''All Gods Children: The Cult Experience – Salvation Or Slavery?'' is a
non-fiction
Nonfiction, or non-fiction, is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to provide information (and sometimes opinions) grounded only in facts and real life, rather than in imagination. Nonfiction is often associated with b ...
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
Penguin Books is a British publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Bob Larson's '' Larson's Book of World Religions and Alternative Spirituality'' 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
James Warren Jones (May 13, 1931 – November 18, 1978) was an American preacher, political activist and mass murderer. He led the Peoples Temple, a new religious movement, between 1955 and 1978. In what he called "revolutionary suicide ...
and the
Peoples Temple
The Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ, originally Peoples Temple Full Gospel Church and commonly shortened to Peoples Temple, was an American new religious organization which existed between 1954 and 1978. Founded in Indianapolis, Ind ...
Contemporary Sociology
''Contemporary Sociology'' is a bi-monthly peer-reviewed academic journal of sociology published by SAGE Publications in association with the American Sociological Association since 1972. Each issue of the journal publishes many in-depth as well ...
'', notes that Stoner and Parke seem inconsistent about some of their book's details, like the range of people who enter cults. Saul V. Levine, writing for the ''
American Journal of Orthopsychiatry
The ''American Journal of Orthopsychiatry'' is a bimonthly peer-reviewed medical journal covering orthopsychiatry. It is published by the American Psychological Association on behalf of the Global Alliance for Behavioral Health and Social Justice ...
'', calls the book "fair" in its treatment of everyone involved including
new religious movement
A new religious movement (NRM), also known as alternative spirituality or a new religion, is a religious or spiritual group that has modern origins and is peripheral to its society's dominant religious culture. NRMs can be novel in origin or th ...
(NRM) leaders,
deprogrammers
Deprogramming is a controversial tactic that attempts to help someone who has "strongly held convictions," often coming from cults or New Religious Movements (NRM). Deprogramming aims to assist a person who holds a controversial or restrictive b ...
, and NRM members and their relatives. W. L. Hendricks for the ''
Journal of Church and State
The ''Journal of Church and State'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal of religious studies and political science,Walter A. Elwell''Evangelical Dictionary of Theology'' Baker Academic, 2001, p. 254 covering issues related to the First ...
'' 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.
Sociologist Thomas Robbins is much more critical in ''
Sociological Analysis
Social research is a research conducted by social scientists following a systematic plan. Social research methodologies can be classified as quantitative and qualitative.
* Quantitative designs approach social phenomena through quantifiable ...
''. 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
A zombie ( Haitian French: , ht, zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in w ...
". 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
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and reco ...