The California Collection/TheCaliforniaCollection.cdr/his075/cult8.lzh/CULT8.TXT

Text File | 1991-06-30 | 6KB | 100 lines

CUL:"Who's That Knocking At My Door?"  by Gary L. Tittle

   Door-to-Door witnessing is an experience for all believers; and yet
there is a "door" experience that many believers don't quite know what
to do about. It usually happens that you open the door to be greeted by
two people representing themselves to be either Bible Students, or
Christian Missionaries with a desire to share literature and
information with anyone.

   My favorite visits are those of the Jehovah's Witnesses. In this
series I am going to present to you verbatim the information from the
JW witnessing/answers manual and let you be the one to do the scripture
work to set up your own replies. In addition, I will offer suggestions
on asking them INSIDE and setting up a Bible Study as a cult ministry.

   In addition, there are a number of books that will be necessary to
obtain. The best place to obtain them? Directly from the representative
who comes to your door! You will be instructed what to mark, how to
mark it (working from a fresh copy), to present the claims of the
gospel from their own literature, in such a way as to either stop their
visits or actually win them away from the cult to the LORD.

   In this series we will also deal with the question of Mormon
Missionaries and how to deal with the questions that arise to stir you
to win them to the LORD also.

   I suggest that you take a look at the file "What Is A Cult?" on the
CfC download area before you proceed, if you have not already
downloaded it and done so. Also, you need to study "A Catalog of Cults"
from this board.

   First of all, Who IS that knocking at your door? It is a sinner that
Christ has died for who has fallen into the trap of an authoritarian
structure with it's basis in doctrinal error. Some of the language that
you will encounter will present what appears to be "strong scriptural
argument". The key to unraveling this argument structure is the
examination of it's very own points. For example, it has been stated to
me by an "authority" that the Book of Mormon has gone to press time and
time again with manuscript errors for over 80 years with the same
errors up until 1982 when they were finally corrected.

   In actuality, the purport for the perpetuation of an error over 80
years is NOT a bad one. In Acts of the Apostles, for example, the error
"EASTER" in place of the greek word "PASCHA", or passover has been
printed in the KJV since 1611. The particular error that I am referring
to however would have the word "white" be rendered "pure"...quite a
linguistic feat! (See the modern 1982 and forward rendition of 2 Nephi
30:6, compared to that of editions from 1930 and back). Just as
fundementalist Christianity has it's apologists, so does the major cult
groups of today. One of my favorite works of apologetics goes to a two
6 hour VHS tape presentation done by the Unification Church, in an
effort ot "promote understanding of the goals of Sun Myung Moon among
the churches".

   While Sun Myung Moon was in Federal Prison for income tax invasion,
this epic video presentation was mailed to pastors all over the United
States as an effort to clean up the image that the Unification Church
was suffering from after the incarceration.

   A look at the literature of the cult groups reveals that it is of
sufficently high quality and low expense to promote extreme circulation
of the material. Watchtower Bible and Tract Society has one of the most
modern printing plants in the entire world. It works at a furious pace
churning out the Watchtower, Awake, single fold tracts, and hard-bound
volumes, all of which are sold or given away door-to-door in one of the
most succesful exercises in mass advertising known.

   One point that should be made here is that such efforts are not
confined to the mainstream cult groups. However, sticking to the
mainstream cult groups for now, Bookcraft and Deseret Press publish
titles other than those of strictly doctrinal nature. Such publishing
(the aforementioned two presses are Mormon owned and operated) ventures
that mix general titles with doctrinal titles stand a far better chance
to place doctrinal catalogs within homes in the "LDS missionary field".

   Case in point, Ambassador College Press, in Pasadena, California, of
the Worldwide Church of God, publishes about the highest quality slick
magazine available. The Plain Truth and it's sister publications make
offers within articles for additional information. As a general rule,
you should know that the Church of God meets privately in halls and on
the Sabbath, as opposed to on Sunday; also that they consider
themselves the "true church".

   The WWCoG perpetuates the innocuous doctrine of Anglo-Israelism as a
clencher to infatuate it's members. (See Catalog of the Cults). In my
collection of Anglo-Israelite literature is some of the most
fascinating theories and ethnological studies that anyone could
possibly hope to read, but nonetheless; for the most part the theories
of the Anglo-Israelite are based on conjecture.

   In this introduction we have taken a brief look at major cults and
mentioned the resources that are used by them. In the next unit we will
take examples from a field guide used by Jehovah's Witnesses in
door-to-door work. As we look at the "questions and answers" I hope
that you will see that it is a carefully planned ministry that is
designed to lead the person who answers the door into finally coming to
Kingdom Hall and becoming a Jehovah's Witness.

   Gary L. Tittle