Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; (1Timothy 4:1)
Wouldn’t you, the reader, agree that when the Spirit of God speaks expressly (very distinctly) that all of mankind should listen intently and obey promptly? You do? Well, why then are some of the adorable and highly respected men and women in our beloved country disobeying God’s urgent warning and happily departing from the faith to listen to and proclaim the lies of Satan and his demons? Could it be that they are not saved or perhaps they are real Christians who merely have fallen into apostasy because they just love to rebel against God? Please bear in mind that Paul refers to THE faith and not A faith. It is the only faith (doctrine) that saves; no other faith is capable of procuring eternal redemption for lost souls. And yet these so-called men and women of God have no qualms whatsoever to set aside THE doctrines of THE faith and to present mankind with doctrines that are not of God which Paul, the real gentleman that he was, expressly (very distinctly) calls doctrines of devils. Are you going to reprimand Paul and say to him “Paul, you have no right to accuse our most esteemed Transformational Architects of giving heed to seducing spirits. It is not politically correct to trace their teaching to devils. In our culture and society is is more humane and politically correct to say, as Stephan Joubert has said in the past, that there is truth in all religions, not only the Christian faith. In fact, Paul, it is no longer THE faith but only A faith amongst many others that are equally important to listen to and pay your respect.” No!, said Paul, these impostors must be silenced because they are upsetting whole families by teaching things they ought not to teach (Titus 1:11).
Do you recognize the men and women in the following slideshow? You should because they are all in the vanguard of changing the face of Christianity in South Africa and throughout the world.
What are doctrines of demons? How do we distinguish between the doctrines of devils and the doctrine of Christ? Why is it so important to discern acutely between doctrines of devils and the doctrine of Christ? Why are so many esteemed spiritual leaders in South Africa and throughout the world wading ever deeper into the muddy pools of the doctrines of devils?
The main reason why it is imperative to train ourselves in discernment is because it is not always so easy to distinguish between the doctrines of devils and the doctrine of Christ. If the children of God were immune to the doctrines of demons Jesus would never have warned them against the possibility of being deceived (Matthew 24:4). Brother Paul also warned against false prophets and teachers and their subtle deception in his second epistle to the Corinthians.
For such are false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness; whose end shall be according to their works. (2 Corinthians 11:13-15)
First of all, the solemnity of being caught up in erroneous doctrines and its dire consequences for those who cuddle up to them is made apparent in several passages in Scripture. Consider for a moment the following:
Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds. (2 John 1:9-11)
As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed. (Galatians 1:9)
Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. (Jude 1:3-4)
But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. (2 Peter 2:1)
Satan and his demons are at their most dangerous when they inspire their false prophets to masquerade as apostles and teachers of Christ and to infiltrate the church by stealth. This has been going on since the institution of the church at Pentecost and will continue exponentially until Christ returns at his Second Coming. But why does God allow it to happen? Why doesn’t He just protect his children against the false apostles and prophets? One of the reasons, I believe, is to test his children with the purpose of purifying their faith and their love for Him.
If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, And the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them; Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. (Deuteronomy 13:1-3).
Moses presents two diametrically opposed persons in the above passage — those who hearken or listen to false apostles and those who do not. Jesus said:
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out. And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers. (John 10:1-5)
My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: (John 10:27) (Emphasis added)
In all of the more than 40 years as a saved person I have come across many “Christians” who say that we should set aside our petty doctrines for the sake of, peace, unity and mutual love.
You can watch the YouTube video here.
Did you hear that? Have you listened very closely to what oom Angus says in the above video? Did you notice the oxymoron? He actually said: “We will serve the Lord by setting aside the petty doctrines of Jesus Christ.” He could just as well have said: “We will serve our country and our fellowmen by putting aside the constitution and the laws of our land.” Wow! now that is what I call Mighty Men guts and grit. What does God’s doctrine say?
Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Mat 5:19-20)
The irony is that, while oom Angus calls for the setting aside of petty doctrines, he is holding the book of God’s doctrine, commonly known as the Bible or God’s Word, in his hand. Although he cannot be classified as an Emergent Church adherent his video is an excellent metaphor of the EC’s strategy which is to hold God’s Word in the hand while their lips proclaim things that are totally at variance with it’s teachings. In any case, paradoxes are one of the EC’s pet idols.
Is there anyone who can encourage oom Angus to watch the following video?
Listen very carefully to Luther’s words in the embedded YouTube clip:
“. . . who have afflicted the Christian world and ruined the bodies and souls of other men. If I were to retract those I shall be like a cloak that covers evil.”
You can watch the entire YouTube video here.
There are many so-called men of God who think it a minor thing to set aside biblical doctrines for the sake of peace and harmony whilst they indifferently don cloaks that cover evil and in doing so ruin the bodies and souls of men, women and children.
The motive, therefore, is not that the population of South Africa (white, black, colored and Indian) should be reconciled to God through Jesus Christ but that peace should prevail throughout the country — at what cost? Well, of course, at the cost of setting aside our doctrinal issues. Neither you nor your “aside-setting-of-doctrinal-issues-brethren” will be able to say as Joshua did in Joshua 24:15 “but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” if you disregard God’s doctrines. You can only serve the Lord with all your heart when you love and obey His doctrines. Isn’t that what Jesus taught us?
No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon. (Luke 16:13).
There is no such thing as neutrality in your servitude — you are a servant of either the one or the other. Likewise, there can be no neutrality in your servitude to doctrine, simply because there are but two kinds of doctrines – the doctrines of God and the doctrines of demons. It is impossible to set aside any doctrines; you will either adhere to the one while setting aside the other. You are only replacing the one set of doctrines with that of another. Whenever you set aside God’s doctrines you are merely replacing it with the doctrines of Satan and his demons and whenever you set aside or renounce Satan’s doctrines you are similarly replacing it with God’s doctrines. You cannot possibly live in a vacuum void of any doctrines. It is either the one or the other. You cannot be neutral. Even when you claim to have no doctrines at all you are actually clinging to a doctrine of Satan and his demons because he alone proclaims the lie that there are no doctrines. In fact, it is like saying there are no laws in our country. To say that we should set our petty doctrines aside is equal to saying: “let us put the laws in our country aside.” Can you imagine what chaos, anarchy and bloodshed would envelop our entire country when that should ever happen?
They are listening to the voices of strangers and these strangers are not human beings but none other than demons who encourage and motivate them to spread their devilish doctrines. Their plea for peace, unity and love may seem to promote a horizontal kind of love but it certainly does not enhance a vertical love toward God, simply because they are ruling out the proof for one’s love for God which is in the observance of the doctrine of Christ (John 15:10; 2 John verse 9). In fact in their endeavor to promote unity and love they are echoing the very same sentiments of the New Age.
Mass actions are organised in which large groups of people congregate on fixed times and at particular places for co-ordinated meditation sessions. The aim with these meetings is to focus cosmic energy on a country or society that badly needs peace, unity and harmony. This practice is regarded to be most effective if it is performed at one of the strong focal points for cosmic energy. Among these places are Table Mountain in Cape Town, Stonehenge in England, the Egyptian pyramids, the Olympus Mountain in Greece, the Ganges River in India, Mount Fuji in Japan, and Central Park in New York. (Read here) (Emphasis added).
Jesus said:
If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. (John 15:10).
It follows that if our vertical love relationship with God is sustained by our love for and obedience to his precepts (commandments, doctrines) our horizontal love relationship with our brothers and sisters will also be sustained by our love for and obedience to his precepts.
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God, and keep his commandments. (1 John 5:2)
We cannot possibly claim to have an agape love relationship with God and our brethren if we do not observe and obey his doctrine. Anyone who claims to love God and their brethren and seeks peace with everyone whilst they willfully set aside so-called petty biblical doctrines is not in love with God or their brethren. They may take the Name of Jesus Christ on their lips ad infinitum and reverently speak of his crucifixion and his resurrection but if they do not remain in his doctrine they don’t have God the Father or the Son (2 John verse 9).
We may conclude that the very first doctrine Satan and his devils devised to deceive mankind is a “love” doctrine that looks and sounds so much like the real thing, the result being that a multitude of saints are continually falling into their trap. This false love has given rise to a new rallying cry which you may have noticed on the internet many times: “The first Reformation was about belief; this one’s going to be about behavior. . . . The first one was about creeds; this one’s going to be about our deeds.”[1] (Rick Warren). Whose deeds are they — “our deeds” as Warren says or are they the deeds of devils?
Partakers of their evil deeds
From this point onward I would like to focus your attention on the words “For he that bids him God speed is a partaker of his (the false teacher’s) evil deeds” (2 John 1:11).
In one of his recent comments (“Confessions of un-faith”) Stephan Joubert wrote the following:
Today everybody reads Richard Dawkins. Skeptics quote Stephen Hawking. Un-faith is the in-thing! Un-faith wins. People believe in un-faith to set them free from faith. Or something like that.
Having read this over and over and trying to understand how Stephan Joubert manages to say things without knowing what his fellow Christ-followers are saying on their website at the same time, I can only shake my head in complete amazement. He seems to be completely oblivious of some of the things Dries Cronjé has been promulgating on their website. To show you what I mean I am going to replace the names Richard Dawkins and Stephen Hawking with three others in Stephan Joubert’s above quote:
Today everybody reads Eckhart Tolle. Skeptics quote Richard Rohr and Cynthia Bourgeault. Un-faith is the in-thing! Un-faith wins. People believe in un-faith to set them free from faith. Or something like that.
What is the difference between reading Richard Dawkins, Stephen Hawking and Eckart Tolle? — Zilch, nada, nothing, zero. They are all hooked on doctrines of demons. The e-church fraternity claim to be radical followers of Jesus Christ but they don’t seem to have any qualms at all to promote and speak very highly of Christ-rejecters and Christ-gainsayers. Here is what Dries Cronjé says on the e-church website:
So, what’s good reading lately…?
I have tremendously enjoyed the following books recently:
Everything Belongs by Richard Rohr
A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle
Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening by Cynthia Bourgeault.
Let us now briefly look at some of the things Cronjé enjoyed so tremendously in the books of the above mentioned authors.
Eckhart Tolle
“God, the scripture is saying, is formless consciousness and the essence of who you are.”— Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (Penguin, 2005), p. 21). (Emphasis added).
This is nothing else than the New Age teaching that we are all God and that you only need to become aware of it. Tolle says:
“Awareness is the power that is concealed within the present moment. . . . The ultimate purpose of human existence, which is to say, your purpose, is to bring that power into this world.” — Eckhart Tolle (A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose). (Emphasis added)
And who or what does he say is that power you are supposed to bring into the world?
“Don’t get attached to any one word. You can substitute ‘Christ’ for presence, if that is more meaningful to you. Christ is your God-essence or the Self, as it is sometimes called in the East. The only difference between Christ and presence is that Christ refers to your indwelling divinity regardless of whether you are conscious of it or not, whereas presence means your awakened divinity or God-essence.” — Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment (Novato, CA: Namaste, 1999), p. 104.(Emphasis added).
An admirer of Eckhart Tolle wrote the following comment on Oprah Winfry’s website.
Posted on Apr 9, 2008 6:01 PM
Last monday nights show, at the end, when oprah was just kinda talking with eckart about himself, left me thinking about how so spiritual he is, and that i will be able to grasp and use some of the teachings, but not to the level at wich he’s at, It made me come to a possible awareness that could this be our jesus (sorta speak) here now but in a diffrent form?, isnt what eckhart is teaching just trying to help us all in the same way jesus did when he was alive? - just a thought, whats yours?
This, my dear friends, is the essence of the heretical teaching of the Emergent Church called Incarnational Spirituality. It doesn’t require you to preach the Gospel or to teach others to observe and obey Christ’s doctrines (Matthew 28:19-20). All you need to do is to ooze forth your God-essence or Christ-essence into the world and voila — a new golden age of peace and joy and prosperity will emerge.
The following excerpt was taken from “The Great Heretical Idea: Oprah and Eckhart Do the New Age Shift” by Warren Smith.
The “shift” Williamson, Oprah and Tolle describe is “awakening” to the “Christ within” and the “God within.” “Shift” is the key word. It means to move from one position to another – as in shifting one’s awareness away from the mind and “ego” to the collective “Christ consciousness” or “Christ within.”
. . . Marilyn Ferguson [in her “”The Aquarian Conspiracy”) introduced this concept of the “shift,” connecting it to the mystical ideas of Teilhard de Chardin – the father of the New Age movement – “whose new perspective would trigger a critical contagion of change” which would result in the “rapid transformation of the human species, beginning with a vanguard” of emerging leaders. She explained how scientist-philosopher Thomas Kuhn coined the term “paradigm shift” to describe “a distinctly new way of thinking” which entailed accepting new truths. When “the new paradigm gains ascendance” and “a critical number of thinkers has accepted the new idea, a collective paradigm shift has occurred.”
. . . In both his book and his class with Oprah, Tolle reiterated the words that New Age leader Barbara Marx Hubbard was given by her New Age “Christ” – “evolve or die.”[ Tolle, A New Earth, p. 21. Barbara Marx Hubbard lecture at Texas A & M University, September 11, 2002, information taken from The Aggie Daily, September 12, 2002. Warren Smith, Reinventing Jesus Christ: The New Gospel (Ravenna, OH: Conscience Press, 2002), pp. 16, 19.] In other words, don’t feel any pressure, but if you don’t “shift” your point of view, and “get it” that “we are all one” and that “we are all God,” our planet will probably be destroyed and our human species will become extinct.
Ron Martoia
Like his New Age counterparts Ron Martioa, one of today’s most esteemed transformational architects,2 places a lot of emphasis on the necessity for awareness. However, his approach is more subtle and dangerous because he uses the biblical term “Metanoia” (Repent) to deceive his readers and followers into receiving the doctrines of demons. In his manifesto “The Transformational Trek Tribe” Martoia also speaks about a “New Earth” but he deceptively calls it “The Kingdom of God.” Not unlike Tolle whom he adores, he too claims that a huge shift in our consciousness is necessary.
To us Jesus says, “Wake up, change your mind, change your little thinking and start to waken to a bigger world out there. There is an invisible new reality you are going to engage and it is full of a new kind of life.” In the modern world in which we live this type of thinking will require a pretty big shift. (Emphasis added)
. . . You are part of something bigger than yourself. So why not engage practices that put you in touch with that bigger reality? Why not touch it, feel it, sense it and experience it?
. . . Jesus’ invitation #2 is into this bigger reality where the life of God is all around us, animating all that is and inviting us in to enjoy it! Again we will not be believing our way into this reality – we will be practicing and experiencing it. No bible studies or small group meeting will help. But practices designed to bring us awareness about that larger invisible reality will! Want to be a part of something that changes the game? That is what this tribe is all about . . . living, experiencing, sensing, and being! (Emphasis added)
Ron Martoia is actually saying “Faith in Jesus Christ and his immutable doctrine is OUT. Experiencing, sensing and being is IN.” What are the practices designed to bring about a metanoic awareness (a bigger mind) and to experience and sense the larger invisible reality? How do you become a part of something that changes the game and how do you determine who may partake in the “pretty big shift” in consciousness. In the very last paragraph of his manifesto Ron Martoia gives the answer:
Grow the tribe – pass the manifesto you just read to anyone on your mailing list that you think would be interested in this journey… or print it out and give it to them. There has to be at least a dozen you can think of. Their religious or lack of religious affiliation does not matter at all. This tribe will be composed of all sorts of people, many considering themselves spiritual but not religious.
This explains why Ron Martoia says that “we will not be believing our way into this reality – we will be practicing and experiencing it. No bible studies or small group meeting will help.” Faith in Christ Jesus, his cross and the Bible is a stumbling block to peoples’ of other faiths and the irreligious but spiritual people. So there must be another way we can assemble peoples’ of all faiths into one big united and loving tribe — MEDITATION!. Yep! MEDITATION in all its various formats, i.e. contemplative prayer, meditation (insight meditation), stillness and even yoga, is supposedly the doorway that leads to God’s Kingdm on earth here and now where people of all religious persuasions may partake of the benefits of the new golden age as one united tribe.
There is absolutely no difference between Ron Martoia, his e-church buddies in South Africa and New Agers who follow Eckhart Tolle’s teachings.
Cynthia Bourgeault
Author of many books and a teacher at retreats throughout the USA, Cynthia Bourgeault of the Episcopalian Church, has had a profound influence on the Emerging Church. Like so many others in the emergent fold who boast that their contemplative and spiritual architectural expertise is changing the face of Christianity, she too claims that, in reference to the incarnation of Christ: “Unfortunately Christianity as a religion has never had a metaphysical understanding of its own truth.” By “metaphysical”4 she simply means that Christianity has remained bogged down by its cerebral and propositional understanding of the Scriptures, thus bypassing the real meaning of the word “metanoia” (repent) which you can only grasp through meditation.
Whatever form of meditation you practice, it is in essence simply a method for detaching yourself from thinking (which tends to reinforce the egoic process) long enough for you to begin to trust this other, deeper intelligence moving inside you. It provides you with another way to think: from “beyond the mind” — which, incidentally, is what the word metanoia, usually translated as “repentance,” actually means.— Cynthia Bourgeault, Mystical Hope
The “deeper intelligence” moving inside you is not the “higher self” or “the real essence of your own godhood” (aka Eckhart Tolle) which you encounter when you do your metanoiac meditations. They are demonic entities with whom you come into contact when you deliberately shut down your divinely given faculty to think and reason actively and not passively. Passivity brought about by stillness or any form of meditation is very dangerous. In fact, most of the doctrines of demons are transmitted or channeled through meditation.
The following excerpt comes from an article written by Douglas Groothuis, professor of philosophy at Denver Seminary and the author of several books, including ”Unmasking the New Age” and “Confronting the New Age.”
Differences in various forms of Eastern meditation aside, they all aim at a supposedly “higher” or “altered” state of consciousness. Meditation guides claim that normal consciousness obscures sacred realities. Therefore, meditation is practiced in order to suspend rational patterns of thought.
This helps explain why so many Eastern mystics claim that divine realities are utterly beyond words, thought, and personality. In order to find “enlightenment,” one must extinguish one’s critical capacities—something the Bible never calls us to do (Rom. 12:1-2). In fact, suspending our critical capacities through meditation opens the soul to deception and even to spiritual bondage.5
The following excerpt from Cynthia Bourgeault’s book “The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind—A New Perspective on Christ” is a classic example of how demons feed willing channels with their doctrines:
Who Screwed Up?
Unfortunately, Christianity as a religion has never had a sufficient metaphysical understanding of its own core truth. The message gets obscured by its primary interpretive vehicle: the theology of fall and redemption. Virtually all Christian teaching begins from the supposition that Jesus’s incarnation is brought about by the fall of Adam and happens in response to it. “As in Adam all died, so in Christ shall all be made alive” is the classic Pauline formulation of this idea (1 Corinthians 15:20). The primordial parents Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit and plunged the world into chaos; Jesus came to rescue it. Thus, incarnation is framed from the start within the context of God’s response to a mistake that should never have happened in the first place. This assumption, in turn, deeply colors our understanding of the phrase, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son.” It sounds like: “God didn’t give up on us; God bailed us out.”
In a more mystical nuancing of this same basic idea, we encounter the theology of “O felix culpa”—”O happy fault“— to quote the first line of a traditional Gregorian Advent hymn which expresses this theology particularly clearly. Rather than blaming Adam and Eve, this line of argument claims, we ought to be grateful for them because their mistake set in motion the chain of events through which Christ would fully reveal himself to this world. Without that initial fall there would have been no need for the redemption. In the most subtle versions of this teaching (as in Karl Barth’s Christ and Adam) linear cause and effect are reversed, and we see Adam and Eve falling into this space/time continuum out of God’s “prior” decision (that is, already made in eternity) to reveal himself in human form. Rather than being the cause of the fall, Adam and Eve become the instruments of the ultimate divine self-communication. This is a much more affirmative teaching, which brings the theology of fall and redemption to its most mature expression.6 (Emphasis added)
Indeed, there would have been no need for redemption but the reversal of the linear cause and effect, making the Fall something to be grateful for, elevates the original sin of Adam and Eve to something which ought to be embraced. It mollifies the destructive nature of mankind’s original sin. We find the same kind of reasoning in Romans 5 and 6 where Paul had to nip it in the bud.
For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. Moreover the law entered, that the offence might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound: That as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein? Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. (Romans 5:19-21; 6:1-4).
To suggest that God foreordained Adam and Eve to fall into sin so that they may not be seen as the cause of the Fall but rather as instruments of God’s grace, is not of God.
Apart from her doctrinal blunders, Cynthia Bourgeault is also an ecumenist par exemplar. I found the following information on a blog that confirms her ecumenical slant.
I’m back from Birmingham and the weekend with Cynthia Bourgeault. . . .Bourgeault remarked early on that it is the contemplatives (i.e., the wisdomkeepers) of all traditions who carry the best hope for humanity rising above sectarianism and fundamentalism and the violence that such levels of consciousness engender. In other words, it is the contemplatives and the wisdomkeepers who will not only break down the walls of hostility and fear and misunderstanding which separate Christianity from Islam or Islam from Judaism, but they are also the ones whose visionary consciousness will erase the boundaries that keep Chrsitianity and neopaganism so at odds. . . .
Bourgeault recommended a few authors/books: the writings of Kabir Helminski, Michael Brown’s The Presence Process, and even Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now.
It was a wonderful weekend. Lots of meditation; . . . Next year Contemplative Outreach Birmingham is bringing one of the founders of Centering Prayer, Fr. William Meninger OCSO, to Birmingham for their February conference. I hope to be there.
Indeed, Christianity and neo-paganism are finding a comfortable niche in contemplative spirituality and meditation, simply because the source that inspires them to journey on the same path of destruction is the very same person who plunged the world into chaos in the beginning of time.
One of the most devastating lies ever to be concocted by demons is the suggestion that Jesus had a physical relationship with Mary Magdalene and that they had a daughter. Dan Brown’s film The Da Vinci Code brought the lie to the broader world’s attention when it was released in 2003. Cynthia Bourgeault speaks very highly of it in her book “The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind—A New Perspective on Christ.” According to her the West has tainted May Magdalene’s character by portraying her as a repentant prostitute from whom Jesus cast out seven demons. Bourgeault continues by saying:
But scholars have conclusively demonstrated that this picture of her is a medieval fabrication, largely attributable to the sixteenth century theologian and pope St. Gregory the Great.7
In her final analysis she concludes that “Jesus practiced a path of chastity, of full singleness and purity of heart” “ . . . [b]ut whether that involved a dimension of physical celibacy, we simply do not know.” (pp.79, 80).
These are the doctrines of demons Stephan Joubert and Dries Cronjé promote on their website. May God have mercy on their souls and may they come to a true biblical repentance before they die.
(1) http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/05/peace-un.htm#2
(2) “God brings along insightful and visionary leaders to put us back on track. Leaders who bring with them new visions and new containers for formation and transformation. I believe Dr. Ron Martoia is just such a leader. Through his deep, and sometimes sacred-cow shattering, honest engagement with scripture, culture and humanity, I believe that Ron has truly earned the title of Transformational Architect. His newest container, the Transformational Trek Tribe (ttTribe), is a perfect example of how he can pull together a wealth of resources from a wide field of studies and apply them to the goal of transformation in and through Jesus. I had been looking for a way for my Pastoral Staff to share resources and share some sort of common thread of learning, affirmation and challenge. Then along came the ttTribe…”— Christian McCabe, Bahamian artist, musician, and pastor.
“Ron’s style is not to skirt around thorny issues, but to approach them head on, thoughtfully and meticulously deconstructing the facts from the fiction. His work is well researched, extremely well written, but what sets it apart from other such excellent texts are his ideas! … [The ttTribe Manifesto] is only 12 pages long, but perhaps these are among the best 12 pages I’ve read this year … I will be making this required reading for my students!”— Dion Forster, South African author and leader.
“For years several of us have been talking about creating state-of-the-art learning opportunities for emerging and re-emerging leaders, but Ron Martoia has taken the lead in moving beyond talk to creative action. Any chance you get to be around Ron, I encourage you to take it. The kinds of people he brings together are exactly the kinds of people who make for a truly liberating and educating learning community.”— Brian McLaren, author of Finding Our Way Again, The Secret Message of Jesus, and A New Type of Christianity.
(3) There is an invisible reality out there but it is definitely not new. It has been in existence since the beginning of time and is occupied by Satan and his demons (Ephesians 2:2).
(4) Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind-A New Perspective on Christ, p 94:
(5) Copyright © 2004 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.November 2004, Vol. 48, No. 11, Page 78
(6) Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind-A New Perspective on Christ, p 94, 95.
(7) Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus: Transforming Heart and Mind-A New Perspective on Christ, p 81:
