Book chapter update (2006)
Reinventing Jesus Christ: The New Gospel
Barbara Marx Hubbard
Chapter 2 Update
Warren B. Smith
Evolve or Perish
On the first anniversary of September 11, 2001, Barbara Marx Hubbard surfaced as a speaker at the “Quasquicentennial Lecture Series on the Future of Higher Education” at Texas A&M University. The college newspaper The Aggie Daily quoted Hubbard as stating that the world was at an “evolutionary crossroads” and that “we have equal power to destroy ourselves or create and transform ourselves into something greater.” The title of her lecture was “A New Evolution for the Future of Humanity: 9/11 a Wake-up Call for the Next Step in Human Development.” Hubbard was also quoted as saying, “This generation in the next 20 years will be a deciding factor in human evolution…. None of us know how to guide a planet through this; there are no experts.” She warned that “Humanity must realize that we are on the threshold of fulfilling our greatest aspirations but we must consciously take hold of that evolution or perish…. Higher Education may be the first step toward that next state on the path toward evolution rather than destruction.”1
Barbara Marx Hubbard, however, did have a plan on “how to guide a planet through this.” Even as she spoke to this Texas audience she was being promoted as one of the featured “prophets” at an upcoming New Age “Prophets Conference” in Palm Springs, California.2 The website describing the conference stated that Hubbard was a modern-day “prophet” who had a spiritual “blueprint” that could help guide the planet through its present crises. The “blueprint” was what she had channeled from her “Christ” and recorded in her book The Revelation: A Message of Hope for the New Millennium. So, while she was telling the Texas A&M group that “none of us know how to guide a planet through this,” she had already written a book on the subject and was about to give a scheduled talk at an upcoming “Prophet’s Conference” entitled “THE PLANETARY AWAKENING: How our generation can transform the world.” By presenting herself to the Texas A&M audience as a futurist and an educator--not as a New Age leader channeling “Christ”—Hubbard was being less than straightforward about her spiritual agenda. She was telling her Texas audience that humanity must “consciously take hold of its evolution or perish,” but she wasn’t disclosing what that really meant—spiritually evolve according to the dictates of her New Age “Christ ”or be killed! Accept the New Age/New Gospel teachings of the New Spirituality or be handed over to the “selection process.” She didn’t tell them what she had received from her “Christ” and written down over twenty years ago: how the “defective,” “self-centered” part of humanity that refuses to evolve by recognizing that God is “in” everyone, will have to be sacrificially killed for the higher purpose of world peace:
No worldly peace can prevail until the self-centered members of the planetary body either change, or die. That is the choice. The red horse is the destruction during the birth process of those who refuse to be born into God-centered, universal life. They cannot go backward to the womb; they cannot go forward to the new heavens and new earth. They must surely die, or change.
It is a free choice. Evolution is good but it is not nice. Only the good can evolve. Only the God-centered will survive to inherit the powers of a universal species. Evolution empowers the horseman upon the red horse to kill that which cannot love God above all else and his neighbor as himself and himself as the son of God.
This act is as horrible as killing a cancer cell. It must be done for the sake of the future of the whole. So be it; be prepared for the selection process which is now beginning.3 [bold added]
We have no choice, dearly beloveds. It is a case of the destruction of the whole planet, or the elimination of the ego-driven, godless one-fourth who, at this time of planetary birth, can, if allowed to live on to reproduce their defective disconnection, destroy forever the opportunity of Homo sapiens to become Homo universalis, heirs of God.4
Hubbard the Peace Builder?
Meanwhile, Barbara Marx Hubbard continues to gain credibility in today’s unsuspecting and undiscerning world. In the spring of 2003 she appeared on a PBS television series entitled Closer to Truth: Science, Meaning and the Future. Introduced as a “world renowned futurist,” “citizen diplomat,” “social architect,” and “global politician,” Hubbard participated in panel discussions with an astrophysicist, a public policy expert and other “renowned specialists.”5 As she took part in the discussions concerning “ethics and civility” and “community in the New Millennium,” a copy of her book describing the selection process--The Revelation—lay on the table in front of her.
In 2005 on the fourth anniversary of September 11th, Hubbard was presented with a prestigious “Peace Builders Award” in Washington, D.C. Featured speakers at the conference included Marianne Williamson, former news anchor Walter Cronkite and Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Hubbard’s acceptance speech was entitled “Peace Through Co-Creation.”6 This woman, who described death by the “selection process,” was now being hailed as a Peace Builder in our nation’s capital. The prophet Isaiah warned that the day would come when evil was called good and good evil.
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. (Isaiah 5:20)
Barbara Marx Hubbard has proven through the years that she has powerful connections in the world. Working closely with New Age activists like Marianne Williamson, Neale Donald Walsch, Congressman Dennis Kucinich and countless others, Hubbard has been carefully positioned to play a key role in the emerging New Age/New Spirituality—particularly in the field of spiritual politics. As Hubbard and her New Age colleagues continue to gain credibility in the world, they will do everything in their power to popularize, politicize and ultimately legalize the ideas and teachings of their New Age “God” and “Christ.”
Self-centeredness and Separation
Hubbard’s “Christ” warns that only those who are not “self-centered” or “separate”—who see God in everyone—will evolve:
…[T]he fundamental regression is self-centeredness, or the illusion that you are separate from God. I “make war” on self-centeredness.7 [bold added]
The species known as self-centered humanity will become extinct. The species known as whole-centered humanity will evolve.8 [bold added]
Sadly, many high profile Christian leaders—with perhaps the best intentions—use the word “self-centered” to describe a person’s emotional or spiritual state. For example, Saddleback pastor Rick Warren describes “self-centeredness” as the “root cause” of all of our problems. He writes:
Self-centeredness is the root of practically every problem—both personally and globally.9
Because Rick Warren describes “self-centeredness” rather than sin as the root of all the world’s problems, he inadvertently presents a New Age worldview rather than a biblical worldview. In using the word “self-centeredness” rather than sin he has unwittingly adopted the language and the worldview of the New Age “Christ” rather than the language of Jesus Christ. For example, he used the words “self-centered” or “self-centeredness” fourteen times in his best selling book The Purpose-Driven Life.
Obviously there is no inherent problem with the term “self-centeredness,” or in using it as a figure of speech. However, to indiscriminately use words that have deep New Age meaning—without any warning about that New Age meaning—is to play right into the hands of the New Spirituality and the New Age “Christ.” In these perilous times in which we live, it is so important to know how words are being spiritually defined by those who would try to undermine the Christian faith through their schemes and devices and semantic traps. It can be very confusing when evangelical leaders like Rick Warren are sounding a little too much like Barbara Marx Hubbard.
Endnotes
1. Barbara Marx Hubbard lecture at Texas A&M University, September 11, 2002, information taken from the Aggie Daily, September 12, 2002. http://www.tamu.edu/univrel/aggiedaily/news/stories/02/091202-8.html.
2. Barbara Marx Hubbard, listed as one of the featured speakers at the Palm Springs, California, Prophets Conference, December 5-8, 2002. http://www.greatmystery.org/palmspringsconference.html.
3. Barbara Marx Hubbard, The Book of Co-Creation: An Evolutionary Interpretation of the New Testament: Part III, The Revelation: Alternative To Armageddon, a three part unpublished manuscript, 1980, p. 56. Distributed/sold by Barbara Marx Hubbard prior to possible publication.
4. Ibid., p. 60.
5. Closer to the Truth: Science, Meaning and the Future http://www.pbs.org/kcet/closertotruth/ or http://www.pbs.org/kcet/closertotruth/explore/index.html.
6. Barbara Marx Hubbard, Peace Builders Award acceptance speech, September 11, 2005, http://www.barbaramarxhubbard.com/utility/showArticle/?objectID=77.
7. Hubbard, The Revelation, p. 233.
8. Ibid., p. 111.
9. Rick Warren, Better Together: What on earth are we here for? (Lake Forest, California: Purpose-Driven Publishing 2004), p. 12.
On the first anniversary of September 11, 2001, Barbara Marx Hubbard surfaced as a speaker at the “Quasquicentennial Lecture Series on the Future of Higher Education” at Texas A&M University. The college newspaper The Aggie Daily quoted Hubbard as stating that the world was at an “evolutionary crossroads” and that “we have equal power to destroy ourselves or create and transform ourselves into something greater.” The title of her lecture was “A New Evolution for the Future of Humanity: 9/11 a Wake-up Call for the Next Step in Human Development.” Hubbard was also quoted as saying, “This generation in the next 20 years will be a deciding factor in human evolution…. None of us know how to guide a planet through this; there are no experts.” She warned that “Humanity must realize that we are on the threshold of fulfilling our greatest aspirations but we must consciously take hold of that evolution or perish…. Higher Education may be the first step toward that next state on the path toward evolution rather than destruction.”1
Barbara Marx Hubbard, however, did have a plan on “how to guide a planet through this.” Even as she spoke to this Texas audience she was being promoted as one of the featured “prophets” at an upcoming New Age “Prophets Conference” in Palm Springs, California.2 The website describing the conference stated that Hubbard was a modern-day “prophet” who had a spiritual “blueprint” that could help guide the planet through its present crises. The “blueprint” was what she had channeled from her “Christ” and recorded in her book The Revelation: A Message of Hope for the New Millennium. So, while she was telling the Texas A&M group that “none of us know how to guide a planet through this,” she had already written a book on the subject and was about to give a scheduled talk at an upcoming “Prophet’s Conference” entitled “THE PLANETARY AWAKENING: How our generation can transform the world.” By presenting herself to the Texas A&M audience as a futurist and an educator--not as a New Age leader channeling “Christ”—Hubbard was being less than straightforward about her spiritual agenda. She was telling her Texas audience that humanity must “consciously take hold of its evolution or perish,” but she wasn’t disclosing what that really meant—spiritually evolve according to the dictates of her New Age “Christ ”or be killed! Accept the New Age/New Gospel teachings of the New Spirituality or be handed over to the “selection process.” She didn’t tell them what she had received from her “Christ” and written down over twenty years ago: how the “defective,” “self-centered” part of humanity that refuses to evolve by recognizing that God is “in” everyone, will have to be sacrificially killed for the higher purpose of world peace:
No worldly peace can prevail until the self-centered members of the planetary body either change, or die. That is the choice. The red horse is the destruction during the birth process of those who refuse to be born into God-centered, universal life. They cannot go backward to the womb; they cannot go forward to the new heavens and new earth. They must surely die, or change.
It is a free choice. Evolution is good but it is not nice. Only the good can evolve. Only the God-centered will survive to inherit the powers of a universal species. Evolution empowers the horseman upon the red horse to kill that which cannot love God above all else and his neighbor as himself and himself as the son of God.
This act is as horrible as killing a cancer cell. It must be done for the sake of the future of the whole. So be it; be prepared for the selection process which is now beginning.3 [bold added]
We have no choice, dearly beloveds. It is a case of the destruction of the whole planet, or the elimination of the ego-driven, godless one-fourth who, at this time of planetary birth, can, if allowed to live on to reproduce their defective disconnection, destroy forever the opportunity of Homo sapiens to become Homo universalis, heirs of God.4
Hubbard the Peace Builder?
Meanwhile, Barbara Marx Hubbard continues to gain credibility in today’s unsuspecting and undiscerning world. In the spring of 2003 she appeared on a PBS television series entitled Closer to Truth: Science, Meaning and the Future. Introduced as a “world renowned futurist,” “citizen diplomat,” “social architect,” and “global politician,” Hubbard participated in panel discussions with an astrophysicist, a public policy expert and other “renowned specialists.”5 As she took part in the discussions concerning “ethics and civility” and “community in the New Millennium,” a copy of her book describing the selection process--The Revelation—lay on the table in front of her.
In 2005 on the fourth anniversary of September 11th, Hubbard was presented with a prestigious “Peace Builders Award” in Washington, D.C. Featured speakers at the conference included Marianne Williamson, former news anchor Walter Cronkite and Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich. Hubbard’s acceptance speech was entitled “Peace Through Co-Creation.”6 This woman, who described death by the “selection process,” was now being hailed as a Peace Builder in our nation’s capital. The prophet Isaiah warned that the day would come when evil was called good and good evil.
Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter. (Isaiah 5:20)
Barbara Marx Hubbard has proven through the years that she has powerful connections in the world. Working closely with New Age activists like Marianne Williamson, Neale Donald Walsch, Congressman Dennis Kucinich and countless others, Hubbard has been carefully positioned to play a key role in the emerging New Age/New Spirituality—particularly in the field of spiritual politics. As Hubbard and her New Age colleagues continue to gain credibility in the world, they will do everything in their power to popularize, politicize and ultimately legalize the ideas and teachings of their New Age “God” and “Christ.”
Self-centeredness and Separation
Hubbard’s “Christ” warns that only those who are not “self-centered” or “separate”—who see God in everyone—will evolve:
…[T]he fundamental regression is self-centeredness, or the illusion that you are separate from God. I “make war” on self-centeredness.7 [bold added]
The species known as self-centered humanity will become extinct. The species known as whole-centered humanity will evolve.8 [bold added]
Sadly, many high profile Christian leaders—with perhaps the best intentions—use the word “self-centered” to describe a person’s emotional or spiritual state. For example, Saddleback pastor Rick Warren describes “self-centeredness” as the “root cause” of all of our problems. He writes:
Self-centeredness is the root of practically every problem—both personally and globally.9
Because Rick Warren describes “self-centeredness” rather than sin as the root of all the world’s problems, he inadvertently presents a New Age worldview rather than a biblical worldview. In using the word “self-centeredness” rather than sin he has unwittingly adopted the language and the worldview of the New Age “Christ” rather than the language of Jesus Christ. For example, he used the words “self-centered” or “self-centeredness” fourteen times in his best selling book The Purpose-Driven Life.
Obviously there is no inherent problem with the term “self-centeredness,” or in using it as a figure of speech. However, to indiscriminately use words that have deep New Age meaning—without any warning about that New Age meaning—is to play right into the hands of the New Spirituality and the New Age “Christ.” In these perilous times in which we live, it is so important to know how words are being spiritually defined by those who would try to undermine the Christian faith through their schemes and devices and semantic traps. It can be very confusing when evangelical leaders like Rick Warren are sounding a little too much like Barbara Marx Hubbard.
Endnotes
1. Barbara Marx Hubbard lecture at Texas A&M University, September 11, 2002, information taken from the Aggie Daily, September 12, 2002. http://www.tamu.edu/univrel/aggiedaily/news/stories/02/091202-8.html.
2. Barbara Marx Hubbard, listed as one of the featured speakers at the Palm Springs, California, Prophets Conference, December 5-8, 2002. http://www.greatmystery.org/palmspringsconference.html.
3. Barbara Marx Hubbard, The Book of Co-Creation: An Evolutionary Interpretation of the New Testament: Part III, The Revelation: Alternative To Armageddon, a three part unpublished manuscript, 1980, p. 56. Distributed/sold by Barbara Marx Hubbard prior to possible publication.
4. Ibid., p. 60.
5. Closer to the Truth: Science, Meaning and the Future http://www.pbs.org/kcet/closertotruth/ or http://www.pbs.org/kcet/closertotruth/explore/index.html.
6. Barbara Marx Hubbard, Peace Builders Award acceptance speech, September 11, 2005, http://www.barbaramarxhubbard.com/utility/showArticle/?objectID=77.
7. Hubbard, The Revelation, p. 233.
8. Ibid., p. 111.
9. Rick Warren, Better Together: What on earth are we here for? (Lake Forest, California: Purpose-Driven Publishing 2004), p. 12.