When Gerald Ford died last month, everybody wanted to talk about his integrity and what a good Christian man he was. I thought, “Why didn’t he ever use his international clout and media command to come out against the Episcopal Church’s support of ordaining gays and blessing same-sex unions?”

Instead, as we learned from the homily given at his televised national funeral, and I quote Episcopal priest Robert Certain, "Early this past summer, as I prepared to leave for the General Convention of the Episcopal Church, President Ford's concern was for the church he loved. He asked me if we would face schism. After we discussed the various issues we would consider, particularly concerns about human sexuality and the leadership of women, he said he did not think they should be divisive for anyone who lived by the Great Commandments to love God and neighbor."

*****

Yesterday’s Oprah Winfrey Show really made me see just how mainstream New Age thinking truly is becoming in America today. Her Friday show was entitled, “The Reaction,” and it was a sequel of sorts to a wildly successful show from the week before, called “The Secret.”

“On February 8, 2007, millions tuned in to The Oprah Winfrey Show to learn the mystery of The Secret,” reports an article that was posted to Oprah’s website yesterday. “Since the show aired, our message boards have been buzzing with people who want to know more. ‘The Secret’ is defined as the law of attraction, which states that like attracts like. The concept says that the energy you put into the world—both good and bad—is exactly what comes back to you. This means you create the circumstances of your life with the choices you make every day.

”To help answer your burning questions, two teachers of The Secret, James Arthur Ray and the Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith, are back. Michael says he thinks The Secret is alluring because it helps people stop feeling like victims. ‘I think us talking about the law of attraction, talking about these universal spiritual principles, allows them to see that they can begin to govern their thoughts and their way of life,’ he says.

“According to James, there is scientific evidence to back up the spiritual practices and laws defined in The Secret. ‘Science tells us that everything is energy, and so your thoughts are energy. Your body, your cash, your car—everything you think is solid, if you put it under a high-powered microscope, it's just a field of energy and a rate of vibration,’ he says. ‘And so are we. So if you think you're this meat suit running around, you have to think again.’

“One way to describe this energy is by comparing it radio waves, ‘The frequency you give out through your thoughts and your emotions is what you have a tendency to manifest in your life,’ Michael says. ‘Whether those thoughts and emotions are conscious or unconscious, it doesn't matter.’

”This means that if you are sending out the same negative energy over an over—whether thoughts or feelings—you will attract like energy back to you. James says that when bad things happen people might ask, ‘Oh, God, why me?’ ‘Because it is you,’ he says.”

*****

When a woman in Oprah’s audience, named Maureen, got up and asked if The Secret, with its emphasis on putting “your faith in yourself,” conflicted with her family’s faith in God, Michael responded, "[Jesus] said, 'Pray believing that ye have that ye may receive.' That's The Secret in a nutshell. Pray believing and feeling and sensing that you already have it, and then you're available to receive it."

According to Oprah’s website article, “Michael says The Secret isn't about contradicting religion—it supports it. ‘It actually goes underneath the culture and explains to you the sacred laws that these wonderful teachers have brought to us,’ he says. According to James, The Secret is about supporting the great spiritual traditions in a more modern form. ‘It really is just putting Christianity, Judaism, all the great teachings into a current vernacular,’ he says.

When Maureen said she believed in heaven and hell and expressed concerned that “The Secret's promotion of free will and personal choice imply that you do not face a final judgment,” the response from James was that she look at concepts of heaven, hell and judgment “in a different way.”

He answered, "Jesus the Christ said the kingdom of heaven is within. He didn't say it was out there somewhere—[he said] within. And so is it possible to consider that the kingdom of hell is within as well?”

Michael responded, “The kingdom of God is actually in us, and what comes out of your mouth, what you think about, how you express—you're either participating in the realm of ever-expanding good or you're cutting yourself off from the realm.”

The Oprah website article reported, “Michael suggests that instead of living a life preparing for some ultimate reward, you should live in the now. ‘When you're anticipating some future good, you're preventing that good that is all around you from expressing through you,’ he says. ‘[Don't] put life on the layaway plan and try to anticipate that it's going to get good in the future.’ ”

*****

As we know from the Apostle Paul’s epistles, he refers to his gospel (“the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery”) as a “secret” which was kept “since the world began.” (Rom. 16:25)

Satan always counterfeits the program of God in the place where it’s currently operating dispensationally. He uses the same terminology to do this.

Not surprisingly, Oprah tossed around the word “grace” Friday as she thoroughly endorsed all the New Age garbola, of which she informed her audience toward the very end of the show, “This is my favorite subject!”

Apparently it is for a lot of other people now too!