I think most modern, secular definitions of the word "cult" include the notion of exploitation. Groups that promise recruits spiritual rewards in exchange for abandoning their pre-conversion friends and family and handing over all their assets -- they're cults. Groups that work really, really hard to convince members that their salvation depends on doing things that are morally repugnant or actually illegal -- they're cults.

Mennonites are Anabaptists with a communal tradition, and lots of them live in southwestern Ontario. I see them almost every day; they range from the very pious Old Order folks who spurn electricity, automobiles and even buttons on their clothes to the teenaged girls who work at my favourite garden centre, who wear tee-shirts and shorts and little starched muffin-cup caps pinned over their plaited hair. Typical Mennonite businesses are closely related to agriculture and the home: they sell food, or nursery plants, or animal feed, or furniture they build themselves in the shop out back. Mennonites are also very big on charity; the local United Way is headed by a Mennonite (who happens to be married to the woman I play tunes with), and most of the local relief organizations are organized and run by Mennonites.

Oh, and Mennonites don't proselytize -- if you want to be a Mennonite, you pretty well have to be born or marry into a Mennonite family. They would not chuck you out if you showed up at the Mennonite church on Sunday, but you would be a visitor for a Very Long Time.

Cults proselytize.