07AR12-27

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Apologia Report 12:27

July 28, 2007

Subject: Catholic/Orthodox welcome former Protestant leaders

In this issue:

CHILDREN OF GOD/FAMILY INTERNATIONAL - two new books: 1) former San Francisco Chronicle editor covers high-profile ex-member murder suicide, 2) three sisters tell the story of their escape

CHURCH HOPPING - why Protestant leaders are leaving their evangelical roots for Catholic and Orthodox churches

ISLAM - Brother Andrew's new book presents the testimonies of several Muslims living in the Middle East who have come to Christ

MORMONISM - Jan Shipps says Book of Mormon subtitle represents the LDS Church response to ex-Mormon influence in the early 1980s

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CHILDREN OF GOD/FAMILY INTERNATIONAL

"Enslaved by the cult of sex ... for 25 years" by Celeste Jones -- an excerpt from the new book Not Without My Sister: The True Story of Three Girls Violated and Betrayed by Those They Trusted [2]. The article leads with this summary: "Born into an evil cult, called the Children of God, sisters Celeste, Kristina and Juliana Jones were abused from the age of three. Torn from their parents, their childhood was dominated by the warped cult leader David Berg.

"The cult ... still exists. While their father, the son of a British Army officer, is still in the cult, the three sisters have escaped its clutches. Here the eldest, Celeste Jones, 32, a clinical psychologist, who lives in Somerset with her eight-year-old daughter, gives a chilling account of life in the grip of a sinister madness." Jones notes that "we have founded an organisation called RISE International [riseinternationalcic.org] which works to protect children from all forms of abuse in isolated and/or extremist cults." She concludes: "The leaders of the Children of God continue to live in hiding, and have never accepted responsibility or shown remorse for those hurt by their wicked doctrines." Daily Mail (UK), Jul 13 '07, n.p. <http://tinyurl.com/ywes96>

Jesus Freaks: A True Story of Murder and Madness on the Evangelical Edge, by Don Lattin [3] -- "In January 2005, Ricky Rodriguez stabbed a woman to death and then fled the scene of the crime, finally shooting himself in the California desert. Rodriguez was a high-profile ex-member of the Children of God, also called the Family, a controversial hippie cult of the 1970s that had spiraled into aberrant sexual behaviors and other disconcerting practices. Rodriguez was seeking revenge for the sexual abuse that his murder victim and others had committed against him when he was a child (the cult had gone so far as to record its crimes in a bizarre book that glibly described - and provided photographic evidence of - sexual relations between adults and children). Lattin, who covered the religion beat for the San Francisco Chronicle, offers an arresting if uneven account of the Family. He begins by arguing that the cult is best understood in the context of American evangelicalism, and does some strong investigation into the founder's ancestry to prove this point. But he does not sustain these threads throughout the book, which becomes a typical true crime tale. Some aspects of the Family, like 'flirty fishing' (sacred prostitution), are carefully researched, while others (like a journalistic account of how the cult funded itself so well on a global scale) are underreported." Publishers Weekly, Jun 25 '07, p49. <http://tinyurl.com/3x9onv>

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CHURCH HOPPING

"Eastern Exodus" by Kerby Rials <rials.org> -- subtitled: "Some Protestant leaders are leaving their evangelical roots for Catholic and Orthodox churches. What's behind the trend?"

Noted examples of the drift mentioned by Rials include Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry, who is now Catholic. Two mentioned who converted to Orthodoxy are former Campus Crusader, Peter Gillquist and "Author Frank Schaeffer, son of well-known Protestant theologian Francis Schaeffer. ...

"According to Orthodox researcher Alexey D. Krindach, 37 percent of the priests in The Orthodox Church in America are Protestant converts, and more than three-quarters of the seminary students at two of the largest Orthodox seminaries are former Protestants. ...

"According to a 2006 study by the National Council of Churches, the fastest growing major church in the United States is neither Protestant nor Catholic. It is Eastern Orthodox. The million-member Orthodox Church in America grew at a rate of 6.4 percent in 2005, compared to the AG's [Assembly of God] only 1.8 percent. ...

"'These narratives all had a recurring theme: Converts saw themselves returning to the Age of the Apostles, to the primitive Christian community depicted in the New Testament,' notes researcher Phillip Charles Lucas in Enfants Terribles: The Challenge of Sectarian Converts to Ethnic Orthodox Churches in the United States [1]. 'The discovery of Orthodoxy is experienced as a return to something pure and sacred, something that had been lost.'"

Rials includes a brief summary of "the conversion of the 2,000 members of the Evangelical Orthodox Church (EOC) denomination to the Antiochian Orthodox Church (AOC) in 1987. The EOC was composed primarily of former Protestants, many of whom were Campus Crusade and Young Life leaders."

As a counterpoint to the opening statistics noted above, Rials observes that "Protestants (57 percent) still far outnumber Catholics (24 percent) and Orthodox (1 percent) in the United States, according to The Barna Group. ... Protestants jumped from 51 percent in 1991 to 57 percent in 2006, while Catholics dropped as a percentage of the U.S. population from 28 percent in 1996 to 24 percent in 2006."

Further, Kindrach "reports that the actual total of Orthodox believers in the United States is only 1.2 million, not the 4 million often cited, meaning their percentage is less than 1 percent of the U.S. population."

The brief sidebar, "Objections Overruled," lists some of the most common reasons cited for moving East, along with standard evangelical rejoinders. Ministry Today, May/Jun '07, pp44-48. <http://tinyurl.com/yu5z22>

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ISLAM

Secret Believers: What Happens When Muslims Believe in Christ, by Brother Andrew and Al Jassen [4] -- reviewer Gary P. Gillum's book note reads: "As riveting and fast-paced as any well-written novel, this account by Andrew (founder, Open Doors International [and author of] God's Smuggler [5]) and Jassen ... of several Muslims in the Middle East who have come to Christ is an inspiring call for the Western Church to engage in a 'good Jihad' to help the Middle Eastern Church's struggle for survival. The authors refer to this converted population as Muslim Background Believers, and they have changed their names and locations for protection. Implicit in the story is an underlying global problem both Muslims and Christians share: many don't really 'walk the talk' their respective scriptures preach. Instead, apathy or violence runs rampant. Throughout the narrative, the authors preach love and forgiveness, two attributes sadly missing in 21-century society. They enjoin Christians of all denominations to cooperate in this 'mission' and lead by the example of their own lives. Recommended for all libraries." Library Journal, Jul '07, p96.

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MORMONISM

"From Peoplehood to Church Membership: Mormonism's Trajectory since World War II" by Jan Shipps -- the transcript of her presidential address to the American Society of Church History earlier this year. By "peoplehood" Shipps is referring to the perception early in LDS history "of literally being chosen people." This historical review contrasts that understanding to the transformation that has taken place as "an ever increasing proportion of people in local wards ... were converts" with the result being that "the world of yesteryear when every church member had Mormon DNA has practically disappeared."

Of greater significance is a brief observation from Shipps that, as this transition took place, "a group of militant evangelicals formed an alliance with a substantial body of ex-Mormons, individuals whose ethnicity was Mormon, but who had rejected the LDS belief system." The related footnote mentions Ed Decker as well as Jerald and Sandra Tanner.

"The LDS Church answered [the ex-Mormons] by changing its emphasis from the history and experience of the 'latter-day saints' to the saints who created the Christian Church in the apostolic era." Shipps cites evidence of this in the "Another Testament of Jesus Christ" subtitle addition to the Book of Mormon in 1981, among other things.

Shipps gives weight to the extreme contrast in belief between Mormonism and Christianity (often downplayed by LDS). She refers to Mormon founder Joseph Smith's "astonishing claims" to legitimacy which "departed from the claims ... advanced by most other churches. Smith's followers said that God had removed the true Church of Christ from the earth during a Great Apostasy that had occurred at the end of the Apostolic Age. Now, through the agency of the prophet Joseph Smith, the church was restored."

Elsewhere, Shipps makes interesting observations in her footnotes. Note 7 (page 244) cites a "prize winning" Sunstone article ("The Reconstruction of Mormon Doctrine" by Thomas G. Alexander) which the magazine reprinted on more than one occasion. "Alexander makes a persuasive case that 'the doctrine of God preached and believed [by Latter-Day Saints] before 1835 was essentially trinitarian...." The following footnote (#8, on page 245) observes that "The most important monograph about the Book of Mormon is Terryl L. Givens, By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture That Launched a New World Religion [6]." Church History, 76:2 - 2007, pp241-261.

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Sources, Digital:

1 - <http://tinyurl.com/2qxac8>

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Sources, Monographs:

2 - Not Without My Sister: The True Story of Three Girls Violated and Betrayed by Those They Trusted, by Kristina Jones, Celeste Jones, and Juliana Buhring (HarperCollins, 2007, hardcover, 432 pages)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0007248067/apologiareport>

3 - Jesus Freaks: A True Story of Murder and Madness on the Evangelical Edge, by Don Lattin (HarperOne, October 2007, hardcover, 256 pages)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061118044/apologiareport>

4 - Secret Believers: What Happens When Muslims Believe in Christ, by Brother Andrew and Al Jassen (Revell, 2007, hardcover, 272 pages)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0800718747/apologiareport>

5 - God's Smuggler by Brother Andrew, John Sherrill, and Elizabeth Sherrill (Chosen, 2001, paperback, 256 pages)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0800793013/apologiareport>

6 - By the Hand of Mormon: The American Scripture that Launched a New World Religion, by Terryl L. Givens (Oxford Univ Prs, 2003, paperback, 336 pages)

<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0195168887/apologiareport>

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