darinhouston wrote: ↑Fri Jun 04, 2021 2:14 pm
Here's a bit from a more "balanced" article...
I guess maybe you didn't quote the "balanced" parts...
“First of all, she doesn’t say that Jesus speaks to her,” Ms. Bearss said. “I feel like she’s tried to be pretty clear about that in her book introductions.
Actually she does explicitly say exactly that in the intro to earlier editions of the book, as documented in the pages and book linked below.
...one can see why some theologically strait-laced Christians might be perturbed.
Of course there are some like that, but many more are like me: Neither "theologically strait-laced" nor "perturbed", just alarmed that so many Christians don't take the long list of solidly Biblical objections to the book more seriously, and allow thinly-veiled passive-aggressive slams like the above to affect their judgment.
The article linked in the original post may be a little weak on a few points, but it makes (and documents) some very good points that followers of Jesus should find alarming. Just to briefly mention a few examples: If God says something is all we need, Christians shouldn't call it insufficient and go looking for "more" from other sources; Christians shouldn't take words channeled from a demon and ascribe them to Jesus; followers of the Creator of everything shouldn't be borrowing ideas and practices from His enemies. All things that seem pretty obvious, yet Jesus calling has sold over 35 million copies to date, presumably mostly to Christians.
Here's another article that makes some of the same points, and some different ones:
https://www.challies.com/articles/10-se ... s-calling/
And a blog post some may find helpful:
https://livingintheshoe.com/jesus-calli ... f-caution/
And a book, Another Jesus Calling by Warren B. Smith, that goes into a lot more depth (not necessarily recommending that you buy from Amazon; I usually use a search engine like
https://www.bookfinder.com to find the best price):
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/0989509338/
I was talking to a friend yesterday whose beliefs are, more or less, Unitarian Universalist with a strong eastern-mysticism slant. She's convinced that whatever she "feels" in her heart or mind is truth from God and needs no check or confirmation with any other source. As she described her beliefs, I noticed that most of what she said is very close to what the Bible teaches, but with a twist that makes it a little (or a lot) "off". It's easy to see how so many are so easily deceived and misled by this sort of thing. This is why the Bible so strongly emphasizes the need to seek discernment and wisdom from God (and only from God), and very clearly delineates appropriate boundaries for doing so. If we ignore those boundaries, even unwittingly, we do so to our own hurt.