New Age ideas are alive and well in our day. This is no more evident than in Oprah Winfrey, whom I suspect is the most prominent portal for all things New Age in our day. Recently, The Secret, has become a prominent exemplar of New Age ideas and ideology. Thankfully, James K. Walker and Bab Waldrep have produced a helpful volume, The Truth Behind The Secret: A Reasoned Response to the Runaway Bestseller
This evening, during an open forum with students, we ventured into the topic of spiritual warfare (as is common during open forums). Our time was limited, though the timing was just right (as I’ll explain below) to illustrate an important Christian posture towards experiences in general, and our perceptions of spiritual warfare in particular. I began to explain…
You see, a few weeks ago, in an open forum in Tennessee, a certain student and I were enjoying a disagreement of sorts. It was a somewhat tedious discussion since this student admitted and exhibited his ignorance of Scripture. (This always limits our discussion.) Nevertheless, I decided to boil down the discussion to some fundamental observations. To do this, I decided to ask a few questions (questions be sentences that end with something that looks like a fishhook).
Firewalking . . . oh, those amazing feats!
Perhaps you’ve seen them on late-night television. “Awaken the giant within,” and other such pseudo-promises.
The conferees line up – some are quietly confident, others are perspiringly nervous. They roll up their trousers or hike up their skirts and . . . off they go.
Sure, it’s virtual speed walking, but, look, no hands . . . and no burns either.
But is firewalking such an amazing feat?
In order to dispel any doubts, advocates should show that they not only can traverse a bed of hot coals, but they could do the same while the coals are covered with a piece of sheet metal.
It would be about the same temperature, right?
And isn’t that the clincher?
1200-degrees Fahrenheit, right?
So, try this at home (just kidding!): line up a row of skillets set to about 400-degree and scoot your amazing tootsies across as fast as you can.
I do have one suggestion though: make sure the skillets have a non-stick surface!
Then again, don’t be gullible. Don’t be deceived by the frauds.
