some evangelical Christians that faith was really a "cult."

Those accusations echo concerns that evangelical Christians also had about Catholicism while John F. Kennedy was running for president in 1960.

"Catholics in America faced perils virtually since the beginning of the republic," Columbia University Professor of History Alan Brinkley recently wrote. "They experienced Protestant fears of the Vatican and the pope. They have struggled against the belief that Catholicism was something close to a secret cult."

"In 1960, this fear threatened the campaign of John F. Kennedy – the first and still only Catholic president. Everywhere he went, Catholicism dogged Kennedy’s path."