Interview: 'Christianity and New Religious Movements' by Derek Cooper – The Gospel Coalition

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In 1998, when my college classmates were dancing on tables, puking on the beach, and picking up STIs, I went to Salt Lake City with my Bible, some clothes, and no idea what Mormons believe. I was enthusiastic about my missionary task, but woefully uninformed.
On one hand, all we need for evangelism is a thorough understanding of the gospel. However, we can shape our explanation of the gospel in helpful ways if we understand who we’re talking to and what they believe. This is what Paul did when he spoke to the Athenians in the Areopagus (Acts 17:22–34). He wasn’t just referencing pop culture; he was connecting their existing belief structures to their need for Christ as Savior. Paul had done his research so he could help bridge the gap between people’s existing beliefs and the gospel.
We can shape our explanation of the gospel in helpful ways if we understand who we’re talking to and what they believe.
Thankfully, when I arrived on my short term mission trip, my host invested hours teaching me what I needed to know about Mormonism. He showed how it is different from Christianity and how it leaves its adherents in need of salvation. That knowledge has helped me have meaningful conversations with Mormons over the past decades. It has also helped me to explain to other Christians where the fault lines between the two religions lie. Learning about other religions helps us evangelize and disciple, too.
Every major religion has produced hundreds of offshoots. Although sometimes disparaged as cults or sects, these new religious movements are often culturally accepted and claim to promote a healthy and happy lifestyle. We may have heard of them, but many of us know little about them. For Christians, this makes it difficult for us to engage with their adherents wisely and well. This book delves into ten of the most historic, most prominent, and most recognizable new religious movements, focusing on ones with members whom people have a higher chance of meeting.
In recent years it seems like the number of religions has multiplied. At least, I’ve become increasingly aware of religious movements whose core beliefs I know nothing about. As I’ve sifted through internet research, I wished there was a resource to help me understand religions like Scientology, Jainism, and the Nation of Islam. Now there is. Derek Cooper’s book Christianity and New Religious Movements: An Introduction to the World’s Newest Faiths provides an overview of 10 religions that have emerged in the past two centuries.
This interview with Cooper, managing director of the Thomas Institute, provides some of the background of his book. He explained why Christians need to understand these emerging religions, why we don’t call them cults, and how his book can encourage evangelism.
I previously wrote a book with P&R called Christianity and World Religions: An Introduction to the World’s Major Faiths, where I explored the most historic religions of the world from a Christian perspective. These were the kinds of religions most of us have heard about, for example, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Judaism. The book was helpful to people, so it was natural to write a follow-up that covered the world’s most recent religions, like Baha’i, Wicca, Scientology, and Mormonism.
In my experience, most books written about these newer religions were written either from a secular perspective or from an overly antagonistic one. I wrote from a confessional Christian perspective out of compassion for people of other faiths. I wanted to simultaneously offer an accurate portrayal of the religion and honestly assess it from a Christian viewpoint.
To begin with, there’s no single agreed definition. People use the term in vastly different ways. And virtually no group or religious body accepts the term “cult” since it carries a negative connotation. The term has run its course in usefulness, carrying too much cultural baggage and representing too many barriers toward understanding what these religions teach and how their members practice them.
The term “new religious movement” has become increasingly popular in the 21st century to refer to recent, religious, and systematized faiths. This term represents a consensus among scholars, and it’s concrete in its application and clear in its understanding. By using this term, Christians can take away one point of contention as they seek to communicate the gospel clearly.
Although many people would have us believe that religion is on the verge of extinction, nothing could be further from the truth. Stephen Hunt confirms in his book Religion in Western Society that “the attempt to measure religious decline by so-called hard empirical evidence is a notoriously hazardous enterprise.” Despite the rise and resilience of atheism, agnosticism, and secularism, religion is here to stay.
As atheist A. C. Grayling concedes in his book The God Argument, “Religion is a pervasive fact of history”—on top of which we may add that it’ll be a pervasive fact of the future. Consequently, the atheist author of Religion for Atheists, Alain de Botton, is correct when he states that “religions merit our attention.”
Although many people would have us believe that religion is on the verge of extinction, nothing could be further from the truth.
Globally speaking, religion is on the rise. And this, of course, includes new religious movements. After all, as sociologist Christian Smith has demonstrated in his book Religion, it’s only logical to conclude that human societies “will continue to generate new religions” in the future just as much as they have in the past. Some of these new religious movements “will grow in size, strength, and significance, while others will decline.” But the expectation that humans will generate them is inescapable. It’s what we do. And with thousands of new religious movements in existence around the globe, it’s clear we’ve been hard at work.
I believe in the power of the Holy Spirit to transform people’s lives. As such, I don’t think there’s one particular way for Christians to engage in evangelism with members of other religions. The Holy Spirit is free to make use of people, ideas, events, circumstances, tragedies, cultures, and practices in different ways.
That said, I do believe that Christians who are aware of other religions are (1) more likely to engage in a conversation with a person from a different religion, (2) able to ask better questions and frame conversations more compellingly, and (3) more secure in their faith and can therefore not be afraid to share their faith in Christ with practitioners of other religions.
Andrew Spencer (PhD, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary) serves as associate editor for books at The Gospel Coalition. He is the author of Hope for God’s Creation: Stewardship in an Age of Futility and Doctrine in Shades of Green: Theological Perspective for Environmental Ethics, editor of The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis: Essays in Honor of Michael Travers, and a contributor to Baptist Political Theology. Spencer is an elder at CrossPointe Church. He and his wife, Jennifer, have three children and live in southeast Michigan.
Derek Cooper (PhD, United Seminary) is managing director of the Thomas Institute.
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