Dear Lighthouse Trails:
I thank you for the work you are doing for God’s kingdom. I enjoy your newsletters and have been taught many things to steer clear of because of your faithful and great teaching. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Our daughter, unfortunately, attended a Christian college in the mid 90s (Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California), and they steered her away from the faith. I still don’t understand exactly what they taught. But I do know that her mentor and one of her professors (a Ms. Diana Butler—you’ve probably heard if her) really did a number on her.
Anyway, I digress and just wanted to not only ask for the information in the book, A Time of Departing, but also to say thank you. May I ask that you and your team please pray for our daughter’s salvation. We want so desperately for her to seek the Lord. She isn’t receptive to our views at all. We’re praying for a miracle.
C.H.
LT Editors Comments: Tragically, this is a story we have heard countless times over the past 20 years—how a young person raised in a Christian home, goes off to a “Christian” college and ends up walking away from his or her childhood faith while in college. And we are very familiar with both Westmont College and Diana Butler (Bass).
Lighthouse Trails has referred to Butler Bass a number of times in articles, but our article, “New Spirituality Teacher Says ‘The Jig is Up’ to Those Who Believe in ‘the Blood of the Lamb,'” really plainly lays out what she believes. In that article, we stated:
Religious author Diana Butler Bass, who was one of the speakers at the recent [2015] Parliament of the World’s Religions in Salt Lake City, has written a book titled Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakening. In it, she makes the stunning statement:
“Conventional, comforting Christianity has failed. It does not work. For the churches that insist on preaching it, the jig is up. We cannot go back, and we should not want to. . . . In earlier American awakenings, preachers extolled “old-time religion” as the answer to questions about God, morality, and existence. This awakening is different . . . it is not about sawdust trails, mortification of sin [putting to death the old man], and being washed in the blood of the Lamb [the preaching of the Cross – emphasis ours]. The awakening going on around us is not an evangelical revival; it is not returning to the faith of our fathers or re-creating our grandparents church. Instead, it is a Great Returning to ancient understandings of the human quest for the divine. (pp. 36, 99).”
The term “the jig is up” is a slang term that has the connotation of someone being caught at doing something wrong. It has an intrinsically militant tone that is more or less saying “you’re not going to get away with this any longer.” By Butler Bass saying “the jig is up,” there is an underlying implication of a mounting consensus that backs up that statement, such as what Ray Yungen and others we know recently witnessed at the Parliament of the World’s Religions, where 14,000 people attended and where a clear animosity toward biblical Christians was prevalent. (source)
People that raved about Butler Bass’ book included: Richard Rohr, Tony Campolo, Marcus Borg, and Brian McLaren – some of the most prolific Bible- and truth-rejecting figures of today.
Is it any wonder that our reader’s daughter left her faith after sitting under the mentorship of Diana Butler Bass (a professor at Westmont from 1991-1995). (Correction: Our original posting mistakenly stated that Diana Butler Bass wrote a book in 1979 called Strength for the Journey. That book was actually published in 2002. We thank one of our readers for bringing this to our attention).
In Ms. Butler Bass’ 2022 book, Freeing Jesus: Rediscovering Jesus as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence, the closing chapter is titled The Universal Jesus.” Here is a description she gives of her “Jesus”:
The all in all. Contemporary writers and theologians have turned toward the spiritual inclusivity of Jesus, emphasizing his “all-ness” with many titles: the Cosmic Christ, the Ground of Being, the Heart of Creation, the Universal Christ (p. 260).
If you aren’t sure what the “Cosmic Christ” and the “Ground of Being” mean, it’s another way of saying that God is in all (panentheism) and all is God (pantheism)—basically, a rejection of Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross.
As for Westmont College, it has been on our warning list (Contemplative College list) for many years. While Butler Bass is no longer teaching there, Westmont is an outright “progressive” emergent school promoting the “new spirituality” (i.e., New Age spirituality).
Parents, before sending your child to a so-called Christian college, please, please check it out thoroughly – unless you want to be in the situation our reader is in so many years later. Our reader had a good reason for not knowing about Westmont or Diana Butler Bass. In the 1990s, there was virtually nothing on the Internet warning about the emergent/contemplative/progressive church; but early pioneers, like Butler Bass, were hard at work, changing the minds of vulnerable, ill-equipped young evangelicals. Not much has changed.
Once Bible-believing Christians understand the link between contemplative spirituality (which basically entered the church in 1978 through Richard Foster’s book Celebration of Discipline) and full-blown “progressive” apostasy, they may be in a better place to protect their young people. Until then, Lighthouse Trails will continue sharing the heart-breaking stories of young people leaving the faith after attending Christian colleges.
Related Articles:
Whitney,
It is not we who are determining who is saved and who isn’t. It is the Bible that lays it out very clearly and straightforward. Jesus Christ said that He is the only way to God, and He said that no one can come to the Father except through Him. Whitney, if you would allow us, we would like to send you a free booklet that explains more of what the Bible says about salvation. Or, if you have a Bible, please read the Gospel of John in the New Testament. But we can send you a Gospel of John if you email us your mailing address to editors@lighthousetrails.com.
If those children who were led astray by progressive Christian ideas are living lives of love and following Jesus in the way they are led to do so, how can anyone judge them as unsaved? Doesn’t the Bible also speak of being known by the fruit of lives that love and bring positive change in the world? If Grace is True, all are being saved…. No other option.
I graduated from Westmont in 1982, and was an acquaintance of Diana’s and her brother. I cannot speak to where her path took her, but as far as I know, the whole Progressive “Christian” movement began to pick up steam around the time she began her post graduate journey.
At the time, to the best of my recollection, she seemed fairly orthodox, but no one truly knows what is transpiring below the surface besides the Lord.
I am sure this may seem too simplistic a thought or insight, but this gradual journey down a theological “slippery slope” begins with a low view of Scripture and a lack of true, diligent study of the Bible. That is where many have turned the corner into a divergent path away from orthodoxy.
There’s a slight error in mentioning her publications: “Strength for the Journey” was not published in 1979.
The presidents of these so-called Christian colleges will have to answer to Jesus the Righteous Judge for leading unsuspecting students down the wrong, unbiblical paths.
All schools of so called “higher learning” have been weaponized against true biblical Christianity and those that know God’s end times warnings would have known this and would not spend money to pay for the indoctrination of their children.
You might want to start by asking the Lord to forgive you for sending your child to this school in the first place and accept responsibility for putting your child in harms way.
Being honest and upfront with the Lord is the first thing you will want to do among other things found in scripture concerning interceding for the lost such as…
1) Matthew 12:29
“Or else how can one enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house.”
We should bind the devil from working in their lives, and take authority over the enemy. In Luke 10:19 Jesus said “Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power (authority) of the enemy”. Jesus has given us authority to take authority over the enemy. We must exercise our authority by speaking out these scriptures against the enemy. God’s Word MUST be declared over them in faith continually, and consistently if you ever expect to see the person(s) you’re praying for come to Jesus.
2) Matthew 16:19
“And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”
Declare (outloud) in faith that you are binding the devil’s ability to work in their lives, and declare (outloud) in faith that the person you are praying for is loosed from the control of the devil and all carnal influences of darkness in the world.
3) Mark 16:17
“And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues”.
Demand (outloud) in faith that you are casting the devil out of their life! Jesus has given us power and authority to do this, and He will see to it that this is carried out if we don’t give up and quit standing on this promise.
4) 2 Corinthians 10:4,5
For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds; Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.
Speaking God’s Word (promises of freedom) over someone’s life is mighty through God for getting the results of pulling down strongholds (enemy activity) in people’s lives.
5) Luke 10:2
Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest. (Also see: Matthew 9:38)
Declare (outloud) in faith that labourers (witnesses of the Gospel) are continually coming into their lives to declare…
I am a Westmont grad from the early 70s, and, with my husband, a Multnomah University alum as well. I grew up at a church closely associated with Multnomah when its slogan was: “If you want Bible, you want Multnomah”. But no longer. We live near the school and have seen the apostasy firsthand. It breaks our hearts. Westmont was beginning to crack while I was there. Most of the older faculty were still OK but the administration was caving to vocal students who were very rebellious, especially towards the Christian stance of the school. We sent a daughter to Trinity Western University in Langley BC in 2000, back when I still believed printed doctrinal statements. She went from respecting the word of God and loving her parents to becoming a radical socialist activist who excises out of her life anyone who doesn’t support her current values, including us. I don’t know of any of her friends from there who haven’t followed the same path, either becoming indifferent to, or antagonistic towards, biblical Christianity. She goes to a social justice episcopal church. My niece, a pastor’s daughter, went to Texas Christian University, graduating around 2006. She became a Unitarian a few years ago. The daughter of my husband’s boss is an enthusiastic Biola grad. She is also a shaven head goth who spoke at her grandfather’s funeral of calling up his spirit and having a lovely visit with him over a glass of wine! We pray for their salvation. I believe the reason our other children still walk with the Lord is because they eschewed college (and debt) for other kinds of career training. The Lord is blessing them.
This is a familiar story with young people who attend Biola as well