Mystical Paradigm Shift And A Post-Christian Church

by Thomas Ivan Dahlheimer


Father Thomas Berry (1914 – 2009) was a world renowned ecotheologian, he wrote: "The world is being called to a new post-denominational, even post-Christian, belief system that sees the Earth as a living being - mythologically, as Gaia, Mother Earth - with mankind as her consciousness."

The following excerpts are from an article that is displayed on the Lighthouse Trails website. I am promoting the "mystical paradigm shift" that the author of the article is opposed to.

" Willow Creek: The Willow Creek Church has been listed as the most influential church in America the last several years in a national poll of pastors. The Willow Creek Association is a distinctly separate organization which has close affiliations with Willow Creek Church. There are more than 13,000 member churches, which come from 90 denominations, and 45 different countries."

" No Repentance from Willow Creek – Only a Mystical Paradigm Shift"

Excerpts:

"It is no new thing that Willow Creek wishes to 'transform the planet.' They are part of the emerging spirituality that includes Rick Warren and many other major Christian leaders who believe the church will usher in the kingdom of God on earth before Christ returns. This dominionist, kingdom-now theology is literally permeating the lecture halls of many Christian seminaries and churches, and mysticism is the propeller that keeps its momentum."

"If Willow Creek hopes to transform the planet, they won't be able to get rid of the focus on the mystical (i.e., contemplative). Their new Fall 2007 Catalog gives a clear picture of where their heart lies, with resources offered by New Age proponent Rob Bell, contemplative author Keri Wyatt Kent, and the Ancient Future Conference with emerging leaders Scot McKnight and Alan Hirsch as well as resources by Ruth Haley Barton and John Ortberg."

"Article titles in this Willow issue certainly make a statement that things are going to change: 'Seismic Shifts,' 'Rediscovering Spiritual Formation,' 'Stemming the Tide,' 'The Changing Face of Worship,' 'Shifts in Missional Mindset,' and 'The Next Great Debate.'"

"In the first article to follow, 'Rediscovering Spiritual Formation,' meditation promoter Keri Wyatt Kent writes positively about 'monastic communities' and 'the emergent church.'"

"Kent identifies Scot McKnight as part of this mystical shift. McKnight acknowledges the Catholic connection to contemplative practices, and amazingly, Kent brings into her article Catholic priest Richard Rohr. Why amazing? Rohr's spirituality would be in the same camp as someone like Matthew Fox [my emphasis] who believes in pantheism and panentheism. For Willow Creek to include him in Willow speaks volumes about the level of spiritual deception that Willow Creek is now under. If Kent is right that spiritual formation is now mainstream, then this deception is mainstream as well. Incidentally, Richard Rohr wrote the foreword to a 2007 book called How Big is Your God? by Jesuit priest (from India) Paul Coutinho. In Coutinho's book, he describes an interspiritual community where people of all religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity) worship the same God. Is this where Willow Creek is heading?"

Paramahansa Yogananda was an Indian yogi and guru who introduced millions of westerners to the teachings of yoga meditation through his book, Autobiography of a Yogi. In the book, Yogananda quotes his guru, Sri Yukteswar Giri. "Theologians have misinterpreted Christ's words in such passages as, 'I am the way the truth and the life no man cometh unto the Father but by me.' Jesus meant, never that He was the sole son of God, but that no man can attain to the unqualified Absolute, the transcendent Father beyond creation, until he has first manifested the 'Son' or activated Christ Consciousness within creation. Jesus, who had achieved entire oneness with that Christ Consciousness, identified himself with it in as much as his own ego had long since been dissolved."

Lighthouse Trail article: World Vision Cries "Reform" – But What About Israel and the Emerging Church – The Story Behind the Story

Here's a quote from this Lighhouse Trails article: "...the 'new' spirituality/New Age 'Christianity' that will help usher in the greatest deception this world has ever seen."

I believe that the "'new' spirituality/New Age 'Christianity'" will actually usher in the greatest awakening this world has ever seen.

The scripture Ephesians 4:11-12 says the five-fold ministry of the church - apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers - would last until the coming of the "perfect man." I believe that the apostolic church, the Roman Catholic Church, is, at this present time, giving birth to the perfect man. And that after the Roman Catholic Church gives birth it will die and a new church will be established, a new post-Christian church.

Alice Bailey (1880 –1949) was a great prophetess of the New Age movement. She prophesied that when this movement sufficiently infiltrated the Christian church it would radically transform the church, old scientifically out-dated dogmas would then be eliminated and the new church would then usher in the New Age, or the Kingdom of God.

The New Age movement is infiltrating the church and transforming it. The old church order believes that humans and God are separate entities and that humans are only human and that God is divine. The old church order also believes that God is located above the stars and looking down on us. The new church order believes that God resides in the deepest depth of the recesses of our souls and that we can become one with Him/Her and experience our divinity as Jesus did. And do so, by doing good works and practicing a particular type of daily mystical meditation and contemplation.

I prophesied in the early 1970s that the Roman Catholic Church would come to an end and that the church of the new church order would be called the Wahkon Catholic Church.

Constance Cumbey was the first person to awaken the church to the growing and popular New Age movement. At the time, she believed that Matthew Fox, a leader of the Creation Centered Spirituality movement, was in all likelihood the person who would usher in "the New Age," or, as some Christian leaders say, "the Kingdom of God." She recently wrote on her blog that the article Pope Francis's Radical Environmentalism indicates that the pope is [now] supporting and promoting Creation Centered Spirituality.

I believe that Pope Francis will establish the church of the new church order.

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Footnotes:

Information related to the above article: I believe that Pope Francis's current (2020) promotion of Rev. Matthew Fox's Creation Centered Spirituality, ecological worldview, is a step in the right direction. Rev. Fox's belief in "pantheism and panentheism" (as mentioned in the above article) does not recognize and acknowledge the ultimate importance of the most high transcendence aspect of God, where God resides above and beyond the creation. For Fox, becoming one with the creation, or rather one with the unity of all things in the universe, is the ultimate goal. Becoming one with the unity of all things in the universe should be our first goal to attain. We should then go through this divine state of consciousness (or the Christ/Krishna/Buddha Consciousness) to become one with the "unqulifies Absolute, the transcendent Father beyond creation." This should be our ultimate goal.

An article of mine on this "ultimate goal" topic is titled New Age Theology And Pope Francis' Encyclical On The Environment.

Related article: Constance Cumbey, Matthew Fox And The "New Age Christ"

Another related article: UN, Natives And Hippies Unite To Save The World