Apologetics Index

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Followers of Christ Church — a deadly 'faith healing' cult — is still in the news

New book: Broken Faith: Inside the Word of Faith Fellowship (Spindale, NC), One of America's Most Dangerous Cults.

Encouraging development: Some churches will no longer sing or play Bethel or Hillsong music

Shincheonji Church of Jesus members believe founder and leader Lee Man-hee is the appointed successor (or the Second Coming) of Jesus Christ.

Theologically it is a cult of Christianity. Sociologically it has some cultlike characteristics as well.

Pastored by 'apostle' Bill Johnson, Bethel Church in Redding, California is an influential church in the so-called New Apostolic Reformation (NAR).

The NAR is a heterodox movement in Protestant Christianity in which people follow present-day apostles and prophets who claim to govern the church and give new divine revelation that is needed to set up God's kingdom on earth.

Bethel's teachings and practices also identify the church as part of the equally problematic Word-Faith Movement.

» Update: A Biblical Response to Bethel Church's Attempts to Raise a Two-Year-Old Child, Olive, From the Dead.

People leaving the church we pastor (or in which we otherwise serve) to attend a different one is often a test of our personal maturity and the orthopraxy of our church's ministry.

Cults and abusive churches hurt people as they transition to a different church. Biblical churches do not.

Many people who have taken to themselves the role of shepherding God's sheep use the rod and staff to beat the sheep when they should be gentle, yet they stand by idly when wolves attack the sheep.

Though it is an unscriptural act to divorce without cause and subsequently remarry, the act involved does not result in an ongoing, sinful state.

The same reasoning that develops a five-fold ministry doctrine from Ephesians 4:11 could develop a seven-fold or eight-fold ministry doctrine from other scripture verses.

God's confusion of mankind's previously unified language at Babel (Genesis 11:1-9) is regularly criticized by skeptics. However, there is nothing in history or linguistics that genuinely contradicts the account.