamillion
33 replies | jump to latest

First, let's just say that this film is not necessariy coherent or well-written, so 'explaining' it might be tricky. It certainly frustrates me---yet I also find this movie strangely compelling. I'd like to make a couple of points:

1) There seems to be a lot of thought on this board that the ending might not be real, but only happening in her head, and she's going crazy. That's absurd. In the context of the movie, the ENDING IS REAL. The actions of the other prisoners at the jail, and the sherriff she rides off with, are proof enough.
When the bars fall off the cells, it's obvious it's really happening. I think this viewpoint that it's a hallucination demonstrates some peoples' bias, that they just can't imagine it being true, even in a Hollywood movie! And it IS hard to accept that this director/writer would say at the end that the Rapture really turns out to be real, when as the movie goes on it's obvious he has an antiChristian bias.

2) So what was his point? At the end, she refuses the offer of Heaven, and refuses God. Her explanantion is pretty clear, and I think demonstrates what Tolkin was trying to say. She basically says if God's gift is Life, why should we thank Him when life is full of so much pain and suffering? This is an old argument against religious beliefs which is so weak I won't even try to answer it, but let's just say someone worked it out in the Book of Job about 3000 years ago. It's really not an argument all.
However, I admire one thing Tolkin did: he felt so strongly about sending this message, that he follows it through (using Rogers' character) by saying, that EVEN IF it was PROVEN to him that God was real-and that He was basically right there in front of Tolkin-he'd STILL refuse His offer of Heaven, he'd be so angry at God for the suffering on Earth! And I think it's this part of the movie that confuses people-they see that Rogers' character is meant to be unsympathetic and we're supposed to hate her for her beliefs.......so then how could the filmmaker go and make the Rapture seem real at the end of the movie?? Wouldn't that confirm her earlier beliefs?? I think you have to accept that it IS real, so I think he did that to make his argument stronger. He obviously feels that life is so bad, that if there IS a God, He deserves blame and anger, not love and obedience.

3) I'll end with this-I like how he took his feelings against a Christian God to a logical conclusion-that he'd reject Him even to his face. But I still have to say, that the argument he's making is a stupid one, and the portrayal of Christianity in this movie bears no resemblance to any kind of normal, mainstream Christianity. It's more like a portrayal of some cult, the kind that attract, what, 200 people or something, but get all the media coverage and warp peoples' views of what it truly means to follow Christ.
For our friendly Atheists out there, this would be like portraying your average atheist by having the character bomb a church.

[–] zephyr-123 13 years ago

My personal interpretation is that it is really happening for reasons like what you mentioned with the bars falling off the cells etc. I think they structured it with hallucinatory-like elements because they were trying to make it fit with the biblical description, which if you've ever read Revelations reads like someone's long drawn out hallucination with much bizarre visual symbolism.

Your argument about her reasoning being weak though, I don't agree with and I feel that it is the one main reason that keeps people feeling or being separate from God--not getting a sufficient answer for why there is so much suffering. I think it's a basic human need to understand this, to understand why in order to be at true peace with God and most people have difficulty with it. Many holocaust survivers basically became atheists after the experience because they couldn't understand or comprehend a God who would allow it to happen. It's an issue that one has to figure out in one's life before accepting or understanding God and it's a fair expectation to need to know the answer. I've read Job and it seems to only answer the question partially for me.

I also disagree with point 3. While mainstream Christianity is not so much cultish, it does promote beliefs about God that paint Him/Her as some cruel sadistic lunatic. As an example, many times I have come across mainstream Christians in this site who flippantly talk about the gays going to hell and how God hates the gays. I am not gay but it pisses me off. These people are totally closed to science. I'm convinced (living in 2011) that homosexuality is genetic--that there is a genetic makeup for it and that these people are not "choosing" it but try and explain that to a Christian and you get nowhere. Try to explain how there are incidents of homosexuality in the animal kingdom and it's like talking to a rock. They simply want to hate someone and have chosen gays. They constantly quote the bible's homosexuality is an "abomination", while within the same book it says that eating shellfish is also an "abomination"--which says to me that the guy who wrote it learned a new word that week and wanted to use it a lot. According to the bible if you are gay or have eaten shrimp, you are going to burn in hell. They also believe that people of different religions are automatically going to hell basically just because they say so. They never question a God who makes the world and everyone in it imperfect to begin with and then is flinging souls left and right into hell basically for being what He made them to be. Why not just make people perfect to begin with so as to avoid all this suffering? Mainstream Christians can't answer these questions with the bible and so they continue to push ideas that make no sense. I think that some of these people have never experienced real tragedy and real suffering because if they had, there is no way they could believe in hell or in a God who is so sick in the head. They don't use their brains in reading the bible but simply take it all at face value without delving enough into the deeper meaning. They don't question statements made in the bible that have long since proven to be totally false. They don't take into consideration the times in which the bible was written and the way people thought and lived in those times and that translating the meaning is more complicated than they think.

GG's-Sophia: ". . .my dear husband Sal, may he rest in peace until I get there. . ."

[–] pantsless_avenger 12 years ago

" While mainstream Christianity is not so much cultish, it does promote beliefs about God that paint Him/Her as some cruel sadistic lunatic. As an example, many times I have come across mainstream Christians in this site who flippantly talk about the gays going to hell and how God hates the gays."

The people who talk like that are NOT "mainstream" (whatever that means) Christians. In fact, it might be argued that they aren't Christians at all. God does not hate anyone.

What I would suggest is that you actually read the Bible. Concordia publishes an excellent study Bible that has the most up-to-date translation along with extensive notes. It would answer all of the questions you posed.

Blessings to you.

[–] roseyolo 12 years ago

"What I would suggest is that you actually read the Bible."

...Because the Bible is incredibly straight-forward, and if the previous commenter were to read it in entirety, it is certainly guaranteed that he would come out of the experience having the same views as everyone else who has read "the" Bible.

[–] rexamillion 12 years ago

Well, those are good points.
First, you have to drop the stereotype of Christians as never having suffered. I can tell you Christians suffer just as much as anyone, every church I've been in has been filled with sadness, deaths, sickness, tragedies of losing children to accidental deaths, etc.

Before I was a Christian I felt the same way (believer at 20) in fact I would specifically yell at "God" that if He WAS real then what's the deal, because this life is a sick Joke! Forget all the pain, that's just rotten icing on the 'cake' of suffering-just take Death. You mean I get to be alive, and given consciousness, and then have to deal with the awareness that my time is so short in the great scheme of things and will be over so soon? That within a few years I'll be rotted and forgotten? That really freaked me out.

Now, today it's popular to deal with this by bashing Christianity but then always talking about meeting up with lost loved ones, people 'watching over us' and other new age, feel-good nonsense. If you're going to be a nonbeliever in any specific religion, at least have the mental guts to then live an amoral, hedonistic life, because you'll be old and dead soon anyways. And if we're just evolutionary products and there's no God there's no "Morals" anyways, we're just intelligent slime zipping through space on some slightly warm, unstable rock in a vast nothingness.

But people don't want THAT view, so they try to have it both ways.

So the answer to the suffering-actually Christianity is the ONLY answer to all the suffering in the world. No other religion answers it. The answer is that there was no suffering when things were first created, but something happened which brought "sin", which is really just pride and a decision to try and live without God, into the world. I know, you've heard the story so much it's hard not to laugh.

But we all have a feeling something's wrong.......it shouldn't be like this. Why is that? If we just evolved from nothing, why do we have guilt, long for more, not accept death since it's just a part of life?

What happened? Well, Adam, Eve , the Garden. Take it literally, or since it was written so long ago that it predates ideas like history and science, take it metaphorically, but it answers the question, right? There is a God, but we're separated from Him, but He's been working this strange plan through history to save everyone who'll join Him. It's called "The Gospel." Everything's explained, the suffering, et. al.

Really really hard to take, but also so simple too.

[–] doctorcrimedog 8 years ago

Any explanation that merely begs more questions is not much of an explanation. The Garden of Eden story doesn't answer any questions, it just attempts to rationalize human dissatisfaction, death, and the pain of childbirth, along with blaming it all on women and trying to give a reason as to why people are creeped out by snakes.

Any species that "accepted death," as you say, would have died out long ago. (And no actual biologist on Earth claims we "evolved from nothing," since that's an impossibility. That's the sort of language you hear only from religious people who don't understand evolution.) Survival of the fittest means a species that tries its hardest to survive will outlive a lackadaisical species any day of the week, which is why, no matter what people do, pandas are just plain doomed. (And for anyone claiming that survival of the fittest is a cruel perspective, well, so is gravity if you happen to step over a cliff edge. It's a fact of reality, and not a moral code. It also does not mean "the strongest will kill the weakest." It means living things that are most suited, i.e. fit, for their environment, will pass on their genes. A white rabbit is no more strong or aggressive than a brown rabbit, but it will survive better in a snowy environment due to camouflage, and vice versa with brown rabbits in forests.)

The idea of an omnipotent being having a plan is also absurdly silly. Having to plan things out and work through natural cause-and-effect is a consequence of limited ability, not omnipotence. If your god's plan is that it's necessary to have a blood sacrifice in order to forgive bad behavior, I would suggest your religion is fundamentally insane.

-There is no such word as "alot."

[–] poofta1970 13 years ago

It's deliberately open ended.

You say it must be happening because of the actions of the other people in the prison.

She could be imagining all that too.

We see what she sees as in a dream.

She shares a cell with the very women who's tattoo set he off in the direction that led her there.

It could be happening or it could be all in her broken mind.

[–] rexamillion 12 years ago

Sure, but then what's the point of the movie? If that's corect it's just a stupid movie. We're just watching the mental breakdown of some crazy lady?
I think the writer had points he wanted to make and to do, so that we have to take the movie at face value-the other characters are all acting as if it's real. If she's just 'imagining' them then that would be silly.

[–] cookiela2001 10 years ago

It's deliberately open ended.

You say it must be happening because of the actions of the other people in the prison.

She could be imagining all that too.

But there's no indication in the film that this is the intent.

It's like saying, "It's deliberately open-ended as to whether or not this film takes place in China. The heroine could be imagining all the American locations."

.

[–] Stevicus-2 12 years ago

I agree with your first point that, within the context of the plot, the ending should be interpreted as an actual event within the story.

Regarding your second point:

At the end, she refuses the offer of Heaven, and refuses God. Her explanantion is pretty clear, and I think demonstrates what Tolkin was trying to say. She basically says if God's gift is Life, why should we thank Him when life is full of so much pain and suffering? This is an old argument against religious beliefs which is so weak I won't even try to answer it, but let's just say someone worked it out in the Book of Job about 3000 years ago. It's really not an argument all.

I don't think it's a weak argument, but in any case, it was NEVER worked out in the Book of Job 3000 years ago. In the Book of Job, God makes a bet with Satan and causes Job's life to fall apart. What kind of god makes a bet with a demon just to screw up somebody's life? Job called God out on this, and God's response was a defensive tirade. God knew He was wrong, but He was too pigheaded to come out and admit it to Job. What a great "God."

Herman Wouk wrote in War and Remembrance on the subject: "What was the missing piece that was too much for Job to understand? We understand it, and are we so very clever? Satan simply sneered God into ordering the senseless ordeal. No wonder God roars out of a storm to silence Job! Isn't He ashamed of himself before His own creature? Hasn't Job behaved better than God?

"The hero in Job holds to the truth of One Almighty God through the most senseless and horrible injustice, forcing God at last to measure up to Himself, to acknowledge that injustice is on His side, to repair the damage as best He can.

"In Job, God must answer for everything, good and bad, that happens."

[–] rexamillion 12 years ago

"Ashamed of Himself"?

Look, there's an a priori assumption you have to make....IF there's a God, like the one in the Bible, then He can do whatever He wants. That's why there's a concept of worship. This is the hardest thing for Americans to overcome w/the Christian God, because of Pride.

I mean, if He's GOD, He made everything, and doesn't have to explain anything! He has a view that is outside of all matter and time and we're like even less than an ant compared to a human. Yet we are made in His image, with intelligence, consciousness, and a conscious. We wouldn't be alive, wouldn't exist, if not for Him.

Can the clay yell at the Potter, "Watch what you're doing there Dude! Don't make me like that! Don't spin me that direction!"

And Job accepts God's answer at the end of the book, whatever Wouk wants to say.

[–] doctorcrimedog 8 years ago

Can the clay yell at the Potter, "Watch what you're doing there Dude! Don't make me like that! Don't spin me that direction!"

If the clay is sentient, as we are, then it damn well would, and should, challenge the potter. We don't get to do anything we want with our own children because we "made" them. This is merely a "might makes right" argument you've put forth. You also assert God has a view "outside space and time" without even attempting to say A. how you know this, B. how this would be possible, and C. how this justifies it committing any action it wants.

-There is no such word as "alot."

[–] mglsharkson 11 years ago

I like the movie because it addresses the TOUGH questions - if you are a true believer then you will either ignore it or preach more bible quotes. If it is in her mind then she is having a breakdown which parallels how prophets can come off to the lay public (remember The Last temptation of Christ? ) If it is real and she is a true non believer for whatever reason then she is not crossing over. Maybe the question of why God created sinful man will free will to suffer and hurt mankind throughout history? Why create man at all? Book of Job does address a God that makes a mistake! Not a God then... And the 4 Gospels determine by Constantine to be "the book". All other Gospels (and Gnostic) go underground otherwise you be put to the sword. Was Thomas or Mary Gospels any more right or true then the current 4? All were written well after Christ's death - along with different versions of what happen when he lived! We need more movies let this!

ML

[–] Steyr808 12 years ago

I tend to agree.

If I died and found out there really was a God, and that it was the same God who did all the horrible things documented in the Old Testament, including among other things that he flooded the Earth in a temper tantrum killing the entire population (save for one family and some animals) and murdered the innocent as well as the guilty because his creation was flawed, I probably wouldn't want to spend eternity with such a deity either.

I'd hope that IF there is a God, it is something better than what was imagined by the Hebrews several thousand years ago.

[–] rexamillion 12 years ago

Life and history are full of injustices and horrors. If the answer's not in the Bible's long story explaining all of those things, what IS the answer?

That's the question.

God sends no one to "Hell." People all CHOOSE where they will go when the final Call comes. It's not so much "Heaven" and "Hell" as it is

"Being With God" or "Choosing Not to Be With God."

People who choose not to believe are making their choice and will get their wish. I hope you change your mind.

Also, IF there is a God, you get no say in how He is. He will be what He will be, and by the very nature of being Him being" God" we can have no complaints.

[–] rgcustomer 12 years ago

I have problems with the plot and dialogue at the end.

She complains that God let her kill her daughter. But this is after a long time of both mother and daughter talking about how they wanted to go to heaven, and if God doesn't call you there alive, you've got to go dead. So her real complaint was separation from her daughter, not killing, and that separation would be anywhere from minutes to decades, a short time compared to an eternity re-united in heaven. Then she's rapidly given an easy out, by the rapture actually happening, and she doesn't take it? Suddenly it's about the killing? The after-life daughter sure isn't angry she was killed. If I bought into any of this nonsense like the mother did, I'd be overjoyed. I'd love that God for speeding up the time I'd be able to see my child again, forever.

Next, even if we accept that the mother didn't love God, in the end scene with her daughter she seems so cold and analytical, not like a mother who is never going to see her child again, not like she did the last time she was going to be separated from her daughter for mere decades at most. There wasn't even an attempt to fake loving God for the sake of the daughter, or to attempt to muster some sort of love, even if temporary. It would have been a much stronger and honest scene if she made attempts that God rejected, and left her in alone in darkness.

[–] rexamillion 12 years ago

I agree with this, but these inconsistencies don't bother me becasue the filmmaker is obviously making a film about which he knows very little, Christian faith, so I have low expectations. It would be like me trying to make a movie about Hindus after doing a little research and then thinking I could pull it off. It would be disrespectful to the religion and come off wrongly.
That's what happens here-like most Americans, the writer THINKS he knows what Christianity is and so can make this movie. Like I said in my OP, actually he pulled it off as well as could be expected, but there are still parts that don't fit-like your points, or the fact that some people still think the end is all just a hallucination-he should have made it more clear it was really happening in the context of the movie, if I'm correct and it is.

[–] cookiela2001 11 years ago

<< the filmmaker is obviously making a film about which he knows very little, Christian faith...It would be like me trying to make a movie about Hindus after doing a little research and then thinking I could pull it off...

Well, you probably COULD, if you had been raised in the Hindu faith in a culture surrounded by other Hindus, and then went on to get a college degree in it.

This director was raised in an Abrahamic faith (the Bible is an Abrahamic text), and raised in a culture (American) that is predominantly Christian. He was also a Religion major in college.

Why would you assume he knows nothing about Christianity?

[–] rexamillion 11 years ago

That's an excellent question.
First, I'm ignorant about the filmmaker's background-it seems like you are saying he's Jewish. If so, let's just say that for most American Jews, it's much more of a cultural thing than a religious, believing thing. Their faith has been liberalized quite a bit, to say the least. Is that generalizing? Yes. But neither of us has insight as to his upbringing, and I will go with what I see in today's America in general.
Second, growing up here in America and "surrounded by other" Christians is nowhere near like actually understanding Christianity. I can say this with complete confidence, as one who was not raised as a Christian, but became one later in life. I 'thought' I 'knew' what it was all about-I didn't. Most of what you see in our 'culture' (have to use that word a bit sarcastically!) is a very very biased view of what Christianity really is. Believe me, growing up in America does not give one any understanding of Christianity. I have seen it from both sides.
Third-really? A religion major in college? Have you ever taken any religious studies courses? I have. I did. In no way do they prepare people to be an expert on any religion. I'd be embarrassed to try and say, Well, I was a Religion Major, so I know what it's like to be Hindu! They are courses taught by professors who are usually, for one thing, very biased against Christianity, and who have no or only very vague and general views of "religion." They are meaningless intellectual exercises and treat religion as just another subject, an anthropological oddity on par with diet and theater.

So, sorry, but although I'm sure your points make perfect sense to you, they are not convincing to me.

[–] dini0519 12 years ago

I found the movie fascinating and watchable EXCEPT for the ending. Hated it. I rewatched it and then turned it off when that whole ridiculous last scene came on because it was so weird and creepy in my opinion.
Dini

[–] dashab 12 years ago

/But let's just say someone worked it out in the Book of Job about 3000 years ago./

But they didn't work it out. The point of the Job story was that God can and will do whatever He wants to you and that life sucks and that's the long and the short of it. A lot of the behavior displayed by God in the Old Testament parallels Greek and Roman myths about the gods screwing with humans because they could. All that said, though, there is nothing in the Old Testament that actually should apply to Christianity. It's a background on the evolution of Judaism into Christianity, but the Crucifixion of Jesus erases the old covenant with God. Technically, the Ten Commandments do not apply to Christians, the Christian commandments are delivered by Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount. And there is certainly nothing in Leviticus that should apply either.

And, that said, I'm sure all this is going to get people's panties in a bunch, but you are welcome to pick up the book and take a look at it for yourself. The days of the church keeping people in the dark about their own religion are long past.

[–] rexamillion 12 years ago

I'm not sure where you're going.

"The point of the Job story was that God can and will do whatever He wants to you and that life sucks and that's the long and the short of it. "
Yup, that's it. He's GOD after all! We cannot complain, He made us after all, because He could.

As for the other stuff, of course Christians live under the New and not the Old Covenant. Not sure why you felt that was a point to make or something different from what Christians believe. No one's "in the dark" or getting bunched-up panties over that. You have to not go too far, though, because Jesus says He completes, not replaces, the "Law" of the OT. The Ot did not become completely irrelevant.

[–] f_friendly 12 years ago

Yes, Jesus did not intend to replace the Old Testament -- or Judaism for that matter.

The earliest Christians were all Jewish followers of Jesus.

God had already made His covenant with the Jews long before Jesus. So long as the Jews kept their existing covenant with God, they were already "saved." God does not go back on the promises He had already made to the Jews.

Indeed, for those who do believe in the End Times and The Rapture, there needs to be 144,000 Jews in the world for the End Times and The Rapture to occur.

by - rexamillion on Sun Jul 1 2012
...As for the other stuff, of course Christians live under the New and not the Old Covenant. Not sure why you felt that was a point to make or something different from what Christians believe. No one's "in the dark" or getting bunched-up panties over that. You have to not go too far, though, because Jesus says He completes, not replaces, the "Law" of the OT. The Ot did not become completely irrelevant.

[–] lenlarga 11 years ago

"God had already made His covenant with the Jews long before Jesus. So long as the Jews kept their existing covenant with God, they were already "saved.""

I thought Jews didn't believe in the Afterlife/Heaven the way Christians do.

[–] rexamillion 11 years ago

At the time of Jesus, some did and some didn't. It's not really clearcut. Pharisees, who are porttayed in the NT as most opposed to Jesus, actually agreed on the concept of an afterlife. Sadducees, on the other hand, didn't. And who knows how individual Hebrews felt?
The Old Test. itself is hard to read on this subject. There are references, but they are not clear.
But like others have said, don't be afraid to pick up the Bible, esp. the New Test. , and read it yourself! No matter whether you are a believer, want to believe, intend to believe or not to, or are opposed to what you think is in there, it's worth reading yourself any way you look at it! It is the one most influential piece of literature in history, certainly in Western history and literature. Everyone should be familiar with it.
And it's actually pretty entertaining, and challenging.

[–] Duncan_Idaho02 11 years ago

For those so quick to call other belief systems a cult, you really need to do some research on what a cult really is. Here is the Merriam-Webster definition. I will give the first 3 definitions listed.

1 : formal religious veneration : WORSHIP
2 : a system of religious beliefs and ritual; also : its body of adherents
3 : a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also : its body of adherents

All of those apply to all forms of Christianity. So no matter what form of Chritianity you are in, you are all a cult. Some more dangerous than others, but all still a cult.

[–] rexamillion 11 years ago

You need correcting. I went to Merriam-Webster online and looked it up. Those definitions you give are listed AFTER a box
in which this is the first definition:

": a small religious group that is not part of a larger and more accepted religion and that has beliefs regarded by many people as extreme or dangerous"

This is also how the word is most commonly used in modern society, and how everyone since the 60's and 70's and the Moonies and Jim Jones/Jonestown understands the word, unless a more specific context is given.

Sorry to let you know you were so very wrong.

[–] Duncan_Idaho02 10 years ago

And how exactly did Christianity start? It started as a small religious group that is not part of a larger and more accepted religion and that has beliefs regarded by many people as dangerous. Do some research on the origins of Christianity if you don't believe me. So you are wrong. Christianity started out as a cult and still has the characteristics that people claim makes a cult. Every form of Christianity has these characteristics. Just because you choose not to accept that it is what a cult is, does not change the facts. Every single one of you refuse to believe that "your" religion is a cult, but will call the other ones who are a little bit different than yours a cult. It is a joke. You are full of hypocrisy and that is one of the reasons it disgusts so many people. Again, those like Jones were the ones who are more dangerous than others. But in the end, you are all cults some just more dangerous.

[–] rexamillion 10 years ago

Oh, I didn't know we were discussing cults of the first century-my bad!

[–] Duncan_Idaho02 10 years ago

Oh, I didn't know we were discussing cults of the first century-my bad!

We are not. Christianity is still around. When a cult started is irrelevant to the discussion.

[–] rexamillion 9 years ago

So, a "cult" that's lasted 2000 plus years with a billion followerers?
At some point you have to limit your use of the word "cult" -----or just admit that you are anti-religion and therefore ALL religions, no matter how large or long-lasting they may be, are "cults" in your eyes.
Look, I'm not Muslim, and I disagree with Islam and do not believe in it-but I don't call it a "cult." That's not how the word is properly used. It's a huge, world-wide religion with a billion or whatever followerers-that is by definition not a "cult."
I think you just want to call every religion a "cult" as a way of disparaging every one of them. But you don't have to-every religion is full of holes and you can attack them many ways without being sloppy in your language.
Christianity WAS a cult when it started, but a religion that has spread around the world with millions upon millions of believers is NOT a "cult" any longer..........

[–] Duncan_Idaho02 9 years ago

Then redefine the term cult, if you don't like what it means. Every religion is a cult. You are using the term cult to mean any group that is modern. How many years do they have to exist before they are considered a cult? Many Christians call the lds religion a cult. They have been around for well over 100 years and have millions of followers. So where do you draw the line? 1 year, 2 years, 50 years, 1000 years? Just because one group may have been around longer does not change what they are.

This has nothing to do with being anti-religion. It is simply defining things for what they are. Those in power are those who have changed the meaning. As soon as Christianity or islam gained enough power they decided they were not a cult and started calling every new group a cult. It is simply based on who is in power at the time.

And calling something a cult is not disparaging if you use the term appropriately. The only people who use it disparagingly are those people who don't like the groups they label as a cult. Why do you think so many Christians label any group they don't like as a cult.