Are Born-agains Just Another Cult?

In this regular feature Dave and Tom respond to questions from listeners and readers of The Berean Call.  Here is this week’s question.  Dear Tom and Dave, I’m a listener to your program through your website, www.thebereancall.org, where I also read your newsletter.  I grew up in a very liberal Lutheran church where I never heard the gospel preached.  When someone outside my church shared the gospel with me, which had me admitting to God that I was a sinner and even though I attended church regularly, nothing I could do on my own could save me from separation from God forever,  then by simply putting my faith, my trust in Christ alone for salvation.  I was born again.  Sometime later, I went to see the pastor of my church and he told me I had joined a cult.  I know that was ridiculous but I had a hard time explaining the difference.  What would you have said to him?

T. A. McMahon:

Dave, when I talk to people and I am trying to explain Christianity to them, you know, this is maybe witnessing on the street or coming up to a group of people, whatever it might be, they say well, you believe you have the only way.  Well Jim Jones claimed that and others claimed that theirs is the only way.  How do I know which way is the true way and aren’t you setting yourself up to starting your own cult?  That’s a good question.

Dave Hunt:

I guess the first cult leader then, in this particular cult, was Jesus himself who said, “I am the way, the truth, the life, no man comes to the Father but by me.”  Now Jesus was either telling the truth or he was lying or he was a lunatic who thought it was true, you have to decide that.  Now, Jesus made some statements; we have to face those statements.  So, it’s not that you or I are setting these rules, this was said by Jesus himself.  If I’m going to be a Christian then I must follow what Jesus said.  I can’t make up my own Christianity.  And, we have some of these so-called biblical scholars, the Jesus Seminar and so forth.  They talk about reinventing Christianity; we didn’t invent it, we can’t reinvent it, that’s ludicrous.  If you don’t believe what Jesus said, don’t call yourself a Christian, it’s just that simple.  Okay, so furthermore, there is some logic to this.  You hear this statement all the time:  Oh, we are all taking different roads to get to the same place—what place?  What place are you going to?  We are all taking different roads to get to it—now, wait a minute!  This is narrow minded, this is more narrow minded than anything Jesus ever said.  Jesus said there are two destinations and you’re saying there is only one.  You’re saying no matter what road you take we all are going to end up in the same place.  Well, thank you, but I’m not going there, I’m going somewhere else.  But, by what authority can you say that everyone ends up in the same place?  You can’t even tell me what place this is and no matter what a person believes, no matter what they do, they are all taking different roads to get to the same place?  That doesn’t even make sense and yet people repeat this over and over and over and it passes for broad mindedness.  Now, Jesus described it very well.  He said, “Broad is the road that leads to destruction and many there be which go in thereat.”  You can’t make it work in the life.  I can’t get aboard United Airlines with a ticket to the Matterhorn ride in Disneyland, they won’t let me aboard.  You can’t just say well, two plus two should be five on Thursday.  There are rules—you can’t even play a game without rules.  So, when it comes to the most important thing that man faces, his eternal destiny, his relationship with God.  Doesn’t God have some rules; doesn’t God have the right to decide who will be in His heaven?  But people don’t want that so they are rebels and the Bible describes it very well, Isaiah describes it very well.  It says, “All we like sheep have gone astray.  We have turned every one to his own way.  The Lord has laid on him the iniquity, the sins of us all.”  So, just to summarize what I said, Tom.  First of all, it’s Jesus who said there is only one way and he is the way, not some door in St. Peter’s Basilica or Mary the Major or whatever, the other three doors that were opened there, he said this.  If I’m going to be a Christian, I am going to follow Him.  He either is who He said He was or He is a lunatic or a liar; you have to take your pick.  All right, I don’t believe either of those alternatives fit.  Then, logically it makes sense.  We see this in every area of life.  There are rules.  You just can’t deny this.  You can’t say, I’m not going to stop for a stop sign, I’m going to stop for the red light.  Life requires rules.  Even to function as a human being you can’t run roughshod over everybody else and say I set my own rules.  I was talking to a flight attendant just a couple of days ago on the plane and she said I believe in myself.  Well, I disabused her of that idea pretty soon.  You would believe in yourself, you trust yourself, you can do anything, [and] you never make a mistake and so forth?  But that’s the idea people have.  Why don’t we let God be God?  Why don’t we let Jesus Christ be who He claims to be?

T. A. McMahon:

Dave, we also find that people tend to trust in institutions.  For example, this liberal pastor here, the very idea that you could be saved outside of his particular denomination or his church.  I’m not saying everyone thinks like this, every pastor, but that’s the mentality.  You are saved through the church, you are saved through the institution or you are saved through a particular leader.  That’s cultic.

Dave Hunt:

Right, I can understand Tom, the person’s objection.  You mean that’s all you have to do is believe in Jesus?  Believing in Jesus isn’t really doing anything.  It’s not a work and no, Christianity is not about what I can do, it’s about what He has done and I put my faith and my trust in Him.  There is no other way.  There is nothing that I could do to make myself righteous; there is nothing I can do to make up for having broken the law in the past.  I must trust in Him and if I’m going to trust in my own good works, it won’t work.

T. A. McMahon:

And, once again, it’s not Dave Hunt’s words or ideas or thoughts or my ideas or thoughts or any individual.  This is the Word of God and that’s all we are doing is pointing to God’s Word for His truth.

Dave Hunt:

And Tom, the Word of God makes sense.