Mysticism Takes the Place of Christianity – Hostility Against Believers Will Grow

This week, two items on the Internet were brought to our attention, both of which may seem to be unrelated to each other but in actuality have a connection that we find to be an eerie reminder of the days in which we live.

The first item is a Tweet written earlier this week by Lynne Hybels (wife of the mega church founder of Willow Creek, Bill Hybels). The Tweet stated:

25 yrs ago I lost the Christianity of my youth. Found a deeper faith embracing silence, centering prayer, doubt, mystery, Jesus. Recognized my own deep brokenness & moved toward the brokenness of the world. 25 yrs later, the world’s overwhelming pain pushes me again into silence.— lynne hybels (@lynnehybels) November 26, 2017

Lynne Hybels (photo taken from http://www.evangelicalsforsocialaction.org/reconciliation-and-dialogue/beyond-balance-taking-sides-with-palestinian-and-israeli-peacemakers/)

As many of you may know, Lynne Hybels is part of the emergent church and someone who has proven herself to be against the nation of Israel. If someone were to ask us what are two of the main characteristics of the emerging church, we would say mysticism and an anti-Israel sentiment. It is interesting to note that Hybels says she lost the Christianity of her youth 25 years ago – that would mean she left her old Christianity around 1991, about 16 years after her husband started Willow Creek Church. What did she exchange Christianity for?—Contemplative mysticism, a spirituality that has its roots in panentheism and interspirituality. While Lynne Hybels speaks of being affected by the brokenness of the world, she doesn’t understand that the very spirituality she has embraced is actually a New Age spirituality that rejects Christ as Savior and whose “God” is not a compassionate god that cares for “the brokenness of the world.” This New Age god believes that Hitler did the Jews a favor by killing them as you can see in the quotes below taken from Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations With God:

The real issue is whether Hitler’s actions were “wrong.” Yet I have said over and over again that there is no “right” or “wrong” in the universe. A thing is not intrinsically right or wrong. A thing simply is.

Now your thought that Hitler was a monster is based on the fact that he ordered the killing of millions of people, correct? . . . Yet what if I told you that what you call “death” is the greatest thing that could happen to anyone—what then?

So the first thing you have to understand—as I’ve already explained to you—is that Hitler didn’t hurt anyone. In a sense, he didn’t inflict suffering, he ended it.

The mistakes Hitler made did no harm or damage to those whose deaths he caused. Those souls were released from their earthly bondage, like butterflies emerging from a cocoon. (These quotes are extracted from one of Warren B. Smith’s booklets where you can get the original sources.)

The New Age god also says that those who oppose this interspiritual New Age, mystical belief system are like a cancer that needs to be excised out of the Earth. The following excerpt from an article one of our editors wrote in 2015 explains:

[A] chapter in Revelation . . . says, “And in her was found the blood of prophets, and of saints, and of all that were slain upon the earth” (Revelation 18:24). May I point out once again that mysticism (or occultism) connects one with a spirit world inhabited by demons posing to be angels of light. The occultist Alice Bailey, under the influence of her spirit guides, predicted that while New Age style meditation will be promoted and propelled by the apostate Christian church, Christians who will not forsake the fundamentals of the faith will be seen as being in the way of bringing in this Age of enlightenment–an age of peace where everyone sees his or her own divinity and oneness with all things. New Age leader Barbara Marx Hubbard suggests that these resisters of the new world/new reformation will be like a cancer that needs to be excised out of the earth. She calls this elimination the “Selection Process.”1 Now I ask, what can be more hypocritical and diabolical than to think that the annihilation of godly people will bring about peace?

This brings us to the second item that was brought to our attention this week—a review written on the Lighthouse Trails Facebook page. The review was written a couple months ago, but we did not see it until this week. The review states:

From what I’ve read you [Lighthouse Trails] twist what people of faith say and believe! You also do what many others do and that is take the scriptures and make them say what you believe or want them to say to back up your presuppositions! I believe you are dangerous to the gospel and will severely weaken anyone who listens to you! When I think of you I think that freedom of speech for you and yours should be revoked for the safety of the people! I cannot bid you farewell because I believe with everything in me that you are a new disease that needs to be wiped out! Thank God you’re in America the land of the free! (Michael)

We find the connection in these two different posts (Hybels and Michael) lies in the hostility toward Christians that is represented in both. In Hybel’s Twitter post, she is trying to show a distinction between traditional Christianity (what she grew up with) and what she considers a better more advanced and compassionate belief system that she now embraces. In other words, the old Christianity had nothing to offer her and in fact, had no compassion. Our reviewer, Michael, has taken his anger toward Lighthouse Trails (representing traditional, biblical Christianity) to the point of saying we are a disease (cancer?) that should be wiped out.

If you are a Bible-believing, born again Christian, then you will understand that there has been hostility toward believers since the inception of the church. All but one of the disciples were murdered for their faith as have been countless other believers over the last two thousand years. What is it that the world hates about true Christians? What is our crime against humanity? We love the Lord Jesus Christ, we believe He died for the sins of mankind and offers salvation for those who put their trust in Him, we believe He gave us the Bible as His Word to us, and we truly care about the souls of men and where they will spend eternity. And yet, the world rejects us, and the hostility toward us will only increase. And the fast-growing use of mystical practices will expedite those hostilities because the source of those practices is against Christ and His people.

Related Information:

How to Prepare for Hard Times and Persecution

Unity in an Anti-Christian World?

Brian McLaren Wants End Time Believing Christians Robustly Confronted

(2006) Purpose Driven Resisters – Must Leave or Die