Welcome to a special edition of Search the Scriptures Daily, a radio ministry of The Berean Call, with Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon. I’m Gary Carmichael, thanks for joining us. Coming up in today’s program in Our Understanding the Scriptures segment, Dave and Tom will continue their in depth study of the Doctrine of Salvation with the focus on the book of Isaiah. In Religion in the News: “Shamanism for Old Shep.” We’ll take a look at that story, and examine the question, “Was Jesus a Teenage Guru?” We hope you can stay with us. Our ministry, The Berean Call offers a wide variety of teaching materials including books, tracts, audio and video disks and copies of our weekly broadcast on compact disk or DVD. You may also subscribe to our monthly newsletter, which we offer free of charge. We’ll let you know how to order later in the program. Now this week’s Cover Article. We continue a revisit to our 2000 radio series based on Dave Hunt’s book, Occult Invasion . Today we focus on the question, “What About Native Religions?” Along with Dave Hunt, here’s Tom McMahon.
Tom:
Thanks, Gary . The topic for today is: Native, Indigenous and Nature Religion, from chapter 8 of Dave Hunt’s book, Occult Invasion, The Subtle Seduction of the World and Church . Dave, now we have mentioned in past programs the rising interest in shamanism and I’m surprised because here it is, we’re in modern society, highly technologized and you would expect such beliefs to be rejected as mere superstition. But that’s not the case, especially here in the United States and I’m sure people are surprised because we can see around us the rise in practices such as Voodoo and Santeria and they are growing in popularity especially among the well educated. Accompanying that interest is a new respect for nature religions in general and in particular, those of Native Americans. Dave, what about nature religions? Does nature hold the solution to mankind’s problems, I mean, either physically or spiritually?
Dave:
It doesn’t make sense, Tom, and, you know, we were flying together and the Lord worked it out in an amazing way. I sat right next to a Marine and he’s a Pagan. He was raised in a Baptist home but he’s into Paganism now and a lot of the Marines on his base are also into Paganism.
Tom:
When our audience hears Paganism they think of that in terms of a generic term meaning somebody who is not a Christian but there is something more specific.
Dave:
Well, that’s right, they worship nature. There are all kinds of Pagans; nevertheless they worship nature, that’s the whole idea of it. I had the opportunity to talk with him a little bit and tell him—you are going to pray to a hurricane? How do you cozy up to an erupting volcano, you know? I mean, nature is not kind—nature isn’t sensitive to your needs, in fact, we fight nature. All the advances of mankind have been made in opposition to the often vicious destructive forces of nature. Instead of turning to the God who created the universe, they are turning to nature. It’s the old religion; Wicca. Star Wars Force, Darth Vader and Obi-Wan are the followers of—the officer says it to him—the Old Religion. So, they are reverting back to the old religion that has deceived mankind forever. Paul talks about it in Romans chapter 1. “When they knew God they glorified him not as God.” How do they know he was God? Well, it says, His eternal power and glory are revealed by the things that he made. The more you learn about nature—it’s so incredible, the organization. So, when you look at nature around you, you know God created it, a great God! And then Paul says, “…but when they knew God in their conscience they glorified him not as God. They became vain in their imagination, their foolish heart was darkened, professing themselves to be wise they became fools and they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like the corruptible things.” They began to worship beasts and creeping things even.
Tom:
Dave, let me interject this. They would say, no, we don’t worship these smaller things, we don’t worship sticks and stones and so on, some would say that. Our god, Gaia, Mother Nature is larger than that but last week we pointed out that: don’t we believe in the 2 nd Law of Thermodynamics? If this Mother Nature, awe inspiring as they try to make her out to be, is dying, it is going down the tubes.
Dave:
That’s what I tried to point out to this young Marine. Now, this whole thing is in decay—this is death—nothing more natural than death. Now, of course, the reincarnationists try to say, yes, it’s just part of a natural cycle, death and rebirth—
Tom:
What if someone out there is thinking—well, wait a minute, the God you’re talking about, the Creator of all this, how do you square that?
Dave:
In other words you are saying—if a good God, this great God created this, why does it decay? Because it is separated from Him because of Satan’s rebellion and man’s rebellion.
Tom:
And we will be dealing with that down the line.
Dave:
And here are a lot of Marines on this base on Okinawa , getting together on their Holy Days, their holidays at the Solstice and various times, going with the seasons of the years, you know, the cycle in nature and they are having their worship ceremonies together. They are very ecumenical, some of them worship some part of nature, others worship another part and so forth but they all get along together and I’m trying to reason with him. Why would you worship nature? What is there about nature that would cause to worship—well, she gives birth to us, you know. I mentioned to him—he was raised a Baptist, and I said, You know, Isaiah, the prophet, inspired of God, He mocks people like you, I’m sorry. He says, they cut down a tree, with part of it they light a fire to warm themselves, to roast their meat, to pick their teeth, and then, with some of it they form it into a god—a god that has eyes but can’t see, it has ears but it can’t hear. Our vice president hugs trees. A tree doesn’t know that you’re hugging it. Okay? It is just ridiculous, but we want to honor our Native people. In our public schools you can bring anything you want about Native Americans in, oh, it’s culture!—but you can’t talk about Jesus Christ in our public schools. But they’ve got their god and you cannot separate their culture from their religion, it is their culture. And then, we have these—
Tom:
Dave, on this point, you know, we’re shifting here from Paganism in the form of Wicca, in the form of the worship of nature to native religion. One of the big differences here is contacting spirit entities. Pagans worship Gaia, Mother Earth—Nature, but they don’t usually commune with images and power animals.
Dave:
Well no, Tom, they ultimately get involved in it. If you worship a tree, something from that tree is going to talk to you. It just all runs together, you can’t escape it. Here’s a prayer in the steam lodge and listen, it says, oh, you ancient rocks who are sacred, you have neither ears nor eyes yet you hear and see all things. Through your powers—this is the initiation of a warrior. This young man has become pure, worthy to go to receive some message from Wakan Tonka. So now, he is going to go out on his spiritual quest. Things appear to them and they get messages. We can bring this into the public school. We can worship these, — even teach the little kids in grammar school how to get involved in nature worship and so forth. As we have mentioned in a previous program, the Native American Indians have the right to take peyote and that’s how they contact their spirit means. But we get a lot of lies about this culture...
Tom:
That’s the way it comes in—that’s the first thrust. This is culture; we don’t want to diminish the ethnic aspects of a people.
Dave:
Tom, there’s a very good point there because, maybe it points out the departure from true Christianity that we are experiencing in this country so that we have people who claim to be Christians but it doesn’t impact their culture. It doesn’t impact their job but they try to separate it and try to keep it in compartments. Oh yes, I go to church on Sunday and I worship God, but then during the week I live like a pagan—and that’s the problem here. At least, the Native Americans or indigenous people everywhere, are consistent. Their religion is their culture. Their religion is their life. They live it every moment of every day. It’s all intertwined, you can’t escape it. So, religion comes in as culture and it ought to be the same for us. If America were a Christian country, which it is not, then Christianity would permeate our society, it would be in everything. But you have a big complaint if a judge wants to have the Ten Commandments in his chambers or in the courtroom. So, we try to separate—we try to keep the God of the Bible—we won’t let him be part of our culture. We won’t let him be part of our life. You dare to talk about God on the job or somewhere you are inducing a foreign element. But for the indigenous peoples, their religion is their life, it is everything. So, that’s a problem. So, when you bring it in as culture you bring in religion. But then, Tom, we also have a lot of lies, misinformation, revisionists, history, about these indigenous people. They are almost held up as perfect, you know, the native in the jungle is part of nature—
Tom:
Well, it’s pure.
Dave:
Right. He is so pure—no, that’s not the case. They were scalping, they were fighting, they were torturing before the white man—we’re not defending the white man— but before the white man ever came here. Talk about respect for animals and so forth—American Indians would drive an entire herd of buffalo over a cliff and then just take from the dead bodies just what meat they wanted and what skins they wanted and so forth and let the rest of them rot.
Tom:
And this is humanity no matter what color. This is the way we are.
Dave:
Exactly. It’s no reflection upon Native American Indians anymore than upon Europeans or Africans. The fact is, the Africans were fighting, torturing, enslaving—they had slaves long before the white man ever got there. In fact, it was the Africans, who themselves, sold the slaves to the white man. By the way, it was the Arabs first, the Muslims who were the first slave traders back there and yet the blacks today are so enamored or can be, so enamored with Islam. Go to Africa today—it is blacks who are killing blacks. The Zulus—you don’t go into a Zulu area if you’re not a Zulu and that’s what’s been happening in other parts of Africa . So, it’s the heart of man. We’re all the same whether you are white, or black, or red, or yellow, whatever you are, we are all sinners before God and we need to stop blaming one another and trying to make it out that certain groups of people are pure and without sin. No, we are not. But the problem that we are talking about is religion and a false god. We’ve talked about that. They knew the true God in their conscience by the evidence that he had created this universe and then they turned to the worship of nature which makes absolutely no sense because nature is not kind; it’s not going to help you. In fact, everything that we do is in opposition, to protect ourselves from the destructive forces of nature.
Tom:
You know, within Christianity we have a movement now that attempts to redeem the culture of the indigenous people, of the tribe, whatever it might be. In other words, you just mentioned earlier that the religion is so integrated within the culture, the society, you can’t separate them. How then do we redeem false religion?
Dave:
Well, Tom, on the one hand, a missionary lets say, that goes with the gospel, doesn’t try to change the diet or the way people live basically but he does bring the gospel of Jesus Christ and that’s going to change their religion.
Tom:
Some would admit some missionaries have gone that route.
Dave:
Oh, they have, tragically. It’s like today in America Christianity for many people is conservative politics, conservative right wing politics. We equate Americanism, our brand of Americanism, with Christianity. That’s not true, so it’s wrong to do that. On the other hand, we don’t then try to Christianize native religious practices like the sun dance or the sweat lodge, those things that are part of their religion but also of their culture. Well then, we’ll let them keep that and we’ll try to adapt it to Christianity. No, you can’t adapt Voodoo to Christianity. Now, the Catholic Church, of course, has done this, as you know, around the world.
Tom:
But we’re not talking biblical Christianity
Dave:
No, we are not. So, that’s one of the evidences that Catholicism is not biblical Christianity because you follow it around the world, you go to Haiti and it’s all intermingled with Voodoo. Go down to Brazil and it’s intermingled with Candomblé, or Macumba, Santaria, which is a mixture of the paganism that was brought from Africa by the slaves with Catholicism and you have the Catholic saints all intermingled now. They have become the gods. They changed the names of the gods. Like in Rome they changed the name of the statue, it was Isis , and now it became Mary and Horace, her son from Egypt became Jesus. They left the same statues but they just changed the names and so forth. You just can’t do that. This is what Catholicism has done. It has adapted itself to the religion. They have the sayings, you know, and Haiti is 85 percent Catholic and 110 percent Voodum and every Voodoo ceremony begins with prayers to the Catholic saints and you have this thing all mixed together. Now, we know that but now it is astonishing. Youth with a Mission , is one of the leaders in this movement and they are talking about redeeming the culture. And now, somehow, we are going to Christianize these religious ceremonies that were for the worship of false gods and somehow we’re going—well, we don’t want to change that but now we will do this to Jesus Christ. You can’t do it—it doesn’t work....
Tom:
Isn’t this like bringing strange fire as the Scriptures tell us, from pagan altars before the true and living God? God is not going to put up with it or accept it, obviously.
Dave:
Well, there is a reason for it because, as you know Tom, these native ceremonies, the pagan ceremonies, were all designed to pacify or to encounter—communicate with the false gods. Behind the false gods, Satan is called the god of this world, 2 Corinthians chapter 4. Paul says the god of this world has blinded the minds of those that believe not lest the light of the gospel of Christ should enter in and they should be saved. So, to take something that was, for example, visualization, has been adapted now. Visualization is not found in the Bible. Visualization is actually condemned in the Bible but the witch doctor uses visualization. He goes on a journey into the past, the future, the upper world, the lower world and that’s where he encounters his spirit guide. His power animal could be a jaguar, a coyote; it could be some human being and so forth. Now, we have Christians who are using that methodology to encounter Jesus Christ. So, here is an example. It’s an occult technique which the rain dance, the sun dance, these things—dancing yourself into an altered state, into a trance, dancing yourself into a state of consciousness where these spirit entities that are not of God can enter you and possess you. Now, to do that sort of thing, in order to worship God, is not biblical. No only is it not biblical but it is going to be destructive. It’s like Elijah saying, well, we will just kind of Christianize Baal worship or Judaize Baal worship. We’ll let you carry on with your same ceremonies—. Well, we were reading from the Old Testament in a previous program and the Old Testament lays out very specifically the worship tabernacle, the sacrifices, the priesthood and everything because there is a purpose behind it that is looking forward to Christ. It’s a picture of heavenlies and now to take demonic activities that were designed for worshipping demons and to try to Christianize those—it’s staggering! But this is what is happening in our day and people think, well, but I’m doing it in the name of Jesus. Well, that brings us back again to that verse that we keep quoting: “Lord, Lord, in your name didn’t we do this and Jesus said, I never knew you.”
Tom:
Didn’t Jesus say you were sincere? No, he didn’t.
Dave:
Yes, that’s all that matters, you were sincere—you did it in my name—that’s okay, you meant well—No, he doesn’t.
Tom:
I never knew you—those are sobering words.
Dave:
So, we have to know the true God and if I’m going to know—again, we keep quoting it, John:17:3And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.: “This is life eternal that they might know thee, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom I have sent.” If I’m going to know God, I’m going to have to know him on His terms. I’m going to have to know Him for who He is. Tom, I use ridiculous illustrations, I hope people forgive me but I have in my wallet let’s say, a picture of Marilyn Monroe and I say it’s my wife. Then you say wait a minute, that doesn’t look like Ruth at all. Well, what does it matter—I mean, it’s a woman and I just, you know, this is my wife and I look at it and I think— So, God doesn’t want you to mistake Him for someone else. He must be known for who He is and it’s not enough to say, well, I believe in some higher power and I’m just going to be religious, I’m going to be spiritual and not religious some people say, and I really mean well. That’s why God has given us His Word and that’s why we have the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Tom:
You know, Dave, your analogy is really good because on a human level, what would Ruth think of this? You’re carrying around a picture of somebody else in your wallet and attributing qualities to her. We’ve talked in other programs about manipulation—what would Ruth think if you came to her on the basis of manipulating, trying to get her to do what you wanted all the time. We wouldn’t put up with it on a human level, why would God? Why would we think God would want to put up with it?
Dave:
He won’t and He shouldn’t, and there is no reason why we should expect it. We’re lowering Him to, not only our level, but we are destroying God as He really is. So, that’s why we want people to be Bereans. Don’t accept what we say but check it out from the Word of God. See what God himself has said.
