The Apostles' Creed

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• The Apostles' Creed
• I believe in God, the Father Almighty,the
  Creator of heaven and earth,and in Jesus Christ,
  His only Son, our Lord
• Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit,born of the
  Virgin Mary,suffered under Pontius Pilate,was
  crucified, died, and was buried.
• He descended into hell.
• The third day He arose again from the dead.

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• He ascended into heavenand sits at the right
  hand of God the Father Almighty,whence He shall
  come to judge the living and the dead.
• I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic
  church,the communion of saints,the forgiveness
  of sins,the resurrection of the body,and life
  everlasting.

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What is a Cult?

• Problems of Definition

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What the course is NOT

• Three Primary Forms of Religions
• Indigenous
• Modern
• World
• South Asian Hinduism / Jainism / Buddhism /
  Sikhism
• Far Eastern Daoism / Confucianism / Shinto
• Middle Eastern Zoroastrianism / Christianity /
  Islam / Shiah / Judaism

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Etymology of Illusive Terms

• Origins
• Cult (cultus) honoring/reverencing/veneration
• Sect (sequi) to follow / devotion / fan
• Distinctions Ernst Troeltsch
• A religious group which is gathered or called out
  of some natural organic group or state church on
  positively anticonformist grounds, sometimes by a
  charismatic leader, but as often by some
  principle of greater strictness, more
  single-minded dedication, or more intense
  abnegation of the world and its attractions.
  Often, the sect has as its main principle some
  aspect of the orthodox faith which is being lost
  or neglected.
• Technical Relationship

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Etymology of Illusive Terms

• Current Trends Term Modifications
• Capture phenomena w/o stigmatization
• New Religious Movements (NRM)
• Alternative Religions
• Unconventional Religions
• Emergent Religions
• Non-normative Religions
• Marginal Religious Movements

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Meaning in Eyes of Beholder

• Perspective Factor in Cult Identification
• Cult Non-normative by some standard
• Three Norming Standards
• Sociological (not culturally normative)
• Marks and challenges
• Psychological (not emotionally normative)
• Freedom / victimization / deprogramming
• Theological (not doctrinally normative)
• Challenges / apologetics / pluralism

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Meaning in Eyes of Beholder

• Challenges Dangers of Term Cult
• Relative Term (perspective / time)
• Labeling w/o universal objective basis
• Term cult is applied to a disparate collection
  of groups and movements and consequently has
  become unsuitable as a precise legal or social
  scientific categoryin effect, a cult is any
  group stigmatized as a cult. T. Robbins
  (sociologist)
• Risk of neutralizing legitimate threats

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Meaning in Eyes of Beholder

• Christian Response Holistic Approach
• Glean from secular perspectives
• Academic Recommendation (Hexham)
• The academic practice of calling such groups new
  religious movements should be followed. An
  alternative to this neutral terminology available
  for Christians who oppose such groups would be to
  revive the usage of heretic or simply call such
  groups spiritual counterfeits.
• Stuck with a Term
• We should drop the term if we could, but we
  cant I think were stuck with it. J. Sire

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Interpretations viaProximity Spectrums

• Spectrum on Socio-Religious Scale
• World Religions
• Denominations
• Sects
• Fundamentalist-Fringe Movements
• Cults
• Eastern-mystical (Hare Krishna, TM)
• Aberrational-Christian (Children of God, The Way
  International)
• Psychospiritual / Self-improvement (Scientology,
  Silva Mind Control)
• Eclectic-syncretistic (Unification Church)
• Psychic-occult-astral (New Age, Eckankar)
• Institutionalized/established (Mormons, Jehovahs
  Witnesses, Christian Science)

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Interpretations viaProximity Spectrums

• Spectrum Migration Over Time
• External re-interpretations
• Internal re-structurings
• Patterns of Migration
• Toward Conformity (cult to non-cultic)
• Social Perspective
• Theological Perspective
• Away from Conformity (non-cultic to cult)
• Social Perspective
• Theological Perspective

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Visualizing Proximity Analysis

• Theological Perspective
• Normative Standard Orthodoxy
• Key Question What is a cult?

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Visualizing Proximity Analysis

• Sociological Perspective
• Normative Standard Cultural Affinity
• Key Question How cultic is it?

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What is a Cult?

• Nature of Cults
• Heresy in an Age of Pluralism

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Who Joins a Cult?

• Profile Neighbors / Colleagues / Friends
• Psychological Perspective (Singer)
• 2/3 from normal families with age-appropriate
  behaviors
• 1/3 with diagnosable depressions (95) or major
  psychological problem (5)
• Sociological Perspective (Ellwood Enroth)
• Most are young (under 30) Caucasians
• Middle and Upper Middle classes
• Nominal religious background
• Relatively well-educated
• Isolated / unattached
• Experienced disaffection
• Religious seeker-ship

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Why Join a Cult?

• Common Fallacy Dismissed
• Doctrinal Affinity
• Social Compensators Model Rodney/Stark
• Access to rewards replaced by Compensators
• Primary Conditions
• Depression
• Unaffiliated
• Cult as Substitute Family
• This is your fathers world

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Why Join a Cult?

• Why cults appeal Josh McDowell
• Provide clear/certain answers
• Meet human needs
• Make favorable impressions

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How Do Cults Recruit?

• Direct Indirect Appeals
• Evangelism
• Marketing
• Disguise Deception
• Disguising as legitimate enterprises
• Slick solicitation techniques
• Targeting Most Responsive Young/Naïve
• Children / Adolescents / Youth
• Vulnerable populations
• Abusive retention methods

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What Characterizes Most Cults?

• Three General Characteristics
• Abrupt break with historic Christianity
• Tendency to major in minors
• Tendency to perfectionism
• Five Distinct Traits
• Extra-biblical source of authority
• Denial of justification by grace alone
• Devaluation of Christ
• Views itself as exclusive community of saved
• Self-referential role in eschatology

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McDowells 11 Characteristics of Cults

• New Truth
• New Interpretation of Scripture
• Non-biblical Source of Authority
• Another Jesus
• Rejection of Orthodox Christianity
• Double-talk (equivocal doctrinal language)
• Non-biblical Teaching on Nature of God
• Shifting Theology
• Strong Leadership
• Salvation by Works
• False Prophecy

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Enroths 9 Characteristics of Cults

• Authoritarian Leadership
• Oppositional
• Exclusivity
• Legalistic
• Subjective
• Persecution-conscious
• Sanction-Oriented
• Esoteric
• Antisacerdotal

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How Should We Respond?

• Empathy vs. Embracing
• Conflicted religious attitudes in pluralistic
  society
• Why and What, before effective communication
• Seeing cultists as persons
• Cross-cultural courtesies extended
• Keeping Christian balance
• Answering w/o attacking
• Defending w/o destroying

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What Can We Learn From Cults?

• Identifies Unpaid Bill of the Church
• Life transitions
• Doctrinal sophistication
• Doctrinal neglect
• Humanitarian void
• Hyper-dispensationalism
• Sharpens skills of rhetoric
• Reminds of dangers in public forum
• Confession of non-objectivity

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What Can We Learn From Cults?

• Strengthens Church Solidarity
• Provokes Church to Mission
• Hones Apologetics
• Most legitimate response???
• The problem is essentially theological where the
  cults are concerned. The answer of the church
  must be theological and doctrinal. No
  sociological or cultural evaluation will do. Such
  works may be helpful, but they will not answer
  the Jehovahs Witness or Mormon who is seeking
  biblical authority for either the acceptance of
  rejection of his beliefs. L. Belford
• Conclusions Identify and Intervene

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Questions?
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What is a Cult?

• Methodologies of Misreading

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A Twisted MethodologyJohn 831-32

• What is Happening?
• Violations of literary interpretation
• Methodology of misreading
• A general defense against perversions
• The authority of Scripture
• A true and unique revelation
• To all humanity
• Ultimate authority
• Understandable by ordinary people

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A Twisted MethodologyJohn 831-32

• A Problem of World-View Confusion
• What is a worldview?
• A set of propositions (or assumptions) which we
  hold (consciously or subconsciously) about the
  basic makeup of our world.
• Addresses the following central issues of life
• What is prime reality (really real)
• Who is man?
• What happens to man at death?
• What is the basis of morality?
• What is the meaning of time/history

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A Twisted MethodologyJohn 831-32

• What is worldview confusion?
• Phenomena which occurs whenever a reader of
  Scripture fails to interpret the Bible within the
  intellectual and broadly cultural framework of
  the Bible itself and uses instead, a foreign
  frame of reference. Sire, p. 26
• An ethno- or ego- centric reading of scripture
• Reading from our own cultural, or own personal
  perspective without regard to its original
  setting or intention

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Twenty Reading Errors

• The Text of Scripture
• 1 Inaccurate Quotation
• Misquoting scripture passages, or wrongly
  attributing text source
• 2 Twisted Translation
• Text retranslated, not in accordance with sound
  scholarship, but to fit cultic perspective
• Cautions/Lessons from this class of errors
• Must utilize accurate text
• test cultic translations for reasonable accuracy

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Twenty Reading Errors

• Scripture as Rhetoric
• 3 The Bible Hook (Conceptual bait switch)
• Scripture quoted primarily as device to grasp
  attention, followed by dubious teachings not
  logically flowing from original text
• Scripture as pretext for own theological agendas
• Cautions/Lessons from this class of errors
• Examine scriptures to see if message drawn from
  them is in accordance with their meaning

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Twenty Reading Errors

• Scripture as Literature
• 4 Ignoring the Immediate Context
• Text quoted but isolated from context that
  constrains its meaning
• Text with context is pretext!
• 5 Collapsing Contexts
• Two or more texts joined in argument, without
  legitimate literary association of ideas
• 6 Over-specification
• Drawing a more detailed/specific conclusion than
  warranted by text

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Twenty Reading Errors

• Scripture as Literature
• 7 Word Play
• Word/phrase from a biblical translation,
  interpreted as if revelation came in that
  language or form
• 8 The Figurative Fallacy
• Mistaking literal for figurative language or
  vice-versa
• 9 Speculative Readings of Predictive Prophecy
• Predictive prophecy explained as specified events
  in time (current/future), despite literary
  uncertainty and non-consensus among bible
  scholars/theologians

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Twenty Reading Errors

• Scripture as Evidence (Inductive Errors)
• 10 Saying but Not Citing
• Claiming a biblical proposition, without
  marshalling biblical evidence to make that claim
  or draw a subsequent conclusion from such claims
• 11 Selective Citing cf. 4
• Limiting scriptural evidence to edited portions
  of texts relating to the proposition
• 12 Inadequate Evidence cf. 6
• Hasty generalization drawn from too little
  evidence
• Cautions/Lessons from this class of errors
• Ask Is the evidence really there at all, and is
  all the evidence presented?

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Twenty Reading Errors

• Reasoning from Scripture (Deductive Errors)
• 13 Confused Definition
• Biblical term so misunderstood, that essential
  doctrine is distorted or rejected
• Consequence of invalid argument due to improper
  definition of terms in premises equivocation
• 14 Ignoring Alternative Explanations cf. 9,
  12
• Assigning particular interpretation to text or
  set of texts, which could more easily be
  explained by a more reasonable or historically
  accepted interpretation
• Ignoring Okhams Razor-- Economy of explanation
  theory

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Twenty Reading Errors

• Reasoning from Scripture (Deductive Errors)
• 15 The Obvious Fallacy
• Words like obviously, undoubtedly, certainly, all
  reasonable people hold that are substituted for
  logical reasons behind conclusions
• 16 Virtue by Association
• Linking writings/ideas with accepted authorities,
  and/or the Bible, or imitating biblical forms to
  gain sense of biblical authority
• Cautions/Lessons from this class of errors
• Make certain the terms are defined, the arguments
  draw valid conclusions from the premises, and are
  supported by actual scriptures, taken in context

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Twenty Reading Errors

• The Authority of the Bible
• 17 Esoteric Interpretation
• Subjective (private) interpretation based on
  assumption of hidden, esoteric meanings within
  the text available only to those initiated into
  its mysteries
• Dangerous precedent past down since earliest
  Christianity
• Alexandrian School of Allegorical Interpretation
• 3-fold sense in text based on body, soul, spirit
  of human nature
• Scripture was historical (literal) / moral /
  spiritual
• 18 Supplementing Biblical Authority
• New revelations from post-biblical prophets
  either replacing, or adding to authority of
  biblical revelations

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Twenty Reading Errors

• The Authority of the Bible
• 19 Rejecting Biblical Authority
• Bible as a whole, or texts, are examined and
  rejected because they do not square with other
  authoritiessuch as reason and other
  revelationwhich does not appear to agree with
  them.
• Cautions/Lessons from this class of errors
• We must stand intentionally on three touchstones
  of Protestant Christianity
• Scripture alone as our final authority for
  life/practice
• Plain reason as our guide to what scripture means
  
• Personal conscious as controller over what we
  coherently embrace
• Maintain critical mind regarding religious
  beliefs and their sources
• Key questions
• Unreflective life not worth livingunreflective
  faith not worth embracing

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Twenty Reading Errors

• World-View Confusion
• 20 World-view Confusion
• Reading with improper ideological lens, imposing
  personal or cultural perspective on the text,
  thus discoloring its truth from its original
  intention
• Setting up own frame of reference as arbitrary
  absolute into which any sentence composed by
  anybody, anytime, anywhere, must now fit
• Cautions/Lessons from this class of error
• Proof-texting our personal worldviews
  perspective

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Properly Abiding in the Word John 831-32

• Maintain the proper attitude toward scriptural
  study
• An open heart and open mind
• Maintain a proper methodology toward scriptural
  study five principles
• Recognize the systematic nature of all claims to
  truth
• Base all scriptural study on a good text
• Consider the literary context of revelation
• Gather as much evidence as reasonably possible
  before drawing conclusions
• Consult the community of Faith for affirmation of
  conclusions

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Questions?