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In Reply to: Re: New article on Family prophecy posted by A study on June 29, 2007 at 12:19:18:
Perhaps you don't understand the meaning of apologist in this context. It simply means a person or organization that defends something by argument. I use apologist to describe the journal Nova Religio because many of its board members, editors and reviewers defend cults like TF.
You talk about "the different sources of information the researchers availed themselves of". What you don't mention in your defense of Nova Religio (which makes you an apologist of NR btw) is that many of those so called experts completely dismiss accounts by former members of cults as being fabricated, exaggerated and unreliable. Take Chancellor, for example. He never interviewed one former member of TF for his supposed oral history of TF. Instead, he chose to accept the accounts of current members as being more truthful and reliable than anything exmembers could say about TF, despite his knowledge of TF's deceivers yet true doctrine. Members have far more reasons to lie about TF than exmembers do.
You have assumed that by describing Nova Religio, which chooses to use terms like new religious movement and alternative religion instead of cult, as an apologist journal that I don't consider it a good source for academic studies. That's ridiculous. Any academic worth her salt will always consider the counter arguments, and so I find that it is extremely helpful to understand what the "other side" is thinking. Unfortunately, that can't be said for many of the "experts" at Nova Religio that you are defending.
