Christian Apologetics Free Course 02, Lesson 5

Christian Apologetics Free Course 02, Lesson 5

Presupposition and Classification In Apologetics

Presuppositions, Contd…

11-NEW AGE GROUPS: in a class by itself was given birth by Alice Bailey of Lucipher Trust in the nineteen thirties has now become the New Age Movement. The movement has no holy text, central organization, membership, formal clergy, geographic center, dogma, creed, etc. They often use mutually exclusive Christian-sounding definitions for some of their terms, which have attracted Christian followers. There is nothing Christian in this movement in fact it is a free-flowing spiritual movement; a network of believers and practitioners who share somewhat similar beliefs and practices, which they add on to whichever formal religion that they follow.

The New Age is a heterogeneous movement of individuals, which became popular during the 1970’s as a reaction against what some perceived as the failure of Christianity. The members are classified into seven groups. The largest, being Cultural (Christmas & Easter) Christianity followed by Conventional Christianity, New Age Practitioner, Biblical (Fundamentalist, Evangelical) Christianity, Atheist/Agnostic, Other, and Jewish.

Many New Age followers hold a number of fundamental beliefs; individuals are encouraged to “shop” for the beliefs and practices that they feel most comfortable with:

Monism: All that exists is derived from a single source of divine energy.

Pantheism: All that exists is God; God is all that exists. This leads naturally to the concept of the divinity of the individual, that we are all Gods.

Panentheism: God is all that exists. God is at once the entire universe, and transcends the universe as well.

Reincarnation: After death, we are reborn and live another life as a human.

Karma: The good and bad deeds that we do add and subtracts from our accumulated record, our karma.

Personal Transformation A profoundly intense mystical experience will lead to the acceptance and use of New Age beliefs and practices.

Ecological Responsibility: A belief in the importance of uniting to preserve the health of the earth, which is often looked upon as Gaia, (Mother Earth) a living entity.

Universal Religion: Since all is God, then only one reality exists, and all religions are simply different paths to that ultimate reality.

General New Age presuppositions are:

Rejection Of Sola Scriptura

Rejection Of Salvation By Grace Through Faith

Rejection Of Jesus Christ As The Only Saviour

Rejection Of All Major Christian Doctrines

Salvation Through All Religions/Universalism

12-THE NEW PRAJAPATI MOVEMENT: This movement began with a Telegu tract titled ‘Sacrifice’, published in the nineteen thirties. The tract has now been translated into English and many major Indian languages. The Prajapati movement gained momentum in the late eighties and in the nineties primarily through the work of Mr. Koshy Abraham, Dr. Jospeh Padinjarekkera, and Arvindaksha Menon.

What is Prajapati? In Hindu, mythology is the primordial lord of creatures, and is mentioned in Vedic, epic and Puranic literature. In Vedic legends, he is described in various ways as the creator of the world, and the creator of heaven and earth. He is an androgynous being who impregnated himself by fusing elements of mind and speech. In later epics, he is the guardian of the sex organ. Prajapati becomes the name for Brahma in later Hinduism.

According to the advocates of the heresy, the Prajapati, who is one of the 33 gods of the Vedas, is Jesus Christ Himself. They claim that the gods offered the Prajapati as a sacrifice and he has many characteristics that prove beyond a doubt that the Prajapati is Jesus, the Son of God.

Prajapati is sinless: Jesus Christ, the Son of God, did not commit any sin and the devotees of Prajapati try to prove Prajapati is Christ. They took some portions from the vedas or Upanishads (suppressed all what did not suit them) and gave Prajapati a clean sheet.

The Crown of Thorns: Jesus was crowned with a wreath of thorns and if one could prove that the Prajapati also had such an experience, it would be easy to prove that the Prajapati is Christ. Therefore, the devotees of Prajapati tried their best to locate something like that, but they could not. At last, they had to be content with the grass rope that was used to fasten the sacrificial horse to the pole.
The Rejection: Jesus rejected everything and offered Himself as a sacrifice. However, the devotees of Prajapati make it something unusual, because, in Itareya Brahmana, a cow is offered and not Prajapati.

The Silent Sufferer: Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice and suffered everything willingly. Therefore, it is necessary to show that the Prajapati also did something like that which devotees of Prajapati cannot.

Close to the Cross: There is no mention of any kind of cross in the Vedas, but it is necessary to bring some kind of a cross into the Vedas in order to crucify the Prajapati. For this they use the tail of the sacrificial cow being tied to the pole. But their mistake is the animal is tied to the pole, but Jesus was nailed to the cross. The pole, which is a god, has nothing to do with the cross.

The Blood: The devotees of Prajapati try to compare the shedding of blood by Christ as being the same as that of Prajapati however their mistake is that while Christ shed blood there is no mention Prajapati shedding blood so, it was necessary to find some blood somewhere. Blood was found in Brhadaranyaka Upanishad where, man is compared to a tree. Man has hair on his head and the tree has leaves instead. Both the tree and the man has skin as well. The sap of the tree is like the blood of the man. When a tree is cut, sap oozes, just like the blood that flows from an injured man.

The Bones: The bones of Christ were not broken and the devotees of Prajapati discovered something in Itareya Brahmana. The cow sacrificed with the consent of its relatives had 26 bones of this cow is taken from the body and put in a line thereby showing no broken bones.

The Man Alive: Christ rose on the 3rd day after the Crucifixion and the devotees of Prajapati try to use the beliefs of Hindus to state that Prajapati returned to life after the sacrifice.

The Flesh of the Man: In the Last Supper Christ presented to his followers bread and wine that represented the flesh of his body and his blood to consume. However, in the vedas, the gods killed but did not eat Prajapati.

The Cloth of the Prajapati: Some of the devotees of Prajapati lie that that the clothes of the Prajapati were divided among four priests, though none of them have ever said where such an incident is mentioned. Even some of the Prajapati factions deny this characteristic, though the biggest Pentecostal denomination in India had included Prajapati, along with this characteristic (including others) in their Sunday School Text book! [They removed it after Pastor TS Balan, a Hindu-convert and reformist fought against it].

Nailed to the Cross: The devotees of the Prajapati know they cannot prove that Prajapati’s hands and legs were nailed to the pole. However, they still preach and teach that the hands and legs of the Prajapati was nailed to the cross and due to this reason the Prajapati is Christ.

Son of a Virgin: Some of the Christian servants of the Prajapati teach that their lord, the Prajapati of the Vedas, was the son of a virgin … even though they do not say where this matter is recorded in the Vedas or in other Hindu scriptures. In fact, there is nothing of this sort mentioned in the Vedas.

It seems that among the Prajapati-Christians, anybody who can quote some things from the Bible is accepted as born again Christians and given a platform to teach and preach.
Their presuppositions are:
Outright Rejection of Sola Scriptura
Rejection of the Uniqueness of Jesus Christ
Rejection of all Major Christian Doctrines
Elevation of Non Christian Scriptures to the Level of the Bible

 

13-OCCULTIC CULTS: Occultic Cults are satanic movements manifested in Satan Worship, Sorcery, and Demon-assisted healings. Many have also manifested as personality-development movements. Membership in satanic sects, the participation in the rites introduced by them, the evocation of demonic entities, the personal and sole cult of the devil, and the affirmation of ideas deriving from the area of Satanism, have assumed an unexpected dimension in today’s society.

In countries where there is religious freedom, satanic cults have flourished with unbridled speed. They are so diverse certain groups are unknown even to those same people who frequent the satanic environment. However, most are connected to one another either through a central person or group or virtual existence such as the Internet web sites.. Due to changes in society some will cease activity others continue their activities just below the threshold of acceptance by society. All of them will undergo some type of change over time due to enter rivalries or growth. These groups will divide amongst themselves into individual trunks that will divide into limbs and eventually into branches.

Well-known groups that are active include:

· Church of Satan

· Order of the Black Ram

· Worldwide Church of Satanic Liberation

· Order Templi Satanis

· Ordo Sinistra Vivendi

· Chiesa di Satana dl Filippo Scerba Chiesa Luciferiana di Efrem Del Gatto

· Temple of Set

· Werewolf Order

· Church of War

· Order of the Nine Angels and Dark Lily

· Bambini di Satana

· Impero Satanico della Luce degli Inferi

· Seguaci del Maestro Loitan

The group Order Templi Satanis distributes volumes of satanic information through the use of the Internet is actually makes them more dangerous to the Christian world because most of their work is in a covert environment.

Satanic beliefs are as diverse as the groups they represent however most of them follow the following beliefs or presuppositions:

Satan liberates the believer from religious, moral, and cultural conditioning
Satanism is a religion of the flesh
Satanist must find happiness here and now
There is no heaven or hell to go to after death
Satan a real being prince of darkness and a friend of Mankind
It is possible to obtain favors from Satan through magical rituals
Satan is Lucifer, a positive figure opposed to God who is seen in a negative light
Rejection Of Sola Scriptura
Rejection Of Jesus Christ As The Only Savior
Rejection Of Salvation By Grace Through Faith
Rejection Of All Major Christian Doctrines
Elevation Of Non Christian Scriptures To The Level Of the Bible

 

 

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