Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 267 | New Age vs. Christianity, Part 2: 'The God of Self' | Guest: Steven Bancarz

Episode Date: June 24, 2020

How is New Age spirituality affecting the church today? Yoga, word of faith, karma, enneagrams, and self-love are becoming accepted practices, increasingly, every day. Steven Bancarz and Allie break down how the "god of self" has no comparison to the salvation of Jesus Christ. Steven Bancarz's Website: reasonsforjesus.com Today's Sponsors: Laurel Springs: an accredited, online private school for students in kindergarten through twelfth grade. Go to https://laurelsprings.com/allie/ and receive a waived registration fee. SimpliSafe was designed to be easy to use while protecting your whole home 24/7. Get free shipping and a 60 day money back guarantee. Visit SimpliSafe.com/ALLIE Maybe you’ve been wondering about the best way to protect your family. Or maybe you’re thinking about starting a business, but you don’t know the best way to do it. LegalZoom makes it easy to get started online. And if you need guidance, their network of attorneys can provide advice to ensure you make the right choices. For special savings, visit LegalZoom.com code ALLIE at checkout.

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed.

You can watch this D-Day Show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey, guys, welcome to Relatable. This is part two of the two-part interview series that I am doing with Stephen Bancar. So this is the second half of our conversation equally as powerful, if not even more powerful than the first half. And I know that you guys are going to gain a lot of insight out of this. so I hope you enjoy.

I think that it's important to make the distinction as Christians between, for example, working out your own salvation with fear and trembling, knowing it is God, knowing it is God who works in us, and constantly obsessing over self-discovery and taking, you know, assessment after assessment, personality test after personality test, looking at our different zodiac science to try to find out who we really are in the inside. So there are two different ways that we kind of have the relationship with the self, like you said, one that I think is Christ-centered, that is focused on, you know, our own sanctification through the Holy Spirit, our own relationship with God, and even the talents that he has given us

uniquely. I think all of that is good. And that is very different. And not just in its methods, but also in the peace that it offers versus the new age. way of doing that or really just the secular world's way of doing that, which is saying that the road to self-discovery is going to be your end destination. It's also going to give you the peace and fulfillment that you're looking for. And it just won't. You can know yourself as much as possible. That in and of itself is not going to give you peace. Do you agree with that? Yeah, I would agree.

Unless on your path to knowing yourself, you come to the realization that you're a fallen human creature and that you need salvation. But that's not where that path is taking you. That path is trying to pump your tires up and inflate your sense of self, right? An honest path of self-discovery is the path to I'm broken. I'm a sinner. I'm in need of salvation. I need someone to help me. I need help versus I'm intrinsically good. You know, I'm a good person. I have God or the spark of divinity or I'm a fragment of the creator itself. Right. And I'm the center of the universe, and I should be the center of my universe,

and I have the answers hidden within me somewhere, and I just have to have them drawn out. Versus if you actually examine yourself from an honest, moral, and spiritual lens, you're going to see that you're depraved. You're going to see wickedness in your own heart. You're going to see lying, thieving, adultery of heart, murder of heart, all kinds of wickedness. Yeah.

And blasphemy against God. And that was the self-discovery I really needed. And that's the self-discovery that, you know, when I read the Gospels and I read the New Testament, I was like, where was this idea coming from that my entire spiritual system was premised on? That I'm God by nature, which is an ontological error, that I'm connected to God by nature relationally, which is an error of, you know, understanding our relational separation between God and myself. and also this idea that I'm intrinsically good. Like, where did that come from?

There's like 30, 40 verses in the New Testament that completely overthrow that. And that takes the weight off. Once again, it's supposed to. It's supposed to take the weight off because there's freedom in the biblical worldview. Like Jesus says, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. It says, take my yoke upon you, my teaching upon you, for you will find rest unto your souls. So the teaching of Jesus is that you're not enough. You're not expected to be enough.

you're expected to turn to Christ and rely on Christ who is enough. And that's a major spiritual living difference between New Age spirituality and Christian spirituality is that Christianity is, you're focused on someone else who's not you and someone else's goodness who's not you versus this narcissistic self-focused where it's me and my goodness and my nature and my potential. And that's the gravitational pull of my spiritual life. my life my life is centered around that yeah versus no i'm fallen i have problems i need help it's centered about someone else's goodness someone else's spiritual work and so yeah i'm i'm personally to be

honest i've only been saved four and a half years but i'm still having to come out of these old mindset still like the renewal of the mind as a process where i can focus on how am i doing spiritually this week have i done enough spiritually this week versus am i folk am i christ focused this week. Instead of like grading myself based on how many hours, it should be how Christ focused am I in my heart, right? Instead of this kind of system we set up of performance and that we grade ourselves against some standard we've made up in our own minds. And God's up there like, why are you so focused on you? And it's a habit we can get into as self-centered human creatures. And the New Age movement capitalizes on that. Yeah. And feed us.

it with this false understanding of your intrinsic goodness because we like being self-centered. Absolutely. You know, it's our fallen nature. And the New Age movement is really based around that. It's based around that selfish desire where we want to be self-sovereign. We want to be the center of the universe. We don't want someone telling us what to do. We want to be the arbiter of truth, the arbiter of morality.

Yep. And this is very general, speaking in very general terms, but that's really what the New Age Movement is premised on, not just that man is God by nature, but that man is God of his life, functionally speaking. I have a couple more. Oh, sorry, go ahead. Go ahead. I would just say it's a horrible God to have. Right. Yourself is a horrible God to have. You can't tell yourself anything you don't know. You're really unqualified to be your own God, and I am too. And there's only one who's qualified. There's only one who's all knowing, all loving, all good, and it's not us. And there's freedom in that.

There's so much freedom in that. The God of self is. its burdens are heavy and its yoke is very difficult. We are unmerciful gods. We're ungracious gods. We're not omniscient gods. We're not omnipotent gods. We can't deliver ourselves. We can't even understand our own hearts. We can't lead ourselves in the right way. And so as empowering as it might seem, as you've said so many times so wonderfully, is actually very burdensome. And the true freedom comes from the truth of Christ. who promises to bear our burdens and how gracious is he that he calls himself our burden bear. Hey, this is Steve Day.

If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave,

even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this T-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. I want to ask you how the journey has been after you posted on your Facebook page saying, you know, I was wrong about all of this. What was the immediate reaction?

and then what has been some of the pushback that you've experienced since then? Yeah. So when I made that post on Facebook, on all my social media accounts, I had a joint following of about a million people. And I was hit with, I mean, I knew no Christians. I had no Christians following me. It was nothing but new ages. And they're hearing that their worldview, which is for them, their source of identity.

That's where they get there. Sorry, one quick question, since you. You said no Christians follow you. Would you say that some new agers, though, still identify as Christians as well? Yeah, I would say some do because they have an understanding. I meant no Christians followed me at that time when I made that post. But some new ages would say, well, I'm a Christian, but what they really mean is I adhere to the Christian ethic. Right.

Right. So when Jesus said, I am the way, the truth in life. What he really means is his way of life is the way, right? So I believe we should be forgiving people and taking the role of the servant and loving people. So I'm a Christian insofar as I agree with this certain set of moral principles that existed for thousands of years before Jesus even got here. When that's not what it means to be a Christian, you have to believe in a certain set of theological distinctives. Jesus has God in the flesh, he died on the cross for human sin. He rose on the third day and all who believe in him, who repent and believe in him will have eternal life.

That's what it really means to be a Christian and to actually be born again. but for them to be a Christian means to agree with the general moral and spiritual inclination of Jesus toward loving people, which, by the way, I don't think there's a single verse in all of the Gospels, and I've looked, where he talks about loving people as an end in itself. It's always meant to go to the glory of God. Such a good point. Forgive others so that your father in heaven will forgive you. If you don't forgive others, your father won't forgive you.

When you do good works, do them so that your father in heaven may be glorified. Right? Even the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and love your neighbor as yourself, for on these hang the law and the prophets. Right. So the Old Testament law, 613 laws that were given to God's people and the prophets referring to the prophets of God and the authors of the Old Testament scriptures or some of them were prophets. that all of that is fulfilled, the entire old covenant with man that God made is lived out through loving our neighbor as ourself. But these verses are never taught in isolation. They're always taught within a very specific religious framework. And people want to isolate these moral values from the religious and theological framework Jesus placed them in and then say, oh, well, I live by those general airy, fairy principles that existed before he got here. Okay, well, what's the

second half of that verse you quoted from, right? Like, what is Jesus actually trying to communicate here? That these are the, to love your neighbor as yourself is the greatest command next to loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind, right? Love your neighbor as yourself. Okay, well, what's the, what's the command Jesus says is greater than that one? And who does he mean by God? He defines God as being the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So are we willing to love the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as much as we're willing to love our neighbor as ourselves? If not, you're not a Christian. Right.

You're a Christian entitled because you've redefined what Christian means anyway. So people will call themselves that incorrectly. Yes. But people, so when I made these posts online and emails, I was sending out emails to people, you know, an email list of like 90,000 people and to just see my inbox the next day blow up. Wow. With craziness, people telling me, I mean, swearing at me like crazy, but telling me to go kill myself, telling me to rid myself off the failure.

Oh, my gosh. Right. And what I quickly realized was that inclusivity and love applies really to everyone except Christians. Like there was so much talk about all religions are equally valid. All religions lead to the same destination in the end. You know, we should all be unified with one another and we hate anything that causes division and strife and disunity for religious or spiritual reasons until someone comes out and says you're wrong. And that there's only one path to God.

And then you are no longer able and willing to live by that same standard that you want to enforce on others. And that's obviously, Jesus says, you know, Jesus says the world hates me because I testify of it that its works are evil. Right. And so, you know, the servant isn't greater than his master. And so by us being Christians, we're implying that there's something in their life that needs to change, that they need to surrender, that they need to repent for, and they don't like that. A good analogy might be, you know, we run away from God, like a guilty criminal runs away from the police. We don't want to be seen by God. We don't want to be known by God because if we come to the light, it's going to be made evident that our works are done in darkness. So we hate the light.

You know, John 3, this is the judgment that light has come into the world. People love darkness rather than lights. Anyway, that's being provoked in people's soul and in people's consciences because this is their identity. They get their identity from their new age spirituality, right? this is who I am. I am a god or a goddess. They get their security from it. This is what gives me comfort and helps me self-soothe and self-medicate. A lot of people in this movement are trauma survivors. This is people's source of love and community and power. This is how they empower themselves, right? We need to be empowered by what God says about us in scripture, right? Instead of these

false narratives we create about ourselves, what does God say about us now that we're in Christ? Are we a holy nation and a royal priesthood? You know, are we children of God? Are we accepted in the beloved? You know, in one sense, you can say that's empowerment, but it's just the truth. But they use false narratives to empower themselves and you take away their power structure, their crutches that they're keeping themselves afloat on, and they just lose it. Yeah. And so a lot of people just completely lost their minds.

Mm-hmm. and the kind of like mockery and you know laughter and name calling is just off the charts I don't even remember a lot of it to be honest every friend that I had of the new age movement um that ended and yeah it was a long time before christian started following me it started when I made a testimony video and released it on my YouTube channel explaining to the new agers what happened to me and where I came from and then I started making videos for them because they kept coming at me with the same objections over and over and over again. Well, you know, didn't Jesus teach Christ's consciousness? Wasn't he teaching us how to reach a state of divine awareness that he had through self-discovery

and practicing the correct ethic that he practiced? So I would answer this question of Christ's consciousness going from Scripture. Well, what about the Second Coming? Isn't that a metaphor for Christ consciousness incarnating, in a sense, in people around the world as they awaken to their own divinity like Eckhart Tolle teaches like Deepak Chopra teaches like Marianne Williamson teaches like Oprah Winfrey teaches. So I'd have to answer that as the second coming a metaphor. So I made all these videos answering them and eventually Christians started supporting me and getting a hold of some of my content. And it has been nice to have some actual support instead of just tens of thousands of people mocking you and debating with you all day every day. I bet. Yeah, but people went crazy.

But here's the thing is that our problem isn't with people. Right. Right. Ephesian 6. our problem is spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. So when people mistreat you, you are not their enemy, really. Their enemy is God, right? They're at enmity with God in their hearts and in their minds. They're hostile to the law of God. So their problem is getting close to you and hearing you remind them of the sin that remains in them, that they don't want to deal with.

They don't want to face and iron that stuff out before God. But also we have to understand that a lot of people are demonically oppressed by one spirit or another. I wouldn't say every single person. There's not an unlimited amount of demons, but Satan is the deceiver. You know, Satan is the one who blinds the eyes of unbelievers, 2 Corinthians 4-4, right? Second Timothy 2 versus 25 to 26 tells us to address our opponents with gentleness that God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to knowledge of the truth, that they may escape from the snare of the devil, right? And so when I'm talking to someone who's not saved and they're freaking out at me. I have to know that they're hurting. They're hurting broken people,

first of all. Second of all, their problem is with God and not me. And third of all, they're probably spiritually oppressed. And so it's easy to not take things personally. It's like if you're walking down the street and a blind person bumps into you, you're not going to be upset with them, right? The Bible says that people who are unsaved, they're spiritually blind. They literally can't see. They're not able to see what you see. And so it, right. reading all these verses about the depravity of man, whether we want to call it total depravity or radical depravity, depending on what side of the fence we lean on, but seeing all these verses about man's state without God, right? Dead and sin, Jude 19 devoid of the spirit, right?

Luke 1, I believe it's 70 something. They sit in the valleys of the, and darkness of the shadow of death. Like they have no light in them. And so having that is my basis for enduring persecution. very helpful. The truth, the full scope of the truth about man's depravity, the biblical worldview, is meant to comfort us as believers, and it did for me. But a lot of people also were curious and they were like, hey, you know, we've trusted you for a while. Let's stick around and see what you have to say. Yeah. And I've had people message me saying, you know what, I hated you when you came out and started talking about Jesus, but a few years later I realized what you were saying was true and I've come to Christ now.

And so there's been a lot of people who've come out of the new age movement who used to follow me when I was in new age who came out shortly after, including Doreen Virtue, who you had on your channel. And that was crazy to me because she said that my videos helped give her courage to come forward with her testimony. Yeah. And I was, go ahead. Oh, I was just going to encourage you with just how the Lord works because after my

interview with Doreen Virtue, most listened to. episode that I've ever done, and that's really saying something because I've been doing this for over two years. Most listened to episode that I've ever done. And just last week, I actually got an email from a friend whose friend, who was not a Christian, very into the new age, very into yoga, as his spiritual practice, was, you know, maybe considered herself in line with some Christian values, but was not a Christian. I came to her friend and said, you know, I listened to this interview that Ali'sucky did with Doreen Virtue. I dug into Doreen Virtue's YouTube videos,

and I realized that I was believing all of this stuff, and I wasn't a Christian, and now I am. And so how amazing of the Lord that he worked through your testimony, which affected Doreen Virtue, and her testimony, which now has affected, you know, thousands of people as well as yours has, and people are realizing the truth, and the truth is setting them free.

So I just want to thank you. first of all, for your willingness to use a platform that you have to share what the Lord has done in your life. Yeah, thank you. And what it comes down to really is the Lord's love for people. He is a salvific love for people. He wants to be reconciled with people. You know, Paul says that Christians have been given the ministry of reconciliation, right? God wants to see people restored unto himself, and you can't be restored unto God through any other way except Christ.

of Christ, right? God's holy, he's just, he requires a price to be paid for our moral offenses, for our sins, and that was paid in full by Jesus when our sins were imputed to Christ on the cross, right? So he judged Jesus as though Jesus were us. Jesus was our substitute and died as our proxy, right? Our sin was laid upon him. God's wrath and justice was satisfied in the death of Christ. And, you know, something I heard Paul Washer talk about one time. It was an interesting way to think about it. You have Christian martyrs who would rejoice and sing hymns on their way to being executed and be singing and praising God as they're being burnt alive. But then you have Jesus weeping in the garden, you know, tears of blood, as it says, which is a

medical condition when pores end up bursting because of such high degrees of stress. And he's saying, take this cup from me, let this pass from me. Right. So how is it that Christian men and women throughout history count it all joy to die on behalf of the God of the Bible, but here's Jesus in the garden crying saying, don't let this happen to me. Right, he wasn't scared of what man, his stress and his anxiety was not that he was going to have his beard pulled out and be hit in the face and be crucified. That was not his beef. That was not his problem. What he was concerned about was not what man was going to do to him on the cross, what God was going to do to him on that cross? What's it going to be like to have the sin of the world laid on

my shoulders to bear their sin in my body? What's it going to be like Isaiah 5310 to have Yahweh crush me? It pleased Yahweh to crush him as his soulmate an offering for guilt. So there is a spiritual transaction that happened on the cross between our sin and Jesus. And the point is that the reason why Jesus did all this and God loves all, did all this is because he loves us. He wants relationship with us, right? Because of the great love with which he loved us, he did this. And so he wants to be in relationship with us. And the point is that the New Age movement can't offer that. The New Age movement cannot offer a reconciliation between man and God. It's a false theology. It's a false worldview. Your guilt is still with you. What do you do with your sin before a

holy God after living life as a new ageer? You're going to stand and you're going to give an account for your life and you're going to be judged guilty and not innocent because the blood of Jesus hasn't been applied to you, hasn't been appropriated to you through faith, through repentance and faith. And so the New Age movement is going to leave you in a worse position than you were to begin with, unreconsiled with God. Now, the New Age movement will define God to be an energy in nature or some impersonal force that dwells within you and you'll live your life trying to cultivate a relationship with what you think is God, and then you're going to be thinking that every time some kind of synchronicity or coincidence happens in your life, that that is that thing,

that idea of God that you have working in your life. You know, he protected me, and he's leading him and he's guiding me, and I can just see it, I just know it. And when I close my eyes and I pray and I think about him, I just feel at peace in my soul, you have an idol, an image in your head that you're using to self-medicate, basically. And you're looking at, you're looking for things that aren't there and you're putting together pieces that aren't there to create this narrative. That's not true that God has been active in your life and involved in your life. And that was such an ego blow for me as a new age of coming to Christ. I had to admit to myself, I didn't know God.

God was not active in my life in the way that I thought he was. Absolutely. God's, God's plan is to draw you and to lead you to Christ and everything else is just, you know. Anyway, go ahead. Sorry. No, that's okay. I didn't know. I thought that you had finished.

But if you need to finish the answer, please do. Now, I was just going to say it's easy for us to be self-deceived, thinking we have a relationship with God, when we have a relationship to an image we have in our minds, and that creates positive emotions in us. And then we mistake those emotions as being the love of God itself. Right. And it's a very easy deception to fall into, and that is really what is driving this self-empowerment movement around this false God and the New Age movement itself. You have a relationship to an idol in your mind. It's therapeutic.

It's helping you be a better person. but in the end it's not God. Okay, I want to tell you guys about one of the sponsors that we've got for today's episode. And it's one of my favorite sponsors. We use them and we love this company. And that is Simply Safe. So what is the number one sign of a bad home security system? A home security system that is so complicated that you never use it, that you never set it up.

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to teach yoga to their own congregants. I was visiting a church recently. They built a new one up the street. I popped in. I wanted to see what was going on. They had people coming in with yoga mats. They were doing a yoga class for their congregants. And tell everyone what's wrong with that for those who don't know.

Yeah. So the word yoga means union. And it refers to union between the personal self and the universal self. It refers to union between the Atman and Brahmin. Right. So the Hindu worldview is that all is Brahman and Brahmin is all. It's pantheistic. you're ultimately Brahmin.

And the goal and purpose of yoga is not just to be, you know, physically fit and to stretch you out and to feel better in your body. The goal of yoga, those things are all a means to an end to realizing you are unified with Brahmin and to live from that state of being unified with Brahmin, which they would call Moksha. So we live in a state of Maya, which is self-deception, which is delusion, we're ignorant of our true nature. And the goal of yoga is to help you reach a state of consciousness called Mokshha, where you are self-realized as Brahmin. And a lot of these postures people are holding, the warm-up routine is a sun salutation posture. You know, you have warrior pose, one, two, and three. This is actually a polytheistic murder scene that you're imitating with your body. Right.

It's called Varabhadrasana 1, Vrabidrasana 2, Vrabidrasana 3. And people go to yoga studios and they're, you know, practicing this thinking it's, you know, helping me be more in shape and helping me with back pain. Yeah. I've been more flexible. I've done it. But you're actually. Yeah, exactly. but these postures are meant to invoke the properties, the essences, and the qualities of these gods, these deities into your life.

So for Abidrasana, let me give just one quick example, very, very common yoga posts. Warrior 1, 2, 3, very popular sequence, universal sequence. And so you have Shiva who wanted to marry Daksha's daughter, his name was Sati. But Daxha either didn't attend the wedding or wouldn't let them get married. There's different understandings of this mythology. But Shiva was really upset at Daksha for interfering with his marriage with Sati. So he turned himself into this thousand-headed monster called Vrabidrasana. And he walked over to Daksha and took out a sword and cut off his head and then placed it on a stake.

And when you're doing the warrior sequence in yoga, your first pose is you preparing yourself for battle. Wow. which is this, I believe. The second pose is you're stretched out, and that's you're getting ready to attack. And then the third pose is you're outstretched forward, and you have your hands stretched out in front of you, and your back leg is out balanced behind you,

and that is to imitate Shiva or Varabhadrasana, putting the head of doxha on a stake. So how can you imitate God in your body? Or, sorry, imitate God. How can you be an imitator of God and glorify God in your body? Like the Bible says, if you're imitating a polytheistic murder scene with your body. How can you do that in the name of Jesus unto the glory of God in that moment?

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church. Under the guise of contemplative prayer, that would be another one. And there's a difference between praying contemplatively and contemplative prayer, which is a practice that was created by a group of Roman Catholic mystics in the 20th century. And some of them have passed on now Merton and Keating and these other guys. But basically, the point of contemplative prayer and the practice of it, you're going to pick a word and you're going to repeat this word in your head. over and over and over again. It's going to kind of act as your anchor and your grounding word, and you're going to try to still and shift your own consciousness through repeating this word over and over in your head. They use this in transcendental meditation, by the way. You pick a word

and you repeat it over and over to shift your consciousness. And the point is, is they will say that God is not known in an object, subject distinction. God is known in a deeper state of consciousness that they'll call pure consciousness or pure awareness. That's where God kind of intrinsically dwells. And some of the quotes that they've said in their primary works are just unbelievable. But they believe that the self, in one sense, is ultimately God. And so since God is something within you, when you pray contemplatively, you pick a sacred word, they'll call it, and repeat it in your head over and over to try and still and change the makeup and state of your own consciousness. And God is known in that altered state. Burr's from prosperity preachers a lot.

You do, right? And I guess we could talk about that a little bit as well, is that the Word of Faith movement is premised on some things that are very, very close to the law of attraction. For example, you will have, you know, E.W. Kenyon, the grandfather of the Word of Faith movement saying that you have what you profess. Only once you profess something, do you have something and do you receive something? So the idea there is that words have effectual power to bring something into your reality. Yeah. It's like declare. I've seen some churches, not a prosperity church, but kind of people in the realm of Bethel declare something to make it manifest is kind of the language that I hear.

Is that what you're talking about? Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Thinking that my words and my, especially like my emotions as well, but my spokesmen, spoken word in particular, when I declare that and I speak that out, since faith is a force, like gravity, the spoken word carries a force with it. And that's going to interact with this set of spiritual laws that God has set up in the universe and bring into my reality whatever I'm declaring and confessing with my mouth. And that's why Kenneth Hagan, really the father of the Word of Faith movement, says,

you can have what you say and that he has seen unbelievers achieve success by practicing these same principles, even though they don't know God. Right. And the whole declaration-based spirituality is silly because there's no vertical connection made between you and God. It's not prayer. It's not supplication. He's up there in the heavens thinking, what are you doing, declaring and decreeing?

I'm up here. Ask me for something. You have not because you ask not. And not to mention there's seven different conditions, at least seven different conditions God puts in scripture on whether or not he'll even lend an ear to our prayer, right? Like Proverbs 28, for example, says if a man departs from the law of the Lord, even his prayer becomes an abomination to him, right? If you're not treating your wife properly, the Bible says, treat your wife properly

for the sake of your prayers. Prayer said for attention or to be seen by people, you've received a reward in full. Prayer said for the wrong reasons, right? You have not because you ask not, and you receive not because you seek to spend it amiss. So there's a scope in which God is willing to operate, and he tells us how we should cooperate with him as his children. And the declaration-based spirituality, it's more similar to the law of attraction in the New Age roof and taught by books like The Secret than it is biblical Christianity because it's premised on the idea that words have intrinsic, effectual power to bring something to pass in the material world. And there's actually a whole book called The Physics of Heaven, which I've done a review of on another channel. That literally says that.

And who wrote that book? It's sold at the Bethel bookstore. Okay. I thought that it was someone from Bethel. And I don't remember if it's actually Bill Johnson or not, but I just wanted to make sure that we clarified that just in case people were curious. Yeah, no, he's featured in the book. He has a segment in the book. It's a joint collaboration effort, Chris Valleton from Bethel, wrote the foreword.

And they believe that when you declare and decree things, you're popping quiffs in the quantum field is the way that they'll describe it. So basically, I'm going to try and give Cole's Notes version here. In quantum mechanics, there is a spooky relationship between human consciousness and subatomic particles like an electron, for example. electrons possess what's called wave particle duality. They can exist as a wave smeared out in space or as a solid stable object that can be measured in one location in space. And when you try to observe a particle, after having just measured it as a wave, you try to observe, why is it being, why is it acting as a wave? Consciousness or the presence of a conscious observer collapses the wave function of the particle. And now this electron can be measured once again as a solid, stable object in one location.

and that's pretty interesting. You know, why is it that when I'm not trying to consciously observe it, I can measure it as smeared out as a wave, creates an interference pattern, as it's called. But when I'm trying to observe it with a microscopic camera, all of a sudden it collapses again and it's solid and stable, that's really spooky. They want to, first of all, that doesn't apply to atoms.

It doesn't apply to molecules. It doesn't apply to macro-scale objects, like this cup, for example. It's not like when I don't look at this cup, it exists as a sea of quantum soup until I look at it. Deepak Chopra believes that. I'm sorry, it's hilarious. Saturn is not some ball of soup now because no one's observing it. That's silly.

Right. But what they will say in the Physics of Heaven book is that they mistake observation of subatomic particles for intention and desire for macro scale objects. So now my desire and my intention is what brings to past possibility, possible realities. I can select possible realities and make them become physical through my awareness, my desire, and my intention. Right. And so that is a mechanism of God answering prayers, really, by you making declarations and decreeing your popping quiffs in the quantum field and causing possibilities to come out into the natural world. Wow. And not everyone teaches that strong of a

law of attraction parallel, but I did a whole podcast series on Apologia, where we comparing contrast, the Word of Faith movement and primary doctrines with the law of attraction and New Age spirituality. We go through primary quotes from Word of Faith teachers and New Age teachers. So Word of Faith brings in law of attraction. Your words have no effectual power as a Christian. The power of life and death is in the tongue means that your thoughts and your words have great influence.

Your words, sorry, have great influence over the thoughts and emotions of other people. Just a few chapters later in Proverbs 16, it tells us that a gentle, tongue is a tree of life. That doesn't mean I can speak trees of life into existence with my tongue. It means that a soft, gentle word turns away wrath and brings healing to the bones, right? And it says in Proverbs as well that mere talk is useless. What do we do with that one? What do we do with Revelation Chapter 3? This is a really big knockdown argument against Word of Faith and the secret type spirituality, which is law of attraction, which is a staple doctrine in the New Age movement. You look at Revelation 3. Jesus is rebuking a church in Laodicea, and he says,

you say, I am rich, I am healthy, and I am in need of nothing. You are making positive declarations, and you are making positive decrees, and you believe them in your heart. And he says, but I say you are poor, you are sick, you are wretched, and you haven't come to me. And it's very, very telling. If a lot of attraction was true and Word of Faith theology was true, They should be having what they're confessing. They believe it in their heart. They're confessing. It should be manifesting.

It should be manifesting. And Jesus told them, your faith and your confession is erroneous, right? But that is, where does that come from? Where does this word of faith idea come from? It comes from E.W. Kenyon, who had a fascination and drew influence from the metaphysical cults of the late 1800s. He had an extensive metaphysical library, and these influenced how he understood these scriptures. and that's undisputable. That's just a historical fact.

So the Word of Faith movement draws from New Age spirituality, and that's another way we see this manifest in the church. We can declare and decree things that we have a right to declare and decree. We can only decree and declare that which we're guaranteed. For example, I decree that God will work things, not decree, I should say declare, that God will work all things together for the good of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. I can declare that God will never leave me nor forsake me. I can declare that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. I can declare the goodness of God, the promises of God, the character of God, over myself and over my life.

And that's self-edifying, and that's a good thing to do. But I can't declare a new job or a new car or a new partner into existence or say, I declare this over your life and I decree that over your life. Or, Lord, we're in this space for now. We decree this and we decree that and we declare that. and we declare this, you don't have that authority. Yeah. You don't have that position where human creatures fallen and we appeal to God who alone is sovereign and all-powerful.

But that idea that man's words carry intrinsic effectual power to bring something to pass in the material world, that's New Age. That's another big way that the New Age is working its way into the church. And I would get people to consider maybe how many people listening right now, this is an interesting one, would believe in the idea of karma, would believe in this general. idea of what goes around comes around. That comes from Eastern philosophy. And the idea that what you do in this life, any sin you commit in this life, will have to be repeated back to you, either later on in this life or in a future incarnation. And so you will always have what's coming to you. So if you abuse someone, you're going to receive abuse in this life or the next life. If you have been, you know, taking advantage of people financially, you're going to have to be poor in this life or the next

life versus Christianity talks about sewing and reaping. But sewing and reaping is not the same as what goes around, comes around. Sewing and reaping just merely says there's going to be consequences to your actions. But those consequences aren't always realized on this side of heaven. There's a lot of people who live greedy lives and die greedy and die comfortable after just making, you know, a mockery of God's creation of God's people. Right. And they just die very comfortable, right? Right. But there is going to be some kind of internal spiritual consequence at the very least in terms of your relationship with God. Like the Bible says whoever commits adultery destroys his own soul, there's going to be a hardening, a self-hardening effect, but you're not always going to see the full effects of your sin

manifest in your life on this side of heaven. That just doesn't happen. And Christians as well, we would need to also realize that Jesus Christ paid our debt in full, right? Mark 1045, the son of man came to give his life as a ransom for many, right? The ransom was what you would pay. to a slave owner to release the slave or the bond servant, we should say, definitely should say bond servant in times like this because that's what it was. The bond servant from the debt that they owed their master, right? We have an outstanding moral debt of justice between us and God. Jesus gave his life as a ransom to pay off all our debt, right? Colossians 214 says that the record of offenses that stood against us was nailed to the cross and done away with with

its legal demands. So if Jesus Christ paid for our sin in full and all my sin was imputed to him and judged him, God's not going to judge me for the same set of sins here to judge Christ for. Right. So if I get stolen from when I'm 35 years old and I stole from someone when I was 14, that's not the universe or some metaphysical mechanism built into the universe making sure I receive what I've put out. And it's not God holding me accountable for that same sin that I did. when I was a kid because, you know, I'm saved now. Yeah. Christ paid for that sin.

Yeah. And so, but this idea of what goes around, comes around in karma. I mean, probably 80, 90% of the population believes in it, but it comes from Eastern mysticism. Yeah. Which got brought over through Theosophy, Helena Blavatsky in the late 1800s. And, you know, so there's more subtle ways like that, too, where it becomes so ingrained into our thinking. We don't even, you know, stop to consider where did this idea come from. Oh, there's so many more things that.

I could ask you about, okay, let me just give me a very quick take because you talked about theosophy and I think you mentioned someone at the beginning of the episode that reminded me of this. Enneagram, is it something that Christians should take part in? That is something that I haven't looked into fully enough to be able to give an answer to it. Though everyone who I respect in the faith has a problem with it. Yeah. Everyone I respect in the faith who has done thorough research into this. I had an organization sent me a book they produced recently on the Nagram, very respected authors that I regard highly saying, would you review this book and take a look at some of this information? And it's basically universally recognized as this does have its roots

in the New Age movement. Apparently this was created by a New Ageer for the purpose of bringing people into relationship with spirit. And it was channeled to him that this entire modality was channeled to him when he was in an altered state of consciousness. Basically, you allow some other foreign spirit or foreign entity to override your cognitive faculties. It's called channeling or automatic writing. Of course, in Miracle is a very popular book promoted by Marianne Williamson and advertised by Oprah Winfrey would be an example of a book that's channeled material.

So with the Celestine Prophecy, which has sold 27 million copies, by the way. But they believe that this healing modality or this personality test modality was deduced from channeling. So that to me is obviously a major, major red flag. If this person believes some entity or spirit, you know, influenced his consciousness to dictate to him, some spiritual system that's meant to unify us with spirit or some higher self version of us, I would stay away from that. So I haven't researched it too much, though. but that's okay if anyone is listening to this and they're curious about that i did ask doring virtue who has done videos of herself or on her own do uh talking about that so i encourage people to go listen to that episode where i am talking to doring virtue you can also go watch her

videos on youtube the episode is called dangers of the new age and so she does have a take on that i just know that something that's very popular in christian circles and of course i don't think that everyone who has ever i used to use the anagram a lot because you know, thought that it was a great tool and there are still people that think that and I'm not wholesale condemning them, of course. But like you said, I do think that it is very important for Christians to look into and to know the roots of the things that we are using as so-called spiritual tools. Can you just tell everyone where they can find you? Yeah. I'm on Instagram. I have a YouTube channel under my name, Stephen Bancar, is where I have quite a few videos addressing and explaining

new age thought and new age practice from a biblical perspective. I actually have a book out as well, an apologetics book on the New Age movement called the Second Coming of the New Age, which dives into things a little bit more deeply than we have time to do in an interview like this. I'm on Facebook and stuff like that as well. And I do have a website called Reasons for Jesus.com, which is a general apologetics website, but you will find a lot of helpful resources on there pertaining to new age spirituality as well. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me. I know that this is going to be a conversation that people are going to love.

Yeah, thanks for having me. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality.

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