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2006 Herescope - August - Pseudo-Mission: Blasphemizing and Social Sciencizing
August 2006
08/01/06
PSEUDO-MISSION: Blasphemizing and Social Sciencizing
"Americans' quest to mold indigenous people into their own image of success was not, of course, a new phenomenon. Missionaries and the Bureau of Indian Affairs had been trying for decades in the United States. Since World War II, social scientists knew that effective psychological warfare operations required in-depth knowledge of a population's culture. Researchers had to study and master a people's belief systems, expressed most truly through their language, and their social organization, the most significant means by which people can mediate successfully with nature and adapt to changes in their environment…. Through intelligent deliberate selection, culture allows a group of people to adapt… quickly…. They also knew that culture allows a group of people -- a tribe, even a nation -- to adapt to changes in an environment initiated by another people's actions. Learning a culture's key components -- its genetic structure and neurotransmitters, so to speak -- could also give social engineers, whether armed or not, the tools to manipulate minds. In the quest for control, the CIA's counterinsurgency practitioners already had learned that there were weapons other than guns and gases, and that the path from the social sciences that engineered whole societies, to the physical sciences that engineered minds, was short indeed."
(Colby & Dennett, Thy Will Be Done [HarperCollins, 1995), p. 477)
One of the most significant integrations in neoevangelicalism occurred between theology and sociology. Sociology, social sciences, anthropology, linguistics and other human "soft" sciences (including psychology) began to be incorporated into mission theology many decades ago. Some of this was accomplished early on by John D. Rockefeller, who set up the "Baptist" University of Chicago, and later funded various think-tank institutions, as a way to bring forth a new generations of academic elites who would concoct and promote new research theories about human development and activity. The dark side of the social sciences has always been its propensity to human experimentation and social engineering.
Evangelical missionary activities from the 1940s onward took on a more radical course than simple Gospel presentation. Fuller Theological Seminary would develop the theologies that incorporated the tenets of the social sciences. (See The World Christian Movement by Al Dager [Sword Pub., 2001] for extended documentation on this point.)
C. Peter Wagner's excerpt in yesterday's Herescope post is an example of the far-reaching effects of altering the definition of mission work to include the integration of sociology with theology. Thus, a new "social science" gospel was born -- one uniquely neoevangelical with overtones of dominionism
This integration becomes manifest first and foremost in language/linguistics. Early on, the social scientists and psychologists learned the importance of language to a culture. Many decades ago the communists removed several letters from the Russian alphabet just to make it harder to read the Bible. Modern evangelicals have observed the "dumbing down" of modern Bible versions and paraphrases, some of which come with a barely-concealed "New Age" agenda. The humanistic psychologists brought the language of "felt needs" into the church. And the modern business gurus brought in purpose-driven, "servant-leader" mantras, as well as the advertising/marketing slogans which rely heavily upon the research of social scientists use of language as a tool to manipulate consumers.
The new word "blasphemizing" at the top of this post was invented by Sandy Simpson of Deception in the Church ministries (www.deceptioninthechurch.com) in his most recent newsletter article which warns about the the new linguistic heresies. We invented the term "Social Sciencizing" -- tongue in cheek -- to describe the process by which "blasphemizing" is being integrated into neoevangelical mission activities. The purpose of this deliberate dumbing down of biblical truth, changing the names for God, and denegration of His Word has everything to do with social engineering -- purposefully manipulating cultural groups. And it is happening on a global scale.
The Truth:
"None calleth for justice, nor any pleadeth for truth: they trust in vanity, and speak lies; they conceive mischief, and bring forth iniquity." (Isaiah 59:4)
08/02/06
PSEUDO-MISSION: Creating A "Social Ethic" Worldview
"Change is an inevitable force that we must deal with in our lives at this time in history if we are to remain viable and relative in the earth today. Change means to take a turn, to put something or someone in place, to take from one resource and make another, to pass away from one form to another. Change is also synonymous with transformation. The enemy of the Church understands the concept of change so he either tries to get us out of time in our changing or hold us 'routinized' in a stagnant, inflexible, methodized wineskin that cannot hold the wine of present-day truth.
Wine must be pressed while the wineskin is forming! Revelation must be gained while wisdom is developing! Apostles need prophets! Prophets must have intercessors! Intercessors must understand the gaps throughout the earth!
That is why the International Congress on the Changing Church for Changing Society is so important! I want to encourage you to attend this gathering that Peter and Doris Wagner are hosting in Dallas on August 29-31."
(Chuck C. Pierce, letter to "Global Apostolic Prayer Network Leaders, Jul 31, 2005)
The mainline denominations moved to integrate sociology with theology early on. They didn't have to hassle with the stalwart fundamentalist who insisted on doctrinal purity. It was easy for mainline leaders to simply blend the latest intellectual "scientific" research into their functioning, particularly on a global mission scale.
The evangelicals lagged behind by several decades. It became necessary to concoct persuasive new doctrines to gradually ease in the transition. One of the primary vehicles became the gospel of "change." This tactic -- often couched in the language that "God is doing a new thing" or "we must fulfill the Great Commission in our generation" -- created a sense of urgency whereby evangelical mission leaders would be lured into accepting the pragmatic solutions offered by sociologists, social scientists, anthropologists, ethnologists and psychologists.
Another primary mechanism to integrate sociological tools into the evangelical framework was the necessity to develop a global, international mindset. The purpose of "mission" -- as redefined by C. Peter Wagner in an excerpt posted on Herescope several days ago -- became that of creating a new global mindset for internationalism and ecumenism. The seemingly neutral social sciences provided important cover for transforming the worldview of missionaries, pastors and people in the pew.
One of the early historical examples of this type of integration was the 1937 Oxford Conference on Church and State. This conference, according to historian and theologian Dr. Martin Erdmann, "marked the recognition of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America (FCC) as the dominant force within the ecumenical movement…." (p. 102) Noteworthy is the fact that John Mott "was appointed chairman of the Business Committee," (Ibid) indicating one avenue in which this conference would eventually impact the fundamentalist mission groups.
In his book Building the Kingdom of God on Earth, which is a history of the first half of the 20th century and the mainline denominations' move towards a social ethic, Dr. Erdmann describes how the social sciences were impacting a drive towards global ecumenical unity. A report from the Oxford Conference, drafted by John Foster Dulles and entitled "The Universal Church and the World of Nations," was "to formulate the Church's position on world order in cooperation with a team of renowned scholars of international affairs." (p. 103)
"The report continues to define the nature and purpose of the ecumenical movement, in being the first indication that the Church as begun to act on the 'God-given vision of the Church Universal', a new realisation of the fundamental truth that 'the Church is one'. The authors pay special tribute to the missionary movement of the nineteenth century, which by being obedient to the Great Commission, has made 'the bounds of the Christian community co-extensive with the habitable globe.…
"The ecumenical leaders at Oxford tried to define the international character and communal nature of the Church, as a supranational brotherhood, which transcends racial and cultural distinctions. It is telling that they advanced a sociological, rather than a biblical, concept of the Church, and thus revealed their primary intention of pursuing a socio-political, rather than a spiritual, agenda in addressing the needs of the world." (pp. 103-104) [emphasis added]
Dr. Erdmann continues this point in the next section subtitled "World-wide Brotherhood":
"In 1938, the implications of this ecumenical program were spelled out explicitly by William Paton in his book World Community. He argued that, by creating a world-wide brotherhood, the Christian churches had succeeded in establishing a degree of unity among themselves which was unprecedented in human history. The reality of a unified Church would not only provide a model for secular designs of an international brotherhood, it would also be a strong stimulus to unite the nations under one government.…" (p. 106-107) [emphasis added]
In a review of a pivotal book written in 1939 by Sir Alfred E. Zimmern, Spiritual Values and World Affairs (Oxford: Clarendon Press), Dr. Erdmann explains that Zimmern saw the need to create an "international mind-set among the parishioners."
"Granting the church the right to exert its moral influence on political and social issues, including international affairs, he [Zimmern] still doubted whether the ecumenical movement would be able, 'to frame judgements, to educate opinion, and to construct policies in regard to these issues', without drawing on the expertise of the Royal Institute of International Affairs." (p. 108) [emphasis added]
The recent foray by evangelical leaders into active and open association with the globalist/internationalist Aspen Institute indicates just how far along the road neoevangelicals have traveled. That which would have been unheard of seventy years ago is now openly lauded as a way to "advance the kingdom of God on earth."
The Truth:
"For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind." (Isaiah 65:17)
08/03/06
PSEUDO-MISSION: Barna, Propaganda & Spiritainment
"Those who manipulate the organized habits and opinions of the masses constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of the country…. It remains a fact that in almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind, who harness old social forces and contrive new ways to bind and guide the world…. As civilization has become more complex, and as the need for invisible government has been increasingly demonstrated, the technical means have been invented and developed by which opinion may be regimented."
(Dr. Dennis Cuddy, Mental Health Screening, pp. 22-23, quoting Edward Bernays' 1928 book Propaganda)
"None of this would have been possible if it had not been for the twenty-plus years of research and ministry activity undertaken through Barna Research and, subsequently, The Barna Group (TBG). Our comprehension of the changing marketplace and the ways in which faith does (and does not) fit into that world is attributable to the constant data flowing into our hands from the national studies we conduct to gain such insight. Even our idea of spiritainment was a direct result of having spent years analyzing the roles and intersection of media, entertainment and faith development."
(George Barna, "Good News is Coming, 7/10/06)
The most recent Discernment Ministries newsletter is on the topic of "The Manipulations of Dominionism." In this article the point is made that statistics and surveys are used by New Apostolic Reformation dominionists as methods of propaganda. The stunning quotation above came from Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud who, according to Dr. Dennis Cuddy, worked in the Truman administration to get the American public to accept water fluoridation.
This week Herescope has been doing a series on how the social sciences were merged with "mission" to create a new evangelical ethic that furthered the theologies of dominionism. Social science relies heavily upon data collection, particularly statistical research and surveys. Statistics is a perfect vehicle with which to further the aims and agendas of social architects. As anyone who has studied graduate level courses in statistics and research methods can tell you, the manner in which a survey is designed can pre-determine the results.
But it gets worse. Surveys, statistics and data collection can pinpoint where people are most vulnerable to change. Sophisticated methods of manipulating people have been devised by social scientists and psychologists for many decades. Political campaigns use on-going survey data collection (including focus groups) to tweak their candidate's image, "spin" his record, and "perfect" his responses. Advertisers use on-going survey data collection to target their market, tweak their product's image, and increase sales. An entire generation of church leaders have been trained in how to sell new theologies, new music, new worship styles, new buildings, and new programs to the unsuspecting and undiscerning evangelicals in the pews.
It is, therefore, relevant to note that Barna has recently shifted gears. Previous Herescope posts have commented on his book Revolution, which is disconcertingly a step beyond Rick Warren's 2nd Reformation. Barna has recently launched a multi-pronged, multi-million (perhaps billion) dollar -- mind-boggling in its scope and breadth -- media campaign to actually implement his "Revolution," particularly targeting young people. The full "press release" can be found here. It is worth a serious read.
Barna has put legs onto his "Revolution." Barna details his "big vision" to "finishing well" -- notably the title of a Bob Buford book. (It may be that this media campaign will be a vehicle for Buford, a former cable TV exec, and his offspring the Emergent Church.) The plan is for cutting edge "spiritainment" (Barna's word) -- movies, TV, mobile cellular service, books, magazines, websites, music, a satellite training network, a "Josiah Corps" to train young leaders, an Internet platform for churches -- and most interesting -- a worldview curriculum. Barna explains:
"And, of course, there’s The Revolution. This burgeoning movement of deeply devoted followers of Christ who are intent upon being the Church remains near and dear to my heart. In the very near future we will be launching a website for Revolutionaries that will have many valuable features developed with this audience in mind. (One of the most exciting functions is its ability to facilitate community among Revolutionaries.) Tyndale will be releasing a series of books geared to the Revolutionary market, including volumes written by Randy Frazee (a Willow Creek teaching pastor), Frank Viola (a house church leader), and Jim Henderson (an outreach pioneer). (About a dozen other books are in various stages of development.) We are developing an IPTV platform for the Revolutionary community, likely to launch as early as next year. And, of course, the resources generated through Good News will address many of the interests of those who yearn for more of God in their life."
If this mammoth project is for real, it has to be one of the most expensive and aggressive propaganda campaigns ever orchestrated. When one connects this campaign to Barna's blatant call for a "revolution" in Christianity (dominionism), it becomes extremely disturbing. The purpose for the campaign seems fairly obvious. The "worldview" of evangelical society must be radically transformed -- and what better way to do it but with state-of-the-art high-tech media entertainment?
After reading Barna's statement there is one huge unanswered question:
Who is funding this?
The Truth:
"They hatch cockatrice's eggs, and weave the spider's web: he that eateth of their eggs dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper." (Isaiah 59:5)
08/04/06
PSEUDO-MISSION: Rick Warren's 3-legged Church
"There are five giant problems in the world... Spiritual emptiness is the No. 1 problem, egocentric or corrupt leadership is the second biggest problem. No. 3 is poverty. Half the world lives on less than US$2 a day, one billion people live on less than a dollar a day. Fourth is disease—all kinds of diseases. Five hundred million people will get malaria this year. And fifth is illiteracy—half the world cannot read or write! Even if we have the Internet and we have the world wired, if you cannot read or write, you’re left out. There is just no hope for you in the 21st century.
"These problems are so big, everybody has failed [to solve them]. The United States has failed, the United Nations has failed. Nobody has solved these five problems because [the solution needs] a three-legged stool. For the stability of a nation, you must have strong healthy government, strong healthy businesses, and strong healthy churches.
"A three-legged stool will have stability. So I’m going from country to country teaching business its role, teaching church its role, and teaching government leaders their role—you’ve got to work together! We cannot solve the problem in your country or in the world if we won’t work together."
("Playtime : The purpose-driven Rick Warren," Inquirer, 7/30/06)
In a recent interview with the press, Rick Warren stated that the solution to the world's five "giant" problems is the 3-legged stool. The 3-legged stool is a concept developed and popularized by Peter Drucker, the management guru. Rick Warren was intensively "mentored" by Peter Drucker over the course of several decades. The purpose-driven phenomena can best be attributed back to the influence of the management philosophies of Drucker. The best description of Drucker's 3-legged stool can be found in Bob Buford's Leadership Network archives, "Explorer… field notes for the emerging church," No. 3 (11/6/00):
"Last Monday and Tuesday was the annual conference of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management. (http://www.druckerfoundation.org) This foundation, created ten years ago to honor Peter Drucker's contributions to management and leadership, believes that a healthy society requires three vital sectors: a public sector of effective governments; a private sector of effective businesses; and a social sector of effective community organizations, including faith-based organizations. It furthers its mission to lead social sector organizations toward excellence in performance by providing educational opportunities and resources."
In his interview, Rick Warren explained that he is exporting these business ideas across the globe via his leadership training activities, boasting that he has "trained around 400,000 pastors in 162 countries" and that "my staff and I are not just training church leaders but business and government leaders," too.
But what is Rick Warren training these pastors? The training is in the purpose-driven business model of Peter Drucker. In this model the church becomes interconnected with the State and corporate interests -- in reality, becoming subservient to these interests. In the interview Warren stated that the church had 3 roles in this leg of the stool:
1. The first role is to become a "universal distribution" system for -- "health care, business development, teaching literacy, things like that."
2. The second role is to become the "largest volunteer force" in the world. Elsewhere this is referred to as an "army."
3. The third role is for the church to seize upon its greatest asset, which Warren claims is "local credibility" in every village.
In other words, "think global, act local" -- the mantra of the international globalist community since the early 1970s. The church in this 3-legged stool can serve as a "center" or "hub" of the community, which networks and collaborates with government agencies and corporate entities in order to achieve what Drucker calls a "healthy society." But, define "healthy"….
The management philosophies of Peter Drucker are derived from various sources which are common in all modern-day management theories -- the social sciences, anthropology, psychology, sociology, etc. Interestingly, many of these management theories are also rooted in mysticism. The purpose of modern management philosophies was to create better "workers" for a global economy. The definitions of "healthy" in the management world are psycho-social. Yet these same concepts are now being exported globally, and sadly -- if true -- 400,000 pastors worldwide have been trained by Warren in a humanistic model under the guise of "Christianity."
All for what purpose? Apparently the 3-legged church is not about the Gospel, because that wasn't mentioned as one of the 3 roles of the church. The church in this model becomes a social welfare agency, an arm of both corporate and state. And as a "global distribution network" the church becomes a useful tool for those who have other purposes in mind.
The Truth:
"The priests said not, Where is the LORD? and they that handle the law knew me not: the pastors also transgressed against me, and the prophets prophesied by Baal, and walked after things that do not profit." (Jeremiah 2:8)
08/08/06
PSEUDO-MISSION: A "one size fits all" social gospel
"Have you met with the Pope?
"Not yet, but I hope so. That would be my prayer. You know one of the greatest thrills of my life is when Pope John Paul II died, the CNN reported than [sic] on his nightstand was a copy of the “Purpose Drive Life” in Italian. He was reading “Purpose Drive Life” in Italian on his last days, and that really meant a lot to me. It really touched me."
(Rick Warren, in an interview 7/30/06)
Purpose-driven is a "one size fits all" plan and program. It is the ultimate ecumenical tool. From the statements given to the press by Rick Warren in this interview it is clear that Gospel has been removed from the scene. In its place is a social gospel, a new global ethic that tastes like lukewarm leftover evangelicalism.
The interview continued, further illustrating the broad ecumenical appeal of this new social gospel:
"You’ve met our cardinal [Gaudencio Rosales]. Did he say anything about what our biggest problem is?
"Well, I love the cardinal… Cardinal Rosales showed me his purpose statement for the Archdiocese of Manila…
"…They have a purpose statement?
"Yeah, they have a purpose statement. He’s a purpose-driven cardinal! (Laughter) I love this man. Wonderful cardinal.
"Actually, we’re working on the Catholic workbook for the 'Purpose Driven Life' that has been written by some priests in America. I asked Cardinal Rosales if somebody could review it and tell us what needed to be changed before it went to print and he could give the blessing that it was okay, that it was for all Catholic congregations and cathedrals, churches, chapels.
"When I met with Cardinal Rosales the other day, he gave me the idea to do 40 Days of Vision. It was a very good meeting …."
Photos of this historic ecumenical meeting can be found here and here.
Last week, Herescope ran a series that began (7/31/06) with an excerpt from C. Peter Wagner in the early 1980s describing how the neoevangelicals brought in the social gospel. Since Wagner has been one of Rick Warren's "mentors" and has been at the forefront of this change, it is relevant to take a second look at what he wrote and how it impacts these statements by Rick Warren above.
Wagner cited an important historical book that was eventually to transform evangelical mission doctrines and strategies, Re-Thinking Missions: A Laymen's Inquiry After One Hundred Years by The Commission of Appraisal, William Ernest Hocking, Chairman (Harper & Brothers Publ., 1932). This book was a report compiled by a commission which was funded by John D. Rockefeller, Jr. to the tune of $320,000 -- a good chunk of money at that time. The Rockefeller dynasty was beginning to realize that to achieve their corporate expansionist aims globally they needed to pay attention to the social realm -- health care, sanitation, education, etc. -- with a goal of creating "healthy workers" for increased productivity. The political realm -- which was getting increasingly revolutionary around the world, particularly due to rising communism -- was also a concern of the Rockefellers because of the adverse economic impact to their business enterprises.
"…[John D. Rockefeller, Jr.] did not wish to rekindle Fundamentalist fires. He convened a gathering of well-heeled northern Baptists at his Manhattan town house on January 17, 1930, to allow [John] Mott to make his pitch. They wanted to include other mainstream northern Protestant denominations in a formal interchurch commission to oversee the Laymen's Foreign Missions Inquiry. And Junior, of course, agreed to pick up the entire tab, which by the end of the year came to $320,000.
"The Laymen's Foreign Missions Inquiry sent out its survey team to Asia in September 1930. It returned nine months later and issued its report, Rethinking Missions, in 1932….
"Rethinking Missions recommended reforms that few Fundamentalists could accept: an end to segregation from Asian cultures and appreciation of elements in Asian faiths that were kindred to Christ's message; more quiet lessons of examples and programs in education, medicine, and agriculture and less evangelical proselytizing; more cooperation and efficiency to reduce the wasteful overlap of programs; and, most important, a gradual transfer of power to indigenous churches." (Colby & Dennett, Thy Will Be Done, pp. 39-40)
"The report was a bombshell, running through ten printings in six months…."
Re-Thinking Missions was to become one of the landmark reports that reinvented Christianity. Although this report was initiated by the more liberal elements of leadership, these concepts gradually filtered down into reworked mission theologies of the neoevangelicals in a series of conferences that were held a generation later (see 7/31/06 Herescope). A softened-up, watered-down, neutralized social gospel Christianity would replace the old Fundamentalism with all of its nasty stereotypes. This report set the stage for contextualization and syncretism by declaring that it was time for a change, including "an altered theological outlook" coinciding with "the emergence of a basic world-culture." (p. 18)
From a cursory look at the preceding paragraphs it is obvious that neoevangelicalism would eventually head on a course that would further corporate business expansion ("marketplace transformation") by focusing their attentions upon the social sector -- precisely Rick Warren's Global Giants of his P.E.A.C.E. Plan.
Tomorrow's post, Lord willing, will include some key excerpts from this document.
The Truth:
"For my people is foolish, they have not known me; they are sottish children, and they have none understanding: they are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge." (Jeremiah 4:22)
08/09/06
PSEUDO-MISSION: The Road to Syncretism
“And that’s what God is doing today, He’s calling people out of the world for His name, whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ because they’ve been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus but they know in their hearts that they need something that they don't have, and they turn to the only light that they have, and I think that they are saved, and that they’re going to be with us in heaven.”
(Billy Graham on Robert Schuller’s “Hour of Power,” #1426,"Say 'Yes' To Possibility Thinking," May 31, 1997 [Schuller agreed with Graham, ed.])
"There is a simpler, more universal, less contentious and less expressive religion coming into human consciousness which might be called the religion of the modern man, the religious aspect of the coming world-culture."
(Re-Thinking Missions, 1932, p. 21)
Pastor Anton Bosch, commenting on this particular remark by Billy Graham, and describing recent similar comments by other well-known evangelical leaders, wrote:
"The theological term for this is 'inclusivism' meaning that all are included. A slightly different form of the same thing is called 'universalism.' There are different versions of this heresy, some more extreme than others. …
"[W]e are being bombarded with feelings of guilt because we dare be so intolerant and bigoted to suggest that only those who accept the substitutionary death of Jesus Christ can be saved. We are told to be tolerant of others and that it is 'unchristian' and unloving to believe, let alone say that Jesus is the only way to God."
This heresy of "inclusivism" had its beginnings in "contextualization." Contextualization was a bait and switch. It was first proposed as a way to make the Gospel more relevant to different cultures. The anthropologists and social scientists had persuaded religious leaders that tailoring the Gospel to fit the alternative dynamics of eastern and pagan cultures would make it more relevant and compassionate. This strategy was first proposed as a viable mission strategy in 1932 as a result of the Laymen's Inquiry which resulted in the book Re-Thinking Missions. Yesterday's post explained some of the background to this Inquiry which set the future course for missionary work.
The committee’s report for the Re-Thinking Missions Laymen's Inquiry project was quite stunning. It called for an “altered theological outlook” – “world-view changes” – for global mission work. The report first outlined the positive achievements of "modern" science which had made Christianity much more positive by its inclusion:
“It would be a poor compliment to our theological insight if a hundred years so full of intellectual development, of advance in scientific thought and of philosophical activity, had brought no progress in the conceptions attending our religious experience….
“Of all changes in the world, a theological change will bear most directly upon the missionary motive. If the conception of hell changes, if attention is drawn away from the fear of God’s punitive justice in the everlasting torment of the unsaved, to happier conceptions of destiny, if there is a shift of concern from other-worldly issues to the problems of sin and suffering in the present life, these changes will immediately alter that view of the perils of the soul which gave to the original motive of Protestant missions much of its poignant urgency.
“Generally speaking, these changes have occurred: Western Christianity has in the main shifted its stress from the negative to the affirmative side of its message; it is less a religion of fear and more a religion of beneficence. It has passed through and beyond the stage of bitter conflict with the scientific consciousness of the race over details of the mode of creation, the age of the earth, the descent of man, miracle and law, to the stage of maturity in which a free religion and a free science become inseparable and complementary elements in a complete world-view. Whatever its present conception of the future life, there is little disposition to believe that sincere and aspiring seekers after God in other religions are to be damned: it has become less concerned in any land to save men from eternal punishment than from the danger of losing the supreme good.” (pp. 18-19) [emphasis added]
The report then proceeded to lay the groundwork for a new gospel of contextualization:
“There are thus several factors conspiring to one end: namely, the necessity that the modern mission make a positive effort, first of all to know and understand the religions around it, then to recognize and associate itself with whatever kindred elements there are in them.” (p. 33) [italics in original, bold added]
To illustrate this point, Re-Thinking Missions quoted from a missionary's letter which stated in glowing words that:
"'…[A] new attitude is developing. It has grown out of the belief that we all, Christians, Buddhists, Shintoists, or whatever other faith, have much to learn from each other and much to contribute to each other. Also we feel that if we spiritual leaders are to accomplish anything for the good of society as a whole we ought first to get together as religionists and come to know each other sympathetically.'" (p. 34) [emphasis added]
Commenting on this letter, Re-Thinking Missions described the hindrances to such compatibility with other faiths -- namely Fundamentalism. Notice that previous traditional missionary work was described as "the conquest of the world" -- a gross overstatement:
“The direction of growth, here indicated, may appear so natural that the extent of the implied change of attitude is not realized. Out account has not yet brought forward the most powerful of the reasons which have inspired the long hesitation, namely this: that the friendly recognition of other faiths means to many Christians in the mission fields and at home an essential disloyalty, a compromise with error, and a surrender of the uniqueness of Christianity.…
“The original objective of the mission might be stated as the conquest of the world by Christianity: it was a world benevolence conceived in terms of a world campaign. There was one way of salvation and only one, one name, one atonement: this plan with its particular historical center in the career of Jesus must become the point of regard for every human soul. The universal quality of Christianity lay not along in its valid principles of truth and morals, but in an essential paradox, the universal claim of one particular historic fact: the work of Christ.…” (p. 35-36) [emphasis added]
Therefore, a solution was suggested to overcome the troublesome exclusiveness of the traditional tenets of Christianity -- the assertion that there is a common core of truth in all faiths. In other words, a foundation upon which to form a basis for syncretism:
“If there were not at the core of all the creeds a nucleus of religious truth, neither Christianity nor any other faith would have anything to build on.” (p. 37) [emphasis added]
To open the door more completely to new spirituality, Re-Thinking Missions exaggerated contending for the faith (calling it an "attack") and suggested more "positive" solutions:
“It is clearly not the duty of the Christian missionary to attack the non-Christian systems of religion. Nor is it his primary duty to denounce the errors and abuses he may see in them: it is his primary duty to present in positive form his conception of the true way of life and let it speak for itself.” (p. 40) [emphasis added]
“The Christian will… regard himself a co-worker with the forces which are making for righteousness within every religious system. If he can in any way aid or encourage these forces, he will regard it a part of his Christian service to spend thought and energy this way." (p. 40) [emphasis added]
Finally, the occult aspects of these other world religions are dismissed entirely as "superstition" which enlightened people need no longer treat as real:
"At present the most effective influence combating superstition is the spread of general enlightenment, especially of the scientific habit of mind…." (p. 41) [emphasis added]
Re-Thinking Missions was a pivotal report which laid the foundation for evangelical missionary endeavors, a point which is acknowledged by C. Peter Wagner (see Herescope post 7/31/06). Reading this report sheds considerable light on the problems and issues that are prevalent today. Interestingly, Billy Graham's father-in-law, Dr. Nelson Bell -- a medical missionary -- opposed this report, calling its methods "subtly coercive and improper." (Colby & Dennett, Thy Will Be Done, p. 40)
The Truth:
Pastor Bosch offered an excellent refutation of this situation in his commentary.
"For the truth we cannot rely on the opinions of men but have to trust the Word of God alone. It was Jesus Himself who said: 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.' (John 14:6). Now which part of that verse is hard to understand or is open to interpretation? The words 'no one' and 'except' are as narrow and exclusive as you can get. Peter said: 'Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved' (Acts 4:12). Paul said: “There is… one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus” (1Tim 2:5). Hebrews asks how we will escape (since there is no escape), if we neglect the salvation that came through Jesus Christ (Heb 2:4). Over and over the Bible clearly teaches that there is no other way to be saved except through faith in the finished work of the Cross. Jesus said that those who try to enter by some other way are thieves and robbers (John 10:8).
"To say that there are other ways of salvation is basically saying that Jesus wasted His time to come in the flesh and to suffer and die! If God can save others through some other means then there was no need for Christ to die. Don’t you think if there was some other way, God would have used it? Did Jesus not ask this very question at the eleventh hour? But there was no other way. Jesus Had to die in our place and take our sin so that His righteousness can be reckoned to us. To say that people can be saved apart from the work of the Cross, is surely the greatest blasphemy against the precious Blood of Jesus Christ!…
"Don’t let the world deceive you into believing that it is unloving to tell people that Jesus is the only way. It is not loving to tell someone that they are just fine and that they will be saved even though they are on their way to eternal damnation. If we really love people, we will speak the truth to them. But, we have to do that in a loving and compassionate way. Unfortunately many of us adopt the attitude of 'I’m right and you’re wrong – so there.' No, by God’s grace we have been saved and we need to show the same love, compassion and mercy on those who do not know the Way as the Lord showed us. But we cannot be so afraid of offending people that we never tell them the truth.
"There is only one way to God and we must preach that message with all our might. Let’s love those of other religions enough to tell them that Jesus and Jesus alone saves."
08/14/06
PSEUDO-MISSION: Syncretism Ethics & Moral Facades
"By putting the issues of poverty and social justice atop his agenda, Warren would like to cross religious and political fissures. 'I'm a bridge builder, not a divider,' he says. Last summer, working with Bono and his antipoverty group, DATA, Warren called upon his network of pastors to urge President Bush to spend more on foreign aid, cancel the debt owed by poor nations, and lower trade barriers that hurt farmers in the global south. What he's aiming for, says Geoff Tunnicliffe, CEO of the World Evangelical Alliance, is a 'rebranding of American evangelism.'"
(Marc Gunther, "Power Pastor: Will Success Spoil Rick Warren?" Fortune, 10/31/05) [emphasis added]
“If there is to be a new world it must come first of all through a new spirit in the nations. There must be created an international mind and conscience; we must learn to think of humanity as one family and to have a world patriotism; they must keep their minds free from jealousy and selfishness, and must base their policy and practice upon true and Christian principles, they must be as quick to resent injustice by a nation as by an individual. Humanity must become an ideal in order that it may become an actuality. World patriotism must be a faith, a chivalry, before it can be an organization. International peace must become an aspiration, a religion, before it will become a reality.”
(Samuel Z. Batten of the FCC, The New World Order (1919), cited by Martin Erdmann, Building the Kingdom of God on Earth, p. 122. [emphasis added])
Welcome to the new age of global moral ethics. Upon this foundation can be built a syncretistic monument to Babel. The "rebranding of American evangelism" is one such pillar. Religious leaders have been working on erecting this edifice, using the crème de la crème of the social scientists’ tools, for nearly 100 years. The intent is to forge a common standard of ethical values throughout the world. And what better way to do it than under the banner of peace and good works?
Various terminologies have been used to cloak an international agenda to forge universal moral ethics. The past few decades these terms have been recognizable in education circles: character education, values education, conflict resolution, global education, consensus-based decision making, common core values, global citizenship, community service, world core curriculum, principle education, etc.(1) The latest fad word is "worldview."
"Worldview" is a particularly interesting word because it carries the secondary meaning of "global view." The new global ethics is just that -- a view of the world which is based on the assumption that there are "common core" values. To certain Christian groups, this means finding the "common core" values of Christianity. But, define "Christianity." This effort is usually taken a step further into dominionism, based on assumptions of "natural law" and "natural rights."
Beware of the "bait and switch." To the globalists -- who are also dominionists -- these "common core" values form the basis of a potent new syncretism upon which global peace and world government can be built. Rick Warren particularly bears watching in his new role as an international "bridge builder."
The early history of this "moral law" movement can be found in the speeches, life work and writings of John Foster Dulles.(2) His concept of the brotherhood of all humankind was based upon a syncretistic moral law, global in scope. Dr. Martin Erdmann, in his landmark book Building the Kingdom of God on Earth, describes Dulles objectives and beliefs:
“In 1944 Dulles had already reminded Christian audiences in numerous speeches that they do not ‘alone possess the qualities of mind and soul upon which [the] solution depends.’ Although ‘Christians believe that the moral law has been most perfectly revealed by Jesus Christ,’ it had to be recognized that ‘the moral, or natural, law is revealed through other religions, and can be comprehended by all men, so that it is a force far more universal than any particular religion.’ In the 1950s he still defined his belief as the application of principles derived from ‘the natural and moral law which have wider acceptance than Christianity’.… In an address at the ‘Festival of Faith’ of the San Francisco Council of Churches, on June 19, 1955, Dulles defined the moral law as a pantheistic concept undergirding each religion, which imbues the United Nations with the moral force of its principles.
“In short, Dulles did not believe in the orthodox tenets of Christianity, but rather in a selective and subjective interpretation of Christ’s moral teachings. It was an abstract faith in the expediency of the generally recognizable ‘Moral Law’, as defined by Dulles himself, governing the affairs of the universe as an impersonal force.” (pp. 120-121) [emphases added]
Erdmann documents how Dulles spent considerable effort to create a grassroots movement within the Federal Council of Churches to call for the creation of a United Nations. In the 1940s, Dulles delivered a speech, "The Moral Foundation of the United Nations," in which he outlined his belief that there are common moral principles that can be used to "govern the conduct of nations":
‘The success of the United Nations have been largely due to those throughout the world who believe that there is a God, a divine Creator of us all; that he has prescribed moral principles which undergird this world with an ultimate authority equal to that of physical law; that this moral law is one which every man can know if only he opens his heart to what God has revealed; that these moral principles enjoin not merely love and respect of the Creator but also love and respect for fellow man, because each individual embodies some element of the Divine; and that moral principles should also govern the conduct of nations… Thus, as we gather here as representatives of many faiths held throughout the world, we can find much ground for satisfaction. It has been demonstrated that the religious people of the world can generate the motive power required to vitalize a world organization by providing it with principles which are guiding not merely in theory but in fact.” (Footnote #274, p. 142, Erdmann) [emphases added]
In another speech delivered Sept. 8, 1946, "World Brotherhood Through the State," pertaining to his newly-created United Nations, Dulles explained:
"A major purpose of the United Nations is to "be a center for harmonizing the actions of nations' in regard to economic, social and humanitarian matters.…
"Finally, there is the moral law. That is not something which only preachers talk about on Sunday. It is something that the most realistic politicians take into account. Today all national leaders talk in terms of the moral law. No doubt that reflects some hypocrisy. But the very fact that it seems necessary to present a moral facade is proof that the moral law is a recognized power.
"Moral law is variously expressed and understood. Its implications do not seem to all to be the same. It needs to be translated into codified world law. But even today moral law can serve mightily to direct the conduct of nations into ways consonant with peace." (Henry P. Van Dusen, ed., The Spiritual Legacy of John Foster Dulles, Westminster Press, 1960) [emphases added]
The Truth:
"Behold ye trust in lying words, that cannot profit. Will ye steal, murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods whom ye know not; And come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?" (Jeremiah 7:8-10)
(1) For more information on this point, see the deliberate dumbing down of america by Charlotte T. Iserbyt (Conscience Press, 1999), particularly the sections on "character education." Also see http://www.crossroad.to for numerous articles on this topic.
(2) For more history on John Foster Dulles, see the 4/18/06 Herescope, "The New Deal Kingdom."
08/15/06
PSEUDO-MISSION: The Global C.H.U.R.C.H
"I believe that faith, ethics and morals play an important role in the fight against HIV/AIDS," Dr. Warren continued. "I am not a scientist, a medical professional or activist. I am a pastor, whose motives are different. I love people, and I have a Savior named Jesus who said, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"
(Saddleback press release, "Rick and Kay Warren Challenge Church Leaders to Play a More Vital Role in the Global AIDS Response By Leveraging Their Unique Resources," Monday August 14, 10:31 am ET.) [emphasis added]
This press release about AIDS was issued on the final leg of Dr. Richard Warren's 35-day journey international tour. We already know Warren's ethics because he described it when launching his 2nd Reformation over a year ago -- "whatever it takes." How to put legs on this new pragmatism is spelled out in the remainder of the press release:
"In her workshop, Kay Warren further challenged that there needs to be an integrated effort between governments, business/NGOs and the church in order to keep AIDS from galloping into the next generation…. '[W]e need to respond to this crisis on all fronts with everyone doing their part -- at times working in groups with which you may not agree….'"
"In that context, the Warrens said they are pressing for a "coalition of civility," where diverse groups can disagree without being disagreeable or denouncing one another, and seek unity without requiring uniformity in order to reach critical mass in the response to HIV/AIDS.
"Dr. Warren emphasized that the Church brings several distinctives to the table that neither governments nor business/NGO organizations will ever have, including the largest distribution network; the biggest pool of volunteers… local credibility, the longest record of caring …; moral authority to carry out its mission; and the power of God. 'I make no apology that the Church can lead the way in the name of Jesus Christ,' he said.
"Dr. Warren also … said there are six ways that every church …can get involved in caring for people infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. These can be summarized in the acronym C.H.U.R.C.H.: Care for and comfort the sick; Handle testing and counseling; Unleash a volunteer labor force; Remove the stigma; Champion healthy behavior; and Help with nutrition and medications." [emphases added]
Collaboration -- the "integrated effort between governments, business/NGOs and the church" -- is not a new idea. It is an idea that has been propagated relentlessly by the international think tanks and foundations since the latter half of the 1980s. The public documents were often accompanied by diagrams showing spikes on the hub of a wheel, with each area of society attached to a central governing structure.
History already shows us the ill effects of collaboration, particularly in Africa. Readers may recall The Constant Gardener, which uncovered the collaboration of pharmaceutical companies and governments. Or, Hotel Rwanda with its international collaborative failures. Or, the BBC production Rhodes, which depicted the horrifying results that can happen when missionaries collaborate with corporate and government interests. The point in bringing up these examples is that ethics dissolved into mush because of the competing interests of collaboration. We are apparently supposed to believe that man's nature has somehow changed, and that he is now endued with supreme good (particularly intentions) that will outweigh or overcome any bad.
In Rick Warren's world, the church plays a pivotal role in this collaboration -- uniquely positioned as a "distribution network" for -- what? What precisely will the church be delivering in collaboration with these NGOs, corporations, and governments? Will it be the saving Gospel message of Jesus Christ? The C.H.U.R.C.H. acronym doesn't include a "G" for Gospel.
We do have a few clues. There is pertinent history to this entire P.E.A.C.E. Plan going back over a half century. It is entirely possible that Dr. Richard Warren is the first man uniquely poised to ever accomplish the goals and dreams first articulated by one of the leading internationalists of all time -- John Foster Dulles. (See previous Herescope posts.)
In 1942 Dulles described the PURPOSE of the churches, which was seen as an obligation "to fulfill the objectives of progressive internationalism which in the end would bring God's kingdom to this earth." To this end Dulles proposed a "moral law" which could effect "peaceful change." The Federal Council Bulletin [FCC] reporting on the "National Study Conference on the Churches and a Just and Durable Peace," chaired by Dulles and held at Delaware, Ohio, stated the dominionist aim that:
"…[A] supreme responsibility rests upon the church of Christ; Christians should, as citizens, seek to translate their beliefs into realities; they must seek that the Kingdom of the world become the Kingdom of Christ." [emphasis added]
The Commission on a Just and Durable Peace issued thirteen principles for peace at this conference.
"Principle One proclaims that there was, in fact, a 'moral law' that 'undergirds the world'. According to Principle Two, 'the sickness and suffering which afflict our present society are proof of indifference to, as well as direct violation of, the moral law.' Furthermore, 'all share in responsibility for the present evils.'" [emphasis added]
A national public relations campaign was then launched with the funding assistance of the Rockefeller Foundation of New York. In October, 1942 the Commission published a booklet entitled A Righteous Faith for A Just and Durable Peace as part of this process. Points 3, 4, 5 and 6 are particularly relevant to today's discussion:
"(3) The ecumenical (world-wide) character of the Church enables it and its members to make a unique contribution toward world order. (4) Christian motivation supplies an essential prerequisite to effective action; (5) Christians must seek the cooperation of other faiths; (6) the churches do not have primary responsibility to devise the details of world order. But they must proclaim the enduring moral principles by which human plans are constantly to be tested." [emphasis added]
Obviously, the plan to use the church to help create a new world order is not a new plan. In fact, the methods to manipulate the church into action are remarkably similar –-
1) develop a common moral ethic,
2) create a synthesis of faiths
3) implement a collaboration of interests,
4) undertake a massive propaganda campaign,
5) invoke the ideal of global "peace,"
6) emotively appeal to "higher" causes, such as eliminating sickness and suffering,
7) develop a sense of guilt or responsibility to motivate action,
8) use the Scriptures as a way to shore up the purpose or the process.
[The quotations above are gleaned from Building the Kingdom of God on Earth: The Chruches' Contribution to Marshal Public Support for World Order and Peace, 1919-1945, by Dr. Martin Erdmann (Wipf & Stock, 2005), pp. 242-248).]
The Truth:
"They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace." (Jeremiah 6:14)
Commenting on this verse, Matthew Poole's Commentary (Hendrickson) states:
"[H]ere the prophet shows wherein their false dealing consists, viz. in daubing over their misery and danger that was coming on them, by persuading them that it should not come, or if it did, it would be easily cured; as some physicians do with their patients, that make light of a wound, and so neglect the true method of cure;…"
08/17/06
PSEUDO-MISSION: Inclusivism
We could talk about the inclusive tribe of God, for example: in a world of increasing tribalism, continually threatened by intertribal warfare and genocide, God is creating a barrier-breaking tribe that welcomes, appreciates, and links all tribes. This inclusive tribe isn't an in-group that makes other tribes into out-groups; rather it's a "come on in" group that seeks to help all tribes maintain their unique identity and heritage while being invited into a tribe of tribes who live together in mutual respect, harmony, and love -- because God is the universal tribal chief who created and loves all tribes."
(Brian McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus [W Publishing Group, 2006], pp. 147-8)
"There is no other way of creating an international ethos than the preaching of the Gospel of God as the Lord of the nations, and as the Father of the men, women and children out of whose mutual relations the mirages called nations are conjured up. It is only through a sense of the common Fatherhood of God that we can hope to awaken a sense of the brotherhood of Man. Thus there can be no international ethos without a religious basis."
(Arnold J. Toynbee, cited in William Paton, The Church and the New Order (1941)*
The best way in which to advance the Kingdom of God on earth is by adopting a new gospel of inclusivism. This idea first took root many decades ago. It is now producing abundant variegated fruit. This series of Herescope posts on Pseudo-Mission began with C. Peter Wagner's quotations (7/31/06) about the new nature of international mission work. He had referenced an earlier 1932 Laymen's Inquiry which issued a summary (book) entitled Re-Thinking Missions.
Re-Thinking Missions caused great controversy at the time, particularly among the Presbyterians (J. Gresham Machen, et al). After the dust settled, it became obvious that foreign missions needed to come out from the direct control of denominations if these recommended new theologies and practices were to be successfully instituted. Parachurch mission organizations were formed over the ensuing decades. Picking up the torch to implement the original suggestions in the book were the neoevangelicals, who headquartered themselves at Fuller Theological Seminary. Here, in a "think tank" atmosphere, men like C. Peter Wagner and Ralph Winter repackaged theology and reformatted mission strategies to fit the Re-Thinking Missions model. A "strategic" global mission movement was born.
It is therefore relevant to highlight a few more critical aspects of this proposed reform. Re-Thinking Missions endorsed inclusivism as a "natural stage" in the expansion of Christianity through mission work. In a section entitled "The Attitude Toward Reform," The authors wrote about "borrowing" from other faiths. It was their contention that Christianity could be "trusted" to co-mingle with other faiths and survive intact:
"b. Growth in non-Christian religions: borrowings. Whenever two vigorous religions are in contact, each will tend to borrow from the other -- terms, usages, ideas, even gods and articles of faith. After centuries of such borrowing they show strong resemblances, like Taoism and Buddhism in China, while holding to some precious points of difference. Commonly the borrowing is without acknowledgement: each religion takes what it can use from the other, or from the common fund of popular usage, and gives it a turn and a derivation suited to its own history. So Christianity in its early days adopted Christmas tree, or Yule festival, or imagery from the mysteries, or philosophical tools from the stock of Greece and Rome. Sometimes the new acquisitions are merely set up outside or loaded into the general warehouse without logical regard to what is already there: Hinduisim has frequently added to its inner variety this way. Sometimes they take root and grow on the existing stock, because they belong there by natural stages of advance." [emphasis added]
In this next section, note the clever reversal. The fact that pagan religions BORROW from Christianity and integrate them into their own framework is seen as a positive development. The opposite possibility -- that Christianity may BORROW from pagan religions and integrate their practices and doctrines -- isn't at first acknowledged:
"In the presence of Christianity, it is not surprising that the living religions of the East should grow in this way, especially Hinduism and Buddhism. They are not as a rule averse to acknowledging the debt, even while claiming that what they borrow is their own by right. In this way, little by little, much of Christianity is assimilated by these religions without calling it Christianity. Not merely modes of worship, preaching, Sunday schools, hymns, popular fads, but aspects of the conception of God, ethical notions, the honoring of Christ, may be taken over.
"What should be the attitude of the Christian mission to this process? At best, it would appear to be a striking success of its own work: a transfer of the substance apart from the name. With what we are concerned except for the spread through the world of what Christianity means?
"Nevertheless, there are misgivings. In part from a fear that the adoption will be imitative, unreal, or half-understood, leaving men satisfied with what resembles Christianity without its reality. In part from a very different fear, namely, that the adoption will be real as far as it goes, the non-Christian religion thereby receive new vigor, the contrast between it and Christainity be lessened, the motives which have led its member to come over into the Christian fellowship correspondeningly minimized. Those who feel this latter fear are evidently thinking in terms of competition. We have in mind a missionary who defines the God of Islam as a God of power, whereas the Christian God is a God of love. He is accordingly disturbed when he finds a Moslem teaching that the compassion of Allah is the same as the love of God: he inclines to cry plagiarism? and to warn all Moslems that the idea of God as loving Father is Christian and private property!
"It is time for the Christian movement to have overcome these unworthy fears springing from a sense of proprietorship. The unique thing in Christianity is not borrowable nor transferable without the transfer of Christianity itself. Whatever can be borrowed and successfully grown on another stock does in fact belong to the borrower. … Hence all fences and private properties in truth are futile: the final truth, whatever it may be, is the New Testament of every existing faith." [emphases added]
This conclusion is a stunning announcement, which is in effect saying that "all truth is God's truth" -- an integrationist position that permits the rapid dissolution of the tenets of Christianity due to BORROWING from other religions.
Note that the exclusivity of Christianity is being negatively portrayed as "competition" and "proprietorship." The authors make the argument is that any "Chrisitan who could be anxious" about "strengthening" a pagan religion "displays too little confidence in the merits of his own faith." What should be a better response for the poor missionary who expresses concern and dismay? The authors propose "rejoicing" in the fact that the "vitality of genuine religion is anywhere increased."
"He will look forward, not to the destruction of these religions, but to their continued co-existence with Christianity, each stimulating the other in growth toward the ultimate goal, unity in the completest religious truth." (pp. 43-44) [emphasis added]
So, then, the unity of all religious truth was the stated goal of Re-Thinking Missions. How to accomplish this emergent global Universalism was another matter. It became necessary for the Fuller Theological professors to conjure up new doctrines such as contextualization and redemptive analogies to teach to whole new generations of evangelical missionaries through such vehicles as the Perspectives course. Blunting the radical separateness of authentic Christianity was a key goal. Borrowing heavily from the methodologies of the social scientists, these leaders trained missionary candidates in group dynamics, dialogue and cross-cultural desensitization.
Al Dager, in his book The World Christian Movement (Sword, 2001), tackles this topic in a chapter entitled "Is Jesus the Only Way?" He notes that much of this came in through the dialectic of so-called "Christian Universalism" which "seeks a middle ground between biblical salvation through conscious surrender to Christ, and traditional Universalism."
Given the long history of this doctrinal perversion and compromise, is it any wonder that the pagan practices and beliefs of the New Age movement are so openly tolerated and embraced in modern neoevangelicalism?
The Truth:
"Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?" (Jeremiah 2:21)
*Cited in Martin Erdmann, Building the Kingdom of God on Earth, (Wipf & Stock, 2005), p. 112). See also footnote 200 on p. 136.
08/18/06
PSEUDO-MISSION: Meditation
"The first move is to hear from the heart and to think deeply about what you hear.’All who have ears to hear,' Jesus said, 'let them hear.' Hearing in this deep way means more than listening: it means thinking, and more than thinking. It means rethinking everything in light of the secret message. As we've seen, this profound rethinking is what the word repent means."
(Brian McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus (W Publishing Group, 2006) p. 105)
"Each man is a channel for the expression of God's truths. As we evolve from within outwards we conform ourselves to the reception of certain gifts. Each man is a power in himself. We have to rise to our best each time we call truths out. They exist in us potentially and are ever seeking an outlet for right expression."
Swamie A.P. Mukerji, Yoga Lessons for Developing Spiritual Consciousness (Yogi Publ. Society, 1911), p. 28.
Continuing on the topic of inclusivism from yesterday's post, the very next section of Re-Thinking Missions is subtitled "What These Developments Call For." Once mission work accepts inclusivism, then what is next? The answer to this was meditation!
The 1932 Laymen's Inquiry broached this subject by calling for a "deepening our grasp of what Christianity actually means." This highlighted phrase comes immediately after a disparaging comment that implies that standing on biblical Truth would be seen as "rivalry" or "counter-aggression" to other faiths. This type of Christianity "is suffering from the poverty, the rigidity, the inertness of conceptions." And therefore, the solution to this negativity is…
You guessed it… "[R]eligion cannot be handed on as a finished doctrine" and therefore we need a "renewal of insight" that requires "different ways," including "thought" and "conduct" and "experience." Which leads the Inquiry to make the following radical suggestion:
"Christianity, therefore, cannot afford to leave to Buddhism or to Hinduism the arts of meditation.…
"We would commend to the Christian Church a serious inquiry into the religious value of meditation, a study of the ways in which a further place for this function can be brought into the Christian life, without falling into the common abuses of monasticism.…
"If Christianity is to get a better hold on its own meaning, it must make a place for explorative thinking;…
"…[No] religion can do its work in the modern age without all the tools of reflection.…
"Christianity is not equipped to meet and converse with the religious leaders of the Orient until it can enter competently into their world of thought."
The Laymen's Inquiry claimed that "the non-Christian religions do contain elements of instruction for us." Therefore, they concluded, Christianity needs to hearken to Buddhism so that we can learn from it, for it is a faith that is:
"[T]ruly practical: for it is the depths of the universe which most directly stir the depths of selfhood, and the stability of the inner life is the source of all strength for outer action. It is Zen Buddhism, we remember, a cult of quietude and discipline, which has given to Japan so many strong men in public life." [emphasis added]
The Laymen's Inquiry concluded this section of the chapter by suggesting that mutual "sharing" of religious ideas would be beneficial -- in other words opening a dialogue with other faiths. They proposed the "establishment of centers here and there as persons and occasions offer, for the avowed purpose of facilitating such cooperative religious inquiry." Several footnotes suggest ashrams, Buddhist monasteries, or Catholic hostels and hospices as suitable locations for embarking on this experience of solitary thought and meditative arts. The expressed purpose for this activity is to "strengthen religion," not Christianity.
"Out of these conversations and thoughts there should come, in the first place, a steady growth of mutual understanding and respect among these seekers of various faiths; then that deepening of self-knowledge which is inseparable from a better knowledge of others; and from time to time, as the supreme success, the birth of an idea which shall stir and strengthen religion in the race." [emphasis added]
Time for a reality check. What is this eastern mystical practice of meditation which the Laymen's Inquiry so wished to emulate and embrace? A little book from that same era -- 1911 -- entitled Yoga Lessons for Developing Spiritual Consciousness by Swamie A.P. Mukerji (published by the Yogi Publication Society, Masonic Temple, Chicago, Illinois) introduced meditative practices and theologies to the western mind. Herein it is clearly stated that the goal of meditation is to cultivate the "DIVINITY WITHIN" (p. 13) and become "the DIVINE MAN" (p. 26) Selected quotes from the book shed light on the real nature of yoga and meditation:
"MEN are going up an ascending scale of existence." (p. 50)
"The ascension of the soul is the development of the Spiritual Consciousness….
It is the quickening of your evolution on the spirutal plane by the up-keep of a systematized line of though activity plus the self-determined exercise of volition." (p. 63)
"Man's will is God's will. What is of God is God. The Infinite exists, in full stature, in each living, breathing form. Hence to know youself is to know God. You are Bliss Eternal." (p. 52)
"Each man is to himself absolutely the way, the truth and the life." (p. 169) [all emphases in original]
The Christian church has come a long way. What may have seemed like a radical suggestion for mission work in 1932 is now being openly practiced in evangelical churches today.
The Truth:
"Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen,…" (Jeremiah 10:2a)
08/21/06
"A Whole New Species of Church Is Emerging"
The following post is an excerpt from Chapter 22 of In the Name of Purpose: Sacrificing Truth on the Altar of Unity by Tamara Hartzell. This new on-line book is a comprehensive and in-depth look at the nature of the purpose-driven movement. Chapter 22 is entitled "A Radically Different Kind of Church" for "the New Age." Today's excerpted section begins this chapter, subtitled: “A Whole New Species of Church Is Emerging.”
There is a “Christian” book that epitomizes the current path of the counterfeit Christianity, which is emerging as the old faith crumbles away. Although there are many such books published now, Growing Spiritual Redwoods by William Easum and Thomas Bandy1 provides a clear illustration of the “new way of thinking,” and has been acclaimed as “perhaps the best book about church transformation in this century.”2
Bill Easum is “one of the pioneering pastors of the church growth movement,” and is “one of the most highly respected church consultants and Christian futurists in North America.”3 Tom Bandy “consults with congregations for church growth and transformation,” and “congregational and denominational leaders regard Tom as one of the leading thinkers and writers today.”4 The two joined forces to form Easum, Bandy and Associates, which consults “with churches of every size and culture” and links “countless” leaders through “one of the largest religious interactive websites in North America.”5
In spite of the blatant (New Age) New Spirituality in their book, Growing Spiritual Redwoods has received high praises by men who are popular leaders themselves in today’s Christianity. Rick Warren, Lyle Schaller, and Leonard Sweet (whose own books are self-evident that he has fallen for the (New Age) New Spirituality6) have given this book the following endorsements:
“This may be the most significant study book for congregational leaders published in this century.” —Lyle Schaller (Growing Spiritual Redwoods – GSR; front cover)
“An epoch-marking—if not epoch-making—book. For a church living off of checks that reality won’t cash, this book is like an acid bath accounting from the bank examiners. There is no better audit of the collapse of the Christendom era, and no better audition for how to do ministry in the new world, than this one.” —Leonard Sweet (GSR; back cover)
“Every passage of this book contains spiritual nuggets of truth that can help your church to grow healthy and strong.” —Rick Warren (GSR; back cover; emphasis added)
In addition to this glowing endorsement, after he wrote The Purpose Driven Life, Growing Spiritual Redwoods was given five stars in one of Rick Warren’s Ministry Toolbox™ newsletters for 2003.7 And on Easum and Bandy’s website under, “What Christian leaders have to say about Tom Bandy,” the following praise by Rick Warren is still posted (more praise by Leonard Sweet and also by Brian McLaren is included there as well):
“‘I try to read everything Tom Bandy writes. He is always thought-provoking and helpful.’” —Rick Warren (Emphasis added)8
According to Tom Bandy, “a whole new species of church is emerging.” This emerging church is “not a machine”—“preoccupied with theological purity, ideological correctness, and behavioral conformity”—but “an organism.” This “organism” “worships differently, thinks differently, and depends on an entirely different kind of leadership.”9 This “new species of church” is the “Spiritual Redwood” growing in the midst of the diverse, cultural “forest” (GSR; p. 21).
“Some call it a ‘permission-giving’, ‘seeker sensitive’, ‘mall’, or ‘mega’ church, but it is in reality a ‘Tree of Life’ for the spiritually yearning public of the post-Christendom period.…
“They are churches designed to grow in a riot of diversity, rather than in repetitive sameness of polity or doctrine. They are designed to grow in constant, creative chaos …” —Thomas Bandy (“Growing Spiritual Redwoods (Summary)”)10
“Just finding your way through the forest, in order to discover the Spiritual Redwoods, can be a challenging prospect. Yet church leaders and spiritual seekers are setting out as never before to explore new territory, and grow a twenty-first-century version of the ‘Body of Christ.’ Before you even start, you need to equip yourself with a different map.…
“In Sacred Cows Make Gourmet Burgers, Bill [Easum] began to explore the ‘coastline’ of this new age by describing the ‘quantum world.’ It is a world of fluid processes and changing relationships, rather than fixed forms and enduring structures. In Kicking Habits: Welcome Relief for Addicted Churches, Tom [Bandy] began to explore the ‘coastline’ of this new age by describing systems of constant change, surrounded by energy fields of core visions, values, and beliefs. Together we have been further inspired by George Hunter’s description of the new age as a ‘pre-Christian’ world of religious and cultural ferment, and deep and diverse spiritual yearning.” (GSR; p. 22; bold added)
No doubt this would adamantly be denied, but Easum and Bandy’s various descriptions of this “new age” have remarkable similarities to the New Spirituality of the New Age. The following pages of nuggets from their teachings in Growing Spiritual Redwoods speak clearly for themselves in this regard.
Their highly acclaimed book includes the following changes taking place “that are changing the map for Christians”—
• from “Ultimate Truths” to “Dialogical Truths;”
• from “Either-Or Choices” to “Both-And Choices;”
• from “Male vs. Female Genders” to “Unique Personhoods;”
• from “Formal Boundaries” to “Changing Patterns;”
• from “Religion” to “Spirituality;”
• from “Prophetic Confrontation” to “Visionary Direction;”
• from “Authoritative Voices” to “Spiritual Coaches;”
• from “Guardians of Truth” to “Motivators for Mission.” (GSR; pp. 23-24)
This new post-truth age has been embraced by those who welcome the demise of traditional Christianity. Their “changing patterns” have abandoned the “formal boundaries” of God’s truth to explore man’s “visionary direction” for attempting to unite both God and the broad way.
Although religion (theology/doctrine) divides, God and spirituality are viewed as universal and uniting. And this “spirituality” that people want to talk about in the emerging “new species of church” is no different than the “new religion” (faith) that the Angel of light and his fallen minions have been working toward:
“… people do not want to talk about religion; they do want to talk about spirituality!… The religion ‘Church Folks’ want to discuss is a body of correct information and acceptable behavior with which they want others to agree and conform. The ‘spirituality’ about which people want to talk is an attitude or orientation to daily living, and perspective from anyone is equally welcome.” (GSR; p. 37; bold added)
“The new religion is on the way, and it is one for which all previous religions have prepared us. It differs only in that it will no longer be distinguished by dogmas and doctrines, but it will be essentially an attitude of mind, an orientation to life, to man and to God. It will also be a living service.… Individualism and separatedness will disappear as that kingdom comes into being. The collective consciousness is its major expression and quality.… This is the challenge which today confronts the Christian Church. The need is for vision, wisdom and that wide tolerance which will see divinity on every hand and recognize the Christ in every human being.” —Alice Bailey (Emphasis added)11
“They [Spiritual Redwoods] empower people … to find their own incarnation of Jesus in the lives of people who have not yet experienced the gospel.” (GSR; p. 209; emphasis added)
This inclusive New Spirituality/new religion has been further described by Neale Donald Walsch’s “God”:
“[A]ll people do not hold the same religious beliefs. And, in fact, not all people even participate in religion or church, in any form.
“Spirituality, on the other hand, is universal. All people participate in it. All people agree with it.…
“This is because ‘spirituality’ is nothing more than life itself, as it is.…
“The only discussion left then is whether life and God are the same things. And I tell you, they are.” (Emphasis added)12
This (New Age) New Spirituality, common to both the counterfeit kingdom and the emerging false church, is all-inclusive and presents Jesus as a way of relativism.
“… culture itself, in all its complexities and nuances, can become a vehicle for eternal truth.” (GSR; pp. 199-200; emphasis added)
“Anyone and anything can be a vehicle for the expression of God—but never contain the fullness of God. Therefore, the church recognizes that God will simultaneously employ and shatter … all doctrines, all ideologies … even within the church itself.” (GSR; p. 36; emphasis added)
_______________________________________
To continue reading this fascinating chapter, which investigates the authors' claims that the Crucifixion and Resurrection are "debatable" and "changeable" and "metaphor," go to http://inthenameofpurpose.org/chp22.htm. In the Name of Purpose: Sacrificing Truth on the Altar of Unity is a free e-book. Click here to open the e-book in a PDF file.
The Truth:
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world. Whosoever shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God dwelleth in him, and he in God.” (1 John 4:14-15)
Endnotes:
1. William M. Easum and Thomas G. Bandy, Growing Spiritual Redwoods (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 1997).
2. Lyle Schaller, as quoted on About Us, EBA Origins, Easum, Bandy and Associates, http://www.easumbandy.com/aboutEBA/origins.html.
3. Ibid., and also About Us, EBA Team, Bill Easum, Easum, Bandy and Associates, http://www.easumbandy.com/aboutEBA/team.html?b=Bill%20Easum.
4. About Us, EBA Team, Tom Bandy, http://www.easumbandy.com/aboutEBA/team.html?b=Tom%20Bandy.
5. About Us, EBA Origins, http://www.easumbandy.com/aboutEBA/origins.html.
6. For information on Leonard Sweet and the (New Age) New Spirituality, see http://www.crossroad.to/Quotes/Church/post-modern/leonard-sweet.htm; http://herescope.blogspot.com/; http://www.sliceoflaodicea.com; and http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/leonardsweet.htm.
7. Book Look, Rick Warren’s Ministry Toolbox™, Issue #83, 1/1/2003, http://www.pastors.com/RWMT/?ID=83.
8. As quoted in “What Christian leaders have to say about Tom Bandy,” About Us, Easum, Bandy, and Associates, http://www.easumbandy.com/tomBandyB.html.
9. “Growing Spiritual Redwoods (Summary)” by Thomas G. Bandy, Free Resources, Easum, Bandy, and Associates, http://www.easumbandy.com/resources/index.php?action=details&record=1074.
10. Ibid.
11. Alice Bailey, From Bethlehem to Calvary, Chapter Seven - Our Immediate Goal, The Founding of the Kingdom, http://laluni.helloyou.ws/netnews/bk/bethlehem/beth1081.html.
12. Neale Donald Walsch, Friendship with God: an uncommon dialogue, (New York, New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1999), pp. 376-377.
08/22/06
Spiritual "Breathing"
The following entry is an excerpt from chapter 6 of In the Name of Purpose: Sacrificing Truth at the Altar of Unity by Tamara Hartzell. This is an in-depth critique of Rick Warren's promotion of what is called Spiritual Formation:
“One way [to ‘pray all the time’] is to use ‘breath prayers’ throughout the day … You choose a brief sentence or a simple phrase that can be repeated to Jesus in one breath …” (PDL; p. 89)
“With practice you can develop the habit of praying silent ‘breath prayers’ for those you encounter.” (PDL; p. 299)
“Confession is ‘spiritual breathing’. Exhale your sins, inhale God’s love.” —Rick Warren (Emphasis added)5
Aside from the fact that exhaling your sins, etcetera, is sheer nonsense, “spiritual breathing” is an occultic method taught by Eastern gurus, such as Sri Chinmoy, for exhaling one’s impurities (sins) and inhaling things of God. It is based on the Eastern belief in pantheism that All is One -- All is God and God is All.
“We are all seekers, and our goal is the same: to achieve inner peace, light, and joy, to become inseparably one with our Source …
“To live in joy is to live the inner life. This is the life that leads to self-realisation. Self-realisation is God-realisation, for God is nothing other than the Divinity that is deep inside each one of us, waiting to be discovered and revealed.” —SriChinmoy.org6
“When you breathe in, if you can feel that the breath is coming directly from God, from Purity itself, then your breath can easily be purified. Then, each time you breathe in, try to feel that you are bringing infinite peace into your body.…
“Feel that you are breathing in not air but cosmic energy … and that you are going to use it to purify your body, vital, mind and heart.… It is flowing like a river inside you, washing and purifying your entire being. Then, when you breathe out, feel that you are breathing out all the rubbish inside you … Anything inside your system that you call undivine, anything that you do not want to claim as your own, feel that you are exhaling.…
“When you have perfected this spiritual breathing, all your impurity and ignorance will be replaced by God’s light, peace and power.” —Sri Chinmoy Centre (Emphasis added)7
In The Hindu-Yogi Science of Breath, in a chapter titled “Yogi Spiritual Breathing,” Yogi Ramacharaka also points out the goal of “spiritual breathing.” Basically, it is to come to the realization or “consciousness” that the true “identity of the Soul” is Divine (“a drop from the Divine Ocean”) and is connected with “the Universal Life” (i.e., All is One -- “at-one-ment with All”).8
Occultic practices, which originate from “doctrines of devils” regarding universal energies and forces, do not suddenly become acceptable to the holy Lord God merely because churches have “Christianized” them and refer to them as “Christian.” On the contrary, these practices have been designed by the evil spirit world to bring unity and “connection” with the god of this world, “the God of forces,” whom the Antichrist will honor (e.g., see Daniel 11:38-39).
Those who try to “Christianize” occultic practices are playing with “strange fire.” It is not a coincidence that professing Christians who practice the occultic Eastern methods of “prayer” are being gradually drawn into the interfaith Oneness of the world and its (New Age) New Spirituality. This “New” Spirituality is actually based on the so-called “Ancient Wisdom.”
The fruit of the unholy spirits who lie in wait to deceive all who enter the Angel of light’s realm is destructive. Their ultimate goal is to get mankind to believe in its own divinity -- the ultimate defiance against the Lord God.
To further their goal, the spirit world approached Alice Bailey to spread its teachings (the Ageless/Ancient Wisdom). Bailey was a theosophist and occultist who “telepathically” channeled many teachings from one of her spirit guides known as “the Tibetan,” or “the Master Djwhal Khul” -- “one of the Masters of the Wisdom.”9 (Appropriately, Bailey’s Publishing Company, which is now called Lucis Trust, was originally named Lucifer Trust.)
Together, in numerous books, these two detailed “the Plan” of the spirit realm (a.k.a. “the Spiritual Hierarchy”) for the coming New Age/New World Order/New World Religion and its (counterfeit) “Christ” and his kingdom (which will be elaborated on later). In fact, coining the term New Age has even been attributed to Bailey.10 She and her spirit guide also detailed the methods and fruit of occultic practices, such as the following:
“… by surrendering himself to the life at the center and there holding himself poised and still, yet alert, the light will break in and reveal to the disciple that which he needs to know. He learns to express that inclusive love which is his major requirement and to let go the narrow, one-pointed attitude which he has hitherto regarded as love. He welcomes then all visions, if they serve to lift and comfort his brothers; he welcomes all truths, if they are the agents of revelation to other minds; he welcomes all dreams if they can act as incentives to his fellow men. He shares in them all, yet retains his poised position at the center.” —Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul (Emphasis added)11
“Contemplation has been described, as a psychic gateway, leading from one state of consciousness to another.” —Alice Bailey (Emphasis added)12
“In contemplation, a higher agent enters in. It is the Soul that contemplates. The human consciousness ceases its activity and the man becomes what he is in reality - a soul, a fragment of divinity, conscious of its essential oneness with Deity. The Higher Self becomes active, and the lower or personal self is entirely quiescent and still, whilst the true spiritual Entity enters into its own kingdom and registers the contacts that emanate from that spiritual realm of phenomena.…
“The man’s consciousness, therefore, is no longer focused in that waiting mind, but has slipped over the borderland into the realm of spirit and he becomes literally the soul, functioning in its own realm, perceiving the ‘things of the Kingdom of God,’ able to ascertain truth at first hand …” —Alice Bailey (Bold added)13
“… on the higher planes we are all one. One life pulsates and circulates through all … This is part of the revelation which comes to a man who stands in the ‘Presence’ with his eyes occultly opened.…
“Faith is lost in sight, and things unseen are seen and known. No more can he doubt, but he has become instead, through his own effort, a knower.
“His oneness with his brothers is proven, and he realizes the indissoluble link which binds him to his fellowmen everywhere.” —Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul (Bold added)14
Sadly, warning people to compare all subjective experiences with the final authority of God’s Word is commonly dismissed with scornful and fallacious worldly reasoning. Subjective experience is now more important than truth to people and is even now viewed as “truth” itself. Refusing to acknowledge the dangers shows a tremendous lack of understanding of the occult and of the devices of our spiritual enemy.
The journey down this occult path will not lead to becoming “like Christ.” But it will lead to the deceptive “awakening” of the “Christ consciousness” within, which is defined as the following by Ray Yungen in A Time of Departing: How Ancient Mystical Practices are Uniting Christians with the World’s Religions:
“Christ consciousness
Taught by New Agers to be the state of awareness, reached in meditation, in which one realizes that one is divine and one with God and thereby becoming a Christ or an enlightened being.”15
“Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” (1 Peter 5:8)
Endnotes:
5. “‘The Purpose-Driven Life’: Author Rick Warren,” Talk Today: Interact with people in the news, March 25, 2004, USATODAY.com, http://cgi1.usatoday.com/mchat/20040325002/tscript.htm.
6. Spirituality, Introduction, SriChinmoy.org, http://www.srichinmoy.org/spirituality/.
7. “Breathing Exercises,” Sri Chinmoy Centre, http://www.srichinmoycentre.org/meditation/meditation_exercises/breathin....
8. Yogi Ramacharaka, The Hindu-Yogi Science of Breath, Chapter XVI - Yogi Spiritual Breathing, © 1903 (Expired), Online Magical Library, http://www.hermetics.org/pdf/ScienceOfBreath.pdf, see pp. 62-65.
9. Alice Bailey, The Unfinished Autobiography, Appendix - The Arcane School - Its Esoteric Origins and Purposes (Appendix written by Foster Bailey), (Caux, Switzerland: Netnews Association and/or its suppliers, 2002), http://www.netnews.org -- http://laluni.helloyou.ws/netnews/bk/autobiography/auto1103.html. See also this book’s Appendix - My Work (Appendix written by the Tibetan), http://laluni.helloyou.ws/netnews/bk/autobiography/auto1084.html.
10. Ray Yungen, A Time of Departing: How Ancient Mystical Practices are Uniting Christians with the World’s Religions, 2nd Edition, pp. 28, 112.
11. Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul, Esoteric Psychology II, Chapter II - The Ray of Personality, The Coordination of the Personality, (Caux, Switzerland: Netnews Association and/or its suppliers, 2002), http://www.netnews.org -- http://laluni.helloyou.ws/netnews/bk/psychology2/psyc2149.html.
12. Alice Bailey, From Intellect to Intuition, Chapter VI - Stages in Meditation, III. The Stage of Contemplation, (Caux, Switzerland: Netnews Association and/or its suppliers, 2002), http://www.netnews.org -- http://laluni.helloyou.ws/netnews/bk/intellect/inte1043.html.
13. Ibid., http://laluni.helloyou.ws/netnews/bk/intellect/inte1042.html.
14. Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul, Initiation, Human and Solar, Chapter XII - The Two Revelations, (Caux, Switzerland: Netnews Association and/or its suppliers, 2002), http://www.netnews.org -- http://laluni.helloyou.ws/netnews/bk/initiation/init1047.html.
15. Ray Yungen, A Time of Departing, p. 196.
08/23/06
New Spirituality: A portion of the truth?
From the chapter entitled "One Truth," Many Theologies," in Tamara Hartzell's new on-line book In the Name of Purpose: Sacrificing Truth at the Altar of Unity, is a discussion on “A Portion of Truth, Great or Small, Is Found in Every Religious and Philosophical System.” Excerpted with permission:
“In every race and nation, in every climate and part of the world … men have found the Path to God … The testimony to the existence of this Path is the priceless treasure of all the great religions and its witnesses are those who have transcended all forms and all theologies, and have penetrated into the world of meaning which all symbols veil.
“These truths are part of all that the past gives to man.… They are the inner structure of the One Truth upon which all the world theologies have been built …” —Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul (Emphasis added)1
“Another point which should be remembered is that in the new generation lies hope - … hope because of the promptness with which they recognize truth wherever it is to be found …
“The churches in the West need to realize that basically there is only one church, but it is not necessarily only the orthodox Christian institution; God works in many ways, through many faiths and religious agencies; in their union will the fullness of truth be revealed.” —Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul (Emphasis added)2
In his biography of Rick Warren, Richard Abanes has a chapter titled, “A New Spirituality?” in which he tries to show that Rick Warren is against it. In this chapter, he defends Rick Warren’s tendency to quote “many non-Christians and people of other religious traditions.” Abanes points out that Rick Warren does this, not “because he agrees with them on everything,” and not “because he is promoting them as examples of sound Christians,” but because “he is showing that all ‘truth’—wherever it may be found—is God’s truth” (emphasis added)!3
This defense even challenges what Abanes had said in the beginning of his book: “Rick Warren’s mega-bestseller seems to be helping a lot of people find Jesus and focus on God as the only source of truth.”4
If “all ‘truth’ is God’s truth,” then these other sources of “truth” found in other religions (faiths) and perspectives must be given equal authority with God’s Word. Indeed, this is increasingly evident in those that believe this. Contrarily, the Lord God, Who is not on the broad way and is the truth and light, definitely is the only source of truth (light). Therefore, the truth can only be found in God and not “wherever it may be found” on the broad way of darkness, which is where “non-Christians” and “other religious traditions” are that Rick Warren is supposedly quoting “God’s truth” from!
This lack of discernment is prevalent in Christianity today, which is why the (New Age) New Spirituality is making such broad inroads into it. Yet God’s Word and warnings go unheeded when people only want to hear what is “positive” rather than the whole counsel of God, which includes a great deal of what is deemed “negative.”
The Spirit of truth, Who cannot be received by the world, is the One Who guides us into “all truth” when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ (see John 8:31-32, 16:13, and 14:17). He guides us into “all truth” through the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ, not through the teachings of different religions (faiths) as is believed today.
“We believe we can learn truth -- I’ve learned a lot of truth from different religions. Because they all have a portion of the truth.” —Rick Warren (Emphasis added)5
It isn’t both God’s truth and the broad way; it is either God’s truth or the broad way. Yet the former is exactly what the Angel of light, Lucifer, wants mankind to believe and has been teaching through his various channelers for a long time. In the 1888 issue of the theosophical magazine Lucifer, the popular occultist H. P. Blavatsky wrote an article titled, “To the Readers of ‘Lucifer,’” in which she expounded this doctrine of devils, which according to Lucifer’s devices has twisted and changed the meaning of “absolute truth”:
“Our motto was from the first, and ever shall be: ‘THERE IS NO RELIGION HIGHER THAN--TRUTH.’ Truth we -search for, and, once found, we bring it forward before the world, whencesoever it comes.…
“There is, and can be, but one absolute truth in Kosmos. And … if it is absolute it must also be omnipresent and universal; and that in such case, it must be underlying every world-religion -- the product of the thought and knowledge of numberless generations of thinking men. Therefore, that a portion of truth, great or small, is found in every religious and philosophical system, and that if we would find it, we have to search for it at the origin and source of every such system, at its roots and first growth, not in its later overgrowth of sects and dogmatism. Our object is not to destroy any religion but rather to help to filter each, thus ridding them of their respective impurities. In this we are opposed by all those who maintain, against evidence, that their particular pitcher alone contains the whole ocean.” —H. P. Blavatsky (Emphasis added; caps in the original)6
The emerging universal religion (the “New” Spirituality) does not seek to remove all religious divisions. This would actually oppose its purpose of getting people to believe there are many paths to God. Instead, it seeks to draw people into the belief that all religions (faiths) have drawn “a portion of truth” from the same source, the “ocean” of the “fullness of truth.” Then they can be lured deeper into deception. Those who believe that “the One Truth” underlies all religions (theologies) can easily be led into believing that all gods are simply diverse manifestations of “the one God” and that all religions are just a different path to God.
_______________________________________
The Truth:
"Hear ye, and give ear; be not proud: for the LORD has spoken. Give glory to the LORD your God, before He cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and while you look for light, He turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness. But if you will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places for your pride; and my eye eye shall weep sore, and run down with tears, because the LORD's flock is carried away captive." (Jeremiah 13:15-17)
Endnotes:
1. Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul, The Externalization of the Hierarchy, Section III - Forces behind the Evolutionary Process, http://laluni.helloyou.ws/netnews/bk/externalisation/exte1174.html.
2. Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul, Problems of Humanity, Chapter V - The Problem of the Churches, http://laluni.helloyou.ws/netnews/bk/problems/prob1062.html.
3. Richard Abanes, Rick Warren and the Purpose that Drives Him, p. 88.
4. Ibid., p. 11.
5. Interview with Rick Warren, CNN Larry King Live, Aired November 22, 2004, Transcript, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0411/22/lkl.01.html.
6. “To the Readers of ‘Lucifer’” by H. P. Blavatsky, Lucifer, January, 1888, http://www.blavatsky.net/blavatsky/arts/ToTheReadersOfLucifer.htm.
08/24/06
ONE world, ONE faith, ONE plan
One of the most mind-boggling sections in Tamara Hartzell's new online book In the Name of Purpose: Sacrificing Truth at the Altar of Unity is Chapter 16. It is a must-read for anyone trying to understand Rick Warren's grandiose Global P.E.A.C.E. Plan:
“Together as ONE We Can Change the World”
On June 3, 2005, Rick Warren announced his support of “The ONE Campaign: To Make Poverty History” in an e-mail titled, “Will You Join Me?” In it, he acknowledged that this Campaign has been “endorsed by a wide coalition of folks from all across the faith and political spectrum” (emphasis added). He also explained how he was joining with “U.S. Faith Leaders” in sending a letter to President Bush to lobby him to fight global poverty at the G8 Summit this past July. He and the other Faith Leaders included the following statements in their letter to Bush:
“Americans are uniting as ONE across political and religious divides to support action to overcome the emergency of global AIDS and extreme poverty.”
“Together as ONE, we can Make Poverty History this July.”1
Rick Warren also encouraged his readers to visit the website of The ONE Campaign, which has boldly declared:
“Together as ONE we can change the world.”2
In support of The ONE Campaign, on July 2, 2005 Rick Warren attended the Live 8 Concert in Philadelphia, of which he was reportedly made “official pastor.”3 In covering this event, Forbes reported:
“Prior to the concert, Warren joined One organizers in a rally on the steps behind the Philadelphia Art Museum to encourage young volunteers.
“‘Because you are involved in the One Campaign, you are interested in change,’ he said. ‘If you are serious about change, you need to do two things. First, focus on vision, not need; call out the greatness in people, not their guilt. Secondly, don’t tell it like it is, but rather like it could be, should be, and may be.
“‘We don’t want people to die of poverty or diseases for which we already have cures, because God loves them.’ Warren continued. I believe with all my heart we can do this - and I believe you are the generation to do it.’ Pastor Warren was joined on the platform by Pastor Herb Lusk, with whom he is partnering on the Purpose Driven ‘Stand for Africa’ campaign.
“‘I was in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968 when the voice of Martin Luther King was silenced - it was the darkest day of my life.’ Pastor Lusk said. ‘But I look at Bono, Rick Warren, the One movement, and I realize that voice is still alive.’
“‘I don’t know all the statistics -- I’m just a country preacher - but I do know there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God, and one Father who is in us and above us all - and there is the One campaign.’” [!] (Emphasis added)4
The U.N.’s Goals: Uniting the World as ONE
The ONE Campaign consists of a growing number of partners that either directly or indirectly support strengthening the United Nations and fulfilling its goals. In fact, the following is the Campaign’s answer to the question, “How does ONE link to international agreements to fight poverty?”:
“ONE links directly to the international effort to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. 1% more of the US federal budget would help save millions of lives and be a major commitment towards achieving the internationally agreed upon United Nations Millennium Development Goals.” (Emphasis added)5
In their letter to President Bush, Rick Warren and the U.S. Faith Leaders, in accordance with this purpose of The ONE Campaign, asked him to give “just ONE percent more of the US budget.”6 They did so seemingly without any regard for the far-reaching ramifications of strengthening the United Nations and its goals.
The U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are uniting the world and its religions (faiths) in transcendent common purpose. These goals are the international development goals in the U.N.’s Millennium Declaration, a Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on September 8, 2000. This Resolution declares the United Nations and its Charter to be “indispensable foundations of a more peaceful, prosperous and just world.” This Resolution also explicitly upholds Agenda 21, the Kyoto Protocol, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, among other destructive U.N. agendas.7 This Resolution has been adopted by all United Nations Member States,8 and now it is also being supported by today’s Christianity and other religions via its MDGs.
The framework is all coming together for the U.N.’s ultimate goal of uniting the world as ONE under its control. Its comprehensive Resolution, which the world has embraced, also contains the following statements (emphasis added):
“We are determined to establish a just and lasting peace all over the world in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter.”
“As the most universal and most representative organization in the world, the United Nations must play the central role.”
“We will spare no effort to make the United Nations a more effective instrument for pursuing all of these priorities …”
“We solemnly reaffirm, on this historic occasion, that the United Nations is the indispensable common house of the entire human family, through which we will seek to realize our universal aspirations for peace, cooperation and development. We therefore pledge our unstinting support for these common objectives and our determination to achieve them.”9
On the U.N.’s website directly underneath the heading, “Charter of the United Nations,” the belief is upheld that unity can change the world:
“We the Peoples of the United Nations … United for a Better World.” (Ellipsis dots in the original)10
Only on the very surface do the U.N.’s goals appear noble and compassionate. These eight MDGs have much in common with the giants of Rick Warren’s Global PEACE Plan, such as fighting poverty, hunger, disease, and lack of education.11 Yet underlying the seemingly compassionate surface is a massive networking of purposes, principles, and control interweaving throughout every aspect of society that seeks to draw all into the new world order.
This new world order will culminate in Satan’s global government—a Beast that will fulfill Satan’s Dream, Vision, and Plan in its devouring of the whole world (e.g., see Revelation 13 and Daniel 7:7-8, 21, 23-25). It will succeed by using the Angel of light’s message and works of counterfeit “light” and “peace” to deceive, assimilate, and unite those who refuse to love God’s absolute truth. Those who refuse to compromise the truth and cooperate with its works of darkness will be purged from the planet.
At this time, the U.N. is the most prominent organization behind Satan’s Plan for a global government. Skeptics have pointed out that the U.N. has no teeth—i.e., no power to enforce its laws. Satan himself is going to be the teeth in his global government through his coming Antichrist, regarding whom Scripture says “the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority” (Revelation 13:2).
Incidentally, the U.N. has even been referred to as “the body of Christ” by the world-renowned, U.N.-adored Robert Muller, who personifies the (New Age) New Spirituality beliefs and goals of the U.N.12 When fully implemented, the U.N.’s agendas will hold dire consequences for true believers in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Regarding the comprehensiveness of its Resolution that has already been adopted by the world, even U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has admitted:
“The Adoption of the Millennium Development Goals, drawn from the United Nations Millennium Declaration, was a seminal event in the history of the United Nations. It constituted an unprecedented promise by world leaders to address, as a single package, peace, security, development, human rights and fundamental freedoms.” (Emphasis added)13
Nevertheless, a growing number of Christian organizations have blindly joined the world in backing the U.N. and its goals, such as directly or through The ONE Campaign. Likewise, Rick Warren’s P.E.A.C.E. Plan “coordinated its early efforts with United Nations and other relief agencies,” according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.14 Support for the U.N. is global.
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TO READ the remaining sections in this chapter, go HERE:
Interfaith “Bread for the World” Feeds the Hungry
“Unity Comes from Purpose, Not from Anything Else”
The Truth:
"Oh send out Your light and Your truth: let them lead me; let them bring me unto Your holy hill, and to Your tabernacles." (Psalm 43:3)
08/25/06
A "Divine Convergence"
"God is in the process of preparing the perfect storm. He is orchestrating a divine convergence of multiple streams in the Body of Christ from multiple aspects of His Kingdom. He is bringing them all together in this season. He is raising up ministries that are able to 'multi-task' in the Spirit. They are not focused only on one movement or one flow of the spirit, but they are able to flow in and out of different streams and expressions of His Kingdom power and manifestation. He is causing all the streams to flow together as one river. The prophetic movement, the worship movement, the prayer movement, the faith movement, the youth movement, the men's movement, the missions movement, the reconciliation movement; He is causing each of these movements to converge and become part of each other. When each of these movements begin to operate in concert within His church, great power and authority will be released. We are in a season of the beginnings of a Divine Convergence.
"Approximately a week after the Lord began to share these truths with me, I was in a meeting with a prophetic minister named James Goll. As James began to minister He stated that his message was entitled 'The Convergence of the Ages'. I was stunned. He further declared that we would begin to hear the word 'Convergence' in an array of places because it was what the Lord is saying and it is what the Lord is doing in this season. That night he ministered that the Lord was joining multiple streams together and that there was coming a great release of power. He actually used the phrase Divine Convergence."
(Billy Humphrey, "Divine Convergence")
From Chapter 18, entitled "One God, Many Paths," of Tamara Hartzell's new online book In the Name of Purpose: Sacrificing Truth at the Altar of Unity," the reader learns more about this anticipated "Divine Convergence." Here is an excerpt with important background information about the false prophets' call for the "streams to flow together" into a mighty new "river."
“The Religions are the Tributaries of One Great River”
“This concept [of unification] … does involve the development of a universal public consciousness which realizes the unity of the whole … It requires simply the recognition that all formulations of truth and of belief are only partial in time and space, and are temporarily suited to the temperaments and conditions of the age and race. Those who favor some particular approach to the truth will nevertheless achieve the realization that other approaches and other modes of expression and terminologies, and other ways of defining deity can be equally correct and in themselves constitute aspects of a truth which is greater and vaster than man’s present equipment can grasp and express.” —Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul (Emphasis added)1
One thing leads to another in the (New Age) New Spirituality’s larger understanding of “truth.” Since “the One Truth” is believed to underlie every religion, they are all considered to be on different but equally valid paths (approaches) to God. This “unity in diversity” allows for everyone to keep their own theology and doctrinal convictions and worship “styles” as their own portion and expression of the “fullness of truth.” This is the New Spirituality’s false gospel of Oneness: “We are all one. Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.”
This Oneness is found in Theosophy (part of the “Ancient Wisdom”) taught by both Alice Bailey and H. P. Blavatsky. It includes the following widespread principles listed by the Blavatsky Net Foundation:
● “Brotherhood is a fact in nature. We are ONE at the highest spiritual component of our nature. We are sparks from one flame.”
● “The religions of the world are branches on the tree whose trunk is the one ancient - once universal - wisdom religion. The religions are the tributaries of one great river.”
● “Humanity’s potential is infinite and every being has a contribution to make toward a grander world. We are all in it together. We are one.” (Emphasis added)2
It isn’t the message and Kingdom of God that are growing in popularity, but rather of the god of this world—the same god that enticed all to come together as ONE to build the tower of Babel.
“The day is dawning when all religions win [sic] be regarded as emanating from one great spiritual source; all will be seen as unitedly providing the one root out of which the universal world religion will inevitably emerge. Then there will be neither Christian nor heathen, neither Jew nor Gentile, but simply one great body of believers, gathered out of all the current religions. They will accept the same truths, not as theological concepts but as essential to spiritual living; they will stand together on the same platform of brotherhood and of human relations; they will recognize divine sonship and will seek unitedly to cooperate with the divine Plan … Such a world religion is no idle dream but something which is definitely forming today.” —Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul (Bold added)3
The Master Deceiver’s Plan is indeed forming today. He is achieving tremendous success in neutralizing today’s Christianity. A poll conducted in early August 2005 for Newsweek and Beliefnet asked the question, “Can a good person who isn’t of your religious faith go to heaven or attain salvation, or not?” And 68% of Evangelical Protestants and 83% of Non-Evangelical Protestants answered, “YES”! There was virtually no difference between Evangelicals and Non-Christians of whom 73% answered, “Yes.”4
This is clearly indicative of the current departure from the faith (not a “spiritual awakening”) in the new broad-minded “Christianity.” This new “Christianity” that believes the world does not need to change its ways also believes that the world doesn’t even need to change its religion (faith). The world can stay in whatever religious faith—whatever path to God—it wants and just add a “relationship” with God to it.
“I’m not talking about a religion this morning. Okay? You may be Catholic or Protestant or Buddhist or Baptist or Muslim or Mormon or Jewish or Jain, or you have no religion at all. I’m not interested in your religious background. Because God did not create the universe for us to have religion. He came for us to have a relationship with him.” —Rick Warren (Emphasis added)5
“One day we’re gonna stand before God and he is going to ask two questions. The first question is, ‘What did you do with my Son Jesus Christ?’ Not ‘What religion were you?’ Not what denomination, not what background, where did you go to church. We were created for a relationship, not a religion - not rituals, not rules, not regulations.” —Rick Warren (Emphasis added)6
“I have known many people who believe in the Messiah of Jesus, regardless of what religion they are, because they believe in him. It’s about a relationship, not a religion. You’ve heard this many times.” —Rick Warren (Emphasis added)7
In both the (New Age) New Spirituality and the Purpose-Driven Paradigm, doctrinal views (theological creeds) and the faith of Christianity are irrelevant:
“One day you will stand before God, and he will do an audit of your life, a final exam, before you enter eternity.… God won’t ask about your religious background or doctrinal views.” (PDL; p. 34; emphasis added)
“What is this church of Christ? It is constituted of the sumtotal of all those in whom the life of Christ or the Christ-consciousness is to be found or is in process of finding expression; it is the aggregation of all who love their fellowmen, because to love one’s fellowmen is the divine faculty which makes us full members of Christ’s community. It is not the accepting of any historical fact or theological creed which places us en rapport with Christ.” —Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul (Emphasis added)8
“The Christ has no religious barriers in His consciousness. It matters not to Him of what faith a man may call himself.” —Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul (Emphasis added)9
“I happen to know people who are followers of Christ in other religions.” —Rick Warren (Emphasis added)10
Clearly, the message has changed! Rick Warren’s various statements render one’s religion irrelevant, even though he has acknowledged that all religions “have a different way to get to God”:
“I would say I am more interested in having a relationship with God than a religion. To me, I define religion as man’s attempt to get to God. And I have studied all the major religions … and they all just have a different way to get to God. Now, they are – anybody who has studied religions knows that they are mutually exclusive.” —Rick Warren (Emphasis added)11
Incidentally, Rick Warren has said, “Because I had been raised in a Christian home, I rejected it all, and I decided to study the religions of the world. I actually moved to Japan, and I studied Buddhism, Shintoism, Hinduism. I studied all the religions of the world.”12 Then he should know that religions aren’t just a “different way to get to God,” they follow different gods!
At the BWA’s Centenary Congress, where the recurrent theme was “unity, unity, unity,”13 the following statements were made by Jimmy Carter and Rick Warren:
“One of the world’s most prominent Baptists, former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, said the desire for oneness is a powerful force for global good. Differences of belief -- even among Muslims, Jews and Christians -- are outweighed by a common commitment ‘to truth …’ Carter said.” (Emphasis added)14
“Many people are ‘too glib’ in claiming the label of ‘Christian.’ If instead people define a ‘Christian’ as ‘a little Christ,’ it would have more meaning and produce more Christ-like behavior, he [Carter] said.” (Emphasis added)15
“I don’t see many people interested in Christendom. But I see a lot of people interested in God.” —Rick Warren16
First, as is increasingly evidenced, not even professing Christians are still interested in Christendom. They and the world prefer Oneness because its relativism allows them to follow the path of their choice on the “label” (religion) of their choice. “The desire for oneness” clearly shows the world is not interested in the true and living God or in the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Incidentally, it is the reducing of Christ to a universal “example” that leads to the anti-Christ belief that people can become “little Christs.” The definition of “Christian” is broadening, true to the Master Deceiver’s Plan:
“It is here that the Church, as usually understood, meets its major challenge. Is it spiritual enough to let go of theology and … widen its horizon and recognize as truly Christian all who demonstrate the Christ spirit, whether they be Hindu, Mohammedan, or Buddhist, whether they are labeled by any name other than that of orthodox Christian?” —Alice Bailey (Emphasis added)17
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To continue reading this chapter, go to Chapter 18.
The Truth:
"Then you shall say unto them, Because your fathers have forsaken Me, saith the LORD, and have walked after other gods, and have served them, and have worshipped them, and have forsaken Me, and have not kept My Law. And you have done worse than your fathers; for, behold, you walk every one after the imagination of his evil heart, that they may not hearken unto me." (Jeremiah 16:11-12)
08/28/06
The New Age Preacher and His Influence
"Reverend Norman Vincent Peale is, to many, the most prophetic and moving New Age preacher of the twentieth century. He is also the founder of the self-help movement that formed the groundwork for the Church Growth Movement. Peale formed perhaps the most dramatic and meaningful link between religion and psychology of any religious leader in history. It is this same approachable, therapeutic brand of religion that many mega churches, including Saddleback, put forward today.…
(George Mair, A Life With Purpose: Reverend Rick Warren: The Most Inspiring Pastor of Our Time [Berkley Books, 2005], p. 93-94)
Norman Vincent Peale's influence was like leaven permeating all of neoevangelicaldom. His influence carried far beyond Saddleback and is now being exported globally, not only by Rick Warren, but by another evangelical mega-leader -- Ken Blanchard -- who is connected to Rick Warren through their joint global leadership training initiatives.
Relevant to this discussion is the announcement that another important book has just been posted online! Warren Smith has recently updated each chapter in Reinventing Jesus Christ: The New Gospel. Many events have transpired since 2002 when Warren first wrote about New Age leaders like Neale Donald Walsch, Marianne Williamson and Oprah Winfrey and their striking similarities and interconnections with evangelical leaders.
A few years after writing Reinventing Jesus Christ, Warren Smith wrote Deceived on Purpose: The New Age Implications of the Purpose-Driven Church. In this best-selling book Smith contended that there were New Age implications to Rick Warren's Global P.E.A.C.E. Plan, and he particularly focused upon the influence of mega-church leader of the Crystal Cathedral, Rev. Robert Schuller.
In his new online version of Reinventing Jesus Christ and its chapter updates, Warren Smith puts forth exciting new material that is also relevant to Deceived on Purpose. Once again, Smith has noticed the profound influence of Robert Schuller on the thinking of Rick Warren. A fascinating Chapter 10 Update examines how Schuller's thinking was influenced by Norman Vincent Peale, and how Peale's thinking was influenced by the New Ager Florence Scovel Shinn.
On page 162 of A Time of Departing, Ray Yungen explains the important background information to this scenario. He noted that George Mair's book, A Life with Purpose, which was a "positive account" of Rick Warren's life, stated that:
"New Age prophet Norman Vincent Peale was at the foundation of the church-growth movement and furthermore 'many of Peale's uplifting affirmations originated with an "obscure teacher of occult science" named Florence Scovel Shinn.'"
Mair's book, on pages 91-100, does indeed give quite a bit of credit to Norman Vincent Peale, observing that Peale was the first mega-church pastor to bring in salesman techniques, a prosperity gospel, psychology and metaphysics. (Given this glowing description, it is no wonder that Mair's book created quite a stir among the Saddleback apologists when it first came out!)
The following material is excerpted with permission from the Chapter 10 Update of Warren Smith's newly-expanded Reinventing Jesus Christ: The New Gospel (Copyright 2006) posted at www.reinventingjesuschrist.com:
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Norman Vincent Peale
Sometime in March 2005, before all of Ken Blanchard’s New Age endorsements came to light, I received two articles from a pastor from Indianapolis, Indiana. One of the articles was a clipping from the August 3, 1995 Indianapolis Star. It had a big picture of Norman Vincent Peale and the headline read:
Norman Vincent Peale accused of plagiarism
‘Power of Positive Thinking’ author’s work similar to that of a little-known teacher of occult science.(88)
The article, published by Knight-Ridder Newspapers, asked the question: “Was the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale, father of the ‘believe and succeed’ theology sweeping American Protestantism, a plagiarist inspired by the occult?” In attempting to answer that question, the newspaper referred to an article from the Lutheran Quarterly that had contended that Norman Vincent Peale drew much of his inspiration from the writings and teachings of occult/New Age author Florence Scovel Shinn. Concerning the Lutheran Quarterly article, the Indianapolis paper stated:
After comparing his books to hers, the authors cite scores of specific instances in which Peale and Shinn not only think alike, but use similar or identical phrases.(89)
The newspaper article went on to say:
Shinn, who died in 1940, drew on mystical sources dating to the ancient Egyptian philosopher Hermes Trismegistus and the secrets of Freemasonry.
Such sources are progenitors of New Age, a movement considered ungodly hocus-pocus by conservative and fundamentalist Christians….
Shinn’s privately published metaphysical works, reissued by both Simon & Schuster and the Church of Religious Science, are available in New Age bookstores. Peale penned the introduction to the Simon & Schuster edition, indicating he had “long used” Shinn’s teachings.(90)
The Indiana pastor had included a copy of the Lutheran Quarterly article that the Indianapolis paper had referred to. The Lutheran Quarterly article exposed Peale’s unattributed use of Shinn’s occult/New Age teachings. The Peale/Shinn side by side quotes clearly demonstrated the similarity of their writings. The authors wrote:
THE STRIKING SIMILARITY between these passages discloses an unsettling theological secret. Along with many other parallel concepts, affirmations, metaphors, and stories, they provide testimony that the writing that made Norman Vincent Peale “minister to millions” and a millionaire many times over, shows a startling similarity to the writings of an obscure teacher of Occult science named Florence Scovel Shinn. Whatever may be the embarrassment caused by these striking similarities, it pales against the discomfiture that millions of mainline Christians, purporting to stand on orthodoxy and Scripture alone, have thus unwittingly embraced the Occult. So strong is its tacit foothold that it now may well be the primary working faith of many in the churches….(91)
The pastor told me that he was reminded of the Lutheran Quarterly article after reading my book, Deceived on Purpose: The New Age Implications of the Purpose-Driven Church. My observations concerning the New Age implications of Rick Warren taking unattributed material from Robert Schuller had reminded him of this article about Norman Vincent Peale taking unattributed material from Florence Scovel Shinn. The pastor pointed out that the New Age implications of Rick Warren’s teachings did not stop with his teacher Robert Schuller, or even to Schuller’s teacher, Norman Vincent Peale. It stretched back through all of them to the occult itself. A deeper look into Peale’s background confirmed that this 33rd degree Freemason had endorsed other New Age authors and teachers through the years.(92) Ironically, one of the New Age authors endorsed by Peale was Bernie Siegel – the same Bernie Siegel that Rick Warren had indiscriminately referred to in The Purpose-Driven Life. The Indiana pastor suggested that Norman Vincent Peale had popularized the occult within the mainstream Christian Church, and that these teachings may have been passed along to pastors like Robert Schuller and Rick Warren, who in turn passed them on to millions of others.
It is not surprising that New Age leader Neale Donald Walsch openly praises Norman Vincent Peale in much the same way as he did with Schuller. In discussing occult manifestation – how feelings inside of you can create events outside of you – Walsch states:
This phenomenon is discussed with extraordinary insight in the classic book The Power of Positive Thinking, written over fifty years ago by the Reverend Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, a Christian minister who understood that feelings are a gift from God, giving us the power of creation.(93)
When Ken Blanchard and Rick Warren co-led the 2003 Lead Like Jesus Conference in Alabama, Blanchard stated that Norman Vincent Peale had been one of the men responsible for bringing him into the faith.
And God started sending me this team, Bob Buford, Norman Vincent Peale, and [Bill] Hybels. All kinds of people started coming after me. I finally joined up in 1987-88 and turned my life over to the Lord…. I found out this is a really good deal.(94)
As a new Christian, Blanchard had co-authored The Power of Ethical Management with Peale, shortly after Peale had endorsed Bernie Siegel’s book Love, Medicine and Miracles. Incredibly, a website for Indian Guru Paramahansa Yogananda devotees stated that the Blanchard and Peale book had actually been “ghost-written” by Blanchard’s longtime New Age friend, Jim Ballard.(95) Blanchard’s Christian testimony We are the Beloved was also listed on this same website as having been “ghost-written” by Ballard. Because Ballard is a Yogananda devotee, and was being featured on the Yogananda website, it is presumed that the information was provided by Ballard himself. It would seem that Blanchard’s early relationship with Peale, as well as his thirty-year friendship with Ballard, may have helped to contribute to Blanchard’s serious lack of discernment still in evidence today.
Although Blanchard has been presented as naïve by many of his defenders – including Rick Warren – a closer examination of Blanchard’s past reveals a much different story.…
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To continue reading, see the new Updates at http://www.reinventingjesuschrist.com. Particularly of relevance to the last full paragraph of today's post is the Chapter 5 Update which explains the significance of Jim Ballard.
The Truth:
"Woe be unto the Pastors who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture! saith the LORD." (Jeremiah 23:1)
08/29/06
"Ambassadors" for "peace"
In his new online updated book Reinventing Jesus Christ: The New Gospel, ex-New Ager Warren Smith discusses the growing deception in the evangelical world regarding New Spirituality. New Spirituality is nothing more than a re-make of old-time occult Theosophy, and certain neoevangelical leaders seem to find common ground with its tenets.
In the Chapter 8 Update "The Armageddon Alternative" Smith discusses the new "ambassadors" of "peace." The original chapter is a must-read for anyone wishing to understand the real PEACE PLAN lurking beneath the "peace" rhetoric. This updated material brings in a few names of key evangelical leaders who have also proposed revising eschatologies.
What follows is a brief excerpt from the Chapter 8 Update:
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Deceived Christian Leaders
Yet, despite all of this, Emergent Church leader Brian McLaren – just like Barbara Marx Hubbard and her New Age colleagues – is now suggesting that there is “an alternative” to Armageddon. McLaren, and a host of other “emerging” church leaders, are on the cutting edge of introducing New Age concepts into the church. In an on-line article entitled “Emergent Delusion” about Brian McLaren and his popular book A Generous Orthodoxy, Pastor Bob DeWaay explains this emergent movement’s teachings:
Brian McLaren recently appeared in Time Magazine’s list of the twenty five most influential evangelicals…. His selection to the list is based on his role as a key leader in the “emergent” (sometimes called “emerging”) church – a movement popular with young people…. In A Generous Orthodoxy, McLaren tells the story of how he has created a unique version of Christianity by gleaning parts he likes from many sources. The result is what he calls “emergent” Christianity.
The teachings found in A Generous Orthodoxy may sound very unusual…. The kingdom as envisioned by McLaren involves holistic, planetary “salvation” without any apocalyptic intervention of God…. Personal salvation from hell is disparaged as a wrongly motivated “consumer product” that distracts from the more important issue of saving the “whole world”… . (8)
In his latest controversial book The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the Truth That Could Change Everything, Brian McLaren describes the book of Revelation as a book of possibilities. He states that its “prophetic” passages are conditional and that the awful future described in Revelation can be changed. Sounding more like a New Age leader than a Christian pastor, he proposes a peaceful “alternative” to Armageddon. (9)
Ironically, to make his point, McLaren quotes an evangelical leader by the name of Jay Gary. (10) Gary was once the secretary of a World Future Society subcommittee that gave Barbara Marx Hubbard a special award for her outstanding contributions to the field of religion. Hubbard was a co-founding board member of the World Future Society and she still sits on their board of directors. Jay Gary, who remains a member of the World Future Society, was listed along with Hubbard as two of the speakers for the 2006 World Future Society Conference. The World Future Society is an organization of esoteric and New Age futurists from around the world, founded in 1966 for the purpose of creating a new international governance structure. Its global leaders like Barbara Marx Hubbard, John Naisbitt, Harlan Cleveland, and Jay Gary believe they can envision new future scenarios for Earth, and work to create an “alternative to Armageddon.”
It is therefore quite interesting that Jay Gary, the man Brian McLaren was citing as the author of an authoritative article on alternative futures, was now coming forth in the evangelical community again. Gary had previously been exposed over ten years ago by a number of Christian writers as someone who was obviously and openly aligned with top-level New Age leaders, including Robert Muller – former Assistant Secretary-General to the United Nations and well-known New Age author. In 1995 I wrote an extensive article about Jay Gary and his New Age associations entitled "Sign of the Times: Evangelicals and New Agers Together" which was published in several Christian publications. (11)
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Warren Smith continues on in this Chapter 8 Update, noticing disconcerting parallels between Brian McLaren's and Neale Donald Walsch's phraseology about the future.
The World Future Society, mentioned above in connection with neoevangelical leader Jay Gary, has been cited in previous Herescope posts regarding Willis Harman, who met with evangelical leaders in the late 1970s to help them develop new future scenarios. (For more information, use the blog search feature at the upper right corner.) Knowing this, it is no wonder that modern neoevangelicals such as Jay Gary and Brian McLaren are suggesting variant eschatological worldviews.
In this context of "ambassadors" for "peace" it is important to recognize what the World Future Society is really all about. Dr. Dennis Cuddy, a noted authority on the World Future Society, recently described the World Future Society:
The World Future Society (WFS) is an organization of futurists from around the world. It has held a number of General Assemblies as well as specialized conferences since its founding in 1966. On its board of directors have been New Ager Barbara Marx Hubbard, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, author John Naisbitt, government official Harlan Cleveland, and globalist Maurice Strong. The WFS has supported such people as management guru Peter Drucker and, in turn, has been supported by individuals such as psychologist B. F. Skinner, anthropologist Margaret Mead, and corporations such as General Electric, Control Data, General Motors, IBM, Xerox and Weyerhaeuser.
When WFS president Edward Cornish was asked about implantable radio locators (microchips), he said he believed initially they would be voluntary. However, he then acknowledged that "things that are voluntary today have a way of becoming compulsory tomorrow."
Al Gore has been among the hosts at WFS General Assemblies where such topics as "Media Communication As An Agent For Change" have been discussed. And WFS conferences have included "Worldview '84" where attendees discussed transforming nation-states into a New World Order through "management by crisis," when in a "moment of critical instability" the nation-state would collapse and networking groups would form a replacement society.
In a 1994 conference, participants discussed "Creating the 21st Century: Institutions and Social Change." And on March 3, 1998, President Bill Clinton wrote a letter of "greetings to everyone" attending the WFS annual conference, in which he said: "Today is a time of extraordinary opportunity for the peoples of the world as old barriers fall and a new and truly global community emerges." At the WFS annual conference for 2000, its Council member J. Orstrom Moller went even further when he declared: "The problems to be dealt with at the international level require a brand new design…(which) must be some kind of world governance enabling the international community to tackle these challenges without being restricted by old-fashioned concepts such as nationalism and national sovereignty.…In this process the international community must face awkward questions such as…in which cases are international action warranted even if the nation-state does not want it."
The Truth:
"Thus saith the LORD of Hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the Prophets who prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD. They say still unto them who despise Me, The LORD has said, You shall have peace; and they say unto every one who walks after the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you." (Jeremiah 23:16-17)
08/30/06
Ignoring Eschatology
It is time that the church woke up to its true mission, which is to materialize the kingdom of God on earth, today, here and now.… People are no longer interested in a possible heavenly state or a probable hell. They need to learn that the kingdom is here, and must express itself on earth … The way into that kingdom is the way that Christ trod. It involves the sacrifice of the personal self for the good of the world, and the service of humanity …”
—Alice Bailey (Cited in chapter 15 of In The Name of Purpose, 5)
For the past 150 years there has been an ongoing emphasis -- first among liberal church leaders, and now among the evangelicals -- to shift the emphasis away from biblical eschatology to the doctrine of building the kingdom of God on earth. One of the most effective ways to do this has been to focus the church's attention on "service" and the pressing needs of here and now, while at the same time ignoring the many comforting Scriptures about Jesus' imminent return and our heavenly home.
This particular strategy is acutely observed by Warren Smith in the Chapter 10 Update to his recently updated Reinventing Jesus Christ: The New Gospel, now posted online.
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Not Focusing on Eschatology
Another link to Schuller and the New Age/New Spirituality – and perhaps one of the strangest and most unbiblical teachings in The Purpose-Driven Life – was Rick Warren’s discouragement of studying eschatology. Eschatology is the Bible’s description of last days events that include the return of Jesus Christ. Instead of acknowledging all of the prophetic detail in the Bible concerning Jesus’ return – including Jesus’ own words – Rick Warren tried to use Acts 1:6-8 to convince his readers that the details of Jesus return are “none of their business.” He wrote:
When the disciples wanted to talk about prophecy, Jesus quickly switched the conversation to evangelism. He wanted them to concentrate on their mission in the world. He said in essence, “The details of my return are none of your business. What is your business is the mission I’ve given you. Focus on that!”
…If you want Jesus to come back sooner, focus on fulfilling your mission, not figuring out prophecy. (41)
Brian McLaren, one of the pastoral leaders of the controversial “emerging church” movement, also uses Acts 1:6-8 to discourage any interest in last days prophecy. In fact, he sounds just like Rick Warren as he tries to convince his readers that the details of Jesus’ return are “none of their business” – that they need to focus on their mission, not on eschatology. In The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the Truth that Could Change Everything, McLaren wrote:
…Instead, he tells them it’s none of their business to speculate about how God plans to work out history, and then he gives them a mission to accomplish. (42)
C. Peter Wagner, Rick Warren’s faculty “advisor” and “mentor” at Fuller Seminary, (43) describes how Rick Warren and Brian McLaren are actually just echoing what Robert Schuller has been teaching for years. Wagner divulged how it was Robert Schuller who pioneered the idea of focusing on one’s mission in the world as opposed to focusing on the prophetic details of Jesus’ return (eschatology). Wagner wrote:
A pioneer of focusing on the mission of the church to the surrounding world is Robert H. Schuller, founder of the Crystal Cathedral of Garden Grove, California. (44) [emphasis in original]
Robert Schuller’s advice to young church leaders would seem to apply to new apostolic Christians: “Don’t let eschatology stifle your long-term thinking." (45)
But Schuller, as it turns out, was just repeating what New Age matriarch Alice Bailey wrote as she prepared the way for the New Age “Christ” in her 1948 book The Reappearance of the Christ. In chapter seven, “Preparation for the Reappearance of the Christ,” she said that the details of the Christ’s return were “none of our concern.” She stated that the Christ’s coming was dependent on everyone staying focused on their mission – fulfilling their work in the world:
…If our work is rightly done, He will come at the set and appointed time. How, where or when He will come is none of our concern. Our work is to do our utmost and on as large a scale as possible to bring about right human relations, for His coming depends upon our work. (46)
Looking again at what Rick Warren wrote:
…He wanted them to concentrate on their mission in the world. He said in essence, “The details of my return are none of your business. What is your business is the mission I’ve given you. Focus on that!”
…If you want Jesus to come back sooner, focus on fulfilling your mission, not figuring out prophecy. (47)
Fifty-four years after Bailey’s channeled teaching from the spirit world, Robert Schuller, Rick Warren, and Brian McLaren are saying almost the exact same thing. Don’t worry about prophecy. Focus on your mission. Yet my experience coming out of the New Age taught me just the opposite. In Deceived on Purpose I described how understanding the prophetic details of Jesus’ return had helped me to see how deceived I had been and was absolutely essential to my salvation:
Coming out of New Age teachings, I had learned in a very personal way that the details of Jesus’ return are definitely our business. Understanding the events surrounding His return was critical to understanding how badly I had been deceived by my New Age teachings. I had learned from reading the Bible that there is a false Christ on the horizon and that for a number of years I had unknowingly been one of his followers. Because the Bible’s clear authoritative teachings about the real Jesus and His true return had been brought to my attention, I was able to see how deceived I was. By understanding that there is a false Christ trying to counterfeit the true Christ’s return, I was able to renounce the false Christ I had been following and commit my life to the true Jesus Christ. (48)
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The Truth:
"For I would not have you to be ignorant, Brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope." (1 Thess 4:13)
"Now we beseech you, Brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto Him, that you be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the Day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition." (2 Thess 2:1-3)
"Looking for that Blessed Hope, and the glorious appearing of the Great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ," (Titus 2:13)
"For our conversation is in Heaven from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His Glorious Body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself." (Philippians 3:20-21)
08/31/06
The Generic Global "PEACE" Plan: Part 1
In his 2002 book Reinventing Jesus Christ: The New Gospel Warren Smith warned evangelicals that the New Age leaders had come out with a global "peace" plan after the September 11th crisis. This is a theme which Smith further developed in his 2004 book Deceived on Purpose: The New Age Implications of the Purpose-Driven Church, where he examined Rick Warren's global P.E.A.C.E. Plan, and expressed concern about its overlapping similarities to the New Age "peace" plan.
Smith expands this theme in much greater detail in the recent Chapter Updates to Reinventing Jesus Christ which are now posted online. Today's excerpt comes from the Update to Chapter 6. The Update to the original chapter, which described the formation of the Global Renaissance Alliance, reveals that this group has now re-made itself, and has boldly changed its name to the Peace Alliance:
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Spiritual Politics
In co-founding the Global Renaissance Alliance – recently renamed the Peace Alliance – Neale Donald Walsch and Marianne Williamson were greatly inspired by a book entitled Spiritual Politics. In fact, both of their enthusiastic endorsements are featured on the front and back covers of this radical 1994 New Age political primer. Neale Donald Walsch’s front cover endorsement reads:
Extraordinary and invaluable.... One of the most important books to appear in the marketplace of ideas in a very long time.(1)
Corinne McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson, the co-authors of Spiritual Politics, frankly admit that their book is based on the “ageless wisdom” that has been passed down through the years from ancient occultists to modern-day occultists. McLaughlin and Davidson openly embrace this “ageless wisdom.” The almost encyclopedic New Age teachings of Alice Bailey are referred to throughout their book. Bailey’s teachings were “telepathically” dictated to her by the Tibetan master Djwhal Khul – a spirit guide also known as DK. The spiritual teachings transmitted to Bailey by DK describe the soon coming of a New Age “Christ” and the establishment of a one-world government. The “Christ” described by DK and Bailey is Maitreya – the same Maitreya described by Benjamin Creme and Wayne Peterson. McLaughlin and Davidson dedicate Spiritual Politics “To M and DK”:
To M and DK
and to all the Warriors of the Spirit,
that they may awaken to the fire in their hearts
and hear the inner anthem calling them
to the Great Work.(2)
Thus, it is very revealing that Williamson and Walsch have so openly endorsed a book that is steeped in the occultic teachings of Alice Bailey – teachings that proclaim Maitreya, not Jesus, as “the Christ.” Williamson’s back cover endorsement of Spiritual Politics reads:
Bravo to Corinne and Gordon for shining such a bright light on politics in this groundbreaking book! Spiritual Politics gives us the instructional wisdom of the East and West, as well as the practical tools for helping create effective change in the world. I highly recommend it.(3)
But Williamson’s endorsement is very misleading. Spiritual Politics is not based on anything resembling the “wisdom of the West” which most people associate with Christianity. McLaughlin and Davidson are very clear that Spiritual Politics is based on the hidden, “ageless wisdom” of the occult – the occult traditions that originated with Hermes Trismegistus and culminated in the mystical/New Age teachings of Alice Bailey. In Spiritual Politics they write:
For centuries, the Ageless Wisdom in the West was shielded from an unprepared public.... The unveiled truths were handed down only orally by individual teachers to tested disciples or by certain religious groups and secret societies, such as the Kabbalists, Druids, Essenes, Sufis, Knights Templar, Rosicrucians, Freemasons, and others who carefully guarded the teachings down through the centuries. A study of these secret societies would reveal powerful influences on the history of nations....
Over the last hundred years, the Ageless Wisdom has spread widely in the West, beginning with the work of the Russian Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. Her seminal book, The Secret Doctrine, published in 1888, synthesized Christian, Jewish, and Islamic mysticism with the Eastern teachings of Hinduism, Taoism, and Buddhism, showing their common roots and comparing their sacred texts....
The next development came through the teachings of an Englishwoman, Alice Bailey, a former member of the Theosophical Society. In 1919 Bailey was contacted by a Tibetan master, Djwhal Khul, who asked her to write a series of books with him telepathically that would continue Blavatsky’s work. Over a period of thirty years, Bailey received eighteen books from him on the nature of the cosmos and the human being, outlining principles for individual spiritual growth and humanity’s next evolutionary steps. In 1923 Bailey founded Lucis Trust [originally called Lucifer Publishing, ed.] to bring the teachings in her books to the public. A year later she began the Arcane School. The books were written to apply to several levels of consciousness at once and thus can be read by both beginners and advanced students. Her works have been especially helpful to the two of us in our own spiritual growth and have provided much of the inspiration for Spiritual Politics.(4)
Because McLaughlin and Davidson so strongly endorse the Bailey teachings on the politics of a coming New Age “Christ,” the spiritual foundation of the Global Renaissance Alliance became very transparent as Williamson and Walsch both endorsed their book. There is nothing subtle about Spiritual Politics and there is nothing subtle about the “spiritual politics” of Williamson and Walsch and their Global Renaissance Alliance.
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The rest of this Update to Chapter 6 notes the "high profile New Age leaders" who have hobnobbed with "well-known politicians" in their spiritual politics plan for "peace."
Interestingly, Tamara Hartzell, in her new online book In the Name of Purpose: Sacrificing Truth at the Altar of Unity, devotes an entire chapter to this same New Age "peace" plan. Chapter 15 contains many actual excerpts from the writings of Alice Bailey and her spirit guide, Djwhal Khul, the same "DK" referred to above who inspired the writing of Spiritual Politics. These quotations describe the "plan" to create a global "peace" by building a "kingdom" of "world servers." This Luciferian plan, demonically transmitted to the Theosophists a century ago, bears remarkable resemblance to today's various "peace" plans.
We excerpt with permission from Hartzell's commentary and excellent compilation of Theosophical writings:
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Our enemies in the Angel of light’s realm have been working long and hard at fulfilling his Plan. They are achieving marked success in enticing the world into his counterfeit kingdom and its (New Age) New Spirituality that appears as “light” and “peace.” As mentioned earlier (see page 86), Alice Bailey (A.A.B.) was approached by the spirit world to detail “the Plan” in writing. These writings are the basis for the descriptions of this counterfeit kingdom “of God” and its Plan to use world service to bring interfaith unity and “peace” to the world. As is to be expected, these enemies commonly twist Scripture after the pattern of the father of lies, who has been twisting God’s Word since the Garden of Eden. Also not surprisingly, their deceptions twist the nature and work of the Lord Jesus Christ and reveal an ongoing hatred for His true followers and Word.
“I [Djwhal Khul] … have a vision of the Plan … Through the cooperation of A.A.B. I put this plan - as far as was possible - before you, calling your attention to the New Group of World Servers.…
“[T]he vision is a vision of group work, of group relationships, of group objectives, and of the group fusion to the larger Whole.” —Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul1
“[T]here is a group of human beings, integrating now … upon whom is laid the burden of leading humanity. They are starting movements that have in them the new vibration, they are saying things that are universal in their tone, they are enunciating principles that are cosmic, they are inclusive and not exclusive, they do not care what terminology a man uses; they insist that a man shall keep his own inner structure of truth to himself and not impose it on any one else … they demonstrate the universal light, they are servers …
“[T]hey are tied by no dogmas or doctrines because they have the word which has come to them in the dark, which they have wrought out for themselves in the strife and stress of their own souls. They meet the need of their fellow men, and theirs is the message of Christ, ‘A new commandment I give you that you love one another.’…
“‘A new commandment I give you’ can be summed up in ‘inclusiveness’, the hallmark of the New Age, the universal spirit, identification, oneness with all your fellowmen.…
“How shall we fit ourselves to meet that requirement, to possess those characteristics which automatically put us into the group of world servers? You will never get there by talking about it … You will get there by doing the next thing correctly.” —Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul (Emphasis added)2
The desire for people to stop talking and debating and just start doing and cooperating facilitates interfaith unity among all beliefs and religions. This is exactly what the spirit world has been working toward. In the name of purpose, people are being lured away from doctrine to focus on relationships.
“He [‘Christ’] emphasized the necessity for cooperation, indicating that if we truly follow the Way, we shall put an end to competition, and substitute for it cooperation.…
“Love, brotherhood, cooperation, service, self-sacrifice, inclusiveness, freedom from doctrine, recognition of divinity - these are the characteristics of the citizen of the kingdom, and these still remain our ideals.” —Alice Bailey (Emphasis added)3
“As the Members of the Hierarchy [spirit realm] approach closer to us, the dream of brotherhood, of fellowship, of world cooperation and of a peace (based upon right human relations) becomes clearer in our minds. As They draw nearer we vision a new and vital world religion, a universal faith, at-one in its basic idealism with the past but different in its mode of expression.” —Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul (Parentheses in the original; emphasis added)4
“It is time that the church woke up to its true mission, which is to materialize the kingdom of God on earth, today, here and now.… People are no longer interested in a possible heavenly state or a probable hell. They need to learn that the kingdom is here, and must express itself on earth … The way into that kingdom is the way that Christ trod. It involves the sacrifice of the personal self for the good of the world, and the service of humanity …” —Alice Bailey (Emphasis added)5
“Christ died in order to bring to our notice that the way into the kingdom of God was the way of love and of service. He served and loved and wrought miracles, and gathered together the poor and the hungry.” —Alice Bailey (Emphasis added)6
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The Truth:
"Therefore hearken not ye to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreamers, nor to your enchanters, nor to your sorcerers, which speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon." (Jeremiah 27:9)
In our current era of proliferating, and remarkably coinciding, global "peace" plans -- and as we watch a new harlot Babylon unfolding before our very eyes -- it is wise to consider the wisdom of Matthew Poole, circa 1600, in his Commentary on the Holy Bible (Hendrickson). Pertaining to this verse, he warned:
It is uncertain whether these words were part of the message which Jeremiah by command from God sent to the kings above mentioned, or the prophet's words to the Jews; for as those pagan nations had diviners, dreamers, enchanters, and sorcerers, so the Jews had them also, Isaiah 47:12-13: the meaning is, Hearken to none of them that pretend as from God to foretell your escape from this judgment, and not being brought into servitude to the king of Babylon, for you shall serve the king of Babylon. By prophets he means such as pretended to some Divine revelations. By diviners he means soothsayers, of which were several sorts. By dreamers, such as pretend to revelations in their sleep. By enchanters and sorcerers, he means their astrologers, and such as used necromancy, or by any unlawful ways and means pretended to know the mind and will of God. (Vol 2, p. 577)
