New age, occult & conspiracy theory books and the Christian

I would definitely pray about it and see how the Lord leads you in discarding them. Since you are posting this, the Holy Spirit must be convicting you that they need to be removed. It is apparent that Acts 19 is shouting at you. I can say that obedience to the leading of the Holy Spirit always brings freedom and peace. Do what you must do in obedience and move on. I wouldn't even post here what you decide to do...it is really between you and your heavenly Father.

Milkman said:

So what advice would one pilgrim give to another?

I think you have received excellent advice. I can't tell you what action you should take and not everyone will agree with it. A few things I would consider are:

• If the books were damaging to you, they could very well hurt others too.
• There is nothing intrinsically evil about playing with a yo-yo. But if it distracts you from the Lord, it becomes unprofitable.
• There are too many great books to spend our time reading good books.
• There has to be a reason Acts 19:19 mentions the value of the books that were burned. I can hear Judas objecting, "Let's sell the books and give money to the poor." But whoever directed the book burning, (Paul ? the Holy Spirit?) did not consider the value a reason to stop the burning.
• There is something to be said for donating them to a seminary but that raises a lot more questions.

I commend you for caring and pray for your closer walk with the Lord.

Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus   by Helen H. Lemmel, 1922

I guess it would all depend what YOU plan on doing with your past experience. I personally have a great interest in apologetics, so I have no problem keeping a Qu'ran, a JW New World Translation and a Book of Mormon in the house, as they are useful to me in debates, research etc. This is also why I encourage Logos to get into publishing them, not to approve, but to provide useful resources for use by teachers, apologists etc.

Could it be that you're going to wind up being a witness to others about the evils of the New Age etc.? Then you may wish to keep the books so that you can talk to them about their own literature.

But if not, by all means then destroy them, since the fact is that if they are evil, they ought not to be read by others either, ya know? I have certainly done that with some of the books of my pre-Christian days and early (less discerning) Christian life.

Just my .02! [H]

Milkman said:

what advice would one pilgrim give to another?

[;)]  [With apologies to any Hebrew brothers & sisters.] Then stay away from Hebrew. I'm not sure how humorous my Hebrew exegetical prof found it when I claimed that Hebrew is our best evidence of a UFO landing in the past. Think about it...

1. They start in the back & work toward the begnning.
2. Not only that, but the front cover is on the back of the book.
3. On every page, they start on the right & work backwards toward the left (even if they still work top to bottom).
4. Just for fun, have two characters for some consonants & use one of them only when that consonant ends a sentence. Or when that consonant ends a word. Or if it's in the middle of a word. Or if it's been exactly one fortnight since the last full moon. Or not.
5. Allow some consonants to be doubled by placing a dot in a secret location on the consonant.
6. But when other consonants get a dot, change the pronunciation of the consonant (sin/shin).
7. Omit all vowels in the language. After 2500 years or so, when people forget how to prounounce the language, invent some, but only as a pronunciation guide.
8. Have afterthoughts about vowels & let some consonants double as vowels under certain conditions. Make sure those conditions have exceptions.
9. And when one of those consonants ISN'T doubling as a vowell, raise up 2 schools of scholastic thought on how to pronounce it (vav or waw?).
10. For possessive pronouns, come up with prefixes & suffixes instead of words.
11. Let the prepositions (& most other words) mean anything you need them to, depending on the context.
12. And if all that weren't strange enough, it really gets strange when we get to the verbs. Every time we change tenses (which to confuse us they call moods), at minimum all the vowels change in the stem endings. By that logic, those in English who think bring should become brang (past tense) would be right.
13. Any time you want a new word, jam two (or more) other words together & change the vowels.
14. And if you're feeling feisty as you create a new word, get Western, construct a bar over/between the two words, & call it construct.

I could go on, but if all that isn't evidence of a UFO landing, I'm not sure what is... I'm just sayin'....[:D] [;)]

(Sorry George!)

BillS said:

I could go on, but if all that isn't evidence of a UFO landing, I'm not sure what is... I'm just sayin'..

They start in the back & work toward the beginning.    ~So does classical Japanese.
Not only that, but the front cover is on the back of the book. ~So is classical Japanese.
On every page, they start on the right & work backwards toward the left (even if they still work top to bottom).  ~So does classical Japanese.
Just for fun, have two characters for some consonants & use one
of them only when that consonant ends a sentence. Or when that consonant
ends a word. Or if it's in the middle of a word. Or if it's been
exactly one fortnight since the last full moon. Or not. ~Uh Huh, Uh Huh, & Uh Huh, ~classical Japanese.
Allow some consonants to be doubled by placing a dot in a secret location on the consonant. ~So does classical Japanese, kinda....
But when other consonants get a dot, change the pronunciation of the consonant (sin/shin).
Omit all vowels in the language. After 2500 years or so, when people
forget how to prounounce the language, invent some, but only as a
pronunciation guide.
Have afterthoughts about vowels & let some consonants double as
vowels under certain conditions. Make sure those conditions have
exceptions. を
And when one of those consonants ISN'T doubling as a vowell, raise
up 2 schools of scholastic thought on how to pronounce it (vav or waw?). は
For possessive pronouns, come up with prefixes & suffixes instead of words. ~So does classical Japanese.
Let the prepositions (& most other words) mean anything you need them to, depending on the context. ~frequently in classical Japanese.
And if all that weren't strange enough, it really gets strange when
we get to the verbs. Every time we change tenses (which to confuse us
they call moods), at minimum all the vowels change in
the stem endings. By that logic, those in English who think bring should
become brang (past tense) would be right.
Any time you want a new word, jam two (or more) other words together & change the vowels. ~frequently in classical Japanese
And if you're feeling feisty as you create a new word, get Western,
construct a bar over/between the two words, & call it construct. ~Katakana

Now it appears to me that Hebrew and Japanese have a lot more in common with each other than English. So I would consider English to be more alien than the others. Bible scholar Harold Willmington must agree. He wrote a book on the doctrine of the Bible and titled it, "That Manuscript From Outer Space."

" rel="nofollow">Keep Smiling 4 Jesus said:

Searching entire library for

KS4J, thanks for gently pointing us back on topic... [:)]

BillS said:

(Only kidding, & apologies for any offense unintentionally offered with what was intended solely as lighthearted  humor.)

It was enlightening to learn all that about Hebrew. How come none of my Intro to Hebrew textbooks lay it out that simply?

Another interesting parallel is the mythological origin of the Japanese Imperial bloodline being attributed to a deity coming down to Earth and becoming the first Emperor. Not quite an "alien" but similar to many accounts of origins.

This makes me wonder; is there any tradition for Hebrew being the language Adam and God conversed in?

nicky crane said:

Our (eccentric and beloved) Hebrew teacher used to refer to Hebrew as the "mystic language of the angels", and told us we'd better get on with learning Hebrew as we should have to converse in it when we got to Heaven!

That would explain why there will be silence in Heaven for half an hour.   [O]  We will all be catching up on our Hebrew studies.

Super Tramp said:

How come none of my Intro to Hebrew textbooks lay it out that simply?

Hey... wrt Hebrew, if it's going to penetrate at all for me, it HAD to be simple... [;)]
LOL on the rest of the conversation... you all went where I would've (Hebrew in heaven---supposed that'll be part of our perfected language skills?)... Blessings to you all!