Compiled by Sandy
Simpson. 3/10
This coming June, Calvary Chapel
Albuquerque (a veteran Calvary Chapel church pastored by Skip
Heitzig) will host the National
Worship Leader Conference in Albuquerque, New Mexico and will feature New
Age sympathizer and emerging church leader, Leonard Sweet. The NWLC event will
take place in three
different U.S. locations with Sweet participating in two of them.
The worship conference is presented by Worship Leader magazine, whose chief editor is Chuck
Fromm (Chuck Smith, Sr.’s nephew). On the conference website, a banner promotion
by Greg Laurie, (another veteran Calvary Chapel pastor) sits in a prominent
spot. Laurie states: “In Worship Leader
magazine, you hear from the leading thinkers, artists, and pastors on how we
can more effectively worship God.”
With general promotion of Worship Leader magazine by someone as
popular as Greg Laurie, and with the conference taking place at one of the
larger Calvary Chapel churches, undoubtedly, the event will be accepted by many
Christians as a credible, trustworthy conference. But Leonard Sweet’s
involvement should cause serious concern for believers.
Leonard Sweet has been a leading figure in
bringing the “new” spirituality into the evangelical church for more than a
decade and a half. From his book, “Quantum
Spirituality” (which without question shows his unswerving
affinity toward major New Age leaders and the New Age philosophy that God is IN
all things) to his audio series, The Tides of
Change, with Rick Warren in 1995, to his book he
co-authored with atonement denier Brian McLaren, “A is for Abductive: the Language of the Emerging
Church”, to a number of other books he has written that continue
to show his New Age propensities, Sweet has consistently proven himself to be a
New Age sympathizer. And for him to be included in a conference at a
Calvary Chapel church (after the founder of the movement denounced the emerging
spirituality a few years ago) speaks volumes about the slide into deception
that the evangelical church is making.
Warren Smith, in his cutting-edge book “A “Wonderful” Deception” (an expose on
Rick Warren, Leonard Sweet, and the “new” emerging Christianity),
wrote two strong documented chapters specifically on the New Age views of
Leonard Sweet. Perhaps one of the most troubling things Smith reveals
about Sweet is Sweet’s statement about “the father of the New Age
movement,”8 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. Sweet calls the late panentheist Chardin
“Twentieth-century Christianity’s major voice.”9 But Chardin does not represent
biblical Christianity–on the contrary, he falls in a spiritual camp that
embraces the “cosmic Christ,” which is the “I AM God” in every creature. Even
though this christ-consciousness-in-all-people
belief rejects the true Gospel of Jesus Christ, Sweet has openly
aligned himself with Chardin. In Sweet’s book, Aqua Church, he favorably quotes Chardin arrogantly
saying: “Christ is in the Church in the same way as the sun is before our eyes.
We see the same sun as our fathers saw, and yet we understand it in a much more
magnificent way.”10 Sweet’s alignment with Chardin’s New Age views is nothing
short of heresy. (New Age Sympathizer
Leonard Sweet To Speak at Pastor Skip Heitzig’s Calvary Chapel Church
from Warren B. Smith’s book, A “Wonderful” Deception, 3/26/2010)
That Calvary Chapel would allow Sweet into their pulpits to teach those so carefully tended by Chuck Smith over the years shows just how far the Apostasy has progressed. Calvary Chapel pastors need to take a stand against this diapraxer!
I will comment on quotes from a few of Sweet’s books in the following article. His quotes are in black and my commentary is in blue. Bold portions in his quotes are my highlighting, not original to the text of his books.
There be Treasures #10. (1) Unitary
thinking, the highest level of understanding reality, opens us up to a wider
sensory realm and mystical dimension of the divine; it also heals the divisions
that separate us from one another and life’s highest values. 2. Wholeness unites, not eliminates, opposites,
bringing them into dynamic balance—the coming together of earth and water, air
and fire, through the merger of the Antaean sensibility (Antaeus the hugger of
the ground, from which came his strength) with the Herculean sensibility
(Hercules the master of air and fire, who defeated Antaeus by lifting him off
the ground.) 70 3. The discovery of the euphoric state of wholeness
will prove to be the highest form of ecstasis. (Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pg.
250)
What Sweet means by “unitary
thinking” as exposed by his teachings in Quantum Spirituality, is basically
Unitarianism, a form of universalism.
The theory behind this idea is purely eastern mysticism. It presupposes that all men are connected
spiritually and if we just open ourselves up to that we will no longer have
divisions from one another. Yet Jesus
Christ Himself said that one of the purposes of His ministry was to CAUSE
division:
Luke
12:51-53 Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you,
but division. From now on there will be five in one family divided against
each other, three against two and two against three. They will be divided,
father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter
against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law
against mother-in-law.”
That division was based on the Gospel message, which was the
message by and about Jesus Christ. The acceptance or non-acceptance of that
message would divide the sheep from the goats.
Mt 25:33 He will put the
sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
The Sheep are the believers. The Goats are the unbelievers.
We have nothing in common with those destined for eternal punishment due
to sin and unbelief.
2Co 6:15 What harmony is
there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an
unbeliever?
The idea that all men have “the
spirit” in common, or what Sweet calls “Christ-consciousness” is a New Age,
eastern mystical concept and in fact has “harmony” with Belial instead of
Christ.
Spirituality refers first of all to the universal gift
of aliveness that exists within all religions and outside of religions. It breathes out the air that “inspires.” Those who
have been in-spired with aliveness by the kiss of God will “con-spire” to kiss
others into coming alive to the spiritual dimensions of existence. “In-spire”
means to breathe in. “Con-spire” means to breathe together. “Conspiracy” enters
by the same door as “spirituality.” A world gagging on smog and smut needs a
breath of fresh air. The New Light movement begins as a fresh air conspiracy of
“aliveness.” But it is more than that. Spiritual consciousness can be something
greater than aesthetics or aliveness. The Bible tells us that the human
species has been twice
kissed by the divine. (Leonard Sweet, Quantum
Spirituality, pg. 253)
This is utter fallacy. There is no “universal gift of aliveness”
spiritually at all in all religions and “outside of religions”. The only aliveness people have is the first
birth. They must be born again
spiritually to be alive spiritually!
Joh 3:3 In reply Jesus
declared, "I tell you the truth, no-one can see the kingdom of God
unless he is born again."
Aliveness in the flesh is fleeting
and ends in the second death (Rev. 21:8).
In fact they have an eternity of punishment in hell to look forward to
(Mt. 25:46). Those who have aliveness
in the spirit, due to belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, have eternal life. This type of teaching that is a continual
theme of Sweet is in direct opposition to the Gospel. This is another gospel (Gal. 1:6-8, 2 Cor. 11:4). Paul calls this kind of false gospel to be
eternally condemned. Why then are so
many churches and Christian organizations putting up with it “easily enough”?
As a cosmion incarnating the cells of a new
body, New Lights will function as transitional vessels through which
transforming energy can renew the divine image in the world, moving
postmoderns from one state of embodiment to another. (Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pg. 38)
The Divine image in the world can
only be “renewed”, rather reconciled, by the acceptance of the preached Gospel
message. Any “transforming energy” is
that of the Holy Spirit alone, not “New Lights”. All this language is New Age language made to sound vaguely
Christian, when it is not. Also, for
postmoderns to be saved they not only must accept Jesus Christ as their Savior
and Lord but they must also abandon their relativistic and subjectivist ideas
in order to come to the Truth of God’s Word.
Without that fundamental change in worldview it is impossible for
postmoderns to be saved because they will always be accepting more than one
idea of truth. There is only One Truth,
and that is Jesus Christ and His Word.
Postmoderns must be taught that their view is completely worldly and out
of touch with reality. Without that
they have no hope of being saved or following the commands of the law of
Christ.
Postmodern culture is hungry for the intimacy of psychospiritual
transformations. It wants a “reenchantment of nature.” It’s aware of its
ecstasy deprivation. It wants to know God “by heart.” It wants to light an
inner fire, the circulating force of divine energies flowing in and flowing
out. The primal scream of postmodern spirituality is for primal experiences of
God. (Leonard Sweet,
Quantum Spirituality, pg. 56)
The reason postmoderns are so
bankrupt of an experience of a relationship with God is that they are
unsaved. They must come to accept the
Gospel first, then they will begin to experience God. Experience before doctrine fosters wrong experience. There are demons out there ready and willing
to give people the experiences they want quite apart from the true God. All you have to do is know something about
the New Age. What postmoderns want are
experiences apart from commitment.
Divine experiences apart from commitment to Jesus Christ are not
“divine” at all. There is no such thing
as “primal experiences of God”. The
word “primal” as defined by the dictionary is this: original, primitive, primary.
There is nothing “primitive” about a relationship with God. The original experience of God was lost in
Eden when man and woman sinned. The Holy Spirit raises believers to the
ultimate they can be, toward the likeness of Christ (2 Cor. 3:18). What Sweet is describing above is not a
Christian experience but a pagan one.
Through the synergy of the divine-human
exchange of energies, an unbelievable field of healing and transforming energy
is rounded up and released in the universe. Humans are constructed out of
mutually attracting energy particles with positive and negative charges.
Negative or neutral charges too often dominate human contacts. Positive charges
in the church are about as rare as “strange matter”--positively charged lumps
of quarks know as “quarknuggets”--is in the quantum world. “Consciousness is
catching,” psychologist/medical scholar/professor Frances E. Vaughan reminds
us. Destructive, negative, constricting states of consciousness are caught as
readily as creative, positive, expanding states of consciousness. All energy
states are contagious. (Leonard
Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pg. 62)
This is basically “confession”
theology, or “positive thinking”. It
claims that you can frame your own destiny by positive or negative
thoughts. This is the false notion of
people like Norman Vincent Peale on down through others like Robert Schuller,
Joel Osteen and a whole plethora of Word of Faith teachers. Just because human beings are made up of
atoms comprised of positively and negatively charged particles has nothing to
do with the spiritual realm. The
spiritual realm is not the same as the physical realm. Apparently Sweet is hoping that his “energy
state” is contagious, and apparently it is since his message has invaded
otherwise Biblical organizations so readily.
But though we can be influenced by our own thoughts and the actions of
others, that has nothing to do with the importance of understanding the Gospel
message on an individual basis and committing to Jesus Christ. Sweet quotes Vaughan, one of his books being
“The Awakening Intuition (which) guides the reader to the greater realization of his
or her own intuitive powers through specific exercises, which are combined with
an examination of the role of intuition in such processes as creativity and
problem solving. A concise overview of the most recent research in
this area completes the book.”
Awakening of “intuitive powers” cannot save a person, only ultimately delude
them into thinking they can control their own destiny. But our eternal destiny does not hinge on
our realization of our own “intuitive powers”.
This is New Age gobelty gook and should have no place in the Christian
discussion except to be roundly refuted from Scripture.
A surprisingly central feature of all the
world’s religions is the
language of light in communicating the divine and symbolizing the union of the
human with the divine: Muhammed’s light-filled cave, Moses’ burning bush,
Paul’s blinding light, Fox’s “inner light,” Krishna’s Lord of Light, Böhme’s
light-filled cobbler shop, Plotinus’ fire experiences, Bodhisattvas with the
flow of Kundalini’s fire erupting from their fontanelles, and so on.53 Light is the common thread that ties together
near-death experiences as they occur in various cultures. (Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pg. 146)
Sweet is basically claiming that
the same light of Scripture is in all humans and religions. He has the audacity to liken the burning
bush and Paul’s Damascus road experience to false religious demonically
inspired experiences of Hindus and others.
This is blasphemy of the highest order.
But it is not unexpected because the groundwork for these false ideas
was laid in the churches by the Toronto “Blessing”, Brownsville “Revival” and
other counterfeit revivals that kept the impartation of Kundalini fire alive
and growing in many churches, a concept that has nothing to do with God but
everything to do with the enemy. Read
the following articles that compare the counterfeit revival “impartations” with
the Kundalini practice of “shaktipat”.
You will find there to be virtually no difference in both application
and results.
http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/ditc16.htm
http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/ditc14.htm
http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/laugh1.htm
http://www.moriel.org/articles/sermons/slain_in_the_spirit.htm
http://www.thebereancall.org/node/6125
http://www.letusreason.org/current82.htm
Does this then prove Sweet’s
thesis? No because no shaktipat,
transferable impartation can be found in the Bible or early church. It is an idea that comes from occult religion,
which the Bible states do not know God.
1Th 4:5 not in
passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God;
Ga 4:8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to
those who by nature are not gods.
1Co 1:21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its
wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what
was preached to save those who believe.
Eph
2:12
remember that at that time you were separate from Christ, excluded from
citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without
hope and without God in the world.
LEONARD SWEET (Author of Quantum Spirituality and
Emerging Church leader) Sweet calls this the Theory of Everything. This theory not only says that all
creation is connected but that it is all inhabited with Divinity (God).
(Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, comment by Tim Wirth, http://simplyagape.blogspot.com/2007_06_01_archive.html) Sweet got some of ideas and title of his book from Richard
Hartnett, H.W., M. who is a nationally known Teacher and
Psychic. His extensive training includes Sufism, Buddhism, Native
American Spirituality, Jungian Symbology and Gurdjieff's Fourth Way. You can read about his teaching on Quantum
Spirituality at http://www.mrsdenver.org/Quantum_Spirituality.html
This is patent falsehood. What he is teaching here is undiluted
pantheism. The God of the Bible, YHWH,
is not His creation. He is not a
created thing but the Eternal Creator who exists in the spiritual realm above
and apart from it. This is also the
original lie of Satan told to Eve.
Ge 3:5 "For God knows that when you eat of it
your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and
evil."
Truthfully the only thing Adam and
Eve added to their knowledge was the knowledge of evil as they already knew and
were experiencing good. So the enemy
tricked them as Sweet is trying to trick Christians into accepting pagan
beliefs. We are not all “little gods”
as Benny Hinn and other Word of Faith teachers claim. We can only become children of God if we believe on the Lord
Jesus Christ. Until then we are His
creatures but destined to hell because of our unbelief.
Ro 3:23 for all have sinned and fall short of
the glory of God,
Ro 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but
the gift of God is eternal life in {Or through} Christ Jesus our
Lord.
If we were truly divine we could rescue
ourselves from hell. But we
cannot. This statement alone is enough
for Christians to reject Sweet. Why
don’t they?
1Jo 4:1 Dear friends, do not believe every spirit,
but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets
have gone out into the world.
"So far the church has refused to dip its toe into
postmodern culture. A quantum spirituality challenges the church to bear
its past and to dare its future by sticking its big TOE into the time and place
of the present.... Then, and only then, will the church not appear to be
in a timecapsule, sealed against new developments. Then, and only then, will a
New Light movement of 'world-making' faith have helped to create the world that
is to, and may yet, be. Then, and only then, will earthlings have uncovered the
meaning of these words, some of the last words
poet/activist/contemplative/bridge between East and West Thomas Merton uttered: "We are already
one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our
original unity." (Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pg.
10)
Thomas Merton and Leonard
Sweet, in quoting him, prove they are both heretics. All human beings are not in unity of the Holy Spirit. We may be one humanity from one root genetic
code, but we are not one in a reborn spirit in the Holy Spirit destined for
heaven, but one in the spiritual downfall of all human beings in need of
regeneration.
Ps 145:20 The
LORD watches over all who love him, but all the wicked he will destroy.
Ro 3:23 for
all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
We only become one
spiritually if we are in Christ.
Ga 3:28 There is
neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one
in Christ Jesus.
We are to have nothing to do
with those who proclaim false religion in order to get everyone to unify
together.
2Ti 3:5 having a
form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.
Those who are true believers
do not and are not to “imagine” that they are one with the world. They are to become one with Christ by
repentance of sin and faith in Jesus Christ.
1Co 6:17 But he
who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.
1Co 12:13 For
we were all baptised by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave
or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
Quoted by Sweet in Quantum Spirituality: Rabbi/theologian/storyteller Lawrence Kushner
makes an intriguing contrast between the Jewish and Christian traditions
precisely at this point in The River of Light Spirituality; Judaism, and the
Evolution of Consciousness (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1981). For
Christianity, the central problem is how God could have become person. How
spirit could transform itself into matter. Word become flesh. Consciousness
become protoplasm. The direction is from the top down. For Judaism, on the
other hand, the problem is how humanity could possibly attain to God’s word and
intention. How matter could raise itself to spirit. How simple desert souls
could hear the word. Human substance attain consciousness. The intention is
“to permeate matter and raise it to spirit.” The direction is from the bottom
up. Perhaps the two traditions, one moving down, the other moving up, are
destined to meet in the divinity of humanity. (82) (Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pg. 191)
Human beings are not Divine and
are not moving upward toward Divinity.
That is an eastern occult concept that has no place in the proclamation
of Biblical Truth. Saved believers
become children of God.
1Jo
5:19 We
know that we are children of God, and that the whole world is under the control
of the evil one.
Collectively they are the bride of
the Bridegroom (Rev. 18:23), but we are not “little gods”. That is the original lie of Satan. There is only One God (Deut. 4:35; 39; 32:39; 2 Sam. 22:32; Isa. 37:20: 43:10;
44:6-8; 45:5; 14;21-22; 46:9, John 5:44; Rom. 3:30; 16:27; 1 Cor. 8:4-6; Gal.
3:20; Eph. 4:6; 1 Tim. 1:17; 2:5; James 2:19; Jude 25) eternally existing in three
Persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Matt.
28:19; 2 Cor. 13:34; also Luke 1:35; 3:21-22 par.; 4:1-12; John 4:10-25;
7:37-39; 14-16; 20:21-22; Acts 1:4-8; 2:33, 38-39; 5:3-4, 9, 30-32; 7:55-56;
10:36- 38, 44-48; 11:15-18; 15:8-11; 20:38; 28:25-31; Rom. 1:1-4; 5:5-10;
8:2-4, 9-11, 14-17; 1 Cor. 6:11; 12:4-6, 11-12, 18; 2 Cor. 1:19-22; 3:6-8,
14-18; Gal. 3:8-14; 4:4-7; Eph. 1:3-17; 2:18, 21-22; 3:14-19; 4:4-6, 29-32;
5:18-20; Phil. 3:3; 1 Thess. 1:3-6; 2 Thess. 2:13-14; Tit. 3:4-6; Heb. 2:3-4;
9:14; 10:28-31; 1 Pet. 1:2; 1 John 3:21-24; 4:13-14; Jude 20-21; Rev. 2:18,
27-29).
The idea that humanity is moving,
by various methods, towards Divinity is a doctrine of demons.
God has already given to the church, in all its
diversity, a complete Theory of Everything, a unifying principle that binds things together. The church’s big TOE was formulated in the Bible’s
smallest encapsulation of What It All Means: John 1:14. The Fourth Gospel
elaborates the exchange as it extends an invitation to the quest and quandary
of the quantum explored in this book.
The Word [the depth dimension of Logos which
physicists call energy,
ancients called fire and theologians call
metanoi] ...
became Flesh [the height dimension of Pathos which
physicists call matter,
ancients called land and theologians call
koinonia]...
and dwelt among us [the breadth dimension of Ethos which
physicists call
space, ancients called wind and theologians
call diakonia] ...
and we beheld his [God’s] glory [the fourth dimension of Theos which
physicists call space-time, ancients called
sea and theologians call basileia].
This tetrad is the church’s big TOE, the
closest the Bible ever comes to formulating a simple, compact description of
how the universe works (i.e., a Grand Unified Theory). John 1:14 presents
four eddies of experiencing God, comprising a single stream. All four
dimensions--the experience of God in Christ and self, the experience of God in
community and creation, the experience of God in social justice and compassion,
the experience of God in the transpersonal and transcendent--while distinct,
are interacting states rather than chronological or sequential stages. They
demonstrate a remarkable unity, interpenetrating and mutually reinforcing one
another 10. . . as in life, so in the rather artificial
partitions of this book.38
(Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pg. 9)
The above exposition of John 1:14
has nothing to do with what it is talking about. It is a witness of the Gospel given by the Apostles to the fact
that Jesus Christ, God, became a man and the disciples were witnesses to His
glory. This has nothing to do with
formulating a “compact description of how the universe works”. This is not about the universe or a
universal theory upon which men can claim Divinity. It has to do with describing why a person needs to believe that
Jesus Christ is God. When you see the
Gospel twisted like this to suit an agenda and ideology, you are seeing demonic
doctrines at work.
God claims everything one is. God claims
every rationality. God claims every sensibility. Quantum spirituality is
more than a structure of the intellect; it is more than a structure of emotion;
it is more than a structure of human being. It is most importantly a structure
of human becoming, a channeling of Christ energies through mindbody experience.28 (Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, pg.
53)
Christians (and apparently unbelievers by
implication) are not to “channel Christ”.
They are to believe in Jesus Christ, be born again in the Spirit, then
allow the Holy Spirit to teach them how to be more like Christ through the
study of the written Word of God, which we are not to go beyond (1 Cor.
4:6). Channeling is a New Age idea
involving communicating with a spirit guide who may ultimately take possession
of you. The Bible forbids channeling or
what is also called being a medium (Le 20:27, De 18:10-11).
Christ is not the big “spirit guide” in the
sky. He is the Savior of those who have
believed in Him as the God-man. His
Holy Spirit does not channel Christ through believers but guides them to be
more like Christ everyday and gives them spiritual gifts so that they can
better proclaim the Gospel and disciple believers from all nations.
"CHANGE OR BE CHANGED — In the old ecology
of nature, change was seen as abnormal. In the new ecology of nature, change is
life’s natural, normative state.... What works today won’t work tomorrow.... The
wonder is that churches are not in more disarray. ... They are standing pat,
opting to uphold the status quo rather than undergo the upheaval." …
"Postmodern culture is a change-or-be-changed world. The word is out:
Reinvent yourself for the 21st century or die." (Leonard Sweet, Soul Tsunami: Sink or Swim in the New
Millennium Culture
(Zondervan,
1999), p. 74-75)
We as Christians are not to conform to the
philosophies, mindset and worldview of the world. We are to be conformed to Christ and then we become change agents
to bring the Gospel to bear on the world, being light and salt.
Ro 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern
of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you
will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and
perfect will.
1 Pet. 1:14-16 As obedient children, do not conform to
the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called
you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy,
because I am holy." {Lev. 11:44,45; 19:2; 20:7}
Matt.
5:13-16 "You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses
its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for
anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men. "You are the
light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people
light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it
gives light to everyone in the house.
In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your
good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.
2Co
4:4 The
god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see
the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
2Ti
1:10
but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Saviour,
Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality
to light through the gospel.
This is part of the diaprax of the Emerging
Church leaders. They put down the
Church in order to bring their new ideas into play: thesis/antithesis. This is an old dialectical trick but it
actually exposes them for who they are: those who have no real love for the
Church but simply want to gain control over churches through brainwashing techniques
like this one for their own deceptive purposes (Eph. 4:14). You don’t reach a postmodern culture by
becoming postmodern. You contrast the
belief in the absolute Truth of the Gospel and God’s Word with the relativism
and hopelessness of a world of people without an anchor for their souls.
"According to the Oxford English
Dictionary, to inform means 'to give form to, put into form and shape.' The
purpose of the church is to give form to, to put into form and shape, the
energymatter known as Jesus Christ. New Light leaders, therefore, are in-formational
connectors helping the body of Christ to become an in-formed church, an
in-formational community." … "New Light leadership helps
patches of information become cloaks of knowledge. Information brokering is
central to creating community in postmodern culture, not to mention
achieving synergic states of group consciousness. Association of
Theological Schools president/divinity school dean Jim L. Waits, in his
address at the seventy-fifth anniversary of the founding of Emory University’s
Candler School of Theology, calls for clergy to move from their 'learned
ministry' model to a '“knowledgeable ministry' model. 'Knowledge ministry'
helps information become 'alive in the consciousness,' as Einstein put
it...." (Leonard
Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p. 120-121)
Jesus Christ is not “energymatter”. He is real, He is alive, and He
sits at the right hand of the Father making intercession for those who belong
to Him. There is no “synergistic state
of group consciousness” in the world that has to do with Jesus Christ. There is, however, the Zeitgeist, the
Weltgeist, the spirit of the air (Eph. 2:2) that is driving many people to
unite in a synergistic flow that is going right along with the plans of the
enemy for a world government, a world false religion and finally a world
leader. This type of teaching shows the
spirit that is behind it, and it is decidedly NOT the Holy Spirit.
"Christbody communities must come to be seen as
thermodynamic units in which the rules of the conservation and degradation
of energy apply. Some preachers almost unwittingly do an energy analysis of
a congregation, assessing the energy charge of a room, pinpointing the
energy flow, and drawing strength from those hot spots from which
energy emanates most powerfully...."Reluctance to see communities of
faith as information-processing systems and the refusal to assist people in
exploring and critiquing the unexamined metaphors by which they live helps
explain why oldline communities are in such a state of entropic decline and
disarray. Yet entropies of information produce variety within a species as well
as new species themselves. The second law of thermodynamics states that energymatter
decomposes and, what is more, that the more entropy grows, the less the
amount of usable energy. Since the total amount of energy and mass in the
universe cannot change, the entropic consequence of the second law is known
as evolution. … "A major New Light undertaking is the designing
of newstream communities that can be 'in connection' and 'in-formation' with
the spirit of Christ. Christ will be embodied for the postmodern church in
information." (Leonard
Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p. 121)
We are not to be witches and warlocks concerned
with manipulating the energy of a room or a “hot spot” or the earth, for that
matter. That is entirely a New Age
concept whose end is uselessness. We
are to proclaim the Gospel and disciple believers till Christ comes. Any of these other ideas are not only
counterproductive but can introduce demonic deception into these
situations. I saw it happen in the Toronto “Blessing”
and related “revivals”. There is no such thing as “Christbody”
communities. There is only the body of
Christ, the Church (1 Cor. 12:27, Eph. 3:10-11). Notice the Gospel is entirely absent from Sweets “new” ideas.
The following are five gross premises of
embodiment... that build anew the body of Christ for the postmodern era -- being
“in connection” and “in-formation” with: (1) other Christians, (2)
all creation, (3) one’s ancestors and ancestral memories, (4) other
faiths, (5) technology.... ([1] "With Other Christians:) The
first of these five untheorized observations is that New Light embodiment
means to be “in connection” and “in-formation” with other Christians.... The
church is fundamentally one being, one person, a communion whose cells are connected
to one another within the information network called the Christ
consciousness. No congregation or denomination can go it alone in being the
body of Christ.... To be “in connection” and “in-formation” is to be related to
other Christians and the shared culture of all Christians and to grow a set of organic
relationships and coalitions around a common love for God "Communities have souls, not just
individuals. The modern era downplayed a biblical doctrine of salvation
that had this communal dimension. In contrast, the New Light
movement is concerned about the salvation of ensouled communities as
well as individual souls, and the salvation of community souls relating
synergistically to one another. ... The power of community is the energy of
between: The synergizing of synergies in which “one [shall] chase a thousand,
and two [shall] put ten thousand to flight” (Deut. 32:30).... (Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p. 122)
Communities don’t have souls. This is the false teaching of the Transformations
movement headed by C. Peter Wagner, Ed Silvoso, George Otis Jr. and others in
the New Apostolic Reformation. God
works His miracle of spiritual rebirth in individuals who then, as a result of
the indwelling Holy Spirit, become one in His Church. The “Christ consciousness” Sweet loves to talk about has nothing
to do with unbelievers and is not some synergistic force. The Gospel message is the power, and the
Holy Spirit is the change agent IN INDIVIDUALS. The rest is New Age silliness, and his misuse of Deut. 32:30
illustrates the problem with his own teachings. The context of that verse states this:
Deut.
32:28-33 They are a nation without sense, there is no discernment in them.
If only they were wise and would understand this and discern what their end
will be! How could one man chase a thousand, or two put ten thousand to flight,
unless their Rock had sold them, unless the LORD had given them up? For their
rock is not like our Rock, as even our enemies concede. Their vine comes from
the vine of Sodom and from the fields of Gomorrah. Their grapes are filled with
poison, and their clusters with bitterness. Their wine is the venom of
serpents, the deadly poison of cobras.
The context shows that you cannot
make claims against Israel that the Lord has not decreed. This of course cannot be directly attributed
to the Church, but the application is that we must be careful about making
claims that are without God’s blessing as those opposing Israel had done. How appropriate that Sweet brought this verse
to light because he is the one changing the game plan from the Gospel to this
“New Light movement” that he made up in his head using eastern and Catholic
mystics as his guides.
"Pantheism is 'the belief or theory
that God and the universe are identical' panentheism is 'the belief that
the Being of God includes and penetrates the whole universe, so that every part
of it exists in Him, but... that His Being is more than, and is not exhausted
by, the Universe.” …"New Light spirituality does more than settle for the
created order, as many forms of New Age pantheism do. But a spirituality
that is not in some way entheistic (whether pan- or trans-), that does not
extend to the spirit-matter of the cosmos, is not Christian." (Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p. 123-124)
Pantheism is “not Christian”… not a
false “Christian” spirituality that conforms to pantheism. Most of the false religions of the world,
though animistic, also have an element of pantheism in them. Christianity absolutely teaches against
it.
Re 4:8 Each of the four living creatures had six
wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under his wings. Day and night
they never stop saying: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who
was, and is, and is to come."
Ro
1:25 They
exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created
things rather than the Creator—who is for ever praised. Amen.
Col 1:16 For by him all things were created:
things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers
or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him.
What Sweet is doing is bringing
people to worship the creation rather than the Creator who stands apart from
His creation and was before it and will be after it is gone. Read these
articles on the fallacy of pantheism:
http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/godsrus.htm
http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/newpantheism.html
http://letusreason.org/NAM44.htm
"Fourth, New
Light embodiment means to be 'in connection' and 'information' with other
faiths. To be in-formation means to know each other’s songs almost as well
as one knows them oneself, and to enlarge the community to include those whose
conceptions of God differ from ours in form. To be in connection means to be
able to sing, not only selected stanzas, but all the verses" … "One
can be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ without denying the flickers of the
sacred in followers of Yahweh, or Kali, or Krishna. A globalization of
evangelism 'in connection' with others, and a globally 'in-formed' gospel,
is capable of talking across the fence with Hindu, Buddhist, Sikh, Muslim--people
from other so called 'new' religious traditions ('new' only to us)--without
assumption of superiority and power."(Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p. 129-130)
Again, like some kind of faulty electronic
device, Sweet is picking up “flickers” of the “sacred” from false
religions. If he knew his Bible he
would know that those “flickers” are from the enemy, not from God. God is not revealing Himself, nor has He
ever revealed Himself, through false religions. If you want to understand this subject I highly recommend that
you get the book by Mike Oppenheimer and myself about these ideas of God being
in all cultures and religions called “Idolatry In Their Hearts” (a play on the
title of Don Richardson’s book called “Eternity In Their Hearts”). You can get it here:
http://www.deceptioninthechurch.com/idolatrybook.html
Missionaries have always been “capable of talking
across the fence” with false religions without compromising the truth, which is
why in times past many have been saved out of false, hopeless religions. The world, its cultures and religions are
“without hope and without God” until they have heard and accepted the Gospel of
their salvation (Eph. 1:13). When you
compromise the truth by saying all religions have “light” put there by God to
reconcile people to Himself, you are preaching another gospel that is accursed.
The
power of small groups is in their ability to develop the discipline to get
people "in-phase" with the Christ consciousness and connected
with one another. (Leonard
Sweet, Quantum
Spirituality, P. 147)
… New
Lights offer up themselves as the cosmions of a mind-of-Christ consciousness.
As a cosmion incarnating the cells of a new body, New Lights will function as
transitional vessels through which transforming energy can renew the divine.
This amounts to blasphemy.
Our job as the church is not to “renew the Divine” but to make people
realize they are sinners in need of the Divine Jesus Christ. There is no such thing as “Christ
consciousness” for the unbeliever, and for the believer their relationship with
Jesus is far more then just a “consciousness”; it is being hidden in Christ
(Col. 3:3), under His blood (Eph. 2:13, Heb. 9:14), being “in Christ” (1 Cor.
15:22) thereby escaping judgment. No
amount of “Christ consciousness” will save.
You must believe, die to sin, be reborn in the spirit, and prove you
love Him by obeying Him. Those who
preach another gospel are clearly not true followers of Christ.
This also borders on
blasphemy. A God they can “smell”? You cannot immerse yourself in the
“divine”. God immerses Christians in
the baptism of the Spirit of which water baptism is a picture. It is a picture of what has taken place
after the born again experience, that being death to sin and raising to new
life in Christ. Postmoderns don’t know God therefore they need to know Him and
begin to study His written Word, aided by the Holy Spirit who is the Teacher
for all believers. Then they will find
out that what they wanted is not what God wants. God is not there to pander to their sensual, soulical desires and
pleasures. He is there to teach them
about Himself and what He expects from us.
This is why it is critical to preach the Gospel to postmoderns and begin
the process of deconstructing their erroneous worldview.
“1. Get in touch with your lungs by closing your eyes.
Visualize in your mind a tennis court” 8.“Hold your Bible and breathe meditatively.
The breathtaking, nay, breathgiving truth of aliveness is more than
Methuselean in its span: Part of your body right now was once actually,
literally part of the body of Abraham, Sarah, Noah, Esther, David, Abigail,
Moses, Ruth, Matthew, Mary, Like, Martha, John, Priscilla, Paul... and Jesus.
9. Keep breathing quietly while holding your Bible. You have within you
not just the powers of goodness resident in the great spiritual leaders like
Moses, Jesus, Muhammed, Lao Tzu You also have within you the forces of
evil and destruction.” Resident in each breath you take is the body of
angels like Joan of Arc and devils like Gilles de Rais, Genghis Khan, Judas
Iscariot, Herod, Hitler, Stalin and all the other destructive spirits
throughout history” (Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p.300-301)
This is patent pantheism
again. This is not “Christian” at
all. One of the most demonic religions
ever produced, that is completely against Christianity and Judaism, is Islam. How can he say that Mohammed had “powers of
goodness” when his life and writings inspired a Satanic religion against the
true God, YHWH? How did Lao Tzu have
anything to do with Christ? When Christ
said “How can you call me good” his point was that He is the ONLY one who is
good (Luke 18:19). Why is Sweet calling
other men “good” when only Jesus Christ is good? But then he goes on to say that all the goodness is also resident
with the evil in us all from people like Herod, Hitler, Stalin, etc. This is all a pantheistic view of the world
where everything is interconnected, which would also necessarily mean that God
has evil in Him also. If Sweet wants to
be connected to Stalin, he can be my guest.
As for me and my house will have nothing to do with that spirit at all,
or the “good” spirit of the heads of ungodly religions like Islam and Taoism.
“In the words of one of the greatest theologians of the
twentieth century, Jesuit philosopher of religion/dogmatist Karl Rahner, “The
Christian of tomorrow will be a mystic, one who has experienced something,
or he will be nothing”(Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p.76)
True Christians are
not mystics. They need not be because
they have the Holy Spirit and the Word to guide them. They are empowered with spiritual gifts and they know God. They don’t need to seek Him “mystically”
because they already have Him. But it
is true that so-called Christians of tomorrow will be mystics if Sweet has
anything to say about it and if the churches do not avoid him as the Scripture
clearly tells us to do with false teachers.
Ro 16:17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions
and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.
“Austrian/American physicist
Wolfgang Pauli perceived, are the traceable connections that exist
between ourselves and others or objects, and the underlying holism of the
uni-verse. Transcendent state of consciousness” (Leonard Sweet, Quantum
Spirituality, p.234)
The universe created by God is
wonderful and holds together by His power (Rev. 4:11). The state of consciousness that is in the
world today is a state of delusion. If
you want to stay connected to unbelievers in a false spiritual union, that is
your choice. If you want to be
connected to Christ then you will not be unequally yoked with them. They do not have the Holy Spirit, as Sweet
implies.
2Co 6:14 Be ye not unequally yoked together with
unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and
what communion hath light with darkness?
“If the church is to become a synergic space, it must
first be Christianized. It must meet the ABCDE involutions of the “X Factor.”
The ABCDE rule for synergic Christbody inter-connections and in-formation is as
follows: Alterity, Bonding, Critical Mass, Dirt, Euphonics. The ABCDE
involutions, when placed in a biblical framework, represent evolutionary
steps to higher spirituality and the ecclesiastics of synergy”. The
church must provide postmoderns with an alterity of rituals by which
they can turn and tune to one another and feel connected to the cosmos.
(Leonard Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p. 137).
We are not here to “connect people
to the cosmos”. We are here to connect
people with Jesus Christ! “Alterity” is
defined as “Otherness: the quality or state of being radically alien to the
conscious self or a particular cultural orientation.” So we are now to bring people into esoteric
mystical experiences in order for them to get close to God? That has nothing to do with Biblical
Christianity and true Bible teachers ought to know this.
“Mysticism begins in experience; it ends in theology”(Leonard
Sweet, Quantum Spirituality, p.76).
Experience before doctrine leads to
false experience, never to sound doctrine.
David Spangler who Sweet
favorably quotes also speaks of Lucifer as: “The true light of this great being
can only be recognized when one's own eyes can see with the light of the
Christ, the light of the inner sun. Lucifer works within each of us to bring
us to wholeness, and as we move into the New Age, which is the age
of man's wholeness, each of us is brought to that point which I term the
Luciferic Initiation, the particular doorway through which the individual must
pass if he is to come fully into the presence of his light and his wholeness.
Lucifer comes to give us the final gift of wholeness. If we accept it, then
he is free and we are free, that is the Luciferic Initiation. It is one that
many people now, and in the days ahead, will be facing, for it is an
initiation into the New Age. (David Spangler (quoted by Leonard Sweet),
Reflections on the Christ, Findhorn Lecture Series, 3rd ed., 1981; p. 45)
This is one of the
many New Agers that Sweet loves to read and quote. Lucifer is now bringing us closer to “wholeness”? That is the lie of Eden! This is straight ahead doctrines of demons.
In Conclusion
Nothing else needs to
be said. The facts speak for
themselves. Follow Leonard Sweet at
your own risk, the risk of your soul!