MANY DECEIVERS

“Dear children, this is the last hour; and as you have heard that the antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come. This is how we know it is the last hour. They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.” – 1 John 2:18-19

 

Saul B. Newton founded The Sullivan Institute in 1957 with his wife, Dr. Jane Pearce, in an attempt to create a viable alternative to the traditional nuclear family, which he viewed as the root of all social anxiety. Located in three buildings on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, the Sullivan Institute operated as both a therapy center and a polyamorous commune, despite the fact that Newton, the leader, had no formal training as a therapist. Unlike other practicing therapists who worked under a strict code of ethics, there were no such boundaries for the Sullivanians, as the members of the Institute were known, with therapists and other members of the community sleeping with each other regularly. In fact, they were forbidden from engaging in exclusive relationships. Any children born to Sullivanians were sent away to boarding school or caretakers with very little visitation from their parents. All members were encouraged to cut ties with their former friends and family members. In the 1970s, the group – which had around 500 members – merged with a progressive theater collective call the Fourth Wall and relocated to Orlando in 1979. After seeing a decline in membership in the 1980s, the Sullivan Institute ended with the death of Newton in 1991.

 

There are many deceivers professing they are Jesus Christ, but they have a destructive agenda of their own. Today in prayer, pray for those who are caught up in a cult that they may have the courage to leave and follow Jesus.

 

“By entertaining of strange persons, men sometimes entertain angels unaware; but by entertaining of strange doctrines, many have entertained devils unaware.” – John Flavel 

 

God’s Word: “For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” – 2 Timothy 4:3