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 Holiness movement is a Christian movement that emerged chiefly within 19th-century Methodism, and to a lesser extent other traditions such as Quakerism, Anabaptism, and Restorationism. The movement is Wesleyan in theology, and is defined by its view of personal sin, and emphasis on the doctrine of a second work of grace generally called entire sanctification or Christian perfection. For the Holiness Movement "the term 'perfection' signifies completeness of Christian character; its freedom from all sin, and possession of all the graces of the Spirit, complete in kind." A number of evangelical Christian denominations, parachurch organizations, and movements emphasize those beliefs as central doctrine.
Wayne A. Grudem is a New Testament scholar turned theologian, seminary professor, and author. He co-founded the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood and served as the general editor of the ESV Study Bible.
Richard John Mouw is an American theologian and philosopher. He held the position of President at Fuller Theological Seminary for 20 years (1993–2013), and continues to hold the post of Professor of Faith and Public Life.
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. McManusthe "godfather of the anti-cult movement".
Craig L. Blomberg is an American New Testament scholar. He is currently a Distinguished Professor of the New Testament at Denver Seminary in Colorado where he has been since 1986. His area of academic expertise is the New Testament. This includes parables, miracles, historical Jesus, Luke-Acts, John, 1 Corinthians, James, the historical trustworthiness of Scripture, financial stewardship, gender roles, Latter Day Saint movement, hermeneutics, New Testament theology, and exegetical method. Blomberg has written and edited multiple books. He is married to Frances Fulling Blomberg and has two grown daughters, Elizabeth Little and Rachel Blomberg.
Norman Leo Geisler was an American Christian systematic theologian and philosopher. 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.
Darrell L. Bock is an American evangelical Christian New Testament scholar. He is Executive Director of Cultural Engagement at The Hendricks Center and Senior Research Professor of New Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary (DTS) in Dallas, Texas, United States. Bock received his PhD from Scotland's University of Aberdeen. His supervisor was I. Howard Marshall. Harold Hoehner was an influence in his NT development, as were Martin Hengel and Otto Betz as he was a Humboldt scholar at Tübingen University multiple years.
John Dwight Pentecost was an American Christian theologian, best known for his book Things to Come.
Bruce K. Waltke is an American Reformed evangelical professor of Old Testament and Hebrew. He has held professorships in the Old Testament at Dallas Theological Seminary, Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia, Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida, and Knox Theological Seminary in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.
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.
Another Gospel: Cults, Alternative Religions, and the New Age Movement is a non-fiction book discussing new religious movements and the New Age movement, written by Ruth A. Tucker. The book was published in 1989 by Zondervan, a Christian publishing house. Another edition was released by the same publisher in 2004.
Robert Passantino, was an American author and journalist who wrote on subjects related to Christian apologetics, philosophy, and the Christian countercult movement.
Harold L. Busséll is a pastor and author. He has a M.A. in Psychology from Santa Clara University and a Doctorate of Divinity from Andover Newton Theological Seminary. Between 1968 and 1970 he served with Teen Challenge Paris, a Christian outreach program that works with drug addicts in Paris, France. His book Unholy Devotion – Why Cults Lure Christians, talks about his experiences while in Europe. Busséll has written, "my wife and I were involved with an Evangelical youth mission based in Switzerland. We were with the group only six weeks, but it was almost seven years before I had overcome the psychological damage caused by their cult-like control and spiritualization... Questioning a leader was considered an act of rebellion against God and His chain of command." Busséll went on to become a pastor in Saratoga, California. He also served as one of the Deans at Gordon College. Serving as Senior Pastor from 1984 to 1996 at the First Congregational Church in Hamilton, Massachusetts, a mainline church affiliated with the United Church of Christ. The New York Times recognizes Busséll as an author who has written books about mind control and religious groups. Christianity Today noted Busséll as a pastor who has "experienced spiritual warfare." Paul R. Martin has noted Busséll's opinion on recovery from what they refer to as cults, that "a clear understanding of the gospel is the single most important issue in a cultist's recovery and future immunity from further cultic involvement."
Peter Eric Enns is an American Biblical scholar and theologian. He has written widely on hermeneutics, Christianity and science, historicity of the Bible, and Old Testament interpretation. Outside of his academic work Enns is a contributor to HuffPost and Patheos. He has also worked with Francis Collins' The BioLogos Foundation. His book Inspiration and Incarnation challenged conservative/mainstream Evangelical methods of biblical interpretation. His book The Evolution of Adam questions the belief that Adam was a historical figure. He also wrote The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It and The Sin of Certainty: Why God Desires Our Trust More than Our 'Correct' Beliefs.
Evangelical Ministries to New Religions (EMNR) is a coalition of Christian countercult organizations. It was founded by Gordon Lewis, James Bjornstad, Ronald Enroth, and Walter Ralston Martin in 1982.
Harold Walter Hoehner was an American biblical scholar and was professor of New Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary.
Ronald F. Youngblood was an American biblical scholar and professor of Old Testament. In addition to being one of the original translators of the New International Version of the Bible, he was the general editor for Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Dictionary, and on the editorial team for the Zondervan NASB Study Bible, both of which earned the ECPA Christian Book Award for their respective publication years.
James Oliver Buswell, Jr. was a Presbyterian theologian, educator and institution builder.
