Customer Reviews

Challenge of the Cults and New Religions, The

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Ron Rhodes has attempted to write a user-friendly book aimed at overviewing the major cults found in the United States. Certainly this has been done a number of times, including Walter Martin's Kingdom of the Cults which, despite its recent revision, is a little dated. Rhodes writes on such topics as the Mormons, JWs, Scientology (note the paragraph placed at the beginning of this chapter to prevent getting sued by the suit-happy cultists), and even Satanism.

One flaw is that much of the information he presents is from second-hand resources. While it is certainly OK to get some information from Christian experts, I'm not quite sure why the author doesn't look up and list the information himself from original sources. It would mean so much more. The bibliography itself is also limited, as I believe he misses out on some very important books written by both Christians as well as those from the individual cults.

Rhodes does give easy-to-use charts to illustrate his points, and he includes good, accurate information that appear basic to the individual cult. (I didn't read closely, but what I did look at was fair, honest, and correct.) The book contains two glossy picture sections, which is nice, but I wonder how much this added to the cost of the book. Instead of these pictures, I would have rather had conclusions to each section as well as possible witnessing scenarios and glossary tables. He did this in his other books ("Reasoning With..."), and these ideas seemed to work well. The reader is left hanging at the end of each chapter, and I think Rhodes would have better served his audience by taking this one additional step.

Finally, and while not wanting to sound too critical, I'm wondering why he ignored the Boston Movement, which is the International Churches of Christ (not affiliated with the Church of Christ denomination), since it is so prevalent on the college campuses. I would think that information on this contemporary group would have been so much more crucial than anything he wrote on "the New Age Movement" (is this a cult?) and the Unification Church (as far as I am concerned, the Moonies are pretty much non-influential in today's America). I also question whether Freemasonry or Satanism are "cults," and it appears these chapters were saved to the end to fill out the book. While I don't agree with either group, they certainly are not "cults" in the evangelical sense of the word.

I would temper my above comments by saying that a person with no knowledge of these groups would be fine with this book, but those who have studied these groups will do better finding works that more concentrate on the individual group. There is nothing new here that could not be discovered in other more detailed sources.

Ron Rhodes has written a succesful primer on the topic of non-Christian cults. The book is very easy to understand, matched with colorful photos and a reader friendly format. Johnson (another reviewer) is correct when he says Rhodes misses some information, however, I think in this case, it is a stregnth of Rhodes' book.

Rhodes accuractly portrays the major teachings of churchs like the 'The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints'(Mormons), Jehovah Witnesses, and Unity School of Christianty, just to name a few. He also deals with other religions and their teachings, but here he is a little less effective.

This text is written for the 'layman' and as such, it succeeds for those individuals who have not read any information about these unquie religions but need some basic information. For those of us who have studied many of these sects in-depth, the book is quite boring and one would be better off purchasing something with more theological depth.

This like most of Ron Rhodes book was an excellent book. It selects a few of the organizations that people attempt to pass off as religions and exposes them as cults. It gives the history and the doctrines that these organizations originated from and believe and then Rhodes who seems to be an expert in this area exposes them and not only does he expose them, he backs his exposition up with scripture. This is a must read and will help you to confront the deception of false Christs and lying doctrines with clear and well-grounded truth of biblical Christianity.

Ron does a great job of arming readers with all the right ammunition to counter false doctrines and provides wisdom for how best to lead people to the absolute truth of God. Very well done.

Mr. Rhodes' five "essential" doctrines of Christianity as found on pages 22-23 are wide of the mark. Not all mainstream denominations of Christianity, particularly more liberal ones, would agree with his conclusions. His assertion that the doctrine of the trinity is a "biblical fact" is nothing short of laughable considering the church did not fully develop or embrace the doctrine of trinitarianism for over 3 centuries after Christ's death. And only after intense debate.

With respect to the specific religions he includes in his book, I can only speak to the Unitarian Universalist chapter as that is the religion with which I'm most familiar. Some of Mr. Rhodes' facts are easily refuted and his conclusions are sometimes downright insulting.

For example, "Past Unitarian Universalists include five U.S. presidents..." In fact, there has never been a UU president as the denominations merged in 1961. He names Thomas Jefferson as a Unitarian Universalist. Jefferson was raised an Episcopalian and later in life belonged to no specific religion although his writings do contain Unitarian ideals. There have been four presidents who belonged to Unitarian churches when the Unitarian faith bore little resemblance to UU practice today.

Mr. Rhodes contends that UUs "have little respect for the Christian Bible." That would be his opinion and one which would not hold up to scrutiny. UUs do indeed respect the Bible and other sacred religious texts, they just do not use it the same way Mr. Rhodes does.

Mr. Rhodes states that most UUs deny that there is an afterlife. He sites a document that isn't even accepted as the definitive statement of UU belief by all, or even most, Unitarian Universalists.

Mr. Rhodes contends that UUs are intolerant towards Christians despite their professed belief in religious tolerance. He does not explore the meaning of religious liberalism or differentiate between acknowledging Christianity as a valid faith path while failing to appreciate a conservative Christian proclaiming UUs as evil, sinful, faithless people destined for eternal damnation. Why should anyone tolerate intolerance?

If his other chapters are as misleading as this one, I would recommend anyone interested in cults seek a different source. Clearly Mr. Rhodes' purpose in writing this book was not scholarship, but to elevate his own religion by showing disdain for others. Even if that means shoddy research and erroneous conclusions.

This was a good read but read slowly as some parts are wordy. Mormonism was covered VERY WELL. 1/4 of this book was really dry.

but read slowly as some parts are wordy. Morminism was covered VERY WELL. 1/4 of this book was really dry.

Ron Rhodes in thought, deed, and action is a unrepentant bigot. As with all of these counter-cult evangelical gas bags (Ankerberg, Martin, Carlson, Decker, etc.) he sees no problem lying in order to trash people with whom he disagrees. It is doubtful if he has the intelligence or intellect to read the Bible let alone understand it.

But it is his need to lie in a (failed) attempt to prove his point which exposes his claim to be a Christian as an outright fabrication. Ron Rhodes is no more of a Christian than Mohammad Atta but his intent is the same: To sow strife and hatred among people.

He belongs to a tradition of Christianity which fosters and grows hatemongers, bigots, and worthless human refuse who walk through this world attacking people they do not understand.

My objection to this type of book is does nothing but create divides. For example he lists one religion as a cult that currently is the fourth leading religion in the United States. The pace it is setting it will be a world religion within a 100 years. Not bad for a cult. Just to set the record straight the dictionary defines a cult as a 1.System of religious worship and ritual.2.Devoted attachment to a person or principle3. a sect.

Under that definition every organized religion is a cult. That would include Evangelical Christians as they espouse Bible and Being Saved.