Dr Paul Allen

“That you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light” (1 Peter 2:9b). In Judges 18, we see the idolatry begun by Micah take root among the people of the colony established by the Danites on Israel’s northern frontier. Doing what was right in their own eyes, they veered away from the true worship of the God of Israel and fell into apostasy. We might say they established their own “cult.” Nowadays, there is vast disagreement over what is true about God and how He is to be worshipped. To make matters worse, the various groups that weigh in on spiritual matters often classify themselves as “the one true church” and their opponents as cults.  How can we tell the difference between an orthodox church and a cult? What makes a cult a cult? What are some of the significant cults today?  The word cult comes from the Latin cultus, which means “to care for” or “to take care of.” The word cult initially referred to a group of people who had sim...

The Mormon faith is a religion which is gathering quite a few adherents, especially outside the USA . But if you were to ask me why I do not ascribe to Mormonism , I would begin by giving these three reasons: Mormonism deviates from the sufficiency of the Bible . Mormonism teaches that the Book of Mormon is holy Scripture, on equal standing with the Bible, and is, therefore, the word of God. The assertion is that it was recorded on gold plates long ago in an ancient Egyptian-type language. In 1823, Joseph Smith claimed to have been directed by the angel, Moroni, to discover and translate the contents, which became the Book of Mormon. Mormonism teaches that Smith was a prophet in the ranks of biblical prophets like Moses and Isaiah, chosen by God to restore the true Church of Jesus Christ using the text from the plates. The content of the Book of Mormon also rebukes the idea that Scripture alone is sufficient: “Thou fool, that shall say: A Bible, w...