This 'Secret' isn't worth keeping

'The Secret' is tempting because it offers power, money, and human divinity. But this self-indulgence can't quench our real spiritual thirst.

from the April 10, 2007 edition

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Note what is happening. Such teachings arrogantly conflate human potential and divine potential, granting to creatures the powers unique only to God. This is the classic worship of self-creating and self-sustaining nature, necessarily eliminating God as its transcendent and sovereign creator. It is more than just consumer-oriented narcissism; it is a variant of the serpent's temptation in Genesis.

Scholars of religion identify two types of spirituality: (1) esoteric (inner) religion – the God within; finding truth within the human heart, since humanity is divine. This is the air breathed in "The Secret"; (2) exoteric (outer) religion that finds truth beyond the sphere of nature and humanity in the person of God, distinct from created things. Paul identified this spiritual confusion with remarkable clarity two millenniums ago in the first chapter of Romans: "Professing to be wise, they became fools ... who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator...." (New King James Version).

These two types of spirituality really do describe the two religious worldviews offered in our time. They both require faith and worship. They cannot be mixed because they are mutually self-excluding. You have to choose.

The age-old esoteric option, presented with such brilliant marketing skill in "The Secret," is tempting because it offers power, money, human divinity, and the promise of a humanly realized earthly utopia. But it fails to confront the fundamental challenges that certainly confront us: sin, suffering, and death.

The exoteric option, found in the revealed Word of Holy Scripture, offers something altogether different. It reorients our lives away from the desire to attract to ourselves, to the desire to give of ourselves. It doesn't "empower" our selves to achieve wealth and greatness. It calls us to "put off the old man with his deeds" and find renewal and redemption in Christ Jesus.

The overwhelming success of "The Secret" shows just how spiritually thirsty the world is today. The question is: Will it opt for esoteric hope in humanity or exoteric hope in God? Only one path truly quenches our real spiritual thirst.

• Peter Jones, director of Christian Witness to a Pagan Planet, is a professor at Westminster Seminary. He is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America, and coauthor of "Cracking Da Vinci's Code."

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