Bible and Secular Psychology —— Psychology and New Age Movement II

Reverend Samuel Samuel Ling, founder and director-general of China Vision. He has taught at Fuller Theological Seminary, Westminster Theological Seminary and Wheaton University.

Dr. Lois Chan from Hong Kong received a doctorate in nursing teaching in the United States. At present, he teaches in many seminaries in California and has written books such as Psychology Deviating from Truth.

This article is a recorded text version of Bible and Psychology, the official account of WeChat "New Life Hotline".

? Just now, we said that "the movement of human potential" is the development of humanistic psychology from society, but in academic circles, it has developed a more remarkable (new era movement)-super psychology. At first, it was translated into "transcendental psychology", and later it was found that most people called it "transcendental psychology". Its "super-personal" is beyond people and natural people. As soon as you listen, you will understand that you use the supernatural (world). There is a society of parapsychology in the United States, which describes itself in its official website-parapsychology is the combination of modern psychology and spiritual world. On the one hand, it inherits abraham maslow's thought, on the other hand, it can be traced back to Buddhism, Taoism, Hinduism, Islam, mysticism, Catholicism and Orthodox monks. This school recognizes that there is a spiritual world. At the beginning, we talked about psychology, which is a school that studies things that natural science cannot explain. This school looks at things in the spiritual world from a material point of view. They won't tell you there is a spiritual world. But parapsychology is different. They believe in the spiritual world and think that the spiritual body of the spiritual world is kind. The subjects they study are very similar to previous psychosomatic studies, such as studying various meditation States, and they are the most detailed. They divided the state of meditation into 50 levels. They studied dreams again. Christians, you don't need to care about your dreams. Psychology likes to talk about your dreams, not only in this school, but also in other schools-studying ecstasy, mysticism, near-death experiences and so on. Many of these super psychologists openly make friends with ghosts. For example, in my book League of Evil, I recorded a dozen people who made friends with ghosts. One of them is a doctor of super psychology, with a license to consult children in marriage and family. He said that he is also a spokesman for the "New Age Movement of the Earth", which has something to do with UFOs. These are typical things of the new era. He also claimed that he was a psychic and had contact with many spiritual bodies. No matter how Christians view psychology, they all agree that this school is completely supernatural.

There are many views of the new era in popular psychology. The so-called popular psychology is a psychological theory, but many people have heard of it outside. So we have easy access to this. My book League of Evil studies the new era teaching of popular psychology. Let me give you a few examples:

1. Pantheism-You are God, I am God, everything is God, and the whole universe is God. So you will hear many theories, such as: "God is in me, and I am God." A ghost who calls God "God", "Goddess" and "Everything". These are his usual nouns, that is to say, he thinks that God is everything. Abraham maslow mentioned just now said, "Now more and more outstanding theologians don't agree that God has personality." We all know that the God believed in the Bible has personality, but (he said) God is just a force, a principle, a form of existence of the whole universe, and a force to express the unity of the universe. So you listen to some psychologists talking about God, but they are not talking about God.

2. reincarnation. Everyone in China knows what reincarnation is, that is, after a person dies, his soul reincarnates and enters another body. So our actions in this life will affect the afterlife, or the experience in this life will be influenced by the previous life. The new age movement has a similar idea. Most people in the new era agree with reincarnation, and those ghosts certainly agree more. One says that everyone has 200-250 previous lives. Westerners look at karma a little differently from orientals. Because they are modern people, they think that people are noble and are not influenced by these retribution concepts. But more or less admit that there is karma. Gerloff mentioned just now said: "People who grew up in the West have ignored religious books for thousands of years, so they don't understand reincarnation and cause and effect." . We were not born with a blank sheet of paper. We have many influences on our past lives. There is a lot of evidence in psychology now. "

3. Mind control substances. I have spent a lot of time talking about it. It means that what you think will appear in the material world. When it comes to extremes, if you want to be rich, you will be rich. Some ingenious ideas are the concept of self-esteem, which skillfully controls the material concept with the mind. If you think you are capable, you will be good at reading; If you think you are nothing, you will accomplish nothing. You can control the material world with your mind like this.

4. Mind control substances, supernatural phenomena, divination and meditation.

5. Human nature is good (people are innocent). Ghosts in the new era agree (this), people in the new era movement agree (this), and most people agree (this). Sadly, I found that many people in the church agreed. What did the evil spirits say in the new age movement? There are countless examples. For example, they say that there is no sin, no judgment and no redemption, so people don't need to feel guilty. One of the ghosts who claimed to be Jesus said, "We are all sons of God and God himself, so everything is innocent, so make sure everything is not old." Most psychologists also believe that human nature is good, at least they think that people are neutral-there is no difference between good and bad. I like to quote psychologists because they are too explicit. His name is Harvey Gackenz, and he has a book called "The Human Face", which says: "People are naturally enthusiastic, lovely and cooperative, and there are no bad people, only some good people who can't figure it out for a while and behave badly. No one made a mistake on purpose. There is no such thing as a difficult and destructive person. Only kind people, constructive people and caring people. Because the previous wound has not healed, it should be very vicious like a bad person. " This is clear: there are no bad people, only good people who don't perform well. The Bible doesn't say that people are good, but good people commit crimes. So we should be careful of such beautiful words. Christian psychologists are more or less influenced by these. Recently, some Christians have some fashionable definitions of sin. Let me give you a fairly obvious example. Harold Allen, who used to be a major figure in the Christian Psychological Society, said that in the history of the church, people's failures are often viewed from the perspective of justice and justice, so some healthy people will worry unnecessarily about whether they please God, which brings people some feelings of shame and guilt, so they need to find some ways to clean themselves. Probably because everyone feels that they are not enough and have no value, the concept of "God" came into being. When I mentioned this man in Kuala Lumpur, I said that if there were any heretical courts that should accept him, I think you would all agree with me.

6. Relativism, truth and morality are relative. Whether psychologists, popular psychology or the New Age Movement, when they are talking about relativism, they are not mainly talking about truth. They don't care whether 1+ 1=2 and H2O are water, which is not their concern. What they want to talk about is moral relativity. For example, an evil spirit says that truth is dispensable; Another said that there is no good or evil, only man and his judgment system. Did you hear this outside? "We don't want to judge people." I once heard a shepherd teach people how to raise children on the stage-our parents should learn not to judge their children. This is moral relativity. Another ghost said that there is nothing to do and not to do in this world, and there is nothing right or wrong. In secular psychology, I have seen this concept more than 100 times-whether it should be used or not, right or wrong. For example, there is a book called Affection Hurts People. I have seen people in China give lectures with this book. This book is definitely not a Christian book. The author said: "In an unhealthy family, there are should, should not, must and so on." He called it "toxicity education". I know he didn't invent it. Psychologists used to call this kind of family toxic. So they are against all morality, because there is no absolute morality, and they are absolutely against the morality in the Bible. You will see that there are ideas against traditional morality in the new era movement and public psychology.

7. Oppose traditional morality. I don't know if you have heard it, but I often hear the view on TV that it is ok for two consenting adults to have sex. This sentence is actually from the humanistic manifesto, and psychologists like to say this. I have already mentioned the book "Sex without Guilt" written by albert ellis (same point of view). So traditionally, they are basically opposed to our views on the morality of sexual behavior. The Bible calls homosexuality a crime. The earliest psychologists called homosexuality a disease. Later, homosexuality was not a disease but a psychological way. Now psychological counseling does not allow counselors to help people change their sexual orientation. We Christians are quite conservative about premarital sex, extramarital sex and divorce. Thank god, there are always some beautiful things left. What about homosexuality? Not exactly. There are voices of opposition and support. Divorce and abortion are supported by secular psychology. For example, it was recently said in Psychology Today that the traditional nuclear family is shrinking, and there are more and more cohabiting and single families. Some people may ask, is this the root of social problems? The author said: "The facts don't support it. This is the value of a few. The facts do not support this idea. We don't need to save the family, we should consolidate and protect everyone's health, welfare and freedom. " These are the thoughts of secular psychology and the thoughts of the new era.

? What we see is the teaching of secular psychology, which has been brought into the church. Pantheism, a little, is rarely affected; Samsara is not yet; Mind control substances must exist. I mean, has secular psychology been brought into the church? Human nature is good, absolutely; Morality (relativity) is more or less shaken. Christian psychologists have various voices, but not all of them are against homosexuality.

? I answered a question from the congregation: If God can create, we are his image and should be able to create.

Seeing this question, I must answer it. Sorry, this is definitely a new era idea. People in the new era movement are definitely the creators of God. God can create reality, so can I, and there are some practical sayings, such as: God says there must be, and we can have it as soon as we say it. This has a big problem: God's creation starts from infinity, and what we mean by creation is only from change to existence. Although we are the image of God, we are not equal to God. We are his image, not him. God created the universe from scratch, and we can draw a picture, just like a beautiful universe. In fact, this man asked several things: If we are qualified to create with God, there is a natural way to create together. For example, if I want to be a pianist and I make up my mind to do it, I will do it in the normal way. Just now we said it was a question of values. What he means is to use natural methods to develop the potential of nature. I just mentioned two verses: Godliness and contentment are power-God didn't tell us to be lazy, but wealth and success are not our goals. Second, if the owner didn't build the house, the builder would be busy in vain-we won't succeed if we try our best to succeed. So even if you try your best, you may not succeed. Secondly, your values may not conform to the Bible. The man asked, besides natural methods, there are mysterious methods. He said that I have such a friend (help me). I want to remind him that meditation is the first advantage, and the second is the disadvantage. If you use the devil, he will surely ask for your debt. You use it once, and it will collect debts from you for life. Don't ask for these sweets!

? I answer the last question: can the theory of "convincing people by reasoning" be used as a way to motivate and encourage yourself?

? Fight for your rights and express yourself. But the Bible says why don't you want to suffer and be bullied? 6: 1. If we live on the ground, we will suffer and be bullied. Sea fish of Sparidae 12: 19 Don't retaliate against yourself. Give in and make the Lord angry. Some people think that struggle is not a Christian value at all, so if you want to live on the earth according to God's will, you must be prepared to suffer.

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