October 23, 2006
When we filed an appeal asking the Texas Supreme Court to overturn the flawed summary judgment decision in our lawsuit over the Encyclopedia of Cults and New Religions, publisher Robert Hawkins and authors John Ankerberg and John Weldon actively engaged in a public relations campaign to further mislead the Christian public through press releases, letters to Christianity Today, and statements on radio broadcast interviews. Because of the public nature of their attack, we felt compelled to respond publicly as well to correct their misrepresentations.
Concerning us:
- They hypocritically cast our criticism of the organized system of Christianity as being anti-Christian when Harvest House’s own books speak of Christianity as “a religion of misguided people,” “anemic,” “flaccid,” and “heavily involved in the occult.”
- They tarred us with an accusation that we are litigious in spite of the fact that we have filed significantly fewer lawsuits than Harvest House itself.
Concerning the present case:
- They misrepresented the nature of the lawsuit and of our objections to the book.
- They distorted the history of our attempts to resolve the dispute in Christian fellowship and their own refusal to engage in dialog.
- They selectively quoted from their own definition of “cult” to claim that their book is only concerned with critiquing others’ beliefs.