There is a lot of excitement in Christian circles today about cults and New Age thinking. Evangelicals in particular seem concerned about the rise of cults, and books and articles about these groups are multiplying like May mosquitos in Minnesota.
Browsing the shelves of several Christian bookstores recently, I was struck, not only by the number of new books on cults, but by the drastic evolution of subject matter for such books. From doing battle with Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Christian Scientists, and Seventh-day Adventists, evangelical cult fighters have turned their attention to Eastern gurus and New Age thinkers. It's hard to find even a brief mention of Adventism in the new books.
Are we Adventists, who used to figure prominently in all books about cults, suddenly being allowed to sneak in the back door of Christian brotherhood while all the watchmen on the walls fix their eyes eastward? Or is it only because Walter Martin consigned us to an appendix in The Kingdom of the Cults that we're not coming up on authors' "people to be feared" lists anymore?
Perhaps the real reason for the change in the contents of books on cults is to be found in what every aspiring author dis covers sooner or later. For the most part it's not editors and theologians who decide what books will be published by Christian publishing houses it's the marketing department. There just hap pens to be a lot of interest in, and fear of, Eastern religions these days, so books on the topic are sure sellers.
Which brings up the real reason why the subject of cults is always popular: fear. In Boston in 1660, Mary Dyer was sentenced to death by hanging for her "enthusiastick preaching." Her preaching style and unwillingness to submit to the orthodoxy of the city fathers made them fearful enough of her influence that they felt compelled to end her life. We (especially the more excitable preachers among us) can be thankful that religious toleration in America has moved beyond that point. But fascination with and fear of those who dare to be different has not disappeared.
The question is Just how different does one have to be in order to be branded a cultist? In England during the 1950s, evangelicals in-general and Billy Graham in particular were labeled cultists. One of the most interesting books I came upon in my research on cults is titled Old Time Religion Is a Cult. The author, who pas tors the Positive Attitude Celebration (church?) in California maintains that all religious bodies that demand that their members believe anything except that God loves them unconditionally are cults!
So how does one really identify a cult? Definitions abound—all carefully tailored by their authors to exclude themselves.
To a careful Bible student, truth shines out from error like a full moon in a clear night sky. Labeling a group a cult seems to me to be a defensive ploy that has been used throughout history by the majority against minorities. Were not Christians called a cult in Rome? Did not the Pharisees regard Christ's apostles as a cult?
Whenever we allow others to close our minds by affixing labels to groups we know nothing about, the search for truth cannot succeed. One need not exhaustively examine every group before accepting or rejecting its teachings. If a group is teaching error, it doesn't take long to discover that fact if we compare their message with Scripture. But if we allow the cult label to keep us from even a cursory look at a group, then we must give up looking for a group that teaches truth, because every group is called a cult by someone.
The real way to fight error is to proclaim truth, not just to label error as a cult teaching.
