The Christian Countercult Movement:
Modern Personalities
Jan Karel van Baalen
Name: Jan Karel van Baalen
Dates: 1890-1968
Education: Kampen Seminary (Netherlands); Princeton Seminary
Religious Affiliation: Christian Reformed Church
Position: Ordained minister
Links:
Writings
Profile
A common feature of many small and medium sized towns in both the U.S. and Canada is a church signboard placed prominently at the main entrances to the municipality. Listed there, sometimes according to their relative popularity, other times simply alphabetically, are the different places of worship to which visitors and townsfolk might be drawn. Grace Lutheran Church, St. Mary's Roman Catholic parish, Knox Presbyterian, St. Andrew's United (or United Methodist) Church, St. Cyprian's Anglican—all offer their varied services to the worshipping public
While there was a time when those listings contained only religious groups accepted by the culture at large, lately St. Andrew's has vied for signboard space with the First Church of Christ, Scientist, and the telephone numbers for St. Mary's parish now fall just below those of the fice different wards of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Indeed, what alarms those men and women who believe that such signboards should be limited to accepted Christian denominations (with, perhaps, an occasional grudging nod toward the local synagogue) is the simple fact that, in recent years, they have not been so limited.
"For example," wrote Christian Reformed minister and early countercult apologist Jan Karel van Baalen, in the introduction to the 1960 edition of his classic work, The Chaos of Cults, "Mormonism, Christian Science, Unity, and similar non-Christian cults are allowed to list their services and hours of worship on the same buletin boards at the entrance of cities and towns, and in hotel lobbies, with evangelical churches whose every tenet tehse cults not merely deny but combat" (van Baalen 1960:6).
That, for van Baalen, this allowance presented a problem of practical life is clear. "The writer believes," he concluded, "that it would be well to stop this practice" (van Baalen 1960:6).
After William C. Irvine, who published Timely Warnings in 1917 (reissued in 1980 as Heresies Exposed), Jan Karel van Baalen laid the groundwork for much of twentieth-century countercult apologetics. An ordained minister in the Christian Reformed Church, van Baalen held pastorates in both the United States and Canada. According to the biographical notes on the jacket of The Chaos of Cults, "in all of them he has personally worked with cultists."
Outside of Christian Reformed circles, van Baalen is best known for the four editions of The Chaos of Cults; although he did have a brief career as a pamphleteer on the side of positive Calvinism during the "common grace" controversy of 1921-1928 (cf. Bratt 1984:110-3, 142-3; Engelsma 1998).1 Indeed, it was precisely this understanding of common grace that contributed to the tenor of humility which was often characteristic of his writing, but which is just as often lacking in those who have followed him in the field of countercult apologetics.2 When confronting an adherent of a different religious tradition, for example, van Baalen advised that one should "never show that you suspect the cultist of dishonesty or mercenary motives" (van Baalen 1956:366, 1960:392). That is, they should be approached as though the motives behind their religious choice are as authentic and honourable as anyone else's.3 For van Baalen, this was not merely a tactical consideration, but one which lay at the heart of his contribution to the common grace dispute (cf. Bratt 1984:93-119). Even within groups he considered thoroughly heterodox, he believed that "there is a sufficient amount of common grace working in most men for them to resent being suspected of evil" (van Baalen 1956:367, 1960:393).
This understanding, however much it may temper the tone of his writing, did not prevent van Baalen from making a very clear distinction between the different boundaries of religious adherence. Christian orthodoxy, as defined by the historic creeds, was still the canon against which all other belief systems were to be measured.4 In a remark often attributed to him, but which he made clear originated elsewhere, van Baalen wrote that "[there] is an old saying to the effect that 'the cults are the unpaid bills of the church'" (van Baalen 1960:420). While, perhaps as a result of this, he appeared more willing than most to give credit where credit is due,5 whatever other good may be attributed to heterodox groups they still stand beyond the borders of what van Baalen considered "Christian." "The present volume," he wrote, "maintains with H. Bavinck6 and B.B. Warfield7 that there are but two religions in the world. The one is autosoterism, that salvation is from man. The other ascribes the entire work of salvation from the world's ills to God. Christianity is the name of the latter. It matters not under what flag the former sails: it stands in opposition to the Christian, that is, the true religion" (1960:15-6).8 Even despite his penchant for fairness, for van Baalen the boundaries between religions were drawn with simple efficiency; subjective reality was constructed in such a way that there were only two possible religious primary groups to which humankind could belong: Christians, and everybody else.
Having identified these two primary groups, and the problem of practical life to which he is responding, two aspects of van Baalen's contribution to Christian countercult apologetics should be noted briefly. The first is his clear articulation of the fundamental boundary marker for Christianity. The primacy of this marker (although perhaps not the particular interpretation of it) is consistent across the spectrum of countercult apologetics. "What is Christianity?" van Baalen asked, answering, "To this query the reply of all the evangelical groups has ever been that the inspired Scriptures are the only source of saving knowledge and the determining factor of what is to be believed" (van Baalen 1956:354, 1960:378). A typical example of this is found in van Baalen's advice to those confronting the adherents of other religious traditions. He wrote simply "that God has spoken in His Son, the infallible record of which we have in the Bible (according to Heb. 1,2)" (van Baalen 1956:369, 1960:395).9
In addition, given the fact that many of the groups with which van Baalen dealt also "quote Scripture," in good Reformed tradition he asked, "Where is true doctrine?" (van Baalen 1956:356). "To this second paramount question the answer is, In the great historic creeds of the Church universal" (van Baalen 1956:357, 1960:383). Indeed, he noted, "[it] is base ingratitude, not to say detestable conceit, and ingratitude not only toward men but toward God, to ignore the results of the sincere and arduous labors of godly and Spirit-filled men of past generations" (van Baalen 1956:357, 1960:383).
With these particular cognitive boundary markers established, van Baalen's working definition of a "cult"—that is, "'any religion regarded as unorthodox or even spurious' (Webster)" (1956:363, 1960:389)—as broad-reaching and vague as it was, served to cement the boundary of Christianity as the only true religion.10 The question is begged here, though, "regarded as unorthodox" by whom and according to whose standards? In the construction of reality out of which the countercult apologists operate, however, the answer is clear. It is the countercult apologists themselves who choose the components which define the canons of Christian orthodoxy. For them, as is demonstrated in the other essays on the countercultists, the constructed universe is dualistically organised and nomically fixed. "You must know," van Baalen wrote, "that in spite of the too numerous divergencies, there is such a thing as Christian belief and a Christian view of life, and that it is superior to all pagan views; that Christianity is the only religion that has a universal appeal; that it alone offers a divine salvation and thus delivers man from 'broken cisterns that can hold no water'" (van Baalen 1956:371, 1960:397).
From the perspective of a sociology of knowledge, the second aspect of van Baalen's thought speaks to his reasons for participation in countercult apologetic. Why choose that particular response from the range of response options available? Faced with the rise in popularity of new religious movements within the orbit of established Christianity, van Baalen and those who have followed him across the spectrum of this genre perceive themselves to be a people under siege, a people whose very freedom to worship is often at risk. There are two main directions from which the threat may come: from within—i.e., an aberrant Christianity which challenges in some way the received claims of traditional orthodoxy;11 or, from without—i.e., the introduction into North America of religious traditions which lay no claim to Christian orthodoxy of any sort.12
Because they challenge the necessary inevitability of his or her worldview, both of these challenges breach the apologist's proximate threshold of worldview instability. Both press the machinery of universe-maintenance into service. What is noteworthy is that, for the apologist, these are not simple differences of theological opinion. This is spiritual warfare, and the countercult apologist is often regarded as the lone defender on the field of battle. "Not only has the cultist repudiated the orthodox religion you represent," van Baalen wrote to those "approaching adherents of the cults," "he is actually hostile to it" (van Baalen 1956:363, 1960:389). "The cultist you are about to visit is your opponent" (van Baalen 1956:365, 1960:391). Though, for the most part, his rhetoric is far less prejudicial than that of his later colleagues, van Baalen's suggested method in dealing with these adherents was still a nihilation very akin to that advocated by Douglas R. Groothuis: "In an argument with an adherent of a different faith you should be able to attack and refute his stand...One way is to refute his principle, the foundation of his system...Destroy the foundation and the excrescences will disappear" (van Baalen 1956:369-70, 1960:395-6).
For Jan Karel van Baalen, as for the majority of the modern countercult apologists, the problem of practical life was clear. "For some decades now Christianity has been in the unenviable position of a religion going through a major crisis and battling for its very right of existence" (van Baalen 1938:15). In a passage which presaged much of what others would write in years to follow, van Baalen warned the faithful: "The true Christians will be hated of all men for their aloofness, their refusal to recognize others as equally good; they will be accused of holding back unity and progress, world-peace, and similar desirable goods. Probably it will all end in renewed persecution" (van Baalen 1956:16, 1960:14).13
Whether van Baalen's prediction of a renewed persecution based on Christianity's unwillingness to recognise the essential validity of religious pluralism comes true or not remains to be seen. What is not in doubt is the wealth of Christian countercult material which has followed in van Baalen's wake, and the belief among the modern countercultists that the rise of new religious movements, the introduction of established, non-traditional religions into the North American context, and the conversion of former Christians to these religions constitutes something on the order of a clear and present danger.
Endnotes
1In the early part of the twentieth century, two Christian Reformed ministers, Henry Danhof and Herman Hoeksema, brought the issue of "common grace" to the forefront of synod debate in the CRC. Part political (in the CRC context it was seen as evidence of the "Americanisation" of Dutch Calvinism) and part theological, the doctrine of common grace maintains that, in some measure, the grace of God is evident in all humanity, indeed, in all creation. Human conscience is an example of that grace, an example by which even people outside the Christian provenance recognise the difference between good and evil, right and wrong, truth and falsehood. The possibility exists, therefore, that there can be good in that which is not explicitly Christian.
According to Bratt, "[most] of the debate [in the CRC] was composed of conflicting exegeses of Scripture, the Confessions, and Reformed theology from Calvin to Bavinck . . . In essence, Hoeksema and Danhof claimed that most of these sources offered no evidence for common grace and much against it, that only a few theologians taught it and did so erroneously, and that the doctrine was at most heretical and at least trivial" (Bratt 1984:110). Opponents of Danhof and Hoeksema, like van Baalen (who, in 1922, wrote a polemical pamphlet attacking their position entitled "The Denial of Common Grace: Reformed or Anabaptist?"), believed precisely the opposite, "that common grace was 'the fountainhead of Reformed thought,' and that denying it was 'against Reformed theology, against our Confession, against the Holy Scripture,' and intolerable in a Reformed denomination" (Bratt 1984:110). In 1924, at a meeting dubbed the "Common Grace Synod," the Christian Reformed Church upheld common grace as sound Reformed theology, although "tangential, not fundamental to Reformed thought" (Bratt 1984:114). In an endnote to his article on Danhof, Engelsma notes rather sourly, "[already] in the 1920s there was a diseased love of pagan culture in the CRC. This did not bode well for its future" (Engelsma 1998:5).
2Hexham and Poewe note, for example, that "[although] van Baalen was devastating in his theological criticism of various groups, he made an effort to be scrupulously fair. His objections were doctrinal, not personal or vindictive" (1997: 2). They also conclude that "[this] reasoned approach is very different from what followed" (Hexham and Poewe 1997:3).
3This is in contrast to much of the rhetoric of seduction, deceit, and aggression which has followed van Baalen in Christian countercult apologetics. For example, writing in the foreword to Douglas R. Groothuis' Unmasking the New Age, Gordon Lewis, "professor of theology and philosophy" at Denver Seminary and "founder of Evangelical Ministries to New Religions, Inc" (Lewis 1985:11), declares: "Advertising that it can transform people and society worldwide, the New Age movement is spearheading a comprehensive attack on many of the highest values of both the Christian church and Western culture. For about two decades Eastern religions have been moving West and aggressively seeking converts among secularists and Christians" (Lewis 1985:9). Groothuis himself writes that "it seems a recent New Age strategy has been to present itself as 'the true Christianity,' thus adding attractiveness to those only nominally Christian or unrooted in the Bible. The occult heart of the New Age is veiled when apostates appear as apostles wearing the robes of religion" (Groothuis 1988:203).
4"What true Bible-lover," asked van Baalen, "could not subscribe to these opening words of the Formula of Concord of 1576, which happens to be Lutheran? 'We believe, confess and teach that the only rule and norm, according to which all dogmas and all doctors ought to be esteemed and judged, is no other whatever than the prophetic and apostolic writings both of the Old and New Testament'...And among our persecuted Lutheran brethren in Germany, and even among our Russian brethren who tremble before the deadly hatred of Sovietism, who could not respond with a thrill in the heart to the concluding words of the Belgic Confession of Faith, which happens to be a Reformed document, written as a defense before the King of Spain who had let loose the horrible Inquisition against the innocent citizens of the Lowlands?" (van Baalen 1956:358-9). Van Baalen concluded: "What have Mormonism or Russellism to say in the face of such confessions? What has Mother Mary Baker Eddy to lay alongside them?" (van Baalen 1956:359). See also van Baalen 1948.
5For example, in the 1960 edition of The Chaos of Cults he wrote that "[the] Mormons...have made a serious effort to view sex as a God-given talent. They have encouraged dancing as a religious exercise under the prayerful guidance and supervision of bishops and elders. Moreover, the very high standard of Mormon family life has given way to divorce only where intermarriage with those of other faiths has increased" (van Baalen 1960:423).
6Herman Bavinck (1854-1921) was a Dutch Reformed theologian, educated at the University of Leiden. Bratt notes that, like van Baalen, Bavinck was "[tolerant], genial, irenic, he never caricatured an opponent or impugned his motives but tried to give him all the credit he deserved" (Bratt 1984:31). Like van Baalen, though, Bavinck was clear on the hierarchy of worldviews available for inhabitance. For Bavinck, "Christian theism [was] the only adequate explanation and guarantor of order in nature, certainty in knowledge and security in society" (Bratt 1984:30).
7Called by fundamentalism scholar George Marsden "the aging lion of strict Presbyterian orthodoxy" (Marsden 1980:98), Benjamin Breckinridge Warfield (1851-1921) taught on the faculty at Princeton Theological Seminary and was considered the greatest exponent of the "Princeton cause"—i.e., Christianity as a reasoned faith based on the inerrancy of Scripture and "the assumption that truth is known by apprehending directly what is 'out there' in the external world, not a function of human mental activity" (Marsden 1980:114). Marsden quotes Warfield: "'It is the distinction of Christianity that it has come into the world clothed with the mission to reason its way to dominion. Other religions may appeal to the sword, or seek some other way to propagate themselves. Christianity makes its appeal to right reason, and stands out among all religions, therefore, as distinctively 'the Apologetic religion.' It is solely by reasoning that it has come thus far on its way to kingship. And it is solely by reasoning that it will put all its enemies under its feet'" (Warfield, quoted in Marsden 1980:115; cf. also Sandeen 1970:120-30).
8In the introductory chapter to the 1938 edition of The Chaos of Cults, van Baalen asked, "What, then, is the great difference between Christianity and paganism? There can be no doubt but Christianity stands apart from all other 'great religions' in that it teaches a God-made salvation while the others are all autosoteric" (van Baalen 1938:18).
9At another point, demonstrating no awareness of the thoroughly subjective and circular nature of his statement, van Baalen instructed the apologist, "[you] may point to the sinlessness of Jesus as an evidence of Christianity, or you may refer to His miracles and His resurrection as indisputable evidence of His divinity (van Baalen 1956:372, 1960:398). Indeed, this is another very good example of Ken Wilber's point about the circularity with which the argument for Biblical infallibility is often made. In The Spectrum of Consciousness, Wilber imagines the following conversation: "'
10Following on this, van Baalen noted in passing that "the word 'sect' is here taken in the sense of a somewhat odd denomination" (van Baalen 1956:364, 1960:390).
11E.g., the Jehovah's Witnesses, to whom van Baalen refers as "the deadliest and most fierce enemies of the Christian religion extant today" (1956:231); the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, whom Walter R. Martin believed "constitutes an immense threat to the church of Jesus Christ of our era" (Martin [1955] 1980:63); or the so-called "laughing revival" within Pentecostalism, which Christian Research Institute president Hank Hanegraaff has condemned in his book, Counterfeit Revival (1997). In study questions at the end of his chapter on Jehovah's Witnesses, van Baalen challenged his readers to "[show] from Scripture what is wrong with the Russellite doctrines of (1) the atonement; (2) man's efforts in salvation; (3) annihilation vs. judgment; (4) attitude toward hell" (1956:269). He asked: "How do the Witnesses vary from the Christian interpretation of Armageddon, and of 'the new heaven and the new earth'?" (van Baalen 1956:269).
Martin continued his condemnation of Mormonism, describing it as "one of the cleverest counterfeits of the true gospel yet devised, one which stands ready to ensnare the souls of a world rich in religion and bankrupt in the faith that saves" (Martin [1955] 1980:63). Commenting on the difference between the "laughing revival" and what he understands as true Christianity, Hanegraaff writes: "Nowhere is the paradigm shift that has taken place in Christianity and our culture more obvious than in the contrast between the ministry of [Jonathan] Edwards [1703-1758; American Calvinist philosopher and revivalist preacher] and the message of the leader's of today's Counterfeit Revival. The ministry of Jonathan Edwards was characterized by dynamic expositional preaching. The message of the Counterfeit Revival is characterized by delusional experiential pandering...The very thing that Edwards wanted people to be saved from is what Counterfeit Revival leaders are inducing people to indulge in" (Hanegraaff 1997:101).
12E.g., Buddhism, of which Bob Larson writes: "If consumer laws of full disclosure were applied to the 'sale' of religions, Buddhism would probably be left on the shelf" (Larson 1989:72); Hinduism, the result of an "avalanche of Hindu gurus and swamis [who] invaded the United States in the 1960s and 1970s" and as a result of which "our nation has never been the same since" (Marrs 1990:216); or Islam, which Morey claims most Westerners "have a difficult time comprehending...because they fail to understand that it is a form of cultural imperialism in which the religion and culture of seventh-century Arabia have been raised to the status of divine law" (1992:19).
Larson continues his consideration of Buddhism: "Former Christian missionaries to Tibet report that Tibetan Buddhism is the most openly occult of all non-Christian world religions. Even the monks themselves make no pretense about their consorting with demonic demigods" (Larson 1989:79). Of the Dalai Lama's flight from Tibet in 1959, Larson suggests: "Perhaps the demonic forces behind Tibetan Buddhism have deliberately prolonged his exile as a means of exporting this ancient, shamanistic faith" (Larson 1989:79). Texe Marrs cites another countercult apologist, Tal Brooke, to the effect that "the rituals of Hinduism result in 'the total desecration, degradation, defamation of the soul during the ritual.' He shows clearly that the mega-gurus of the Hindu religion have surrendered themselves to a horrendously evil force" (Marrs 1990:218).
Following his consideration of "Allah and God" (Morey 1992:57-65), Robert Morey concludes: "Many Westerners assume that Allah is just another name for God. This is due to their ignorance of the differences between the Allah of the Quran and the God of the Bible and also due to the propaganda of Muslim evangelists who use the idea that Allah is just another name for God as an opportunity to convert Westerners to Islam" (Morey 1992:65).
13While van Baalen expressed concern about the influx of new religious movements into what he perceived as an essentially monoreligious culture, at the far end of the spectrum is the overt paranoia evident in countercult apologists such as Bob Larson and Texe Marrs. Lacking van Baalen's theological and historical acumen, Larson and Marrs rely instead on sensationalism, conspiracism, and what often appears to be simple prevarication in order to disseminate their apologetic and to motivate their respective target audiences. For example, Larson begins a 1996 fundraising letter: "Dear Friend, Satanists have an evil agenda to take over America and kill all Christians!...For years I've known about this agenda, and I've tried my best to warn Christians. Some didn't want to believe it." Similarly, in a sidebar entitled "Agents of Disinformation," Marrs writes: "'Certain powerful forces have targeted Texe Marrs and Living Truth Ministries for destruction,' a reliable source warned us recently.'Your message of truth is getting through to so many millions of people, and the word has gone out, Texe Marrs must be stopped and his strong voice quieted'" (Marrs 1997:3).
References Cited
Douglas E.
Cowan, Ph.D.
The University of Missouri-Kansas City
Copyright © 2000 Douglas E. Cowan
N.B. All material on these pages is taken from my Ph.D. dissertation, Bearing False Witness: Propaganda, Reality-Maintenance, and Christian Anticult Apologetics (University of Calgary, 1999)