Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
—Isaiah 5:20

In the first book of Kings, God comes to Solomon in a dream and tells him he can ask for anything that he wants:

In Gibeon the Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream by night: and God said, Ask what I shall give thee.
—1 Kings 3:5

Solomon asks for discernment: He wants to be able to discern the difference between what is good and bad—between good and evil. He answers God:

Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?
—1 Kings 3:9

God is pleased with Solomon’s request, noting that he asked solely for discernment rather than selfish things for himself:

And God said unto him, Because thou hast asked this thing, and hast not asked for thyself long life; neither hast asked riches for thyself, nor hast asked the life of thine enemies; but hast asked for thyself understanding to discern judgment;
—1 Kings 3:10-11

While our Adversary furiously attempts to undermine the importance of discernment by ridiculing it, we are not ignorant of his devices (2 Corintians 2:11).

Some of the many accusations made by discernment detractors

1) If you hate deception and evil and try to expose it, you are a hater—but the Bible says:

The fear of the Lord is to hate evil:
—Proverbs 8:13

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove [expose] them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. But all things that are reproved [exposed] are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.
—Ephesians 5:11-13

If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you.
—John 15:18

2) If you contend for the faith, you are contentious—but the Bible says:

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.
—Jude 1:3

Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses.
—1 Timothy 6:12

Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.
—Ephesians 6:11-13

3) If you sound an alarm, you are an alarmist—but the Bible says:

Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand;
—Joel 2:1

If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people;
—Ezekiel 33:3

I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you.
—1 Corinthians 4:14

4) If you try to expose heresy, you are a heresy hunter—but the Bible says:

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…
—2 Peter 2:1

For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.
—1 Corinthians 11:19

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.
—Ephesians 5:11-13

5) If you critique false teachings, you have a critical spirit—but the Bible says:

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove [expose] them.
—Ephesians 5:11

6) If you name the names of false teachers, you are a name caller—but the Bible names names:

Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil: the Lord reward him according to his works:
—2 Timothy 4:14

This thou knowest, that all they which are in Asia be turned away from me; of whom are Phygellus and Hermogenes.
—2 Timothy 1:15

And their word will eat as doth a canker: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus; Who concerning the truth have erred…
—2 Timothy 2:17-18

7) If you exercise righteous judgement, you are considered judgmental—but the Bible says:

Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.
—John 7:24

8) If you separate yourself from the things of the world, you are a separatist and into separation—but the Bible says:

Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you.
—2 Corinthians 6:17

9) If you think the way is narrow, you are narrow-minded—but the Bible says:

Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
—Matthew 7:14

10) If you think Jesus is the only way, you are exclusivistic and way off—but the Bible says:

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.
—John 14:6

11) If you mark them which cause divisions contrary to doctrine, you are divisive—but the Bible says:

Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.
—Romans 16-17

12) If you warn about deception, you are a deceiver—but the Bible says:

Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!
—Isaiah 5:20

Now the next day, that followed the day of the preparation, the chief priests and Pharisees came together unto Pilate, Saying, Sir, we remember that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again.
—Matthew 27:62-63

13) If you warn about the wild grapes, you are sour grapes—but the Bible says:

Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?
—Isaiah 5:1-4

14) If you believe Jesus’ prophetic words in the Book of Revelation that the battle of Armageddon will happen one day, then you are a “Doomsday Deceiver”—but the Bible says:

And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.
—Revelation 16:16

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

15) If you say “no” to the false teachings of the world, you are a “naysayer”—but the Bible warns:

But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.
—Matthew 5:37

16) If you expose Satan (Beelzebub), you are called Satan (Beelzebub) too—but the Bible warns:

It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household?
—Matthew 10:25

Encouragement

Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven:
—Matthew 5:11-12

Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived. But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them; And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.
—2 Timothy 3:12-17

*Bold and italics added

Why do Norman Vincent Peale, Robert Schuller, and Rick Warren all make specific reference to author Bernie Siegel–a New Age leader with a spirit guide named “George”? On paper, Siegel is an unlikely person for church figures to be quoting, referencing, and even praising. That is, unless Siegel is a merging, overlapping, interconnecting link between the New Age and the church–much like Rick Warren’s colleague Leonard Sweet praising New Age leaders in his book Quantum Spirituality. Here a little, there a little. Seemingly small connections can lead to much bigger connections down the line. Why are these men warming up to a New Age leader like Bernie Siegel rather than warning the church about him?

___________________________________________

Excerpted from A Wonderful Deception, pp. 75-77

Dr. Bernie Siegel in his book Love, Medicine, and Miracles writes: . . . Anything that offers hope . . . has the potential to heal.1
—Robert Schuller, 1989

As I described in Deceived on Purpose, one of the early clues about Robert Schuller’s pervasive, overlapping influence on Rick Warren’s ministry was Warren’s seemingly out of the blue reference to New Age author Bernie Siegel. In his book The Purpose Driven Life, Warren suddenly and indiscriminately referenced Siegel regarding the subjects of “hope” and “purpose.” He did this without warning his readers that Siegel was a New Age leader with a spirit guide named “George.” In his 1986 book Love, Medicine & Miracles, Siegel described how he had contacted “George” the very first time he meditated.2

I also described how I had discovered that thirteen years before Rick Warren referenced Bernie Siegel regarding “hope” and “purpose,” Robert Schuller had referenced Siegel in regard to this same theme in his 1989 book titled Believe in the God who Believes in You.3 On his Hour of Power television program, Schuller had even described the New Age Siegel as “one of the greatest doctors of the 20th Century.”4 Siegel, in turn, was one of the prominent front-page endorsers of Robert Schuller’s 1995 book Prayer: My Soul’s Adventure with God: A Spiritual Autobiography. Rick Warren’s reference to Siegel is probably what Saddleback apologist Gilbert Thurston referred to as certain things Rick Warren “learned from the books of Robert Schuller.”5

To try to distance Rick Warren from the reality of Schuller’s obvious mentoring influence, Saddleback apologist Richard Abanes wrote that it was actually Baptist preacher W. A. Criswell—not Schuller—who mentored Rick Warren. Abanes wrote:

If anyone can be credited with being his [Rick Warren’s] spiritual mentor and model, it would be this stalwart of Christianity.6

But Abanes’ attempt to deflect attention away from Robert Schuller and over to W. A. Criswell ended up backfiring on him. In 1995, Criswell not only endorsed and wrote the foreword to Rick Warren’s book The Purpose Driven Church, but he also endorsed Schuller’s book Prayer: My Soul’s Adventure with God. Criswell’s endorsement was just several endorsements below that of Dr. Bernie Siegel. The irony of Abanes’ attempt to deflect attention away from Schuller via Criswell is that Criswell leads right back to Schuller. Criswell’s endorsement of Schuller’s book actually turned out to be a blanket endorsement of anything that Schuller had ever written. Criswell wrote:

Anything the world-famous preacher/pastor Robert Schuller writes is fascinating and inspiring to the whole world. How much more so when the book concerns his soul’s adventure with God.7

W. A. Criswell, the “mentor” Rick Warren referred to as his “father in ministry,”8 and C. Peter Wagner, the “mentor” Warren had for his doctoral dissertation,9 both had such high regard for Robert Schuller,10 it is not surprising that Schuller has had so much influence on Rick Warren’s ministry. And it is also not surprising that Norman Vincent Peale, Schuller’s self-professed mentor, was also involved with Bernie Siegel. Peale’s prominent endorsement was featured on the back cover of Bernie Siegel’s Love, Medicine & Miracles. This Peale-Schuller-Warren connection to Siegel crisscrosses and intersects in such a way as to make the interconnection between the three of them undeniable.

Endnotes:

1. Robert H. Schuller, Believe in the God Who Believes in You (New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1989, 1991), pp. 199-200.
2. Bernie S. Siegel, M.D. Love, Medicine & Miracles (New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers, 1986), pp. 18-20.
3. Schuller, Believe in the God Who Believes in You, op. cit., pp. 199-200.
4. Robert H. Schuller, “Principles for Powerful, Prosperous Living”-Part IX (Hour of Power, Program #1572, no specified date given, http://web.archive.org/web/20050421161228/http://www.hourofpower.org/booklets/archives/pppl_1563-1573/1572.html).
5. Gilbert Thurston, “Response to Deceived on Purpose by Warren Smith,” op. cit., p. 4.
6. Richard Abanes, Rick Warren and the Purpose that Drives Him, op. cit., p. 40.
7. Robert H. Schuller, Prayer: My Soul’s Adventure With God (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1995), p. ii.
8. Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Church, op. cit., pp. 11-12.
9. Rick Warren’s doctoral thesis outline: “New Churches for a New Generation: Church Planting to Reach Baby Boomers. A Case Study: The Saddleback Valley Community Church (California),” 1993 at Fuller Theological Seminary, available on Deception in the Church website: http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/addendumNAR.html.
10. C. Peter Wagner, Churchquake: how the new apostolic reformation is shaking up the church as we know it (Ventura, CA: Regal Books: A Division of Gospel Light, 2000 paperback edition), p. 177.

This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you.
A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump.
—Galatians 5:8-9

overcome–to get the better of in a struggle; to conquer.
succumb–to give way (to), to yield, to submit (to succumb to persuasion).

Today’s Evangullible Church

In today’s evangullible church, countless believers are yielding to the temptations of our Adversary and falling away (Luke 8:13). Giving in to the compromised teachings of the emerging apostate church, once faithful believers are succumbing to the deception that Jesus warned would come in His name (Matthew 24:3-5). Those who could have been overcomers become succumbers–unless, of course, they remember what they received and heard, and hold fast, and repent (Revelation 3:3).

Overcomer–one who patiently waits for Jesus Christ’s return, hates evil, tests and tries false teachers and false apostles, labors for the true Jesus Christ with patience and does not faint under pressure (Revelation 2:2-3); one who does not fear suffering and is faithful unto death (Revelation 2:10); one who holds fast to the name of Jesus Christ and does not deny the true faith of Jesus Christ (Revelation 2:13); one who holds fast, is not seduced by false teachers and false teachings and keeps the works of Jesus Christ unto the end (Revelation 2:20-26); one who is watchful and strengthens the things that remain, remembers what he has received, holds fast, and is always ready to repent (Revelation 3:2-3); one who keeps the Word of Jesus Christ, does not deny His true name, and holds fast to what he has (Revelation 3:8-11); one who is willing to be rebuked and chastened (Revelation 3:19).

In short, one who is faithful to Jesus Christ and all that He teaches in His true Holy Word.

Succumber–one who does not wait patiently for Jesus Christ’s return, does not hate evil, does not test and try false teachers and false apostles, does not labor for the true Jesus Christ with patience and does faint under pressure (Revelation 2:2-3); one who does fear suffering and is not faithful unto death (Revelation 2:10); one who does not hold fast to the name of Jesus Christ and does deny the true faith of Jesus Christ (Revelation 2:13); one who does not hold fast, is seduced by false teachers and false teachings and does not keep the works of Jesus Christ unto the end (Revelation 2:20-26); one who is not watchful and does not strengthen the things that remain, does not remember what he has received, does not hold fast, and is not always ready to repent (Revelation 3:2-3); one who does not keep the Word of Jesus Christ, does deny His true name, and does not hold fast to what he has (Revelation 3:8-11); one who is not willing to be rebuked and chastened (Revelation 3:19).

In short, one who is not faithful to Jesus Christ and all that He teaches in His true Holy Word.

The Encouragement

He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.
—Revelation 3:5

evangelical – in, of, or according to Gospels or the teachings of the New Testament.

gullible – easily tricked.

evangullible – easily tricked by teachers/teachings that seem to be biblical but are not.

With books like Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life, Eugene Peterson’s The Message, Leonard Sweet’s Quantum Spirituality, and Paul Young’s The Shack, what once was an evangelical church has, in a very short period of time, become an “evangullible” church.

The Encouragement

Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering 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

What I didn’t know in 1995 was that a then obscure Methodist minister by the name of Leonard Sweet had already written a 1991 book entitled, Quantum Spirituality: A Postmodern Apologetic. In his book, Sweet aligned himself with the Cosmic Christ (p. 124) and described Peck and Fox as two of his “personal role models” and “heroes” (p. viii). He also went so far as to heretically hail the mystical Catholic New Age Chardin as “Twentieth-century Christianity’s major voice” (p. 106). Because Leonard Sweet himself is regarded as a major voice in the evangelical church today—speaking at worldwide Christian conferences and to the leaders of major denominations regularly—it is imperative to understand what this man really believes and not just what he conveniently says when challenged about his beliefs.

I have updated my 1995 article with some minor revisions to demonstrate the influence Peck, Fox, and Chardin have had on popular church figures like Leonard Sweet. 

__________________________________________________

M. Scott Peck: Community and the Cosmic Christ

…the number of people entering the mystical stage of development and transcending ordinary culture seems to have increased a thousandfold in the course of a mere generation or two…one wonders if the explosion in their numbers might represent a giant leap forward in the evolution of the human race, a leap toward not only mystical but global consciousness and world community….

Perhaps the greatest prophet of this leap was Teilhard de Chardin.1

—M. Scott Peck, The Different Drum

The Great Heretical Idea

Just about everyone agrees that the world is in a state of crisis. With all the wars, floods, famines, earthquakes, plagues, environmental disasters, and violence there has come an accompanying sense of futility and despair. Life seems to be moving along at an exponential speed. At this time in history when people seem to have so little control over so many of the major variables in their lives, they wonder if anything can be done to turn things around. They are asking “what can we do individually, in our communities, as a nation, as a planet to meet these very real problems? How can we save ourselves from the impending disaster?”

Marilyn Ferguson, the author of the New Age classic The Aquarian Conspiracy, writes:

Usually at the point of crisis, someone has a great heretical idea. A powerful new insight explains the apparent contradictions. It introduces a new principle…a new perspective.

She goes on to say:

A new paradigm involves a principle that was present all along but unknown to us. It includes the old as a partial truth, one aspect of How Things Work, while allowing for things to work in other ways as well.

Two paragraphs later she states:

Given the superior power and scope of the new idea, we might expect it to prevail rather quickly, but that almost never happens. The problem is that you can’t embrace the new paradigm unless you let go of the old.2

She later adds:

If these discoveries of transformation are to become our common heritage for the first time in history, they must be widely communicated. They must become our new consensus, what ‘everybody knows’.3

In the thirty or so years since the publication of Ferguson’s book, the New Age has made unprecedented headway into our culture. New Age thought has been “widely communicated” through the media, just as Ferguson suggested. And it is fast becoming our “new consensus, what everybody knows.” Ferguson’s “prophetic” book has been, in many ways, a blueprint for everything that has transpired since the release of her book in 1980. Thanks to the media, Ferguson’s New Age “Aquarian Conspiracy” has become an “open secret” and the New Age is now mainstream. But how did the New Age make such rapid inroads into our culture?

Over the course of the last century, esoteric New Age teachings were quietly and gradually introduced behind the scenes by a very purposeful spirit world (1 Timothy 4:1). The channeled teachings of Alice Bailey, and the mystical Catholic doctrine of Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, have been reintroduced to this present generation by New Age leaders like David Spangler, Robert Muller, Barbara Marx Hubbard, Matthew Fox, and Jack Canfield. Many of today’s popular spiritual catch phrases like “New Age,” “inclusivity,” “transformation,” “quantum leap,” “unity-in-diversity,” and even “tolerance” can be traced back to Bailey and Chardin.

New Age books like A Course in Miracles have persuaded countless numbers of people, including myself, years ago, that Jesus was speaking anew to our generation. Many of us were convinced we were finally learning what the Bible’s teachings really meant. We believed there was a “new story” that was the real story, and we were ready to spread the word. By the early 1980s a powerful core group of New Age believers was in place. We would be there to support and encourage the populace at large as they were gradually introduced to New Age teachings. And there was no doubt about it. Ferguson’s book, The Aquarian Conspiracy, had sounded the charge. There was a “new” spirit in the land.

By the mid-1980s most bookstore sections labeled “occult” were changed to “New Age.” And these “New Age” books were also starting to surface in the religion, psychology, health, self-help, and even science sections of these same bookstores. In 1987 Shirley MacLaine’s best-selling book, Out on a Limb, was made into a prime-time TV movie that was watched by millions. The New Age was officially out of the closet. Spiritual esotericism was making its move into mainstream society.

The popularization of the New Age gospel greatly accelerated in the nineties and into the new millennium when high profile people like Oprah Winfrey started openly declaring their New Age beliefs. Oprah’s enthusiastic endorsement of New Age authors like Marianne Williamson (A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principals of A Course in Miracles) helped to make their New Age books instant bestsellers. Thanks to talk shows like Oprah and Larry King Live, New Age teachings such as A Course in Miracles, Betty Eadie’s Embraced by the Light, Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations with God books, and Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth were being talked about everywhere. Suddenly, the New Age was part of our popular culture. Psychic hotlines sponsored programs like The Today Show, while books by psychics and topics like communication with the dead were being featured on Larry King Live and endorsed by New Age proponents like Dr. Mehmet Oz. Flip the channel and there is bestselling author Deepak Chopra, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s former personal physician, telling a talk show host that his god is a woman.4 Flip another channel and there is Oprah telling her worldwide audience that Jesus is “New Age.”5

Yet even with the avalanche of New Age teachings streaming into our culture, many Christians—and particularly most Christian leaders—continue to minimize the influence of the New Age. They have been deceived into believing that the New Age is just a lot of unrelated hype about crystals and horoscopes and UFOs. They have missed the fact that “another Jesus” and “another gospel” are being “reinvented” right in front of their eyes (2 Corinthians 11:4). They don’t seem to realize that countless numbers of people have already put their faith in that counterfeit Christ and “another gospel.” Thanks to the media, the “great heretical idea” described by Marilyn Ferguson is fast becoming our “new consensus, what everybody knows.”

But as we look at the present day popularity of New Age teachings, it is easy to forget the late M. Scott Peck—the man who helped open the floodgates to so much of what we are witnessing today in the world and in the church. Peck, one of the first authors to present New Age ideas to the general populace, ironically called his “broad way” teachings The Road Less Traveled. On the back cover of Peck’s fourth book, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace, Aquarian Conspiracy author Marilyn Ferguson wrote:

Scott Peck has done it again. The Different Drum could mobilize groups the way The Road Less Traveled inspired individuals.

Ferguson’s endorsement of his writings seems to underline the importance of his role as an Aquarian point man. However, because Peck described himself as a Christian, one would not readily associate him with the Aquarian Conspiracy or the New Age Movement. Publicly, he seemed to distance himself from the term New Age. But this brilliantly anecdotal, often insightful man with a professorial manner, has definitely played a major role in the New Age arena. But hiding behind Peck’s often charming, psycho-spiritual intellectualism, was the shadowy presence of the “Cosmic Christ.”

Peck’s landmark bestseller, The Road Less Traveled, helped to spark a spiritual revolution that is still going on today. His book inspired untold numbers of people to begin seeking spiritual solutions for their personal problems. His writings over the last several decades have also caused many Christians to reexamine their faith in light of his teachings. His books have been particularly popular with the Emerging church. There is no question that his writings and his endorsements of others have had a profound impact on the spiritual marketplace.

But sadly, much of what Peck introduced in his books was unscriptural. His often astute observations on human nature, gleaned from his many years as a practicing psychiatrist, were unfortunately tainted by his mystical world-view. Steeped in the teachings of Carl Jung and Catholic Jesuit priest Teilhard de Chardin, Peck’s spiritual observations were always screened through his mystical bias. Identifying with the Christ of the mystical New Age rather than the biblical Christ, Peck was clearly an ally to those presenting “the new story” and “the new spirituality.” Marilyn Ferguson, in her endorsement of Peck, saw him as a leader in the Aquarian effort to change the hearts and minds of the world. Author Jeremy Rifkin echoed Ferguson’s sentiments in his book Declaration of a Heretic. He recommended Peck’s book as one of those that deal with “the development of a new spirituality that is compatible (congenial) with the new consciousness, the new science and the new ecological understanding.”6

Peck’s “Christian” Conversion

Oprah Winfrey, in a December 8, 1993 interview with Peck, introduced him to her 20 million viewers by saying:

Few writers have touched more lives than Dr. Peck, and few messages have empowered more people.

She then went on to tell her huge audience that over the last decade The Road Less Traveled had been sold to an unprecedented four and a half million readers—a record she said some have compared to the Bible. She also described how The New York Times had recently celebrated the book’s 500th week on its bestsellers list—A Guinness Book of World Records record for book sales. Oprah then said, “I wanted to talk to Dr. Peck today to meet the person, the mind behind such a powerful and influential book…who can write a book that can stay on the bestseller list for ten straight years…in his work, he shares lessons of truth and love and values that have enriched my life, and, I know, millions of other people.”

But thirteen years after his “conversion” to Christianity one would never know from watching Oprah that day that Peck was a professing Christian. Given abundant opportunities during the interview to discuss what was meaningful to him, Peck never mentioned his Christian faith. Remembering Peck’s admission in a more recent book, that he was not a Christian when he wrote The Road Less Traveled,7 I was surprised when he told Oprah that he had been “divinely led” to write The Road Less Traveled.

He said that one autumn evening he heard something say, “write me—discipline, love, grace—write me.” He described how his initial skepticism about the leading soon gave way to genuine enthusiasm, and he started writing the book. He described his “enthusiasm” as coming, in part, from “God within.” He went on to say that he couldn’t have written the book “without God’s help.”

Knowing that Peck wrote The Road Less Traveled as a non-Christian, I was amazed that on Oprah he was still affirming his belief that God had directed him to write the book. Although his “non-Christian” book was filled with false teachings, Peck as a “Christian” had, to my knowledge, never publicly recanted any of his unbiblical doctrines. In fact, five years into his “Christian” faith Peck gave his “wholehearted blessing” to a study guide entitled Exploring the Road Less Traveled. In his forward to the guide Peck was still describing The Road Less Traveled as “a gift to me and through me to all my fellow pilgrims.”8

And what were some of the teachings in The Road Less Traveled that Peck presented to his readers? In a section of the book entitled “The Evolution of Consciousness,” Peck described God as being

…intimately associated with us—so intimately that He is part of us.

He said:

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.

He then added:

To put it plainly, our unconscious is God. God within us. We were part of God all the time.9

He elaborated on this idea of evolutionary consciousness by stating:

In my vision the collective unconscious is God.

A bit later he wrote:

Since the unconscious is God all along, we may further define the goal of spiritual growth to be the attainment of godhood by the conscious self. It is for the individual to become totally, wholly God….We are born that we might become, as a conscious individual, a new life form of God.10

Peck summarized his unbiblical views by saying:

…God wants us to become Himself (or Herself or Itself). We are growing toward godhood. God is the goal of evolution. It is God who is the source of the evolutionary force and God who is the destination.11

The Bible is clear when it tells us that we are not in any way a part of God. Our consciousness is not God. We are not evolving into God, and we are not to attempt to become God. We are His creation and we are distinct from Him. Scripture warns of those who become vain and do not glorify God as God, but try to change the glory of the “uncorruptible God” into an image of “corruptible man.” In equating man and God they “changed the truth of God into a lie.” The Scriptures describe those who distort the Scriptures as those who while “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.” (Romans 1:22-25)

Some of Peck’s comments on grace in The Road Less Traveled were also unscriptural. In his section entitled “The Welcoming of Grace” he writes:

If we can make ourselves into totally disciplined, wholly loving individuals, then, even though we may be ignorant of theology and give no thought to God, we will have prepared ourselves well for the coming of grace. Conversely, the study of theology is a relatively poor method of preparation and, by itself, completely useless.12

But grace, according to Scripture, comes in the person of the Holy Spirit when we recognize that we can never, through our own efforts, make ourselves into “totally disciplined, wholly loving individuals.” True and complete grace comes when we confess to God that we are sinners, and that we recognize how far we fall short of His glory (Romans 3:23). We see that we are separated from Him by our sin and that it is only by the atoning death of His Son, Jesus Christ, that we can be saved from our sins and receive eternal life (Romans 3:25, John 3:16). It is a gift of God. It has nothing to do with us. It has everything to do with Him (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Believing that the study of theology was a “relatively poor method of preparation”13 for one’s receptivity to grace, Peck betrays his disbelief in the power and authority of God’s written word. He misses the heart of the Apostle Paul’s emphatic assertion that “faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God” (Romans 10:17). Because Peck was apparently unfamiliar with the Bible’s admonition to “try the spirits” (1 John 4:1) he was wide open to a deceptive spirit that said, “write me—discipline, love, grace—write me.” Because of his naiveté and lack of spiritual discernment, Peck fell prey to the deception of “another Jesus,” “another spirit,” and “another gospel” (2 Corinthians 11:4).

It was in 1983, in his second book, People of the Lie, that M. Scott Peck announced that he had become a “Christian” and that Jesus was now his “Lord.” In his introduction to that book he wrote:

I referred earlier to Jesus as my Lord. After many years of vague identification with Buddhist and Islamic mysticism, I ultimately made a firm Christian commitment—signified by my non-denominational baptism on the ninth of March 1980, at the age of forty-three—long after I had begun working on this book.14

He went on to say that he made no apology for what he called his “Christian” bias. He said he had no desire to try to disguise his “Christian” outlook. He stated, “My commitment to Christianity is the most important thing in my life and is, I hope, pervasive and total.”

I remember reading People of the Lie when I was a fairly new Christian. While applauding Peck’s apparent commitment to Christ, I was nevertheless troubled by his definition of a “true Christian.” He said “a true Christian is anyone who is for Jesus a pleasant place of shelter.” His all-embracing definition included no statement of faith and, in his words, included “millions of Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews, atheists, and agnostics.”15

Yet I had remembered Peck was still new in his faith. Give him some time, I thought, and he’ll probably sort things out. But while I admired him for tackling the subject of evil, I remained concerned about some of the things he had said in his book. Largely drawing on his experiences with patients in his psychiatric practice, Peck was unwilling to let Scripture fill in what he didn’t understand. As a result he came up with some rather unorthodox ideas. For example, he described Satan as an impersonal “it” rather than a personal “he.” In the Bible Jesus always refers to the person of Satan as a male. In referring to Satan in John 8:44, He says, “He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there was no truth in him.”

Peck also believed that any truly loving person could assist in deliverance sessions with people who are demonically oppressed. He wrote:

Were I to conduct an exorcism, I would not exclude from the team any mature Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Jew, atheist, or agnostic who was a genuinely loving presence.16

However, the Bible makes it clear that demonic spirits are subject only to the power and authority of Jesus Christ and that only His followers are given the power “to cast out devils” (Mark 3:14-15). Exorcism or deliverance has nothing to do with the amount of niceness and love projected by the people gathered. Peck’s further description of exorcism as “psychotherapy by massive assault”17 is to completely miss the saving person of Jesus Christ and His victory on the cross over sin and death and evil (1 John 3:8).

Yet I wanted to reserve judgment on Peck and give him more time to come to terms with Scripture. The big questions that still remained for me were—did Peck really love the truth or was he just presenting his already preconceived mystical, New Age beliefs in Christian terms? Would he be able to clarify his faith according to Scripture or was he only going deeper and deeper into New Age deception? And, finally, was M. Scott Peck a genuinely confused disciple of the Lord, or was he just another worldly false prophet? I would have to wait and see.

I Got My Answer

I received my answer several years later when Peck’s new book, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace, arrived at our local bookstore. Greatly interested, I wondered where he was now in his faith. I picked up a copy and started reading. I wanted so much to see that he had grown as a Christian. I hoped that he had stopped referring to various parts of the Bible as “myth,” and had gotten clearer on the person of Jesus Christ. But my heart sank as I read the first two sentences of his introduction. He had written:

In and through community lies the salvation of the world. Nothing is more important.18

I was deeply disappointed by his words. Salvation does not come through community, it comes only through the person of Jesus Christ (Acts 4:12).

I searched for some kind of clarification—that true community would only come through the lordship of the real Jesus Christ—but it wasn’t there. And as I read on, things only got worse. He wrote, “the human race today stands at the brink of self-annihilation.” He said:

I’m scared for my own skin. I’m even more scared for the skin of my children. And I’m scared for your skins. I want to save my skin. I need you, and you me, for salvation. We must come into community with each other. We need each other.19

Sadly, I knew that his plea for community would seem perfectly reasonable to someone unfamiliar with the Bible. But what he was saying had nothing to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ. For Peck, a professing Christian, to say that “In and through community lies the salvation of the world. Nothing is more important” was to completely miss our blood-bought relationship with the Lord. And in writing that we must come into community with each other, he left unsaid what that community must agree to in order to come together.

Certainly in Genesis 11, those who came together in the land of Shinar believed they met with God’s favor as they built their tower toward heaven. But the Lord did not support their human ideas about spiritual community. His response was to dissolve their community and scatter them over the face of the earth. Scripture records that God is not pleased when man organizes spiritual community in His name but not according to His will. Genesis 11:5-7 records:

“And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

So much for oneness and community and spirituality that is not in accordance to God’s expressed desire. The lesson of Babel was that we humans should not go building spiritual community without God’s explicit direction.

As I continued reading Peck’s introduction to The Different Drum I was startled again by what he wrote:

It is not impractical to consider seriously changing the rules of the game when the game is clearly killing you.20

Peck had a point if he was talking about the environment or some economic matter, but what if those rules are God’s rules? I immediately reflected on Jesus’ death and His unwillingness to compromise God’s rules to “save his own skin.”

Peck had to realize that changing the rules or going against God’s will was exactly what Jesus did not do—nor his disciples, either. They died living by God’s rules rather than trying to change those rules to “save their own skin.” Peck, in his unwillingness to follow Scripture, had already changed the rules. So it didn’t surprise me when Peck went on to say that the rule changing would also apply to the Christian Church. Speaking to the Church he wrote:

Here again I will call for the rules to be changed…If humankind is to survive, the matter of changing the rules is not optional.21

For the world to survive, Peck proposed that the nation-state system “must at least be rapidly modified to the point where the nations of the world substantially relinquish their external sovereignty to a supranational government agency.”22 Peck stated that “Demanding rules must both be learned and followed.”23 Presenting himself as one to teach these rules he said, “the purpose of this book is to teach these rules and encourage you to follow them.” His ultimate objective was that the world would learn his “new” rules and follow them. Peck, without any pretension of modesty about his emerging role as world teacher, concluded his introduction by unequivocally stating, “For that is how the world will be saved.”24

What Peck was advocating had serious implications for Christians who dared to put their God before the god of community. In language reminiscent of New Age matriarch Alice Bailey, Peck emphatically stated that:

Community is and must be inclusive.

The great enemy of community is exclusivity. Groups that exclude others because they are poor or doubters or divorced or sinners or of some different race or nationality are not communities; they are cliques—actually defensive bastions against community.25

What Peck seemed to be saying was, that to survive in this perilous world we must be accommodating enough to form a world community in the interests of peace. However, Peck’s definition of Christian community gives us an idea of just how accommodating the Christians will have to be in the future. In his eyes, everyone is a potential member of a world “Christian” community, no matter what their expressed faith might be. He said, “any group of people (no matter what their religious persuasion or whether the word ‘Jesus’ is ever spoken) who are willing to practice the love, discipline, and sacrifice that are required for the spirit of community, that Jesus extolled and exemplified, will be gathered together in his name and he will be there.”26 In People of the Lie, Peck was already on record saying that a true Christian is “anyone who is ‘for Jesus a pleasant place of shelter.’”27 Pleasant atheists, by Peck’s definition, would be seen as “Christians” in his “Christian” community.

In his book The Different Drum, Peck seemed to really believe that it was his mission to bring community and peace to the world. As a founder of the “Foundation for Community Encouragement,” a non-profit organization for promoting community and world understanding, Peck had traveled extensively, sharing his ideas in speeches and workshops. But in his attempt to bring peace to the world, he seemed to have overlooked that Jesus’ mission was not to bring peace but truth. And if Peck had a higher regard for Scripture he would have known that Jesus warned his followers that His truth would not only not unify mankind but rather, would divide them. He knew that the world would not accept what He had to say. That is why He said, “Think not that I am come to send peace on the earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34).

Jesus said that our relationship to God is through Him and not through community. He said, “He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me.” (Matthew 10:37) Can we not assume that also implied in His statement is “he that loveth community more than me is not worthy of me?” The Lord made it clear that true community would not arise amidst “pleasantness” or through worldly compromise. It would be forged with the tears and tribulation of those who followed God’s will. (Matthew 7:21) They were the ones who continued in His word. They were His disciples indeed (John 8:31).

Heralding the Cosmic Christ

In 1988, just two years after the release of Peck’s The Different Drum, a book entitled The Coming of the Cosmic Christ surfaced in bookstores all across the country. Author Matthew Fox, a mystical New Age Catholic priest, was presenting an unbiblical, deeply ecumenical, New Age theology that in the name of Christ was anything but Christian. And on the back cover of The Coming of the Cosmic Christ was a lead endorsement by M. Scott Peck. Peck wrote, “Fox’s most daring, pioneering work yet, stimulating us to the kind of resurrection of values and practice required for planetary salvation.” It was hard to believe, but the professorial Peck was now openly endorsing a “Cosmic” New Age Christ.

Fox, the former director of “The Institute in Culture and Creation-Centered Spirituality” at Catholic Holy Names College in Oakland, California, was eventually defrocked by the Catholic Church after years of controversy. Promoting New Age mysticism in Christ’s name, Fox had been given great latitude over the years by the Vatican. With much of the doctrinal damage to the Church already done, he was finally disciplined by Rome. Now an ordained Episcopalian priest, Fox is still, by his own description, a mystical Catholic. All it would take to put Matthew Fox on the front lines of a more contemporary and mystical “New Age” Catholic Church is a more liberal pope and a few encyclical orders.

In his “Creation-Centered Spirituality,” Fox emphasizes the creation, rather than the Creator. He believes the Creator is in all of creation. Reflecting the all-embracing philosophy of mystical Catholic priest Teilhard de Chardin, Fox credits Chardin as one of the “Key Spokespersons” for his Creation-Centered Spirituality.28 It is Pierre Teilhard de Chardin who was quoted at the beginning of Marilyn Ferguson’s book The Aquarian Conspiracy as saying, “This soul can only be a conspiracy of individuals.” And it is Teilhard de Chardin who was cited by Peck as being perhaps the “greatest prophet” of the evolutionary leap that was moving all mankind toward “global consciousness and world community.” And it is the Cosmic New Age Christ of Teilhard de Chardin that challenges the historic Christian faith today.

Chardin, an upstart priest like Fox, was seen as a rebel by the Catholic Church. His writings were never officially recognized by the church. Fox follows in the Chardin tradition. To his followers he resembles the heroic, renegade priests in New Age author, James Redfield’s The Celestine Prophecy who dared to confront “old age” Biblical theology with their emerging New Age insights. Fox’s New Age Christianity was described by the New Age Journal as a “uniquely California blend of Catholic mysticism, feminism, and environmentalism.”29 Also in the Chardin tradition, original blessing was emphasized over original sin and Christ was seen as His creation.

Fox, who seemed to relish his role as a maverick “Christian,” hired Starhawk, a practicing witch, and Brian Swimme, a cosmic evolutionist, to help him teach Creation-Centered Spirituality at Holy Names College. Swimme, who co-wrote a book with Fox, entitled MANIFESTO! For a Global Civilization, was also among those who endorsed Fox’s The Coming of the Cosmic Christ. Swimme’s endorsement was just below that of M. Scott Peck. Swimme said Fox’s book was “the eighth wonder of the world…convincing proof that our western religious tradition does indeed have the depth of imagination to reinvent its faith.”30

The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, like The Road Less Traveled, takes a radical departure from biblical doctrine. Fox, in equating fundamentalist Christianity with “Christofascism,”31 says that “we must let the old paradigm go” and commit ourselves to what he called “the theology of the Cosmic Christ.”32 Underlining Teilhard de Chardin’s teachings on the mystical christification of the world, Fox says that:

the coming together of the historical Jesus and the Cosmic Christ will make Christianity whole at last.33

Peck, in endorsing Fox and his universal Cosmic Christ, affirmed that the term Christ is not specific to Jesus, but is referring to the “Christ” who is supposedly “in” everyone and everything.

Fox, in promoting the doctrine that we are all Christ, writes that “divinity is not outside us. We are in God and God in us…its technical name is panentheism, which means that ‘God is in all things and all things are in God.’”34 Fox quotes Chardin as saying that Christ is “in the very heart of the tiniest atom.”35 Citing Chardin’s innovative conceptualization of the term “Cosmic Christ,” Fox echoed Chardin’s complaint that he couldn’t find many people interested in his “Cosmic Christ.”36 But that was in 1988. With Peck’s endorsement, and with the continued popularization of the New Age Christ in the media, Fox would not make that complaint today.

Two years after Peck endorsed Fox’s “Cosmic Christ,” he proclaimed his further support for world government through his endorsement of a book entitled Planethood by Dr. Benjamin B. Ferencz and Ken Keyes, Jr. The two authors, a lawyer and a New Age leader, presented a plan for how the world could be saved by a reformed United Nations. By endorsing this book, Peck formally joined the ranks of those wanting the UN to take a leading role in establishing a New World Order. Also endorsing Planethood and writing the book’s introduction, was former Assistant-Secretary General of the UN, Robert Muller. A Teilhard de Chardin devotee and the author of New Genesis: toward a Global Spirituality, Muller was also a chief proponent of a new world religion that would be under the auspices of the United Nations. Alice Bailey’s dream of the UN as “a new church of God” was becoming more and more a real possibility.37

Peck, in reading The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, must have been pleased to see that Fox was also looking to the UN and to the year 2000 with high hopes. Fox’s epilogue in that book, entitled “Vatican III,” spelled out his dream:

At the United Nations plans are underway for the great global happening of the year 2000. That happening is, in religious terms, the celebration of the Jubilee Year….The planet is alive with excitement…a global renaissance seems well underway.38

Because of his obvious support of Fox, the Cosmic Christ, and the UN, Peck was probably aware of Fox’s earlier work, MANIFESTO! For a Global Civilization—a book he co-authored with Brian Swimme in 1982. Curiously, in 1991, the same year Fox, Peck, and Muller endorsed Planethood, Robert Muller wrote his own book on the coming New Age entitled The Birth of a Global Civilization. Peck followed that in 1993 with his book, A World Waiting to be Born. But like the New Age leaders he endorsed, and those who endorsed him, Peck’s faith was not grounded with faith in the Scriptures or in the Bible’s Christ. Defying the literality of truth as proclaimed in the Bible, his faith was in community and the Cosmic Christ, and a New World Religion under the auspices of the United Nations.

Not surprisingly, Jeremiah’s words were as applicable to Peck as they were when he pinpointed the false prophets of his day. He said, “A wonderful and horrible thing is committed in the land; The prophets prophesy falsely…and my people love to have it so.” (Jeremiah 5:30-31) He warned that, “they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.” (Jeremiah 8:11) He said, “Let not your prophets and your diviners, that be in the midst of you, deceive you…For they prophesy falsely unto you in my name: I have not sent them, saith the Lord.” (Jeremiah 29:8-9)

Jesus said, “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.” (Matthew 7:15-16) He said, “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat.” (Matthew 7:13) He made it clear, “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 7:21)

Ten years on the bestsellers list, a millionaire many times over, having appeared on Oprah and traveling around the country as one of America’s foremost spiritual teachers, M. Scott Peck’s popularity in the world was quite a contrast to the prophets of old, who were ridiculed and stoned and beaten and killed. In his unbiblical plea for consensus and compromise in the name of community and the “Cosmic Christ,” M. Scott Peck made a mockery of the Christian faith he purported to be interpreting and teaching.

_____________________________________

Sidebar:

MATTHEW FOX ON THE COSMIC CHRIST

This book is about the sacred and our response to it: reverence. The sacred what? The sacred everything….The holy omnipresence of the Divine One in all things. The Western term for this image of God present in all things is “The Cosmic Christ.” (p. 8)

I believe the issue today for the third millennium of Christianity–if the earth is to survive…is the quest for the Cosmic Christ. (p. 28)

…the theology of the Cosmic Christ—ignored for centuries—must be reconsidered seriously today. (p. 6)

Is it possible that our entire civilization is depressed because we lack the Cosmic Christ perspective? (p. 2)

The Cosmic Christ is the divine pattern that connects in the person of Jesus Christ (but by no means is limited to that person). (p. 135)

Divinity is found in all creatures. The divine name from Exodus 3:14, “I Am who I Am,” is appropriated by Jesus who shows us how to embrace our own divinity. The Cosmic Christ is the “I am” in every creature. (p. 154)

Divinity is not outside us. We are in God and God is in us. That is the unitive experience of the mystics East or West. It’s technical name is panentheism, which means that “God is in all things and all things are in God.” (p. 50)

We are called, like the Cosmic Christ, to radiate the divine presence to/with/from one another. (p. 137)

There is a real sense in which the Cosmic Christ is not born yet. Even in Jesus the Cosmic Christ has yet to come to full birth, for those who say they believe in Jesus have scarcely brought forth the Cosmic Christ at all on the mass scale that Mother Earth requires.
(p. 136)

Indeed, the birthing of the Cosmic Christ is the purpose of the incarnation…Divinity wants to birth the Cosmic Christ in each and every individual. (p. 122)

The birthing of the Cosmic Christ is itself a cosmic act involving cosmic labor pains.
(p. 138)

The Cosmic Christ educes power and responsibility from those who dare to allow the mystic to be born in and through them. (p. 138)

Deep ecumenical possibilities emerge when we shift from the quest for the historical Jesus to the quest for the Cosmic Christ. This shift requires making mysticism central to our faith once again. What the human race needs today is mystical solidarity. (p. 232)

The promise of ecumenism, the coming together of religions, has been thwarted because world religions have not been relating at the level of mysticism. (p. 65)

This Cosmic Christ will lead the way to a…deep worship; deep ecumenism and interaction among all religions of the planet. (p. 8)

The point cannot be emphasized too much: We have never attempted a rapprochement between the Cosmic Christ in Christianity and the Cosmic Christ in the universe and the Cosmic Christ in other religions. Yet the Divine One is present in them all… (p. 229)

Deep ecumenism is the movement that will unleash the wisdom of all world religions—Hinduism and Buddhism, Islam and Judaism, Taoism and Shintoism, Christianity in all its forms, and native religions and goddess religions throughout the world. This unleashing of wisdom holds the last hope for the survival of the planet we call home.
(p. 228)

Perhaps a new “ecumenical council” will be forthcoming in our lifetime. This one would be deeply ecumenical and would call forth the wisdom of all the world’s religions. Part of its work might be to declare an ancient but forgotten doctrine: the Cosmic Christ, the “pattern than connects” all the atoms and galaxies of the universe, a pattern of divine love and justice that all creatures and all humans bear within them. (p. 7)

The coming together of the historical Jesus and the Cosmic Christ will make Christianity whole at last. (p. 7)

*All quotes taken from The Coming of the Cosmic Christ by Matthew Fox, Harper, New York, 1988.

Endnotes:

1. M. Scott Peck, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace, Simon & Schuster Inc., New York, 1987, pp. 205-206.
2. Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy, J. P. Tarcher, Inc., Los Angeles, 1980, p. 27.
3. Ibid., p. 34.
4. The Tom Snyder Show, CNBC, 8/25/94.
5. Oprah!, 12/14/94.
6. Jeremy Rifkin, Declaration of a Heretic, Routledge & Kegan Paul, Boston, 1985 pp. 127-128.
7. M. Scott Peck, Further Along the Road Less Traveled: The Unending Journey Toward Spiritual Growth, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1993, p. 165.
8. Alice and Walden Howard, Exploring the Road Less Traveled, Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, 1993, p. 7.
9. M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled, Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, 1978, p. 281.
10. Ibid, pp. 282-283.
11. Ibid., pp. 269-270.
12. Ibid., pp. 308.
13. Ibid.
14. M. Scott Peck, People of the Lie, Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, 1983, p. 11.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid., p. 201.
17. Ibid., p. 188.
18. The Different Drum, p. 17.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid., p. 18.
21. Ibid., pp. 18-19.
22. Ibid., p. 272.
23. Ibid., p. 21.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid., p. 61.
26. Ibid., p. 75.
27. People of the Lie, p. 11.
28. Matthew Fox, Original Blessing, Bear & Co., Sante Fe, 1983, p. 316.
29. New Age Journal, Mar/Apr, 1989.
30. Matthew Fox and Brian Swimme, MANIFESTO! For a Global Civilization, Bear & Co., Santa Fe, 1982.
31. Matthew Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, Harper, San Francisco, 1988, p. 7.
32. Ibid., p. 6.
33. Ibid., p. 7.
34. Ibid., p. 50.
35. Ibid., p. 129.
36. Ibid., p. 77.
37. Alice A. Bailey, The Destiny of the Nations, Lucis Publishing Co., New York, 1949, p. 152.
38. Matthew Fox, The Coming of the Cosmic Christ, p. 246.

*First published in the Volume 19:2-3, 1995 issue of the SCP Journal.
Also published in the November 1995 issue of The Christian Conscience.

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.

This particular false Christ figure is Maitreya “the Christ.” He describes himself not as the world “savior” but, rather, as the “World Teacher.” He has maintained contact with the world through his longtime chief spokesperson, English artist and “esotericist” Benjamin Creme. Maitreya’s future role as the returning “Christ” is described by Creme in his 1980 book, The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom. Another spokesperson, Wayne Peterson, has written a more recent book entitled Extraordinary Times. Extraordinary Beings: Experiences of an American Diplomat with Maitreya and the Masters of Wisdom. In his 2001 book, Wayne Peterson wrote about Maitreya’s role with the world’s major religions:

He is the one awaited by all the major religions albeit unknown to them. The Christians wait for the return of the Christ, Buddhists for the next Buddha, Muslims for the Imam Mahdi, Hindus for a reincarnation of Krishna, and the Jews for the Messiah. These are all different names for one individual, Maitreya, who is here not as a religious leader but as a teacher for all humanity.¹¹

Wayne Peterson described what he learned from Benjamin Creme about Maitreya’s purpose:

Maitreya’s purpose, Creme indicated, was to help us realize our innate divinity through learning to live in right relationship as brothers and sisters of one great family. The first step was to establish sharing as the way to eliminate the poverty and starvation that caused millions around the world to die daily in the midst of plenty. Maitreya was emerging in time to help us save ourselves and the planet, and would make himself known to all in a televised ‘Day of Declaration’ soon to come.¹²

Maitreya has reportedly been living anonymously in the Western world since 1977. His “return” and presence here on earth was announced in full page newspaper ads in major cities around the world in 1982. He has an unofficial world organization entitled “Share International,” and his followers have been reported by Creme and Peterson to include many prominent world figures, including Mikhail Gorbachev¹³ and Nelson Mandela.¹⁴

Maitreya has made it known that when he returns twelve “Masters of Wisdom” will accompany him to help “teach” humanity the “New Truth”¹⁵ and the “new way.”¹⁶ In what would prove to be a most clever device, he has stated that one of these “Masters” will be “Jesus,”—a “Master Jesus”—who is not Jesus Christ but a “disciple” of “the Christ.” Maitreya has made it clear that he, Maitreya, is the only person occupying the “office” of “Christ,” that he has occupied that “office” for over 2600 years, and that it was he as the “Christ” who “overshadowed” and worked through Jesus, the man, in Palestine back in the first century. Benjamin Creme explained:

In the esoteric tradition, the Christ is not the name of an individual but of an Office in the Hierarchy. The present holder of that Office, the Lord Maitreya, has held it for 2,600 years, and manifested in Palestine through His Disciple, Jesus, by the occult method of overshadowing, the most frequent form used for the manifestation of Avatars. He has never left the world, but for 2,000 years has waited and planned for this immediate future time, training His Disciples, and preparing Himself for the awesome task which awaits Him. He has made it known that this time, He Himself will come.¹⁷

Overlapping “Purposes”

It is worth noting that Maitreya’s most significant New Age teachings about hope, purpose, dreams, destiny, service, peace and the idea that God is “in” everything overlap in significant ways with many of the words and teachings of Robert Schuller and Rick Warren. These areas of overlap are starting to blur some of the crucial differences between biblical Christianity and the New Spirituality. The reason the blurring is starting to occur is because Robert Schuller, Rick Warren, and most Christian leaders make no effort to distinguish the difference between what they are saying and what false Christs, like Maitreya, and the New Spirituality are saying. For example, Maitreya, like Rick Warren, is very fond of the word “purpose”—he uses it all the time. Maitreya has proclaimed to all humanity:

We are together, you and I, for the same purpose.¹⁸

Take My hand. My friends, and let us together walk that Path and know the meaning of Life, know the blessing of Love, know the purpose of God.¹⁹

I need all those who long to serve, who wish to fulfill their purpose in life…²⁰

I shall place before you all the purpose of God.²¹

Hold fast to My Purpose, which is to take man to God.²²

My Purpose unfolds.²³

My Purposes are being fulfilled.²⁴

I am your Purpose.²⁵

Occupying the whole back cover of the book Messages from Maitreya is “The Great Invocation.” According to Benjamin Creme, this invocation was introduced into the world by Maitreya and is now commonly recited in New Age-oriented churches around the world. ‘The Great Invocation” invokes the return of “the Christ” and calls for a restoration of ‘The Plan.” The middle lines of the Invocation specifically invoke God’s “purpose.”

From the centre where the Will of God is known

Let purpose guide the little wills of men—

The purpose which the Masters know and serve.

Creme explained why Maitreya released “The Great Invocation” to humanity:

…to enable man himself to invoke the energies which would change our world, and make possible the return of the Christ and Hierarchy.²⁶

Maitreya’s deceptive “purpose” as the “World Teacher” is to convince everyone they are divine. His plan is to teach humanity to believe in the “immanent” nature of God; that is, that God is “in” everyone, so everyone is divine.

Immanence: the “God” Within

Familiar with much of the material on Maitreya, I suddenly found myself looking at him in a whole new way after reading Rick Warren and Robert Schuller. There was something very disturbing about the similarity of their teachings, especially in regards to “purpose” and the idea that God is “in” everyone and everything.

On page 88 of The Purpose-Driven Life, Rick Warren wrote:

Because God is with you all the time, no place is any closer to God than the place where you are right now. The Bible says, “He rules everything and is everywhere and is in everything.”

On page 88 in Messages from Maitreya the Christ, Maitreya is quoted as saying:

My friends, God is nearer to you than you can imagine.
God is yourself.
God is within you and all around you.

On page 88 of his book The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom, Benjamin Creme explained Maitreya’s “new world religion.” He described the same “immanent” aspect of God that Rick Warren was conveying with his New Century Version of Ephesians 4:6:

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.

Renowned occult teacher and New Age Theosophist Alice A. Bailey also described how a New World Religion will be based on this “immanent” aspect of God. Emphasizing the word “fresh,” she states that the “Path to God” will be based on:

…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.²⁷ (Emphasis added)

This same “immanent” aspect of God so important to Maitreya, Alice A. Bailey, the New Spirituality and the New World Religion is also very important to Rick Warren. This idea of “immanence” is taught as part of the Foundations course at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church. Echoing Bailey’s use of the word “fresh,” the Foundations Participant’s Guide under the section heading “A Fresh Word” reiterates Rick Warren’s teaching that God is “in” everything. It states:

The fact that God stands above and beyond his creation does not mean he stands outside his creation. He is both transcendent (above and beyond his creation) and immanent (within and throughout his creation).²⁸ (Parentheses in original)

Robert Schuller has also stressed this aspect of immanence. In a November 9, 2003 sermon at the Crystal Cathedral, Robert Schuller stated that God was not only transcendent but also immanent. He said that as a result of his becoming more aware of the immanence of God, his faith was now “deeper, broader, and richer more than ever.” As previously cited, he summarized what he meant by the immanence of God by telling his worldwide television audience:

Yes, God is alive and He is in every single human being!²⁹

Also, as previously mentioned in Chapter Three of this book, this “immanent” aspect of God is also evident in Rick Warren’s favored paraphrase, Eugene Peterson’s The Message. The notion that God is “in” everything and is “One” with creation is contained in the magical saying “as above, so below.” This is the mystical New Age phrase that Eugene Peterson injected in its entirety into the Lord’s Prayer and in its derivative form into Colossians 1:16—the verse that Rick Warren used to introduce his readers to The Purpose-Driven Life. As previously cited, the editors of the New Age journal described this immanent aspect of God and its New Age significance in their book As Above, So Below:

“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.³⁰

The spiritual implications of all of these overlapping statements are enormous. Rick Warren, Robert Schuller, and Eugene Peterson are all now teaching this immanent aspect of God—that God is “in” everyone. On this critical theological point, these particular Christian leaders are not only not exposing one of the central concepts of the “New Spirituality” and probable New World Religion—they seem to be agreeing with it!

A friend of mine who used to go to Saddleback Church came over to the house one night to try to demonstrate that Rick Warren wasn’t deceived about the New Age or about spiritual deception. I knew his argument would be based on the fact that Rick Warren had made a statement in The Purpose-Driven Life that said we will never become God and that we are not divine. He had even used the term “New Age philosophies.”³¹ Before my friend could even begin to make his point, I had him turn to page 88 in The Purpose-Driven Life. I read the passage out loud:

Because God is with you all the time, no place is any closer to God than the place where you are right now. The Bible says, “He rules everything and is everywhere and is in everything.”

My friend hung his head in disbelief and then exclaimed, “That’s pantheism!” He had immediately grasped the dangerous New Age implications of what Rick Warren was saying. He understood that whatever New Age disclaimers Rick Warren seemed to be making, he had just overridden them by what he was actually teaching. On the one hand, Rick Warren has proclaimed that humans are not divine, yet he opens the door to this New Spirituality belief by proclaiming that God is “in” everything. This same friend told me on another occasion that he had never been taught anything meaningful about spiritual deception while attending Saddleback Church.

 “Master Jesus” and the New Reformation

Unless Rick Warren and other church leaders start to really expose the New Age, by delineating the differences between biblical Christianity and the New Spirituality, there will be real confusion down the line. Successful coaches have their teams as fully prepared as possible for whatever the opposition may have up their sleeve—including last minute trick plays at the end of the game. Christian leaders must do the same.

It is imperative that the Church be prepared for a false Christ figure like Maitreya suddenly appearing and presenting himself as “the Christ” and proclaiming the immanence of God “in” everyone and everything. It could happen. We cannot afford to be complacent. We must not be ignorant of our Adversary’s schemes and devices (2 Corinthians 2:11).

For example, Benjamin Creme, as previously mentioned, has tried to convince us that Jesus is not the Christ but rather a disciple of Maitreya “the Christ.” He explained that in the first century Jesus allowed Maitreya to “overshadow” and work through him after he was baptized.

He was, and still is, a Disciple of the Christ and made the great sacrifice of giving up His body for the use of the Christ. By the occult process of overshadowing, the Christ, Maitreya, took over and worked through the body of Jesus from the Baptism onwards.³²

Creme explained that when Maitreya reveals himself as “Christ,” he will be joined by “twelve Masters of Wisdom” who help him do his work in the world. Creme has stated that “Jesus” will be one of these “Masters” returning with Maitreya. But according to Creme, this “Jesus” is not the Lord and he is not the Christ—he is a “Master” and a “Master” only. Creme claims that Maitreya is the Lord and Christ. Creme has explained that the “Master Jesus” will be serving the “Lord Maitreya” by assuming the throne of St. Peter in Rome and heading up “the Christian Church.” This “Master Jesus”—obviously a false Jesus—will be in charge of a new reformation. It will be his job to “reform the Christian churches.”

The Master Jesus is going to reform the Christian churches.³³

He will seek to transform the Christian Churches, in so far as they are flexible enough to respond correctly to the new reality which the return of the Christ and the Masters will create.³⁴

Sadly, many of the newer Bible translations and paraphrases used by Rick Warren have often dropped the words “Lord” and “Christ” from Jesus’ title and have substituted the word “Master.” This obviously plays directly into the hands of a false Christ, like Maitreya, who will be trying to convince the world—and particularly Christians—that Jesus is not the Lord Jesus Christ but simply the “Master Jesus.”

Also favorable to Maitreya are the new versions’ frequent use of the word “Teacher” in conjunction with the term “Christ.” Maitreya presents himself not as the world “savior” but as the “World Teacher.” The frequent association of the word “Teacher” with Christ, in new versions like The Message, seems to underscore and give validity to Maitreya’s role as “Christ” and “World Teacher.” Interestingly, the word ‘Teacher” is directly associated with Jesus Christ only one time in the King James translation of the Gospels. It appears at least twenty-five times in The Message paraphrase of the Gospels.

And while the disciples and followers of the real Jesus called Him “Master,” it was always with the understanding that He was also their “Lord” and “Christ.” But in the King James Bible, when they addressed Him as “Master” they never—not even once—directly addressed Him as “Master Jesus.” Yet, the term “Master Jesus” appears repeatedly in Eugene Peterson’s The Message. Peterson continually drops the word “Lord” from Jesus’ title, choosing instead to refer to Him as “Master Jesus.”

For example, the King James translation of Revelation 22:20-21 at the very end of the Bible is:

Even so, come. Lord Jesus.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

The Message paraphrase is:

Yes! Come, Master Jesus!
The grace of the Master Jesus be with all of you. Oh, Yes!³⁵

Maitreya’s hope is that most people calling themselves Christians will be content to follow the lead of his false “Master Jesus” who will be in charge of “reforming” the “Christian” Church—a “Christian” Church that regards Maitreya, not Jesus, as their Lord and Christ. As a prototype, Maitreya is a perfect example of how the eventual Antichrist might attempt to deceive the world. Exposing Maitreya’s “Master Jesus” scheme and his “new reformation” scheme—as the Bible admonishes us to do (Ephesians 5:11-13)—would be a good way for Rick Warren and other Christian leaders to prepare believers for a possible “worst-case scenario” of having someone like Maitreya suddenly appearing and claiming to be Christ.

Robert Schuller, Rick Warren and other Christian leaders need to make a clear distinction between their call for a “new reformation” and the one called for by Neale Donald Walsch and the false Christ, Maitreya. Sadly, Rick Warren seems to be completely unaware of the overlapping implications of his 5-Step P.E.A.C.E. Plan and the 5-Step PEACE Plan proposed by Neale Donald Walsch and his New Age “God.” Both of their PEACE Plans use the word PEACE as an acronym. Both of the PEACE Plans proclaim they will “change the world” and “change history.” Both of the PEACE Plans describe themselves as “God’s Plan” and emphatically declare that God is in the process of bringing “peace” to the world. And both of these 5-Step PEACE Plans call for a “new reformation.” A “new reformation” that, with a few deceptive twists and turns, could be overseen by a “Master Jesus” who is not the real Jesus Christ. A “Master Jesus” who teaches that we are all divine because God is “in” everything.

Persecution Through the “Selection Process”

But while Maitreya talks of “love” and “peace” and the one family of mankind, he has issued a very strict warning to those people who persist in remaining “separate” by refusing to see themselves and everyone else as “divine.” He has warned that those who refuse to accept the doctrine of immanence and Oneness—humanity’s shared divinity with God—will be selectively expelled from the human race. Specifically using the terms “purpose” and “driven,” this Purpose Driven false Christ has declared that it is his “purpose” to make sure that anyone who remains “separate,” by denying the divinity of man, be “driven” from this planet.

All that hinders the manifestation of man’s divinity must be driven from our planet.³⁶

The crime of separation must be driven from this world. I affirm that as My Purpose.³⁷

New Age leader Barbara Marx Hubbard, who is on the Board of Directors of The Global Renaissance Alliance and is a speaker for Walsch’s Humanity’s Team, wrote that she was told the same thing. Hubbard stated that her “Christ” specifically described this purposeful elimination process as “the selection process.” Like Maitreya, she stated that the selection process will be the penalty for anyone who persists in the “self-centered” belief that humanity is not divine and is “separate” from God. By this definition, Bible-believing Christians—the ones who really are Bible believing—would be defined as among those who are “self-centered” and “separate.” In what would be a fulfillment of the prophecy that the Antichrist will “make war with the saints” (Revelation 13:7), Hubbard’s “Christ”—sounding much like Maitreya—states that he will “make war” on those who are “fearful” and “self-centered.”

[T]he fundamental regression is self-centeredness, or the illusion that you are separate from God. I “make war” on self-centeredness. It shall surely be overcome. The child must become the adult. Human must become Divine. That is the law.³⁸

At the co-creative stage of evolution, one self-centered soul is like a lethal cancer cell in a body: deadly to itself and to the whole.³⁹

The surgeon dare leave no cancer in the body when he closes up the wound after a delicate operation. We dare leave no self-centeredness on Earth after the selection process.⁴⁰

The future implications of all this are obviously very ominous for the so-called “fearful” Christians who refuse to believe in the false doctrine of immanence and Oneness—humanity’s shared divinity with God—and who continue to profess that Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior. In Reinventing Jesus Christ: The New Gospel, [Now titled False Christ Coming] I warned:

In the [New Age] “new gospel” [New Spirituality] scheme of things, “fear” means seeing yourself and your fellow man as “separate” and not as a part of God. “Fear” and “separation” are equated with all of those who refuse to see themselves as being a part of God…. “Fear” and “separation” prevent the attainment of peace, produce illness in the body of mankind, and prevent spiritual growth. They are the ticket to the “selection process” because they prevent the “one body” of humanity from advancing to the next spiritual level. “Fear” and “separation” people are those who oppose “new gospel” teachings and the “new gospel” God and Christ….

How do “God” and “Christ” suggest that Christians, and others under “the illusion of separation,” rid themselves of the “fear” that is causing them to feel separate from God? By “atoning” through the “at-one-ment” process. That is, by affirming that “all is love” and “all is God” and never forgetting that they are a part of God. By “new gospel” definition, the only way you can be “loving” and “at-one” with your fellow man is by ultimately pledging allegiance to the doctrine of “oneness.”….In the “new gospel” future you will live or die based on whether or not you see yourself as a part of God. It is the doctrine of “oneness” versus the doctrine of “separation.” It is as simple and straightforward and brutal as that….

The upshot of this clever conditioning process is to impress people everywhere with the seemingly indisputable contention that if you are against “oneness” you are also against God, Christ, and your fellow man.

Only an ingenious and creatively deceptive spirit world could have thought up such a diabolical way of separating and disparaging Christian believers and others who do not believe they are a part of God. Who could possibly be against “oneness”? And the answer is, of course, only those who have been “deceived” into believing in the “crime of separation.”⁴¹

In a possible worst-case scenario with someone like Maitreya declaring himself to be “the Christ,” faithful Christians would know that Maitreya is not the Christ and that his “Master Jesus” is not the real Jesus. Denying them both and refusing to accept the false doctrine of Oneness, Christians would immediately be branded as “fearful,” “separate,” “self-centered,” and “exclusivistic” for insisting that Jesus is the Christ and their one and only Savior. Believers would literally be “hated” for holding fast to the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And, in Maitreya’s world, by holding fast to the true Jesus Christ believers would face certain death from the “selection process.” Horrific as all of this may be, it is consistent with Jesus’ prophetic warnings about Antichrist and the time of the end foretold in Scripture:

Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. (Matthew 24:9)

And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations. (Revelation 13:7)

A true Bible-believer in Maitreya’s world could, in reality, be a loving, giving, peaceful person. But, by Maitreya’s definition and the definition of the New Spirituality, this believer would automatically be labeled as “self-centered” and subject to death by the “selection process.” Again, this is precisely the kind of scenario that Jesus warned would happen at the time of the end.

A choice looms ahead for mankind. According to the New Spirituality, those who are not “separate” and “self-centered” are those who believe that “we are all One” because God is “in” everything. They will evolve and live on in the New Age. Those who refuse to accept the “immanent” view that God is “in” everything and that we are all “One” will be handed over to the “selection process.” If Rick Warren and those in Christian leadership don’t start spelling out the differences between biblical Christianity and the New Spirituality, the Purpose-Driven Church could end up getting very deceived. The Bible is very clear that in the future many people describing themselves as Christians will be deceived into abandoning Jesus as their Lord and Christ and will end up following someone like Maitreya as their “Lord” and “Christ.” In my book Reinventing Jesus Christ: The New Gospel, [Now titled False Christ Coming] I warned:

Somehow, Christians don’t seem to grasp Jesus’ warnings about the tremendous deception that characterizes the time of the end. Perhaps deceived into thinking that we can’t be deceived, we don’t take seriously enough His warnings that a Hitler-like antichrist figure will one day rise to rule the world—and that many people calling themselves “Christians” will support this spiritual counterfeit who will actually come in the name of Christ. Our adversary wants us to believe that these warnings are for another people at another time. Yet through Scripture, and in our heart of hearts, the Spirit of God tells us that they are not. As we study the Bible, and as we watch and pray and observe the events all around us, we come to understand that these future times described by Jesus are now suddenly and undeniably upon us.⁴²

Endnotes:

1.  Messages from Maitreya the Christ: One Hundred Forty Messages, p. 123.
2.  Ibid., p. 23.
3.  Ibid., p. 123.
4.  Ibid., p. 88.
5.  Ibid., p. 203.
6.  Ibid., p. 183.
7.  Ibid., p. 218.
8.  Ibid., p. 45.
9.  Ibid., p. 44.
10. Ibid., p. 150.
11. Wayne S. Peterson, Extraordinary Times. Extraordinary Beings: Experiences of an American Diplomat with Maitreya and the Masters of Wisdom (Henderson, Nevada: Emergence Press, 2001), p. 38.
12. Ibid., p. 35.
13. Ibid., p. 100.
14. Wayne S. Peterson, author, interviewed on Bridging Heaven & Earth, a weekly talk show broadcast on Cox Communications’ public access channel 17 in Santa Barbara, California on November 9. 2001, Videocassette, (http://www.HeaventoEarth.com).
15. Messages from Maitreya the Christ, p. 6.
16. Ibid., p. 248.
17. Benjamin Creme, The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom (London, England: The Tara Press, 1980), p. 30.
18. Messages from Maitreya the Christ, p. 206.
19. Ibid., p. 266.
20. Ibid., p. 159.
21. Ibid., p. 183.
22. Ibid., p. 192.
23. Ibid., p. 153.
24. Ibid., p. 56.
25. Ibid., p. 123.
26. Creme, The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom, p. 39.
27. Alice Bailey and Djwhal Khul, The Reappearance of the Christ, Chapter 6 – The New World Religion, (Caux, Switzerland: Netnews Association and/or its suppliers, 2002), (http://www.netnews.org).
28. Tom Holladay and Kay Warren, Foundations Participant’s Guide: 11 Core Truths To Build Your Life On (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2003), p. 46.
29. Hour of Power, Robert H. Schuller. Program #1762, “God’s Word: Rebuild, Renew, Restore,” November 9, 2003, (http://www.hourofpower.org/booklets/bookletdetail.cfm7ArticlelD=2107), p. 5.
30. Ronald S. Miller and the Editors of New Age Journal, As Above. So Below, p. xi.
31. Rick Warren, The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?, p. 172.
32. Creme, The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom, p. 46.
33. Ibid., p. 85.
34. Ibid., p. 46.
35. Eugene H. Peterson, The Message: The New Testament in Contemporary Language, p. 535.
36. Messages from Maitreya the Christ, p. 248.
37. Ibid., p. 189.
38. Barbara Marx Hubbard, The Revelation: A Message of Hope for the New Millennium (Novato, California: Nataraj Publishing, 1995), p. 233.
39. Ibid., p. 255.
40. Ibid., p. 240.
41. Warren B. Smith, False Christ Coming: Does Anybody Care? (Magalia California: Mountain Stream Press, 2011), pp. 107-108.
42. Ibid., pp. 117-118.

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:

I love this church. I love being here. I love walking on this property. I just felt like I was one step away from heaven when I came on this property this morning. I read a book this past week. Somebody gave it to me, and it traced the past fifty years of Christianity in America and it began to talk about how the transition occurred in our country that eventually led to seeker service, it led to Rick Warren, it led to Bill Hybels and Willow [Creek]. And do you know this book—you probably haven’t even seen it yet—this book brought all that back to a person who said this was the grandfather of it all who influenced this person, this person, and this person and from that it became the massive movement it is today. And the person that they named in the book was none other than the pastor of this church. That’s amazing ladies and gentlemen! Truly amazing! It is truly amazing! Yes! [The congregation gives Schuller a standing ovation] 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. People like to shoot people on the edge.3

But Bruce Wilkinson’s strong supportive words stood in stark contrast to the posturing and distancing Rick Warren was attempting to construct between Robert Schuller, Norman Vincent Peale, George Mair’s new book, and himself. Wilkinson certainly seemed to have no objections to Schuller or with George Mair’s description of a Church Growth movement that was founded by Peale and Schuller. The ironic twist here was that while Warren had supposedly distanced himself from Schuller, one of his “best friends in the whole world,” Bruce Wilkinson, was preaching from Schuller’s pulpit and calling Schuller “a visionary,” and the real leader.

The double irony pointed out in Deceived on Purpose was that two years earlier, Bruce Wilkinson had come directly from speaking at the Crystal Cathedral one week to speak at Saddleback Church the next week.4 The theme at both churches was preparing the church for “God’s Dream.” As already mentioned, “God’s Dream” was a term that Robert Schuller had been popularizing for decades.5 Wilkinson had come to Saddleback at the request of Rick Warren to help prepare Saddleback Church for the unveiling of Warren’s P.E.A.C.E. Plan—the Schulleresque P.E.A.C.E. Plan that Warren just happened to be calling “God’s Dream For You—and the World.” Yet Warren’s Saddleback apologists were now trying to convince everyone that Warren had distanced himself from Schuller.

In July 2005, a hastily written book authored by Richard Abanes, who by that time had moved into the role of Rick Warren’s chief apologist, would suddenly seem to answer everyone’s questions about Rick Warren. This book, titled Rick Warren and the Purpose that Drives Him, was published by Harvest House. Contrary to all publishing standards, this obvious damage-control book was offered free to any pastor in the world requesting a copy. I spoke with a pastor’s wife who had called for a free copy of the book. She said a Harvest House representative told her the publishing house had not provided the funding for the free books. The representative stated that the funding came from outside sources associated with the author.6

Blanchard “Moves Forward”

In mid-July of 2005, Ken Blanchard posted a statement on his Lead Like Jesus website, admitting that his New Age endorsements were “problematic.” He gave his “promise” that he would try to “exercise better discernment in the future.”7 Blanchard stated that a discernment ministry called Watchman Fellowship would “assist” him in becoming more discerning. Three days later, in spite of Blanchard’s considerable New Age entanglements and obvious spiritual confusion, Watchman Fellowship announced that Blanchard would remain at the helm of the Lead Like Jesus organization. On July 25, 2005, James Walker—the president of Watchman Fellowship—issued the following statement:

After spending time with Mr. Blanchard we are now convinced that he is, in fact, a brother in Christ and are committed to assist him as he continues to work through the issues that have arisen as a result of these past endorsements. We encourage you to pray for Ken and the Lead Like Jesus staff as they move forward.8

Thus, while George Mair and Lighthouse Trails continued to be heavily criticized by those associated with Rick Warren and Saddleback, Ken Blanchard forged on with his Lead Like Jesus movement. It wasn’t too long after this that Blanchard would endorse another New Age book. In January 2006, just six months after the assurance that Watchman Fellowship would be providing oversight and that Blanchard would stop endorsing New Age books, Blanchard endorsed Jon Gordon’s The 10 Minute Energy Solution.9 In this book, Gordon favorably quotes and references numerous New Age sources including A Course in Miracles, Wayne Dyer, Marilyn Ferguson, Paramahansa Yogananda, and others. The book also points readers to New Age writings by Deepak Chopra, Marianne Williamson, and Gary Zukav. Gordon’s New Age-promoting book, bearing Blanchard’s endorsement on the cover, was published after Blanchard’s own 2005 book—Lead Like Jesus—was released. Thus, while Blanchard’s book was teaching everyone how to “Lead Like Jesus,” the Blanchard-endorsed book by Gordon was simultaneously promoting the New Age “Jesus” who was “another Jesus”—the “Jesus” of the New Age/New Spirituality.

But Ken Blanchard’s continued lack of discernment didn’t seem to faze Rick Warren or any of the other Christian leaders who so readily supported Blanchard and his Lead Like Jesus book and organization. Nor did Blanchard’s persistent New Age affections prevent Rick Warren from continuing to sit on Blanchard’s Lead Like Jesus National Board.10

Blanchard’s Continued Confusion

In a personal interview with Saddleback’s Richard Abanes that was published in Abanes’ book Rick Warren and the Purpose that Drives Him, Rick Warren offered an additional line of defense regarding Ken Blanchard’s New Age sympathies. By all appearances, Rick Warren had distanced himself from Blanchard—just as had been the case with Robert Schuller. Warren stated that Blanchard was not a “deep Christian” and that he had recently told Blanchard “You started in ministry before you got to maturity.” Continuing to emphasize Blanchard’s immaturity as a believer, Warren stated: “He just needs to be taken aside and instructed in the ways of the Lord.”11 But what Warren did not mention in the interview was why he would endorse Blanchard’s book, Lead Like Jesus, sit on Blanchard’s Lead Like Jesus National Board, and let someone who was “not a deep Christian” and “who needs to be instructed in the ways of the Lord” play such an important role in the Purpose Driven P.E.A.C.E. Plan. How could Rick Warren ever expect someone lacking Christian maturity to train countless people around the world to “lead like Jesus?”

Ken Blanchard’s on-going New Age affections have been carefully documented by ministries like Christian Research Service and Lighthouse Trails Publishing. For example, in 2007 Blanchard provided a new foreword and his continued endorsement for Jim Ballard’s New Age book Little Wave and Old Swell. Then, in early 2008, Blanchard was one of the featured speakers at a Southern California conference that was highlighting the New Age book The Secret.12 Incidentally, he spoke at the same event in 2009 as well, sharing a platform with some of the most prolific New Age authors today, including Wayne Dyer, John Gray, and Mark Victor Hansen. And in 2008, Blanchard’s endorsement was on the front cover of another book by New Age sympathizer Jon Gordon.13 He has also remained a member of the Advisory Council of the New Age-based Hoffman Institute,14 an organization that promotes the Hoffman Quadrinity Process. The Quadrinity Process was devised by psychic Robert Hoffman15 and is based on the foundational New Age belief that God is “in” everything. In 2010 Ken Blanchard endorsed New Age Leader Deepak Chopra’s book The Soul of Leadership. Blanchard called it a “godsend.”16

Rick Warren’s involvement with Ken Blanchard cannot be conveniently excused and explained away. His association with Blanchard is symptomatic of a Purpose Driven ship without scriptural bearings.

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)

One further note regarding the origin of Ken Blanchard’s Lead Like Jesus campaign. In a radio interview with WMKL in Miami, Florida, Blanchard, as the author of The One Minute Manager, recounted a visit he had had with Robert Schuller at the Crystal Cathedral. Schuller had told him that Jesus was the “greatest one-minute manager of all time.” Blanchard said in the interview that it was after this Schuller remark that for “the first time I started thinking of Jesus as a leader.”17

Much like Rick Warren’s reference to Bernie Siegel in The Purpose Driven Life, Warren’s association with Ken Blanchard was just one more in a string of New Age implications that have yet to be adequately accounted for.

Endnotes:

1. Hour of Power, April 24, 2005. Bruce Wilkinson speaking at the Crystal Cathedral. Transcribed by author. No longer available online on Hour of Power website. (Note: Some of the actual comments made by Wilkinson in the telecast were changed or omitted from the edited Hour of Power online transcript.)
2. Saddleback Church, October 26, 2003. Internet broadcast from Saddleback Church, transcribed by author.
3. Ibid.
4. Warren B. Smith, Deceived on Purpose, op. cit., pp. 121-124.
5. Ibid., pp. 124-126.
6. Source wishes to remain anonymous. On file.
7. This statement was posted on Ken Blanchard’s website, but is no longer available; cached file: http://web.archive.org/web/20050808074022/http://www.leadlikejesus.com/templates/cusleadlikejesus/details.asp?id=21633&PID=89003; for more information on his statement, see: http://www.christianresearchservice.com/KenBlanchard4.htm. For current Ken Blanchard endorsements and updates see: http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/blanchard.htm.
8. Watchman Fellowship; cached file: http://web.archive.org/web/20061002033957/http://www.watchman.org/blanchardupdate.htm.
9. Blanchard endorsement of Jon Gordon, The 10-Minute Energy Solution: A Proven Plan to Increase Your Energy, Reduce Your Stress, and Transform Your Life (New York, NY: Putnam’s Sons, 2006), inside front cover. Blanchard’s endorsement also sits on Jon Gordon’s website: http://www.jongordon.com/012306TheScientificBenefitsofPrayer.htm.
10. For many years, Lead Like Jesus posted a list of their board members on their website. That list is no longer on their site. The following is a cached file from 2004: http://web.archive.org/web/20040718032248/http://www.leadlikejesus.com/clientImages/21633/nationalboardmembers.htm.
11. Richard Abanes, Rick Warren and the Purpose that Drives Him (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2005), p. 28.
12. “The Secret To Having Your Best Year Ever,” 2008 featuring “the world-renowned stars of The Secret,” http://web.archive.org/web/20071228203454/http://yourbestyearever.org, presented by the Jenna Druck Foundation: http://www.yourbestyearever.org.
13. Jon Gordon, The No Complaining Rule (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons, 2008), front cover.
14. The Hoffman Institute: http://www.hoffmaninstitute.org/about/directors-advisors/advisors.html.
15. Tim Laurence, The Hoffman Process (New York, NY: Bantam Dell, Bantam Dell paperback edition, 2004), pp. 206-209.
16. Deepak Chopra, The Soul of Leadership: Unlocking Your Potential for Greatness (New York, NY: Harmony Books, 2010).
17. Radio interview with Ken Blanchard, The Call-91.7 WMKL Miami, Florida, http://www.callfm.com. On file.

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:

According to a new biography on Rick Warren, A Life With Purpose written by George Mair, Rick Warren has solicited the services of Ken Blanchard to aid him in training leaders: “Rick taps the best and most famous to help train church leaders to be like Jesus. He has hired Ken Blanchard . . . . to come to Saddleback to help train people how to be effective leaders.”2

Rick Warren didn’t seem to understand how a reasonable person could misinterpret the phrase “signed on” to mean “hired.” True, George Mair had assumed that “signed on” meant “hired,” but that was not even the issue Lighthouse Trails was raising. The issue was why would Warren choose a New Age sympathizer like Ken Blanchard to “equip” leaders around the world to “lead like Jesus”? Lighthouse Trails was not focusing on George Mair’s book—only on Blanchard’s New Age sympathies. Mair just happened to be the one who mentioned that Warren would be working with Blanchard to equip leaders. What proved to be so revealing to those watching Rick Warren, was how he and his apologists turned the tables on people. Rather than dealing with the New Age implications of the Purpose Driven movement, they tried to discredit those of us they perceived to be “critics.” In this case, George Mair and Lighthouse Trails became the “problem” rather than Blanchard’s New Age affections.

Rick Warren’s midnight e-mail to Lighthouse Trails cited his many unsubstantiated objections to George Mair’s book. Interestingly, that e-mail was posted on the Internet by Richard Abanes within just a few hours after Warren sent it to Lighthouse Trails.3 It began circulating quickly, and within twenty-four hours, Lighthouse Trails was receiving calls and e-mails about Warren’s e-mail to them. Lighthouse Trails would later post a point-by-point response to Warren’s e-mail, contending that most—if not all—of his complaints regarding George Mair’s book and the Lighthouse Trails Press Release were generally misstated and simply not true. Warren’s e-mail and the Lighthouse Trails point-by-point refutation are still posted at www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com.

Thou Dost Protest Too Much

In his e-mail to Lighthouse Trails, the pastor with a reputation for being “seeker-friendly” was anything but “seeker-friendly” with George Mair. Although Rick Warren has stated on numerous occasions that there are 2.3 billion Christians in the world, he made it clear in his e-mail he did not consider Mair to be one of them. Even though Mair described himself as a Christian (and actually was attending Saddleback for two years while he was writing A Life with Purpose), Warren dismissed Mair as “an unbeliever”—someone who “was not even born again.” In questioning Mair’s faith, Warren was trying to undermine Mair’s credibility in commenting on anything pertaining to Warren and the Church Growth movement. In his e-mail to Lighthouse Trails, Warren wrote:

George Mair, an unbeliever, evidently wanted to make a quick buck turning out a book on me, at the peak of the popularity of The Purpose Driven Life . . . Since he is not even born again, he certainly wouldn’t understand theology, what I believe, or even the basics of our ministry.4

Perhaps hopeful that Mair’s reference to “New Age prophet Norman Vincent Peale” would be buried along with the Lighthouse Trails documentation of Ken Blanchard’s New Age endorsements, Warren made it seem that George Mair’s book was completely worthless—even though Mair’s book had nothing but effusive praise for Rick Warren and his ministry. Using capital letters to make his point and to express his displeasure with Mair, Warren wrote in the e-mail:

THERE IS ALMOST NOTHING CORRECT IN MAIR’S BOOK. Practically every page has either a factual error, a made-up story, or Mair’s weird interpretation of my motives and beliefs.5

After detailing these alleged “factual errors,” Rick Warren added:

I could go on and on, but any author who gets such basic facts wrong (that are easily checkable) should not be trusted with his interpretation of anything.6

In attempting to discredit George Mair, it appeared that Rick Warren was also attempting to discredit Lighthouse Trails and what they had written about Ken Blanchard. However, as Lighthouse Trails was quick to point out, it was Warren who was getting most of his facts wrong. For example, in regard to Blanchard’s New Age endorsements, Warren stated in his e-mail to Lighthouse Trails that Blanchard’s actions were the result of Blanchard being a “new believer.” He said Blanchard should not be held responsible for those endorsements because they had been made before he was a Christian. He wrote:

Ken is a new believer—a new creature in Christ. He should not be held accountable for statements or endorsements he made before he became a Christian. And he’s just learning now.7

But Lighthouse Trails would show in their point-by-point refutation that Rick Warren’s statement about Ken Blanchard being “a new believer” was not true—at least according to Blanchard, who, by his own description, had been a believer for fifteen years—since the late 1980s. In fact, Warren was sitting next to Blanchard at the 2003 Lead Like Jesus Celebration in Birmingham, Alabama when Blanchard described the date of his conversion to everyone at the conference. Blanchard told Warren and all those in attendance and watching on the simulcast that he had come to the Lord “in 1987-88.” As previously mentioned, Blanchard stated:

And God started sending me this team, Bob Buford, Norman Vincent Peale, and [Bill] Hybels. All kinds of people started coming after me. I finally joined up in 1987-88 and turned my life over to the Lord.8

Ken Blanchard, by his own description, was anything but “a new believer,” contrary to what Rick Warren told Lighthouse Trails in the e-mail he made public through Richard Abanes. In addition to the Birmingham Lead Like Jesus Celebration, Blanchard described his 1987-88 conversion in his 1994 autobiography, We are the Beloved: A Spiritual Journey. In We are the Beloved, Blanchard similarly explained that prior to his conversion he had been spiritually prepared by Norman Vincent Peale, Bob Buford and Bill Hybels—three men associated with Robert Schuller.9 The fact that Blanchard came to the Lord under the tutelage of Peale and two other colleagues of Schuller, explains a lot more about Blanchard’s New Age endorsements than Warren’s attempt to blame them on Blanchard being “a new believer.”

Another New Age Link: Henri Nouwen

A website for Hindu Guru Paramahansa Yogananda discloses that We Are the Beloved—Blanchard’s 1994 Christian testimony—is actually “ghost-written” by Blanchard’s longtime New Age friend, associate, and Yogananda devotee Jim Ballard.10 One of the people Blanchard dedicates his book to is Norman Vincent Peale.

Along with his praise of Norman Vincent Peale, Blanchard states that the title of his book—We Are the Beloved—was inspired by the late mystical/contemplative/Catholic priest Henri Nouwen’s book, Life of the Beloved.11 Blanchard quotes Nouwen frequently in his book and credits Leadership Network head, Bob Buford, for introducing him to the writings of Nouwen.12 Many emergent and alternative church figures were trained by Bob Buford’s Leadership Network. They too tout Nouwen and other mystics in their writings. Nouwen is a favorite of both Rick Warren and his wife, Kay. In Ray Yungen’s book, A Time of Departing, which exposes the contemplative prayer movement, Yungen documents the Warrens’ strong admiration for Nouwen as well as Warren’s promotion of other contemplative prayer teachers.13

Interestingly, Robert Schuller incorporated Nouwen’s ideas into the Institute for Successful Church Leadership that was attended by thousands of pastors, including Rick Warren. In addition, Schuller had Nouwen as a special guest on the Hour of Power television program in 1992. After Nouwen appeared on that program, his “reputation [among Protestants] blossomed dramatically.”14 In his book Here and Now, Henri Nouwen presents his bottom-line belief—that is also the bottom-line teaching of the New Age/New Spirituality—that God is “in” everyone. He wrote:

The God who dwells in our inner sanctuary is also the God who dwells in the inner sanctuary of each human being.15

Nouwen’s seductive but obviously false New Age teaching that God is “in” everyone parallels Robert Schuller’s sermon at the Crystal Cathedral when he proclaimed that God is “in” every single human being.16 This foundational teaching taught by Nouwen, Schuller and countless New Age teachers is, again, what Norman Vincent Peale taught in his 1952 book The Power of Positive Thinking when he wrote: “God is in you.”17

Blanchard’s Book with Peale

A probable key to Ken Blanchard’s New Age inclinations is alluded to in We are the Beloved. He writes that one of the ways he listens to God is by reading The Daily Word—a monthly New Age publication his mother had been giving to him since he was a child:

Listening, for me, also includes reading other helpful devotional books. In addition to reading the Bible each morning, I usually read a selection from a daily devotional—a collection of inspirational readings designed to be read through in a year. My current favorites are Time With God and The Daily Word (a monthly publication my mother has given me since I was a child).18

The Daily Word is published in Unity Village, Missouri by the New Age Unity School of Christianity. Their “Christianity” is definitely not biblical. In fact, they are long-time proponents of A Course in Miracles that teaches that “the recognition of God is the recognition of yourself”19 and that we are all Christ.20 As previously mentioned (on page 38), the Unity School of Christianity is where Robert Schuller told New Age believers about the need to counter Christian “Fundamentalists” by “positivizing” the Christian faith.

Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller were both drawn to the New Age/New Thought “principles” of the Unity School. Peale said he believed the Unity movement was “good” because it “has brought the Divine into the consciousness of untold thousands of people.”21 Schuller also showed his adherence to these Unity “principles” when he said “how helpful they had been to him in his work.”22

While Rick Warren and his apologist probably hoped that the Ken Blanchard “problem” would just quietly disappear, more New Age implications regarding Blanchard would come to light. In 1988 when Blanchard really was a “new” believer—he co-authored a book with Norman Vincent Peale. The book was titled The Power of Ethical Management and was based on New Age/self-esteem type principles popularized by Peale and Schuller through the years. The book was published just two years after Peale endorsed Bernie Siegel’s book Love, Medicine & Miracles.

Church Growth: Peale, Schuller, Warren

In his e-mail to Lighthouse Trails, Rick Warren made only one mention of Norman Vincent Peale in expressing his objections to George Mair’s book. He stated: “Mair says that New Age Minister Norman Vincent Peale was my mentor!”23 But as Lighthouse Trails pointed out in their response to Warren, Mair never said that Peale was Rick Warren’s “mentor.” Mair simply stated that Peale had been instrumental in laying the groundwork for today’s Church Growth movement.24 Robert Schuller, however, has openly described Peale as his mentor.25 And Schuller has described how Peale’s 1957 appearance at his church helped to catapult Schuller and his church into prominence. Schuller’s megachurch soon inspired the whole Church Growth movement.26 And while Warren avoids crediting Peale or Schuller for influencing his ministry, there is no doubt that Saddleback Church was forged in the bowels of a Church Growth movement that was inspired by their teachings. Just as clearly as Schuller described Norman Vincent Peale as his mentor, Schuller’s Hour of Power website stated that Rick Warren had been “mentored” by Schuller’s ministry.27

Stumbling into the Truth

Many people felt empathy for George Mair. All he did was write a positive, upbeat account of Rick Warren and his Purpose Driven movement. It was a given that Mair was a popular writer who knew he had a good story in Warren. But the fact of the matter is that he wrote a very flattering account of Warren’s life and ministry. He had even subtitled his book—The Reverend Rick Warren: the Most Inspiring Pastor of Our Time. While writing his book, Mair had attended Saddleback Church and even contributed money to the church. On paper—book or no book—George Mair would seem to be the kind of person Rick Warren would want to reach out to and try to encourage in the faith. Yet Warren expressed nothing but disdain for this man who had only good things to say about him. Mair had obviously hit a very sensitive nerve with Warren.

What was it about Mair’s book that affected Rick Warren so greatly? The objections Warren listed seemed rather trivial and superficial. Was Warren really that upset over whether or not he was described as meeting his wife in high school or college? Or whether or not Warren’s father officially headed up a youth ministry? Or were the issues Warren raised masking his real concern regarding Mair’s book—how Mair had described Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller as the founding fathers of the modern day Church Growth movement that eventually gave birth to Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church and his whole Purpose Driven movement?

Rick Warren protested in his e-mail to Lighthouse Trails that he had never even read Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking. But what Warren was overlooking was that Robert Schuller probably read every book Peale ever wrote and that Schuller had incorporated many of Peale’s teachings into his own books and sermons. These teachings were then passed on to pastors, like Warren, who were now passing them on to others whether they realized it or not. In Deceived on Purpose, I wrote:

[I]t seemed that one of Rick Warren’s unstated purposes was to mainstream Robert Schuller’s teachings into the more traditional “Bible-based” wing of the Church. Many believers who seem to trust Rick Warren, ironically, do not trust Robert Schuller. Rick Warren’s “magic” seems to be able to make the teachings of Robert Schuller palatable to believers who would have otherwise never accepted these same teachings had they come directly from Schuller himself.28

Whether or not Rick Warren ever read The Power of Positive Thinking or ever met one-on-one with Robert Schuller were not the issues. The point George Mair made most effectively in his book was that Warren and the whole Church Growth movement had been greatly influenced by Norman Vincent Peale and Schuller. And this was not something that Rick Warren wanted to see in a book published by Penguin Books and going out to countless numbers of people. Mair’s observations have underlined my concern regarding the definite New Age implications to Rick Warren’s Purpose Driven movement.

George Mair probably understood very little about New Age teachings. The New Age was probably not something evil or deceptive to him. But in his research, he came upon the Lutheran Quarterly article that described Norman Vincent Peale’s attraction to New Age teachings. All Mair did was report what he found. He wasn’t making any judgment about Peale or the New Age. I knew from a book Mair had previously written about Oprah Winfrey, that he had similarly discovered Oprah’s New Age affections and her relationship with New Age leader Marianne Williamson. To Mair, this wasn’t a negative thing. It was just part of what turned up in his research. However, by simply doing his homework, Mair had turned over a Norman Vincent Peale-Robert Schuller rock that Warren would have preferred being left alone. Ironically, Mair was just trying to write a positive book about Rick Warren. It just so happened that he stumbled upon the truth.

Christian Charity?

George Mair was stunned by Rick Warren’s overwhelmingly negative—even hostile—reaction to his book. It never occurred to Mair that “the most inspiring pastor of our time” would be so offended by the writing of such a favorable book. Prior to the untoward treatment he received from Rick Warren and his apologists, Mair said he had been extremely impressed with Warren and his Purpose Driven ministry. During the writing of his book, Mair said he had come to believe that Rick Warren was a “great man.”29 After A Life With Purpose was published, Mair acknowledged he was genuinely shocked by the angry response he received from Warren and his apologist. Commenting specifically on this, George Mair stated:

I am stunned by the viciousness of the attacks on me although I know that sort of thing happens (never has in my 20 or so previous works). . . . Even more curious to me is what happened to the concept of Christian charity.30

Two further notes of irony. First, to insure the accuracy of his book, George Mair wanted to make sure his manuscript was made available to Rick Warren before it went to press. According to a written statement Mair provided to Lighthouse Trails, he contacted Saddleback’s “chief attorney,” but several months went by with no response from the attorney. When the Saddleback attorney finally responded, it was too late—the book had already gone to press.31 Secondly, as Warren appeared to distance himself from Ken Blanchard, Warren was actually sitting on the National Board of Blanchard’s Lead Like Jesus organization and would be one of the key endorsers of Blanchard’s 2005 book, Lead Like Jesus. But even with Saddleback’s all-out efforts at damage control, Rick Warren and his staff were about to be embarrassed in a whole new way by one of Rick Warren’s “best friends.”

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

Endnotes:

1. May 31, 2005 e-mail from Rick Warren to Lighthouse Trails Publishing, LLC., http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/emailfromrw.htm, sent at 12:15am.
2. Editors at Lighthouse Trails Publishing, LLC, “Special Report: Rick Warren Teams Up With New-Age Guru Ken Blanchard!” (April 19, 2005, http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/PressReleasekenblanchard.htm).
3. Richard Abanes posted it on AR-Talk (AR-Talk website: http://apologia.org/html/ar_talk.html).
4. May 31, 2005 e-mail from Rick Warren, op. cit.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Lead Like Jesus Celebration, November 20, 2003, Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama, op. cit.
9. Ken Blanchard, We Are the Beloved: A Spiritual Journey (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1994), pp. 23-28.
10. SRF Devotee: Connecting SRF Devotees Worldwide: Featured artist Jim Ballard, http://www.srfdevotee.com/featured/spotlite.html.
11. Ken Blanchard, We Are the Beloved, op. cit., p. 95.
12. Ibid.
13. Ray Yungen, A Time of Departing (Silverton, OR: Lighthouse Trails Publishing, LLC, 2nd ed., 2006), chapter 8, “America’s Pastor.”
14. Deirdre LaNoue, The Spiritual Legacy of Henri Nouwen (New York, NY: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2000), p. 49.
15. Henri Nouwen, Here and Now (New York, NY: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1997 edition), p. 22.
16. Robert H. Schuller, “God’s Word: Rebuild, Renew, Restore,” op. cit.
17. Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking, op. cit., p. 40.
18. Ken Blanchard, We Are the Beloved, op. cit., pp. 65-66.
19. A Course in Miracles: Combined Volume: Text, Workbook for Students, Manual for Teachers (Glen Ellen, CA: Foundation for Inner Peace, 1975, 1992), Text section: p. 147.
20. Ibid., (A Manual for Teachers section), p. 87.
21. Ray Yungen, For Many Shall Come in My Name (Silverton, OR: Lighthouse Trails Publishing, LLC, 2nd edition, 2007), p. 47, citing Neal Vahle, The Unity Movement: Its Evolution and Spiritual Teachings (Radnor, PA: Templeton Foundation Press, 2002, quote by Norman Vincent Peale), p. 423.
22. Ibid., p. 48, citing Marcus Bach, The Unity Way (Unity Village, MO: Unity School of Christianity, 1982), p. 267.
23. May 31, 2005 e-mail from Rick Warren to Lighthouse Trails, op. cit.
24. George Mair, A Life With Purpose, op. cit. p. 93.
25. Robert Schuller, “Trust for the Crust,” op. cit.
26. Robert Schuller, My Journey: From an Iowa Farm to a Cathedral of Dreams (San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins, 2001, First Edition), pp. 227-233; Norman Vincent Peale visited Schuller’s drive-in theater church on June 30, 1957.
27. “Who are we?” (Hour of Power, Jubilee Celebration Year; this is no longer on the Hour of Power website but can be accessed at: http://web.archive.org/web/20071122165352/http://www.hourofpower.org/Jubilee/who_are_we.cfm).
28. Warren B. Smith, Deceived on Purpose, op. cit., p. 113.
29. Editors at Lighthouse Trails, “George Mair’s Book: A Life with Purpose” (June 8, 2005, http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/mairwarren.htm); also see: “A Public Response from Lighthouse Trails Publishing” (June 17, 2005, http://www.lighthousetrailresearch.com/report3.htm).
30. Ibid.
31. A letter sent from George Mair to Lighthouse Trails in 2005 describing these events. On file.

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. Author George Mair genuinely liked and respected Warren as he described the Saddleback pastor’s life and ministry. Mair’s book was carried in major bookstores around the country—including Christian bookstores. The author’s high regard for Warren was evident throughout A Life With Purpose. Early on in his book, Mair writes:

I knew one thing for sure about Rick Warren: his is a fascinating story. A humble man with humble beginnings, he is changing America—and the world—“one soul at a time.”2

After hearing him preach and experiencing Saddleback Church, I understand why millions are listening to this man, and knew that the story behind the movement deserves to be told.3

His demeanor as the founder and pastor of one of the largest churches in the world reflects a man whose focus is on his mission to serve the Lord by bringing in the unchurched souls—the lost sheep—to embrace and celebrate the saving Grace of Jesus Christ.4

A Life With Purpose is filled with continuous praise for Rick Warren and his Purpose Driven ministry. Nothing George Mair said could be considered negative or critical about Warren. In fact, the rare comment of a critic is usually offset by the author himself. For example, Mair states:

Another thing those critics fail to take into account is the role that Rick himself plays in the phenomenal growth of his church. Rick Warren is a truly charismatic spiritual leader. It’s clear to anyone who experiences one of his Saddleback services that he truly loves what he does. He relishes standing up at the podium, looking out at the smiling crowd, and sharing the Good News of Jesus.5

“New Age Preacher” Norman Vincent Peale

There is no question that A Life With Purpose is an overwhelmingly positive account of Rick Warren and the Purpose Driven movement. However, at one point George Mair—in an almost naive and non-judgmental way—talks about Norman Vincent Peale and the New Age influence Peale had exerted on the Church Growth movement. Mair frames his remarks about Peale by writing:

The numbers speak for themselves. The Church Growth Movement has been wildly successful in Southern California . . . as well as in the rest of the country. Which prompts us to ask: what are the roots of this powerful movement? Rick Warren may be the foremost figure in the CGM today, but he’s only a piece—albeit an important one—of a greater development in the Christian Church. Who and what gave birth to this movement in which Rick would play such a vital role?6

Mair answers his own question by stating what other writers have known and also set forth—that it was Norman Vincent Peale who really provided the spiritual foundation of today’s Church Growth movement. In a sub-section titled “Laying the Groundwork: New Age Preacher Norman Vincent Peale,” Mair writes:

Reverend Norman Vincent Peale is, to many, the most prophetic and moving New Age preacher of the twentieth century. He is also the father of the self-help movement that formed the groundwork for the Church Growth Movement. Peale formed perhaps the most dramatic and meaningful link between religion and psychology of any religious leader in history. It is this same approachable, therapeutic brand of religion that many mega churches, including Saddleback, put forward today. It is this kind of religion that is so appealing to the masses of unchurched men and women that Rick Warren hopes to reach.7

George Mair goes on to state that Saddleback Church “distinctly bears the stamp of Norman Vincent Peale”:

Peale’s ministry was the first to raise the question that still faces mega churches today: is it spiritual compromise if a pastor simplifies his message in order to make it appealing to a huge number of seekers?8

His biographer, [Carol R.] George, says, “Norman Vincent Peale is undoubtedly one of the most controversial figures in modern American Christianity.” But no matter what people think about his theories, they have to acknowledge Peale’s remarkable unification of psychology and theology. Without that unification, mega churches wouldn’t exist today. . . . In that sense, Saddleback distinctly bears the stamp of Reverend Norman Vincent Peale.9

While Mair explains that it was Peale who laid the New Age “groundwork” for today’s Church Growth movement, he notes that it was Robert Schuller who helped to create the effectiveness of the megachurch movement on a national scale:

But it’s hard to argue that Schuller was not the first person to be effective on a national scale. He was unquestionably a pioneer in the Church Growth Movement and a major influence on Rick Warren.10

In his book, George Mair notes that Rick Warren had attended the Robert H. Schuller Institute for Successful Church Leadership.11 Then, after describing some of the various church growth leaders up to and including the 1980s, Mair writes:

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.12

Occult/New Age Influence: Peale to Schuller to Warren

In researching his book, George Mair had discovered the same Lutheran Quarterly article sent to me the month before by the Indiana pastor. Citing the article, Mair wrote how Norman Vincent Peale had been accused of plagiarizing material from an occult source:

Some of Peale’s former colleagues and another minister went so far as to accuse him of plagiarism. Writing in the Lutheran Quarterly, Reverend John Gregory Tweed of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Reverend George D. Exoo of Pittsburgh wrote that many of Peale’s uplifting affirmations originated with an “obscure teacher of occult science” named Florence Scovel Shinn. They based this charge on their comparison of words in Peale’s writings and those of Shinn’s book, The Game of Life and How to Play It, in which they found some identical phrases.13

In A Life With Purpose, George Mair also reveals that Norman Vincent Peale had been accused of using unattributed material from occult/New Age author Florence Scovel Shinn. From my own research that had been spurred by that same Lutheran Quarterly article, I learned that Peale had much more interest and involvement in the occult than I realized. He had openly endorsed the works of key New Age figures like Ernest Holmes, Eric Butterworth, and Bernie Siegel. Because questions had already arisen regarding Rick Warren’s undiscerning reference to Siegel and Warren’s use of unaccredited material from Robert Schuller in the The Purpose Driven Life, the very last thing Warren needed was a book—no matter how much it praised him—intimating a New Age link running from Peale to Schuller to Warren himself. In short, Warren did not need any more New Age implications arising that would cast further doubt upon his Purpose Driven movement. But ironically—at least on the surface—it wasn’t Mair’s remarks about Peale that stirred up concern at Saddleback Church but rather an offhand remark Mair had made in his book about author and businessman Ken Blanchard.

Ken Blanchard and Rick Warren

In A Life With Purpose, George Mair states that Rick Warren had “hired” business leader Ken Blanchard to train and equip church leaders in conjunction with Warren’s P.E.A.C.E. Plan. Again, with nothing but praise for Warren and Blanchard, Mair writes:

Rick Warren says that we need leaders—but what kind? Do we need more of Bill Gates, Jack Welch, and Warren Buffett? Rick says no. Not when we already have a perfect leader in Jesus Christ. We need to learn to lead like Jesus.

Here, as he always does, Rick taps the best and the most famous to help train church leaders to be like Jesus. He has hired Ken Blanchard, author of best-selling The One Minute Manager, to come to Saddleback to help train people how to be effective leaders at home, in business, in school, and in church. It is a dramatic and impressive move, one that is typical of Rick Warren.14

As noted in Deceived on Purpose, Rick Warren first described his 5-step Global P.E.A.C.E. Plan on November 2, 2003. In introducing the P.E.A.C.E. Plan to his congregation and to those watching on the Internet, Warren mentioned the names of two key people in regard to his P.E.A.C.E. Plan—authors Bruce Wilkinson and Ken Blanchard. Prayer of Jabez author Wilkinson had just released a book titled The Dream Giver that was being promoted in conjunction with the P.E.A.C.E. Plan. Wilkinson had been at Saddleback the previous week to support the Schulleresque “God’s Dream” theme Warren was using to underscore his P.E.A.C.E. Plan. The other person Warren was bringing into the picture was Ken Blanchard, co-founder of the newly formed Lead Like Jesus organization.

In introducing the leadership part of his P.E.A.C.E. Plan, Rick Warren described how the first “E” in his P.E.A.C.E. Plan stood for “equip leaders.” He informed his congregation that Ken Blanchard had “signed on” to help train leaders “around the world.” Warren stated:

That’s why, on November 20, on a Thursday in a couple of weeks, Ken Blanchard and I are going to teach a national, nationwide simulcast called “Learning to Lead Like Jesus.” And we’ll be broadcasting it from Birmingham, but this is one of the churches we’re going to do it in, obviously, our own church. And so we’ll be coming here and I’m hoping you’ll be able to take the day off and come for a full day of leadership training. Now, if you don’t know who Ken Blanchard is, he wrote the best-selling leadership book of all time . . . One Minute Manager and a dozen other best sellers. But when he became a Christian, he said, “You know, Rick, I’m becoming less and less enamored with the American style of leadership and the American business modules of leadership which tend to be pretty manipulative. And I am more and more impressed with Jesus who was the perfect leader.” And so we need to learn to lead like Jesus.

Now Ken has signed on to help with the P.E.A.C.E. Plan. And he’s going to be helping train us in leadership and in how to train others to be leaders all around the world.15

From all appearances, Ken Blanchard would be playing an important role in helping to fulfill the “equip leaders” part of Rick Warren’s Global P.E.A.C.E. Plan. This was confirmed two weeks later when Warren appeared with Blanchard at the Lead Like Jesus Celebration in Birmingham. When Warren spoke at the conference, he stated that he and Blanchard were “working together” on the P.E.A.C.E. Plan:

[T]here is a dramatic shortage of servant leadership in the world. I’ve traveled all around the world, and people are following the wrong model of leadership. . . . So, we’ve come up with a little plan called the peace plan. You and I [addressing Blanchard] are working together on this. The peace plan, P E A C E, Jesus, the master servant leader, was the Prince of Peace. . . . P stands for plant churches, E stands for equip leaders, and that’s what we’re here for today. . . . It is my goal and vision and your goal and vision to be used of God to raise up millions and millions of local churches and businesses and everybody else to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation. That can only be done when we get the right model of leadership.16

After Warren’s remarks about what he and Ken Blanchard hoped to accomplish together, Blanchard shared what Warren had said to him just before they went up to speak. Warren told him, “You know, Ken, let’s start a revolution.”17 Then Blanchard, with Warren sitting right next to him, proceeded to tell the audience how Norman Vincent Peale had been instrumental in helping him to come to the Lord fifteen years previous. Blanchard stated:

And God started sending me this team, Bob Buford, Norman Vincent Peale, and [Bill] Hybels. All kinds of people started coming after me. I finally joined up in 1987-88 and turned my life over to the Lord.18

Lighthouse Trails Press Release

It was not until the release of George Mair’s book in 2005 that some people learned that Rick Warren had announced back in 2003 that Ken Blanchard would be working with him on the P.E.A.C.E. Plan. When Lighthouse Trails Publishing learned about Blanchard’s involvement with Warren, they were concerned. One of their authors, Ray Yungen, had been researching the New Age for many years and often came across Blanchard, who had been consistently endorsing and writing the forewords to New Age books and organizations. On April 19, 2005, Lighthouse Trails issued a press release, quoting George Mair’s book that Warren had “hired” Blanchard to work with him on the P.E.A.C.E. Plan.19 Lighthouse Trails warned of the serious New Age implications of allowing someone as undiscerning as Blanchard to teach Christians around the world how to “lead like Jesus.” The press release documented many of Blanchard’s New Age endorsements including Deepak Chopra’s book, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success and a book titled What Would Buddha Do at Work? for which Blanchard wrote the foreword.

Another book that Ken Blanchard endorsed is Little Wave and Old Swell, written by Blanchard’s longtime friend and business associate, Jim Ballard—an avid devotee of the late Hindu guru Paramahansa Yogananda. In fact, Blanchard wrote the forewords to both the 2004 and 2007 editions of Little Wave and Old Swell. He states that Little Wave and Old Swell is a book for “people of all faiths.” In the foreword of the 2004 edition, Blanchard writes:

Love is love. For that reason this little volume should not be thought of as a “religious” book. It is one of those rare stories whose message transcends ideas that divide people. It is for people of all faiths, as well as for those of no faith . . . .

Little Wave and Old Swell is a book for the innocent seeker, young or old, in each one of us. It’s a book to read alone and contemplate.20

But the “message” this Blanchard-endorsed book has for the “innocent seeker” is the foundational teaching of the New Age/New Spirituality—we are all “one” because God is “in” everyone and everything. In the 2007 edition (also with a foreword by Blanchard), Jim Ballard writes:

[Old Swell] read Little Wave’s mind. “You are a moving wrinkle on the seamless fabric of the Great Deep,” he said. “You thought that you were separate, but no. You can never be apart from your Source.

“Know now that you and I and all our brother and sister waves are One with the Great Deep.

“We have always been One.
We shall always be One.”21

At the very end of the story, the author offers a New Age prayer:

“Help me to feel the Oneness within all things.”22

Lead Like Which Jesus?

On the day Rick Warren introduced his P.E.A.C.E. Plan at Saddleback Church and announced that Ken Blanchard had “signed on” to help with the P.E.A.C.E. Plan, George Mair was sitting in the congregation. At the time, Mair probably had no idea that Blanchard had endorsed New Age books and had personal ties to Norman Vincent Peale. He had assumed that when someone “signed on” they had been “hired”—an understandable assumption. But Warren and Saddleback apologist Richard Abanes were quick to take Mair to task for saying Blanchard had been “hired” by Warren. They said Blanchard had not been “hired.” He had volunteered. This issue would become a major point of contention for Warren and his Saddleback defense team. In using it, attention would be deflected away from the real problem of Blanchard’s New Age sympathies and Warren’s wanting to utilize him to train leaders worldwide for the P.E.A.C.E. Plan.

Suddenly George Mair was a target for stating that Rick Warren had “hired” Ken Blanchard to train people around the world to “lead like Jesus.” It was not George Mair, but the Lighthouse Trails press release that brought Blanchard’s New Age propensities to light. Yet despite Saddleback’s effort to discredit George Mair and his book, the question many people were asking was—“why would a self-professing Evangelical Christian like Rick Warren choose a New Age sympathizer like Ken Blanchard to train people to ‘lead like Jesus?’” And just what “Jesus” was Blanchard pointing people to—the Jesus of the Bible or the “Jesus” of the New Age? Did Blanchard even know the difference? Obviously, the “Jesus” of the New Age/New Spirituality books that Blanchard has often endorsed is “another Jesus.” In fact, the apostle Paul chides the Ken Blanchards of his day for their lack of spiritual discernment and their willingness to “bear with” and even follow “another Jesus,” who is not the real Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 11:4). Paul’s words also pertain to Rick Warren for his willingness to use someone as undiscerning and spiritually misled as Blanchard:

For if he that cometh preacheth another Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well bear with him.

In Matthew 24:3-5 the real Jesus Christ warns about false Christs—like the New Age Christ—who would come in His name at the end of time to deceive even the elect, if that were possible. With all of this information about Blanchard coming to the surface, the big question was how would Rick Warren deal with Blanchard’s New Age entanglements?

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

Endnotes:

1. George Mair, A Life With Purpose: Reverend Rick Warren: The Most Inspiring Pastor of Our Time (New York, NY: Berkeley Books, 2005), p. 110.
2. Ibid., p. 8.
3. Ibid., p. 9.
4. Ibid., p. 80.
5. Ibid., p. 179.
6. Ibid., p. 93.
7. Ibid., pp. 93-94.
8. Ibid., p. 100.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid., p. 103.
11. Robert H. Schuller, “What Will Be The Future of This Ministry?” (April 4, 2004, Program #1783, http://www.hourofpower.org.hk/data/readdata100/readeng-129-text.html).
12. George Mair, A Life With Purpose, op. cit., p. 110.
13. Ibid., pp. 98-99.
14. Ibid., pp. 192-193.
15. Rick Warren announces his P.E.A.C.E. Plan on November 2, 2003 at Saddleback Church; transcript and audio on file.
16. Lead Like Jesus Celebration, November 20, 2003, Church at Brook Hills in Birmingham, Alabama, online transcript: http://web.archive.org/web/20060208072218/www.bibleoncassette.com/lead_like_Jesus.html.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. Lighthouse Trails press release, April 19, 2005, http://www.light-housetrailsresearch.com/PressReleasekenblanchard.htm.
20. Jim Ballard, Little Wave and Old Swell: A Fable of Life and its Passing (Simon & Schuster, 2004), p. vi.
21. Ibid., 2007 edition, pp. 36-37.
22. Ibid., 2004 edition, p. 80.

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?” In attempting to answer this question, the newspaper referred to an article from a Lutheran Quarterly journal that contended that Peale drew much of his inspiration from the writings and teachings of occult/New Age author Florence Scovel Shinn. Presenting information from the Lutheran Quarterly article, the Indianapolis Star reported:

After comparing his book to hers, the authors cite scores of specific instances in which Peale and Shinn not only think alike, but use similar or identical phrases. . . .

Shinn, who died in 1940, drew on mystical sources dating to the ancient Egyptian philosopher Hermes Trismegistus [“as above, so below”] and the secrets of Freemasonry.

Such sources are progenitors of New Age, a movement considered ungodly hocus-pocus by conservative and fundamentalist Christians. . . .

Shinn’s privately published metaphysical works, reissued by both Simon & Schuster and the Church of Religious Science, are available in New Age bookstores. Peale penned the introduction to the Simon & Schuster edition, indicating he had “long used” Shinn’s teachings.3

The Lutheran Quarterly article that the Indianapolis Star had referenced regarding Peale’s unattributed use of Shinn’s occult/New Age teachings, with Peale/Shinn side-by-side quotes, clearly demonstrated the likeness of their writings. The Lutheran Quarterly article stated:

The striking similarity between these passages discloses an unsettling theological secret. Along with many other parallel concepts, affirmations, metaphors, and stories, they provide testimony that the writing that made Norman Vincent Peale “minister to millions” and a millionaire many times over, shows a startling similarity to the writings of an obscure teacher of Occult science named Florence Scovel Shinn. Whatever may be the embarrassment caused by these striking similarities, 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.4

In the 1986 reissue of Shinn’s 1925 book, The Game of Life and How to Play It, Norman Vincent Peale’s front and back cover endorsements of her occult/New Age book respectively read:

The Game of Life is filled with wisdom and creative insights. That its teachings will work I know to be fact, for I’ve long used them myself.

By studying and practicing the principles laid down in this book one may find prosperity, solve problems, have better health, achieve good personal relations—in a word, win the game of life.5

Peale’s New Age Endorsements

In his letter to me, the Indiana pastor wrote how he remembered the Lutheran Quarterly article after reading my book Deceived on Purpose. My observation that Rick Warren emulated so many of Robert Schuller’s ideologies reminded him of Norman Vincent Peale’s alleged unattributed use of Florence Scovel Shinn’s writings. The Indiana pastor was surprised I had not mentioned the New Age link between Peale and Schuller. He said that the New Age implications of Warren’s teachings did not stop with Schuller or even with Schuller’s mentor, Peale. It stretched back through all of them to the occult itself.

With this new information concerning Norman Vincent Peale, I looked a little more deeply into his background. I discovered that Peale had been a 33rd degree Mason6 and that he had endorsed other New Age books through the years. One of these books was written by Bernie Siegel—the man Robert Schuller and Rick Warren had both positively referenced in regard to “hope” and “purpose.” Although I had been aware of the Schuller/Warren link to Siegel, I had not been aware of the Peale link. The Bernie Siegel book that Peale endorsed was Love, Medicine & Miracles—the book where Siegel described how he contacted his personal spirit guide “George” in a guided meditation. Peale’s endorsement on the back cover read:

In these pages is found a precious secret, that of health and well-being.7

Siegel’s continued New Age activity includes his teaching in New Age leader Neale Donald Walsch’s School of the New Spirituality.8 As previously mentioned, Walsch has described Robert Schuller as an “extraordinary minister”—someone who could spark a “New Reformation” that could help bring the world together as “One.” Walsch also praised the “extraordinary insight” of Norman Vincent Peale in Walsch’s 2005 book, What God Wants. In discussing occult/New Age manifestation (how individuals attempt to use their feelings and imagination to create events outside themselves), Walsch commends Peale and two New Age authors, Esther and Jerry Hicks. It is Esther Hicks and a group of spirit guides named “Abraham” that helped inspire Rhonda Byrne’s Oprah Winfrey endorsed, best-selling 2006 book The Secret.9 In What God Wants, Walsch writes the following about Peale:

This phenomenon [occult manifestation] is discussed with extraordinary insight in the classic book The Power of Positive Thinking, written over fifty years ago by the Reverend Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, a Christian minister who understood that feelings are a gift from God, giving us the power of creation. That book has sold millions of copies and is still easy to find today, in libraries, in bookstores, and from any online bookseller.

A more updated and non-Christian-oriented look at this amazing process is offered in the contemporary book Ask and It Is Given, by Esther and Jerry Hicks . . . .

The fact that you can create something by picturing it in your mind, by seeing it as already accomplished, and by allowing yourself to experience the feeling associated with that is evidence of the greatest news humanity has ever heard.10

This creative visualization technique that Neale Donald Walsch is commending is at the heart of the New Age movement’s attempt to create a “positive future” by universally affirming and envisioning that we are all “One” because God is “in” everyone and everything. This attempt by the New Age to create a positive future by affirming “oneness” is deceptively appealing but very unbiblical. The Bible states that we are only “one” through our personal commitment to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior (Romans 3:23-25; Galatians 3:26-28). The Bible makes it clear that God is not “in” everyone and everything (Ezekiel 28:2; Hosea 11:9; John 2:24-25; Romans 1:21-23).

I discovered that another occult/New Age book Norman Vincent Peale had endorsed was Ernest Holmes’ The Science of Mind. In Deceived on Purpose, I recounted an incident that a minister of Religious Science shared with me.11 She said that she and her husband—both New Age ministers—had attended Robert Schuller’s Institute for Successful Church Leadership in the early 1970s. When she talked to Schuller in his office and explained that she was a Religious Science minister, Schuller pulled Ernest Holmes’ book The Science of Mind from his bottom desk drawer as an obvious gesture of fellowship. The late Holmes (1887-1960) was the founder of the Church of Religious Science and his book The Science of Mind is regarded by many in the occult as a New Age “bible.”

Echoing the foundational teaching of the New Age/New World Religion that God is “in” everyone, Peale applauded Holmes saying, “I believe God was in this man, Ernest Holmes. He was in tune with the infinite.”12

I also discovered that Peale had endorsed Unity minister Eric Butterworth’s book Discover the Power Within You. This occult/New Age book has nearly one hundred references to the “Divinity of Man” and was cited by Oprah Winfrey in 1987 and again in 2008, as the book that changed her Christian worldview to a New Age worldview. In a 1987 Oprah Winfrey Show titled “The New Age Movement,” Oprah said:

One of the most important books, I think I‘ve read in my life was a book by Eric Butterworth. . . . called Discover the Power Within You. And what Eric Butterworth said in that book is that Jesus did not come to teach how divine he was, but came to teach us that there is divinity within us.13

Norman Vincent Peale’s endorsement on the back cover of Butterworth’s book leaves no question as to his spiritual propensities:

A wonderful book . . . truly a life-changer, as many readers know. This book really does release the power within us all.14

Yet another New Age book Peale endorsed and wrote the foreword to is the late John Marks Templeton’s book Discovering the Laws of Life. Templeton was a wealthy business leader, philanthropist, and New Age sympathizer that Robert Schuller interviewed and put on the cover of his 1986 Possibilities magazine.15 In Deceived on Purpose, I describe how Rick Warren was one of the judges for Templeton’s 2004 Power of Purpose Essay Contest. Just as Bernie Siegel had a connection with Robert Schuller, Rick Warren, and Norman Vincent Peale, so New Age proponent John Marks Templeton had a connection with these same three men.

As Above, So Below and the Saddleback Apologists

The information sent to me by the Indiana pastor about Norman Vincent Peale is astounding. It reveals that Florence Scovel Shinn—the occult author Peale had endorsed and was accused of plagiarizing—had drawn upon the ancient teachings of Hermes Trismegistus. As previously cited, Hermes Trismegistus is said to be the author of the ancient, mystical saying “as above, so below” that signifies God is “in” everything. The Indianapolis Star newspaper article sent to me stated:

Shinn, who died in 1940, drew on mystical sources dating to the ancient Egyptian philosopher Hermes Trismegistus and the secrets of Freemasonry.

Such sources are progenitors of New Age.16

In their attempt to nullify the New Age implications of Eugene Peterson’s The Message and Rick Warren’s predominant use of this “paraphrase,” Saddleback apologists expressed no concern about Peterson’s insertion of the occult phrase “as above, so below” into the middle of the Lord’s Prayer. In their rush to defend Warren’s use of The Message paraphrase, they tried to make me the issue rather than the occult/New Age phrase.

Saddleback apologists may have hoped the whole issue of “as above, so below” would quietly go away—but it did not. The term “as above, so below,” with its mystical God “in” everything meaning, was prominently featured on the front page of author Rhonda Byrne’s best-selling book, The Secret. As already mentioned, The Secret was largely inspired by the teachings of a group of spirit guides named “Abraham” channeled by New Age medium Esther Hicks—the same Esther Hicks that Neale Donald Walsch had praised (along with Peale) in regard to occult manifestation. Hicks had simply updated Peale’s teachings on how to create your own reality through the practice of occult/New Age techniques—the same techniques Peale had gleaned from Florence Scovel Shinn and other New Age teachers.

The main “secret” of The Secret was contained in the book’s full front-page display of the phrase “as above, so below”—God “in” everything. The New Age/New Spirituality “secret” is that we are all God because God is “in” everyone and everything—the foundational teaching of the proposed coming New World Religion. This Hermes Trismegistus “as above, so below” secret was revealed and underscored by author Rhonda Byrne when she wrote in her book: “You are God in a physical body.”17

Peale—“God is in you”

In his famous 1952 book The Power of Positive Thinking, Norman Vincent Peale presented the foundational teaching of the coming New World Religion—the “as above, so below” teaching that God is “in” everyone. Peale told the millions of readers of that book: “God is in you.”18 Fifty years later, Robert Schuller echoed his mentor’s words when he told his worldwide television audience the very same thing—“Yes, God is alive and He is in every single human being!”19 Rick Warren similarly tells readers of The Purpose Driven Life that the Bible says God “is in everything.”20

I found it remarkable that the pastor from Indiana had encouraged me to look more fully at the occult roots of Norman Vincent Peale’s ministry and to see the New Age implications this had for both Robert Schuller and Rick Warren. Given Peale’s influence on Schuller and Schuller’s influence on Warren, the last thing Warren needed was for someone to bring Norman Vincent Peale’s obvious occultism into the light.

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

Endnotes:

1. George D. Exoo and John Gregory Tweed, “Peale’s Secret Source” (Lutheran Quarterly: A Journal for the Evangelical Lutheran Church, Vol. IX, No. 2, Summer 1995, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin), sent by Pastor Larry DeBruyn, Franklin Baptist Church, New Palestine, Indiana.
2. “Norman Vincent Peale Accused of Plagiarism” (The Indianapolis Star, August 3, 1995, p. C2), sent by Pastor Larry DeBruyn, author of Church on the Rise: Why I am not a “Purpose-Driven” Pastor. To order call 317-897-1298 or go to www.frbaptist.org, Franklin Baptist Church, New Palestine, Indiana.
3. Ibid.
4. George D. Exoo and John Gregory Tweed, “Peale’s Secret Source,” op. cit.
5. Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It (New York, NY: A Fireside Book, Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1986), front and back covers.
6. Norman Vincent Peale, “What Freemasonry Means to Me” (Taken from TRESTLEBOARD, Northwood Ancient-Craft No. 551, http://nac551.com/Masons%2001.08.pdf).
7. Bernie S. Siegel, M.D. Love, Medicine & Miracles (New York, NY: Harper & Row Publishers, 1986), back cover.
8. Bernie Siegel, Walsch and the School of the New Spirituality: http:www.schoolofthenewspirituality.com/SNS101BSiegel.cfm.
9. Rhonda Byrne, The Secret (New York, NY: Atria Books, 2006), Acknowledgments, p. xv.
10. Neale Donald Walsch, What God Wants: A Compelling Answer to Humanity’s Biggest Question (New York, NY: Atria Books, 2005), pp. 189-190.
11. Warren B. Smith, Deceived on Purpose, op. cit., pp. 101-102.
12. Ernest Holmes, The Science of Mind (New York, NY: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Putnam, First Trade Paperback edition, 1998), back cover.
13. The Oprah Winfrey Show, #W205, Air Date September 18, 1987, official transcript, brought to my attention by Johanna Michaelsen.
14. Eric Butterworth, Discover the Power Within You: A Guide to the Unexplored Depths Within (San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins, First HarperCollins Paperback edition, 1992), back cover.
15. Dave Hunt, Occult Invasion: The Subtle Seduction of the World and Church (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1998), p. 102; Possibilities magazine, Summer 1986, pp. 8-12.
16. “Norman Vincent Peale Accused of Plagiarism,” op. cit.
17. Rhonda Byrne, The Secret, op. cit., p. 164.
18. Norman Vincent Peale, The Power of Positive Thinking (New York, NY: Prentice-Hall, Inc., Sixteenth Printing, 1955), p. 40.
19. Robert H. Schuller, Program #1762, “God’s Word: Rebuild, Renew, Restore.” (Hour of Power, November 9, 2003, http://web.archive.org/web/20031207120013/www.hourofpower.org/booklets/booklets.cfm).
20. Rick Warren, The Purpose Driven Life, op. cit., p. 88; citing the New Century Version (Dallas, TX: Word Publishers, 1991).