You may remember that WV recommends that ministries work with secular United Nations-approved social justice NGOs, like InterAction. I said that in such groups another worldview is being incubated—not secularism, but a new strong-arm version of ancient paganism, blending “enlightened spirituality” with “social action.” The goal is “world transformation” to create a pagan “non-dual” (no Creator) utopia. At the spiritual heart of the UN is The Lucis Trust (originally the Lucifer Trust!), an occult Theosophist group in charge of the United Nations’ Meditation Room since 1952.

[Editor’s Note: This article was written before World Vision reversed their decision to change their hiring policy.]

God’s picture of his love for the church was knit into the male/female love relationship of the first man and woman. Separate and different, they were placed in an ordained and indissoluble marriage. From the start, God placed this physical, emotional and spiritual picture into the world as a constant reflection of his image, demonstrating to us both the differentiation of the persons of the Trinity (distinct persons with differing roles, yet one in nature) and the unbreakable love relationship between Christ and his church.

Disastrously, in the name of mercy, World Vision has just opted to hide the truth about sin, disregard God’s pattern of marriage and sully the savior God sent. By affirming the mockery of God’s image in the counterfeit structure of “gay marriage” WV has denied the very triune Creator it professes to represent.

Seven months ago I noted that World Vision was finding the Gospel message a hindrance to its mission of “social justice.” WV’s Easter card, sent to deprived children worldwide, carried the tagline “Building a better world for children.”  But there was no good news of resurrection—only pictures of animals teaching moralistic lessons to “bless children.” “Children are like deer: The deer is sure-footed…be confident in your abilities, like the deer.” The card only lacked one more animal, the Easter Bunny!

Good works and sound belief cannot be separated. Redeemed sinners, giving cups of water, must “confess with [their] mouth that Jesus [not Caesar] is Lord.”

The grave dangers of the “social gospel” approach I described in that previous article just became clear in the decision of WV to hire same-sex “married Christian couples,” for the sake of “church unity.” This goes beyond their “no proselytizing” principle, for now it undermines the essential biblical truths of the creational definition of marriage and the heterosexual nature of the image of God in man. World Vision will not allow these Christian doctrines to hinder its “unifying” fund-raising in all possible “churches,” whether Christian or non-Christian.

Focusing on its mission to “eliminate poverty worldwide” (which is not the goal of Christianity), Stearns makes a disastrous distinction between an “operational arm” of the church (WV and other practical ministries) and a “theological arm” (churches themselves). For WV, no need to arm-wrestle with biblical truth, even though the organization claims to communicate a “Christian” worldview. Stearns has said: “To really change the world, values must change.” So what values will these new staff members teach about “a better world for the children”? A Christian organization is surely concerned about preparing both the children to whom they minister and the staff they hire for God’s “better world” of the new creation.

There is so much wrong in WV’s decision that it boggles the mind.

How many Christian organizations and denominations will follow this model? In this decision we note:

• woeful theological ignorance at best and deliberate compromise at worst;
• naiveté as to the place of Gospel witness in our time of pagan revival;
• cooperation with the godless state (which provides a third of WV’s operational budget) and with the United Nations;
• all the inherent dangers of a parachurch organization speaking globally for Christian truth while being free both from any church structures and from the responsibility of engaging in serious biblical discernment.

You may remember that WV recommends that ministries work with secular United Nations-approved social justice NGOs, like InterAction. I said that in such groups another worldview is being incubated—not secularism, but a new strong-arm version of ancient paganism, blending “enlightened spirituality” with “social action.” The goal is “world transformation” to create a pagan “non-dual” (no Creator) utopia. At the spiritual heart of the UN is The Lucis Trust (originally the Lucifer Trust!), an occult Theosophist group in charge of the United Nations’ Meditation Room since 1952. Their version of a better world is: “uniformity of beliefs is unnecessary…shared spiritual experience and collective service may offer a better hope for achieving global synthesis.”

This movement plans to eat the Christian church alive in the days ahead.

WV’s “operational arm” is guilty of the same relativization of “beliefs.” Significantly the support of homosexuality and its “sacralization” in “holy matrimony” is one of the major goals of rising religious paganism. Same-sex marriage with no sexual distinction serves as the sacrament of Oneism where Creator and creature are the same—a pagan, God-denying homocosmology.

Christians must boldly hold onto the truth, that we worship a God outside ourselves, find spirituality from that God in his Word, and pattern our sexuality on the created differentiation that God built into the world as an embodied symbol of himself and the gospel.

Dr. Peter Jones is a Teaching Elder in the Presbyterian Church in America and is Director of truthXchange, and Adjunct Professor of New Testament, as well as Scholar in Residence, at Westminster Seminary California.