Deceived on Purpose

Excerpts from


Deceived on Purpose

The New Age Implications of the Purpose-Driven Church

 


by Warren Smith

Conscience Press, Ravenna, Ohio, 2004

Distributed solely
by Discernment Ministries, P.O. Box 254, High Bridge, NJ 08829–0254

Phone: 903–567–6423    Website:
http://www.discernment-ministries.com

  


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From Chapter 1 –  The Purpose-Driven
Life

 

…The first time I encountered Rick Warren was in the
spring of 2002, in a book entitled From the Ashes: A Spiritual
Response to the Attack on America. The book was a collection
of articles, written by a wide variety of “spiritual
leaders” and “extraordinary citizens,” published in response
to the events of September 11, 2001. Proceeds from the book
were to go to the families of the 9/11 victims. I remember
being intrigued by the fact that Christian leaders found themselves
included in a book that also featured many familiar
New Age leaders. Articles by Billy Graham, Bruce
Wilkinson, Charles Colson, Max Lucado, Bill Hybels, Jerry
Jenkins, Bishop T.D. Jakes and others were side by side with
articles written by prominent New Age leaders like Neale
Donald Walsch, the Dalai Lama and Starhawk the witch. I
was not familiar with the man simply listed as “Pastor Rick
Warren.”…

 

New Age leader Neale Donald Walsch’s
article appeared
just pages from Bishop T.D. Jakes’ opening article. In his
article, Walsch challenged religious leaders everywhere including
Rick Warren, Billy Graham, and every Christian
leader in the book—in light of the events of September
11th—to accept and preach the “new gospel” that “We are
all one.” After erroneously claiming that the Bible supports
the idea that “We are all one,” Walsch wrote:

“We must change ourselves. We must change the beliefs
upon which our behaviors are based. We must create a different
reality, build a new society…. We must do so with new
spiritual truths. We must preach a new gospel, its healing
message summarized in two sentences: We are all one. Ours is not a better way, ours is merely another way.
This 15-word message, delivered from every lectern and
pulpit, from every rostrum and platform, could change everything
overnight. I challenge every priest, every minister,
every rabbi and religious cleric to preach this.”3

I remember reading this and realizing how brazen the
New Age was getting, and how deceptively appealing the
idea of “Oneness” must sound to a terrified humanity still
wondering when the next disaster might strike. What a clever
way to present New Age teachings to a vulnerable world.

 

But I was also thinking what a great opportunity it was for
Christian leaders—particularly in this book—to contend for
the faith by exposing the New Age teachings that were behind Walsch’s seemingly
“positive” exhortation. In Walsch’s
bestselling Conversations with God books, in which he purports
to have actual “conversations with God,” Walsch’s
“God” specifically defines what he means by the “new gospel”
teaching that “We are all One.” “God” tells Walsch:
God is creation.”4 …

 

But even with all of these open threats and challenges
to biblical Christianity, most Christian leaders today continue
to generally ignore almost anything having to do with
New Age teachers and teachings. …

 

 

From Chapter 3 –  What Message?

“’As above, so below; as below, so above.’
This maxim implies that the transcendent God
beyond the physical universe and the
immanent God within ourselves are one.” 1
Ronald S. Miller and the editors of New Age Journal


As
above, so below

 

Eugene Peterson’s The Message seems to be very important
to Rick Warren. It is the first Bible version that he quotes in
The Purpose-Driven Life. He cites it at the bottom of his dedication
page. He cites it again on the page that precedes his
first chapter. He uses quotes from The Message to open and
close his first chapter. Five of the six Scriptures that Rick
Warren cites in his first chapter all come from The Message.
Even the title of the first chapter, “It All Starts with God,”
is taken from The Message paraphrase of Colossians 1:16,
which appears right under the chapter heading.

“For everything, absolutely everything,
above and below,
visible and invisible, …everything got started in him and finds
its purpose in him.”2

The King James translates Colossians 1:16 as follows:
For by him were all things created, that are in heaven,
and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be
thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things
were created by him, and for him:

 

It wasn’t Peterson’s use of the phrase “got started” instead
of “created,” or even the word “purpose,” that jumped
out at me, as much as his use of the phrase “above and below”
instead of “heaven and earth.” When I was in the New
Age, it was well understood that the words “above and below”
had metaphysical/New Age connotations and were
routinely substituted for “heaven and earth.” In fact, the
term “as above, so below” was a commonly accepted New
Age phrase.

 

In reading through
The Message, I discovered that
Peterson had actually inserted the entire phrase “as above,
so below” into his paraphrase of the Lord’s Prayer. I compared
Peterson’s version of the Lord’s Prayer with the King
James Version of that same prayer.

 

The Message:
“Our Father in heaven,
Reveal who you are.
Set the world right;
Do what’s best—
as above, so below.
Keep us alive with three square meals.
Keep us forgiven with you and forgiving others.
Keep us safe from ourselves and the Devil.
You’re in charge!
You can do anything you want! You’re ablaze in beauty!
Yes. Yes. Yes.”3 [Emphasis added]
 

 

Peterson had deliberately substituted “as above, so below”
in place of “in earth, as it is in heaven.”

 

In Colossians
1:16, Peterson again chose to use the terms “above” and
“below” instead of the commonly accepted “heaven” and
“earth” found in most Bible translations. The “above” and
“below” in Colossians 1:16 is an obvious derivative form of
the “as above, so below” he had used previously in his paraphrase
of the Lord’s Prayer. This derivative form of the more
complete phrase “as above, so below” is also common to the
New Age. The fact that this whole “above” and “below” issue
was presenting itself on the first page of the first chapter
of Rick Warren’s book was unsettling. Was I reading too
much into this? Was there some other reasonable explanation
for Eugene Peterson’s use of the term “as above, so below”
in the Lord’s Prayer and its derivative form in
Colossians 1:16?

 

King James Bible:
“Our Father which art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
in earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory, for ever.
Amen.” [Emphasis added]
 

 


Ancient Egypt and Oneness

 

Right about the time I was looking into Eugene
Peterson’s use of the term “as above, so below,” I was at a
book sale at our local library. Almost lost amongst some cookbooks
and business manuals was a book written and published
by the editors of the New Age Journal. It was entitled
As Above, So Below. I picked it up and began reading it. In
the introduction the chief editor of the book, Ronald S.
Miller, had written:

“Thousands of years ago in ancient Egypt, the great
master alchemist Hermes Trismegistus, believed to be a contemporary
of the Hebrew prophet Abraham, proclaimed this
fundamental truth about the universe: “As above, so below;
as below, so above.” This maxim implies that the transcendent
God beyond the physical universe and the immanent
God within ourselves are one. Heaven and Earth, spirit and
matter, the invisible and the visible worlds form a unity to
which we are intimately linked.4

He continued his explanation by quoting Sufi scholar
Reshad Field.

…“‘As above, so below’ means that the two worlds are instantaneously
seen to be one when we realize our essential
unity with God…. The One and the many, time and eternity,
are all One.”5

The New Age Journal editor went on to state that old
forms of religion no longer serve people, and that the term
“as above, so below” describes the “emerging spirituality”
that is quickly moving onto the world’s scene. He concluded
his introduction to As Above, So Below by writing:
“The breadth of this exploration suggests that we are
living in an age of spiritual reinvention, a transitional age
that leaves the safety and security of the known to seek out
the new, the untested, the possible.”6

 

Moving from the library book sale to the Internet, I put
“as above, so below” into the Google search engine to see
what would come up. There were countless references. The
very first reference listed by Google for “as above, so below”
read:

“This phrase comes from the beginning of
The Emerald
Tablet and embraces the entire system of traditional and
modern magic which was inscribed upon the tablet in cryptic
wording by Hermes Trismegistus. The significance of this
phrase is that it is believed to hold the key to all mysteries.
All systems of magic are claimed to function by this formula.
‘That which is above is the same as that which is below’….
The universe is the same as God, God is the same as man….”7

As I checked out the most popular websites for “as
above, so below” each one described the term as having the
same mystical, eastern, New Age, esoteric and magical
sources. One site stated:

This ancient phrase, “As above, so below” describes the
Oneness of All That Is.8

The phrase “as above, so below” headlined a page from
the Theosophical Society’s website containing the “esoteric”
teachings of New Age matriarch Alice A. Bailey. A derivative
form of the term—similar to Peterson’s abbreviated use
of “above and below” in Colossians 1:16—appeared on the
website in a quote from Theosophy founder Helena
Blavatsky’s pioneering New Age work, The Secret Doctrine:

“Above, the Son is the whole KOSMOS; below, he is MANKIND.”
9

To see if there was any other explanation for Peterson’s
use of this mystical New Age phrase, I put the term “as above,
so below,” along with the term “Christianity,” into the search
engine of the computer I was using. There were only seven
references. None of them had anything to do with biblical
Christianity. The first reference was entitled “Mystical Christianity”
and said:

“…to help the seeker of an inner
spiritual path find resources
to aid their spiritual journey towards a mystical and
magickal Christianity.”10

In all of my searching I could find no good reason for
Peterson’s using “as above, so below” in his paraphrase of
the Lord’s Prayer. Nor could I find any good reason for his
use of the obvious “above and below” derivative, that appears
in his Colossians 1:16 paraphrase, that Rick Warren
used at the very beginning of his book to initiate his readers
into The Purpose-Driven Life.

 


So what?

 

I guess if Rick Warren or anyone else says, “So what?”
I would say, “So how come?” How come Eugene Peterson
inserted a universally accepted, mystical New Age term right
into the middle of the Lord’s Prayer? And why does a derivative
of the saying show up in his paraphrase of Colossians
1:16?

Even if you thought there was some “good” reason
for using the term “as above, so below,” why would you?
Why would you choose a term that so clearly has its origins
in the magic of ancient Egypt, and is so heavily identified
today with the New Age and the New Spirituality?

 

“As above, so below” agrees with the “immanent” New
Age view that God is not only outside of creation, but also
within creation. It means that God is “in” everyone and everything.
It perfectly denotes the New Age concept of “Oneness”
and provides apparent support for the New Age contention
that “We are all One.”

 

Seeker friendly?

 

I tried to imagine what it would be like for a confused
New Ager today coming into a Purpose-Driven Church that
uses The Message, and finding this popular New Age phrase
right in the middle of the Lord’s Prayer. Or what it would be
like for that person to be handed a copy of Rick Warren’s
book, only to find an abbreviated form of this same New
Age phrase as part of the lead-off Scripture introducing them
to The Purpose-Driven Life. This hardly seemed to be the
way to introduce the Gospel of Jesus Christ to an unbelieving
New Ager.

 

Rick Warren’s reintroduction of
The Message into my
life only reinforced the concerns I had originally voiced on
the radio when Peterson’s book first came out. Why was
Rick Warren so drawn to The Message? The Message not only
obscured prophetic Scriptures like Matthew 24:3–5, it also
introduced paraphrased material like “as above, so below,”
that made it appear that some of the teachings of the Bible
were “at One” with the teachings of the New Age.
In Reinventing Jesus Christ: The New Gospel, I had observed:

“And it is, indeed, very disturbing to see many Christian
leaders today using many of the same words and expressions
commonly used by their [New Age, ed.] ‘new gospel’
counterparts.”11

Unfortunately, undiscerning Christian leaders have not
adequately exposed these [New Age, ed.] “new gospel” teachings
and, as a result, the spirit behind the “new gospel” has
entered the Church.12

    
Posted with author’s permission.

     Copyright © 2004 by Warren Smith. All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in
writing from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in
critical articles or reviews.

     Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.
ISBN: 0-9667071–3–3

Cover design by Vernon Rousseau. Graphic design by Colin A. Leslie

     Printed in the United States of America.
The author and publisher receive no profits from this book. Distributed solely
by Discernment Ministries, P.O. Box 254, High Bridge, NJ 08829–0254.

 

Phone: 903–567–6423. Website:
http://www.discernment-ministries.com

    
Individual copies $12.00 each plus $3.00 shipping and handling.
 

 

You
may also order Reinventing Jesus Christ: The New Gospel
by Warren Smith
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Endnotes
Chapter 1
1. Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life: What On Earth Am I Here For?
(Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2002), (dedication page).
2. Neale Donald Walsch,
Conversations with God: an uncommon dialogue,
Book 2 (Charlottesville, Va.: Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc.,
1997), p. 1.
3. Beliefnet Editors,
From the Ashes: A Spiritual Response to the Attack
on America (USA: Rodale Inc., 2001), p. 21.

Chapter 3
1. Ronald S. Miller and the Editors of New Age
Journal, “As Above, So
Below: Paths to Spiritual Renewal in Daily Life”
(Los Angeles: Jeremy P.
Tarcher, Inc., 1992), p. xi.
2. Rick Warren,
The Purpose-Driven Life, p. 17, citing Eugene H. Peterson,
The Message,
p. 415.
3. Eugene H, Peterson, The Message, p. 21–22.
4. Ronald S.
Miller and the Editors of New Age Journal, As Above, So
Below, p. xi.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid., p. xiv.
7.
http://www.themystica.com/mystica/articles/a/below_above.html

8.
http://www.mothermaryspeaks.com/as_above_so_below.htm, p. 1.
9.
Helena Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine. p. i 60, quoted on
http://theosophy.org/tlodocs/AsAboveSoBelow.htm

10.http://www.esotericchristian.com/home.html

11. Warren Smith, Reinventing Jesus Christ: The New Gospel, p. 68.
12. Ibid., p. 6.



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