Customer Reviews

Dictionary of Cults, Sects, Religions and the Occult

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The strongpoint of this dictionary is its extensive coverage of the hundreds of cults and sects that are around today. While it was impossible to cover all of them, the authors went to great pains to include all the the best known ones as well as some that enjoy less popularity.

Each article is written from a strong Christological viewpoint, includes an extensive list of primary and secondary resources for further investigation while still being immensly readable. Theological language is either explained or avoided making each synopsis easily understandable for the average layman.

Kingdom of the Cultsm move over, your repalcement is here.

Though commenting upon an array of religions, cults, and sects so great you could hardly ask for more, this book is crippled by its own bias.

It is written from such a Christian-centered viewpoint that all non Judaic religions become horribly tainted. Just about everything, even religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism which pre-date Christianity, are compared extensively to the Christian faith. The trouble in this is, as any student of subaltern groups knows, that the reader cannot develop an organic understanding of a religion, but rather can only see religions as measured by the yardstick of Christianity.

For example, the section on Buddhism is broken down into the following categories: History, Teachings, God, Sin, Salvation & the Future, Morality, and Conclusion. In every section except for History and Conclusion, Buddhism is compared to Christianity, even though Buddhism predates Jesus by hundreds of years. The authors do not even attempt to hide such bias, openly declaring that they will portray Buddhism only through Christian lenses on page 42.

The section on Christianity itself is almost laughable. The masturbatory, emotive waxing on the noble history of Christianity (and its inherent correctness!) in the conclusion is hilariously sad. "Yet despite persecution, moral laxity, heresies challenging it both from within and without, the church of Jesus Christ prevails... It has experienced dark moments, but even as the darkness of the first Good Friday gave way to the brightness and splendor of the resurrection and the empty tomb, so too has the church experienced a glorious history with a future that will be brighter still when Jesus and the church - that is, when the bridegroom and the bride - unite forever." (Page 72)

If you want a comprehensive list of religions, cults, and sects, this will do - but if you want to understand them and see them from a relatively neutral viewpoint, go elsewhere.

P.S. Zoroastrianism doesn't have its own encyclopedic entry. Hello!? The People's Temple (the organization/cult of Jim "Purple Kool-Aid" Jones) which had perhaps 1000 members at its height gets its own section, but not a religion which heavily informed both Christianity and Islam and which still boasts 200,000 members world-wide today.

Most of us buy books to educate ourselves and NOBODY wants to spend time researching false facts that only make us grow more ignorant and misinformed. Yet that is exactly what this so-called dictionary attempts to do; promote ignorance and slanderous lies (when it's not simply providing partial truths).

The authors clearly did NOT research the occult or much about the other religious groups they write about. Not only do they repeatedly credit Satanism for beliefs completely unrelated to that Sect, but they mutilate any respectable definition of the peace sign -- calling it the "Satanists Pentacle" (when penta is the prefix meaning "five" and there are no five points inside a peace sign).

Regarding the Wiccan Rede -- the authors erroneously attribute it to Aleister Crowley who had NOTHING to do with either Wicca or with the Rede, as an ethical principle that's regularly drummed around many neo-pagan circles. Many would argue Crowley had nothing to do with ethics at all. In fact, he purported "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole law" (feel like having sex with your neighbor's infant? Do it!) while the Wiccan Rede states "An it harm none, do what ye will." The authors also falsely claim that Satanists follow the Rede, when they are not at all compelled by Wiccan dogma, but (according to the Satanist Bible) follow their own rules to do whatever's the OPPOSITE of Christianity.

The two examples, provided above, are but the tip of the iceberg for how inaccurate is this dictionary. (I hope you find this review helpful/truthful because I utterly adore books and education and we'd all benefit from promoting intelligence instead of lies.)

Best advice in regards to this "dictionary": Save your money. THESE GROSSLY IGNORANT PAGES ARE NOT FIT FOR THE BOTTOM OF THE BIRD CAGE.

Hey- ordering Amazon has a fantastic way of being proficient. It has been helpful and informative (the book that is).

The book has alot of good information but they continually compare every religion or doctrine to their own obviously fundalmentalist Christian views. It gets a little old time after time reading how this organization is wrong because they're not the right kind of Christian.

Which Is the "Christian" Doctrine?

Suppose for a moment that the Latter-day Saints were to take seriously the demand that they conform in every particular to "Christian" doctrine, and that they then made the attempt to do so. Having complied with such a demand, would the Latter-day Saints find themselves in total agreement with Protestants or with Catholics? Would they believe in apostolic succession or in the priesthood of all believers? Would they recognize an archbishop, a patriarch, a pope, a monarch, or no one at all as the head of Christ's church on earth? Would they be saved by grace alone, or would they find the sacraments of the church necessary for salvation? Would they believe in free will or in predestination? Would they practice water baptism? If so, would it be by immersion, sprinkling, or some other method? Would they believe in a substitutionary, representative, or exemplary atonement? Would they or would they not believe in "original sin"? And on and on.

It is unreasonable for other Christians to demand that Latter-day Saints conform to a single standard of "Christian" doctrine when they do not agree among themselves upon exactly what that standard is. To do so is to establish a double standard; doctrinal diversity is tolerated in some churches, but not in others. The often-heard claim that all true Christians share a common core of necessary Christian doctrine rests on the dubious proposition that all present differences between Christian denominations are over purely secondary or even trivial matters-matters not central to Christian faith. This view is very difficult to defend in the light of Christian history, and might be easier to accept if Protestants and Catholics- or Protestants and Protestants, for that mat-ter-had not once burned each other at the stake as non-Christian heretics over these same "trivial" differences.