In
the September issue of Newsweek,
one of America's top news magazines, the feature article
is called "Spirituality in America." With nearly 20 pages
devoted to the topic, it is clear by reading the article
that America has become a country of meditators.
Called different things by different religions,
mantra meditation is all the same thing. An altered state
of consciousness (the silence as some call it) is sought
after in order to have a mystical experience. Contemplative
prayer, now promoted by countless Christian leaders, pastors
and colleges, is just another name for this spirituality,
which in its very essence proclaims that all paths lead
to God. It is for this reason Lighthouse Trails Research
Project exists. We have joined many other research ministries
and believers around the world in exposing the dangers of
contemplative spirituality. It's here. It's not going away.
And now every Christian believer must decide whether he
or she is going to be a part of America's New Spirituality
or rather defend the gospel of Jesus Christ. It can't be
both, for they face opposite directions.
2005 National Youth Workers Convention -
Dangerous For Youth Workers
This
year's National
Youth Workers Convention (hosted by Youth Specialties),
is more dangerous than ever for youth workers. Take
a look at the line of speakers and see what we mean:
A supplemental reading list for Kairos School includes
the following authors: David
Steindl-Rast, Thomas
Keating and Morton Kelsey, all of whom are interspiritual
contemplatives.
Americans Go Contemplative - BIG TIME! - Newsweek Article
Contemplative
prayer is here, and according to a recent Newsweek
article (front cover story), "Americans are looking
for personal, ecstatic experiences of God," and they
are finding it in mantra meditation. Read this article
and see why many believers are concerned about contemplative
prayer in the evangelical church.
Panels and discussion topics will include: A Conversation
with Deepak Chopra, the Global Goddess, The Seven
Habits of Highly Effective People with Mormon Steven
Covey and of course The Purpose Driven Life with Rick
Warren.
The question must be asked, "Will Rick Warren tell
these 150,000 women expected to participate that Jesus
Christ is their only hope and that all other religious
paths do not lead to God, or will he give them little
more than what he gave the Ladies
Home Journal readers?
PBS Special Report on the Emerging Church - Video Clips
PBS'
Religion & Ethics Weekly Program Shows the Emerging
Church in Action
Willing
to be Lost and Searching Rather Than Be Handed the
Gospel of Jesus Christ
The story shows how far this movement's leaders are
willing to go to bring a whole generation into their
emergence. These leaders are compromising the gospel
and keeping thousands of young people from hearing
the true message of salvation.
The underlying foundation of the
emerging church is New Age mysticism. With labyrinths,
yoga, chanting, and meditating, the emerging church
is helping to unite all the world's religious traditions.
New Bible Written by Contemplatives for Contemplatives
Richard
Foster's new Renovare Spiritual Formation Study Bible
has now been released. Editors for the "Bible" include
contemplative supporter Walter Brueggemann (who endorses
a book, Reimagining Christianity that says
the doctrine of the Cross is a vile doctrine),Eugene
Peterson, and other contemplatives.
Related
Links:
The
Berean Call Examines the Renovare Spiritual
Formation Study Bible
Loren
Davis is an evangelist to Africa, speaking to hundreds
of thousands of people on the continent. Recently,
we have had the privilege of making his acquaintance.
He believes Africa is very susceptible to apostasy
as countless false teachers and New Age promoters,
coming in the name of Christianity, are racing to
spread their beliefs. Davis believes God wants to
warn African Christians of the impending danger. Listen
to this evangelist preach.
Leonard Sweet and Quantum Spirituality -
You Won't Believe Your Ears!
Leonard
Sweet is an author, speaker, professor, and futurist.
He speaks to Christian audiences around the world.
Recently, he posted his 1991 book, Quantum
Spirituality, on his website in PDF format
for all to view and download. This would certainly
suggest that Sweet still believes and stands by the
book. This emerging church leader has some interesting
things to say in this book:
"Energy-fire
experiences take us into ourselves only that we
might reach outside of ourselves. Metanoia is a
de-centering experience of connected-ness and community."
p. 93
"The
power of small groups is in their ability to develop
the discipline to get people 'in-phase' with the
Christ consciousness and connected with one another."
p. 147
"A
surprisingly central feature of all the world's
religions is the language of light in communicating
the divine and symbolizing the union of the human
with the divine: Muhammed's light-filled cave, Moses'
burning bush, Paul's blinding light, Fox's 'inner
light,' Krishna's Lord of Light, Bohme's light-filled
cobbler shop, Plotinus' fire experiences, Bodhisattvas
with the flow of Kundalini's fire erupting from
their fontanelles, and so on." p. 235
Will Rick Warren's 2nd Reformation Unite All Religions?
"Who's
the man of peace in any village - or it might be a
woman of peace - who has the most respect, they're
open and they're influential? They don't have to be
a Christian. In fact, they could be a Muslim, but
they're open and they're influential and you work
with them to attack the five giants. And that's going
to bring the second Reformation." - Rick
Warren, from the Pew Forum on Religion, May 2005
Interspirituality Is Coming To A Church Near You - Will
You Recognize It When It Does?
"Presiding Bishop Mark Hansen of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America has called for an ecumenical
council to convene in order to resolve the question
of biblical interpretation in the church. Calling
for the global council, Bishop Hansen called upon
Pope Benedict XVI, leaders of the Eastern Orthodox
churches, and mainline Protestant leaders to convene
the council in order to stem the tide of what he
called "fundamentalist" readings of Scripture."
Albert
Mohler Watch
the Video of the ELCA address. (Start at the
28 minute mark.)
Lighthouse Watch - Upcoming Events of Which to Be Aware
International
Leadership Summit - September 30th - October
1st The Netherlands
With: Ken Blanchard, Rick Warren and Bill Hybels.
Also broadcasting to Australia, South Africa, United
Kingdom, and more.
Amazing Quotes
"The
first of these five untheorized observations is that
New Light embodiment means to be "in connection" and
'in-formation' with other Christians. Deeper feeling
and higher relating go together. The church is fundamentally
one being, one person, a comm-union whose cells are
connected to one another within the information network
called the Christ
consciousness." —Leonard
Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, Page 122
"For
me to refer to God as "She" would unfortunately put
this work [ie.,her book] beyond the boundaries of
acceptance and understanding for too many people.
We must search for an all-inclusive terminology."-Laurie
Beth Jones, Jesus, CEO, p. 305.
"People who succeed speak well of themselves to themselves.
Nowhere in the Gospel does Jesus put himself down.
Jesus was full of self-knowledge and self-love. His
"I am" statements were what he became." - Laurie Beth
Jones, Jesus CEO, p. 8.
"My
acquaintance with eastern methods of meditation has
convinced me that ... there are ways of calming the
mind in the spiritual disciplines of both the east
and the west [and] many serious seekers of truth study
the eastern religions." -
Thomas Keating
What
works for me is a combination of disciplines: I do
yoga, tai chi which is a Chinese martial art and three
kinds of meditation—vipasana, transcendental and mantra
(sound) meditation. - Jack
Canfield, Chicken Soup for the Soul
Rick
Warren Endorses Another New Age Sympathizer -
Leonard Sweet!
Rick
Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church has
endorsed another New Age sympathizer.
This time it is Leonard
Sweet,
author of Soul Tsunami. Warren has endorsed
not just the back
cover
of Soul Tsunami but also the front cover. Leonard
Sweet,
author of Quantum
Spirituality and
also Soul Tsunami, speaks of global connectedness,
eradicating the gap between good and evil, and a host
of other New Age concepts.
"'Soul Tsunami' shows us why these are the
greatest days for evangelism since the first century!"
- Rick Warren, front cover.
In Soul Tsunami, Sweet encourages the use of
meditation
and labyrinths,
and the pages are filled with positive quotes and
material from New Agers and globalists such as James
Redfield, author of The Celestine Prophecy,
Sarah Ban Breathnach, author of Simple Abundance,
Annie Dillard, Tom Sine, and countless others. If
one takes a look at the acknowledgement pages of his
book Quantum Spirituality, then it is no surprise
that Leonard Sweet finds value in the writings of
New Agers:
"I have followed these 'New Light leaders,' as I am
calling them, from varying distances.... [S]ome who
led [me]... into new light are"... His list includes
Matthew
Fox,
Morton Kelsey, M.
Scott Peck,
and dozens of other New Agers and interspiritualists.
In light of the fact that in November 2003 Rick
Warren told his congregation that
New Age sympathizer, Ken Blanchard, "signed on" to help
implement his global
peace plan,
it isn't too much of a surprise that he would endorse
a book by another New Age sympathizer, Len Sweet. But
what is a surprise is that so many churches seem to
have no problem with Purpose Driven Life when
it only takes a close look to see that Rick Warren is
a mirror of the men he endorses and promotes. And if
that is the case, is Rick Warren taking his followers
down the same interspiritual path as Len Sweet, Ken
Blanchard, Brian McLaren, Richard Foster, and a host
of other interspiritualists who seem to end up on Rick
Warren's endorsement list?
Lighthouse Trails Publishing Has Overseas
Distributors in Several Different Countries
Now. Check
Out Our Growing List.
The New Age?
Why Should I Think About That?
You
may be surprised how few Christians really know about
the New
Age. They've never heard of Neale
Donald Walsch or Barbara
Marx Hubbard, and as far as they're concerned
the New Age movement ended when the '60s hippie era
ended. I should know ... I was one of those Christians.
After 25 years of faithfully sitting in church every
week, I rarely heard the term even mentioned, let
alone explained. But nearly five years ago, Dave and
I were introduced to a 6'4", fellow named Ray Yungen
who carried around a manuscript called A
Time of Departingand who just happened to
have researched the New Age for over twenty years.
"Would you take this manuscript home with you and
read it?" Ray asked, as he sat across from me in a
Salem, Oregon coffee shop. I took the bundle from
this humble, gentle-mannered guy and brought it home.
Reading it gave us the shock of our lives. Not only
was the New Age alive and well, it was alive and well
in the Christian church! A year and half later, we
began Lighthouse
Trails Publishing and a little later Lighthouse
Trails Research Project. A Time of Departing
was our first published book.
What does the term New Age really mean? Ray Yungen
explains it like this:
"The Age of Aquarius [synonymous with the New Age]
is when we are all supposed to come to the understanding
that man is God. As one New Age writer put it, 'A
major theme of Aquarius is that God is within. The
goal in the Age of Aquarius will be how to bring this
idea into meaningful reality.'1
Contrary to what many people think, the New Age did
not die out in the '60s but was slowly but surely
integrating into every facet of society - medicine,
business, schools, science and religion. The last
frontier for the New Age to conquer was the evangelical
church, and it is with great sadness we see that it
has finally achieved that victory.
In order to spot New Age beliefs when they come into
your church or Christian college, it helps to know
who the influential New Age leaders of today are and
what they are teaching. You may not have heard of
them, but we guarantee their teachings have made major
inroads into our society and are moving full speed
ahead, altering the message of Jesus Christ as being
the only way of salvation and pressing society into
a mold that says, "All paths lead to God." Here are
just a few:
As
you study the New Age and its leaders, you will begin
to see some common themes that are now being taught
by many well known Christian leaders:
Global
Peace Plans
Meditation
(i.e. contemplative prayer)
Global
Connectedness (Unity and Community)
Ecumenism
(Finding Truth in All Religions)
To
understand the New Age and its effect on the church,
we encourage you to listen
to some of the radio interviews by some of the
authors and researchers we know. We also encourage
you to read Ray Yungen's first book, For
Many Shall Come in My Name This book gives
excellent and compelling explanations of the New Age
and it's effect on the world and in the church.
We can tell ourselves it isn't necessary to know about
the New Age, that we aren't personally involved
with it so why should we have to understand
it? But what about our fellow brothers and sisters
and friends, children and grandchildren? What is the
world going to be like for them? More importantly,
what is the church going to be like for them? Will
what is called Christianity be recognizable in ten
years? At the rate things are going today, with countless
Christian leaders swaying to the New Age beat, the
"gospel" will have a new definition, and while true
Christianity and the gospel of Jesus Christ can never
be changed, a new gospel and a New Age spirituality
will counterfeit the real thing, deceiving many and
presenting to the world a false christ.
Editors
Lighthouse Trails Publishing
1.
Ray Yungen, For Many Shall Come in My Name
quoting Marion Weinstein, Positive Magic: Occult Self-
Help, (Custer, Washington: Phoenix Pub., Inc. 1978),
p. 19
"But if the watchman sees the
sword coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the
people are not warned, and the sword comes and takes
any person from among them, he is taken away in his
iniquity; but his blood I will require at the watchman’s
hand." Ezekiel 33:6
"For
I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is
the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes,
for the Jew first and also for the Greek. For in it
the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to
faith; as it is written, 'The just shall live by faith.'"
Romans 1:16
