Research resources on cult leader Wayne Bent, who heads the Lord Our Righteousness Church and considers himself to be the Messiah.
» Full Entry

The Voice, a new Bible ‘translation’, pays more attention to form than to content. In doing so it ends up smuggling false doctrine and teaching into the text.
» Full Entry

“The Voice inserts peculiar teachings into the text that do not belong. The end result of these ‘insertions’ is a text that obscures the gospel, distorts Jesus substitutionary work on the cross, teaches Pelagianism and promotes a liberal form of works Righteousness.”
» Full Entry

Research resources on The Voice, a new Bible ‘translation’ that introduces false doctrine.
» Full Entry

The authors of the New Testament claimed to be writing true accounts of the life of Jesus, and the historical reliability of their writings is important because it protects the Christian faith from modern revisionism.

But can we have confidence that the New Testament was accurately recorded and transmitted to us, and that what it contains is the product of early and eyewitness testimony?
» Full Entry

Baptism for the dead, or baptism by proxy, is one of countless unbiblical practices of the Mormon Church. While the church — which calls itself the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — claims to be the restoration of early Christianity, its doctrines and practices clearly demonstrate that it is, theologically, a cult of Christianity.
» Full Entry

Excerpt: On the three FBI disks were two quite intimate letters, written independently of each other by Phyllis and Gene and addressed to Jim Jones at a moment when both the Jonestown community and the Chaikins’ relationship were beginning to unravel in the jungles of Guyana.

These letters witness the moral destruction of a married couple shortly before Jones brought about their physical annihilation. Above all, they reveal two very different responses to his influence, as half of this couple advocates genocide and the other attempts in vain to defy the minister at the eleventh hour and to save their children’s lives.
» Full Entry

Dr. Norman L. Geisler is a Christian apologist, teacher and author on the subjects of Christian apologetics, philosophy and the Bible.
» Full Entry

Dr. Ronald M. Enroth: “Virtually all authoritarian groups that I have studied impose discipline, in one form or another, on members.

A common theme that I encountered during interviews with ex-members of these groups was that the discipline was often carried out in public-and involved ridicule and humiliation.”
» Full Entry

The Institute for Religious Research desires to promote — in a thoughtful and gracious manner — the exclusive claims of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, as revealed in the Bible. “We believe faith in Jesus Christ requires us to go beyond reason but not against it.”
» Full Entry

Good aliens are watching bad aliens interfere with the earth. The bad aliens want to eventually take over our resources. The good aliens believe only in etical contact: information vs. interference. And thus they have been giving messages to Marshall Vian Summers designed, he claims, to warn mankind.
» Full Entry

We have seen nothing that suggests University Bible Fellowship’s teachings and practices should not — at the very least — be cause of concern for Christians. In our opinion, the UBF is an unhealthy organization whose teachings and practices provide a breeding ground for spiritual elitism and spiritual abuse.
» Full Entry

David Kowalksi: “I have spent hundreds of hours over the past several years conversing with “emerging Christians” as I have listened to them and tried to convince them of their need to embrace true, biblical faith and historical orthodoxy.

As a result of this experience I have learned that despite the diversity in the emergent movement there is a behavioral culture to the emerging church movement as a whole and I have learned to adapt my communication strategies for most effectively interacting with its participants. “
» Full Entry

Timeline covering the birth through the latest arrest, Sep. 2008, of Tony Alamo.
» Full Entry

While mainstream evangelical churches have always encouraged a life of holiness before the Lord and urged moderation in dress and other aspects of life-style, authoritarian churches demonstrate an excessive focus on such concerns. The restricted life-style and limits on personal freedom that follow are just other examples of the need to control that all abusive churches exemplify.

If life-style rigidity is a characteristic of most abusive churches, the role of subjective experience is equally crucial in understanding how such groups drift toward religious marginality.
» Full Entry

The spiritual elitism of abusive churches can be seen in some of the terminology they use to refer to themselves:

“God’s Green Berets,” “God’s End-Time Army,” the “faithful remnant,” the special “move of God.” As one ex-member put it, “We believed we were on the cutting edge of what God was doing in the world. I looked down on people who left our movement; they didn’t have what it took. They were not faithful to their commitment. When everyone else got with God’s program, they would be involved in shepherding just like we were.”

A former member of a group known as The Assembly (headquartered in Fullerton, California, and discussed later in this book) said, “Although we didn’t come right out and ’say it, in our innermost hearts we really felt that there was no place in the world like our assembly. We thought the rest of Christianity was out to lunch.”
» Full Entry

Traditional evangelical churches value and respect individual differences. For the most part, they encourage people to become unique persons in their own right, not mere photocopies of someone else.

Authoritarian, manipulative fringe groups, on the other hand, encourage clones and promote cookie-cutter life-styles.

Flavil Yeakley, in his book The Discipling Dilemma, suggests that such groups value conformity, not diversity. “They tend to make people over after the image of a group leader, the group norm, or what the group regards as the ideal personality …. They are made to feel guilty for being what they are and inferior for not being what the group wants them to be.”
» Full Entry

“Why does your site include inappropriate ads? The Bible says freely you have received, freely give. I think it is inappropriate to try and make money with the Gospel.”
» Full Entry

Should Apologetics Index include no statements of opinion?
» Full Entry

How do the publishers of Apologetics Index decide which topics to include?
» Full Entry

...Nobody joins a cult. You join a self-help group a religious movement a political organization.

They change so gradually, by the time you realize you're entrapped - and almost everybody does - you can't figure a safe way back out....
- Deborah Layton, Survivor of Jim Jones' Peoples Temple

» Use these headlines on your blog or website