Jesus Christ and the New Age Christ

The following are excerpts from Chapter 12 of Constance E. Cumbey’s book entitled, The Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow (1983).

It is one thing to read through a book which has subtle

bends, twists, and turns, realizing that in serpentine fashion

you are being inched in the direction of the New Age Move-

ment. It is quite another experience to read one that comes on

as bold as a cobra selling its venom door to door. Such a

book is Journey to Inner Space: Finding God in Us. I have

seen few worse in occult bookstores.

Journey to Inner Space is not the product of a Hindu sect.

Incredibly, it was written by the senior pastor of the First

Baptist Church of Seattle, Washington, Rodney R. Romney.

…To state that Jesus is not the Christ is clearly a biblical test

of antichrist [1 John 2:22; 1 John 4:3; 2 John 1:7]. Stating that man himself could be as God was

also one of the original lies of the Eden serpent [Genesis 3].

Showing typical signs of New Age delusion, Dr. Romney

says of Jesus:

(Reading from Journey to Inner Space: Finding God-in-Us, Romney, Dr. Rodney, Nashville,

Tennessee, Abingdon Press)

“No one ever stirred up the people of his day as this
man Jesus. The greater miracle is that twenty centuries
later he is still stirring up people. He was no radical insur-
rectionist or polemic revolutionary. He was simply a man
who knew the laws of God and lived so completely within
their framework that his entire life was a litany of obe-
dience and faith to God. He stirred up the people because
he showed them what life could really be for them. He con-
tinues to do so today.

“This Jesus came to be called the Christ, meaning the
Anointed One of God. It was a title he neither invited nor
disclaimed. Yet what he did was even more startling. He
inferred that each person was potentially a Christ. He
claimed nothing for himself that he did not claim for his
disciples. He called himself the light of the world, and he
told his disciples that they too were the light of the world.
He said he was one with God and prayed that the disciples
would accept their oneness with God. He told them they
not only would have experiences similar to his own, but
would do even greater things than he had done. Rather
than condemning people for their depravity, he sought to
awaken them to the glory of their own intended divinity.
The task he gave his followers is to realize the Christ
within their own consciousness, and to know that the
kingdom of God is within them. If they search for it out-
side themselves, they will never find it” (emphasis added).

What went wrong with subsequent Christianity? Accord-

ing to Dr. Romney it was that:

“The large body of Christ-followers failed to realize
their own Christhood…”

Was Jesus indifferent to being called the Christ — the

anointed of God — as Romney implies? He clearly

demonstrated otherwise:

“And when he [Jesus] was come nigh, even now at the
descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the
disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice
for all the mighty works they had seen; 

Saying, blessed be the king [the Messiah] that cometh
in the name of the Lord: peace in heaven, and glory in the
highest.
And some of the Pharisees from among the multitude
said unto him, Master, rebuke thy disciples.
And he answered and said unto them, I tell you that, if
these should hold their peace, the stones would immediate-
ly cry out” (Luke 19:37-40, emphasis added).

[See also John 5:17-18, 8:24, 8:58, 10:30-33; Matthew 1:23; Isaiah 9:6, 43:10-11]

According to Dr. Romney, Jesus came to establish a

“world religion that would embrace every soul and synthesize

every creed.” Although Jesus said “It is finished,” on the

cross, Dr. Romney says, “his work will not be consummated

until he has done just that [establish a world religion syn-

thesizing every creed].”

In fact, Romney says that Jesus never meant he was “the

Way”:

(Reading again from Journey to Inner Space: Finding God-in-Us)

“Each of us must find our own way to the Way, and we
would do well to take the hand of the Way-Shower as we
go, for he shows us God as no one else ever has. But let us
not get lost or overwhelmed by any human forms or for-
mulas that seek to represent the Way. Some of these forms
are little more than Jesus cults, stopping short of the Way
by worshiping the Way-Shower and dealing almost totally
with the miraculous of his life rather than the ethical and
the mystical. Let us remember that Jesus came to show us
God, to help us share in God’s life, and to inspire us to seek
the kingdom of God above all else. He resisted all attempts
to worship or deify him. Although he did say, ‘I am the
way,’ he meant that he was the Way-Shower to God. He
was not God and never claimed to be.”

In his delusion, Romney claims that Jesus was “essentially

a mystic, a person who explored the deeper recesses of his

inner being, found the fountainhead of his own spirit, and

thus knew himself to be the son of God.” And Romney says

that we can be Christs ourselves!

…the past several years have been characterized

by a barrage of “pop” psychologies and mind control courses.

Mind control was to be an essential component of prepara-

tion for the New World Order and the New Age Christ.

The occult principle behind this is labeled “The Law of

Rebirth.” It is not the same as what Jesus called being “born

again.” In being born again, one is reconciled to God by

receiving the spirit of Jesus Christ into his heart. His

dependence is other directed — i.e. on Christ.

In rebirthing, by contrast, one is conditioned to believe

that all wisdom is contained within oneself. Like ancient

yogis and mystics, modern New Agers look inward — to the

center of themselves — to receive “wisdom” and knowledge.

Scripturally, however, it is clear that wisdom does not

come from within:

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9, KJV).

…The Bible consists of 66 books that do not contradict each

other. The reason for this is that the Holy Spirit is consistent.

Although they seem to come from diverse sources and are

found in every culture upon earth, occult doctrines also have

a remarkable consistency. In his Catechism on Modernism,

Pope Pius X remarkably summarized the true unity of such

teachings lurking behind a facade of apparent widely

scattered sources and disconnected cultures:

“Since the Modernists employ a very clever artifice,
namely, to present their doctrines without order and
systematic arrangement into one whole, scattered and dis-
jointed one from another, so as to appear to be in doubt
and uncertainty, while they are in reality firm and stead-
fast, it will be of advantage to bring their teachings
together here into one group and to point out the connec-
tion between them…”

The teachings of occultism diametrically oppose those

found in the Bible. The Bible teaches that each person must

die once and then the judgment. Occultism teaches that

each of us must live and die many times and then — maybe

— Nirvana. The Bible teaches that Jesus made a perfect

sacrifice once for all. The occultists teach that we must all

make atonement under the inexorable Law of Karma. The

Bible says that Jesus is the Light of the World. The occultists

say that light comes from our own “higher selves.” The Bible

says that Jesus is the only Christ. Occultists say there have

been many Christs.

…By first dabbling in that forbidden by the Lord and then

failing to test the Spirits, many, even including caring,

personable clergymen such as Dr. Romney, have been seduced

into unintentional worship of demons. And the demons are still

presenting themselves packaged as a snake. By taking the

forbidden fruits of occultism, the would-be initiate — even

clergymen initiates such as Dr. Romney — raise the fires of the

Serpent fire Kundalini up from the base of the spine and

through what they call the seven chakras (nerve centers).

Dr. Romney openly discusses this process:

(Reading again from Journey to Inner Space: Finding God-in-Us)

“There is much I have not covered concerning the
meditation experience. I have not talked about the seven
nerve centers (chakras) and the corresponding colors of
these centers. Nor have I discussed the forces within our
cerebrospinal system known as the kundalini shakti, a
mysterious fire of love that rises up within us through
daily, sincere periods of meditation and which transports us
into a new land of expanded consciousness.” 

To reach this state of expanded consciousness. Dr.

Romney says he faces the east:

“I always sit in the same chair if possible, which faces
east. Facing east while praying is an ancient practice which
draws a symbolism between the rising sun and the dawn-
ing of divine light in one’s consciousness. In the opinion of
some this also offers exposure to greater forms of cosmic
energy.”

The Lord showed his prophet Ezekiel that similar practices were

being committed by the Israelites and the House of Judah:

“Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this, O son of
man? turn thee yet again, and thou shalt see greater
abominations than these. And he brought me into the inner court of the Lord’s
house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the Lord,
between the porch and the altar, were about five and

twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the Lord,
and their faces toward the east; and they worshiped the
sun toward the east” (Ezekiel 8:15-16).

…When I spoke with Dr. Romney, he was not reticent

about admitting he considered his book to be an example of

“New Age” writing. His book actually alludes to this coming

“New Age”:

(Reading again from Journey to Inner Space: Finding God-in-Us, Romney, Dr. Rodney)

“Most students of the spiritual realm agree that we are
entering today into a New Age of Light on this planet. This
light is beginning to expose and correct malfunctions in the
created order. The result of this may be a temporary increase

of distress and disease. Individuals who have been
dwelling in darkness will manifest hostile and criminal
reactions as the light increases. There will even be similar
disturbances in the elements of nature in the form of storms,
droughts, earthquakes, and other destructive activities.

Humanity as a whole may react to these upheavals
with feelings of despair and gloom, fearing that the world is
coming to an end, as limited thought forms erroneously
predicted long ago. But this is not an age to fear, it is one
in which to rejoice. As the light purges and purifies the
darkness, we feel the death rattle of an old age and the
birth pangs of a new one in which the highest aspirations
and possibilities of creation will rise to the fore”.

Dr. Romney’s next paragraph is chillingly reminiscent of

Alice Bailey’s instructions to New Age disciples on how to

“hold the light”.

“Those who understand the principle of light, who
know how to project it into a condition and hold it there,
and who understand that this light comes from God and
God’s invisible workers who are on this earth, will
discover that they are able to change conditions in positive
ways and usher in the age of abiding peace on earth.” 

[See Discipleship in the New Age, Vol. I, by Alice A. Bailey. Page 298 gives a

discussion of techniques for “holding the mind steady in the light.” It is an occult

technique for invoking the Luciferic energies.]

According to the Bible, Jesus is the Light of the World.

Dr. Romney sees this a little differently. He says that “Jesus

delivered the Christ-light of the cosmos to the planet earth

and to each of us individually.”

This is clearly part of the ultimate delusion referred to by

Daniel: “such as do wickedly against the covenant shall he

corrupt with flatteries…” [Daniel 11:32] That flattery most likely

is the occult teaching that man himself can be as a god.

[Genesis 3:1-5]