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Defending the Faith: A Beginner's Guide to Cults and New Religions by Richard Abanes
Former Christian Research Institute researcher Richard Abanes has written a number of books that examine and evaluate religious belief systems. While many authors who write books quickly do so because they don't care about being accurate and/or they repackage the same message in multiple books, Abanes has proved to be careful and thoughtful. Certainly there is some overlap between the two books [this and the one that follows], and between these books and other Christian evaluations of cults and new religions. However, these two books are worth adding to any cult evangelism library because they provide unique evaluations and cover some religious movements not frequently reviewed.
Defending the Faith is a good book to read cover-to-cover or chapter-by-chapter. Most books on the cults
examine the cults one by one, repeating essential biblical doctrine in each chapter in response to the doctrinal
teachings of the specific cult in that chapter. Abanes, however, organizes his cult evaluations within a framework
of essential doctrines, in each chapter presenting an orthodox summary of a particular point of doctrine, and then
contrasting that to what various cults and new religions believe on the same subject. The unique appeal of this
approach is that the careful reader will learn essential Christian doctrine as the foundation for evaluating the
differing claims of the cults. The focus is on truth rather than on error. As Dr. Walter Martin used to say, the best
way to recognize the counterfeit is to be thoroughly familiar with the genuine. Defending the Faith is a compelling
example of this important principle.
Bob Passantino
Buy Defending the Faith: A Beginner's Guide to Cults and New Religions from Amazon.com
Cults, World Religions, and Your Family by Richard Abanes
Cults, World Religions, and Your Family is a good complement to Defending the Faith. Most Christian books on the cults deal first with the two most well-known in this country, the Church of Jesus Christ - Latter Day Saints (the Mormons) and the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society (the Jehovah's Witnesses), and then cover other smaller, less well known, or newer cults. Abanes examines those two cults last in this book, perhaps assuming that many Christians already know something about those cults but not much about the smaller, newer, and less well-known cults. Since his treatment of these two cults is fairly comparable to other good Christian resources, the unique value of this book is its careful examination of the "minor" cults. This is one of the few Christian cult books available today that covers Scientology, Christian Identity Movement, the Nation of Islam (the Black Muslims), and The Family (formerly known as the Children of God). Other chapters are on the more familiar New Age movement, general occultism, satanism, and the Unification Church (the Moonies).
Buy Cults, World Religions, and Your Family from Amazon.com
This is the third in a series from Geisler and his colleagues, the first and second being When Critics Ask: A Popular Handbook on Bible Difficulties (with Thomas Howe) and When Skeptics Ask: A Handbook of Christian Evidences (with Ronald M. Brooks). Ron Rhodes, a former Christian Research Institute researcher, has written several books on Christian doctrine issues and the cults. In some ways this book reminds me of Dr. Walter Martin's Cults Reference Bible, published around twenty years ago. As with Martin's book, this book covers cultic beliefs verse-by-verse. Unlike Martin's book, Geisler and Rhodes' book doesn't reproduce the Biblical text, but instead simply lists the cultic misinterpretations and Christian responses in the order of the biblical books. This makes Geisler and Rhodes' book much easier to page through if you are looking for a particular argument, and keeps the cost to below what Martin's book sold for so long ago.
This is the kind of book that even experienced cult critics should add to their libraries. If a Christian is dialoging with a cultist and is stumped by a particular cultic Bible misinterpretation, he can quickly look it up and learn (or refresh his memory) about a sound biblical response. This process is further enhanced by a good scripture index and a good topic index. In When Cultists Ask gives the reader more than merely cultic misinterpretations. It also includes arguments from Roman Catholicism (which they explain is not properly designated a cult), Islam (which is a world religion, not a cult), the Word-Faith movement (which has a wide variety of proponents, some who sound as cultic as any cultist, and some who would fairly be considered Christians with aberrant teaching rather than full cultists), and Free Masonry (which most people -- even members -- do not consider to be religiously competitive with Christianity, despite some of its very religious-sounding literature and practices). The book's focus is on Jehovah's Witnesses, the Mormons, and the New Age Movement. Other cults with less representation include the Church Universal and Triumphant, The Family (formerly known as the Children of God), Christian Science, the Boston Church of Christ movement, the Baha'is, the Unification Church (the Moonies), and Seventh Day Adventism.
I would like for this book to have been more comprehensive. Anyone who is familiar with Geisler and
Rhodes can see that the groups covered most completely are the ones Geisler and Rhodes already specialize in, and
it would have been extra helpful if they had given as much attention to the groups with which they were not
previously well-versed. Another improvement would have been if they had more clearly acknowledged that many
Christians commonly misinterpret certain passages or believe certain heresies that they think are biblical. Many
Christians, for example, misunderstand the biblical doctrine of the Trinity in a heretical modalistic sense
(confusing the persons of the Trinity, such as saying the Trinity is like one person with three different modes or
occupations). Even without these or other improvements, this is a valuable book for any Christian who wants to
improve his ability to defend the truth and preach the gospel.
Bob Passantino
Buy When Cultists Ask: A Popular Handbook on Cultic Misinterpretations from Amazon.com
The Compact Guide to World Religions by Dean C. Halverson
Dean Halverson has been blessing Christian readers for years with easy to understand, clearly biblical discussions on a multitude of timely topics. This book (of which he is the general editor) will give you an introduction to all of the major world religions and religious world views with a clear, biblical evaluation. In today's "post-Christian" American society, we cannot wonder if we will ever have occasion to witness to someone of another faith, but how often. This book is user-friendly enough with its clear charts, lists, and witnessing tips that you can even use it for quick reference as you witness to someone.
Buy The Compact Guide to World Religions from Amazon.com
Kingdom of the Cults by Walter Martin
This has been called the "standard reference work" on Cults. It is not an exhaustive resource, but it does discuss in considerable detail the largest cults like the Jehovah's Witnesses, The Mormons, Scientology and many others. It contains several chapters on Cultism in general. The latest expanded and revised version is well documented and gives an extensive Bibliography. It is a must have book for Christians interested in understanding or reaching out to the cults.
The Passantinos were good friends of the late Dr. Walter Martin. In the Acknowledgements of the 1985 revision, gratitude is expressed to "editor-researcher Gretchen Passantino, who revised the majority of this present edition." Gretchen continued in a managing editor role under Hank Hanegraaff who is the editor for the 1997 revision.
Buy Kingdom of the Cults from Amazon.com
Satanism by Bob and Gretchen Passantino
This book is the Passantino's contribution to the Zondervan Guide to Cults and Religious Movements. The Passantinos have cultivated a reputation over their 20 plus years of ministry for fairness, accuracy and truthfulness. They took a leading role in the Christian community to debunk false claims of Satanic Ritual Abuse. In conducting their research, they interviewed Anton Szandor LaVey, founder of the Church of Satan. It was the first interview that he had granted for publication in fifteen years.
Satanism concisely presents the findings of the Passantinos research. It is the definitive Christian book on the subject, and it is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in understanding Satanism as it exists in late 20th century America. It is extensively documented and full of factual information. The Bibliography alone is well worth the price of the book.
Selling Satan, The Tragic History of Mike Warnke by Jon Trott and Mike Hertenstein
This is an expanded version of the original expose of Mike Warnke in Cornerstone magazine. Cornerstone has permitted AIA to post the original on our Satanism page. This book is an outstanding example of investigative journalism by two committed Christians. The authors stayed with the Passantinos in California while investigating Warnke's California activities. The book reveals much, not only about Mike Warnke, but about contemporary Christian culture and the roots of modern Satanic Ritual Abuse claims. JB
Buy Selling Satan, The Tragic History of Mike Warnke from Amazon.com
The Roman Catholic Controversy by James White
This book does a good job of examining and responding to major Catholic teachings and points of doctrine with which Protestants disagree. It adds to the information and argumentation that is not sensationalistic and not irresponsible with context and facts. Although there are some areas in this book with which I disagree, even those parts will help fuel serious discussion about the genuine differences between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism.
James White is a committed, consistent Calvinist and sometimes his Calvinistic distinctives are assumed or presented as identical to a general Protestant position. Readers, especially Roman Catholic readers, could easily get the idea that every Protestant is a Calvinist. In addition, a non-Calvinist reader, such as a Lutheran or Weslyan, may get the idea that White is calling any view other than Calvinism is heretical.
At the beginning of the book, White states that he uses only official sources and authoritative teachings of the Roman Catholic Church for the purposes of his critique, but a significant number of his citations and Catholic arguments to which he refers are from Catholic Answers, a lay organization with no official status in the Roman Catholic Church at all. Catholic Answers, as much as I like some of its staff, and as much "good" as it does defending conservative Catholicism, is somewhat analogous to renegade Jehovah's Witnesses who argue with Christians. The "mother church" (substitute either Roman Catholic or Watchtower) enjoys all the benefits of their defense, but they don't have to account for anything they do or say which will get them into hot water. Most readers won't catch this, but it is a serious vulnerability in the manuscript.
Sometimes White goes further in his criticisms of Catholicism than I would,
certainly further than Dr. Norman Geisler and Ralph MacKenzie do in their book,
Roman Catholics and Evangelicals (Baker, 1995). There are portions of each book
with which I disagree, but both books provide good argumentation for the
distinctives between Roman Catholicism and Protestantism in a non-sensationalistic
way and both contribute to careful thinking on the issues.
Bob Passantino
Buy The Roman Catholic Controversy from Amazon.com
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