Witnessing to The Cults and New Age
(Scriptures: I Peter 3.15; Acts 17; Luke 24)
1. Faith and Fanaticism - rejection of classical Christian faith.
2. Antagonistic to testimony of a Christian believer (Christian evangelism presupposes inadequacy of other belief system)
3. Firmly believe that they have found the faith; therefore older faith is inferior (false or inadequate).
4. Inspired channel of truth (presupposition about scripture and authority books).
5. Delusion of grandeur coupled with great deal of personal pride (Christ and culture).
6. They are God's only true people - either join or be lost (world view/arrogance or truth).
7. Cultist - acutely aware of the shortcomings of the Church; e.g. disunity of the Church.
8. Ridicule - sacrifice - not easy to induce him to leave the group (conversion, dissatisfaction, crisis).
9. Our responsibility to witness - well grounded in scriptures and Christian doctrine and well informed about the teaching of the cult (witness to the total person).
10. Approach the cultist as a total person: not exclusively intellectual. Why? Psychological and sociological reasons for belonging; a merely intellectual approach is largely ineffectual.
11. Human commitment and action is only in a snail degree purely rational. Neither exclusively or primarily intellectual.
12. People join cults/Churches/New Age and stay in them, not primarily because of doctrines but for other reasons (Christianity Today on chaos of Evangelical Doctrine in the 1990s.
13. Reason for joining and staying:
A. Warm and brotherly fellowship which they have failed to find in a Church.
B. Finds a center of integration, a place where each member plays an important role and fills a necessary function, a place where one is known and needed which is essential for the depersonalization of the 1990s.
C. Finds a sense of security; provides immediate contact with God and God's will but also an organization which will never forsake them in times of trouble.
D. Provides an outlet for greater intensity and radicallness in one's religious life.
E. Cults answer a need for specific instruction in various religious practices and specific advice for various moral problems (job, marriage, home, school, community, how to study the Bible and conduct family worship, how to pray, and how to witness, etc.).
F. Turn from moral chaos of the 1990s to moral classical answers which produce stability (family values, marriage, divorce, job, etc.).
G. Mormons provide elaborate recreational facilities for their young children, boys are ordained to the Aaronic priesthood at the age of 12, and they maintain a welfare plan so comprehensive that jobs can quickly be found for unemployed Mormons and material relief is available at any time for any Mormons who need it. (See the book by LeGrand Richards, A Marvelous Work and a Wonder. Salt Lake City: Dessert Book Co., 1950, pp. 404-405.)
14. What benefits is he deriving from membership in the group to which he belongs?
15. What activities does he now engage in which he neglected before?
16. What sacrifices does he now engage in which he neglected before?
17. What has this group done for him?
18. Attain answers to the type of questions above and then the next step is to show this person that his individual needs can be filled much better in and through living fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Do not compare the cult with the Church! (cf. disillusioning experiences with the Church; weakness and strength of the Church/Cults).
19. Confront Cultist/New Ager with the Person of Christ (William J. Schnell, Thirty Years a Watchtower Slave, pp. 104-105). The hand who converted Saul into Paul has not been shortened, II John 10, 11.
20. Loneliness and Despair: Matthew 10.32; Acts 1.8; I Peter 2.9; Matthew 25.40; John 15.11; II Timothy 1.12.
21. We must approach the cultist or new ager with genuine love of the person. Never lose your temper in a dialogue.
22. We must approach persons with humility; we place the person in the presence of Christ and scripture.
23. Living communion with Christ is more than mere intellectual assent to correct doctrines.
24. Recognize the lessons we can learn from the cults (see chapter in Hoekena's book. The Four Major Cults).
25. We must know the teaching of the Scripture and the cult and the new age group. Use primary sources, not secondary sources in discussion.
26. Let the main purpose of this encounter be to give a positive testimony to the truth of God's Word (not a debate but a witness).
27. Face the question of the source of authority. (Book of Mormons; Watchtower publications; Ellen G. White, Seventh Day Adventists; Mrs. Eddy, Christian Scientists; they use the terms God, Trinity, Creator and providence in a sense quite different from classical Christianity (Hoekema, pp. 195, 196)
28. Present the Biblical Evidence for the major doctrines of the Christian faith; know your Bible well. Stick to major doctrines rather than general biblical teaching; for example, the Jehovah's Witnesses use of justification and sanctification. etc.
29. Follow the contact made: open and closed contact.
30. Keep on praying and studying; the Lordship of Christ and Mission of the Church.
James D. Strauss
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