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Monday, March 25, 2019

ARTICLES FROM LIGHTHOUSE TRAILS RESEARCH ON NEW AGE, ISLAMIC MYSTICISM, APOSTASY

THE ENNEAGRAM: DOES IT HAVE A PLACE IN CHRISTIANITY?
Definition of Enneagram: System of spiritual psychology based on an ancient Sufi [Islamic mysticism] typology of nine personality types or primary roles with the recognition of one’s type tantamount to a spiritual awakening” from Alternative Health Dictionary

Enneagram
Recently, Lighthouse Trails has received numerous inquiries from readers about the Enneagram because of it being used in their churches or by Christians with whom they are acquainted. Below, we are posting some various items we have on file regarding the Enneagram. We hope they provide enough information to cause any believer to stay away from the Enneagram (or to at least do further research before utilizing it). The first item is a letter to the editor we received a couple years ago that will help illustrate the problem.
Dear Lighthouse Trails:
I wanted to write and share with you yet another example of church leadership embracing New Age methods. Recently, an acquaintance on Facebook posted a link to an Enneagram chart happily reporting her number and encouraging others to contact her if they want to know more about the Enneagram. What concerned me the most is that this acquaintance is the wife of a pastor of a young, but rapidly growing church in our area. Though not familiar with the Enneagram, I knew it likely had mystic / New Age origins by its very description. It broke my heart that a pastor’s wife would encourage such a thing. A day after her post, and after researching it for myself, I reached out to her privately warning her of its roots. I encouraged this pastor’s wife that God’s Word is enough and then hoped for a gracious response.
Her response was quick and indeed gracious, but defended their use of the Enneagram by explaining how they have looked at several resources tying what the Enneagram reveals back to the Gospel and that they were using it much like the Myers-Briggs or other personality type system to learn more about each other in order to build one another up.
Sadly, that is how so many of these New Age ideas enter even the conservative church. Someone somewhere at some point put a Christian spin on such an idea, wraps it up in attractive packaging, and tags it “christian.” And the young, hip, “relevant” pastors / leaders gobble it up. All discernment thus goes out the window. For the discerner, it is both sad and frustrating.
I did reply back to my acquaintance and gently yet firmly challenged her that if they were indeed just using the Enneagram as a personality test such as the Myers-Briggs, why not then just use the Myers-Briggs? Why use something that opens up the door to other mystic / occult type practices that seekers or young-in-faith believers might choose to explore?
She never replied back.
This is yet another reminder of how Satan is the master of deceit and confusion. What better way to continue to destroy the church by “innocently” introducing things that seem otherwise “harmless”? Both leaders and lay people need to be courageous at speaking up and warning others about such practices and reject them unequivocally. 
Sincerely ___________
The following is an excerpt of an article written by Mike Oppenheimer:
Enneagram claims to be an entry point for deep personal healing and renewal. Enneagram is a psychological and spiritual system for a higher consciousness. We are told it will help us understand the personality types and the differences in each other which should reduce unnecessary conflicts (transforming one into a more tolerant person). We can transform our habits by being our own observer in  how we think and go from unconscious behavior to conscious behavior. This is done through a series of probing questions called a PERSONALITY PROFILE questionnaire where one learns what his or her type is.
The Enneagram symbol is a nine-pointed, star-like figure. The nine lines comprise a perfect triangle and a twisted hexagon contained within a circle. This is a New Age type mandala, a mystical gateway to personality classification. The drawing is based upon a belief in the mystical properties of the numbers 7 and 3. (source)
Excerpt from an Article by Ed Hird:
Enneagram and the Occult
Gurdjieff’s work led to the formation of the New-Age cult, Arica, founded by his disciple Oscar Ichazo. It was Ichazo and his colleague Claudio Naranjo (an instructor at the Esalen Institute) who together developed the Enneagram in the 1960s as an indicator of personality in its current form.(14) Naranjo merged the Enneagram with 9 of Freud’s 10 personality defense mechanisms….
Barbara Metz, SND, and John Burchill, OP, recommend the Enneagram as a way of engaging in “kything prayer”. Kything Prayer can be done with any other person, present or absent, dead or alive, whose Enneagramic reading ‘moves against your numerical arrows’. The key is to “let your center find itself within the person with whom you are kything” and to “Picture yourself within the [other] person.” An alternative form of Enneagramic kything is to “invite the other person’s spirit into themselves.”(19) One may very well ask how appropriate it is for Christians to be inviting the spirits of the dead into themselves. Does this not slide into occultic channeling/mediumistic practices that are clearly forbidden by Holy Scripture?(20) Is it enough for Enneagram advocates like Jim Scully of Pecos Abbey to say “that ‘occult’ and ‘satanic’ are not synonyms? God told me back in 1979 that the greatest issue facing the Church in the 1990’s would be the deception of inter-faith syncretism. Maybe it is time for us as Anglicans and Christians to truly wake up and repent of our syncretistic mixing of Christ and the occult, of good and evil, of truth and deception, of light and darkness. “Gurdjieff and the Enigmatic Enneagram” by Ed Hird, Anglican Renewal Ministries of Canada

An article from The Berean Call

Are You My Type? The Enneagram Catches on with Christians
The Enneagram came to the United States in the 1970s, where it initially caught on among Catholic seminarians and priests and became a tool for spiritual formation.
In its present form, the Enneagram includes nine personality types, or numbers, illustrated by a nine-pointed geometric figure. (The term Enneagram comes from the Greek words meaning “nine” and “drawing” or “figure.”) Each, at its worst, is tied to one of the deadly sins – plus two more traits that have been added in.
A person’s “type” is determined by self-examination; the goal being to better understand oneself – and one’s strengths, weaknesses and tendencies – and those of others.
But it may not be as modern as it sounds, or as alien to the faith as some might fear. In fact, some trace the Enneagram to a fourth-century Christian monk and ascetic named Evagrius, whose teaching later influenced the formation of the seven deadly sins, according to Cron and Stabile. Others detect elements of the Enneagram within Sufism and Judaism. (source)
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Marianne Williamson: If I Am President, I Will Take Control of Your Children and Make Them New Agers
By Philip Gray
Course in Miracles promoter, Marianne Williamson, who is running in the 2020 presidential election, has big plans for the children of this country if she is elected. Among other things, part of those plans is to make sure children in American public schools are trained in mindfulness meditation. While tens of thousands of public schools in the U.S. are already teaching children mindfulness meditation, no doubt, with a New Age president, every school would be including it.
As president, I would advocate for the following: Mindfulness training in the schools.—Marianne Williamson, 2019 (source)
Williamson also promises to advocate for “universal pre-K.” This would help make sure that children as young as 3 and 4 would be placed into the public school system. Advocates of universal pre-K believe they need more time with America’s children and want to get their hands on them much earlier than 5 or 6 (Kindergarten).
Parents beware. If Marianne Williamson (or another candidate with her “values,”) becomes president, this country’s children will be at even greater risk than they are now. And you can be sure, she will not be advocating for homeschooling families.
(photo from bigstockphoto.com; used with permission for editorial purposes)
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The Significance of Understanding Leonard Sweet’s 
“More Magnificent Way of Seeing Christ”
LTRP Note: Over the past few decades, a number of New Age sympathizers have had a significant influence in the evangelical church. One of the chief is Methodist author, speaker, and teacher Leonard Sweet. Sweet openly calls the Father of the New Age Movement—the late Jesuit priest Teilhard de Chardin—“twentieth-century Christianity’s major voice.” Sweet also teaches the foundational New Age doctrine that God is “in” everyone and everything—that God is embedded in all creation. Brought forward and popularized by Rick Warren, Leonard Sweet and his New Age sympathies have not been adequately addressed by today’s pastors and church leaders. A look on Sweet’s website shows he has partnered with numerous popular figures such as Brian McLaren, Mark Batterson (Circle Maker), Erwin McManus, Mark Driscoll, Frank Viola, and Karen Swallow Prior (professor at Liberty University). The following booklet by Warren Smith reveals the “New Age Christianity” that Leonard Sweet has helped to bring into the church.
By Warren B. Smith
To survive in postmodern culture, one has to learn to speak out of both sides of the mouth.1—Leonard Sweet

Who is Leonard Sweet?

Leonard Sweet is an ordained Methodist minister who is presently the E. Stanley Jones Professor of Evangelism at Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. He is also a visiting distinguished professor at George Fox University in Portland, Oregon. On his various websites, he is described as a “scholar of American culture” who has authored over 60 books and 200 articles and has published over 1500 sermons. A “Phi Beta Kappa graduate,” he is a “frequent speaker at national and international conferences, state conventions, pastor’s schools, retreats” and “serves as a consultant to many of America’s denominational leaders and agencies.” Descriptive terms such as “distinguished,” “most influential,” “widely quoted,” “highly sought after,” and “the Picasso of Preaching” give visitors to his website the distinct impression that this is a man they should definitely pay attention to. And many people are doing just that.
Day-to-day believers may or may not be familiar with Leonard Sweet, but many in Christian leadership are very familiar with this self-described “semiotician.” According to his website, a semiotician is someone who “sees things the rest of us do not see and dreams possibilities that are beyond most of our imagining.” And as a “cultural futurist” and “Christ follower,” he seems to be very comfortable assuming the role of a postmodern prophet who provides hip observations of what is and what will be. His mission is to help the church become more culturally relevant in the 21st century. However, as he attempts to walk the narrow line between the Gospel and the world, he frequently walks over that line into the false teachings of the New Age/New Spirituality. When he does, legitimate questions need to be raised about what he is doing.
In June 2010, Sweet became the object of a swirling controversy, and his name suddenly disappeared from the list of scheduled speakers at a National Worship Conference taking place in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The controversy centered around the New Age implications of many of the quotes and teachings found in his 1991 book Quantum Spirituality: A Post Modern Apologetic. Prior to the conference, a number of people were starting to ask pertinent questions about Sweet and what he was teaching. In my 2009 book A “Wonderful” Deception, I wrote three chapters on Leonard Sweet and the obvious New Age implications of what he was teaching. In the first chapter on Sweet, I described some of my initial impressions regarding this man, and in particular, his book Quantum Spirituality:
Highly intellectual and well-read, Leonard Sweet almost dares you to keep up with him as he charges through the spiritual marketplace. Operating at lightning speed and quoting from countless books and articles, he will impress many readers with his quick wit and spiritual insights. However, as he treacherously dives into New Age waters and challenges his readers to go there with him, serious problems arise within his “postmodern apologetic.”
In reading Quantum Spirituality, I recalled the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus warned that you can’t serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). Leonard Sweet may be a professing evangelical Christian, but he also simultaneously praises New Age authors and their teachings.2

Sweet’s “Response” to Critics

Keenly aware of the controversy he has created, Sweet has a statement prominently posted on his present home website titled—“A Response to Recent Misunderstandings.” While his attempt to explain himself might satisfy the uninformed reader, his “Response” does not address the specifics of what he has written and is actually teaching. His simplistic denunciation of the New Age is unconvincing. His statement that the “New Age rhymes with sewage” and his encouraging the use of a “daily ritual of starting the day by standing in front of a mirror and saying: “God is God and I am not” do not speak to the fact that he has never even addressed, much less renounced, the specific New Age teachings that he was otherwise appearing to deny and disparage. And his stating “back when the New Age was a movement” completely misses the fact that the New Age movement never went away. Those of us who came out of New Age teachings and have been observing the New Age over the past several decades know that contrary to Sweet’s claims, the New Age movement has actually grown exponentially and is now mainstream and an inherent part of our culture. Due to its continued wide-spread growth and influence, the New Age threat to the church (and the world) is larger than ever before. But now it is just hiding in plain sight behind the facade of other names like “New Spirituality,” “New Worldview,” or in Sweet’s case—the “New Light” teachings of a “Quantum Spirituality.” But by any other name a rose is still a rose and the New Age is still the New Age.
Because Sweet’s “A Response to Recent Misunderstandings” left so many unanswered questions and because of his continued influence in the church, it seems imperative that thoughtful Christians take a deeper look at what Leonard Sweet is really teaching. For starters, here are five immediate concerns to consider.

FIVE IMMEDIATE CONCERNS

1) Leonard Sweet teaches the New Age doctrine of “Immanence” that would have the church believe God is “in” everyone and everything

In her 1948 book The Reappearance of the Christ, New Age matriarch Alice Bailey and her spirit guide Djwhal Khul describe how the path to their New Age God will be based on an “immanent” God that is “within every form of life”:
. . . a fresh orientation to divinity and to the acceptance of the fact of God Transcendent and of God Immanent within every form of life. These are the foundational truths upon which the world religion of the future will rest.3 (emphasis added)
Likewise, in his 1980 book, The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom, New Age channeler Benjamin Creme, states that the New World Religion will be based on the proposition that “Christ” is “immanent”—“in man and all creation”:
But eventually a new world religion will be inaugurated which will be a fusion and synthesis of the approach of the East and the approach of the West. The Christ will bring together, not simply Christianity and Buddhism, but the concept of God transcendent—outside of His creation—and also the concept of God immanent in all creation—in man and all creation.4 (emphasis added)
In Leonard Sweet’s 1999 book SoulTsunami—with its front cover endorsement by Rick Warren—Sweet introduces this same New Age idea of God not only being transcendent but also immanent. He writes:
To survive in postmodern culture, one has to learn to speak out of both sides of the mouth. It should not be hard, since Christianity has always insisted on having things both ways. Isn’t it based on the impossible possibility of Jesus being “beyond us, yet ourselves” (poet Wallace Stevens)? Biblical theological is not circular with a fixed center, but elliptical, revolving around the double foci of God’s immanence and God’s transcendence.5 (emphasis added)
Sweet clearly spells out what he means by “immanence” in his 1991 book Quantum Spirituality: A Postmodern Apologetic. As a self-described “radical,” he presents his “radical doctrine” that God is immanently embodied “in” His creation. He writes:
Quantum spirituality bonds us to all creation as well as to other members of the human family. . . . This entails a radical doctrine of embodiment of God in the very substance of creation. . . . But a spirituality that is not in some way entheistic (whether pan- or trans-), that does not extend to the spirit-matter of the cosmos, is not Christian.6 (emphasis added)
But Sweet’s “radical” panentheistic doctrine is a key New Age teaching—as is so much of what he wrote in Quantum Spirituality. In his “A Response to Recent Misunderstandings,” Sweet tries to dispel questions about Quantum Spirituality by saying, “Would I write the same book today? No. Would I say the same things differently? Yes. I started working on the book in my late 20s. I hope I’m older and wiser now.” But when it comes to the New Age implications of what he is teaching, he is not any wiser in regard to his previously stated New Age doctrine. In several subsequent books, Sweet reintroduces his New Age doctrine of immanence—that God is immanently embodied “in” His creation. For example, in his 1999 book Soul Tsunami, Sweet writes:
Postmodern evangelism is first of all telling people how special they are, how much God loves them, how unique each and every one of them is. The fourth-century theologian Athanasius said in one of his letters that God became one of us “that he might deify us in Himself.” Similarly, elsewhere he wrote that Christ “was made man that we might be made God.”7
In Sweet’s 2010 book Nudge: Awakening Each Other to the God Who’s Already There, he expresses in different words what he wrote in Quantum Spirituality about the “embodiment of God in the very substance of creation”:
An incarnational God means that God-stuff is found in the matter of the universe.8
In this same book he also wrote, “Nudgers help people discover their inner Jesus.”9 But God is not “in” everyone and everything. Jesus is not “in” everyone and everything. Sweet may seem to denounce the New Age, but what he is teaching is New Age. This is dangerous and unbiblical leaven. The apostle Paul lamented that it only took “a little leaven” to lure the Galatians away from the Gospel they once knew so well.
Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?  This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. (Galatians 5:7-9)
God states in the first commandment, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” The New Age “God” who is “in” everyone and everything is another “God” and therefore a false God. Contrary to Leonard Sweet’s teaching in Quantum Spirituality, God is not embodied in His creation. Contrary to his teaching in Nudge, “God-stuff” is not found in the matter of the universe, and everyone does not have an “inner Jesus.” Scripture is very clear. Man is not God because God is not “in” everyone and everything. In Jeremiah 16:20, God warned: “Shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods?” In Matthew 23:12, Jesus warned, “And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.” For further scriptural references on why God is not “in” everyone and everything and how this false teaching has entered both the world and the church, see my booklet Be Still and Know that You Are Not God.

2) Leonard Sweet describes the “Father” of the New Age Movement” as “Twentieth-century Christianity’s major voice”

Sweet describes heretical Jesuit Catholic priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin—the “Father of the New Age Movement—as “Twentieth-century Christianity’s major voice.” 10 In her best-selling New Age classic, The Aquarian Conspiracy, author Marilyn Ferguson describes Teilhard de Chardin as “the individual most often named as a profound influence by the Aquarian Conspirators who responded to a survey.”11 He is also the most frequently referenced New Age leader in her book. The Teilhard quote “This soul can only be a conspiracy of individuals” is found on the very first page of her book and inspired her to title her book The Aquarian Conspiracy. Ferguson wrote that “Teilhard prophesied the phenomenon central to this book: a conspiracy of men and women whose new perspective would trigger a critical contagion of change.”12
Evident in his posted “Response,” Sweet appears to be baffled by everyone’s concern about some of the things he is writing. He seems to take any criticism as a personal attack. But this criticism, if you will, is not about him personally, it is about what he is teaching. Jesus didn’t say “Get behind me Satan” to Peter because he thought Peter was Satan. He said “Get behind me Satan” because of what Peter was saying. And because Sweet describes the “Father of the New Age movement” as “Twentieth-century Christianity’s major voice,” I believe the Lord would tell Leonard Sweet the same thing today. This should become especially evident when you read the following unbiblical statements made by Teilhard de Chardin in his book Christianity and Evolution:
What I am proposing to do is to narrow that gap between pantheism and Christianity by bringing out what one might call the Christian soul of pantheism or the pantheistic aspect of Christianity.13 (emphasis added)
The cross still stands . . . But this is on one condition, and one only, that it expand itself to the dimensions of a New Age, and cease to present itself to us as primarily (or even exclusively) the sign of a victory over sin.14
I can be saved only by becoming one with the universe.15
I believe that the Messiah whom we await, whom we all without any doubt await, is the universal Christ; that is to say, the Christ of evolution.16
[I]f a Christ is to be completely acceptable as an object of worship, he must be presented as the saviour of the idea and reality of evolution.17
A general convergence of religions upon a universal Christ who fundamentally satisfies them all: that seems to me the only possible conversion of the world, and the only form in which a religion of the future can be conceived.18

Teilhard Again?

Sweet’s affection for Teilhard de Chardin surfaced again in his 1999 book Aqua Church. After quoting a strong Bible-based stanza from the hymn “Jesus Savior Pilot Me,” Sweet follows it with a very revealing quote from Teilhard de Chardin. Teilhard stated that those who “see” Christ as he does understand Christ in “a much more magnificent way” than all those who went before him:
Christ is in the Church in the same way as the sun is before our eyes. We see the same sun as our fathers saw, and yet we understand it in a much more magnificent way.19
Really? Teilhard and his followers understand Christ in a much more magnificent way than their “fathers”? More than all the martyrs? More than the original disciples? This seems to indicate that Teilhard and Sweet and their “semiotic” emergent postmodern “Christ followers” are “seeing” something about Christ that the rest of the church does not see. Would Sweet have the church believe that Chardin’s seemingly updated New Age “Christ” is the real Christ? Is the “semiotic” Sweet trying to show us that if we adopt the New Age teachings of Teilhard, we, too, will “see” Christ in a “much more magnificent way” than the Christians who came before us? Sadly, it would seem that this is so.
Sweet seems to believe that with new understandings from quantum physics, a New Age/New Gospel/New Spirituality/Quantum Spirituality would enable Christians to see Christ in a much deeper and “more magnificent way.” The church would finally understand that the science of quantum physics proves that God is an energy force that interpenetrates and embodies His creation. Therefore, we are all “connected” because we are all “God” because God is “in” everyone and everything. Sweet argues that Christians of the past weren’t ready to deal with things like quantum physics, quantum wavelengths, and the New Age implications of a Quantum Spirituality that would totally transform their faith and challenge everything they thought they knew about being a Christian. In his 2016 book Jesus Speaks, Leonard Sweet writes:
The Holy Spirit brings Jesus’ voice to life through history, theology, science, and social experience. Jesus told the disciples, “I have much more to say to you” (John 16:12). In other words, Jesus was saying, “You can’t handle everything I have to say to you right now. Some of my truth has a wavelength, and it needs time, maybe even centuries, to play itself out.20
But this implies that God’s Word is incomplete and insufficient and therefore in need of new revelation. This is simply not true. Besides, when Jesus said “I have much more to say to you, He was talking to His disciples—not to the church today. It is also important to notice how Sweet conveniently squeezed “wavelength” into his interpretation of Jesus’ words to set up his Quantum Spirituality. But Jesus wasn’t withholding spiritual insights that would have to be delivered to His people two thousand years later. This kind of false teaching is an inherent part of the New Age deception. The fact is Jesus has already given us everything we need to know in His Holy Bible.
Jesus warned of false prophets who would come in sheep’s clothing (Matthew 7:15). And there would be those who honor Him with their lips, but their hearts would be far from Him (Matthew 15:8). He also warned of those who serve two masters (Matthew 6:24). Psalm 144:11 warns of vain men who deceive with the “right hand of falsehood.” In Psalm 12:2, David warned of those who speak with a “double heart.” In James 1:8, James taught that “a double minded man is unstable in all his ways. In 1 Timothy 3:8, Paul referred to these same men as “double-tongued.” For Leonard Sweet to exalt the “Father of the New age movement”—Teilhard de Chardin—and suggest that Teilhard’s way of seeing Christ is a “much more magnificent way” than our forefathers is to fall prey to our Adversary’s deceptive devices. One thing is for sure: The New Age movement hasn’t gone away—it has entered the church through men like Teilhard de Chardin and those like Sweet who exalt him as “Twentieth-century Christianity’s major voice.”

(3) Leonard Sweet Praises New Age leaders as his “Heroes” and “Role Models”

While some Leonard Sweet defenders argue that his postmodern “New Light” apologetic flies right over the heads of “Old Light” “fundamentalist” types, the facts tell a different story. But what one learns in reading Quantum Spirituality is that Sweet wants to transform biblical Christianity into a Quantum Spirituality that is, in reality, a New Age/New Spirituality. Without any apology, Sweet writes that he is part of a “New Light” movement, and he describes those he especially admires as “New Light leaders.” But many of Sweet’s “New Light leaders” are New Age leaders who are in the process of overturning biblical Christianity through obliging New Age sympathizers like Leonard Sweet.

Sweet’s New Age “role models and heroes”

In the acknowledgments section of Quantum Spirituality, Leonard Sweet expresses his deep gratitude and admiration to various “New Light leaders” whom he openly praises as “the most creative religious leaders in America today.” But many of these “New Light leaders” are New Age leaders. Included in this group are a number of men I was very familiar with from my years in the New Age—among them are Willis Harman, Matthew Fox, and M. Scott Peck. Sweet describes these three men—along with numerous other New Age figures cited—as “extraordinary” and “great” New Light leaders. He goes so far as to say that they are his “personal role models” and “heroes” of “the true nature of the postmodern apologetic.” Sweet writes:
They are my personal role models (in an earlier day one could get away with “heroes”) of the true nature of the postmodern apologetic. More than anyone else, they have been my teachers on how to translate, without compromising content, the gospel into the indigenous context of the postmodern vernacular.21
But many of the men and women Leonard Sweet cited have compromised the “content” of the Gospel by translating it into the “postmodern vernacular” of a New Age/New Spirituality. For example, Willis Harman, Matthew Fox, and M. Scott Peck have all played leading roles in the initial establishment and popularization of today’s New Age/New Spirituality movement. But rather than commending these New Age/New Light leaders, a self-professing Christian leader like Sweet should be warning the church about them. A brief look at these three “New Light” leaders and their teachings will make this very clear.

Willis Harman (1918-1997)

Willis Harman is listed as one of the most influential Aquarian/New Age conspirators in Marilyn Ferguson’s The Aquarian Conspiracy. Harman was a social scientist/futurist with the Stanford Research Institute and one of the chief architects of New Age thinking. He wrote the book Global Mind Change:The New Age Revolution in the Way We Think. A review by The San Francisco Chronicle on the front cover of the book reads: “There never has been a more lucid interpretation of New Age consciousness and what it promises for the future than the works of Willis Harman.”22

Matthew Fox (1940- )

Another one of Sweet’s self-described “role models” and “heroes” is Matthew Fox, a former Catholic priest who was dismissed from the Catholic church for openly professing heretical New Age teachings—teachings that include those of his revered mentor, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Fox, like Teilhard, teaches that all of creation is the “Cosmic Christ”—therefore the Cosmic Christ is “in” everyone and everything. In his book The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, Fox writes: “Divinity is found in all creatures.”23 and “We are all royal persons, creative, godly, divine, persons of beauty and of grace. We are all Cosmic Christs, ‘other Christs.’ But what good is this if we don’t know it.”24 Leonard Sweet actually credits Fox in a footnote in Quantum Spirituality for inspiring Sweet’s own description of the “cosmic body of Christ” and actually refers readers of Quantum Spirituality to Fox’s New Age book The Coming of the Cosmic Christ.25

M. Scott Peck (1936-2005)

M. Scott Peck, the late psychiatrist and best-selling author of The Road Less Traveled, is another one of the “role models” and “heroes” that Leonard Sweet cites in his book Quantum Spirituality. The Road Less Traveled was on the New York Times best-seller list for over ten years. In a subsection of his book titled “The Evolution of Consciousness,” Peck describes God as being “intimately associated with us—so intimately that He is part of us.”26 He also writes:
If you want to know the closest place to look for grace, it is within yourself. If you desire wisdom greater than your own, you can find it inside you . . . .To put it plainly, our unconscious is God. God within us. We were part of God all the time.27
When Matthew Fox’s The Coming of the Cosmic Christ was published in 1988, the lead endorsement on the back of Fox’s book was written by M. Scott Peck. Peck and Fox were obviously in New Age agreement. Peck, like Fox and Sweet, describes Pierre Teilhard de Chardin in glowing terms. He describes Teilhard as “[p]erhaps the greatest prophet” of the “mystical,”  evolutionary leap that will take mankind toward “global consciousness” and “world community.”28 And it is this mystical New Age Christ of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Willis Harman, Matthew Fox, M. Scott Peck, and Leonard Sweet that challenges biblical Christianity today.

4) Leonard Sweet thanks New Age Leader David Spangler for helping him develop his Quantum Spirituality’s “new cell understanding of new light leadership”

If we want to possess a magic crystal for our New Age work, we need look no further than our own bodies and the cells that make them up.29—David Spangler, 1991
I am grateful to David Spangler for his help in formulating this “new cell” understanding of New Light leadership.30—Leonard Sweet, 1991
In his “A Response to Recent Misunderstandings,” Leonard Sweet states: “Because I quote someone does not mean I agree with everything that person ever wrote.” He goes on to say that “Some of the quotes I chose were meant to provide contrasting positions to my argument, some to buttress my argument, some even to mock my argument. The key consideration to whether I quoted someone was not ‘Do I agree with them?’ but ‘Does this quote energize the conversation?’ ‘Guilt by association’ is intellectually disreputable and injurious to the whole body of Christ.” But there is a big difference between “guilt byassociation” and “guilt by promotion.” Leonard Sweet is praising, thanking, and glorifying many of these New Age leaders—hardly guilt by association, especially when Sweet writes:
I believe these are among the most creative religious leaders in America today. These are the ones carving out new channels for new ideas to flow. In a way this book was written to guide myself through their channels and chart their progress. The book’s best ideas come from them.31
Ironically, one of the “channels” guiding him was an actual New Age channeler—David Spangler. A pioneering spokesperson for the New Age, Spangler has written numerous books over the years. His book The Revelation: The Birth of the New Age is a compilation of channeled transmissions that he received from his disembodied spirit-guide “John.” At one point in the book, Spangler documents what “John” prophesied about “the energies of the cosmic Christ” and “Oneness”:
As the energies of the Cosmic Christ become increasingly manifest within the etheric life of Earth, many individuals will begin to respond with the realization that the Christ dwells within them. They will feel his presence moving within and through them and will begin to awaken to their heritage of Christhood and Oneness with God, the Beloved.32
In a postmodern-day consultation that bears more than a casual resemblance to King Saul’s consult with the witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28), Leonard Sweet acknowledges in Quantum Spirituality that he was privately corresponding with New Age channeler David Spangler. Sweet even thanks Spangler for assisting him in forming his “new cell understanding” of “New Light leadership.”33 But as believers we are to “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness.” Rather than thanking them, we are to reprove and expose them (Ephesians 5:11).

(5) Misapplication of Quantum Physics: Trying to Draw Spiritual Truth From Physical Theory

Leonard Sweet—just like New Age leaders—tries to use Quantum Physics to prove that God indwells his creation.
The coming together of the new biology and the new physics is providing the basic metaphors for this new global civilization that esteems and encourages whole-brain experiences, full-life expectations, personalized expressions, and a globalized consciousness.34—Leonard Sweet, SoulTsunami
When we experience such a quantum of transformation, we may simultaneously feel that the whole of the New Age is happening right now, that we are on the verge of overnight transformation—the fabled quantum leap into a new state of being.35—David Spangler, Reimagination of the World
We have the epitome of a great science . . . quantum physics . . . Everyone is God.36—New Age Channeler J.Z. Knight, What the Bleep Do We Know
In his book The Tao of Physics: An Explanation of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism, New Age physicist Fritjof Capra describes the union of mysticism and the new physics. He wrote “this kind of new spirituality is now being developed by many groups and movements, both within and outside the churches.”37 As an example of how this “new spirituality” is moving into the church, he actually cites one of Leonard Sweet’s “role models” and “heroes”—Matthew Fox.38
When Sweet refers to the new biology and the new physics as metaphors, he stretches these “metaphors” to the position of being actual fact. From his understanding of quantum physics, he asserts that all things are composed of energy and that this quantum energy must be God, hence God is embodied in all things. Yet, this metaphor falls on its face when we learn from Paul’s writings that God and creation are two separate things as is illustrated in chapter one of Romans: “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator” (Romans 1:25). Paul further exposes the error of spiritualizing physical creation showing that all things are not God, nor are they even spiritual. As he points out, the “earthy” is only temporary and will be done away with:
So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption . . . There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. . . .  As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. . . . Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. (1 Corinthians 15:42, 44, 48, 50)

Leonard Sweet and Rick Warren’s “New Spirituality”

In their 1995 joint presentation The Tides of Change, Leonard Sweet and Rick Warren had a quantum conversation as they discussed “waves,” “quantum metaphors,” “revival,” and what they were calling—even back then—a “New Spirituality.” Sweet told Warren:
Yeah, this is a wave period. I really love that metaphor of the wave and the wavelength. First of all, it is a quantum metaphor. It brings us out of the Newtonian world into this new science.39
Quantum waves, quantum wavelengths, quantum metaphors—all leading to a universal Quantum “God” and the Quantum New Age “Christ” of a New Spirituality, a New Worldview, and ultimately a New World Religion—a New World Religion that will be based on New Age teachings that have been labeled scientific but are, in reality, “science falsely so called”:
Laying up in store for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life. O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: Which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen. (1 Timothy 6:19-21)

Conclusion

Teilhard de Chardin, Leonard Sweet, and an ever-growing band of New Age sympathizers would have us believe that all those who preceded us in the faith were unable to “see” the big picture, because, after all, they didn’t have access to all the new scientific discoveries that we have today—scientific information that would have helped them gain the new spiritual understandings that Leonard Sweet claims to have acquired.
In that vein, Leonard Sweet, Rick Warren, and other Christian leaders are now teaching that God is in the process of bringing a new “Reformation”40 and a “great spiritual awakening” to the church. Sweet writes: “God is birthing the greatest spiritual awakening in the history of the church.”41 Yet this new reformation and great awakening Sweet heralds, is falsely founded on his hybridized New Age Christianity with its “radical doctrine of embodiment of God in the very substance of creation.”42 Ironically, while Sweet—as previously mentioned—encourages “a daily ritual” of standing in front of a mirror affirming “God is God and I am not,” he at the same time tells people that, as a part of creation, God is embodied in them. He also encourages people to be “nudgers.” He says “nudgers are not smudgers of the divine in people.”43 “Nudgers help people discover their “inner Jesus.”44
When the true Christ was asked what will be the sign of his coming and the end of the world, He said, “Take heed that no man deceive you.”(Matthew 24:4)—that many false prophets would arise and deceive many (Matthew 24:11). He specifically warned us to beware of false prophets who come in sheep’s clothing. He said we would know them by their fruits.
Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? (Matthew 7:15-16)
We must exhort one another daily. We must continue to preach the Word and not fall prey to those who would diminish the Word with their worldly wisdom, clever stories, metaphors, and false teachings. The Bible and our Lord Jesus Christ always have been and always will be sufficient for all our needs.
Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. (2 Timothy 4:2-4)
Regarding Leonard Sweet’s “radical doctrine of embodiment of God in the very substance of creation,” Jesus warns:
Ye hypocrites, well did Esaias prophesy of you, saying, This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.45 (Matthew 15: 7-9)
To order copies of Leonard Sweet—A More Magnificent Way of Seeing Christ?, click here. 
Endnotes
1. Leonard Sweet, SoulTsunami: Sink or Swim in New Millennium Culture (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1999), p. 28.
2. Warren B. Smith, A “Wonderful” Deception: The Further New Age Implications of the Emerging Purpose Driven Movement (Magalia, CA: Mountain Stream Press, 2009), p. 106.
3. Alice A, Bailey, The Reappearance of the Christ (New York, NY: Lucis Publishing Company, Lucis Press, Ltd., 1948), 1996, p. 150.
4. Benjamin Creme, The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom (London, England; The Tara Press, 1980), p. 88.
5. Leonard Sweet, SoulTsunami, op. cit., p. 28.
6. Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality: A Postmodern Apologetic (Dayton, OH: Whaleprints for SpiritVenture Ministries, Inc., 1991, 1994), p. 125.
7. Leonard Sweet, SoulTsunami, op. cit., p. 304.
8. Leonard Sweet, Nudge:Awakening Each Other to the God Who Is Already There (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 2010), p. 157.
9. Ibid., p. 40.
10. Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, op. cit., p. 106.
11. Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in the 1980s (Los Angeles, CA: J.P. Tarcher, Inc., 1980), p. 50.
12. Ibid., p. 25.
13. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Christianity and Evolution (New York, NY: Harcourt Brace Jovanivich, Inc., 1971), p. 56.
14. Ibid,. pp. 219-220.
15. Ibid,. p. 128.
16. Ibid,. p. 95.
17. Ibid,. p. 78.
18. Ibid,. p. 130.
19. Leonard Sweet, Aqua Church: Essential Leadership Arts for Piloting Your Church in Today’s Fluid Culture (Loveland, CO: Group Publishing, Inc., 1999), p. 39.
20. Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola, Jesus Speaks: Learning to Recognize & Respond to the Lord’s Voice (Nashville, TN: W Publishing Group, an imprint of Thomas Nelson, 2016), p. 85.
21. Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, op. cit., p. viii.
22. Willis Harman, Global Mind Change: The New Age Revolution in the Way We Think (New York, NY: Warner Books, 1988), front cover.
23. Matthew Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ: The Healing of Mother Earth and the Birth of a Global Renaissance (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row Publishers, 1988), p. 154.
24. Ibid., p. 137.
25. Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, op cit., pp. 124, 324.
26. M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1978), p. 281.
27. Ibid.
28. M. Scott Peck, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1988), pp. 205-206.
29. David Spangler and William Irwin Thompson, Reimagination of the World: A Critique of the New Age, Science, and Popular Culture (Santa Fe, NM: Bear & Company Publishing, 1991), p. 62.
30. Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, op. cit., p. 312.
31. Ibid., p. ix.
32. David Spangler, The Revelation: Birth of A New Age (Elgin, IL: Lorian Press, 1976), p. 177.
33. Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, op. cit., p. 312.
34. Leonard Sweet, SoulTsunami, op. cit., p. 121.
35. David Spangler and William Irwin Thompson, Reimagination of the World, op. cit., p. 126.
36. What the Bleep Do We Know (DVD) (20th Century Fox, 2004, http://www.whatthebleep.com), transcribed by author.
37. Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics: An Explanation of the Parallels Between Modern Physics and Eastern Mysticism (Boston, MA: Shambhala Publications, Inc., 1999), p. 341.
38. Ibid.
39. The Tides of Change (A 1995 audio presentation with Leonard Sweet and Rick Warren that was part of an ongoing series called “Choice Voices for Christian Leadership,” distributed by Abington Press). On file with publisher.
40. Leonard Sweet, SoulTsunami, op. cit., p. 17.
41. Ibid., p. 34.
42. Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, op. cit., p. 125.
43. Leonard Sweet, Nudge, op. cit., p. 31.
44. Ibid., p. 40.
45. Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, op. cit., p 125.

To order copies of Leonard Sweet—A More Magnificent Way of Seeing Christ?, click here. 
Related Reading:
Be Still and Know That You are Not God!—God is Not “in” Everyone and Everything

HOROWITZ ON HUCKABEE DISCUSSING "THE DARK AGENDA TO DESTROY CHRISTIAN AMERICA"

HOROWITZ ON HUCKABEE DISCUSSING: 
"THE DARK AGENDA TO DESTROY CHRISTIAN AMERICA"

Freedom Center founder compares arrogant Dems to the serpent in the Garden of Eden

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/273261/horowitz-huckabee-discussing-dark-agenda-destroy-frontpagemagcomrepublished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
In the video below, Freedom Center founder David Horowitz joins Mike Huckabee on his show to discuss his new book, Dark Agenda: The War to Destroy Christian America. Horowitz compares the arrogant and seductive Democrats to the serpent in the Garden of Eden. Don't miss it! [Order Dark Agenda: HERE.]
And make sure to watch David Horowitz discuss his new book at his recent appearance at the Freedom Center's Wednesday Morning Club.
Transcript: 
Readers of my new book “Dark Agenda” might wonder how an agnostic Jew and ex-radical came to write about the war to destroy Christian America. Once I recognized the destructive character of the radical movement I had been part of forty years ago, I began a re-examination of everything I and my comrades had thought about the system we had set out to destroy.
In the course of this inquiry, I had a kind of epiphany. Thinking about the unalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, which even radicals cherished, I realized that these rights were only unalienable because they were given by a Divinity - by God. If they were granted by government, then government could take them away.
It was a simple idea to understand but not so simple to embrace. Even though I was an agnostic, I had to face the fact that without a belief in God, or respect for such a belief, these rights could not exist. Without respect for believers and their belief, without respect for the Christians who created this country, our most cherished rights would have no foundation and could not be defended.
And that was just the beginning of my second thoughts. Ninety-eight percent of the people who settled and created America were protestant Christians fleeing religious persecution. Every element of our democracy – pluralism, inclusion, diversity, equality and protection for minorities - is Christian in origin, and more specifically a direct product of the Protestant Reformation.
The Reformation was a revolt against the authority of the Catholic Church whose role until then was mediator between God and His creatures. Before the Reformation no salvation was possible outside the Church and its priesthood. The reformers advanced two fundamental doctrines: “the priesthood of all believers” and “salvation by faith.”
“Salvation by faith” was the belief that we are such flawed creatures none of us deserves salvation, which can only be granted by God’s grace. This is the idea behind the checks and balances put in place by America’s founders who understood the dangers posed not only by the popular majority but by government itself, whose agents were as prone to the sins that lead to injustice as those whom they governed.
But the truly revolutionary protestant idea was “the priesthood of all believers.” It meant that every one of God’s creatures faced their Creator directly, without a mediator, and therefore that all human beings were equal in the eyes of God, and had to be treated equally by government, which existed to serve them.
This is the idea that made America the world leader in abolishing slavery, in empowering women, and in creating a society that was inclusive and diverse. In the protestant view, no Church was raised above others, no pope or priest or minister had the authority even to define what Christianity was, and neither could the state. That was left to the individual and his or her conscience.
Because the protestants who settled and created America were fleeing persecution by religions that had been established by the state, the American Founders made religious liberty, the first liberty and the foundation of all our other liberties.
The title of my book is Dark Agenda: The Left’s War to Destroy Christian America. In the last sixty years, the anti-religious, anti-American left has conducted a relentless assault on believers and their beliefs, suppressing religious liberty, stripping the public square of religious expression and memory, and in the process removing the underpinnings of our democratic order. What inspired me to write this book was the realization that the left’s hatred of Christianity is also its hatred for America itself.
The year 2008 marked the opening of a new $621 million Visitor’s Center adjacent to the U.S. Capitol. It was designed to serve as an informational museum about our republic. When it was opened, however, all references to God and the religious faith of the founders had been systematically edited out of its photos and historical displays. The lengths to which the designers went in their zeal to expunge religion were both extreme and petty:
  • An enlarged image of the Constitution, for example, was photo-shopped to remove the words, “In the Year of Our Lord” above the signatures of the signers.
  • The nation’s official motto was alleged to be E Pluribus Unum, when in fact it is, “In God We Trust.”
  • Even a replica of the Speaker’s rostrum in the House of Representatives omitted the gold-lettered inscription of the nation’s actual motto, because of its reference to a divinity.
It is not just visitors to the nation’s capital who have had God and religion airbrushed out of our nation’s founding. Thanks to a series of corrupt Supreme Court decisions beginning in 1962, children in the nation’s public schools are denied knowledge of the religious origins and foundations of our nation and its freedoms. Outrageously, because of the Court’s decisions this knowledge is now denied to our school children by the Constitution itself.
In 1986, a study of 60 textbooks used by 87% of public school children noted that, “the Pilgrims are described entirely without any reference to religion. Thus, the textbooks describe how at the end of their first year they ‘wanted to give thanks for all they had,’ which was the first Thanksgiving. But no mention is made of the fact it was God they were thanking…. The Pueblo Indians can pray to Mother Earth – but the Pilgrims can’t be described as praying to God. And never are Christians described as praying to Jesus.”
The study sums up its findings in these words, “There is not one story or article in all these books, in approximately 9-10 thousand pages, in which the central motivation or major content derives from Christianity or Judaism.”
If you don’t know where you come from, how do you know where you are going?
This is why the assault on religion has created a national crisis in our country, dividing us into warring camps whose fundamental views are not only in conflict, but irreconcilable.
The first Supreme Court decision banishing religion from the schools and eventually the public square occurred in 1962 and is known as Engel v. Vitale. Engel was a founding member of the New York chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, a radical organization hostile to America and its religious foundations. The ACLU suit objected to a 23-word non-denominational prayer devised by the New York Board of Regents which said, “Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence upon Thee, and we beg Thy blessings upon us, our parents, our teachers and our country. Amen.”
For 170 years, prayers had been regular features of public schools, without a single constitutional challenge. Now Engel and his team claimed that this innocuous prayer violated the establishment clause of the First Amendment, which banned the state from establishing an official religion.
At the Supreme Court, seven unelected, appointed-for-life lawyers decided by a 6-1 vote in favor of the radicals. In his lone dissent, Justice Potter Stewart pointed out the hypocrisy of his colleagues whose sessions still began with the invocation, “God Save the United States and this Honorable Court.” The idea that a 23-word non-denominational prayer established a religion was transparently absurd, but 6 unelected justices decided it wasn’t.
The Greek scientist Archimedes famously said, “Give me a lever and a place to stand, and I will move the earth.” In the Supreme Court, a radical minority had found a lever that would circumvent the democratic process and allow them to change the world.
There were many democratic solutions available to the prayer issue. If atheists felt excluded by the non-denominational prayer, they could have petitioned the Regents, or the school board, or their elected officials to find a way to accommodate non-religious children. But as radicals they weren’t interested in the democratic process. They had found a branch of government which could change the practices of a nation overnight, make the new practices the fundamental law of the land, and do it for all fifty states at once.
How radical and anti-American were the plaintiffs who shaped America’s future through the leverage of the Supreme Court? The following year, America’s most notorious atheist, Madalyn Murray O’Hair, brought a parallel but far more influential ACLU suit to the Supreme Court claiming that school Bible readings violated the establishment clause.
Murray was the founder of Atheists of America. Life Magazine called her, “The Most Hated Woman in America.” She embraced this epithet to position herself as a victim. In fact, she was a deceitful manipulator of public opinion, who went so far as to blame Christians for the fatal heart attack her aged father suffered only hours after she had assaulted him over his morning coffee with these words: “I hope you drop dead. I’ll dump your shriveled body in the trash.”
Just prior to launching her anti-prayer campaign, Murray took her family to Europe where she tried to defect to the Soviet Union. Seeing what a troubled individual she was, the Kremlin rejected her. When she returned to the States and prepared to position her son as a victim of intolerant Christians, she asked him what he felt about the prayers at his school. He told her he didn’t mind them, to which she responded: “Don’t you understand what is going on yet?... The United States is nothing more than a fascist slave labor camp run by a handful of Jew-bankers in New York City…. The only way true freedom can be achieved is through the new socialist man…. Russia is close but not close enough or they would have let us in.”
The Russians were smart enough to see that Murray was a malicious crackpot, but not the U.S. Supreme Court, which, with one lone dissent, voted to impose her will on all Americans, and thereby suppress religious liberty, which is the foundation of all our freedoms.
The next two Supreme Court decisions engineered by the radicals were even more fraudulent. They led directly to the profound chasm in our society today. The fraudulent legal argument was common to both cases, but it was the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that led to the nation-breaking political divisions that confront us today.
The suit was the work of the lawyers at Planned Parenthood and the ACLU, whose support had been enlisted by a chapter of the radical Sixties organization, Students for a Democratic Society at the University of Texas. Once again, the radicals chose to by-pass the democratic-legislative process to invoke the tyranny of 9 unelected, life-appointed lawyers, who voted to make the right to kill children in the womb the fundamental law of the land.
The “legal” basis for Roe was an imaginary constitutional “right to privacy,” invented by Planned Parenthood lawyers to justify their radical agendas. Even if the Constitution contained a right to privacy – and it does not –  the decision made no sense. As Justice Rehnquist said in dissent, there is nothing private about an abortion.
Nor are restrictions on abortions attacks on a woman’s right to choose. Unless she is a victim of rape, a woman makes a series of choices before arriving at the decision to kill a child – first to have sex, then with whom to have sex, then to have unprotected sex or to not use the day after pill. All these take place before a woman reaches the point where she makes a final choice: whether to go through with the birth and find her child an adoptive mother or kill it.
Roe v. Wade represented a fundamental break from the existing fabric of American life. It was imposed overnight, in every community in the country, and without the consent of the inhabitants of those communities who - according to the Constitution – were supposed to be sovereign.
This tyrannical, fraudulent Supreme Court decision split the nation in two. Its assault on traditional communities led directly to the creation of the religious right. Until Roe, the evangelical community had been wary of political involvements, but this unconstitutional assault on its communities thrust it into politics out of sheer concern for its self-defense.
The Moral Majority, Focus on the Family and the American Family Association - all pillars of this movement - were formed directly in the wake of Roe v. Wade. When the Democratic Party embraced Roe, it led to the wholesale defection of its Catholic base and shifted the party dramatically to the left. On the right, Roe prompted Catholics and evangelical protestants to unite in a political force that first elected Ronald Reagan and then Donald Trump.
The venom of liberals towards religious people is the product of a derangement parallel to their hatred both of Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump. It is manifest in the attacks on religion by the New Atheist movement whose spokesmen have accused religion of “poisoning everything” and whose leading voice, Richard Dawkins, has written, “Religious ideas are irrational. Religious ideas are dumb and dumber; super dumb.” Dawkins’ contempt for believers is the same wackiness we see in the claims that President Trump is a “white supremacist,” a “Russian agent,” and “unfit for office.” Every creator of the scientific revolution – Pascal, Galileo, Newton, Copernicus, even Darwin – believed in a Divinity and was inspired by this belief. Dumb? Really?
Why is the left at war with religious Christians? For the same reason leftists are at war with America, the democracy Christians created on the basis of Christian ideas.
Christians believe in the uniqueness and sanctity of the individual soul; they believe in free will, and they believe in “original sin” - in the flawed nature of human beings. It is our flawed nature that makes the utopias of the left – communism, socialism, social justice – impossible to achieve, and monstrous to pursue,
Free will means that individuals are accountable for their actions, not races and genders, as the social redeemers claim. Leftists, so-called liberals, progressives, communists, social justice zealots - all are reactionary adherents of the 4th Century heresy named after its author, Pelagius, a Christian monk. The Pelagian heresy is the most destructive ideology in all of human history.
Pelagius believed that people are born good, and that the sins they commit are against their true nature. Therefore, he believed that if people would only be true to their nature, resist temptation, and be good Christians, they could create heaven on earth, and do it without a divine intervention or grace.
Progressives are the modern followers of Pelagius. They believe that people are born good and that society makes them bad (as though society was not a reflection of the people who create it). Therefore, if people will just be true to their nature, if they will choose to be politically correct – or if the state can coerce them into being politically correct – we can achieve a world of perfect equality, justice and peace. These are the same seductive lies that led to the murder of more than 100 million people in the last century. They were killed because they stood in the way of totalitarian perfection, and were therefore condemned as politically incorrect.  
Pelagius’ antagonist was St. Augustine, who was in a way the godfather of modern conservatism. Augustine argued that sin is integral to human nature, that we all share in Adam’s original sin: wanting to know evil as well as good, aspiring to be god-like and create new worlds. This is why human beings corrupt movements for social change and government as surely as they corrupt society. Because it is human nature to corrupt. It is human corruption, which dooms all utopian schemes that aim to repair and redeem the world - a feat that only a Divinity could accomplish.
The battle we face today is one episode in a war as old as creation itself. It is a war that arises out of the human spirit, which is born to evil, but which is also capable of great beauty and great good. Our battle is for our lives and the lives of our children, and for this great country which is unique among the nations, and worth saving.


PASTOR SAYS CLAYTON JENNINGS SENT "NUDES" TO 16 YEAR OLD; POLICE NOTIFIED

PULPIT ABUSER
PASTOR SAYS CLAYTON JENNINGS SENT "NUDES" 
TO 16 YEAR OLD; POLICE NOTIFIED
SEE: https://pulpitandpen.org/2019/03/21/pastor-says-clayton-jennings-sent-nudes-to-16-year-old-police-notified/;  republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
Clayton Jennings – once billed as “the new Billy Graham” – had his career as an itinerant evangelist scuttled when Pulpit & Pen began to report the accounts of various women who provided testimonies of his deep sexual problems and perceived spiritual abuse. A licensed minister of Harbor Shores church in Noblesville, Indiana, Jennings became a Facebook and Instagram icon, where he posted his ‘Spoken Word’ videos extolling Jesus and himself.
However, the evidence against Clayton was incontrovertible. Taking careful precaution not to expose the identities of these brave young women, we forwarded the screenshot and audio evidence to independent publications who could verify our reporting. We also sent the evidence to Jennings’ elders, who revoked his ministry license and ended his father’s professional relationship with the church (his father knew about his son’s use of the ministry as a means to sexually prey upon naive young women but chose not to act). Soon, Jennings’ mentor, Tony Nolan, announced that Jennings was leaving the restoration process, primarily because Jennings didn’t want to leave social media and work on his repentance. Penguin Books pulled his forthcoming book. Other forthcoming projects were canceled. Jennings had fallen among the ranks of other famous evangelists who were not walking what they were talking.
Catching us by surprise several weeks ago, Jennings began to threaten and intimidate the victims who had come forward, and told them if they did not recant he would release information about them, alluding to sensual photos and personal identities. Jennings held true to his promise, and ‘doxed’ his victims one by one, stating their names and employers and showing photos he used to claim they were “sluts” who entrapped him.
Of course, Pulpit & Pen is aware of many more women with similar stories, who simply didn’t want their stories put out there for Jennings to ruthlessly attack.
Jennings also began to attack me personally, as well as some of my other investigative journalists like Seth Dunn, and began to threaten death to anyone who continues to [report the facts regarding his debauchery]. Jennings repeatedly challenged me to fight him, claimed he was coming to my state to hunt “big fat game” (that would be me) and issued an actual death threat on Instagram, for which the FBI was notified. He went on to do a Spoken Word video in which – after using nearly every form of profanity known to man and repeatedly bragging about his genitals – claimed multiple times that my wife thinks about him when we make love. He even made threats to my children before stopping to say, “ah-hah, just kidding” in a dubiously devilish way.
Jennings has weaponized his million or so social media followers by convincing them that I am a “bully” (enlisting the help a disgraced and now defunct evangelical charlatan who has been brought down by his own scandals, Ergun Caner) and that someone out there had somehow threatened his wife and daughter (screenshots or evidence from Clayton have not been presented). Even pronouncing himself a ‘defender of women,’ Jennings tried to enlist the help of the #churchtoo movement to defend his actions and help attack the victims of his abuse (it didn’t work).
In his most recent videos, Jennings shows clear anger toward God, says he doubts the Bible and doubts Jesus, and credits the rap artist, Eminem, with teaching him more about God than the church.
Part of this metamorphosis seems to be the result of Hunter Frederick, a Hollywood public relations expert who works for disgraced evangelical celebrities (Frederick also works for Perry Noble) and some suggest that Frederick now works for Jennings. Someone with an IP from Noblesville, Indiana set about to hack the P&P website and Jennings’ victims’ personal computers and accounts, which is something we’ve attributed to Frederick in the past.
Denouncing the title ‘minister’ and so publicly going over to the dark side of profanity, anger, and celebration of sin, along with the doxing of his victims has been referred by many as the “Clayton Jennings Meltdown.”
It began to make more sense when we discovered that even more women – at our count, approximately 8, came forward with more recent stories of clergy sexual misconduct. Although Jennings might dismiss such women as “whores” and “sluts” who entrapped him, the sheer volume of women that Jennings has taken advantage of under the title of “preacher” is overwhelming.
Jennings rushed to make Spoken Word poems confessing different misdeeds as soon as we first reported them. After writing about his drug use, Jennings admitted it. After recent women had come forward, Jennings admitted to adultery during his marriage. After we wrote about nude photos floating around (and the threat that he would release the nude photos of others), Jennings admitted it in a Spoken Word a day or so later.
Jennings’ endless confessions (which his fans say means that he’s “real” and “transparent”) only come after it’s been written about here at this news site.
However, the real reason for Jennings’ “all or nothing” meltdown seems to be his awareness that the law is getting closer and closer to prosecuting him for acts that are criminal. Until recently, the bulk of his misdeeds have been in the realm of morality rather the legality. Yesterday, things seem to have changed. Parents began to post on Jennings’ Instagram:
That comment was soon deleted by Jennings. However, some came forward in person.
A North Carolina pastor has stepped forward to acknowledge that Jennings (age 32) has sent photographs of his genitalia to an underaged, 16-year-old girl in his congregation. He spoke about Jennings, the nude photos, the young girl, and how law enforcement is now involved in the situation on his radio broadcast, Brutal Planet.
You can listen below.
Jennings admitted to sending ‘nudes’ in his “anti-bullying” video (replete with lots of bullying of innocent victims) entitled “Death to Bullies,” at about the 27.23 mark. Jennings did not say that his nudes were sent to or solicited from minors.
Proper legal authorities have been notified and are taking appropriate legal action.
For Jennings’ fans currently being weaponized to attack this publication or the innocent women he doxed, bullied, and blackmailed, grasp the reality that this has been done to deflect from the reality that Jennings is not a hero of bullies, but is the bully. Jennings is now allegedly caught for ‘sexting’ underaged girls. And according to reports, those girls’ parents are going after him hard and pursuing every legal avenue for the prosecution to the fullest extent of the law.
Looking back, it makes so much more sense now. Jennings, facing possible prison time, knew he had nothing to lose and so he threw all the intimidation he could muster at the press outlet that reported his abuse (including very public death threats) and the women who had come forward, all in an attempt to intimidate those who had yet to come forward.
In a moment of desperate panic, it appears that Jennings threw away his ‘ministry’ in a heartbeat (but not his fame) in order to say the vulgar things necessary to intimidate his victims in a hail-Mary attempt to save his freedom. If he could successfully bully news sites and victims to recant or not come forward, he had a chance at covering up his misdeeds.
It didn’t work. In the end, it may just be a 16-year-old alleged victim of Clayton Jennings who will be his undoing.
How fitting. The women who already bravely came forward did so under the belief there were even younger, more vulnerable girls who would be abused by Jennings if his behavior didn’t stop. As Jennings has ruthlessly attacked them in recent days, it seems that one of those younger, more vulnerable girls is the one who will finally and bravely end this sordid affair.
Hopefully, honest surveyors of the situation can now see what Jennings has attempted to do. He has attempted to rebrand himself as a women’s advocate and victim advocate and painted the truth-tellers as “bullies,” all the while being an abuser and predator of women who very likely will end up behind bars.
Please pray for Clayton Jennings that he will respond appropriately to this news, and serve as no threat to himself or others.
[Editor’s Note: Although P&P or our investigators have spoken to certain other women who have come forward through the Pastor, we have not spoken to this particular victim, believing that it is best to leave the matter up to professional counselors and advocates who are most able to help minors]
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JENNINGS: "DEATH TO BULLIES" VIDEO: