CULTS AND RELIGIONS

Cults of Christianity

It's said that there are 30,000 different Protestant Denominations. Some of these organizations proclaim Christ in a biblical manner while maintaining relevance to specific cultures. But others are off-shoots of Protestantism that bear little resemblance to true theology as given in the Bible. Jesus warned that we would see false teaching in the end times; here are a few cults that grew out of those false teachings.

Day One: Mormonism
The Mormon religion (Mormonism), whose followers are known as Mormons and Latter-day Saints (LDS), was founded less than two hundred years ago by a man named Joseph Smith. He claimed to have received a personal visit from God the Father and Jesus Christ who told him that all churches and their creeds were an abomination...
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For more on Mormonism, see "Witnessing to Mormons — what is the key?"

Day Two: Jehovah's Witness
The sect known today as the Jehovah's Witnesses started out in Pennsylvania in 1870 as a Bible class led by Charles Taze Russell. Russell named his group the "Millennial Dawn Bible Study"...
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For more on Jehovah's Witnesses, see "Witnessing to Jehovah's Witnesses — what is the key?"

Day Three: Christian Science
Christian Science was begun by Mary Baker Eddy (1821-1910), who pioneered new ideas about spirituality and health. Inspired by her own experience of healing in 1866, Eddy spent years in Bible study, prayer, and research of various healing methods...
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Day Four: Chrislam
Chrislam is an attempt to syncretize Christianity with Islam. While it began in Nigeria in the 1980s, Chrislamic ideas have spread throughout much of the world. The essential concept of Chrislam is that Christianity and Islam are compatible, that one can be a Christian and a Muslim at the same time...
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Day Five: Hebrew Roots
The premise of the Hebrew Roots movement is the belief that the Church has veered far from the true teachings and Hebrew concepts of the Bible...
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Day Six: Sacred Name
Related to the Hebrew Roots Movement, the Sacred Name Movement developed from the Church of God (Seventh Day) in the 1930s...The Sacred Name Movement teaches that only "Yahweh" is to be used as the name for God and only "Yahshua" is to be used as the name for Jesus...
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Day Seven: Unitarian Universalism
Unitarian Universalism is a fairly small, yet widely influential, religious group. Having some 300,000 registered members, mostly in the United States, they are becoming more and more popular. Relativism, tolerance, and alternative lifestyles are all buzz words used by Unitarian Universalism...
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Day Eight: Christadellphianism
The Christadelphian sect was founded in 1838 by John Thomas, a London-born physician-turned-Bible teacher. Like the founders of the Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons and Christian Scientists, Thomas believed he alone had found the truth of real Christianity...
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Day Nine: House of Yahweh
The House of Yahweh (HOY), headquartered on a compound in Eula, Texas, is a cult founded in 1980. In some ways, the movement resembles the Worldwide Church of God (WCG), from which it split. Its main focus is on Old Testament law-keeping as a means of justification...
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Day Ten: World Mission Society Church of God
The World Mission Society Church of God (WMSCOG) was founded by a man named Ahn Sahng-Hong in South Korea in 1964. He was born in 1918 to Buddhist parents and spent many years with the Seventh-day Adventists. He claimed to have rebuilt the Church of God — the same Church that Jesus established and with the same truths of the Early Church...
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Day Eleven: Black Hebrews/Black Israelites
The terms "Black Hebrews" and "Black Israelites" refer as a categorical whole to several independent sub-sects whose unifying characteristic is that their members are of black African descent who claim Hebrew / Israelite ancestry. Apart from this unifying characteristic, however, these sub-sects are very distinct from one another...
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Day Twelve : Iglesia ni Cristo
Iglesia ni Cristo was founded by Felix Manalo in 1914 in the Philippines. The phrase "Iglesia ni Cristo" is Tagalog (the language of the Philippines) for "Church of Christ." Sadly, while claiming to be a church, Iglesia ni Cristo has all of the basic elements of a cult...
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Day Thirteen: Commmunity of Christ (RLDS)
In 2001, the delegates of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints voted to change the common name of their church to "Community of Christ." Besides being shorter and easier to say, the new name changes the focus from their past to their present and future...
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Image Credit: Transguyjay; "Broken Cross Color 3"; Creative Commons