I attended an AOG church in Australia, for seven years, the church I attended was the oldest pentecostal church in Australia. AOG denom is one of the oldest pentecostal denom's. (Although Americans generally do tend to be more enthusiatic about religion then Australians are.) They do have a tendency to appoint on annointing not on ability, so sometimes inappropriate people bubble to the top.
Forum: Destructive Churches

OrangeRev: A church does not need to be a "cult" for abuse to happen. A church can be thoroughly "orthodox" in teaching and still allow abuse to occurr. A church can appear to be blessed by God and abuse can happen. The vast majority of a movement can be the most wonderfull people and the vast majority of their congregations great places. However the chances of abuse oc
Forum: Destructive Churches

OrangeRev: Could I also ask what is the local "district"? How is it controlled? How is its parts selected? Is it accountable to a national body or to the local congregations? Furthermore can elders be removed and by what process? Is the discussions of the "eldership" and pastor distrubuted to the congregation? What is the process if an elder disagrees?
Forum: Destructive Churches

ohliger: Quote: The congregational form of church government is an American invention and appeals to our American sense of democracy. That is a factual error, congregational churches were present in England before the US was founded and before England could any real sense be called a democracy. They usually used the term Independents in the earliest of times. As the saying goes, "Po
Forum: Destructive Churches

DinaM2: I would advise any text or practise that was part of the control mechanism used by a cult over a person should be avoided until the person is well over the experience. (Ex cult members have usually so immersed themselves, that they have had several lifetimes worth of normal reading or practice anyway.) I don't know if it is very common, but after my cult experience I would have
Forum: Recovery from Destructive Cults and Groups

From reading the second website I discovered that they changed their name from Immanuel to Christian Fellowship in 1977. The other information is that Waverly Christian Fellowship, which is now called City Life, split form these churches in 1970. (This is now the largest church in Melbourne, Victoria around 6-7000 members) Although they have largely adopted AOG doctrine and practices.
Forum: Destructive Churches

Names shouldn't be deceptive. Messianic Judaism presumes that they are Jews and that is not the case, they are far more christian than jewish. A better name would be something like Bi-covenantal Christians.
Forum: Destructive Churches

Matilda, I used the name "Immanuel" my friends called the group (most of the family had left the this church about two decades ago and had moved to the AOG) but after several hours of searching the net I came up with www.mcf.net.au (a picture of the Nhill church is at that site) as their website and www.defenceofthefaith.org/BCF2ed.htm as an opposing one. The strange looks occurre
Forum: Destructive Churches

Maybe you should create a web site with alternative information about the JC's. Can I suggest a name....www.Jesuslikesus.com
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

I just spent some time over at the JC's message board, they seemed quite willing to answer questions and engage in dialogue. Dave can be a bit snappy but no more than myself. I know that ridiculing Dave probably makes you fell better but I don't know if its all that productive. It probably just makes the other members more defensive of him and more convinced that their is some sort of
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

The trinitarian problem with arianism, is that you appear to end up with a main God and a demi-god Jesus. (You have to deal with verses indicating that Jesus helped create the universe, and appears to invest him with certain characteristics that appear to be devine.) The early church struggled with the relationship between the Father and Jesus for several centuries. Arianism is just one the p
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"

Rick, So do you have a definition of when a sect ceases being a sect/denomination and becomes a seperate religion. (Other then your personal say so? Just to clearly delineate this issue for some of the posters.) Clearly Christianity started as a Jewish sect (at a time when Judaism isn't as neatly defined as now, it was quite likely that some of push to more clearly define Judaism came
Forum: Destructive Churches

Rick, I take it that Christians can't be Jews, in the same way that Mormons can't be Christians (although they like to use that cover.) However where do you place the historical group called the "Ebionites", which did appear to exist somewhere in between the two groups?
Forum: Destructive Churches

I've noticed that most of the posts have been from women, maybe ACE suits boys better than girls. I had a good friend who attended a PACE school and girlfirend who taught at one. Now there are probably many nutters running schools using this systems, but putting that aside, to me it always sounded a great way to learn. I hated my regular school and disliked most of my teachers. (Although my
Forum: Destructive Churches

Must say his latest song has got some interesting phrases and has him playing a cult leader but I think it mush more likely he is taking the pi$$. It has lots of attractive heavily pregnant women looking like cult members, with I presume the inference that he got them pregnant. the chorus is something like.... "Sin, sin sin, look where we've been and where we are tonight. Hate the sin
Forum: Celebrities associated with "cult-like" groups

Isn't he married to "Sweet Caroline"? Is this supposed to be a joke or is there a real person of that name?
Forum: Destructive Churches

Is there widespread dissatisfaction or just the odd person leaving?
Forum: Destructive Churches

Does anyone have any information on the Immanuel fellowship, we have some friends who attend one at Nhill, we actually attended a service one day but they did give us some very strange looks?
Forum: Destructive Churches

Whilst whole heartedly disagreeing with the prosperity doctrine, I would not call Hillsong a destructive church, it has potential to become that way and there are certainly issues with the structure. However prosperity doctrine is very wide spread throughout the AOG churches as a whole. I attended Richmond AOG for sometime and at that stage probably around 40% of the church were into prosperity d
Forum: Destructive Churches

I haven't found any references to David Kriss on any web sites, so I thought I would add some information. The current group he is running has a website, www.hopefarm.com.au. He has lead at least two previous groups both of which collapsed after the "prophecies" he made failed to come to pass. The group I got involved in nearly 18 years ago was called Caulfield Christian Fellows
Forum: "Cults," Sects, and "New Religious Movements"