The Christian countercult movement or the Christian anti-cult movement is a social movement among certain Protestant evangelical and fundamentalist and other Christian ministries and individual activists who oppose religious sects that they consider cults.
The term Bible Belt refers to a region of the Southern United States and the Midwestern state of Missouri, where evangelical Protestantism exerts a strong social and cultural influence. The region has been described as one of the most socially conservative across the United States due to a significant impact of Protestant Christianity on politics and culture. The region is known to have a higher church attendance, more evangelical Protestant denominations, and greater emphasis on traditional religious values compared to other parts of the country. The region contrasts with the religiously diverse Midwest and Great Lakes and the Mormon corridor in Utah, southern Idaho, and northern Arizona.
The Association of Vineyard Churches, also known as the Vineyard Movement, is an international neocharismatic evangelical Christian association of churches.
The charismatic movement in Christianity is a movement within established or mainstream Christian denominations to adopt beliefs and practices of Charismatic Christianity, with an emphasis on baptism with the Holy Spirit, and the use of spiritual gifts (charismata). It has affected most denominations in the United States, and has spread widely across the world.
The Toronto Blessing, a term coined by British newspapers, refers to the Christian revival and associated phenomena that began in January 1994 at the Toronto Airport Vineyard church (TAV), which was renamed in 1996 to Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship (TACF) and then later in 2010 renamed to Catch the Fire Toronto. It is categorized as a neo-charismatic Evangelical Christian church and is located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The revival impacted charismatic Christian culture through an increase in popularity and international reach and intensified criticism and denominational disputes. Criticism primarily centered around disagreements about charismatic doctrine, the Latter Rain Movement, and whether or not the physical manifestations people experienced were in line with biblical doctrine or were actually heretical practices.
Word of Faith is a movement within charismatic Christianity which teaches that Christians can get power and financial prosperity through prayer, and that those who believe in Jesus' death and resurrection have the right to physical health.
Joslin "Josh" McDowell is an evangelical Christian apologist and evangelist. He is the author or co-author of over 150 books.
Walter Ralston Martin was an American Baptist Christian minister and author who founded the Christian Research Institute in 1960 as a parachurch ministry specializing as a clearing-house of information in both general Christian apologetics and in countercult apologetics. As the author of the influential The Kingdom of the Cults (1965), he has been dubbed by the conservative Christian columnist Michael J. McManus, the "godfather of the anti-cult movement".
Craig L. Blomberg is an American New Testament scholar. He is currently the Distinguished Professor Emeritus of the New Testament at Denver Seminary in Colorado where he has been since 1986. His area of academic expertise is the New Testament,including subjects relating to parables, miracles, the historical Jesus, Luke-Acts, John, 1 Corinthians, James, the historical trustworthiness of Scripture, financial stewardship, gender roles, the Latter Day Saint movement, hermeneutics, New Testament theology, and exegetical methods. Blomberg has written and edited multiple books.
Norman Leo Geisler was an American Christian systematic theologian, philosopher, and apologist. He was the co-founder of two non-denominational evangelical seminaries.
The Christian Research Institute (CRI) is an evangelical Christian apologetics ministry. It was established in October 1960 in the state of New Jersey by Walter Martin (1928–1989). In 1974, Martin relocated the ministry to San Juan Capistrano, California. The ministry's office was relocated in the 1990s near Rancho Santa Margarita. In 2005, the organization moved to its present location in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Ronald M. Enroth was an American professor of sociology at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, and an evangelical Christian author of books concerning what he defined as "cults" and "new religious movements" and important figure in the Christian countercult movement.
The local churches and the ministry of Watchman Nee and Witness Lee have been the subject of controversy in two major areas over the past fifty years. To a large extent these controversies stem from the rapid increase and spread of the local churches in the United States in the 1960s and early 1970s. In the 1970s they became a target of opposition of fledgling countercult ministries. Unsupported criticisms of anti-social behaviors led to three libel litigations. In addition, some criticized the teaching of Witness Lee on the nature of God, God's full salvation, and the church.
The Healing Revival is a term used by many American Charismatics in reference to a Christian revival movement that began in June 1946 and continued through the 1950s. The Healing Revival sparked the Latter Rain movement in 1948 and the two movements were interrelated. The period of revival was a significant influence on the modern charismatic movement.
Robert Passantino, was an American author and journalist who wrote on subjects related to Christian apologetics, philosophy, and the Christian countercult movement.
Estonia, historically a Lutheran Christian nation, is today one of the least religious countries in the world in terms of declared attitudes, with only 14 percent of the population declaring religion to be an important part of their daily life. This is thought to largely be a result of the Soviet occupation of Estonia in 1940, prior to which Estonia had a large Christian majority.
The Kingdom of the Cults, first published in 1965, is a reference book of the Christian countercult movement in the United States, written by Baptist minister and counter-cultist Walter Ralston Martin. As of 2019, the book is in its sixth updated edition.
Charismatic Christianity is a form of Christianity that emphasizes the work of the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts as an everyday part of a believer's life. It has a global presence in the Christian community. Practitioners are often called charismatic Christians or renewalists. Although there is considerable overlap, charismatic Christianity is often categorized into three separate groups: Pentecostalism, the Charismatic movement, and the neo-charismatic movement.
