Cults and The Internet

Yesterday, I received a very long comment (broken up in several posts) by a man named Victor Hafichuk. This came as a result of my blog response to an email I received a couple of weeks ago. Since I've received several concerned emails and IMs wondering about this whole strange deal, I'm going to post the entirety of that email. Apparently, I'm not the only one who has heard from these folks. You'll find more on that here, here, and here. One person commenting here said this: "His normal process in Southern Alberta is to sneek into churches, steal their membership directories and then send out letters to the congregation telling them everything that was wrong with the message and other targeted attacks on leadership in the local church. Yup, saw that first hand and was on the list of targets - thank goodness my wife intercepted the letter and never did read it. Others in the church laughed and threw it away in the garbage." Now, I have no way to verify if this is true or not, but it certainly wouldn't surprise me. I know of a seriously obnoxious hyper-Calvinist that has done things quite similar. I have received many of his wacky emails, along with an open list of all the other email addresses he's collected over the years. Here is the actual email (which I thought I had deleted just yesterday, prior to receiving the blog comment, but was still in the trash folder): The following paper will be of interest and pertinence to you for possibly several reasons among many. It has been our great honor to discern and identify the error and spirit of John Calvin, whose rule is yet propagated in the hearts of men with evil consequences for all. The Lord Jesus Christ has visited us with the Light of His countenance to put an end to this evil, justifying His servants whom Calvin murdered, and His Name in the sight of all. The Fruit of Cain Multiplied: The Murderer John Calvin Show me whom you follow, and I will know what manner of person you are or will become. If you do not know whom you are following, don't you think it is time to find out how and where you are being led? Do you think you will altogether escape the consequences because ignorant? Think again. You already suffer them. John Calvin was one of the most vicious of wolves ever to pose as a lamb of God. His supremely self-righteous spirit lives on in those who lionize and follow him, even unbeknownst to themselves. Truly, "that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God." Paul Cohen & Victor Hafichuk www.thepathoftruth.com Back in 1997, my husband and I met some folks just like this, through Prodigy's online Christian chat rooms. This was a group of "no one is saved except us!" folks who had rejected any association with a local church or recognized denomination. They had all moved to a large piece of property and began an agricultural-Christian-commune. Trolling for converts, they took to the internet and made quite a lot of noise about themselves. There were two main leaders of this cult, and they liked to play the good cop/bad cop routine. One was blantantly obnoxious and insulting, preaching hell and damnation to anyone who didn't agree with him, and the other was a kinder, gentler version of a cult leader, and actually a quite likable guy - other than the fact that he was just as deceived as his bad cop co-leader. Sadly, one of the regular chatters in that chat room actually went to visit these folks and ended up moving there to live among them. I'm not sure if anyone ever heard from her again, and not long after we dropped the Prodigy service. I have opted to leave the comments here by Victor Hafichuk, for a couple of reasons. I want my readers to see what routinely shows up in my email inbox. I get letters very similar to this on a regular basis, and have for many years. Most of the time they go right into the spam/junk folder but every once in a while one sneaks through into my inbox. I'm pretty sure that if it weren't for the internet, I would never really be exposed to things like this. Due to my status as a stay at home mom, I can't imagine any type of scenario in day to day life where I'd run into people like this, and have their beliefs exposed like you'll find online. I want my readers here to know folks like this are out there, so that you can pray for them. Clearly they are deceived, and clearly they need God's mercy and grace just as much as anyone else does. In my initial blog response I was somewhat sarcastic about all this, but the sarcasm wasn't aimed at them personally. The big problem with being deceived, is that you don't know that you are, and there is just NO talking to people like this. The only thing they want to hear, is "you are right, I am wrong, please tell me oh faithful one, how I can make things right!?" They always use the same fiery, insulting, condemning, screechy sort of attack, as if there is a template out there just ready for you to download and insert your own cult's messages into. I've seen this so many times. It seems for whatever reason, in the last couple of weeks that this group has been very very busy on Christian blog comboxes, displaying the very attitude and conduct I've mentioned here. So I will simply end with the same comment Lee Shelton at The Contemporary Calvinist wrote a few days ago on this same matter: "I only pray that the Holy Spirit will open their eyes. I pray that they will be convicted of their error and that one day I can welcome them into God's kingdom as a brothers and sisters in Christ."