Pagans in the Pews

Peter Jones' Pagans in the Pews is neither mean-spirited, nor hateful, nor bigoted. Sometimes the truth is painful and truth is what this work has plenty of. The intent is to "Learn how to arm yourself with God's truth - not to kick pagans out of the church, but to lovingly point them toward the One in whom all truth resides." Along with other works like Bright and Damoose's Red Sky In The Morning, Douglas Groothuis' Truth Decay, and Reclaiming the Center (editors: Erickson, Helseth, Taylor), Professor Jones reveals how the Church is subtly and often willingly slipping into the neo-paganism rampant in our culture. When a work gets praise from dispensational and reformed and charismatic circles, as this one has, it is an indication of the importance and universality of its message to the Church. Those who find fault with Professor Jones' text either have not actually understood him or had their minds made up before they read the book. The only drawback is that Regal is no longer printing this tremendously important work. Find it used, buy it, read it and share the knowledge with fellow Christians.

The negative reviewers here are desperately trying to keep you from reading this book. Jones' work is filled with direct quotes from New Age leaders revealing their hateful, manipulative agenda clearly for all to see. I hope this website soon offers the feature for this title where you can look at .pdf excerpts of pages. Ignore the hyperbole the crystal-gazers are slinging around and track down a copy of this book.

Beautiful book. Professionally and honestly and lovingly depicts the age-old garbage that has plauged mankind (YES! mankind!)and is repackaged for today. The pea-wits that attacked the book are so self-centered they failed to realize the author isn't writing about you. This book is about the so-called Christians that populate churches and believe in new-age drek. Infecting their toleration of every ill imaginable. Beautiful scholarly book.Put down your prejudice and read it. You will be impressed.

This is a worthwhile look at the false spirtuality currently hollowing out most churches. The appearance of Christianity is retained in the corrupted churches for a time, as a bait and switch proceeds.As an example, I visited a Methodist church to find the sermon delivered by two lesbian co-pastors. The content had nothing to do with Christianity but was more of a pep-talk with the congregation reciting self-esteem liturgies seemingly from some pop-psychology book or 12-step program. The word "I" was very prominent and there was much about manipulating oneself to achieve the right feelings. A creepy experience and a relief to get out of there, but this was introduced to the church bit by bit over many years; pressure from all directions to be tolerant and become more relevant to peoples lives, coupled with a "new type of bible study" here, a set of "dynamic, innovative" outside speakers there, etc. Such urgings flow from false premises.The book spells out the philosophical and historical relationship between this self-worship, Christian liberalism (a misinterpretation originating in poor theology of the 1500's), relativism, goddess worship, Gnosticism, witchcraft and sexual deviancy.Few people are in awe of God (for reasons elaborated in the Bible; pride), but they remain aware of some divine presence in their lives by whose power they stand or fall. They despise His judgement but don't want to provoke Him with too much contempt. So they turn away from God and look within to worship the product of their own vanity and imagination. They convince themselves the notions and compulsions that bubble up within them are god -- and what should be worshipped. Obviously none of the previous negative reviewers read the book. If something is filled with hate, it is easy to show that without the name calling of children. This book is actually filled with extensive quotations of the modern spiritualists so you can observe their thinking in their own words.The weakness of the book may be that it is largely descriptive; what this ersatz spirituality is, it's history, and the people involved. There is not much analysis or comparison. The author indicates that will be for a future book. Thus, some may find the current volume unsatisfying for not laying out a solution or rigorously analyzing the underpinnings of the new age worldview, but it remains a good description. The writing style occassionally distracts with some hyperbole and the author could do with fewer single word quotes -- a "bad" (!) habit. These things are not severe enough here for Christians to skip the book.A "Pagans in the PULPITS" volume might be better since, as the book itself points out, pagans should be in the pews: cringing as light is shined on dark corners. The problem occurs when the pagans are the ones in the pulpits and running the seminaries as is currently the case. Many modern seminaries are platforms by which gay rights and feminist activists can have moral authority conferred up

A well researched and highly thought provoking study of the pagan origins of much of the non-biblical influence present in the denominational and evangelical church. A "can't put it down" fascinating read, with great implications for Christian believers.