Dear Lighthouse Trails:
I wanted to thank you for your tremendously exhaustive efforts to uncover the dangerous deception happening in and to the Church. I was all too aware of the New Age movement, having been seduced into it through massage school, persuaded by my very New Age instructors that it was completely cohesive with my Christian faith. It took me at least 2 years to fully see the lies, manipulations and dangers in these teaching and in the “gifts” and abilities I’d “discovered” through their teachings. I had heard of contemplative prayer awhile back and researched it, quickly discovering it was nothing more than the same New Age paganism I had learned but with a Jesus sticker slapped on it. Sadly, I was under the impression that only a minority of “Christians” practiced these heathen rituals.
Through heartbreaking and tragic, though blessedly awakening, events and circumstances, I became aware of just how deeply seeded and prevalent the New Age had already worked its way into the churches in our average communities, even here in the Bible Belt. These pagan practices were no longer “out there” or only held by a few oddball “Christians” who had always been a bit sketchy in their beliefs but were now being promoted from the pulpit. They were being taught and touted by a church highly regarded in our community and offered to all who were willing, including my broken, desperate, and alcoholic husband in his weakest hours, finally yielding to his heart being wrecked by God. You can imagine what it did to his spirit when the hand he was reaching for and found hope in was uncovered and exposed for the lies and danger it truly was, only to have another one offered by another church, offering hope from the likes of Rick Warren and then finding out the truth about him.
Devastated doesn’t begin to describe how I feel right now in regard to how the church has “helped” my family in our most desperate hour. And, it would seem, many of our pastors were not only completely unaware, or had no discernment to recognize Jezebel, but had never even heard of contemplative spirituality, the emergent church, or her various other heretical teachings.
This is my fear: that there is either no discernment left in the church, or they see the truth but have willfully determined to turn away from it. I’ve become more and more uneasy about what is being circulated and promoted through the evangelical community and specifically what is being published through Charisma Magazine and its website. They’ve been very generous with their space given to many emergent leaders and sympathizers, negligent in their silence on the contemplative/emergent movement, implying ignorance at best, support at worst, but I was stunned to find the articles linked below.
I truly didn’t expect to find such blatant promotion of the emergent agenda in a world-wide evangelical publication just yet. In case you haven’t seen these articles, I’ve linked them below. I know much of the content on Charisma’s site has lacked discernment and scripturally sound exegesis for quite some time, but this took things to a new level. It seems to me a bold step that has potentially tremendous implications for the very near future.
God bless you for all your work in protecting the true Gospel and loving us enough to speak the truth when few want to hear it. I pray you will continue for as long as our eyes need uncovering and our hearts need to be awakened. Your ministry has made a life-altering impact on my heart, and I feel an urgency to share this message with anyone and everyone who will hear. I believe God is using your ministry as a vessel to warn, call, and equip those who will listen to go and wake the rest who slumber. I pray we will not be found silent and empty-handed.
Sincerely yours in Christ,
L.S.
http://www.charismamag.com/blogs/a-voice-calling-out/17574-3-stages-of-prayer