a serious reason for concern about "The Bible" miniseries

While I haven't been able to watch the miniseries myself, some people that I trust have, and they don't speak very highly of it. But my concern isn't directly about anything in the series itself, though I can't help but think that it may well have effected the contents. It's about one of the main people behind it.

A gift from Heaven! Roma Downey returns to TV after five-year absence

For now, when she’s not shuttling the kids to their school–a 40-minute commute in each direction that’s earned her the carpooling crown–Roma continues broadening her horizons. She’s returned to painting, and is partway through a Masters program in “spiritual psychology“ from the University of Santa Monica. And yes, the fact that the university’s name contains “Monica” makes her smile.


Taking classes has been an eye-opening experience. “It’s like the peeling of an onion, layer upon layer of behavior, and learning why we do what we do and how we can potentially change our negative patterning,” she says.

So, a master's degree in "spiritual psychology"? Not sure how anyone has learned about how the minds of spirits work, but...

Ok, bad attempt at humor now over.

In reality, this "spiritual psychology" thing is hardly a laughing matter, especially when one is talking about someone who's behind something like this miniseries. Here are some excerpts from the school's site about this degree program.

M.A. in Spiritual Psychology

Experiencing enhanced spiritual awareness through knowing yourself as a Divine Being having a human experience.

Individual Evolution - Learning to relate to yourself with greater Compassion and Awareness of yourself as a Divine Being having a human experience.

Self-Counseling - Learning, through the process of Self-Counseling, to connect with your Inner Counselor, a source of Wisdom, Unconditional Loving, and Compassion that resides at the level of the Authentic Self.

  There's some other kinda mushy mystical language used on that page that may cause some alarms in one's mind, but these are the biggest, so I thought. How unbiblical can it be to think of oneself as "a Divine Being", basically that one is God? And how New-Agey can it be to try to "connect with your "Inner Counselor"?  

I suppose it could be said that it's unfair to bring this up; after all, I've heard nothing about the miniseries that says that these kinds of ideas are in it. So far as I know, no Old Testament person portrayed in the miniseries has told the people of Israel that they needed to know themselves as Divine Beings.  

Maybe, but can we say that a person who has been taught these things is someone whose views of theology are going to basically sound?  

Maybe Downey doesn't believe these things. Maybe she doesn't think that she is a Divne Being having a human experience. One could wonder how she hopes to finish her degree is she doesn't buy into those ideas, and why she would continue to pursue a degree that taught those things.  

But maybe someone should be asking her about what she's being taught.  

I know that many Christians in the media are all gung-ho over this miniseries, supporting it and telling others to watch it. Maybe they should be the ones asking the questions of Downey, to find out what she really believes, and make sure that what they are promoting isn't really theological poison.

book review--Burn by Eric Gilmour

New Agey gobblety-good with a thin covering of Christianese

There was a small village that suffered greatly during a time of severe drought, and the people of the village were starving. One day, a man, well-fed and well-off, came to the village, and standing in the center of the village, he spoke long and eloquently about steak, giving the succulent details about the many steaks he had eaten, and telling the people that if they could find steak, they would not be hungry. But he had no steak with him, and he did not know of any stores near them that had steak. The only advice he gave them was that they had to look within themselves, struggling to hear a faint voice within themselves, and if they do that absolutely and completely correctly, they would get the steak they wanted.


That little story pretty much sums up my impression of "Burn" by Eric Gilmour.

First, he is all law. "He is only made manifest in us as much as we can host Him in our lives through such a real, absolute surrender, utter dependency, and total reliance." (Kindle Locations 339-340). Ok, so, we have here Gilmour's law, that we have to have "a real, absolute surrender, utter dependency, and total reliance". But like the starving people in the story, at no point does he tell us how to attain those things. How, for example, do we reach a place of "real, absolute surrender"? Dunno. All he says is that that is what we need, but nothing is said about how to get there.

The language he uses in regards to this state he says we must attain is rather disturbing. "It is burning inside of His heart to possess His people. God possession is the formula to create the Jesus people. There is only one route to God possession: God obsession." (Kindle Locations 47-49). Possession? I'd be very surprised if Gilmour wasn't aware of how such language would bring to mind demonic possession. Is he saying that God is suppose to "possess" us in a similar way? Does the Bible say that that is how God does things? I would say, not in the least. "Have you an inward burning attraction to be absorbed up into your God?" (Kindle Locations 247-248). Absorbed into God? Wow, that sounds like something from Eastern religious mysticism.

And, at times, his language is as silly as the notion of getting steak by looking inside yourself. "As the rain rests upon the ground after the storm, it yearns to return back to the high place from which it has fallen." (Kindle Location 256). How does he know that? Has he gone outside and asked rain droplets what they want? "God can forgive you, but time will never forgive you." (Kindle Location 204). So, time is an even stricter judge than God? "Throughout this book we will look into the ascent of the soul into the state of unbroken awareness of His abiding presence and its effects." (Kindle Locations 207-208). The ascent of the soul? Please, slowly put down the Deepak Chopra books, and no one will get hurt. "The tree doesn't focus on bearing fruit, but on receiving the sap." (Kindle Location 549). I suppose he's asked a bunch of trees about that? "What called down an angel to release Peter out of jail? It was not power, but prayer." (Kindle Locations 877-878). That passage doesn't say that prayer called down an angel. "We possess divine interaction and exchange from each individual's specific unique color in which Christ proceeds." (Kindle Locations 1215-1216). We each have a "specific unique color"? Nothing about that in the Bible, but that sure sounds like the New-Agey idea of auras.

On top of all of that, there is his constant belittling of sound doctrine and correct beliefs, and even of the Bible itself. "The wisdom of God is an octave too high for the minds of men. Such heavenly wisdom is not wisdom that can be explained; it must be demonstrated." (Kindle Locations 94-95). Outside of having no idea where he gets the idea that God's wisdom is so high that only dogs can hear it, there is simply the idea that it cannot be explained. God wrote a whole big book called The Bible for nothing, I guess. "There lies in the midst of Christendom a great danger, a danger that is deeply woven into the fabric of modern American Christianity. It is not as much a danger of doctrinal error as it is an absence of the most vital underlying element of spirituality." (Kindle Locations 395-397). If someone tries to dismiss the danger of doctrinal error, you should check his own doctrinal luggage. "Without the Holy Spirit, the Bible is unable to give life. As Jesus noted in John 6, "The Spirit gives life." Paul had the same understanding, stating, "... The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life" (2 Corinthians 3: 6)." (Kindle Locations 424-425). I've seen Bill Johnson use that argument, and it's a bad one, no matter who uses it. Paul is not denigrating the Word of God, and it at least borders on blasphemy for Gilmour to even imply that. "The Gospel is not a verbal argument for the existence of God." (Kindle Locations 960-961). Makes one wonder why Jesus bothered telling the disciples to preaching and proclaim the Gospel, then. "They couldn't possibly be born from above by a nominal belief system or by adherence to correct thinking patterns. Doctrine has never saved a person." (Kindle Locations 996-997). So, correct doctrine and beliefs are unimportant? "Freedom is in a Man named Jesus-- not a belief system, religion, or an attempt to make a life change." (Kindle Locations 1005-1006). Again with the attacks on beliefs. At no point does the Bible treat beliefs and doctrine with such distain.

"Leonard Ravenhill said, "No one can change God's opinion of you but you."" (Kindle Location 580). We should be very glad that this statement is very wrong! Christ has changed God's opinion of those who repent and have faith in Him, taking us from being enemies of God and children of wrath to become children of God.

Geting back to his idea about having to have a "a real, absolute surrender, utter dependency, and total reliance", one might wonder if Gilmour is holding himself up as one who has attained to those things. I think we can question that about him, because if he is, I'll admit that I don't buy it. Why? Because of those with whom he fellowships and supports. For example, he proudly tells us of his connection with the Pensacola revival, and his admiration for Steve Hill. Now, Hill is someone who has fabricated many things concerning this revival, things that have been shown to be lies. Several times during the book, he uses quotes from Benny Hinn. Hinn is the worst of the worst among the Faith Healers, a known charlatan and fake, whose 'ministry' has been a blight and shame on the church. You may learn more about these men in these books, Christianity In Crisis: The 21st Century and Counterfeit Revival.

If these are the people Gilmour looks up to, then there are ramifications. At the end of Chapter 6 of this book, he gives some "Testimonies" which he claims are of healings he was involved in. But because of his association with a known liar like Hill, and his admiration of a known fake like Hinn, I must say that I see no reason to believe his "Testimonies". Has he had these healings documented? Has anyone independent of his ministry verified them? Can he provide proof that what he claims happened is what really happened? Short of irrefutable proof, I'll consider him a fake like so many of such 'ministers' like himself.

In the end, this book is rubbish. His teachings have more in common with New Age gobblety-gook than biblical Christianity. His attacks on the Bible, correct beliefs, and sound doctrine should be instant and insistent warning signs that we should steer clear of him. There are so many more biblically sound teachers and ministers out there, why bother with the nonsense this guy is peddling?

i don't think that passage says that

Well, when you desperately want to find some kind of justification for your practices, any port in the storm will do, or in this case, any verse or verses pulled completely out of context.

Awakening Creativity in Prayer

Each moment is pregnant with new possibilities waiting to be born, alive with new beginnings, God’s secrets not yet heard, God’s dreams not yet fulfilled. These were the thoughts that lodged in my mind as I meditated on Isaiah 48:6-8 this morning.

Well, to her credit, she at least gives an address. Let's drive on over, shall we.

Isaiah 48

6"You have heard; now see all this;
and will you not declare it?
From this time forth I announce to you new things,
hidden things that you have not known.
7They are created now, not long ago;
before today you have never heard of them,
lest you should say, 'Behold, I knew them.'
8You have never heard, you have never known,
from of old your ear has not been opened.
For I knew that you would surely deal treacherously,
and that from before birth you were called a rebel.

Interesting, especially that last part. Hardly complimentary. Let's check out the neighborhood.

1Hear this, O house of Jacob,
who are called by the name of Israel,
and who came from the waters of Judah,
who swear by the name of the LORD
and confess the God of Israel,
but not in truth or right.
2For they call themselves after the holy city,
and stay themselves on the God of Israel;
the LORD of hosts is his name.

3"The former things I declared of old;
they went out from my mouth, and I announced them;
then suddenly I did them, and they came to pass.
4Because I know that you are obstinate,
and your neck is an iron sinew
and your forehead brass,
5 I declared them to you from of old,
before they came to pass I announced them to you,
lest you should say, 'My idol did them,
my carved image and my metal image commanded them.'

6"You have heard; now see all this;
and will you not declare it?
From this time forth I announce to you new things,
hidden things that you have not known.
7They are created now, not long ago;
before today you have never heard of them,
lest you should say, 'Behold, I knew them.'
8You have never heard, you have never known,
from of old your ear has not been opened.
For I knew that you would surely deal treacherously,
and that from before birth you were called a rebel.

9 "For my name’s sake I defer my anger,
for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you,
that I may not cut you off.
10Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver;
I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.
11 For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it,
for how should my name be profaned?
My glory I will not give to another.

12"Listen to me, O Jacob,
and Israel, whom I called!
I am he; I am the first,
and I am the last.
13My hand laid the foundation of the earth,
and my right hand spread out the heavens;
when I call to them,
they stand forth together.

14"Assemble, all of you, and listen!
Who among them has declared these things?
The LORD loves him;
he shall perform his purpose on Babylon,
and his arm shall be against the Chaldeans.
15 I, even I, have spoken and called him;
I have brought him, and he will prosper in his way.
16 Draw near to me, hear this:
from the beginning I have not spoken in secret,
from the time it came to be I have been there."
And now the Lord GOD has sent me, and his Spirit.

17Thus says the LORD,
your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel:
"I am the LORD your God,
who teaches you to profit,
who leads you in the way you should go.
18 Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments!
Then your peace would have been like a river,
and your righteousness like the waves of the sea;
19 your offspring would have been like the sand,
and your descendants like its grains;
their name would never be cut off
or destroyed from before me."

20 Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea,
declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it,
send it out to the end of the earth;
say, "The LORD has redeemed his servant Jacob!"
21 They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts;
he made water flow for them from the rock;
he split the rock and the water gushed out.

22 "There is no peace," says the LORD, "for the wicked."

So, anyone want to take those verses, in their context, and come up with any way of making them say that "Each moment is pregnant with new possibilities waiting to be born"?

First, who is God addressing? Israel. What is He saying? Well, He seems rather upset with them. He talks about how do seem to be only wanting to put on the show of being His people, but they aren't doing it in truth and in the right. He calls them obstinate, and that they would have tried to credit the things He did for them to the false gods they were constantly worshiping. One can think of the golden calf in the wilderness, when Aaron declared that it was the god that had led them out of Egypt, as an example of that.

God is not happy with them, but He is not done with them. He is refining them, but in a furnace of affliction. He does this for His ownke, that His name will not be profaned, and that no one would give to another, probably idols and false gods and demons, the glory properly due to Him.

There is not the whit of a call here for some kind of mystical practices in prayer, like the lectio divina this Sojrone wants to encourage. If anything, this is a call to Israel to repent for being idolators, rebels, and traitors to God.

Perhaps part of what happened while Jesus was alone in prayer was that he learned new ways to pray, new patterns that had the disciples hungering for what they observed

And right about here, we have something I would guess is closely akin to blasphemy, perhaps even the thing itself--trying to defend one's contemplative mystical practices by creating fictions that Jesus maybe/might have/could have practiced such things, even though there is NOTHING in the Gospels that says that, not even a hint.

This article from Sojo is disgusting. The Bible is subjected to misuse and abuse from this writer.

relying on the unreliable

Relying on Human Goodness

We have a great need to rely on the fact of human goodness.

Sorry, but believing in lies is not what we need. What we need, rather, is the truth.

The truth is, "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked". The truth is, "there is no one who does what is good". The truth is, "all of our works of righteousness are putrid rags". The truth is the Fall, mankind is sinful and wicked, we have all fallen short of God's glory, we have all sinned. We are not good.

In our daily life, we encounter people who are angry, deceitful, intent only on satisfying their own needs. There is so much anger, distrust, greed, and pettiness that we are losing our capacity to work well together. Many of us are more withdrawn and distrustful than ever. Yet this incessant display of what’s worst in us makes it essential that we believe in human goodness. Without that belief, there really is no hope.

Then there is no hope, for what hope is there in believing in a lie?

But there is hope in believing in the truth. The truth is, "while we were still sinners, Christ died for us". The truth is, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners". The truth is, "Christ died for the ungodly". The truth is, through repentence and faith in Christ who love us and gave Himself for us, we can have forgiveness for our sins and eternal life.

Not through believing in fictions like what such good people we are. 'Cause we ain't.

look familiar?

Take a gander of this, emphases mine.

There will be a major transition in religion. Those who have chosen this profession will have to make another choice. The choice will be rather to serve an institution or God. They will have to choose whether administering to the needs of the people takes precedence over the demands of the institution. Those who have chosen a religion will also have to make a choice. Does this religion serve Humanity or is it self-serving? Does it promote Universal Peace, Brother/Sisterly Love, Equality, Individual Freedom and Prosperity for All? Does it empower the individual to make one’s own personal God connection? Does it promote fear, unworthiness, guilt, and wrathful images separate from man and nature? Are the images lacking in omnipresence which separates man from God, his neighbor and nature? Does it honor the Creator in all creation? Does it demonize, judge and condemn others of different cultures and paths? If a man or woman knows God by another name, has a different master, saint or sage, yet offers the same basic understandings, are they welcome and listened to? One of the most misunderstood quotes which has separated Christians from other cultures is one passage attributed to Jesus when he said, “I AM the way, the truth and the light; no man shall enter heaven but through me.” Beforehand he said, “I of myself do nothing for the Father within doeth the works.” God was speaking through Jesus. Often those who do not accept Jesus the personality and the man are judged, condemned, etc.. God is the way, and that same God consciousness was reached by other saints, sages and mystics throughout the various cultures around the world. This separation and judgment must end. Jesus stood for infinite love, compassion and forgiveness, and it is time we made that our ideal. Most master teachers of all faiths transcended all religious and cultural boundaries into a universal love for all people and all life. This is where religions will need to go in the days to come because love and compassion for all people are necessary attributes for the future. It would better serve Humanity and God to focus on
Universal Peace, Brother/Sisterly Love, Equality, Individual Freedom and Prosperity for All, and a strong reverence for life in all forms. Now is the time for churches to inspire the Universal Principles and Understandings necessary for a healthy society and environment and administer to the needs of those less fortunate. Warring over names, images and doctrines in endless power struggles is a disservice to God and Humanity. It is time for everyone to come together in one great harmonic chord each singing praises each in one’s own unique way to the one Creator of all people all life. Look for the similarities not the differences and allow love to be the first and foremost priority as well as the manifesting force behind all creation.

If I were to tell you that some progressive or liberal or emergent theologian had said this, would that be a hard claim to believe? Perhaps if I were to attribute this to a McLaren book, or maybe an Emergent Village Podcast? Or maybe I came on it while reading Marcus Borg or John Caputo, the little I read of them?

But, no, none of them said this. Perhaps it would be better to say that this came, as it were, straight from the horse's mouth.

Self Mastery in the Christ Consciousness
An Andromedan, Pleiadian, Orion Alternative
These are things that people who claim to have been visited by aliens are saying that the aliens have told them.

It would be easy to dismiss them as crackpots. I'm not so sure that's wise. For my part, I have no doubt that they have been visited by...beings. One may even call them alien beings, though not as one may think from watching The X-Files (one of my all-time favorite shows, btw).

No, I think they were visited by demonic beings, disguised, if you would, by what these people would consider an angel of light. Look at how Scripture is used deceitfully in the above quote.

But the ways in which this quote resembles things said by emergents and progressives is notable, so much so that I think it is not accidental. When they begin by saying that "There will be a major transition in religion", one can hear all of the emergents going on about how we need, A New Kind of Christianity, A Christianity Worth Believing In, or Phyllis Tickle going on about rummage sales every 500 or so years. "Does it promote Universal Peace, Brother/Sisterly Love, Equality, Individual Freedom and Prosperity for All?" could be the question most important to Sojourners. "Does it empower the individual to make one’s own personal God connection?" is exactly the sort of thing progressives say we should strive for, what Christianity should be become--not to convert people to Jesus, but to see God in other religions. Faith House Manhattan would approve of this question.

I'll not deny the possibility that this communique may be entirely man-made, but I doubt it.

What does it tell us when the words of emergents and progressives sound so much like the words given to men by demons?

heretics and goddesses

On pages 58-60 of A Heretic's Guide to Eternity, Spencer Burke and Barry Taylor offer a list that could be considered 'spirituality vs religion'. It's an interesting list, and I'm planning to comment on some or all of them, a bit as a time, as time allows.

Spirituality encourages us to treat each human being equally and to explore the feminine of the divine as well the masculine. Religion, conversely, is dominated by male imagery and in many places continues to oppress and undermine women. The patriachal nature of most of the world's religions often means that women have to fight for the right to be treated equally.
p 58

Interesting. Let's see...

The Bible is filled with imagery of God in the masculine. In fact, much of it comes directly from God Himself. One of the strongest biblical images of God in the Bible is as Father. He speaks of Himself as a bridegroom, especially in relation to Israel. While I suppose a warrior could be man or woman, it's a predominately male image. And Jesus is so obviously male. And, finally, the Bible constantly uses male pronouns, 'he' and 'his' and 'him', to refer to God.

One may rightly say that God is really a spiritual being, and likely without gender as we know it, and it is a good point. But the fact remains, outside of a few possible cases such a in Proverbs and the feminine Wisdom, almost all of the imagery concerning God is masculine. And if we believe that God inspired the words of the Bible, then the predominately masculine imagery is itself inspired by God.

As such, then, I can only see a potential danger in any attempt to "explore the feminine of the divine". First, what does that mean? If a man is saying that he's going to "explore the feminine of the divine", what is it he's looking for?

Religions have had feminine deities. The Greek Hera, for example, seems to have epitomized the bad wife (not that Zeus was all that great a husband). They also had a goddess (Artemis?) who was a hunter, not exactly something we associate with women--men are usually thought of as hunters, and women as the gatherers and farmers. There was also the one (Aphrodite?) who epitomized beauty. And the Fates, who were women. You can find a rundown on Greek goddesses and supernatural beings here, though I will warn you about much of the artwork.

Hinduism has some feminine deities, too. Perhaps most famous is Kali, a blood-thirsty assassin and murderous goddess.

Perhaps those examples should give one pause in one's attempt to "explore the feminine of the divine". One may not like what one sees.

But I think the rest of the excerpt shows what the real agenda is. The Bible is pretty plain that pastors and church leaders are to be men. In the OT, the priests were all men, and that was how God set things up. Jesus' disciples and apostles were all men, though some say that some later apostles may have been women. When NT writers deal with pastors and deacons, perhaps the thing they take for granted is that those leaders are men.

And as well, the Bible says that in marriage, the man is the head, the leader. The husband has authority and responsibility. The Bible even plainly tells wives to 'submit'.

This is, of course, very not-PC (and I don't mean it's Mac or Linux). That is offensive to the "women need men like fish need bicycles" types. It's offensive to the "women can preach as well as men" types. It's offensive to Emergents, who pride themselves on their women-pastors.

Since the Christian religion attempts to follow the Bible, then one must appeal to something else to work around it. Hey, look, 'spirituality'. We today are more spiritual than those guys way back 2000 years ago. Oh, they were fine, we revere their works and all that, but in some things, they were just so stick-in-the-mud. And anyway, what they wrote has been misused and used to abuse women, and since that's happened, we must rethink all they taught instead of trying to understand how to apply their teachings rightly.

It should be said that, yes, there are many examples of women being abused and oppressed. I can't think of anything more anti-woman than Islam, and can't understand why any woman would choose Islam if she were not forced to.

Perhaps one could point out things in largely Christian nations that could be improved on. That's a given, and should be addressed, but it isn't helped by appealing to some kind of extra-scriptural "feminine of the divine". This has a more new-agey ring to it than biblical Christian.

look familiar?

See how this reads to you.

We feel that a holistic political conversation--one honoring the powers of mind and spirit to help heal the world--is emerging throughout the global community. The Global Renaissance Alliance embodies its vision through small gatherings of citizens called Citizen Circles. Meeting in living rooms, at churches, around campfires, or anywhere else, we are joined with others of like mind in meditating for world peace; speaking from our hearts about our wishes for a better world; and working together to make it so. Within the Citizen Circle, we commit to cultivating an intimate fabric of deep community, and through our individual and joint efforts to create real change in ourselves and the world around us. Dedicated to the divine love in ourselves and in one another, we seek to extend the principles of forgiveness, atonement, reverence for life, faith, service, and compassion into the political and social dynamic of our time.

This paragraph is on page 413 of the book "Imagine: What America Could Be in the 21st Century", a collection of essays edited by Marianne Williamson. The book is essentially a bunch of articles or essays by such new-agey lowlights as Deepak Chopra (who with a name like that missed his calling as a rap artist), Neale Donald Walsch, and I suppose others who think they've been talking with one god or another. The book claims that all proceeds for the book go the above-mentioned Global Renaissance Alliance (the book was put out in 2000, and I don't know if said alliance is still around or not; anyway, I found the book at one of the 'all the stuff in here is only $1' shops, and while in one sense it wasn't even worth that much, in another it's interesting to see what these types are thinking).

Consider that paragraph from the book, and please ask, "Does this seem familiar?"

I think that it does. I think it's very much like what the emergents are doing and trying to do.

I've thought for a while that, if you want to know where the emergents are going, you need to look at the "death of God" philosophers out there, or those who contend for some variation of the philosophy such as Caputo. I still think that, but maybe that's not the only things we need to look at, too. Perhaps those who are more well-known to the average person, popularizers like Chopra and Walsch and Lamott, are another source for information on where emergents are going.

That makes sense. Most people will not know of Caputo or Vattimo or Altizer, but they will be much more familiar with the people who put out the feel-good new-agey books, who claim to be channeling conversations with a god who doesn't do the judgment-and-wrath thing anymore, or who speak with some kind of strange accents so they must know what they're talking about.

Consider the Seeds of Compassion event last year, essentially a gathering of these kinds of ecumenical all-roads-lead-to-god types. To that event, with sported the luminary Dalai Lama and people from some other religions, two emergents were invited to participate in a Q&A--Rob Bell and Doug Pagitt.

Consider some things said in some of their books. Both Bell and McLaren have made positive comments about one Ken Wilbur, another in the new-agey thought rigamaroll. Bell even goes so far as to recommend a deep study of one of Wilbur's books.

If at one time all roads led to Rome, perhaps now it seems like all road lead to heresy and eventually hell. Or maybe it's just that it's one road, and it's very broad.