Letter to the Editor: A Plea to My Church Leaders Regarding “Jesus Calling” and “The Message”

Dear Lighthouse Trails:

Please find below a letter I wrote to one of my pastors. I hope this will be helpful to others reading it who are in a similar situation at their own churches.

Dear _____________,
I have had a brief text from Pastor __________ about a decision that was made by the leadership at ___________ Baptist Church concerning the two books: Jesus Calling by Sarah Young and The Message “Bible” by Eugene Peterson.

I would like to take this opportunity to encourage you to reach a godly decision over the use of these two books.

Jesus Calling

This is a work whose author, Sarah Young, sat down with pen and paper and asked to receive messages from Jesus Christ—a practice belonging to spiritualism rather than Christianity. As she originally stated, the inspiration for her work came from a 1930s work, God Calling, which is recognized to be a New Age piece of literature written by psychic mediums, albeit dressed up in Christian terminology.

When the dubious origins of Jesus Calling were pointed out to its publisher and editors, subsequent reprints of the book altered some of the introduction to mask the spiritualist nature of Young’s techniques, and all references to God Calling were removed from it as well. This year (2024), Sarah Young’s own denomination, The Presbyterian Church in America, announced it will be investigating Jesus Calling with a potential decision to ban it.

Excerpts from Jesus Calling, though purporting to be Jesus speaking in the first person, have been found to contradict the Bible and have had to be amended in later reprints of the book. For example, the original edition of the book had Jesus saying in its reading for 28th January: “I am with you always. These were the last words I spoke before ascending into heaven.” (2004 Edition)

When critics pointed out that the real last words Jesus spoke before ascending into heaven were: “You are my witnesses. . . .” as recorded in Acts 1:8, the text of Jesus Calling was changed to read: “I am with you always. I spoke these words to my disciples after my resurrection.” (10th Anniversary Edition)

If Jesus Calling really does contain messages from Jesus Christ, why have his words had to be corrected like this?

In addition to multiple such corrections, the book also contains much New Age terminology such as “true self,” “love-light,” “light-bearer,” and “co-create”—a vocabulary that has been unique to the New Age movement. Why would Jesus choose to import lots of New Age terms and themes into his “messages” communicated through Sarah Young?

For further information, I suggest you read 10 Scriptural Reasons why Jesus Calling is a Dangerous Book by Warren B. Smith at: https://tinyurl.com/232jw2fc.

There is ample evidence that the spirit which really did communicate through Sarah Young as she sat down with pen and paper, was in fact a spirit impersonating the person of Jesus Christ and thereby leading people up the garden path. In Matthew 24:4-5 we are warned:

And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

Absence of Responsibility

Can I ask why there appears to be an absence of responsibility on the part of _____________ Baptist Church in this matter?

If the book Jesus Calling is read from in church as I have heard at least once (and I think more than once), then there’s a risk that someone in the congregation will take a liking to the book and buy a copy for him or herself. If that individual happens not to be born again, he will be especially vulnerable to the influences of any spirit speaking through the book!

Indeed, the “Jesus” of Jesus Calling says in various excerpts:

• Let Me control your mind.
• My main work is to clear out debris and clutter, making room for My Spirit to take full possession.
• Sit quietly in My Presence, letting My thoughts reprogram your thinking.
• While you relax in My Presence, I am molding your mind and cleansing your heart.
• Your relationship with Me is meant to be vibrant and challenging, as I invade more and more areas of your life.

The Bible forbids contact with a familiar spirit (Deuteronomy 18; Leviticus 19) precisely because such spirits can mislead and cause harm. Jesus Christ bestowed power upon his disciples to drive out spirits because they inflict harm.

Yet I’ve heard no real concern from leaders at ___________ Baptist Church that this book has been used; no decision to stop its use for safety’s sake; and no sense of responsibility towards your listeners who could be impacted in a bad way.

All I’ve heard is a claim that all should be “left to the Holy Spirit to sort out.” Respectfully, no it shouldn’t!
For a start, Scripture abounds with warnings and exhortations to identify and call out false spirits and false teaching. Human beings and not just the Holy Spirit are expected to speak up. Thus, the author of 1 John 2:26 wrote, “These things have I written unto you concerning them that seduce you.”

Second, Jesus Calling has sold some 45 million copies around the world, with millions of people now reading it instead of the Bible—while church leaders say nothing.

In 2 Corinthians 11:4 we read:

For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him].

Is that not a description of _________________ Baptist Church? The “Jesus” of Jesus Calling appears to be another Jesus and different spirit—and you, sadly, may well put up with it.

The Message “Bible”

The following is a partial list of problems I have identified with Eugene Peterson’s The Message. They include:
1) A large occult and New Age vocabulary inserted into the text, which is difficult to put down to factors of chance and coincidence.

2) Hundreds of meanings added that do not appear in the original text of the Bible, as well as hundreds of meanings removed.

3) Bits of false teaching such as pantheism apparently added in as well. This then leads to a range of scriptural problems such as:

• Jesus said that if anyone loves Him, they will obey his commands (John 14:15), and His Word, the Bible, expressly commands us not to alter His words (Proverbs 30:6; Revelation 22:18-19).
• Scripture tells us to be honest and tell the truth (Colossians 3:9-10; Ephesians 4:15). Reading from The Message is only honest if the reader tells his listeners beforehand all the problems to do with the book. Merely calling the book a “rewrite” (as our leaders have done) doesn’t achieve this.
• Christians are required to test everything carefully for their own good (1 Thessalonians 5:21-24). Using The Message without disclosing all the problems to do with the book gets in the way of this.
• Church leaders making references to the Holy Spirit without being prepared to do what the Holy Spirit tells them to do in the Bible is unconvincing.

Absence of Honesty

Can I ask why there appears to be an absence of honesty on the part of ______________ Baptist Church leadership in this regard?

According to our leaders at church, The Message can still be used if it comes with the preface: “This is a rewrite of the Bible and should always be read alongside an accurate Bible.” But this preface doesn’t inform the congregation that Christian apologetics organizations document errors and advise against any such use of the book. It doesn’t tell them that Christians who were once immersed in the occult recognize the language of The Message and recommend that people avoid it. It doesn’t tell them that God forbids His words to be tampered with in this way in the first place. And so on.

If I were to attend a church and hear The Message read to me for the first time, I would want the speaker to be honest enough to disclose all the above problems, so that I could use my own discernment to evaluate the use of it. Please explain why it is considered acceptable to withhold this information from the congregation at your church.

For the Record

When Pastor _____________ came to my house a few weeks ago, he brought with him a character assassination of myself which he expected me to wear. Much of what I said was interrupted and twisted out of context for about an hour.

At a worship meeting, I had simply told a couple of people things I thought they needed to know—one of them an individual who was reading from Jesus Calling herself, and another a lady who has accepted what amounts to a very public role within the church. I didn’t try to “bully,” offend, name-call, or blame anyone in any way.

Respectfully, I do need to say that I find it a bit stretched for leaders to display the worrying absence of responsibility and honesty detailed above, and then complain that I was a bit too forward in my conversations with those two people.

Yours sincerely,
Joe __________

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(photo from istockphoto.com; used with permission)