[God] said furthermore unto me, Son of man, seest thou what they do? even the great abominations that the house of Israel committeth here [in the Temple], that I should go far off from my sanctuary? but turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater abominations.
And he brought me to the door of the court; and when I looked, behold a hole in the wall …
And he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do here.
So I went in, and saw; and behold every form of creeping things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, pourtrayed upon the wall round about …
Then he brought me to the door of the gate of the Lord’s house which was toward the north; and, behold, there sat women weeping for Tammuz [a pagan deity] …
Then he said unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of man? Is it a light thing to the house of Judah that they commit the abominations which they commit here?…
Therefore will I also deal in fury.
Ezekiel 8:6–18 [T]here be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ.
But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
Galatians 1:7–8 Today Paul Woodall is the pastor of the fastest-growing church in the town of Gove, Kansas.
Three years ago, Pastor Woodall and his flock seceded from the United Methodist Church, lost their building, and had to transfer their worship services to a small, struggling Baptist church nearby. The UMC dismissed Woodall from its ministry, and he soon dropped out of a legal battle over possession of the church building.
Why did Woodall and his people leave the UMC?
Because, he said, the denomination was rife with paganism and anti-Biblical practices — “same-sex unions, homosexual ordination, Sophia worship, goddess worship, Wicca worship, pagan practices, anti-trinitarianism, opposition to the virgin birth and the deity of Christ,” as reported on the UMC’s own website [http://archives.umc.org/umns/usnews_archive.asp?story={BC93801A-41D9-454A …].
And why did he make that accusation?
“Because I saw it with my own eyes,” he told Chalcedon. “As a pastor, I encountered these things. So did members of this congregation. It was going on in a UMC church right down the road from us.
“We went there one night and saw what was supposed to be a ‘Christian healing service’ — with Tibetan prayer bells, a Baha’i prayer, and a chant. The chant went, ‘Come, Lord Jesus … Ommmm.’” [ “Om” is a Buddhist incantation.]
“We researched the matter and found a great deal of information on the Internet. We were shocked to find out this was going on in most of the mainline denominations today; and it was really bad in the UMC.
“So we left the UMC. That was the stand we took. And today our church [the Gove Community Bible Church] is exploding with new members.”
“Radical Stuff” Woodall called the healing service “pretty radical stuff, for Kansas.” But if he were to visit the Highland Park UMC in Dallas, Texas, he would see “stuff” considerably more radical.
Consider the curriculum for the Highland Park UMC’s “Academy of Christian and Life Enrichment Studies,” Spring 2006 [http://www.hpumc.org/pages/Spring_2006_Faith_Enrich].
*The Feminine Face of God, led by Rosalind de Rolon: “Her quest for the Christian Feminine spans a decade, worldwide travel and research with teachers ranging from Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh to Siberian healer Valentina Iourtchenko.”
Buddhist monks and Siberian shamans? We’re not in Kansas anymore, Pastor Woodall. Thich teaches that there is no absolute truth [see http://www.seaox.com/thich.html]. Siberian healers — the most famous (or infamous) of whom was Rasputin — claim supernatural powers lent to them by nature spirits.
*Expanding Our Images of the Divine, an exercise in Liberation Theology [linked to Marxism]. Rev. Jann Aldredge-Clanton (Baptist), Ph.D., is the author of Praying with Christ-Sophia. For ultra-feminist clergy, “Sophia” is either “the feminine side of Christ” or even a replacement for Christ.
*The Embodied Divine: Sacred Sexuality & Holy Wisdom. “Sacred Sexuality” usually comes with earth-goddess worship [http://jblstatue.com/sacredsex.html] and worship of ancient pagan fertility goddesses like Ishtar of Babylon [see “In Praise of Ishtar,” http://www.ishtartemple.org].
*Saint Mary Magdalene: The Sacred Bride. We are familiar with this as the mythological basis of The Da Vinci Code. Here in Dallas the class will be taught by Jungian analyst Dr. Donna Cozort and will make use of “Gnostic texts, and Carl Jung’s Collected Works.”
As explained by self-identified “Christian theologian” Margaret Starbird [http://members.tripod.com/~Ramon_K_Jusino/littlemermaid.html], Mary Magdalene is the “Lost Bride” of Christ — taken literally in The Da Vinci Code — and “a ‘carrier’ of the Sacred Feminine, (in fact, a composite [not a real person] of Aphrodite, Athene, and Demeter, not to mention similarities with Isis, Innana and Astarte — and the Holy Sophia!) … She was to have been the Lady of the Age of Pisces as Christ was its Lord, forming together the sacred mandala of ‘hieros gamos’ [‘sacred marriage’] for the Age of the Fishes.”
You won’t find any of that in the Bible.
*The Earth as a Sacred Realm, led by de Rolon again: this time focusing on “the myth of Holy Sophia — Holy Wisdom imprisoned in matter until freed by humanity.”
You won’t find that in the Scriptures, either.
At the Presidents’ Church Foundry United Methodist Church, in Washington, D.C., was famous in the 1990s as the church attended by President Bill Clinton and his family. Abraham Lincoln was the first president to attend services there. Presidents Hayes and Cleveland, senators, generals, and other American leaders have worshiped there.
Foundry was in the news again last fall, when two UMC bishops, speaking from the pulpit, invoked the goddess “Sophia” and rejected the authority of Scripture [http://www.ird-renew.org/site/apps/nl/content2.asp?c=fvKV … ].
Bishop Susan Morrison of Albany, NY [who has recently announced her retirement, two years’ short of the expiration of her term, citing health and family issues], called for the ordination of practicing homosexuals as UMC clergy, in defiance of UMC teaching and policy. She reveled in her role as a leader of that summer’s “Hearts on Fire” convocation, an assembly of “gay-affirming clergy” within the UMC, held at Lake Junaluska, North Carolina. Although the UMC General Assembly in 2004 had reaffirmed the church’s adherence to Biblical teachings against homosexual behavior, the denomination took no disciplinary action against the clerical insurgents.
Nor did it take action against Morrison when she dismissed complaints against Methodist pastors who celebrated “Sophia” in their writings. In her speech from the pulpit, Morrison defended the 1993 “Re-Imagining” Conference — where 2,000 feminist clergy and church officers denied the atoning work of Christ, prayed and sang to assorted pagan goddesses, and gave a firm impetus to the “Sophia movement.” [More on this in the next article in the series.] Morrison described the Re-Imagining Conference as “one of the greatest events I ever went to.”
The other speaker, Bishop John Schol of Baltimore-Washington, praised Morrison for her “prophetic voice.”
In 1993 Nancy Webb, Foundry’s minister of education and children’s education, assisted by another pastor, Mary Kraus, conducted a “croning ritual” — a Wicca rite celebrating a woman’s 50th birthday [see http://www.ucmpage.org/news/wicca_story4.html]. No disciplinary action was taken; Webb is still there.
“I brought official charges against Webb and Kraus,” Rev. Karen Booth, of the UMC Confessing Movement, told Chalcedon. “At the investigatory meetings, Webb acknowledged she personally practiced a form of benign Wicca in addition to the published event.
“An account of the ritual was published in the Fall 1994 clergywomen’s magazine Wellsprings [now defunct], though the issue itself wasn’t released until the Spring of 1995. Many of us believe that was done to get beyond probable participant Bishop Susan Morrison’s two-year statute of limitations for charges.” [For Rev. Booth’s account of the charges, see http://www.ucmpage.org/news/wicca_story6.html.]
Rev. Booth recalled her conversation with Bishop Morrison “about her probable involvement as the second woman croned.
“In our conversation, Morrison would neither confirm nor deny her participation in this particular ritual. She said it was ‘None of our business.’ She said she had ‘observed’ many croning rituals, did not have a problem if they came from pagan or Wiccan roots as they could be ‘Christianized,’ and that she expected them to be included in the next Book of Worship.”
In an article written by Webb [see http://www.ucmpage.org/articles/wicca_story7.html, “A Croning Ritual”], she described the ritual in detail, including this closing chant:
“And now, by the earth that is Her body and the air that is Her breath and by the bright fire of Her spirit and the water of Her womb [earth, water, fire, and air are the four traditional “elements” of Wicca], may Her spirit go with you. The circle is open, but unbroken. Merry meet and merry part, and merry meet again. Blessed be.”
This is all Wicca language, despite Webb’s disclaimer that “[t]here is nothing magic about this croning ritual.”
More to Come With more than 8 million members, the UMC is America’s second-largest Protestant denomination. Its infection with paganism must be of concern to the entire Body of Christ — especially because it has spread to other denominations.
How did this happen?
In the next article in this series, we’ll trace the origins of the neo-pagan movement within mainline Protestantism, examine the failure of these churches to stamp it out, and list the warning signs that should alert Christians to the possibility of neo-pagan incursion into their own churches.
As we see from the Bible quotes given above, God takes heresy and apostasy very seriously indeed.
So should we.
Commendations to Pastor Woodall. Things have only gotten worse in many of the self-identified Christian churches today. Prosperity gospels and feel good sermons and escapism and saved by grace – do people really think that’s what Christ suffered and died for?
Bringing back archived articles was a great idea, Lee! Thank you 🙂
Depending upon who you ask, a great deal of what happens in mainstream churches has pagan overtones, or is overtly pagan. When honoring the death and resurrection or our Lord, instead of concentrating on the solemnity and spiritual significance of the occasion, many customs involve fertility (chicks, rabbits, eggs) and have at least a similarly to pagan rites.
Christmas is alleged to be a celebration of the Lord’s birth, but many of the customs are more aligned with Saturnalia and, to some degree, Potlatch. The timing is quite similar to Saturnalia, and considering the fact that the date of Christ’s birth is not recorded in the Bible, it may be that the Roman authorities deemed it wise to adopt a bit of Saturnalia into Christianity as a way of unifying the empire into one set of beliefs. I try not to be dogmatic with regard to these matters, because I realize that the intentions of many Christians are honorable, even if these customs are not always entirely Christian in origin. Judging is not in my job description. 🙂
I’ve been a non-denominational Christian since the day I became a Christian and that’s all I ever intend to claim. When some mainstream churches choose to support anti-scriptural causes, I am glad to have kept my distance. My take on denominational Christianity is that the final call, before God destroys wickedness, will be very clear and all honest-hearted believers will know what to do.
Amen, Unknowable! 🙂
I remember this post, from 8 years ago, and things have only gotten worse. Speaking recently to a friend who was raised in a denomination which was very strict with regard to pagan practices, he tells me that now it is common among this denomination for people to practice things which are very reminiscent of Wiccan practices.
Whereas these people would have shunned anything even remotely pagan, many now have what is essentially a Wiccan alter in their homes and they practice mystic healing rituals which seek to combine pagan rituals with Christianity.
They are free to do as they see fit, but bringing paganism into Christianity doesn’t sound like a good idea, to my ears. The nation of ancient Israel, and early Christianity stood apart in a pagan world, for their steadfast rejection of the gods of the nations. When ancient Israel fell into the practice of Baal worship, God allowed them to go into exile in Babylon for 70 years. When the Medes and the Persians came to power, some of the offspring of this exiled people returned to their homeland and sought to worship the One True God, away from the pagan influences all around them.
And now, all these years later, we have people professing Christianity, throwing the doors open and welcoming these practices, seeking to blend them into Christianity. It’s only gotten worse since Lee wrote this article, and there has been a mass exodus from some denominations.
As I pointed out in my earlier comments, I am non-denominational, and have no intent of changing that status. I was raised in a non-denominational setting, but then the group my family affiliated with began to become denominational and as sure as the sun rises in the east, they began to accept the doctrines of men, over and above what is stated clearly in scripture. The friend I mentioned above remained with this denomination and is now truly disgusted by their paganism.
I don’t seek to judge others. I have met wonderful, devout people in all sorts of denominations. What I believe is that Christ will call His own, and the truly devout will know the voice of their shepherd, even as John chapter 10 explains. This isn’t to give carte blanche to denominations which practice the ungodly, but simply to say that good people will know when to part ways with those whom seek to pollute Christianity.
You have said it all, and very well. Patty
Thanks. Lee said it quite well, and indeed, it is as if some of these churches are weeping for Tammuz.
I have a friend who is a pastor, and his congregation left the Methodist Church, but they were able to keep the building!
That seems like justice. Patty
It seems like all this current bowing to and reveling in paganism took hold in Christianity so quickly! I don’t remember this several decades ago. And yet, think the roots go deep.
It did seem to take hold quickly, but perhaps the ground had been prepared. It is frightening. Patty
Even in the first century, there were corrupting influences on the early church. Through the years, traditions and practices that at least parallel, if not directly copy pagan practices, have found their way into some Churches, and there have been various reform efforts to root these out, usually with limited success.
2 Thess, 2:7 says, in part “For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work.” Actually the entire second chapter of 2 Thessalonians is worth reading, for it discusses this at length. As far back as Paul’s time, there were people trying to subvert Christianity, by spreading falsehoods and by going beyond what was taught by Christ.
But it seems to have snowballed in our day, to new levels, including some who seek to obscure the distinctions between worship of the One True God and pagan traditions.
I think it has snowballed because of our instant communication. Patty
Absolutely. Instant global communications have made profound changes in many areas of life; some for the good, and some not so good.
Like Lee, I agree that Christ will call his own!
You and Lee are right. Patty
I’ve dealt with people from a variety of backgrounds. Even Muslims I’ve known believe that they are pleasing their Creator, and can be very sincere. I leave it to that Creator to be certain that people who may be trapped by cultural and even national restrictions will have the opportunity to turn to Christ, and answer His call.