Walter Martin in his book, The Kingdom of the Cults said,
"By the term cult I mean nothing derogatory to any group so classified. A cult, as I
define it, is any religious group which differs significantly in one or more respects as to
belief or practice from those religious groups which are regarded as the normative
expressions of religion in our total culture."
The problem with this definition is that Martin does not say that a cult's doctrines differ significantly from
scripture itself. Martin says a cult's beliefs differ significantly from "the normative
expressions of religion in our total culture." This could mean that a cult's interpretation of scripture differs significantly from that which is normative or generally accepted.
But a cult - defined as having significantly different beliefs than the normative at the time - can take over many Christian denominations and itself become that which is normative. Which is what happened with dispensationalism from the late 19th century to about 1960-1970.
There are several New Testament scriptures which do not agree with the fundamental dispensationalist doctrines of consistent literalism in interpretation and that God now has two peoples, Old Covenant Israel and the Church, with a Capital C. Some of these are John 10: 16, Romans 12: 4-5, Ephesians 4: 4, Romans 2: 28-29, Romans 9: 6-8, Romans 11: 17-20, II Corinthians 3: 6-11, Galatians 3: 3, 16-17, 27-29, Galatians 4: 24-26, and Hebrews 10: 9.
Some will argue that the fundamental doctrines of dispensationalism, which became Christian Zionism, include the assumption or postulate that God now has two peoples, Old Covenant Israel and the Church. But to avoid confusion about what this theology is you have to define it according to quotes from its founders.
The scriptures listed above when compared with the fundamental doctrines of dispensationalism show that the theology of dispensationalism differs significantly from scripture on the continuation of Old Covenant Israel and the Old Covenant after the Day of Pentecost.
Here is a quote from the Kingdom of the Cults, "The student of cultism, then, must be prepared to
scale the language barrier of terminology. First, he
must recognize that it does exist, and second, he must acknowledge the very real fact that unless terms
are defined when one is either speaking or reading cult theology, the semantic jungle that the cults have
created will envelop him, making difficult, if not impossible, a proper contrast between the teachings of
the cults and those of orthodox Christianity. "
"The well-trained cultist will carefully avoid definition of terms concerning cardinal doctrines
such as the Trinity, the deity of Christ, the Atonement, the bodily resurrection of our Lord, the process
of salvation by grace and justification by faith. If pressed
in these areas, he will redefine the terms to fit
the semantic framework of orthodoxy unless he is forced to define his terms explicitly. "
"First and foremost, the belief systems of the cults are characterized by closed-mindedness. They are
not interested in a rational cognitive evaluation of the facts. The organizational structure interprets the
facts to the cultist, generally invoking the Bible and/or its respective founder as the ultimate source of
its pronouncements. Such belief systems are in isolation; they never shift to logical consistency. They
exist in what we might describe as separate compartments in the cultist’s mind and are almost incapable
of penetration or disruption if the individual cultist is completely committed to the authority pattern of
his organization. Although many people are closed-minded about their religious faith, including many Christians,
cultists are usually closed-minded not only because of their own determinations, but also because the
cults almost invariably teach their followers not to
question, not to interact with outsiders."
"Secondly, cultic belief systems are characterized by genuine antagonism on a personal level since
the cultist almost always identifies his dislike of
the Christian message with the messenger who holds
such opposing beliefs. "
This gets close to the dialectic method of argument to promote and defend the doctrines of cults. Often cults set up direct oppositions between their doctrines - or their interpretations of scripture with their unique definition of words - and orthodox Christian doctrines from scripture.
"Secondly, cultic belief systems are characterized by genuine antagonism on a personal level since
the cultist almost always identifies his dislike of
the Christian message with the messenger who holds
such opposing beliefs. learned, and possessed of a genuine love for the welfare of the cultist himself (which is easily
detectable in the Christian’s concern for his soul and spiritual well-being generally) can have a
devastating effect upon the conditioning apparatus of any cult system. "
And the cultists have defenses against this "devastating effect upon the conditioning apparatus of any cult system."
The cultists will learn how to personally attack the orthodox Christian to discredit him, and the cult has developed "theologically incorrect" labels to apply to orthodox Christians, almost like the Transformational Marxists use the political correct system to label their enemies racists, sexists, Islamophobes, etc.