A New Religion

It is clear that a new religion is emerging - mostly within western countries – and it can be characterized as a ‘Trojan horse’ inside certain mainline churches.

This new religion is not Christian and very far removed from reformed principles like salvation by faith in Jesus Christ alone. This emerging religion is simply the ‘religious arm’ of the secular philosophy of post modernism.

This movement has some very charismatic prophets promoting its cause – people mostly from church backgrounds.

Karen Armstrong springs to mind. She is a former Catholic nun, She believes that all religions and even secular traditions are saying very much the same thing in much the same way, despite their cosmetic differences.

Or the Scott Richard Holloway who used to be Bishop of Edinburgh in the Scottish Episcopal Church and ex Professor of Divinity. He ‘evolved’ from being a conservative theologian into a liberal theologian to end up becoming an agnostic. His mission in life is now to put the “major Christian myths” in their historical context thereby laying the foundations for a ‘christianity’ for those without faith in the traditional church and/or traditional understanding of the Bible and who are now 'dancing on the edge'.

And Thomas Moore with his new age and ‘paganistic’ ideas.

What does this lead to? GEAR is a group who promotes renewal within the URC. It is tragic, isn’t it? The church should be the bringer of the Good News within the community by spreading the gospel. But, because of these liberal ideas that are being nurtured within the church it is losing focus of its message and is fast becoming the object of evangelism. Same story in the Church of England. Their movement is called ‘Reform’ and they are committed to reforming the Church of England from within according to the Holy Scriptures.

Whilst the churches in the rich western countries kept themselves busy with burning secular issues like feminism, environmentalism, humanism, ‘homosexualism’, post modernism or paganism, they completely missed the explosive southward expansion of Christianity into Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

Whilst the rich west had the time, money, freedom and liberty of indulging themselves in above mentioned ‘burning issues’ other poorer parts of the world were exposed to the message of Jesus who died on the cross and were raised from the dead so those who believe in Him can be saved.

Take the small country of Nepal where the church there is growing faster than in any other nation. China is another example of the incredible growth of Christianity. The small country of Benin in Africa is another case of spreading Christianity. Although Benin suffers from poor health care, lack of clean water, poor education, and a high rate of HIV/AIDS, its church growth is still explosive.

I can assure you none of these new Christians were converted or came to faith by reading any of the books of the above mentioned authors.

Some say that the typical Christian in a few years’ time will not be a rich westerner but most probably a woman living in a Nigerian village or in a Brazilian shantytown.

Christians in the self indulgent, rich western Churches are being told the lie that they must compromise their beliefs to remain relevant in this post modern era. The opposite is the case. Biblical orthodoxy (or should I rather say the much hated fundamentalists) is winning converts while churches that have lost its Biblical moorings languish.

This new age liberalism is only a fashion and popular human philosophy – it will change in a few years – and what will be left with? – agnostic pagans?