Friday, July 9, 2010

My Story by David Smith

Note: Videos of David's story and others can be viewed at the end of this post.


I was born into a Catholic family, the son of a mother from the Caribbean island of Trinidad who was raised Catholic, and a father who was brought up Methodist and converted to Catholicism when he married my mother.

There was really nothing out of the ordinary about my religious development at home, except that looking back I could point out that I was definitely taught about the importance of “The Church” as opposed to the importance of Jesus Christ.

I was placed in Sunday School as a child, made my First Confession, then my First Communion, and later was part of the Catholic Life Teen Program in High School. I made my Confirmation my senior year, a little later than usual, but I took the initiative to have it done because I felt it was something important enough to me to pursue.

I eventually left the Catholic Church in pursuit of an Eastern expression of Christianity. I was once again focusing on joining the right Church rather than knowing Christ personally. After some time at my local Greek Orthodox parish I was introduced to St. Anthony’s Monastery in Florence, AZ. I eventually became a disciple of the Abbot.

After an initial period of a month or so, I began to be indoctrinated with teachings I was told not to reveal to anyone outside of the monastery’s inner circle. I was taught to believe in conspiracy theories (some of which were that man never landed on the moon, that America is made up of a shadow government that is run by Masons and Jews) and that the Protocols of Zion are an authentic document rather than a work of racist fiction.

I was told that unless you give up sexual relations with your spouse, you cannot be holy in this life, while at the same time being taught that I should ceaselessly struggle to achieve holiness in this life no matter what the cost.

I was taught to flagellate myself with electrical cord when I had sinful thoughts and that this was normal behavior that Saints indulged in.

I was taught to be obedient to my spiritual father as if he were Jesus Christ and that without his prayers I would not make it through the toll-houses when I die (the toll-houses are demonic checkpoints after you die where demons assess your life and try to hold you from getting to Heaven because of your sins). This was the justification used to get me to be obedient to the teachings I have related.

I was taught to believe that there is a “shadow government” that is supposedly in operation in the world that is made up of Masons, the Illuminati, and “the Jews”. This “shadow government” was said to control all of the governments of the world. I was told that part of their plan to do population control was to vaccinate the masses with immunizations that were deadly. Many of us were told never to immunize our children, that we should only use holistic remedies for our illnesses unless the doctor could be trusted, and avoid Jewish doctors whenever possible (because in the Protocols one of the plots to kill Gentiles was via Jewish doctors who killed Gentile babies and adults whenever possible).

Elder Ephraim, the founder of St. Anthony’s, teaches in his book that elders are hierarchically the final successors of the Apostles through the Holy Spirit. Having been taught this, there was a while where in my mind he had Apostolic authority to teach that the demons will drag me to hell when I die because I won’t be able to ascend through the toll-houses without my spiritual father’s prayers if I disobey him. “Elder” Ephraim’s book also says that we should never tolerate anyone who speaks against an “elder” because such a person is an antichrist and we should oppose them immediately. I didn’t want to become an “antichrist”.

I was told that television, except for nature shows and things like that, were evil and that the best thing to do was to get rid of my TV. I was told the same thing about literature and music. I was taught not to read any secular literature and was told that the Bible and the Fathers of the Church were all I needed to read. They said all music except for classical music and Orthodox Church music was a product of the Fall and not to listen to anything but that. Not having a television and not being able to listen to the radio, my main source of cultural information became e-mail and the telephone, or spending time with someone from the monastery.

We had to get a blessing from our spiritual father for everything, whether it was dressing differently, changing jobs, selling our car, etc. I had to get a blessing even regarding what I could drink during the day and how many meals I could eat. All of this is called “voluntary” obedience by the way, except that you’ll go to hell if you’re not obedient because obedience fulfills all of the commandments of Christ.

I was refused a blessing to sell my car even though it kept breaking down on me and was the only means of transportation for my wife and I to get to work. We missed time from work because of all the break-downs, which meant we missed pay. This also caused us to nearly get fired, and put us so far behind in bills that we lost all of our savings. We eventually had to quit that job since they were going to fire us. Even though we finally decided to get a new vehicle just before that, it was repossessed later on due to our lack of ability to pay since we had lost our income.

The Abbot and I would talk a lot about the end of the world. He would mention it in confession often. He said all the monks would be martyred at St. Anthony’s by being hung from the telephone poles. He also told me one year that by the summertime Turkey would invade Greece over a dispute about the island of Cyprus and there would be a great war that Greece would win (I was given copies of these prophecies that the monastery had translated from the Greek text of St. Kosmas Aitolos’s book to put on a website I used to run with the Abbot’s blessing) and the city of Constantinople would be liberated and returned to the Greeks. When it didn’t happen I went to the Abbot and asked him why, and he said he told me that just to be cautious. He had seemed pretty serious at the time he told me, however. He also told me on one occasion that I would most likely be “martyred”, which stayed with me for a long time. I really believed that I should prepare to die.

When my mother was homeless I was refused a blessing to go and help her over and over again. I finally decided to just go. My wife spoke to the Abbot about it in confession and he gave his blessing grudgingly.

My wife and I had to confess all of our sexual activity including what went on, where we touched, and so forth. We had to confess any secular music we listened to, any TV shows or movies we watched, and anywhere that we went that wasn’t “approved”. I was even told once that I should never laugh, so anytime I found something funny I had to confess that I had "laughed frivolously".

I was required to confess all of my thoughts, both good and bad, in confession. If I couldn’t confess directly, it had to be over the phone, and if I couldn’t confess by phone I had to write everything down and mail it to my spiritual father. It’s very humiliating sending your private thoughts through the mail, but with everything they teach about obedience the rationale was that it was a small price to pay for absolution and eternal life. In the case that my spiritual father was not available there were only certain “approved” priests I could confess to.

It was a nightmare once we were in the inner circle of the monastery. Our lives deteriorated rapidly, our health was affected, and we were slowly being isolated from family and friends. Eventually, I decided to get my family away from their influence. Having moved to Florida after 2 years of going to St. Anthony’s weekly, I was able to spend 5 more years under their influence but out of their immediate reach. I thought I would be able to leave quietly and not tell anyone that I was leaving. I thought I would just disappear and never go back.

It didn’t work. Because of some families whose children had been influenced by the monastery, I decided to speak out, even going on television in Tucson to talk on air about St. Anthony’s teachings. The backlash was very intense. I was called a liar, my life was threatened, and even Orthodox clergy who had never met me were calling me “demonic.”

At the time, I didn’t realize that St. Anthony’s was a cult. I simply thought it was an Eastern Orthodox group that was not a healthy place to be. It was when leaving began to take a very heavy toll on my wife and I that I realized it might have been worse than I thought. I was having nightmares regularly, panic attacks, severe depression set in, I was having suicidal thoughts, trouble controlling my anger, and I started drifting toward atheism.

It wasn’t until a parent who had lost their child to St. Anthony’s convinced me that it was a cult that I started to see any progress. He gave me literature showing what a cult is, pointed me in the direction of leading authors, and from there I found Combating Cult Mind Control by Dr. Steven Hassan.

The process for recovery was long and hard. My wife and I endured setback after setback, lots of periods of suicidal thoughts, and constant battles with depression and wrestling with the idea of God.

Through the contacts listed by Dr. Steven Hassan, I eventually reached out to the Watchman Fellowship. I’m very glad I did. I needed to know Christ; not a church, not religion, not the “right path”, but Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

The Spiritual Abuse Recovery workbook allowed me to take what I had learned from Dr. Hassan’s material and face God again. It restored my faith in Christ’s message as good news, rather than a nightmare, and gave me the strength to help lift my family out of bondage to the cult once and for all. I feel like an empowered Christian again.

It’s been a long, hard road out of the cult, a journey that took over 3 years and carried with it a lot of tears, self-doubt, and setbacks. I truly felt while I was going through it as if I were literally in hell. But the good news is Christ is greater than hell, so it wasn’t a place my family and I had to stay. He brought us out safely and we’ve been able to grow stronger than we’ve ever been.

It’s not an easy path, but recovery is possible, and God is definitely with those who travel on it, always protecting, always guiding, and always loving.

Monday, May 17, 2010

The Future Face of Evangelism?

What if you lived in a country where your Christian faith was held by less than 5% of the population? How would that affect your methods of evangelism? And what if the religious views of the population at large were hostile to Christianity? It is hard for us in North America to conceive of this situation but it is reality in many countries of the world.

The above description fits most of the nations of the world that are dominated by Islam, Hinduism, or, Buddhism. But, it is also becoming more the case in many European countries where Christianity used to be the dominant faith. What happened in Europe? Could it happen here?

Perhaps the reason for Europe turning away from Christianity is the religious disillusionment resulting from two devastating world wars. This was a form of continental version of the question “Where was God when it hurt?” America was spared much of that. However, we are dealing with the moral relativism that has the effect of making all truth claims equal, or for the secularist, equally unimportant.

Besides the effect of secularization and moral relativism we also face the unprecedented growth of alternative religions competing with Christianity. Americans in the past held to a Christian consensus, or worldview. Even the non-Christian in America would agree that the God of Christianity was the God they would put their faith in if they were going to be religious. Even though there were cults and alternative religions from the early years of our nation they were extremely small as a percentage of the population and had little influence.

Since immigration has become a wide open door, both legal and illegal, we find ourselves in the company of immigrants who bring their native faith with them. Many of these immigrants come from countries that are Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, or something else. They have added their numbers to the religious pluralism that has grown exponentially in just the last few decades.

Americans, on the other hand, have walked away from many of the basic tenets of Christianity as well as church attendance. George Barna in his research of religious trends in America has documented this dramatic drift away from our evangelical heritage. At a speaking engagement in Missouri I overheard part of a conversation at a restaurant on the subject of religion. The only statement I heard completely was, “I think you should just do your best, be a good person, and God will accept you.” There are so many a priori assumptions in that statement that it is hard to know where to begin. But it is commonplace today.

In past decades Christian evangelism assumed a Christian consensus and got directly to the point of the sinner putting his faith in Christ. That may no longer be possible. We live in what is being called a “post Christian” America, where the Christian consensus is a memory. There has even been discussion among Christian leaders that one day we will find that evangelism is a hate crime because it says that another religion is false. But the Bible does not let us water down our message like that. We will have to defy laws that restrict the gospel. We will also have to present the gospel message as if the person had never heard of Jesus, or didn’t know God required exclusive devotion. There are no "religious buffets" in the gospel where one can take a little New Age, some relativistic "truth", while trying to keep "sweet Jesus."

Jesus said of the Pharisees that they compassed land and sea to make one convert and when he was converted he was doubly a child of hell as before (Matthew 23:15). Why was he doubly a child of hell after his Pharisaical conversion? It is my opinion that commitment to a belief system has a binding effect on a person’s ability to process truth claims. No one lets go of a firmly held conviction without a struggle. Now this believer in “another gospel” is not like the American who would believe the Christian gospel if he were to be a believer at all. Now he must be pried away from that belief before he can be open to the gospel of Christ. This is the essence of counter-cult evangelism.

In the future our evangelistic methods will have to assume that the non-Christian adheres to another faith that is contradictory to Christianity. That type of evangelism will call for knowledge of alternative beliefs, refutational information, relationship skills with people of non-Christian faiths, and most important, a good working knowledge of Christian doctrine and history.

Watchman Fellowship offers training in such evangelism. We have been doing this sort of training across America in both large and small churches. There is a growing awareness of its need in many parts of the country where religious pluralism is the norm. There is less of it in the Bible Belt because we are still somewhat insulated. But, eventually even Georgia will feel these “winds of doctrine” blowing through the Church.

If you wish to have Watchman Fellowship come to your church for training and awareness contact us

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Watchtower Fulfills Endtime Prophecy!

In Luke 21 Jesus tells His disciples there will be a number of signs to watch for when the “end” comes. One of these signs is in verse 8 which says, “And he said, Take heed that ye be not deceived: for many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and the time draweth near: go ye not therefore after them” (KJV). The American Standard Version (1901) renders the second underlined phrase as, “the time is at hand.”

The warning seems very clear for us. Is there anyone who has said, “I am Christ” and “The time is at hand?” It would make discernment of false Christ’s and false prophets very simple if we could just identify the people, or groups, that have said this.

In the text quoted the word Christ is in Italics in the KJV to indicate that it is supplied by the translator to finish the meaning. Other translations will supply he to finish the meaning. The Greek simply says, “I am.”

The second phrase is also rendered differently. In the Weymouth translation it says, “The time is close at hand.” The New English Bible says, “The Day is upon us.” The bottom line is that false spiritual leaders will claim a divine authority for themselves and point to an apocalyptic crisis to be avoided as a means of attracting followers.

From its very beginning the Watchtower Society has pointed to the coming of Armageddon as the crisis to avoid. Charles T. Russell’s seven volume commentary Studies In The Scriptures are full of evidence of this apocalyptic message. And, of course, the means of avoidance is to join the Watchtower Society.

A good example of Russell’s apocalyptic warning is found in Volume 2 of the Studies where he said, “Be not surprised, then, when in subsequent chapters we present proofs that the setting up of the Kingdom of God is already begun, that it is pointed out in prophecy as due to be begin the exercise of power in A. D. 1878, and that the ‘battle of the great day of God Almighty’ (Rev. 16:14), which will end in A. D. 1914, with the complete overthrow of earth’s present rulership, is already commenced” (page 101).

Volume 2 of the Studies in the Scriptures is titled The Time Is At Hand. That is part one of the Watchtower’s fulfillment of Jesus predictive warning.

But, what about the claim to be “Christ?” We know the Jehovah’s Witnesses deny the deity of Christ, and that they say Jesus became the Christ at his baptism. But, do they also claim to be the “Christ?”

Jehovah’s Witnesses call the members of the 144,000, and more specifically the members of their Governing Body, the Anointed. ‘Christ’ means anointed in Greek. In The New World, published in 1942, this statement is made regarding the 144,000, “These must all be anointed with God’s spirit, that is, officially commissioned as spirit-begotten witnesses of Jehovah God. Hence, the Christ, or The Anointed One, is a collective or composite company, Christ Jesus being the Head, and the 144,000 members of his church being the body” (page 96).

This is something the Watchtower has taught since it’s beginning but is little used by Christians witnessing to Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is almost completely unknown by the rank and file Jehovah’s Witness. The Watchtower Society has placed the 144,000 and the Governing Body especially, on the same plane with Jesus Christ.

There is much more to this subject but I will conclude with this last quote the most important parts of which I have highlighted.

“It is thus seen that the Church in the flesh (the Christ in the flesh, Head and body) is the Elijah or forerunner of the Church in glory, Jehovah’s Anointed. Not the nominal church, but the really consecrated Church, which on the other side of the tomb will be the great Anointed Deliverer, - these constitute the Elijah…. Our Lord Jesus and the Apostles, and all the faithful in Christ Jesus since, are of this great antitypical Elijah, prophet or teacher – the same class (Head and body) which shall shortly compose the King of Glory…. Let us not be misunderstood: We have heretofore shown that God’s plan does not extend to the converting of the world during the Gospel age. He did not intend it to do so, but merely designed the selection and trial of the Church now, and the blessing of the world through the Church, the Christ, in an age to follow this” (page 252).

That last quote came from Volume 2 of the Studies in the Scriptures, which is titled The Time Is At Hand. There you have in the very title of the book part two of Jesus predictive warning.

Friday, March 12, 2010

Brainwashing

There is a psychological term for this gradual acceptance of something that would not otherwise be believed. It is cognitive dissonance theory. Leon Festinger described it in his book When Prophecy Fails. Festinger described three elements of social psychology, and behavior modification techniques, at work in group dynamics, and in the case described in his book, a cult milieu.

He said that if you can control Behavior, Thought, and Emotions, and, you can get a group of people to do very bizarre and wrong things. Festinger said that if one of the three elements is changed the other two would be powerfully influenced to come into agreement with it. People don’t like being hypocritical, after all. Steven Hassan, author of Combating Cult Mind Control, added a fourth criterion, Information, for the acronym BITE.

When someone is recruited into a mind-controlling cult their behavior and personality begin to change dramatically. Someone who has known this person for years will be struck with the significance of the change and comment that “they are just not the person I used to know. What happened?” It is commonly called brainwashing, but is also known as mind control and thought reform.

New recruits to totalistic groups experience this “thought reform” as the starting point in behavior modification. It begins with acceptance of a totally new premise underlying the cult worldview. That premise could be that all of current Christianity is apostate necessitating a restoration. Or, it could be that God only speaks to and through a particular chosen leader and you must listen to him to hear God. This premise then becomes the foundation that must be laid for the acceptance of the teachings and practices espoused by the group. If you have accepted the premise then follow-through on the secondary teachings and life style practices must follow or the recruit will be in a continual state of cognitive dissonance, or hypocrisy, in layman’s terms.

The elements of thought reform or mind control were laid out in the research of Dr. Robert J. Lifton who studied the returning POWs after the Korean War.


Robert J. Lifton’s Eight Criteria of Mind Control

Milieu Control – the control of the environment including information, associations, time, and energy work to exclude any opportunity for opposition while also promoting the ‘party line’.

Mystical Manipulation – this is the ‘higher calling’ for the follower to be a part of a utopian goal which requires his full devotion. The followers see the leaders as having achieved this higher calling hence they are worthy to be followed.

The Demand For Purity – the utopian goal can only be achieved by purity of devotion. Any failure to succeed means impurity exists somewhere and will be searched out by those in control.

The Cult of Confession – Failure to succeed means confessions must be made. Any weakness or failures, real or perceived, are to be confessed for the sake of the group. Even confessions where no wrong was actually done can spur the group to more purity.

The Sacred Science – The ideology, doctrine and mission of the group are so sacred that they must not be doubted or questioned. To do so is one of the worst offenses possible. However, without the option of questioning, a lie cannot be uncovered.

Loading the Language – Certain words and phrases are so loaded with meaning that stark choices are implied leading to the end of critical thinking.

Doctrine Over Person – What you see, hear or think is irrelevant in the face of the group’s doctrine. You must submerge your opinions in the group’s worldview.

The Dispensing of Existence – Only those who are committed to the group are valued. Those who oppose or betray the group can be dismissed, defamed, disfellowshipped, or killed.

Conclusion:

The antidote to this process is truth, unimpeachably presented. When a cultist sees the truth as truth then a similar process by which he was recruited begins to set him free. He doesn’t want to by a hypocrite after all.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Arianism and Jehovah's Witnesses

Arianism, as it is called, was first promulgated by Arius, Presbyter of Alexandria, in the Fourth century AD. In his motivation to understand the nature of God Arius began with the Gnostic assumptions common to his time and place. One of the common assumptions of Gnosticism is that God, Who is spirit, is utterly holy but the material creation is utterly unholy. Gnostics held that these two could not come into direct contact. Therefore, when God wanted a “savior” for the world His solution was an “emanation” from Himself, that was sufficiently distant from Him that is wasn’t Him, but His emanation, that made contact with the unholy world. This Gnostic assumption therefore required that Jesus could not be fully God. He must therefore be a created god.


This view, minus the Gnostic assumptions, is held today by two modern cults, the Jehovah’s Witnesses and all their splinter groups, and The Way International.


Arianism was one reaction to the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. Another heresy in the theological stew of that time was the Sabellian, or modalist, view of the Three in One nature of God. The Trinity is a mystery and therefore generates attempts to solve the mystery. The Sabellians concluded that the Three Persons were simply three manifestations of One Person. At one time God is the Father, at another time He is the Son, and at another He is the Spirit. But this heresy says that God is not three Persons simultaneously. Modalism is held today by the United Pentecostals and is commonly called the "Jesus Only" doctrine. This is a denial of the Unity of God in favor of the Oneness of God. The Arians were at the other end by denying the Oneness of God in favor of the three. The Son and Holy Spirit were held by many Arians to be lesser deities, and hence, they ceased to be monotheistic.

The Trinity was the view of God held by the vast majority of believers since the time of the Apostles. Various heresies came along to challenge orthodoxy but did not have the staying power of truth itself. When Arianism came on the scene it was quite successful in capturing the belief of many people.

It also came at a time when a new Roman Emperor, Constantine, was trying to unify his empire and religious division was one of the large problems he wanted resolved. This set the stage for some great theological debates between Arius and Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria. At different times Arius was in the ascendancy and had the favor of Constantine who sent Athanasius into exile. At another time it was the reverse. It finally came to the Church Council at Nicaea and the Nicene Creed adopted in 325 AD. This creed rejected Arianism and affirmed the Trinitarian orthodoxy.

Arianism divided the Church for half a century. After its defeat at the Nicene Council it faded in influence. Today the Jehovah’s Witnesses are the chief proponents of the Arian view that Jesus is a created, or lesser, god. The Way International goes further than either Arius or the Watchtower Society. They hold that Jesus did not pre-exist his earthly life, nor do they affirm the lesser deity of Jesus.

The Bible is clear that Jesus is fully God with the Father and Holy Spirit. Nothing could be more explicit than John 1:1, which says, “In the beginning was the Word (Jesus existing eternally with the Father in eternity past) and the Word was with God (the Father and Holy Spirit, two Persons of the Trinity, and showing plurality of Persons in the Godhead) and the Word was God (deity, of the same divine substance with the Father).”

Friday, February 19, 2010

Book of Mormon Contradicts Bible

Joseph Smith called the Book of Mormon “the most correct of any book on earth” (Introduction to the Book of Mormon). That means it is superior in its accuracy to the Bible, according to the LDS church. When confronted with a contradiction between the Bible and the Book of Mormon a Latter-day Saint will prefer the Book of Mormon. However, there is one contradiction that Mormons recognize but try to justify. That pertains to the place of Jesus’ birth. Was he born in Bethlehem? Or, in Jerusalem? Christians and the Bible agree that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. History corroborates this as well.

Micah 5:2 says, “But thou Bethlehem Ephrata, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.”

In the Book of Mormon, Alma 7:10 says, “And behold, he shall be born of Mary, at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers, she being a virgin, a precious and chosen vessel…”
This is a clear contradiction between the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Mormons will try to say that Bethlehem, just five miles from Jerusalem, is “in the land of” Jerusalem, a major city. But the Bible calls Bethlehem “in the land of Judah,” not the land of Jerusalem. Jerusalem, too, was “in the land of“ Judah.

Matthew 2:1-8 describes the meeting between Herod and the Wise Men from the East. Herod, upon hearing that the Messiah, the “King” of Israel, was born asked religious leaders where this was to occur. He was told “Bethlehem, in the land of Judah” (vs. 6).

In this same passage you have both Jerusalem and Bethlehem mentioned. There is no confusion or mixing of the locale as if to generalize the location. They are discussed as different places in the context of Jesus’ birth. It is very specific. The question for a Mormon is which is he going to believe? The Mormon will most likely believe the Book of Mormon because he has been taught that the Bible has been tampered with and is not fully reliable. However, in this case the Bible is the valid record because of Old Testament prophecy that specifically identified Bethlehem as the Messiah’s birthplace, not Jerusalem.

In a historically Christian nation where we all sing the words “O little town of Bethlehem” from the Silent Night Christmas carol the sense of contradiction is abundantly obvious.

Monday, January 25, 2010

Why Samaria?

“…and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth” (Acts 1:8).

Have you ever wondered why Jesus included Samaria in this text? Probably not. It is easy to assume that Jesus is simply expanding the geography of the disciples’ witness of Him. And that is true. The gospel began with the Jews but was quickly taken to the Gentiles as well. The Apostle Paul would go first to the synagogue to present the gospel to the Jews then to the Gentiles. But why did Jesus include the Samaritans? Is there some reason they are listed rather than some other nearby ethnic group or geographic direction?

Here is another thought to consider. The Samaritans were a cult arising out of Judaism. They were Jews who had intermarried with non-Jews in the eighth century BC. They also moved their worship of God from Jerusalem to Mt. Gerizim against the commands of Yahweh. They still exist today in a village called Kiryat Luza on the side of Mt. Gerizim. They are a small sect of seven hundred adherents who hold to the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch. Like most cults they claim to be the true followers of Moses and the Jews returning from the Babylonian captivity brought back with them a corrupted Judaism. Most cults claim to be this pure “one true” version of the group from which they split.

To some extent Jesus was telling his disciples to carry the gospel to those from whom they were alienated, heretics of their own faith. Today Christians have the same situation with the pseudo-Christian cults. Besides the fact that they are sinners like everyone else they are also exerting great efforts to convert people to their “one true Christianity“ with “another” Jesus and “another” gospel.

They come to our doorstep with God’s Name on their lips and God’s Word in their hands. What will we do with them in our effort to reach the world with the gospel? In Jesus’ day the Jews would take the long route around Samaria to avoid the Samaritans. Today Christians don’t answer the door or say they are happy in their faith but fail to give a witness. Will we take the long route around this modern “Samaria” to avoid them as the Jews did in Jesus’ day? Or, will we face the cultists as Jesus would have us do?

Watchman Fellowship exists to guide Christians through this modern Samaria rather than around it. We publish our literature and present our seminars to help you through these difficult encounters. Contact us if you want more information.