"Preach the Word,

A few days ago I received this email:

If you have children or grandchildren, work with children at church, or you have neighborhood children whose parents you know, please take note of the information below and pass it along to others. Schools are distributing this book to children through the Scholastic Book Club. And a movie is being developed based on this book.

The name of the book is Conversations with God. James Dobson talked about this book twice this week. It is devastating. Parents, churches and Christian schools need to be aware of it. Please pass this information on to Church/e-mail addresses, Parents, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, friends.

Please pay special attention not only to what your kids watch on TV, in movie theaters, on the internet, and the music they listen to, but also be alert regarding the books they read.

Two particular books are, Conversations with God and Conversations with God for Teens, written by Neale D. Walsch. They sound harmless enough by their titles alone. The books have been on the New York Times best sellers list for a number of weeks, and they make truth of the statement, "Don't judge a book by its cover or title."

The author purports to answer various questions asked by kids using the "voice of God". However, the "answers" that he gives are not Bible-based and go against the very infallible word of God. For instance (and I paraphrase),

When a girl asks the question "Why am I a lesbian?" His answer is that she was 'born that way' because of genetics (just as you were born right-handed, with brown eyes, etc.). Then he tells her to go out and "celebrate" her differences.

Another girls poses the question "I am living with my boyfriend. My parents say that I should marry him because I am living in sin. Should I marry him?"

His reply is, "Who are you sinning against? Not me, because you have done nothing wrong."

Another question asks about God's forgiveness of sin. His reply "I do not forgive anyone because there is nothing to forgive. There is no such thing as right or wrong and that is what I have been trying to tell everyone, do not judge people. People have chosen to judge one another and this is wrong, because the rule is "'judge not lest ye be judged."

Not only are these books the false doctrine of the devil, but in some instances quote (in error) the Word of God.

And the list goes on. These books (and others like it) are being sold to schoolchildren through (The Scholastic Book Club), and we need to be aware of what is being fed to our children.

The children of our nation are under attack. So I pray that you be sober and vigilant about teaching your children the Word of God, and guarding their exposure to worldly mediums, because our adversary, the devil, roams about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour (1 Peter 5:8). We know that lions usually hunt for the slowest, weakest and YOUNGEST of its prey.

As most email-chains go if I'm interested in them or their content I often research them online to see if they are in fact fully true or just partially true and which part of course is true. This email sent me on a dizzy search across the internet and what I found out is both the partial truth of this email and the full truth of this book.

First, the area of partial truth from this email and another similar one floating out there in someone else's inbox...this letter is not from James Dobson or Focus on the Family even though some emails allude to it or have Dr. Dobson's signature on it. That is the partial truth.

Now the rest of the email and the description of the book "Conversations With God" is spot on. This book purports to be a true-ish story of a time in the author's life that he was at his 'rock-bottom' suffering lost job, wages, health, etc and it was at this point of his life that God revealed himself. God supposedly gave the author permission to ask God any question he wanted and God would honestly answer it. Funny how some of this makes sense, God is in fact often only 'revealed' to mankind when man is at their lowest point...not because God likes to see us suffer but that is often the only time that we seek Him when all other means and abilities and options are exhausted. Another funny thing is that God already reveals Himself and provides all the answers through the Bible and/or through the Holy Spirit.




Parents do indeed need to be aware of what their children read, see, listen to, etc but pastors you also need to be aware of what your people read and warn them against not just the 'smoking and drinking' kind of "big" sins but also (or rather more boldly) warn them against supposed religious works, too. This author has multiple books out from children's animated books/videos "Little Soul and the Sun" to multiple variants of his "With God" series to a hollywood developed 'lifestory' movie. Remember to be fore-warned is to be fore-armed.