At least half a living-room full of people in California evidently do. Now and then an eccentric Internet denizen will read Fish's Web site and e-mail me some inspired rantings defending Darwin's views. But these people invariably find that if they are not willing literally to abandon their lives and families and join the cult, they are soon on the receiving end of Darwin's anathemas, too. So his actual following remains quite small.

Self-styled "discernment" expert Rick Miesel once placed his coveted imprimatur on Darwin Fish. (In 1994 Fish and Miesel were making plans to start a church together near Miesel's home in Indiana.) But then Darwin began declaring Miesel a false teacher. Now Meisel desperately tries to evade responsibility for his early influence on Fish.

Mr. Miesel and Mr. Fish are kindred spirits. Fish began his career as a disciple of Miesel. (Miesel's own list of "false teachers" is better known than—and nearly as long as—Fish's.) And that is precisely why they are no longer friends. Both Miesel and Fish believe there is no such thing as a minor or secondary point of truth; all truth is ultimately essential and fundamental. In practice, both Miesel and Fish make their own personal judgment the final arbiter for any disputed doctrinal fine-points.

Predictably, when they found a point on which they could not come to agreement, they responded by anathematizing one another. Both men are also practically incorrigible, impervious to rebuke or correction. Darwin Fish insists this too is a false accusation, citing as proof a list of his own tapes that he has withdrawn from circulation. But an examination of the list reveals that most of Fish's "recanting" consists of retracting positive comments he once made about the Puritans, Charles Spurgeon, John MacArthur, or Martin and Deidre Bobgan (all of whom Darwin now declares hell-bound heretics).

The rest of his "retractions" are trivial or silly corrections, such as one tape that was withdrawn because "Darwin felt he could have dealt with the subject of flatulence in a more mature manner." Rather than demonstrating his willingness to recant error, the list of no-longer-available tapes proves that Darwin Fish cannot distinguish that which is vital from that which is trivial—and the only substantive changes he is making to his teaching are taking him further and further from the historic and biblical Christian faith. In other words, even his list of "retractions" demonstrates that he is devising a cultish system no one before him has ever been able to find in the Scriptures.

Despite Darwin Fish's bold claims that he speaks as a "pastor," he is actually an excommunicated layman who remains under the discipline of the church he attended before he founded his own cult. This fact should be carefully borne in mind by anyone tempted to give credence to his accusations against godly men. See Matthew 18:17; Romans 16:17.