Do Not Forget The Holy Nature of God

"Myriads of professing Christians at the present day have not an idea of their own sinfulness and guilt in the sight of God. They flatter themselves that they have never done anything very wicked. They have never murdered, or stolen, or committed adultery, or borne false witness. They cannot surely be in much danger of missing heaven. They forget the holy nature of that God with whom they have to do. They forget how often they break His law in temper, or imagination, even when their outward conduct is correct. They never study such portions of Scripture as the fifth chapter of Matthew, or at any rate they study it with a thick veil over their hearts, and do not apply it to themselves. The result is that they are wrapped up in self-righteousness. Like the church of Laodicea, they are 'rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing.' (Rev. 3:17.) Self-satisfied they live, and self-satisfied too often they die." 

- J.C. Ryle

Brian McLaren Finally Comes Out of the Closet as a New Ager

Posted by Christine Pack

Emergent Church Leader, Brian McLaren

Thank you to Eric Barger for pointing out this story. Writer Brian McLaren, who is often wrongly identified as an evangelical Christian (even though he rejects the central tenet of Christianity, Christ's atoning death on the Cross, and calls it "false advertising for God"), will be one of the keynote speakers with something called The Vision Project. The Vision Project is a New Age think tank and group that is dedicated to promoting its New Age view of the world: chiefly, that all of life is evolving upward, and that as all humans evolve spiritually, they will become spiritually enlightened and thus will be able to "co-create" and transform the world around them into a better and better place.

In joining The Vision Project, Brian McLaren has now openly aligned himself with New Agers like Barbara Marx Hubbard, Andrew Cohen, Jean Houston and Heidi Rose Robbins.

 What is The Vision Project? 

The Vision Project is a New Age think tank/community whose purpose is to advance the New Age eschatological view. Yes, even heretics and New Agers have eschatology. It's wrong eschatology, but it's eschatology nonetheless.

es·cha·tol·o·gy /ˌeskəˈtäləjē/ - Noun: The part of theology concerned with death, judgment, and the final destiny of the soul and of humankind. 

The New Age eschatological view is that all people have a divine inner spark within, and, for a significant period of their physical evolutionary development, are unaware of this. But that, once humankind has physically evolved to a certain state, they will begin to awaken to this divine inner spark, and thus begin their spiritual evolutionary journey. This is believed to culminate in an awakening to one's own divinity and one's ability to co-create the future of our world with God. It is believed that humanity will reach a "critical mass" in its spiritual evolution, at which time a paradigm shift will occur, and a "heaven" or "enlightenment" will be ushered in. This "critical mass" is believed to be achieved when "enough" people awaken to their inner divinity and ability to co-create the future of our planet along with God. (Of course, this is absolutely against the clear teaching of the Bible which is that God alone holds the destiny of our world in his hand, and that, rather than becoming better and better, the world will spiral into sinful wickedness as the return of Christ draws closer.)

You might be asking: Why does it matter how lost New Agers think about the end times? Because it is not only the New Agers who reject the clear teaching of the Bible that as God's judgment draws closer and closer, the world will spiral into deeper and deeper depravity and wickedness. Leaders of the dangerous and heretical Emergent Church Movement - many of whom have bestselling books that are  popular among our youth - also embrace the New Age view of the end times.

Best-selling author and creator of the NOOMA videos Rob Bell also talks about "co-creating" with God:

"I would begin with the understanding that God has left the world unfinished, and so, in Genesis chapter 1, this creation poem is about trees that are created to have the ability to create more trees. So, to me an authentic spirituality begins with the premise that we co-create the world with God. The world is not done, and that all of action is essentially rooted in creativity. Any way in which you contribute to the ongoing creation of the world you are in fact, in some form or another being creative and so then I think the question from there becomes 'what is art?'"

Emergent Church leader Brian McLaren, besides openly partnering with New Agers on this platform, has already written of his alignment with this New Age eschatological thinking here.

You don't think this is a big deal? That anyone is paying attention to this nonsense? That perhaps The Vision Project is just a vanity project without any power or bite?  Look again at that roster. It is closely aligned with the United Nations, and lists the following speakers and organizations:

Kofi Annan, Secretary-General UN 

Bono, Lead singer of band U2 

Karan Singh, Member of Parliament, India 

Vacalav Havel, Former president of the Czech Republic 

Ela Gandhi, Member of Parliment, African National Congress, South Africa 

The Earth Charter Initiative (a United Nations document aimed at fostering sustainable development, and created by former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev)

This matters because the Emergent Church leaders I mentioned above (Brian McLaren and Rob Bell), while perhaps not all that familiar to many of us, are rock stars to our children, teenagers and college students. Their books sell in the millions.  Their influence is substantial. And we, as parents, are accountable for our children and will one day stand before the Lord and give an account for them. By God's grace, may we awaken to the dangerous teachings and leaders that have crept in unawares, and make every attempt to make sure that our impressionable young people are awake and alert to their dangerous teachings.

photo credit: AjDele Photography via photopin cc

 Additional Resources 

What Rob Bell's Theology Looks Like In The Real World

Love Wins? A Review

What Is The Emerging Church Movement and Why Is It Dangerous?

"Love Wins" the Smoking Gun That Proves Rob Bell is a "Christian Universalist"

Is Rob Bell A Universalist?  Yes and No.

Rob Bell: Don't Call It Universalism

Meeting at Mars Hill Bible Church Over Rob Bell's New Book

Jesus Gave Us Almost All We Know About The Doctrine of Hell

What Is A "Christian Universalist" (Besides an Oxymoron)?

What Is the "Wider Mercy" Doctrine?

Heads Up, Christian Parents: Rob Bell Is Teaching Your Kids Universalism

Two Thoughts on the Rob Bell Brouhaha

Rob Bell Praises New Age Author Huston Smith

Rob Bell and Shane Hipps: Blood on Their Hands

Quantum Science Proves 'Everything Is Spiritual?' Not So Fast, Says Quantum Physicist Dr. Frank Stootman

Former New Ager Marcia Montenegro Interviewed About Latest Harry Potter Movie

Posted by Christine Pack

From Christian broadcaster Tim Berend's program on KKVV radio, an interview with former New Ager and professional astrologer - now born again Christian - Marcia Montenegro:

Marcia Montenegro, a guest from the old St. Louis program, is today's guest. She is a former licensed astrologer and former president of astrological society. Tim asks Marsha about those predictions by astrologers and others that come true. Marsha responds that sometimes it is a coincidence, sometimes guesses, and sometimes even demonic guidance. She says it took her about a year and a half from the time she came to the Lord until the time she realized that astrology was evil. 

She then talks about the latest Harry Potter movie. This is the final movie in the series and has a special draw. There is now one whole generation that has grown up with Harry Potter. Tim asks Marsha how to witness to a person that is a big fan of Harry Potter. Marsha responds that God DOES take some of the things in Harry Potter seriously, even though some people don't. Marsha also objects to the underlying theme that learning the occult practices by Harry is a "good thing". Tim reads Deuteronomy 18:10-14 that deals with familiar spirits and diviners and sorcery. 

Tim asks Marsha about parents whose kids complain that "all the other kids are doing it". Marsha responds that it is a parents job to make those decisions. With older teenagers, she would sit down with them and talk to them about God and how He views it. Tim and Marsha also say that a parent is responsible to God for their children. 

She has several articles on books and movies on her home page, which is located at Christian Answers for the New Age.

The interview can listened to in its entirety here.

photo credit: Great Beyond via photopin cc

 Additional Resources 

How Much Witchcraft Is Okay?

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Is Death Still the Next Great Adventure?

What is Christian Liberty? by John MacArthur

Miller-Urey Proved Molecules-To-Man Evolution? Not So Fast, Says Biologist Dr. Jerry Bergman

File this one under "Why Do We Still Believe Discredited Scientific Experiments?"

Miller-Urey were the scientists who created the now very famous 1952 experiment that supposedly proved evolution. When people talk about the primordial ooze experiment that was sparked by lightning and which "proved" evolution, this is what they are talking about. This is also known as molecules-to-man evolution, or as skeptics call it, "from-the-goo-to-the-zoo-t​o-you" evolution. The problem is that the experiment was cooked from the beginning, by being recreated in an oxygen free environment, as oxygen is widely known to be detrimental to chemical evolution. Scientists now know today that the early atmosphere on earth had far more oxygen than even previously believed. The result of this experiment? Equal parts right-handed and left-handed organic molecules were consistently produced. This is a toxic mixture which cannot produce life.

Miller-Urey? Epic fail


Photo credit: (http://www.cbs.dtu.dk/staff/dave/roanoke/bio101ch19a.htm)

 Additional Resources 

Why the Miller-Urey Research Argues Against Abiogenesis - Dr. Jerry Bergman, PhD Biology

Proof of Young Earth Creation - Dr. Jason Lisle, PhD Astrophysics

A List of Modern Day Scientists Who Believe Science Supports the Biblical Account of Creation

Radiocarbon Dating Proves Evolution? Not So Fast, Says Dr. Andrew Snelling, Geologist

Answers in Genesis

Creation Museum

The Invention of Adolescence

posted by Christine Pack

Note: I found this article by Otto Scott on the Defending Contending site, and think it speaks very aptly to our culture today. I have also heard Paul Washer teach on this strange phenomenon of "adolescence" as well, but could not find the sermon in which this appeared. 

Adolescence is now accepted by most Americans as a strange and difficult period marked by wild swings of mood, outbursts of temper, rudeness, rebelliousness, and personality changes — all involuntary.

They would be surprised to learn that this period was unknown, unrecognized, and unseen in every previous civilization, culture, and society throughout the immensely long history of humanity. It is, even today, unknown in large areas of the inhabited world.

I recall marveling at the calm that pervaded families in South America during my last extended stay there in the early 1950s. I did not hear a single rude response by a teenager to anyone. No doubt it was different in the slums, but this was the atmosphere among the middle and upper classes.

In earlier times, this was once true even in the United States, the land now known for difficult children. There was even a time when there were no adolescents.

That was, of course, a time beyond the memory of even our oldest inhabitants: a time before the Civil War, during the First American Republic. Our great social changes began after that conflict; after huge waves of immigration came via the new, safer steamboats; during the period when many Americans anxious for a higher, more complete education, went to Europe — and especially to Germany — to study.

One of these was G. Stanley Hall, who earned a doctorate in psychology under William James at the new Johns Hopkins University in 1878. Hall went to Germany for two years and was swept up in German psychological research and became especially interested in the mental development of children.

After that immersion in what is usually termed “the latest scientific developments,” Hall returned to Johns Hopkins as a professor of psychology and pedagogy. (Wonderfully impressive terms!) Hall taught John Dewey, Lewis Terman (who later pioneered “mental” tests) and Arnold Gesell, later famed as a “child” psychologist.

Hall conducted numerous “studies” of children during the 1880s and 1890s, and in 1904 issued a landmark book cumbersomely titled Adolescence: Us Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion and Education.

That title alone should have warned the wary, but it was a time when a number of savants were appearing with novel theories about human behavior. Dr. Freud, addicted first to opium and then cocaine, had convinced many of his patients that he could read thoughts of which they were themselves unaware. Lombroso’s theory that a criminal was an anthropological type with certain physical characteristics still had a following; so did phrenology: the idea that the contours of the skull indicated mental and spiritual qualities. It was a time, in other words, when — in the name of science — human beings were being redefined by various individuals who claimed to possess supernormal powers of observation and insight.

Dr. Hall was one of these. His theories fit inside spread of Spencer’s social Darwinism and the fashionable belief in the perfectibility of Man through formal, secular education. He thought the embryo in the womb repeated Darwin’s evolution of humanity from the sea, and that the stages of childhood repeated the stages of social evolution from pre-savagery to civilization. He left the definition of civilization unstated and seemed to believe that it was a permanent condition achieved in the West in 1905.

Dr. Hall argued that childhood consisted of “three stages, each with a parallel in racial history” and each requiring certain set teaching approaches. Infancy and early childhood were equal to pre-stages of culture, and parent/teachers should allow the child to play with blocks and to exercise freely. At six or seven, he believed the child experienced various crises leading to the “pre-adolescent” years of eight to twelve, when behavior is comparable to “the world of early pigmies and other so-called savages.’”[1]

At this point (six or seven) the child was, in Dr. Hall’s view, ready for school — and its discipline. But a new period of crisis, he believed, arrived between thirteen and eighteen — which he termed adolescence.

Hall compared this to ancient and medieval civilizations. He believed it was a crucial period, “because it prepares the youth for the acquisition of knowledge, mores and skills that will determine the future of the individual and, by extension, that of the human race.”

He also believed that it was “a stormy period . . . when there is a peculiar proneness to be either very good or very bad.’”[2]

There does not seem to be any basis for this conclusion. Throughout all the previous centuries of Christianity — and of Judaism before that, twelve had been considered the age of maturity. Both confirmation in the Christian religion in Pre-reformation centuries, and the Bar Mitzvah in Judaism (then and now) took place at that age. Thereafter, a young person was expected to behave as a responsible adult, and to assume a place in adult society.

Boys in New England whaling towns went to sea and rose to become masters of clipper ships in their early twenties Girls married at sixteen and set about raising a family, managing a home and behaving as matrons. Their counterparts around the world behaved the same. Life began early; tantrums may have occurred, but they had no general rationale connected to age: everyone was held responsible, and God was not blamed for anyone’s misbehavior.

Social life, however, is replete with imitative patterns. People are apt to behave as they are expected to behave — whether well or foolishly.

Hall’s ideas fit the fashion: it would not be fair to say that they were deliberately conceived to do so; it would be accurate to say that Hall was a man of his time, more than a man of original insight. He codified ideas about children and youths that were then floating in the air. That was the reason his argument was so easily swallowed by educators and other professionals. True originality has a much harder time.

In any event, Hall’s work provided a basis for segregating school children by age. Elementary school children were segregated from secondary schools along the lines of his “observations.” Twelve was the age of the break. The new fashion spread even into religion, and the clergy began to aim different lessons at special age groups: the Bible was too much for the young.

The movement mushroomed into special courses for special ages. At certain ages, a child was expected to learn this much — and no more. To learn behind the group was a cause for concern, so in time, was to learn ahead of the group. Norms came into being; to fit the norm became (as it is now) more important than to sprint ahead — and to fall behind is a calamity. Never mind that different children grow at different rates at different times and that even individual progress is sometimes fast, sometimes slow. Differences were put in the background; age in the foreground.

At a certain time, therefore, in the lives of contemporary American children, certain behavior patterns are expected — and subtly mandated. Nor is this only true of children. There is now an expected beginning and an end to a working career: one cannot be too young — or too old.

We have, today, an entire hierarchy of social groups based on age: from Day School to Leisure Village. There are assumptions surrounding each age group: from expected tantrums by adolescents to PMS for women of a certain age — and an end to creativity from the old.

There are many variations of this development — from youth gangs to the forced retirement. In fact, we have almost achieved a society nearly completely segregated by age in which the generations have been narrowed from the traditional thirty years to far fewer. Age now separates us more than ever before in any society; persons raised only a few decades apart find one another nearly incomprehensible. Dr. Hall, therefore, can be said to have influenced us as much (and perhaps more) than Darwin or Dr. Freud, and like these more celebrated “thinkers” has brought us at least an equal load of distress, disturbance, and unhappiness.

Originally appeared in the CHALCEDON REPORT, JULY, copyright 1991. 

1. Howard P. Chudacoff, How Old Are You? Age of Consciousness in American Culture, (Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 67.

2. Ibid.

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