Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future: Part 8, Denatured Christianity

Although not all globalists and globalist organizations share specifically religious goals, they are certainly united in their view of what kind of religion will not fit into the one-world system they are working to create. Conservative, traditional adherents of a religion, who believe that their religion is a unique revelation of the fullness of truth, will not be welcome in the “global village.” As Paul Chaffee, board member of the United Religions Initiative, said in 1997: “We can’t afford fundamentalists in a world this small.” The same view was expressed at the 1998 State of the World Forum (sponsored by a host of international investors and corporations), where Forum president Jim Garrison announced: “If my theology is an impediment, then I have to get rid of my theology… I think history is moving beyond dogma… During times of transition, orthodoxies fall and the heretics and mavericks are the people creating the new orthodoxy.”

Also in 1998, this subject was discussed in some detail by one of the more recent ideologues of the “new religious consciousness,” Ken Wilber. A popular author whose works have been praised and avidly studied by both former President Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore, Wilber outlined the agenda that the world must follow in order to combine science with religion, as well as to establish a “universal theology” which all religions can embrace without losing their outward differences. “Religions the world over,” he writes, “will have to bracket their mythic beliefs,” and he cites as examples Moses parting the Red Sea, Christ being born of a Virgin, and the creation occurring in six days. Further, he says that “religion will also have to adjust its attitude towards evolution in general,” and “any religion that attempts to reject evolution seals its own fate in the modern world.”

As we have seen, evolution is a key element in the New Age utopian dream. A pantheist, Wilber believes that the entire universe is God, evolving throughout billions of years towards Teilhard de Chardin’s “Omega Point.” Man, having evolved from a primordial soup, now evolves toward total God-consciousness, and in this way even God is in the process of becoming. According to New Age thought, with Darwin’s “discovery” of physical evolution, and even more so with the “discovery” of spiritual evolution, evolution has become conscious of itself, and this new paradigm shift will accelerate the process of cosmic evolution. Thus it is that, in Wilber’s view, those religious believers who reject evolution and “pledge allegiance to a mythic Eden in any actual sense” are destined for extinction. Only those who embrace the new religious consciousness, or who at least “bracket” their religious beliefs, will survive in the coming global society, which Wilber says will be marked by a “worldcentric” awareness based in “universal pluralism.”

Since traditional Christianity is an obstacle to the dreams of globalists both on the secular and spiritual fronts, there is now a concerted effort to reinterpret and denature the Christian faith — to transform Christ from a Divine-human, unique Saviour of Christian orthodoxy to a mere “spiritual guide” of the New Age variety.

We have already discussed how the feminist theologians of the Re-imagining movement have sought to reinvent Christianity: for them, Christ is not particularly unique, but is only one of the many “expressions” or “servants” of the goddess Sophia. These theologians, however, represent only one facet of the cultural trend to denature Christianity.

If, according to the neopagan view, we and everything else are but emanations of God, then there is nothing for Christ to do but guide us back to knowledge (gnosis) of what we already are. This idea is precisely what is being promoted today under the guise of being the authentic, esoteric teaching of Christ. In actual fact, it is but a revival of the ancient Gnostic heresy, based on pagan philosophy, that was rightly condemned by the early Fathers of the Orthodox Church. This message of Gnostic “Christianity” is being publicized today through the writings and media appearances of scholars with an obvious bias against traditional Christianity, chief among whom is Elaine Pagels, author of The Gnostic Gospels and Beyond Belief. The same message has recently received much attention through the quasi-historical novel The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown: a blasphemous assault on traditional Christianity that has sold over twelve million copies since its publication in 2003.

Ken Wilber speaks of the teachings that are being “rediscovered” in the ancient Gnostic texts: “It is obvious from these texts that Jesus’ primary religious activity was to incarnate in and as his followers, in the manner, not of the only historical Son of God (a monstrous notion), but of a true Spiritual Guide helping all to become sons and daughters of God… Elaine Pagels points out that there are three essential strands to the esoteric message of Christ, as revealed in the Gnostic Gospels: (1) ‘Self-knowledge is knowledge of God; the highest self and the divine are identical.’ (2) ‘The “living Jesus” of these texts speaks of illusion and enlightenment, not of sin and repentance.’ (3) Jesus is presented not as Lord but as spiritual guide.’

Here is a clear outline of the “new Christianity” that can easily be accommodated by the “religion of the future” — an imitation Christianity that leads not to Christ but to antichrist. Here, Christ is seen as a vague concept of ultimate Good, the belief in Him as the only begotten Son of God is rejected as a “monstrous notion,” and the idea is put forth that we ourselves can be just like Him. This is a crucial element in the “religion of the future,” for by it the antichrist will actually convince everyone that he is another incarnate Son of God.

In one sense, the imitator of Christ will appear as a kind of saviour, solving man’s economic and political problems and offering to satisfy his spiritual aspirations through what Fr. Seraphim called a “melting pot” of science and world religions. According to the worldview of the “new religious consciousness,” however, the ultimate saviour will be evolution itself, moving forward in a natural development of this world into supposedly the Kingdom of God. The last great deceiver, who in the end will pretend to be Christ, will be seen as but another magnificent product of evolution.