What Christians are Reading
In my neighborhood, there are several little free libraries where people exchange books. These are a great window into what people are reading. There is a lot of targeted proselytism by Seventh Day Adventists, lots of fiction involving witchcraft and the occult (much of it targeted to young women and girls), and a good bit of popular Christian literature - which I’m finding to be increasingly not really Christian at all.
I find that a lot of popular Christian literature is very loose doctrinally and geared toward emotional satisfaction or psychological self-help - as opposed to genuine Christianity. They are more spiritual than incarnational, and they tend to focus on a generic God rather than being centered on Jesus Christ and His cross.
Just yesterday, I found a copy of Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculée Ilibagiza, a heroic Christian woman (Roman Catholic) who survived the horrific Rwandan tribal civil war and genocide. Her family was brutally murdered, and she survived by being hidden with seven other women crowded into a Protestant pastor’s three foot by four foot concealed room for 91 days. She emphasizes forgiveness - even of those who perpetuated genocide. The book has received 2,389 customer ratings on amazon, 89% five-star, and 7% four-star. The average rating is 4.8 stars. One of my parishioners read it and loved the book.
So what’s not to love?
The Forward was written by an author and motivational speaker named Wayne Dyer. For decades, he was a fixture at PBS, and wrote many bestselling self-help books. He was also featured on all of the mainstream TV talk shows back in the seventies and eighties. He was on the speaking circuit until his death in 2014. He held a doctorate in educational counselling, was a clinical psychologist, and was a professor at St. John’s University in New York.
Dyer was also a spiritual guru who taught a form of Gnosticism.
Gnosticism is the ancient heresy that the apostle John was already refuting in his Gospel and Epistles, and which St. Irenaeus (a disciple of Polycarp who was a disciple of John) took on in his work Against Heresies. The Gnostics taught that they had secret knowledge (gnosis) of the universe. Their secret is that the God we worship is really an evil half-god (the Demiurge) and the universe was a grand cosmic mistake. At the creation, God divided light from dark, land from water, male from female. Gnostics believe this distinction and division disrupts the unity of the universe. The Gnostics believed that they could enlighten truly spiritual people with this special knowledge, and that each person, in spite of his being trapped in the material universe, could escape his fate by becoming enlightened, that each person has a divine spark, and the ultimate goal is to become one with everything. Needless to say, they do not believe in Jesus Christ’s divinity and that He is eternal. They believe that the Logos only became temporarily incarnate in an attempt to enlighten us (some Gnostics were docetists believing He only seemed human; others were adoptionistic, believing the Spirit of Christ came into Him at His baptism and left Him at His crucifixion). The orthodox Christian doctrine of the Incarnation is repugnant to the Gnostic, as is the very idea of sacraments. Gnostics believe that all religions have some truth in them, while the Gnostic myths are the secret knowledge by which we can be enlightened.
They are proponents of some new collective God-consciousness by which mankind will evolve to a higher spiritual level. They believe that our souls were originally at one with the Fullness (Pleroma) of the godhead, but fell into the trap of materialism thanks to the evil creation of the Demiurge. Our quest is to return to this cosmic spiritual unity. They also believe in the Divine Feminine and modern Gnostics argue that Christianity suppressed this doctrine. Like eastern religions, Gnostics believe in looking inward, to oneself, to find the divine, in order to become spiritually one with the Source (rather than to be spiritually and materially in the presence of the Creator).
Like all religions, there is a specific vocabulary used by Gnostics - vocabulary that Christians are increasingly adopting. Gnosticism is slippery and vague, but its adherents can be identified by the words they use and the theology/philosophy they confess.
Gnosticism never really went away, worming its way into Christianity over the centuries through esoteric and occult practices. It lurks among Romantic poets, songwriters, novelists, and playwrights - as well as among secret societies, spiritualists, mystics, and alchemists.
Gnosticism went mainstream in the secular world thanks to psychiatrist and psychologist Carl Jung, who studied it and incorporated it into his archetypal approach to psychoanalysis. Jordan Peterson is greatly influenced by Jung and these archetypes, and his spirituality is heavily Gnostic. Modern Gnosticism emphasizes spirituality over religion, is syncretistic, and holds material to be inferior, if not evil. It downplays sacraments in favor of experiences. If you want to know more about Gnosticism and its influence on modern culture and even Christianity, I highly recommend this important book by LCMS pastor The Rev. Peter Burfeind called Gnostic America: A Reading of Contemporary American Culture & Religion according to Christianity’s Oldest Heresy. Also, Philip J. Lee’s Against the Protestant Gnostics. Issues, Etc. has done a lot of programs on Gnosticism, including some interviews with Pastor Burfeind.
Here are some excepts from Dyer’s Forward to Left to Tell:
“A single phrase from the Scriptures reminds us that ‘with God all things are possible.’ I’ve quoted this passage frequently in my lectures, often adding the rhetorical question: ‘Now what does that leave out?’ The answer is obvious to all: ‘All things means all things.’”
He goes on to mock Christians for not literally moving mountains or pushing camels through needle eyes. But he promises us a “new perspective” on this when we read this book, referring to Ilibagiza’s “transcendent experience” and how if our faith is pure, we can “create miracles.” (One of Dyer’s bestselling books is Real Magic: Creating Miracles in Everyday Life). He also believes that photographs with orbs identify him as having “God-consciousness”:
“So why are these orbs showing up now? It feels like it has something to do with the message of God-consciousness and the God-realized life that is becoming a stronger focus in my work. God is within all of us; we are all pieces of God, not bodies but spirit. ”
He speaks of Ilibagiza as “an agent for ushering in a new spiritual consciousness.” He says, “I have come to know Immaculée very, very well over the past year - in fact, we communicate on a daily basis.” Ilibagiza writes in her acknowledgments: “To Dr. Wayne Dyer: You are an angel sent from heaven. I thank God for bringing you into my life, and I feel as if our spirits have known each other forever!”
Dyer describes Ilibagiza: “She lives at an elevated level of spiritual consciousness.” Upon meeting her, he “knew in an absolute flash of insight that I was in the presence of a uniquely Divine Woman…. I sensed her exceptionally high energy, similar to the way I felt after having been with Mother Meera (an Indian woman who’s thought to be an incarnation of the Divine Mother) many years before.” He describes her “inner glow of joy.”
Dyer says: “It has been said that the laws of the material world do not apply in the presence of the God-realized.” He describes Ilibagiza’s “God-realized ‘Inner Beingness’ that allowed her to control the material world with her spirituality. “Her visualizations became so real - and all doubt was banished from her mind - that she was indeed one with God.” He adds, “Yes, she became one with Spirit, where she remains today.” He asks, perhaps channeling the Serpent, “Why can’t we just be like God, Who is the Source for all of us?” He expresses a hope in a progress, an evolution, that “inch by inch” we are “moving toward living God-realized lives.”
Dyer urges us to “go within” and “live in perfect harmony with our originating Spirit.” He assures us by that reading this book, we will “move to a place just a few inches closer to living in oneness with the same Divine Essence.”
In her sixteen page afterward, the author mentions Jesus only one time, when she tells her children to “call on Mother Mary and Jesus for help.” Our Lord is nearly reduced to a footnote, a secondary character lurking behind His mother’s skirt.
In her Acknowledgements, she first thanks “God above all others for being a wonderful father and best friend, my truest confidant… and my savior.” Second, she offers thanks:
To the Holy Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary: I feel you with me always. Words can’t convey the depth of my gratitude for your love and care. Keep my heart close to yours, Mother - you make me whole, and I will love you forever. Thank you for appearing in Kibeho to warn us of the danger ahead… if only we’d listened to you.”
This goes far beyond the Roman Catholic assertion that they do not pray to the Virgin Mary nor treat her as a goddess - but only seek her prayers. This is an appeal to a feminine higher being, like the Gnostic Aeon Sophia (Wisdom). In the Gnostic myth, Sophia is the feminine counterpart to Christ. She allowed the Demiurge to emanate from her in an unauthorized way, which resulted in the disaster of the material universe. The ELCA “Lutheran” congregation Ebenezer Lutheran (sic) Church (sic) in San Francisco celebrates an annual ChristSophia Mass that they describe as:
the culmination of the Advent season. The ChristSophia is the eternal and incarnational wisdom of the sacred and the Divine Feminine. Although a Judeo-Christian metaphor, She is the one who needs to be re-birthed into the world over and over again. The ChristSophia was present before all time and continues to break into our world with the promises of hope and restoration to the web-of-life. The Liturgy is one of Candles and Carols to herald her coming!
The third thanks offered by Iligabiza is to Wayne Dyer - cited above.
Left to Tell is Gnosticism wheeled inside a Trojan Horse made to appear Christian. As Christians read literature like this, it is little wonder that they begin to look for esoteric spiritual experiences instead of the rock-solid Word of God and the truly experiential sacraments. The theology and the anthropology of this book are Gnostic, not Christian. Wayne Dyer was instrumental in getting this book published, because he himself recognized the evangelistic value to his religion.
Dyer was part of a group of New Age gurus trotted out after 9/11 from the Global Renaissance Alliance by NBC, CBS, CNN, and MSNBC that included not only Dyer, Marianne Williamson, and Gary Zukov. This “New Spirituality” approach to worship led to the Yankee Stadium “Prayer For America” event on September 23, 2001 - a syncretistic worship service which featured a welcome by Oprah Winfrey.
There is a cultural onslaught of Gnosticism in our church and society. Pietism sought to replace the incarnational sacraments with emotional, spiritual experiences and feelings. Contemporary worship often downplays the Sacrament of the Altar so as to make room for emotional music and motivational talks. The Charismatic movement looks for spiritual signs and wonders. The Church Growth Movement looks to methodologies and psychology as a substitute for the Holy Spirit and the Word. The popular devotional Jesus Calling was literally channeled by automatic writing at the behest of some spiritual entity (early editions of this book mentioned this in the introduction, which has since been scrubbed). Jesus Calling has 20,279 reader reviews on Amazon, 94% five-star, 4% four-star, average 4.9 stars. This devotional is used in LCMS ladies’ Bible studies, and I have seen it referenced in LCMS church facebook pages. Some LCMS churches are even dabbling in the enneagram.
We must encourage those lusting after exotic and esoteric experiences to return to Word and Sacrament: the truth and the power of the Holy Scriptures, and the real, physical Presence of the Lord in the Holy Supper. This is the church’s liturgy! The Divine Service - unadorned with monkeyshines, celebrated with holy reverence - is a bulwark against the heresy of Gnosticism. We need to teach. And after all,
“ Ceremonies are needed to this end alone that the unlearned be taught [what they need to know of Christ].”