A MESSAGE TO DOWN-HEARTED MOTHERS
Introduction
Stephan Joubert is not the only person who loves to disparage the truth, and, as I have already pointed out in one of my previous FB posts and DTW articles, he cannot seem to shake off the idea that there is truth in other religions, for instance, Buddhism. In an interview with JOY magazine, he fumbled an excuse for his infamous statement that there are truths in all religions with the equally infamous avowal that he was being quoted out of context. False teachers just love to acquit themselves of error with the “I-am-innocent-context-card.”
“I choose not to quote people by their name [because] then I play the game of an eye for an eye with them. A couple of years ago I said somewhere: ‘Truth can be found in all religions.’ This phrase has been taken out of context as if I was comparing it with the unique salvation of Jesus Christ. What I actually meant was that general truths, such as the fact that marriage is holy or that murder and theft are forbidden, are actually good points of departure for discussions between Christians and non-Christians.” (Emphasis added).
And I always thought that Jesus’ affirmation in John 17:17 and his cross was the best point of departure for discussions between Christians and non-Christians. Wasn’t it Brother Paul who said: “For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified”? (1 Corinthians 2:2).
Surely, a religious figure as popular as Stephan Joubert with annual revenue of R88 million.[1] should agree that this is simply the ramblings of a person who is not manly enough to take responsibility for the things he had said in the past. “This phrase is taken out of context” is merely the same old hackneyed excuse and sounds exactly like the rotten excuse “I have been quoted out of context.”
The moment you venture to find common ground among all religions, claiming that all religions honor the sanctity of marriage, abhor murder, and theft, and accordingly “are actually good points of departure for discussions between Christians and non-Christians,” you have effectively discarded the cross of Christ. No wonder Matthew wrote,
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved, it is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18).
No, says our esteemed prophet, Stephan Joubert. Jesus commanded us to go into all the world and remind all religions that the sanctity of marriage and the aberration of murder and theft are the holy cows that can help us to find common ground. He is not merely sanctimoniously avoiding an eye for an eye game, as he said. He is turning a blind eye to the one and only truth – Jesus Christ and his Word.
Stephan Joubert should know that when Christians talk about the TRUTH they always refer to two specific entities – Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, and his Word (Psalm 119:160; John 17:17). The Word of God is the only book that clearly spells out God’s sovereign will regarding man’s relationship with Him and people amongst each other (also regarding marriage, murder, and theft). Other religions may have a quasi-biblical view of these things but unquestionably do not have the solution for them. Is polygamy permissible in God’s eyes (as it is in Mormonism, Islam, Buddhism, and Atheism) and may we use them as a point of departure to present them with the Gospel of God? You must be kidding, Stephan Joubert. You may fool some people sometimes but not all people all the time. Try again.
The ekerk feminine touch
Liezel Lüneburg is a regular contributor to ekerk. In her latest article, she sings praises to South African women who have lost hope and grown gravely despondent with their duties as mothers. She writes:
Educator and disciplinarian, cook, taxi driver, caretaker, comforter of the sick, doctor and nurse, creative designer of school tasks, speech writer, helper with homework, spiritual supporter and mother confessor, guardian of good morals, prayer warrior, and, in many cases, the bread winner. Apparently, a mother who has raised two sons goes directly to heaven, and in the case of anything more than two, the neighbors on either side go with them. I would rather replace “sons” with “children” because it is no easy task to raise a daughter.
Indeed, to be a mother is difficult. For some, it may be easier than for others but for most, it is extremely difficult.
Moreover, Proverbs 31 requires a difficult, discouraging standard. The ideal woman is one with a strong character, great wisdom, many talents, and, to top it all, compassion. She is not only a good wife and mother but also a manufacturer, importer, manager, landowner, farmer, tailor, duster, and trader — all these things while her husband lingers (loiters, dawdles) at the city gates.
It is a pity that Liezel Lüneburg, having expressed so much appreciation for our modern-day mothers, and giving them honor and dignity, portrays the one place in the Bible that encourages, inspires, and empowers women to fulfill their godly duties as “a difficult [and] discouraging standard.” If it had been such “a difficult [and] discouraging standard” God would never have inspired Agur and King Lemuel, to put these beatitudes regarding mothers in writing. The main reason, I may add, why Liezel Lüneburg dares to make such a statement is that her eisegesis of Proverbs 31 is full of potholes, of which the following are the worst and most dangerous.
Error #1: Replacing “God-fearing women” with “serving women”
Godly women are wise and prudent in all matters of their households because they fear God. Fearing God is the key to a successful woman’s administration of her home and, indeed, this is what Proverbs 9:10 succinctly tells us, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.” Wisdom begins when a holy fear of God grips the heart in holy awe of God and a love for Him in the light of his great redemptive work on the cross, and consistently holds Him in a state of holy fear.
But sadly, with so many corrupt modern-day translations of the Bible, the aspect of fear being the beginning of wisdom is summarily translated out of the Bible, making man the originator of wisdom through his service. The 1983 Afrikaans translation of the Bible renders Proverbs 31:30 thus,
A free translation into English would be,
Outward beauty does not last, good looks are not everything; if she serves the Lord, then a woman deserves to be praised.
To what level of unrighteousness must you descend so as to replace the word “yir’âh’” (“fear of the Lord”) in Proverbs 9:10 with “‛âbad” (“serve”)? Yes, serving the Lord must be done in fear (in awe) of Him (Psalm 2:11), but only when both words appear in one sentence. The word “‛âbad” (“serve”) is nowhere to be seen in Proverbs 31:30. Only the word yir’âh’” (“fear of the Lord”) appears there.
Whereas Liezel Lüneburg typifies proverbs 31 as a burden that “requires a difficult, discouraging standard” of modern-day mothers, the wife and mother in Proverbs who fears the Lord is extolled and appreciated by her husband and children (sons and daughters).
Admittedly, Liezel Lüneburg encourages mothers not to become despondent and to read Proverbs 31 through to the end, but yet again fails to remind mothers that fearing the Lord is the secret to a successful household.
The heart of her husband doth safely trust in her, so that he shall have no need of spoil. She will do him good and not evil all the days of her life. (Proverbs 31:11-12).
Her children arise up, and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praiseth her. Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all. (Proverbs 31:28-29).
Error #2: Praying to the wrong God for your husband and children
In her last paragraph, Liezel Lüneburg advises her fellow mothers to do the following to fight off the feelings of despondence.
Dear Mother, go to your inner chamber and close the door tightly. Use the key of necessary. The children will be OK. Kneel on the floor with your face looking down and your hands lifted up. Pray to the great Mother, our Heavenly Father.
Besides the fact that Jesus Christ never referred to his Father as Mother, or never called Himself the Son of God the Mother, the idea of Him having two mothers, Mary and God the Mother, is blatant heresy. Remember, Joseph was not Jesus’ father and Mary was his mother after the flesh. As a matter of fact, the whole idea of referring to God as Mother is a very subtle attack on the supernatural virgin birth of Jesus Christ. God the Father was the One who miraculously prepared a body for his Son (Hebrews 10:5), and not a so-called God the Mother.
In Matthew Fox’s book called “A New Reformation!” he writes that we are in fact confronted with two churches: one expressed by the image of the Punitive Father, personified by a rigidly hierarchical church structure, repression of the feminine, . . . and the other expressed by the feminine figure of Wisdom, personified by a Mother/Father God of justice and compassion. It is time for Christians to choose whom it will follow: an angry exclusionary god or the loving open path of wisdom (Sophia).
The idea of a hermaphroditic Father/Mother figure in the godhead had its origin in pagan idolatry. In his book of over 750 pages, Volume III “The Origin of Pagan Idolatry Ascertained from Historical Testimony and Circumstantial Evidence” by George Stanley Faber B.D., he wrote:
Much light will be thrown upon the origin and nature of the worship paid to the great mother, if we examine certain remarkable opinions which the Gentiles entertained respecting the Moon and the Earth of which this mysterious goddess was an acknowledged personification.
Accordingly, the great mother is declared to be at once the Earth, the Moon, and a ship: nor is this singular intermixture of ideas to be found only in a single country; it pervades the whole pagan world, and thus affords an illustrious proof that all the various systems of gentile idolatry must have originated from some common source. That source was the primeval Babylonian apostasy.
The great mother is a ship: and that ship is circumstantially determined to be the Ark. . . . consequently, Ceridwen or the great mother must inevitably be viewed as a personification of the ship of Noah.
Several goddesses of various nations and cultures have been identified as ship-goddesses. Isis, like Isi, is declared to be equally the Moon and the Earth: and she is at the same time unanimously determined by the ancient theologists to be one with Ceres, Proserpine, Minerva, Venus, Diana, Juno, Rhea, Cybelė, Jana, Atargatis, Semiramis, Vesta, Pandora, Io, Bellona, Hecatė, Rhamnusia, Latona, the Phenician Astarte, the Lydian and Armenian Anaïs, and the Babylonian Mylitta. However, the most important and best-known woman among them was Semiramis.
Who was Semiramis?
Ancient history has some very interesting facts to disclose which have repercussions in the universal church (RCC), Pentecostal and Charismatic churches to this day. It claims that she was one of Noah’s granddaughters who was simultaneously the mother and wife of Nimrod.
If this had not been enough to warrant God’s wrath, she indulged in an adulterous relationship with another man while she was still married to her own son. It was solely on Nimrod that the whole Chaldean system of iniquity was formed and glorified. He was also known as Nin, “the son,” and his wife Semiramis, also known as Rhea, was called Ammas, “The Mother.” The name Rhea had another meaning from what it had when applied to Semiramis, who was really the primeval goddess, the “mother of gods and men.” As such Rhea was called by the Greeks, Ammas. Ammas is evidently the Greek form of the Chaldee Ama, “Mother.”
When Nimrod died a violent death, Semiramis deviously justified her pregnancy by another man with the lie that could only have come from Satan. She claimed that her unborn child at the time was really Nimrod’s resurrection from the dead as the Sun-God whose sunrays impregnated her, causing her pregnancy to be a divine miracle. She bore a son whom she called Tammuz (The “T” in Tammuz is the alleged cross Roman Catholics make across their breasts). (Ezekiel 8:14). As our readers may have noticed, this is one of Satan’s wickedest devices to supplant the miraculous virgin birth of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Who is Mary?
Having seen that the goddess Rhea was happily called “mother of gods and men,” it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that 1.36 billion Catholics around the world call Mary “Mother of God,” while the Bible never once refers to her in these terms. Yes, she was God’s chosen vessel to bring forth our Saviour into the world, but so was God’s chosen people Israel a vessel of his choice. In fact, Jesus Himself acclaimed Israel as the source of the world’s redemption (John 4:22).
Yet, the Roman Catholic Church, in their mistaken veneration of Mary, helped the Nazis to kill millions of Jews during the holocaust, not to speak of the multitudes of Jews they slaughtered throughout history. Dave Hunt reminds us of the RCC’s genocide of the Jews in his book, “Judgment Day! Islam, Israel and the Nations.”
More than one hundred official anti-Semitic documents have been issued by the Roman Catholic Church throughout its history. The knights and knaves who constituted the First Crusade, inspired by Pope Urban II (who promised heaven to those who died in this cause), slaughtered Jews all across Europe. When they took Jerusalem, they drove the Jews into the synagogue and set it ablaze. Centuries of Jew hatred, inspired by the Roman Catholic Church wherever it was in power, helped to prepare the way for Hitler’s Holocaust. Pope John Paul II tried to woo the Jews worldwide by his kindly but deceitful rhetoric. He even told them that Catholics “look upon you as our brothers and sisters in the Lord”—hardly compatible with Paul’s desire “that they [Jews] might be saved” (Romans 10:1). There was no way, however, that the Pope could undo centuries of his Church’s hatred and mistreatment of Jews. Such sweet phrases are not only inconsistent with history and official Church doctrine, but they were contradicted by his friendship with Arafat.
John Paul II consistently favored the “Palestinians” in their false claims. Never did he ever affirm the Israelis’ biblical right to the land God gave them. In fact, like popes and cardinals before him, he openly denied that right: “The existence of the State of Israel and its political options should be envisaged not in a perspective which is in itself religious, but in their reference to the common principles of international law.” So, the opinion of secular world leaders overrides God’s Word!
It is exceptionally problematic and ghastly unthinkable that the “Mother of God,” who was herself a Jew would inspire her followers (the RCC) to destroy her people. This alone proves that Marian veneration could rather be associated with Semiramis, the wife of the destroyer, Nimrod, than with the Mary of the Bible who prayed,
My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour. For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. He hath holpen his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy; As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever. (Luke 1:46-48; 54-55).
The Mary of the Bible is not the Mary of the Roman Catholic Church but rather a continuation of the worship of the harlot, Semiramis. (Revelation 17:5).
Faber writes
Though it is not impossible, that the name of Semiramis may have been assumed by more than one even literal queen of Babylon, agreeably to a very common practice of sovereigns taking the appellations of the deities whom they served: yet the earliest Semiramis, who is represented as being the wife of the Assyrian Ninus and who at the same time is immediately connected with the founding of Babylon, is certainly a goddess; and, by the accounts of her which have come down to us, her true character may be easily ascertained. She was feigned to be the daughter of Derceto or Atargatis, and the sister of Icthys or Dagon; for Ichthys is described as being the son of Derceto. But Derceto was the piscine ship -goddess of the Syrians, being undoubtedly the same personage as the navicular Venus or Juno or Isis. Semiramis, therefore, is the offspring of the Ark.
Ibid
Saint Alphonsus Liguori, in his The Glories of Mary, wrote:
Noah’s ark is a true figure of Mary
A sinner who goes to Mary must never be afraid of being rejected. ”Mary is the new ark. As brute animals were saved in the ark, so great sinners will gain salvation in Mary.’‘ (Saint Bernard). Saint Gertrude saw a vision of Mary welcoming lions, bears and tigers. She realized that these were abandoned sinners who went to Mary and were saved from eternal death by her. Let us enter the ark. She will not reject us. …
Because it saved all kinds of beasts, Noah’s ark is a true figure of Mary. Sinners, by their vices, are already beasts. There is one difference. The animals on the ark remained animals, but under the mantle of Mary, sinners cease to be beasts. Saint Gertrude saw Mary with all kinds of wild animals under her mantle. These represented sinners whom Mary welcomed the moment they turned to her. (Emphasis added).
QUESTION: Who does Liezel Lüneburg have in mind when she encourages mothers to “Pray to the great Mother, our Heavenly Father?” Perhaps we should change the Lord’s prayer and render it as follows: “Our Mother, Who art in heaven,” or even better, “Our Mother/Father who art in heaven.” This is a big step in the direction of praying the following RCC prayer.
Most Holy and Adorable Trinity, You Who did crown with glory in Heaven the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Savior, grant that all her children on earth may acknowledge her as their Sovereign Queen, that all hearts, homes, and nations may recognize her rights as Mother and as Queen. (Emphasis added).
Error #2: A little leaven leavens the whole lump
The next question we need to ask is, “What does a confessional Christian have in common with the devil and his demons?” By the way, this is a question Paul of Tarsus asked the church in Corinth.
Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath light with darkness? And what concord hath Christ with Belial? or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, (2 Corinthians 6:14-17).
The most ancient Mother God in Buddhism
The author of this article thought that this section may shed some light on why Stephan Joubert believes that there are truths in all religions, and why he often uses the term Sophia.
Tara is the epitome of the Divine Mother in Tibetan Buddhism and undoubtedly the most powerful female deity in the Buddhist pantheon. Tara in Sanskrit (one of the oldest languages that approximately only 2000 people still speak today) means “star” who possesses the ability to guide followers, like a star, on their spiritual path.
Her iconography is unquestionably related to the Romish Mother Mary who is called Stella Maris (Star of the sea) who supposedly guides her children (like a ship) through the rough seas of this world to Christ. Ships are often depicted in Mandalas which obviously points to Tara, the epitome of the divine Mother. God’s Word declares with unequivocal certainty and solid veracity that the Holy Spirit guides believers into all Christ’s truth, and not Mary, or anyone else for that matter.
In regards to the comparison of the Goddess Tara with Mary, the Dalai Lama made a stunning statement. Speaking of rangjung – the miraculous appearance of images of the Goddess Tara out of living rock – and similar phenomena connected with the Virgin Mary, he said: “Yes, this would be rangjung, the same thing as we have been talking about, of course, the same thing” and again: “Yes, Tara and Mary create a good bridge. This is a good direction to go in.”[2] It at least tells us that the Dalai Lama and Stephan Joubert have something in common. Both have a compassionate lifelong urge to find points of departure between “Christianity” and Buddhism.
It is believed that Tara gained enlightenment when she remained in an uninterrupted state of meditation for 10 million years, releasing tens of millions of beings from suffering, and subsequently merited her the veneration of millions as the Divine Mother. The most shocking fact about Tara is that she has a direct connection with the RCC’s doctrine of Purgatory.
According to Nepal, Tibetan, and Mongolian mythology, she is the female counterpart of the bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvar who was transformed into a white horse to come to the aid of those in purgatory. This compassionate deed of the All-Compassionate Avalokiteshvar presumably brought Tara into existence when one of his tears fell on the ground and turned into a lake. A lotus grew out of the water, which, when opened, revealed the goddess, Tara. Consequently, she was denoted as the Mother of Compassion.
Now, to conclude this section, we briefly need to go back to Liezel Lüneburg’s hideous encouragement of mothers to pray the following prayer, “Dear Mother, go to your inner chamber and close the door tightly. Use the key if necessary. The children will be OK. Kneel on the floor with your face looking down and your hands lifted up. Pray to the great Mother, our Heavenly Father,” and to ascertain more precisely from whence the androgyne Mother/Father figure originated
Androgyny, the pagan sexual ideal
Androgyny is the quintessence of true self-expression and ultimate oneness (the reconstructive model of a deconstructive, divided world).[3] Therefore, the salvation of humankind is the liberation of the divine essence (the divine spark or seed which is innate in every individual human soul, aka Thomas Merton) from everything that prevents self-expression. According to pagan esoterism, spiritual understanding through intuition and meditation (a word and practice Mosaïek kerk and their pastors often use) is the only way to salvation.[4]
The Satanist and so-called prophet of the religion of Thelema (Greek, meaning “willpower”), encouraged his followers to “do what thou wilt.” In the occult, the way of salvation is to turn inward and “get in touch with oneself” — the true self. It follows that humanity is one divine humanity, and all religions are ultimately many expressions of the one mystic truth. At the heart of this theoretical religious paganism lies a particular and powerful mystical experience of oneness.
The deceased RCC monk, Thomas Keating, was a champion of this oneness. Indeed, it is often claimed in today’s syncretistic age that at the core of all religions, beyond and behind their distinctive doctrines, is the same mystical encounter.[5] Karl Rahner, said, “In the days ahead, you will either be a mystic (one who has experienced God for real) or nothing at all.”
Androgyny, as mentioned earlier, is steeped in idolatry. On how Shiva became the androgyne god in religion and art, the Art historian Alka Pande wrote as follows:
The Mahabharata tells us that Brahma failed in his attempts to create beings who would together produce offspring carnally and later, die.
According to the Shiva Purana, Brahma lacked the power to create women, until Shiva appeared before him in the androgynous form of Ardhanarishvara, “the Lord whose half is woman”, the right being the male manifestation. On seeing the supreme lord Shiva, Brahma realised that Ardhanarishvara held the potential for becoming a couple that could unite sexually and in order to secure this went into tapasya, penance.
Pleased by Brahma’s austerities, Shiva, the omnipresent and the embodiment of knowledge, created the goddess Sati, the true, from the left side of his body. All shaktis, epitomes of power with the leitmotif of femininity, sprang forth from the goddess.
Ardhanarishvara therefore manifested the characteristics of both sexes as the prime cause of creation in the world. Also, in taking the form of Ardhanarishvara, Shiva revealed himself, for the first time, in wholly anthropomorphic features. Thus Ardhanarishvara, often referred to as a hermaphrodite or androgynous deity, is one of the principal forms of Shiva.[6].
Incidentally, Karl Jung who was frequently visited by spiritual entities (demons) in his bedroom, encouraged his readers to look for the god within rather than the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible. He explained this experience in terms of a series of concentric circles within a larger circle. It led him to believe for the rest of his life that” the Indian mandala (circle) was the best symbolic representation of wholeness or completeness in an individual, or as the supreme God in which all opposites are contained.”[7]
In this regard, it is appropriate to recall the definition of the mystical goal believed to be in all religions, given by Yale professor, Louis Dupré, “a state in which all distinctions disappear,”[8] including male and female genders. In this regard, we should always bear in mind that Satan is an imitator, a fraud, an impersonator who always unlawfully takes everything God has created and turns it to his own advantage, which is to destroy God’s creation.
By the likes of her love to draw Mandalas, Liezel Lüneburg seems to have the same affinity for Buddhism as Stephan Joubert. The internet is replete with examples of her Mandala drawings. The first question to ask, is, what is a Mandala?
A mandala (Sanskrit: मण्डल, romanized: maṇḍala, lit. ’circle’, [ˈmɐɳɖɐlɐ]) is a geometric configuration of symbols. In various spiritual traditions, mandalas may be employed for focusing the attention of practitioners and adepts, as a spiritual guidance tool, for establishing a sacred space, and as an aid to meditation and trance induction. In the Eastern religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Shintoism it is used as a map representing deities, or especially in the case of Shintoism, paradises, kami or actual shrines. A mandala generally represents the spiritual journey, starting from the outside to the inner core, through layers.[9]
The connection between androgyny, homosexuality, and pagan spiritualities — the quest for oneness and wholeness
Peter Jones, author of “ANDROGYNY: THE PAGAN SEXUAL IDEAL” says in the introduction:
Like the ancient pagan Sodomites pounding on the door of Lot’s house millennia ago, the modern gay movement is gathering at the doors of our churches, our academies, and our once traditionally “Christian” culture, demanding entrance and full recognition.
In cooperation with feminist Biblical interpretation, which has “destabilized normative heterosexuality” by alleging “sexist” bias,[10] queer readings merely seek to take one more step in the hermeneutics of suspicion and expose the “heterosexist bias” of the Bible and Bible interpreters. Identifying exegesis as an exercise in social power, queer theorists reject the oppressive narrowness of the Bible’s male/female binary vision and boldly generate textual meaning on the basis of the “inner erotic power” of the gay interpreter. What could be more postmodern?
The contemporary appearance of a homosexual movement says something about the particular times in which we live, granted both that pagan spirituality is enjoying a popular revival and that throughout the Bible Sodom and Gomorrah have always served as the symbol for end time pagan idolatry, ultimate moral disintegration, and eschatological divine judgement.
South Africa is no exception
Several well-known pastors of churches who at first held a biblical view on homosexuality, among them Dirkie van der Spuy of the Moreleta Park DRC and Stephan Joubert of ekerk, have made a complete U-turn. What made them change their minds? Though compromise, and indeed a serious compromise that cuts asunder God’s views on homosexuality, played a major role in their U-turn, it is clear that mysticism, especially in Joubert’s case, was the deciding impetus that swung his head, as we shall see later.
The notion that homosexuality is merely a choice individuals make to express their political, civic, and human rights are but a smokescreen for the real reason behind the LGBTQIA+ communities’ preferences.
. . . being a gay man or lesbian entails far more than sexual behavior alone . . . [it entails] a whole mode of being-in-the-world.[11]
Paul of Tarsus made it very clear that homosexual perversion has always been directly and logically linked to idolatry (Romans 1:23-27). Is there an innate connection between sexual perversions and the perversion of the Bible and idolatry? Radical pagan feminists have been speaking of the need for “a change of [religious] consciousness” in tandem with a radical recalibration of our perception of sexuality for a long time.
Indeed, sexuality is central, and not peripheral, to this spiritual quest. Charles Pickstone, a pagan believer in Anglican orders, affirms this in his book “The Divinity of Sex:” when he says “. . . sex is the spirituality that reveals the sacramental richness of matter.”[12]
In Shamanism, for instance, the androgynous priesthood was always seen as the true embodiment of pagan spirituality. In fact, all pagan cults consider the emasculated, androgynous priest to be their ultimate representative. What can be more suitable than an androgynous mother/father figure in the role of mediator between man and the androgynous Mother/Father god? Mircea Eliade contends that androgyny as a universal religion or archetype appears virtually everywhere and at all times in the world’s religions. Evidence of that effect is well-documented.[13]
Emily Culpepper, an apostate Southern Baptist who is now an outspoken lesbian pagan witch and teaches at the University of Redlands in Southern California, says gays and lesbians are “shamans for a future age.”[14] Her definition of the spiritual role homosexuals can play as a shaman is “. . . a charged, potent, awe-inspiring, and even fear-inspiring person who takes true risks by crossing over into other worlds.”[15] A fuller definition leaves little to the imagination, for Sjoo’s and Moor’s definition in The Great Cosmic Mother is even more explicit.
“The power and effectiveness of shamans—witches, sibyls, Druids—emerges from their ability to communicate with the non-human: extra-terrestrial and subterranean forces, and the spirit-world of the dead.”[16]
These definitions did not suddenly leap forth as new socio-politico rights for gays in our so-called enlightened age of Aquarius. They have been touted by spirit beings (demons) from the most ancient times. The most revealing testimony in ancient times comes from nineteenth-century BC Mesopotamia. Androgynous priests worshipped the goddess Ishtar during the Sumerian age (1800 BC).[17] Their condition was due to their “devotion to Ishtar who herself had ‘transformed their masculinity into femininity.’ ”[18]
When the Israelites were about to enter the land of Canaan that God promised they would inherit, He gave Moses the following instructions,
But of the cities of these people, which the LORD thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth: But thou shalt utterly destroy them; namely, the Hittites, and the Amorites, the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites; as the LORD thy God hath commanded thee: That they teach you not to do after all their abominations, which they have done unto their gods; so should ye sin against the LORD your God. (Deuteronomy 20:16-18).
What were these abominations? The pagan religions of ancient Canaan maintained a similar view of spirituality and sexuality to ancient Mesopotamia. The goddess Anat had many of the characteristics of Ishtar.[19] Like the Syrian goddess Cybele, Anat is headstrong and submits to no one.[20] She is both young and nubile but also a bearded soldier. Many commentators conclude that she is either androgynous or bi-sexual.[21] She thus symbolizes the mystical union, which was celebrated by her worshipers as a ritual enactment of the hieros gamos [sacred spiritual marriage].[22] The OT gives some indication that the Canaanite religion included homosexual androgyny, against which Israel was constantly put on guard.[23]
Their practices, among them child sacrifices to the god Molech, were despicable in the sight of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and yet granted them 430 years of reprise (the duration Israel was in slavery in Egypt) to repent of their evil, but to no avail. They remained headstrong in their idolatry and God had to mete out his judgments through Joshua.
Though promoted as an issue of civil rights, the homosexual/androgynous revival is not merely contemporary civics or chic rhetoric. The close connection between pagan esoteric spirituality and androgynous sexuality, evidenced across time and space,[24] demands that we not ignore the spiritual dimensions underlying the contemporary scene. In light of the above evidence, it should not be surprising to note that the revival of pagan religion in our day is accompanied by a powerful reappearance of pagan sexuality. In other words, homosexuality may be less a modern question of biological destiny or civil rights than a necessary practical outworking of age-old pagan spirituality.[25]
Error #3: Attributing to husbands a disrespectful low profile in a marriage
The emasculation of men in the downward spiraling fount of feminism is not something that happened overnight. Satan has been at his busiest to overturn God’s order in marriage and elsewhere in society. Men want to look and act like women and women want to look and act like men. It is as simple as that.
Read again Liezel Lüneburg’s rendition of Proverbs 31 to see whether you can spot how subtly she emasculates the men folk.
Moreover, Proverbs 31 requires a difficult, discouraging standard. The ideal woman is one with a strong character, great wisdom, many talents, and, to top it all, compassion. She is not only a good wife and mother but also a manufacturer, importer, manager, landowner, farmer, tailor, duster, and trader — all these things while her husband dawdles (loiters, lingers) at the city gates.
I can assure our readers that this is not what Proverbs 31 says, least of all that she is industrious while her husband slothfully dawdles away his time in the city gates. This is what it really says,
Her husband is known in the gates when he sitteth among the elders of the land. (Proverbs 31:23).
Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her own works praise her in the gates. (Proverbs 31:31)
If Liezel Lüneburg had done her homework properly she would have known that the city gates were the center of the hustle and bustle of city life. In fact, they were places critical for a city’s functioning and existence, suggesting that they were a city’s life force. Counseling in matters pertaining to civic and religious laws was just one of the major responsibilities the men had to address.
Business transactions and deliberating on public matters, in general, were also done at the gates. When Jesus declared “I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it,” He was not talking about the devil and his angels dawdling and wasting their time playing games or just slothfully lingering in their gates. He was referring to the counsels (suggestions, and advice among themselves) on how to destroy Jesus Christ’s church.
Not every Tom, Dick, and Harry was permitted to sit in the gates as administrators of the affairs of their cities. The qualifying credentials of those who took their seat at the gates of Jewish society were exceptionally high. Only credible people with good moral character and integrity, mirrored in the lives of their equally morally decent and industrious wives, were entrusted with political, religious, legal, ethical, educational, and social responsibilities to take their seat at the city gates to direct the city’s affairs.[26]
Credibility, proven by witnesses who knew both husband and wife, became a necessary qualification basically because the gate was the place of the legal tribunals (Deuteronomy 16:18; 21:19; 25:7) so that a seat “among the elders in the gates” (Proverbs 31:23) was a high honor, and not as Liezel Lüneburg suggested a place where men lingered and hung around doing nothing while their wives were struggling to keep their domestic lives in order.
Error #4: An Apophatic Head-Turning Radical leap into Darkness
In his foreword to Nelis Niemandt’s book “New Dreams for New Realities” (“Nuwe Drome vir Nuwe Werklikhede”) Stephan Joubert jubilantly wrote:
My head is swung. My experience of this book.
What an absolute jewel. New Dreams for New Realities is head-opening material. It is jam-packed with world-shifting words.
Indeed, Stephan Joubert has impetuously taken the slithering path of Satan into darkness. How else can we describe his apostasy when he has so quickly changed from a seemingly reliable fundamentalist concerning homosexuality into an apostate who now tolerates someone who prays to the great Mother?
The magic wand he began to use on this slithering path into darkness is apophatic prayer. Listen to what Stephan Joubert writes in his infamous prize-winning book “Jesus – Radical, Righteous, Relevant”:
Lives filled with reflection and silent contemplation. Innovative faith communities are increasingly returning to the original roots of Christendom. People’s deep need for a life-changing spirituality in our hectic world is inspiring the rediscovery of precious disciplines from the early church in many places. Reflective, apophatic prayer, as well as the spiritual reading of the Word (Lectio Divina), is once again the order of the day. The revival of retraites, pilgrimages and visits to places of prayer and solitude is indicative of this worldwide quest in Christian circles for an innermost becoming part of the character of the Living God. The new journeys of many Christians are those big inner-directed journeys. Now it concerns the journey of the soul on its way to bigger peace and rest at the feet of God.
One of the leading exponents of Mother/Father (androgynous) worship is Matthew Fox. In the article “Exploring the Apophatic Divinity (The Nameless God), published on September 28, 2019, on his website “Daily Meditations with Matthew Fox” he wrote:
The word Apophatic means without light. The God of Creation, liberation, and redemption is more a Cataphatic or “God with light” Divinity. But the Apophatic Divinity needs attention today also and is an important antidote to excessive projecting or excessive sureness about Who or What God is (or Who or What one rejects when one calls oneself an “atheist”). Spending some time with the apophatic Divinity can liberate God from too much human projection and even arrogance in imagining we know exactly who God is. (Emphasis added).
Consider these teachings from various spiritual traditions: Dionysios the Areopagite says God is “superessential darkness” and a “darkness beyond light.”
Meister Eckhart says: “The final end is the mystery of the darkness of the eternal Godhead [which] is unknown and never was known and never will be known.”
Eckhart again: God is “without a name and is the denial of all names and has never been given a name—a truly hidden God.”
Of course, Stephan Joubert would say a lush amen to this because he probably does not believe Jesus when He said, “And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.” (John 17:3). Had he believed Jesus, he would never have promoted apophatic prayer in the way he does in his equally God-dishonouring apophatic book “Jesus – Radical, Righteous, Relevant.” Furthermore, he would never have allowed Liezel Lüneburg to post an article on his ekerk teaching women how to pray to the great Mother/Father god.
Furthermore, I would like to refer you to a video on YouTube that promotes apophatic prayer to God our Mother. Ask Jesus to protect you while watching it. I was not sure whether I should use it. However, I needed to show you how far-gone Stephan Joubert and his associates at ekerk have slithered down the path into total darkness – the so-called Apophatic God.
Jesus warned:
“Woe to you . . . you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. (Matthew 23:13).
I have pleaded with my readers to stay away from Stephan Joubert and his ekerk for many years. Stay away if you do not want him to shut heaven’s gates to you. He uses his basically biblical ekerk articles as bait to lure his readers into reading his books that are full-blown anti-God, mystical, and contemplative literature.
But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed (anathema). As we said before, so say I now again, If any man preaches any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed (anathema). (Galatians 1:8-9).
The Gospel of our Mother God
Paul makes it abundantly clear that there is only one true gospel — the Gospel of Jesus Christ which he and the other twelve apostles presented to the entire world in their biblical writings. Any other gospel is an abomination to God and warrants an anathema (destruction in hell) for those who audaciously twist God’s Gospel or replace it with another. (1 John 4:6).
There are several other gospels of which the following are a few examples: The Gospel of Ramakrishna; the Gospel of Buddha; the Gospel of Thomas; The Gospel of Mary; and the Gospel of Judas. Whereas the aforementioned gospels claim that they had been divinely inspired, The Gospel of our Mother God does not have a tradition of direct divinely inspired Scripture.
It consists mainly of extracts from Vedic scriptures. The Vedic religion that shaped modern-day Hinduism was one of India’s most ancient religions. The Gospel of our Mother God is also based on sutras. Sutras are a genre of ancient and medieval Indian texts found in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. These sutras are inspired by the Divine Feminine as the sole, supreme Deity, the Creatrix of the universe, the First Cause of all being, and the loving Mother and Saviour of all life. The myths and sutras in The Gospel of Our Mother God are thoroughly feminine. No male figures appear at any point.
Conclusion
There is no doubt that Liezel Lüneburg’s Buddhist Mandala art has led her into full-blown idolatry and Mother Goddess worship, while Stephan Joubert has no qualms about it. Why should he when he himself is openly into the idolatrous worship of Sophia? Yes! He talks about Jesus quite a lot, but his Jesus is pointedly another Jesus, a Jesus who closes his eyes to Mother/Father (androgynous) worship (2 Corinthians 11:4).
Sophia and Feminist Spirituality
Following in the line of feminist theorists like Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigaray, the authors of Wisdom’s Feast argue that in order to develop feminist spirituality we need to deconstruct traditional hierarchical binaries (i.e. sacred/profane, good/bad, male/female) and create a unity that celebrates the differentiation of its parts. Sophia, they insist, embodies this unity. . . .
Sophia was not only a force for unity within Judaism. She also established continuity between Judaism and Christianity. And her fusion with Christ offers contemporary Christians a way to understand their Savior as a union of male and female. As Mollenkott explains, “the combination of Wisdom/Christ leads to a healthy blend of male and female imagery that empowers everyone and works beautifully to symbolize the One God who is neither male nor female yet both male and female” (Mollenkott 104). Similarly Johnson writes that through the filter of the Sophia metaphor, “new ways of appreciating Christ can be formed, less associated with patriarchal control and more in tune with women’s daily life and collective wisdom, so often discounted as a source of insight” (Johnson 106). In light of this feminist revival of the Sophia figure, some Christian women have begun to speak of the “Sophia-God of Jesus” and of “Jesus Sophia.”
Mollenkott also suggests that Sophia can replace the Virgin Mary as a positive role model for Catholic women. Mary, she insists, is an impossible model to follow, for no woman can be both virgin and mother. In addition, she argues that the strong, independent women of today cannot identify with Mary, for the Virgin Mother is a passive figure submissive to a masculine God. Sophia, however, may be a much more viable role model: “Dame Wisdom is an especially important symbol for contemporary women because she gets us beyond the concept that femaleness finds its primary fulfilment in motherhood. Wisdom is busy in the public sphere; she is no shrinking violet, no vessel waiting to be given her significance by someone else” (Mollenkott 102). . . .
However, like the Virgin Mary, Sophia too was shaped by a highly patriarchal society. In fact, some biblical portrayals of Dame Wisdom are clearly sexist. Some depictions of Sophia seem to reveal concerns that her growing power threatens patriarchal society. Proverbs 7 thus picks up on the traditional “bad girl” stereotype, describing Sophia as an evil harlot who threatens the patriarchally dominated institution of marriage. Ultimately, the authors of Wisdom’s Feast have to admit that much of the treatment of Sophia in the Bible and in the Christian tradition reinforces patriarchal values, making Sophia a potentially dangerous symbol of the divine. . . .
In more modern Gnostic groups, Sophia is talked about in relation to Eve, Mary, and Mary Magdalene. She is compared to Eve because both women experienced a “fall from grace” which resulted in the creation of the material world into the form it is today. . . .
In the end, most sources agree that Sophia can be developed into a positive figure for feminist spirituality. (Emphasis added).
No wonder John warns in the book of Revelation,
And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her. And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning. (Revelation 18:4-9).
[1] https://www.zoominfo.com/c/ekerk/360688502
[2] http://www.mother-god.com/goddess-tara.html
[3] Peter Jones, “Androgyny: The Pagan Sexual Ideal,” p445
[4] Ibid, p. 446
[5] Ibid.
[6] Art historian Alka Pande on how Shiva become the androgyne god in religion and art
[7] Richard Noll, The Aryan Christ: The Secret Life of Carl Jung (New York: Random House, 1997) 162
[8] Ibid, 162
[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandala
[10] Ken Stone, “Homosexuality and the Bible or Queer Readings?” a paper read to the Gay Men’s Issues Group at the AAR/SBL Annual Meeting (November 21, 1999).
[11] Michael Clark, “Gay Spirituality,” in Spirituality and the Secular Quest (ed. Peter H. Van Ness; New York: Crossroads/Herder, 1996) 335.
[12] Charles Pickstone, The Divinity of Sex: The Search for Ecstasy in a Secular Age (New York: St. Martin’s, 1997), reviewed by John Attarian in Culture Wars (March 1998) 46ˆ. In the words of Attarian, Pickstone “forsakes Christianity’s transcendent God for a neopagan pantheism, with the distinction between Creator and Creation collapsed, and sex the religious experience of choice.”
[13] Arlene Swidler, ed., Homosexuality and World Religions (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1993)
[14] Emily Culpepper, “The Spiritual, Political Journey of a Feminist Freethinker,” in After Patriarchy: Feminist Transformations of the World Religions (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1991) 164.
[15] Ibid.
[16] Sjoo and Moor, The Great Cosmic Mother 131.
[17] Nissinen, Homoeroticism in the Biblical World: A Historical Perspective (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1998) 28. For Nissinen’s work is boldly supported by Helmer Ringgren’s, Religions of the Ancient Near East (trans. John Sturdy; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1973), who speaks of naked “eunuchs” associated with the cult to the Sumerian goddess Inanna (another name for Ishtar) that includes a hieros gamos rite. These priests dressed up and wore make-up like a woman and expressed their “otherness” via their androgyny. Physically they were men but their appearance either was feminine or had both male and female characteristics.
[18] Nissinen, Homoeroticism 30.
[19] Neal H. Walls, The Goddess Anat in Ugaritic Myth (SBLDS 135; Atlanta, GA: Scholars, 1992) 83.
[20] Ibid. 107. On Cybele, see below.
[21] Ibid. 86.
[22] Nicholas Wyatt, “The c Anat Stela from Ugarit and Its Ramifications,” Ugarit Forschungen 16 (1984) 331.
[23] Ibid
[24] In 1576 the European explorer Pedro de Magalhaes de Gandavo noted the presence of trans-gendered warriors among the Tupinanmba Indians (see Baum, “Traditional Religions” 14), and the Roman Catholic missionary, Father Marquette, gave a well-informed description of the Illinois berdache in 1673 (see Baum, p. 15).
[25] This can be seen in the apparently innocuous statement of a contemporary homosexual academic who a¯rms “the fact that human sex is not a strictly binary category”—see Martti Nissinen, Homoeroticism 12. From the fact of physical and sexual perversions, Nissinen actually argues for moral and spiritual relativism.
[26] Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament Volume 4; trans, by D. E. Green (1975-1977); English Trans.; (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1980), 123.
