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Since the 2016 election, Donald Trump’s behavior has become both more disturbing and yet increasingly familiar. He relies on phrases like, “fake news,” “build the wall,” and continues to spread the divisive mentality of us-vs.-them. He lies constantly, has no conscience, never admits when he is wrong, and projects all of his shortcomings on to others.
In an era of confusing religious ideas, Christians need information they can trust. And as Western culture drifts further and further from its Christian roots, there is an even greater need for awareness of the beliefs of those around us. It equips readers to understand the claims of numerous cults, sects, and religions--including some that masquerade as Christian.
Untouchable holds the answer. Honig shows how Trump and others use seemingly fair institutions and practices to build empires of corruption and get away with misdeeds for which ordinary people would be sentenced to years behind bars. It’s not just that money talks, Honig makes clear, but how it can corrupt otherwise reliable institutions and blind people to the real power dynamics behind the scenes.
Hassan, Steven. The Cult of Trump: A Leading Cult Expert Explains How the President Uses Mind Control (p. XII). Free Press. Kindle Edition. x
Introduction
When Donald J. Trump announced he was running for the presidency of the United States, I had a hard time taking him seriously. Like many Americans, I could not imagine that a reality TV star—especially one so brash and controversial—might soon become the most powerful person on Earth. Trump and I grew up about a mile from each other in Queens, New York, but I knew little about him. I once watched about ten minutes of an episode of The Apprentice and switched stations. I was surprised by the intensity of Trump’s support, especially from evangelical Christians. He was a casino mogul and a notorious playboy and philanderer, who married—and fathered children with—three different women. He regularly told outright lies and, when challenged, would stubbornly double down on them. How could he possibly gain enough support among the conservative Christians who would be so important for him to be elected? As I watched him pick off, one by one, his fellow GOP contenders, I had no choice but to take him seriously. I have spent many years studying influence—how people systematically use psychological and social techniques for their own ends. It became clear to me that Trump was exploiting those methods to great effect. He certainly was not playing by traditional political rules. He was a master media manipulator, calling media outlets like Fox News to insult his opponents and brag about his own accomplishments, attracting the attention of other cable networks like CNN and MSNBC with his circuslike behavior—and gaining an estimated $2 billion worth of free publicity. He was an entertaining, if blustery, speaker who used simplistic, almost hypnotically repetitious, terms. He gave insulting but catchy nicknames to his opponents—“Crooked Hillary,” “Lying Ted,” “Low Energy Jeb”—and used slogans that became rousing anthems at his rallies—“Lock her up” and “Build the Wall.”
Martin, Walter The Kingdom of the Cults: The Definitive Work on the Subject . Baker Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Introduction
In his 1956 book The Christian and the Cults, a 28-year-old Walter Martin wrote, “The Christian Church in this atomic age is faced with the highly ‘fissionable’ problem of accelerated cult activities both in the continental United States and on every major mission field throughout the world. Today, as never before, the danger of a ‘Cult-Bomb’ detonating in the Christian world grows ominously closer as the Church delays unified action against the looming specter of insidious cultism. It is the author’s earnest desire to attract attention to this mounting danger and to awaken the Christian public to a spirited defense of the historic faith of the Church of Jesus Christ. This defense can only be effected by informed pastors, teachers, evangelists and laymen who recognize the growing threat of the cults and educate themselves and the Church at large to both the deviations of cult theology and the massive refutation of them which is inherent in the teaching of sound doctrinal theology.”1 The year 1965 brought the release of The Kingdom of the Cults, which has stood for almost 55 years as a sentinel in the field of Christian Apologetics. Our intent in editing this volume is to offer new and valuable information, provide updates on the ever-changing world of the cults, and ensure that the voice of Dr. Walter Martin continues to be heard in the same strong, clear way.
Honig, Elie. Untouchable: How Powerful People Get Away with It (p. 1). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition.
Chapter One
“Do What You Have to Do” Frank Hydell had no idea that the beer he drank at Scarlet’s strip club in Staten Island on a cool spring night in 1998 would be his last. It was, he believed, just a casual, two-guys-with-nothing-better-to-do Monday night out. John Matera, Hydell’s longtime pal, had called early that evening and proposed they grab a drink at the club. Hydell, then thirty-one years old, half-heartedly agreed. He hardly even bothered to get dressed, wearing navy-blue sweatpants and white sneakers to the scene of his own murder. Inside Scarlet’s that night, Hydell and Matera took a table and ordered some beers. At one point Matera got up and made a call from a pay phone. Around midnight, seeing that things were headed nowhere in particular, Hydell called it quits. He gathered up his wallet and keys, walked out to the parking lot, and opened the driver’s-side door of his white Camry. There’s no way to know whether Hydell ever saw Eddie Boyle coming. Either way, it all happened too fast for Hydell to resist or even react. Hydell knew Boyle from the streets. Both hovered on the periphery of the Gambino family. Boyle was a “capable” guy (capable of violence, that is, in mob parlance), while Hydell was a bit player who dabbled mostly in after-hours bank burglaries. That night in the parking lot at Scarlet’s, Boyle strode briskly up to Hydell, pulled out a .357 Magnum revolver, and shot him three times in the head and chest. Hydell fell dead to the asphalt next to his car, driver’s-side door still flung open. When I first met Ted Otto in 2006, he was obsessed with the Hydell murder. Otto, a brilliant, incorrigible, relentless FBI special agent with the Queens-based Gambino squad, had investigated and solved plenty of mob cases over his career, often deploying unorthodox techniques. He once typed up pages of phony transcripts, put them in a binder, and showed them to a Gambino soldier to try to convince him that the FBI had been wiretapping his phone and he needed to flip; didn’t work, but it was a hell of an effort. Otto was a world-class pain in the ass—beloved by prosecutors, tolerated with a wince by his FBI supervisors, despised by the mob. Think Detective Jimmy McNulty from The Wire, only with reddish-blond hair.