Returning to the Hebraic Foundations of the Christian Faith: “The Faith Once Delivered” or Cultism?

Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. (Jude 1:3, emphasis added)

In recent years there has been great awareness brought upon the subject of non-Christian cults by Christian apologetic organizations whose mission it is to defend the “historic Christian faith” against teachings they consider to be contrary to the Bible and to traditional or normative Christian theology and tradition. At the same time, the so-called Messianic or Hebrew roots movement has come under the scrutiny of some of these “cult watchers.” Are those Christians returning to the Hebraic foundations of their Christian faith join a cult or are they actually earnestly contending for the faith once and for delivered to the disciples of Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus Christ)?

Many well-meaning Christians in their zeal to protect core Christian beliefs from the onslaught of missionizing activities by cultic groups have developed a fortress-like mentality where they label everything a cult that does not agree with their definition of “the historic Christian faith”. Yet at the same time, many of these same Christians would be hard-pressed to define the word cult or to explain the sociological, psychological and theological implications the label they so glibly attach to those who disagree with them.

So what is the truth? Is labeling the Messianic or Hebrew roots movement as a cult justified or not? To answer this question, we will use the same criteria that those Christian “watchdog” organizations themselves use to define a cult. We will then see if this moniker is justified when it comes to those Christians who are returning to a more Hebraic or Jewish orientations to their spiritual walk.

This author has a unique perspective on the subject of cultism having been born and raised in a name-brand cult till age 30 where upon leaving the cult he became an ordained Christian evangelist in a major Christian (Protestant) denomination where he then reached out to those bound up in cultism as he once was.

In exploring the ramifications of cultism, let us first define the word cult from Webster’s Dictionary: A cult is