ABSTRACT
“A cornucopia of controversy,” evangelical philosopher Douglas Groothuis called Gnosticism (1990: n.p.), while fellow Christian Marcia Montenegro declared that Gnostic “DNA has taken root in the philosophies of men and it buds and flourishes in false teachings across the spectrum” (2013: n.p.). Groothuis, a professional academic, and Montenegro, an amateur apologist who writes for a variety of online sources, are two examples of a relatively small, but disproportionately influential group of Bible believers whose mission is to reinforce the correctness of their version of the faith by demonstrating how and why they consider other belief systems false. Known by scholars as the Christian countercult movement (Cowan 2003), this group must be distinguished from the secular anticult movement, which emerged in the early 1970s. Although both movements are often concerned with similar groups, significant differences separate them in terms of the dangers new or alternative religions supposedly represent and the manner in which the threats should be approached.
