Well from what I understand a cult is something that expects you to follow some man. You must give up your individual thought processes and just go with what you are told to think. This way you are released from individual responsibility. Some people like this about cults. They don't want to be responsible for their own actions.
I see no evidence of this among Jehovah's people. We certainly never ask for "blind faith" as I saw on TV that one religious group was advocating.
In fact we spend a great deal of time reasoning on the scriptures with people, convincing by reasonable argument rather than by "just accept what I say heretic!" Certain other religious groups seem to me to expect you to just accept the dogma they preach without taking the time to conclusively prove it from the Bible.
We are ALWAYS told that we are responsible for our own actions. We never get to give up that responsibility.
We do follow a man I suppose. Jesus was a man. Of course he no longer is, so maybe that doesn't count. But of course, he never expected people to just follow him or listen based on the force of his personality. In fact he fully expected that it would be the exceptional person who would be willing to follow him based on the things one would have to sacrifice and give up in order to become a Christian.
Now as for the point about "brainwashing". A brainwashed person is normally torn down and then built up again. The military is a good example. They have brainwashing down to a science. They make you feel like a "maggot" a worthless nothing, out of shape, lazy, no discipline, no ability to do anything pretty much while putting you through a boot camp where you have to shout "Yes SIR" and you have to be exhausted physically and mentally.
Then after a few weeks of this and you have endured it and become stronger physically as a result you begin to be allowed a little pride in your "improvement" as a person. Then you are built up to believe that you are an "elite" force of fighters who must stick with your comrades at arms because you are "defending" them and they, you. But you are only "something" because WE made you something...
You see the pattern. You are worthless and nothing, until they mold you in the pattern they want you to be in, and then suddenly you are not worthless anymore, you are special and better than others.
We as Christians should try and remember to have humility. We should remember that we are sinners, and that only by Jehovah's mercy and love are we anything. We are not "special" except that perhaps we are better informed about what the Bible teaches and so we are capable of teaching others. But I don't see the traditional brainwashing techniques going on here. I don't see us making new recruits feel like worthless "maggots" until they have mastered certain discipline. And I don't see anyone thinking that they are exceptional or special people once they have mastered anything. We are all still learners, we are all still sinners. We all of us will inherit everlasting life only through God's mercy and the merit of Jesus' sacrifice for us. Our faith and our acting in harmony with that faith will perhaps help us through, but nothing is certain. All of us who may think we are standing should beware that we do not fall. That is from the Bible.
Do our minds become washed? In some ways yes. Our minds become cleaner. But not brainwashed in the sense that someone else has molded our thinking and taught us what to think. We look only to Jehovah to tell us in his word what is right and what is wrong.
If that is "brainwashed" then I'm all for it!
What do you think?