Posts Tagged ‘New Age’

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In the August 2010 cover story of Christianity Today, the magazine has brought out two things that the major Christian media has thus far ignored – one, that Beth Moore, described as “the most popular Bible teacher in America”  by CT is a proponent of contemplative prayer, and two, that there is a debate over whether contemplative meditation is of Eastern religious origin or not. This Lighthouse Trails special report will look at both of these facets, Beth Moore’s contemplative propensities (incidentally, she is noted in CT  for influencing “millions” of women) and the vital question as to whether contemplative prayer is indeed rooted in Eastern mysticism. 

Christianity Today hit the nail right on the head when it informed its readers that:

“Critics argue that contemplative prayer is rooted in Eastern mysticism and thus not a practice that Christians should engage in.”

Lighthouse Trails has always warned that contemplative prayer is in fact rooted in Eastern mysticism, with a heavy emphasis on the word “rooted.” In Ray Yungen’s book, A Time of Departing, Yungen brings out that contemplative prayer was created by the Desert Fathers, a group of monks who lived in the desert during the early middle ages. Quoting Ken Kaisch, A Time of Departing reveals:

It was a time of great experimentation with spiritual methods. Many different kinds of disciplines were tried, some of which are too harsh or extreme for people today. Many different methods of prayer were created and explored by them. (Finding God, p. 191).

At the time, the city of Alexandria, close to where the Desert Fathers existed, was a stronghold of Eastern mysticism through the connection of King Alexander’s link to India. It is believed that the Desert Fathers utilized Eastern style meditation practices (i.e., mantra meditation), but instead of using Hindu or Buddhist mantras, they tailored this Eastern style prayer to their Christian beliefs, using “Christian” mantras. As an early treatise on contemplative prayer written by an anonymous monk, The Cloud of Unknowing, describes:  ”Take just a little word, of one syllable rather than of two . . . With this word you are to strike down every kind of thought under the cloud of forgetting.” This is why all the major icons of contemplative prayer (Thomas Merton, Thomas Keating, Henri Nouwen, etc) echo the same spiritual perceptions as Eastern meditation practitioners. Thomas Merton said as he was leaving on a trip to South Asia to address Hindu and Buddhist monks: ” We left the ground– I with Christian mantras and a great sense of destiny, of being at last on my true way after years of waiting and wandering … I am going home, to the home where I have never been in this body. ” (Merton’s Asian Journal, pp. ). Henri Nouwen echoed this when he said that Hinduism, Buddhism, and the Muslim (i.e., Sufism) religion offered many treasures for the spiritual life of the Christian (in the foreword of Thomas Ryan’s Disciplines for Christian Living).

For those who are still skeptical, the co-founder of one of the largest centers for teaching contemplative prayer, Tilden Edwards of The Shalem Institute, said that contemplative prayer is “the Western bridge to Far Eastern spirituality” (Edwards, Spiritual Friend, p. 18). How much more clear can this be? We could go on and on to verify the link between Eastern religion and contemplative spirituality. We have documented over 200 pages in A Time of Departing, not to mention article after article with continued documentation.

Returning to Beth Moore, while it may come as a surprise to many Christianity Today readers that Moore is being identified with contemplative “mysticism,” it is no surprise to Lighthouse Trails because in the spring of 2006, Moore was included in our coverage of a Fox Home Entertainment film titled Be Still,* an infomercial for contemplative spirituality.  Shortly after the DVD was released, Lighthouse Trails spoke with Moore’s personal assistant who said that Moore did not have a problem with Richard Foster or Dallas Willard’s teachings. To reiterate this, Living Proof Ministries issued a  statement a few weeks after the release of the DVD that stated: “[W]e believe that once you view the Be Still video you will agree that there is no problem with its expression of Truth.” Living Proof offered to send a free copy of the DVD to anyone who receives their email statement and wishes to view the DVD, saying that, “[I]t would be our privilege to do this for you to assure you that there is no problem with Beth’s participation in the Be Still video.” This statement was issued because several women contacted Moore’s ministry after reading the Lighthouse Trail report on the Be Still DVD.

In the Be Still DVD, countless enticements, references, and comments clearly show its affinity with contemplative spirituality. For instance, Richard Foster says that anyone can practice contemplative prayer and become a “portable sanctuary” for God. This backs up other statements by Foster over the course of the past thirty years in which he believes that even a non-believer in Christ can participate in the “spiritual discipline” of silence and have an encounter with God. The assumption by all mystics is that God dwells in all people, and meditation will help them to realize their own Divinity. This panentheistic view of God is very typical for contemplatives. As Ray Yungen points out, those who practice contemplative prayer begin to view God through panentheistic (God in all) and interspiritual (all is united) eyes. Thomas Merton, whom Foster has admired publicly for many years, believed that all human beings have divinity within, and this divinity can be accessed through contemplative prayer, thereby making the Cross of Jesus unnecessary for union with God. We believe that the reason for this change in spiritual outlook for those who continue practicing contemplative meditation (i.e., mantra-like meditation) is that these altered states of consciousness actually engage the practitioner with demonic realms leading to spiritual deception.

The underlying theme of the Be Still DVD is that we cannot truly know God or be intimate with Him without contemplative prayer and the state of silence that it produces. While the DVD is vague and lacking in actual instruction on word or phrase repetition (which lies at the heart of contemplative prayer), it is very misleading, to say the least. What they don’t say in the DVD is that this state of stillness or silence is, for the most part, achieved through some method such as mantra-like meditation. The purpose of the DVD, in essence, is not to instruct in contemplative prayer but rather to make you and your family hungry for it. The DVD even promises that practicing the silence will heal your family problems.

The thoughtful and discerning Christian needs to ask whether the Be Still DVD is an accurate “expression of Truth,” as Beth Moore says it is, and is there truly “no problem with Beth’s participation” in this project? Considering the fact that Christianity Today calls Moore “the most popular Bible teacher in America,” these are fair questions to ask. Moore has the potential of leading  millions of women in a spiritually dangerous direction. Those women in turn will bring this mystical teaching home to their husbands, children, and churches. In the Be Still DVD, Moore states: “[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.” Moore says that it is not possible to “truly know” that He is God without “a stillness.” She is not talking about a quiet place to pray and spend time in God’s word, but rather she is talking about a stillness of the mind – this is what contemplatives strive for – unless you practice this stillness of the mind, your relationship with the Lord is inadequate. According to Beth Moore, you don’t even know Him in the way you should.

Many reading this may be asking, is there any other evidence as to where Moore really stands with regard to contemplative. The answer to that may at least partially be found in a book she wrote in 2002 called When Godly People Do Ungodly Things. In a section about “Unceasing Prayer,” Moore states:

I have picked up on the terminology of Brother Lawrence [a Carmelite mystic who said he "cried out, singing and dancing  violently like a madman" when he went into the "presence"1], who called praying unceasingly practicing God’s presence. In fact, practicing God’s presence has been my number one goal for the last year. (p. 109)

Moore says: “A head full of biblical knowledge without a heart passionately in love with Christ is terribly dangerous–a stronghold waiting to happen. The head is full, but the heart and soul are still unsatisfied” (p. 60). This language is very indicative of contemplatives and echoes Richard Foster who said we have become barren within or Rick Warren who says the church is not fully mature without spiritual formation ala Foster and Willard (i.e., contemplative prayer)  (The Purpose Driven Church, p. 126-127 ). However, all of this talk leads one to think that the Word of God is little more than a philosophy and needs the help of contemplative prayer to be effective at all. The insinuation is that the Holy Spirit is dormant and ineffective without this vital stimuli.  Contemplatives are making a distinction between studying and meditating on the Word of God versus loving Him, suggesting that we cannot love Him or know Him simply by studying His Word or even through normal prayer–we must practice contemplative to accomplish this. But the Bible makes it clear that the Word of God is living and active, and it is in filling our minds with it that we come to love Him and know Him, not through a mystical practice that is never once mentioned in the Bible, except in warnings against vain repetitions (Matthew 6:7) and Old Testament warnings against seeking to make contact with the spirit world or going into altered states of consciousness (Deuteronomy 18:11).

In Moore’s book, she makes frequent references to contemplative pioneer Brennan Manning, stating that his contribution to “our generation of believers may be a gift without parallel” (p. 72). This is indeed a troubling statement made by “the most popular Bible teacher in America.”  No doubt, many of the women who follow Moore, in reading her comments about Manning and her quoting of him have turned to the writings of Manning for further insights. Why wouldn’t they when their favorite Bible teacher speaks so highly of him? When they do turn to him, they will find that Manning is a devout admirer of Beatrice Bruteau, founder of  The School for Contemplation. Bruteau wrote the foreword to a book called The Mystic Heart by New Age mystic Wayne Teasdale, a book that actually lays out that contemplative prayer will unite Christianity with all the world’s religions at a mystical level. And yet, in Manning’s book, Abba’s Child, he says that Bruteau is a “trustworthy guide to contemplative consciousness.”  Manning  backs his love for “contemplative consciousness” by stating the following:

[T]he first step in faith is to stop thinking about God at the time of prayer. (The Signature of Jesus, p. 212)

Choose a single, sacred word or phrase that captures something of the flavor of your intimate relationship with God. A word such as Jesus, Abba, Peace, God or a phrase such as “Abba, I belong to you.” … Without moving your lips, repeat the sacred word inwardly, slowly, and often. (SoJ, p. 218)

When distractions come, … simply return to listening to your sacred word…. [G]ently return [your mind] to your sacred word. (SoJ, p. 218)

[E]nter into the great silence of God. Alone in that silence, the noise within will subside and the Voice of Love will be heard. (SoJ, p. 218)

This is the contemplative prayer that Beth Moore is promoting – Manning’s contemplative prayer. Furthering Beth Moore’s great admiration for Manning, she quotes him from his book Ragamuffin Gospel calling the book “one of the most remarkable books” (p. 290) she has ever read. But it is this very book that reveals Manning’s true affinity with contemplative spirituality. In the back of the book, Manning makes reference to Catholic priest and mystic Basil Pennington saying that Pennington’s methods will provide us with “a way of praying that leads to a deep living relationship with God.” However, most assuredly Pennington’s methods of prayer draw from Eastern religions. In his book, Finding Grace at the Center, Pennington says:

We should not hesitate to take the fruit of the age-old wisdom of the East and “capture” it for Christ. Indeed, those of us who are in ministry should make the necessary effort to acquaint ourselves with as many of these Eastern techniques as possible. Many Christians who take their prayer life seriously have been greatly helped by Yoga, Zen, TM and similar practices. (from A Time of Departing, 2nd ed., p.64, quoting Finding Grace at the Center, pp. 5-6)

Pennington also says that the Holy Spirit is the soul of the human family (Centered Living, The Way of Centering Prayer, p. 104).

In Ragamuffin Gospel, Manning cites Carl Jung as well as interspiritualists and contemplative mystics, Anthony De Mello (see note below), Marcus Borg (denies the Virgin birth and Jesus being Son of God), Morton Kelsey, Gerald May, Henri Nouwen, Annie Dillard, Alan Jones (who denies the atonement), Eugene Peterson, and goddess worshipper Sue Monk Kidd. This is a list of mystics that any discerning Bible teacher would never point followers to either directly or indirectly!

For Moore to call Manning’s book “remarkable” and to say his contribution to this generation of believers is “a gift without parallel” leads one to conclude that Beth Moore has absorbed Manning’s spirituality. And if that is the case, which we believe it to be, then Moore, as nice and well intentioned as she may be, has become another conduit for a panentheistic spirituality.

 What makes the Christianity Today’s August issue noteworthy is that this is the first time to our knowledge since the beginning of Lighthouse Trails in 2002 where a major Christian media has publicly recognized that there is a “debate” going on about contemplative spirituality (i.e., spiritual formation). While they did not identify  Lighthouse Trails as one of the “critics” of this debate, nevertheless they have  helped to bring it to the table and give it a broader platform. We would like to note here that over the past eight years thousands of believers have contacted Lighthouse Trails and do see what is taking place. This is not just something that only a handful of people see, albeit a minority in the church.

Lighthouse Trails sincerely implores Beth Moore and all Christian leaders going in the contemplative direction to take an honest look at the evidence that contemplative prayer IS rooted in Eastern mysticism. Nothing else explains the affinity that so many practitioners have for Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sufism. As Merton told a Sufi teacher, “My prayer tends very much to what you call fana” (Thomas Merton, My Brother, Pennington, p. 115). Fana is the same as Hindu Samadhi and Buddhist nirvana. Merton went on to explain how mystical meditation even eclipses the need to believe in Jesus’ atoning and saving work on the Cross. To the Sufi teacher, Merton stated:

Personally, in matters where dogmatic beliefs differ, I think that controversy [“the doctrine of atonement or the theory of redemption,” said the Sufi teacher] is of little value because it takes us away from the spiritual realities into the realm of words and ideas . . . . But much more important is the sharing of the experience of divine light, . . . It is here that the area of fruitful dialogue exists between Christianity and Islam. (Merton and Sufism, p. 109)

It is essential to grasp the significance of what is being said here: Merton believed that the doctrines that are the essence of Christianity (such as atonement and salvation) were irrelevant and actually, if taken seriously, were an  impediment to religious unity. The complete union of all the world’s religions cannot be accomplished  without a form of mysticism within Christianity-that form is contemplative prayer, the very thing that a growing and large number of Christian leaders are propagating today!

It is this that motivates Lighthouse Trails to continue issuing a warning. We are not haters, as some have supposed; in fact we love people,( including those who promote contemplative prayer) and feel compelled to warn them about the spiritual land mines buried within the mystical paths on which they have embarked.

Footnote:

1. The Practice of the Presence of God by Brother Lawrence, translated by John Delaney, Image Books, 1977, p. 34

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Note: The writer of the Christianity Today article, “First Came the Bible,” is Halee Gray Scott, a writer and a faculty member at Wesley Seminary and A. W. Tozer Theological Seminary. She is a Ph.D. candidate at Talbot School of Theology, where her research interests include leadership development and spiritual formation.

Many of the quotes in this report are taken from A Time of Departing. Click here for information on A Time of Departing by Ray Yungen.

Also read: Richard Foster and the Be Still DVD

*To view a transcript of the entire Be Still DVD, please contact us.

Quote by ANTHONY DEMELLO ON CONTEMPLATIVE SILENCE:

To silence the mind is an extremely difficult task. How hard it is to keep the mind from thinking, thinking, thinking, forever thinking, forever producing thoughts in a never ending stream. Our Hindu masters in India have a saying: one thorn is removed by another. By this they mean that you will be wise to use one thought to rid yourself of all the other thoughts that crowd into your mind. One thought, one image, one phrase or sentence or word that your mind can be made to fasten on. Anthony de Mello, Sadhana: A Way to God (St. Louis, the Institute of Jesuit Resources, 1978), p. 28.

The Bible says we live in a “crooked and perverse” world and that as believers we are to “shine as lights in the world” (Philippians 2:15). The closer we move toward the “end of the age” (Matthew 24), the darker and more perverse the world becomes. Global peace plans, inter-faith movements, emergent spiritualities, and other carnal-induced plots will not help the world’s woes. Jesus said, “I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.” (John 12:46). As the world moves further away from Jesus Christ, the darkness only grows. A person can never escape that darkness without Jesus Christ living in him or her … all these other attempts are futile.

The New Age movement has now permeated all areas of our society: the business world, healthcare, education, religion, and entertainment. Virtually nothing has been untouched by the tentacles of this occultic, meditation-driven spirituality, and it has entered the Christian church through contemplative prayer (i.e., spiritual formation). But there is another area that mysticism has united with … and that is the sexual realm. The marriage of the two is referred to as tantra (or tantric sex), and before you stop reading this article, thinking “What has sex got to do with exposing contemplative and the New Age?” we must tell you will all soberness, this mystical sexuality is growing faster by the day, and it may ultimately affect the lives of countless Christians. Why? Because Christianity at large is going in a mystical direction, thanks to countless Christian leaders, and within the realms of these mystical states, many will be introduced to tantra.

We decided to write this article on tantra after a Christian woman contacted us and told us (after seeing tantra mentioned in a description of For Many Shall Come in My Name) that her Christian husband (who is in leadership in a large Christian movement) was being enticed with tantric sex.

Ray Yungen explains about tantra and its relevance today:

Tantra is the name of the ancient Hindu sacred texts that contain certain rituals and secrets. Some deal with taking the energies brought forth in meditation through the chakras and combining them with love-making to enhance sexual experiences.

Once completely off-limits to the masses of humanity, tantra, like all other New Age methodologies, is now starting to gain increasing popularity. A google search on the Internet shows 6,600,000 entries for the word tantra! This union of sexuality and Eastern spirituality is a perfect example to illustrate just how much the New Age has permeated our society as it has affected even the most intimate areas of people’s lives.

The potential to impact a very great number of people, especially men, was brought out in an article by a sex worker who incorporates “Tantric Bodywork” into her services. She paints a very sad portrait of the dynamics of the “enormous sex industry” in which millions of stressed and unhappy men seek out “erotic release” from women who are just as unhappy and stressed as their clients. She observes that there is a “culturally rampant phenomenon that spouses are disconnected from each other.”

To remedy this tragic interplay of exploitation, she has turned to Tantric Union to give her clients what she feels is not just sex but “union with the divine.” After she read a book called Women of the Light: The New Sacred Prostitute, she turned her erotic business
into a “temple.” Of this temple, she says it is:

…dedicated to being a haven of the sacred, a home for the embodiment of spirit, filled with altars, sacred objects, plants, art, dreamy sensual music, blissful scents. My space is home to Quan Yin [a Buddhist goddess], crystals blessed by the Entities of John of God [a Brazilian spirit channeler].

Now the “multitudes of men” who come to her get much more than they bargained for. In the past, wives and girlfriends needed only to worry about sexually transmitted diseases from cheating husbands and boyfriends, but now their men may instead bring home spiritual entities!

Most readers might think that tantra is something exceedingly obscure that would never attract average people. But the movie industry thinks otherwise. In a 2003 movie, Hollywood Homicide (starring Harrison Ford, one of the industry’s leading men), viewers were presented with a brief snippet of tantric sex in one scene where fellow police officers opened the locker of Ford’s rookie detective partner and out falls a book (which the camera focuses on) about tantra, revealing the side-kick’s spiritual/sexual affinities (incidentally, he also teaches yoga in the film). (For Many Shall Come in My Name, 2nd ed., pp. 115-116)

If Christians begin to incorporate their contemplative proclivities with their sexual lives (a Christian version of tantric sex), the results will be devastating to the church, and we predict sexual perversion will be more rampant than ever. Why? Because if the altered states of consciousness are truly demonic realms (as we believe they are) then tantric sex is another venue of the hidden darkness that Jesus spoke of.

These assertions may sound absurd and far-fetched to some readers, but evidence of the truth of this does exist. For instance, Henri Nouwen (who along with Thomas Merton is one of the top icons of the contemplative prayer movement), in his last book The Sabbatical Journey, favorably revealed how he listened to audio tapes on the seven chakras which is the basis for tantric sex (p. 20). Also in Nouwen’s book, he makes mention of his encounter with a homosexual mystic named Andrew Harvey, whom Nouwen referred to as his soul friend (spiritual mentor) and how much Harvey’s mysticism had touched him (p. 149). And yet Harvey’s mysticism includes the tantric element. In a 2007 conference (The International Conference on Sacred Sexuality), Harvey led a workshop called “Sexual Liberation, Tantra, and Sacred Activism” in which Harvey:

… show[s] that sexual liberation and Tantra are vital parts of the Divine Mother’s plan for the birth of a new humanity, since they make possible a profound and ecstatic contact with what Andrew calls Divine Eros – a tender passionate dynamic love-connection. True Tantric sexuality gives its’ practitioners access to extraordinary and unified energies which will form the base of a commitment to Sacred Activism.

As believers who are to “shine as lights in the world,” we must flee the deeds of darkness and “become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.” We cannot do this in our own strength, but Jesus Christ living inside us will enable us through His mercy and grace: “For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13). (this article originally from our 2007 newsletter archive)

Further information on this topic:

Hindus critical & dismayed of “Hollywood types” describing Tantra as just sex

Trinity Western University Professor Promotes Tantric-like Spirituality – Serious Implications for Christianity

A Pastor Speaks Up: Mark Driscoll and the New “Sexual Spirituality”

LTRP Note: Last week, we posted an article titled  “Sojourners Founder Jim Wallis’ Revolutionary Anti-Christian “Gospel” (and Will Christian Leaders Stand with Wallis?).” As more and more talk arises about a “spiritual revolution” or awakening, believers should be asking, is this a revolution from God? Or is this coming global “revolution” part of the great falling away of which the Bible speaks? Consider the following article by Warren B. Smith, and next time you hear a Christian leader talking about revolution, ask yourself, “Whose revolution is this?”

by Warren Smith
(from A “Wonderful” Deception)

The “spiritual revolution” I referenced in my 1995 journal article ["M. Scott Peck: Community and the Cosmic Christ," SCP Journal, 19:2-3 (1995)"]  … is indeed the same New Age “revolution” attempting to transfix and transform the church today. We should be very concerned when self-professing Evangelical leaders with New Age sympathies talk about starting a “spiritual revolution.”

In chapter four [of A "Wonderful" Deception], I describe how New Age sympathizer Ken Blanchard recounted at a 2003 Lead Like Jesus conference that Rick Warren had turned to him and stated: “You know, Ken, let’s start a revolution.”1Five years later Blanchard was calling his Lead Like Jesus conference a Lead Like Jesus “Revolution.”2 In his book The Secret Message of Jesus, Brian McLaren’s second suggested metaphor after “God’s Dream” is “revolution of God.”3 And McLaren’s book Everything Must Change is even subtitled Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope. Erwin McManus, another emerging church leader, calls for an “Evolution of a Revolution” in his Rick Warren endorsed book The Unstoppable Force.4 It is noteworthy that New Age leader Neale Donald Walsch has also talked of an “evolution revolution”5 that will be an “unstoppable force.”6 Organized Christianity and the New Age are overlapping and blending so much that soon—very soon—there will be no distinguishing the two as they blend right into the New Spirituality of the New World Religion.

Overlapping terms like “revolution,” “reformation,” “as above, so below,” “God’s Dream,” “Cosmic Christ,” “Oneness,” and “God in everything” are being used to transition what was once considered traditional Christianity into the New Spirituality of a New Age. New Age leader Marianne Williamson has stated that the New Age/New Spirituality “revolution” is “a global phenomenon that will change the cellular structure of the human race.” In her 2004 book The Gift of Change, she writes:

An underground revolution is sweeping the hearts and minds of the people of the world, and it is happening despite the wars and terror that confront us. This revolution is a fundamental change of worldview, and it carries with it the potential to reorganize the structure of human civilization. It brings a basic shift in the thoughts that dominate the world. It wages a peace that will end all war. It is a global phenomenon that will change the cellular structure of the human race.7

An underground “revolution” that will be a “global phenomenon” bringing peace to the world? A “revolution” that will “change the cellular structure of the human race”? David Spangler describes the cell as the basic metaphor of the New Age, while Leonard Sweet thanks Spangler for helping him to formulate the “new cell theory” of his quantum spirituality. In the meantime, Rick Warren and Brian McLaren describe a spiritual “revolution” that could change history(8) and change everything.(9) New Age leaders Marianne Williamson and Neale Donald Walsch also talk of a spiritual “revolution” that could change history and “change everything.”10

On the surface, this talk of a revolutionary world peace that will change everything sounds admirable. However, this “peace” is based on deceptive New Age principles, not on a sound biblical foundation. Christian leaders seem to be taking the church—into a quantum spirituality of a New Age/New Spirituality—into a New Worldview—into the coming New World Religion.

WHOSE REVOLUTION 
QUOTES BY “REVOLUTIONARIES”

“The Evolution of a Revolution”
                  —Erwin McManus, Unstoppable Force (p. 102)

“If you ever get a chance to hang out with Mack, you will soon learn that he’s hoping for a revolution.”
                  —William Paul Young, The Shack (p. 248)

“The time has come for a new kind of conversation, a new kind of Christianity, a new kind of revolution.”
                  —Shane Claiborne, Irresistible Revolution (p. 29)
 
“An underground revolution is sweeping the hearts and minds of the people of the world. . . . This revolution is a fundamental change of worldview.”
                  —Marianne Williamson, The Gift of Change, (p. 279)

“The world is undergoing an extraordinary revolution, an intellectual rebellion against the exclusionary belief structure that has dominated Western thought for centuries.”
                  —Willis Harman, The Global Mind Change, back cover

“The translucent revolution is about human consciousness and could lay the foundation for an evolutionary leap in human life unlike anything we have known.”
                  —Barbara Marx Hubbard, Translucent Revolution (p. 419)

“[I]gniting a revolution of hope that can change everything. Beginning with you. Beginning now.”
                  —Brian McLaren, Everything Must Change, back cover

“You know, Ken, let’s start a revolution.”
                   —Rick Warren to Ken Blanchard
                       Lead Like Jesus Conference, Birmingham, Alabama, 2003

(The article above is from chapter 10 of  A “Wonderful” Deception – to read entire chapter, click here.)

Notes:
1. Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p. 324.
2. Ibid., p. 125.
3. Ibid.
4. Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life, op. cit, p. 88.
5. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Christianity and Evolution (New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1971), p. 56.
6. One example of where Rick Warren says this is at the Pew Forum of Religion on May 23, 2005, “Myths of the Modern Megachurch,” http://pewforum.org/events/index.php?EventID=80.  Rick Warren: “You know, 500 years ago, the first Reformation with Luther and then Calvin, was about beliefs. I think a new reformation is going to be about behavior. The first Reformation was about creeds; I think this one will be about deeds. I think the first one was about what the church believes; I think this one will be about what the church does.”
7. Robert H. Schuller, Hour of Power, “God’s Word: Rebuild, Renew, Restore.”
8. “Myths of the Modern Megachurch,” Pew Forum on Religion.
9. M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1978), p. 281.
10. Ibid.

LTRP Note: We believe the following commentary is thought-provoking and useful in further understanding the methods of the new spirituality. Keep in mind that a growing number of Christian musicians are becoming involved in the contemplative emerging movement.

By Ellen Pope
Free-Lance Writer
A Commentary

Maybe you’ve noticed the difference on some of the Christian radio stations – how that songs lifting up Jesus Christ are blended with many  others that sometimes make you scratch your head and wonder: “What are they actually saying?” or “Is that biblical?” or “This sounds a lot like … [insert name of secular band here].”

Vague and indistinguishable lyrics are sometimes yelled (or whined, or moaned) amidst raw electric guitar chords, emotional electronica, and mind-numbing freight train drum beats moving at break-neck speeds. Other times young men and women rap and hip-hop their way into frenzy. Some sing ballads about their doubt and confusion to the tune of sorrowful violins and piano solos, synthesized to be as hauntingly sad as possible. Once in a while words like “forgiveness,” “justice,” “peace,” “save,” “love” and “God” show up. Much of the time, it’s hard to tell if it’s a Christian singing or not; hence some songs have been granted play-time on secular radio rotations too.

Given the power that music has, especially (but not limited to) the youth, could it be that this is one of the most powerful “tools” used to propagate the deceptions of the emergent, seeker-sensitive, and New Age movements? Movements, which often claim Christ, but deny the Word? It only stands to reason that “another Jesus” would demand its own worship, being a tool to edify an erroneous faith. Is this it?

With the (almost indistinguishable) similarities between much of this music and the world’s music, as well as the questionable convictions behind the lyrics, questions must be asked. Millions of listeners and listener’s dollars are actively purchasing, supporting, and giving over their minds to this music.

Not long ago I opened my mailbox and found a large, multi-page newspaper advertisement for an event called “Creation 2010.” I still get mailings like this from my former years as a very naïve, “all-is-well if it has the word ‘Christian’ attached to it” years. I signed my name and address on all kinds of ministry lists, attended mega conferences (featuring surprise guests like U2, and Rick Warren). I donated to what I thought were “missions,” and even participated in leadership groups. Now I know better.

Years later, the advertisements and invitations still trickle in from these and other sources (apparently they thought it was okay to pass around my information). But I’m not upset. Getting these kinds of mailings lets me know what’s going on “out there” in this world so full of traps and deceptions. It also reminds me that many are still taking part, some for the very first time, as I once did not that long ago.

Creation 2010 boasts as being the nation’s largest Christian Music Festivals. It has on the surface, an innocent mission. “To worship the creator,” promote Jesus Christ, and minister to young people through music, camping, teaching, fellowship, and baptism. We do need all of that! But is it all that it seems?

Amidst schedules, photographs, seminars, and advertisements for humanitarian causes (fighting AIDS, hunger, and aiding the third world), we find that the event is also featuring big names in the Christian music industry. Groups like Toby Mac, Newsboys, Casting Crowns, and [contemplative promoting] David Crowder are all joining in, marking this as a major Christian event, which will draw enormous crowds.

In addition to the big names, there are many included on the schedule that I’ve never heard of (which isn’t saying much; I’m not exactly “in the loop”). Bands like Family Force 5, Tenth Avenue North, Skillet, Thousand Foot Krutch, Red, Downhere, Remedy Drive, Reilly, Abandon, Kari Jobe, KJ-52, Chris & Conrad, John Mark McMillan, Francesca Battistelli, Israel Houghton, Unhindered, Sons of Day, December Radio, and Carlos Whittaker.

On the “Side Stage” there will be bands like The Classic Crime, Oh Sleeper, Sleeping Giant, Brian “Head” Welch, Superchick, Group 1 Crew, House of Heroes, R-Swift, The Letter Black, Secret & Whisper, Seabird, Thi’sl, B. Reith, Jason, Young Joshua, We As Human.

Intrigued, I took the time to read the pamphlet’s summaries posted for the “Main Stage” artists. Some of them seemed fairly benign. But a few really jumped out. Tenth Avenue North, for example, claimed to have “all come from church backgrounds and families, and therefore, are not satisfied saying the same old things in the same old ways” (emphasis mine). “What they’re hoping for with the music they are making is to not just entertain people. They want people to encounter faith. They desire to be [sic] cut to the heart and be honest, genuine, and faithful to what they believe is truth.”

I see three things happening here. First, these individuals are telling people that being raised in a Christian home automatically equates to stagnancy and an un-genuine faith. Second, they are attempting to make music to help people “encounter” faith. Is this different from “having” it, as the Bible says?

While it’s no secret that much of the organized Christian church in America is lukewarm at best, and totally apostatized at worst, I think it’s obvious that the faux spirituality of dry denominationalism is what’s really wrong. However, the simple remedy to unbelief, is belief, which happens as the Holy Spirit draws us (1 Corinthians 2:10-11), and not anything else. Especially not anything that forsakes the “old way!” Is that, I wonder, what they mean when they qualify the concept of “truth” with the statement “what they believe to be.” (As if there could be more than one version!)

That might be presumptuous to infer. But maybe not. Reading further, I found that the same idea expressed by Tenth Avenue North, regarding Christianity’s “problem,” is shared by Sons of Day, a Ukrainian band who came to the US in 1992. They found that “In this country Americans are unresponsive to the Gospel if it is told from the same perspective all the time.” (What perspective they’re talking about I’m still not exactly sure. If it’s the perspective of the Bible and that of a believer, then I don’t see a problem, except that the hearts of many Americans have hardened.)

Family Force 5 seeks to remedy the problem of people being “turned off” by the Gospel, by using elements of rap, post-hardcore, alternative rock, punk rock, and club orientedcrunk, electropunk, electronica and nu mental, with “positive, party lyrics in their music…” (emphasis mine) to draw in the crowds. Very “post-modern” don’t you think?

Sons of Day says: “We want to make music that is for God, but at the same time, we want to make music that people enjoy and that they’re not turned off by.” Switchfoot takes this a step further by boldly stating that “Calling us ‘Christian rock’ tends to be a box that closes some people out. Music has always opened my mind – and that’s what we want.”

I realize that these little snippets are just that, little snippets. But, it’s not without its context. Looking directly at the fruit of world-oriented “Christian” bands, especially ones that scream a lot, you know these aren’t innocuous statements. They mean what they say. People walk away from expensive concerts as if they would from a secular one: the same as they were before… except maybe partially deaf. So where is the theology behind this coming from?

If you’ll notice, a common thread among the statements issued to “summarize” these bands’ makeup and mission, seems to be a desire to “shatter” the perverted ideas surrounding what being a “Christian” is all about, and present the Gospel in a “new way.” They proclaim to desire to renew and revitalize the church. This is very tricky because, as I said earlier, the church is in desperate need of renewal. The question is: is that what’s being accomplished? Are people coming to the Cross?

Many of these bands are attempting to bring Jesus in “by the back door,” by choosing not to mention His name, but singing about forgiveness in general. This kind of method, however, will only feed the distortions of today, and increase the confusion.

Whereas the Holy Spirit brings clarity (the opposite of confusion), seeker-sensitive methods that avoid confrontation at all cost, only bring haze. Common sense and the Word of God would tell you that! Clearly, the Gospel doesn’t belong in the shadows of the background, nor should it be relegating it to a mere “suggestion” that is buried underneath much noise and personal “thoughts” in lyric form. This only invites perversion. Christians must come to grips with this reality. Even while the “premise” might be valid (these “Christian rock” bands claim to be using the music to reach the lost), it is those same methods they are employing to “mend” the spiritual disconnect that are causing grave problems.

As a sterling example, Switchfootnever shares a clear biblical Gospel message in their music. Instead of giving their talents to the Lord to become instruments of righteousness, they have created their own “version” of serving the Lord. It is simple. When the “seeker” doesn’t receive the uncompromised Word of God, how can he or she come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ? In fact, the watering down “in His name” only makes it that much easier for people be led off in the wrong direction, away from Jesus, (all the while thinking that they are coming to Him in some way). This, dear readers, is the most dangerous place of all.

By making statements about inclusiveness and “open-mindedness,” Switchfoot is ambiguous enough to appeal to some professing Christians andnon-Christians. It jives with pluralists who like the idea of God, but hate the idea of Jesus being the “only way.” At the same time, it appeals to the confused Christian who thinks that hiding Jesus Christ and conforming to the world’s “norms” are the best ways to reach the world. For Switchfoot, this position is the “best of both worlds”… for the pocketbook anyway.

To be frank, what many of these bands really seem to want, is to be able to claim Christianity, whilst still being in and of the world. Much of the modern “Christian” music industry is evidencing rudiments of the world as the foundation, rather than the Rock of all ages. In attempting to bring a “new spin” on what it means to be Christian, artists have spun themselves right into false doctrine, and in so-doing became part of the problem.

Some artists don’t realize exactly what they’re doing. Some may be new believers or perhaps are unsure of what they actually believe (and no wonder in this environment)! Being thus, it would be easy to get up in the greater movements that call themselves “Christian.”

Young people are particularly vulnerable to deception, thinking that its “right” simply because it is popular, has a snazzy looking Christian veneer, or everyone they know (including their parents, and church leadership) is involved. We learn, after all, by seeing and hearing, and this music is marketed toward the youth. Creation 2010 appears to be geared even for very young children, with puppet shows and other acts as well.

One young artist, Francesca Battistelli, who is also scheduled to perform on the fourth and last day of Creation 2010, states part of her mission as bringing “something authentic to the scene that even non-Christians could listen to.” Again, the same thing is echoed over and over. Bring the world into your music, and the world will accept the bits of truth that might be in it.

If I could talk to Francesca, I’d lovingly tell her that the unconverted can listen to anything. But what they like to listen to is much different from what they need to listen to. We ourselves don’t have the power to convert a soul. No “non-threatening” lyric, catchy melody or “fashionable” cover art is going to affect any change.

The truth is, God doesn’t need “entertainment” to draw people to Himself! If people wanted to go to a club, they’d go to a club. If people wanted to hang in a coffee house and tickle their ears, they can. But Christians shouldn’t be the ones on stage doing the tickling!

Scripture shows the music is spiritual. Jesus said, “…true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:23-24).

Christians gifted in music need to know that their music is, by its very nature, spiritual. Before the first note ever leaves a singer’s lips, there is a spirit behind it, producing it. What you must be able to do as a Christian, in order to affect any “change” for Christ, is to discern when you are entertaining the spirits in the world, or if you are worshiping “in spirit and truth,” through the power of the Holy Spirit. The difference is vast. God the Holy Spirit is the only One who can move people to conviction through you. The world needs the Holy Spirit, not its own, and not your own.

Music that evokes booty shaking, head banging, or, as December Radio put it “an adrenalin-fueled rock spectacle,” neither glorifies God nor is pleasing to Him, and nor can it touch the heart of a dying soul in need of the blood of Jesus Christ. Again, you don’t get saved under the influence of the spirits in this world. It’s God’s Spirit alone, and He is sufficient to do the Work.

Worldly music and worldly messages (which imitate the world) don’t offer the world anything different than what they can get anywhere. Yet, that’s exactly where much of the Christian music industry (and many “churches” too) have tried to recreate. They’ve gone in the seeker-sensitive direction, with staggeringly disastrous results!

To be blunt, the world doesn’t need any more of what its already got. Satanic and self-glorifying songs are prevalent enough. They don’t need Christians to become “like that,” and water-down the message either. What they desperately need is the same old Gospel the apostles preached, in the same way that God anointed from the beginning, from people who aren’t afraid to stand for it even at the risk of appearing “uncool” or “unfashionable” according to the Hollywood standard. Why should we take our cues from Hollywood anyway?

This issue is really quite simple. We are to avoid even the appearanceof evil (I Thessalonians 5:22). We are to glorify God, not ourselves (Galatians 6:14). We are to live by the Word of God (Luke 4:4), separated unto Him (II Corinthians 6:17), casting off the “old man,” and living as the new (Romans 6:6-11, Colossians 3:9-10).

By trying to play chameleon, many of these contemporary “Christian” bands are influencing young people in the wrong direction, even in some cases, into the clutches of the emergent church. Take Carlos “los” Whittaker for example.

His profile reads:“Carlos Whittaker is an artist, pastor, thinker, experience architect and Web 2.0 junkie. His passion for leading the church into a relational worship experience every Sunday was his heart’s goal. Recently, Carlos signed with Integrity Music to pursue a recording career and to continue to disturb the Church as a whole. Carlos lives to ignite a movement of authenticity among all generations of Christians that morphs the face of the evangelical church into a place of being real with yourself.”

Suspecting that this man may be part of the emergent movement, I decided to do some research and find out just where he was coming from, and what exactly he is attempting to “morph” the church into.

I came upon his blog, where quotes from New Age “theologian” Thomas Merton and emergent leader Rick Warren surfaced in page after page. Interviews with (and dreams of) Mark Driscoll, another young emergent founder, pepper the blog. Whittaker acts as a “minister” by opening up each entry to discussion, where he spurs conversation among readers, injecting his subtle emergent theology… where doors are many and “rules” are malleable.

Whittaker, a long-time close friend of Rick Warren’s, even took part in blogging for an unadvertised by-invitation-only “stealth leaders conference” at Saddleback Church, where leaders came together from all corners to discuss “ministry” and further their plots to engineer “world transformation,” (no doubt via with emphasis on the P.E.A.C.E. plan). Whittaker is obviously no stranger to social engineering, the social gospel, Christian psychology, and the confusion that is emergent “Christianity.”

I listened to samples of his songs online and heard nothing out of the ordinary. If I were listening to this five years ago I might have even liked it. But knowing better than to passively allow the spirit of the music do whatever it wanted with my emotions, I listened to it with a discerning ear of detached observation, as one should when approaching “New Age” contemporary Christian music. That’s when I realized something.

Were it not for the hypnotic beat (which has been a tool of Satan for ages) and the swells of the diatonic chord progression (which are designed to keep the listener in a perpetual state of suspense, and sometimes even induce a drug-like euphoria…), the song wouldn’t really be anything at all. Words are repeated, they are vague, and the message could be interpreted many ways. But here’s where the danger lies. Young people probably won’t know exactly what is going on theologically, just by listening to songs like “Rain it Down,” “Jesus Saves” and “We Will Worship You.” Elements of truth are used in the deception occurring behind the music.

To most professing Christians today, emergent worship music might sound good, but look a little deeper into the people behind them, and you’ll find a very different story… one where the Word isn’t really the ultimate authority, and where drug abuse, smoking, swearing, rebellion, participation in paganism, and even homosexuality aren’t necessarily sins. Where doctrinal error is not exposed but created, and what has been dubbed the “post modern worldview” becomes the new view of “the church.” All religions lead to God, so they say. But while claiming Christ with their lips, they have made themselves their own gods. And young people are diving in and worshiping with men and women who believe this new faith.

Creation 2010 might be a noble concept, and some leaders and participants will, no doubt, approach it with innocence in a right attitude and heart. Some children may indeed hear the Gospel from people with genuine faith, and some may give their hearts to the Lord. However, mixed and mingled with things deemed “acceptable” are also things which are not, and it so happens that many of them are on stage.

The spiritual end of the emergent church is death to the things of God, its fruits, and even to His mighty salvation. This is not something that can be ignored or shrugged off. We can’t keep silent. The source of the spirit of deception knows that in order to achieve the goal, it must all go down tastelessly silently, and undetected, so that once it’s in the body it can accomplish its ultimate end.

So it seems that the greatest danger to the church is actually in the church. Now, more than ever before, we need to speak up. Ridding with what appears to have a semblance of truth is a spirit that is false. A wolf in sheep’s clothing. Even in this much-loved music. This is why every voice counts. Especially yours. Souls depend on it.

 “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1)

“…true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:23-24).

“Jesus saith unto him, I am… the truth.” (John 14:6).

“…And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.” (1 John 5:6).

“…the truth is in Jesus” (Ephesians 4:21).

“Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord’s table, and of the table of devils.” (1 Corinthians 10:21).

“A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.” (Galatians 5:9).

Related Articles:

The Music and the Mystical

In a 2009 article in the San Antonio Express-News, it features Thomas Keating, a Catholic monk who has been instrumental in bringing contemplative spirituality out of the monasteries to the layperson. In the article, Keating conveyed what contemplative mystics have been saying for centuries: mysticism is the common ground among all the world’s religions. This article illustrates why Lighthouse Trails is so concerned about the huge role contemplative spirituality is now playing in evangelical and Protestant churches. We believe that this will ultimately lead to what the Bible calls the mystery of iniquity (i.e., the occult: essentially the belief that man and God are identical). Thomas Merton, another Catholic contemplative monk, put it this way: “The contemplative experience is neither a union of separate identities nor a fusion of them; on the contrary, separate identities disappear in the All Who is God.”1

The San Antonio article titled, ”Monk says contemplative prayer like ‘resting in God’” talks about the relationship between science and religion, a topic that is gaining momentum these days:

Science is discovering the oneness of the source of all the material universe as we know it, and by the oneness that appears in all structural forms of life and then the oneness that the spiritual practice of contemplative prayer brings in recognizing our commonality, our common ground with all other human beings and indeed all of nature.

When the article says “the oneness of the source of all the material universe,” it is referring to what some are calling the “new sciences” or the “spiritual sciences.” This new science is hoping to convince society that every cell in the universe is connected to one another and that by practicing contemplative prayer (going into the silence) one will awaken to realize this universal oneness.

It is coincidental that this article came out the same time Lighthouse Trails released A “Wonderful” Deception by Warren Smith. Smith identifies the character of this “new science” in his book. Smith asks what would rationalize Christian leaders to embrace a “new worldview that would mesh Christianity with the New Age/New Spirituality and other religions.” He says the “answer might very well come through the ‘new science’ and the ‘new math’–quantum physics, chaos theory, and fractal theory–the ‘new science’ attempt to scientifically prove that God is not only ‘transcendent’ but also ‘immanent’–that God is ‘in’ everything (AWD, p. 165).

The San Antonio article says that science and religion “have been at one another’s throats but that has begun to shift in the last generation or two.” But it predicts that: “it should shift a lot more as one recognizes that science is speaking a language that is very similar to that of the mystical experiences of all the world religions, and mainly the sense of cosmic oneness and interaction and communication beyond space and time.”

The world’s mystics would resonate with this belief that mysticism is the commonality among all world religions. Even Tony Campolo suggested this in his book Speaking My Mind when he said “a theology of mysticism provides some hope for common ground between Christianity and Islam” (see pp. 149-150). And of course Thomas Merton often spoke of this common ground within all religious traditions. And as for New Agers, this is one of their core “values.” In the New Age book, As Above, So Below, occultist Aldous Huxley is referenced regarding the “Perennial Wisdom” that believes that “the metaphysical (mysticism) unites all things together in all the world’s religions” (pp. 2-3).

There is a reason why practicing mysticism gives this sense of unity within all religious traditions. It is because that place of silence or the mystical altered state is actually a realm of familiar spirits (Leviticus 19:31). The very fact that mysticism unites all religions is proof that mystical practices are not sanctioned by the God of the Bible, who has clearly stated that there is only one path to God (Jesus Christ) and that all the world’s religions will never be united under this true God. Rather, every knee will bow and be brought under submission to the only true God and Savior, Jesus Christ. The gods of this world will never be one or in unity with the true God. When Henri Nouwen, at the end of a life of practicing mysticism said that he believed that Jesus wasn’t the only way to God and that he felt it was his mission to help people find their own way to God, he was expressing the core perception of the mystical view.2 As Warren Smith points out in A “Wonderful” Deception, the rationale for this is stated by Nouwen when he said, “The God who dwells in our inner sanctuary is also the God who dwells in the inner sanctuary of each human being.”

Some people may accuse Lighthouse Trails and those with similar concerns of being narrow and legalistic, but those who look at this rationally and straight on, if they are being honest, would have to see that there is a distinct opposition to these two views (preaching of the Cross versus God in everyone). In Christianity, the message is believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved. Nouwen’s view is God dwells in everybody’s heart from the moment of birth just because they are human. If that is the case, why believe on the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior? That is why Nouwen (as are other contemplatives today) was so lackadaisical about the Gospel. In other words, it made Nouwen uncomfortable. Of course, it made him uncomfortable–because it rejected what he believed about the human condition!

We believe this “shift” that the San Antonio article is talking about could be the very thing that Scripture warns against when it states: “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.” (I Timothy 4:1) As the world “shifts” toward the common belief that humanity (and all creation) is united through a divine, cosmic, “scientific” energy that the new scientists will say exists in all things, and as much of Christianity heads that way too through the contemplative prayer practices, Bible-believing Christians must continue to warn their loved ones of this very real and fast-moving spiritual deception.

For more information on this topic, read A “Wonderful” Deception by Warren Smith. To understand the contemplative prayer movement (i.e., spiritual formation), read A Time of Departing.

Notes:

1. Brother Patrick Hart-Editor, The Message of Thomas Merton, op. cit., p. 200. (quoted in A Time of Departing, chapter 4)
2. Henri Nouwen, Sabbatical Journey, p. 51.
3. Warren Smith, A “Wonderful” Deception,” 2009, p. 63, citing Henri Nouwen, Here and Now , 1997 edition, p. 22.

LTRP Note:The following is Chapter 2 of a fiction story written by former homosexual, now on-fire believer in Jesus Christ and free lance writer for the faith John Lanagan. (For Chapter 1, click here.) If you would like to read his testimony, click here. Lighthouse Trails believes that the homosexual lifestyle is part of the New Age movement (i.e., the “death” religion) along with evolution, abortion, and mysticism. The fact that emerging church leaders de-emphasize the serious and dangerous nature of homosexuality further illustrates the true essence of the emerging church.

by John Lanagan
My Word Like Fire Ministries

Chapter Two: The Bishop and the televised lie

Bishop Lionel Daniel flew into New York that afternoon. He was seething. He would never sign anything even hinting of compromise on the homosexual issue. He went straight to Wolf Television Network’s headquarters, and within the hour was on the set with gay activist Mike Minor and host Zack O’Rourke.

O’Rourke’s show reached millions. The segment would be on later that evening, then replayed over the weekend. Zack O’Rourke, lanky and balding, usually smiling, had decades of experience as a reporter and news anchor. He looked into the camera, and said, “Welcome, folks, to ‘O’Rourke,’ the show with the reporter–that would be me–who also has opinions. Welcome, in other words, to talk journalism. Tonight we are going to witness a battle.”

Bishop Lionel Daniel didn’t disagree with that at all.

“The last time our two guests were on O’Rourke, it resulted in our highest ratings ever. If you saw that epic clash, you may remember Mike Minor, the gay activist, who is rumored to be on the President’s short list for the Youth Education Post. Mike Minor is recognized as having played a major role for gay rights in a number of cities, and a growing number of states, as well. Welcome back, Mike.”

Mike Minor smiled pleasantly. “Thank you, Zack. It’s an honor to be on your show.”

O’Rourke rolled his eyes. “An honor,” he repeated in his humorous, mildly sarcastic manner. O’Rourke came from a blue collar family in Queens, New York, and his success hadn’t changed him all that much.

“Our other guest is Bishop Lionel Daniel, head pastor of Preach Christ Church, and a formidable opponent to those who advocate same-sex marriage. Bishop Daniel is equally vocal about what he sees as the encroachment of the gay agenda in media, housing, and education. Bishop, welcome back.”

“Thank you, Zack,” replied Daniel. “I’m also glad to be here. I consider this so important, in fact, that I chose to fly here rather than be interviewed from Washington D.C.”

Zack nodded. “All right, let’s get to it. So, let me get this straight–no pun intended–about your assertion, Mike Minor. You are saying that sexually active homosexuals are part of the Church, that they are already part of the Body of Christ. Doesn’t that contradict the Bible? Bishop?”

Daniel cleared his throat. “First, Zack, I would like to point out how even the term ‘gay rights,’ which you just used, is misleading. Perhaps we can get to that later. As far as homosexuals being members of the Body of Christ, there are many who once sinned in this area, but are freed through Christ. There are also those who have come to Christ, but may still have their struggle with this–”

“Because that is what they are and who they are!” interjected Mike Minor.

“Because,” Bishop Daniel replied calmly, “the Lord alone is the answer. If someone comes to Christ and falls, they need to repent, and–”

“You’re a hypocrite!” Mike Minor stood up and the camera shifted to him. He held up a document. “You yourself, Bishop Daniel, are a signatory along with many who represent pro-gay Christian churches and organizations. In this ‘Declaration of Courtesy,’ you, by your signature, are in agreement that homosexuality is fine in Christianity.”

For perhaps five seconds there was silence. Then, unexpectedly, Lionel Daniel began to laugh. His deep baritone filled the studio. Zack O’Rourke now turned to the Bishop.

O’Rourke said, “Bishop, that’s funny? Why are you laughing?”

“Mr. Minor is referring to an agreement I signed a few months ago. I was introduced to it by the Christ Relational Organization of Churches.”

“Right, the C.R.O.C., the religious/political lobbying group. Their president has been on this show several times.”

“Right, Zack, many C.R.O.C. members signed the Declaration of Courtesy including, I believe, President James Abner. I am actually a board member of the organization, myself. So for this gentleman”–Daniel pointed at Mike Minor–”to make these claims is beyond ridiculous. The Declaration was intended solely for evangelicals.”

“Right, for Christ-followers,” Mike Minor answered. “Like Ryan Langley for instance. He’s a signatory. Can the camera close in on Langley’s signature?” He held up the list.

The name appeared on the in-studio screen. O’Rourke looked at Daniel. “Yep, he’s on there all right,” O’Rourke noted.

Why was the pro-homosexual, emergent leader included? Ryan Langley had flatly rejected the Biblical Christ in his last book, and had garnered much publicity in doing so.

What was going on here?

O’Rourke was still studying the names on the screen. “Hey,” he said, “hey, wait a minute. Two names below Langley, isn’t that Jebidiah Collins, the head of Union of Christ Communities?”

“That’s right,” Mike Minor answered.

“Well, he’s been a guest on this show three or four times. His denomination is extremely pro-gay. In fact, these folks are in the forefront of the same-sex marriage movement.”

“My, my.” Mike Minor grinned at the Bishop. “Lucy, you have some ‘splaining to do.”

(This has been a fictionalized account written by John Lanagan. For chapter 3, click here. For chapter 4, click here.)