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

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. This is part two of the two-part interview series that

00:00:15.360 I am doing with Stephen Bancar. So this is the second half of our conversation. Equally

00:00:22.200 as powerful, if not even more powerful than the first half. And I know that you guys are

00:00:26.760 going to gain a lot of insight out of this. So I hope you enjoy.

00:00:36.540 I think that it's important to make the distinction as Christians between, for example,

00:00:41.280 working out your own salvation with fear and trembling, knowing it is God who works in us,

00:00:46.360 and constantly obsessing over self-discovery and taking assessment after assessment,

00:00:53.680 personality test after personality test, looking at our different zodiac signs to try to find out

00:01:00.460 who we really are on the inside. So there are two different ways that we kind of have the

00:01:05.800 relationship with the self. Like you said, one that I think is Christ-centered, that is focused on our

00:01:13.580 own sanctification through the Holy Spirit, our own relationship with God, and even the talents

00:01:18.360 that he has given us uniquely. I think all of that is good. And that is very different. And

00:01:25.080 not just in its methods, but also in the peace that it offers versus the new age way of doing that,

00:01:32.980 or really just the secular world's way of doing that, which is saying that the road to self-discovery

00:01:38.260 is going to be your end destination. And also, it's also going to give you the peace and fulfillment

00:01:46.540 that you're looking for. And it just won't. You can know yourself as much as possible.

00:01:51.020 That in and of itself is not going to give you peace. Do you agree with that?

00:01:55.100 Yeah, I would agree. Unless on your path to knowing yourself, you come to the realization that

00:02:00.180 you're a fallen human creature and that you need salvation. But that's not where that path is taking 0.81

00:02:05.420 you. That path is trying to pump your tires up and inflate your sense of self, right? An honest path

00:02:12.060 of self-discovery is the path to, I'm broken. I'm a sinner. I'm in need of salvation. I need someone

00:02:18.780 to help me. I need help. Versus, I'm intrinsically good. You know, I'm a good person. Right. I have

00:02:26.620 God or the spark of divinity, or I'm a fragment of the creator itself. Right. And I'm the center of

00:02:34.520 the universe, and I should be the center of my universe. And I have the answers hidden within me

00:02:38.460 somewhere. And I just have to have them drawn out. Versus, if you actually examine yourself

00:02:45.360 from an honest, moral, and spiritual lens, you're going to see that you're depraved. You're going to

00:02:50.400 see wickedness in your own heart. You're going to see lying, thieving, adultery of heart, murder of

00:02:55.900 heart, all kinds of wickedness. Yeah. And blasphemy against God. And that was the self-discovery I really

00:03:03.140 needed. And that's the self-discovery that, you know, when I read the Gospels, and I read the

00:03:08.440 New Testament, I was like, where was this idea coming from that my entire spiritual system was

00:03:12.660 premised on? That I'm God by nature, which is an ontological error. That I'm connected to God by

00:03:20.340 nature relationally, which is an error of, you know, understanding our relational separation between

00:03:26.300 God and myself. And also this idea that I'm intrinsically good. Like, where did that come from?

00:03:31.980 There's like 30, 40 verses in the New Testament that completely overthrow that. And that takes the

00:03:36.540 weight off. Once again, it's supposed to. It's supposed to take the weight off because there's

00:03:40.920 freedom in the biblical worldview. Like Jesus says, you will know the truth and the truth will set you

00:03:46.560 free. It says, take my yoke upon you, my teaching upon you, for you will find rest unto your souls.

00:03:52.300 So the teaching of Jesus is that you're not enough. You're not expected to be enough. You're expected to

00:03:59.020 turn to Christ and rely on Christ who is enough. And that's a major spiritual living difference between

00:04:05.440 new age spirituality and Christian spirituality. Um, is that Christianity is you're focused on

00:04:11.260 someone else who's not you and someone else's goodness. Who's not you versus this narcissistic

00:04:17.220 self-focus where it's me and my goodness and my, my nature and my potential. And that's the

00:04:23.900 gravitational pull of my spiritual life. My life, my life is centered around that versus no, I'm fallen.

00:04:30.900 I have problems. I need help. It's centered about someone else's goodness, someone else's spiritual

00:04:35.300 work. And so, yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm personally, to be honest, I've only been saved four and a half

00:04:40.480 years, but I'm still having to come out of these old mindsets still like the renewal of the mind as a

00:04:45.840 process where I can focus on how am I doing spiritually this week? Have I done enough spiritually this

00:04:51.540 week versus am I folk? Am I Christ focused this week? Instead of like grading myself based on how

00:05:01.360 many hours it should be, how Christ focused am I in my heart? Right. Instead of this kind of system,

00:05:08.480 we set up of performance and that we grade ourselves against some standard we've made up in our own

00:05:13.280 minds and God's up there. Like, what do you, why are you so focused on you? And it's a habit we can get

00:05:20.320 into as self-centered human creatures. Yeah. And the new age movement capitalizes on that. Yeah.

00:05:25.820 And feeds it with this false understanding of your intrinsic goodness, because we like being

00:05:30.160 self-centered. Absolutely. You know, it's our, it's our fallen nature. And the new age movement

00:05:35.060 is really based around that. It's based around that selfish desire where we want to be self-sovereign.

00:05:41.980 Yeah. We want to be the center of the universe. We don't want someone telling us what to do.

00:05:45.180 We want to be the arbiter of truth, the arbiter of morality. Yeah. And this is very general speaking

00:05:51.600 in very general terms, but that's really what the new age movement is premised on. Not just that man

00:05:55.900 is God by nature, but that man is God of his life, functionally speaking. I have a couple more. Oh,

00:06:02.360 sorry. Go ahead. Go ahead. I would just say it's a horrible God to have. Right. Your, yourself is a

00:06:08.780 horrible God to have. You can't tell yourself anything you don't know. Yep. You're really

00:06:13.600 unqualified to be your own God. And I am too. Right. And there's only one who's qualified.

00:06:17.600 There's only one who's all knowing, all loving, all good. And it's not us. Right. And there's

00:06:23.020 freedom in that. There's so much freedom in that. The God of self is, its burdens are heavy and its

00:06:29.660 yoke is, is very difficult. We are unmerciful gods. We're ungracious gods. We don't, we're not

00:06:36.620 omniscient gods. We're not omnipotent gods. We can't deliver ourselves. We can't even 0.76

00:06:41.460 understand our own hearts. We can't lead ourselves in the right way. And so as empowering as it might

00:06:47.620 seem, as you've said so many times so wonderfully, is actually very burdensome. And the true freedom

00:06:54.300 comes from the truth of Christ who promises to bear our burdens. And how gracious is he

00:06:58.800 that he calls himself our burden bearer.

00:07:06.620 Um, I want to ask you how the journey has been after you, you know, posted on your Facebook

00:07:14.080 page saying, you know, I was wrong about all of this. What was the immediate reaction? And

00:07:18.860 then what has been some of the pushback that you've experienced since then?

00:07:23.600 Yeah. So when I made that post on Facebook, um, on all my social media accounts, I had a joint

00:07:30.900 following of about a million people. And I was hit with, I mean, I knew no Christians. I had no

00:07:39.600 Christians follow me. It was nothing but new agers. And they're hearing that their worldview,

00:07:43.260 which is for them, their source of identity.

00:07:45.780 That's where they get there.

00:07:47.100 Sorry. One quick question. Since you said no Christians follow you, would you say that

00:07:50.640 some new agers though, still identify as Christians as well?

00:07:55.540 Yeah. I would say some do because they have an understanding. I meant no, no Christians 1.00

00:08:01.240 followed me at that time when I made that post, but some new agers would say, well, I'm a Christian,

00:08:06.320 but what they really mean is I adhere to the Christian ethic.

00:08:10.300 Right.

00:08:11.360 Right. So when Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and life, what he really means is

00:08:14.820 his way of life is the way, right? So I believe we should be forgiving people and taking the role of

00:08:20.560 the servant and loving people. So I'm a Christian insofar as I agree with this certain set of

00:08:25.420 moral principles that existed for thousands of years before Jesus even got here. When that's

00:08:30.540 not what it means to be a Christian, you have to believe in a certain set of theological

00:08:34.400 distinctives. Jesus is God in the flesh. He died on the cross for human sin. He rose on the third day

00:08:40.260 and all who believe in him, who repent and believe in him will have eternal life. That's what it

00:08:43.620 really means to be a Christian and actually be born again. But for them to be a Christian means to 0.95

00:08:47.900 agree with the general moral and spiritual inclination of Jesus toward loving people, which by the way,

00:08:54.200 I would, you, I don't think there's a single verse in all of the gospels, and I've looked,

00:08:58.700 where he talks about loving people as an end in itself. It's always meant to go to the glory of

00:09:04.840 God. Right. Right. Forgive others so that your father in heaven will forgive you. If you don't

00:09:10.220 forgive others, your father won't forgive you. Right. When you do good works, do them so that your

00:09:14.280 father in heaven may be glorified. Right. Even the golden rule, do unto others as you would have them do

00:09:19.960 unto you, uh, and love your, uh, love your neighbor as yourself for on these hang the law and the

00:09:25.360 prophets. Right. So the old Testament law, 613 laws that were given to God's people and the prophets

00:09:35.080 referring to the prophets of God and the authors of the old Testament scriptures, or some of them were

00:09:40.640 prophets, um, that all of that is fulfilled. The entire old covenant with man that God made is lived

00:09:47.960 out through loving our neighbor as ourself. But these verses are never taught in isolation.

00:09:53.060 They're always taught within a very specific religious framework. And people want to isolate

00:09:59.040 these moral values from the religious and theological framework Jesus placed them in and then say,

00:10:04.500 oh, well, I live by those general airy fairy principles that existed before he got here.

00:10:09.080 Okay. Well, what's the second half of that verse you quoted from, right? Like what is Jesus actually

00:10:14.360 trying to communicate here? That these are the, to love your neighbor as yourself is the greatest

00:10:18.720 command next to loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind, right? Love your neighbor as

00:10:25.800 yourself. Okay. Well, what's the, what's the command Jesus has is greater than that one. And who does he

00:10:29.840 mean by God? He defines God as being the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So are we willing to love

00:10:35.340 the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as much as we're willing to love our neighbor as ourself? If not,

00:10:39.540 you're not a Christian, right? You're a Christian in title because you've redefined what Christian 0.97

00:10:43.800 means anyway. So people will call themselves that incorrectly. Yes. But people saw when I made these

00:10:51.500 posts online, um, and emails, I was sending out emails to people, uh, you know, an email list of

00:10:58.560 like 90,000 people. And to just see my inbox the next day blow up with craziness, people telling me,

00:11:04.980 I mean, swearing at me like crazy, but telling me to go kill myself, telling me to rid myself off the

00:11:08.640 fear of the earth. Oh my gosh. Right. And what I quickly realized was that inclusivity and love

00:11:14.280 applies really to everyone except Christians. Um, like there was so much talk about all religions

00:11:20.840 are equally valid. All religions lead to the same destination in the end. You know, we should all

00:11:25.880 be unified with one another and we hate anything that causes division and strife and disunity for

00:11:31.980 religious or spiritual reasons until someone comes out and says you're wrong and that there's only

00:11:37.060 one path to God. And then you are no longer able and willing to live by that same standard

00:11:42.920 that you want to enforce on others. And that's obviously Jesus says, you know, Jesus says the

00:11:48.680 world hates me because I testify of it, that its works are evil. Right. And so, you know, the servant

00:11:53.960 isn't greater than his master. And so by us being Christians, we're implying that there's something

00:12:00.120 in their life that needs to change, that they need to surrender, that they need to repent for,

00:12:05.520 and they don't like that. Um, a good analogy might be, you know, we run away from God like a guilty

00:12:11.220 criminal runs away from the police. Um, we don't want to be seen by God. We don't want to be known

00:12:16.940 by God because if we come to the light, it's going to be made evident that our works are done in

00:12:20.340 darkness. So we hate the light, you know, John three, this is the judgment that light has come

00:12:23.960 into the world. People love darkness rather than light. So anyway, that's being provoked in people's

00:12:29.100 soul and in people's consciences because this is their identity. This is this, they get their

00:12:33.440 identity from their new age spirituality, right? This is who I am. I am a God or a goddess.

00:12:39.520 They get their security from it. This is what gives me comfort and helps me self-soothe and self-medicate.

00:12:46.900 A lot of people in this movement are trauma survivors. This is people's source of, um, you know,

00:12:53.260 love and community and power. This is how they empower themselves, right? We need to be empowered

00:12:59.400 by what God says about us in scripture, right? Instead of these false narratives we create about

00:13:04.860 ourselves. What does God say about us now that we're in Christ? Are we a holy nation and a royal

00:13:09.240 priesthood? You know, are we children of God? Are we accepted in the beloved? You know, in one sense,

00:13:15.220 you can say that's empowerment, but it's just the truth. But they use false narratives to empower

00:13:19.160 themselves and you take away their power structure, their crutches that they're keeping themselves afloat on

00:13:23.300 and they just lose it. And so a lot of people just completely lost their minds. Um, and the kind of

00:13:29.940 like mockery and, you know, laughter and name calling is just off the charts. I don't even remember a lot

00:13:35.700 of it, to be honest. Every friend that I had of the new age movement, um, that ended. And yeah, it was a

00:13:43.600 long time before Christian started following me. It started when I made a testimony video and released

00:13:47.640 it on my YouTube channel explaining to the new agers what happened to me and where I came from.

00:13:52.200 And then I started making videos for them because they kept coming at me with the same objections

00:13:57.640 over and over and over again. Well, you know, didn't Jesus teach Christ consciousness? Wasn't

00:14:03.300 he teaching us how to reach a state of divine awareness that he had through self-discovery and

00:14:09.220 practicing the correct ethic that he, that he practiced? So I would answer this question of

00:14:14.220 Christ consciousness going from scripture. Well, what about the second coming? Isn't that a metaphor for

00:14:18.740 Christ consciousness incarnating in a sense in people around the world as they awaken to their

00:14:23.480 own divinity? Like Eckhart Tolle teaches, like Deepak Chopra teaches, like Marianne Williamson teaches,

00:14:28.840 like Oprah Winfrey teaches. So I'd have to answer that as the second coming of metaphor. So I made all

00:14:32.960 these videos, um, answering them and eventually Christian started supporting me and, uh, getting a

00:14:40.360 hold of some of my content. And it has been nice to have some actual support instead of just tens of

00:14:44.560 thousands of people mocking you and debating with you all day, every day. I bet. Yeah. But people

00:14:48.900 went crazy. But here's the thing is that our problem isn't with people. Right. Right. Ephesians 0.98

00:14:53.160 six, our problem is spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. So when people mistreat you,

00:14:59.080 um, you are not their enemy. Really their enemies, God, right? They're at enmity with God in their hearts

00:15:06.400 and in their minds. Um, they're hostile to the law of God. So their problem is getting close to you

00:15:11.500 and hearing you reminds them of the sin that remains in them, that they don't want to deal

00:15:16.100 with. They don't want to face and iron that stuff out before God. But also we have to understand that

00:15:19.860 a lot of people are demonically oppressed by one spirit or another. I wouldn't say every single

00:15:25.620 person. There's not an unlimited amount of demons, but, um, Satan is the deceiver. You know, Satan is

00:15:32.060 the one who blinds the mind, the blinds, the eyes of unbelievers. Second Corinthians four, four,

00:15:36.020 right. Second Timothy two versus 25 to 26 tells us to, um, address our opponents with gentleness

00:15:43.160 that God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to knowledge of the truth that they may

00:15:47.420 escape from the snare of the devil. Right. And so when I'm talking to someone who's not saved and

00:15:51.980 they're freaking out at me, I have to know that they're, they're hurting, they're hurting broken

00:15:57.160 people. First of all, second of all, the problem is with God and not me. And third of all, they're

00:16:00.920 probably spiritually oppressed. Yeah. And so it's easy, easy to not take things personally. It's like

00:16:07.060 if you're walking down the street and a blind person bumps into you, you're not going to be upset

00:16:12.500 with them. Right. The Bible says that people who are unsaved, they're spiritually blind. They literally

00:16:17.440 can't see. They're not able to see what you see. And so reading all these verses about the depravity

00:16:23.460 of man, whether we want to call it total depravity or radical depravity, depending on what side of the

00:16:27.780 sense we lean on, but seeing all these verses about man's state without God, right? Dead in sin,

00:16:34.400 Jude 19, devoid of the spirit, right? Luke 1, I believe it's 70 something. They sit in the valleys

00:16:41.240 of the, in darkness of the shadow of death. Like they have no light in them. And so having that as my

00:16:48.480 basis for enduring persecution, it was very helpful. Right. The truth, the full scope of the truth about

00:16:55.660 man's depravity, the biblical worldview is meant to comfort us and as believers. And it did for me.

00:17:03.740 But a lot of people also were curious and they were like, Hey, you know, we've trusted you for a

00:17:08.940 while. Let's stick around and see what you have to say. Yeah. And I've had people message me saying,

00:17:15.360 you know what? I hated you when you came out and started talking about Jesus. But a few years later,

00:17:20.020 I realized what you were saying was true and I've come to Christ now. And so there's been a lot of

00:17:25.000 people who've come out of the new age movement who used to follow me when I was a new age,

00:17:28.320 who came out shortly after, including Doreen Virtue, who you had on your channel. And that

00:17:34.580 was crazy to me because she said that my videos helped give her courage to come forward with her

00:17:38.420 testimony. Yeah. And I was, go ahead. Oh, I was just going to encourage you with just how the Lord

00:17:46.300 works because after my interview with Doreen Virtue, most listened to episode that I've ever done. And

00:17:52.240 that's really saying something because I've been doing this for over two years, most listened to

00:17:56.180 episode that I've ever done. And just last week, I actually got an email from a friend whose friend

00:18:01.640 who is not a Christian, very into the new age, very into yoga as a spiritual practice, was, you know,

00:18:07.980 maybe had considered herself in line with some Christian values, but was not a Christian. I came to

00:18:14.140 her friend and said, you know, I listened to this interview that Ali Stuckey did with Doreen Virtue.

00:18:19.560 I dug into Doreen Virtue's YouTube videos, and I realized that I was believing all of this stuff,

00:18:26.940 and I wasn't a Christian, and now I am. And so how amazing of the Lord that he worked through

00:18:32.880 your testimony, which affected Doreen Virtue, and her testimony, which now has affected, you know,

00:18:38.880 thousands of people as well as yours has. And people are realizing the truth, and the truth is

00:18:44.140 setting them free. So I just want to thank you, first of all, for your willingness to use a platform

00:18:52.040 that you have to share what the Lord has done in your life. Yeah, thank you. And what it comes down

00:18:58.520 to really is the Lord's love for people. He has a salvific love for people. He wants to be

00:19:04.980 reconciled with people. You know, Paul says that Christians have been given the ministry of

00:19:08.860 reconciliation, right? God wants to see people restored unto himself, and you can't be restored

00:19:14.280 unto God through any other way except the cross of Christ, right? God's holy, he's just, he requires

00:19:20.500 a price to be paid for our moral offenses, for our sins, and that was paid in full by Jesus when our

00:19:27.140 sins were imputed to Christ on the cross, right? So he judged Jesus as though Jesus were us. Jesus was

00:19:34.480 our substitute and died as our proxy, right? Our sin was laid upon him. God's wrath and justice was

00:19:40.800 satisfied in the death of Christ. And, you know, something I heard Paul Washer talk about one time,

00:19:46.520 it was an interesting way to think about it. You have Christian martyrs who would rejoice and sing

00:19:51.920 hymns on their way to being executed, and be singing and praising God as they're being burnt alive.

00:19:57.780 But then you have Jesus weeping in the garden, you know, tears of blood, as it says, which is a

00:20:04.800 medical condition when pores end up bursting because of such high degrees of stress. And he's

00:20:11.580 saying, take this cup from me, let this pass from me, right? So how is it that Christian men and women 1.00

00:20:16.920 throughout history counted all joy to die on behalf of the God of the Bible, but here's Jesus in the

00:20:24.320 garden crying saying, don't let this happen to me, right? He wasn't scared of what man, his stress and

00:20:29.480 his anxiety was not that he was going to have his beard pulled out and be hit in the face and be hung

00:20:35.420 crucified. That was not his beef. That was not his problem. His, what he was concerned about was not what

00:20:42.740 man was going to do to him on the cross, but what God was going to do to him on that cross. What's it going

00:20:47.820 to be like to have the sin of the world laid on my shoulders to bear their sin in my body? What's it

00:20:55.640 going to be like, Isaiah 53 10, to have Yahweh crush me? It pleased Yahweh to crush him as his soulmate 0.94

00:21:02.480 in offering for guilt. So there was a spiritual transaction that happened on the cross between

00:21:06.400 our sin and Jesus. And the point is that the reason why Jesus did all this and God loves all,

00:21:12.820 did all this is because he loves us. He wants relationship with us, right? Because of the great

00:21:17.500 love with which he loved us, he did this. And so he wants to be in relationship with us. And the point

00:21:23.360 is that the new age movement can't offer that. The new age movement cannot offer a reconciliation

00:21:28.080 between man and God. It's a false theology. It's a false worldview. Your guilt is still with you.

00:21:34.840 What do you do with your sin before a holy God after living life as a new ager? You're going to stand 1.00

00:21:40.240 and you're going to give an account for your life. And you're going to be judged guilty and not

00:21:44.980 innocent because the blood of Jesus hasn't been applied to you, hasn't been appropriated to you

00:21:49.440 through faith, through repentance and faith. And so the new age movement is going to leave you

00:21:54.380 in a worse position than you were to begin with, unreconciled with God. Now, the new age movement

00:22:00.040 will define God to be an energy in nature or some impersonal force that dwells within you.

00:22:06.400 And you'll live your life trying to cultivate a relationship with what you think is God.

00:22:12.060 And then you're going to be thinking that every time some kind of synchronicity or coincidence

00:22:16.340 happens in your life, that that is that thing, that idea of God that you have working in your life.

00:22:23.280 You know, he protected me and he's leading me and he's guiding me and I can just see it. I just know

00:22:27.500 it. And when I close my eyes and I pray and I think about him, I just feel at peace in my soul.

00:22:32.380 You have an idol, an image in your head that you're using to self-medicate, basically. And

00:22:39.280 you're looking for things that aren't there and you're putting together pieces that aren't there

00:22:43.000 to create this narrative that's not true, that God has been active in your life and involved in

00:22:47.540 your life. And that was such an ego blow for me as a new ager coming to Christ. I had to admit to

00:22:51.940 myself, I didn't know God. God was not active in my life in the way that I thought he was.

00:22:56.340 Absolutely. God's plan is to draw you and to lead you to Christ and everything else is just,

00:23:01.320 you know. Anyway, go ahead. Sorry.

00:23:03.560 No, that's okay. I didn't know. I thought that you had finished, but if you need to finish the

00:23:08.060 answer, please do.

00:23:10.060 No, I was just going to say it's easy for us to be self-deceived thinking we have a relationship

00:23:13.820 with God when we have a relationship to an image we have in our minds and that creates positive

00:23:19.220 emotions in us. And then we mistake those emotions as being the love of God itself.

00:23:24.200 And it's a very easy deception to fall into. And that is really what is driving this self-empowerment

00:23:31.380 movement around this false God and the new age movement itself. You have a relationship to an

00:23:35.380 idol in your mind. It's therapeutic. It's helping you be a better person. But in the end, it's not God.

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00:25:18.920 How do you see the new age kind of subtly seeping into the Christian church? What would you say that

00:25:26.780 Christians should look out for? Definitely look out for yoga in the church. That's a big one. And 1.00

00:25:33.860 that's not so subtle. You'll have A, Christian ministries teaching yoga, but B, churches themselves

00:25:40.600 opening up their sanctuary to either yoga studios or to teach yoga to their own congregants. I was

00:25:48.120 visiting a church recently. They built a new one up the street. I popped in. I wanted to see what was

00:25:52.400 going on. They had people come in with yoga mats. They were doing a yoga class for their congregants.

00:25:56.780 And tell everyone what's wrong with that for those who don't know.

00:26:01.400 Yeah. So the word yoga means union, and it refers to union between the personal self and the universal

00:26:06.860 self. It refers to union between the Atman and Brahman, right? So the Hindu worldview is that all is 0.87

00:26:13.920 Brahman and Brahman is all. It's pantheistic. You're ultimately Brahman. And the goal and purpose of yoga is

00:26:19.340 not just to be physically fit and to stretch out and to feel better in your body. The goal of yoga,

00:26:25.340 those things are all a means to an end to realizing you are unified with Brahman and to live from that 1.00

00:26:30.700 state of being unified with Brahman, which they would call moksha. So we live in a state of maya,

00:26:36.200 which is self-deception, which is delusion. We're ignorant of our true nature. And the goal of yoga

00:26:40.680 is to help you reach a state of consciousness called moksha, where you are self-realized as Brahman.

00:26:45.840 And a lot of these postures people are holding, the warm-up routine is a sun salutation

00:26:50.720 posture. You know, you have warrior pose, one, two, and three. This is actually a polytheistic

00:26:57.060 murder scene that you're imitating with your body, right? It's called Virabhadrasana one,

00:27:01.860 Virabhadrasana two, Virabhadrasana three. And people go to yoga studios and they're, you know,

00:27:06.400 practicing this thinking it's, you know, helping me be more in shape and helping me with back pain,

00:27:11.760 making me be more flexible.

00:27:13.020 But you're actually, yeah, exactly. But these postures are meant to invoke the properties,

00:27:20.040 the essences, and the qualities of these gods, these deities into your life.

00:27:26.640 So Virabhadrasana, let me give just one quick example, very, very common yoga pose,

00:27:30.780 warrior one, two, three, very popular sequence, universal sequence. And so you have Shiva who wanted

00:27:37.760 to marry Daksha's daughter, whose name was Sati, but Daksha either didn't attend the wedding or

00:27:43.420 wouldn't let them get married. There's different understandings of this mythology. But Shiva was

00:27:49.500 really upset at Daksha for interfering with his marriage with Sati. So he turned himself into this

00:27:56.100 thousand-headed monster called Virabhadrasana. And he walked over to Daksha and took out a sword and

00:28:02.260 cut off his head and then placed it on a stake. And when you're doing the warrior sequence,

00:28:07.140 in yoga, your first pose is you preparing yourself for battle, which is this, I believe. The second

00:28:14.860 pose is you're stretched out and that's, you're getting ready to attack. And then the third pose

00:28:20.460 is you're outstretched forward and you have your hands stretched out in front of you and your back

00:28:25.680 leg is outbalanced behind you. And that is to imitate Shiva or Virabhadrasana, putting the head

00:28:31.740 of Daksha on a stake. So how can you imitate God in your body, or sorry, imitate God? How can you be

00:28:37.580 an imitator of God and glorify God in your body? Like the Bible says, if you're imitating a polytheistic

00:28:44.160 murder scene with your body, how can you do that in the name of Jesus unto the glory of God

00:28:49.280 in that moment? You can't, it's impossible.

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00:30:06.000 What are some other ways in addition to yoga that you see the New Age seeping into the Christian 0.94

00:30:18.920 church? Under the guise of contemplative prayer, that would be another one. And there's a difference

00:30:24.920 between praying contemplatively and contemplative prayer, which is a practice that was created by

00:30:31.840 a group of Roman Catholic mystics in the 20th century. And some of them have passed on now,

00:30:38.840 Merton and Keating and these other guys. But basically, the point of contemplative prayer

00:30:43.420 and the practice of it, you're going to pick a word and you're going to repeat this word in your head

00:30:48.420 over and over and over again. It's going to kind of act as your anchor and your grounding word.

00:30:52.620 And you're going to try to still and shift your own consciousness through repeating this word

00:30:59.600 over and over in your head. They use this in transcendental meditation, by the way.

00:31:03.080 You pick a word and you repeat it over and over to shift your consciousness. And the point is,

00:31:06.960 is they will say that God is not known in an object-subject distinction. God is known in a deeper

00:31:13.360 state of consciousness that they'll call pure consciousness or pure awareness. That's where God

00:31:18.420 kind of intrinsically dwells. And some of the quotes that they've said in their primary works are just

00:31:23.900 unbelievable. But they believe that the self, in one sense, is ultimately God. And so since God is

00:31:30.920 something within you, when you pray contemplatively, you pick a sacred word, they'll call it, and repeat

00:31:36.700 it in your head over and over to try and still and change the makeup and state of your own

00:31:42.340 consciousness. And God is known in that altered state.

00:31:45.700 I hear that from prosperity preachers a lot.

00:31:47.900 You do, right? And I guess we could talk about that a little bit as well, is that the word of faith

00:31:54.920 movement is premised on some things that are very, very close to the law of attraction.

00:32:01.500 For example, you will have, you know, E.W. Kenyon, the grandfather of the word of faith movement,

00:32:09.160 saying that you have what you profess. Only once you profess something do you have something and do you

00:32:15.560 receive something. So the idea there is that words have effectual power to bring something into your

00:32:22.780 reality.

00:32:23.720 Yeah. I've seen some churches, not a prosperity church, but kind of people in the realm of Bethel

00:32:30.100 declare something to make it manifest, is kind of the language that I hear. Is that what you're

00:32:36.360 talking about?

00:32:36.920 Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Thinking that my words and my, especially like

00:32:44.260 my emotions as well, but my spoken word in particular, when I declare that and I speak

00:32:50.520 that out, since faith is a force, like gravity, the spoken word carries a force with it. And that's

00:32:59.520 going to interact with this set of spiritual laws that God has set up in the universe and bring into

00:33:04.720 my reality whatever I'm declaring and confessing with my mouth. And that's why Kenneth Hagin,

00:33:09.560 really the father of the word of faith movement, says you can have what you say, and that he has

00:33:13.680 seen unbelievers achieve success by practicing these same principles, even though they don't know

00:33:19.500 God.

00:33:20.020 Right.

00:33:20.240 And the whole declaration-based spirituality is silly because there's no vertical connection

00:33:24.720 made between you and God. It's not prayer. It's not supplication. He's up there in the heavens

00:33:29.960 thinking, what are you doing declaring and decreeing? I'm up here. Ask me for something.

00:33:35.020 You have not because you ask not. And not to mention there's seven different conditions,

00:33:39.300 at least seven different conditions God puts in scripture on whether or not he'll even lend

00:33:42.980 an ear to our prayer. Right? Like Proverbs 28, for example, says if a man departs from the law of

00:33:48.140 the Lord, even his prayer becomes an abomination to him. Right? If you're not treating your wife 0.98

00:33:52.580 properly, Bible says treat your wife properly for the sake of your prayers. Prayer said for attention

00:33:57.980 or to be seen by people, you've received a reward in full. Prayer said for the wrong reasons. Right?

00:34:04.980 You have not because you ask not, and you receive not because you seek to spend it amiss.

00:34:11.300 So there's a scope in which God is willing to operate, and he tells us how we should cooperate

00:34:16.300 with him as his children. And the declaration-based spirituality, it's more similar to the law of

00:34:22.120 attraction in the New Age. We've been taught by books like The Secret than it is biblical Christianity, 0.80

00:34:27.500 because it's premised on the idea that words have intrinsic, effectual power to bring something

00:34:32.940 to pass in the material world. And there's actually a whole book called The Physics of Heaven,

00:34:37.380 which I've done a review of on another channel, that literally says-

00:34:41.340 And who wrote that book?

00:34:44.500 It's sold at the Bethel bookstore.

00:34:46.280 Okay. I thought that it was someone from Bethel, and I don't remember if it's actually

00:34:50.020 Bill Johnson or not, but I just wanted to make sure that we clarified that just in case

00:34:55.740 people were curious. Yeah, no, he's featured in the book. He has a segment in the book. It's

00:35:00.480 a joint collaboration effort. Chris Vallotton from Bethel wrote the foreword, and they believe

00:35:06.220 that when you declare and decree things, you're popping quiffs in the quantum field is the way

00:35:15.560 that they'll describe it. So basically, I'm going to try and give Cole's Notes version here.

00:35:20.460 In quantum mechanics, there is a spooky relationship between human consciousness and

00:35:25.860 subatomic particles like an electron, for example. Electrons possess what's called wave-particle

00:35:30.980 duality. They can exist as a wave smeared out in space or as a solid-stable object that can be

00:35:36.000 measured in one location in space. And when you try to observe a particle after having just measured

00:35:42.100 it as a wave, you try to observe, why is it acting as a wave? Consciousness or the presence of a

00:35:47.540 conscious observer collapses the wave function of the particle. And now this electron can be measured

00:35:52.340 once again as a solid-stable object in one location. And that's pretty interesting. You

00:35:59.860 know, why is it that when I'm not trying to consciously observe it, I can measure it as

00:36:03.060 smeared out as a wave creates an interference pattern, as it's called. But when I'm trying to

00:36:08.260 observe it with a microscopic camera, all of a sudden it collapses again, and it's solid and stable.

00:36:12.440 That's really spooky. They want to, first of all, that doesn't apply to atoms. It doesn't apply to

00:36:18.960 molecules. It doesn't apply to macroscale objects like this cup, for example. It's not like when I

00:36:25.680 don't look at this cup, it exists as a sea of quantum soup until I look at it. Deepak Chopra

00:36:31.580 believes that. I'm sorry, it's hilarious. Saturn is not some ball of soup now because no one's

00:36:36.500 observing it. That's silly. But what they will say in the Physics of Heaven book is that they mistake

00:36:44.540 observation of subatomic particles for intention and desire for macroscale objects. So now my desire

00:36:52.620 and my intention is what brings to pass possibility, possible realities. I can select possible realities

00:36:59.640 and make them become physical through my awareness, my desire, and my intention. Right? And so that

00:37:06.480 is a mechanism of God answering prayers, really. By you making declarations and decreeing,

00:37:10.460 you're popping quiffs in the quantum field and causing possibilities to come out into the natural

00:37:14.680 world. Wow. And not everyone teaches that strong of a law of attraction parallel, but I did a whole

00:37:22.820 podcast series on apologia where we compare and contrast the word of faith movement and primary

00:37:29.440 doctrines with the law of attraction and New Age spirituality. We go through primary quotes from

00:37:35.160 word of faith teachers and New Age teachers. So word of faith brings in law of attraction. Your

00:37:39.240 words have no effectual power. As a Christian, the power of life and death is in the tongue 1.00

00:37:44.240 means that your thoughts and your words have great influence. Your words, sorry, have great influence

00:37:50.100 over the thoughts and emotions of other people. Just a few chapters later in Proverbs 16, it tells us

00:37:55.720 that a gentle tongue is a tree of life. That doesn't mean I can speak trees of life into existence with

00:38:01.120 my tongue. It means that a soft, gentle word turns away wrath and brings healing to the bones,

00:38:06.800 right? And it says in Proverbs as well, that mere talk is useless. What do we do with that one? What

00:38:14.940 do we do with Revelation chapter three? This is a really big knockdown argument against word of faith

00:38:19.520 and the secret type spirituality, which is law of attraction, which is a staple doctrine in the New

00:38:25.580 Age movement. You look at Revelation three, Jesus is rebuking a church in Laodicea. And he says, 0.66

00:38:32.640 you say, I am rich. I am healthy. And I am in need of nothing. You are making positive declarations

00:38:39.140 and you are making positive decrees and you believe them in your heart. And he says, but I say you are

00:38:44.900 poor, you are sick, you are wretched, and you haven't come to me. And it's very, very telling what

00:38:51.540 if the law of attraction was true and word of faith theology was true, they should be having

00:38:56.520 what they're confessing. They believe it in their heart. They're confessing. It should be manifesting.

00:39:00.740 It should be manifesting. And Jesus told them your faith and your confession is erroneous,

00:39:05.440 right? But that is, where does that come from? Where does this word of faith idea come from?

00:39:11.280 It comes from E.W. Kenyon who had a fascination and drew influence from the metaphysical cults

00:39:17.440 of the late 1800s. He had an extensive metaphysical library, and these influenced how he understood

00:39:23.380 these scriptures. And that's undisputable. That's just a historical fact. So the word of faith movement

00:39:28.780 draws from New Age spirituality, and that's another way we see this manifest in the church.

00:39:33.660 We can declare and decree things that we have a right to declare and decree. We can only decree and

00:39:39.380 declare that which were guaranteed. For example, I decree that God will work things, not decree,

00:39:45.160 I should say declare that God will work all things together for the good of those who love him and

00:39:50.580 are called according to his purpose. I can declare that God will never leave me nor forsake me. I can

00:39:56.700 declare that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. I can declare the goodness of

00:40:02.460 God, the promises of God, the character of God over myself and over my life. And that's self-edifying,

00:40:08.900 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

00:40:14.200 existence or say, I declare this over your life and I decree that over your life. Or, Lord, we're in

00:40:18.960 this space right now, we decree this and we decree that and we declare this. You don't have that

00:40:23.020 authority. You don't have that position. We're human creatures, fallen, and we appeal to God who

00:40:27.760 alone is sovereign and all-powerful. But that idea that man's words carry intrinsic effectual power to

00:40:34.780 bring something to pass in the material world, that's New Age. That's another big way that the New

00:40:39.580 Age is working its way into the church. And I would ask, I would get people to consider maybe

00:40:42.620 how many people listening right now, this is an interesting one, would believe in the idea of

00:40:48.460 karma, would believe in this general idea of what goes around comes around. That comes from

00:40:53.560 Eastern philosophy and the idea that what you do in this life, any sin you commit in this life,

00:41:00.520 will have to be repeated back to you either later on in this life or in a future incarnation.

00:41:07.620 And so you will always have what's coming to you. So if you abuse someone, you're going to

00:41:11.500 receive abuse in this life or the next life. If you have been taking advantage of people

00:41:16.900 financially, you're going to have to be poor in this life or the next life versus Christianity 1.00

00:41:22.660 talks about sowing and reaping. But sowing and reaping is not the same as what goes around

00:41:26.580 comes around. Sowing and reaping just merely says there's going to be consequences to your

00:41:30.360 actions. But those consequences aren't always realized on this side of heaven. There's a lot of

00:41:35.260 people who live greedy lives and die greedy and die comfortable after just making a mockery of

00:41:42.480 God's creation, of God's people, and they just die very comfortable. But there is going to be some

00:41:48.320 kind of internal spiritual consequence at the very least in terms of your relationship with God.

00:41:53.220 Like the Bible says, whoever commits adultery destroys his own soul. There's going to be a

00:41:57.340 hardening, a self-hardening effect. But you're not always going to see the full effects of your sin

00:42:02.580 manifest in your life on this side of heaven. That just doesn't happen. And Christians as well,

00:42:07.340 we would need to also realize that Jesus Christ paid our debt in full, right? Mark 10 45, the Son

00:42:13.220 of Man came to give his life as a ransom for many, right? The ransom is what you would pay to a slave

00:42:19.500 owner to release the slave or the bond servant, we should say. Definitely should say bond servant in 0.81

00:42:24.820 times like this, because that's what it was. The bond servant from the debt that they owed their

00:42:33.020 master, right? We have an outstanding moral debt of justice between us and God. Jesus gave his life

00:42:37.300 as a ransom to pay off all our debt, right? Colossians 2 14 says that the record of offenses

00:42:42.640 that stood against us was nailed to the cross and done away with, with its legal demands. So if Jesus

00:42:48.520 Christ paid for our sin in full, and all my sin was imputed to him and judged him, God's not going

00:42:54.980 to judge me for the same set of sins here to judge Christ for. Right. So if I get stolen from when I'm

00:43:00.180 35 years old, and I stole from someone when I was 14, that's not the universe or some metaphysical

00:43:06.720 mechanism built into the universe, making sure I receive what I've put out. And it's not God holding

00:43:13.420 me accountable for that same sin that I did when I was a kid, because, you know, I'm saved now. Yeah,

00:43:19.180 Christ paid for that sin. Yeah. And so but this idea of what goes around comes around in karma. I mean,

00:43:24.360 probably 80 90% of the population believes in that, but it comes from Eastern mysticism. Yeah, which got

00:43:30.560 brought over through theosophy, Helena Blavatsky in the late 1800s. And, you know, so there's more subtle

00:43:37.740 ways like that, too, where it becomes so ingrained into our thinking, we don't even, you know, stop to consider

00:43:42.540 where did this idea come from? Oh, there's so many more things that I could ask you about. Okay,

00:43:47.720 let me just say, just give me a very quick take, because you talked about theosophy. And I think

00:43:54.280 you mentioned someone at the beginning of the episode that reminded me of this Enneagram. Is

00:44:01.780 it something that Christians should take part in? That is something that I haven't looked into fully

00:44:08.680 enough to be able to give an answer to it, though everyone who I respect in the faith has a

00:44:12.480 problem with it. Yeah, everyone I respect in the faith who has done thorough research into this.

00:44:17.440 I had an organization send me a book they produced recently on the Enneagram, very respected authors

00:44:23.780 that I regard highly saying, would you review this book and take a look at some of this information.

00:44:29.520 And it's basically universally recognized as this does have its roots in the New Age movement.

00:44:34.840 Apparently, this was created by a New Ager for the purpose of bringing people into relationship with 1.00

00:44:40.600 spirit. And it was channeled to him, that this entire modality was channeled to him when he was

00:44:48.380 in an altered state of consciousness. Basically, you allow some other foreign spirit or foreign entity

00:44:54.320 to override your cognitive faculties. It's called channeling, or automatic writing.

00:45:01.400 Of course, in Miracles, a very popular book, promoted by Marianne Williamson, and advertised by Oprah

00:45:07.300 Winfrey would be an example of a book that's channeled material. So would the Celestine

00:45:10.900 Prophecy, which has sold 27 million copies, by the way. But they believe that this healing modality or

00:45:17.100 this personality test modality was deduced from channeling. So that to me is obviously a major,

00:45:24.400 major red flag. If this person believes some entity or spirit, you know, influenced his consciousness

00:45:30.760 to dictate to him some spiritual system that's meant to unify us with spirit or some higher

00:45:35.960 self version of us, I would stay away from that. So I haven't researched it too much though, but...

00:45:42.280 That's okay. If anyone is listening to this and they're curious about that, I did ask Doreen Virtue,

00:45:47.060 who has done videos of herself or on her own talking about that. So I encourage people to go listen to

00:45:53.660 that episode where I am talking to Doreen Virtue. You can also go watch her videos on YouTube. The episode is

00:45:59.620 called Dangers of the New Age. And so she does have a take on that. I just know that's something that's

00:46:04.300 very popular in Christian circles. And of course, I don't think that everyone who has ever... I used to

00:46:09.880 use the Enneagram a lot because, you know, thought that it was a great tool. And there are still people

00:46:14.740 that think that, and I'm not wholesale condemning them, of course. But like you said, I do think that

00:46:19.300 it is very important for Christians to look into and to know the roots of the things that we are using

00:46:24.340 as so-called spiritual tools. Can you just tell everyone where they can find you?

00:46:29.620 Yeah. I'm on Instagram. I have a YouTube channel under my name, Stephen Bancars, where I have

00:46:35.560 quite a few videos addressing and explaining New Age thought and New Age practice from a biblical

00:46:41.580 perspective. I actually have a book out as well, an apologetics book on the New Age movement called

00:46:47.260 The Second Coming of the New Age, which dives into things a little bit more deeply than we have time

00:46:52.320 to do in an interview like this. I'm on Facebook and stuff like that as well. And I do have a website

00:46:57.460 called reasonsforjesus.com, which is a general apologetics website. But you will find a lot

00:47:04.020 of helpful resources on there pertaining to New Age spirituality as well.

00:47:08.800 Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining me. I know that this is going to be a conversation

00:47:13.780 that people are going to love. Yeah. Thanks for having me.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - June 24, 2020

Ep 267 ｜ New Age vs. Christianity, Part 2： 'The God of Self' ｜ Guest： Steven Bancarz

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