IHere's an article, I found in the IMPACT magazine, which
is also true for the "Church of Christ". In India, they
have one church for one city and they call the church by the city's name.
e.g. we have the Bombay Church of Christ, at Khar, Mumbai, India. (This
is NOT relating to many Churches of Christ which are sound in doctrine)
The following article, taken from IMPACT (Singapore),
Dec-Jan.'9, .helps us to see at what cost the said magazine has won the
case to prove that this particular church's teachings and practices make
it a cult.
On 28 Aug 1998, the Court Of Appeal (comprising Justices
M Karthigesu, LP Thean and Lai Kew Chai) upheld the Trial Judge's (Justice
Warren Khoo) earlier decision that IMPACT Magazine was protected by the
legal defences Of ''fair comment'' and ''qualified privilege'' in publishing
the articles about the Central Christian Church (CCC) in the OCt/NOV
1 991 Issue. The CCC and its founder John Philip Louis had sued for $1
million for being called a cult. The learned Judge found that most of
the facts on the beliefs and practices of CCC IMPACTrelied on had been
proven. The principal ones are as follows.
1. CCC believe and teach their members that their church
is the only true church and that they do everything exactly as the Bible
says. The other churches do not follow and teach what the Bible teaches
and their adherents are not true Christians. These churches are spiritually
dead and have to follow CCC'S ways to be reconstructed.
2. The essential teaching of CCC is that in order to
be saved and to become a true Christian a person must be baptised by CCC
or churches within their group. Baptism by any other church is invalid.
Thus CCC rebaptise any person who wishes to become a member, even if he
or she was baptised elsewhere other than by a church within their group.
3. In CCC every member has a discipler and the discipler
himself has his own discipler and so on up the hierarchy. The discipler
is a tutor, counsellor and a friend, all rolled into one: he meets his
disciple or disciples on a regular basis and monitors and guides them
on every aspect of his or their lives.
4. A disciple is taught to confess his sin or personal
weakness and private thoughts to his discipler. His discipler might even
ask about any other sins he has committed and whether he has overcome
them. Where a discipler has more than one disciple, topics such as sins
committed by one disciple may be discussed openly in the company of the
other disciples. A disciple is taught to be open and share his life and
thoughts with others.
5. Sharing of faith is an important thing for the church
and the discipler would be likely to ask his disciples what they have
been doing in that area and how many people they have contacted and how
many they would be likely to bring to the meeting.
6. If a disciple has difficulty fitting his church commitments
with his own commitments in other areas of his life, such as family, work,
business or education, his discipler would help him to plan his times
so as to fit in everything within the time frame, and if there is difficulty
in so doing, the commitment to the church takes priority.
7. The members of CCC who are unmarried are encouaged
to meet members of opposite sex and to date and marry them. A member is
not encouraged to form a relationship with a member of the opposite sex
who is not a member of the church, unless the latter is encouraged to
join the church, and failing that the member will be pressurized to break
that relationship.
8. Submission to the leadership is a norm in CCC. A disciple
is expected to submit to the authority of disciplers and the leaders of
the CCC.
9. Recruitment activity is the most important commitment
of every CCC member at every level. A member does it wherever and whenever
there is an opportunity to do so. Everyone who is not a member is a potential
target, e.g. relatives,friends, business acquaintances. Once a week is
set aside for members to do recruitment publicly, e.g. at MRT stations
or on the streets. Members of the CCC are constantly expected to contact
and convert others.
10. Members of CCC are expected to put their involvement
in the CCC'S activities above their work. Because of such heavy commitments,
members become isolated from their families, relatives and friends.
11. When a member either for reasons that he cannot
meet the constant demands of the church or for other reason decides to
leave the church, his discipler and friends would try to dissuade him
from so doing, and the member would then be told that leaving the CCC
is like leaving and rejecting God and going over to Satan.
The Court of Appeal defined ''cult'' as ''a religious
group with teaching and practices that are abhorrent or harmful to society''.
The meaning attributed to the word bore in mind that ''Singapore is a
secular state with diverse religions and there is a high level of religious
tolerance''. Although the Judges decided that in a multi-racial, multi-cultural
and multi-religious society it was not justified to call CCC a cult, nevertheless
the Judges found that IMPACTS' reference to CCC as a cult was a fair and
honest comment by a Christian magazine on a matter of public interest.
The abovementioned facts relied on to form the basis of the comment were
sufficient for the defence.
Furthermore. the Judges found that IMPACT was also entitled
to the defence of qualified privilege In that it had a legal, social and
moral duty to publish the comments to the members of the Chriistian evangelical
community in Singapore. IMPACT has published its views and defended them
at great costs.
Christians need to decide for themselves if it was a
worthwhile cause and effort. The High Court decision of Justice Warren
Khoo was upheld by the Court of Appeal and CCC was ordered to pay costs
for the high court hearing and the appeal. IMPACT'S lawyers are in the
process of recovering costs. IMPACT is grateful to all who have prayed
and offered words of encouragement and support.
Other
links on Cults: www.reveal.org/links/index.html
* Watchman Fellowship Int.www.watchman.org
* Let us reason: www.letusreason.org
* The Banner :www.banner.org
* Personal Freedom Outreach: www.pfo.org
* Deception in the churchwww.deceptioninthechurch.com
* Biblical Discernment Ministries:www.discernment.org
* Fake Faith healers: www.fakefaithhealers.org
What
do you say? Write your questions/ comments, etc to aocc85@gmail.com
