Christian Beware

Depressing, but true ... there are many practices out there dangerous to your spiritual health and many ideas that will happily lead you astray from the truth.

Everywhere I turn, I bump into one of them. Astrology for starters. How many of us innocently read our horoscope in the daily paper or in magazines. And yet this is completely against anything in the Bible. According to astrology, the stars and planets influence who you are because of when and where you were born thus leaving God having nothing to do with it. Common sense alone indicates how crazy that is, especially when you think of all the people born on your own birthday, maybe even born at the exact same time as you and how different they are from you. Anyone can fit into any sign's profile if they pick and choose hard enough.

I recently learned that the early Hebrews used the same zodiac constellations, but in a much different way. They call it the Mazzeroth (hope I have that spelled right) and they used it to teach the story of the Messiah to their children using the night sky, starting with Virgo for the virgin birth and bringing it all the way through the year to Leo the lion aka the Savior, the Lion of Judah. How cool is that?!

Oprah, queen of all things non-biblical, has been involved in conducting a Satellite radio class on a Course in Miracles, a faux gospel that turns everything Jesus said and did on its head, even though it claims to be a new revelation from Jesus himself. Which is pretty sacrilegious when you think about it. Supposedly the book was channeled by a woman psychiatrist, a claim even more sacrilegious considering its anti-Biblical stance on pretty much everything. Just knowing it says that sin is the result of lack of love (cue weeping violins here) should be enough to steer you in the opposite direction. What a way to shirk responsibility for sin.

Pastor Rick Warren touts a bunch of similar squirrelly doctrines such as accepting yourself, loving yourself, forgiving yourself, and being true to yourself. We’re all eager to love and forgive ourselves; it’s what gets us into trouble in the first place. When you sin, you’re sinning against the Creator who made you and only He can forgive those sins. Another big name, Joel Osteen, doesn’t like to refer to sin at all and says that God’s only looking at your last two good moves. So don't worry if you just robbed a bank, God will ignore that and focus on the way you helped that llittle old lady across the street on your way there.

The bestselling book The Secret is yet another rehash of the old law of attraction which says if you think about something long enough and really want it and pretend you already have, you’ll get it. Napoleon Hill and every self-help guru after him from Norman Vincent Peale to Tony Robbins will tell you the same thing. The scary part is that there’s now a group of Christians talking about ‘the secret behind The Secret’ trying to turn it into something Christian. Talk about selling out.

Global warming is a dubious theory that fosters worship of ‘mother earth’ even at the expense of the humans living on it. A bunch of pastors have signed on to the Global Warming agenda as well, in spite of the 10,000 scientists who have come out against it. In fact, scientists have flip-flopped on this subject at least three times in the 20th century, going from telling us it’s warming to warning us of an impending ice age (as happened in the 1970’s). We’re told the oceans will rise and cover major portions of the continents. I guess they don’t realize God sets the boundaries of the oceans and He assures us the waters will only come so far and no farther. The problem with global warming is that debate on the issue is being squelched. Only those scientists who agree with Al Gore and his ilk get research grants. It's all about money and power. (Did you know that Gore's movie cannot be shown in British schools because it has so many factual errors?).

We need to know what we’re getting involved in from a Christian point of view, but how can you keep track of it all. For a solid first step, check out the Spiritual Research Network and its great website which lists hundreds of practices so you can check things out for yourself.

Bottom line.... when it comes to the things of this world, Christian beware.