The Family International (TFI) is a Christian New Religious Movement founded in Huntington Beach, California, USA, in 1968 by David Berg that has been criticized as an authoritarian cult. Originally named Teens for Christ, it has gone under a number of different names. It gained notoriety as The Children of God (COG). It was later renamed and reorganized as The Family of Love (1978–1981), which was eventually shortened to The Family. As of 2004, it has gone by The Family International.
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 Satanic panic is a moral panic consisting of over 12,000 unsubstantiated cases of Satanic ritual abuse starting in the United States in the 1980s, spreading throughout many parts of the world by the late 1990s, and persisting today. The panic originated in 1980 with the publication of Michelle Remembers, a book co-written by Canadian psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder and his patient, Michelle Smith, which used the discredited practice of recovered-memory therapy to make sweeping lurid claims about satanic ritual abuse involving Smith. The allegations which afterwards arose throughout much of the United States involved reports of physical and sexual abuse of people in the context of occult or Satanic rituals. In its most extreme form, allegations involve a conspiracy of a global Satanic cult that includes the wealthy and powerful world elite in which children are abducted or bred for human sacrifices, pornography, and prostitution, an allegation that returned to prominence in the form of QAnon.
Lawrence Pazder was a Canadian psychiatrist and author. Pazder wrote the discredited biography, Michelle Remembers, published in 1980, with his patient Michelle Smith, which claimed to detail satanic ritual abuse.
Jesus People USA (JPUSA) pronounced: ǰ-pu-sa is a Christian intentional community in Uptown, on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1972, coming out of Jesus People Milwaukee during the Jesus movement, it is one of the largest continuing communities. In 1989, JPUSA joined the Evangelical Covenant Church as a member congregation, and currently has eight pastors credentialed with the ECC. The community organized the annual Cornerstone Festival from 1984 until 2012.
In modern English, a cult is a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. This sense of the term is controversial, having divergent definitions both in popular culture and academia, and has also been an ongoing source of contention among scholars across several fields of study. The word "cult" is usually considered a pejorative.
Maranatha Campus Ministries was a Charismatic/Pentecostal-oriented Christian ministry founded by Bob Weiner which existed from 1971 to 1990. Its primary outreach was to college and university campuses.
Great Commission Churches (GCC) is a fellowship of independent evangelical Christian churches. The Great Commission church movement began in the United States in 1970. Other associated organizations include Great Commission Ministries (GCM), Great Commission Latin America (GCLA), and Great Commission Europe (GCE). The movement has grown in size and scope through its focus on church planting in the United States and abroad. GCC is a member of the National Association of Evangelicals, and one or more organizations within the movement has continuously been a part of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability since 1992.
Ronald M. Enroth has been a Professor of Sociology at Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, and an evangelical Christian author of books concerning what he defines as "cults" and "new religious movements" and important figure in the Christian countercult movement.
Aspen Education Group is an American company specializing in providing therapeutic interventions for adolescents and young adults, including wilderness therapy programs, residential treatment centers, therapeutic boarding schools, and weight loss programs. Since November 2006, Aspen Education Group, with corporate offices located in Cerritos, California has been a division of Bain Capital's CRC Health.
Community Chapel and Bible Training Center was a controversial independent church created in 1967 and pastored by Donald Lee Barnett in which he taught his version of Oneness Pentecostalism. The church eventually grew to an attendance of over 3,000 before splitting and losing significant numbers in 1988 because of numerous lawsuits brought against Barnett and others in the church leadership for sexual improprieties. Community Chapel became infamous for a practice its leaders advocated known as "spiritual connections." This practice involved seeking intense emotional experiences of love with another person, usually not one's spouse, while dancing together in worship. It was taught at the Chapel that through this experience, Jesus, specially known to the participants as "the glorified Son of Man" because of the teaching of Barnett, was connecting the members of his church together in love as he had always meant them to be.
James Douglas McCotter is an American entrepreneur, the former CEO of Maverick Jets and controversial founder of the "Blitz Movement" which became the Great Commission Association of Churches. He was also a member of the Council for National Policy as well having been a holder of national and international media interests.
Churches That Abuse, first published in 1992, is a best-selling Christian apologetic book written by Ronald M. Enroth. The book documents cases of churches and other organizations said to be spiritually abusive and the effects these groups have had on their members. The author says that "spiritual abuse can take place in the context of doctrinally sound, Bible-preaching, fundamentalist, conservative Christianity".
Robert Passantino, was an American author and journalist who wrote on subjects related to Christian apologetics, philosophy, and the Christian countercult movement.
Religious abuse is abuse administered under the guise of religion, including harassment or humiliation, which may result in psychological trauma. Religious abuse may also include misuse of religion for selfish, secular, or ideological ends such as the abuse of a clerical position.
The University Bible Fellowship is an international evangelical non-denominational Christian entity that originated in South Korea in 1961. It was founded through a partnership between a Korean, Samuel Chang-Woo Lee, and Sarah Barry, an American Presbyterian missionary who was sent to South Korea. The international headquarters of UBF is in Chicago. The group members are concentrated in South Korea, but has chapters in 91 countries including American universities and community colleges. The organization's stated goal is student evangelism.
Dwell Community Church, formerly Xenos Christian Fellowship, is a non-traditional, non-denominational, institutional cell church system. Unlike traditional churches, Dwell is centered on home church activities rather than traditional Sunday morning services. These small groups typically contain 15 to 60 members. Dwell also holds weekly multi-house church gatherings called central teachings. As of February 2009, Dwell has approximately 5,000 members and 300 home churches.
Terry Cole-Whittaker, or Dr. Terry, is a New Thought writer and United Church of Religious Science minister, and the founder of Terry Cole-Whittaker Ministries and Adventures in Enlightenment.
Ma Jaya Sati Bhagavati, often shortened to Ma Jaya, was a devotee of Hindu Guru Neem Karoli Baba. She founded Kashi Ashram in Sebastian, Florida in 1976. Jaya's interfaith teachings included a blend of philosophy from many different religions. She was involved in HIV/AIDS activism and Hunger alleviation.
