SIGNS
OF THE TIMES: SYNCRETISTIC SPIRITUALITY
PART 3
By
Debra Rae
March 8, 2009
NewsWithViews.com
Where’s the Hope in 2009?
Our founding fathers understood the criticalness of establishing law and order. They saw to it that the very essence of the Ten Commandments, enhanced by New Testament amplification, served as overarching world view for our legal system. Former Prime Minister of Great Britain Mrs. Margaret Thatcher believes, rightly so, that the triumph of America’s prosperity is her free market system based on individual effort, fair dealing and (last but not least) respect for rule of law—all biblical principles.
Still, media mogul Ted Turner begs to differ. To this self-proclaimed secular humanist, the Ten Commandments are “out of date.” “If you are going to have ten rules,” he adds, “I don’t know if [prohibiting] adultery should be one of them.” Turner may not agree but, by definition, all world views (his included) are fundamentally religious. Without exception, all speak to an ideology or movement offering an overarching approach for comprehending God, the world and man’s relationship to both.
On the humanism continuum, cosmology is the skewed, albeit trendy world view in which lawful authority resides entirely with the individual. Instead of biblical principles, laws of the universe regulate conduct in the shifting paradigm of our emerging New Earth. This supposedly science-based belief system presumes that every person is god, and god is every person.
Even more, the universe itself is god—or treated as if. At all costs, humans must not be permitted to mess with biodiversity. No longer may one rejoice in the fruit of his labor, viewed as a gift from God. Rather, trendy eco-socialists work to supplant rightful private ownership with public ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange.
Cosmic Humanists, as these, claim to be Mother Earth’s consciousness, thus blurring the line between physics and metaphysics. Furthermore, they support classic Marxism as defined by the Robin Hood philosophy of global resource redistribution.
Illusion Sells
A Course in Miracles teaches that the mind is split between truth (our oneness with God) and illusion (the world, our bodies, actions and egos). Those awakened to cosmic truth purportedly withdraw from illusion once they discover their inborn godhood.
Passed as truth, deception sells when it strokes the ego or promises special privilege. Case in point: A favorite boutique outfits its dressing rooms with flattering lights and what my sister and I laughingly call “skinny mirrors.” Add to the ambiance a fawning sales’ staff, and women can’t resist shopping there. For many, the illusion of looking younger and trimmer trumps the reality of lumps and puffs proving otherwise!
Similarly, rather than acknowledge sin and personal accountability to a holy God, many concede reality to a skewed, though self-pleasing esoteric world view. What’s not to like about the so-called Law of Attraction with its bogus promise of getting what you want simply by attracting it to yourself?
Sorry to say, a recent doctoral-level survey out of Australia demonstrated that, despite claim to spiritual illumination and wholeness, Cosmic Humanists nonetheless are subject to higher rates of anxiety, disturbed and/or suspicious patterns of thinking, depression and anti-social behavior.
But, then, this is to be expected. In the 1820s, gifted orator Daniel Webster warned: “If the power of the Gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of the land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign without mitigation or end.” In my view, Webster was spot on.
When questioned by His disciples regarding “the close of the age,” Jesus warned of these signs, all accompanied by deception of self-god-itis which pretty much nails the core belief of Cosmic Humanists. History will show that diversion from the one true God opens floodgates to economic and political upheaval, armed conflicts, ecosystem breakdown, undermining of biblical ethics and persecution of the Church.
Hitch Your Wagon to Obama’s Star
Understanding the pseudo-Christian patchwork of spiritism and avant-garde psychology is like trying to nail Jell-O to a tree, yet cosmologists brace a widely funded, globally united coalition with a well-argued political platform.
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In the afterglow of the 2008 presidential election, Oprah told her television audience of an e-mail written by Forest Whitaker and sent to her at two in the morning. Whitaker, she gushed, “captured the essence of the moment best” in proclaiming that, with Obama in the White House, “the light of a new age is here.” Furthermore, its power is manifest in “spontaneously uniting as conspirators for the sake of the earth.”
Purportedly spirit-channeled in 1965 through Oprah’s longtime friend Marianne Williamson, the so-called “new revelation from Jesus” as embedded in The Course on Miracles presumes to guide humanity through such a time as this. And who better to take the helm than Barack H. Obama?
Man for all Pleasing
In politics, the right use of energy characterizes historic optimism. Apart from the God of the Bible, and aided by negotiation and collectivism, historic optimism contends that humanity improves progressively with the passing of time by means of the right use of energy among “intuitive friends.”
Described as a “powerful luminosity, a unique high-vibration integrity," Obama has made his mark as none other. “Dismiss it all you like,” Gladnick says; "but I've heard from far too many enormously smart, wise, spiritually attuned people who've been intuitively blown away by Obama's presence.” It’s “not speeches, not policies, but sheer presence.”
President Obama has emerged as “a messiah-like figure” whose true mission is to usher in “a quantum leap in American consciousness” (Deepak Chopra). This mission seemingly trumps executing the law in accordance with the Constitution; serving as commander-in-chief of the armed forces; creating a cabinet of advisers; granting pardons or reprieves and, with the "advice and consent" of the Senate, making treaties and appointing federal officers, ambassadors and federal judges.
Obama’s rise to leadership is so extraordinary, it’s believed that “another chapter could be added to the Bible to chronicle its significance” (U.S. Representative Jesse Jackson, Jr., Dem-Ill). Yet another highly visible, Chicago-based political figure, Louis Farrakhan pontificated that, when Obama talks, "the Messiah is absolutely speaking.”
Just before the New Hampshire Primary, the alleged Messiah spoke to students at Dartmouth College and referenced "a beam of light” coming down. Students, he claimed, would “experience an epiphany” and suddenly realize a compelling need to go to the polls and vote. And vote they did.
“Reasoned Faith”
Movie director Spike Lee likens the ascension of Obama to a “seismic change in the universe”—in the words of Frank Schaeffer, a sort of “spiritual revolution.” It’s about time, he adds, for “reasoned faith” to become fashionable once again. Raised by notable leaders within the American evangelical subculture, Schaeffer now regrets having participated in forming the born-again religious right.
Other prominent leaders in the emerging church likewise proclaim that the entire planet is now in “deep shift” (five, not four letters intended!). While Christian discipleship requires death to self, Obama at his best allegedly is “able to call us back to our highest selves” (Ezra Klein).
Sadly, what many fail to realize is that “no lie is so damaging as one that contains a lot of truth” (Dr. Robert Morey).
Lean, Mean Green Machine
To enable “light, love and power” to restore the illuminist’s plan on earth, God-given law must bite the dust. In its place, “soft law” addresses ecologist Garrett Hardin’s overshadowing argument that “freedom in a commons brings ruin to us all.” To avoid this inevitable fate, citizens of the world are held accountable for achieving rapid transition to community sustainability.
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The good news: President Barack Obama calls for a new era of responsibility in government and corporate America in the race toward sustainable society. Moreover, Obama asks Americans to recommit to national values of service and responsibility.
The bad news: Credited to Janine Benyus, the emerging new eco-science takes inspiration from nature’s models. It elevates nature as supreme ecological standard and mentor. Consequently, nature itself dictates how humans are to live out inherent connections in life. This is known as the Law of Biomimicry.
Because
planet earth was meant to be “a house of worship,” it stands
to reason that a simple rule of reference for planetary management is
to make earth a paradise. Green strategies for doing so include shopping
locally, recycling waste as a resource, consuming materials sparingly
and gathering and using energy efficiently—all reasonable, responsible
choices for good earth stewardship—however, if truth be told,
green labels more reflect a company’s environmental campaigns
and political activities than any realistic ecological impact.
“The One” for All and All for “the One”
While Obama may not proclaim himself to be “the One,” a good number of starry-eyed groupies extol his greatness in religious terms. For example, Steve Davis contends that the President “communicates God-like energy”; and Oprah Winfrey describes him as having “an ear for eloquence and a tongue dipped in unvarnished truth.” Perhaps he’s right when clinical psychologist James Houran insists there’s a celebrity stalker in all of us! Listening to an Obama speech of messianic magnitude, MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews admitted he felt “a thrill going up his leg.”
Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam has pronounced Obama “a savior to us all.” Indeed, many diverse faith traditions—from Cosmic Humanism to Islam to denominational Christianity—identify with the President as somehow “one of theirs.” Unfortunately, mingling Eastern enlightenment with the conciliatory gospel of the postmodern West misses the mark big time.
In her live, worldwide web class on A New Earth, Obama enthusiast Oprah Winfrey admonished participants to “prepare to be awakened.” In politics, said awakening references a one-world order and spirituality for a new age of enlightenment. For many, the Obama administration renews hope for a better world characterized by borderless, Third Wave civil society.
When Mahatma Obama prevailed as forty-fourth President of the United States of America, Oprah Winfrey announced that “hope won.” But did it really? True, hope springs eternal in the human heart; but unless that hope is fixed on what’s real, it constitutes no more than a vapor destined to dissipate.
Powerful principles of any given world view drive geo-political policy, educate our youth and shape popular culture; therefore, those already invested in a world view do well to reflect upon that view’s reach and impact. Regrettably, too many choose to remain ignorant. Failing to grasp world views vying for supremacy in our changing times, the uninformed or misinformed, as the case may be, fall prey to winds of change that are certain to set their vessels adrift.
Where’s the Hope?
If a burgeoning, but deceptive one-world spirituality characterizes 2009, as it surely does, where’s hope to be found?
Hoping in “the arm of flesh” captures every man’s fancy, but produces nothing but fashionable faith at best. In contrast, a Christian’s “lively hope” comes by Jesus Christ’s resurrection from the dead, patience and comfort of the Holy Scriptures (1 Peter 3:15; Hebrews 6:19; Romans 15:4).
Recall that, in the wake of Viet Nam, John Lennon imagined “nothing to kill or die for”; and in similarly troubled times, Oprah pronounced “a civil rights movement for the soul” in which sin, evil and the devil are deemed illusory. It stands to reason that, in the promised New Earth, there remains nothing to kill or die for.
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Benjamin Franklin once mused, “There never was a good war or a bad peace,” but I disagree. Christians are called to “fight the good fight of faith.” Authentic peace is possible only as it flows from its source, the Prince of Peace Himself; otherwise, it’s a hollow counterfeit. My advice is from Proverbs 23:23—namely, it’s better to “buy [authentic] truth and sell it not.” The same applies to wisdom, instruction and understanding. For part one click below.
