U Mad Mo Bro? A Look At Cult Mind Control Techniques.

I came across a link to this talk by mormon "apostle" Jeffrey R. Holland. As a member of the "Quorum of the Twelve" Mr. Holland is considered to be a prophetic apostle on par with the twelve apostles of Christ. Listen to what he says at around the 2:10 mark:



If you didn't catch that here it is transcribed:

"Don’t you dare bail. I am so furious with people who leave this church. I don’t know whether ‘furious’ is a good apostolic word. But I am. What on earth kind of conviction is that? What kind of patty-cake, taffy-pull experience is that? As if none of this ever mattered, as if nothing in our contemporary life mattered, as if this is all just supposed to be “just exactly the way I want it and answer every one of my questions and pursue this and occupy that and defy this – and then maybe I’ll be a Latter-Day Saint”?! Well, there’s too much Irish in me for that."

Notice the less than subtle suggestions embedded here in his talk. If you leave it is because you are a pouting child that doesn't get everything they want. If you leave it is because you are caught up in the "me first" mentality of this age. Even his "occupy that" comment tries to link people who leave mormonism with the Occupy Wall Street spoiled brats. His screed against those without firm convictions is pretty hilarious coming from an "apostle" of an aberrant religion that changes "revelations" from God like I change shirts.

One thing every cult or cult-like movement needs is a barrier to people leaving. Usually, and this is the case with mormonism, the threat is that by leaving the cult you become cut off from God spiritually and are separated from your friends and family terrestrially. In mormonism this is a multi-part threat. You are "cut off from the blessings of the temple", you are cast out of the "true church" which lands you in a worse afterlife than Adolph Hitler. Worst of all for many people, you are torn from friends and family that stay in mormonism. Another part of the control mechanism is to reject any possibility that people are leaving for legitimate reasons. It is always that they have been offended by someone or have some dark, hidden sin in their life or that they are just faithless. You can never allow any hint that someone left because they discovered that mormonism is a false cult.

I wanted to share this because it is typical of cult mind control techniques. For believers we need to see and recognize the signs of a cult. When you witness to a member of a cult the conversation is very different and often more difficult but as someone who has escaped a controlling cult like the "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints", I have a burden to help those still trapped and bewitched by false prophets like Jeffrey Holland, a man who profanes the name of Christ every day and heaps judgement on his head by leading others astray.

Never More Dark Than When Surrounded With Light

So this is me sharing what someone else shared but this was too good not to. Tim Challies posted a letter from a guy named Tim Keesee  called Liberation Letter. I don't know much about the second Tim mentioned but his letter written about Christmas time at Temple Square in Salt Lake City was excellent. This is the key passage (emphasis mine):

Nowhere is the chameleon-like character of Mormonism on display more than at Christmastime. After a richly-orchestrated, pitch-perfect “O Holy Night,” one of the Mormon “apostles” is now preaching. He started out by awarding Luke a brief honorable mention for providing us an account of the Christmas story, but after dispensing with this lip service, he went on to “another record” in The Book of Mormon. It was some of Joseph Smith’s make-believe about Samuel the Lamanite and the Nephites in America at the time of Jesus’ birth, etc., etc. The blind leading the blind, and the ditch here that they’ve fallen into is lined with Christmas lights, yet it is horribly dark.

Image from ldschurchhistory.tumblr.com

I am not a huge Christmas person but I am also not an anti-Christmas crusader. It is a cultural event and that is about it but Tim Keesee does raise a valid point that has broader application. We call Christmas the most wonderful time of the year but it is also the time of the year when empty and false religions are best able to hide their error by the glow of Christmas lights and drown out their false teaching with the singing of Christmas carols. At no other time of the year is the line between truth and error blurrier. One can go into any number of religious edifices where the Gospel has long been abandoned or was never there in the first place and sing "Silent Night" alongside people who don't really believe the words that they are singing. Believe this, Mormonism doesn't have a monopoly on this error hidden by poinsettias and garland, not by a long stretch.

If there is ever a time where theological precision is critical, it is this time of year. This is the time of year when the church needs to be very clear about who Jesus is, why He came, how He came and what He did after He arrived. The church tends to bring a weak and watered down message because many churches welcome the dreaded "Chreasters", people who only show up to church on Christmas and Easter, For many people this is the one and only potential exposure to Christianity they are going to get in a given year and it is no time to push a flaccid message of how cute baby Jesus was. Now is the time to refine our message in the fire of the Gospel, getting rid of the cultural dross and leaving behind the Gospel and nothing else. A nice culturally acceptable Christmas story may make people feel warm and fuzzy but it does nothing to save the lost sinner.

There is more, infinitely more, to being a Christian than singing "O Little Town of Bethlehem". Let this be a time when our words are dripping with doctrine and thundering with theology. There is no Christmas without the incarnation and absent the cross. Woe to us if we let this be forgotten in the darkness that hides under the lights.

Joseph Smith And His Magic Seer Stone: A Rare Act Of Honesty Out Of Salt Lake City

Joseph Smith's magic seer stone

One of the deeply held tenets of mormonism is that the founder of their religion, Joseph Smith, was the "prophet of the restoration". Based on this belief and the alleged apostasy of all other Christians since the earliest days of the church, Smith claimed to be a prophet and seer divinely chosen to restore genuine Christianity in the form of the religion known as Mormonism. His signature feat was the "translation" of a book known as the Book of Mormon from a record inscribed on golden plates that purports to describe a Jewish civilization that existed in America in tandem with the events described in the Bible, culminating in a visit to this civilization by Christ. The account has proven problematic as the plates were never actually seen by anyone but Smith, there is no such language as "reformed Egyptian" which Smith claimed the plates were written in and there is no evidence of a proto-Jewish/Christian civilization anywhere in the Americas. Prospective converts to mormonism are asked to take Smith's claim on faith and "pray about the Book of Mormon". Compounding the problem for mormons are the wildly varying accounts Smith provided for this entire process, from being confused apparently by the number and identity of various divine visitors who told him where to find the conveniently located golden plates and the method he used for "translation". The story has changed a lot and one key facet, Smith's claim to have used a seer stone in a hat to translate the book of mormon, has been mostly hidden from mormon members. These members would often find out about this online and be quite disenchanted with the church for hiding the embarrassing truth.

What occurred recently is remarkable for its rarity. The mormon church revealed the existence of the seer stones and a picture of one called the "Chocolate Easter Egg" stone (see picture). Now the spin they are putting on this article for the October issue of Ensign Magazine, the mormon church's main periodical, would make even  the most experienced carnival ride aficionado barf in dizziness but it is a huge deal that they are finally being honest with the way that the "Book of Mormon" was alleged to be translated. It is quite a difference from the way it has always been portrayed in mormon literature. For example, the picture on the left shows (from the official mormon website) how it has often been portrayed. Notice that Smith and Oliver Cowdery (the scribe) are sitting at a table. Cowdery can clearly see the plates even though the evidence suggests that neither Cowdery or anyone else actually saw the plates.  There are no physical aids to translation, like a magic stone in a hat, rather it looks like Smith is reading directly from  the plates and Cowdery is writing what Smith "translated". Other renditions are different, some with the curtain, some with Smith wearing the breastplate and "Urim and Thummim". As Smith moved west and his following grew, his accounts of critical events changed quite dramatically.

I don't know about you but if I was visited by angelic visitors I would remember who they were and how many there were. Likewise if I translated a book claiming to be "another testament of Jesus Christ" and the most important event in the history of Christianity since the crucifixion, I would recall if I was reading it directly or via a stone in a hat to get the "revelation". Young Joseph Smith possessed a vivid imagination and the account of the first vision and the translation of the "Book of Mormon" bear all the marks of someone making it up as he went, in much the same way that he claimed to translate papyri that were later shown to say nothing at all what Smith claimed.

The easily debunked claims of virtually all of early mormonism are not really the point to this. What is the point is that the mormon leadership is finally admitting in public to issues like Joseph Smith "marrying" dozens of women, including some already married and others as young as 14 as well as his use of pagan and folk magic devices like the "seer stone" in a hat and the alleged "Urim and Thummim". This rare show of honesty in public is a stark contrast to the normally secretive mormon elite that hides most information very closely, only permitting carefully vetted documents out in public, and might be a sign of waving the white flag after realizing that in this day and age any inquisitive mormon or prospective convert can find plenty of evidence of shenanigans with the historical record. When the opening lines of thousands of young missionaries is shown to be malarkey, it is no wonder that mormons are leaving the church or becoming "inactive" in huge numbers.

Hopefully the foundations of this cultic religion will continue to crumble but as always my sincere and prayerful desire is that Christians are there to catch people when the house of cards that is mormonism collapses. As I have said on many occasions, it is not enough to prove mormonism false, a fairly easy task. It is critical that we also show them the real Jesus Christ. An active mormon, a mormon apostate or an atheist all have the same need for the redeeming power of the true Gospel.

For my testimony of being saved out of mormonism please see Our Journey Out Of Mormonism: Saved By Sovereign Grace.

For other, older blog posts from me on mormonism see The Fo-Mo Chronicles

Other valuable sources of information

Utah Lighthouse Ministry Sandra Tanner and her late husband Jerald, one of the originals and a vast repository of knowledge and research!

Mormonism Research Ministry Another treasure trove!

God Never Sinned

Mormon Coffee



Joseph Smith seer stones false prophet LDS mormon mormonism church of Jesus Christ of latter-day saints.

Talking To Mormons

I haven't blogged much about mormonism for some time. the early years after we left are marked by a lot of blogging about mormonism as a catharsis from being in a cult. People still know my background and that background shapes a lot of what I think now, why I am suspicious of authoritarian religious models and top down hierarchy. I don't take anything anyone says at face value without first studying it for myself.

Anyway. a friend of Facebook had some questions about talking to mormons and the kind of questions to ask. Encountering a mormon family or a pair of missionaries can be befuddling. They seem so nice and sincere and use so many word that we hear in the church. I put together a little summary for her and thought it might be helpful for others who are looking to minister to people trapped in mormonism, how to talk to them, the questions to ask, the need for specific definitions. This will hopefully be helpful to others. The so-called Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has shifted marketing strategy to try to gloss over the enormous differences between mormonism and orthodox Christianity and far too many Christians have given little thought to the central, exclusive teachings and doctrines of Christianity. Ignorance of Scripture and doctrine is a road to being deceived, something cults like the mormon "church" exploit. What follows is a slightly modified version of my Facebook message to her, it is very cursory but it gives a good starting point....

-----------

In talking to mormons and asking questions the first answer is never enough. Who is Jesus? The Son of God. Ok so far so good. What does that mean? That is where the differences come up. The issue a lot of Christians run into is that we use many of the same words as mormons but they mean different things, so a solid definition is critical to any meaningful conversation.

I usually lead with questions about the person and nature of God the Father and Christ. Are they unique? Have they always been as they are? Can mankind become like them? That can burn up a lot of time. It is critical to know what Christianity teaches and why. It is also helpful to know what mormonism teaches, namely that God was once a man, Jesus and Satan are spirit brothers and that mankind can attain godhood. Questions like "Has God always been as He is now?", properly couched, is a tough one to answer because the mormons know that the answer is no but they don't like to say it. Other good questions have to do with salvation, how is a sinner saved? The proper mormon response is a lot more complicated than faith. This is from the official LDS webpage:

Salvation from Sin. To be cleansed from sin through the Savior's Atonement, an individual must exercise faith in Jesus Christ, repent, be baptized, and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost (see Acts 2:37-38). Those who have been baptized and have received the Holy Ghost through the proper priesthood authority have been conditionally saved from sin. In this sense, salvation is conditional, depending on an individual's continuing in faithfulness, or enduring to the end in keeping the commandments of God (see 2 Peter 2:20-22). 

One of the issues that mormons bring up is that "God always used prophets to lead His people so doesn't it make sense to have prophets today?" The response to that is the beginning of the 1st chapter of Hebrews which I have found many mormons and even their missionaries have never noticed.

Mormons are pretty cagey about their real beliefs. The Book of Mormon, a ludicrous book that is pretty obviously (in retrospect) the work of Joseph Smith, contains very few distinctive mormon doctrines. Things like vicarious baptism for the dead, holy undergarments that are supposed to provide protection, the idea of Jesus and Satan being brothers, the exaltation of man becoming a god, polygamy, etc. are not found in the BoM but are found in their other canonical works, the Doctrine & Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price.

There are a couple of good webpages I use for reference. I have a lot of the actual materials but these groups specialize in witnessing to mormons:

Utah Lighthouse Ministry

Mormonism Research Ministry

CARM's page on mormonism

God never sinned

Hope that helps, I am happy to provide any other info you can use!

What's Love Got To Do With It?

Channeling Tina Turner this morning…

A few days ago I posted a list of characteristics of the church by Dave Black. As I said I like his list a lot. I also promised to give you a look at a list I like a whole lot less. The list I found troubling comes courtesy of the Resurgence, one of the arms of Mars Hill and ultimately Mark Driscoll and carries the bold title of 8 Biblical Marks Of A True Church. No surprise, it turns out that all of the marks are what Mars Hill is already doing.

At the outset I have to say that while what is going on at Mars Hill it doesn’t impact me personally, it does impact the church both locally with those in fellowship at the various Mars Hill campuses as well as globally through those that are influenced by Mark Driscoll around the world. I look westward with a growing sense of alarm, the sort of alarm that can only come from someone who has come out of a highly authoritarian, controlling and hierarchically cultic setting. When someone frequently brags about firing people and chortling about the trail of bodies he has left in his wake of those who didn't get with his program, warning bells and flashing lights should be going off. When a local church starts absorbing and assimilating other local churches, firing staff and driving away people who refuse to be assimilated, what is happening might be "successful" but it isn't the church.

Even the title "Biblical Marks of a True Church" reduces the church into a bunch of local, autonomous groups that are only loosely linked together with a linkage that is barely there in theory and completely absent in practice. Asking “what is a church” without first asking “what is the church” puts the cart before the horse. Unless we grasp what the church is globally and universally, in her entirety, we will never understand and correctly practice church community locally. Mars Hill in Seattle is not an independent local church, or at least it shouldn’t be. It should be a local expression of a larger community, one more concerned with the health of the church around the world than it is with preserving its own identity and snatching up other struggling “local churches” to be assimilated.

As you peruse this list, you will find a lot of the typical stuff: "preaching", authoritarian leadership, "sacraments" and "church membership", but something is obviously missing. The vital characteristic of the church that is absent from this list, and many others, is love. Such a simple thing and yet so crucial to the life of the church. Still we find list after list where love is not mentioned other than in passing. Even the vaunted 9 Marks, a list that spawned a ministry, doesn’t list love as one of the 9 mark of the church. Preaching? Oh yes, we must have that! So called sacraments? Can’t have a “real” church without them! Love? Well that is just sort of assumed and implied. I mean I obviously love my fellow Christians, at least the other members of my church, because I grace them with my presence on Sunday and I dress myself and my family up to impress them.

What does it mean that so many people are convinced that the church either is already loving one another in spite of the evidence to the contrary or that it isn't as imortant as adherence to all manner of manmade reigious traditions? When we don't even consider love or unity or self-sacrifice to be an essential of the church, doesn't it mean that our view of the church is horrible distorted? We cannot have a "biblical true church" if we are missing these crucial characteristics. I don't care how exegetically sound the preaching or how conservative the attire or how detailed the statement of faith, if you don't have love you are not manifesting the church. Some of these other things are important (and many are not) but they all come in a distant second to love.

Jesus said to His disciples and by extension to us:

By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:35)

If that is true and it most certainly is, then the opposite is also true. If we don't love one another people will not recognize us as His disciples. Perhaps that explains why the world doesn't persecute us in the West because the world doesn't even recognize who we claim to be. I have come to a point where I would rather fellowship with a "liberal" Christian that loves his brothers and sisters than a "conservative" Christian who sees his brothers and sisters as people to be made to conform to man-made rules.

The church was birthed in the supreme act of self-sacrificial love and loving God and one another is the top priority of the church. Anyone who fails to recognize that and give love its proper place of prominence frankly doesn't understand the first thing about the church and really has no business declaring what are or are not the "marks of a biblical church".

Inviting Wolves Into The Flock

Liberty University, one of the largest "Christian universities" in the world, announced it is hosting mormon Mitt Romney as the commencement speaker in May.

Now the GOP nominee and potential future President of the United States certainly is a great speaker to have but what message does this send? The final speaker these kids will hear before being sent out into the world is someone who denies Christ and is part of a religious movement that intentionally and vigorously targets Christians with a false gospel.

What do you think, is this appropriate? Would Liberty invite a devout Muslim to speak or an atheist? If not, why a mormon?


But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed unless of course you agree with his politics and he will advance your agenda if elected. (Gal 1:8-9, Culture Warrior Standard Version)

Being deceived by a cult is no laughing matter

Lots of people had quite a few chuckles over the last few weeks at the expense of Harold Camping and his followers. Jokes were flying and tweets making fun of Camping were plentiful. I intentionally didn't blog anything about Camping. His error and spiritual deceit were obvious and didn't really warrant piling on. I did make a few snide tweets regarding his false prophecy and frankly I feel kind of bad about that.

Being deceived by a false prophet and cultist is no laughing matter. It is of deadly serious eternal significance.

First, Jesus is coming back and while we don't know the details and are not intended to, we do know that Christ will return. Engaging in mockery of Camping alongside those that deny that Christ arose or that He will return is counterproductive.

Second, having once been involved in a cult group I can tell you that what Camping and his followers need is the Gospel of Jesus Christ and mockery of them is about the worst and least God honoring way to evangelize them. Mocking Muslims or Buddhists for their beliefs is unlikely to win any of them to Christ. The same holds true with Camping's followers. I would hate to think that we are setting aside the command to love others and proclaim the Gospel for the sake of a few chortles and retweets.

Harold Camping and his followers are lost, deceived people just like those caught up in mormonism or the Jehovah's Witnesses or those deluded people who died following Jim Jones and David Koresh. We need to refute such false prophets and compare what they say to the truth of the Gospel, in love but without compromise. What we don't need to do is use their lostness to get a laugh or drive blog hits. I sincerely hope that God's people will reach out to Camping's followers with the Gospel of Christ and that God will call as many of them to His Son as He has decreed.

Trying to regulate Moloch worship in Michigan

There is legislation that has been introduced in Michigan to regulate the disposal of aborted babies, requiring either medical cremation or burial at the request of the mother. This was sparked by the recent discovery of large numbers of aborted babies in garbage bags in the dumpster behind an abortion mill, individually placed in plastic baggies, many with the mothers name attached to the baggie. Apparently the humane thing to do is require that these tiny victims are “properly” disposed of.

Following an investigation of the matter by the Michigan attorney general, which was recently completed, state Rep. Rick Jones, R-Grand Ledge, announced Wednesday he has co-sponsored legislation to require doctors and clinics to medically cremate an aborted fetus, or bury it if the parents request it. Failure to comply could be punished by three years in prison and/or a $5,000 fine.

"When I was notified of this, I was horrified," Jones said. "I couldn't believe it."

I understand what Representative Jones is trying to do and I appreciate his efforts. Having said that, it is naïve for people to think that abortion mills are treating aborted children as anything other than something to be disposed of as cheaply as possible. What is truly horrifying is not that aborted babies are tossed in a dumpster. The truly horrifying part is that women pay a “doctor” to kill the defenseless baby inside of them, babies that are entirely dependent on their mothers and yet those mothers choose to fix their “mistakes” by killing that child. In a world where worship of self-gratification is the highest religion, there are far too many “doctors” who are willing to sacrifice children on the altars of Choice and Lust and Profit.

These “doctors” are not doctors at all. They are not healers in any sense of the word. They are assassins with diplomas from a medical school. People hire assassins to kill someone else when they don’t have the nerve or the ability to do it themselves and that is all abortionists are, assassins pure and simple. We shouldn’t be nearly as worried about how aborted children are disposed of as we are about what would lead a woman to pay an assassin to murder her own child.

I have a better idea. Since they are labeling the baggies with these children in them anyway, instead of requiring the clinic to incinerate the remains, give them to the woman that the child came out of. That way she can exercise her “choice” in how to dispose of this child that she paid to have torn from her body. These clinics make it all so neat and tidy. Come in the front door pregnant, go out the front door not pregnant. Meanwhile, the child you came in with is unceremoniously discarded in a plastic bag in a dumpster in the alley. Start making women carry the fruits of their “choice” out in a clear plastic bag and let them see that the cost of that visit to an abortion mill is far greater than a few hundred dollars.

One of the most horrifying forms of idolatry in the Bible was when the Israelites adopted the pagan practice of offering children up as a fiery sacrifice to false gods like Moloch. America is not Israel under the Old Covenant and the gods being sacrificed to are not Moloch but the high priests of the cult of “choice” are every bit as bloodthirsty in slaying children to appease their gods. Perhaps they are worse because they are not motivated as much by a false religion as they are by simple greed. There is nothing that can make the disposal of these children “proper”, not burial and not cremation. They had their humanity stripped from them when their mothers offered them up to these assassins for a small fee. Regulating the disposal of their bodies only makes this horrible crime a little more respectable.

I don't think they are coming back

The Jehovah's Witnesses were here again. I got kind of preachy near the end because I could sense they were not going to make another visit. They brought something up that was kind of odd, in that they were trying to argue that Proverbs 8:22 was proof that Christ was a created being and not eternally co-existent. Proverbs 8:22-23 reads:

"The LORD possessed me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of old. Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning of the earth. (Pro 8:22-23)

They were arguing that this was speaking about Christ and that it showed that Christ was created. I think I finally convinced them that even though this was apparently an important proof text for them, in context it is speaking of wisdom, not of Christ specifically. I think they finally gave in. We also spoke at some length about the triune nature of God an delved a bit into the importance of qualified individuals to translate from the original languages. I sincerely pray that what we spoke about today will flourish in changed hearts because I doubt they will come back. I also know that God is sovereign and that if these men are of the elect that God will change their hearts and they will come to faith, in spite of and not because of my efforts.

The one guy came from a Roman Catholic background. What is sad is that he grew up surrounded by religion but never came to know who Christ is. My immediate prideful thought was that it was no wonder someone would grow up as Catholic and then go astray. Later though I thought that his background is little different from so many people, with a religious background and no knowledge of Christ. The rituals are different, the emptiness is the same. Please pray for Dan and Victor, but also pray for the Body of Christ. Pray that we will not be satisfied and content with rituals and traditions but instead will only find satisfaction in Christ.

Cults and cult-like behavior

In most of orthodox Christendom, we know the cults. Some are questionable (seventh-day adventists) and some are obviously cults (mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses. We reject their claims, point out their divergence with orthodox Christianity, seek to witness and evangelize to win them to Christ. But sometimes false teachers are harder to spot. Some of them are even brothers in Christ.

There are some groups and movements within the church who would affirm the basic and most important tenets of Christianity: infallibility of the Scripture, the deity of Christ, justification by faith alone. Yet they still exhibit signs of a cult. How to deal with Christians who affirm thee truth but by their actions and attitudes seem to be somewhat amiss?

- Taking doctrines to extremes

Movements with cultic tendencies tend to be highly extremist, to the point that their extremism becomes a badge of honor (this is not the same sort of extremism that Barry Goldwater was speaking of). If there are problems in the church, find the most radical, most extreme reaction to problems, both real and perceived. There is a difference between reform and overreaction. That extremism makes radical separatism easier.

- Overly separatist

A similar issue is one of extreme, radical separatism. Our movement is the only true remnant of the true faith left. Everyone else falls into three camps: unbelievers, heretics or deceived. While I have many disagreements over various doctrines with other Christians (charismatics and tongues, Presbyterians and infant baptism, Lutherans and sacramentalism) I also recognize them as fellow believers with whom I have disagreements. Many people look at Together for the Gospel as a terrible thing because someone must be compromising. You have Baptists, Presbyterians and Charismatics all on the same stage sharing a microphone. Someone must have compromised! The reality is that the T4G brethren recognize and acknowledge that they have serious and substantive differences with one another in doctrine and practice, but that doesn’t lead inexorably towards forced separatism. In other words, we can still sing together, pray together and sit under the preaching of the Word together, even if we wouldn’t be members of each others church. What helps out radical separatism is when you get the volatile mixture of spiritually immature people and a forceful leader.

- Led by individuals with forceful characters

Men (typically) with forceful and strong personalities are normally at the forefront of these movements. These men often can lead others and bring them under conviction by sheer will power and confidence. I have a knack for being able to make even a really outlandish statement or something I know nothing about sound convincing by saying it confidently and forcefully. Not everyone who is forceful and certain is a cult leader, but I would say that every cult leader has a forceful personality.

My intent is not to name names or peg certain groups because it is hard to pin down. Is every church that holds to King James Onlyism bordering on cultic? Certainly not! But are there many KJVO churches and many individuals who are, holding to a double inspiration doctrine? Absolutely! The same is true with house church people. Some are just honestly unable to find a Bible believing church, or perhaps can’t make it to church during normal church hours. But others look askance and even sneer at anyone who goes to the “steeple house” as being a false convert or woefully deceived. And the same is true of charismatics. Not everyone in the charismatic movement is a moonbat, but there are plenty who are charmin’ snakes, barkin’ like dogs and rolling around on the floor. Heck there are people who hold to Reformed theology that act cultic at times, normally by so narrowly defining who is or is not Reformed that they make a pretty small island of the true followers of John Calvin.

It is a fine line between fervent belief and cultic behavior sometimes.

Hell hath no fury...

...like a cultist being mocked!

I guess cult leaders Victor Hafichuk and Paul Cohen don't like being mocked and having their false teachings called out. After a couple of posts on Lee Shelton's website, they suddenly came back with a lengthy diatribe condemning Lee, me, Spurgeon, Augustine among others with being false teachers (Uh, Mr. Kettle, there is a Mr. Pot on the phone, something about you being black...) If I am listed in the same category as a giant of the faith like Charles Spurgeon, I must be doing something right.

On a more serious note, some of cult leader Hafichuk's followers post their testimonies. This one, from Ingrid Benson, is heart-rending and shows starkly the fruits of following a cult leader.

Her children lost, her husband dead, her parents estranged from her, all the result of failing to be properly obedient to Victor. One of the hallmarks of cults is to seperate people from friends and family to better control them, and this "testimony" follows that exact pattern. Coming out of a cult like mormonism myself, the similarities between Hafichuk and Joseph Smith are eerie. I thought that men like this could not be successful in the world anymore, but that has been proven wrong. Pray for these men, and especially for their deceived followers, that they may come to know Christ and be freed from the shackles of this cult.

The dangerous world of junk email

You have to be careful checking into your bulk email folder. Nestled amongst spam for Irish lottery winners and cheap pharmaceuticals, I came across an even more odious email. The subject line of the email said it all....

The Fruit of Cain Multiplied: The Murderer John Calvin

WOW! So I read the text of the email, being a glutton for punishment...

The following paper will be of interest and pertinence to you for possibly several reasons among many. It has been our great honor to discern and identify the error and spirit of John Calvin, whose rule is yet propagated in the hearts of men with evil consequences for all. The Lord Jesus Christ has visited us with the Light of His countenance to put an end to this evil, justifying His servants whom Calvin murdered, and His Name in the sight of all.

The Fruit of Cain Multiplied: The Murderer John Calvin

Show me whom you follow, and I will know what manner of person you are or will become. If you do not know whom you are following, don't you think it is time to find out how and where you are being led? Do you think you will altogether escape the consequences because ignorant? Think again. You already suffer them.

John Calvin was one of the most vicious of wolves ever to pose as a lamb of God. His supremely self-righteous spirit lives on in those who lionize and follow him, even unbeknownst to themselves. Truly, "that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God."

Paul Cohen & Victor Hafichuk

http://www.thepathoftruth.com/

Spurred on by some morbid fascination, I went to the webpage. Who knew that I had the blood of martyred saints throughout the ages on my hands! And who knew that heretic Michael Servetus is one of God's saints and servants, while John Calvin is not! The entire article really deals strictly with Calvin and Servetus. Mr. Cohen rather cavalierly claims the ability to refute Calvin's doctrines, but makes no real attempt to do so in his treatise (and given the juvenile quality of their writings, I doubt he could even articulate what Calvin taught much less refute it).

Aside from any discussion of doctrines, by this criterion alone John Calvin was a false prophet of the first order. How do we know? Because he condoned and excused, when not initiating it himself, the persecution and murder of those who opposed his doctrines and position. These are not the good fruits of a man of God.

We need not even prove the falsehood of Calvin’s doctrines to identify him as preeminent among the many false teachers professing Christ, though we can do that too. What the Lord gave us in this one simple directive is more than sufficient for judging this man by his fruits. One such as Calvin who kills others because they differ with his beliefs is a murderer.

Two issues jump out at me, one with whether complicity with the killing of Servetus makes Calvin a non-Christian and the other with whether or not the failings of Calvin the man negate the teachings of Calvin the theologian.

On the first. True, Servetus was a heretic and was killed and Calvin was in part at fault. It is also true that Servetus was a heretic who denied the Trinity. Calvin was right that Servetus held to a false philosophy but was wrong to have any part in his death. Does that mean that he is cut off from Christ? Are there any Christians who have committed sins, including murder? You better believe it. I seem to remember a fellow, a man after God's heart, who had a man killed so he could have his wife. Was David not a believer?

On the second, holding to Calvinism does NOT mean slavishly following Calvin in everything he taught or believed. I think that Calvin was completely wrong about infant baptism. Does that mean I am not a Calvinist? Hardly. We follow Christ and the teachings of the Bible, and Calvinism as a system is the system that best compiles and systematizes the various doctrines of the Bible into a coherent system. We follow Calvinism not because of Calvin, but because of Christ. Are there Christians who do not buy into Calvinism? Sure, and that doesn't mean that they aren't Christians.

Mr. Cohen and associates seem to paint with a pretty broad brush across the spectrum of Christianity in their list of false teachers, ranging from men like John Piper and Billy Graham to Rick Warren and Benny Hinn. Like so many groups, it seems that anyone who doesn't walk in lockstep with them falls into the false teacher category. I mean, John Piper is a false teacher? And the reason given that Piper is a false teacher in the subtly titled "Piping a Most Hideous Melody"? Because he teaches the doctrine of an eternal, real hell which is a radical idea held by...well every Christian for the last two thousand years.

I will now give you something specific to read there, after having had a chance to look over the site you sent me, www.desiringgod.org.

What did I find? A desert, a nuclear waste desert. I see the kind of death and destruction that only man can perform. I know this seems like hyperbole to you, exaggerating something you do not even believe to be true in the first place. You have found inspiration at John’s site, a little oasis perhaps. I do know, however, that truth can be found everywhere in men’s churches and religious works, and that it is the subtle and hidden error lacing the truth in those things that kills, as when Satan tempted Eve with lies couched in godly terms.

One of the biggest and worst lies ever told in man-made Christianity, one that John Piper subscribes to and teaches, is that there is a place of interminable torment and punishment for sinners. Men think to find this doctrine in the Bible, but while it is something the carnal man would wish on others, it is surely not something God has ever said or that ever entered into His mind. He made creation as an act of His love. He so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son for it. We are His, bought and paid for by His blood. Would you make something in your own image, let us say conceive a son, knowing and purposing in advance that you would be consigning a sentient being, your very own flesh and blood, to torment that will never cease? What did Jesus say on the cross? “Father, burn them all in hell forever”? Or did He say, “Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do”? Do you think His prayer was heard and honored? Jesus said that the Father always hears Him because He does that which pleases the Father.

Mr. Cohen and company apparently subscribe into a doctrine of eventual universalism, that all men will eventually be saved, that hell in only temporary. That is one of their many un-Biblical beliefs that they list that comes dangerously close to cult territory (they even try to respond to the question of whether they are a cult, and their response does little to deflect that question)

The Good News is not that everyone gets into heaven without exception, but that in a world of men doomed by their own rebellion and sin Jesus Christ came to save some from eternal hell and give them eternal life. Universalism is any form does violence to the mercy and grace of Christ and His effectual sacrifice for His sheep.

The webpage of "The Path of Truth" is a disturbing look into the world of those who claim "secret" knowledge of the things of God, in direct contradiction to the teachings of the Bible. Everyone who holds to a view that doesn't jive with this "secret" knowledge is of necessity a heretic and false teacher. I pray that Mr. Cohen and Mr. Hafichuk and their followers come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, repent of their false condemnation of Christians and humbly submit to Jesus Christ as Lord.

Beware the emails in your spam file, they are probably there for a reason.

The Fruits of False Prophets

Joseph Smith and David Koresh: Two very similar men seperated by 150 years.

A comparison that has interested me for some time is the eerie relationship between mormon founder Joseph Smith and Branch Davidian David Koresh. America has long been a breeding ground for cults and megalomaniac religious leaders. One of the hallmarks of American society is the open and free expression of religion, and that freedom has led to both wonderful fruit and at the same time cults and heretical movements. All cult leaders have common features, but Smith and Koresh really interest me, in part because of my former life in mormonism and a clear recollection of Waco, and also because they seem so much more similar than other cult group leaders. I am certainly not the first person to note this comparison, The Watchman Expositor addressed this very topic years ago, and while it is pretty brief, it does describe a good overview of the similarities between these two self-proclaimed "prophets"

Claims to a prophetic mantle

Both Smith and Koresh claimed to have unique status as a prophet, with a status that is normally reserved for Biblical prophets. They used their forceful personalities and personal charisma to attract followers into their cults by appealing to their general disaffection with existing churches. Both men cultivated an "us versus them", true believer versus apostate dichotomy that further cemented their followers dependence on them. Like all cults, anyone who questioned the cult or it's leader was a threat and was to be shunned. Both cult leaders sought to place themselves between their followers and the rest of the world, and that division led to many of their deaths.

Sexual preoccupation and polygamy

Another common thread is the use of their prophetic authority to engage in polygamy. Smith and several of his successors were notorious for the polygamous practices, in Smith's case with as many as a dozen (or more) other women, including teens as young as 14. Koresh is described as: "never thought above his belt buckle", and was "married" to as many as 19 women. Like Smith, it is reported that Koresh had relations with young girls, at least one of which was only 12 years old. I am not sure if they both used the idea of being a prophet as a way to obtain women or if it developed afterwards.

Obsession with martyrdom

It is no coincidence that both men saw their lives end in bloodshed. They both had an apparent obsession with being martyrs, Smith showing up at a jail where he knew he was likely to be at least roughed up by mobs and Koresh engaging in a gun battle with the Feds that was going to end up with his people dead. Koresh could have ended the standoff at any time by surrendering but instead chose death in a fiery conflagration.

Paranoia toward the government and outsiders leading to isolation

The Branch Davidians, living when they did, could not form a whole community like Nauvoo but their isolated compound in Waco was as close as you could get. With limited contact and complete reliance on Koresh, it became easier to cultivate a paranoia toward the government. Smith went even further, creating in Nauvoo, IL his own city with it's own militia force and Smith declaring himself to be a "general". For both men, isolation from the general society allowed them to control their followers and practice polygamy relatively unopposed.

Had Joseph Smith lived in modern times, he very well could have turned out like Koresh and had Koresh been born 150 years earlier, I could very easily see him starting a movement similar to mormonism. Both men put themselves before their followers, used them and led many to an early death. False teachers and prophets will always be with us, which is why staying grounded in the Word is so important.