Whether it’s a movie star like Will Smith or the pastor of a church, what do you say when someone prominent says that Scientology (or some other cult for that matter) is “just like the Bible”?
First, let’s analyze something that’s true of all cults. Coming years after the canon of scripture was closed and trying to grasp legitimacy for themselves so they won’t be perceived as cultic, it comes as no surprise that they take credit for concepts that are widely perceived as “Christian” and approved as “moral” and then simply say the rest was “corrupted” and position themselves as a “Latter Day Saint” possessing the true interpretation that has been revealed to them but lost to the historical church. That’s a common theme whether the “Latter Day” prophet is Joseph Smith or L. Ron Hubbard. Unfortunately our own ignorance of the Scriptures and our own tendency to, like the Pharisees, replace the word of God with our own tradition plays right into this type of lie.
In this regard it pays to understand the amazing transformation that has occurred in history thanks to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ in history. That’s akin to bank teller who can identify counterfeit currency because they’re so familiar with the “real thing”. Given the astounding blessings Jesus Christ has already poured out in history and is yet to pour out, it’s no wonder that pretenders come along who seek to be the legitimate steward of God’s Truth! They are successful to the degree Christians themselves don’t understand the marvelous things Jesus Christ in His incarnation as truly God and truly man, His resurrection, and His reign this moment at the Father’s right hand have produced in the midst of our sin and squalor. Alvin Schmidt’s work How Christianity Changed the World
Secondly, when preachers or pundits do their so-called “comparisons” it’s obvious that they seize upon things designed to make the cultic group appear legitimate while avoiding the centrality of the cross of Christ which was foolishness to the Greeks and a stumbling block to the Jews, but the true power of God to those who believe (1 Corinthians 1:22-24). In practice that means they minimize the centrality of Christ’s cross in human history. Jesus death and resurrection that ushers in the New Creation must be minimized or there is, by definition, no need for the Jesus Christ, the unique God Man and Savior of the World.
Some minimize Christ’s cross by denying He actually died (Islam). Others minimize it by stating that Christ accomplished His work but that the to obtain real blessings one must follow the teaching of the Latter Day Prophet (Mormonism). The apologists for other groups emphasize the similarity of their self-help teachings to the Bible or Christ’s (Scientology’s recent apologists referenced above).
The “teachings” of Christianity cannot, though, be separated from Christianity’s telling of history. Unless Jesus Christ is central to history, Jesus’ teachings are the mere rants of another megalomaniac. As Schmidt’s How Christianity Changed the World reading of history confirms, Jesus is Lord as the Bible declares. The “morality” the Bible teaches cannot be practiced apart from the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to supernaturally enable us to live that otherwise impossible journey called the “Christian Life”. So unless Scientology has tossed L. Ron Hubbard as their source of inspiration and now is bowing to Jesus Christ the Lord and living under His Lordship in sole dependence upon Christ’s inscripturated Word and the Holy Spirit, there is only a superficial and incidental similarity at best between Christianity and its latter day pretenders. Without the resurrection power of Jesus Christ at work in us the righteousness people mimic outside of Christ is nothing other than something one might consider revolting at worst, but certainly nothing to boast about before God (See Isaiah 64:6 note).
So when people, however well meaning, claim “This is the same as the Bible!” it’s time for Christians to patiently speak the truth. Any surface similarities between the Good News about Jesus and the pretender of the day is at best a call to remember Mark Twain’s observation that “The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.” One has power and the other has, by comparison, a meaningless, deceptive, and pretentious name.
It’s time for Christians to know and be convinced that Jesus in His Cross and Resurrection has made all the difference in history and will do the same for eternity so that when pretenders come along as they inevitably do, they can be pointed to the truth and, by God’s grace, delivered from their self-destructive errors (2 Timothy 2:24-26).
