Apologetics Index

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.

October 8, 2021: House of Yahweh cult leader Yisrayl Hawkins, who claimed he would never die, dead at 87.

Over the years many members have fled the cult. Hawkins ex-wife Kay Hawkins, who was excommunicated in 1994, wrote a book about her experience.

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.

Steven Hassan, PhD, is a cult expert with over 47 years of experience.

Hassan, a licensed mental health counselor (M.Ed. LMHC, NCC), is at the forefront of the cult education and recovery field, in which he has been involved since 1976.

A former cult member himself, he is an expert on the subject of mind control -- the coercive persuasion methods used by manipulative people to recruit and hold on to followers.

An extremist sect controversial for its un-biblical beliefs and cult-like practices. Theologically Aggressive Christianity Mission Training Corps is a cult of Christianity. Sociologically it is a destructive cult.

Update, September 28, 1018: Cult leader Deborah Green, 71, has been sentenced to 72 years in prison.