Smith on Impact of the New Age Movement

Part 1

Dr. Reagan: Greetings in the name of Jesus our blessed hope and welcome to Christ in Prophecy and our special guest again this week, Warren Smith. Glad to have you Warren.

Warren Smith: Good to be here.

Dr. Reagan: Also glad to have my colleague, Nathan Jones with me. Nathan we had quite a program last week with Warren.

Nathan Jones: What a testimony, I was spellbound.

Dr. Reagan: I was riveted; I couldn’t even hardly say anything.

Warren Smith: Well you know the Lord does work in mysterious ways. But it’s important for people to know that did see that show that there are just countless numbers of people that were involved in the things that I was involved in. And what I did was not unique, it’s just fairly unique that I got out of it. Many people are lost in the New Age and that’s one reason I wrote, The Light that Was Dark, to try to help to have materials that people can look at and understand.

Dr. Reagan: Folks, if you were not tuned in last week and saw this program that we had with him that was just so incredible with his personal testimony about how God led him out of the New Age Movement and how deep he got into it. Then you can watch it on our website at lamblion.com, that is lamblion no and in the middle, lamblion.com and you can see the entire program there. We have nearly all of our television programs from recent years posted there so just go take a look at it because it is something that you don’t want to miss. And if you like to read then you can get this book which is entitled, The Light that Was Dark, and the subtitle is From the New Age to Amazing Grace. In fact we’ll tell you how you can get a copy of that book at the end of this program. But that contains his fascinating, just riveting testimony about his spiritual pilgrimage into the New Age and out of it. Now Warren I’d like to pick up where we left off last week and I’d like for you to just tell us what are some of the basic characteristics of the New Age Movement?

Warren Smith: You know in 2 Corinthians 11 the Apostle Paul talked about the simplicity in Christ. There is a simplicity in the deception. So it’s really important that people don’t get confused. There are so many different aspects of the deception of the New Age, what is now being called the New Spirituality, or even New World View. I mean New World Religion was the phrase for a while but a New World View is easier for people, maybe Christians can even be guided into a New World View that will help the world come to peace. You know in Daniel we were told that in Daniel 8 that the Antichrist you know is going to have a wonderful deception, he will destroy wonderfully. And by peace he shall destroy many. All these teachings are heading up to a process where the world is going to be told to get on-line and atonement will be a word that will be used. But those of us that were in the New Age understand that it is at-one-ment, not atonement so much as at-one-ment we are all one because God is in everyone and everything. And when we recognize our oneness we can all come together and help achieve world peace. Some Christian leaders are even buying into this by having materials that bring this oneness and this god in everything teaching into the Church.

Dr. Reagan: Okay, I want to get into that in just a moment of how it’s impacted the Church. But I want to dwell a little bit longer here on the fundamental characteristics of the movement. So you boiled it all down, the fundamental characteristic is God is in everything, in us and so forth. That’s what Shirley MacLaine I guess was doing when she stood on the seashore and yelled, “I am god, I am god, I am god.”

Warren Smith: She was the one that was put forward back in 1987 on television she became the butt of like David Letterman’s jokes. She outed that and it got the conversation, that is a big word these days, conversation. Let’s have a conversation, which really is let’s see what we can do to compromise. Let’s get it all on the table and see what we can come up with, the idea that we can all move forward. But Shirley MacLaine started it off that was in 1987 that was the same year that Marilyn Ferguson the author of The Aquarian Conspiracy was on the Oprah Winfrey show on a show entitled The New Age Movement. Back in 1980 Marilyn Ferguson wrote the book The Aquarian Conspiracy and in that book she said basically we have a great idea, a great heretical idea god-within, god in everything. She said, “We are not going to be able to pull this off right away but over time if it is widely publicized we will be able to have our way.” I mean it was outrageous. And actually a lot of New Age leaders today are very upset that she used the word conspiracy in the title of her book because it actually plays into the reality, she was being cute, but it actually there is a conspiracy and the conspiracy is to get this great heretical idea that god indwells his creation, God is in everyone and everything. Last week I mentioned the book called, The Shack that was a very popular book not only in the world, it was actually at the top of the New Age bestseller list but it was also–

Dr. Reagan: Every Christian bookstore.

Warren Smith: Yeah.

Nathan Jones: Every church was preaching from it.

Warren Smith: And you know people go, well but Jesus is in there, well what a lot of people don’t understand is that I think it was on page 112 the Jesus of The Shack said, “God who is the ground of all being dwells in and around, and through all things.” And then if you look carefully at the book when the world creation is brought up it is a capital “C” those us from the New Age know that when you see creation with a capital “C” it means that God indwells His creation.

Dr. Reagan: And that is very different from what the Bible teaches. God is not indwelling His creation, right?

Warren Smith: No, Psalm 39:5, “Verily every man at his best state is all together vanity.”

Dr. Reagan: Right.

Warren Smith: Or in John 2:24-25 Jesus said referring to Jesus, “He did not commit himself to men because he knew what was in men.” Now why would that be said if God is in man? Why wouldn’t He be emphasizing that? He was actually saying, “Watch out men amongst themselves can be very dangerous,” and He is teaching that. So God is not within each person.

Dr. Reagan: Now you mentioned Oprah and she has just been sort of a high priestess of this whole thing with one New Age writer and speaker after another on her program. Would you quickly mention some New Age names from the secular world that people would recognize, might recognize that they could be aware of?

Warren Smith: Sure she had M. Scott Peck on her program back in the early 90’s and a lot of people don’t realize to them Scott Peck although describing himself as a Christian was really more of kind of like an emerging contemplative New Age Christian because in his book he said, “God is within everybody.” And he actually laid out a plan, he said, “We’re in crisis,” and that is what The Aquarian Conspiracy said, “we are in crisis and we need to have a new way of looking at things. We need a new worldview.” And what he basically said was that our salvation lies in community, he didn’t say in Jesus Christ, but in community. And he said that under the duress of these times we need to change some of our rules, yes, and that includes the Church. So he was introducing this idea. And I wrote an article years ago about M. Scott Peck and the Community of the Cosmic Christ and starting off the article there was a big quote by Peck saying that the mystical prophet who is bringing forth this idea of sort of a quantum leap into a new level of understanding was Catholic Jesuit priest Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, C-H-A-R-D-I-N. He was the father of the New Age Movement. The title The Aquarian Conspiracy was taken by Chardin. Chardin said, “This soul must be a conspiracy of individuals.” And Chardin’s teachings are simply this that God is in every atom and that is exactly.

Nathan Jones: Sounds like Star Wars, pantheism, right?

Warren Smith: May the force be with, this force is God that penetrates His creation, you know comes in various ways.

Dr. Reagan: Quickly just mention a few names, without what they teach.

Warren Smith: Ok, Deepak Chopra, Betty Eadie.

Dr. Reagan: How about Oz?

Warren Smith: You mentioned Shirley MacLaine. Mehmet Oz was for five years he was featured on Oprah Winfrey, now he has his own program.

Nathan Jones: Every day.

Warren Smith: And Dr. Oz is probably one of the more dangerous, and I say that carefully, occultists out there. He has endorsed a book by a psychic by the name of Ainslie MacLeod the book is called The Instruction, and Oz has a front cover endorsement. And in that book the psychic refers to spirit guides 175 times, 40 before you get to chapter 1. He talks about past lives. He encourages the reader to get into meditation, to contact their spirit guides. Oz is on the cover, Oz says, “Also brought forward transcendental meditation,” which Oz says he does, reiki which is a very dangerous sort of body treatment that includes spirit guides. And the reiki practitioners make it very clear that spirit guides are involved in that process.

Dr. Reagan: But these people are so nice.

Nathan Jones: Yeah, and loving.

Dr. Reagan: They are so smooth.

Warren Smith: You know when I was a Social Worker in the New Age some people thought I was kind of nice. But you know niceness doesn’t have much to do with it, you know. We have some pastors out there that seem pretty nice and they are bringing a lot of this in.

Dr. Reagan: In fact the Antichrist is going to be very nice.

Warren Smith: Probably yeah, very much so.

Nathan Jones: Speaking of the Antichrist you always hear in the New Age Movement Lord Maitreya can you explain a little to me, is that supposed to be the Antichrist, or the Messiah of the New Age Movement?

Warren Smith: I’m really impressed. I was at a conference recently and there must have been 300 people and I said, “Has anybody heard of Maitreya?” One person raised their hand. Now here’s a young guy that is asking. Maitreya actually I wrote a book called False Christ Coming and Maitreya was one of the first four chapters. Ok Maitreya, Benjamin Creme was like Maitreya’s John the Baptist and in 1982 there was a full page ad in newspapers all around the world saying, “The Christ is here, and he is waiting to be called forth.” Benjamin Creme was on coast to coast radio probably 4 or 5 times over the last decade saying the very same thing. He is saying that Maitreya is still waiting to be called forth. A lot of people have just dismissed it as a bad joke. What I show in my book is that what Maitreya teaches is absolutely consistent with a Course in Miracles, with New Age Leader Barbara Marx Hubbard. With Neale Donald Walsch Conversations with God and with everything that Oprah Winfrey, Deepak Chopra, Dr. Oz, are teaching it is all the same bottom line. And a lot of it is being brought in, I am glad you brought that up with Oz through health, through holistic health. One well known pastor actually said that if you try to change your diet you have to be careful because you could end up changing your worldview. And that could very well happen. With Dr. Oz one well known Christian pastor has brought him into the church to teach the church how to be healthy.

Dr. Reagan: Ok, I want us to pause here for just a moment and when we come back we want to focus on how is all this impacting the church?

Part 2

Dr. Reagan: Well welcome back to our interview with, Warren Smith, an expert on the New Age Movement, and boy what a series of revelations you’ve given us. Take it from there, Nathan.

Nathan Jones: Well I would like to know, you have such a background you know how to recognize the New Age Movement. How does it influence the churches? Or I should say penetrated the churches?

Warren Smith: You know you can go all the way back to someone like Norman Vincent Peale and the power of positive thinking. I think it is on page 40 of his book The Power of Positive Thinking. He says, “God is in you.” Robert Schuller in a 2003 television program said, “Yes, God is alive and He is in every single person.”

Dr. Reagan: That is classic New Age.

Warren Smith: It is, yeah. And some of the really well known preachers and pastors are using some of these new Bible versions. There is one from the New Century Version that say, “God rules everything, is everywhere, and is in everything.” And people can say, “Oh, but you know God is He is in His universe.”

Nathan Jones: Omnipresent.

Warren Smith: Like when Schuller said, “God is alive and is in every single person.” That is very specific. And you know translations like The Message just watered down God’s Word. And I was surprised to see in the Message right away the first time I read it oneness is talked about in Ephesians.

Dr. Reagan: And that is a code word really for it.

Warren Smith: It really is; oneness.

Nathan Jones: What Universalism?

Warren Smith: He says, “Oneness pervades.” This was his translation in Ephesians 4 somewhere in that area he said, “Oneness pervades everything you are and think and do.” That feeds right into the whole New Age concept. And what I would like to just say is that yeah I see these things maybe a lot more because I was involved in the New Age; but anybody that is reading their Bible. Jesus said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, my Words will not pass away.” The Bible described everything I was involved in. It is describing everything that is coming into the church. And that people try to explain away like, “Hey with The Shack, it is a good book to give to unbelievers.” No it’s not because of the New Age teachings that are in there; like God dwells in and around and through all things.

Nathan Jones: The author is a stated Universalist right?

Warren Smith: He calls himself a Christian.

Nathan Jones: Well they all call themselves a Christian.

Warren Smith: Well Oprah calls herself a Christian too. So you’ve got to look at, ok what kind of Christianity are they talking about? And the Scripture that comes to my mind is, “A little leaven, leaveneth the whole lump.” You cannot have these false teachings inserted into these books surrounded by truth. They will say like in the Emerging Church they will say all truth is God’s truth and then they will take something out of The Course in Miracles and use that, and it might be something that is true.

Dr. Reagan: Well one of the things about the Emergent Church Movement that really concerns me and I would say is a fundamental characteristic of it is that they deny that there really is absolute truth, which in itself is an absolute statement.

Warren Smith: Exactly.

Dr. Reagan: But you know if you are going to discuss the issue of homosexuality it’s not what the Bible has to say, it is what do you think? What do you think? What do I think? And you just sort of exchange all this but no one comes out and says, “Here’s what the Word of God says.”

Warren Smith: Yeah.

Dr. Reagan: Because there is not a belief in absolute truth.

Nathan Jones: Eric Barger had some great statements maybe you can confirm this for me. He says, “The New Age or the Emergent Church follows this: experience over reason, spirituality over doctrinal absolutes, images over words, feelings over truth, earthly justice over salvation, and social action over eternity.” Is that the definition of a New Age Church?

Warren Smith: He’s done a good job of covering a lot of that. I think one of the most significant things that he mentioned there is something that people need to aware of is spiritual experience is trumping the Word of God in the Church, particularly in the Emerging Church. But throughout the churches people are having spiritual experiences that will bring in hopefully from the Devils’ standpoint new revelation which will end up providing a new world view. And the way they are doing that mainly is through contemplative prayer. It’s a code really for the meditation.

Dr. Reagan: What is contemplative prayer? We hear a lot about that, what is it?

Warren Smith: Ok, the way that it is presented is you recite Scripture and then you close your eyes or you be still and listen to see if God will speak to you.

Dr. Reagan: You try to empty your mind.

Warren Smith: Basically it is almost like a technique. Well no they would say that you don’t empty your mind you recite Scripture, but pretty close. But you wait to hear what God would tell you. The dangerous thing is, and Richard Foster for one talks about this he says, “You can always tell the voice of Satan because it is foreboding and dark.” And that just is very bad advice. And what I never have heard with any of these people that are talking about contemplative prayer is to test the spirits, 1 John 4:1. Believers need to remember that these admonitions were directed to believers. Just because we are following the Lord we can still be mislead. And there are a lot of voices out there, and a lot of these voices are now coming in. Books like The Shack, people don’t realize that the author of The Shack told a small group that met privately in a house church that he had real conversations with God and that the teachings in his book were from God, he just put them in a novel form.

Nathan Jones: Like Joseph Smith, or Mohammad, all hearing from God right?

Warren Smith: So, people are being directed to listen to God’s voice. And I’d even seen some recent conferences where you have well known Bible teachers and church leaders that are inducting a whole audience and saying, “Ok, let’s see what Jesus would tell us right now with no warnings.” Remember in 2 Corinthians 11 Paul chided the Corinthians, “If another Jesus, another Gospel, another spirit comes through here you might just go for it.” There is another Jesus out there and I just need to tell people make sure that it is Jesus Christ of Nazareth that is consistent with the Bible because there are a lot of Jesus out there and Paul was warning about that.

Dr. Reagan: Well is this simply a reflection of the Post-modern Age that we are supposed to be in right now where people are turned off by the idea of reading the Word of God and finding out what God would say to them; as opposed to having a touchy feely experience?

Warren Smith: It’s like its being sort of advocated in the Church that it is kind of hip to kind of skirt around the Bible a little bit, have some spiritual experiences. There is nothing wrong with doing things a little bit differently and you want to try to reach people where they are at. But I can just tell you I was really alternative. I mean I was out in San Francisco if you really look at the Jesus Movement people were hippies and all that there is something being taught now like you have to change everything to reach people. The Word of God when I stood in that fraternity house and I was convicted by the Holy Spirit you know that was beyond anything. That was just the power of God and His truth. And Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but through me.” It is a narrow way, oneness is a broad way. And this voice from the enemy that is trying to come into the Church and is doing a fairly good job through contemplative prayer. Is trying to bring in this very simple bottom line teaching that hey, we are all connected, there is that big word connected, we are all connected, we are all one, we are all god. And if we don’t subscribe to this we could hinder world peace because those that don’t subscribe to divinity could be hindering world peace and would have to be dealt with in the future. And I see that being set up right now.

Nathan Jones: So peace through tyranny under the Antichrist, is that the eventually goal?

Warren Smith: You know Jeremiah says, “Peace, peace, but there is no peace.” Peace is a great code word, peace, love and happiness. Peace, love and happiness. You know but what are the bottom line teachings that come with it?

Dr. Reagan: One of the things that really disturbs me about this whole impact on the Church is that more and more I am seeing Christian leaders either directly saying or implying there are many different roads to God. Many different roads there is the Muslim road, and the Hindu God, but it is all leading to the same god.

Warren Smith: It is exactly what New Age leader Neale Donald Walsch said, he said that speaking for his God, he said “There are a 1,000 ways to God and they will all get you there, except for one, and that’s the one that denies that there are a 1,000 ways to God.”

Dr. Reagan: Well there seems to be a tremendous feeling today in many churches that we cannot really preach the Gospel because the Gospel calls for repentance, it talks about sin, it talks about the blood of Jesus, and those will be offensive. We’ve got to be seeker sensitive, we’ve got to be sure that we don’t offend anyone. Well the Gospel is offensive.

Warren Smith: Jesus said, “Blessed are those who are not offended in me.”

Dr. Reagan: Yeah.

Warren Smith: You know He said these are hard things people, he said, you follow me you are going to be persecuted. They hated me; they are going to hate you. But he didn’t leave it at that you know we have His Holy Spirit. We are to walk into the world and we are to stand on the truth. We are to contend for the faith. And what is happening today is a lot of pastors are just capitulating, they are trying to fill their churches, they are compromising. And there is lot of, one thing I would really like to say before this show ends that there is a lot of double speak. Paul warned about those who are double tongues. James double minded. David talked about in Psalm 12 about those with a double heart. What is happening is that some of these pastors will be cornered about what they are saying and that they lead into like New Age teachings and they will say, “Oh, you have to watch out about the New Age.” And then they’ll come back to someone like me and say, “Hey, he’s warning about the New Age.” You’ve got to be really careful, one well known Christian figure who is going around at the highest levels of church assemblies and denominations said very clearly in one of his books, “To survive in the Post-Modern Church you need to speak out of both sides of your mouth.” He actually said that, then he used the two words, he was being cute with imminence and transcendence. Alice Bailey, Benjamin Creme with Maitreya, The Aquarian Conspiracy, said that “God is not only transcendent out there, he is imminent inside each and every person.” And here you’ve got this man who is going around to every denomination leadership level and he is saying, “To survive in the Post-Modern Era you have to learn to speak out of both sides of your mouth.” And then he also quotes Teilhard de Chardin saying that he sees, and these emergent leaders see the faith in a much more magnificent way then their forefathers. This is arrogance, its pride, you know it’s the crew of the Titanic telling everybody it is ok.

Dr. Reagan: Well our time is just about up but in the time we have left I would like for you to address this question: What can we do to protect ourselves against deception? Because it says in the Bible the End Times is going to be a time of great deception. And there are a lot of people out there viewing who think, “Well I could never be deceived.” But we can all be deceived how can we protect ourselves from deception?

Warren Smith: Just like my Course in Miracles teacher said, “Put on the full armor of God and stand fast against the wiles of the Devil.”

Nathan Jones: So you want us to read a Course in Miracles?

Warren Smith: No, get into the Bible and stay in the Word.

Nathan Jones: Romans 1:16 is where it’s at.

Warren Smith: No she pulled that out of her Bible background and she was right. And this sad woman had a very difficult demise because that was one rare time where she quoted Scripture. But the Bible is true, it described everything that we were involved in. I had immense for the Bible immediately because it just, it is so completely authoritatively from God. You need to measure, like the Bereans, you got to measure whatever you are being told by the Bible. And you’ve got to remember a little leaven, leavens the whole lump. Harry Ironside the old Moody Bible teacher he said, “The most insidious form of deception is error mixed with truth.”

Dr. Reagan: Yes.

Warren Smith: So people need to be aware and this is coming in all over the place.

Dr. Reagan: Warren how about telling our viewers how they can get in touch with you and your ministry.

Warren Smith: Mountainstreampress.org is our website and my e-mail is on there, you can ask questions I usually respond. And there are a lot of good discernment ministries out there that you can go to: herescope is one, guardinghisflock.com is one, spiritual research network, lighthousetrails, Berean Call, Dave Hunt and T.A. McMahon have been around for years, Caryl Matrisciana. And I don’t mean to forget anybody but there are a lot of good places where you can go to get articles, and information that will help you in standing fast against this deception. We need to contend for the faith, not too many pastors are contending for the faith, fighting the good fight, they are kind of compromising.

Dr. Reagan: And another way you can find out things is by coming to our website at lamblion.com and asking the most difficult questions you can possibly think of to Nathan. I just love to see Nathan break out in a cold sweat, and wring his hands and spend days doing research to try to answer some of these questions.

Nathan Jones: Bring it, bring it.

Dr. Reagan: Bring it on, bring it on.

Nathan Jones: Bring it on.

Dr. Reagan: Ok, you can also find our television programs on that website. And I would urge to be sure and check out the program last week if you did not see it where Warren gave his personal testimony which is summarized in this book, The Light That Was Dark: From the New Age to Amazing Grace. Warren you have been a great blessing to us. Thanks for being on the program.

Warren Smith: Thanks for having me.

Dr. Reagan: May the Lord continue to pour out His spirit on you. May He continue to bless you and your ministry and magnify your voice. Well folks that’s our program for this week, until next week the Lord willing this is Dave Reagan speaking for myself and Nathan Jones saying, “Look up, be watchful for our redemption is drawing near.”

End of Program