Leonard Sweet: Quantum Spirituality and a Christ Consciousness!
In the 2009 release, A "Wonderful" Deception, former New Age follower, Warren B. Smith, exposes the "new spirituality" of Leonard Sweet. The following excerpt discusses Sweet's "Quantum Spirituality":
While some Leonard Sweet defenders have argued that Sweet’s hybridized postmodern “New Light” apologetic flies right over the heads of “old light” “fundamentalist” types, the facts tell a much different story. What I learned in reading Quantum Spirituality is that Sweet is in the process of trying to transform biblical Christianity into a quantum/postmodern/New Light/New Age/New Spirituality. Without apology, Sweet writes that he is part of a “New Light movement” and he describes those he especially admires as “New Light leaders.” Click here to read more of this excerpt from A "Wonderful" Deception.
Leonard
Sweet (endorsed by Rick Warren) thanks New Agers for helping him
find the "New Light":
From
the Acknowledgements section of Leonard Sweet's book Quantum
Spirituality: "Those who have taught me how to catch
the tail winds of energies whoosing from new spiritual jet streams
are: ....Willis Harman."
Who is Willis Harman?
I have followed those "New Light leaders" ... "[S]ome of those who led [me] into new light are: ... Matthew Fox, Richard Mouw, Rowan Williams." Others that Leonard Sweet thanks include: Morton Kelsey, M. Scott Peck, Walter Bruggemann, Ken Wilber, Thomas Berry and many other New Agers.
"The new focus is on unity -- a world-wide oneness reflected in the growing union between the East and West. Leonard Sweet's online book, Quantum Spirituality, sheds some revealing light of the envisioned global "church" for the 21st century. In his view, the offense of the cross has been replaced with a passion for interfaith peace and possibility-thinking. To illustrate this point, Dr. Sweet points to Thomas Merton, the popular Catholic author who popularized mysticism and died in Asia searching the depths of Tibetan Buddhism." The Emerging Global Church by Berit Kjos
His
Own Words |
"The first of these five untheorized observations is that New Light embodiment means to be "in connection" and 'in-formation' with other Christians. Deeper feeling and higher relating go together. The church is fundamentally one being, one person, a comm-union whose cells are connected to one another within the information network called the Christ consciousness." —Quantum Spirituality, P. 122
"Energy-fire
experiences take us into ourselves only that we might reach outside
of ourselves. Metanoia is a de-centering experience of connected-ness
and community. It is not an exercise in reciting what Jesus has
done for me lately. Energy-fire ecstasy, more a buzz than a binge,
takes us out of ourselves, literally. That is the meaning of the
word 'ecstatic.'" —Quantum
Spirituality, P. 93
Note: This ecstasy Sweet speaks refers to the New Age ecstasy
that occurs in an altered state of consciousness.
The power of small groups is in their ability to develop the discipline to get people "in-phase" with the Christ consciousness and connected with one another. P. 147
New Lights offer up themselves as the cosmions of a mind-of-Christ consciousness. As a cosmion incarnating the cells of a new body, New Lights will function as transitional vessels through which transforming energy can renew the divine image in the world, moving postmoderns from one state of embodiment to another. P. 48
A surprisingly central feature of all the world's religions is the language of light in communicating the divine and symbolizing the union of the human with the divine: Muhammed's light-filled cave, Moses' burning bush, Paul's blinding light, Fox's "inner light," Krishna's Lord of Light, Bohme's light-filled cobbler shop, Plotinus' fire experiences, Bodhisattvas with the flow of Kundalini's fire erupting from their fontanelles, and so on." P. 235
His
Connections |
Rick
Warren Connections to Leonard Sweet--
1995: Tides of Change - According to Zondervan Rick Warren teamed with Leonard Sweet to do this Audio set.
1999: Rick Warren Endorses Cover of Sweet's book, Soul Tsunami
2001: Pastors.com - Sweet's "24 Transitions For Moving Into The 21st Century" on Rick Warren's website
2008: Rick Warren invites Sweet to be a speaker at the Saddleback Small Groups conference.
Interview with Leith Andersen
Church Communication Network (CNN)
Regent
University
Foresight 2005 with Len Sweet and Jay Gary
George
Fox University - Oregon
Leonard Sweet is a Visiting Professor at GFU
Leonard
Sweet and Brian McLaren have co-authored
a 2003 book.
A
is for Abductive:
The Language of the Emerging Church
Leonard Sweet and christ-consciousness
Sweet's view of the value of small groups lines up more with the New Age and Alice Bailey than it does with biblical Christianity. In his book, Quantum Spirituality, Sweet states:
The power of small groups is in their ability to develop the discipline to get people "in-phase" with the Christ consciousness and connected with one another.
What Sweet means by "Christ consciousness" can be determined through his book, Quantum Spirituality. For instance, in the Acknowledgements pages Sweet thanks the "New Light leaders" whom he has followed in his spiritual journey. He names interspiritualists/universalists such as Matthew Fox (author of The Coming of the Cosmic Christ), Episcopalian priest/mystic Morton Kelsey, Willis Harman (author of Global Mind Change) and Ken Wilber (one of the major intellectuals in the New Age movement). In the Preface of Sweet's book (p. 3), he (referring to other New Agers such as Gary Zukav) says: "Unfortunately, little of this literature is known or celebrated in the religious community." Zukav's book, The Seat of the Soul, teaches people how to get in touch with their spirit guides.
