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Sectarian ReligionSECTARIAN RELIGION The author claims that this book allows the nine sects covered - Christadelphians, JWs, Exclusive Brethren, Latter-Day Saints, Christian Science, Spiritualism, Jesus Fellowship, International Churches of Christ and Rastafarianism - to speak for themselves. He adds in the preface that 'this study will provide a fair-minded understanding of what is an important and growing sector of British religion.' How can groups which are often teaching wrong doctrine or mistreating their members be an important part of British religion? Beyond this, not all nine are growing! Anyone not an evangelical and not worried about the exact truth would probably be happy reading this book, but an evangelical who loves God's truth would be terribly frustrated. This fact sets the tone for the review and what follows highlights the weakness and dangers that I feel this book holds. The first weakness and indeed danger, is that there is no clear distinction made as to what is right doctrine and what is wrong. For instance, on page 78 we read that the JWs are Protestants who take the Bible as the basis for what they believe. This would indicate that they are true Christians with a valid viewpoint, but nothing could be further from the truth. That Witnesses could be right is given further credence when the author deals with the doctrine that only 144,000 are born again. We simply read that other churches interpret the Scriptures differently. On such a key issue, surely the author should warn readers what is right and wrong. These key issues of Jesus Christ and salvation concern me greatly. For instance (again in the section on JWs) there is no mention that their gospel is one of second chance - something Scripture clearly denies and anyone subscribing to such a doctrine has no salvation. The second weakness is the number of times where I would question the accuracy of statements made about the sects. Nothing is worse than saying to a group member 'You believe 'this',' when they do not. Continuing with the JWs, we will just give one example of many in the book. It is not true, as stated, that Russell's books, Studies in the Scriptures, underlie much of their theology today. There is hardly a major issue that has not changed since those books were written. The third issue is a real danger and the section on spiritualism highlights this. Hardly a word is given on the dangers of opening the inner person up to the demonic realm, and little is mentioned of Scriptural warning on this. Indeed, the book seems to be very positive towards spiritualism, and could easily be read in such a way that it could be a viable alternative to Christianity. For instance, the author speaks of Christian spiritualists who have Jesus assisting them, and that the belief in angelical guardians or guides is widespread within the Christian tradition. Maybe there are some positive points to this book, but I am afraid that all the way through I was aware of the weakness and dangers that could harm rather than help readers. Doug Harris,
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