http://www.mountainstreampress.org/maitreya-a-purpose-driven-false-christ/#more-1623Posted on February 15, 2012 by Warren B Smith
By Warren B. Smith
Excerpted from Deceived on Purpose, pp. 151-166
Overlapping “Purposes” It is worth noting that Maitreya’s most significant New Age teachings about hope, purpose, dreams, destiny, service, peace and the idea that God is “in” everything overlap in significant ways with many of the words and teachings of Robert Schuller and Rick Warren. These areas of overlap are starting to blur some of the crucial differences between biblical Christianity and the New Spirituality. The reason the blurring is starting to occur is because Robert Schuller, Rick Warren, and most Christian leaders make no effort to distinguish the difference between what they are saying and what false Christs, like Maitreya, and the New Spirituality are saying. For example, Maitreya, like Rick Warren, is very fond of the word “purpose”—he uses it all the time. Maitreya has proclaimed to all humanity:
We are together, you and I, for the same purpose.18
Take My hand. My friends, and let us together walk that Path and know the meaning of Life, know the blessing of Love, know the purpose of God.19
I need all those who long to serve, who wish to fulfill their purpose in life…20
I shall place before you all the purpose of God.21
Hold fast to My Purpose, which is to take man to God.22
My Purpose unfolds.23
My Purposes are being fulfilled.24
I am your Purpose.25
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Immanence: the “God” Within Familiar with much of the material on Maitreya, I suddenly found myself looking at him in a whole new way after reading Rick Warren and Robert Schuller. There was something very disturbing about the similarity of their teachings, especially in regards to “purpose” and the idea that God is “in” everyone and everything.
On page 88 of The Purpose-Driven Life, Rick Warren wrote:
Because God is with you all the time, no place is any closer to God than the place where you are right now. The Bible says, “He rules everything and is everywhere and is in everything.”
On page 88 in Messages from Maitreya the Christ, Maitreya is quoted as saying:
My friends, God is nearer to you than you can imagine.
God is yourself.
God is within you and all around you.
On page 88 of his book The Reappearance of the Christ and the Masters of Wisdom, Benjamin Creme explained Maitreya’s “new world religion.” He described the same “immanent” aspect of God that Rick Warren was conveying with his New Century Version of Ephesians 4:6:
But eventually a new world religion will be inaugurated which will be a fusion and synthesis of the approach of the East and the approach of the West. The Christ will bring together, not simply Christianity and Buddhism, but the concept of God transcendent—outside of His creation—and also the concept of God immanent in all creation—in man and all creation.
Renowned occult teacher and New Age Theosophist Alice A. Bailey also described how a New World Religion will be based on this “immanent” aspect of God. Emphasizing the word “fresh,” she states that the “Path to God” will be based on:
…a fresh orientation to divinity and to the acceptance of the fact of God Transcendent and of God Immanent within every form of life.
These are the foundational truths upon which the world religion of the future will rest.27 (Emphasis added)
This same “immanent” aspect of God so important to Maitreya, Alice A. Bailey, the New Spirituality and the New World Religion is also very important to Rick Warren. This idea of “immanence” is taught as part of the Foundations course at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church. Echoing Bailey’s use of the word “fresh,” the Foundations Participant’s Guide under the section heading “A Fresh Word” reiterates Rick Warren’s teaching that God is “in” everything. It states:
The fact that God stands above and beyond his creation does not mean he stands outside his creation. He is both transcendent (above and beyond his creation) and immanent (within and throughout his creation).28 (Parentheses in original)
Robert Schuller has also stressed this aspect of immanence. In a November 9, 2003 sermon at the Crystal Cathedral, Robert Schuller stated that God was not only transcendent but also immanent. He said that as a result of his becoming more aware of the immanence of God, his faith was now “deeper, broader, and richer more than ever.” As previously cited, he summarized what he meant by the immanence of God by telling his worldwide television audience:
Yes, God is alive and He is in every single human being!29
Also, as previously mentioned in Chapter Three of this book, this “immanent” aspect of God is also evident in Rick Warren’s favored paraphrase, Eugene Peterson’s The Message. The notion that God is “in” everything and is “One” with creation is contained in the magical saying “as above, so below.” This is the mystical New Age phrase that Eugene Peterson injected in its entirety into the Lord’s Prayer and in its derivative form into Colossians 1:16—the verse that Rick Warren used to introduce his readers to The Purpose-Driven Life. As previously cited, the editors of the New Age journal described this immanent aspect of God and its New Age significance in their book As Above, So Below:
“As above, so below; as below, so above.” This maxim implies that the transcendent God beyond the physical universe and the immanent God within ourselves are one.30
The spiritual implications of all of these overlapping statements are enormous. Rick Warren, Robert Schuller, and Eugene Peterson are all now teaching this immanent aspect of God—that God is “in” everyone. On this critical theological point, these particular Christian leaders are not only not exposing one of the central concepts of the “New Spirituality” and probable New World Religion—they seem to be agreeing with it!
A friend of mine who used to go to Saddleback Church came over to the house one night to try to demonstrate that Rick Warren wasn’t deceived about the New Age or about spiritual deception. I knew his argument would be based on the fact that Rick Warren had made a statement in The Purpose-Driven Life that said we will never become God and that we are not divine. He had even used the term “New Age philosophies.”31 Before my friend could even begin to make his point, I had him turn to page 88 in The Purpose-Driven Life. I read the passage out loud:
Because God is with you all the time, no place is any closer to God than the place where you are right now. The Bible says, “He rules everything and is everywhere and is in everything.”
My friend hung his head in disbelief and then exclaimed, “That’s pantheism!” He had immediately grasped the dangerous New Age implications of what Rick Warren was saying. He understood that whatever New Age disclaimers Rick Warren seemed to be making, he had just overridden them by what he was actually teaching. On the one hand, Rick Warren has proclaimed that humans are not divine, yet he opens the door to this New Spirituality belief by proclaiming that God is “in” everything. This same friend told me on another occasion that he had never been taught anything meaningful about spiritual deception while attending Saddleback Church.
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