As a p.s. to my post below about Oprah Winfrey featuring New Ager Eckhart Tolle on her program yesterday, note that he once again points to the word “purpose” in his book title, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. The Great Invocation of those who believe in the false christ Maitreya also talks about purpose. Please read it here and note in the third stanza of the “invocation” the use of the word purpose. This is from the Lucis Trust, which is about as dark spiritually as you can get. You can see how Tolle, Oprah, Williamson, Hubbard and all their colleagues are working for the same thing. Those in the emerging church/evangelcalism who refuse to define Jesus Christ biblically, are opening the door to the deception these groups are spreading. These New Agers also await a christ, the cosmic christ of the new earth that Tolle and the rest speak about blatantly.

This video of Rick Warren on Comedy Central needs no comment except to say the real laughing is going on by the enemy of souls.

Fresh on the heels of canceling emerging author Shane Claiborne’s appearance, the leaders at Cedarville University have decided that someone even more controversial is just the ticket. This school just can’t seem to stay away from the emerging Kool-Aid, and this time, it’s a big gulp.

The chapel speaker at Cedarville on February 11, 12, and 13 is Brad Kallenberg. Brad Kallenberg is an assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Dayton, a Catholic university. His doctorate was in Philosophical Theology and Ethics. He has written a book titled, Live to Tell: Evangelism in a Postmodern Age, published by Brazos Press. On the publisher’s website, we find this page containing endorsements from none other than “there is no hell and the cross is false advertising for God” Brian McLaren himself:

“Brad Kallenberg is a pioneer in engaging the postmodern world with the Christian gospel. I respect him, listen to him, and learn from him, and I hope many others will do the same. Live to Tell will be the first of many important works by this important theologian of the emerging church.”

–Brian McLaren, author of A New Kind of Christian

Cedarville’s chapel speaker, Brad Kallenberg, is called “…this important theologian of the emerging church,” by the First Grand Cyclops of the emerging church. That’s some speaker to bring to speak to impressionable young students. Most interesting is a piece Dr. Kallenberg wrote, The Gospel Truth of Relativism published in The Scottish Journal of Theology 53, no.2, (2000):177-211. Here’s what a colleague at the same University of Dayton writes about Kallenberg’s book.

“Who would ever have thought that postmodern philosophy could help us think about what what it means to become Christian? Brad Kallenberg, steeped in both philosophy and evangelism, sees the connections and offers a radically different and compelling account of conversion. With unequalled clarity and engaging humor, Kallenberg makes key philosophical concepts understandable for any reader and weaves them with real stories of witness and communal evangelizing. In so doing, he provides a model for how to do theology and a highly readable gift for Christians who seek to live the Good News to the world.”

–M. Therese Lysaught, University of Dayton

Who would have thought, indeed? A “radically different and compelling account of conversion”? Hmmm. That sounds almost as interesting as The Gospel Truth of Relativism. So what does Kallenberg believe about conversion? Read this review of book and his new concept of conversion at Open Source Theology.

Three days. They’re giving this postmodern theologian three days to teach young people in chapel at Cedarville University. Something is rotten in Denmark, friends. Make that Ohio. That spinning sound you are hearing is the sound of Cedarville’s founders in their graves.

Wednesday’s Oprah was a doozie as she featured New Age spiritual teacher, Eckhart Tolle. His bio on the back of his latest book reads, “Eckhart Tolle is a contemporary spiritual teacher who travels extensively, taking his message throughout the world.” No other info. Where did he learn his spiritual knowledge? Nobody knows, but millions of American women were spoon fed his New Spirituality poison yesterday on the show. Oprah was so pleased with Eckhart Tolle that beginning Monday, viewers can log onto Oprah’s website and sign up for a live webcast classroom that will take them through the book, a chapter a day. All classes will be taught LIVE each day by Oprah and Eckhart Tolle themselves. So what is the book? A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. This is in addition to Oprah’s featuring of New Ager Marianne Williamson who is teaching the occult- channeled Course in Miracles.

I can sum up Mr. Tolle’s book very simply. New Agers believe conflict exists in the world because of our ego-based state of consciousness. We are “separate” because our “attachment to the ego creates the dysfunction that leads to anger, jealousy, and unhappiness.” The New Age/New Spirituality solution is “oneness”. That is what every New Age teacher alive preaches, the doctrine of “oneness”. Tolle, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Marianne Williamson, Neale Donald Walsch, James Redfield, all of them are teaching the same thing: the planet must awaken to a new state of consciousness to save the planet. It is not only needful, they teach, it is mandatory for the salvation of the earth. Those who object to this oneness are deemed to be, in the words of Barbara Marx Hubbard, a “cancer” in the body of humanity. (That would be you and me who believe in Jesus alone for salvation.)

That’s really it. That’s the whole sum and substance of Tolle’s book. This doctrine of “oneness” is being heard more and more, whether from Rick Warren with his call on Sunday for oneness between evangelicals and mainliners, whether it’s Jimmy Carter’s attempts to unite all Baptists, regardless of doctrine, or whether it’s the Pope with his interfaith dialogue and his calls for the reunification of the Eastern Church (Eastern Orthodoxy) with Roman Catholicism. If you listen, you will hear this call for unity grow louder and louder. An evangelical church, gutted by syncretism and ecumenism, will go along with these calls, and only those who refuse to disobey the Word of God will be viewed as threats to social order in our global society.

Thanks to Rick Warren, we have heard the word purpose ad nauseam. The New Agers have found this very useful. The purpose at work with Oprah and her glittering parade of New Spirituality prophets is to dethrone Jesus Christ and usher in a counterfeit savior who will lead mankind in a final planetary rebellion.

The Christian Post reports that former President, Jimmy Carter, wants to bring together various Baptist denominations to achieve unity. While Rick Warren calls for unity between mainline churches and evangelicals, the ex-President who just won’t go away is now trying his hand at uniting conservatives and moderates, Democrat and Republican Baptists. This would mean that denominations like the American Baptists that long ago sank into the pit of apostasy (think Tony Campolo and Eastern College) are being asked to unite with Baptist groups that have not. Carter says that this is his most momentous thing ever, and William Shaw of the National Baptist Convention USA is right behind him. The Christian Post story says:

“This night and these days, we do a bold and glorious thing: We attempt to express the oneness which was our Lord’s desire for his people,” declared William Shaw, president of the National Baptist Convention, USA, one of the four prominent African-American Baptists conventions participating in the meeting.

What will mark this convocation as a success is the attendance number as well as “the fact that we want to avoid anything other than harmony, cooperation [and] a positive attitude as a group of Christians,” Carter said at a press conference Wednesday just before the meeting began.

Carter, a longtime Bible teacher and a Baptist since he was a child, described animosity among Christians as “a cancer metastasizing in the body of Christ” and it’s that divisive image of Christians that is prevailing today, he said.

Issues that have divided Baptists include the role of women in ministry and marriage, legalized abortion, civil rights for gays, and the separation of church and state, among many others, Carter listed during the opening of the meeting.

Oh, so the issues are only women in ministry, marriage, legalized abortion, gay rights and the separation of church and state. Nothing that can’t be overcome with a smiling compromiser like Jimmy Carter around to help everyone link hands. After all, he brokered the Camp David Peace Accords that achieved Middle East peace for at least ten minutes. The reason that the Peace Accords didn’t end tension in the Middle East and the reason that uniting all Baptists will ultimately fail is that the issues are based on principles of right and wrong. For the Israelis, how much land can they give up before their homeland ceases to exist? For Baptists, how much doctrinally can they give up and still be Christians? For Baptists, the issues are sin and rebellion against God versus obedience to His Word (Women in the pulpit). The issues are life and death (abortion), Immorality versus morality (homosexuality), and those issues are not going to go away just because Jimmy Carter has an apparent need to stay in the headlines in his declining years. The issues are as old as mankind itself.

In his eternal quest for a global group hug, Carter once again tries to unite truth and error. He may deceive a whole lot of people, but he will never succeed in his plan. There are still at least 7,000 Baptists who are not prepared to compromise doctrinally for Jimmy Carter or anyone else.

(That’s why many Bible-preaching Baptist churches are independent. Why waste the time sitting at some convocation of thousands where committees, laced with apostates, deliberate for days on whether lesbian, one-legged parrot owners should be allowed to be pastors?)

There seem to be a lot of Slice readers these days. So many, in fact, that last evening you exceeded my bandwidth…again. I generally don’t read the site meter so when my web and server guy told me how many unique hits we had in the month of January, it was a bit of a shock. We have now adjusted the bandwidth to be able to handle the readership so hopefully the shutdown will not happen again. I thank the Lord that the site has been useful, and thanks to every one of you who pass on the news and information that you find helpful. Soli deo gloria!

**Updated**

The suggested reading list posted by the President of Cedarville University has been changed and no longer features Soul Tsunami by New Spirituality/Emergent guru, Leonard Sweet. You can see here that the book was on the list as it is still in the google cache. I was alerted to this after a Cedarville professor wrote asking why I was reporting the presence of this book on the President’s list when it wasn’t there. It was there. It is no longer. You can see the new version of the list here.

You can read here how Leonard Sweet thanks occult New Agers Willis Harmon and Matthew Fox, promotes “Christ-consciousness” and other doctrines of the emerging New Spirituality. Any Christian who has done even a modicum of research on Leonard Sweet can see the unbiblical nature of his teachings. Christian scholarship should be the hallmark of a Christian university. Sadly today, it is not always so.

**I had an email exchange today with a professor from Cedarville. He asked me if I didn’t think it was right to include books like Soul Tsunami on the President’s reading list. After all, the books were only intended to provoke thought, and it is a university. I have no objection to universities requiring or suggesting reading on a given subject for the purpose of education about the emerging church, that is, provided that adequate spiritual warnings are handed out with the book lists. I and others who stay on top of the emerging authors today read many of these books, but to quote Robert Murray M’Cheyne, we do so as a chemist who handles poison in order to understand its properties.

College students are singularly vulnerable, particularly those who have just left home and who are trying to come into their own as to what they believe. As fewer and fewer homes and churches are giving young people a grounding in the doctrines of the Christian faith, college students are more vulnerable to spiritual deception than ever. These books deserve a warning tag and biblical critiques from teachers who can show the students the dangers of departing from Scripture alone, Faith alone, Christ alone, Grace alone, and the Glory of God alone. To my knowledge, no such warnings were put on the President’s suggested list. To compound matters, the school has allowed emerging authors like Donald Miller on campus to spread their postmodern views. The invitation and then cancellation of Shane Claiborne is only adding to the growing confusion at Cedarville University. This is a dangerous dance this school has engaged in. They need to either admit they have gone the postmodern route and publicize themselves as such, or return to the old paths that once made Cedarville synonymous with biblical integrity.**

Jonathan Purple, Director of Student Life programs for Cedarville University, responded to my query this morning about the disappearance of the Shane Claiborne event from their school calendar. He writes:

“Thanks for you contact, but I regret to have to tell you that we are in
the process of canceling this event.”

Cedarville University has not gone down the emerging church/contemplative path without comment from those who keep it in business. The school has taken flak from parents and alumni check-writers who are greatly concerned at their direction. Perhaps this had something to do with the cancellation.

See a previous post regarding Shane’s scheduled appearance for February.

You can watch Rick Warren speak at National Cathedral this past Sunday at the church website. Note that he used the “New Reformation” theme. That would be the reformation where doctrine no longer matters, where those who worship the goddess Sophia or Isis, practice Buddhism or have Hindu inclinations on the side can link arms with Southern Baptists like Rick Warren because after all, they both believe there’s a “Jesus”. Rick Warren was also the “preacher” at the pantheon for their 11:15 service on Sunday. In May, the openly homosexual radical, Dr. Peter Gomes of Harvard Memorial Church, will preach from the same pulpit.

Yesterday, Rick Warren smugly sat with the dean of Washington’s National Cathedral, calling for reconciliation between mainline churches and evangelicals. Here is some further information on National Cathedral and what it spiritually offers. It is a pantheon (temple to the gods) dedicated to world religions. Here you can see pictures of women at a Sacred Circle Conference (feminist theology, goddess theology, Wiccan elements) dancing and participating in the huge labyrinth. I wonder if Rick Warren tried it out. Here are some of the topics covered at the Sacred Circle Conference:

*“Feeling for Animals,” led by the author of The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory.

*Various workshops featuring Zen and other forms of Buddhism, yoga, and “human-centered services [to] celebrate the sacred power of women.”

*Assorted experts on Sufi (an Islamic offshoot) meditation, and Hindu dance.

*“Sacred Mysteries … Symbolized by the nurturing and mysterious earth … you will honor your body as a fertile vessel with yoga practice and centering. Participants are asked to bring an object that symbolizes their fertile journey.”

*“Feminine Wisdom from the Kabbalah” (Jewish mysticism).

*Buddhist prayers and chants (by a United Church of Christ chaplain) and the Sufi Alchemical Retreat process.

Sound like something you want to reconcile with, Christians?

Here Baptist Sunday School teacher turned New Spirituality guru, Sue Monk Kidd, lectures at National Cathedral on the “Illuminating Black Madonna”. Goddess theology, anyone?

In this video, you can see photographs of Tibetan Monks worshiping at National Cathedral. Reconciliation, friends?

If I seem charged up today on this topic, it’s because Mr. Warren’s true spiritual agenda cannot be more blatant than his call for reconciliation with mainline churches. The era of excuses for Rick Warren and his teachings is over. There is no excuse for calling for reconciliation with those neck-deep in apostasy. Come out, come out, and be separate, those who truly love the Lord Jesus Christ.

And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.

And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.

–II Corinthians 6:16-18

In light of Rick Warren’s call to reconcile evangelicals with mainline churches, (see post below) I thought it would be helpful to go over some of the spiritual issues at stake here. Decide for yourself exactly what is behind Mr. Warren’s interest in uniting these apostate churches with evangelicalism. Here is Berit Kjos’ article from 2003 about the occult New Age spirituality of leaders in the episcopal church such as Bishop Swing. The following is footnoted documentation of the involvement of episcopal leaders in the United Religions Initiative (URI) which calls for a one world religion. These are the churches Rick Warren is asking all of us to join hands with. This is critical reading.

This story is an extract from a book-length manuscript by me titled “False Dawn, Real Darkness: the Millennial Delusions of the United Religions and the New Age Movement” by Lee Penn.

Excerpted from “The United Religions Initiative: Foundations for a World Religion” (Part 2), by the Journal of the Spiritual Counterfeits Project. You may order the complete story from the Journal, or subscribe to the Journal, by calling (510) 540-0300, or by writing to the Spiritual Counterfeits Project, Post Office Box 4308, Berkeley, CA 94704, or by visiting the SCP web site, http://www.scp-inc.org/.

James Parks Morton and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine

Other New Age supporters of the URI include the Very Rev. James Parks Morton, formerly the Dean of the Episcopal Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, and now President of the Temple of Understanding. (570) While at St. John the Divine, Morton said, “The language of the ‘Sacred Earth’ has got to become mainline.” (571) Morton acted on this belief by holding a St. Francis Day communion service in 1993 that invoked the gods Yemanja, Ra, Ausar, and Obatala; the celebrant was Episcopal Bishop of New York Richard Grein. (572) (Yemanja is an Afro-Brazilian goddess of the sea (573); Ra is the Egyptian sun god; (574) Ausar - also known as Osiris and the Green Man - is the Egyptian god of life and death;(575) Obatala is the Voodoo “Father of Wisdom”.(576)

Other Sunday masses at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine have included Sufi and Lakota ceremonies.(577) It was from the pulpit of the Rev. Morton’s cathedral in 1979 that James Lovelock first publicly explained the Gaia theory - that the earth as a whole is a living, conscious organism.(578) Morton has worked to spread the Green gospel nationwide; he “co-founded the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, a group that has reached over 53,000 congregations of every faith across America with the ideas of sacred ecology and environmental responsibility.” (579) He is also a board member of the Earth Charter Project and of Global Green, USA (580) - an affiliate of Gorbachev’s Green Cross International. read all »

All of you who thought that the divinity of Christ, the Virgin birth, the penal substitutionary atonement, the literal resurrection of Jesus, and the inerrancy and authority of Scripture are worth dying for are apparently wrong. The Christian Post reports that Rick Warren is calling on evangelicals to reconcile with mainline churches to stop the mainline churches from dying. Let me repeat that line: Rick Warren is calling on evangelicals to reconcile with mainline churches to stop the mainline churches from dying. Wow.

“The reconciliation is that in a pluralistic world…we (Christians) need to be on the same team because we share the same savior,” Warren contended Sunday, as he spoke with the dean of the Washington National Cathedral, Samuel T. Lloyd III, who observed that evangelical churches are thriving and full of vitality, while most mainline denominations are confronting worrisome membership decline.

During the Cathedral’s weekly Sunday Forum: Critical Issues in the Light of Faith, Lloyd asked Warren how mainlines should tackle the problem.

So there Warren sits, with the dean of the nation’s top apostate episcopal church, (which regularly features New Spirituality teachers and which thinks homosexuality is A-OK) telling the world that we all worship the same Savior. Rick Warren wants to reconcile with episcopal churches like this one in Seattle where the female pastor managed to become a Muslim while still retaining her clergy credentials. That’s some accomplishment! Rick Warren doesn’t want to see these mainline churches die so he wants evangelicals to link arms to save them.

Rick Warren characterizes the rift between mainline and evangelical like this:

“100 years ago the phrase ‘social gospel’ first came out,” Warren responded. “Some people took that to mean only if we reform the social government and society and not personal faith in Christ Jesus – that is, if we make the world a better place – we don’t need personal redemption.”

That idea led to mainline churches going “one way” and evangelical churches another way, he said.

Uh, Mr. Warren, aren’t you forgetting something? How about those troublesome issues of cardinal doctrine? Did they teach you about the fall of Princeton Seminary and the others that followed all those years ago when you were in training to be a pastor? Did you ever hear of the battle over the authority of Scripture, or did your seminary professors keep you too busy with church growth classes? Did you ever hear of modernism and higher criticism that gutted these churches in the last century, Mr. Warren, or were you too occupied at the Crystal Cathedral sitting at the feet of Robert Schuller to learn about those historic battles over truth?

Rick Warren’s statements should disgust every Christian who loves Holy Scripture and who understands the importance of the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. He dismisses these issues as nothing more than a disagreement over ways and means. Rick Warren cares nothing about truth, nothing about the lost souls on their way to hell in these churches that blaspheme the Lord Jesus Christ with goddess worship (see this ELCA church website), homosexuality, a rejection of Christ’s penal substitutionary atonement, a denial of the authority of Scripture, and the promotion of the doctrines of anti-Christ.

I have news for Rick Warren and the dean of National Cathedral. Mainline churches and a growing number of highly populated evangelical megachurches aren’t dying, they’re already dead. True life in a church comes not with thousands streaming through the door, but through the true knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ as revealed in the Bible. Such knowledge is impossible in churches where the Gospel message is absent and lies are preached in its place. Influential Southern Baptists like Dr. Al Mohler and anyone else who loves biblical truth must speak out against Mr. Warren’s apostasy. To remain silent on this is treason against the Lord and His church.

This article from Christian News Today reports that more college students are walking away from their Christianity. You have to wonder how firm a grasp these young people had on what following Christ entails if they could trade the risen Lord Jesus Christ for booze and sex. I often hear people say that they “rededicated their lives to Christ” after years of living in the world. Sometimes I think what really happens is that these young people eventually repent of their sin and are converted, in fact, for the first time. The false conversions of evangelicalism abound today because there is such a lack of sound teaching in many churches. That’s why young people can casually talk about trading God for the life of a pagan in college and then return to faith.

I am not saying that Christians cannot backslide for a time, but I do know that once soundly converted, to go back to the vomit of the world as an active choice is to openly shame the Lord Jesus Christ. Hebrews 6:4-6 puts it this way:

For it is impossible to bring back to repentance those who were once enlightened—those who have experienced the good things of heaven and shared in the Holy Spirit, who have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the power of the age to come—and who then turn away from God. It is impossible to bring such people back to repentance; by rejecting the Son of God, they themselves are nailing him to the cross once again and holding him up to public shame.

Those are sobering words from the Lord. Those who take lightly this, “I’m going to ‘take a break’ from Christianity to experience college life’” are in spiritual peril. Few pastors are warning that there is no return to the City of Destruction for those who have set out on the narrow road to the Celestial City. We cannot have it both ways. It is Jesus Christ, or the world. There is no third way. Joshua 24:14-16 puts it in these words:

Now therefore fear the LORD, and serve him in sincerity and in truth: and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt; and serve ye the LORD.

And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.

And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods;

The Christian Post has posted a column by Greg Stier of Dare 2 Share Ministries in Colorado. I had never heard of this ministry before, and was impressed with what he had to say about the apostasy around us today. The only thing I would disagree with is that the apostasy is not “coming”. It is here, big time. Stier writes:

You’d be surprised, maybe even shocked, how many well known “Christian” speakers and authors subscribe to some form of universalism (the belief that all of humanity will ultimately be redeemed whether or not they have put their faith in Jesus). They may cloak it in cool, uber-hip terms and drench it in relevant stories of humanity’s spiritual journey, but, underneath all of the philosophic verbage it is there like a festering sore filled with puss and heresy.

Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). Peter emphasized that “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Paul emphasized, “That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved” (Romans 10:14).

He lists the various signs of apostasy today, and he does a good job in fleshing it out. It’s good to hear other voices that God is raising up today who are not afraid to speak out on the false teaching flooding into the evangelical church.

Ray Comfort nails it down very well in this piece from Christian Worldview Network. Nobody says it like Ray!

“The Christian really has a double task. He has to practice both God’s holiness and God’s love. The Christian is to exhibit that God exists as the infinite-personal God; and then he is to exhibit simultaneously God’s character of holiness and love. Not His holiness without His love; this is only harshness. Not His love without His holiness; that is only compromise.

– Francis Schaeffer

“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us. The history of mankind will probably show that no people has ever risen above its religion, and man’s spiritual history will positively demonstrate that no religion has ever been greater than its idea of God. Worship is pure or base as the worshiper entertains high or low thoughts of God.

For this reason the gravest question before the Church is always God Himself, and the most portentous fact about any man is not what he at a given time may say or do, but what he in his deep heart conceives God to be like. We tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image of God. This is true not only of the individual Christian, but of the company of Christians that composes the Church. Always the most revealing thing about the Church is her idea of God.”

–A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (New York: HarperCollins, 1961), 1.

One of emerging spirituality’s pied pipers, Shane Claiborne, is scheduled to speak at Cedarville University. The present leadership of that institution is apparently failing to hold the line on contemplative and emerging influences. Lighthouse Trails Research is reporting the following:

On February 11th, Cedarville University will be hosting an evening with emerging church activist Shane Claiborne. The evening is titled after Claiborne’s book, The Irresistible Revolution. Lighthouse Trails spoke with John Purple (Cedarville’s Dean for Student Life), who said the event was open to both students and the public.

Lighthouse Trails told Purple that in the back of Claiborne’s book he lists a number of “Local Revolutionaries and Ordinary Radicals” to which proceeds of the book go. One of those is the church Brian McLaren founded - Cedar Ridge Community Church 1 Another is Rob Bell’s church, Mars Hill Bible Church2. Bell is a New Age sympathizer who tells readers in his book, Velvet Elvis that they should study the teachings of mysticism and tantric sex promoter Ken Wilber (p. 192) (see Wilber’s website with discretion). Bell also resonates with a Dominican sister (whom he invited to his church) who is from a spiritual center that promotes the occultic healing technique called Reiki (see March 29, 2006 teaching at Mars Hill).

Claiborne’s book has a foreword by liberal political activist, Jim Wallis. While Cedarville’s Dean of Student Life (Purple) told Lighthouse Trails that Cedarville is “very conservative,” pointing students to a book that is partially written by Wallis seems to give a different message. Wallis is the founder and director of Sojourners magazine, a widely read publication that gives a voice to mystics, emerging leaders, and New Age proponents. Sojourners would not represent the views of a “conservative” Christian college by any means, and it is a dichotomy for Cedarville to call itself conservative Christian then introduce students to a book written by Wallis and Claiborne in a favorable light, which CU is doing when it says that Claiborne is “rooted in the values of the Christian faith.” Source here.

Lighthouse Trails further reports that proceeds from Claiborne’s book go to the following, among others: Rob Bell and Brian McLaren’s home church, Tony Campolo, and Mark Scandrette from the the ReImagine organization. I’m not sure what’s going on in the theology department at Cedarville these days, but if someone friendly to Brian McLaren is being promoted to Cedarville students, it can’t be good. (McLaren denies the doctrine of the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ and the doctrine of a literal hell.)

Cedarville University continues to market itself as a “conservative” Baptist institution. In light of their apparent acceptance of emerging and contemplative spirituality (the university president’s book list includes Leonard Sweet’s Soul Tsunami) and the promotion of these leaders to impressionable young students, the real issue is whether they are biblical. Parents beware.

In 1988, Gary North wrote a book that I wish every Christian could read. It is entitled, Unholy Spirits: Occultism and New Age Humanism. What is helpful about this book is that it is not some sensationalist thrills and chills account of occultism’s latest inroads. Rather, North gives a sociological and historical background of the West that explains why we are seeing such an explosion of interest in occult and paranormal themes. Everywhere you look today you see psychics on their TV shows, mediums who claim they can communicate with the dead, reincarnation true believers, neo-pagans, and Wicca enthusiasts. The question is, why is all this happening now? What happened to a country founded by men and women clutching Bibles as they embarked at Plymouth Rock?

Gary North writes the following:

Why this new-found interest in the occult? What I argue in this book is that recent social changes are evidence of a looming crisis in the West. We have seen similar crises in the past, and each time they have appeared, they have without exception shaken the very foundations of Western Civilization. This book is therefore a study of what I regard as theological and social pathology, not simply a catalog of curiosities. The stakes are very high—the highest that they have been since 1789.

North hits several themes in his book that continue to appear throughout it. Bear in mind that Dr. North wrote these things prior to Columbine and the copycat slaughters on campuses, before 9-11 and the fresh assault on the West by Islamic barbarians, and before Wicca was recognized as an official religion by the United States Supreme Court. Wiccan pentagrams can now be found on graves at Arlington, and Wiccan chaplains can be found in the our military. North was dead on. Here is what he wrote:

“1. The rise of occultism takes place at the end of civilizations, and temporary outbreaks of occultism mark significant changes within the development of any given civilization.

2. Western civilization has experienced several outbreaks of occultism in the past, but has always suppressed them. Therefore, it has survived and flourished.

3. Western rationalism, which is now officially and consciously atheistic, is no longer able to maintain its resistance to occultism. This was also true during the Renaissance.

4. Humanism shares numerous presuppositions with traditional occultism. Thus, a significant and growing number of humanists have begun to drift into occult practices. They call themselves New Age humanists.

5. Christianity, not atheism, was the original philosophy which created Western science and technology. Thus, as the West has become increasingly atheistic and Darwinian, it has become vulnerable to anti-rational social philosophies and practices.

6. As New Age humanism becomes more widely believed, especially in tax-supported schools, the fruits of Western Civilization will be lost and waves of violence and occultism will result: the “religion of revolution.” (One historical example was Nazism, an occult social philosophy.)

7. The one alternative to occultism that can preserve both freedom and scientific progress is orthodox Christianity. If Christianity does not revive, and revive soon, then Western Civilization will be overrun by barbarians, both domestic and international.

8. Both Christianity and New Age humanism have a vision of a coming earthly millennium. Each group has representatives who offer rival views of what this millennium will look like, but the two basic viewpoints are incompatible.

9. The most significant doctrine which divides Christianity from all forms of humanism is the doctrine of sovereignty. Is God sovereign, or is man (the species) sovereign?”

–Gary North, UnHoly Spirits, Dominion Press, 1988, Pg. 15-16

That last line that he writes, “Is God sovereign, or is man (the species) sovereign?” says it all. It is the question that underlies all of the battles over truth that we face today. It is the question that lies at the root of the evangelical theological meltdown that has given us the emerging humanistic churches of today. Is God sovereign or is man? Will we go with God’s clear Word or will we decide that man knows better and discard that Word? At the bottom of occult practices is spiritual rebellion—mans’ inherent belief that he knows better than God, that he in fact is his own god. That is why in the world today there are only two religious systems. In one, man does it his way. In the other, man bows his knee before the throne of the one true God and says, “Lord!”.

Join us for Crosstalk today with guest David Kupelian. David is editor of Whistle Blower Magazine, published by WorldnetDaily. The January issue of this magazine deals with the explosion of witchcraft in America. You can listen live at 2pm Central time at our website or listen to the archived show later. Pray for me as I do this program.

Our guest on Crosstalk today was Pastor Larry DeBruyn, pastor of Franklin Road Baptist Church in Indianapolis, Indiana and author of the new book, Church on the Rise: Why I Am Not a “Purpose-Driven” Pastor. For all those Slice readers who doubt the existence of 7,000, or even 10 pastors, who have not bowed the knee to church-growth Ba’al, you need to hear this program. It will encourage you! Pastor DeBruyn’s book is over 275 pages. There are several appendices and footnotes galore. If you’re needing a biblical and pastoral response to the Purpose-Driven tsunami, this is one of the best. (One of my other favorites is Bob DeWaay’s, Redefining Christianity: Understanding the Purpose-Driven Movement. Both are available through the Crosstalk Ministry. See the Crosstalk site for details.)