Gospel Truth/Pagan Lies: Can You Tell the Difference?
Reviewed by Robert P. Mills, June 14, 1999
“Have you noticed,” asks Peter Jones, “the New Age section in your local chain bookstore getting bigger by the month – hundreds of books on witchcraft and the worship of the goddess, the self, animals and nature?”
If you’ve noticed, and if you’ve searched those shelves in vain for a short, clear outline of key differences between Christian and pagan spiritualities, Gospel Truth/Pagan Lies may be just the resource you’ve been looking for.
Peter Jones, professor of New Testament at Westminster Theological Seminary in California, wrote this brief study to help readers “discover the difference between worshiping the God who made the earth and worshiping the earth itself” by contrasting five “pagan lies” with five corresponding “gospel truths.”
According to Jones a pagan (from the Latin paganus, “of the earth”) is a person who, in the words of Paul, “changes the truth of God for the lie and worships and serves the creature rather than the Creator” (Rom. 1:25). At the root of paganism is “monism,” the belief that all is one and one is all, that there is no distinction between God and the world.
In short, pointed chapters, Jones contrasts pagan monism with such Christian distinctions as Creator/creature, right/wrong, sin/holiness, life/death and heaven/hell. While this book may easily be read in a single sitting, questions at the end of each chapter point the reader to relevant passages of Scripture and make it suitable for Sunday School classes or small group discussions. It would also be an appropriate gift for a non-Christian who is trying to wade through the morass of contemporary spiritualities.
“Paganism loves to disguise itself in Christian clothes,” Jones observes. Those who read this book will be well equipped to see through such deception.