Astrology: True or False – Program 6

By: Tom Warneke, Maxine Taylor, Karen Winterburn, Dr. John Weldon, Dr. Walter Martin; ©1988

Is astrology an equally valid source of life-direction as the Bible? What is the difference between the information you find in these two sources?

What is the Difference Between Astrology and Christianity?

Ankerberg: Karen, maybe I can come to you. When you were actually giving advice as a professional astrologer in Chicago for 12 years, did you give out any morality with your astrology advice?

Winterburn: No suggestions or morality that was based on anything that I considered or led my client to believe was objective. My own preferences when asked, as Maxine suggested, I did share with them. I did advise certain lines of action, but very much off the record to the client, not based on deterministic things that I saw in the chart and not based on any moral objectivity but just on my own preferences or how I saw the situation unfolding.

Ankerberg: Dr. Martin, what do you think about that? What is the difference between astrology and Christianity right there?

Martin: Well, the difference is that in Christianity and in the biblical revelation God speaks with authority and with certainty, and he calls men to repentance. There is a need for a change in the life, a change in the mind. In Christianity there is the forgiveness of sin, the dealing with the problem of sin. There’s also a proven authority. Jesus said, “You destroy this body and in three days I will raise it up.” If he didn’t come back from the dead as he said, his disciples would have been the first to disbelieve in him. So would the apostles. In Christianity you have guidance. The Holy Spirit—not the stars—gives you guidance. It’s the power of God adopting us into his family rather than aborting us into the occult. And I think Christianity must give us the assurance of the future, which astrology can’t. Christianity says, “I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, you may be also.” And astrology can’t talk in theological terms, in moral terms, or in ethical terms. That’s why so many people are swept into it, because it really doesn’t speak to the great underlying problem which is the curse of mankind, which is sin—transgression of God’s law—and the need for a relationship to God which the Gospel says is through repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Winterburn: Right. I think the need that it speaks to or purports to speak to is metaphysical ignorance. If you’re having problems with your spouse, you know, your personal cycle is out of sync with the cosmic cycle, go see an astrologer, he’ll set you up. You know, everything’s going to be okay. You have to achieve a certain level of understanding in order to solve this problem.

No indication that there may be something in your action and your attitude that is sinful—and by sinful I’m talking the biblical definition of the word. It’s rebellious against God and his plan for human beings which is outlined in this Book [the Bible], and it is bad for the person. It is destructive of the person. There is no indication of that because there is no “sin” in this worldview. And it’s a worldview, it’s a philosophy, bordering on religion.

The real need, the underlying need that we all have is for forgiveness, and this is what Jesus Christ came to offer us, only if we accept the fact he is the sole provision, the only provision, that God has made for us to get back into a right relationship with him. This world is full of seekers, people who are looking for God, to get back to God, for union with God, a unit of consciousness, harmony, harmonic convergence, you know, the whole bit. They want their relationship with God restored. They want fellowship with God. This is what we were created for.

And the only way we can get it, says this Book [the Bible], is by coming to the Lord Jesus Christ, and by admitting that we have sinned. Not that we’re ignorant—you know, not that we don’t have all our metaphysical facts straight—that we have sinned against him and against each other, asking his forgiveness and trusting that he has set the thing right and will get us back to that relationship. I have never heard an astrologer in 12 years of practice, and I never did as I was an astrologer, I have never heard an astrologer lead a person to that point.

Ankerberg: Maxine, you said you are a Christian. In this thing of guilt, everybody’s got guilt. As a Christian and as an astrologer, have you ever told somebody that the way they get rid of their guilt is to come to Jesus Christ, since you want God’s plan for their life?

Taylor: Yes.

Ankerberg: Have you actually led people to the Lord?

Taylor: You just asked me a question. I just said “Yes.”

Ankerberg: I want to know, how did it go?

Taylor: Exactly as you said. When somebody is there….

Ankerberg: Did you explain to them the fact is that the basis of their problem is the sin and the fact is that the way that can be relieved is….

Taylor: I’m not a Christian theologian. What I tell people when I give them a reading is that this horoscope is God’s plan for their life, and that there is a time to plant, a time to sow, and a time to reap. When they are having a difficulty, they are out of sync with God’s plan for them, and God’s plan for them is indicated in the horoscope. I talk to them. I ask them what their religious background is. Because a lot of people are not Christian, as we’ve seen we have scientists, we have Jews, we have Catholics. And so what I do is I talk to them about God. I don’t talk to them, if they’re Jewish, about Jesus Christ, because they’re not necessarily open to that. But I do speak of God. Does that answer your question?

Ankerberg: Yes it does. Dr. Martin.

Martin: Yeah, what bothers me in dealing with astrology, particularly with Maxine in this, is I asked her a specific question on one of the earlier programs, “Who is Jesus Christ,” if you recall the dialogue. And I said, “Is he God in human flesh?” “Yes.” But Maxine in Vegas said, “Who we are”—that’s her, too—“is God in an earthbound body.” And to the audience in her class she said, “You are God. Why not create.” You see, what you get in astrology and what you get from occultism is a type of theological double-talk in which you can say, “Yes, Jesus is God but I am, too. You are, too.” The worldview differs. We can use the same vocabulary, but the meanings are totally different. It’s very important to understand that when you’re talking with astrologers and people in the world of the occult and the cults, you’ve got to define your terms, because they are masters at imitating the vocabulary of theology—with all the meanings changed, as we saw just a few minutes ago.

Ankerberg: Dr. Weldon, do you have a comment?

Weldon: Yeah, I think we’re dealing with worldview confusion. Astrology in essence is a pantheistic system. There is no logical basis for morality in it. There’s no logical basis for the acknowledgment of sin or the need for repentance. Christianity is just the opposite. It says we’re created by God, that God is the One who we are to look to, not the creation, and that the only way by which we can be forgiven of our sins and escape eternal judgment in hell is by believing in Christ as our personal Savior. That is the bottom line issue. Astrology will lead someone away from a personal relationship with God and Christ, and insofar as it does that, it leads them into eternal judgment.

 

BREAK 

Ankerberg: Karen, when you were in it, you actually as a professional astrologer, you started to recognize that you yourself as an astrologer were not obeying any kind of morality. You were just kind of punting.

Winterburn: Yes.

Ankerberg: What changed that?

Winterburn: Well, at the end of the 12 years—well, let me just throw in here: also the last five years that I was involved,… I was led from the astrology into the channeling. The channeling had two parts: the first part was a lot of information that was very occultic, the details of which led me to a point where I could fully accept when I heard the bizarre teachings of Church Universal and Triumphant, the teachings of the Ascended Masters through the tradition of the Theosophical Institute and now Elizabeth Clare Prophet, that I could fully accept those because of the content of this channeling. The second part of the channeling was quite a bit of material on subatomic physics and, I mean, my last grade in science was a “C” in college biology. Who am I kidding, you know! This stuff was not for me. And I knew it.

Ankerberg: In other words, the spirit that you channeled was giving you information on subatomic physics?

Winterburn: Yeah, the physics of consciousness. And subatomic physics, biofeedback, and brainwaves, and the structure of light…

Ankerberg: How do you know it was any good?

Winterburn: Because through a kind of happenstance I stumbled on to a group from a leading university in the Chicago area, professionals, New Age professionals. There was a psychiatrist who was a medical doctor, a psychologist who was doing research in biofeedback and brainwaves, a very well known parapsychologist who worked with the astronauts in the ‘60s, a few graduate students and a physicist. And this group of people worked with me on this material.

They hypnotized me; they got more of it. I answered questions for them on their research which I had no idea what the heck they were doing or, you know, where it was coming from. They were insisting that, you know, “Karen, you are just another Jane Roberts. Boy, this is great! We can all do this. We can all channel.” Well, “channeling” was not the word. “You’ve opened up into your higher consciousness and it just goes to show you that all the knowledge in heaven and on earth is ours. We are gods evolving. And you have taken a major step forward.”

My occultic friends, the more backward, candid of my friends, said, you know, “Somebody has stumbled into you and you’ve got to decide how you’re going to use this entity or be used by it.” And I didn’t like that view. I liked the very flattering, fashionable view that’s common today—that we’re channeling these spirit guides and they’re really telling us, you know, they’re wonderful and they’re really telling us how to live our lives.

At the end of that, the channeling was cut short when I was introduced to an entity who then said he was actually 30 individuals on the mental plane and they were involved in inter-dimensional cybernetic research, and they wanted me to join their team. I mean, I was impressed, you know! Little ol’ me, they want to join their team! Where do I sign up!

Ankerberg: So this spirit asked you to join the team. What did you say?

Winterburn: Well, I said, “No,” you know. I had something on straight there. I said, “Well, what are the drawbacks here? What am I risking?” And he said, “Well, you know…”—the Lord had a gun to his head, I’m sure, because he told the truth—he said, “Well, you may scramble your code. You may lose your magnetic moorings. You may come back in a different vehicle than the one in which you started out in—different body. People may not recognize you.” So I said, “Well, you know, this is a significant drawback.” But he said, “Now, every time you walk out the door, you risk you’re going to be hit by a car. It’s probably safer than a plane ride.” So I said, “Okay, where do I sign up?” That was the end of the channeling. The door was closed. I could make no more contact. It was over. All I had left was Church Universal and Triumphant and I was, you know, pointed in that direction by one of the guys that I was channeling.

So after five years with them, the whole notion that I was becoming God seemed to fall apart. Suddenly I saw myself in a different way. I mean, I must have entered an alternate worldview, you know. I saw myself in a different way, and I said, “You know, that worm that’s out in the yard there, he is not evolving into me and I am not evolving into God!” Because I saw my relationships with my husband and children, my finances and financial relationships I was involved in, my business, my friends, and I knew that I was involved in many webs of deception. I was not having affairs and I was not robbing banks, but there was no reason I could come up with not to do those things, other than personal preference, and I knew that. I faced that. I faced the fact that my life was relatively in a shambles. I could not be becoming God—this is ridiculous.

And I fell apart for two weeks. I was depressed and I was anxious and I felt this was the end. There was no more meaning. I had used up every alternative to Jesus Christ, and I had dumped him a long time ago and thought that he was a figment of my adolescent imagination. Lucky to outgrow him; growing up in the cosmos.

And the Lord brought to mind some Scripture verses for me to deal with at that time. Acts 4:12, “There is no other name given under heaven by which men must be saved.” This was new news to me again. And, oh, Revelation 3:20: “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and answers that door, I will come in and dine with him and he with me.” And I knew! I mean, right there was as though my dead grandmother had appeared at the window knocking on the window—“It’s me!” You know.

I knew that Jesus Christ was alive and real, and that relationship was there. There was a door between us, but he was back. And I just had my hand on that door and I’m dancing around, you know, wanting to open this door. But there was one impediment in the way. I said, “I have got a library back there that won’t quit! So I figured that there must be a way to Christianize all that baggage. And so I said, “Lord, is there a way?” You know.

I picked up this book [the Bible]—not this one but it was a different one—I said, “Lord, forgive me for using this book this way, because I’ve been working with the I Ching and I’m rusty on the Bible.” But I said, “If you can still speak to me through this book, please do it now, because I am desperate! I’m at my end.” And I said, “I want to know from you what your evaluation is of this baggage—of theories of reincarnation, of all that I have ever done or been involved in in astrology, of my beloved Ascended Masters to whom I have had altars in my home.”

And I opened it up as I would the I Ching, my eye fell on Mark 9:29, “This kind can only be cast out by prayer and fasting,” okay. Well, you know, I thought we could discuss this, but I could see that, you know, this was a very curt answer to my prayer, and it was something I had to deal with. I was re-immersing myself in his Word. Every need that I have had, every idea and thought that I thought was important, I could see in retrospect at that point was a counterfeit of the original. This stuff is the original. This is the Holy Spirit, and the spirit guide is the counterfeit, and your higher self is counterfeit. This is the original—we’re talking about sin and my own need for repentance and for coming to be right with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. So by the time I went back to deal with it, I was more than happy to donate it to the Christian Research Institute.

Ankerberg: I need a wrap-up statement from each one of you here, because we’re out of time. Maxine, a statement from you.

Taylor: Astrology and Christianity are totally compatible. Astrology is the study of the relationship between God and man. As an astrologer, I put God first. And when I read the horoscope, I see God’s handwriting for this person; God’s plan for their life; God’s plan for their soul. It is my honor, it is my joy, it is my love to be an astrologer, to be a Christian astrologer, and to practice astrology by putting God first.

Ankerberg: Dr. Weldon?

Weldon: I would say three things: number one, that astrology to begin with is not scientific. All the scientific evidence disproves that it could be considered a science, in spite of many astrologers’ claim that it is science. Second, it is an occult practice and that the occult is dangerous, it’s consequential, it takes a person away from the true God and the true Jesus Christ. And third, I would say that astrology not only is not true, it cannot be true because there are so many contradictory theories that you find in it. It is not something that will lead someone to fulfillment, either in this life in a sense of finding ultimate values or in the next life. It doesn’t offer the hope of eternal life that Christ offers. There is no such thing as a “Christian astrologer,” just as though there is no such thing as a “Christian Marxist” or a “Christian atheist.”

Ankerberg: Terry?

Warneke: Well, first of all, I think it’s important to realize—and I think if I’m sort of quoting here—that Christianity is a religion of the heart. And I think there is a passage where Christ says, “Thank you, Father, for bringing this message to the men of heart rather than to the men of mind.” And I think clearly, astrology, as a science, and I do believe it, and I think that can be supported by the fact that almost every great scientist of antiquity has been an astrologer and admittedly so in their own words. I think that we have to realize that it is a discipline of the mind, and it’s not a morality-based system. Every day scientists are very intent about not making moral judgments and things of this type. So we are not a religion, as I see it, and we think that that’s something for everyone to find on their own; their own particular religious and philosophical beliefs they must find on their own.

And I don’t think it’s incompatible, though, for someone who is a meteorologist or a geologist or an astronomer or an astrologer or anybody that uses that particular type of technique to understand more about life. I don’t think that this automatically strips them of any morality, and I don’t think that this is something that they can’t study on their own in the privacy of their own conscience. But I don’t think that there is any particular place for it within the practice of a scientific discipline.

Ankerberg: Dr. Martin?

Martin: God said that you could be a good astronomer, you could be a good physicist, you could be a good chemist, and he never made any prohibitions against it. When it got to astrology, he cursed it, and he said, “Don’t do this. Don’t do this.” Maxine says she loves him. “If you love me,” Jesus said, “obey my commands.” And he said, “The Scriptures cannot be broken.” The Old Testament is the Word of God; Christ endorsed the Old Testament. The Old Testament was fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ. Christians, taking the Bible seriously, will wend their way through all the double-talk and get down to the basic fact, that if God said don’t do something, and another voice comes and says, “Did God say that? Take a bite of the fruit.” I’ve always been suspicious of talking snakes, and astrology fits the category perfectly from a biblical perspective. So, if you want to be an astrologer and you want to believe those things, well and good. But in the name of reason, commonsense, and logic—never mind biblical theology—don’t try and make it compatible with Christianity, because it’s the direct opposite.

Ankerberg: Folks, I want to say “Thank you” to each one of you for coming tonight, and for your participation in this. And for all of you that are listening, I hope that this was helpful to you. Good night. See you next week.