J. Gordon Melton
An Apologetics Index research resource

One of my motivations for getting into "cult" studies was the abysmal state of evangelicals studies on new religions and the amateurish and "hateful" attitude that unfortunately still pervades their approach.

My interest in new religions is ultimately missiological not apologetic. I believe that the emphasis apologetics in the Evangelical community (especially what passes for popular apologetics) is a doing more harm than good.

In labelling the alternative religions as 'cults', anti-cultists assumed that in some measure the alternative religions were essentially all alike, an assumption that has proved completely false. The only characteristic they share is a negative evaluation; they each present an alternative to traditional Christianity. The assumption of similarity has been used to attack the 'cults', by attributing to all of them the faults and excesses of any one of them. This practice, among with the highly polemic motivation underlying most anti-cult literature, makes such materials the least useful in understanding the nature of life in alternative religions, though of immense usefulness in understanding the climate in which NRMs have had to operate.

Bad doctrine produces bad fruit behaviorally (e.g., Mark 7:7-13; Col. 2:20-23; 1 Tim. 4:1-5; 2 Pet. 2:1; Rev. 2:14-15, 20, 24), which is as true for Christians as it is for cultists. As Van Baalen stated, 'If practice follows from theory, if life is based upon teaching, it follows that the wrong doctrine will issue in the wrong attitude toward God and Christ, and consequently in warped and twisted Christian life.'

And I have, not being a theologian -- and I make no claim to be one -- a difficult task in sorting through doctrinal questions to do an adequate theological analysis of most groups' beliefs. I'm a church historian with most of my theological work in historical theology, not systematics. That's part of where I'm coming from. I also have another problem...I have a problem as to where to draw the line -- what's heresy and what's evangelically kosher. What is acceptable doctrinal deviation?

In 1993, at the centennial of the World's Parliament of Religions, the events which marked the beginning of religious pluralism in the West, the new religions participated as full members is dialogue. In addition, religious and social science scholars, led by the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Santa Barbara, California, CESNUR (Center for Studies on New Religions) in Turin, Italy, and INFORM in London, now draw on three decades of new religious studies. There is every sign that as the twenty-first century approaches the new alternative religions, having become a familiar part of the Western religious landscape, will be fully accepted as members of the religious community.

[Los Angeles lawyer Barry Fisher] was accompanied by two Santa Barbarans - J. Gordon Melton, director of the Institute for the Study of American Religions, and James R. Lewis, director of the Association of World Academics for Religious Education--and Thomas Banigan of Anver Bioscience Design Inc. in Sierra Madre.

The Americans held a pair of news conferences to suggest that the sect was innocent of criminal charges and was a victim of excessive police pressure.
[...]

The Americans said the sect had invited them to visit after they expressed concern to Aum's New York branch about religious freedom in Japan. They said their airfare, hotel bills and "basic expenses" were paid by the cult.

One of the Americans, James Lewis, told a hostile and evidently incredulous roomful of Japanese reporters gathered at an Aum office Monday that the cult could not have produced the rare poison gas, sarin, used in both murder cases. He said the Americans had determined this from photos and documents provided by Aum.

Another claim by the AUM apologists is that the trip to Japan was initiated and financed by AUM 'dissidents,' shocked by the acts of their leaders. The reality is that the trip was initiated by the NRM scholars involved, who contacted AUM to offer their help, and that there are no AUM dissident. As of 1999, AUM Shinrikyo is alive and well, one and indivisible, the members united in their loyaly to Shoko Asahara, and this includes the alleged dissidents who hosted our collegues in 1995.

DR. MELTON: When you are investigating groups such as this, you never rely upon the unverified testimony of ex-members.

MR. MORGAN: Why?

DR. MELTON: To put it bluntly, hostile ex-members invariably shade the truth. They invariably blow out of proportion minor incidents and turn them into major incidents, and over a period of time their testimony almost always changes because each time they tell it they get the feedback of acceptance or rejection from those to whom they tell it, and hence it will be developed and merged into a different world view that they are adopting.

The major source of primary data to appear in anti-cult books comes from the reports of ex-members who have broken with the group because of an intense internal dispute or deprogramming. Unfortunately, their testimonies are usually highly distorted by their hostility and desire to hurt the group at all costs.

Gordon Melton, another leading authority on apocalyptic sects, said Israelis authorities need to err on the side of caution.

"They are sitting on a powder keg in Israel," said Melton, head of the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Santa Barbara.

"Here it would be a gross violation of civil rights. But given the situation there, it is not as mean as it appears. There are Jewish and Muslim groups with long histories of violence, and the Israelis are afraid these (apocalyptic Christian) groups will spark violence."

The reputation of religion scholars was not helped by the intervention of American scholars specializing in new religions (though not, it should he stressed, experts in the Japanese field). In the aftermath Of the gas attack and the government raids on Aum, and before the confessions showing Aum was the guilty party, American scholars Gordon Melton and James Lewis visited Japan, where they spoke of their concern for the rights of religious movements and the fears of government repression of religion. Since it was widely reported that their tickets to Japan had been paid for by Aum, and since the general public and media already believed Aum was guilty and hence ought to be repressed, their visit was not well received in Japan. Melton had earlier made the comment that, when the media reports scandal stories about religious movements the substance of such stories normally proves to be less than the extent of the allegations; in this case, however, the evidence showed the actions of the movement to be even greater than had originally been rumored. As a result of all this, not only has the reputation and image of religion in general been damaged, but so has that of its scholars--at precisely the moment when it is important for the voices of religion scholars to be heard who are concerned at the government's rhetoric about altering the nation's religious freedom laws.

"We compiled a list of 47 different cult characteristics," says lawyer Arends. "The Two-by-twos meet all the points. They are extremely secretive, have no written doctrine or records, you can't get a straight answer from them, and yet they claim to be the only path to salvation. Their 'friends' must give unconditional obedience to the workers, or they're guilty of backsliding. And if they backslide, they're damned." Mr. Arends says his case is bolstered by California academic Ronald Enroth's work Churches That Abuse, Port Coquitlam author Lloyd Fortt's In Search of 'the Truth', and the testimony of a dozen former members in Alberta.

However, Gordon Melton, the California-based editor of the Encyclopedia of American Religions, argues the Two-by-twos are simply an "old-line, 19th-century Christadelphian sect," an isolated subculture of non-Trinitarian Christians. They are not a cult because "there's no real threats or violence," he says. "A good comparison is the Amish. They keep to themselves, with a minimal creed; they stress community, and their faith is passed from generation to generation. The big difference is that the Two-by-twos blend into the community, own houses and work normal jobs."

They are both experts in religious studies; they live in the same city in California; each is an evangelical Protestant. They once co-authored a book, and even share the academic look of beard and glasses. But Dr. Ronald Enroth and Dr. Gordon Melton have one big difference: each thinks the other is dead wrong about cults.
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Melton, raised a Methodist in Alabama, is a religious studies researcher at the University of California, at the opposite end of Santa Barbara. He thinks new religious groups deserve every protection under rights to freedom of belief and argues they are not only harmless but beneficial for spiritual pluralism and moral teaching.

...traveled to Japan "to defend Aum...against charges of mass terrorism" and urge Japanese authorities not to "crush a religion and deny freedom."