A Gaggle Of Groups
All God’s Children, by Carroll Stoner and Jo Anne Parke (Chilton [201 King of Prussia Rd., Radnor, Penn. 19089], 1977, 324 pp., $8.95), Youth, Brainwashing, and the Extremist Cults, by Ronald Enroth (Zondervan, 1977, 221 pp., $6.95 and $3.95 pb), The Mind Benders, by Jack Sparks (Nelson, 1977, 283 pp., $3.95 pb), The Mystical Maze, by Pat Means (Campus Crusade for Christ, 1976, 275 pp., $2.95 pb), Strange New Religions, by Leon McBeth (Broadman, 1977, 154 pp., $2.75 pb), Cults, World Religions, and You, by Kenneth Boa (Victor, 1977, 204 pp., $2.50 pb), and The Youth Nappers, by James C. Hefley (Victor, 1977, 208 pp., $2.25 pb), are reviewed by J. Gordon Melton, director, Institute for the Study of American Religion, Evanston, Illinois.
The new religious movements that grew up in America during the sixties are getting a lot of media attention in the seventies. Many of these movements come from Asia; they represent a major attempt by Hindus and Buddhists to return the compliment paid to their countries by nineteenth-century missionaries. Other groups are led by home-grown messiahs—modern-day versions of Joseph Smith, Madame Blavatsky, and Mary Baker Eddy.
The seven books examined here have three goals: to provide basic information on the new religions; to criticize them on their own terms; and, in most cases, to offer an analysis from a Christian perspective and a tool for witnessing to members of these groups.
The most useful for reaching the first two goals is Carroll Stoner and Jo Anne Parke’s All God’s Children. The authors, both investigative reporters, show an expertise built on long hours of first-hand study of several of the major new religious groups. They are able to give brief but accurate synopses of the recruiting procedures, theology, leadership, and membership of the Unification Church, Scientology, Divine Light Mission, Hare Krishna, and the Children of God. While obviously hostile to several of these bodies, the two reporters describe them fairly, without noticeably misrepresenting their positions.
Most important, these authors raise the important questions of internal contradictions and the two levels of doctrine that most of the groups possess. Followers of Moon, for example, regularly practice “heavenly deception,” a nice label for the lies and misrepresentations they utter when pressed on touchy matters concerning the Unification Church, especially its fund-raising and recruiting. The authors describe new ethical and sexual patterns—arranged marriages, the use of sex to recruit, and even ritual adultery.
Stoner and Parke have doubts that there is brainwashing (“We have yet to meet a cult member, or former cultist, who convinced us that he was hypnotized in a new religion”), but they do believe that the new religions use manipulative techniques to gain converts. More poignantly, they relate several case studies illustrative of the dead-end experiences of some cult members. They conclude that there are no easy answers to the questions raised in confrontation with the new religions.
In Youth, Brainwashing, and the Extremist Cults, Ronald Enroth, a sociologist and a Christian, attempts to combine the insights of social analysis with theology in a critique of seven new “cults”—Hare Krishna, Children of God, the Alamo Foundation, Love “Israel” Family, Unification Church, The Way, and the Divine Light Mission. He conducted interviews and gathered case histories from a variety of people involved in cults—members, ex-members, deprogrammers, and parents. He is perceptive in his analysis of the seductive process used at every level of the new religions.
Enroth advocates the “deprogramming” option for “rescuing” cult members, a conclusion with which I must dis agree. Deprogramming is a procedure to which no one should be subjected. Not only does it raise the issue of constitutional rights, but on quite practical grounds it should be abandoned because it does not work. The few successfully deprogrammed persons are generally people who were already becoming marginal members. Those subjected to deprogramming usually do not then lead a normal life. Instead they return to the group, or they leave in search of a new one, or they enter long-term psychiatric treatment, or they become deprogrammers themselves. It should also be noted that deprogramming as a technique recognizes no difference between the “cults” and more traditional Christian groups, from which people have also been snatched. Finally, victims of deprogramming who returned to the cults have placed their deprogrammers and their parents (who have paid high fees already) in great financial jeopardy by filing lawsuits. It should not be forgotten that deprogrammers are kidnapping adults, not minors.
More valuable to the average Christian or pastor is Jack Sparks in Mind Benders, a guide for witnessing to members of the new religious groups. His effort grows out of almost daily confrontation with “cult” members for several years at the Berkeley campus of the University of California. For each group he gives an accurate description of its history, belief system, and activities. He pinpoints the groups’ weaknesses and refutes their teachings from a Christian perspective.
Pat Means, in the Mystical Maze, tries much the same task as Sparks but deals only with the Eastern groups. Means delineates the broad agreements of the Eastern theologies and perceptively discusses the continually recurring questions—reincarnation, meditation, the miracles of the gurus, the unique divinity of Jesus, and the reliability of the Bible.
While I disagree with some of their minor conclusions (they show little understanding of Eastern meditation and almost no knowledge of the long tradition of Western meditation techniques), on the whole both Sparks and Means have succeeded in producing practical tools for confronting the new religions.
Strange New Religions by Leon McBeth, Cults, World Religions, and You by Kenneth Boa, and The Youth Nappers by James C. Hefley are inferior compared to the four books already discussed. There are too many errors and too much dependence on questionable sources. Hefley’s volume in particular seems to have been hastily put together from a collection of newspaper clippings.
None of the three shows any firsthand research on the cults. Hefley complains that his information is sketchy because little is currently known about these groups. In fact, a flood of information is available, especially on the larger groups, and most of the groups can be found easily in any major metropolitan area. In view of such ready access, there is no excuse for spreading unfounded rumors and unverified reports.
The wide spectrum of material on the new religions gives Christians reason to wonder what might be the best attitude to adopt toward them. I would suggest three elements. First, in dealing with the new religions and their adherents, begin by getting your facts straight. Do not lump them together. Do not accuse one group of the practices or beliefs of another. If you begin to witness to a member of one of these groups by misrepresenting the group, you have seriously hindered the effectiveness of your gospel proclamation.
Second, be positive. You will win more converts by sharing the saving love of Christ than by besting people in arguments or accusing them of doing the work of Satan.
Third, remember that Christianity has flourished as never before in the climate of religious freedom. We dare not long for the “good old days,” complete with inquisitions, when one was “free” only to agree with the currently established religion. Like cults in the past, the modern cults will survive only as they are able to meet felt needs. In a few years, many will be gone and the rest will have ceased growing. Meanwhile, the church will continue through all eternity.
On The Spending Of Money
Living on Less and Liking It More, by Maxine Hancock (Moody, 1976, 185 pp., $4.95), Supertrade, by Richard L. Johnson (Nelson, 1976, 141 pp., $2.95 pb), There Is a Solution to Your Money Problems, by Dade E. Galloway (Regal, 1977, 143 pp., $2.95 pb). What Husbands Wish Their Wives Knew About Money, by Larry Burkett (Victor, 1977, 160 pp., $1.95 pb), and Your Money Matters, by Malcolm MacGregor (Bethany Fellowship, 1977, 176 pp., $2.95 pb), are reviewed by William T. Bray, campaign and communications consultant, Wheaton, Illinois.
No subject is more likely to enter the pastoral counseling session than money. In marriage counseling especially, it seems to interweave and bitterly complicate every area of adjustment. Therefore pastors as well as believers generally will appreciate these books on how one should manage family finances.
This brace of books suggests that the popular Christian press is responding to a new concern for living moderately. After years of strained tracts either portraying material riches as the “natural inheritance of every child of God” or else insisting that the normal Christian life demands a “forsaking all” austerity, it is refreshing to see these five thoughtful and moderate treatments. While all the authors speak directly to the things-based value system of our current culture, they avoid the overly theoretical discussions that could easily develop.
The most realistic and balanced book of the group is probably Your Money Matters, whose author, Malcolm MacGregor, is a certified public accountant who has developed a financial counseling ministry. Several copies of this book belong on every pastor’s counseling shelf. MacGregor sensibly—and with dry humor—discusses the many financial matters that might cause problems in the Christian family, from establishing a realistic budget to training children to handle their allowances. He projects an honest simplicity that may help to save readers from the gnawing anxiety that comes to so many who get caught up in our undisciplined credit-card, I-owe-it-to-myself society.
Slightly less thorough but easier to read and filled with many memorable illustrations is Dale Galloway’s There Is a Solution to Your Money Problems. Galloway is a pastor, and one senses the bitter tears of regret and broken homes that lie behind his various suggestions on financial communication, escaping debt, and coping with financial depression. He has gone out of his way—sometimes too far—to make every page encouraging. For the discouraged and distraught, this book will probably be the one with the most positive effect.
While all these books cover much of the same material, Your Money Matters and There Is a Solution seem to have a similar outline. One suspects that the authors must have attended each other’s seminars! There is enough differing material in the two books, however, to make both worthwhile reading.
Much less succinct, Living on Less and Liking It More is well worth the extra effort it requires. It is Maxine Hancock’s most deeply inspirational book to date. Writing in an elegant, personal style, without ever scolding or judging, she gently leads the reader to confront the question, just what kind of lifestyle would Jesus have us choose? All of these family finance books lead into the question of how a Christian should live in a hungry world, but Hancock probably does more than any of the other writers to help the reader focus on the real priorities of what Jesus taught about money.
Less effective in this area is Richard Johnson’s Supertrade. With all the macho arrogance of a riverboat gambler, he dares the reader to come deeper into his world of finance, where God is his partner on the stock exchange. With a punchy prose that will undoubtedly appeal to many Christian businessmen—and make Johnson a big hit on the luncheon circuit—he tells how Christ changed his whole approach to business and life. While the book does venture financial advice, it is of such a nature that the average reader will probably feel more than ever convinced that the mysteries of the stock market are best left to professionals.
What Husbands Wish Their Wives Knew About Money is actually not written for wives at all. It’s just another good, very sensible family-finance book, designed for use as a thirteen-week adult Sunday school course. One hopes that the chauvinistic title doesn’t disqualify the book in many circles and limit the effectiveness of its approach. Tightly written and very well edited, Larry Burkett’s second book on finances is well balanced and avoids the gloom-and-doom predictions on the American dollar that characterized his earlier work Your Finances in Changing Times, published by Campus Crusade, for whom he conducted well-received seminars. His new book could become the most widely used of this genre.
God’S Dominion
The Community of the King, by Howard A. Snyder (InterVarsity, 1977, 216 pp., $4.25 pb), is reviewed by Cecil B. Murphey, pastor, Riverdale Presbyterian Church, Riverdale, Georgia.
When books come my way already hailed with tags such as “insightful,” “penetrating,” “scholarly,” or “catalytic,” I usually agree but find myself adding another adjective: dull. The deeper the duller, it has seemed. But I’m happy to report that Snyder shatters the pattern.
Each of the three major segments of this book deserves a review of its own. The section on evangelism is excellent. The one on church growth is even better. A reviewer can easily run out of superlatives with a book like this.
The church is the agent of the kingdom of God, says Snyder. He defines kingdom as the dominion or reign of God, not primarily a place or a realm. He sees the church as “the people of God which God has been forming and through which he has been acting down through history.” The church becomes God’s agent first through what it is and secondarily through what it does.
For all his theology, Snyder doesn’t dwell in the realm of the abstract. He ably balances between theory and practice. I found this book extremely helpful for my thinking about growth strategy in our local congregation. Other writers on evangelism and church growth describe particular systems and then extrapolate principles. Snyder starts with the principles and then shows how they can be applied in denominational and local situations.
One of the strongest points is that Snyder sees it as basic that the church encourage the spiritual gifts of its members. He doesn’t tiptoe around controversial passages such as Ephesians 4 and First Corinthians 12–14 but rather shows how they apply to the vibrant, balanced church of today. “The neglect and misunderstanding of gifts has produced a sometimes exaggerated emphasis on them among some groups,” he says, and in some circles there is the problem of “elevating one or two gifts to the level of spiritual ID cards.” He prefers to look at the charismata in their biblical context as part of God’s plan for the normal functioning of the Christian community. He says that the basic question isn’t whether particular spiritual gifts such as tongues-speaking are valid today. “Precisely which gifts he gives in any particular age is God’s prerogative, and we should not prejudge God.”
In the section called “The Form of the Church” Snyder builds on the biblical foundation. Examining the Book of Acts, he discusses evangelism, nurture, the culture, and growth patterns in the early church.
Snyder calls to task those well-meaning believers who are trying to do away with the institutional church and provide worship and nurture without encumberment. “The structure isn’t the church,” he says, “but every Christian fellowship must have a culturally appropriate way of doing things at certain times and in certain places.” He goes on to describe workable church structures.
This book deserves to become a basic reference tool for our thinking about evangelism, structure, nurture, and growth in the church.
Home As Sanctuary
Splendor in the Ordinary, by Thomas Howard (Tyndale,1977, 128 pp., $2.95 pb), is reviewed by Cheryl Forbes, assistant editor,CHRISTIANITY TODAY.
I always wondered why my mother disliked my bringing guests in through the back door of our house when I was younger, or why I insisted that my own home (an apartment, in this case) have a front hall or entryway. Now I know that it reflects what Jung called the collective unconscious, or what Thomas Howard calls an innate sense of the rite of welcome or entry. “The Hebrews,” he says, “were on to something when they sang, ‘The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in.’ ”
Howard is a sacramentalist. And he wants us to share his views. Rather than issuing an apologetic for candles and incense in the worship of God, he asks evangelicals to come to that position by viewing their daily lives in a candle-and-incense fashion. He uses the rooms in which we live as his symbols. The kitchen, the bedroom, even the bathroom have some sacramental and theological purpose. They differ in functions, though one room may not be better than another. (I suspect that he would use the same argument with the issue of women in the church. He may be subtly pointing this out here.)
In these rooms we watch the exchange of charity, the mark of the Christian community. Bearing one another’s burdens, giving and receiving support, acting out what Christ did for us on the cross—the celebration of these fundamental mysteries may begin and end in our homes. In a very practical way, more effective than any Sunday-morning trip to a sanctuary, that teaches our children what Christianity is all about. As Howard points out, it’s easier to learn charity with those linked to us biologically than with colleagues in the office or friends at the Y.
The very glory of our lives for Howard is their ordinariness. He wants us to understand that even a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich properly eaten can reflect the sacrifice of Christ. After all, someone in a sense laid down his life to make you that sandwich. And because all our actions are weighted with glory, we need to treat them as such. No mere slap-dash for Howard. He wants plate and cutlery and napkin and tablecloth. No Big Mac. No eat-and-run.
These are strange ideas for our culture, which for the most part seems to have lost the art of gracious living (and one need not be rich to be gracious). Certainly we see no reason why it makes theological sense to live graciously. And these are also strange ideas for evangelicals. Their tradition is not that of a sacramentalist like Charles Williams (whose theology strongly influences Howard). Celebration strikes us as ostentation, but Howard convincingly tells us that this need not be so.
Not only are his ideas unfamiliar; so is his language. If the book has a weakness, it is in that. He is at times a little too self-consciously polished, a little too bracing, a little too breezy.
But nonetheless he gets inside theology and reminds us, to paraphrase Ernst Cassirer, that God yields man nothing without ceremony. Although our lives may seem filled with trivial deeds given or received—“the window open another inch or two here, a pillow under his shoulder there, or a hanky to wipe his face with”—these are the events that show the world to whom we belong.
God’S Chosen People?
The Light and the Glory, by Peter Marshall and David Manuel (Revell, 1977, 384 pp., $9.95), is reviewed by Richard V. Pierard, professor of history, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, Indiana.
Having had the distinct non-pleasure of plowing through the piles of books, pamphlets, and recordings that appeared during the nation’s two-hundredth birthday celebration whooping it up for America and urging it to “get back to God,” I was tempted to dismiss this volume as simply a tardy attempt to reach the Bicentennial market. However, the book goes beyond the many maudlin tracts and musical ditties that glorify the country’s spiritual heritage. Essentially it is a historical account of the period from Columbus’s voyage to the framing of the Constitution in which the thesis is that America was founded as a covenant nation under God and that the divine hand was evident throughout the nation’s beginnings.
Because at least on the surface it is a work of history, it deserves to be evaluated in accordance with the accepted canons of historical scholarship. But the task is complicated by the claim of the two authors—one is a preacher and the son of the noted Peter and Catherine Marshall, the other an experienced editor and writer—that the book was written through “the continuing grace and inspiration of our heavenly Father.” To find shortcomings in what is said to be a divinely inspired book is indeed to tread dangerously, but this historian must.
In the opening chapter the authors outline their argument. The United States used to be a good place in which to live, but about fifteen years ago the American dream collapsed. Among the causes of the collapse were the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the Viet Nam war, youthful rebellion, sexual promiscuity, the breakup of the family, corruption in business and government, and Watergate. These came about because the American people abandoned their Christian heritage. God deals with nations corporately as he did with Israel, and he chose the Americans as his covenant people to show the world how he intended his children to live under the Lordship of Christ.
God had a plan for America that was extremely demanding. Those who were to inhabit the new land received a specific “call” from God that they worked out in a covenant with the Deity and with one another. God kept his end of the bargain by bringing blessing and prosperity to his people, who in turn continually looked to him for forgiveness, mercy, and support. Long droughts were ended and pioneer settlements were spared from Indian attacks when the ones who had strayed from God humbled themselves and turned back to him. When people “died out” to their selfish desires, from that death came “life” that affected America positively far into the future. And God’s call remains in effect even though the nation has wandered away from him and now experiences his chastening hand of judgment.
Then the authors show how God acted and revealed himself in American history. He led the godly Christopher Columbus across uncharted waters to the promised land, dealt harshly with greedy people who lusted after riches, and watered the fertile spiritual soil with the blood of missionary martyrs who brought Christ’s light. The settlers in Virginia neglected God and were punished, while those in Massachusetts honored him and prospered. The Puritans founded a Christian nation based upon the covenantal relationship, but as they grew complacent, God sent Roger Williams and Thomas Hooker to prune his spiritual vineyard. Satan was unsuccessful in thwarting God’s plan to build a New Israel, even though he tried Indian uprisings and occultism (witchcraft). As a lull settled over the land, God sent a “sunburst of light,” the Great Awakening, that renewed America’s consciousness of divine nationhood. Under heavenly direction the Americans broke the chains of British tyranny and secured independence in a war in which they repeatedly experienced miraculous intervention. They then institutionalized the covenantal legacy in the Constitution and selected “God’s candidate,” the devout George Washington, as the first president. The authors conclude by urging Christians to repent and renew the covenant so that America can be healed and restored to favor.
Because Marshall and Manuel quote copiously from a wide range of documentary sources, the book seems to be a scholarly work. On closer examination one finds that they used their imaginations freely to reconstruct dialogues and the inner musings of the various participants. In effect the book is a novel, a fable of piety depicting an illusory unseen hand that guides the characters in the divine drama of America. This omniscient, omnipresent special Providence carefully controls every movement in American history and can readily be perceived by all who have and exercise the eyes of faith.
But how does a researcher demonstrate the “hand of God” at work in history? What evidence can be marshaled to convince another observer that a particular event or development can conclusively be attributed to God’s action? Must such an interpretation be accepted on faith rather than evidence? I doubt whether the authors have grappled with these fundamental questions that trouble every thoughtful Christian historian.
Their amateurishness and naïvete shine through in the sections where in a homey, anecdotal fashion they recount spiritual experiences they had while researching the book. Their lack of proficiency is exemplified in factual errors (the Moors of Granada were “Turkish Moslems”), logical contradictions (the high death rate in Virginia was due to the settlers’ refusal to trust God while a similar death rate in Plymouth resulted because the people trusted God instead of yielding to Satan), and the uncritical use of sources (“Parson” Weems’s fanciful biography of Washington). In fact, even though Paul F. Boller demonstrated forcefully in a competent study George Washington and Religion (1963), mentioned in their bibliography and a footnote, that Washington was at most only a nominal churchman, the writers rely instead on a 1919 work by William J. Johnstone (cited in the book as Johnson) that in turn was based on an extravagant collection of gossip and apocryphal anecdotes published in 1836. They thereby perpetuate the myth that Washington was a man of prayer and profound faith. And what responsible scholar would concur with their contention that “almost no negative bias” toward the Puritans can be found among nineteenth-century historians but that prejudice has arisen against them nowadays because “a spirit of rebellion” has gained a “tight hold” on the American people and “Satan” hates the example of the Puritans more than that of any other group in American history?
From a theological standpoint, too, the book is weak. The authors fail to grasp the full meaning of the New Testament teaching that the church, drawn from all nations and peoples, is now and always will be God’s covenant nation. No particular group today can claim the place in God’s program that ancient Israel occupied. Even in the Old Testament, when God dealt with nations as such, the primary issue was social justice, a theme generally neglected in this volume. What exists here is a naïve, providential postmillennialism that identifies America as the Kingdom of God. When those who are God’s children by faith repent and get their lives straightened out, America too will be redeemed and the kingdom in its fullness will flower.
Furthermore, the repeated assertion that God directly “revealed” various things to the writers cannot be squared with the traditional evangelical position that the only valid sources of divine revelation are Scripture and Jesus Christ. The authors should realize that to build an intellectual structure on the sandy foundation of an experiential natural theology will almost certainly result in disaster. It will fall under its own weight once it is buffeted by the storms of responsible criticism.
Both historically and theologically, this work extolling an evangelical form of American civil religion is so defective as not to warrant serious attention by either scholars or laypeople
