Archive for the ‘Book/Film Reviews’ Category

LTRP Note: As Lighthouse Trails reported previously, Hollywood darling Julia Roberts played the leading role in the summer release New Age movie, Eat, Pray, Love. Now, this in – Julia Roberts converts to Hinduism after filming the movie. What is so troubling is that thousands, if not millions, of viewers of the movie could be potentially drawn toward Hinduism, especially after learning that Roberts herself has converted.

Jane Lasky
Examiner

August 7, 2010 – News comes today that when Julia Roberts was shooting the film ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ she reportedly made a big decision: To convert to Hinduism.

The ‘Pretty Woman’ actress is the daughter of a Baptist and a Catholic, says Jam Movies, who claims that while filming in India Roberts took a spiritual pilgrimage much like that of ‘Eat Pray Love’ author Elizabeth Gilbert.

Out of that experience, the movie star learned about yoga, meditation and reincarnation — something in which Julia Roberts is said to now hold as her own belief.

Roberts told Elle magazine:

‘I’m definitely a practicing Hindu.’

Off the set, Julia and her family chant and celebrate life — a peaceful existence for the new believer in Hinduism who stars in ‘Eat, Pray, Love’. The new movie based on Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoirs debuts in theaters next week. Click here to continue.

Our past coverage:

Julia Roberts embraces Hinduism  (India Times)

Present Perfect

Published by Zondervan 2010

[I]n their scheme of spirituality, in one way or another, contemplatives are forced to deny the sin nature … Any denial of a sin nature affirms the “self” and the “self” neither wants nor needs a Savior!

Book Review by Larry DeBruyn

The “Spiritual Secret” of Greg Boyd.

“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” 1 John 1:8, KJV

On the cover of Gregory A. Boyd’s recently published book, Present Perfect: Finding God in the Now, this endorsement appears:

“Discover a spiritual secret that is as simple as it is profound. Highly recommended.”—Brian D. McLaren, author, speaker, and activist[1]

One “spiritual secret” in Boyd’s book may be discovered in a footnote to the second chapter, Finding Home.[2] The secret is: “We no longer have a ‘sinful nature’.” Wow! Assuming the author is writing about Christians, the author asserts they no longer have a sinful nature (i.e., nature equals the essential properties of a thing). In other words, our nature is “perfect now”! Within the Christian psyche there no longer resides an inner disposition to sin, a “sinful nature.” Possessing inner immunity against sinning, Christians can conduct their lives in the present perfect. As with Roman Catholics Brother Lawrence (c. 1614-1691) and Jean Pierre de Caussade (1675-1751), and the evangelical Frank Laubach (1884-1970), there is no inner barrier that hinders Christians from contemplating God 24/7. They can sense God’s presence in everything they do throughout every minute of the day, which is what Boyd’s book is all about.[3]

Present Perfect

At the base of the contemplative experience lies the assertion, “We no longer have a “sin nature.” The assumption becomes necessary because Scripture states that sin is a barrier between people and God. The prophet Isaiah stated: “But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2, KJV). Granted, what the prophet denounces in this instance are specific acts of sin, but these sins stemmed out of a sin nature. The prophet Habakkuk also said to the Lord: “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity” (Habakkuk 1:13). So to insure there’s no roadblock to contemplating God, the existence of a sin nature within Christians must be denied, something Boyd’s statement does. Click here to continue reading.

Related Information:

Are Christian Publishers Promoting Contemplative Prayer and Interspirituality?

On May 24th, on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Julia Roberts joined Oprah to promote the upcoming film, Eat, Pray, Love, based on Elizabeth Gilbert’s New York Times Best Selling book with the same name. The movie will be released this summer and will most likely be a box office hit with Roberts starring in the film and Brad Pitt producing. Sadly, the message in Gilbert’s book is a New Age one that encourages eastern meditation as a way to find peace and fulfillment in life.

(See film official trailer.)

The following is our past coverage on Eat, Pray, Love:

January 28, 2010: This August a new film, starring one of Hollywood’s most popular actresses, Julia Roberts, will be released. The movie, Eat, Pray, Love, is based on Elizabeth Gilbert’s memoirs of the same name. Gilbert’s book hit the New York Times Best Seller list after becoming well known through Oprah’s ardent promotion, in which Oprah calls the book, the modern woman’s Bible.  Oprah says that Gilbert is everybody’s guru. The book follows Gilbert in her spiritual journey, which takes her to an Indian Ashram and to a life of meditation. No doubt, with Julia Roberts playing Gilbert, actor Brad Pitt producing the film, and Oprah most certainly promoting the movie, tens of millions of viewers could be drawn toward Eastern religious outlook. Eat, Pray, Love is one of a number of films over the last few years that have had a strong eastern mystical content.

May 3, 2008:  According to Time magazine, the following people are among the 2008 100 most influential people in the world. The ones we have listed all have some connection to promoting the New Age movement:

#1 – Dalai Lama

#3 – Barack Obama

#4 – Hilary Clinton

#22 – Oprah Winfrey

#67 – Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)#81 – Rupert Murdoch

October 3, 2007: 

October 5, 2007 – Today, on the Oprah show, Oprah’s guest will be the author of the best-selling book, Eat, Pray, Love. Elizabeth Gilbert’s book is the story of how she left her husband and her life behind and found what she came to call “the only true religion”: the silence (i.e., meditation). Her journey took her around the world, where she learned to meditate in an India ashram.

Oprah, who openly resonates with the New Age and meditation, said she is very excited to have Ms. Gilbert on her show. Calling it a “phenomenon” and “a life-changer,” Oprah expresses her excitment for the book and the author.

Gilbert explains that the first step in her journey was to go on an eating binge in Italy. “I would not have been able to physically do the yoga, the meditation, the hard rigor of spiritual work. So I went to Italy first and I ate my guts out for four months.”

From Italy, Gilbert traveled to India where she learned to meditate: “There was something about that yoga path that really appealed to me–and you do that through silence and the discipline of meditation–and I really wanted to go pursue that full out.” “None of this works without stillness,” Liz says. “One of the great teachings that I learned in India is that silence is the only true religion.”

During her time at the ashram, Gilbert had a meditative experience where she says “the scales fell from my eyes and the openings of the universe were shown to me.”

Oprah’s promotion of Gilbert and her book will likely cause millions of women (and many men too) to go out and buy the book. And once again Oprah, who has become a prophet and a voice for the New Age message, will help lead so many over the cliff of spiritual lostness through meditation and the silence.

Is it any wonder why ministries like Lighthouse Trails show such concern when Christian leaders tell followers, “You can’t really know God without the silence.”

Different than finding a quiet place away from noise and distractions, the silence is referring to a stillness of the mind.

Ray Yungen, author of A Time of Departing, says it is like putting the mind in neutral. Contemplatives say it is like tuning into another frequency. New Agers call it different things like a thin place, sacred space, ecstasy; whatever it is called, both New Agers and Christian leaders are telling us we must practice silence and stillness if we really want to know God. Here is a sampling:

“What you need is stillness and silence so that the sediment can settle and the water can become clear.” – Ruth Haley Barton, “Beyond Words”

“The basic method promoted in The Cloud [of Unknowing] is to move beyond thinking into a place of utter stillness with the Lord … the believer must first achieve a state of silence and contemplation, and then God works in the believer’s heart.” – Tony Jones, The Sacred Way, pp. 71-72

“Progress in intimacy with God means progress toward silence…. It is this recreating silence to which we are called in Contemplative Prayer. – Richard Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, p. 155

“It is through silence that you find your inner being.” – Vijay Eswaran, In the Sphere of Silence

“This book [In the Sphere of Silence] is a wonderful guide on how to enter the realm of silence and draw closer to God.” – New Age sympathizer, Ken Blanchard, from In the Sphere of Silence website – see above

“[G]o into the silence for guidance” – New Ager, Wayne Dyer, A Time of Departing, p. 18

“While we are all equally precious in the eyes of God, we are not all equally ready to listen to God’s speech in his wondrous, terrible, gentle, loving, all embracing silence.”- Richard Foster, Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, p. 156

“When one enters the deeper layers of contemplative prayer one sooner or later experiences the void, the emptiness, the nothingness … the profound mystical silence … an absence of thought.” – Thomas Merton, cited in biographer, William Johnston’s book, Letters to Contemplatives, p. 13

“In the silence is a dynamic presence. And that’s God, and we become attuned to that.” – Interspiritualist, Wayne Teasdale, ATOD, p. 55, from a KQED (San Francisco) radio program with Teasdale, 2000

“I do not believe anyone can ever become a deep person [intimate with God] without stillness and silence. -Charles Swindoll, So You Want to Be Like Christ: Eight Essential Disciplines to Get You There, p. 12

“The most important human activity in the life of any believer is spending time with God in meditation,” referring to his 3 part series, Meditation: The Power of Silence. – Dr. Charles Stanley, 4/11/06 radio broadcast, Be Still DVD supporter (see credits at end of DVD)

“But how do you get these “enlightened eyes”? They develop as a natural result of your time with the Lord –through your solitude, silence, and surrender.” from Charles Stanley’s website and “You have to have silence and solitude to be renewed and refreshed.” also from Stanley’s site

“One of the great things silence does, it gives us a new concept of God.” – Calvin Miller, Be Still DVD participant

“[I]f we are not still before Him [God], we will never truly know to the depths of the marrow of our bones that He is God. There’s got to be a stillness.” – Beth Moore, from the Be Still DVD (see “Beth Moore Gives Thumbs Up to Contemplative Spirituality”)

Interestingly, Elizabeth Gilbert relates a story how a new found meditator/friend experienced “colors,” “sounds,” “whirling,” and “twirling” during his meditation times. This is a description of the kundalini effect (or serpent power). In “Kundalini Energy and Christian Spirituality,” Ray Yungen explains exactly what Gilbert’s friend experienced and the spiritual ramifications of going into the silence. Such an experience led mystic and Catholic priest Philip St. Romain to hear the voices of other beings or what he called his “inner adviser.”

While it is understandable that Oprah would promote the silence because of her spiritual blindness, it is beyond comprehension how Christian leaders are promoting the silence rather than issuing stern warnings against it.

For related information:

“Oprah Winfrey’s Spirituality” by Ray Yungen

“Should we wait in silence?” by Larry DeBruyn

“In the Sphere of Silence”and Ken Blanchard

“The Silence of Spiritual Formation”

LTRP Note: While reading this book review on Marcus Borg’s new book, please bear in mind two things: one, that Borg rejects essential tenets of the biblical Christian faith (such as that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, that he was born of a virgin, and that He was God), and two, that numerous emerging church leaders have at various times shown admiration for Borg and his writings  (these would include Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, Calvin Miller, Walter Brueggeman (helped write Richard Foster’s “Bible”) and at least on one occasion, Leonard Sweet). After you read this book review, you may better understand why Lighthouse Trails is so concerned about the “new” spirituality that has entered the Christian church  and been embraced by so many of its leaders and pastors.

 BOOK REVIEW: Putting Away Childish Things, a Tale of Modern Faith by Marcus J. Borg

By Ted Kyle
Free-lance writer

Putting Away Childish Things, a Tale of Modern Faithby Marcus J. Borg, published by Harper One, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, 2010, 342 pages, $25.99.

Learning to Doubt 101

Marcus J. Borg is a veteran of the Christianity wars, having been at one time a member of The Jesus Seminar, a humanist circle of liberal theologians who set themselves the task of voting Bible passes “in” or “out,” depending upon their supposed collective wisdom. Borg is also professor emeritus in the philosophy department at Oregon State University, and the author of the New York Times best-selling Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, The Heart of Christianity, The Last Week, and Jesus (from the dust cover).

Borg’s latest book, Putting Away Childish Things, is a novel. It is his first work of fiction, but he uses this vehicle knowledgeably to make his points. His protagonist is Kate Riley, an assistant professor in the department of religious studies at a small Midwestern liberal arts college. Kate is serious about her religion and thinks of herself as a Christian—though her concept of what that means would not agree with a conservative’s definition: she has had a lover (from whom she distanced herself when she decided he was not marriage-material), as well as other sexual encounters, and would not mind another liaison, though the only man she likes in her surroundings is gay. He is, accordingly, her best friend but not her lover. The thought that extra-marital sex is sinful adultery does not enter the picture—it is no doubt one of the strictures that liberals have written out of their workaday Bibles.  Sin and the need for forgiveness receive no honored place at the table in this book. 

As a story, this is not an easy read, being burdened with its load of liberal doctrine. But as a literary device to lead the unwary into swallowing that doctrine, along with the vulnerable student, Erin, it may succeed very well. Readers should be aware that this is an agenda-driven book. Virtually everything in it is there for a purpose.

The author’s most important point is championing the Age of Enlightenment’s attack on the inerrancy of the Bible. It is a theme he introduces early and often throughout the book, as the following dialog illustrates:

Fiona, a member of Kate’s class, Religion and the Enlightenment, spoke up in an early class discussion: “I’ve had a couple of courses from Kate—I mean, Professor Riley—before and one of the things I’ve learned is that we need to set aside our worldview if we’re going to understand other worldviews…I ‘m not sure where that leads—I just know that there are a lot of different ways of seeing.”

Another student (Andrew, the class skeptic): “But you must know that our way of seeing things is just one among many. How do we know it’s any better?…. There’s no one true way of seeing—there are only ways of seeing…. And if you take that seriously, it means we can’t really know anything for sure” (p. 101).

Another student (Erin) protests: “I belong to a Christian group… We think there are some absolutes, that there have to be. Otherwise, anything goes.”

Andrew: “And where do you get your absolutes?

Erin: “Well, we—the group I’m part of—get them from the Bible. We—at least most of us—think the Bible is infallible, because it’s inspired by the Holy Spirit. And we think that if you don’t think that way, then the Bible is just another book, and you get to pick and choose what you like and don’t like in it. That’s called cafeteria Christianity.”

Andrew: “So, in a sea of relativity, the Bible is an absolute? The Bible is the exception?”

Kate, the professor, interrupted the silence which followed to say that the discussion is about “the central question of the course: What happens to the Bible and Christianity within the framework of modern thought?… What has happened to the notion of sacred scriptures and sacred traditions over the past three centuries because of the encounter with the Enlightenment?”

It is a thought-provoking session, well-designed to crack open old belief-positions absorbed without much thought as children. For many, it opens the floodgates of questions and doubts. Others have already passed that stage and now are convinced that the opening chapters of Genesis, the miracles in both Testaments, and much else in the Bible are not true. In Kate’s class they will be exposed to philosophical arguments to strengthens this disbelief.

THINGS TO LOOK FOR IN THE BOOK

1. The Two Narratives of Jesus’ Birth

One of the major plot twists comes in the form of reaction to a newly-published book by Kate: Two Stories, One Birth. In the book, she sharply distinguishes between the “stories” of our Lord’s birth in Matthew and Luke, instead of fitting them together to give a fuller picture of the occasion, as is normally done. Matthew’s account, she wrote, is dark and threatening, being dominated by Herod’s plot to kill the infant Jesus. Luke, however, “is basically joyful. There’s no plot by Herod to Kill Jesus; instead, there are hymns filled with joy” (page 24). Additionally, her book concludes that in Matthew, Mary and Joseph live in Bethlehem, in contrast to Luke’s account of the lengthy trip to Bethlehem from Nazareth. She comes to this astounding conclusion simply because “Matthew’s narrative makes no mention of the couple traveling there, leading us to assume that Bethlehem is their home” (page 31).

All this sets the stage for Kate to make her case during radio interviews that the stories of Jesus’ birth in both Gospels are parables—and “parables are about meaning, not factuality. And the truth of a parable is its meaning. Parables can be truthful, truth-filled, even while not being historically factual” (page 26). The interviewer responds with a leading question: “As I understand your book, you’re saying that it doesn’t matter whether there was a star of Bethlehem or wise men bringing gifts, or whether Jesus was born at home or in a stable, or whether angels sang to shepherds…. Would you extend this to the virgin birth as well—that it doesn’t matter whether it happened?” (page 27).

 Kate ducks the question: “Well, my emphasis as a historian is on the meaning of a story of a divine conception in the context of the first century, not on whether it happened.” Much more is to come in Kate’s class sessions, where students are subtly led to question the Genesis account of Creation, including the creation of our first parents, Adam and Eve, miracles in both Testaments, and much else which is abhorrent to liberal thinking.

[Reviewer’s note: This retreat into theological gobbledygook is standard procedure throughout the book, in which pregnant suggestions and hanging questions are used to plant doubts, rather than making direct assertions regarding the unreliability of the Bible.]

2. Setting Us Straight on Homosexuality—and This Is a Biggie!

Erin, the student who has been part of the campus conservative club, The Way, has begun to question many things she had formerly taken for granted, such as the inerrancy of the Bible. Then, over the Christmas break, she learned that her younger brother is gay, and she is caught between her feelings for her brother and what the Bible says about homosexuality. Before she goes to Kate for guidance, she reads two books she finds in the college library (Dirt, Greed and Sex, by William Countryman and The New Testament and Homosexualityby Robin Scroggs) and in them, she tells Kate, she finds that “homosexuality is an abomination is in a context in Leviticus that also forbids lots of things that almost all Christians think are fine. Like planting two kinds o seed in the same field or wearing garments made of two kinds of cloth—I mean that would rule out blends. We set those laws aside and say they don’t apply to our time—so why should we think the verse about homosexuality applies to all times? And what they say about two of the three verses in the New Testament about homosexuality makes sense to me—that they probably refer to an older man having sex with a young boy… But the part of the New Testament that I still have trouble with is that passage from Paul in Romans….” She then reads Romans 1:26-27 aloud. “That’s really strong,” she says to Kate. “…That’s the passage I stumble over.”                              

Kate has her read the next verse. Erin reads verse 28, supposedly from her NIV Student Bible: “Furthermore, since they [the Gentiles] did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done” (page 207).

[Reviewer’s note: The words, “the Gentiles,” are not in the original Greek, nor are they in any Bible I have ever seen, specifically including the NIV Student Bible. The parenthetical words were doubtless added by Borg or an editor to buttress the professor’s argument that Paul is simply repeating “standard Jewish synagogue rhetoric about what Gentiles are like” (page 207). Erin, who wants to avoid having to regard her brother as under God’s condemnation, is convinced. And so might be readers of the book who fail to compare the quotation before them with their own Bibles—for the words appear to be part of the sacred text, despite being placed in a parenthesis.]

[It seems to this reviewer that Borg has crossed a very hazardous boundary indeed, for the Bible contains stern warnings about adding to or taking away from God’s Word (Deuteronomy 4:2 and Revelation 22:18-19, which includes a dire warning for tampering with God’s Word).]

[While the addition of these words may appeal to those who try to abrogate the Bible’s condemnation of homosexuality, it cannot be shaken. And Paul’s whole argument in Romans chapter 1 applies to every individual of whatever persuasion or religion—against “all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who; hold the truth in unrighteousness” (vs. 18).]

Things then get worse in the counseling session: While Erin is absorbing the impact of Kate’s suggestion that Paul didn’t really mean to call homosexuality an abomination, Kate goes on to suggest that even if Paul did mean exactly what he said, he could very well have been mistaken—implying that there is no Holy Spirit inspiration involved (page 209). Truly, wickedness is at work in this book.

3. Positing Two Jesuses

In a class discussion about the effect of the Enlightenment on the Church’s understanding of Jesus’ intentions and accomplishments, Kate states in a hand-out that “Jesus as a historical figure was not the same as the gospels portray him. This especially the case in John’s gospel”—which, she writes, “is a very developed layer of the tradition.”  In other words, liberal scholars, including The Jesus Seminar, do not believe Jesus regarded Himself as the Son of God, or Messiah, or the Bread of Life, etc. Nor do they believe Jesus came to Earth to die as the Lamb of God. All these things, they insist, were claimed for Him, after His death, by His followers (pages 238-239). These theologians deny especially the factuality of John’s Gospel, including our Lord’s assertion that “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6).

4. Tie-ins with New Age and Emergent Church Thought

Martin, a minor figure in the book, who is Kate’s one-time (and possibly future) lover, outlines a lecture he will give about mysticism. He jots down: “Would affect our sense of what the word ‘God’ points to: a reality that can be known and that is ‘all around us’—not a person-like being ‘out there,’ separate from the universe, a super-powerful authority figure whose existence can be argued about” (page 133). Later we learn that Kate shares this belief with Martin (page 276).    

Additionally, in perhaps the only inclusion of real persons in the book, Brian McLaren and Jim Wallis are recommended by a faculty member of the seminary that is inviting Kate to fill a temporary position. He says: “I would love to have either of them on our faculty, though I don’t imagine they’d be interested. Both are committed evangelicals” (page 149).

5. A Horrifying Glimpse into Liberal Academia

The seminary which has invited Kate for a one-year visiting professorship has, in Martin’s words: “We have so many specialized points of view here—Asian, African, feminist, womanist, gay, lesbian, plus, of course, older white male.” He goes on to say: “Don’t get me wrong—I’ve learned a lot from feminist theology and African theology and Asian theology and gay theology, and I’m grateful” (page 269).

Conclusion: While I can only conclude that this book will lead readers away from truth (and from the Gospel) rather than to it, one poem quoted in the book, “Dover Beach” written by British poet Matthew Arnold in 1870, moved me.  Arnold was attempting to describe how people’s faith in God was being shattered by overtly unbiblical challenges.

The sea is calm tonight,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits—on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch’d land,
Listen! You hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl’d,
But now I only hear its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! For the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

The third stanza may seem to tell the tale of the Church’s defensive battle against the attacks of the Enlightenment—a tale of retreat and gathering impotence in the face of worldly knowledge. Yet the tale is true only on the surface, for God, who cannot lie, has sworn that the gates of hell shall not prevail against His church. Our Lord has also sworn that His Gospel “shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” (Matt. 24:14).

Though the church in our land is beleaguered, let us recall that  “… They are not all Israel, which are of Israel”(Rom. 9:6), and that all this was foretold: “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 Tim. 4:1).

The Church in America, as in Europe in general, has forgotten that “…strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matt. 7:14). We are called to live as pilgrims and sojourners in a strange land, for this land is not our true home: we seek another!

Meanwhile, let us soldier on for our Captain, holding His banner high, knowing that our work is not in vain—for our Father declared, “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it” (Isa. 55:11).

Praise His Name!

P.S.: If you wonder about Borg’s title, as I did, I have to tell you that he never mentions it in the book. But it dawned on me eventually that he is describing Erin, the girl who came to college clinging to her childhood faith, and lost it in the blaze of the Enlightenment. He’d like to be describing real persons—people like you and me. But personally, I’d much rather have the child-like faith that our Lord had in mind when He said: “Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein” (Mark 10:15; Luke 18:17).

Ted Kyle

Related:

Marcus Borg – A Key Force in the Emerging “New Paradigm” of Christian Faith

by John Lanagan
My Word Like Fire Ministries

Castles in the Sand, by Carolyn Greene, is a good book as fiction per se. Yet, some fiction is…true. Greene’s book shows how even Christian colleges can fall prey to the anti-Biblical practices of the enemy.

At chuch last night a young woman told me she was at a “spiritual” bookstore, owned by a friend of her mother. The things being talked about seemed familiar somehow. She hadn’t finished reading Castles in the Sand, but she went back and read more.

Sure enough, many of the New Age/New Spirituality practices were described in the book. The woman had been educated, through this Christian “fiction,” to recognize these things the bookstore owner and her mother had been talking about.

Well, I have written many articles about Castles in the Sand. I have taken it to an AA meeting, a labyrinth, a Red Letter (yeah, right) Christian’s lecture, and even to a vampire movie. I have given the novel to people, or left it in strategic spots.

But I also have given it to people from my church. And hearing that last night, man, it is incredible to be a small part of the Lord’s plan.

Author Carolyn Greene, may He guide and bless you. If we see a sequel, I know it will only be after much prayer. That’s how the first one came with such power. (source)

By Larry DeBruyn
Guarding His Flock Ministries

What might it all mean, and where might it all lead?

“Therefore I make known to you, that . . . no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.” 1 Corinthians 12:2, NASB

Amongst pan-evangelicals nowadays, there’s a lot of talk . . . talk . . . talk . . . going on about “Jesus,” the name that bespeaks the humanity of the historical person known by that name. The best selling religious allegory The Shack humanizes Jesus as a relatively unattractive Middle Eastern Jewish man with a “big nose” who functioned as the retreat center’s repairman.[1]

At face value, there is nothing wrong with portraying Jesus as human. In Jesus, God became incarnate. Paul the Apostle wrote, Jesus was “made in the likeness of men . . . [and] found in appearance as a man” (Philippians 2:7-8). Christians cannot deny—though Docetism, an ancient heresy in the early church, taught that His body was not real, that He only “seemed” (Greek, dokein) to have a body—Jesus possessed and possesses a genuine humanity. To counter the false teaching of Docetism, John the Apostle wrote that “the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us,” and that “many deceivers have gone out into the world, those who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh” (John 1:14; 2 John 7). For reason of His incarnation, no true Christian believer denies Jesus’ humanity. But with all this “Jesus-Jesus-Jesus” talk, believers ought to be concerned that a Christ-identity crisis is going on amongst professing evangelicals as they attempt to deconstruct the traditions surrounding Jesus in order to discover the authentic Jesus of the primitive gospel.

“ReJesusing”
To this point, a couple of authors have written a book titled, ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church.[2] The book proposes ”a rediscovery of Christology that includes a preoccupation with the example and teaching of Jesus for the purposes of emulation by his followers.”[3] Why do the authors propose rediscovering Jesus? Because, as they rightly describe,

Whether it is the grand ecclesiastical project of institutional churches, epitomized by the ostentatious excess of the Vatican, or the tawdry grab for the hearts and minds of the aspirational middle class by prosperity-style Pentecostalism, the Christian movement has been subverted. Like a forgotten nativity scene in a shopping mall dominated by Santa Claus, reindeer, elves, Disney characters, tinsel, baubles, and fake snow, the biblical Jesus is hard to find.[4]

Then the authors add: “Let’s get our Christology right and then dare to place all our deeply held desires for how to do church at its service. Not vice versa.”[5]

Though the authors make a fair point for going back to the source of the Christian faith, a faith that in many ways has been corrupted by intruding ideologies for two millennia, we must note that their desire to restore Christianity to its primitive roots is not new. It’s been tried before, and rightfully so, for we Christians ought to desire to rid our faith of symbolic baggage and get down to the nitty-gritty practice of it. Presumably that’s why God gave to us His Son and the Scriptures that witness to Jesus (Luke 24:44; John 5:39); to clarify what we should believe about Him and how we ought to behave in Him (2 Timothy 3:16-17).

But my concern is that Jesus talk may not be all it’s cracked up to be, and that because it appears to deemphasize Jesus to be, as Peter confessed Him, ”the Christ the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16:16), it will lead to nowhere in the end. In fact, the authors seem to infer that understanding Jesus to be the Lord Jesus Christ is a metaphysical imposition by the church upon the primitive but authentic Jesus.[6] This is what emergents believe has accumulated around Jesus, what they call the Jesus myth. Thus they propose that, to really understand Jesus, the mass of ecclesiastical beliefs and traditions about Him must be discarded so that the modern church can be ”rejesused.” In their view, the church must be “rejesused,” or to use a computer metaphor, be “rebooted,” so that a new kind of Christianity can emerge. Coordinate with this line of thinking, one can observe that in Wm. Paul Young’s novel The Shack, Jesus is never referred to as “Christ” or “Lord.” Maybe those designations represent for Young a philosophical imposition upon the life of Jesus.

A Name above All Names
Yet in contrast to Paul the author, we can note that in various combinations Paul the Apostle predominately referred to Jesus as “Christ Jesus” (90 times), “Jesus Christ” (79 times), “Lord Jesus” or “Lord Jesus Christ (72 times), or “Jesus our Lord” (10 times). In the minority of instances when Paul refers to Jesus as “Jesus” (Romans 3:26; 8:11; 2 Corinthians 4:5, 10-11; Galatians 6:17; Ephesians 4:21; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; 4:14), the context indicates Jesus is being referred to as Jesus Christ, Christ Jesus or the Lord Jesus Christ. Why then, in contrast to the “Jesus-Jesus-Jesus” talk going on these days, does the Apostle refer to Him as such? I suggest the following reasons.

First, He is Jesus because He is the Savior for our sins (Matthew 1:21). Second, that He is “the Christ” is how Jesus Himself expected to be referenced (Compare Peter’s confession and Jesus’ response to it in Matthew 16:16-17.). Third, by His resurrection, Jesus was “declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 1:4). Fourth, Paul wrote to the Romans that nobody can be saved if they do not confess “Jesus as Lord” and believe in their heart that “God raised Him from the dead” (Romans 10:9; Now in contrast to name-it-claim-it hyper-charismaticism, there’s the real the word of faith! See Romans 10:8.) And fifth, in that He’s now ascended into heaven and there occupying the honored place at the Father’s right hand (Romans 8:34; Ephesians 1:20; Colossians 3:1), addressing Jesus as “Lord” by faith gives recognition to Jesus’ honored state. One day “every knee” shall bow, “of those who are in heaven, and on earth, and under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord” (Philippians 2:10-11). Question: Before our ascended Lord, why should we not bow our tongues and like the Apostle Paul, refer to Him as “Christ Jesus,” “Jesus Christ,” “Lord Jesus,” or “the Lord Jesus Christ”? Having observed that the New Testament refers to Jesus as Savior 24 times and Lord 522 times, one author concludes: “We should be able to make a personal application of these important statistics.”[7]

So what are we to make of all this Jesus talk, this talk which while it rightfully exalts his earthly name on the one hand, wrongfully diminishes His heavenly name on the other? We need to be careful lest we create a Jesus so earth bound that He becomes of no heavenly relevance. After all, Jesus is “the Son of Man” (Matthew 16:13; Compare Daniel 7:13). Here’s what I mean.

A “Conspiracy” of Jesuses
In ReJesus, the authors state that, “A true Christian expression models itself on Jesus . . .”[8] Then after citing Romans 8:29 (For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son . . .), the book quotes an author who calls this the “conspiracy of little Jesuses,” to which the authors add, “we believe it is fundamental to God’s plans and purposes for his world [i.e., that Christians be a conspiracy of little Jesuses].”[9]

Now for the purpose of working up God’s kingdom below, one can only wonder when this conspiracy of little Jesuses will morph to become a collusion of little Christs. Could this eventually be the fallout of an emergent Christology that attempts to affect the institution of God’s kingdom on earth through little Jesuses? On this point we must note that New Age author Neale Donald Walsch tells his readers, “Many have been Christed, not just Jesus of Nazareth. You can be Christed, too.”[10] Or as Helen Schucman stated in A Course in Miracles:

Is he [Jesus] the Christ? O yes, along with you. His little life on earth was not enough to teach the mighty lesson that he learned for all of you.[11] 

Conclusion
“Jesus” was as common a name in Israel during the Lord’s life as it is in Latin America today. So what is it that distinguishes His name above all other names? It is that–as the Apostle Paul knew Him–He is “the Lord Jesus Christ”! To the extent that emergents prefer to refer to Him mostly as “Jesus,” they trivialize Him, making His name an inconsequential moniker.

So who is Jesus? Is He Jesus-Jesus-Jesus, or THE LORD JESUS CHRIST? As we answer this question, we ought all remember that “no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit” (1 Corinthians 12:3). If we should find a deficiency within us making it difficult to refer to Jesus as “Lord” there may be indication of a deeper problem going on within our souls; and that is in all this Jesus talk, we are not really being led by the Spirit (John 15:26); or worse, that our hearts are not really regenerate. After all, regeneration is the nexus by which the Holy Spirit imparts Jesus’ life in us for the purpose of living His life through us. To be Christlike on the outside demands that people first possess the Spirit of Christ on the inside (Romans 8:9). In its fullness, the Kingdom will not come by emulation, but by regeneration.[12]

____________________
 

ENDNOTES
[1] Wm. Paul Young, The Shack (Los Angeles: Windblown Media, 2007) 111.
[2] Alan Hirsch & Michael Frost, ReJesus: A Wild Messiah for a Missional Church (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 2009). Leonard Sweet ecstatically endorses this book as follows: “ReJesus will rock your world—-and cause you to reJesus your life, reJesus your church, and reJesus your Bible. Expect ‘reJesus’ to become a mantra and a mobilization in the revitalization of Christianity in the 21st century.” See Leonard Sweet, Book Endorsemnents at LeonardSweet.com. Online: http://www.leonardsweet.com/endorsement.php.
[3] Ibid. 15.
[4] Ibid. 9-10.
[5] Ibid. 12.
[6] The authors of ReJesus note of Adolph von Harnack (1851-1930) that, “As a historian of dogma, he had seen too many agendas take Jesus captive, quoting him to justify all manner of beliefs and practices. He [von Harnack] became convinced that the kernal of the gospel had been overlaid by the husks of metaphysical concepts alien to the teaching of Jesus. The primitive stories of Jesus had been corrupted by official church dogma [presumably of which, the writings of the Apostle Paul are a part] . . . Indeed,” state the authors in the following paragraph, “it’s not hard to find examples to support this view. (p. 9)
[7] William McDonald, Believer’s Bible Commentary, Art Farstad, Editor (Nashville,TN: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1985) 2075.
[8] Hirsch & Frost, ReJesus, 13.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God, Book 2, p. 22, quoted by Warren B. Smith, Reinventing Jesus Christ: The New Gospel (Ravenna, OH: Conscience Press, 2002) 23. Warren Smith’s book is available in a PDF format online at: http://www.newagetograce.com/RV.pdf. See Lighthouse Trails website for other of Warren’s writings at: http://www.newagetograce.com/index.html. I thank Warren for giving me the expression that to emergents the modern Christian faith with its abundance of misconceptions needs to be “rebooted.” 
[11] Ibid. 11. Emphasis mine. Smith quotes Schucman.
[12] The authors of ReJesus admit that trying to walk in Jesus’ footsteps is a tall order. They state that in their study of Christology, which for them involves studying how persons can copy the person and works of Jesus in their lifestyles, there are limits to the ways “his life and activity can be emulated by sinful human beings.” Then they add: “Some will say that such emulation is arduous to achieve in general [impossible might have been a better choice of words] when it comes to the specifics of his redeeming death and resurrection, the miracles, and his judgment of the unrighteous.” (p. 15) (From Guarding His Flock Ministries)

by John Lanagan
My Word Like Fire Ministries

Before a packed auditorium at Warner Pacific College in Portland, Oregon,  activist Shane Claiborne gave his message of peace, love, and brotherhood. An engaging speaker, and a man dedicated to his beliefs, Claiborne had the crowd laughing and reminiscing with him as he recounted past adventures and experiences. During the time he spoke he emphasized again and again our Christian duty to help the poor and the oppressed.

“God is creating a holy counter-culture,” said Claiborne, author of Jesus For President, The Irresistible Revolution, and several others.

I sat there in the crowd, taking notes, wanting to believe that Claiborne was truly a believer. I knew he was tight with contemplative Tony Campolo. In his interview with Campolo several years ago, Claiborne made a troubling statement:

Tony Campolo: We don’t have to give up trying to convert each other. What we have to do is show respect to one another. And to speak to each other with a sense that even if people don’t convert, they are God’s people, God loves them, and we do not make the judgment of who is going to heaven and who is going to hell. I think that what we all have to do is leave judgment up to God. The Muslim community is very evangelistic, however what Muslims will not do is condemn Jews and Christians to Hell if in fact they do not accept Islam.

Shane Claiborne: That seems like a healthy distinction—between converting and condemning. One of the barriers seems to be the assumption that we have the truth and folks who experience things differently will all go to Hell. How do we unashamedly maintain a healthy desire for others to experience the love of God as we have experienced it without condemning others who experience God differently?  Click here to read more.

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