“…His recent projects include Prank 3:16, a unique television show that teaches the truths about the Bible through elaborate practical jokes, and his book A Stand-Up Comic Sits Down With Jesus…. “

–National Religious Broadcasters Convention website for the “Night of Comedy” event for religious broadcasters on Monday night, March 10. Here’s Rich Praytor’s Prank 3:16 website. Now you know why I stopped going to NRB Conventions.

These three channeled (demonic) prophecies were taken from the Agni Yoga teachings by Nicholas and Helena Roerich, two Russian followers of Helena Blavatsky back in the early 20th Century. Note that these prophecies appeared in their writings back in 1930-32 but they address the coming shift. The occult writings of Blavatsky and also Alice Bailey form the heart of the New Spirituality that is emerging with such force. In the last few days alone, I have received a rash of unsolicited press releases regarding everything from Deepak Chopra’s Third Jesus release, The Moses Code, and now, the Living Luminaries (See post below this one).

“You are correct in speaking of humanity’s lack of insight. When we approach the ominous hour, all forces must be strained for the mighty step. It has already been told that the Epoch of Maitreya is approaching, and the signs are strewn as fiery seeds; hence, the ominous hour will be one of Light for those who are in step with the Cosmic Magnet. Hence, the ominous hour will be as a future Light for those who battle for the significance of the Epoch of Maitreya. Hence, cooperation with Us brings the predestined victory. Therefore, the co-workers who walk in self-denial will be victors. Proceeding in step with the Cosmic Magnet, you affirm victory! Yes, yes, yes!”

–Infinity, Book 2, 1930, (Bold words from the original writings.)

“Only by renewal of thinking can humanity attain the new planetary step. What a spatial tension surrounds the planet! Such ominous forebodings have taken place only before a stupendous cosmic conflict. Therefore, only when Our Hierarchy shall be affirmed can humanity be saved. ”

–Hierarchy, 1931

“Not without reason do people recall ancient prophecies about changes in the firmament. In fact, violation of the planet’s equilibrium will cause many three-fold manifestations. Not only may new heavenly bodies become visible, but the very chemism of the Luminaries may be altered, and of course this will react strongly upon the inhabitants of Earth. Thus, while people are enjoying their bazaars and fairs, ominous events are in the offing…”

–Fiery World, Book 2, 1934

This news just in this afternoon. While evangelical leaders like Charles Colson, Lee Strobel and Focus on the Family’s H.B London lined up with Robert A. Schuller and his father at the Crystal Cathedral for the ReThink Conference a few weeks ago, Schuller, Jr.’s picture was being affixed to websites and promotional materials for a marketing campaign that will introduce countless souls to New Age teachings. Schuller participated in the making of the Living Luminaries, a movie just released on DVD, with New Age leaders like Marianne Williamson, Michael Beckwith of The Secret, Eckhart Tolle, now being featured on a live webcast with Oprah, and the “Venerable Tibetan Lama” Chodak Gyatso Nupka. I’d like to hear the excuses given once again by Dr. Colson, Strobel, London and company for their participation with at the Crystal Cathedral. Schuller, Jr. is indeed a “living luminary” just like his father who has been a key player in the New Spirituality for decades. These luminaries give off light that is very, very dark. Satan is an angel of light. His ministers radiate that same false light. The website calls the movie participants, “consciously evolved”. Indeed.

Their supposed message in “Living Luminaries” is about personal happiness. Their real message is the New Spirituality.

My latest column has been posted at Christian Worldview Network, “The Moses Code Movie Blasphemy and the Big Shift”. It is a summary of many of the things covered here at Slice recently regarding the tidal wave of New Spirituality deception sweeping the globe and how it is being presented by various teachers and authors from the same script. I point to the fact that just as the Lord assigns us roles in the Kingdom of God to do His will, the enemy has servants who do his will. You will find low-level proponents of eastern spirituality and occult teachings in every town in America. These are the people who open their living rooms to meetings discussing Neale Donald Walsch’s latest book, or Oprah’s latest author/shill for the anti-Christ. These are the ones who will be holding some of the thousand screenings and prayer vigils worldwide with the opening of the Moses Code Movie. Then you go on up the chain. There are the intermediate false teachers and leaders who work on a regional level or who take the writings of the big kahunas and spread them far and wide.

Then there are those who promote wickedness in high places. That would be men like Congressman Dennis Kucinich who works in the halls of Congress promoting his Department of Peace along with his New Age friends. There are all the authors and speakers who sell millions of books like Neale Donald Walsch, Marianne Williamson, Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle and so forth. The enemy has his own in the media like Oprah Winfrey who serve as fountainheads of this spiritual poison. Oprah right now is featuring a 365-day course on the Course in Miracles on her satellite radio program, taught by Marianne Williamson herself. Oprah made Marianne Williamson what she is by featuring her book, A Return to Love: Reflections on a Course in Miracles, many years ago. Overnight, she was a bestselling author. Oprah is now pushing The New Earth, by Eckhart Tolle. There is no false prophet she will not promote to millions. She’s a big one.

Then there are those who work within the ranks of evangelical Christianity. These subversive false teachers are assigned various audiences. Some are given the task of deceiving the unthinking, shallow masses. These false teachers smile a lot and hand out spiritual bubble gum to all takers. These are popular guys who don’t talk about big shifts or the great emergence, they tell you that God wants you to be happy! God wants you to have your best life now. They speak of wealth and prosperity and they lead their followers around because of the lust of the eyes and the flesh. They have an easy job to do because everybody loves a circus and they are only too happy to provide one.

For some audiences, Satan chooses men and women who are gifted with great subtlety. These are the ones who spend their careers undermining confidence in the Word of God. They question old truth, they redefine, they re-imagine, they twist and distort. They travel to conferences far and wide where evangelical pastors and youth leaders attend. Their special script reads, “Yea, hath God said?” They are described in Jude:

But these speak evil of those things which they know not: but what they know naturally, as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves.Woe unto them! for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the error of Balaam for reward, and perished in the gainsaying of Core.

These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever.

And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints,

To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts; and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having men’s persons in admiration because of advantage.

They are assigned to deceive the thinking people. This target audience is deeply sincere, highly intelligent but they are poorly taught in biblical truth and sound doctrine. These are often young people burned out on circus church. They hunger for something substantive and real. But because their feet are not solidly on the rock of Christ, they are vulnerable to these gifted, forked-tongue leaders. These false teachers are hand picked because of their specific gifts in producing error on an intellectual level. No bubble gum here, just a hard core push for the rejection of Scriptural authority and a sneering contempt for those who hold to biblical truths. These are men in black turtle necks with a charming, witty presentation. They are educated, erudite, articulate, and as subtle as the serpent. They play off the insecurities and frustrations of young people utterly fed up with McChurch. They speak at colleges where these young people are alone for the first time, away from the guidance of Christian parents. These are higher order false teachers and they are legion today in the publishing world.

In times like these, we need to see what the enemy is doing so we are not, as St. Paul wrote, ignorant of his devices. Error needs to be met with truth. Scripture tells us to contend, and to put on our armor first. God is responsible for the results. We will not stop the tidal wave of error, but we will have sent truth forth for those remaining souls who have ears to hear.

Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet ’tis Truth alone is strong,
And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng
Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong…

Careless seems the great Avenger; history’s pages but record
One death-grapple in the darkness ‘twixt old systems and the Word;
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne,-
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown,
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above his own.

–James Russell Lowell

“He that hath My word, let him speak My word faithfully.”

–Jeremiah 23:28

“This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’ did for his. It’s that good!”

–Eugene Peterson, author of The Message (Front cover endorsement for The Shack)

 “Those who love me come from every system that exists. They were Buddhists or Mormons, Baptists or Muslims…. I have no desire to make them Christian, but I do want to join them in their transformation into sons and daughters of my Papa, into my brothers and sisters.”

-–The Shack’s “Jesus.” [1,p.182]

See Berit Kjos’ review of The Shack and its counterfeit Christ.

“Perhaps the single most powerful event facing humanity today is a great awakening on a planetary scale that has been millennia in the making. We humans are in the midst of a profound advance as a species to a higher form of global consciousness that has been emerging across cultures, religions and worldviews through the centuries. This awakening of global consciousness is nothing less than a shift, a maturation, from more egocentric patterns of life to a higher form of integral and dialogic patterns of life. In this drama it is seen that egocentric patterns of minding and living directly leads to fragmentation, alienation and human pathologies at the individual and collective level. And the great spiritual traditions have long seen that the key to our survival, sustainability and flourishing turns on our conscious evolution into dialogic patterns of life which bring forth our true moral, rational and spiritual nature as a species.

This crossing as a species into global consciousness involves the co-creation of the common ground between worldviews – the fundamental Logos which is the source of diverse cultural and religious worldviews. Here it is seen that the primary source of chronic violence and breakdown of human relations traces to egocentric patterns. And the key to ending violence between cultures and advancing to global cultures of peace, nonviolence and mutual flourishing is our individual and collective advance as beings who live in patterns of deep dialogue. We suggest that this transition as a species has arrived at critical turning point and that the single most important event now facing the human condition and a key our future is this advance to awakened global consciousness.”

–Dr. Ashok K. Gangadean, Awakening Global Awareness: Our Human Evolution, Our Conflict, Our Path Into the Future

 **See update on this regarding the missing original trailer. 3/4/08**

Here’s the trailer for the soon-to-be released movie (April 5), The Moses Code, which takes blasphemy to a whole new level.

[youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=XLF9pzmoBXI&feature=related[/youtube]

It appears that the sacred texts of Islam are undergoing a radical revision in interpretation in Turkey. It seems the more literalist, fundamentalist model is no longer working for them, and they want some more modern interpretations that are more compatible with society. The BBC reports:

Commentators say the very theology of Islam is being reinterpreted in order to effect a radical renewal of the religion.

Its supporters say the spirit of logic and reason inherent in Islam at its foundation 1,400 years ago are being rediscovered. Some believe it could represent the beginning of a reformation in the religion.

Paging, Brian McLaren…You have a call from Istanbul…

“Does any one of the Driscolletes here think that the constant use by Driscoll of smutty language, scatological speech, graphic sexual descriptions of a woman’s private parts, using Scripture to humorously justify masturbatory acts, using the name of the Lord as a punch line in jokes, twisting Scripture to support degrading stories, and demonstrating little or no reverence of the fear of the Lord in public worship… and all this taking place, mind you, while ‘preaching the Word” from the pulpit, is acceptable pastoral practice and demeanor? (All of this is well documented by Driscoll’s own vodcasts and podcasts and, yes, I have read his two books and virtually listened to everything that he has released on podcast and vodcast the past three years). Aren’t any of you offended by this?”

- Steve Camp, in a comment deleted from Tim Challies’ site for being “sufficiently inflammatory.”

Now if only we could get Tim to treat Steve Camp’s biblical challenges with the same even-handedness he uses with foul-mouthed Mark Driscoll! Here is Sexpert Driscoll on YouTube. **Warning** See also Driscoll’s sex conference video here. He’s decided to travel the country on a Song of Solomon tour where he can talk about all things sexual and justify it because, after all, it’s in the Bible. If you haven’t already, see my post on the Moses Code below. While the Christian pastors in the land fixate on sex, the enemy is oh, so busy.

If you read Tim Challies’ weak treatment of Mark Driscoll’s foul mouth in his review of Driscoll’s latest book, read Steve Camp’s excellent assessment of the problems with Mark Driscoll and the whole cult of personality that grows up around these emerging church celebrities. Steve Camp decided to try a test. He went to the comment section on Challies’ Driscoll piece, and using some of the same speech and phraseology that Driscoll had used about Jesus, he directed it toward Driscoll. Predictably, his comments were deleted as Driscoll fans waxed hot in anger that anyone could say such things about their guy. Camp writes:

Driscoll can poke fun at everyone and everything under the sun while “preaching” and use graphic-smutty-over the top-foul language, and his sycophants don’t mind–in fact they approve and applaud him. They enjoy his scatological rants. BUT, turn the tables on Mark by using some of his own words and phrases towards him (I didn’t swear or use foul language, just some Dennis Milleresque humored thoughts) and they go ballistic. Mark can use our Lord’s name or perceived likeness as a punch-line for his jokes (he thinks he’s the Christian version of Chris Rock) and no one says anything. BUT, use those same or similar lines from Mark about Mark (which I did) and his supporters come unglued. Driscoll uses graphic sexual language about a woman’s private parts and is applauded and his book recommended and promoted; I confront it, challenge it and get scorned and deleted.

Exactly. And by the way, Tim Challies, Driscoll’s talk is not wrong because it violates good taste but because it violates Scripture’s commands against coarse jesting, filthy talk, and corrupt communication. Weak-kneed responses from Christian men are allowing this kind of thing to worsen. At one time even secular men would have seen a woman in their presence and told a foul-mouthed colleague to watch their talk. Now “pastors” spew this filth from pulpits and their books, and the best Christian men bloggers can do is to say it’s in “poor taste”. No, actually it’s sin, and as a Christian female, I’m sick of hearing it from Christian pastors and having to write about it, frankly. Calling all Christian men (especally bloggers)–take a stand! Thank you so much, Steve, for standing up for what is right. Christian decency is not dead yet.

Phillipians 1:27, I Timothy 4:12, I Peter 1:15, II Peter 2:7

**Update: This evening the original trailer on the Moses Code movie website was removed from YouTube. It is now completely missing even on their website.**

If you don’t read anything else on Slice today, please read this post. Following in the footsteps of The Secret and its teachings on the Law of Attraction, a movie is opening April 5 called “The Moses Code”. Please read about it, watch the trailer, and realize that 1000 prayer groups all over the world are holding prayer vigils like this one (see April 5) as they screen the movie. In the trailer when the actors in the movie come out with the blasphemous “I AM” statements, it sums up perfectly the New Spirituality we’ve been warning about. These are folks who believe that THEY are God. These people are praying for this evolutionary “shift” in the consciousness of the planet. So while these Satanic prayer vigils are going on, what is the evangelical and emerging churches doing? Helping things along by holding hair and fashion shows like Victory Church in Amarillo last Sunday instead of preaching the powerful Word of God; by holding yet another Christian sex event like Mark Driscoll, the foul mouthed preacher boy, who is now holding “Song of Solomon” conferences where he gets to talk about breasts and oral sex and justify it because, it’s in the Bible, after all. You can see Driscoll’s disgusting video right here. (Why is it that when these guys talk about sexuality it always carries a feeling of grime?) While Christian pastors obsess about sexuality and serve as ringmasters at their evangelical circuses, the enemy is holding prayer vigils. When is the last time you heard about one of those in a Christian church?

Today’s Crosstalk guest, Peter LaBarbera from Americans For Truth, will be featured tonight in a story on the cable super-station WGN-TV, based in Chicago, concerning the latest academic pursuit of the “gay gene.”  It will air between 9:00 and 10:00 Central Time on WGN which reaches across the country. You can learn more about the (liberal biased) Northwestern U. “genetic homosexuality” study at www.gaybros.com. As you know, pro-homosexual advocates are seeking to prove that homosexuality is genetic — with the hope of then declaring the issue outside the bounds of moral debate. Many Christians are also now buying into this belief and following the new Evangelical leftist leaders.

I had back to back talk shows today as I guest hosted for Janet Folger’s Faith2Action Show and then had Crosstalk 5 minutes later in a studio two-floors down. The subject matter was what God has laid so strongly on my heart, namely the tidal wave of spiritual deception that is threatening the church and our nation. In the second hour, on Crosstalk, my guest was Peter LaBarbera from Americans for Truth who talked about his experience at Wheaton College last week when they invited pro-gay leftist, Jim Wallis to speak to students. We talked about the growth of the evangelical leftist movement and how it ties in with the agenda of the emerging spirituality. In the first hour, I addressed The Shift, both the movie, and the real shift taking place in a marriage of leftist politics and New Spirituality. These two go hand in hand and are the result of a low view of Scripture. Postmoderns disregard Scripture’s authority and that’s why they can embrace the social agenda of the left that promotes the things that God hates, such as same-sex marriage, (sodomy) and the legal killing of preborn children. You can listen to the recorded Faith2Action Show at their website and you can listen to today’s Crosstalk as well at our website. (If it isn’t up yet, the podcast should be up shortly.) It was an intense two hours of radio, but I feel God is having me focus as much as possible on warning the church of this counterfeit spirituality and familiarizing listeners with the names and faces who represent this New Spirituality that is coming out of the emerging church “conversation” and political leftists like Wallis, Sider, Campolo, Claiborne et al.

As a P.S. to my post below, it has been brought to my attention that open theist, Greg Boyd, will also be headlining at the National Pastors Conference this week. In keeping with the theologically and politically left-wing theme, Greg will be de-constructing the myth of a Christian America, and then will move on to de-construct the doctrine of the sovereignty of God. The website says:

Gregory A. Boyd is the founder and senior pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, MN, and founder and president of Christus Victor Ministries. Greg is a national and international speaker at churches, colleges, conferences, and retreats, and has appeared on numerous radio and television shows. He has also authored and coauthored 14 books prior to The Myth of a Christian Nation, including Escaping the Matrix (with Al Larson), Seeing Is Believing, Repenting of Religion, and his international bestseller Letters From a Skeptic. www.gregboyd.org

The Myth of a Christian Nation

In this seminar, we will explore the myth that America is, or ever was, a “Christian Nation.” (My Comment: We’d better be grateful it wasn’t Islamic, Greg) We will also examine various ways in which this pervasive myth continues to harm the mission of the Church in America and around the globe. Dr. Boyd will then lead a discussion on both theological and practical issues that Christian workers face as they seek to build a Kingdom that transcends national, political, racial and socio-economic boundaries.

Interview with Krista Tippett, Greg Boyd and Chuck Colson on the role of God and Government

Panel discussion on Theological Trends Facing the Church

Theology is making a comeback in the church and many of the discussions that are taking place are shaking some of the sacred foundations that people have embraced over the centuries. Join Drs. Greg Boyd, J.P. Moreland, Roger Olson and Richard Twiss as they discuss a variety of topics that are impacting the church – the Trinity, theories of atonement, the role of Scripture, the role of the Holy Spirit, theodicy and theocracy.”

My response: You can try to shake the sacred foundations all you want to, Greg, but it isn’t going to do a thing.

Heretics like Greg Boyd will come and go, but the Word of God stands forever.

Yes, folks, it is time again for the National Pastors Convention in San Diego. Cue the sitar players, start up the incense, and drag out the yoga mats! You think that I jest about the yoga, and you are wrong. Under the heading, Christian Yoga, it reads:

“Join Shelly Pagitt for a time of prayer, stretching, and meditative reflection as you begin your day at the NPC. If possible, please bring a mat with you for the stretching time.”

Shelly Pagitt, wife of emerging Pied Piper, Doug, will be bowing before the pastors and their wives and saying, “Namaste”. That’s how a yoga session starts, and the words are Sanskrit for “I bow to the divine within you.” Yoga journal describes “Namaste” this way.

“The gesture Namaste represents the belief that there is a Divine spark within each of us that is located in the heart chakra. The gesture is an acknowledgment of the soul in one by the soul in another. “Nama” means bow, “as” means I, and “te” means you. Therefore, Namaste literally means “bow me you” or “I bow to you.”

When the pastors are done with their Hindu worship, they can cruise into a workshop with Roger Olson. His is a harmless enough sounding name that evokes images of a guy in a flannel shirt up in Duluth somewhere, serving lutefisk or making Swedish meatballs. This Roger Olson, however, will be redefining evangelicalism. He has quite an agenda. He will be speaking on the following:

How to Be Evangelical without Being Conservative

“Are ‘evangelical’ and ‘conservative’ synonymous or even inseparably linked? Not necessarily. In some cases it is possible to be more evangelical by being less conservative. We will look at how history sheds light on radical evangelical faith that breaks with the status quo and forges new paths in theology, worship and service.”

Well, Roger, we’ve seen where those new paths in theology, worship and service are leading the church. Witchcraft. (See the post below.) As if this wasn’t enough, Roger will be going further.

Postconservative Evangelical Theology

“Evangelical theology is breaking out of and moving beyond the traditional “left/right” spectrum of liberal to conservative. That spectrum is based on responses to modernity. What happens when evangelical theology interacts with postmodernity? Can there be a postconservative evangelical theology as there is a postliberal mainline Protestant theology? What do they have in common?”

I know, I know. Lemme answer the question. They have rebellion in common. These movements have rebelled against God by denying the authority of His Word. Rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. That’s why young people are actually attempting to Christianize real stuff. It’s all the same thing, folks.

To prove my point, Ruth Haley Barton is another speaker at the National Pastors Convention. After sewing her seeds of contemplative mystical spirituality at Willow Creek under Bill Hybels, she has now moved on. Look at her bio.

Ruth Haley Barton is a spiritual director, teacher, and retreat leader trained through the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation and the Pathways Center for Spiritual Leadership in Nashville, Tennessee. Ruth is cofounder of The Transforming Center. She is also the author of several books including Sacred Rhythms and Invitation to Solitude and Silence.

But wait a minute. I’m on the mailing list for the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation. It’s an organization dedicated to the use of contemplative practice by people of all religions to encounter the “divine”. Founder Tilden Edwards said this about contemplative spirituality.

“This mystical stream [contemplative prayer] is the Western bridge to Far Eastern spirituality.”
—Tilden Edwards, Spiritual Friend, p. 18.

So the pastors at the National Pastors Convention will sit back, refreshed from their yoga, and listen to Ruth Haley Barton, who was trained at Shalem, tell them how the mystical stream of contemplative prayer can enhance their ministries.

As if eastern spirituality wasn’t bad enough , Zondervan, who sponsors the NPC, has brought in political liberals like Shane Claiborne and Jim Wallis to make sure that left-wing theology matches left-wing politics. You can see the full line-up of speakers here.

The National Pastors Convention is an indication of evangelicalism’s future. Only those whose feet are on the rock of the unchanging Word of God will not be swept away by this tsunami of spiritual deception. The deception is not the exception, it is the norm now. Contend for the faith.

Look-ee what’s emerging now. We’re in postmodern times, we’re told. Rob Bell says the Bible is a “human product”, not “Divine fiat”. In other words, we can make things up as we go. This line of thought has now brought us “Christian” witchcraft. A Slice reader sent me a link to a site being promoted in an online group as a new “alternative” Christianity. The Raven Wing website was started by someone who developed her own brand of Christian witchcraft. Her belief page is a bizarre mixture of Christianity and goddess theology. The Raven Wing site declares:

Think you have christians & christianity figured out? click here for the most amazing website ever to exist relating to christianity & all things christian. guaranteed to open your mind & move you to the edge!

The edge of the abyss, that is, and right over it, frankly.

Readers are invited at the Raven Wing site to attend the Columbus Eclectic Christian Meet-Up where they can “meet other Christians who are also interested in the Old Ways, and The Craft.

This is the Great Emergence indeed.

OK, readers, here’s a quote quiz. I want you to guess who said it. There are multiple choices after the quotes. (No fair using google!)

“The present day crisis in Christianity is it’s bogged down in issues like — what would Jesus do? They make pronouncements on things like abortion, women’s rights, homophobia, stem cell research — nothing to do with Christ,” he said.

“It influences our politics, it influences our national policy, it influences whether we go to war or not in the name of God,” he said. “It’s inanity of the utmost extreme.”

__________ said he hoped readers would take away a practical way to understand the New Testament and understand that engaging in contemplative meditation can lead to positive change…And that, he said “is precisely what is meant by the kingdom of heaven is within you.”

OK, who said it?

A. Rob Bell
B. Shane Claiborne
C. Tony Campolo
D. Brian McLaren
E. Deepak Chopra

I’ll tell you the answer at the end of this post. Here’s another quote, actually two quotes. Who said this?

“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.”

“New Lights offer up themselves as the cosmions of a mind-of-Christ consciousness. As a cosmion incarnating the cells of a new body, New Lights will function as transitional vessels through which transforming energy can renew the divine image in the world, moving postmoderns from one state of embodiment to another.

So who said it?

A. Swami Vivekenanda, the Brahman priest who brought the Vendanta philosophy to the West.
B. George Harrison, (the Beatle) after a night smoking cannabis with the Giggling Guru, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
C. Marianne Williamson
D. Emerging church author Leonard Sweet

Well, in quiz question one, the answer is E, Deepak Chopra. I wonder how many of you thought you were reading any one of the emerging lefties? It’s virtually verbatim from any number of rants against the “religious right” by current leaders like Shane Claiborne, McLaren, or Donald Miller, including Jim Wallis of Sojourners who could have written Chopra’s script. They’re all saying the same things.

Quiz quotes two and three. Who said it? The answer is D, emerging author and interspiritualist, Leonard Sweet. The quotes are from his online book, Quantum Spirituality, in which he thanks New Age authors Willis Harmon, Thomas Berry, Ken Wilbur, and Matthew Fox for their influence on him. Believe me, the influence shows as the book is a manual for New Spirituality. Sweet speaks at the Catalyst Conference with Andy Stanley, Rick Warren, Erwin McManus and a host of other widely accepted leaders.

The reason Leonard Sweet’s views are so alarming regarding the creation of this “Christ-consciousness” is that bestselling New Age author Deepak Chopra speaks of the very same thing. This is a news piece from Reuters from last Thursday (2-21-08) in which Chopra elaborates on how Jesus is “three persons”. He’s only interested in the third Jesus. When you read it, you’ll understand why there are a lot of New Spirituality/Emerging leaders interested in this “third” Jesus. (Deepak Chopra was just at the UN before Christmas, lecturing world leaders on this emerging consciousness.)

HT: Pure Faith Forums

Here is an interesting article today about Americans switching their religious affiliations. Jehovah’s Witnesses were the worst at retaining their young from childhood on, and Hindus were the best.  One in four claim no affiliation with a religious institution.

The big emerging promoter, Youth Specialties, is offering a guided imagery devotion in their newsletter that has the Son of God hunkered down in the corner of your bedroom, waiting to talk to you.

“He sits there, hunkered down in the corner of your room, waiting for you. He’s certainly not pushing himself on you, but you can definitely tell he longs to spend some time with you.”…

“But after a few minutes of talking together, your whole world and all the worries of your day seem to simply melt away. You haven’t felt this relaxed in a long time. You find yourself pouring your heart out to him. And then he looks you right in the eyes and tells you how proud he is of you. He tells you how much he loves you and enjoys spending time together…

“At that moment you realize this friend who has been waiting to talk with you day after day is Jesus. He has never made you feel guilty about blowing him off day after day. He looks at you and smiles. It’s at that moment that you can tell for the first time in your life that you have a true friend who cares about you for who you are. The time seems to fly by as you continue talking together late into the night…”

You can hear the audio here and read the full transcript. Delving into the realm of the imagination to “visualize” Jesus is a fast track to spiritual deception. Author Warren Smith tells us how he had a Jesus of his own imagination as well. He was deceived by an angel of light as he tells in his autobiography, The Light That Was Dark. Another former New Ager, Will Barron, tells of having his own Jesus who would appear to him and converse with him.

We encounter the Lord in His Word, not through our vain imaginations. The King of Kings does not hunker down in anyone’s room. He sits at the right hand of God, our risen, ascended and glorified Lord Jesus Christ. We worship Him and pray to Him because He alone is worthy to be praised and glorified, not because we want someone to talk to so we can feel better about ourselves.

The mysticism promoted by the emerging leaders and teachers can lead to spiritual deception for young people who have never been taught the dangers of this kind of thing.