Book chapter update (2006)
Reinventing Jesus Christ: The New Gospel
The Armageddon Alternative
Chapter 8 Update
Warren B. Smith
Ambassadors of Peace?
The deceptive spiritual forces in “high places” (Ephesians 6:12) have used the tragic events of September 11th to purposefully accelerate their “PEACE PLAN.” After all, who doesn’t want peace—especially when one is living in “perilous times” where “wars and rumors of wars” are the order of the day (2 Timothy 3:1; Matthew 24:6). The Bible is filled with examples and warnings of how peace can be used to deceive naïve and unsuspecting people, both in the world and in the church. The book of Joshua records how the inhabitants of Gibeon misrepresented who they really were by sending crafty peace “ambassadors” to negotiate a deceptive, self-serving peace accord with the Israelites. Because Israel’s leaders took the ambassadors of peace at their word and “asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord,” they were thoroughly deceived as “Joshua made peace with them” (Joshua 9: 14-15). The prophet Obadiah observed that “the men that were at peace with thee have deceived thee, and prevailed against thee” (Obadiah 7). Jeremiah warned about people who talk about a peace that is not really peace (Jeremiah 8:11). The Apostle Paul warned that in the last days deceptive assurances of “peace and safety” would precede the coming of inevitable destruction (1 Thessalonians 5:3).
Marianne Williamson, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Neale Donald Walsch, Benjamin Creme, Wayne Peterson and their whole global alliance of peace ambassadors are much more obvious than the ambassadors of peace from Gibeon. These New Age peace ambassadors actually provide us with a written record of their intentions. While they give friendly lip service to the “Jesus” of their own definition, they are not at all friendly towards the real Jesus who is carefully described in the Bible. They do not recognize the Bible’s literal account. They do not recognize Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world. In fact, the “God” of the New Age/New Spirituality has declared through “peace ambassador” Neale Donald Walsch that “the era of the Single Saviour is over.”1 The “Jesus” of A Course in Miracles and the New Age/New Spirituality has announced through “peace ambassadors” Gerald Jampolsky, Marianne Williamson, and others that “the journey to the cross should be the last ‘useless journey.’”2 The “Christ” of “peace ambassador” Barbara Marx Hubbard has declared that those who insist on being “self-centered” and “separate,” by professing that Jesus is the one and only Christ, will be killed by the “selection process.”3 The “Christ” of “peace ambassador” Benjamin Creme and “peace ambassador” Wayne Peterson, in total agreement with Hubbard’s “Christ,” state that these same “self-centered” and “separate” people will be “driven from our planet.”4
The Deception Grows
The Apostle Paul warned: “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Timothy 4:1). An evil, deceptive spirit world working through often well-intentioned, but undiscerning, people has literally turned the Bible upside down. These angels of darkness, masquerading as angels of light, have delivered their upside-down teachings to an undiscerning world and church. The false God and Christ of this world is now working furiously through his spokespeople to bring peace to the world—but peace on his terms. Through his designated spiritual leaders he is encouraging the world and the church to consciously create a peaceful “alternative” to Armageddon. Making God’s prophesies about the last days suddenly appear to be conditional, he is tempting the world with a seemingly viable option—if the world changes its mind about what it believes then the future can be changed. But God’s prophesies concerning the last days are not optional. Prophesies are prophesies because they are true statement about the future. They cannot and will not be altered by anyone—including God. It wouldn’t be called prophecy if it was going to be changed by God at some later time. Therefore, there is no validity to Barbara Marx Hubbard’s, or anyone else’s, contention that there is an “alternative” to Armageddon.
Neale Donald Walsch knows how important Barbara Marx Hubbard is to the New Age/New Spirituality cause. That is why he made Hubbard a founding Board member of their Global Renaissance Alliance. It is why Walsch had Hubbard speak at his 2003 Humanity’s Team Leadership Conference. It is why Hubbard was given the Peace Builders Award by Walsch and Williamson’s Peace Alliance. Hubbard’s concepts of “conscious evolution” and of an “alternative to Armageddon” are at the heart of the New Age Peace Plan. In one of their conversations Walsch, and his “God” discuss Hubbard and her teachings about “conscious evolution”:
God: More people than ever before are aware of the power of the mind, their interconnectedness with all things, and their real identity as a spiritual being.
More people than ever before are living from that space, practicing principles that invoke and produce specific results, desired outcomes, and intended experiences.
This truly is an evolution revolution, for now larger and larger numbers of you are creating consciously the quality of your experience, the direct expression of Who You Really Are, and the rapid manifestation of Who You Choose to Be.
That’s what makes this such a critical period. That’s why this is the crucial moment. For the first time in your presently recorded history (although not for the first time in human experience), you have both the technology, and the understanding of how to use it, to destroy your entire world. You can actually render yourselves extinct.
Walsch: These are the exact points made in a book by Barbara Marx Hubbard called Conscious Evolution.
God: Yes, that is so.
Walsch: It’s a document of breathtaking sweep, with wondrous visions of how we can avoid the dire outcomes of previous civilizations, and truly produce heaven on Earth. You probably inspired it!
God: I think Barbara might say that I had a hand in it….5
In her 2004 book The Gift of Change, Marianne Williamson alluded to Barbara Marx Hubbard’s concept of a consciously created “alternative to Armageddon” by affirming that we are not at the “Great End” but at the “Great Beginning”:
To some this might feel like the period of a Great End, perhaps even at times an Armageddon, but in fact this is the time of a Great Beginning.6
In her 2002 book Everyday Grace, Williamson emphasized how the New Age “Doctrine of Oneness” can bring about a consciously created world peace—an “alternative to Armageddon.” Stating that “none of us are separate” and that “we are all one” she teaches that “we can imagine the world that we want.”
There is a new peace movement emerging today among those who realize that our spiritual powers afford us tremendous opportunity to transform the world. We can imagine the world we want, we can become the people from whom that world would flow forth, and we can join with others in making it happen. There are millions among us who understand we are one. As we create deeper peace among any of us anywhere, the reality of peace becomes more probable everywhere. We can surround the world with a field of peace so powerful that hatred and fear will dissolve in its presence….
That is why knowing the truth of our spiritual oneness and embracing it within our hearts is the ultimate answer to all the problems of the world. At the level of spiritual reality, none of us are separate….Community arising from the realization of our oneness is community that goes beyond mere alliance or treaty.7
What about the Armageddon Alternative?
What about an “alternative to Armageddon” that is based on the Doctrine of Oneness? Will so-called “fundamentalist Christians” make Armageddon happen by believing that it has to happen? Can Armageddon be averted if “fundamentalists” just stop believing that it is inevitable? Can a peaceful New Age future be consciously created as an “alternative to Armageddon”? Can the world really be saved if humanity affirms and believes in its universal oneness and divine interconnectedness? Is the New Age PEACE PLAN with its Armageddon alternative an idea whose time has come? The “God” and “Christ” of the New Age/New Gospel/New Spirituality say “Yes!” The God and Christ of the Holy Bible say absolutely and unequivocally, “No!”
But how can that be? Why would a God of love and mercy allow an Armageddon when peace can be so easily obtained by everyone affirming their own divinity and their shared oneness with others? The answer is apparently not one that the world wants to hear. Humanity is not God (Hosea 11:9; Isaiah 44:6; Ezekiel 28:1-2). Humanity is not divine. God is not His creation (Romans 1:21-25). God is not in everyone and everything. Humanity is not divinely interconnected. The reason humanity cannot awaken to the “reality” of its own divinity is because humanity’s divinity is not a reality.
You cannot create a “positive future” by affirming things that are not true. You cannot have true world peace if that world peace is based on a spiritual lie. Men may share one blood (Acts 17:26) but they do not automatically share God’s Spirit. Man is only one with God when he is filled with God’s Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:26-28). It is Jesus Christ’s shed blood not humanity’s shared blood that provides spiritual “oneness” with God and other believers (Romans 3:25). We cannot save ourselves by believing in the false teachings and false peace of a New Age/New Spirituality. We are only saved, set free and given true peace by Jesus Christ—by Him and Him alone (John 14:6; Acts 4:10-12; Romans 5:1).
Yet the big question still remains. Why does the God of the Bible go to such great lengths to describe a last days Armageddon scenario that is so obviously awful? Why are there so many “negative” warnings about a future filled with false teachers and false teachings? Why all the prophecies about Antichrist and persecution? It all seems so terrible and depressing.
God’s answer is very straightforward. The reason that it all seems so terrible and depressing is because it is. The people in New Orleans didn’t think the weatherman was being “negative” because he warned in advance that a Category 5 hurricane named Katrina was on the way. Similarly, God is warning in advance about a last days ultimate Armageddon storm that is on the way. Only in this case God is not describing what could maybe happen but what will happen. God has already seen the future. He is simply telling us what He has seen. Devastating natural disasters don’t happen because “negative” or “pessimistic” meteorologists make them happen by believing that they will happen. And Armageddon won’t happen because “negative” and “pessimistic” “fundamentalist Christians” make it happen by believing it will happen. Armageddon happens because a spiritually deluded world makes it happen. Armageddon is not the awful creation of those who believe what God says in the Bible. Armageddon is the awful creation of people not believing what God says in the Bible. In their disbelief and faithlessness to God’s Holy Word, the world is trying to consciously create an “alternative” to the Bible.
The irony is, that in its Herculean effort to create an alternative to the Bible and an alternative to Armageddon, the world actually creates Armageddon. Armageddon is the sad but inevitable result of a disobedient world gone terribly wrong. Armageddon will happen because the world never understood that the only real alternative to Armageddon is not the false Christ of the New Age/New Spirituality but the true Christ of the Bible—Jesus Christ Himself.
The Book of Revelation is not a book of possibilities. It is a book of prophecy. Biblical prophecy is not conditional. It will happen. God sees what the world is about to do. He warns everyone to beware of those in the world and in the church that will try to change His Holy Word. He warns everyone at their peril not to add or subtract one word from his prophetic warnings:
For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. (Revelation 22:18-19)
Deceived Christian Leaders
Yet, despite all of this, Emergent Church leader Brian McLaren—just like Barbara Marx Hubbard and her New Age colleagues—is now suggesting that there is “an alternative” to Armageddon. McLaren, and a host of other “emerging” church leaders, are on the cutting edge of introducing New Age concepts into the church. In an on-line article entitled “Emergent Delusion” about Brian McLaren and his popular book A Generous Orthodoxy, Pastor Bob DeWaay explains this emergent movement’s teachings:
Brian McLaren recently appeared in Time Magazine’s list of the twenty five most influential evangelicals…. His selection to the list is based on his role as a key leader in the “emergent” (sometimes called “emerging”) church—a movement popular with young people…. In A Generous Orthodoxy, McLaren tells the story of how he has created a unique version of Christianity by gleaning parts he likes from many sources. The result is what he calls “emergent” Christianity.
The teachings found in A Generous Orthodoxy may sound very unusual…. The kingdom as envisioned by McLaren involves holistic, planetary “salvation” without any apocalyptic intervention of God…. Personal salvation from hell is disparaged as a wrongly motivated “consumer product” that distracts from the more important issue of saving the “whole world”….8
In his latest controversial book The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the Truth That Could Change Everything, Brian McLaren describes the book of Revelation as a book of possibilities. He states that its “prophetic” passages are conditional and that the awful future described in Revelation can be changed. Sounding more like a New Age leader than a Christian pastor, he proposes a peaceful “alternative” to Armageddon.9
Ironically, to make his point, McLaren quotes an evangelical leader by the name of Jay Gary.10 Gary was once the secretary of a World Future Society subcommittee that gave Barbara Marx Hubbard a special award for her outstanding contributions to the field of religion. Hubbard was a co-founding board member of the World Future Society and she still sits on their board of directors. Jay Gary, who remains a member of the World Future Society, was listed along with Hubbard as two of the speakers for the 2006 World Future Society Conference. The World Future Society is an organization of esoteric and New Age futurists from around the world, founded in 1966 for the purpose of creating a new international governance structure. Its global leaders like Barbara Marx Hubbard, John Naisbitt, Harlan Cleveland, and Jay Gary believe they can envision new future scenarios for Earth, and work to create an “alternative to Armageddon.”
It is therefore quite interesting that Jay Gary, the man Brian McLaren was citing as the author of an authoritative article on alternative futures, was now coming forth in the evangelical community again. Gary had previously been exposed over ten years ago by a number of Christian writers as someone who was obviously and openly aligned with top-level New Age leaders, including Robert Muller—former Assistant Secretary-General to the United Nations and well-known New Age author. In 1995 I wrote an extensive article about Jay Gary and his New Age associations entitled Sign of the Times: Evangelicals and New Agers Together which was published in several Christian publications.11
Could Change Everything?
In his book From the Ashes, Neale Donald Walsch had challenged all religious and spiritual leaders to preach a “New Gospel” that was “based on new spiritual truths.” He said:
We must change ourselves. We must change the beliefs upon which our behaviors are based. We must create a different reality, build a new society…. We must do so with new spiritual truths. We must preach a new gospel, its healing message summarized in two sentences:
We are all one.
Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.
This 15-word message, delivered from every lectern and pulpit, from every rostrum and platform, could change everything overnight.12 [emphasis in original]
The subtitle of Brian McLaren’s book, The Secret Message of Jesus, is Uncovering The Truth That Could Change Everything. Notice the overlapping use of the words “truth” and “message.” Notice that the phrase “could change everything” is found in both Walsch’s and McLaren’s suggestion that there is another way of looking at things that could provide an “alternative” future. Is this “hidden truth” that McLaren is talking about one of the “new spiritual truths” that Walsch and New Age leaders are talking about? Is Brian McLaren subtly responding in a favorable manner to Neale Donald Walsch’s challenge to accept the New Gospel that “we are all one?” Is McLaren’s “secret message of Jesus” that “we are all one?” Is this the “message” that “could change everything?” Not according to the Bible.
Right now it doesn’t look like anyone is doing very much to speak against this New Age peace movement—this “alternative to Armageddon”—this “civil rights movement for the soul.” It is entering the world and even the church itself. As stated previously, the world and a deceived church, in their effort to create an “alternative to Armageddon,” may actually be working to bring on Armageddon.
Endnotes
1. Neale Donald Walsch, New Revelations: A Conversation with God, p. 157.
2. A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume, (Text) p. 52.
3. Barbara Marx Hubbard, The Revelation: A New Message for the New Millenium, p. 240.
4. Messages from Maitreya the Christ: One Hundred Forty Messages (Los Angeles: Share International Foundation, 1992), p. 248.
5. Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God: an uncommon dialogue, book 3 (Charlottesville, Virginia: Hampton Roads, 1998), pp. 279-280.
6. Marianne Williamson, The Gift of Change: Spiritual Guidance for a Radically New Life, p. 12.
7. Marianne Williamson, Everyday Grace: Having Hope, Finding Forgiveness, and Making Miracles (New York: Riverhead Books, 2002), pp. 247-248.
8. Bob DeWaay, “Emergent Delusion: A Critique of Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy,” Critical Issues Commentary, http://cicministry.org/commentary/issue87.htm.
9. Brian McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering The Truth That Could Change Everything (Nashville, Tennesseee: W Publishing Group, 2006), pp. 175-178.
10. Ibid., p. 179.
11. Warren Smith, “Sign of the Times: Evangelicals and New Agers Together,” originally published by SCP Journal and reprinted by The Christian Conscience. http://www.erwm.com/EvangelicalsandNewAgers.htm.
12. Beliefnet Editors, From the Ashes: A Spiritual Response to the Attack on America, p. 21.
The deceptive spiritual forces in “high places” (Ephesians 6:12) have used the tragic events of September 11th to purposefully accelerate their “PEACE PLAN.” After all, who doesn’t want peace—especially when one is living in “perilous times” where “wars and rumors of wars” are the order of the day (2 Timothy 3:1; Matthew 24:6). The Bible is filled with examples and warnings of how peace can be used to deceive naïve and unsuspecting people, both in the world and in the church. The book of Joshua records how the inhabitants of Gibeon misrepresented who they really were by sending crafty peace “ambassadors” to negotiate a deceptive, self-serving peace accord with the Israelites. Because Israel’s leaders took the ambassadors of peace at their word and “asked not counsel at the mouth of the Lord,” they were thoroughly deceived as “Joshua made peace with them” (Joshua 9: 14-15). The prophet Obadiah observed that “the men that were at peace with thee have deceived thee, and prevailed against thee” (Obadiah 7). Jeremiah warned about people who talk about a peace that is not really peace (Jeremiah 8:11). The Apostle Paul warned that in the last days deceptive assurances of “peace and safety” would precede the coming of inevitable destruction (1 Thessalonians 5:3).
Marianne Williamson, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Neale Donald Walsch, Benjamin Creme, Wayne Peterson and their whole global alliance of peace ambassadors are much more obvious than the ambassadors of peace from Gibeon. These New Age peace ambassadors actually provide us with a written record of their intentions. While they give friendly lip service to the “Jesus” of their own definition, they are not at all friendly towards the real Jesus who is carefully described in the Bible. They do not recognize the Bible’s literal account. They do not recognize Jesus Christ as the Saviour of the world. In fact, the “God” of the New Age/New Spirituality has declared through “peace ambassador” Neale Donald Walsch that “the era of the Single Saviour is over.”1 The “Jesus” of A Course in Miracles and the New Age/New Spirituality has announced through “peace ambassadors” Gerald Jampolsky, Marianne Williamson, and others that “the journey to the cross should be the last ‘useless journey.’”2 The “Christ” of “peace ambassador” Barbara Marx Hubbard has declared that those who insist on being “self-centered” and “separate,” by professing that Jesus is the one and only Christ, will be killed by the “selection process.”3 The “Christ” of “peace ambassador” Benjamin Creme and “peace ambassador” Wayne Peterson, in total agreement with Hubbard’s “Christ,” state that these same “self-centered” and “separate” people will be “driven from our planet.”4
The Deception Grows
The Apostle Paul warned: “Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils” (1 Timothy 4:1). An evil, deceptive spirit world working through often well-intentioned, but undiscerning, people has literally turned the Bible upside down. These angels of darkness, masquerading as angels of light, have delivered their upside-down teachings to an undiscerning world and church. The false God and Christ of this world is now working furiously through his spokespeople to bring peace to the world—but peace on his terms. Through his designated spiritual leaders he is encouraging the world and the church to consciously create a peaceful “alternative” to Armageddon. Making God’s prophesies about the last days suddenly appear to be conditional, he is tempting the world with a seemingly viable option—if the world changes its mind about what it believes then the future can be changed. But God’s prophesies concerning the last days are not optional. Prophesies are prophesies because they are true statement about the future. They cannot and will not be altered by anyone—including God. It wouldn’t be called prophecy if it was going to be changed by God at some later time. Therefore, there is no validity to Barbara Marx Hubbard’s, or anyone else’s, contention that there is an “alternative” to Armageddon.
Neale Donald Walsch knows how important Barbara Marx Hubbard is to the New Age/New Spirituality cause. That is why he made Hubbard a founding Board member of their Global Renaissance Alliance. It is why Walsch had Hubbard speak at his 2003 Humanity’s Team Leadership Conference. It is why Hubbard was given the Peace Builders Award by Walsch and Williamson’s Peace Alliance. Hubbard’s concepts of “conscious evolution” and of an “alternative to Armageddon” are at the heart of the New Age Peace Plan. In one of their conversations Walsch, and his “God” discuss Hubbard and her teachings about “conscious evolution”:
God: More people than ever before are aware of the power of the mind, their interconnectedness with all things, and their real identity as a spiritual being.
More people than ever before are living from that space, practicing principles that invoke and produce specific results, desired outcomes, and intended experiences.
This truly is an evolution revolution, for now larger and larger numbers of you are creating consciously the quality of your experience, the direct expression of Who You Really Are, and the rapid manifestation of Who You Choose to Be.
That’s what makes this such a critical period. That’s why this is the crucial moment. For the first time in your presently recorded history (although not for the first time in human experience), you have both the technology, and the understanding of how to use it, to destroy your entire world. You can actually render yourselves extinct.
Walsch: These are the exact points made in a book by Barbara Marx Hubbard called Conscious Evolution.
God: Yes, that is so.
Walsch: It’s a document of breathtaking sweep, with wondrous visions of how we can avoid the dire outcomes of previous civilizations, and truly produce heaven on Earth. You probably inspired it!
God: I think Barbara might say that I had a hand in it….5
In her 2004 book The Gift of Change, Marianne Williamson alluded to Barbara Marx Hubbard’s concept of a consciously created “alternative to Armageddon” by affirming that we are not at the “Great End” but at the “Great Beginning”:
To some this might feel like the period of a Great End, perhaps even at times an Armageddon, but in fact this is the time of a Great Beginning.6
In her 2002 book Everyday Grace, Williamson emphasized how the New Age “Doctrine of Oneness” can bring about a consciously created world peace—an “alternative to Armageddon.” Stating that “none of us are separate” and that “we are all one” she teaches that “we can imagine the world that we want.”
There is a new peace movement emerging today among those who realize that our spiritual powers afford us tremendous opportunity to transform the world. We can imagine the world we want, we can become the people from whom that world would flow forth, and we can join with others in making it happen. There are millions among us who understand we are one. As we create deeper peace among any of us anywhere, the reality of peace becomes more probable everywhere. We can surround the world with a field of peace so powerful that hatred and fear will dissolve in its presence….
That is why knowing the truth of our spiritual oneness and embracing it within our hearts is the ultimate answer to all the problems of the world. At the level of spiritual reality, none of us are separate….Community arising from the realization of our oneness is community that goes beyond mere alliance or treaty.7
What about the Armageddon Alternative?
What about an “alternative to Armageddon” that is based on the Doctrine of Oneness? Will so-called “fundamentalist Christians” make Armageddon happen by believing that it has to happen? Can Armageddon be averted if “fundamentalists” just stop believing that it is inevitable? Can a peaceful New Age future be consciously created as an “alternative to Armageddon”? Can the world really be saved if humanity affirms and believes in its universal oneness and divine interconnectedness? Is the New Age PEACE PLAN with its Armageddon alternative an idea whose time has come? The “God” and “Christ” of the New Age/New Gospel/New Spirituality say “Yes!” The God and Christ of the Holy Bible say absolutely and unequivocally, “No!”
But how can that be? Why would a God of love and mercy allow an Armageddon when peace can be so easily obtained by everyone affirming their own divinity and their shared oneness with others? The answer is apparently not one that the world wants to hear. Humanity is not God (Hosea 11:9; Isaiah 44:6; Ezekiel 28:1-2). Humanity is not divine. God is not His creation (Romans 1:21-25). God is not in everyone and everything. Humanity is not divinely interconnected. The reason humanity cannot awaken to the “reality” of its own divinity is because humanity’s divinity is not a reality.
You cannot create a “positive future” by affirming things that are not true. You cannot have true world peace if that world peace is based on a spiritual lie. Men may share one blood (Acts 17:26) but they do not automatically share God’s Spirit. Man is only one with God when he is filled with God’s Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ (Galatians 3:26-28). It is Jesus Christ’s shed blood not humanity’s shared blood that provides spiritual “oneness” with God and other believers (Romans 3:25). We cannot save ourselves by believing in the false teachings and false peace of a New Age/New Spirituality. We are only saved, set free and given true peace by Jesus Christ—by Him and Him alone (John 14:6; Acts 4:10-12; Romans 5:1).
Yet the big question still remains. Why does the God of the Bible go to such great lengths to describe a last days Armageddon scenario that is so obviously awful? Why are there so many “negative” warnings about a future filled with false teachers and false teachings? Why all the prophecies about Antichrist and persecution? It all seems so terrible and depressing.
God’s answer is very straightforward. The reason that it all seems so terrible and depressing is because it is. The people in New Orleans didn’t think the weatherman was being “negative” because he warned in advance that a Category 5 hurricane named Katrina was on the way. Similarly, God is warning in advance about a last days ultimate Armageddon storm that is on the way. Only in this case God is not describing what could maybe happen but what will happen. God has already seen the future. He is simply telling us what He has seen. Devastating natural disasters don’t happen because “negative” or “pessimistic” meteorologists make them happen by believing that they will happen. And Armageddon won’t happen because “negative” and “pessimistic” “fundamentalist Christians” make it happen by believing it will happen. Armageddon happens because a spiritually deluded world makes it happen. Armageddon is not the awful creation of those who believe what God says in the Bible. Armageddon is the awful creation of people not believing what God says in the Bible. In their disbelief and faithlessness to God’s Holy Word, the world is trying to consciously create an “alternative” to the Bible.
The irony is, that in its Herculean effort to create an alternative to the Bible and an alternative to Armageddon, the world actually creates Armageddon. Armageddon is the sad but inevitable result of a disobedient world gone terribly wrong. Armageddon will happen because the world never understood that the only real alternative to Armageddon is not the false Christ of the New Age/New Spirituality but the true Christ of the Bible—Jesus Christ Himself.
The Book of Revelation is not a book of possibilities. It is a book of prophecy. Biblical prophecy is not conditional. It will happen. God sees what the world is about to do. He warns everyone to beware of those in the world and in the church that will try to change His Holy Word. He warns everyone at their peril not to add or subtract one word from his prophetic warnings:
For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. (Revelation 22:18-19)
Deceived Christian Leaders
Yet, despite all of this, Emergent Church leader Brian McLaren—just like Barbara Marx Hubbard and her New Age colleagues—is now suggesting that there is “an alternative” to Armageddon. McLaren, and a host of other “emerging” church leaders, are on the cutting edge of introducing New Age concepts into the church. In an on-line article entitled “Emergent Delusion” about Brian McLaren and his popular book A Generous Orthodoxy, Pastor Bob DeWaay explains this emergent movement’s teachings:
Brian McLaren recently appeared in Time Magazine’s list of the twenty five most influential evangelicals…. His selection to the list is based on his role as a key leader in the “emergent” (sometimes called “emerging”) church—a movement popular with young people…. In A Generous Orthodoxy, McLaren tells the story of how he has created a unique version of Christianity by gleaning parts he likes from many sources. The result is what he calls “emergent” Christianity.
The teachings found in A Generous Orthodoxy may sound very unusual…. The kingdom as envisioned by McLaren involves holistic, planetary “salvation” without any apocalyptic intervention of God…. Personal salvation from hell is disparaged as a wrongly motivated “consumer product” that distracts from the more important issue of saving the “whole world”….8
In his latest controversial book The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering the Truth That Could Change Everything, Brian McLaren describes the book of Revelation as a book of possibilities. He states that its “prophetic” passages are conditional and that the awful future described in Revelation can be changed. Sounding more like a New Age leader than a Christian pastor, he proposes a peaceful “alternative” to Armageddon.9
Ironically, to make his point, McLaren quotes an evangelical leader by the name of Jay Gary.10 Gary was once the secretary of a World Future Society subcommittee that gave Barbara Marx Hubbard a special award for her outstanding contributions to the field of religion. Hubbard was a co-founding board member of the World Future Society and she still sits on their board of directors. Jay Gary, who remains a member of the World Future Society, was listed along with Hubbard as two of the speakers for the 2006 World Future Society Conference. The World Future Society is an organization of esoteric and New Age futurists from around the world, founded in 1966 for the purpose of creating a new international governance structure. Its global leaders like Barbara Marx Hubbard, John Naisbitt, Harlan Cleveland, and Jay Gary believe they can envision new future scenarios for Earth, and work to create an “alternative to Armageddon.”
It is therefore quite interesting that Jay Gary, the man Brian McLaren was citing as the author of an authoritative article on alternative futures, was now coming forth in the evangelical community again. Gary had previously been exposed over ten years ago by a number of Christian writers as someone who was obviously and openly aligned with top-level New Age leaders, including Robert Muller—former Assistant Secretary-General to the United Nations and well-known New Age author. In 1995 I wrote an extensive article about Jay Gary and his New Age associations entitled Sign of the Times: Evangelicals and New Agers Together which was published in several Christian publications.11
Could Change Everything?
In his book From the Ashes, Neale Donald Walsch had challenged all religious and spiritual leaders to preach a “New Gospel” that was “based on new spiritual truths.” He said:
We must change ourselves. We must change the beliefs upon which our behaviors are based. We must create a different reality, build a new society…. We must do so with new spiritual truths. We must preach a new gospel, its healing message summarized in two sentences:
We are all one.
Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.
This 15-word message, delivered from every lectern and pulpit, from every rostrum and platform, could change everything overnight.12 [emphasis in original]
The subtitle of Brian McLaren’s book, The Secret Message of Jesus, is Uncovering The Truth That Could Change Everything. Notice the overlapping use of the words “truth” and “message.” Notice that the phrase “could change everything” is found in both Walsch’s and McLaren’s suggestion that there is another way of looking at things that could provide an “alternative” future. Is this “hidden truth” that McLaren is talking about one of the “new spiritual truths” that Walsch and New Age leaders are talking about? Is Brian McLaren subtly responding in a favorable manner to Neale Donald Walsch’s challenge to accept the New Gospel that “we are all one?” Is McLaren’s “secret message of Jesus” that “we are all one?” Is this the “message” that “could change everything?” Not according to the Bible.
Right now it doesn’t look like anyone is doing very much to speak against this New Age peace movement—this “alternative to Armageddon”—this “civil rights movement for the soul.” It is entering the world and even the church itself. As stated previously, the world and a deceived church, in their effort to create an “alternative to Armageddon,” may actually be working to bring on Armageddon.
Endnotes
1. Neale Donald Walsch, New Revelations: A Conversation with God, p. 157.
2. A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume, (Text) p. 52.
3. Barbara Marx Hubbard, The Revelation: A New Message for the New Millenium, p. 240.
4. Messages from Maitreya the Christ: One Hundred Forty Messages (Los Angeles: Share International Foundation, 1992), p. 248.
5. Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God: an uncommon dialogue, book 3 (Charlottesville, Virginia: Hampton Roads, 1998), pp. 279-280.
6. Marianne Williamson, The Gift of Change: Spiritual Guidance for a Radically New Life, p. 12.
7. Marianne Williamson, Everyday Grace: Having Hope, Finding Forgiveness, and Making Miracles (New York: Riverhead Books, 2002), pp. 247-248.
8. Bob DeWaay, “Emergent Delusion: A Critique of Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy,” Critical Issues Commentary, http://cicministry.org/commentary/issue87.htm.
9. Brian McLaren, The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering The Truth That Could Change Everything (Nashville, Tennesseee: W Publishing Group, 2006), pp. 175-178.
10. Ibid., p. 179.
11. Warren Smith, “Sign of the Times: Evangelicals and New Agers Together,” originally published by SCP Journal and reprinted by The Christian Conscience. http://www.erwm.com/EvangelicalsandNewAgers.htm.
12. Beliefnet Editors, From the Ashes: A Spiritual Response to the Attack on America, p. 21.