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Apologia Report 15:13 (1,018)
April 7, 2010
Subject: Nova Religio reviews Bearing False Witness?
In this issue:
COUNTERCULT MINISTRY - antagonism, criticism, misrepresentation: the blame game continues
EVANGELISM - a believer's right, or religious identity theft?
HISTORY - Religion is now the hottest topic for American historians
OCCULTISM, GENERAL - "new trends in the study of Esotericism"
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COUNTERCULT MINISTRY
Bearing False Witness? An Introduction to the Christian Countercult Movement, by Douglas E. Cowan [1] -- though we have been aware of Cowan's book from its beginning, for whatever reason, we haven't seen many reviews of it. Perhaps one big reason is that his conclusions are not found to be on-target by those he criticizes (another reason may be the cost of the book, currently $91.95 on Amazon). Consider the review by W. Michael Ashcraft in Nova Religio (13:3 - 2010, pp128–131) for example.
"Countercult writings are filled with misrepresentations, leaps of
logic, erroneous data, plagiarized passages, and presumptions of
orthodoxy. Countercult writing is easy for anyone with academic
training to poke holes in, and poke fun at. ... Cowan gives us a
theory-driven survey of countercult writers. He does not hesitate to
point out problems with these writers, but he takes them quite
seriously, as the sources [of] information on cults for a large
evangelical and fundamentalist reading audience, influencing that
audience far out of proportion to the actual number of
countercultists. ...
"Unlike the anticultists, who are primarily interested in rescuing
people from cults, countercultists rarely interact with cult members. They are authors, evangelists, and heads of their own ministry organizations. ...
"The general axiom (from Karl Mannheim) of the countercult movement is that the Bible is infallible and inerrant. Any group that opposes the Bible as countercultist use and interpret it is a cult, an alien social group with erroneous beliefs. ...
"Variation, even in-fighting, are present to a remarkable degree
among writers who all supposedly share the one, rightful view of the universe. Cowan seems to have the greatest respect for Walter Martin (1928-1989).... Other countercultists, whom Cowan calls conspiracists, place cults in an apocalyptic setting. These include Bob Larson, Texe and Wanda Marrs, and Dave Hunt. ... The major fissure, if there is one, within the countercult community would thus run between those writers influenced by or sympathetic to Martin's approach (including many CRI staffers and former staffers) and the conspiracists, although this cannot be a hard and fast rule. One of the most widely recognized countercult intellectuals, Douglas Groothius [sic], cites Hunt in his own books about cults. ...
"From Cowan's work it appears that the countercult has expanded the term cult to include not just the new religions that NRM scholars study, but any and all religious groups that do not agree with evangelical theology. Although countercultists are careful to distinguish between cults like Mormons and false religions like Hinduism, in fact they use the same methods and arguments to refute them all. ... The core of any cult idea, person, or group is alien, damning, and harmful. In the end, for countercultists, nothing else matters. They are not interested in interreligious dialogue. And their understanding of the First Amendment is that they should be free to pursue their propagation of the truth, not that all religions should have an equal place in a pluralistic society. ...
"Surely this work will stand for some time as the standard
scholarly entry into the world of the countercultists."
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EVANGELISM
"Proselytism and Religious Identity Theft" by Thomas Farr, Senior
Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs -- one of the more concise, unbiased and reasonable approaches we've seen from a non-conservative source. Among Farr's many questions are: "do religious groups have a right to defend their respective identities against efforts to convert their adherents? Proselytism has sometimes been socially disruptive and even rapacious, undermining the structures of families and communities. Is there a way to balance a right to persuade by peaceful witness with a right of communities to defend their respective identities? If there is a legal 'right' to pursue one or both of these activities, what are the limits to that right? Can the law legitimately ban foreign missionaries? ...
"Christianity and Islam, the two largest world religions, each have a theological imperative to convert others. ...
"How, then, are we to think about proselytism? Should it be
condemned and banned as a cause of conflict? That seems unlikely. The right to convert is generally understood as a central element of the right to religious freedom. The American idea of religious liberty has historically centered on the rights of free persons to change their religious beliefs and to persuade others to change as well. In the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the right publicly to 'manifest' one's religious beliefs is companion to the 'freedom to change' those beliefs. ...
"On balance, it seems reasonable to conclude that both religion and democracy can benefit if the activity of sharing one's faith is both permitted and conducted with respect. But there is much work to do before such a conclusion is broadly accepted." Washington Post, Feb 26 '10, <www.tinyurl.com/yf9yf4x>.
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HISTORY
"Beyond Believers" by Bobby Ross Jr. -- reports that "religion [is]
emerging as the hottest topic of study among members of the American Historical Association (AHA).
"Perhaps surprisingly, leading evangelical scholars voiced general agreement with his basic premise. ...
"In an annual survey of AHA members, 7.7 percent of respondents selected religion as one of three areas of interest. That topped the 7.5 percent who chose cultural history, ranked number one for 15 years. ...
"In the AHA survey report, Jon Butler, a professor of history at
Yale University, suggested that scholarly interest in religion has
grown because 'historians realize that the world is aflame with faith, yet our traditional ways of dealing with modern history especially can't explain how or why.'" Christianity Today, Mar '10, p14. <wwwtinyurl.com/y8k3l5p>
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OCCULTISM, GENERAL
Henrik Bogdan's joint review of four titles (Nova Religio, 13:3 -
2010, pp 97–105), is focused on "new trends in the study of
Esotericism," that is, the academic analysis of occultism. He begins by briefly identifying related primary organizations (the United States-based Association for the Study of Esotericism [ASE], founded in 2002; and The European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism [ESSWE], founded in 2005) and journals (Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism, and Esoterica: The Journal of Esoteric Studies, though he neglects to mention that Esoterica hasn't published for quite some time now). This is followed by a brief historical summary of the field's development, principal players, and its initial debt to Antoine Faivre.
The first title reviewed represents "the benchmark dictionary in
Esotericism:" the Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism, Wouter Hanegraaff, ed. [2]. The next two are "excellent introductions:" Western Esotericism: A Brief History of Secret Knowledge, by Kocku Von Stuckrad [3] and Magic and Mysticism: An Introduction to Western Esoteric Traditions by Arthur Versluis [4]. The last is more specifically focused on the modern occult practice of sexual magic: Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism, by Hugh B. Urban [5].
Bogdan's own Western Esotericism and Rituals of Initiation [6], a study of Masonic and related "initiatory societies," is reviewed in
this issue by Nicholas Goodrick-Clark (pp123–124).
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SOURCES: Monographs
1 - Bearing False Witness?: An Introduction to the Christian
Countercult, by Douglas E. Cowan (Praeger, 2003, hardcover, 272 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/yelxg9u>
2 - Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism, Wouter Hanegraaff, ed. (Brill, 2006, hardcover, 1230 pages in two volumes) <www.tinyurl.com/yzqsey3>
3 - Western Esotericism: A Brief History of Secret Knowledge, by Kocku Von Stuckrad (Equinox, 2006, paperback, 148 pages)
4 - Magic and Mysticism: An Introduction to Western Esoteric
Traditions, by Arthur Versluis (Rowman & Littlefield, 2007, paperback, 208 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/yd3ryjr>
5 - Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism, by Hugh B. Urban (Univ of Calif Prs, 2006, hardcover, 349 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/y856cda>
6 - Western Esotericism and Rituals of Initiation, by Henrik Bogdan (SUNY Prs, 2008, paperback, 235 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/ycu44v9>
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