A clip of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” shown recently in Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary’s chapel illustrates a distressing, yet popular, approach to Jesus.
“One of the mistakes that human beings make is believing there is only one way to live. And we don’t accept that there are diverse ways of being in the world, that there are millions and millions of ways to be a human being.”
Those remarks by Oprah Winfrey on her weekday television show demonstrate an increasing resistance to the plain teaching of Scripture. And yet one audience member questioned, asking, “How do you please God?”
Winfrey responded that there are “many ways and many paths to what you call God.” Referring to a guest’s comments about spirituality, she said, “Her path might be something else, and when she gets there, she might call it the light. But her loving and her kindness and her generosity–if it brings her to the same point that it brings you, it doesn’t matter whether she called it God along the way or not.”
When Winfrey declared, “There couldn’t possibly be just one way,” a second audience member raised a question.
“What about Jesus?” the woman asked.
“What about Jesus?” Oprah replied.
“There is one way and only one way, and that is through Jesus,” the audience member said.
Appearing indignant, the talk show host said, “There couldn’t possibly be with the millions of people in the world.”
Watchman Fellowship president James Walker of Arlington offered the video clip as an example of false teaching during his chapel address at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary last fall. He said believers must be able to distinguish between genuine and counterfeit spirituality in a world overrun with denials of the gospel.
Watchman Fellowship is a nondenominational Christian research, apologetics and information ministry focusing on new religious movements, cults, the occult and the New Age movement.
“Except for God’s grace, any one of us could be involved in Wicca, the occult or New Age spirituality,” Walker said. “What we want to do is begin to understand and recognize what the difference between genuine and counterfeit is, but also to have a heart to reach out to those of other faiths.”
Malcolm Yarnell, associate professor of systematic theology at Southwestern, told the TEXAN that well-meaning believers may slip into error on some of the finer points of theology but the Bible uses the term “false teachers” to describe those who deny the heart of orthodox Christianity.
“I would define a false teacher as somebody who enters the church and begins to promote his own private interpretation,” Yarnell said, citing 2 Peter 2:1. “Such peculiar interpretations even bring these teachers and their followers to deny the Lord and his atoning work on the cross. However, such outright or veiled denials of Christ and the cross are not the only false teachings they bring.”
False teachers include those who deny the Trinity or the full deity and full humanity of the one person of Jesus Christ, as well as those who deny that Christ is the only way of salvation, he said, adding that believers may rightly call into question the salvation of anyone who truly falls into the category of false teacher.
“In light of 2 Peter 2:1, I cannot see how a true teacher could teach falsehood about Christ or his cross,” Yarnell said, “so I do indeed doubt whether a false teacher is saved.”
That view led Yarnell to conclude: “Therefore, yes, we should doubt the salvation of anyone who denies Christ–including a denial of who he is as God and man–and we should doubt the salvation of anyone who denies and downplays the cross of Christ, no matter how polished or persuasive he may be.”
Yarnell was careful to point out though, that Christians cannot classify anyone with whom they disagree theologically as a false teacher. For instance, Yarnell himself is an outspoken critic of five-point Calvinism, but would not tag leading proponents as false teachers.
Still, there are plenty of people who can definitively be classified as such, according to panelists at a November “Town Hall Meeting” broadcast on KCBI radio in Dallas last fall.
Jack Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano and former SBC president, said Southern Baptists are no strangers to combating false teachers because the denomination’s Conservative Resurgence centered on the correction of grave theological error.
“Nobody likes controversy, and yet there are some things worth fighting for,” Graham said. “And the fact that God has written a book, that God has given us his Word, truth without any mixture of error–that is the issue that is worth dying for. And we were determined in Southern Baptist life to return our churches and our schools, our seminaries, to that position of the inerrancy, the authority of Scripture because ultimately it always is a question of authority.”
Criswell College President Jerry Johnson, host of the Town Hall forum on false prophets, added: “If we’re going to get a handle on this issue we’ve got to affirm the authority, the integrity, the inspiration of Holy Scripture, the inerrancy of Holy Scripture. There are a lot of practical, doctrinal issues where throughout church history we’ve seen all kinds of heresy.”
The popular ideas and people who embody false teaching include the mainstreaming of Mormonism, ancient Eastern beliefs recast by celebrities like Oprah Winfrey into New Age philosophy, and subjecting God to man’s faith as taught by televangelists like Kenneth Copeland and Joyce Meyers.
COUNTERFEIT CHRISTIANITY
Mormonism tries to appear orthodox but actually denies the gospel, Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, said on the KCBI broadcast.
In a Sept. 30 sermon Jeffress said Mormonism is not Christianity, a statement that drew media attention. Amid discussion about Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s personal faith, Jeffress went on to say that people who want to elect a Christian president of the United States should not vote for a Mormon.
“Mitt Romney is a Mormon, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise,” Jeffress said. “Even though he talks about Jesus as his Lord and Savior, he is not a Christian. Mormonism is not Christianity. Mormonism is a cult.”
Walker explained in Southwestern’s chapel that Mormons believe Jesus was not the only son of God, that Jesus was married to three women and that there are better sources of spiritual information than the Bible. Mormons also deny the virgin birth and hold that after Christ died, he came to America to preach the gospel to the Native Americans, who were actually Jewish, Walker said.
Jehovah’s Witnesses also try to appear orthodox but deny the gospel, Walker said.
The Witnesses believe the angel Michael became Jesus, that Jesus did not become God until he was 30, that Jesus never died on the cross and that he never rose bodily. Instead, they believe his life-giving spirit arose, Walker said, but that his physical body is dead forever.
THE CHURCH OF OPRAH
As an adherent to the Eastern mysticism of the New Age Movement and a woman with vast influence, Oprah Winfrey is one of the most dangerous false teachers in the world today, said James A. Smith Sr., executive editor of the Florida Baptist Witness. (Read his column in the March 28 edition of the TEXAN.)
“In America’s celebrity-driven culture, perhaps the most harmful ‘Pied Piper’ of heresies leading millions astray is Oprah Winfrey,” Smith wrote in his editorial that drew attention in the tabloid National Enquirer. “Her adoption of anti-biblical doctrine is on display every day this year through her satellite radio channel ‘Oprah & Friends.’ It’s time for Christians to ‘just say no’ to the big ‘O.'”
Cky Carrigan, an apologetics specialist and evangelism professor at Southwestern, defined the New Age Movement, which Oprah advocates, as “an American and European form of ancient Eastern religious beliefs (Hinduism and Buddhism), combined with divination, earth-based religions, self-help theory, alternative healing techniques, astrology, and other non-Christian religious practices.”
Recently, Winfrey promoted a popular New Age book, “A Course in Miracles (ACIM).” Among the book’s content is a lesson headlined, “My salvation comes from me.”
“When you realize that all guilt is solely an invention of your mind, you also realize that guilt and salvation must be in the same place,” according to ACIM authors Helen Schucman and William Thetford. “In understanding this you are saved.”
The book also argues there is no such thing as sin; we must not make “the pathetic error of ‘clinging to the old rugged cross;’” the name of Jesus Christ is “a symbol that is safely used as a replacement for the many names of all the gods to which you pray;” and “God is in everything I see.”
“Winfrey’s influence is vast,” Smith wrote. “Tragically, far too many Christians—including many who would consider themselves conservative, Bible-believing evangelicals—are more likely to take their theological cues from Oprah than they are from their faithful pastors.”
WORD-FAITH MOVEMENT
Adherents of the word-faith movement teach “that God is subject to the power of faith and is obligated to grant every request made in faith,” Carrigan said. “They also teach that God and man are the same kind of being, which elevates the nature of man and undermines the nature of God.”
Among the prominent teachers in the word-faith movement are Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin and Joyce Meyer.
Meyer, a popular author and speaker, teaches that words shape reality and God is obligated to obey the faith-filled commands and desires of believers. Extending the orthodox Christian teaching that words are powerful, she asserts that words actually manipulate God.
In her tape series “Is Your Mouth Saved?” Meyer said, “Now I want you to realize that words are containers for power and they carry either creative or destructive power and we need to be very careful about the words of our mouth.”
“Kenneth Copeland should be classified as a heretic,” Yarnell said, “because of his undue elevation of man and denigration of God.”
Within the word-faith movement is the substratum of prosperity gospel adherents. Those who teach that God promises material blessings for Christians fail to understand the Bible’s teaching that as Jesus suffered, his followers will also suffer until they reach Heaven, Graham said.
“I have no problem with people teaching that God wants to bless them and that God gives abundance and abundant life to those who follow him,” Graham said. “But when you make that all about the money and that God somehow wants to make you rich, then you have created a gospel with a false end and a false proposition.
“He said ‘come and die; when you die you will live.’ And it is in the sacrifice and the submission of your life to Christ that you find the abundant life.”
KCBI panelists cited Houston pastor Joel Osteen as a prominent example of health and wealth preaching, which dilutes the gospel message to merely a self-help strategy.
NON_TRINITARIANS EMPHASIZE ONLY JESUS
Non-Trinitarians deny that God is three persons and one essence, and fall outside the bounds of orthodox Christianity, said Graham, who told a questioner at the KCBI “Town Hall Meeting” that believing in the Trinity is an essential of the Christian faith.
Often non-Trinitarians claim to be “Jesus only” Christians or emphasize one person of the Trinity and denigrate the others.
Yarnell said T.D. Jakes, a prominent Dallas minister, “should be classified as a heretic” because of an unorthodox view, if not a denial, of the Trinity.
Jakes has claimed a belief in the Trinity, but in the past has defined it differently, preferring God in “three manifestations”—a modalist phrase—instead of “three persons.” The Potter’s House website states: “There is one God, Creator of all things, infinitely perfect, and eternally existing in three manifestations: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”
EXAMING TEACHERS’ ORTHODOXY
While there is theological error within the so-called emerging church models, believers should be careful about classifying the movement’s leaders as false teachers, Yarnell said.
“The emerging church movement includes both those who are steeped in theological error, Brian McLaren, for example,” and those who Yarnell said are more acceptable, such as Mark Driscoll, even though he has concerns about some of Driscoll’s positions, he said.
Driscoll began the emerging movement with McLaren and several others, but later separated himself from what he has deemed as the liberal direction of the original group.
In his book “Vintage Jesus: Timeless Answers to Timely Questions,” co-authored with Gerry Breshears, Driscoll argued that Jesus is the only savior and cited John Lennon, Homer Simpson, Mahatma Gandhi, Oprah Winfrey and Stephen Colbert as people who teach an unbiblical view of salvation.
“The exclusivity, superiority, and the singularity of Jesus are precisely the teaching of Scripture,” Driscoll wrote. “This anchoring truth, that Jesus is our only savior, is in many ways responsible for much of the opposition and persecution that Christians from the early church or the present have encountered.”
To combat the vast number of false teachers, the most important step believers can take is to preach the truth and know the truth, Yarnell said.
“The best way for pastors and churches to guard their people against false teachers is to preach thoroughly the Word of God and nothing else,” he said. “We must become less concerned about reflecting the culture and become absolutely consumed with the divine mandate to preach the gospel from the Bible.”
Tim Challies, a Canadian author who edits the website discerningreader.com, remarked that the best way to guard against a counterfeit is to know the truth.
“Once a doctrine has veered away from truth, it will not return but will carry on its trajectory until it does not look like truth at all,” Challies wrote. “If we were looking for counterfeit money, we would look for missing watermarks, poor-quality printing, and other sure signs of something that is fraudulent. With the spiritual, we look for ways in which it departs from God’s Word. While most doctrine will typically follow the Scripture for a while, any false doctrine will depart at one point or another.”
Bible teacher Anne Graham Lotz told KCBI listeners that the “enormous ignorance in the pew” leads to apathy and eventually political correctness, and ultimately a lack of courage.
“We don’t have the courage to stand up for what we believe because we don’t have convictions that would drive that courage,” she said. “My heart goes out to pastors. I think a lot of them are doing a very faithful job and then get badgered by people in the pew who want to hear something more popular and pleasing and comfortable.”
She reminded the audience, “Christians need to know what we believe and why we believe it. The individual believer sitting in the pew has a hug responsibility for what they know and the pastors they choose to sit under. The person in the pew is not accepting responsibility. When I stand before God, I’m not going to give an account for my pastor, but for me.”
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