(May 2, 1999)
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My daughter got a copy of the April/May 1999 issue in the mail.
On the cover is, “Debby Boone moves beyond just getting it right – and gets
real”.
I would like to comment on two articles, both written by the same author, Marlee Alex:
1. Debby Boone – “Seek me in the things you fear”
???
2. Keeping an Eye on the Invisible –
Intuition ???
The cover story on page 23, is called, “Risky Business” by Marlee Alex:
“From behind her good girl image, actress, vocalist and children’s book author Debby
Boone gets real with others, herself – and God.”
As a new Christian I was blessed and encouraged by Debby’s example and witness on the
celebrity scene. And of course her dad, Pat Boone, was someone famous I could point to and
say, “He loves Jesus, too!” Unfortunately, people I looked up to twenty years
ago continue to be a discouragement in that I very rarely hear any of them speak the
Gospel of Jesus Christ with precision and instead they talk of worldly fluff and
“God” and niceness. Often when celebrities speak, professing Christian or pagan,
they speak of generalized values and “God”, but then they also blur the
discussion of what truth is, what is right and wrong, seemingly in order to make
themselves look “tolerant”.
In this article Debby Boone does refer to, “Christ in you, the hope of glory”
(Colossians 1:27) but it’s in the context of her wondering if she can be good enough to
keep being successful! And she talks about “believing Christ in me.”
In the article, Aspire magazine says: You’ve been described as a “reluctant
risk-taker.” Debby answers: Yes, by my dad. Aspire: What’s the most significant risk
you’ve taken?
Debby answers” “I played the role of Rizzo, the bad girl, in the Broadway
musical “Grease”. When I read the script I was shocked because I’d forgotten
just how crass the show is – the stage play more so than the movie… I wondered, is it ok
to play somebody who is promiscuous?…My dad came to see me and sat in the third row. I
wanted to die doing the things in front of him that my character was called to do on
stage: I flipped off people, wore this outfit you can’t believe with all kinds of
cleavage, and smoked… My own kids sat in the audience and watched their mother doing
things they’d get in big trouble for at home.”
Debby goes on to justify taking such a role by saying, “I’ve come to believe
you’re much better off in your art trying something new.” And she says that God told
her to “Seek me in the things you fear”.
I don’t believe her. Someone or some thing may have told Debby Boone that, but it
wasn’t the God of the Bible. That idea is found no where in scripture. It has much more in
common with the teachings of Buddha.
I’m not really so concerned about which roles she takes or what plays she’s in. These
are disputable matters. You or I could definitely make a case against being in such a
play. I also have no intention to create Jim’s list of Pharisee do’s and don’ts as far as
which plays or movies to see or not see. But the Lord gives us wisdom as to what is
edifying or not.
My problem is with the Evangelical subculture and its celebrities and its mass media,
etc., which continues toward a trend of blurring the Gospel with fluff and false doctrine.
Keeping an Eye on the Invisible
The other article of concern to me is called, “Keeping an Eye on the Invisible –
How to live the benefits of intuition in a skeptical, show-me world”. This was
written by the same author, Marlee Alex, who wrote the above Debby
Boone article. Marlee Alex, the end of the article says, “a writer and editor in
Sister, Oregon, relies on intuition in a freelance career that requires consistent
openness to new directions.”
The article starts off with a half-truth: “Be still, and know…” – Psalm
46:10. Of course that is not the whole verse…. the most important part being left out!
Be still and know… what? Just know? Knowledge? Gnosis? What?
The whole verse is: “Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the
heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.”
“Know that I am God”!
Well, what is it that Marlee Alex wants us to know?
“Conventional thought suggests you dismiss intuition, that power to know without
knowing how you know. And yet…” Her first paragraph drifts off with that dot dot
dot.
People who use intuition, she says, “…hold tenaciously to intuition’s
importance. They’ve found it an illuminating force in their lives: a way to better reason
personal decisions, discern obstacles from opportunities, improve the success of business
decisions, resolve issues from the past, navigate the changing water of relationships and
better tune in to God.”
Of course, no such doctrine is taught anywhere in God’s Word. There is teaching about
the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit in our lives as he brings understanding and wisdom
from the Word of God or a miraculous word of wisdom or word of knowledge. Marlee Alex
refers to 1 Corinthians 12:8 saying that perhaps this and other verses hint at
“intuition”. But, we’re not to create doctrines by what we think the Bible
“hints” at. Rather, we ought to derive our doctrine by the plain meaning of
scripture. NEVER does the Bible say that man should look within and trust our
“intuition”. Instead the Bible teaches that the vain imaginations of man are
evil, there is a way that SEEMS right to a man but in the end it leads to destruction.
The article asks rhetorically, “Or is intuition something to beware, some New Age
way of thinking or mystical force?” Alex proceeds to answer her own question,
“No, writes Laura Day, a self-described ‘practicing intuitive” and author of the
best-selling Practical Intuition (Villard). Intuition and intuitives are not to be
feared, she says: ‘I’m not magical, New Age, psychic or a spiritual leader – I’m just your
basic, strait-laced Jewish woman’ – a woman who believes in listening to your life and for
God.”
But you don’t look to your intuition to hear from God! And trying to deny intuition’s
connection with pagan mysticism only raises the question of where this is coming from.
A later section of the article is called, “Using the third eye & other
ear”!!! “Third eye”? That’s an occult concept from way back. In that
section she tells of an artist, Wendy Hitchcock, who “understands how to use this eye
for the invisible”.
At the end of the article a writer, Noelle Quinn, says, “I had been taught to
pray, read the Bible, visit Christian counselors – but the way God helped me put the final
pieces in my difficult puzzle came from within.”
Finally, Marlee Alex quotes the rest of Psalm 46:10, “Be still and know that I am
God.” But only after using the whole article to make the claim that “being
still” means to look within and
listen to your intuition. She ends with, “…are you ready to start developing this creative gift?”
In a side bar article by the editor, Jeanette Thomason, a video series for children is
discussed: The Yellow Dyno. This video contains a song called, “When You Trust Your
Inner Feelings”. And Dyno tells children to “act upon what their sixth sense may
be telling them.” “Third Eye” and now “sixth sense”? This is
another utterly occult term.
Rather than endorsing these concepts, followers of Jesus and lovers of the Truth ought
to be exposing them and warning against them.
See “The Human Potential Movement”
1. Debby Boone – “Seek me in the things you fear”
???
2. Keeping an Eye on the Invisible –
Intuition ???
Index of previous Commentary on Current Events