I agree with you. But all churches start as cults. Romans viewed Christians the same way most Americans view Scientologists. Actually, Romans killed Christians, so probably they viewed them a tad bit worse.
The difference is that Christianity has a huge amount of buy in among the American people. The unification church can’t really say the same about the Japanese people, and in some ways in antithetical to the LDPs nationalistic politics since the church is run by Koreans.