False Cults Free Online Course 1, Lesson 1
False Cults Free Online Course 1, Lesson 1
False Cults : An Introduction
Bible-believing Christians have always been weary of teachings, doctrines, movements, and organizations that take people away from the Biblical faith. Thus all conservative and evangelical churches have given unusual attention to false cults and false teachings and also to methods needed to fight these movements. This kept Cults away most Evangelical churches for a long time, but now they have begun to attack the evangelical believers with a renewed zeal.
In the last few decades the false cults have given much attention to fishing or people-trapping. Using the latest psychological information, they have discovered the causes for resistance and also the methods to overcome it. Many of the groups have been producing massive handbooks on people-catching. These books explain religious-salesmanship in the minutes detail. Even the strongest objection that can be raised by an evangelical Christian is mentioned, along with the cultist strategies to nullify this opposition.
Thus the cultist who knocks at our door today is a person vastly different from his predecessors of yesteryears. In the past it was a battle only of doctrines, but today it has turned into a highly sophisticated doctrinal-psychological assault from them. Yet the war can be won, and we can defend our faith (and the spiritual balance of our family-members), provided we are armed with a single weapon: the Sword of the spirit.
Using the Sword of the Spirit requires a bit of preparation on two fronts. First, we should be thoroughly acquainted with the sword itself. Second, we should be knowledgeable about the enemy and his strategies. The first part is done by a thorough study of the major Biblical doctrines, and that is not the aim of this book. The second part is done by studying the cults in some detail, and that is what we propose to do in the coming pages.
What Is A Cult: A Cult is a religious group or movement that attacks or questions the major tenets of the historical Christian faith. Many minor subjects are also attacked, but these do not pose as serious a danger as the previous category. The purpose of such attack is not to expose any genuine errors in our doctrinal understanding, nor to reform any failure, but to destroy the cardinal doctrines. The ultimate aim of this destructive work is to replace Biblically sound doctrines with the petty, erroneous, and even blasphemous doctrines of the false cult.
The Cultic phenomena has today become such a powerful means of gaining power and money that it is now seen even beyond strictly religious circles. Thus though originally cults were mostly of religious origin, today they can be of non religious origin too. Such divers is the origin of cults today that it has become necessary to classify them into four slightly overlapping groups. The details of this classification ate given in another part of this book.
While we are still at the definition stage, it would be good to distinguish between religions and cults lest one wonder why we have included Transcendental Meditation, but not Hinduism, in this book.
Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, etc. are classified as major world religious. These world religions exist by virtue of their independent world-views, and not by denial/building upon the foundation of any other major religion. Cults are smaller groups formed primarily upon denial of some tenets of major religions. T he deviating path embraced by the cults and the major religion with which they compete are often very clear. T here might be some religious as well as cults that do not fit the above definition. However, there are other factors like historical background and conventions that help us to distinguish even such groups.
One special aspect of the cults and movements discussed in this book is either their hatred for Christianity or for their competition with the true Christian faith. It is either this spirit of competition or their desire to eliminate the Christian faith that makes it important to study them. It is a battle in which there is no neutral position.
Eternal vigilance is the price to be paid for freedom.
False Cults Free Online Course 1, Lesson 1
False Cults : An Introduction
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