Perilous
Times and The Great Falling Away
US Christian church teams up with high priestess of Isis -
Famous denomination welcoming paganism with guided
meditations
Posted: October 29, 2011
10:55 pm Eastern
By Joe Kovacs
High priestess Loreon Vigne of Isis Oasis
A Protestant church in California is coming under fire from some
Christians over its upcoming conference featuring "guided
meditations" by a high priestess of the pagan fertility goddess
Isis.
The fifth annual "Faith and Feminism Conference" taking place Nov.
11–13 is being hosted by the Ebenezer Lutheran Church in San
Francisco, which bills itself as "herchurch."
Among the scheduled participants is Loreon Vigne, high priestess
of Isis Oasis – a temple, retreat and animal sanctuary Vigne
founded in 1978 in Geyserville, Calif.
"I personally see Isis as Mother Nature," Vigne told WND, "and
that she encompasses everything with her wings. She's a winged
goddess. She encompasses any other goddess from any culture."
Vigne, who plans to bring several other priestesses to the
conference, will conduct prayers, songs and meditation.
"Guided meditation is where the audience closes their eyes and you
take them on a little journey," she explained. "I've taken people
to their past lives in Egypt, as [that culture] had all the
secrets. They're the ones that knew. Their main concept is to know
thyself, know thy heart, know thy soul and know thy purpose."
The Bible is packed with information they never tell you in most
churches. Find out what you're missing in the book that champions
that absolute truth of God's Holy Scripture, and learn your
incredible, underpublicized destiny in the No. 1 best-seller,
"Shocked by the Bible: The Most Astonishing Facts You've Never
Been Told" -- autographed!
A depiction of the Egyptian goddess Isis and her son Horus
She says the belief system is based on the ancient Egyptian
concept of balance, with 42 laws that are actually 42 ideals.
"It's kind of like a Ten Commandments, but all done in a positive
concept," she said. "'I shalt not kill,' [is rendered as] 'I honor
all lives as sacred.'"
Besides honoring the goddess, the staff of Isis Oasis also
provides massage therapy along with tarot and astrology readings,
according to its website.
But the San Francisco event blending non-existent, heathen deities
with the Christian faith is leaving some outraged.
"You can't make this stuff up!" exclaimed Dan Skogen of Marion,
Iowa, who describes himself as a Lutheran fed up with the
"constant mockery of God's word" by the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America, or ELCA, which boasts some 4.2 million members
in 10,000 congregations.
"God tells us in Exodus 20:3 'You shall have no other gods before
me.' Yet this ELCA church brings followers of other gods in to
speak and teach at their conference!"
Skogen said the ELCA leadership "accepts and promotes the thought
that salvation is secured even for people who do not have faith in
Christ."
"So bringing worshippers of Isis to this conference to teach is
acceptable to them," said. "Of course, this is a distinct
departure from the orthodox teaching of the Christian church."
Throughout the Bible, there are many warnings against worshiping
false gods.
The Israelites were nearly exterminated by God when they made a
golden calf to worship, but said it was a "festival to the LORD."
(Exodus 32:5, New Living Translation)
And they were later warned: "But if your heart turns away and you
refuse to listen, and if you are drawn away to serve and worship
other gods, then I warn you now that you will certainly be
destroyed." (Deuteronomy 30:17-18, NLT)
Skogen said, "Over the years, the ELCA has been drifting farther
and farther away from the truth and authority of Scripture. When a
church does not trust, adhere to and believe what the Bible
clearly states, heresies emerge, resulting in false teachings and
blatant disobedience."
Rev. Megan Rohrer, an openly transgender Lutheran pastor
Defending the event is one of its organizers, Rev. Megan Rohrer,
the first openly transgender Lutheran minister ordained in the
United States.
"I think the world is much more interested in interfaith
connection than exclusivity," Rohrer said that. "It's really not
that unusual. Christianity was founded in the time of the
beginnings of lots of things."
While acknowledging concern about mixing paganism with
Christianity is a "hot-button issue," the pastor said, "Christians
that say that probably don't know what paganism is."
"Anything that's not what anyone's church teaches is against God's
ways," she added.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "pagan" as "heathen,
especially: a follower of a polytheistic religion (as in ancient
Rome)." It defines the word "heathen" as "an unconverted member of
a people or nation that does not acknowledge the God of the
Bible."
This particular Lutheran church in San Francisco is far from what
many might consider mainstream.
For instance, it heavily promotes a female identity for God, with
a giant banner hanging from its purple exterior declaring
"God/dess loves all her children."
"We are a diverse community, standing firmly within the Christian
tradition in order to re-image the divine by claiming her feminine
persona," the church proclaims.
"Our Christian/Lutheran feminist prayers and liturgy reach back
into the storehouse of tradition to bring forth names as Mother,
Shaddai, Sophia, Womb, Midwife, Shekinah, She Who Is. They do so
out of renewed insights into the nature of the Gospel empowered by
the risen Christ-Sophia."
The Ebenezer Lutheran Church in San Francisco calls itself
"herchurch."
Asked to explain the church's theology, Rev. Rohrer said, "Being
Christian and being feminist are not two opposite ends of the
spectrum."
She said her church is "creating caring economics and creating a
world where every person's identity is held up with its integrity,
creating equal playing fields for every human being."
"The U.N. continues to say if we're able to educate women
globally, we will probably eliminate poverty," she added.
Other events at the conference include a chanting workshop with
another Isis priestess, Katie Kethcum, "inclusive" hymns, sacred
walks, sacred drums, sacred dance and Kundalini Yoga mantras,
which the church says "are composed of basic phonetic sounds
common to all languages and have been used to invoke the presence
of the Divine for centuries."
Also speaking at the conference is Mary Streufert, director for
Justice for Women at ELCA's headquarters in Chicago. She refused
comment when asked about her participation.
Interest in the Egyptian goddess is certainly not new in the U.S.
In the mid-1970s, she became a flying superhero on the CBS
Saturday-morning TV series "Isis."
The program featured actress JoAnna Cameron playing a science
teacher who, after unearthing an ancient amulet on an
archaeological dig, transforms herself into a superpower-endowed
do-gooder by uttering the incantation, "Oh mighty Isis."
Another catchphrase on the show was, "Oh zephyr winds that blow on
high. Lift me now so I can fly."
Vigne says today there are "many thousands" of followers of Isis
worldwide.
"The important thing is that it's growing enormously. There is
this resurgence of interest," she said.
"I think that people are getting annoyed with the normal churches,
the established kind of organized religion. I call mine a
disorganized religion, humorously. I say I have catma, not dogma."
bbEu