The Seduction of Christianity ā Program 2
| October 5, 2013 |
By: JJohanna Michaelson, Dave Hunt; ©1985 |
Think and Grow Rich, Positive Mental Attitude, sounds great, but where did the information for these ideas come from? |
The Power Behind the Lie
- Ankerberg: Welcome! Weāre glad that you joined us tonight. We have two very important people that are talking about a lie that is sweeping across America. They are calling it a āseduction.ā And itās taking place among some of our top political people in government; itās taking place among our medical people, those in psychology, those in the United Nations, those in science; and it is also bridging over into the Christian Church. All the denominations. A lie, a seduction is taking place. Mr. Dave Huntāwho has just written a book talking about the seductionāand Johanna Michaelsen is here with us as well, who has lived part of this lie and experienced the results of what happens when you accept this lie. Now, we just started a little bit last week and we talked, David, about a man on the secular side of the tracks who was giving advice to big business and a lot of people in big business have accepted that advice. It came from Napoleon Hill out of his book, Think and Grow Rich, and his other books. Why donāt you tell us, Where did he get that information that is in that book?
- Hunt: Well, again, itās incredible to say, but itās true. Napoleon Hill himself says it, I didnāt make it up, that he got the formula for success that he gave to the world, he was chosen by the āMastersā of a āSchool of Wisdomā who can disembody themselves and who materialized in his study and told him heād been under their guidance. He gave a formula of success that they gave to him to the business world which became the foundation of the whole Success Motivation, Positive Mental Attitude world out there.
- Ankerberg: Clement Stone picked it up and put it into PMA, and what did Clement Stone say? What were some of the things that he said concerning what he had said?
- Hunt: Well, that was a book that W. Clement Stone co-authored with Napoleon Hill, Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude. And this Positive Mental Attitude is the secret to the whole thing, because they said that our minds basically have all the power to create our own world. And that what we need to do is have a healthy ego, a self-esteem. Weāve got to build up our sense of our self-worthā¦
- Ankerberg: To look inside ourselves.
- Hunt: ā¦because we are āIt.ā And ultimately, as we will see later, our goal is to become Masters of ourselves. This is what the āMastersā taught him. And we will ascend up to this higher plane through mind power and become masters of ourselves. So the whole thing centers in Self. This is what the Human Potential Movement is about, that we have an infinite power within us. Gloria Steinem, for example, editor of Ms. magazine, says, āBy the year 2000, I have hopes that we will be able to educate our children to no longer believe in God, but to believe in human potential.ā To believe in themselves, you see.
- Now, that is what psychology is all about. All psychology can deal with is the self. It comes right out of the same occultism, actually, that Napoleon Hill got his information from. Carl Jung, for example, said that the whole subject of psychology is the human psyche. Weāre studying the psyche. Psychology: knowledge about the psyche. But then it admitted that we donāt know what the psyche is. And we donāt know how it works and weāre trying to experiment and none of our experiments work. So finally we go into Eastern mysticism, which is what happened. So, this idea of āYouāve got to love yourself; youāve got to have a high sense of self-esteem,ā and so forth, has come into the Church.
- Now, that began with another man, even earlier than Napoleon Hill, from the same source. His name was Freidrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche, of course, was a primary inspirer of Hitler. One of Nietzscheās greatest books, titled Antichrist, that book begins with these words: āWe must see ourselves for who we are.ā And he goes on to explain who we are. It was Nietzsche who said, āYour problem is that you donāt love yourself enough. You actually hate yourself. Everybodyās born with a sense of self-hate.ā That was elaborated upon by a psychologist named Erich Fromm. In 1947 he wrote a book called Man for Himself, and he elaborated on this theory that we all innately hate ourselves. āWe need to, first of all, love ourselvesāthatās the primary need that we have.ā And he said, āEven Jesus taught this when He said, āLove your neighbor as yourself.āā Well, thatās not what Jesus said.
- Ankerberg: No, itās not.
- Hunt: This was picked up by Robert Schuller, then. The first one in the Christian world, really, who wrote the book, Self-Love: The Dynamic Force of Success. And you will hear today from the best pulpits across America that our primary need, first of all, is that weāve got to learn to love ourselves before we can love others or we can love God. Now, the person who says, āI hate myself! Iām so ugly! Iāve got such bad acne! Iām so fat! Iām so skinny! I just hate myself!ā I say, āYou donāt hate yourself. Were you ever upset because somebody you hated was ugly?ā If you really hated yourself, you would be glad that you were ugly. The truth is, you love yourself and thatās why youāre concerned about your appearance. Donāt give me this nonsense about hating yourself. Iāll hang in there with the Bible. The Bible says, āNo man ever yet hated his own flesh but nourisheth it and cherisheth it.ā [Eph. 5:29]
- Ankerberg: Okay, a lot of people jump off of the verse, though, Jesus said, āLove the Lord thy God with all thine heart, mind and soul and thy neighbor as thyself.ā [Deut. 6:4; Matt. 22:37] So therefore they are saying, āYou canāt love your neighbor until you love yourself, so therefore you have to have self-esteem in order to build up yourself and thatās biblical.ā What would you say to that, Dave?
- Hunt: Well, we are self-centered. This is why Jesus said to deny self. We are self-centered, self-serving individuals. We love ourselves. Jesus couldnāt say, āDo unto others as you would have them to unto you,ā [Luke 6:31] if we all hated one another and were wanting to do ourselves in. Weād do others in, too. He couldnāt say, āLove your neighbor as you love yourself,ā [Matt. 22:37] unless we already loved ourselves. Yet youāve got any number of Christian psychologists that will tell us, āOur sense of self-love and self-worth is defective. Weāve got to build it up.ā
- Now, thereās a psychologist, David G. Meyers, who wrote a book called The Inflated Self. And in that book he says Jean Paul Codol, he was a French psychologist, āconducted 20 experiments with French people ranging from 12-year-old school children to adult professionals. Regardless of those involved in the experimental methods, the peopleās self-perceived superiority was persistent constantly.ā Now, theyāve given similar tests to American students, for example, those who take the SAT when you graduate from high school. And 829,000 high school seniors evaluated themselves in this particular test. In the ability to get along with others you had to evaluate yourselfāhow you get along with others as compared to how others get along with othersāāZero percent of the 829,000 students who responded rated themselves below average, 60 percent rated themselves in the top 10 percent, and 25 percent saw themselves among the top 1 percent.ā Now, Dr. Meyers comments afterāI mean, this is only one. I can give you any number of these thingsāhe says, āNote how radically at odds this conclusion is with the popular wisdom that most of us suffer from low self-esteem. Preachers who deliver ego-boosting pep talks to audiences who are supposedly plagued with miserable self-images are preaching to a problem that seldom exists.ā
- You see, weāve always known that āprideā is the besetting sin of the human race. I mean, Iāve been on my knees praying for humility and thought I got it and the next thing I knew I was proud Iād become so humble. Now, thatās the problem that we all have. We always knew that pride is the besetting sin. But the psychologists are telling us, āOh, no, thatās not the problem. Itās not that you think too highly! We all think too lowly of ourselves! We all have a bad sense of self-worth and a bad self-image and weāve got to build it up.ā Otherwise, we couldnāt believe that God loves us unless weāre worth His love, you see?
- Ankerberg: Give us an exact quote out of Possibility Thinking that you feel is in direct opposition to biblical theology.
- Michaelsen: Well, Iāve got one right here. Where Dr. Schuller said, āDonāt fear pride. The easiest job God has is to humble us. Godās almost impossible task is to keep us believing every hour of every day how great we are as the sons and daughters on planet Earth.ā
- Hunt: I would say thatās just the opposite of what the Bible says.
- Michaelsen: Thatās exactly the opposite. Second Chronicles 7 says, āIf my people will humble themselves before me, then I will listenā¦.ā
- Ankerberg: Okay, to be fair, Iāve read the article that Schuller wrote. and I think that he would come back and he would say something like this, Dave. Itās not that he doesnāt believe that men have these problems. He does believe that they have it. What heās saying is that heās got a whole bunch of people saying, āIām in Suicide 101 here! I have so many problems, Iām ready to cut out. I need help!ā Heās saying, āYou donāt help them by laying another guilt trip on them by saying āYouāre going to hell! The fact is that your sins are going to pull you down and you are a dirty sinner,ā and major on the sins. Itās not that heās saying that he doesnāt believe that. He is simply saying weāve got to take that and put it into a context for the secular mind to believe. So weāre going to talk about the potential that you have and weāre going to talk about how we can, with Godās help, make you a better person, etc. What would you say to that?
- Hunt: Well, Iāve dealt with such people myself. Hereās a typical case of a man who was threatening suicide because of all the mistakes he had made in his life; a wasted life, and so forth. And he said, āI hate myself!ā Well, I said, āIf you hate yourself, you would only be too glad to stand in a public courtroom and expose yourself and admit all that youāve done wrong and go to prison for it; and youād be happy to see yourself suffer in prison, if you really hate yourself. But youāre doing everything you can to twist your way out of this and not admit it. But you keep saying you hate yourself. You donāt hate yourself! You love yourself!ā
- Now, we had a young man, for example, hang himself in a tree on a university campus just a block from where I live. Why did he go to the university campus and hang himself? Well, suicide, to a lot of people is an escape method. You donāt help somebody you hate āescape;ā youād rather see yourself tortured by living. Why are you going to help yourself escape if you hate yourself? But itās the ultimate act of self. Itās a twisted, demented view, but that young man was delivering a message to some professor on that campus.
- I used to own a convalescent hospital. Iāve seen elderly patients literally will themselves to die and refuse to eat, not because they hated themselves, but because they were getting back at their children who put them in there and wouldnāt come and visit them. You see? Itās the ultimate act of self.
- Ankerberg: Okay. What is the biblical answer? Because weāre not trying to punch holes at anybody here and weāre certainly not trying to be divisive. You have brought this up because you simply believe itās not biblical. So what is the biblical answer to this?
- Hunt: What we need to do is turn that person from themselves, either self derogation or building up self. Letās be done with self and letās turn from self to the Lord. And letās get our eyes upon Him and realize that as a Christian I am crucified with Christ. The power is not in me and myself. Jeremiah 10:23 says, āFor I know it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.ā The answer is not in me; itās in the Lord. And if he doesnāt know Christ, he needs to invite Christ into his heart. But to start building up his sense of self-worth and self-esteem is absolutely the opposite you will get anywhere in the Bible.
- For example, the turning point in Jobās life, how did that come? Job said, āIāve heard of thee with the hearing of the ear. Now mine eyes seeth thee. Wherefore I hate myself and I repent in dust and ashes.ā [Job 42:5-6] And I donāt read that God said, āJob, youāve got a bad self-image. Weāve got to build it up.ā That was a turning point in his life. And if you want to get an accurate self-image, donāt look in the mirror and build up yourself, but get a view of Him. And Isaiah said in Isaiah 6, āIn the year that king Uzziah died I saw the Lord⦠high and lifted upā¦. And I saw His glory, and I said, āWoe is me! I am undoneā¦.ā [Isa. 6:1-5] So, we need to realize that we are sinners. We need to realize that we cannot do it. And Paul said, āWhen I am weak, then am I strong.ā [2 Cor. 12:10] And Jesus said to him, āMy strength is made perfect in your weakness.ā [2 Cor. 12:9] But weāre being deprived of the power of God in our lives by building up self. And itās not biblical.
- Ankerberg: Okay. Dave, I can hear people out there that are saying, āHey, youāre trying to drag us back to that old āwormā theology. Youāre trying to put us into the negative pits! Why are you so negative? How can you be against all of the good Christian guys on television that are trying to lift our spirits and build up self? You know, I really appreciated what they did and now youāre giving me the opposite side and putting a guilt trip on me. How can you do this to me?ā
- Hunt: Well, thatās what a lot of people say. And theyāll say, for example, āWell, I donāt see how anything could be wrong with what he or she teaches, because heās so positive.ā I donāt like those words āpositiveā and ānegative.ā Youāve just punched a button in me, John. It sounds like electricity. It has nothing to do with morals. It has nothing to do with whether it is biblical or whether it is true or false. It is a smokescreen to keep us from realizing the real issue is, is what they are saying biblical or not? Is it true or is it false? And people come out with this, āOh, itās so positive.ā
- The idea that positive is always right and negative is always wrong, where did that come from? Go back to the Garden of Eden. You want to know who was negative there? God was as negative as you can get. He said, āThereās a tree in the middle of this Garden and if you eat of it, Iām warning you, itās going to kill you.ā [Gen 2:17] And the positive guy was Satan. He said, āDonāt worry about it. Itās okay. Everythingās going to be all right. Youāre going to become gods.ā [Gen 3:4-5] You go to Matthew 16 and Jesus was very negative. He said, āYou know, Iām going to Jerusalem and theyāre going to kill me.ā [Matt. 16:21] And Peter was very positive. He said, āOh, no, Lord. I know itās been going tough for you lately and youāre really down, but youāve got to keep a stiff upper lip and look on the bright side of life and have a Positive Confession and itās going to be okay.ā [Matt. 16:22] And you know what Jesus said to him, āGet thee behind me, Satan!ā [Matt. 16:23]
- So, this āpositive-negativeā you wonāt find in the Bible. Of course, that rings a bell with ideas like āPositive Thinking,ā because, you see, the powerās in our minds. So if we think positive thoughts or if we think negative thoughts, itās going to make us what weāre thinking.
- Ankerberg: People will even use the verse, āAs a man thinks in his heart, so is heā [Prov. 23:7] and say, āYouāve got to program your mind with positive thoughts. Whatās wrong with that?ā
- Hunt: Well, youāve just misquoted the Scriptures. And I have never yet found a theologian, a pastor, anybody who quotes that right. I mean, Iāve asked a large audience of a thousand people and not one could tell me how you misquoted it and you did it deliberately. Thatās the way everybody says it, and youāve heard it wrong so often, you donāt know what it really says. And the impression is that āAs a man thinketh,ā well you can change what you are by changing your thinking. But it doesnāt say that. Thatās Proverbs 23. And Solomon is giving a specific example and he is saying to his son, āYou know, after Iām dead and youāre head of state and youāre out there hobnobbing with big wheelsāyou know, kings and so forthāand they invite you in to a feast and this man says, āEat up and fill yourself and weāll be buddies and weāll make a pact and so forth,ā donāt believe what he says. You cannot go by what he says by his words, for as he thinks in his heart, so is he.ā Far from telling you that you can change yourself by changing your thinking, he is warning you that you donāt know what is really going on in a personās heart and youād better be very careful.
- Ankerberg: And yet we use that verse all the time to reinforce the fact that if you can change the thoughts in your mind, you can change yourself, which is not even biblical.
- Hunt: Itās taken out of context. Another one is, āI can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.ā [Phil. 4:13] I believe that. Thatās a favorite verse that people quote. But they donāt give you the context. Paul is writing that from prison. I just spent some time in the Soviet Union a few weeks ago, and I can tell you, I visited Christians who are suffering. āI can do all things through Christ who strengthens me,ā but he wrote it from prison and he says, āI have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I know how to be abased and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be empty, both to abound and to suffer need.ā [Phil 4:11-12] Then he says, āI can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.ā [Phil. 4:13] Obviously, he is emphasizing the suffering, the deprivation. But the people who quote this only give you one side of this. Itās always success, power, positive.
- Michaelsen: And the rationale is, āWell, look, all the people in the world have been so bludgeoned and bloodied by people slamming their Bibles at them and saying, āThus saith the Lord!āā You know, Iāve had people to approach me that way, Dave, when I was involved in the occult and seeking to better myself and to think positively and to overcome my problems. And they would come to me and they would say, āTurn or burn,ā you know āthus saith the Lord.ā And I said, āForget it!ā So that when somebody like Schuller comes and says, āLook, the people out in the world want to hear that they are on a better path. They want to hear that things are going to get better. They donāt want to hear that they are sinners on their way to hell. What weāre going to do is slip the Gospel in. Positivize it. Make it appealing to them.ā
- And so theyāre buying that; and yet what he has done is given them a terrible disservice. Heās given them half the Gospel. Sincerely, not meaning to offend people, but heās given them half the Gospel. Because unless you tell people the truthāthat Jesus said, āUnless you believe I am He you will die in your sins;ā [John 8:24] unless he tells people that Jesus said, āThere is a terrible place, and you donāt want to go to it. Iam the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by Me.ā [John 14:6]
- That may seem very narrow-minded, dogmatic and negative to many people, but itās the truth. And unless we speak that truth, we have not loved them, we have not given them the Gospel and as positive as we may have wanted to be, weāve done them a terribly negative disservice.
- Ankerberg: You also have to think of the fact that if he is sincere in trying to attract them to the Gospel, there has to be a time when you do tell them. Letās say they come in, okay. Thereās a time when everybodyās got to hit that verse that Jesus said, āIf you want to follow me, you must deny yourself, take up the cross and follow me daily,ā [Luke 9:23] okay? And youāve got to get around to that.
- Hunt: But thatās negative, John. Thatās awfully negative.
- Ankerberg: That is negative. But the thing of it is that that is also the truth, alright.
- Hunt: Right!
- Ankerberg: So where do we tell them that story? Do we entice them in with the good things and then when they get in we say, āNow let me tell you the real scoopā? That would be unethical. But letās move on. The fact is this positive-negative thing goes back into the occult world which parallels this kind of thinking. Can you give us an illustration?
- Hunt: Well, what the occult world is seeking to do is to manipulate reality; in fact, to create reality. Itās based upon an old Hindu belief that thereās nothing out there. Itās maya, itās an illusion. This, of course, is where Mary Baker Eddy got the idea thereās no sin, pain, disease or death; itās an illusion of mortal mind. Itās the Adam-Man thinking this. And there are three methods in the occultābeen there for thousands of yearsāfor manipulating reality. Thinkingāweāve been talking about it; the thoughts you think will make you what you are. More powerful is speakingāif you enunciate it, this is making a āpositive confessionā now, and you speak this out, that is going to change realityā¦.
- Michaelsen: Because the vibrations themselves have power. Thatās the whole basis for mantras and repetition over and over again, to generate enough psychic force and power so that you create it and bring it into existence by the force of your words.
- Hunt: Right. I could quote any number of leaders out there in the Christian world who sayā¦.
- Ankerberg: Just give me a few.
- Hunt: Well, Charles Capps, for example, says, āWords are the most powerful thing in the universe.ā Now weāve got a thing even more powerful than God called āWords.ā He says, āWords are containers. They contain faith. God is a faith God.ā Well, who does God have faith in? You see, faith is no longer in God, but it becomes a power that we aim at God to make God do what we want Him to do when we believe that He is going to do it. So, basically, itās mind power. If I can make anything happen by believing it will happen, that has nothing to do with the grace of God or the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, but my mind power, you see?
- Michaelsen: And mind power translates that into āwitchcraft,ā because thatās precisely what youāre talking about: the manipulation of a neutral forceāwhat Ernest Holmes called āThe Thing.ā āLearn to manipulate and deal with āThe Thingā itselfāāthis great force, which, of course, is the basis for Norman Vincent Pealeāsā¦.
- Ankerberg: Okay. Weāre going to go into this more in depth because weāre losing some people on this and I donāt want to hurry through it. But give us a āpositiveā word; give us a word of affirmation from the Scripture, if you willā¦.
- Michaelsen: A āpositive confessionā?
- Ankerberg: Yeah. I see people are getting frightened by what you are saying. Because if this is creeping into the Church, and itās not biblical, weāve got to come back to why is that creeping into the Church, and youāre saying that this is part of the ābig lie,ā which weāre going to get to as we go on through these programs. But I want a word that brings us back to the truth. Can you give us that, Dave?
- Hunt: Well, we need to get back to the Word of God. Donāt take my word for it. Be like the Bereans, who wouldnāt even accept what the great Apostle Paul said because of who he was, but they āsearched the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.ā [Acts 17:11] And part of the problem is, weāre following some great person on television or in a pulpit or whatever. We need to get back to the Word of God. Jesus said, āMy sheep hear my voice, and I know them,⦠and a stranger they will not follow but will flee from the voice of strangersā¦. And I give my sheep eternal life and they will never perish.ā [John 10:5, 27-28] And itās very significant that Jesus talks about people who in that day will say, āLord, Lord, didnāt we do miracles in your name? Didnāt we prophesy in your name? Didnāt we cast out devils in your name? I will say to them, āI never knew you.āā [Matt. 7:22-23] And Jesus said, āThis is life eternal, that they might know Thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent.ā [John 17:3] Weāve got to want to know Him, and He said, āWhen you seek for me with all your heart, you will find me.ā [Jer. 29:13] Instead of seeking ourselves, trying to get in touch with ourselves and finding out who we are and in touch with our feelings, which is what the New Age saysāyou are separated from your higher selfāweāre separated from God by sin. We need to have a thirst and a passion to know Him and come to Him for who He is and on His terms.
- Ankerberg: Okay, weāre going to talk in the next weeks to come about the parallel lines here between the occult as well as whatās happening in the Church. Whatās happening in the secular society and the New Age movement, as you term it, as well as whatās happening in the Church and such things as the Positive Confession movement and other things. So please stick with us.
[ā¦] Read Part 2 [ā¦]