Maitreya: A Purpose-Driven False Christ

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Warren B Smith

By Warren B. Smith
Excerpted from Deceived on Purpose, pp. 151-166

I am your Purpose.1
I am your Hope.2
I am your Heart.3
God is within you and all around you.4
My name is Oneness.5
I shall place before you all the purpose of God.6
My Plan is God’s Plan.7
Nothing will happen by chance.8
Take part in a Great Plan which is changing the world…9
My Coming brings peace.10
—Maitreya the “Christ” Messages from Maitreya the Christ, 1992

There is a false Christ claiming that he is already in the world today and that he is simply waiting for humanity to call him forth. He, too, has “a purpose” and is “purpose driven.” He has a peace plan and says that his coming will bring peace. He puts a premium on service to mankind, and he has a plan to help the lost and the sick and the poor. He is a prototype for Antichrist and still remains a viable candidate for being the Antichrist. His teachings are consistent with the New Age teachings of the New Spirituality. The Bible has warned us that someday he, or someone like him, will be everyone’s “worst-case scenario” come true. He, or someone like him, will turn everyone’s grandest dreams into a total nightmare. Thus, it behooves all of us to at least be minimally alert to someone who so nearly fits the Bible’s warnings—especially when his teachings so closely parallel the teachings of the New Spirituality. Continue reading →

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The New Age Peale Factor: (Part 4) Schuller – “The Real Leader”

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Warren B Smith

By Warren B. Smith
Excerpted from A Wonderful Deception, pp. 69-74
Continued from The New Age Peale Factor: (Part 3) Rick Warren’s Email

You know it’s only if you are a visionary do you know the price tag it takes to be the real leader, I mean way out front on the edge.1
—Bruce Wilkinson, Praising Robert Schuller,
Hour of Power, April 24, 2005

On April 24, 2005, five days after the Lighthouse Trails press release regarding Ken Blanchard, Bruce Wilkinson was Robert Schuller’s Hour of Power guest speaker at the Crystal Cathedral. Wilkinson—the man Rick Warren described as “one of my best friends in the whole world”2—led the Crystal Cathedral congregation in a standing ovation for Schuller. He did this after favorably referencing George Mair’s newly published book, A Life with Purpose, which described Schuller’s key role in the formation of today’s Church Growth movement. Sidestepping, yet building upon Mair’s comments about Norman Vincent Peale, Bruce Wilkinson hailed Robert Schuller as “the grandfather of it all”—“a visionary” and “the real leader.” Enthusiastically praising Schuller and his Crystal Cathedral, Wilkinson told the congregation: Continue reading →

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The New Age Peale Factor: (Part 3) Rick Warren’s Email

Posted on January 26, 2012 by Warren B Smith

By Warren B. Smith
Excerpted from A Wonderful Deception, pp. 58-68
Continued from The New Age Peale Factor: (Part 2) George Mair’s Book

THERE IS ALMOST NOTHING CORRECT IN MAIR’S BOOK.1
—e-mail from Rick Warren to Lighthouse Trails

In a May 31, 2005 midnight e-mail to Lighthouse Trails Publishing, Rick Warren made it clear that he was not happy with George Mair or with Lighthouse Trails regarding the subject of Ken Blanchard. With an apparent effort to take the spotlight off Blanchard’s New Age affinities, Warren attempted to place it on George Mair and Lighthouse Trails instead.

With no documentation, Rick Warren immediately accused Mair of having “literally hundreds of errors and made-up conclusions” in A Life with Purpose. At the same time, he took Lighthouse Trails to task for relying on anything that Mair wrote in his book. Ironically, the only thing that Lighthouse Trails had quoted from A Life with Purpose was the statement that Warren had “hired” Ken Blanchard to help with his P.E.A.C.E. Plan. The April 19, 2005 Lighthouse Trails Press release stated: Continue reading →

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The New Age Peale Factor: (Part 2) George Mair’s Book

Posted on January 19, 2012 by Warren B Smith

By Warren B. Smith
Excerpted from A Wonderful Deception, pp. 47-51
Continued from The New Age Peale Factor: (Part 1) Norman Vincent Peal and the Occult

But in the 1990s, following in the footsteps of Peale and Schuller, the leader of the next generation of Church Growth Movement pastors emerged. That man was none other than Rick Warren.1
—George Mair, A Life With Purpose

In April 2005, a new book was published about Rick Warren. It was titled A Life With Purpose: Reverend Rick Warren: The Most Inspiring Pastor of Our Time. The book was an extremely favorable presentation of Warren and the Purpose Driven movement. Continue reading →

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The New Age Peale Factor: (Part 1) Norman Vincent Peale and the Occult

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Warren B Smith

By Warren B. Smith
Excerpted from A Wonderful Deception, pp. 39-46

Whatever may be the embarrassment caused by these striking similarities [between Norman Vincent Peale and New Age author Florence Scovel Shinn], it pales against the discomfiture that millions of mainline Christians, purporting to stand on orthodoxy and Scripture alone, have thus unwittingly embraced the Occult. So strong is its tacit foothold that it now may well be the primary working faith of many in the churches.
—Lutheran Quarterly, Summer 1995

In March 2005, I received a letter and two accompanying articles from an Indiana pastor. One of the articles was clipped from the August 3, 1995 Indianapolis Star newspaper. It featured a big picture of Norman Vincent Peale with a headline and subtitle that read:

Norman Vincent Peale accused of plagiarism: ‘Power of Positive Thinking’ author’s work similar to that of a little-known teacher of occult science.2

The Indianapolis Star article asked the question: “Was the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale, father of the ‘believe and succeed’ theology sweeping American Protestantism, a plagiarist inspired by the occult?” Continue reading →

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Calling on the Name of Jesus

Posted on January 3, 2012 by Warren B Smith

By Warren B. Smith
Excerpted from The Light That Was Dark, pp. 129-132

For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
—Romans 10:13

In the late evening hours, I was startled out of my sleep by an awful evil presence pressing in upon me. I bolted upright and in a horrified, broken voice called out, “Help me, God!”

Joy sprang out of bed in a flash and was immediately by my side. She knew exactly what was going on. Looking directly at me, she addressed the unseen presence, “In the name of Jesus Christ, leave Warren alone!”

And woosh! It was as if a huge weight had been removed from my throat. Whatever the presence was, it left as soon as Joy called on the name of Jesus. Continue reading →

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Rick Warren: Prophecy is None of our Business?

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Warren B Smith

By Warren B. Smith
Excerpted from A Wonderful Deception, pp. 96-100

Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.
—Revelation 1:3

Prophesy ye not, say they to them that prophesy.
—Micah 2:6

Rick Warren openly discourages readers of The Purpose Driven Life from studying prophecy. Taking unwarranted and unbiblical liberty in interpreting Acts 1:6-8, he states that Jesus told His disciples that the details of His return “are none of your business”—that they needed to focus on “fulfilling” their “mission” rather than “figuring out prophecy.” He writes:

When the disciples wanted to talk about prophecy, Jesus quickly switched the conversation to evangelism. He wanted them to concentrate on their mission in the world. He said in essence, “The details of my return are none of your business. What is your business is the mission I’ve given you. Focus on that! . . .”

If you want Jesus to come back sooner, focus on fulfilling your mission, not figuring out prophecy.1 (emphasis added)

Continue reading →

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Neale Donald Walsch and Conversations with God

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Warren B Smith

By Warren B. Smith
Excerpted from False Christ Coming: Does Anybody Care? pp. 35-40

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 4:3-4

IN 1992, Neale Donald Walsch, a disillusioned and distraught former radio talk show host, public relations professional, and longtime metaphysical seeker, sat down one night and wrote God an angry letter.1 He was amazed when “God” immediately answered his letter by speaking to him through an inner voice. That night, and in subsequent conversations, Walsch wrote down all of the dictated answers to his questions. The dictation continued for several years.2 Walsch’s Conversations with God: Book 1 was published in 1995 and became the first in a series of best-selling Conversations with God books. It seemed that in Walsch “God” had found yet another willing channel for his New Age/New Gospel teachings. Continue reading →

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Barbara Marx Hubbard: Her New Age Christ’s Selection Process

Posted on November 22, 2011 by Warren B Smith

By Warren B. Smith
Excerpted from False Christ Coming: Does Anybody Care?, pp. 25-30

They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.
—John 16:2

SELF-described “futurist” and “conscious evolutionist” Barbara Marx Hubbard writes that in 1966 she heard an “inner voice” that came in response to a question she had asked aloud and directed to God—“What is our story? What in our age is comparable to the birth of Christ?” After asking the question she said she fell into a dreamlike state and was given an intense vision of the future.1

In the vision, Hubbard saw the earth from a distance. She was made to understand that the earth was a living body and that she was a cell in its body. Feeling her “ oneness” with the earth, she experienced its pain and confusion. When her vision abruptly fast-forwarded into the future, she could see the earth and its people were now surrounded by a radiant light. She watched as the whole planet was “aligned” in “a magnetic field of love” and lifted up by the brilliant light. Widespread healings took place as individuals experienced the merging of their own “inner light” with the bright light that was surrounding them. A tremendous “ force” emanating from the light sent powerful currents of joyful energy “rippling” through the body of humanity. The world celebrated as all the earth was “born again.” The pain and confusion were gone. Love had prevailed. Continue reading →

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“Christian” New Age Sympathizer Leonard Sweet: (Part 1) Warren, Sweet, and Sweet’s “New Light” Heroes

Posted on October 26, 2011 by Warren B Smith

By Warren B. Smith
Excerpted from A “Wonderful” Deception, pp. 104-120.

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.1

—Leonard Sweet

Shortly after Deceived on Purpose was published, I came across a book titled Quantum Spirituality: A Postmodern Dialectic written by Rick Warren’s “Evangelical” colleague Leonard Sweet. Also, around the same time, I was given a cassette tape set of a presentation Sweet had done with Warren in 1995. Their recorded discussion is titled The Tides of Change and was packaged as part of an ongoing series called “Choice Voices for Church Leadership.” At the time this audio project took place, Sweet was a Christian author, Methodist minister, and the Dean of the Theological School at Drew University. According to information on the tape set, this presentation was about ministry on the emerging “new frontier.”2

Challenging pastors to make changes in their ministry to meet the emerging postmodern culture and the changing times, Sweet and Rick Warren present themselves not only as pastors but also as modern-day change agents. In their conversation together, Sweet enthusiastically remarked to Warren: “I think this is part of this New Spirituality that we are seeing birthed around us.”3 Continue reading →

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