Is the Church/Group associated with Mike Peters a “Cult?”
By cthaun[at]hotmail[dot]com
Last update: October 2010
There is a group that seems to lend its ear to Bible teacher Mike Peters (Michael H. Peters). It sounds like this group has its main concentrations in Indianapolis, Indiana, and Columbus, Ohio. There may also be significant concentrations in Charlotte, NC, Phoenix, AZ, and Pensacola, Fl. Being in the Charlotte area, my path has been crossed by one of their families. They invited me to dinner to talk about house church and they gave me a generous stack of books and CDs. There was a lot to respect about them. They seemed like very good folks. I wanted to have fellowship with them but it was clear that unless I read and absorbed the Mike Peters books they gave me, there could be no real fellowship. I had just left what I consider to be a cult, was tired of pyramid shaped church organizations that had a human oracle at the apex, and was saddened that we couldn't just simply have fellowship based on a common allegiance to the writings of the apostles and prophets (the Bible). This is the only time my path has crossed this group's path. So all I can say from my personal experience is that it did seem clear to me that this family was permitted to interact with other flavors of Christians for propaganda purposes but not for fellowship purposes. I am confident about my judgment there.
I’ve skimmed and spot read through
a few of Mike Peters books. I think most
of them have some really good points in them.
My wife and I especially enjoyed the free book Right Here, Right
Now! It’s authored anonymously but
somehow connected to Mike, i think.
I had a few nitpicky criticisms of the book but on the whole I felt like
the author was a gifted man with a lot of wisdom and a lot of good things to
say which were worth hearing and considering.
Honestly, this book was more alluring and readable than the other Mike
Peters books I had. It was actually a bit magical. It seemed to
cast a spell upon us as we read it. It tapped into so many of the
disappointments we had felt in various churches and fueled our hopes that the
Lord does still build his church today.
It was the desire to start recommending this book to others that forced
me to investigate this group deeper.
There were a few yellow flags flying that made me wonder about culty
dynamics but then the Right Here,
Right Now! book was so good in so many ways that I
didn’t want it to be from a cult. My
wife and I hoped it was made by a group of Christians who were just into doing
good things and not taking money for it.
Seeing how it was pretty difficult
to dig up information on this group, I thought I should make it a bit easier by
adding some links to a page like this.
The fact that it’s hard to find out about these people is one of the
clues that helps me think they’re a bit on the culty
side. Secrecy and separation and
exclusiveness abound. Since this group
seems to target house church minded people and homeschooling families, I want
all the more to offer some caution and some links to consider.
Are they a cult? I think that's a good question. I am not going to attempt to answer that question for you here. I'm just going to raise it and hopefully make it your question.
1st Timothy 5:19 reads:
“Do not entertain an accusation against an elder
unless it is
brought by two or three witnesses.”
The converse must then be true too. If there are two or more witnesses accusing any leader of any church group, those accusations should be heard and weighed. It is a fact there are dozens of accusations registered on-line against Mike Peters and the nameless group associated with his teachings and influence. It is not my place here to give my opinion about whether I think the accusations are all true, partially true, or untrue. I don't have enough personal experience with this group to deserve to make any judgment. However, I’d like those accusations to be more accessible for those who are attracted to Mike’s writings. But let me be the first to remind that accusations are cheap. The internet is full of complainers. There are always accusations against elders--that's why Paul made it clear that most of them should not be allowed into the courtroom unless there were two (or preferably three) witnesses saying the same thing. And even if the witnesses are saying the same things, that doesn't guarantee that they're telling the truth. People who are "disfellowshipped" from groups are probably going to have the same complaints. And we should be open to the idea that some people are disfellowshipped for serious reasons. This webpage then is not meant to make people believe the accusations or disbelieve the accusations. This webpage is simply intended to help people who are attracted to the group be able to research the group and form their questions more intelligently and "count the cost" more intelligently before they sell their homes, say good bye to their parents, and voluntarily yoke themselves to this group.
I myself found myself agreeing
with most of what I read from this group and found myself becoming very
attracted to their group. I wanted to believe that there was a
group of Bible believing people out there who really had escaped the Temple
made of stone in favor of a spiritual Temple made of living stones. I
wanted to believe that there were others out there who were serious about
turning away from the kingdom of darkness, away from idols, away from sin, away
from the world, and unto the Father and his son, the Lord Jesus. I
believe there are many of us who spent time in some kind of church, became
disillusioned with its worldliness, like Elijah cried out in despair, and want
to be surprised like Elijah was to hear the Lord reveal, "I have
reserved for myself 7,000 who have not bowed the knee unto Baal."
My wife and I started to have a moment like that when we were reading some of
the publications of this group. We wanted to believe that there is a
group of Christ-centered people out there who write awesome stuff, give it away
for free out of love for the truth, but not out of greed, and who are being
knit together in a community that closely resembles the ekklesia that we read
about in the New Testament. I can see why people have sold their homes
and said good bye to their families to become part of this group. We live
in a fragmented world where the family unit is an endangered species and the
idea of an extended family kinship group is hard to even imagine
anymore. When we read Acts 2 and Acts 4 and 1st Thessalonians 1 we
are dumbfounded about what once was and what our modern versions of church have
denied us.
When I began researching this group, my first concern was that it seemed hard to make sense of who they were. They have a strong presence on the www. But the questions I was interested in asking weren't being turned up readily with my searches. So in one way this group seems somewhat secretive and slippery--or at least selective about what they want to be found. Perhaps this says more about my ability to do research than it does about them though. Regardless, I would like to make sure that more light is shed upon them. Light is good. When John says, “if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another,” (1 John 1:7) I can’t help but think that this somehow probably includes transparency rather than secrecy, visibility rather than hiding. I also can't help but wonder if this group is trying hard to look good and sound good to the public while trying to conceal the sounds of a lot of pain coming from those who, rightly or wrongly, have been hurt by or in the group. I think that is a good question. But I can't answer it. All I can do is raise it.
Is this group a cult? Well, that depends on our definitions. My personal definition of cult is more liberal than most. I have no problem calling any group a cult that closes themselves off from all other groups of Bible believing Christians as if they are the only true people of God, the only righteous remnant, the only chosen ones, the true church, the overcomers, the only special group that God is pleased with and can really use for his own glory is a cult. I have no problem calling any group that sets up one man as their main prophet/ rabbi/ apostle/ teacher/ leader/ shepherd/ pastor/ pope/ oracle/ interpreter/ priest / guru / imam /sensei /sifu /etc a cult. Any group that uses fear to control the people who are trapped in the group is a cult. Any group that causes one of their followers to cut ties with their own family is a cult. Any group that uses strong social pressure inside their group to control the behavior and minds of the people in the group is a cult. Any group that causes separation between the husband and wife bond, or parent to child bond is a cult. Any group that does brainwashing or mind control or social control based on fear on its followers is a cult. The accusations of those who have crossed paths with the group seem to suggest that this group uses those things. So if the accusations are true, then I would say they are a cult. But I cannot act as a witness to say that the accusations are true. So the only opinion I will voice here is that the question of whether any/some/all of the accusations are true or not is a good question. (If you’d like to see a more standard description of a cult, spend some time here.)
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Back in June 2010, I got an email from Mike Peters. In it he rebuked me for propagating the slander from those who were invalid witnesses. He rebuked me for not asking him questions rather than just regurgitating the accusations from those who had been disfellowshipped from his group.
--------------------------------------------
My immediate response was. . .
I don’t doubt that many who were disfellowshipped were guilty of some very serious
things. Even among the twelve Jesus had his Judas. And Cephas wasn’t all that impressive either really.
If I were Cephas’ rabbi I would probably
have been tempted to dismiss him. I can also believe that several of them
were disfellowshipped for legitimate/biblical
reasons. It would be good for you to publish a list of the various
conditions that give cause for disfellowshipping, I
think. I’d like to see that come into the light if possible.
I also have no doubt that many of the accusers would attack in whatever way
they could. That’s all very human.
I’m sure that I can google
any christian group out there and find similar lists
of accusations from disgruntled exes. I’m sure I can find a million
complaints from ex-baptists about Baptists and a
zillion complaints by ex-Catholics against Catholicism and a million complaints
by ex-Mormons about Mormonism. . . I disfellowshipped
myself from two groups because I judged them unhealthy. . . I have my
complaints too. To this day I carry around scars that are still a bit
tender to the touch. I don’t really feel like lashing out at them
though. I’d really like to help them actually.
What gets me is
the sheer number of complaints [against you and your group] and the consistency
of the complaints. Such a small group but such a huge
volume of complaints. And the complaints have a certain harmony
that to me betrays a kernel of truth that random dissatisfaction wouldn’t
produce. At first I wanted to disbelieve them. I wanted to believe
that there was a group out there who had finally escaped the temple of stone
walls and begun to form a temple of living stones. I wanted to believe.
I was being drawn in by your good words. I was starting to think
about how to join a community and network of people who really did belong to
the Lord rather than the World. So I began my research. There
were just too many weird things. Too much secrecy.
Too much difficulty in finding direct answers.
And then I eventually found the accusations and complaints. Yah,
they were just a little too much for me. I could doubt some of
them. I could maybe even doubt half of them. But I just can’t doubt
them all. And if they’re all saying the same things, well, then I can’t
doubt them.
You suggest that it would have been better
to ask questions of you than to entertain the accusations made against you and
your pyramid.
I do have questions. But I’m
not so sure that the questions I have can be answered with mere words.
I’d have to spend a couple years inside your pyramid to have my questions
answered to my satisfaction. There is much that is attractive about this
pyramid to me. But I’ve been in too many pyramids to dare to enter
another.
If it were just one accusation, I’d ignore
it. But who can count the number of pained people who are crying out
about the way your group works? “Don’t entertain any
accusation against an elder unless there are two or three
witnesses.” This gives me the right to entertain the
accusations. But how to weigh them?
Who to ask? Where to begin the investigation?
The only guy I know who I could ask
questions of—the guy who handed me a stack of your books--is clearly brainwashed.
Over time I realized that whenever he says to me, “All that matters is laying
your life down for Jesus,” I’ve come to understand that “Jesus” is an algebraic
variable which in practical terms means the pyramid you seem to be at the
didactic apex of. So on one hand his testimony is not objective; on
the other hand, his brainwashing is so obvious to me that I’ve already got my
answer from him.
So who should I ask questions
of? Should I ask the accused? Should I ask
you? In John 5 our Lord, playing by the rules of Jewish law, agreed
that, "If I testify about myself, my
testimony is not valid.” He then rallied the
testimony of John the Baptist, the work the Father gave him (which was largely
the miraculous signs, I believe), and Moses. You defended
yourself. My Lord didn’t defend himself when he was unfairly accused by
the Sanhedrin but it is interesting to me that you do. Very
defensive seeming. You then testify about yourself. I’m
sorry but your testimony about the group that rallies under your banner is not
valid to me. The testimony I will accept is the fruit of the
Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, etc. “By this shall all men know that you are my
disciples, that you love one another.”
That’s how we will know. When your pyramid works to “do good unto all men, especially the brethren,” (Galatians 6:10)
and when your pyramid can even learn to love its enemies, then I’ll begin to
believe that your pyramid is beyond reproach. “If you love those [in your
group] what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing
that? And if you greet only [those in your group], what are you doing
more than others? Do not even pagans do that?” When I hear those
who have crossed paths with your pyramid saying, “Ahh,
but they love one another and they even love their enemies,” then I’ll accept
that testimony.
If I were a demon assigned to sabotage your
network, my strategy would probably be to take where you guys are the strongest
and use that against you. You guys seem very impressive with your
consecration and holiness and separation from the world. Having
spent the first 30 years of my life in evangelical circles, I left them
primarily because they were lacking these things. They seemed,
generally speaking, to belong to the kingdom of this world. So I
like that about your teachings and your group. But if it is true
that any truth taken to an extreme is a heresy, I believe our strengths can
become our weaknesses. If I were a demon, I would try to tempt you to
lead your sheep so deep into holiness and consecration that everything
else—including families—get sacrificed on that
altar. But while we are of course called unto holiness and while it is
true that without holiness no one will see the Lord, I’d like to suggest that
LOVE—self sacrificial love that builds others up and, while it may kill us,
does no harm to others—is the true mark of the disciple of the Lord
Jesus. But how is it possible for a group to prove that the type of love
practiced inside your pyramid does no real harm to those inside they pyramid
and no real harm to the families who miss their family member who entered the
pyramid? Words are cheap at this point. On matters like these I say
lives are speaking so loud that the words cannot be heard. Pain speaks
very loudly. My problem is that I can hear the words of pain about
a hundred times more loudly than I can hear good sounding words of
self-testimony. “Love does no harm to its
neighbor.” (Rom.13)
Most people are sheep with strong following
impulses. I’m not one of those. I don’t like following herds.
I don’t like living inside of pyramids. I’m almost forty years old
now. I’ve been through brainwashing myself. . . . everything I hear
about your pyramid so far sounds like it uses the same mind controls that so
many other groups use in the name of Jesus. It’s so easy to say,
“We don’t follow men. We follow Jesus only!” But then who speaks
for Jesus? Oh, yes, the Apostles. Ok. But who speaks
for the Apostles? The New Testament of course.
Ahh, ok.
But who speaks for the New Testament? The top of the pyramid
does. Sheep cannot really feed themselves. They know how to
chew grass and think that they’re feeding themselves. But it is their
shepherd who tells them which grass to chew and which grass to avoid.
There’s always some man at the top of the pyramid who speaks for Jesus. There’s always some sheep dogs under the shepherd who keep
the sheep in line. I know the model. . . .
It may look like Jesus for a while but then the little dog Toto pulls the
curtain back and, surprise, surprise, it’s just a guy
who felt like it was his mission in life to take Jesus’ place.
I do want to “lay my life down for Jesus”
and be totally consecrated and holy unto him and him alone. But going
forward I’m not going to let other men tell me what this means for me and my
house. I’m not going to let the collective group mind tell me
anymore who I am allowed to talk to and when I’m allowed to talk to them, where
my money should and shouldn’t go, what I should and shouldn’t wear, who belongs
to Satan and who belongs to God, what God’s will is for my life and my family’s
life, what foods we should and shouldn’t eat, what books we should and
shouldn’t read, what holy undergarments we should wear, what buzzwords and
clichés we should speak with, what songs we should and shouldn’t sing,
etc. It is me that will stand before the bema of my Lord someday to give
an account for the deeds I’ve done in my flesh and I’m not going to be blaming
some other man or some group for leading me astray. There won’t be the
other men around me saying, “Oh, Lord, sorry about that. I told him to do
that. It’s my fault.”
I’ll try to think of a list of questions
for you if you’re serious about that. I may need some time to think
about what the questions are. I suspect you’re pretty adept at
answering questions and nothing I ask you is going to be something you haven’t
already invested a lot of thought into already. But if you invite them, I
could probably come up with a few.
After thinking for a month about how to
answer some of Mikes questions to me and thinking
about what questions I most wanted straight answers to from him about him and
his group, I wrote:
Hello
again Mike.
So
I’m trying to get back to this conversation after over a month’s delay. I couldn’t
sleep tonight as I couldn’t quit thinking about our conversation and the
questions I have.
I
made a webpage searchable that causes the reader to question whether the group
you’re associated with is a “cult” (whatever that means) or not. You rebuked
me for my assumption that the slander of the disfellowshipped
is true and my propagation of the lies. I softened the words on my
webpage but still left the question of ‘cultiness’
wide open.
I
then responded saying that I have set my face against the many groups where
ultimately one man wields authoritarian-totalitarian control in a trickle-down
fashion over the others in a somewhat pyramid shaped fashion. I made it clear
that so far you and the group you offer some leadership to fit that pyramid
pattern in my estimation.
You
gently suggested that I must not know the true and verifiable facts. You
contend that you don’t do any brainwashing, you make no decisions directly and
hence wield no authority in the group, you don’t touch the money, you neither
start, call, control, nor are central to any meetings (including weddings and
baptisms), you are almost never directly involved in
any disfellowshipping. In short there is
nothing that you control or dominate. Your response left me rather
unable to know how to reply. I’m not able to empirically verify any
of this one way or the other to my own satisfaction so what is left to be said?
To
answer one of your questions to me, no, I had no control over the money,
teaching and/or meetings of the little group I was [recently] a part
of. . . I was tempted
to “step up” and “fill the vacuum of leadership” and bring order into
chaos. But I chose instead to let the group dissolve. I
figured that if Jesus wasn’t interested in holding our group together that
maybe I shouldn’t be either. So now I’m just a leader of my own family of
six.
Having
gone through the path of becoming disillusioned with evangelical churches,
Plymouth brethren assemblies, and more than one house
church, you can see why I’d be one of those who would be prone to enchantment
by a book like Right Here, Right Now! Both my wife and I wondered
if it could be too good to be true that people who believe what that book
describes could be living in community and giving their books away for
free. We were both very attracted. I wanted to believe it was
possible. But all the accusations/slander hurt that attraction.
You
asked me another question: “tell me HONESTLY, how is
"authoritarianism" possible with no control over money, relationally,
church meetings, baptisms, marriages, or anything else?”
I’ve
been thinking about how to answer that one for over a month now. I think
I can give an answer. The degree of social control that could be
called authoritarianism and/or totalitarianism can come from the phenomena of
what I might call guruism. People don’t tend to
think for themselves but find a guru to do their thinking for them.
People in general are herd animals by nature. The vast majority of
us tend to do what cows and sheep and lemmings do. We just find
someone we want to follow and we follow them. The leader can lead
without saying, “Follow me! Walk this way! Do what I say!” In
this way a man can lead a group without ever telling them to do
anything.
I
see it in microscopic form as a dad with my own children. I have various
tools I can use to try to control my four children. I can use fear,
shame, love, loyalty, etc. But all that is direct stuff. The
indirect stuff is more subtle. To a large degree I exert social control
over my children simply by being the main person who shapes their understanding
of reality, of right and wrong, of who God is and what we need to do to try to
please Him. I am their guru. That’s part of my job. And since
we homeschool our children, this fact is more obvious to me than it is to those
who outsource their children’s education. I am the guru for my
children. If I can convince them that God hates the color purple
and that he loves the color orange, they’ll start wearing less purple and more
orange. I didn’t tell them to do anything there. I didn’t use
my authority on them. I just changed their understanding of God and that
in turn changed their behavior. (And
this heavy responsibility on me reminds me of James’ warning that teachers will
be given a more strict judgment. Also our Lord’s warning that, “if anyone
causes one of these little ones who believes in me to sin, it would be better
for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the
depths of the sea.”)
In
a world of followers, ideas have consequences. The man who
generates the ideas for the group that follows him can exert influence on that
group while saying, “I don’t control them.” In centuries past there
may have been a Pope who did not have any authority to command Europeans to go
on crusade against the Muslims in the Holy Land. But if he, being a guru
for many, said, “Those who go on crusade will have the indulgence of freedom
from purgatory,” well, that type of idea is going to have huge
consequences. If such a Pope stands before the Lord in a judgment
that Pope might try to say, “But, Lord, I did not command anyone to go on
crusade. Other men led the crusades. Other men volunteered to go on
crusade. I did nothing to directly control anyone.” Will not
the Lord hold him responsible for his huge part anyway? Another
example of ideas having huge consequences was the idea of eugenics as it turned
from theory to policy when the Nazis took over Germany in the
1930s. The Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels was the idea man and
helped permeate all facets of German life with eugenic ways of thinking.
Did he actually command the doctors and midwives and all to destroy the weak to
ensure Aryan racial health? Did he actually command people to round
up Jews and Slavs and have them killed? I’m thinking he didn’t
command anything. He didn’t have real authority. But he had influence
none the less. And what about men like Charles Manson who can exert
mind control on a group of women such that he can get them to commit murders
but can also say, “But I never told them to commit murder. That was their
choice. I never pressured them or even gave them any encouragement
to.” I know of a pastor in Houston who taught that the soul is
imparted into a child not at conception but after birth when the child breathed
his first breath of air out of the womb. He used some logical nonsense
about the Hebrew for soul and wind and breath being
the same thing to convince his group of this. The net result was
that even though he never told any of the women in his group to go get
abortions, he enabled them to do so by “binding and loosing” this way as an
idea man. There are men in this world who can implant
understandings into the minds of a group of followers such that they do what he
wants them to do even if he never explicitly tells them what to do.
You’re
obviously a teacher. You’re an idea man. You’re a guru. You
know how the way a group sees God, themselves, and the world around them tends
to dictate the choices they make. It boils down to who speaks for
God. Who does speak for God? We can say the prophets
did. We can say the Lord Jesus Christ, the ultimate prophet, did.
We can say the Apostles Christ appointed did. All that boils down
to saying that the Bible speaks for God today. But the bible is a big,
complicated, confusing book. We can name a thousand teachers who try to
make sense of the Bible in a thousand ways. It’s all very
confusing. Everyone who wants to hear the Bible speak for God
ultimately adopts one or more teachers/gurus to speak for the Bible. When
someone invests some (or occasionally all) of their trust into a guru, they are
in effect, allowing that teacher to speak for God. The man who speaks for
God to a group has vast and deep influence on the group. They are his
sheep and he is their shepherd. If he says to them, for example, that
black people are cursed because they are descendants of Ham, that group will
start treating black people differently. The guru doesn’t have to tell
them what to do. All he has to do is tell them what is true.
They’ll do the rest.
I
have been seeking a community of disciples to enjoy fellowship with. I
have had trouble finding and creating any such community. As I have
been considering the possibility of drawing closer to your community, here are
some of the questions I find myself needing answers to. I understand that
my questions are many and answers to each would probably be difficult to do
briefly. I know it’s probably unfair to expect you to answer each and
every one. So I won’t. But I feel like I have to ask them
anyway.
First,
what is your role in the group you’re in? You obviously have
a teaching role. So which category (or categories) do you fit
in? What I mean is that when I read my New Testament, I can see
that some men fit into the category of Apostle and some did not. Some fit
into the category of teacher and some did not. Some fit into the
category of elder/overseer and some did not. Some fit into the
category of shepherd (or undershepherd—whatever) and
some did not. Are you an Apostle? An elder?
An overseer? A
shepherd/under-shepherd? A teacher?
A Prophet? (I’m not interested here in the
debate over which of these are a gift rather than an office or any other
wrangling with words. I’m using ‘category’ simply to try to avoid such
debates.)
Similarly,
are there any other apostles, elders, overseers, shepherds, teachers, and/or
prophets in your community?
Second,
what is your doctrine of love? Do you have any on-line teaching on
this topic or any chapter in any book? Any exposition
of 1st John 2-4 or 1 Cor 13 perhaps?
If not, what is your take on this 1Jn4 bit below? What
is love? Who is your brother? If I came to live in and
fellowship with your group, which might I tend to see and feel more of in the
group—fear or love? 18There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out
fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made
perfect in love. 19We love because he first loved us. 20If anyone says, "I
love God,"
yet hates
his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he
has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. 21And he has given us this
command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
Third,
do you have any on-line teachings or book chapters that really focus on the bit
below from Matthew 10? If not, what is your take on it?
34"Do not suppose that I have come
to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For
I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a
daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law - 36a man's enemies will be the
members of his own household.' 37"Anyone who loves his father or mother
more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more
than me is not worthy of me; 38and anyone who does not take his cross and
follow me is not worthy of me. 39Whoever finds his life will lose it, and
whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Related
to that, how does this group define “family?”
If
I joined my family to your community, would I cease to be the “head” (leader)
of my own family?
Would
I be able to take a vacation with just my own family whenever I wanted?
Would
the group tend to exert social pressure on me to not visit my blood relatives
who are not disciples of the Lord?
Do
most of the people in the group tend to avoid their relatives who are not part
of the group?
Suppose
a man like me read Right Here, Right Now and decided he wanted to joined his family to your group. But then five years
later suppose he loses some of his reliance upon you as his primary bible
teacher and decides to put some distance between himself and the group.
Suppose also that at this point his wife still prefers to stay with the
group. At this point is the group going to tend to encourage the
wife to stay with the group while disfellowshipping
the husband?
Have
you ever advised any husband or wife to leave their spouse for any reason other
than marital unfaithfulness?
Fourth,
what EXACTLY are the things which qualify a group member for disfellowshipping? And what exactly does disfellowshipping mean? This is definitely
something I’d want to know before I’d ever sell my home and move to seek
fellowship in any Christian community.
Fifth,
what EXACTLY does laying one’s life down for Jesus really mean? I’m
not so much here interested in the higher level theory as I am in the practical
ramifications. Does it somehow translate into everyone needing to
conform to the group/herd? Similarly, since Jesus has
ascended to the right hand of the Father and since the ekklesia
is the body of Christ on earth, do we need to obey the ekklesia/group/herd
as if it were Jesus?
Sixth,
how do you earn a living? How do you get the money to pay your
bills?
Seventh,
each group uses words differently. That’s a given. If your group had a
lexicon which people outside your group could use to understand the nuances of
the dialect used inside the group, what would the definitions be for the term
Scripture? Is the Bible the same as Scripture? Is Scripture more
than the Bible? Have you authored any Scripture?
Similarly,
I tend to look at the Bible—the collection of sixty-six books written by
prophets and apostles and such—as the written Word of God and the source and
authority for my faith and practice. Is there any revelation from God
that is higher than the written word? Do you get revelations from
God that can overrule or add to the written revelation of God?
Eighth,
does the Bible contain contradictions inside its self? Does it contain
errors? And can the average man who thinks he belongs to Christ have the
ability to read and understand the Bible for himself without a teacher/guru to
interpret it for him?
Ninth,
if I joined my family to your group, would we experience social pressure from
the group to hand out books and media produced by the group?
To date these questions have not been answered by Mike even though he first rebuked me for not asking questions and then did reiterate that he did invite my questions. From late July 2010 to early October 2010 I’ve not received so much as a, “I’ve been busy and I’ll get back to you,” type response.
I offer these questions as good questions for you to ask if you find yourself interacting with this group. I’d recommend that you don’t interact with this group at all really. But if you must do so, please at least don’t join this group until you’ve heard their answers to these questions. And don’t trust their answers. Don’t settle for their immediate surface value answers. If you do, you may get one set of answers in words and then, after you’ve been in the group for a year or three or five start to realize that they deceived you. So you might want to ask some of those who were part of the group for a time and disfellowshipped how they would answer these questions.
Here are some links which offer
caution against this group. If you are reading
their literature and considering trying to move into their network, I’d urge
you to spend a lot of time reading and weighing the accusations. Make a good list of serious questions please
if you start to make plans to consider taking the plunge with them.
http://www.indianapoliscult.com/allatmikesfeet/welcome.aspx
Is it a Church or Cult?
2.
Extended Families Hurting from CII
3.
Emails from Mike Peters to other menbs wives
4.
Indianapolis Contradictions
5.
Mike Peters spiritually abusive group
6.
FactNet List
7.
Evidence gleaned by a nearby outsider
8.
Mike PetersThread Year %232
9.
How to join ALLATHISFEET Church
10.
Link to Entire Article Indiana Monthly
11.
Current Members
12.
Mike Peters Group in Charlotte NC
13.
The word of mike or the Word of God Which is infallible
14.
For the wounded survivors both inside and outside CII
17.
Chris Olive: Repentance and Desired Humble Apology
19.
North Carolina
20.
"Dis-fellowship"
21.
Eldorado, Texas
24.
Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth
25.
House Church
29.
House Church
30.
Consuming Zeal for the Father's House
============================================================
Here are some links which come
from the group:
http://www.mikepetersindianapolis.com/index.html
This site
seems to be saying, “we’re really not a cult and our leader really is a good
guy”
Mike Peters Indianapolis
allatHisfeet Consuming Zeal #1 - 54 videos about church as you've probably
never known it, but always knew it should be. Mike Peters in Indianapolis,
Indiana extemporaneously answers questions from around the world regarding
"house church" and daily corporate life.
http://www.HomeChurchMovement.com
================================================================
If you see that there are newer or additional publications or websites that they produce that are not listed on this website, please let me know by email and I’ll add them to this list so others can find out more about them before hearing what just might be the other side of the story.
Perhaps in time I’ll offer some of
my own opinions about the publications later as I have time and interest. I like the idea of Christians living in
community, separating themselves from worldliness while living in the world and
being “to the world.” I like the idea
of making church life a 24x7x365 thing.
But I don’t like the idea of any man (and/or any trickle-down pyramid of
lay leaders) exerting social pressures on the group which become totalitarian
and authoritarian. Thus my reason for concern and caution.
=====================================================
For now I’m just going to
reproduce a couple of the comments I found the most interesting. My reprinting of
them is not my attempt to endorse their validity. It is reproduced here
just to assist in helping to form good questions.
on September 25, 2007 at 6:14 pm 5
amy
I spent many hours this past week listening to CD's and reading a pamphlet
given to several people at our church by some "visitors." I say
"visitors" because I think they came to give out information to gain
recruits and/or show us where we were wrong rather than to worship God with a
body of believers.
The organization they were from is "All At His
Feet." Here are the main questions I thought should be addressed after
perusing the info:
1)Just what is the gospel, according to AAHF?
2)What is meant by kingdom? Are only people who are
"like" those of AAHF part of the kingdom?
3)Is it biblical to think that having a pastor, having
bible studies or other "planned" teaching, meeting on "the
Lord's Day," and singing songs while sitting in pews are unbiblical?
4)Do AAHF followers believe that people who have not
had a revelation of Jesus in the way that those involved with AAHF have are
also believers? Just exactly what is this "revelation?" Why would a
person teaching about this "revelation" use the list from "Jesus
CEO" to get people thinking about who Jesus really is?
5)Is it biblical to think that there MUST be daily
meeting together with other believers in order for a person to grow and be
obedient to God? (What about missionaries, prisoners?) How would the level of
daily "church" involvement described affect families?
6)Are there other people in the world besides
"the brothers" (people of their "church") and unbelievers?
Does involvement with other believers who are not part of one's "AAHF-type
church" not qualify as community with "brothers?"
7)What are the end goals of AAHF?
Looking on the web one can find much information about the leader of this
group, Mike Peters, and his church, the Church in Indianapolis. Even if this
information were NOT true, I would stay away from this group solely based on
the two CD's I listened to, and the pamphlet I read. If the information is true
. . .
I don't know if the teaching that I came away being very concerned with is
expressed in the same way on the "All At His
Feet" website. (I haven't had time to check it out.)
I have NEVER come across teaching that sounded so good, so conservative, so
close to the truth, yet (in my opinion) a distortion of the truth. My
understanding is that this group is affecting a lot of people interested in
house churches, including homeschoolers."
Mike may not "recruit" as in "get people to move and live
amongst them in Indy", BUT, I do believe he recruits in regard to his
sphere of influence over a person's life.
It
looks like there is a new website to add to the list of sites associated with www.allathisfeet.com.
They are putting this website in these books of which I know:
1. Right Here, Right Now!
2. 4 Jesus Keep the Christ in Christianity
3. Dear Bride
4. Humility by Andrew Murray
5. Ten Shekels and a Shirt by Paris Reidhead
6. The Lost Prince by Frances Hodgson Burnett
7. The Story of Flat boy
8. Come and See!
lauramarie
05-24-2008, 09:11 PM
just a bit of info for anyone who might be new to
this site about the "church in Indianapolis" and it's leader mike
peters. This is a WARNING about "heavenreigns" and
"allathisfeet" and the other sites from this cult. If you go to the
sites much of what you initially hear and read will sound really good to you.
It may sound just like what you've been looking for. I thought is was! I was jealous when my family members got to move
there and become part of the community many years ago. What I now see is the
fruit of CII and how the teachings there have caused great pain and anguish in
our family. How family members have not been "allowed" to see
grandchildren and children. How our family has been accused of following a
secular Jesus. Many other accusations, but the worst is the total separation of
much loved family members who get caught up in the deceit and come to believe
their only REAL family are those in the church in Indianapolis. (or Columbus or Phoenix or Charlotte or where ever they have
followers of mike peters) I have met family members and friends that have been
associated with each of the CII groups in those cities and what I hear is the
pain caused by mike peter's teachings. This is just a reminder to anyone who
might just happen upon this site. It might sound good on the outside, but what
is on the inside is rotten. Sorry. Just be careful and keep your eyes on Jesus.