People often accuse fundamental Baptists of being a "cult" or "like Jim Jones." Jim Jones was actually a communist liberal, not a fundamentalist Christian. Here is a video of him singing the Soviet Union national anthem.
The following excerpt from this Wikipedia article on Jim Jones shows just how politically liberal and anti-God Jim Jones was:
“According to religious studies professor Catherine Wessinger, while Jones always spoke of the social gospel's virtues, before the late 1960s Jones chose to conceal that his gospel was actually communism.[15] By the late 1960s, Jones began at least partially openly revealing the details of his "Apostolic Socialism" concept in Temple sermons.[15] Jones also taught that "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment — socialism".[39] Jones often mixed these ideas, such as preaching that, "If you're born in capitalist America, racist America, fascist America, then you're born in sin. But if you're born in socialism, you're not born in sin."[40]
By the early 1970s, Jones began deriding traditional Christianity as "fly away religion", rejecting the Bible as being a tool to oppress women and non-whites, and denouncing a "Sky God" who was no God at all.[15] Jones wrote a booklet titled "The Letter Killeth", criticizing the King James Bible.[41] Jones also began preaching that he was the reincarnation of Mahatma Gandhi, Father Divine, Jesus, Gautama Buddha and Vladimir Lenin. Former Temple member Hue Fortson, Jr. quoted Jones as saying, "What you need to believe in is what you can see ... If you see me as your friend, I'll be your friend. As you see me as your father, I'll be your father, for those of you that don't have a father ... If you see me as your savior, I'll be your savior. If you see me as your God, I'll be your God."[10]
So as you can see, it’s not like people thought they were in a Bible-believing church until they were suddenly asked to drink the Kool-Aid.
People need to realize that some practices are preferences as opposed to convictions. For example, the reason my wife chooses to do home birth and we eat an organic diet is because I believe that a natural lifestyle is beneficial, so that’s our preference for our family. We may bend those rules from time to time since doing so would not be sinful. For example, some pregnancy complications could obviously necessitate a hospital birth in the future, and we do eat at restaurants from time to time.
Don’t assume a church is a cult just because people tend to rub off on those around them. This is human nature. It’s just like at your job when a lot of the men start growing beards at once or when your wife suddenly wanted to buy a maxi skirt with a chevron print. People are influenced by trends and get ideas from whoever they hang around. If you attend a good soul-winning church, then chances are your pastor has some practical wisdom about life, and some of the members just might decide to adopt some of his preferences. If that’s you, don’t make your church seem like a cult by “majoring on the minors.” If another family chooses to do some things differently, that’s perfectly fine, and nobody should confront them about those differences.
Jim Jones hated the Bible, called himself Jesus, and admitted to being an atheist. Stop comparing independent Baptist churches to bizarre cults. Cult members blindly follow a man, but, as Baptists, the Bible is our authority for all areas of faith and practice, which is why people should bring their Bibles to church.
“These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.” Acts 17:11
Here is a sermon on Convictions vs. Preferences
If brother Dominic ever starts looking like Michael Jackson, I'll think FWBC has a little cultish behavior going on. Meanwhile, a pastor who says his congregation is free to disagree on the non-fundamentals is far, far from being a cult leader. Not even in the same ballpark.
ReplyDeletePeople also hate unity. It makes them feel uncomfortable.
ReplyDeletePeople assume that no one willingly chooses to give up foolish vices. When you tell someone that you don't have a television, or watch certain kinds of movies, or listen to certain kinds of music, that you don't drink, that your wife doesn't dress like a hooker, etc., they assume that someone must be FORCING you into that behavior. After all, who doesn't want to do all of those things right?
ReplyDeleteThey have never given up anything wicked, and as a result they don't understand how liberating it can be. They see living a good life as being in bondage to a "cult", when in reality they are all slaves in bondage to their sin.
It's almost as if this generation is redefining vocabulary. Take the word "repent" for an example. If you look that word up, almost every dictionary will define it as "feel sincere regret or remorse about one's wrongdoing or sin". So everybody had this preconceived idea, believing that is what it means. People just want to jump on the bandwagon and become part of the "repent of your sins" crowd. Same thing with the word "cult". Anytime someone hears from fundamentalists like ourselves, they blindly jump on the bandwagon with the rest of the world saying it is cult-like behavior if you agree with those fundies. Even my own blood related family members will say that. So it calls to remembrance just who I am in the Lord Jesus. And I quite frankly, I now smile knowing deep down inside that I'm glad to be a part of God's family.
ReplyDeleteSo since the world is goofed up on the meaning of words, I am beginning to realize that they are going to believe what they want, irregardless of what is true and right and just. Welcome to the the beginning of major Christian persecution. Saying we are a cult is a method of demonization the media (and the rest of the world for that matter) is going to use against us to get the citizens of America against us, just like they did at Waco (which I believe was the beta test of this type of demonization).
Problem: Christians standing behind the Word of God
Reaction: all the other "Christian" leaders condemning us saying we are a growing cult (jumping on the anti-political incorrectness bandwagon)
Solution: rid of all biblical Christianity and weapons rights
Waco was also a government fabrication yet Waco is often spoken of as an example of fundamentalist christians.
ReplyDelete