Looking for a good cults book for my bookshelf

[1Timothy115]

I'm looking for a good cults book to study over the winter months. I prefer a style that is made for the classroom. Something you might find in a 1st year Bible College or Seminary. If it had questions at the end of each cult that would be a plus. Any suggestions?

[pneu-engine]

Do you have, The Two Babylons, by Alexander Hyslop?

[1Timothy115]

This would be a great book on Romanism and the Romish Church. I believe I saw this several years ago.

I'm particularly interested in textbook style covering many cults. Shows some insight into their development, where the cults stray from Biblical truth, and based on the KJV for references...of course.

[OLD fashioned preacher]

Walter Martin's "Kingdom of the Cults" is fair to middlin. Don't know of a single exhaustive volume available - new cults come along every couple of years or so.

[1Timothy115]

Walter Martin's "Kingdom of the Cults" is fair to middlin. Don't know of a single exhaustive volume available - new cults come along every couple of years or so.

This is more what I had in mind for a cults book. I can go to the book store and take a closer look.

[OLD fashioned preacher]

[1Timothy115]

While looking...I found the following book at The Project Gutenberg (google for the free download if you like):

Modern Religious Cults and Movements, by Atkins, Gaius Glenn (1868-1956), Not copyrighted in the United States. Previous copyright: Copyright, 1923, by FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY.

This was not what I would expect from a book of cults. I didn't read the entire book. I couldn't agree with Dr. Atkins in many parts of his discussion. Atkins seems to attack Fundamental Christianity and adherence to the Bible almost immediately. Throughout his book I hear compromise although the word isn?t written. Searching the text I do find ?readjustment? as a theme throughout. In searching to summarize my impression of this book, I find, "...meet that challenge not so much by intolerance as by the correction of conditions which have made them possible..." I may have been too critical here but, I leave that to any who would undertake the reading of the entire book. There are some historical references and the date of this writing provides some historical value.

Some of the excerpts below may provide some insight to the value for Christian scholars. If stars were awarded to this book, I could give it * * based on insight into effects of science discovery on the minds of clergy of this period.

?This line of theology has been far too rigid, far too insistent upon what one
may call the facts of theology ?it is partly responsible for the widespread
reaction of the cults and movements of our own time.?

?The growth of Protestant teaching about the Bible has necessarily been
complicated but we must recognize that Protestant theology and Protestant
tradition have given the Bible what one may call read-in values.?

?If Christianity is not to reabsorb the cults in their present form, it
must, as has been said over and over again, take account of them and it
is not likely to go on uninfluenced by them. Already it has yielded in
some directions to their contentions. If it feels itself challenged by
them it must meet that challenge not so much by intolerance as by the
correction of conditions which have made them possible, and here its
most dependable instruments are education and self-examination.
There is need of a vast deal more of sheer teaching in all the churches. The
necessity for congregations and the traditions of preaching conspire to
make the message of the Church far less vital than it ought to be.
Preaching is too much declamation and far too much a following of narrow
and deeply worn paths.?

[1Timothy115]

Walter Martin's "Kingdom of the Cults" is fair to middlin. Don't know of a single exhaustive volume available - new cults come along every couple of years or so.

"fair to middlin"
My Pastor loaned me his copy to preview and told me its used as reference for many other books on cults.

[Will]

Kingdom of the Cults is good.

Two Babylons however, is rather awful, and full of half-truths.