Quantum Physics - "Prepare your church for spiritual
growth and connectivity."
|
||
In the set, Warren and Sweet talk about "new frontiers," "changing times" and a "new spirituality" on the horizon. Later, in Sweet's 2001 book, Soul Tsunami, Warren gives an endorsement that sits on the back as well as on the front cover of the book. Of the book, Warren says: Leonard Sweet ... suggests practical ways to communicate God's unchanging truth to our changing world.1 Some of these "practical ways" include using a labyrinth and visiting a meditation center.2 Sweet also says, "It's time for a Post Modern Reformation,"3 adding that "The wind of spiritual awakening is blowing across the waters."4 He says that times are changing and you'd better "Reinvent yourself for the 21st century or die."5 To better understand Leonard Sweet's spirituality, I would like to draw your attention to a book he wrote a few years prior to The Tides of Change audio set--Quantum Spirituality. I highly recommend you take a look at this book yourself--Sweet has now placed the book on his website at www.leonardsweet.com in a format easy to download, which, of course, shows that he still promotes its message. The acknowledgments section of Quantum Spirituality shows very clearly Sweet's spiritual sympathies. In it, Sweet thanks interspiritualists/universalists such as Matthew Fox (author of The Coming of the Cosmic Christ), Episcopalian priest/mystic Morton Kelsey, Willis Harman (author of Global Mind Change) and Ken Wilber (one of the major intellectuals in the New Age movement) for helping him to find what he calls "New Light."6 Sweet adds that he trusts "the Spirit that led the author of The Cloud of Unknowing."7 In the preface of the same book, Sweet disseminates line after line of suggestions that the "old teachings" of Christianity must be replaced with new teachings of "the New Light." And yet these new teachings, he believes, will draw from "ancient teachings" (the Desert Fathers). This "New Light movement," Sweet says, is a "radical faith commitment that is willing to dance to a new rhythm.8 Throughout the book, Sweet favorably uses terms like Christ consciousness and higher self and in no uncertain terms promotes New Age ideology: "[Quantum spirituality is] a structure of human becoming, a channeling of Christ energies through mindbody experience."9 Here is an example of Gurus saying to connect with Christ Consciousness: SRI SWAMI KRISHNANANDA 'Empty thyself and I shall fill thee.' This is a wondrous single sentence message of Jesus the Christ. The Spirit is not a quantity and it is opposed to all quantitative measurements and conceptions. 'Blessed are the poor in spirit,' is another suggestive statement of the Christ. Christ was a great Yogin, Master Yogin, one of the greatest Yogins the world has produced, an Yogin in the true sense of the term. He was perpetually in unison with the Spirit, drew sustenance from the Spirit and operated upon the Law of the Spirit in the world or the realm of matter. The Bible does not describe Jesus Christ as an energy channeling its way in and through us. Without a doubt, this is New Age lingo. The wonderful thing about the Gospel that is presented in Scripture is that Jesus Christ is presented as a personal God who loves us and will have a relationship with anyone who, by faith, comes to the Father through Him. This is where the contemplatives have it wrong. They believe that through this meditative prayer they can reach God. Sweet also tells his readers that humanity and creation are united as one and we must realize it. Once humanity comes to this realization, Sweet says: 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 the last words [Thomas Merton] uttered: "We are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity."10 The new focus is on unity -- a worldwide oneness reflected in the growing union between the East and West. Leonard Sweet's online book, Quantum Spirituality, sheds some revealing light of the envisioned global "church" for the 21st century. In his view, the offense of the cross has been replaced with a passion for interfaith peace and possibility thinking. To illustrate this point, Dr. Sweet quotes Thomas Merton, the popular Catholic author who popularized mysticism and died in Asia searching the depths of Tibetan Buddhism: 'We are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity.'"[6]
It is this same mysticism (i.e., contemplative prayer) that I believe Rick Warren is also promoting. Warren extends his promotion and endorsement of Sweet to his pastors.com website. Nearly a dozen times Sweet is referred to positively, including an article featuring Sweet and another article written by him. (from chapter 8, A Time of Departing). Leonard Sweet is a New Age evangelist. For Rick Warren to have him as a speaker for the upcoming Wired conference is a blatant move on Warren's part in his efforts to shift Christianity into a New Age (or what he calls New Reformation) that will help lead to possibly the greatest apostasy this world has ever seen. For any church to still use Purpose Driven material and still promote Rick Warren in any fashion makes that church just as guilty as Rick Warren himself. If you really want to know the direction Rick Warren is going toward, study Leonard Sweet, Ken Wilber, and Alice Bailey. That will indeed show you a picture of the Purpose Driven future and sad to say the future of thousands of evangelical churches around the world.
1. Rick Warren, Soul Tsunami by Leonard Sweet (Grand Rapids, MI:Zondervan,
1999), cover. |
||
