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Part 7: The Emerging
Quantum
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Emphasis added in bold letters |
“[I]f you look at the
metaphysical situation, there is
a continental drift… the
metaphysical center of the earth
today… [is] India.
“North America… is moving
towards the Far East. You see
that not only in the California
phenomenon, but in the new
religious movements in America
— enchantment with all kids of
Far Eastern practices — the
idea of developing the two sides
of the brain simultaneously
which has for many years been
obvious to the Easterners….
“Well, what then could be a
transformed society? We are very
impressed. We have links with
people who are looking at these
areas…. We have
established…contact with
people who are thinking about a
transformed society and they are
exemplified by the Stanford
Research Institute where there
is a little group that’s called
the Social Science Research Unit
and its led by a man you have in
your prospectus here,
Willis
Harman. He is an engineer and he
thinks about the future image of
man so he’s looking at some very
fundamental changes….
“I don’t
say that science would become
the new god. It would be the
thing that man looked at for the
future…. I’m back to the
California school… man wants
to be… at the center. He wants
to have a renewed image of
himself. And the California
school feels that the next 30
years or hundred years is going
to be a period in which we’ll
restore this balance of
inward man and outward man…. What we
now must do is to try and look
at the science paradigm that is
deep in our system… and try
and harness inward man to
outward man.”– E.V.
Newland, Evangelicals Face the
Future**
“[W]e must think new thoughts
about the eternal gospel. I don’t
want to get in trouble in suggesting
that we change the gospel, but that
we ask ourselves: How can the old,
old
story be told in new, new ways
to face the new, new realities?…
“I think we need to wrestle, in the
light of what Mr. Newland has said
tonight, with a new theology that
takes in the whole person…. And I
find myself more and
more…believing that one of the
great untouched frontiers of
theology are the first two chapters
of the book of
Genesis….
“Christians ought to be on the
frontier of discovering that may
help us in the work of God to
recover some of the things that
human beings were capable of before
sin entered the world…. Is there
something in E.S.P.?”– Gordon
MacDonald’s Response to E.V.
Newland, Evangelicals Face the
Future***
The Spiritualization of Science
The futurists of the 1960s and 1970s
were characterized by their zeal to create
alternative future scenarios. They had
their own eschatology mankind could
rewrite its destiny. Science and technology
could save man from his own certain
destruction. And they believed that the
formation of a global system of
governance, using state-of-the-art
technological, psychological and
sociological
methods of
human control, could create a better
planetary society.[19]
They began to work hard at
shifting the paradigm; shifting the
focus from reason to relationships, from
rational thinking to mysticism, from
science to metaphysics. They also began
to imagine that they could create a
better man.The New Age movement was directly connected
to these early futurists.
Marilyn Ferguson described this fact in
her 1980 book
The
Aquarian Conspiracy:
Personal
and Social Transformation in the 1980s
(J.P. Tarcher). She suggested that altered
states of consciousness would provide the
vehicle with which to re-mold beliefs and
shape new values. There were
mystical ways to facilitate the
collective emergence of
a new mind (p. 45), she wrote.
Mysticism would enable people to be more
easily anesthetized to accept change, i.e.,
transformation. But mysticism needed to
become science.
Willis Harman,[20] a leading futurist who was working in
this arena, described it this way:“This emerging trans-modern worldview,
involves a shift in the locus of authority
from external to inner knowing. It has
basically turned away from the older
scientific view that ultimate reality is
fundamental particles, and trusts
perceptions of the wholeness and spiritual
aspect of organisms, ecosystems, Gaia and
Cosmos. This implies a spiritual reality,
and ultimate trust in the authority of the
whole. It amounts to a reconciliation of
scientific inquiry with the perennial
wisdom at the core of the worlds spiritual
traditions. It continues to involve a
confidence in scientific inquiry, but an
inquiry whose metaphysical base has shifted
from the reductionist, objectivist,
positivist base of the 19th- and
20th-century science to a more holistic and
transcendental metaphysical foundation.” [21]The early futurists began reinventing
science so that it would become a sort of
spiritual alchemy. They experimented with
the human brain and psychedelic drugs in
their drive to alter human consciousness in
hopes that it would further the evolution of
the species. Willis Harman was even
involved in researching the cognitive and
societal effects of LSD consumption.[22]
This may explain a strange comment by modern
Emergent Phyllis Tickle: There is a clear
tragectory from
Timothy Leary straight to the Great
Emergence and our current disorientation
about what exactly consciousness is and we
are (p. 98)Pastor DeWaay delves into the
pseudo-scientific philosophical foundation
of the Emergent movement in Chapter 9 of his
book
The
Emergent Church: Undefining Christianity,
where he discusses
Ken Wilbur and his
integral movement. It is beyond the
purview of this brief report to examine the
Emergent revival of metaphysics in detail,
but it is a fact that many New Age leaders
have been attempting to create a
quantum spirituality[23]
for some time. And, there has been
significant crossover into the evangelical
realm for decades, especially via the
activities of
John Marks Templeton.[24]
This drive for a new science is inextricably
connected with the concept of evolution and
eschatology. De Waay succinctly describes
this heresy:“Evolution
is Spirit manifesting itself in emerging
levels of complexity and awareness. The
reason evolution makes sense in this scheme
is that either God is in the creation (panentheism)
or that creation is a manifestation of God
(pantheism).” (p. 185)New Age leader
Barbara Marx Hubbard was an early
futurist who articulated a similar view of
quantum evolution in her 1993 book
The
Revelation. This book is her own
rendition of a new order of the future (p.
63) in which science and technology are a
vital part of the [Teilhardian]
noösphere and the planet itself is
evolving toward a quantum leap towards
conscious evolution.[25]
Supplanting the Bibles book of Revelation,
she spoke in
her
book of Revelation of a coming Quantum
Instant of Quantum Transformation, which
will be an evolutionary selection process
based on your qualifications for co-creative
power, and which would create A New Heaven
and a New Earth.[26]
There would be no Armageddon, just a
Planetary Pentecosta great Instant of
Cooperation.She claimed that the prophecy
of John [in Revelation] can be avoided
altogether.[27]
This would be the gentle Second Coming of
Christ through rapid evolution.[28]
This is not unlike Emergent leader
Brian McLarens eschewal of what he
terms the
jihadist Jesus of the Second Coming.[29]
Furthermore, in Hubbards utopian future
there would be an integration of science and
technology with this metaphysical evolution.
She claimed that there are evolutionary
capabilities of the human race space
exploration, genetics, longevity research,
psychic powers, artificial intelligence,
nanotechnology, atomic power
co-operating with God to build a New Earth,
and New Heavens.[30]
In brief, Hubbards utopian future bears a
striking similarity to the
eschatology of the Emerging Church of
today, a fact which raises serious
questions.
Evangelicals Face the Future
At the top of today’s post are several
quotations that come from the first
Consultation on Future Evangelical
Concerns held in Atlanta, Georgia late in
1977. The references to the California
Group and the Stanford Research Institute
pertain directly to
Willis Harman. There was a subsequent
Consultation held a year later in Overland
Park, Kansas where Willis Harman was
actually invited to make a presentation on
the topic of
A Utopian Perspective on the Future.
The papers presented at these two
consultations were published in two books.[31]
These Consultations were attended by
mainstream evangelical leaders of high
repute, and they were sponsored by the Billy
Graham Center at Wheaton College.
Willis Harman’s presentation to the
evangelical leaders called for a new
science, which he had termed noetic
science, a
Gnostic science, based on his research
into the paranormal and the human brain. He
listed such things as hypnosis, remote
viewing, precognition, psychokinesis and
psychic phenomena. He called for more
scientific research into the the world of
inner experience, meaning
psychic phenomena. All this could create
a future utopia:“This new ‘noetic’ science would eliminate
the apparent contradiction between the
experiential understanding of Hindu, Moslem,
and Christian. For the first time in history
we see emerging a growing, progressively
funded body of empirically established
experience about mans inner life
particularly about the perennial wisdom of
the great religious traditions and
Gnostic groups. For the first time there
is hope that this knowledge can become the
living heritage of all mankind.”
[32]Man’s
mind and his spiritual inner life,
were being connected to the experiential
understanding of Eastern religions,
perennial wisdom and Gnosticism. The
remarks at the beginning of this post
indicate that certain evangelical leaders
were already adopting this worldview, and
were even suggesting that theology needed to
be
reformulated to accommodate this
noetic science. Willis Harman’s remarks to
evangelical leaders were basically left
unchallenged. In the years to come, many
of the evangelical leaders who attended
these Consultations would go on to work on
inventing new theologies. They initiated
projects that would re-shape Christian
theology into these futuristic and esoteric
images of man and his destiny. It is no
wonder that Emergent leaders today, such as
Phyllis Tickle, can boldly announce that the
paradigm has now shifted, that evangelicals
are standing at the threshold of The Great
Emergence which is nothing less than an
evangelical convergence with New Age
spirituality.
Conclusion
This brief article just barely skims the
surface of many substantial research topics
pertaining to the Emergent movements
history and theology. In the months to come
the Discernment Research Group will be
writing on these topics. Pastor Larry
DeBruyn is currently publishing a scholarly
theological refutation of the quantum
spirituality concept which will be
distributed via Discernment Ministries.To understand more of the history and
theology of the Emerging Church movement,
Pastor Bob DeWaays book
The
Emergent Church: Undefining Christianity
is a useful resource. We are particularly
pleased with its references to Dr. Francis
Schaefferthe book analyzes the Emergent
movement within the context of the
postmodern existential escape from reason.
DeWaay has taken care to defend the Gospel
against these heresies at every juncture.
The book is scholarly, well-organized and
easy to read.
The Truth:
“And a stranger
will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they
know not the voice of strangers.” (Luke 10:5)
Endnotes:19. See Ervin Laszlos A
Strategy for the Future: The Systems Approach to World Order
(George Braziller, 1974). Also see this post:
http://herescope.blogspot.com/2005/10/peter-drucker-early-futurist.html
20. Willis Harman was invited to speak as a presenter at the
second Evangelical Consultation on the Future in the late
1970s. A series of Herescope posts in September and October
2005 covered this topic in detail (follow links). Harman’s
esoteric viewpoints were not refuted; in fact the second
consultation was set up in such a way as to prohibit this.
See footnote 31.
21. This quote appears in a Herescope post published May 20,
2009
http://herescope.blogspot.com/2009/05/spiritualization-of-science.html
summarizing a paper published by Dr. Martin Erdmann that
provides substantial historical documentation for this
topic. It is entitled The Spiritualization of Science,
Technology, and Education in a One-World Society and is
published in the European
Journal of Nanomedicine (2009 Vol. 2:31-38)
http://www.clinam.org/journal/index.php/NanoJournal/article/view/.7/33
22. Abstract, ibid. To understand the full context of the
brief remarks in this article pertaining to this topic of
Willis Harman, see Dr. Erdmann’s complete article. Also see
Herescope posts September and October 2005 which discuss in
detail Willis Harman’s influence over evangelical leaders in
the late 1970s, including his advocacy of a new metaphysical
science paradigm. See footnote 31.
23. Emergent leader Leonard Sweet authored an intellectually
incomprehensible book called
Quantum Spirituality: A
Postmodern Apologetic (SpiritVenture, 1991), which
exemplifies the Emergent heretical beliefs being talked
about in this article. Note that Bob DeWaay warns that I
find that Emergent Church leaders do their best not to be
understood, suggesting that being clever, coy,
contradictory, or even provocative is a better way to help
people emerge from old categories of thought into new,
synthetic ones (p. 10).
24. The enormous weight of facts backing this statement will
be the topic of future Herescope posts, Lord willing.
25. Barbara Marx Hubbard,
The Revelation: Our Crisis is a Birth (Foundation for
Conscious Evolution, 1993), p. 30, 31, 43. Warren Smith, in
his book Reinventing Jesus
Christ: The New Gospel (Conscience Press, 2002),
first exposed this womans crossover New Age/New
Spirituality agenda, her frightening selection process,
and her futuristic Armageddon Alternative.
26. Ibid, p. 101, 103, 111.
27. Ibid, p. 147, 162.
28. Ibid, p. 165.
29. See these two Herescope posts:
http://herescope.blogspot.com/2008/03/brian-mclaren-to-speak-at-world-future.html
&
http://herescope.blogspot.com/2008/11/coming-kingdom.html.
McLaren wrote in his book
Everything Must Change (p. 146) that: “The Jesus of
one reading of the Apocalypse brings us to a grim
resignation: the world will get worse and worse, and finally
this jihadist Jesus will return to use force, domination,
violence, and even torture – the ultimate imperial tools –
to vanquish evil and bring peace.”
30. Ibid, p. 171.
31. Evangelicals Face the
Future: Scenarios, Addresses, and Responses from the
“Consultation on Future Evangelical Concerns” held in
Atlanta, Georgia, December 14-17, 1977, Edited by
Donald Hoke (William Carey Library, 1978).
An Evangelical Agenda: 1984
and Beyond:
Addresses, and Responses from the “Consultation on Future
Evangelical Concerns” held in Overland Park, Kansas,
December 11-14, 1979 (William Carey Library, 1979).
The Discernment Research Group first broke this story in
September 2005 in a series of posts that ran into
October 2005. One can look through the posts to read
more details about these consultations.
http://herescope.blogspot.com/2005_09_01_archive.html
and
http://herescope.blogspot.com/2005_10_01_archive.html
32. An Evangelical Agenda:
1984 and Beyond, Willis Harman,
A Utopian Perspective on the Future, pp. 27-37.
Part 1: The Emerging Church – Circa 1970
Part 2: Early Experimental Emergents
Part 3: Retro Emergent
© 2009 by Discernment Group
Source article:
http://herescope.blogspot.com/2009/07/quantum-eschatology.html
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*Index to other articles by Discernment Group
Emerging “Christianity” – Part 1