Reinventing Jesus Christ: The New Gospel

Epilogue

Epilogue Update

Warren B. Smith

I have previously described how my wife and I sat down one day, not long after our conversion, and talked about the ultimate deception described in the Bible—the great falling away of the church and the coming of Antichrist (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4). We agreed that for Antichrist to be credible in the world he would have to be accepted by a majority of people calling themselves Christians. But first he would have to capture the hearts and minds of most of the men calling themselves Christian leaders. These deceived leaders would then be the ones to actually transform and convert the church. “Deceiving and being deceived” they would unwittingly do the work of our spiritual Adversary (2 Timothy 3:13). The very leaders who should be protecting the church would be the “change agents” who transition the church into the New Spirituality. Not understanding or taking the New Age/New Gospel/New Spirituality seriously, Christian “leaders” would be ignorant of our Adversary’s plans and “devices.” It would be just as Jesus said: “But while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went his way” (Matthew 13:25).

Our Adversary’s Devices

   The “Jesus” of A Course in Miracles states that “the journey to the cross should be the last ‘useless journey.’”1 New Age leader Wayne Dyer appears on a PBS special declaring that the teachings of A Course in Miracles could bring peace to the world.2 Yet most Christian leaders remain unaware, unconcerned and fast asleep about what is really going on.

   New Age leader Neale Donald Walsch declares in the name of God in his book Conversations with God that “the era of the Single Savior is over.”3 He also declares in the name of God that “Hitler went to heaven,”4 “Hitler didn’t hurt anyone,”5 and that “the mistakes Hitler made did no harm or damage to those whose deaths he caused.”6 Yet Oprah Winfrey describes Walsch’s book Conversations with God as her “favorite book” and Walsch as one of the ten most “memorable thinkers” she has ever met.7 All the while, most Christian leaders remain unaware, unconcerned and fast asleep about what is going on.

   New Age leader Barbara Marx Hubbard declares in the name of God that in the New Spirituality everyone who refuses to believe in their own divinity will be purposefully killed by the “selection process.”8 Yet on September 11, 2005 she received a special Peace Builders Award in Washington D.C.9 Meanwhile, most Christian leaders remain unaware, unconcerned and fast asleep about what is really going on.

   It’s unbelievable. Neale Donald Walsch, Marianne Williamson and Barbara Marx Hubbard form a political organization to take their New Age/New Gospel/New Spirituality into American politics. Walsch states that “the era of the Single Savior is over” while soft-selling Adolph Hitler’s crimes against humanity. At the same time, Maitreya describes the necessity of eliminating everyone who refuses to believe in their own divinity. As with Nazi Germany, the New Age/New Gospel that is emerging in our midst is both spiritual and political in nature. And like Hitler before them, New Age leaders are announcing their “final solution”—the “selection process”—way ahead of time. Who said we will never let what happened in Germany ever happen again? It is happening now, right under our noses, while the world and the church remain unaware, unconcerned and fast asleep about what is really going on. Konrad Heiden’s modern introduction to Hitler’s Mein Kampf bears repeating. He warned:

For years Mein Kampf stood as proof of the blindness and complacency of the world. For in its pages Hitler announced—long before he came to power—a program of blood and terror in a self-revelation of such overwhelming frankness that few among its readers had the courage to believe it. Once again it was demonstrated that there was no more effective method of concealment than the broadest publicity.10

New Age Warning

   A number of years ago even the New Age Movement itself warned that what happened in Germany could happen again. The entire March 1978 issue of New Age magazine was dedicated to the theme “Perils of the Path.” In an article entitled “An Early New Age Movement: The Wandervogel (They Gave Hitler Space),” the author warned how an equivalent New Age Movement in Germany gave way, in only ten short years, to the dictatorship and “mystical community” of Adolph Hitler.11 He noted that the “Bible circles” that “abounded” in Germany were seventy percent pro-Nazi before Hitler even became Chancellor.12 The article described how the seemingly innocent pursuit of people’s spiritual dreams quickly disintegrated into a Nazi nightmare. Ironically, New Age magazine was realistically warning its readers that spiritual journeys can very easily be turned into spiritual disasters. Today their words seem to be prophetic, as both the New Age and the church slide further and further into the spiritual deception of a New Spirituality and a One World Religion. How many people in the world and in the church will wake up before it’s too late?

Spiritual Parallels

   The New Age/New Gospel/New Spirituality has already—for their purposes—reinvented Jesus Christ and biblical Christianity. Rick Warren and his Purpose-Driven Church seem to be well on their way to doing the same thing. Will the emerging twenty-first century New Age “Christ” become the head of the emerging twenty-first century “Christian” church? The growing number of parallels between the New Age/New Spirituality and the Purpose-Driven Church are truly amazing. The New Age/New Gospel/New Spirituality movement teaches that the foundational teaching of the New World Religion is that God is in everything.13 Rick Warren, in his book The Purpose-Driven Life, presents this same teaching that God is in everything.14 The New Age/New Spirituality claims that God has a 5-step P.E.A.C.E. Plan and that He is in the process of introducing it to all mankind.15 Rick Warren and his Purpose-Driven Church state that God has a 5-step PEACE PLAN and that He is in the process of introducing it to all mankind.16 The New Age/New Spirituality is calling for servant leaders to come together in world service to “change the world.”17 Rick Warren is also calling for servant leaders to come together in world service to “change the world.”18 The New Age/New Spirituality is calling for a “New Reformation” based on behavior and self-esteem.19 Rick Warren is calling for a “New Reformation” based on behavior and self-esteem.20 Alice Bailey and the New Age/New Spirituality declare that the details of Christ’s return are “none of our concern.”21 Rick Warren and his Purpose-Driven Church declare that the details of Christ’s return “are none of our business.”22 The list goes on and on, as the emerging New Age/New Spirituality and the emerging Purpose-Driven Church are becoming more and more like each other in word, thought and deed. They are now both using many of the same terms and teachings, and many of the same ideas. It seems that step-by-step-by-step the New Age/New Gospel/New Spirituality and the emerging “Christian” Church are in the process of becoming one.

   Like the frog in the kettle of boiling water things are happening so incrementally most people have no idea what is happening. But a day of reckoning is at hand. The people of the world will soon be asked to make a choice. The ultimate dilemma that will confront each one of us in our prayer closet is simply this: Is God presenting humanity with a New Spirituality to save the church and save the world? Or is the enemy of our souls presenting humanity with a New Spirituality to deceive the church and to deceive the world? Most Christian leaders seem to believe—because of the sheer number of churches involved—that Rick Warren’s massive Purpose-Driven Movement must be from God. But in God’s plan there has never been any power or strength or dependence on numbers. There is only power and strength when we depend on God. And there is only one mediator between man and God—Jesus Christ (1 Timothy 2:5). Not a reinvented false New Age “Christ” like Maitreya’s “Master Jesus,”23 but the true Jesus Christ described in the Bible.

   It doesn’t matter what the New Age/New Gospel/New Spirituality says. It doesn’t matter what Rick Warren says. It doesn’t matter what I say. It only matters what God says through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. He alone can lead us into His peace. He alone can lead us into His righteousness. He alone is the way, the truth and the life. He alone will direct our paths and guide us safely home.

   In these days of spiritual deception and great delusion, as a Hitler-like Antichrist figure makes his way onto the world’s scene, be encouraged by these words from the German pastor Martin Niemoeller. In the book Until That Day, Niemoeller’s impassioned sermon to the persecuted church in Hitler’s Germany speaks to all of us in the church today:

It must be our sole concern to let our light still shine before men, that they may glorify our Father which is in heaven. We cannot hope to determine the outcome of this battle, but we can be certain that the light shines in each of our hearts—through trials, through persecutions and death, that the light still shines. We can make no compromise. We must remain steadfast in the faith, knowing that the light we follow is an Eternal Light. We must not trouble ourselves about the outcome. We must be content to wait His good time. That it will surely come we can not doubt, ‘for neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord.’24

Endnotes

1. A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume, Text, p. 52.

2. Wayne Dyer, “There’s a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem,” Public Broadcasting System broadcast 2001, transcribed by author.

3. Neale Donald Walsch, The New Revelations: A Conversation with God, p. 157.

4. Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God: an uncommon dialogue: Book 1, p. 61.

5. Neale Donald Walsch, Conversations with God: an uncommon dialogue: Book 2, p. 56.

6. Ibid., p. 42.

7. The Oprah Winfrey Show: Memorable Thinkers (1/10/02) Neale Donald Walsch. http://www.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/tows_2002/tows_past_200201.jhtml.

8. Barbara Marx Hubbard, The Revelation: A Message of Hope for the New Millennium, pp. 240, 303. See sidebar on the selection process in Chapter 2 of Reinventing Jesus Christ: The New Gospel.

9. Peace Alliance Conference, September 10-12, 2005, Washington D.C. Peace Builders Award: Acceptance speech by Barbara Marx Hubbard, September 11, 2005. http://www.barbaramarxhubbard.com/utility/showArticle/?objectID=77 .

10. Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf (Sixth Pressing), translated by Ralph Manheim (Boston: Houghton Miflin Co.: Mariner Books, 1999), p. xv.

11. John de Graf, “The Wandervogel: An Early New Age Movement (They Gave Hitler Space),” New Age, March 1978, p. 47.

12. Ibid.

13. Benjamin Creme, The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom, p. 88.

14. Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life, p. 88. See also Richard Abanes, Rick Warren and the Purpose that Drives Him: An Insider Looks at the Phenomenal Bestseller, p. 95-96. Rick Warren is quoted in 1997 saying “But God is not in everything and everything is not in God. That is called pantheism.” Yet six years later, with fifteen or more Bible translations to choose from in presenting Ephesians 4:6, Rick Warren chose The New Century Translation that says that God is in everything. It states: “He rules everything and is everywhere and is in everything.” Should Warren or his supporters be surprised that legitimate questions have been raised about his choice of Bible translation? The translation he picked directly contradicts his 1997 statement that “God is not in everything.” In addition this NCV translation gives an inaccurate rendering of what the Apostle Paul was really saying in Ephesians 4:6. (See Warren Smith, Deceived on Purpose: The New Age Implications of the Purpose-Driven Church, Chapter Six.

15. Walsch, The New Revelations, p. 225, p. 314-315.

16. Rick Warren, Saddleback Church Sermon, November 2, 2003, “Our Global P.E.A.C.E. Plan,” transcribed from internet broadcast by author.

17. Humanity’s Team Leadership Declaration Agreement. This agreement was distributed to the attendees of the Leadership Gathering in Portland, Oregon June 27-July 1, 2003. http://www.humanitysteam.com/leaders.html.

18. October 27, 2003 e-mail sent from Rick Warren to his Purpose-Driven “family.”; Lead Like Jesus Celebration, November 20, 2003, Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama. Transcript online: http://www.gprxnow.com/bonuses/BlanchardLeadLikeJesus.pdf. DVD available through Lead Like Jesus online store.

19. Creme, The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom, p. 84-85; Walsch, The New Revelations, pp. 281-282.

20. Rick Warren, Saddleback Sermon, November 2, 2003, “Our Global P.E.A.C.E. Plan,” transcribed from internet broadcast by author; Robert Schuller, Self-Esteem: The New Reformation, p. 25, 38.

21. Alice Bailey, The Reappearance of the Christ, p.188.

22. Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life, p. 285.

23. Creme, The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom, p. 46.

24. Kressman Taylor, Until That Day (New York: An Eagle Book: Distributed by Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1942), p. 266.

Book Chapter Updates by Warren B. Smith