All Gods Children (book)

1977 nonfiction book by Carroll Stoner and Jo Anne Parke

All Gods Children

First edition

Author| Carroll Stoner, Jo Anne Parke
Language| English
Subject| Cults
Genre| Non-fiction
Publisher| Chilton Book Co

Publication date

| May 1977
Publication place| United States
Pages| 324
ISBN| 0-8019-6620-5

All Gods Children: The Cult Experience – Salvation Or Slavery? is a non-fiction book on cults, by journalists Carroll Stoner and Jo Anne Parke. The book was published in May 1977 in hardcover, and again in 1979 in paperback by Penguin Books.

## Reception

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White's Collection Management in School Library Media Centers described the book as a critical and sensitive analysis on the effects cults can have on their converts and family members.[1] Bob Larson's Larson's Book of World Religions and Alternative Spirituality[2] states that the work describes some of the newer cults, explains their teachings, and why they may be dangerous for younger new members. McConnell's Stepping Over described the work as an insightful seminal study, which could have been written specifically with regard to Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple.[3]

J. Milton Yinger, writing for Contemporary Sociology, notes that Stoner and Parke seem inconsistent about some of their book's details, like the range of people who enter cults.[4] Saul V. Levine, writing for the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, calls the book "fair" in its treatment of everyone involved including new religious movement (NRM) leaders, deprogrammers, and NRM members and their relatives.[5] W. L. Hendricks for the Journal of Church and State thinks that the book "suffers from the 'cover-all' mystique" and attempts to give a survey of too many groups to be effective. Hendricks also believes that it tends toward sociological and psychological perspectives rather than theological perspectives, and its particular strength is in its anecdotal perspectives of NRM members.[6]

Sociologist Thomas Robbins is much more critical in Sociological Analysis. He believes the book is "entirely preoccupied" with the dangers of cults that "break up families" and use brainwashing techniques and with what American society can and should do to "rescue and rehabilitate the alleged cultic zombie". He thinks that the questions that Stoner and Parke ask limit their scholarly objectivity – "when one's inquiry is framed in terms of questions such as 'why these young people are so easily deceived'", it limits what conclusions can be made, according to Robbins. Robbins also believes that Stoner and Parke somewhat disregard civil liberties when discussing deprogramming and the First Amendment.[7]

## References

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1. ^ White, Brenda H. (1986). Collection Management in School Library Media Centers. Haworth Press. p. 279\. ISBN 0-86656-433-0.
2. ^ Larson, Bob (2004). Larson's Book of World Religions and Alternative Spirituality. Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. p. 564\. ISBN 0-8423-6417-X.
3. ^ McConnell, Malcolm (1987). Stepping Over: personal encounters with young extremists. Reader's Digest Press. p. 97.
4. ^ Yinger, J. Milton (July 1980). "Salvation and Witches in a "Secular" Age". Contemporary Sociology. 9 (4): 472–77. doi:10.2307/2066221. JSTOR 2066221.
5. ^ Levine, Saul V. (1978). "Review of ALL GOD'S CHILDREN: The Cult Experience-Salvation or Slavery? and TURNING EAST: The Promise and Peril of the New Orientalism". American Journal of Orthopsychiatry. 48 (3): 559–60. doi:10.1037/h0099061.
6. ^ Hendricks, W. L. (Winter 1980). "All God's Children: The Cult Experience—Salvation or Slavery? by Carroll Stoner and Jo Anne Parke". Journal of Church and State. 22 (1): 146–47. doi:10.1093/jcs/22.1.146. JSTOR 23915867.
7. ^ Robbins, Thomas (Summer 1978). "All God's Children: The Cult Experience: Salvation or Slavery? by Carroll Stoner and Jo Anne Parke". Sociological Analysis. 39 (2): 180–81. doi:10.2307/3710221. JSTOR 3710221.

* v
* t
* e

Opposition to new religious movements

Concepts|

* Anti-cult movement
* Christian countercult movement
* Cult
* Deprogramming
* Doomsday cult
* Freedom of religion
* Heresy
* Heterodox teaching
* Mind control
* New religious movement

Secular groups|

* APA Task Force on Deceptive and Indirect Methods of Persuasion and Control
* Center for Religious Studies in the name of Hieromartyr Irenaeus of Lyons
* Cult Awareness Network
* Cult Information Centre
* Cultists Anonymous
* International Cultic Studies Association
* The Family Survival Trust
* Fight Against Coercive Tactics Network
* National Network of Lawyers Against Spiritual Sales
* People's Organised Workshop on Ersatz Religion

Secular individuals|

* Jean-Marie Abgrall
* John Gordon Clark
* Steve Eichel
* Martin Faiers
* Leon Festinger
* Carol Giambalvo
* Steven Hassan
* Ian Haworth
* Galen Kelly
* Stephen A. Kent
* Masaki Kito
* Janja Lalich
* Michael Langone
* Saul V. Levine
* Casey McCann
* Jesse S. Miller
* Sayuri Ogawa
* Ted Patrick
* Tsutsumi Sakamoto
* Rick Ross
* Chris Shelton
* Margaret Singer
* Eito Suzuki
* Alain Vivien
* Cyril Vosper
* Louis Jolyon West
* Lawrence Wollersheim

Religious groups|

* Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry
* Christian Research Institute
* Dialog Center International
* Dialogue Ireland
* Evangelical Ministries to New Religions
* Institute for Religious Research
* Personal Freedom Outreach
* Midwest Christian Outreach
* New England Institute of Religious Research
* Reachout Trust
* Spiritual Counterfeits Project
* Watchman Fellowship
* Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center

Religious individuals|

* Johannes Aagaard
* Graham Baldwin
* Robert M. Bowman Jr.
* Harold Busséll
* Gérard Dagon
* Maurice Davis
* Alexander Dvorkin
* Ronald Enroth
* Mike Garde
* Robin Garbose
* Norman Geisler
* Jan Groenveld
* Hank Hanegraaff
* Reinhart Hummel
* Roger Ikor
* Bob Larson
* Paul R. Martin
* Walter Ralston Martin
* Robert Passantino

Governmental organizations|

* 610 Office
* European Federation of Centres of Research and Information on Sectarianism
* Centre contre les manipulations mentales
* Union nationale des associations de défense des familles et de l'individu
* MIVILUDES
* Parliamentary Commission on Cults in France

Individuals in government|

* Nicolas About
* Serge Blisko
* Georges Fenech
* Ford Greene
* Stephen Mutch
* Catherine Picard
* Kenneth Robinson
* Paul Rose
* Tom Sackville
* Nick Xenophon

Historical events|

* About–Picard law
* Anti-Mormonism
* Assassination of Shinzo Abe
* Governmental lists of cults and sects
* Mass suicide of Heaven's Gate
* Jason Scott case
* Arrest of Apollo Quiboloy
* Persecution of Baháʼís
* Persecution of Falun Gong
* Persecution of Jehovah's Witnesses
* The Prohibited and Unlawful Societies and Associations Act
* Tokyo subway sarin attack
* Waco siege

Publications|

* All Gods Children (book)
* Another Gospel
* Bounded Choice
* Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control
* Captive Hearts, Captive Minds
* The Challenge of the Cults and New Religions
* Churches That Abuse
* Combating Cult Mind Control
* Cults: Faith, Healing and Coercion
* Cults in Our Midst
* Cults of Unreason
* Deadly Cults
* The Incendiaries
* The Kingdom of the Cults
* The Making of a Moonie
* Misunderstanding Cults
* The New Vigilantes: Deprogrammers, Anti-Cultists, and the New Religions
* On the Edge: Political Cults Right and Left
* Recovery from Cults
* Snapping: America's Epidemic of Sudden Personality Change
* Strange Gods: The Great American Cult Scare
* Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism
* Twisted Scriptures
* When Prophecy Fails
* The Wrong Way Home
* Zealot: A Book About Cults

* v
* t
* e

Books about new religious movements

General and historiography|

* Occult America
* The Darkened Room
* Nature Religion Today
* The Triumph of the Moon
* The Myth of Disenchantment
* The Occult: A History
* Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll
* A Republic of Mind and Spirit
* The Mystical Geography of Quebec
* A Course in Miracles
* Strange Gods: The Great American Cult Scare
* Misunderstanding Cults
* The New Believers
* Another Gospel
* Pagan Theology
* The New Vigilantes
* Mystics and Messiahs

Modern paganism and magic|

* A Community of Witches
* Drawing Down the Moon
* Living Witchcraft
* Witchcraft and Paganism in Australia
* Witching Culture
* Dreaming the Dark
* Mastering Witchcraft
* The Satanic Witch
* Persuasions of the Witch's Craft
* Her Hidden Children
* Modern Paganism in World Cultures
* Never Again the Burning Times
* The Wiccan Web

Specific groups|

* Aliens Adored
* A Field Guide to Otherkin
* The Book of est
* Doomsday Cult
* Getting It: The Psychology of est
* Underground
* Contemporary Religious Satanism
* The Order of the Solar Temple
* Les Mythes du Temple Solaire
* Scientology
* From the Ashes: Making Sense of Waco
* The Making of a Moonie
* Sex, Slander, and Salvation
* Werner Erhard
* The Ashes of Waco: An Investigation
* Sacred Journeys
* Ghosts of Kanungu

Criticism and controversies|

* Books critical of Scientology
* Apocalypse Observed
* Gods of the Blood
* Controversial New Religions
* Cults in Our Midst
* The Politics of Religious Apostasy
* Bounded Choice
* All Gods Children
* The Challenge of the Cults and New Religions
* Zealot: A Book About Cults
* Cult Controversies
* Cults: Faith, Healing and Coercion
* How the Millennium Comes Violently
* The New Heretics of France
* Sacred Suicide
* Violence and New Religious Movements

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