The Evangelical Universalist Forum

Conversations with God

Studies Books
#1

Has anyone else read this book? amazon.com/Conversations-God … 0399142789

I read it a few years ago & at the time it really inspired me. It seemed like such truth.

Now I’m concerned that I was deceived in some way because looking back, it appears to be rather Unitarian if I remember correctly.

I only read the first book. Apparently there are others.

Any suggestions or guidance will be helpful. :smiley:

Thank you,

Christine

#2

I’ve only heard a little about the book. The little I heard would not incline me to recommend it from the standpoint of coherent truth about God.

My minor inference, however, could be easily wrong or misinformed. I didn’t have time at the time to look into it myself. So please don’t consider this to be a significant vote ‘con’. :slight_smile:

#3

From what I remember about it I think it’s subject is pretty much open to anything, regarding God, which now gives me pause.

I don’t think it’s primarily Christian, although it does refer to Christ.

Sorry if these questions seem kind of dumb that I’ve been asking around the board. Still kind of a “baby Christian” trying to find my way. :slight_smile:

It’s enough to give someone a nervous breakdown all these different Christian belief systems in the world. :laughing:

#4

All of us are, until we receive our new name. And I don’t think these questions are at all dumb. I seriously doubt anyone else does either. :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile: Please have no worries about that. :smiley:

#5

Thank you. :slight_smile:

#6

Totally agree with Jason here - not dumb at all.

I read at least the first 2 (if not 3) many years ago - of course I read them from outside the Christian faith and so wasn’t viewing them with any concern over whether they were ‘true’ conversations with God or not. I’m not sure what I think of them to be honest - I know many at the time condemned them as being conversations with demons but I see them more as one man working out his own spiritual path as a kind of dialogue with himself.

#7

Christine - I know you asked the question a couple of years ago. I’ve only recently arrived and I know something about this topic – so I’ll share it in case its useful. I remember being bewildered by it too once - which is the reains I’ve tried to understand it I guess :slight_smile:

There is nothing particularly new in Neal Douglas Walsh’s ‘gospel’. It is in the tradition of the nineteenth century American ‘New Thought’ movement which has also in different ways influenced the Course in Miracles, Landmark Forum, Lifespring, ‘The Secret’ etc . In addition, New Thought is at the moment very influential in Life Coaching, Corporate Motivational Speaking etc.

I’d summarise the teachings thus -

  1. We human beings and all of life are one, united as parts of the same impersonal god (so the god who has revealed himself to Neal Douglas Walsh is, in a sense, his own deepest self who is the deepest self of you and I too). When we realise we are all one we don’t feel rivalry and enmity towards each other. We wouldn’t deliberately hurt ourselves – so when we realise that we are all one we don’t hurt each other.
  2. The world is currently in a state of dangerous crisis and the reason for this is organised religion that teaches a violent, punitive and divisive god. This false religion is propagated by priests to perpetuate their own power and it results in human beings behaving in the image of their false god. Jesus came to unmask the false religion of priests – but the message of Jesus was in turn falsified by the priests of religion.
  3. Evil is a delusion that is created by wrong thinking – in reality there is only oneness and love. If we experience evil it is because we are creating it through delusional negative thinking.
  4. Death is not in any sense ‘evil’ – life and death are one.

I think I can leave it to readers of this site to ‘do the math’ about points 1 and 2. Obviously, it’s not orthodox Christianity (and although I’m not an evangelical I am a fairly orthodox Christian I hope). I think there are tiny grains of truth in some of Walsh’s critique of organised religion. However, in my view organised religion has a proud history as well as a shameful one; rivalry and the pursuit of power are not confined to or caused by religion; and I can only partially recognise the Christ of whom Walsh speaks in the Christ I believe in.

I get more worried when it comes to points 3 and 4. In this ‘worldview’, tragedy, suffering and evil are ‘redeemed’ by denying that they exist. I’m uncomfortable with the word ‘heresy’ to describe Walsh’s teaching/New Thought teachings here, because of the violence associated with heresy hunting; but I can say that in my considered view a denial of evil and suffering is not a good strategy for engaging compassionately with reality. I’ve found that New Thought converts can start off being optimistic about transforming the world for the better – but when the going gets tough they end up blaming other people for their sufferings– ‘you suffer because you have a negative attitude to life’ - and even take steps to cut themselves off from friends and associates whom they now consider ‘negative’ (reminiscent of religious shunnings and excommunications). In so doing they seem to reinvent some of the nastier aspects of organised religion in its fundamentalist varieties.

Most disturbing in my view, is Walsh’s teaching that Life and Death are One. In Book 2 of his Conversations With God’, ‘god’ tells Walsh that Hitler did nothing wrong in killing the Jews and so is ‘in heaven’ (Cw2 p.55) Walsh replies, “I still don’t understand how Hitler could have gone to heaven; how he could have been rewarded for what he did?” God responds to him: “First, understand that death is not an end, but a beginning; not a horror, but a joy. It is not a closing down, but an opening up. The happiest moment of your life will be the moment it ends. That’s because it doesn’t end but only goes on in ways so magnificent, so full of peace and wisdom and joy, as to make it difficult to describe and impossible for you to comprehend. So the first thing you have to understand – as I’ve already explained to you – is that Hitler didn’t hurt anyone. In a sense, he didn’t inflict suffering, he ended it.” (CW2, p. 56). Walsh has been keen to emphasize that he has been troubled by this ‘revelation’ and that he has no wish to trivialize the holocaust or to exonerate Hitler’s crimes. But I’m seriously not convinced - this is very dangerous stuff.

As a Universalist Christian I can live with the idea that someone such as Hitler, someone responsible for evil and suffering so great that it is impossible to think of or adequately name it, is somehow going to be finally redeemed and reconciled. How this will take place, how much pain and patience will be required, and over how many aeons is beyond me - as I know it should be beyond me– we can leave it as mystery in the hands of the God of Love whose Love is greater than anything we can conceive of. However, although I don’t think evil has an ultimate reality, because one day it will cease to exist, we have to take the penultimate reality of evil and suffering very seriously indeed to live with grounded compassion, learn about real forgivness, and follow the real/full Christ.

All the best (and hope this is useful for anyone in future asking questions about Conversations with God - and that my way of communicating isn’t too forbiding) :smiley:

Dick

#8

Dick,

Good post. Thanks for sharing. I haven’t read any of the material in question, but wouldn’t be afraid to do so. I believe that in much material there are seeds of truth though it be hidden in a pile of, well, dung. We need not fear the dung for it will prove out to be worthless, but we do need to tune our ears to hear the truth. I believe that truth has a distinctive ring to it like that of fine China; and if we have ears to hear, we can pick up on it.

#9

Thanks Sherman – I’m at one with you on this, and I love your simile of truth being like the distinctive ring of fine China!
:smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

What you say puts me in mind of something that I read over Christmas in the ‘All Shall Be Well’ collection (recommended on this site); it’s not quite the same thing but its certainly related. The chapter on Origen in this– who had his faults but God bless him – contains some interesting stuff on his ideas about ‘The Epinoiai and Varied Participation in the Logos’ (pages 35 – 40). Origen argues that the variety of titles/epinoiai used for Christ in the Bible reflect the variety of ways in which we come to know the Saviour – some of them lesser ways some of them greater but all reflections of Christ as Wisdom. And I guess some of these names may even be mispronounced by us but can still lead us eventually to the Christ of ultimate Wisdom in its fullness.

Origen had his faults but – God bless him – if he had had more influence on the history of the Church perhaps it could have avoided becoming a persecuting Church. I note that an argument put forward against Universalism is that it takes away the urgency from the motivation to evangelise – and one way I would counter this is by saying that an urgent motivation to evangelise has often expressed itself in insensitive bullying attitudes and even in persecution. By way of contrast, the horizon of infinite divine patience opened up by Universalism can be a spur to greater patience, gentleness and tolerance.

A final point –

Tha makes sense Jeff. If I Google, ‘Conversations With God’, I find a number of ’Christian’ websites that throw in a few biblical proof texts to counter its teachings and assert that it is demonically inspired – the same websites will probably also talk about the Heresy/Demon/Cult of Universalism! :open_mouth: Since my days as a fundamentalist I’ve always found this way of thinking – of seeing ideas, movements, behaviours, groups of people, individuals as demonic - immensely destructive and saddening. Of course the Bible can be used selectively to support this but my experience is that this paranoid worldview always leads to no good, and sometimes to tragedy. It is Manichean, it turns evil into a power that is equal with God, and by getting people to obsess about avoiding evil it can actually act as a mechanism for creating evil. Reading the posts on this website I’ve seen no evidence of this sort of thinking – to my very great delight :smiley: :smiley: :smiley: . And my first thoughts about this are that because Universalists believe that evil has only a penultimate reality and does not have the final say they are less likely to fall into the trap of over-believing in the devil. I think I’d use this insight to counter another argument against Universalism – i.e that Universalists do not take evil seriously enough (in my view that’s true of Conversations with God but not true of Christian Universlaism).

All the best (and I’ll shut up about this now :laughing: )

Dick

#10

I am currently reading The Shack (which has been quite an emotional read for me). I would like to think any God worthy of the job can use all sorts of literature to lure people - not just ‘official’ scripture.

#11

I’d agree in principle with you Jeff. I can see that there is a nuanced theological discussion that could come out of this – but it’s way beyond me to engage in it. I’ve not yet read ‘The Shack’ yet, but what I can say is that some Literature has possessed an almost revelatory power for me – it has opened my eyes to see more clearly and more richly.

I have taken the liberty of looking up ‘The Shack’ on Wikipedia and note that there has been a right old to do in America about whether or not it is ‘heretical’. This puts me in mind of an extreme Calvinist website I once looked at that argued C.S. Lewis’ ‘The Lion’ The Witch’ and The Wardrobe’ was the worst of all literature and should be both banned and burned because – well, because Aslan’s death and resurrection is imagined therein in terms of the (wrong/demonic) Ransom theory of Atonement rather than the (correct/godly) Penal Substitution theory.

‘It takes all sorts to make a world/Church’, as they say.

Yours in faith (mixed with doubt)

Dick