The Devil Makers: Contemporary Evangelical Fundamentalist Anti-Mormonism

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MORE THAN eleven years AGO ON 31 December 1982 a film entitled The God Makers premiered at Grace Community Church in Sun Valley, California, before an audience of 4,000 Evangelical Protestants.1 According to Ed Decker, an ex-Mormon who was the main producer of the film, its premiere marked the beginning of an epoch. Decker and his associate Dave Hunt, a well-known author of “anti-cult” books, subsequently published a book version of The God Makers in 1984. Decker later claimed that The God Makers had prevented millions of conversions to the Mormon church between 1982 and 1989. Even Decker was eventually forced to retract this extravagant claim. The God Makers , however, was reasonably successful in Evangelical circles, and on 13 December 1992 – ten years after the original film – Decker premiered in a Salt Lake City church the sequel The God Makers II. A book followed in 1993.3

But Daniel C. Peterson, a Mormon apologist at Brigham Young Uni￾versity situated at the opposite end of the spectrum from Decker, seemed in suggestive ways to echo Decker’s claim that something “new” was happening when he wrote in 1991 that “a new . . . form of anti-Mormonism” had come on the scene. Almost immediately Peterson was reviewing Loftes Tryk’s book, The Best Kept Secrets in the Book of Mormon, for the Review of Books on the Book of Mormon published by FARMS (Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies).4 Peterson placed Tryk in a movement which he called “New Age anti-Mormonism.” According to Peterson, Tryk, Decker, and other “New Age anti-Mormons” can be contrasted to traditional anti-Mormons such as Wesley Walters and Jerald and Sandra Tanner. “It is not,” Peterson noted, “the old-time traditional anti-Mormon￾ism in both its Protestant and its secular variants.” The latter are “content to argue that Mormonism is untrue,” sometimes (if the anti-Mormon is a devote Bible-believing Christian) because it “is incompatible with the Bible.” But generally traditional anti-Mormons have insisted that “Joseph Smith’s environment and his (wicked or pathological) character, perhaps assisted by a co-conspirator or two, are enough to account for Mormonism with no residue left over.” “New Age anti-Mormonism,” according to Peterson, “is quite different.” It “admits the presence of the supernatural in the founding events of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and is quite willing to acknowledge continuous supernatural influence in the life of the Church today.” However, “unlike faithful Latter-day Saints, New Age anti-Mormons see the supernatural agents involved in the found￾ing and progress of the Church as demonic, occultic, diabolical, luciferian.” “Obsessed with demons,” they offer “a mirror image, a thoroughgoing transvaluation of the views of the Latter-day Saints.” Building on his claims about something “new,” Peterson contends that Tryk “is genuinely origi￾nal – and a spectacular illustration of the perils of innovation.” After all “even in anti-Mormonism, tradition may well have a legitimate place.”5

I agree that the new wave of counter-Mormonism which emerged in the 1980s is different from both secular and sectarian anti-Mormonisms which have existed since the birth of the Mormon church. Although new counter-Mormonism borrows themes and arguments from its predecessors, its theological and historical roots can be traced to larger movements extending beyond narrow Mormon boundaries. A consideration of the larger context thus becomes a necessary first step for understanding the nature of this “new” counter-Mormonism and the nature of its struggles with traditional anti-Mormonism. In taking this first step, we can begin an approach toward the sophisticated analysis of anti-Mormonism in a chronological framework proposed by historian Davis Bitton at the Inde￾pendence, Missouri, meeting of the Mormon History Association in 1985.6 A large body of sociological literature exists concerning the so￾called “anti-cult movement”7 both in the United States and internationally.8 Most students of the anti-cult movement agree that this move￾ment consists of at least two separate and conflicting sub-movements, one secular and the other sectarian. The secular anti-cult movement in￾sists on strong legal and police measures to undermine “cults/’ which they view as delusions perpetrated by bad characters – gurus, preach￾ers, and self-styled prophets – who exploit the weak, the young, the gullible for power and money. The key feature – and the standard slo￾gan – of the secular anti-cult movement is that it only discusses deeds not creeds. It is not interested whether any religious persuasion is true or false; it proclaims to be only interested in behaviors which it regards as harmful to individuals, families, or society at large. The secular anti￾cult movement wants to free people from cults; it does not presume to tell them what religious or philosophical ideas they should join once they have left the “cult.”

The religious anti-cult movement disagrees with almost every priority espoused by its secular counterpart and should perhaps instead be called a “counter- cult movement.” Its proponents maintain that the borders be￾tween belief and behavior are less clearly marked than the anti-cult move￾ment would believe. Counter-cultists insist that false belief – or heresy – breaks the law of God and this is at least as dangerous as any behavior contrary to the laws of humanity.9 A “cult” from this point of view is not primarily a money-making enterprise but is a heresy. A problem, of course, is that each religious persuasion has its own definition of heresy and hence of “cult.” The secular anti-cult movement may or may not include Mormonism among “cults,” but it would never dream of including Freemasonry or the Roman Catholic church in that category (although it may include some Roman Catholic organizations such as Opus Dei). The religious counter-cult movements almost always include Mormonism as a cult10 as well as Freemasonry. There is a lively debate in these groups concerning whether the Roman Catholic church is a “cult/7 It is not uncommon for a religious group to be at the same time part of the counter-cult movement and defined by some within that movement as a “cult.” Still most scholars agree that the counter-cult movement is largely an Evangelical affair.

A similar division has always existed among the foes of the Mormon church. It is possible to distinguish between a secular fltth’-Mormon and a religious counter- Mormon movement. The first attempts to expose Mor￾monism assert that Joseph Smith was a fraud; the second is primarily interested in “winning Mormons for Jesus.” The two movements may use the same arguments but with different emphasis. While, for example, anti-Mormons claim that money-digging by the Smith family shows that the Smiths had a long history of exploiting the gullibility and superstition of their neighbors, the counter-Mormons contend that it shows the Smiths indulged in occult practices forbidden by most orthodox churches.

Another area in which counter-cultists disagree with anti-cultists and among themselves is how and why “cults” continue to grow. The counter￾cult movement has explained the growth of cults, particularly of Mormon￾ism, by utilizing rationale developed in part by the secular anti-cult movements and in part by traditional theologians to explain the existence of heresy. The most recent counter-Mormon authors – including Wesley Walters, Walter Martin, and Jerald and Sandra Tanner – have advanced three main reasons for the success of Mormonism. First, human beings are gullible, and it is a fact of life that they will become victims of clever frauds, particularly in religion. This explanation is not original to the counter￾Mormon movement but is largely borrowed from secular anti-Mormon￾ism. Second – this was a favorite point of Walter Martin – “cults” such as Mormonism “succeed where the churches fail.” Mormonism shows that churches have failed to keep their flocks because they have become too cold and bureaucratic and perhaps – Martin, being a conservative, suggested – also because their theologians have become too liberal.11 Of course this explanation, a purely sociological one, would also be acceptable to non-re￾ligious members of the anti-cult movement and to some extent to scholars. The third reason is entirely peculiar to the counter-Mormon movement. God, counter-Mormons say, allows evil to exist for reasons we do not completely understand. Perhaps in part it is to call men and women’s attention to their sinful nature and to the need to repent – and such heresies as Mormonism are allowed to exist for this reason.12

Satan was seen as involved in this, but his involvement was only mentioned occasionally by those who appeared to be the leaders of the counter-Mormon movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Although these lead￾ers were usually lacking in scholarly education, they were anxious to be taken seriously by at least a portion of the scholarly community and by the secular anti-cult movement. An insistence on Satan would not have helped them achieve this goal. Additionally, the religious counter-cult movement traditionally insisted that an unhealthy and exaggerated interest in Satan was typical of the “cults” themselves; hence the necessity to be careful to avoid being accused of the same mistake.

In recent years a different register of language has become more prominent in counter-cult discourse. This can be seen both in the larger context and within the narrower Mormon context. Decker sounds very different from traditional counter-Mormons when he talks about why a cult like Mormonism has continued to grow. According to The God Makers, there exists in Mormonism “something more sinister . . . than even most ex- Mormons suspect.” While “most critics of Mormonism regard Joseph Smith as a fraud who deliberately deceived his followers into joining a church of his own making, and whose doctrines and rituals were borrowed from Freemasonry and other pagan religions and embellished by his vivid imagination to suit his giant ego,” Decker regards this classic counter-Mor￾mon theory as only “partially correct.” Rather “a careful investigation indicates that Joseph Smith was in touch with a superhuman source of revelation and power that has been the common inspiration behind all pagan religions down through history”; this “superhuman source” is Satan.13

The fact that Satan jumped from obscurity14 to prominence in counter￾Mormonism can only be understood when one places the new counter￾Mormonism within the context of much larger changes which have oc￾curred in the Evangelical world. C. Peter Wagner, professor at Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, and others have spoken of a “Third Wave” in Pentecostalism, which came after the first (Pentecostal) and the second (Charismatic) movements.15 Wagner is himself a key advocate of this theology. Using concepts proposed by Pentecostal theologians in the 1970s, the Third Wave was developed in the 1980s – initially at Fuller Theological Seminary, where it has since become very controversial. The Third Wave also attracted a number of Evangelical Christians who do not regard themselves, strictly speaking, as Pentecostals. By the 1990s the Third Wave has grown to include an estimated 30 million followers, mostly in the United States. It also includes megachurches such as the Vineyard Christian Fellowship of Anaheim, California, pastored by John Wimber. Wimber was with Wagner a key figure in the Fuller controversies of the 1980s.16

At the center of the Third Wave is an emphasis on “spiritual warfare.” The earth is seen as the battleground between God and Satan. While “de￾mons . . . account for all evil,” men and women also have a prominent role in this drama. Whereas some humans may have become “demonized,” others are “Christian warriors” and will provide the “prayer cover” needed by the “heavenly warriors” (angels) themselves. According to spiritual warfare theology, without sufficient “prayer cover” “heavenly warriors . . . [would be] vulnerable to the demonic hosts.” Additionally, the heavenly warriors need human beings to perform exorcisms, where the powerful name of Je￾sus Christ is used and demons and their human counterparts – the “de￾monized” – are ultimately defeated.17

The “spiritual warfare” movement gained national prominence – even outside the Third Wave – in 1986 when the best-selling novel This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti was published. By 1991, 1.5 million copies of the novel had been sold. A sequel, Piercing the Darkness , enjoyed similar success. This Present Darkness is about a war to control a small town in the United States between the forces of Heaven and Hell, fought by both supernatural and human warriors. At stake is much more than control of the small town. Satan wants to use the town to establish a stronghold for two of the worst evils (according to conservative Christians), the New World Order and the New Age. On the spiritual level the war is between the General, a silver-haired angel who is one of the closest associates of Jesus Christ in Heaven, and the Strongman, described as one of the few devils really intimate with Lucifer himself. The good military commander is Tal, and the military commander of the demonic forces is Ba-al Rafar, the Prince of Babylon. Among the good human warriors are the pastor of a small struggling evangelical church and a reporter who is active exposing cults and the occult (his sister died in a ritual death). “Demon￾ized” warriors for Satan include the pastor of the large local mainline denominational church, a psychology professor, the local chief of police (who stands for governmental bureaucracy), and a stranger (definitely not American) who is the local representative of a multi-national corporation. The battle is fought through exorcisms and prayers. Finally the battle ends when good triumphs over evil, but it is also made clear that the war will continue in the future.

Peretti’s novel is premised on the idea that human beings can be “de￾monized,” a concept that spiritual warfare theologians claim is not identical with “possession.” The latter concept, most Evangelicals claim, is in fact “not biblical.” According to Wimber, the demonized person still has “some control over his or her life” but is nevertheless “inhabited” by one or more demons. In the most serious cases, a “severely demonized person” is recog￾nized through signs such as “unusual physical strength,” “a new personal￾ity,” “heresy,” “serious sexual sin,” and “the ability to convey knowledge which the inhabited person did not possess in his or her normal state.”18

Spiritual warfare exorcists also claim to be able to identify and name which demon or group of demons is actually inhabiting a person, a group, or even a town or country. A manual called Pigs in the Parlor – one of the oldest of its kind, published in 1973 – identified 220 demons and “demon groupings” with names including “Suicide” and “Harlotry.” Interesting enough, one of the “demon groupings” identified in this book is called “Mormonism,” and it is clearly stated that it presides over the Mormon church. (Among groups of Christian origin, only Jehovah’s Witnesses and Christian Science share with Mormonism the dubious honor of having a “demon grouping” of their own.19)

Not all Evangelical and Pentecostal Christians in the United States or elsewhere are either attracted by or accept the Third Wave, spiritual warfare theology or the larger reliance on exorcism. In fact there exists a large body of literature criticizing spiritual warfare, and the Christian Research Institute – founded by the late Walter Martin – has been very vocal in opposing the exaggerations which characterize the Third Wave.20 Similarly within the Mormon counter-cult movement, traditionalists such as Jerald and Sandra Tanner have become increasingly disaffected from those counter-Mormons associated with Decker. Sandra Tanner had been featured in the movie version of The God Makers , and in the book version was described with her husband as “former Mormons who have established an international reputation for their impeccably accurate and thorough research.”21 By the time the book was released, however, the Tanners were already criticizing The God Makers because of its overempha￾sis of Satan’s role in Mormonism. The two brands of counter-Mormonism were slowly parting company. While The God Makers may still be read as a point of transition between “classic” and “New Age” (perhaps best called “spiritual warfare”) counter-Mormonism, by the time the book was pub￾lished Decker and some of his friends were already attracted by more extreme counter-Mormons.

These more extreme counter-Mormons included Tom Kellie. An ex￾Mormon, Kellie claimed he was “ordained to be an apostle in the Church” but for some reasons was not “allowed in the Council of the Twelve.” He claimed he was also “ordained to be a God.” Kellie insisted “that all those who were ordained to the Godhead had the satanic number ‘666’ written on their foreheads in Roman numerals.” If this was not enough, Kellie also claimed that “the wives of the Mormon apostles were compelled to submit to a special sexual type of operation” and that “it would ‘blow the minds’ of non-Mormon doctors if they could examine the wife of an apostle.” He also “strongly implied that he had the original metal plates of the Book of Mormon which he had stolen from the Mormon Church.” Although Decker later realized that Kellie “was either a deceiver or not working with a full deck,” sufficient evidence exists that Decker used Kellie for a number of months as an authoritative witness of wild, secret Mormon practices. Decker was later involved in a number of other controversies, including discussions which centered on his claim (certainly false by any linguistic or philological standard) that the words “Pay Lay Ale” in the temple ceremony meant “Wonderful Lucifer.” He also claimed that an alleged prophecy by Israeli rabbis existed which taught that the Great Salt Lake would submerge Salt Lake City if Brigham Young University did not In 1986 Decker met William (Bill) Schnoebelen. I have discussed else￾where the extraordinary career of Schnoebelen,23 but I will mention here that he was born on 24 August 1949 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was raised a Roman Catholic, dabbled in occultism, became a teacher at the Catholic Loras College in Dubuque, and finally found his true career as a profes￾sional convert. He started to convert to anything and everything and even to competing groups at the same time – for example, to Wicca, to the Church of Satan of Anton S. LaVey, to Freemasonry, to some small “inde￾pendent churches” (where he was ordained a priest and even a bishop), and finally to Mormonism in 1980. Since the Mormons with whom Schnoe￾belen came in contact did not know the intricacies of apostolic succession theories, “wandering bishops,” and the various small churches which claim a “valid” and “Catholic” priesthood (which of course has nothing to do with being part of the Roman Catholic church), they accepted Schnoe￾belen’s claim that he had been a Roman Catholic priest at face value. These claims were included in the book published in 1983 by Bookcraft and edited by Stephen W. Gibson under the title From Clergy to Convert ,24 The next year Schnoebelen converted again, from Mormonism to Evangelical Christian￾ity, and began to offer himself as a witness and speaker in counter-Mormon circles. By 1986 he was actively cooperating with Decker and wrote an article in the latter’s Saints Alive Journal on “Joseph Smith and the Temple of Doom.”

James R. Spencer, pastor of Shiloh Christian Center in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and publisher of the counter-Mormon newsletter Through the Maze (whose “loyal subscribers” could join the “Utah Liberation Army” and receive a special Insider’s Report newsletter) was particularly enthusiastic about Schnoebelen’s paper. Spencer teaches that the God of Mormonism is Satan and that Mormons unknowingly “serve Satan in the temple ceremony.” According to Spencer, Mormonism is in company with Bud￾dhism, Islam, Hinduism, and Zoroastrianism whose roots are also “in hell.” He believes “as surely as I believe that Jesus came in the flesh [that] the Devil has spawned false religion from Babylon to Salt Lake City.”25 In 1987 Spencer and Schnoebelen published a book together entitled Mormonism’s Temple of Doom. In the book Spencer introduces Schnoebelen as a “former witch, Catholic priest [as we know, this was not true], mason and mor￾mon” – thus neglecting half a dozen other memberships during his con￾version career. Schnoebelen then attempts to build his case for the Satanic nature of Mormonism, starting from the well-known theory that the Mor￾mon temple ceremony had its origins in Freemasonry and – taking for granted that Freemasonry is in itself wholly Satanic – concludes that Mor￾mons are as demonized as Masons. He also claims that the rituals of Mormonism and Freemasonry are identical to those found in Wicca and that some of these rituals are devised to sexually excite both men and women. For example, Schnoebelen maintains that the marks on the Mor￾mon temple garments “are held together by a subtle occult web of sexual energy which is activated by pressure from the two highest grips in the LDS Temple endowment.”26

As is usual in this milieu, if Mormonism’s Temple of Doom was Schnoe￾belen’s public statement, he also propagated private teachings which are still more astonishing. Tape recordings of private and public speeches demonstrate that he has claimed that a Mormon apostle confessed to him and his wife that the God of the Mormon temple is Lucifer. Schnoebelen also claimed that the architecture of the Mormon temples and other build￾ings – particularly “the trapezoidal shape” of the spires on the Salt Lake temple – “draw demons like flypaper.” He claimed to “prove” at a counter￾Mormon conference in 1987 “that the Salt Lake Temple is, in fact, a perfectly designed habitation for devils.”27 Not to be outdone, Decker wrote during the same year that the spires really “represent an upside down nail, pointing defiantly toward heaven – as if to impale the Lord Jesus anew when He comes in the clouds of glory!”28 Of course the name of the apostle who allegedly confessed the Satanic foundation of Mormonism to Schnoe￾belen (before he later stated that he was no longer sure about what he had heard) was James E. Faust, who has the same name as the famous “DoctFaust” who sold his soul to the Devil in the German legend which became famous through Goethe.

At this point the “classic” counter-Mormon community said enough is enough. Wesley Walters prepared a critical reply to Schnoebelen and Decker’s ideas on Mormon temple architecture. Even though there is considerable doubt concerning the real position of Walter Martin – it is known that he felt that the film The God Makers was a good tool to be used against Mormonism – he was apparently against the subsequent and more extreme theories on Satanism advanced by Decker, Schnoebelen, and Spencer.

The strongest reaction was by the Tanners. In 1987 they published a booklet, The Lucifer-God Doctrine , in which they refuted the idea that Mormonism is Satanism in disguise and that Satan is worshipped in Mormon ceremonies.30 Following publication of this booklet, there were various attempts to reconcile the sides through the “arbitration” of Walter Martin for the sake of the counter-Mormon battle. Despite these efforts Decker and Schnoebelen published a strong anti-Tanner rebuttal under the title The Lucifer-God Doctrine: Shadow or Reality ? The title attempts to make fun of the title of the Tanners’ well-known book Mormonism: Shadow or Reality?31 The Tanners, who are persistent if not always scholarly investi￾gators, published a second enlarged edition of The Lucifer-God Doctrine in 1988 in which they exposed some previously unknown skeletons in Schnoebelen’s closet. They conclusively demonstrated that he had never been a Roman Catholic priest and that he had associated with some questionable characters in the world of “wandering bishops.” The Tanners also noted that similarities in doctrines and rituals between Mormonism and some contemporary magical groups is evidence that the magical movements borrowed from Mormonism and not the other way around.32￾

Decker’s and Schnoebelen’s reaction to the Tanners’ expose was typi￾cal. They referred their readers to a report prepared by Blaine and Randy Hunsaker and Donald and Gwenda Meyer under the title, The Tanner Problem (dated 16 July 1990). The report introduces the controversy and offers two alternative – or rather complementary – explanations of the Tanners’ attitude. First, “there has been information from several high level LDS sources that the LDS Church has supplied information to the Tanners for years to provide a controlled, benign criticism of the Church.” “The evidence is mounting, and it would seem that the Tanners have indeed been used by the LDS Church.” Of course, Latter-day Saints would not recognize the Tanners’ criticism as “controlled” and “benign,” but this shows how strange the world of counter-Mormonism can be. Another explanation was “discovered” by Schnoebelen, Spencer, and Blaine Hun￾saker during a meeting with the Tanners in Salt Lake City. According to the report, Jerald Tanner during the meeting “raised up, his body shook,” and he spoke “in a different sounding voice”; his “eyes were fixed and piercing.” The reaction of the authors is predictable: “We looked at one another, recognizing what this was – a demonic manifestation. We offered a ministry to the Tanners to break this spiritual bondage, but they re￾fused.”33

Thus Salt Lake City becomes the town of Peretti’s novel, and we understand why the Tanners (and other people mentioned in the report) oppose the idea that Mormonism is controlled by Satan – they are demon￾ized, exactly as the liberal minister of This Present Darkness . And who knows whether they are not, by any chance, “stranger” or with occult connections in their family history? “We asked,” says the report, “if they [the Tanners] had ever broken the generational ties to Mormonism and they said no, they did not believe in it, and refused any kind of ministry. We went away very saddened and discouraged.” We know from the reply issued by the Tanners in 1991 – Serious Charges against the Tanners – that Hunsaker rec￾ommended that the Tanners see the exorcist Gordon Gruber, an extremist exponent of the spiritual warfare movement.34

Anti-Tanner literature has also been published by other repre￾sentatives of this new brand of counter-Mormonism, including Loftes Tryk, who suspects that Jerald Tanner is “a Mormon double agent, an apologist, another fake.”35 Tryk is a particularly suspicious fellow, who even suspected that “Ed Decker has been in collusion with the Tanners.” After all “if Mormonism is guided by Satan there would be no plan too elaborate in order to cover up facts.”36 Subsequently Tryk abandoned his suspicions about Decker, and Tryk’s book The Best Kept Secrets in the Book of Mormon – according to the review by Daniel C. Peterson, “the worst of all books ever published on the Book of Mormon”37 – is sold today by Decker through the catalogues of his organization Saints Alive.

The key point in Tryk’s criticism of the Tanners is that they “contain, redirect, or moderate investigations into the Satanic nature of Mormonism” and “lead Mormonismi opponents on a merry chase” after such obviously irrelevant arguments as whether Joseph Smith “plagiarized from books of contemporary authors when writing the Book of Mormon.” These themes are not really interesting if one, like Tryk, believes that the real author of the Book of Mormon is Satan, not Joseph Smith, “that Mormonism is so insidious and such a diabolical plot, that it is actually a form of devil worship, that the head ringleader behind the scenes is Beelzebub, himself, Satan.” “The Tanner double-speech shows up,” Tryk continues, “as they publish some of their material in such a way that it parodies the Satanic evidence, thereby discrediting other leaders of the Mormon opposition movement.”38 The feud is still going on. The Tanners have produced a new book criticizing the reliability of The God Makers II and the integrity of its authors, who are in turn striking back by claiming again that the Tanners are agents, if not of the Devil, at least of Mormon general authorities.39

One may question whether this sort of disputation is worth scholarly investigation. The sociological question, however, is not whether these ideas deserve to be taken seriously, but whether they are taken seriously by social movements of some significance. Although the modern Evangeli￾cal counter-Mormon movement is not as large as it claims to be, it is also not totally insignificant, and its literature enjoys a large circulation. In order to understand how it is possible for a lunatic fringe of a movement such as this to exist, it is necessary to examine the broader context of the spiritual warfare movement and the smaller context of the in-house struggles of the counter-Mormon movement. An internecine feud began around 1986 be￾tween two different interpretations of Evangelical counter-Mormonism. One strain, “classic” counter-Mormonism, was represented by Wesley Walters, the Tanners, and at least some members of Walter Martin’s Christian Research Institute. The other strain consists of Ed Decker, Bill Schnoebelen, Jim Spencer, and Lof tes Tryk. Although local problems in Utah and succession questions after one generation of counter-Mormon leaders died may help explain the conflict, it cannot be entirely understood unless it is placed in the context of the larger controversy about spiritual warfare and the Third Wave, which is dividing Evangelicals and Pente￾costals on a national and international level. Schnoebelen’s first counter￾Mormon paper appeared in the same year as Peretti’s novel. The language of the “new” counter-Mormonism is typically the language of the spiritual warfare movement. Thus spiritual warfare counter-Mormonism is best understood as a segment of the larger spiritual warfare movement which views the world as a battlefield on which the righteous fights real demons and demonized human beings, including members of “cults.”