College and Cults

Becky: Sorry it's been such a long time! Needless to say, I have had a busy summer. The school year has started full swing though, and things are beginning to once again settle into a routine, so hurray for that! I'm in college up here at Truman State U, and I'm meeting a lot of interesting people. One of the girls I'm spending lots of time with told me that her family is part of the Christian Scientist (CS) church. She told me however, that she wasn't sure she wanted to continue in that religion - definitely a searcher. Dad, I was just wondering if you had any words of wisdom about CS. I remember you always saying that it was pretty impossible to talk to certain CS relative of ours about religion. I did look it up on Wikipedia, so I know the basics. I guess I mostly wanted to know if you had any good websites, or books that you could point me to - things that would relate directly to evangelizing to someone with a CS background, or just evangelizing to people with backgrounds in different religions/cults. I know, that's pretty specific stuff and you may have no idea - but I thought I'd ask! I think this is something that will crop up quite often - different religions, cults, and denominations. It's one of the things I'm most excited about in college. What a huge mission field!


Dad: The classic book on cults is Kingdom of the Cults by Walter Martin. It has an extensive overview of all the major cults. It's been so long since I've read it that I don't know how it's organized, but it gives an overview of each cult and then how they don't fit with Christianity, and how they are wrong. I doubt it's in a local library, but you may find stuff on line.

Read the overview in Wikipedia. It's a good summary of what I've heard before (you may already have). Then ask her what she believes, not necessarily what CS teaches. Politely dig deep, like if she believes in God, find out what she believes about God. If she believes that everything is good, ask her if there is evil or sin. Uncle Howard kept saying, "Everything exists in the mind of God. God is good, therefore everything is good." He had no answer for evil, except it was our inability to remove our minds from the imaginary physical world. I challenged him by pointing out that if we are wrong about the existence of the physical world -- which would not be a good thing -- how can something not good be in the mind of God if everything is in the mind of God and God is good. Anyway, you probably won't have to get too deep with her, because she probably doesn't really know what she believes, kind of like most Christians.

Your best bet is to stay in the Word, and just play dumb and ask a lot of questions that show that anything not in line with God's Word ultimately doesn't make sense. Also, if you pray for her and show true concern, you will be more likely to have the opportunity to share the Gospel. It is really amazing to me that I have never had to convince anyone that they were a sinner, or at least have sinned. What sometimes happens is that people think that God could never love them because they aren't good enough. I think you know how the Gospel answers that concern.

I will pray for you and your interactions. May God give you the relationship and words so that you can be part seeing the birth of a new creation in Christ. Don't be discouraged if it doesn't happen fast, or you ever see it happen at all. You may be #6 out of 16 that she hears from to get her to the point of giving her life to Christ.