Baptist Cults
Various
Text:
Introduction:
When we began this series we looked at the four categories of cults – Pseudo or False Christian Cults; Oriental Cults; Human Potential Cults; and the Occult.
We also considered some ways to identify a cult by using the acronym B.I.T.E.
§ Behavior Control
§ Information Control
§ Thought Control
§ Emotional Control
Another was the acronym C.U.L.T.
C - Cut off from the world. Cult leaders and followers are isolated and cut off from normal interaction with people outside the group. They do not have the corrective influence of other perspectives. They lose their ability, and their desire, to verify information the cult gives them. They become alienated from family and friends and have an unhealthy need to belong to the cult group.
U - Undernourished--poor nutritional intake and sleep deprivation often characterizes cult members. They are near exhaustion and their resistance is low, so they can be easily manipulated, deceived, and exploited. Inadequate nutrition and sleep is disguised as a special practice or diet to improve health or advance spirituality.
L - Leadership is authoritarian and coercive. The leader claims divinity or special knowledge and authority from God, and often uses deception and has hidden objectives. Unquestioning obedience and loyalty is expected. This leads the cult follower into total dependence upon the cult for belief, behavior, and practice. He or she loses personal freedom and the ability to make choices.
T - Theology or beliefs of a cult always involve some unique or new perspectives, and they claim that truth is only found in what the cult says. Cults often promote the "we/they" syndrome, which also keeps members dependent and loyal to the cult.
These are generalizations but most cults have the following things in common.
§ They are devoted to a leader RATHER THAN GOD
The Bible very clearly teaches that true religion demands submission to God, not man. Worshiping or serving someone else in the place of God is Satanic in nature.
§ They manipulate THE BIBLE
The Bible is twisted to fit the leader or group’s interpretation.
§ They manipulate PEOPLE
The subject I speak on today is very troubling to me which cause great sadness, and concern in my heart.
I want to share some thoughts concerning similar cultic activity to some of the other cults that we have considered over the last several weeks, but these activities are found in our own ranks – Independent Fundamental Baptist.
Let me say up front that I am an Independent Fundamental Baptist, but my loyalty is not to a group but rather to God.
What does Independent Baptist Mean?
At the root, the term independent Baptist simply describes churches that are Baptist in doctrine and independent in polity. An Independent Baptist church is a Baptist church that is not affiliated with denominational structures such as the Southern Baptist Convention, the American Baptist Church, and the General Association of Regular Baptists.
For the most part Independent Baptists are very committed to sound Baptist doctrine; they are separated; they are conservative in issues of dress and music; they are committed to the King James Bible; they are aggressively evangelistic and missions oriented (meaning church planting).
But there are some debates among Independent Baptists’ as well such as music, dress standards, the Bible version-text issue, Calvinism, Baptist briderism, the practice of communion, alien immersion, repentance and evangelistic practices, church growth practices, and ecclesiastical separation; but there are no debates to speak of on theological liberalism, the infallibility of the Bible, female preachers, homosexuality, charismatics, evolution, or abortion.
A Great Change That Is Occurring Among Independent Baptist
I need to point out that a great change is occurring among Independent Baptist churches.
From my perspective Independent Baptist overall are losing their heart and soul, which is separation and a zeal for truth and holiness. That is what once set the Independent Baptist movement apart from the Southern Baptists.
That spirit I believe is described in Psalms 119:128:
Psalm 119:128
128 Therefore I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way.
Not only did David esteem ALL of God’s Word to be right, he hated EVERY false way.
That is the Acts 20:27 & Jude 3 edition of Christianity!
Acts 20:27
27 For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.
Jude 1:3
3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.
The autonomy and independence of New Testament churches is plainly taught in the Scriptures. We must be very careful about “meddling” in another church’s business. However, when things become; and they are becoming unbiblical we must sound the warning.
Read Passage: Galatians 5
The context of this passage is dealing with the Law verses Liberty.
But I draw attention to verse 7.
Galatians 5:7
7 Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?
Over the years many things have changed which has led to a cult-like mindset among many Independent Baptist.
I feel that we should first consider some of these changes, and their results.
§ Numbers Mindset
Too often I have talked with people and following a church service and a great percentage of the time the question is asked – “Did you have a good turn-out?”
Now that is not a bad question, but what is bad is they usually never ask did anyone respond to the invitation.
I spoke to two people just this week and not long after the discussion began they asked, “Is the church growing?”
Again I suppose this is not a bad question, but they never asked one time are growing spiritually, are people becoming more like the Lord?
This mind set leads to many becoming pragmatic and compromising to draw a crowd.
The numbers mind-set led to:
§ Change in Evangelism
Speaking very broadly and very generally, I thank the Lord for the fundamental Baptist church movement. It represents a variety of congregations that hold certain things in common, chiefly (again, speaking very generally) sound Bible doctrine, independence from denominational structures, a stand for biblical separatism. Or at least this used to be the case.
These positive factors aside, in recent decades, a great error has swept through many realms of the fundamental Baptist movement (though it is by no means limited to that movement). I call it “QUICK PRAYERISM.”
It is an evangelistic methodology that is quick to get people to pray a sinners prayer after a very shallow gospel presentation and usually without any hint of the necessity of repentance. It is quick to pronounce those people saved and give them “assurance” and to try to baptize them even if they barely show any interest in the presentation and even if they give no biblical evidence of having been born again. Frequently, Quick Prayerism incorporates psychological salesmanship manipulation.
In Quick Prayerism, an empty “sinner’s prayer” has too often replaced Holy Spirit conviction and miraculous regeneration. Quick Prayerism is characterized by soul winning reports that are grossly exaggerated, since the number of real conversions are minute compared to the overall statistics.
The churches that have adopted this unscriptural method of evangelism have produced millions of false professions and have given a false hope to the same multitude. There are many churches that can show only a handful of new creatures in Christ for every hundred or even thousand converts they claim.
For years I have observed the sad fruit of this technique: multitudes of false professions, confusion about salvation, indifference to biblical truth, agnosticism, reprobate living, a weakening of the significance of church membership, neglect of church discipline, and blasphemy against God.
The widespread adoption of Quick Prayerism has resulted in a change in the doctrine of repentance. One of the errors of the method of evangelism that produces large numbers of empty professions is the failure to preach and demand biblical repentance, or it is the redefinition of repentance to mean a mere change of mind that does not necessarily result in a change of life.
How did we get to this point? To claim that thousands are being saved when there is no evidence whatsoever in the majority of the lives is confusion. This is not what they believed and practiced in the past.
§ John the Baptist
It is plain that John the Baptist, did not practice any sort of Quick Prayerism. He preached repentance and demanded evidence thereof:
Matthew 3:1-2
1 In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea, 2 And saying, Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
Matthew 3:7-8
7 But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees come to his baptism, he said unto them, O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8 Bring forth therefore fruits meet for repentance:
§ First Century Churches
It is also plain that the Lord’s apostles and the first churches did not slight repentance. Peter demanded repentance on the day of Pentecost: “Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:38). In his second epistle, Peter described salvation as coming “to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).
Paul, too, preached repentance to the unsaved pagans of his day. “And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent” (Acts 17:29-30). He obviously would not be impressed by the argument that the term repentance should not be used because unsaved people do not understand it or that repentance should not be preached because it is not mentioned in the Gospel of John! Furthermore, Paul demanded evidence of repentance from those who professed faith in Christ:
Acts 26:19-20
19 Whereupon, O king Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision: 20 But shewed first unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and throughout all the coasts of Judaea, and then to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet for repentance.
There was not the slightest hint of modern Quick Prayerism in the evangelism practiced by the apostles and the early churches.
Does saying a prayer produce salvation? If I say, “Lord, I know I am a sinner and I believe you died for my sins, and I want you to save me,” does that save me? I realize that I am treading upon ground that can be very volatile and, yet, this is an issue that must be addressed among those who care about the souls of men.
The problem is that the “Sinner’s Prayer” has become nothing more than a Baptist Rosary. To have a sinner “pray,” when there has been no conviction, is unbiblical. Salvation is not merely a mental acceptance of the facts of salvation (cf. James 2:19). Satan believes that Jesus is the Son of God and that He died and rose again. Satan was there when it all happened. Yet, Satan will not ever be saved, even though he mentally agrees with the facts. There must be a conviction of one’s lost and sinful condition, before they will ever believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Therefore, we must get back to presenting the gospel of the death, burial and resurrection of Christ, as Paul set forth in First Corinthians 15:1-6. It is this gospel that will produce conviction in the hearts of sinful men, and then genuine confession and conversion will take place. When the man who is convicted of his sinful state prays, it will be his prayer to God, and not a rote “Sinner’s Prayer.” It will be from his heart and not merely his mouth.
Many of the so-called “Great Soul Winners” have been place on a pedestal, and many today have made them their idol.
Those who many have place on a pedestal have in turn began fellowships to further feed this monster.
§ Music
Southern Gospel brought four significant changes to Christian music in North America in the 1920s, ‘30s, ‘40s and ‘50s.
(1) They commercialized it.
(2) They took it out of the churches and put it into hands of publishers and promoters.
(3) They jazzed it up with worldly styles.
(4) They turned it into entertainment.
Professional Southern Gospel quartets were born in the early part of this century as business enterprises.
Prior to that, quartets were mixed (men and women) and “sang in their churches simply for the spiritual edification of the congregation.”
The inventor of the professional male gospel quartet was a Nazarene, James Vaughan, who hired a quartet in 1910 to represent his music publishing company (which he had founded in 1902).
The Vaughan Quartet performances at churches, revivals, and conventions were a means whereby
Vaughan sold music.
“In this way the groups promoted their sponsor and created a market for the songbooks”
By the late 1920s Vaughan had 16 full-time quartets on the road. In 1921 the pioneering Vaughan cut the first record for his new recording company, and in 1922 he built the first radio station in Tennessee, all with the goal of promoting his music.