New Age Impact on the Church: Infiltrating Heresies
by Nathan Jones
Who are some of the main heretics
from the New Age Movement?
Dr. David Reagan and I were
delighted to have as our guest on Christ in Prophecy Warren Smith, the author
of the book The Light that Was Dark. This
fascinating book tells Warren's touching story of how in his search for a
Savior he got sidetracked into the occultic darkness of the New Age Movement. From his many years of experience under that
influence, Warren now has dedicated his life to warning Christians about the
dangers of the New Age and helps us recognize how we can avoid these satanic
influences from creeping into our churches.
Infiltrating
Heresies
Nathan Jones: Warren, you have such
an extensive background in the New Age Movement, and so can easily recognize its
teachings when you spot them. How then
do these occultic teachings influence and even penetrate churches?
Warren Smith:
You can go all the way
back to someone like Norman Vincent Peale and his book The
Power of Positive
Thinking. I think it is on page 40 of
his book where he says, "God is in you." Robert Schuller in a 2003 television program
also said similarly, "Yes, God is alive and He is in every single person."
That is classic New Age teaching. Some of today's really well known
preachers and pastors are using some of these new Bible versions. There is one from the New Century Version that
say, "God rules everything, is everywhere, and is in everything." And so people say, "Oh, God is His
universe."
Nathan Jones: And yet, God is
omnipresent.
Warren Smith: Yes, but like Schuller
said, "God is alive and is in every single person." That "in every single
person" is very specific. Then there are translations like The
Message which just waters down God's Word. I was surprised to
see in The Message right away the first time I read it where oneness is added
to Ephesians 4. Oneness is a code word. "Oneness pervades everything you are and
think and do." That feeds right
into the whole New Age concept.
I would just like to say that, yes,
I see these things maybe a lot more because I was involved in the New Age, but
anybody that is reading their Bible learns that as Jesus said, "Heaven and
earth will pass away, but my Words will never pass away." The Bible describes and warns about every
deception I was involved in. It is describing everything that is
coming into the Church that people try to explain away, like with The Shack. People will even say it's a good book to give
to unbelievers. No it's not! It's
not because of the New Age teachings that are in there, such as God dwells in
and around and through all things.
Nathan Jones: The author is a stated
Universalist, right?
Warren Smith: He calls himself a
Christian.
Nathan Jones: Well, they all call
themselves Christian.
Warren Smith: Oprah calls herself a
Christian, too. Therefore, you've got to look at just what kind of
"Christianity" they are talking about. The Scripture that comes to
my mind is, "A little leaven, leaveneth the whole lump." You cannot have these false teachings inserted
into these supposedly "Christian" books, surrounding Satan's lies
with a little truth. Some in like say the Emerging Church, they will say,
"all truth is God's truth," but then they will take some teaching
from out of A Course in Miracles and use that as the "truth."
New
Age Church
Dr. Reagan: One of the things about
the Emergent Church Movement that really concerns me, and I would say is a
fundamental characteristic of that movement, is that they deny that there
really is absolute truth, which ironically in and of itself is an absolute
statement. If you are going to say
discuss the issue of homosexuality, it's not what the Bible has to teach, but
you go with it because it's what you think should be accepted. Emergent s are always asking, "What do you
think?
What do I think?" There is an exchange of questions all about
this or that, but no one comes out and draws the line saying, "Here's what
the Word of God says." Emergent
Church teaching is not a belief in absolute
truth.
Nathan Jones: Apologist Eric Barger
had some great statements which maybe you can confirm for me. He says, "The New Age or the Emergent
Church follows this: experience over reason, spirituality over doctrinal absolutes,
images over words, feelings over truth, earthly justice over salvation, and
social action over eternity." Is
that the definition of a New Age Church?
Warren Smith: He's done a good job
of covering a lot of that.
I think one of the most significant observations
that he mentioned there is something that people need to be aware of, and that
because of the acceptance of New Age teachings, spiritual experience is
trumping the Word of God in the Church, especially in the Emerging Church.
Contemplative
Prayer
Warren Smith: Throughout these
churches, people are having spiritual experiences that will bring in hopefully
from the Devil's standpoint "new revelation" which will end up
providing a new worldview. The way they
are seeking new revelation is mainly through contemplative prayer. It's a code really for meditation.
Dr. Reagan: What is contemplative
prayer? We hear a lot about that lately.
What is it?
Warren Smith: The way contemplative
prayer is presented is you recite Scripture, and then you close your eyes or
you are still and listen to see if God will speak to you. Basically, it's almost like a technique. They wouldn't say that you don't empty your
mind since you are reciting Scripture, but it's pretty close. You wait to hear what God would tell you.
The dangerous thing with
contemplative prayer, and Richard Foster for one talks about this when he says
basically, "You can always tell the voice of Satan because it is
foreboding and dark," is that's just very bad advice. What I never have heard with any of these
people who are talking about contemplative prayer is to test the spirits, as 1 John 4:1 instructs. Believers need to remember that these
admonitions were directed to believers. Just
because we are following the Lord, that doesn't mean that we cannot still be
mislead.
There are a lot of deceptive voices
out there, and a lot of these voices are now coming in through books like The
Shack. People just don't realize that
the author of The Shack told a small group that met privately in a house church
that he had real conversations with God and that the teachings in his book were
from God, but he just put them in a novel form.
Nathan Jones: That's rather like
Joseph Smith who founded the cult Mormonism, or Mohammed who founded Islam. They all claimed to be hearing from God.
Warren Smith: Their followers are
also being directed to listen for God's voice. I've even seen some recent conferences
where they have well known Bible teachers and church leaders that are inducting
a whole audience by saying, "Okay, let's see what Jesus would tell us
right now with no warnings."
But,
remember 2 Corinthians 11 where Paul chided the Corinthians that if another
Jesus, another Gospel, or another spirit comes through here, you might just
fall for it.
There is another "Jesus"
out there. I just need to tell people to
make sure that it is Jesus Christ of Nazareth who are consistent with the
Bible, because there are a lot of Jesus' out there who Paul was warning about.
Experiential
Faith
Dr. Reagan: Is this simply a
reflection of the Post-modern Age, which we are supposed to be in right now,
where people are turned off by the idea of reading the Word of God and finding
out what God would say to them, as opposed to having a touchy-feely experience?
Warren Smith: This teaching is sort
of being advocated in the Church, that it's kind of hip to skirt around the
Bible a little bit and instead have some spiritual experiences. There is nothing wrong with doing things a
little bit differently when it comes to you trying to reach people where they
are at. I can just tell you, I was
really alternative! I was out in San
Francisco, where if you really look at the Jesus Movement, those people were
hippies.
But, today we're being taught that
you have to change everything you do in church to reach people now. The Word of God
when I stood in that fraternity house and I was convicted by the Holy Spirit
that was just the power of God and His truth. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth
and the life, no one comes to the Father but through me." It is a narrow way, and oneness is a broad
way.
This voice from the Enemy that is
trying to come into the Church, and is doing a fairly good job through
contemplative prayer, is trying to bring in this very simple bottom line
teaching that we are all connected. There
is that big word - connected. We are all
connected. We are all one. We are all God. And, if we don't subscribe to this belief, we
could hinder world peace, because those that don't subscribe to divinity could
be hindering world peace and would have to be dealt with in the future. I see that threat to Christians being set up
right now.
Nathan Jones: So, the New Age is
teaching peace through tyranny... under the Antichrist. Is that the eventual goal?
Warren Smith: Jeremiah said,
"Peace, peace, but there is no peace." Peace is a great code word, just like love and
happiness. Peace, love and happiness. But, we might just ask, “What are the bottom
line teachings that come with this quest for peace?”
In the fourth and last segment of
our interview with Warren Smith on how New Age teachings have infiltrated the
Church, he'll explain the push towards Universalism and what Christians can do
to protect ourselves from being deceived.
*****
Hello
HBS Group,
The
surgery went well, and I am comfortable.
Thank
you for your prayers. June bought me ice
cream.
I
copied this information above for you.
It comes from a reputable website I visit often.
I
included some of this data in a recent teaching series which was posted to my
website recently, so when I read this article it of course caught my attention.
It’s
“good” for you have another person's viewpoint or perspective on these topics that
hinder the spiritual growth of the Body of Christ. It’s also good for you to know that I’m not
coming to you from left field with the material(s) I write about or talk to you about.
For
instance we’ve talked about the book, “The Shack” during our discussion period
some time ago. At that time, I said this
book was New Age philosophy and I didn’t recommend the reading of it.
During
a recent conversation, I was asked, “What’s wrong with a little bit of “prosperity
teaching? We all could use some
encouragement from time to time?”
My
response was simple and to the point.
Besides
being false teaching, Jesus Christ isn’t concerned with “our wants.”
The
prosperity gospel, although very popular in the church today, is false
teaching.
Here’s
my longer answer:
The
smallest lie may cause a person to make wrong decisions leading to dire
consequences.
Eve
took a bite of a piece of fruit and so did Adam – and where are we today?
The
Apostle Paul wrote this to the Believers in Galatia after the Judaizers came in,
after he left, proclaiming another gospel than the one he preached to them.
Galatians 5
7: You (Galatians) were running (the race) well; who hindered you from obeying the (what’s
the next word folks) truth?
8: This persuasion
did not come from Him (the Lord Jesus Christ) who calls you.
9: (Read slowly) A little leaven leavens the whole lump of
dough.
10: I have
confidence in you in the Lord that you will adopt no other view; but the one
who is disturbing you will bear his judgment, whoever he is.
What’s
going on in verse 9?
For
those of you who are not baker’s: YEAST is used as a LEAVENING AGENT where it
converts the fermentable sugars in dough into the gas carbon dioxide. This causes the dough to expand (rise) as gas
forms pockets or bubbles.
One
“lie” told in church infiltrates the entire congregation.
If
the “lie” is told often enough and elaborated on, which it most often is, then
the lie becomes believable especially if it is mixed with a bit of truth.
If
the “lie” affects only one person in that congregation great damage has been
done.
Have
a great weekend,
Gary