No darkness at all

 “God is Light and in Him there is no darkness at all...” 1 John 1:15

Creeping into our post-Christian culture are eastern religious terms like Karma and Yin & Yang.  Popular New Age (actually 'old age') teachings declare the necessary 'balance' between darkness and light.  Remember Jim Henson's movie, The Dark Crystal?   In this tale, there were evil creatures and good creatures, and the happy solution in the climax involved the two merging into single beings, composed of both elements.  If you know me at all, you know I loved The Muppets. However, Henson was an avowed New-Ager. He declared his intention, in partnership with Ted Turner, to inculcate the children of our world with the tenants of his philosophies in order to develop a higher order of human beings who would be at peace with one another in a more perfect world. A lovely thought which nearly every other religion holds up as a goal achieved by man’s climbing the rungs of
a ladder of self-improvement until he attains ‘heaven’ or its equivalent. Unfortunately, the millennia have proven otherwise.

A variety of other groups predicate their ideals on the concept of darkness and light (evil and good), bringing wholeness through a union of the two, including Mormonism and Masonry at their elite levels.  My apologies to my Star Wars friends, but Lucas presents the same philosophy within The Force.  Listen again to aged Luke near the end of the newest production, as he explains the Force's power.  It is not defined as simply a battle between good and evil but of evil as a necessary part of the whole.

We say these are just entertaining movies, but E.B. White declared, "Whoever tells the stories, owns the culture." You would be surprised at the number of my students who, after reading The Lightening Thief series, believed the Greek gods were really wandering the earth involved in the affairs of mankind.  We have certainly seen this over the decades in the way television gradually changed (and is changing) the mores of our nation, defining a new normal as something which would have been thought unthinkable in its early years.  We the Church hold a substantial responsibility for allowing this to happen with very little protest.

As Christians, we must not banter about terms like karma, as if they were not wholly contradictory to our stated beliefs.  If we are saved by grace and not by works, then we should not be placing ourselves back under the law.  "We foolish Christians, who has bewitched us?"**  Yes, the Bible speaks of the concept of sowing and reaping. However, Yeshua's great sacrifice for us covers us in a grace that doesn't demand we reap permanent death or suffering from our sins. We do often experience the consequence of them in our daily life.  And the Father does, indeed, desire us to exhibit the fruit of His Spirit in the way we treat others; yet this does not subject us to the oriental law of karma. Do we really want to step out from under the Umbrella of Grace He graciously holds over us? Then let's not declare it.

Years ago I was praying for a friend for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit.  We were getting nowhere fast, despite her having gone through the renunciation process for anything involving the occult.  God always answers someone’s sincere prayer for the Holy Spirit, with its accompanying sign of a prayer language.  This gift is for everyone.*** So I knew there was some reason God was withholding the Baptism to protect her from opening herself up, not to the Holy Spirit, but to the Enemy of her soul. When I asked her if there was something she could think of, some philosophy, for example, to which she was clinging, she knew immediately what it was. She had always been fascinated with the concept of reincarnation. After she became a Christian, it still hung in the background of her mind. She couldn't quite let go of its fascination, despite the fact that it represented an eternity of struggle
through various lives, trying to attain a perfection she would never be able to accomplish.
Reincarnation is the total antithesis of Christianity, the only religion in the world based on pure Grace, the agonizing Sacrifice of another in our place so that we we are carried up the ladder, so to speak, on the shoulders of  a merciful God. That night she went back home and talked with the Father about it, repented, and renounced it. The following day we prayed once again and she immediately received her prayer language.

As believers, we should also not be ‘knocking on wood,’ a practice which dates back to the belief that the goddess Gaia resided in the trees (a form of pantheism). Nor should we cross our fingers or search our horoscope to determine our course, or define ourselves by any ‘sign’ other than the cross.  We either desire our future to be directed and guided by our Heavenly Father's loving hand, or we choose to place ourselves under the influence of every possible 'force' out there, all of which are used as doorways for the machinations of the enemy of our souls. 

Mindfulness is the new term being bandied about.  I think it's wonderful, if we are talking about mindfulness of God and of what we are thinking and speaking into our own lives and also the lives of others.  Let's, then, be as mindful as possible...and as 'spiritful,' also.

******************************************************************************
**You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2 I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law,or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?      Galations 3:1-3

***If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Luke 11:13