Customer Reviews

Cults, New Religious Movements, and Your Family: A Guide to Ten Non-Christian Groups Out to Convert Your Loved Ones

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1 star:		(6)

 

 

The title of this review should make my opinion of Richard Abanes's book fairly obvious.

This is a relentlessly one-sided, invariably hostile, completely unbalanced treatment of its various subjects. It valiantly destroys straw men. Some achievement.

In the case of "Mormonism," the movement I know most about, it fails to confront the strongest versions of Mormon arguments, but, instead, demolishes weaker defenses (or inadequately justified, poorly sketched versions of the stronger ones) with a rather irritating smugness -- carefully cultivating the false impression in innocent readers that no stronger arguments exist. (To give Mr. Abanes the benefit of the doubt, it is highly possible that he really isn't aware of the more powerful arguments that Mormon scholars -- such as those affiliated with FARMS -- advance. This may let him off the ethical hook, but it then immediately raises the question of why so unqualified a person should have written this book at all.)

The thrust of this volume is manifestly not to help its readers understand other faiths, but to encourage them to disdain the beliefs of others, to warn them against regarding other beliefs with open-mindedness or even minimal respect, and to convince them, preferably, never to look at or listen to anybody from a background that isn't precisely identical to Abanes's own evangelical/fundamentalist Protestantism. Instead, this rather repugnant volume urges its victims to regard their neighbors with fear, suspicion, and contempt.

While those who read Abanes's book -- and trust it -- will learn relatively little that they can rely upon, they will have their negative prejudices reinforced. Or, alternatively, they will be assisted in developing new prejudices and negative stereotypes. What a helpful contribution! What a wonderful way to build communities and relationships!

I cannot recommend this book. I wish I didn't have to give it a star at all.

Richard Abanes comment's on Scientology are way too much like other comments on the same subject in a more well known Cult book. In the latter book, namely "The Kingdom of the Cults," Mr. Abanes makes comments which are IDENTICAL to Mr. Kurt Van Gorden comments on the same subject. I'm talking "the exact same syntax." Someone plagiarized off someone. But who? Let me give you a hint: "The Kingdom of the Cults" came out a year before Abanes's book did. Don't beleive me? [...]

Beware of highly negative reviews! Abanes has produced a careful, thorough critique of some of the most significant groups of our day. Of particular value are the chapters on Scientology, the Nation of Islam, and The Family (Children of God), which few evangelical researchers have been able (or willing) to tackle in this kind of work. Balanced and biblically sound, this book is strongly recommended to all readers.

The "kid's review" just below my comment is very to the point. Why? Because this book by Abanes has large portions in it which he wrote while plagiarizing another author. Kurt Von Gorden who wrote a chapter on Scientology in the book "The Kingdom of the Cults" discovered that his own chapter had been plagiarized, nearly word for word, by Abanes who ended up making excuses and never really sincerely apologizing for this illegal infringement. Anyone with a quarter of a brain in their head knows that plagiarism is stealing and it's against the law. Mr. Abanes knows better. Key portions of this book was not written upon Abanes' own words nor his own research. I am being a bit tough on Abanes here because he has told me personally about all the hours of research he puts into his books, then he proceeded to "slam" another highly-respected apologetics author whom he told me is "not a researcher." A pretty bold statement for one who plagiarizes others to make about another author who has more than put the proof in the pudding that he has done his own intensive hours of research. To see for yourself that his writing on Scientology in this book belongs to Kurt Von Gorden (including a side by side comparison of the text) go to the article at: http://cultlink.com/sentinel/Vangorden.htm and http://cultlink.com/ar/abanes-frost.htm. Come clean, Richard, and repent; both stealing and lying are a breach of the Ten Commandments, and Christians are supposed to know better. Come clean, you will feel much better. Until then, he deserves an F for failure of honesty.

The book describes some popular cults telling you what they belive in and then tells you how their beliefs compair with the Bible. I found it very interesting to read. I am glad I bought it.

I'm not saying all Christians are gullible, but those that are will certainly have their uninformed opinion reinforced.
As a good pagan and soon-to-be parent, I am wondering when someone will write a book to help me protect my children from alarmist, stereotype-blinded christians like this.
Get your head out of the sand! Any material that talks about valid religious groups without actually talking to members of those groups is no more than opinion, or alternately is based on previous poorly researched material.
And I challenge anyone who thought this book was helpful to actually go and talk to a pagan. You will find they have pretty strict rules against trying to convert anybody, especially minors. Trying to convert people is the domain of soul-hungry Christians; and most modern Pagans balk at the ideas of using the aggressive, uninformed tactics of evangelicals. Choosing any religious path is a personal decision. Enforced conversion is a manipulation of someone's will and those Christians who still practise it should be ashamed of themselves.

Don't know where to find a Pagan to ask about this? Look harder, you probably know ten or twelve. They keep it secret because they are afraid of real religious discrimination from the likes of the 'author' of this book and his fraidy-cat readers.

This book gives a good overview of destructive religious movements. It is definitely NOT a Hank Hanegraff clone (I don't remember any strange memonic schemes). Be careful of hostile reviews of this and all counter-cult books - plenty of cult members flood on-line reviews in order to trash them. Cults pose a tremendous danger to our families, political structures, and media. Learn as much about them as you can.

Evangelical Christian readers unfamiliar with the subject of new religions might be impressed by this book, which attempts to deconstruct and refute the beliefs of ten contemporary religious movements. The author seeks to refute movements such as the Nation of Islam, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, New Age, the Occult etc, with appeals to the Bible and to logic. To an evangelical Christian the author's arguments may seem coherent and persuasive, and this impression may be further cemented by the end-note documentation furnished for each chapter.

The author follows a simple formula of isolating what he believes are the key teachings of each group, supported by brief quotations. The author also isolates key controversies in the group's past, which are then used to vitiate the group's claims to be a valid religion.

This book however has some technical problems. First, the author has not reflected very much on the historico-cultural contexts in which these movements arise. By seeking to isolate the core doctrines of each group the author's arguments maybe prone to the problem of reification - to reify is to mistake language about reality with reality itself. The book seems to treat the groups as "static" data not as movements consisting of people with dynamic relationships and attitudes forged in specific historico-cultural contexts.

An illustration of this is evident from the chapter on the Nation of Islam. This group needs to be seen against the backdrop of race relations between Afro-Americans and Anglo-Celtic people. How and why this movement has arisen - namely as one among a host of Afro-American responses to slavery and the struggle for civil rights - does have some bearing on the provocative views expounded by the leaders of this movement. Those factors are not analysed. A follower of this group would find racism a key obstacle to considering Christianity.

Similarly the portraits on the Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons could have been strengthened by noting how and why in the nineteenth century "being one's own interpreter" of the Bible stimulated the emergence of apocalyptic groups such as the Witnesses. Likewise the European esoteric traditions of the Renaissance and Post-Reformation flowed into the American religious melting-pot in the years leading up to Joseph Smith's childhood, and Smith's hermetic interests bubbled up in early Mormon teachings and practices. Smith's offer of a "new revelation" provided an alternative way of getting around the Deistic criticisms of the Bible's reliability. We need to remember that several US founding fathers - Washington, Jefferson, Paine and Franklin - were Deists who believed (some published pamphlets claiming) the Bible was filled with errors and contradictions. By overlooking the wider historical and cultural ferment of the day, the resultant portraits of these two groups is not as penetrating as they could be.

The author draws out the doctrinal deviations of these groups from orthodox Christian belief. This is the author's chief interest and while that goal is achieved, it would have been helpful to have seen the above issues woven through his analysis.

Another key problem is that the author has occasionally constructed arguments that rest on tenuous connections. For example, in his chapter treating the occult and satanism, the author constructs this argument concerning satanism and human sacrifices: a). he cites remarks by Crowley on human sacrifices; b). he cites Anton la Vey on sacrifice; c). he then draws attention to a news report concerning the arrest of 3 teenagers who formed a rock group dedicated to satan and who were guilty of abducting and murdering a teenager. The basic problem is that the author pulls together three unrelated items and draws his conclusions. Crowley's quote about sacrifices has been decontextualised - Crowley did not advocate killing people at all. His expression "human sacrifice" referred to his belief that sperm are little male humans and that he regularly sacrificed them in sex acts with boys. The author does not reflect carefully on the fact that La Vey was an atheist neither believing in the existence of God or Satan, and that his Satanism was an amalgam of ideas plagiarised from Nietzsche, Ayn Rand and Ragnar Redbeard. Finally, the author does not document from trial records how the criminal teenagers became Satanists, what their motives were, and whether they were inspired by Crowley and La Vey at all. Those Satanists who embrace La Vey's philosophy tend to be very aggrieved by Christian writings that make linkages between their human-centred individualist atheist philosophy and newspaper reports of crimes perpetrated by those who pick up iconography from pop culture about the Devil. La Veyan Satanists do not believe the Devil exists and in internet forums quite a few have remarked that they deplore crime.

One other minor problem concerns a documentation error. On page 44 the author presents a list of points about people who are attracted to the occult. He indicates the list is derived from W. Elwyn Davies in a book entitled Principalities & Powers. When one checks his endnote on page 274 this book is mentioned along with a cross-reference to a book by Josh McDowell & Don Stewart. Unfortunately the citation is incorrect. W. E. Davies' material is not found Principalities and Powers, but rather was an essay contributed by Davies to Montgomery's Demon Possession (1976). The author has relied on McDowell's book, where the bibliographical citation error of Principalities & Powers (when it should be Demon Possession)originates. Christian authors in general need to make sure that original sources are checked rather than trusting at face value quotations or citations that appear in secondary sources written by fellow Christians.

In a previous version of this review when pointing to this documentation problem I injudiciously asserted the author had plagiarised material. On reflection it is clear that such a criticism was unwarranted and the criticism is now retracted with due apology to the author for those remarks.

Should this book be revised in the future it would be good to see some of the above points addressed. Readers who rely on this text might want to take these points into consideration too.

This book provides a good and clear introduction of religous movements and how they can affect our loved ones. I enjoyed the format. For every group, there was a story of a real person's experience with the group, the history of the group, what the Bible has to say, and why the group is attractive. The author frequently uses a group's own words to show what they believe. Also, the book is well cited and lists recommended readings about each group.

This book is nothing more than a thinly disguised re-hashing of the same kind of books that have come out since Walter Martin came on the "Christian" scene. As then then president of the Christian Research Institute, Martin gave birth the modern apologetics and searing rebuke of not only so-called cults, but also other fellow believers who didn't quite believe what he believed. Before Abanes, Hank Hanegraaff, the current president of CRI found much fortune in continuing Martin's onslaught on freedom of religion and freedom of speech. But now Abanes would have us believe that everything old is new again, as he drives over ground treaded and retreaded by at least ten other books on the same subject. This is a terrible book. Hanegraaff's are much better. they scare you more. But Richard Abanes' effort is comical, badly written, ill-conceived, poorly thought out, and a waste of money. He doesn't plagiarize anyone (IO don't think) but I wish he did. At least then the book would command interest. So here's the overall reaction: "Ooooo! Help me. The Big Bad cult man is at my door and he's trying to capture my soul. O, Help me! O, help me. Where is Abanes' book so I can understand how to fend off this fiend of the netherworld." Humbug, Abanes. This book lays a huge egg. And you're the mama hen!