Pastors Rick Warren, David Jeremiah, Greg Laurie … “The tragedy about this situation between Roma Downey and Christian leaders is that the leaders are using Roma Downey, Roma Downey is using the leaders, and our Adversary is using them both—and countless naïve and undiscerning Christians are buying into the whole thing.”
(Lighthouse Trails) Proclaim 19
First she’s there; now she’s gone, or is she? New Age sympathizer Roma Downey was scheduled to speak at the National Religious Broadcaster’s 2019 convention, Proclaim 19. …
Sharing the docket with her are highly popular evangelical names like John MacArthur, Rick Warren, Greg Laurie, and Kirk Cameron. Lighthouse Trails reported on the story with the release of Greg Reid’s booklet, Butterfly Illusions (which unveils the strong New Age messages in Roma Downey’s new book, Box of Butterflies).
Shortly after the release of the booklet, Lighthouse Trails learned that Roma Downey’s name (along with her husband Mark Burnett) had been removed from the speakers list for Proclaim 19. Calls to the NRB office in Washington, DC by Lighthouse Trails editors provided no answers as to why Downey’s name was gone other than being told “it has not yet been decided” if she will be speaking there. As has been the “normal” protocol for Christian leaders when they get challenged, there is just dead silence from NRB as well as from the evangelical figures who are involved. But new information about Roma Downey’s beliefs will hopefully prompt NRB and Christian leaders to be responsible and do the right thing.
God “In” Everyone and Everything?
The crux of the New Age is not Ouija boards and Tarot cards but rather is the foundational belief that God is “in” everyone and “in” everything. It is the prevailing doctrine throughout all New Age teachings as well as the root of mystical meditation. To believe that God is in everyone and in everything is to ultimately reject the Cross (whether one realizes that or not). If God is in everyone, then there would have been no reason for Jesus Christ to go to the Cross as a substitute for humanity’s sins because we would already be divine and not need a Savior. That is why one prominent New Age leader quoted his “God” as saying, “the era of the Single Savior is over”1 (because we are all Saviors). It would stand to reason that Christian teachers and pastors who profess to know God’s Word and His ways would easily recognize the contrast between New Age spirituality and biblical Christianity. But in the case of Roma Downey and today’s Christian leaders, this is not so.
For many years now, Roma Downey has consistently and publicly shown herself to be strongly aligned with the New Age. Her long-time spiritual mentor was New Age/New Thought pastor and teacher Della Reese whom Downey considered to be a mother figure. Downey then attended and, in 2010, graduated from the University of Santa Monica (one of the most popular New Age schools in the world). And she favorably quotes the school’s New Age leader and founder, the late John-Roger2 (who claimed he was inhabited by the “mystical traveler consciousness”). Shortly after her graduation from USM, Downey came on the evangelical Christian scene (calling herself a devout Catholic), producing Bible-story movies and being wholeheartedly welcomed by numerous Christian celebrities (see some photo examples below) including Rick Warren, David Jeremiah, Greg Laurie, Samuel Rodriguez (she wrote the foreword to his 2017 book, Be Light), and Joel Osteen. And now, most recently, her open-armed welcome to speak at Proclaim 19 with John MacArthur, Rick Warren, Greg Laurie, and Kirk Cameron.
Research:
CRN has a list of professing Christians to mark and avoid (Rom 16:17-18). Scroll down to WARNING