Much of what is missing in the organized Church today is the work, or move, of the Holy Spirit.
We totally underestimate the Spirit of God and what He can do if we let Him.
We have over- organized and created programs for this and that instead of seeking God and letting Him lead by His Spirit.
God has a will, an opinion, a way but we don’t even recognize that fact anymore.
I often feel like the organized church is a slave mill: keeping people over- busy, working them in to the ground, churning out program after program- and what for? “There is a way that seems right to man but the end of it is death”.
God Himself has a way. It is by His Spirit. It is the centrality of Christ. The Spirit of God when He is working will always point to and exalt Jesus Christ. If Christ is not center, if He’s not there, then it is a work of the flesh. Get rid of it! Stop wasting everyone’s time, repent and seek God’s face.
We often use this scripture “Behold,I stand at the door and knock.If anyone hears My voice and opens the door,I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me.” (Rev 3:20) as an evangelistic tool. But it’s not. Jesus said this to the CHURCH in Laodicea. He was outside the church. Pushed outside His own church because He wasn’t needed anymore, “we have a program”!!
The state of the Church breaks my heart. Yes it does. I weep over it, and I believe so does Jesus.
The deadness, the formality, the coldness. Where is the life? Where is the joy? Where is my Jesus?
I don’t seem Him in it.
I don’t see Him in the dry formality, I don’t see Him in the ritual, the “way we’ve always done it.”
Why do people’s faces look sad and somber in church? Why do we feel we have to pretend to be serious to be spiritual?
Jesus where are You?
Not there.
The thing is, we know it. We know it’s not right, that something is missing. We know that Jesus’ death on the cross wasn’t so we could sit and be bored in Church for two hours every Sunday morning. We feel it. Something in our spirit says this is not the way it was in the early Church, there is something more. What are we missing?
So, we try to fix it in our human-ness.
Entertainment, rock concerts, frenzied behavior, yelling, emotional manipulation. Get people to cry, yes, if that brings emotion, ANYTHING but that dead dryness. Oh God, anything but that.
Entertainment for true joy.
Emotional manipulation for true broken-ness
Frenzied behavior for the real work of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus where are You?
Not there.
After awhile, the yelling makes us tired, the emotive manipulation falls on dead ears, and, after all, we are not changed.
That didn’t work either. Oh God, what next?
Look at pubs, worldly concerts, sporting events. They are full of happy, excited people. There are crowds. They must know something we don’t. We must learn from them.
Advertising, marketing surveys, seeker-sensitive churches. Things not to mention:
the cross
sin
the Blood
God’s holiness
never ever use the word “sinner”
hell
judgment (shriek)
(But make sure you use the word “unpack” in your sermon at least 5 times.)
Jesus where are YOU?
Not there.
Something wrong. something missing. something different than the Church in Acts.
Spirituality. Candles, liturgies, labyrinths, darkness. Ooooh, we get goosebumps again. This is it! we feel again, we are not dead, not bored, we are spiritual.
We feel.
JESUS where are YOU?
Not there.
Don’t we see? don’t we know where He is?
He is outside the Church.
He is outside the door.
Long ago He was asked to leave. Oh yes, we use His Name, but we don’t really want Him. We want to be comfortable, we want convenience at all costs. We don’t want our formality and rituals confronted or thrown away. We want to feel good, positive emotions. We don’t want to be convicted. We want to feel intellectual and deep and have wonderful spiritual experiences. We want lots of people around us because that shows we are on the right track.
But we don’t want HIM.
Him – the goodness, the holiness, the righteousness, the kindness, the love, the truth, the mercy, the conviction, the call to the lost, the call to obedience, the faithfulness to Him that is required, the cost of the cross of Christ…
Jesus is a gentleman, He will not stay where He is not welcome.
There is only one way back to Him.
Let us cast off everything else and fall on our knees before Him.
There is only one thing that is required:
BROKENNESS
Utter broken-ness.
Let us fall on our faces before our Lord and weep for the state of our own hearts, for the Church, for the lost around us. Let our hearts be broken. It is only when our hearts are broken before the Lord that LIFE, the real life of the Holy Spirit enters in.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t stand the deadness any more. I have had enough of formality and boredom. I have had enough of human solutions to the problem. I can’t handle any more extraneous rubbish – I WANT HOLY GHOST REVIVAL! This world needs men and women who have the fire of the Holy Ghost.
Lord, send Your Spirit. Revive us again. We need You Lord. I repent of my hardness of heart Lord. My heart breaks for the state of the Church Lord. My heart breaks for those around me on their way to Hell. Enough Lord ! Rend the heavens and come down!!! In Jesus’s Name, Amen
In my last post in this series A Harlot, An Emergent and a Pope Walked into a Bar… we looked at how Ken Wilber’s Integral Consciousness is becoming instrumental in bringing together the Emergent Church and the Mystery religions. The end goal being of course, the creation of the One-World Religion.
When we talk about the Emergent Church we must understand that nothing is by accident, nor coincidence. Even the terms “Emergent”/ “emergence” /“emerging” have greater significance than we are led to believe. In this post I would like to examine the use of the word “Emergent/Emergence”. I would also like to prove it’s atheistic and New Age roots.
Emergent Church leader Doug Pagitt says:
“Five years ago or so when numbers of us started using this phrase “emergent,” there were a number of reasons why we thought this word worked well. The reason I was most excited about it is the use in a forestry term or an agriculture term. Emergent growth is the growth in a forest that is growing below the surface, that if you were to knock away the dead pine needles and leaves and branches, you would see the growth that’s happening there …. So it’s not against, it’s not over in another field, it’s not something that wants to destroy the forest; in fact, it’s going to grow because of the protection of it — the idea that there was this emergent growth that was happening in Christianity, that was protected and that was going to have the chance to survive because of the environment. We wanted to talk about what is the nature of that emergent growth of Christianity in the world…” (source: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2005/07/08/july-8-2005-doug-pagitt-extended-interview/11764/)
As lovely and organic as that all sounds, “emergent” has a much greater meaning and a wider application than Pagitt acknowledges here.
The term “emergent” was coined by philosopher and skeptic G. H. Lewes, who wrote:
“Every resultant is either a sum or a difference of the co-operant forces; their sum, when their directions are the same — their difference, when their directions are contrary. Further, every resultant is clearly traceable in its components, because these are homogeneous and commensurable. It is otherwise with emergents, when, instead of adding measurable motion to measurable motion, or things of one kind to other individuals of their kind, there is a co-operation of things of unlike kinds. The emergent is unlike its components insofar as these are incommensurable, and it cannot be reduced to their sum or their difference.”
To apply this philosophical Theory of Emergence to a religious context: one might say that typically two opposing elements, or religions, such as Christianity and Islam when compared, have differences between the two that are easily detectable and measurable.
However, as Lewes says, it is otherwise with “emergents”. Within the Emergent philosophical framework, the two religions are not compared as two opposing elements but rather become a “co-operation of things of unlike kinds”. And “The emergent is unlike its components insofar as these are incommensurable, and it cannot be reduced to their sum or their difference”. The differences therefore become immeasurable, undetectable as the two opposing elements are merged.
(Sounds a lot to me like the Hegellian Principle…you may remember from Satan’s Tool in the Emergent Church: a “thesis” combined with an “antithesis” makes a “synthesis”.)
Does philosophy have the ability to influence? Is the Emergence Theory of Lewes affecting Christianity?
Ken Wilber’s Integral Consciousness theory seeks to build a new platform of truth and reality. This new platform is created by bringing together a synthesis of the “best of pre-modern, modern, and postmodern reality. It is portrayed as a “theory of everything” and offers an approach “to draw together an already existing number of separate paradigms into an interrelated network of approaches that are mutually enriching.” (source: wikipedia)
As we saw in the last post the Emergent Church is heartily promoting Ken Wilber and his New Age ideas and philosophies. This is no surprise considering that both Ken Wilber’s Integral Consciousness and the Emergent church are based on Emergent Theory.
“An integrative level, or level of organization, is a set of phenomena emerging on pre-existing phenomena of lower level. Typical examples include life emerging on non-living substances, and consciousness emerging on nervous systems….The sequence of levels is often described as one of increasing complexity….” (Corning: Wikipedia, emphasis mine)
Doug Pagitt addresses this very topic here:
“But emergence theory also began to be used in this conversation at the same time, and emergence theory has to do with complexity and that which is going to develop out of chaos and complexity — that what we would look at and think is just random actually starts to form patterns to it, and that’s a helpful way to think about this, too, that there seems to be this chaos that’s happening, but if you were to study it long enough you begin to see the patterns…. That’s not a bad way to talk about it as well” (source: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2005/07/08/july-8-2005-doug-pagitt-extended-interview/11764/)
If Doug Pagitt’s quote sounds alarmingly like the Theory of Evolution it’s because Emergent Theory and Evolutionary Theory go hand in hand. In fact Emergent Theory was one philosophy that paved the way to Darwinism.
“[In] evolutionary processes, causation is iterative; effects are also causes. And this is equally true of the synergistic effects produced by emergent systems. In other words, emergence itself… has been the underlying cause of the evolution of emergent phenomena in biological evolution; it is the synergies produced by organized systems that are the key.” (Corning: wikipedia)
The premise of evolutionary theory is that a higher set of phenomena arises or emerges out of a pre-existing lower level of phenomena.
This is the basis of both Emergent and Integral Consciousness theories. That out of a lower order comes higher order. You know, like apes turning into humans…
SO in summary:
Ken Wilber’s Integral Consciousness theory says that humans evolve to a higher level of consciousness. (This is standard New Age doctrine.)
“Some see the process of integration as incarnating Christ consciousness, some call it becoming the Divine Human, but perhaps it is most accurate to think of it as a “new normal” for those of us who want to be pioneers and begin to live in a new way, fully connected with our divine potential.
What is clear is that integrating aspects of this higher octave of our being HAS been demonstrated by historical mystics and that we are getting closer to being able to replicate this in a wider way.” Barbara Marx Hubbard, New Ager, occultist (http://theshiftnetwork.com/NextStageOfHumanEvolution)
Emergent theory says that there is a “co-operation of unlike kinds” and that distinctions and measurable differences between unlike kinds disappear.
Emergent theory lead to Evolutionary theory. And Integral Consciousness is based on Evolutionary theory.
And the main point of it all:
The Emergent church promotes Ken Wilber’s Integral consciousness. Integral Consciousness is the evolution of human consciousness into godhood or divinity;
The Emergent church have deliberately called themselves by the name of “emergent” because they see themselves as the next level, the higher level of a “set of phenomena emerging on pre-existing phenomena of lower level” in the “evolution” of Christianity. Christianity as we have known it is outdated, irrelevant, politically incorrect, low-level. But through these “emergents” a new relevant, higher-level of Christianity is evolving.
Ultimately this higher-level of Christianity is heading towards “emergence”: the “co-operation of unlike kinds” as consistent with emerging theory. In other words: the creation of a one-world religion.
Once again the devil is using human pride to further his plans. Pride in intellect, pride in attaining to “higher levels”, pride in reaching “god-hood.” There is nothing new under the sun…
“And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil…” Genesis 3:4,5
Of interest: Brian McLaren, in collaboration with a New Age yoga teacher, has recently brought out a video series “integrating Naked spirituality, Yoga, Tai Chi and Chi Gong” ( http://brianmclaren.net/archives/get-involved/).
There can be no doubt that the emerging religious synthesis between the Emergent Church and the Mystery religions is part of Satan’s plan to usher in a false religion. A One-World religion, paving the way for the Anti-Christ, is coming. In fact, the unity of all religions in a One-World system is a stated purpose of the New Age/occult (The Emergent/New Age Connection)
But when “Christianity” begins to say the same thing as the occult then it is time to wake up and take notice of what is going on.
This began all the way back in Genesis at the Tower of Babel. This is not a “new” or “re-imagined” Christianity, but rather an ancient scheme of Satan designed to bring together a united rebellion against the only true God.
But how will Satan do it?
Integral Consciousness
The West is actually no longer Post-Modern. We are past that point now. Right now we are “emerging” from Post-Modernism into post-Post-Modernism.
Integral Consciousness is an “emerging area of discourse” within philosophy.
Where Post-Modernism de-constructed the foundations of absolute truth, Integral Theory/Spirituality, promoted by Ken Wilber, seeks to build a new platform of truth and reality. This new platform is created by bringing together a synthesis of the “best of pre-modern, modern, and postmodern reality. It is portrayed as a “theory of everything” and offers an approach “to draw together an already existing number of separate paradigms into an interrelated network of approaches that are mutually enriching.” (source: wikipedia)
Think of it like this: Post-modernism philosophy broke down (de-constructed) everything that we previously had accepted as truth – whether it was in art, design, philosophy or religion. The broken bits and pieces of truth’s foundation were left lying around for anyone to pick up and create whatever truth they wanted out of the mess. Every part equally true and important as the next, a level playing field of truth was created (otherwise known as “relativism”).
(I am engaging poetic licence at this point): Now along comes Satan, rubbing his hands at the field of broken truth. He picks up all the “best” bits of these broken truths and starts fitting them together until gradually a form emerges…. The best way to entice and seduce humanity? “Peace – they all want that: I’ll put that bit of Buddhism in;… “Love” , yes, that will stick – a bit of Jesus’ teachings will do here; ….Unity – ooooh that’ll really get ’em going – I’ll take that New Age concept of unity and stick it right in the middle there. Hmmmm – now what to stick it all together with…? – Aha! Human Integral Theory – that will be the glue.”
You may wonder how this post-post Modern philosophy will be sold to humanity. The answer is simple: Pride– the oft-proven and thus oft-repeated method. Human pride in philosophy and intellectualism is appealed to by Satan and used to aid his plans.. As we saw in The Emergent-cy of Post-Modernist Christianity , philosophy does influence and shape culture.
Satan is now using human Integral Theory to re-construct a new reality out of the debris of post-modern deconstructionism.
This is the philosophical Tower of Babel.
This philosophical Tower of Babel will then be expedited by mysticism into integrating all religions, including a form of Christianity, into a synthesis of the “best” of each religion. (See: Mysteries and Mysticism) This will create a false religious system which the Bible calls the “great harlot” or “Mystery Babylon”:
Mystery Babylon the Great
“And I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, which was full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. The woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the filthiness of her fornication. And on her forehead a name was written:
MYSTERY
BABYLON THE GREAT
THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND OF THE ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH
And I saw the woman, drunk with the blood of the saints and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus. And when I saw her I marveled with great amazement.”
(Revelation 17:5)
Notice the beast which the woman sits on – the false religious system will “ride on” the united One-World government. The tenth horn on the beast’s head is the Anti-Christ, which is also riding on the One-world government.
It is crucial to understand that what is occurring within the Emergent Church, and the world at large, is opposed to Jesus Christ Himself. Jesus Christ is God’s appointed Ruler. He came to earth the first time as the humble, obedient Lamb. The second time He is coming as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, Judge and Ruler. God has exalted Him far above all rule and authority.
This knowledge absolutely infuriates Satan. Satan hates Jesus with an undying passion. He is jealous of Christ’s authority and position – for this is the very position to which he tried to exalt himself (see Isaiah 14:12-15). When Satan sets up the anti-Christ as the authority on earth it is his way of trying to usurp Jesus Christ’s rightful authority as King of kings. Satan ultimately wants to be worshipped and will receive worship through this person of anti-Christ. The anti-Christ is a substitute of the real Christ. We must realize that when absolute truth is attacked, down-graded or dismissed, it is a direct attack on Jesus Christ Himself. Truth is not a disembodied philosophy nor theory. No – Truth is a person – Jesus Christ. “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life” said Jesus Christ, John 14:6.
Anti-Christ – is a counterfeit “Christ” opposed to the true Christ.
The great harlot – is a counterfeit religion opposed to the true Bride of Christ.
Make no mistake: there is another “Christ”.
And this false Christ is already making headway into the Church.
Integral Theory/Spirituality and the Emergent Church
So has Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory entered the Emergent Church?…
Rob Bell: “For a mind-blowing introduction to emergence theory and divine creativity, set aside three months and read Ken Wilber’s A Brief History of Everything.” Velvet Elvis, pg 192
Brian McLaren: on “A Theory of Everything and “The Marriage of Sense and Soul”
“These two books by philosopher Ken Wilber are not the next Christendom Christian books, but the way of thinking Wilber promotes and exemplifies which he calls integral thinking and which I call emergent thinking is powerful and important, in my opinion.”
“But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ. For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.” 2 Corinthians 11:3, 4
(On Jan. 21, 2014, Kenneth Copeland Ministries received a personal video message from Pope Francis calling for “unity” which caused a leader to declare “Luther’s protest is over!” (ie Protestantism) Watch his message here and Kenneth Copeland’s reaction to it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eulTwytMWlQ)
In response to some comments and questions I have received on my previous post Labyrinths of Emerging Paganism I have decided that the best way to address these is through another post, and so, here it is.
The Lord has placed a burden on my heart for His Church and that’s the main reason why He had me to start this blog. It is not my intention that I offend anyone, especially my brothers and sisters in Christ, yet if I do so in the process of trying to speak the truth, then I am sorry, but it can’t be helped.
It is my strong belief that a Christian should have no association at all with labyrinths. I will tell you why I believe this to be so:
The first known labyrinth was found in Egypt 4000-5000 years ago. They have been discovered across Asia, the Americas and Southern Africa in different forms. Some turf labyrinths still exist in England, Germany and Scandinavia and these are considered to be associated with feminine deities and fertility rituals.
“The troja labyrinth and roma labyrinth have in the historic form a monster, a minotauros, inside, in the centre, a monster you fear to approach, a monster you need to overcome and defeat. With the building of the labyrinth in the Chartres Cathedral in France 1000 years later this seems to eventually change so that this labyrinth has a solemnity in the centre that you want to reach. According to historic traditions the Chartres Labyrinth was probably placed there by its master builder to protect the church from evil entering the church, because evil cannot pass the winding lanes of a labyrinth. This is in the same way as the Romans placed a protecting labyrinth inside their front door.” (http://www.lavigne.dk/labyrinth/e1intro.htm)
Dr Artress brought the labyrinth to Grace Cathedral (San Francisco, USA) in 1994, after having met and being heavily influenced by Dr Jean Houston, one of the main promoters of the New Age in North America (http://www.jeanhouston.com/blog/?p=170).
Dr Artress founded Veriditas in order to “facilitate the transformation of the human spirit through offering the Labyrinth Experience”. Contrast this with the Biblical belief that the human spirit is rather raised from death to life by the Holy Spirit through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ at the cross.
“Over one million people have walked this labyrinth to date. People from all different backgrounds and religions are using it. Jews, Buddhists and even Christians use the institute’s labyrinth. If one visists Grace Cathedrals web site you find it being inclusive, they offer every conceivable item, from New Age holistic to interfaith to the Koran. They are church that is not holding the Christian distinctive at all.” (source: http://www.letusreason.org/Nam30.htm)
“You walk to the center of the labyrinth and there at the center, you meet the Divine. The labyrinth is a large, complex spiral circle which is an ancient symbol for the Divine Mother, the God within, the Goddess, the Holy in all of creation. For many of us the feminine aspect of the Divine has been painfully absent from our lives, our spirituality, and our Western culture.” Dr Artress
2. Labyrinths Facilitate Geomancy
A labyrinth is designed to be geometrically perfect in order to facilitate “geomancy”.
“An important fact to know is that geomancy and other occult arts are often incorporated in the building of labyrinths. Charles Gilchrist a labyrinth promoter states it has a direct connection to “Sacred Geometry,” a powerful potential as an oracle. And there are other “oracle systems” that are related to Sacred Geometry, Astrology, Numerology, I Ching, Rune Stones, and the Tarot….”
Through geomancy, labyrinths are designed to bring the walker into an altered state of consciousness, through meditating on physical movement. As Dr Artress states: “A labyrinth is a walking meditation…” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9rt39ieP5E)
“A labyrinth is unicursal – this means there is one open, unobstructed path the walker follows into the center and back out again. A labyrinth has only one path leading to the center and back out again with no dead-ends.There are three basic designs being used–the seven circuit, eleven circuit, and twelve circuit; the seven circuit is the most common design found today. It is described as you roam back and forth, turning 180 degrees each time you enter a different circuit. As you change your direction your awareness changes from right brain to left brain. They are right brain activity enhancers. So the claim is that the labyrinth can induce different states of consciousness. Others say It also helps balance the charkas, spiritual energy centers described in Hinduism.” http://www.letusreason.org/Nam30.htm
Once an individual is brought to an altered state of consciousness he/she is open to the deceptions of Satan.
I think it is important to note that no believer, no matter how mature or spiritual, is beyond being deceived. Satan is subtle, clever and the father of lies. We are no match for him. However if we sincerely love the truth, seeking after God wholeheartedly, He will deliver us from deception. On the other hand God does give people over to delusion if they refuse to love the truth:
“The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lieand so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.” 2 Thessalonians 2:9-12
3. God Forbids Using Pagan Practices to Worship Him
There seems to be an increasingly common misconception amongst Christians that something that is utterly ungodly and unholy can be “redeemed” if it is “Christianized”. This line of reasoning takes something secular or even pagan and tries to change it into something godly by using Christianized language. This reasoning has no basis in scripture. Redemption is the work of God, and Him only, through His Son Jesus Christ. We cannot change something that is detestable to God into something acceptable to Him, despite our sincerity. In fact it’s the very opposite. Rather than take on the pagan practices and beliefs of the world around us God commands us to :
“Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”2 Corinthians 6:17
For, as 2 Corinthians 6:14, 15 says:
“…. what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God.”
Just as God commanded the children of Israel to have nothing to do with the pagan practices of Canaan, but rather to destroy them, so we too are commanded to worship Him as He has proscribed. This is not a grey area – pagan practices are outright forbidden to God’s children.
“When you come into the land which the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominations of those nations.There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his daughter pass through the fire, or one who practices witchcraft, or a soothsayer, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or one who conjures spells, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls up the dead. For all who do these things are an abomination to the Lord, and because of these abominations the Lord your God drives them out from before you. You shall be blameless before the Lord your God. For these nations which you will dispossess listened to soothsayers and diviners; but as for you, the Lord your God has not appointed such for you.” Deuteronomy 18:9-14
Ezekiel 8 describes the abominations the Israelites had incorporated into their worship of God in the Temple.
The syncretistic absorbing of paganism into their worship of Yahweh rendered Israel “Ichabod” and brought the judgment of God upon them, just as the Canaanites had been judged for their pagan practices earlier.
The syncretistic blending of paganism into the Church will also bring judgment upon the Church.
As godly king Josiah “took away all the shrines of the high places that were in the cities of Samaria, which the kings of Israel had made to provoke the Lord to anger…” (2 Kings 23:19) so we too, as the Church of Jesus Christ need to be ruthless in our removal of pagan and occult practices from our own lives. As God called the Israelites to be a light shining in the midst of pagan idolatry, so too are we called to be the light of Christ shining in a dark world. This can only happen as we are wholly consecrated to God, separated unto Him.
It is my whole-hearted belief that any Christian involvement with labyrinths, (as with any other occult practice) needs to be repented of and renounced.
“Co-Creation Conference 2014” begins this weekend, May 1-3. This is an event promoted and attended by Brian McLaren, Phyllis Tickle and other Emergent Church leaders. If you’ve read my post The Emergent Church/New Age Connection you will be aware that “co-creation” is a New Age term that has been adopted by the Emergent Church. The Emergents seem to be rather keen on using pagan labyrinths in their “ancient wisdom” mysticism. And thus “Co-Creation Conference 2014” features a very special one:
“You are invited on a modern-day pilgrimage at Holy Trinity’s outdoor labyrinth located adjacent to the sanctuary. There you will find a beautifully crafted eleven-circuit Chartres-style stone labyrinth with a fountain of flowing water in the center. Nearby, a replica of the Muiredach Celtic high cross bears witness to this sacred place. By walking the labyrinth alone or in a guided group, you may experience a kind of body prayer or walking meditation that quiets your mind, allowing your spirit to become more receptive to the still small voice of God. The Holy Trinity labyrinth, located in a cloistered and well-lighted outdoor space, is available any time of day for individual walkers. Opportunities also abound for you to experience labyrinth walks facilitated by the Holy Trinity Labyrinth Keepers.” http://servleader.org/the_labyrinth
Not only is the Emergent “Co-creation Conference” being held this weekend – this Saturday, the 3rd of May, is also “World Labyrinth Day”. This is where you can “Celebrate the sixth annual World Labyrinth Day (WLD) on Saturday, May 3rd, 2014! The Labyrinth Society invites you to ‘Walk as One at 1″ in the afternoon, joining others around the globe to create a wave of peaceful energy washing across the time zones.” (https://labyrinthsociety.org/world-labyrinth-day)
But….not only is it “World Labyrinth Day” and the “Co-Creation Conference 2014” this weekend! Amazingly both events coincide with the season of the pagan festival of Beltane (May Day). Is this a coincidence…? Hmmm…me-thinks not. It is of note that Celtic neo-pagans and Wiccans observe Beltane as a religious holiday. It is interesting to consider that during a pagan religious festival many people will be ritualistically walking labyrinths at a pre-determined time. And still more interesting that the Emergent Church’s “Co-Creation Conference”, featuring a sacred labyrinth, will be proceeding simultaneously.
The Co-Creation Conference’s website states the labyrinth as having this purpose:
“Three stages of the (labyrinth) walk:
Purgation (Releasing) ~ A releasing, a letting go of the details of your life. This is the act of shedding thoughts and distractions. A time to open the heart and quiet the mind.
Illumination (Receiving) ~ When you reach the center, stay there as long as you like. It is a place of meditation and prayer. Receive what is there for you to receive.
Union (Returning) ~ As you leave, following the same path out of the center as you came in, you enter the third stage, which is joining God, your Higher Power, or the healing forces at work in the world. Each time you walk the labyrinth you become more empowered to find and do the work for which you feel your soul is reaching.”
I ask you – is THIS Christianity?
“Take heed to yourself, lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land where you are going, lest it be a snare in your midst. But you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God), lest you make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land, and they play the harlot with their gods and make sacrifice to their gods…” Exodus 34:10-15
“Forget not that the vision (of Heaven, of God, of any spiritual leader — or of any millennium) is based in the majority of cases upon the dreams and aspirations of the mystics down the ages who have blazed the mystical trail….” Alice A Bailey, Occultist
“Beyond these models of reconciliation, a theology of mysticism provides some hope for common ground between Christianity and Islam. Both religions have within their histories examples of ecstatic union with God, which seem at odds with their own spiritual traditions but have much in common with each other.” Tony Campolo, Emergent Christianity leader
In my last post in this series “A Meditation on Emergent Spirituality” we looked at the “emerging” synthesis between all religions. We saw that the gaps and differences between all of these Mystery religions are increasingly being closed through the tool of mysticism, and in particular meditation. With the Word of God suitably deconstructed, once-shunned mystical practices are now practiced and promoted by Christians, leaving the door wide-open to the master-deceiver to gain access. The result? Vulnerable Christians whom are primed and ready for mass deception. Mysticism, whether under the banner of the occult, Christianity, Judaism, Catholicism, Islam or anything else, effectively opens the door to the same deceptive spirit each time – that of anti-christ.
Thus it comes as no surprise that the Emergents, whom are delving into the Mystery religion practices, are now using the same language as the New Agers/occultists.
First let’s look at some of the foundational principles of the New Age/Occult:
“The major goal of the New Age Movement is to prepare Man for entering the Aquarian Age and to bring world peace in an already bruised world…”
One Global Order – One World Government, One Currency, One Universal Being.
Universal Energy, Universal Matter, Universal Life, Universal Soul As God
Divine practices (Astrology Yoga & other esoteric arts)
Syncretism (Unity of all Religions).
The need for Meditation (for generating altered states of Consciousness);
The Evolution of Man into Divinity (The latent Life Force evolving naturally to the Divine);
The Union of Man with the Divine (source: http://eastrovedica.com/html/newage.htm)
The substance of Emergent theology is now basically the same as the New Age. Here are some quotations from the New Age/Occult paralleled against Emergent Christians quotations in order to demonstrate the similarities in their belief systems through their use of language. Notice that the occult and the New Age use a lot of “Christianized” terms. This is not coincidental. It is a subtle-ness that is deceiving many Christians – and so by laying out the following quotations side-by-side I am trying to bring to light the darkness of this deception.
“Oneness”:
New Age/Occult:
“Oneness is more than a beautiful word. Oneness is the energy of love that lies within you and connects you with all of life….Mystics of all traditions have experienced and shared the concept of Oneness throughout the ages.” (From Global Oneness Summit webpage:http://globalonenesssummit.com/)
“Are the mystics and sages insane? Because they all tell variations on the same story, don’t they? The story of awakening one morning and discovering you are one with the All, in a timeless and eternal and infinite fashion….” Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything, 42–3, New Ager, philosopher, writer.
The Emergent Church:
“…It will take a decolonized theology for Christians to appreciate the genuineness of others’ faiths, and to see and celebrate what is good, beautiful, and true in their beliefs without any illusions that down deep we all are believers in the same thing.”
“We are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity.” Leonard Sweet, Quantam Spirituality
Religion/Spirituality
The New Age/Occult :
“The Master Jesus will take a physical vehicle and will effect a re-spiritualisation of the Catholic churches…” Alice A Bailey, occultist, A Treatise on Cosmic Fire, p.759
“This second group will implement the new religion; by the time they come into control the old theological activities will have been completely broken; Judaism will be fast disappearing; Buddhism will be spreading and becoming increasingly dogmatic; Christianity will be in a state of chaotic divisions and upheavals. When this takes place and the situation is acute enough, the Master Jesus will take certain initial steps towards reassuming control of His Church; the Buddha will send two trained disciples to reform Buddhism;” Alice A Bailey, occultist, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy.p.573
The Emergent Church:
“Some of the values of the emerging church are an emphasis on emotions, global outlook, a rise in the use of arts, and a rise in mysticism and spirituality.” Josh Reich
“My goal is to destroy Christianity as a world religion and be a recatalyst for the movement of Jesus Christ. Some people are upset with me because it sounds like I’m anti-Christian. I think they might be right.” McManus, The Barbarian Way
“Co-Creation” & “Conscious Evolution”
New Age/Occult:
A Cocreator is: “One who is experiencing the creative intention of universe incarnating as their own intention, expressing that intention as an essential self in creative work, joining with others doing the same; one who co-create with spirit, with others, and with nature.”
Conscious Evolution is: “The evolution of evolution from unconscious to conscious choice as humans gain powers with the potential for co-destruction and co-creation. The natural capacity of a universal species is to co-evolve with nature and co-create with Spirit. The pattern is synergistic cooperation.” http://barbaramarxhubbard.com/evolutionary-language/
“A significant portion of the earth’s population will soon recognize, if they haven’t already done so, that humanity is now faced with a stark choice: Evolve or die.” Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose
The Emergent Church:
Co-Creation Conference, May 2014 : ”…from our unique perspectives, on Co-Creation with God, summed up in this event’s subtitle: The Great Emergence and the Spirit’s Call to Evolve– evolving toward ever-increasing empathy, wholeness, and energy to confront the challenges and opportunities facing people of faith in the world today.” Brian McLaren’s website (http://brianmclaren.net/archives/blog/cocreation-interview-with-mike-m.html
“…a new humanity will be brought forth from this Christ consciousness in each person.” Tony Campolo, “A Reasonable Faith” 1983 page 65
“So when we say, with the writer of Hebrews, that “it is appointed to human beings to die once, and after this, the judgment,” we are not saying, “and after this, the condemnation.” We are saying, with John, that to “see God,” to be in God’s unspeakable light, will purge us of all darkness: …To believe in a new creation that arises from within this creation – that’s a source of true hope and courage.” Brian McLaren, Emergent Leader
Jesus Christ
The New Age/Occult:
“The Tibetan has asked me to make clear that …. there is no need for any man to join the Christian Church in order to be affiliated with Christ. The requirements are to love your fellowmen, lead a disciplined life, recognise the divinity in all faiths and all beings and rule your daily life with Love.” Alice A Bailey, occultist. The Externalisation of the Hierarchy Ext. p.558, a book channeled by her familiar spirit, the “Tibetan”.
“Many misunderstandings and false beliefs about Christ will clear if you realize that there is no past or future in Christ. To say that Christ was or will be is a contradiction in terms. Jesus was. He was a man who lived two thousand years ago and realized divine presence, his true nature. And so he said: “Before Abraham was, I am…Jesus attempted to convey directly, not through discursive thought, the meaning of presence, of self realization. […] Thus, the man Jesus became Christ, a vehicle for pure consciousness.” Eckhart Tolle, New Ager, The Power of Now
The Emergent Church:
“I follow Jesus because he leads me into ultimate reality. He teaches me to live in tune with how reality is. When Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me,” he was saying that his way, his words, his life is our connection to how things truly are at the deepest levels of existence. For Jesus then, the point of religion is to help us connect with ultimate reality, God”. Rob Bell, “True” of “Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith”
“The purpose of the church is to give form to, to put into form and shape, the energy-matter known as Jesus Christ. New Light leaders, therefore, are in-formational connectors helping the body of Christ to become an in-formed church, an in-formational community…. A major New Light undertaking is the designing of newstream communities that can be ‘in connection’ and ‘in-formation’ with the spirit of Christ. Christ will be embodied for the postmodern church in information” Leonard Sweet, Emergent theologian/leader
The 5-Step Peace Plan
The New Age/Occult:
“The New Revolutions also contains a five-step plan for peace in the world. We call it the Five Steps to Peace….” Neal Donald Walsch, occultist
The Emergent Church:
“We believe it is part of the beginning of a Spiritual Awakening, a Global Movement, a New Reformation.” Rick Warren on his 5-step P.E.A.C.E. plan http://thepeaceplan.com/
Eschatology (end-time theology):
The New Age/Occult :
“…First of all, He (“Jesus”) will come to a world which is essentially one world….” Alice A Bailey
“Make no mistake, humanity is given a choice. By clinging to the old age consciousness and falling under the demonic delusions of false spirituality, the majority are doomed and will perish. …. A new community of men and women who have left the old Age behind and are linking their consciousness with the impulses of the Age of Aquarius….The genuine new age calls for the new Method – the Aquarian Work for the Aquarian Consciousness.” Jason Jeffrey – article published in New Dawn no. 78
“Now is the time when we turn the birth into an enduring shift to a new culture and consciousness. This is the turning point decade when we can create a world based on our creativity, our unity, and our love. Let’s each help fulfill the prophecies of entering a new Golden Age!” Barbara Marx Hubbard, occultist, New-ager futurist.
(Watch Barbara Marx Hubbard’s Vice-Presidential Nomination Speech at the 1984 Democratic National Convention:
“The senior Members of the Hierarchy will not at first be the ones who will make the needed approach. It is only in the later stages, and when the time has come for the return into recognised physical expression of the Christ, leading to the definite restoration of the Mysteries, that certain of the senior Members of the Hierarchy will appear … ” Alice A Bailey, The Externalisation of the Hierarchy. p.570
The Emergent Church:
“The eighth of the ten questions identified in the subtitle deals with eschatology…. In the chapter I suggest that most of our conventional eschatologies are deterministic, working from the assumption that the script of future is already written, or the movie of the future is already filmed. As an alternative, I propose a participatory eschatology where the creation of our future is a joint venture between humanity and God…” Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions that are Transforming the Faith (Harper, 2010).
“This is a theology that – with its implicit threat of being left behind, of time running out – is used by Dispensational preachers to great evangelistic effect. It has been a very effective goad to conversion… To the contrary, the history of the world is infused with the presence of God, who is guiding the world toward becoming the kind of world God willed for it to be when it was created. Human history is going somewhere wonderful” Tony Campolo
Mysticism and Theology
The New Age/Occult:
“Therefore, in the new world order, spirituality will supersede theology; living experience will take the place of theological acceptances.” Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul (her spirit guide)
The Emergent Church:
“Mysticism, once cast to the sidelines of the Christian tradition, is now situated in postmodernist culture near the center….Mysticism begins in experience; it ends in theology…..” Leonard Sweet (Quantum Spirituality p. 76)
The point I am trying to make with these quotations is that the Emergent Church is already heavily enmeshed with the New Age/occult. And as such the Emergent Church is not actually Christian. Both the New Agers and the occultists use “Christianized” terms such as Jesus, Christ, Christ-consciousness, God, heaven, etc, as does the Emergent Church. But do not be fooled, they are absolutely opposed to true Christianity, to the true gospel and to the real Jesus Christ in every way.
Remember: A lie mixed with a half-truth is a more effective deception than an outright lie.
“Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of perdition, who opposes and exalts himself above all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God….For the mystery of iniquity is already at work; ……The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders,and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie” 2 Thessalonians 2:3-11
There can be no doubt that the religious synthesis between the Emergent Church and the Mystery religions is part of Satan’s plan to usher in a false religion – a One-World religion, paving the way for the Anti-Christ. In fact, the unity of religions in a One-World system is a stated purpose of the New Age/occult. When “Christianity” begins to say the same thing as the occult then it is time to wake up and take notice of what is going on! This began all the way back in Genesis at the Tower of Babel. This is not a “new” or “re-imagined” Christianity, but rather an ancient scheme of Satan designed to bring together a united rebellion against the only true God. But how will Satan attempt to do it?
“Mysticism, once cast to the sidelines of the Christian tradition, is now situated in postmodernist culture near the center….” Emergent leader Leonard Sweet (Quantum Spirituality)
This post follows on from Mysteries and Mysticism. Unfortunately the Emergent Church has now not only fully embraced ancient pagan spirituality, or mysticism, as part of their worship, but is also promoting it. This isn’t just a fad or phase, nor is it a minor side-issue within Christendom! Rather it is a cleverly planned strategy by Satan himself to infiltrate Evangelical Christianity with his greater purpose in mind – to synthesize it with the other world religions in order to make way for a One-World Religion, and ultimately the Anti-Christ.
The Synthesis
“New Age Philosophy has conquered the West intellectually and Western culture is currently experiencing a phenomenal shift – sociological, spiritual & ideological. It’s a secular, multi-cultural, multi-religious synthesis, of the Oriental mystical philosophies, mainly Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism & Western Occultism, emphasising Holism, the doctrine that Reality is organically One” From New Age website : http://eastrovedica.com/html/newage.htm
Let’s re-visit the Hegelian/Kant principle, which we saw briefly in Satan’s Tool in the Emergent Church. I think it is important to consider this principle at work because the distinctions between Christianity and other religions are being corroded within the Emergent church right now, making for a religious-fusion.
Hegelian dialectic philosophy, is “usually presented in a threefold manner, (and) was stated by Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus as comprising three dialectical stages of development: a thesis, giving rise to its reaction, an antithesis, which contradicts or negates the thesis, and the tension between the two being resolved by means of a synthesis.” (Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_method).
It looks like this:
ThesisSynthesisAntithesis
Christianity Emergent Church Post-Modernism
Christianity Emergent Church Eastern mysticism
Christianity/Judaism One World Religion Mystery Religions
The Corrosion of the Thesis (Christianity)
How are the contradictions and opposing doctrines between Christianity and other religions being corroded by the Hegelian principle?
1. By the re-definition of language, particularly in the area of Christian doctrine
Previously we have seen that Satan, using the tool of the Emergent Church, has been breaking down Absolute Truth through “deconstructionism” (Satan’s Tool in the Emergent Church).
It is the old lie: “Has God really said…?” (Genesis 3). For Satan to cast doubt on the truth of God’s Word is imperative to the advancement of his plan because he knows that :
“Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him,” (Proverbs 30:5). Should a Christian relinquish the shield of faith and the sword of the Spirit Satan knows that his defenses are removed and that he becomes like a “broken down city without walls” (Proverbs 25:28).
2. By finding “common ground” in mystical spirituality
“…if we are looking for common ground, can we find it in mystical spirituality, even if we cannot theologically agree, can we pray together in such a way that we connect with a God that transcends our theological differences?” Tony Campolo
The primary mystical practice being used to bring “synthesis” between religions within the Emergent Church is that of meditation*, or contemplative prayer.
“Western Christianity has (for the last few centuries anyway) said relatively little about mindfulness and meditative practices, about which Zen Buddhism has said much. To talk about different things is not to contradict one another; it is, rather, to have much to offer one another, on occasion at least.” Brian Mclaren
Although different methods are employed ie, multi-sensory worship, prayer stones, labyrinths or “centering prayer’, each is designed to lead to an altered state of consciousness. Repetitive music, mantra-chanting, darkness, smells, sounds and pictures of Jesus all aid in this process.
A couple of years ago I visited a Protestant church and was handed a box containing a colourful stone. The pastor encouraged us to hold the stone as we prayed, as an aid to bring us into God’s presence. This is paganism and is unfortunately becoming more and more common. (See where prayer stones originated :http://dharma-beads.net/pagan-prayer-beads-rosary
It is interesting to note that an altered state of consciousness through meditation, in some form or other, is common to all of the Mystery Babylon religions – Buddhism, Taoism, Kabbalah, Freemasonry, Occultism, New Age etc, you name it. This is the primary means the serpent uses to communicate his secret knowledge.
“For God does know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:5
The Emergent Church & Meditation
Meditation or “contemplative prayer” was also the practice of the ancient Catholic/Jesuit monastic desert fathers. One such desert father, Ignatius of Loyola, practiced mystical prayer, culminating in visions of a serpent, who lead to him gain “secret knowledge” (sound familiar?) from which he wrote the “Spiritual Exercises”. Ignatius of Loyola became the founder of the order of the “Jesuits”. (View the evil-ness of the Jesuit oath here: http://www.reformation.org/jesuit-oath.html )
Disturbingly these desert fathers are being promoted by the Emergent Church as inspirational and worthy of emulation in their prayer and “spiritual discipline” practices:
(Notice on Bell’s website in particular Catholic monastic “lectio divina” and “prayer of examen”.)
Tony Campolo: “…during times of reflection I sensed that believing in Jesus and living out His teachings just wasn’t enough. There was a yearning for something more, and I found that I was increasingly spiritually gratified as I adopted older ways of praying–ways that have largely been ignored by those of us in the Protestant tradition. Counter-Reformation saints like Ignatius of Loyola have become important sources of help as I have begun to learn from them modes of contemplative prayer. I practice what is known as “centering prayer,” in which a sacred word (a mantra) is repeated as a way to be in God’s presence.”
Here you can listen to Rob Bell actually leading his congregation through meditative breathing techniques that have no place in scripture:
From Emergent founder Doug Pagitt’s “Body Prayer” book: “As you begin to pray, close your eyes. Then inhale and exhale with deep breaths. Put your hands in a comfortable position, consider turning both hands palms up. Notice the tension in your head – and let it go as you take in a deep breath – and then exhale. Notice the tension in your shoulders and let it go, again by breathing in and then out. Notice the tension in your stomach and let it go. Move down your body doing the same.”
I did yoga when I was a teenager and this is the exact process. But then, “Christian” yoga is now being promoted too! Whilst it may be wrapped in Christian terminology, while it may be “Christian” words that are chanted as a mantra, don’t be fooled – it is still the same old Mystery pagan techniques cloaked in “Christianity”.
Jesus said, “And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words” (Matthew 6:7).
Why Meditation?
Of course the emphasis on meditation is no accident – it is part of a definite strategy. The process is this:
Detachment – empty your mind by repeating a mantra (one word) over and over
Illumination – knowledge or “enlightenment”
Union – a mystical experience with “God”
No 1. – a glimpse of emptiness or a state of emptiness is aimed for by the practitioner.
No 2. – “illumination” or knowledge. Remember that the Mystery religions always promise esoteric knowledge – the triangle or hierarchy of illumination,the higher you go, the more you know.
“Then the serpent said to the woman, “….God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3)
No 3 – “Union” is the ultimate in meditation/contemplative prayer. Mystics also call it “Truth”, “the ‘Godhead’”, “Reality”, “Ultimate Realization” or “The Ultimate Experience”.
“These are direct apprehensions or illuminations – in a word, direct spiritual experiences (satori, kensho, shaktipat, nada, shabd, etc.).” Ken Wilber (writer, mystic, New-ager/occultist who could stop his brain waves through meditation http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFFMtq5g8N4)
This is where the practitioner has reached such a state of altered consciousness that they are open to the spirit world. They become “One” with the “Supreme Being” and the “ancient wisdom” is then bestowed on them. Thus they are “enlightened”, they know the “Truth”, they’ve reached “nirvana”.
Unfortunately the “One” whom they are being united with is not God, who is “Light and in Him there is no darkness at all”, nor the Holy Spirit whom is the “Spirit of truth”, but rather a deceptive spirit who now has access to an unprotected mind and soul. We know that “Satan disguises himself as an angel of light” (2 Corinthians 11:14) in order to deceive.
“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.” (1 Timothy 4:1)
The “Truth” of the “ancient wisdom” they receive is now being promoted in the Emergent church, even running courses on this subject. But the “truth” is a lie and is always the same old thing:
That there is a single, universal truth on which all the world’s religions have been based. That there is a common thread throughout them all which is “experiential union with the “supreme being” which can only be achieved by undertaking a programme of physical and mental purification.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perennial_philosophy)
That there is Cosmic consciousness or “we are all One”, “in which the universe is perceived as an interconnected network of individual consciousnesses, each one of which is connected to every other one…It may also be conceived of as an Absolute or Godhead from which all conscious beings emanate.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmic_consciousness)
It is designed to “usher.. the devotee into “oneness” with cosmic consciousnesses, the eastern understanding of god or divinity, often referred to as the “divine spark”, believed to be synonymous with all nature. The idea of god/divinity IN all is known as pantheism, that god is IN all that is material, but panentheism says the divine permeates everything including all eternity, concluding that all spirituality and all spirits are divine and acceptable.” (http://caryltv.com/36-breath-prayer/278-q-and-a-practising-the-presence)
Thus it comes as no surprise that the Emergents, whom are delving into the Mystery religions, are now using the same language of the New Agers/occultists – and are spouting the same old stuff that they’ve been saying for years!
“We are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And whatwe have to recover is our original unity.” Emergent leader Leonard Sweet.
The connection between the Emergent Church and the New Age/occult
The shift from the de-constructionism of post-modernism to post-post-modernism integral theory
*Meditation – in this context the meditation I am speaking of is distinctly pagan in origin, using techniques in order to bring one into an altered state of consciousness. I am not dis-crediting the Biblical practice of meditation which is used to study, contemplate and think on the Word of God. I believe true godly meditation encourages the use of the mind, rather than the emptying of it.
This post follows on from The Deep, deep Roots of Emerging Mysticism where we looked at Mystery Babylon, the Tower of Babel, Nimrod and the ancient roots of the “mystery” religions – all sprung from the root of Satan’s lie:
“For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God….”
It is my belief that the Church is willing to accept rituals, prayer labyrinths and other pagan practices because we have lost the anointing of the Holy Spirit both in our churches and in our prayer closets. Friends – we desperately need a revival! Where are those who, like Elijah, will cry out to God until He sends the rain?
I believe we have lost the anointing in our churches and prayer closets because are not willing to pay the price to have it. The anointing is costly.
Yes, salvation is free to all because of Christ’s atonement at Calvary – that is undisputed – but the anointing of the Holy Spirit is an expensive treasure. To follow our Master is not always easy. The way of the cross is hard, it demands sacrifice, humility, self-denial and death to self. Are we willing to pay the price?
This is something we need to decide, because there is an influx of Mystery Religions coming – and from the way of the cross they are completely opposed…
The Tree of LIfe
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
Which Tree will you choose?
Characteristics of the Mystery Religions
In contrast to the way of the cross, these mystery religions all have one thing in common:
They elevate humankind to god-hood.
Rather than death to self, “Self” is exalted.
“.…you will be like God….” Gen 3:5
Just as Lucifer tried to exalt himself above the throne of God; just as Nimrod tried to elevate himself above the heavens by his tower, so too the mystery religions continue to attempt to exalt humankind to deity. What these mystery religions proclaim, in essence, is that : humankind is essentially divine, we just need to realize it. Our divine consciousness simply needs to be recognized and released.
Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Gnosticism, the New Age & Western Occultism all hold to this belief.
The Bible calls this the “Mystery of Iniquity”. Man in his “divinity” seeks to reach up to god-hood. He tries to elevate himself through some sort of works. These may include: religious rituals, asceticism, enlightenment through meditation, good works etc.
Notice that this “reaching up” is the exactopposite of what God did in sending His Son, Jesus Christ:
“who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” Phillippians 2:6-8
While mystery religions attempt to lift man UPto the heavens, Christ, the true God, humbles Himself and leaves heaven to come DOWN to save us from our sin.
The Bible calls this the “Mystery of Godliness”. We cannot save ourselves. Our eternal salvation and redemption required for God to come down to us in order to save us.
The Mystery of Iniquity says that humankind is divine – our problem is that we don’t know it (PRIDE)
The Mystery of Godliness says that humankind is sinful, unable to save ourselves and that it required God to come down to us in the flesh to save us (HUMILITY)
Which is more appealing to human flesh?
Has the “Mystery of Iniquity” Entered the Church?
“For Christianity, the central problem is how God could have become person. How spirit could transform itself into matter. Word become flesh. Consciousness become protoplasm. The direction is from the top down. For Judaism, on the other hand, the problem is how humanity could possibly attain to God’s word and intention. How matter could raise itself to spirit. How simple desert souls could hear the word. Human substance attain consciousness. The intention is “to permeate matter and raise it to spirit.” The direction is from the bottom up. Perhaps the two traditions, one moving down, the other moving up, are destined to meet in the divinity of humanity.” Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pg. 191
“We affirm our divinity by doing what is worthy of gods, and we affirm our humanity by taking risks only available to mortals. God had to become one of us before He could become heroic … Robert Schuller affirms our divinity, yet does not deny our humanity … isn’t that what the gospel is? Isn’t God’s message to sinful humanity that He sees in each of us a divine nature of such worth that He sacrificed His own Son so that our divine potentialities might be realized? … The hymn writer who taught us to sing ‘Amazing Grace’ was all too ready to call himself a ‘wretch’ … Forgetting our divinity and over-identifying with our [Freudian] anal humanity… Erich Fromm, one of the most popular psychoanalysts of our time, recognized the diabolical social consequences that can come about when a person loses sight of his/her own divinity …” Tony Campolo
Um, I’d say that’s a resounding “YES”.
But what does Jesus say? “If any man will be my disciple, let him take up his cross and follow me.”
The way of the cross is death. First death, then life. Christ Himself died and was raised up. We also need to die to self and be raised up to resurrection life by the power of the Holy Spirit. We need to confess that we are sinners only saved by God’s grace, not by any human works.
The anointing has a price: and it comes at the expense of human pride.
Definition of Mysticism
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy “The term ‘mysticism,’ comes from the Greek μυω, meaning “to conceal.” In the Hellenistic world, ‘mystical’ referred to “secret” religious rituals. In early Christianity the term came to refer to “hidden” allegorical interpretations of Scriptures and to hidden presences, such as that of Jesus at the Eucharist.”
The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil
In all of the “mystery” religions, we see that there is something hidden or concealed, a higher knowledge that only the elite few, being enlightened, are privy to, whilst the majority are left in the dark…..Remind you of anything?…
“Then the serpent said to the woman, ‘….God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” Genesis 3:4, 5
This is why the triangle is a symbol of the mystery religions representing:
The enlightened few at the top
The majority of the un-knowing at the bottom
This is true for gnosticism, the New Age, Freemasonry, the cults and the occult. In fact “occult” is “from the Latin word occultus, meaning “clandestine, hidden, secret” is “knowledge of the hidden” (source: Wikipedia)
Contrast this with the pure simplicity of the Word of God. God has spoken through His Word and it is open and available to whomsoever wishes to read it. It is suitable both for the intellectual ex-Pharisee and for the uneducated fisherman. God’s plan of redemption is through His Son Jesus Christ and is plainly declared throughout scripture.
The Mystery of God
This is not to say that there is not mystery surrounding God. Of course there is. He is so much higher than us, His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts higher than our thoughts. It is impossible for the human mind to fully comprehend God in all His goodness, power and glory – truly now we “see through a glass darkly”. Yet He has made Himself known to us through His Word, through His Son and by His Spirit and because of Christ’s atonement it is possible for us to have a personal relationship with God. This is indeed a divine mystery.
However what can be known of God is open and available to the lowest and the highest of the human race. There are not different levels or hierarchies in the Kingdom of God. Some are not privileged with a “special” knowing or knowledge whilst the rest of the plebs are left in the dark. “God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all”. God wants us to know Him and has revealed Himself to us through the Word made flesh (Jesus), and the Word of God (The Bible).
The thing that concerns me about the Emergent Church is that they are turning away from how God has chosen to reveal Himself to humanity – the Word of God – because, as Leonard Sweet says:
“Doctrine does not convey the mystery of God.”
This is very subtle and very clever. This statement is appealing because in a sense it is true. Reliance on pure doctrine in a Christian can bring about legalism, rigidity and life-less coldness. Doctrine-only without the Holy Spirit’s anointing is dead. I have known Christians and churches with a purity of doctrine. They do not tolerate false teachings nor teachers, and yet there is no warmth, no love and no life. They label anyone who has had a personal experience of God as a “mystic”. They have run to the extreme of “truth” with no grace. This is not right. As Christians we need a personal experience with the living God, like Isaiah and Peter did. We need a life-changing relationship with Jesus Christ. We must know not only the Word of God, but the God of the Word. We need the anointing!
Yet, the other extreme is also faulty – to give away doctrine completely in order to search out the mystery of God, usually through experience-only. God has given us doctrine (or teaching) in His Word so that we can truly come to know Him. If we base our knowledge of God purely on our experiences then there is no objective point of reference as to whether who/what we are experiencing is truly God or whether it be a deceptive spirit. The Bible says to “test the spirits to see whether they are from God”. It is only through the safe-guards of the Word of God that we can measure our experiences to see whether they line up or not. Anything that falls outside of scripture is prohibited and not of God.
Tree of Life
So we need the Word of God and the anointing of the Spirit of God. Together they bring life.
The Holy Spirit bears witness to Jesus Christ, so when the Word is preached (in the power of the Holy Spirit) the Spirit is there. When the authority of the Word is denied another spirit is able to gain access – the spirit of the “Mystery of Iniquity”. We see that that is what is happening in the Emergent church. Pagan spiritual practices are now acceptable and openly promoted. Labyrinths are being installed in churches, Eastern meditative breathing techniques are being taught from the pulpit, people are praying to pictures of Jesus, prayer stones are being handed out.
In my next post I would like to look at:
Some of how these techniques and practices are being taught and promoted in the Emergent Church
Their (hidden) purpose and
Where its heading – The Age of Aquarius and One-World Religion
This post follows on from “The Falling Dominoes in the Emergent Church”. In that post we saw that the Holy Spirit, whom is the Spirit of Truth, will only witness to truth. So when absolute truth is discarded or diluted in the name of “relevance”, as in the Emergent Church, He is grieved and departs, leaving room for something else to enter. That “something” is ancient pagan spirituality, also known as mysticism.
From Where does Mysticism Originate?
“What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9)
Firstly, as we saw in Satan’s Tool in the Emergent Church , Satan’s aim is to cause humankind to doubt the truth of God’s Word by saying (Genesis 3:1):
“Has God really said..?”
Satan has used this lie through the tool of de-constructionism in the Emergent Church.
Once, having listened to this initial lie, with God’s Word no longer the authority, we become vulnerable to more of his lies. Once Eve listened to the first lie of Satan and she began to doubt the truth of God’s Word it then became easy for Satan to introduce another lie to her. Genesis 3:5 says:
“For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God….”
This lie of Satan’s is integral to our understanding of mysticism.
So….
The Re-definition of Language, clothed in intellectualism, leads humankind to doubt God’s Word as the truth and final authority……We turn away from the Tree of Life.
The next step is:
The idea that we can have knowledge apart from God. The implication by Satan is that God is keeping something back from us, (causing us to doubt God’s goodness) and that only through this “other” knowledge can we truly be as God ourselves. This knowledge leads to “god-hood”……And so we partake of Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
With no Holy Spirit to teach and guide we begin to see things like:
Liturgy
Robes
Candles
Labyrinths
Prayer beads
Prayer stones
Contemplative prayer
all under the banner of Protestant Evangelical Christianity….What is going on?
“And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.” Revelation 17:5
Mystery Babylon
In Genesis 10 Nimrod built the city of Babel (Babylon) as well as other cities. It was the first capital city of the first great empire of the world. Nimrod, as first King of Babylon, with his wife Semiramis formed a wicked partnership. Together, in order to expand their authority, they began a religious system of Emperor-worship where Nimrod established himself as the Sun-god and Semiramis the Moon-goddess.
“Around themselves, as the Sun and Moon gods, they created an entire religion that was based on a corruption of primeval astronomy developed by Noah’s righteous ancestors prior to the flood.”(Know Your Enemy, The Fuel Project, Part 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDDGl79x4Pc).
The Tower of Babel was where they intended to be worshipped and was the first one-world effort at creating a spiritual system independent of God. Note the similarities between their language and Lucifer’s language:
“Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens, let us make a name for ourselves…” (The Tower of Babel, Genesis 11:4)
and
“I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God;…I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High…”(Lucifer’s words in Isaiah 14:13, 14)
“Babylon was more than just an ancient city, it is the source or fountain-head of evil that began thousands of years ago and flows throughout the history of mankind affecting us even today in ways we don’t realize. It represents a satanic system of rebellion against God’s plan of salvation that has never ceased to exist in one form or another. The practices, symbolism and perverted thought processes that originated there are still with us today. It has adopted various guises over time but the common threads are there to be uncovered. It is the source of all the abominations of the earth.” (Know Your Enemy, The Fuel Project, Part 4) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDDGl79x4Pc
Hosea 6:5: "Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth: and thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth."
End Times Bible Prophecy and News, End Times Deception, Societal Collapse, Apostasy, False Christs - Prophets - Apostles - Teachers, Whore of Babylon Church, Opinion, Commentary & Bible Teaching, Demonic Power, War, Rumors of War, Famine, Pestilence, Familiar Spirits,Salvation in Jesus Christ, NWO, UFOs, Earthquakes, Counterfeit Christianity, New World Order, Conspiracies, Nephilim, Giants, Signs and Lying Wonders, End Times Sin & Corruption
Emergent Church 
Eastern mysticism
Grace and Truth 