Customer Reviews

Unmasking the Cults

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4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

This introduction to the OM Guide to Cults and Religious Movements gives plenty of information about what a cult is. It is written in outline form, which makes it a little hard to follow. Also, the examples are haphazard, which means there is a lot of bouncing around and not a whole lot of depth about any particular group. (I guess the more you already know about a group, the better you will understand, but I guess that's what the rest of the series is about.) Overall, though, if you want to skim through this in an hour, you would have good information from which to work.

This book is written in outline form, providing an excellent overview of the beliefs and doctrines of the major cults. It offers a brief but useful overview of cult evangelism, why people join cults, the deceptive tactics of cults and the method of keeping people out of the cults--critical thinking and being theologically informed. This book should be required reading for anyone that wants a good introduction to the study of the cults

Gomes has written an excellent introduction to Cults and Religious Movements. Instead of focusing on specific groups, the author describes the characteristics of cults in general.

The booklet's contents are as follows:

1. What is a cult.
2. Statistics on cults (membership, growth rate).
3. Theological characteristics of cults (denial of the Trinity, End Times, Salvation by Works, denial of the Resurrection, etc.).
4. Sociological and psychological perspective on cults.
5. Why people join cults (love, family, acceptance, fulfillment, idealism).
6. Keeping people out of cults (teach classes on cults, reaching out to people's social/emotional/spiritual needs, keeping the lines of communication open).

Recommended!

I was disappointed at the dismissal of social scientific evidence in favour of a priori conservative christian observations about deviation from an a priori normative basis. Disturbingly, this seemed to be on the basis that some forms of cult or new religious movement had too much in common with fundamentalism's own authoritarianism, failure to respect intellectual freedom (or "relativism". However, how else is one meant to assess whether an NRM is harmful or not? Gomes fails to realise the implications of social scientific or psychological studies that do show such correspondences between authoritarian NRMs and fundamentalist Christianity, while harmless and non-authoritarian religious traditions are also included in this series solely on the basis of alleged philosophical deviation, and no other reason. I don't think anyone outside fundamentalism will be impressed with the latter criteria as sole basis. Moreover, it also suffers from the relativist strawperson argument. And if the NRM is politically conservative, it is interesting to note how much of that gets let out of the Zondervan series, compared to liberal alternative religions such as Unitarian Universalism.