Conversations With God – ???

I had heard of this book a number of years ago but recently I began receiving emails once again warning me of the terrible heresies and to keep my grandchildren away from this book. So, as a writer and publisher, I decided to check it out. The book that I obtained from my local library was Volume 2. From what I gathered, Volumes 1 and 3 had much the same style. Here is an excerpt that I think gives a good example of what you can find inside these heretical pages:

[Author] But I’ve been taught that we can’t always have what we desire – that God won’t give it to us if it’s not for our highest good.

[God] That’s something people tell you when they want you not to be disappointed with a particular outcome.

First of all, let’s move back to clarity about our relationship. I don’t “give” you anything – you call it forth. Book 1 explains exactly how you do this, in considerable detail.

Secondly, I don’t make a judgment about what you call forth. I don’t call a thing “good” or “bad”. (You, too, would do well to not do so.)

You are a creative being – made in the image and likeness of God. You may have whatever you choose. But you may not have anything you want. In fact, you’ll never get anything you want if you want it badly enough. [Conversations with God, Neale Donald Walsch, 1997, p. 11-12]

My first observation as I read through this book was that the author did not seem to like God as He is in the Bible. The LORD I know in the Bible does give and from Genesis to Revelation makes a point of telling us that we do not see or comprehend the all that He has and continues to “give” us. God does judge “good” from “bad” and is actually the only One who does it with any accuracy and conviction.

And of course, it is apparent that the author is a humanist and is much more comfortable with the concept that we are in charge of our lives and have the ability to be all that we can be through our own efforts and intellect. If something doesn’t come to us, it is because we did not “want it badly enough”.

NO, I do not recommend this book to anyone unless you are studying humanism and you want to see what that means in the context of Christianity. But I do not think I have to burn the book or warn my children OR grandchildren with loud shouts and crazy arm waving. My children are readers of the Bible and experience His presence so they can spot a ‘counterfeit’ god when they see one. And isn’t that the point? If I, as a parent/grandparent, am teaching my children and grandchildren what and who the One is, then they will be so acquainted with the character of Him that they will see and ‘sense’ a fake.

I don’t have time to talk to deceivers.