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Cults and the Occult
E. C. Gruss
PR Publishing, Phillipsburg, NJ,
1994, 222 pages.
Reviewed by
Frank MacHovec, Ph.D.
E. C. Gruss, the
author of Cults and the Occult, is Professor Emeritus, Master’s College,
Santa Clarita, California. His book, now in a revised and expanded third
edition, is a 222-page paperback in 17 chapters, plus an appendix of eight
“Christian counter-cult resource organizations.” This book is an evangelical
Christian critique of selected cults or occult groups and movements. The book
ends with a chapter on the New Age movement and a final chapter on “the
Christian in an age of confusion.”
Some readers are
likely to disagree with the author’s choice of organizations considered to be
cults, such as Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Christian Science, Seventh Day
Adventists, Unity, and Baha’i. Gruss states, “There are two spiritual forces
(powers) in the universe,” one “led by God,” the other by “Satan” (p. 8). One of
Satan’s “most effective tools” is false doctrine. Gruss concludes his
introductory chapter with “it is now time that the cults were confronted as
never before by the evangelical church” (p. 9).
Throughout the
remainder of the book Gruss proceeds to do battle with what he sees as satanic
evil in more than a dozen cults. Each chapter on a specific organization ends
with selected references from the New Testament, notes on sources used
throughout the chapter, a selected bibliography, and organizations with
ministries and materials opposing the organization described in the chapter.
Later in the book, the author offers 11 questions “to discern truth from error,”
which reflect his approach to the cult phenomenon. The list asks if the
organization in question believes in the divinity of Christ, a personal God and
Trinity, bodily resurrection of Christ, “plain and direct statements” of a
whole, unrevised Bible (nothing added or deleted), if they “exalt human
leaders...deemed essential” to understand the Bible and salvation, “see man as a
helpless sinner,” approach God and salvation by works or grace, and the last
judgment and “conscious punishment of the lost.”
A problem with
books such as this is that authors of a specific religious faith often assume
they represent the one and only true church and therefore the only way to
salvation. Families of Jews, Buddhists, and Moslems, and those unchurched but
religious who have been victimized by cults are excluded or approached to
convert to the authors’ faith. Quotes such as that from Paul (“Satan himself
transforms himself into an angel of light”) are profound and attention-getting,
but are essentially nonsectarian. The forces of evil seek to influence any and
all faiths.
This book is
recommended to evangelical Christians as a concise review of New Testament
passages relevant to cults and organizations and materials from this religious
faith. For evangelical Christians, Gruss’s book will confirm and reinforce their
faith and help strengthen them against “harmful cults.” It will be of limited
use to others. This is not meant so much as a criticism but to express the need
for materials useful to all faiths to better understand and guard against
harmful cults and cultlike organizations.
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