[continuing on from my preious posts here and here]
Waltar Martin's concluding chapters in his book The Kingdom of the Cults are on Cult evangelism and the Road to recovery. Here are a couple of things I would like to comment on:
We see the strange, but just judgment of God upon the Christian church because of her lethargy in that He is allowing the forces of darkness [cults, other religions] to succeed ... while denying the source of light and life, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. ... Third, the average Christian knows what he believes, but is unable to articulate why he believes, insofar as being able to document the why of his belief from the Scriptures, which he frequently finds a frustrating and exasperating task. The clergy is often at fault in this respect because they do not emphasize the teaching ministry of the pulpit, but rather settle for an evangelistic emphasis with very little doctrinal depth.
...
... There must be something fundamentally wrong when important areas of doctrine such as these [doctrine of the Trinity, the deity and humanity of Jesus Christ, the relationship of grace and faith to works] are neglected or glossed over lightly. (p. 483)
The situation since Walter Martin's time has greatly worsened. Now, so-called 'Evangelicals' like Joel Osteen deny even the Lord Jesus Christ publicly and entertain the masses who come into his church. Rick Warren is too busy trying to be Mr. Nice Guy and sucker up to the rich and powerful in society while promoting his PEACE plan, while at the same time watering down the Gospel drastically and playing fast and loose with the Word of God. The seeker-sensitive mentality has infected the entire Evangelical movement and numbers become paramount, especially to the growing mega-churches. Those denominations that are more orthodox are probably wrecked by internal controversy (Norman Shepherd and Neo-legalism; KJV-Onlyism) to be useful for the Kingdom of God. Furthermore, they are too inward-looking and oftentimes may degenerate into a 'holy huddle'. Truly, Satan is having a field day with Christians running around in circles, fighting real and imaginery enemies, or worst still, succumbing to the enemy's design. And just when we require strong feeding on the Word of God so that we would not be 'tossed about by every wind of doctrine' (Eph. 4:14), we have... entertainment of the 'saints'. Disgusting!
[To combat the cults] Special commissions should therefore be appointed similar to that already sponsered by the World Council of Churches, so that Christian individuals, organizations, churches and denominations may pool their information and erect a systematic defense against cult proselytizing. Through conservatives and liberals may disagree theologically, they suffer from the inroads of the cults individually, and yearly the ranks of American cultism are swelled by former Methodists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Baptists, Congregationalists, etc., who attended both liberal and conservative church until they were converted by the cults. (p. 498)
The means to evangelize and combat adherents of the cults can be made readily available to all interested parties. It remains for Christians of both ecumenical and independent persuasion to agree to cooperate in the dimension of pertinent literature on this ever-growing field of mutual concern. (p. 502)
This is where I must part with Walter Martin. This is Evangelical Co-Belligerance against the cults, which suffers from the same problems as the more political variant. This is especially so since this are theological differences involved. You just don't fight fire by adding more oil into the mixture! The theological liberals, the Neo-Orthodox etc. are no different from the cults, except that they are more biblical than they (at least in some cases)! Since that is the case, I think that Martin's advice here is in error and should not be followed. If an alliance should be made, it should be limited only to individuals, denominations and churches that totally agree on the basics of the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints (Jude 3).
In the next and final issue, I would look at Martin's treatment of the subject of the Seventh-Day Adventists in his Appendix 2.
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