This year’s Pentecost 2007 will take place on June 3rd – 6th in Washington DC. Invited speakers include emerging church leader, Brian McLaren, Bill Hybel’s wife–Lynne Hybels (Willow Creek), and liberal mystic-proponent Jim Wallis. Last fall, we reported on Pentecost 2006, stating:
This summer’s Pentecost 2006 conference, titled “Building a Covenant for a New America,” is another example of how a move towards interspirituality (the coming together of all religions) is quickly taking place….
According to a Wall Street Journal editorial article on the event, Pentecost speaker Howard Dean said, “We’re about to enter into the ’60s again … Into the age of enlightenment, led by religious figures who want to greet Americans with a moral, uplifting vision.”
While the emphasis of the Pentecost 2006 event was said to be helping the poor, one cannot help wonder about the implications and the results of such a coming together of religious and political ideas, especially when we stop and realize that here too, mysticism plays a significant role.
Pentecost 2006 speaker Tony Campolo states his views on the role of mysticism and uniting all together in his book, Speaking My Mind:
Beyond these models of reconciliation, a theology of mysticism provides some hope for common ground between Christianity and Islam. Both religions have within their histories examples of ecstatic union with God … I do not know what to make of the Muslim mystics, especially those who have come to be known as the Sufis. What do they experience in their mystical experiences? Could they have encountered the same God we do in our Christian mysticism? (pp. 149-150)
Well, according to New Agers, there is indeed a common ground between Christianity and Islam, in fact between all religions. Mysticism is the glue that binds them all together. In Ron Miller’s book, As Above, So Below, he states (quoting Aldous Huxley): “a highest common factor” links the world’s religious traditions. He [Huxley] calls this unifying factor the Perennial Philosophy:
“the metaphysical [mystical] that recognizes a divine reality … each religion [provides] meditative disciplines that help us … experience our rootedness in the divine … the spiritual dimension of culture is … a spectrum of contemplative practices, equivalent in essence, which lead toward experience rather than towards doctrinal assertion.” (pp. 2-3)
Will this expected “age of enlightenment” that Howard Dean spoke of at Pentecost 2006 intersect at some point with the evangelical’s (e.g., Rick Warren) hoped for “great awakening” or “second reformation”? The gap between the two is narrowing, and mysticism is the bridge that will bring about the ultimate unity.
Now this year, Pentecost will be more of the same agenda. Pentecost 2007 speakers will include Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and three presidential candidates: Hilary Clinton, Obama Barack, and former Senator John Edwards.
One of the tracks for the conference is the Emerging Leaders Track, sponsored by Eastern Mennonite University and includes interfaith emerging leader Shane Claiborn.
While the outward appearance (and the mission statement) of Pentecost 2007 is to battle poverty, the agenda is much broader than that. The term Pentecost comes from the Book of Acts in the Bible when, after Jesus’ ascension, the Holy Spirit visited believers and gave them power so that they might preach the gospel. But New Agers (of which category many of the Pentecost 2007 speakers would fall into) have their own idea of Pentecost. Listen as former New Ager Warren Smith explains:
[Barbara Marx] Hubbard’s “Christ” [a false one] describes how planet Earth is at an evolutionary crossroads. He states that the world is about to make an evolutionary leap that will take all creation to a new level. Those who awaken to their own divinity, by aligning themselves as one with God and one with each other, will evolve. Those who continue to believe in “fear” and “separation,” rather than in “love” and “oneness,” will not evolve. Hubbard’s “Christ” claims that with his help most of mankind will choose to evolve, calling this evolutionary leap “the Planetary Birth Experience.” He refers to it as the coming time of “Planetary Pentecost.” The “birth experience” is a shared event in the future, an “Instant of Co-operation,” when everyone on the planet will be mysteriously changed in “the twinkling of an eye,” as humanity is collectively born again into a new creation. Those who evolve will actually become a new species as Homo sapiens is collectively transformed into Homo universalis, or the “Universal Humanity.” The “Universal Humanity” will live together as a community of “natural Christs” in the “New Heaven” on the “New Earth” that is the “New Jerusalem.” (from False Christ Coming: Does Anybody Care?, ch. 4)
These words by Smith may sound almost too far-out to be true, but this is what prominent New Agers like Barbara Marx Hubbard believe. And in case you think Marx Hubbard is an obsolete and uninfluential New Age extremist, let us tell you, she is not. Currently, New Agers like herself are working hard with men and women in Congress and other well-knowns (like Walter Cronkite) to establish a Department of Peace. What’s wrong with that, you might ask? Marianne Williamson, the head coordinator for this project believes exactly as Warren Smith has described above. And it is very possible that their planetary pentecost may become a reality. But if so, it will be a world which will not tolerate Bible-believing Christians. Smith describes what is referred to as the “Selection Process”:
“Christ” states that those who see themselves as “separate” and not divine hinder humanity’s ability to spiritually evolve. Those who deny their own “divinity” are “cancer cells” in the body of God. “Christ” warns that a healthy body must have no cancer cells. Cancer cells must be healed or completely removed from the body. He describes the means of removal as the “selection process.” The “selection process” results in the deaths of those who refuse to see themselves as a part of God.
There is one person who will not be at Pentecost 2007, but who may end up as a presidential candidate as well and has strong ties to the New Age. Al Gore is just such a man. Listen as Ray Yungen elaborates:
It would surprise many Americans to know that they actually voted for a New Age sympathizer for president of the United States in the 2000 election. In a Time magazine article in 2003 called “Just Say Om,” former presidential candidate, Al Gore, said the following about meditation:
We both [he and his wife] believe in regular prayer, and we often pray together. But meditation–as distinguished from prayer–I highly recommend it.
One might argue that perhaps Gore was not referring to mystical type meditation and that he didn’t have any such proclivities, but this notion would be put to rest by his endorsement of a book (Marriage of Sense and Soul) by Ken Wilber, a leading figure in the New Age. On the back cover of the book, Gore proudly proclaimed Wilber’s book is “one of my new favorites.” New Ager Neale Donald Walsch publicly revealed Gore’s spiritual sympathies in the following comments he made at the Humanity’s Team Leadership Gathering in 2003:
You know Al Gore. I know Al well and he says to me, “Hey Neale, I used to be the next president of the United States.” Al has read my books and loves them, but he can’t possibly say that publicly…. He should be able to, and in the society we’re going to recreate he will be able to, but right now he can’t.
For those not familiar with Walsch’s work, this may not seem that significant. But Walsch is the author of the Conversations with God books, in which millions of copies have been sold. His books are the supposed conversations between Walsch and “God.” Walsch’s “God” proclaims:
The twenty-first century will be the time of awakening, of meeting The Creator Within. Many beings will experience Oneness with God…. There are many such people in the world now–teachers and messengers, Masters and visionaries–who are placing this vision before humankind and offering tools with which to create it. These messengers and visionaries are the heralds of a New Age. There is only one message that can change the course of human history forever, end the torture, and bring you back to God. That message is The New Gospel: WE ARE ALL ONE. (from For Many Shall Come in My Name, 2nd ed., pp. 55-56)
Walsch believes his “God” told him that Hitler did the Jews a favor when he killed them ( FMSCN, p. 166). If Al Gore, or another New Ager, becomes president of the U.S., will they adopt Neale Donald Walsch’s view of God? Time will tell. Right now, most New Agers consider Walsch a highly respected teacher and guru. Ray Yungen says: “In The Secret, Walsch is described as a ‘modern-day spiritual messenger’ and his Conversations with God books (including the one from which the previous quotes about Hitler were taken) are called ‘groundbreaking.'”
What can the true body of believers do at such a time as this? Should we panic? No, not at all. Let us continue to preach the gospel and defend the faith, and may we not grow weary in well-doing but truly be lights in a dark world. It is only by His grace and His strength that we can stand. Let us depend on that for wisdom and courage.
That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.(Philippians 2:15)
Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:1-2)
And he [the Lord] said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (II Corinthians 12:9)
For related information:
Global Pastors Network – Embracing Contemplative
The Spirituality of Barack Obama and Rick Warren
Meditation: The heartbeat of a new kind of politics
Why We Should Be Very Concerned About Leonard Sweet and Rick Warren … and Their Plans for the Future
