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Visitors blitz area to inform, convert
Watchman Fellowship, which works for Christianity and against what it calls cults, will visit five area churches.
This week, the Tampa Bay area is Watchman Fellowship‘s target audience.
The Texas ministry organization will swoop in Sunday for three- and four-night seminars at five area churches, including First Baptist in New Port Richey.
Some scheduled topics: Counterfeit Christianity, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Dating Game, and the Mormon Law of Eternal Progression.
Watchman Fellowship bills itself as an “independent Christian research and apologetics ministry.” (The term “apologetic” refers to a biblical verse commanding Christians to defend their faith.)
“We serve the Christian and secular community as a resource for cult education, counseling and noncoercive intervention,” the group’s Web site says.
But an unbiased, purely academic resource it is not. Watchman works to educate about non-Christian religious movements with the goal of helping Christians evangelize to those followers.
“We’re wanting to train Christians in a respectful, proper way to build bridges with people in alternative religions, what we call counterfeit Christianity,” said James Walker, the group’s president, a former Mormon who now is Southern Baptist. “A lot of times Christians – it’s not that they’re mean-spirited, it’s that they don’t know what to do.”
So at its seminars, typically held eight times a year across the United States, Watchman team members distribute literature and give talks on the claims made by such groups as Jehovah’s Witnesses, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as Mormons, and Scientologists.
Robert Stewart, a theology and philosophy professor at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, will speak in New Port Richey this week. He points out that Watchman uses primary sources from other religions, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Watchtower magazine and the Book of Mormon.
“All of these presentations will be heavily documented,” Stewart said. “We don’t use secondary sources. It’s not like “So-and-So said this about Mormons.’ “
Attempts to reach local Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses for this story were unsuccessful. But published information from each group makes at least one thing clear: They consider themselves Christians.
The official Mormon Web site quotes its president, Gordon Hinckley.
“We, of course, accept Jesus Christ as our Leader, our King, our Savior. The dominant figure in the history of the world, the only perfect Man who ever walked the earth, the living Son of the living God. He is our Savior and our Redeemer through whose atoning sacrifice has come the opportunity of eternal life,” Hinckley wrote on the site.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses’ Web site lists numerous beliefs and scripture. Some vary slightly from mainstream Christian teachings.
Among their listed beliefs are: Jesus Christ is God’s son and is inferior to him; Christ was first of God’s creations; Christ died on a stake, not on a cross; Christ’s human life was paid as a ransom for obedient humans; and that Christ was raised from the dead as an immortal spirit person.
While Stewart is conducting the seminar in New Port Richey, Walker will be at the pulpit of Countryside Christian Center in Clearwater. Another Watchman staffer will speak at a Baptist church in St. Petersburg, and another in Seminole.
Walker says Watchman blankets an area to reach the most people possible.
“You’re able to equip and train more Christians in a shorter period of time this way,” Walker said. “When you’re working one church at a time it might take half a year.”
He noted another advantage.
“It builds unity with the churches, too,” he said. “It’s not just one church making a stand.”
Watchman works through all denominations of traditional Christian churches, and Walker says the group tries to embrace and honor the distinctions.
“We recognize there’s differences, and we’re not trying to minimize the differences,” he said. “Basically we all believe in the same God and the same gospel. . . . What we differ on is issues like tongues or how to do missions or the best way to deal with church politics. We’re united on the essentials.”
Bruce Robinson is the coordinator of Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance, an interfaith agency in Canada. He has written about some of Watchman’s efforts.
“They are a legitimate group,” Robinson said. “They do have very strong religious views and they are a part of . . . the countercult movement.”
It’s Watchman’s use of the word “cult” that bothers Robinson.
“If you want to express hatred, you can use the word “cult,’ ” Robinson said, because the word has different meanings and connotations, and often stirs up anxiety.
“I just wish that they would use the term “new religious movement,’ ” Robinson said. “It’s a neutral term and it doesn’t prejudge.” [Note from RNB's editor: see comment below]
But Watchman, on its Web site, emphasizes respect for other people’s beliefs and the right to freedom of religion.
“No one from Watchman Fellowship would ever say that a person doesn’t have a right to believe what he or she wants to believe,” said Stewart, the theology professor. “This is not about oppression.”
Furthermore, he said, disagreement is at the heart of religious tolerance.
“Genuine tolerance requires that you believe another person’s beliefs are false,” he said. “You can’t tolerate that which you accept as legitimate. We think we’re practicing proper tolerance.”
Added Walker: “We believe in freedom of religion and we would not want to do anything to deprive a person . . . to follow the God of their choice. But we want them to make an informed choice.”
There’s no question, however, that the group’s goal is converting people to Christianity.
“Watchman Fellowship is an evangelical ministry,” Stewart said. “We hope to proclaim Christ as the truth.”
And Stewart says that mission comes from a basic tenet of Christianity: loving others.
“It’s not just mean-spirited cult bashing,” he said. “We do it because we love the truth and we love them.”
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