The Christian Countercult Movement

The Christian countercult movement represents the most influential opposition to new religious movements and to other world faiths.

This Element explores the history of this movement from its origins in the anti-heresy writings of the early Church to its modern development as a reaction to religious pluralism in North America. It explains how faith-based opposition both to new religious movements and to non-Christian religions only deepens as religious pluralism increases.Many seemingly strange questions on yoga, salvation, religious pluralism, and so forth have been actively debated among members of a small but influential group of evangelical apologists known as the Christian countercult movement. This Element explores the history of this movement from its origins in the anti-heresy writings of the early church to its modern development as a reaction to religious pluralism in North America. It contrasts the apologetic Christian countercult movement with its secular anticult counterpart and explains how faith-based opposition both to new religious movements and to non-Christian religions will only deepen as religious pluralism increases. It provides a concise understanding of the two principal goals of Christian countercult apologetics: support for the evangelization of non-Christian believers and maintenance for the perceived superiority of the evangelical Christian worldview.