The Christian countercult movement, or the Christian anti-cult movement, is a social movement among certain Protestant evangelical, fundamentalist, Christian ministries ("discernment ministries"Robert M. Bowman, Orthodoxy and Heresy: A Biblical Guide to Doctrinal Discernment, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992, pp. 10, 106–07, 123–24.), and individual activists who oppose religious sects that they consider cults.
Overview Christian countercult activism mainly stems from evangelicalism or fundamentalism. The countercult movement opposes movements based on theological grounds, and asserts that particular Christian sects are erroneous because their beliefs are not in accordance with the teachings of the Bible as understood by the countercult group. It also states that a religious sect can be considered a cult if its beliefs involve a denial of any of what the countercult group considers essential Christian teachings (such as salvation, the Trinity, Jesus himself as a person, the ministry and miracles of Jesus, his crucifixion, his resurrection, the Second Coming and the Rapture).Walter R. Martin, The Rise of the Cults, rev.ed. Santa Ana: Vision House, 1978, pp. 11–12.Richard Abanes, Defending the Faith: A Beginner's Guide to Cults and New Religions, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1997, p. 33.H. Wayne House & Gordon Carle, Doctrine Twisting: How Core Biblical Truths are Distorted, Downers Grove: IVP, 2003. Countercult activists often see cults as fundamentally similar, "most cults are basically the same" argued Dave Hunt. Hunt identified the four common traits cults shared as human godhood, rejection of moral absolutes, denial of death, and knowledge as the key to godhood or immortality.
While minor versions of the movement exist within Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, most of the Christian countercult movement is situated within American Evangelical Protestantism, where countercult ministries often evaluate groups whose teachings are considered to diverge from orthodox Protestant doctrine, including organizations that self‑identify as Christian as well as certain non‑Christian traditions. Targets in countercult literature sometimes include such religions as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Science, Unification Church, Seventh-day Adventism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, New Age movements, Paganism, Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodoxy.Joel A. MacCollam, “Carnival of Souls: Religious Cults and Young People,” New York: Seabury Press, 1979.
Countercult literature usually expresses specific doctrinal or theological concerns, often with a missionary or apologetic purpose.Garry W. Trompf, "Missiology, Methodology and the Study of New Religious Movements," Religious Traditions 10, 1987, pp. 95–106. It presents a rebuttal by emphasizing the teachings of the Bible as understood by the countercult group against the beliefs of what they consider non-fundamental Christian sects. Christian countercult activist writers also emphasize the need for Christians to evangelize to followers of cults.Walter R. Martin, The Kingdom of the Cults, rev.ed. Ravi Zacharias ed. Bloomington: Bethany House, 2003, pp. 479–93.Ronald Enroth ed. Evangelising the Cults, Milton Keynes: Word, 1990.Norman L Geisler & Ron Rhodes, When Cultists Ask: A Popular Handbook on Cultic Misinterpretations, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1997. Some Christians also share concerns similar to those of the secular anti-cult movement.Paul R. Martin, Cult Proofing Your Kids, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1993.Joel A. MacCollam, Carnival of Souls: Religious Cults and Young People, New York: Seabury Press, 1979.
The movement publishes its views through a variety of media, including books, magazines, and newsletters, radio broadcasting, audio and video cassette production, direct-mail appeals, proactive evangelistic encounters, professional and avocational websites, as well as lecture series, training workshops and counter-cult conferences.Cowan, D.E. 2003. Bearing False Witness?: An Introduction to the Christian Countercult. Praeger. Much of which is replicated from source to source. Classic literature is often rereleased in revised and updated editions.
According to Douglas E. Cowan, the identity of adherents of the Christian countercult movement is often "shaped at least as much by their opposition to other religious traditions as by devotion to their own." Cowan argues that since most readers of countercult literature will never interact with "cults," their real purpose is to demonstrate the superiority of their own beliefs over the beliefs of the other.
History
Precursors and pioneers Christians have applied theological criteria to assess the teachings of perceived non‑orthodox movements throughout church history.Harold O. J. Brown, Heresies: The Image of Christ in the Mirror of Heresy and Orthodoxy from the Apostles to the Present, Garden City: Doubleday, 1984.J. W. C. Wand, The Four Great Heresies: Nestorian, Eutychian, Apollinarian, Arian, London: A. R. Mowbray, 1955. The Apostles themselves were involved in soteriological controversies around doctrine. Both the Acts of the Apostles (15) and the Apostle Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians (2:11–14) deals with competing definitions of what it meant to be a Christian. Some Christian teachers had urged Gentile believers to adopt circumcision and/or other aspects of the Mosaic Law in order to join the Christian community, or else they could not be saved, a dispute reflected in the Council of Jerusalem narrative. Many Christian countercult activists read the First Epistle of John as responding to early docetic or proto‑Gnostic teachings that denied Jesus’ coming in the flesh, reflected in the letter’s tests of christological confession and appeals to eyewitness testimony (1 John 1:1; 1 John 2:22; 1 John 4:2).Stephen S. Smalley, 1, 2, 3 John (Word Biblical Commentary 51), Waco: Word Books, 1984, pp. 10–16.Raymond E. Brown, The Epistles of John (Anchor Bible 30), Garden City: Doubleday, 1982, pp. 73–90.
The early Church in the post-apostolic period was much more involved in "defending its frontiers against alternative soteriologies—either by defining its own position with greater and greater exactness, or by attacking other religions, and particularly the Hellenistic mysteries" according to Eric J. Sharpe.Eric J. Sharpe, Comparative Religion: A History, London: Duckworth, 1975, p. 9 Much of the early Christian literature is devoted to the exposure and refutation of perceived unorthodox theology, mystery religions and Gnostic groups.Brown, Heresies, pp. 38–69.Ronald H. Nash, Christianity and the Hellenistic World, Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984, pp. 213–24. Irenaeus, Tertullian, Hippolytus of Rome, and Augustine of Hippo were some of the early Christian apologists who engaged in critical analyses of unorthodox theology, Greco-Roman pagan religions, and Gnostic groups.Avery Dulles, A History of Apologetics, Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 1999, pp. 22–58.J.K.S.Reid, Christian Apologetics, Grand Rapids: William Eerdmans, 1970, pp. 36–53.Bengt Hagglund, History of Theology, trans. Gene J. Lund, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1968, pp. 31–105.
A major theological battle over the definition of Christianity was the Great Schism of 1054. Then in 1184, Pope Lucius III published Ad abolendam, or To abolish diverse malignant heresies, which opposed groups such as the Cathars, Waldensians, and Arnoldists who were advocating for various changes within the Catholic Church. This set the stage for the Sack of Constantinople, Albigensian Crusade, and the Inquisition; and later the Reformation and Counter-Reformation also dealt with these same theological issues of who was and wasn't a Christian.
In the Protestant tradition, some of the earliest writings opposing perceived unorthodox groups (such as the Swedenborgians) can be traced back to John Wesley, Alexander Campbell, and Princeton Theological Seminary theologians like Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield.Richard G. Kyle, The Religious Fringe: A History of Alternative Religions in America, Downers Grove: IVP, 1993.Philip Jenkins, Mystics and Messiahs: Cults and New Religions in American History, New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. The first known usage of the term cult by a Protestant apologist to denote a group as heretical or unorthodox is in Anti-Christian Cults by A. H. Barrington, published in 1898.A.H. Barrington, Anti-Christian Cults, Milwaukee: Young Churchman/London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1898.
Quite a few of the pioneering apologists were Baptist pastors, like I. M. Haldeman, or Plymouth Brethren, such as William C. Irvine and Sydney Watson.J. Gordon Melton,"The counter-cult monitoring movement in historical perspective," in Challenging Religion: Essays in Honour of Eileen Barker, edited by James A. Beckford & James T. Richardson, Routledge, London, 2003, pp. 102–13. Watson wrote a series of didactic novels like Escaped from the Snare: Christian Science, Bewitched by Spiritualism, and The Gilded Lie (Millennial Dawnism), as warnings of the dangers posed by what he considered cultic groups. Watson's use of fiction to counter these perceived cults has been repeated by later novelists like Frank E. Peretti.Frank E. Peretti, This Present Darkness, Westchester: Crossway,1986.James R. Lewis, "Works of Darkness: Occult Fascination in the Novels of Frank Peretti" in Magical Religion and Modern Witchcraft, James R. Lewis ed. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996, pp. 339–50.
Early twentieth-century Protestant apologists generally applied the words "heresy" and "sects" to groups like the Christadelphians, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Spiritualists, and Theosophists. This was reflected in several chapters contributed to the multi-volume work released from 1910 to 1915 The Fundamentals, where apologists criticized the teachings of Charles Taze Russell, Mary Baker Eddy, the Mormons and Spiritualists. According to Cowan, "countercult material is rooted in scriptural and doctrinal interpretations that go back in spirit, if not always in denominational lineage, to The Fundamentals".
Mid-twentieth-century apologists Since the 1940s, the approach of Protestant Christians was to apply the meaning of "cult" such that it included those religious groups who use other scriptures beside the Bible or have teachings and practices deviating from Protestant Christian teachings and practices.
One of the first prominent countercult apologists was Jan Karel van Baalen (1890–1968), an ordained minister in the Christian Reformed Church in North America. His book The Chaos of Cults, which was first published in 1938, became a classic among Protestant as it was repeatedly revised and updated until 1960.
After World War II the countercult movement came to prominence as a backlash against the growing variety of religious expression in America, especially that which was fueled by non-Protestant immigration from Eastern Europe and Asia; and in the United Kingdom, the repeal of the 1735 Witchcraft Act allowed for the growth of Wicca and modern Paganism.
Walter Ralston Martin Historically, one of the most important protagonists of the movement was Walter Ralston Martin (1928–1989), whose numerous books include the 1955 The Rise of the Cults: An Introductory Guide to the Non-Christian Cults and the 1965 The Kingdom of the Cults: An Analysis of Major Cult Systems in the Present Christian Era, which continues to be influential. He became well known in conservative Christian circles through a radio program "The Bible Answer Man," currently hosted by Hank Hanegraaff.
In The Rise of the Cults, Martin gave the following definition of a cult: