Reachout Trust
- United Kingdom
Reachout Trust is a British evangelical Christian organisation. Its stated aims are to "examine in the light of the Christian gospel the beliefs and practices of people within the cults, occults, new age and all not upholding to biblical truth."[1]
Reachout Trust addresses many different groups including Jehovah's Witnesses, the Latter Day Saint movement, and Christadelphians as well as the occult and New Age. Reachout Trust also produce information about other groups and religions and writes about various influential Christian figures (such as tele-evangelists and authors) and various groups within non-evangelical Christianity, such as Roman Catholicism.
Reachout Trust communicates the perceived dangers of those groups' beliefs and/or practices to the evangelical Christian community and presents the Christian gospel from an evangelical perspective to members of those groups. Reachout also teaches the Christian Church about biblical warnings concerning error and how to engage with those holding to ideas the Bible identifies as errors. The organisation is based in Surrey, UK.[2] Reachout Trust produce articles on their website, and on a blog, publish books and booklets, as well as having a presence on social media. They also visit interested churches and groups.
History
The organisation was formed in 1982, under director Doug Harris.[3] Their first newsletter, produced in 1984, was four pages long and consisted of a few hundred photocopies. That grew to a Quarterly sixteen pages sent out to several thousand individuals and churches across the country. These days the newsletter is online and gets sent out bimonthly. This was later discussed further in J. S. La Fontaine's Speak of the Devil.[4] In 1988, they published Awake! To the Watch Tower by Doug Harris, later cited as a reference by Linda Edwards[5] and Robert Crompton.[6] In 1996 they published Mormonism A Gold Plated Religion by Michael and Ann Thomas. Maureen Davies, formally of the Reachout Trust, was cited as a "reliable source of information."[7][8] She also wrote a large section in one of the File 18 newsletters.[9] More recently, the organisation has been consulted by the media in events relating to Satanism,[10][11] and the group Exclusive Brethren.[12]
The first Reachout Convention was held in New Malden Baptist Church in 1984. After that, it moved to Kingstanding Elim Church until 1991 when it was held at the Wycliffe Centre at High Wycombe. Having outgrown that venue, it moved in 1996 to the Pioneer Centre near Kidderminster. In 2008, it again moved to the more central location of Hothorpe Hall, Leicestershire. Since Doug Harris's death in 2013[13] the trust has moved more towards small groups, visiting churches, and online ministry. The first convention in ten years is being held in September 2022 at The Hayes Conference Centre, Warwick, Derbyshire.
From a group of people at the first meeting, the organisation has grown to over a hundred attending a full weekend of seminars. Seminars and workshops cover all the main religions the Reachout Trust considers cults, including the LDS Church and Jehovah's Witnesses, but also other groups such as Freemasonry, as well as instruction in dealing with the occult and the New Age.[citation needed]
In 2002, David McKay of the group the Jesus Christians contacted the Reachout Trust through a pseudonym in order to elicit a response which he could then utilise to manipulate the media.[14] McKay's plan backfired, and the results were documented in an article in The Guardian.[14] Also in 2002, a member of the organisation commented on the potential influence of the film Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on young children, stating that it may influence children to explore the occult.[15] In 2004, the organisation held a three-day conference in order to assist and consult with families affected by cults and the occult.[16][17]
In 2013 Reachout's founder, Doug Harris, died following a short illness. At the invitation of the trustees the leadership of the trust was taken up by Michael Thomas, a former Mormon and long-time friend and director of the trust.[13]
References
- ^ "Christians Together: Resources for ministry into the cults/occult". www.christianstogether.net. Retrieved 2022-08-05.
- ^ Gruss, Edmond C. (2003). The Four Presidents of the Watch Tower Society (Jehovah's Witnesses). Xulon Press. pp. 188, 191. ISBN 1-59467-131-1.
- ^ Arweck, Elizabeth (2006). Researching New Religious Movements: Responses and Redefinitions. Routledge. pp. 132, 194. ISBN 0-415-27754-X.
- ^ La Fontaine, J.S. (1998). Speak of the Devil: Tales of Satanic Abuse in Contemporary England. Cambridge University Press. pp. 38, 136, 137, 163, 165, 166, 174, 194, 213, 214. ISBN 0-521-62934-9.
- ^ Edwards, Linda (2001). A Brief Guide to Beliefs: Ideas, Theologies, Mysteries, and Movements. Westminster John Knox Press. pp. 559. ISBN 0-664-22259-5.
- ^ Crompton, Robert (1996). Counting the Days to Armageddon. James Clarke & Co. p. 153. ISBN 0-227-67939-3.
- ^ Jenkins, Philip (1992). Intimate Enemies: Moral Panics in Contemporary Great Britain. Aldine Transaction. pp. 171, 177, 260. ISBN 0-202-30436-1.
- ^ Medway, Gareth J. (2001). Lure of the Sinister: the unnatural history of Satanism. NYU Press. pp. 222, 230, 240, 297, 300. ISBN 0-8147-5645-X.
- ^ File 18 newsletter, October 1989
- ^ Sturcke, James (October 25, 2004). "Navy satanist will not have to choose between devil and deep blue sea". The Independent. Independent Newspapers (UK) Ltd.
- ^ Carter, Helen (October 25, 2004). "The devil and the deep blue sea: Navy gives blessing to sailor Satanist". The Guardian. Guardian Unlimited.
- ^ Halpin, Tony (March 21, 2005). "Top marks for sect schools that shun the modern world". The Times. Times Newspapers Ltd.
- ^ a b "About Us". Reachout Trust. Retrieved 2022-08-05.
- ^ a b Ronson, Jon (April 6, 2002). "Blood sacrifice (part two)". The Guardian. Guardian Unlimited.
- ^ Tinniswood, Rachel (November 16, 2002). "Fantasy tales led me into witchcraft". Liverpool Echo. Trinity Mirror.
- ^ "In the dark". Birmingham Evening Mail. Birmingham Post & Mail Ltd. November 12, 2004.
- ^ "Aid for victims of the occult". Birmingham Evening Mail. Birmingham Post & Mail Ltd. October 14, 2004.
External links
- Official links
- Official Reachout Trust homepage
- Archives of the Reachout Trust homepage, as performed regularly by the UK Web Archiving Consortium
- Other
- Reachout Trust - SHIELDS, a response to Reachout Trust's work by the Scholarly & Historical Information Exchange for Latter-Day Saints
See also
- v
- t
- e
- 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
- 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
- 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
- Nicolas About
- Serge Blisko
- Georges Fenech
- Ford Greene
- Stephen Mutch
- Catherine Picard
- Kenneth Robinson
- Paul Rose
- Tom Sackville
- Nick Xenophon
- About–Picard law
- Anti-Mormonism
- Assassination of Shinzo Abe
- Governmental lists of cults and sects
- Mass suicide of Heaven's Gate
- Jason Scott case
- 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
- 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