When Cultists Ask: A Popular Handbook on Cultic Misinterpretations by Norman L. Geisler and Ron Rhodes

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.

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