Vol. 9, No. 6, 1992

Articles on Cults and New Religions

by Tom Forehand

Recently, I had the opportunity to meet with a college student (let's call this student "Ed"). Ed had become involved with the Boston Movement.

Locally the Boston Movement goes under the name of the Nashville Church.

It seems that our two, three-hour meetings went well and we hope that soon Ed will separate himself from the Nashville Church and its mind control techniques. Let me first say: It is much, much easier to keep someone out of a cult than to try to get that person out.

Why? Because groups such as the Nashville Church, the Moonies, the Mormons and the Jehovah's Witnesses use a large dose of mind control with their members and recruits.

Once a person joins one of these groups, it is very difficult to get that cult member even to dialogue with you. If you can control a person's information, his location and his associations, the odds are good that you will be able to control that person's mind.

The main reason I was able to meet with Ed was because of his friend (let's call this person "Billie") who arranged our meeting.

Billie asked Ed if all three of us could just sit down to talk about the Nashville Church.

Ed was naturally very leery of our meeting and probably would not have agreed to meet if Billie had not continued to press for our meeting.

When Billie initially approached Ed about our meeting, Ed pointedly asked a question:

"How much are you paying him (Mr. Forehand)?"

Billie was able truthfully to answer: "Nothing."

I hope you who support our Tennessee Chapter of Watchman Fellowship realize how important it was that Billie did not have to pay someone to counsel with his friend Ed.

There was no charge to Billie or Ed for the seventy-mile round trip or for the large packet of photocopied material exposing the Nashville church.

There was no charge for the many hours of counseling or for the video we all watched (which exposed the problems of the Boston Movement).

And there will be no charge for follow-up counseling sessions or the pamphlets on Grace Salvation which I gave to both of these Christians.

Yet, there were costs!

Thank God once again for a "Moses" like you who pays the costs of this ministry.

Your gifts buy the gas, the photocopying, the materials.

Your gifts also support our family.

And your prayers help us be girded for spiritual warfare each time we go to the front lines.

We hope all of you feel a sense of accomplishment that you were just as important in this encounter as we 3/4 your missionaries were.

(Moses, like many of you, was in the background while Aaron, like us, was often out front speaking. But who is remembered as having the greater contribution to the work of God? Moses of course!).