Editor's Note: The views expressed by the author are not necessarily the views expressed by Ref21 or the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals.  

Meals cannot be rated like movies. Marriages cannot be audited like companies. Jesus Calling cannot be assessed as a Christian Devotional. The marketing has gilded the facade, but it is false. The book comes from the Evangelical and Reformed subculture, but it is not a Christian book. This is why the Presbyterian Church in America has gotten Jesus Calling wrong.

Jesus Calling is a New Age instructional tool for mediumship practices. It employs the techniques and idioms marking that genre for 50 years. Such a counterfeit *Jesus* has spoken in other New Age forums, most famously in the book A Course in Miracles. Jesus Calling is unusual only in its inductive pedagogy. Yes, we ignored red flags, but lack of familiarity with occult practice largely accounts for how we got it wrong.  Jesus Calling is a channeling book.

Naivete is a significant element in our lapse. It boggles the mind to so describe the Nashville Presbytery, but less so if the opprobrium is extended to eminent denominational leaders—and not just Mission to the World. Admitting the naivete of the PCA as a whole should sober the discussion, driving out any notion of conspiracy or betrayal. Not us vs. them. Only us.

We were duped. My own previous close study of the book included. Naivete—despite intuitive disdain—politely put the book aside. We didn't see the outrage. We didn’t even wonder what we had kindled until 45 million units were sold, and, “wait, that came from us?!” Well taught but naive, a minimal majority—the PCA’s middle—did what hesitant presbyterians do (See Part 1). They voted for committees to ask the question.

After 20 years, the PCA’s General Assembly initiated an investigation of Sarah Young’s Jesus Calling. Decisive action comes at the next Assembly in the last week of June. The Committee on Discipleship Ministries stands in the gap. If they treat the book as Christian literature, they will get it wrong. It will be the divisive and ineffectual conclusion described in Part 2.

My thesis is shocking, prone to first-impression ridicule and dismissal. Jesus Calling inculcates one of the “abominable practices” of Deuteronomy 18:9-13. The book cultivates both the practices and expectations of mediumship. It seduces under the cover of counterfeit Christian counsel. It guides the reader into communion with an angel of light (2 Corinthians 11:14).

If a sober hearing vindicates the thesis against initial scorn, a firmly opposite response is required. Millions have been invited into demonic deception and inoculated against the gospel. All who wish the Christ of Scripture commended to the world must repudiate the best-selling *Christian* book of all time. Revulsion is the proper tone.

The PCA must reckon with its guilt for not killing it in the cradle and giving it a greenhouse for 20 years. Disapprobation is insufficient. No other part of Christ’s church holds responsibility for the book. Publishers publish what sells; the PCA has oversight of the life and witness of her members. Past naivete explains, but it does not excuse. Repentance must produce fruit. There will be an accounting (Hebrews 13:17). Shock must give way to awe.

If we confess our sins,

he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins

and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

1 John 1:9

An Old Assertion Ignored

My thesis is no new assertion. Some evangelicals claimed occult influence soon after the book first appeared in 2004. The evidence was not obscure. They took the author at her word. Sarah Young narrated the book’s genesis in the original introduction. She was inspired by a famous piece of automatic writing from the 1930s entitled God Calling. In her own words, “The book was a treasure to me.” She emulated its practice: silencing her mind and writing down thoughts that came from elsewhere. The fullest of this criticism was Warren B. Smith’s 2013 book “Another Jesus” Calling: How Sarah Young’s False Christ is deceiving the Church.

With a late 2013 edition of Jesus Calling, the revised introduction appeared—although the publisher did not announce the changes. The occult book God Calling disappears. An acknowledgment of sin is inserted in her conversion story. The author no longer writes of publishing “messages” which she “received” (the diction of her spiritualist exemplar). The revision substitutes “writings” or “devotions.” A succinct account of the changes can be found in Ruth Graham’s 2014 article, “The Strange Saga of ‘Jesus Calling,’ the Evangelical Bestseller You’ve Never Heard Of.”

The scandal of the original introduction was not imaginary. Ruth Graham connected the surreptitious edits with the public accusations of occult influence. The publisher—when pressed—acknowledged the changes, insisting the revisions did not affect the substance. Revision merely removed possible misunderstanding. The publisher understood the problem:

“Thomas Nelson specifically requested I not use the word ‘channeling’ to describe Young’s first-person writing in the voice of Jesus—the word has New Age connotations—but it’s hard to avoid it in describing the book’s rhetorical approach.”

The Naive Reformed Critics

The publisher’s revision was successful. A decade later, when Jesus Calling was called to account in the PCA, the occult accusation disappeared. Reformed folk have been naive in the matter. I barely noted the association with God Calling in my overture to the General Assembly.

PCA pastor Todd Pruitt expected to vote against the overture as “a waste of time.” Later, he explained his “yes” vote. Among other reasons, he singles out Jesus Calling’s inspiration by God Calling. Still, his concern predicates nothing occult to Jesus Calling; instead, he recoils from Sarah Young’s personal practice of listening prayer as modeled on God Calling’s

“highly mystical variety [of spirituality] . . . which has far more in common with Eastern mysticism than Biblical spirituality . . . nearly indistinguishable from the occult practice of ‘automatic writing.’”

This line of criticism is naive because Pruitt goes no deeper than a pedestrian knowledge of God Calling which he contrasts with Biblical practice. Pruitt echoes Tim Challies from 2015, whom he cites. Challies himself has provided the best Reformed critique; nevertheless, he too was hindered by our naivete.

Challies characterizes the relationship to God Calling as being “inspired by untrustworthy models.” He criticizes Sarah Young’s method as “a practice God does not endorse.” His strongest assertion is that “she mimics occult practices,” yet cites Wikipedia on automatic writing. While he contrasts this with the mechanics of Biblical inspiration, our naivete is clear even at the high-water mark.

The lack of more refined insight in the decade between Chailles and Pruitt demonstrates that our naivete has gone unnoticed. Our shallow appropriation of the occult accusation greatly diminished its plausibility. Combine that weakness with the "you sound occult-crazy yourself" reaction likely invoked by saying it aloud. It is not surprising that the occult accusation never arose during the PCA’s 2024 deliberations.

The Fluent Critics

Our filters have obscured the true nature of Jesus Calling—and prevented real scrutiny of the book in the PCA. A simple internet search for “Jesus Calling New Age” produces evangelicals who draw a straight line, a simple equation—Jesus Calling = New Age.

These broader evangelical critics tend to be premillennial, arminian, quasi-charismatic, baptist, non-denominational, and they make free use of terms like demonic, anti-christ, spiritual warfare. They have never heard of the regulative principle of worship; they just want worship to be Biblical. They distrust infant baptism and anything else Roman Catholic. Although not in their idiom per se, many are inerrantist, Trinitarian, Chalcedonian, penal-substitution emphasizing, praying-like-God-is-sovereign and repentance-requires-the-Holy-Spirit folks.

They don’t have deep reservoirs from church history. They tend toward short, contemporary “What We Believe” documents. They don’t think the PCA has something they lack. In reply, the PCA's own richness can engender aloofness to such voices. That can be dismissive.

Naive, aloof, and dismissive, the PCA has lacked insight. Among the concerned evangelicals are believers who came to faith after long entanglement in the New Age. They are fluent in the occult. When they identify something as occult, they are not applying the results of detached research. They are not passing on second-hand opinions. They encounter an enacted recapitulation of their own intimate experience with intelligent, personal disembodied entities. I fear my readers will suspect these people were delusional in unbelief, and patronizingly be pleased that they are now saved even if still deluded.

Warren B. Smith

I have already referred to Warren B. Smith. He first encountered New Age practice in 1970, around age 20, and with his wife became a follower of A Course in Miracles. He spent years reading and living words channeled from a spirit who claimed to be Jesus. In 1984, he came to faith in the Lord Jesus. In the years since, he has endeavored to call other sinners from New Age spirituality and warn the Church against its own dangers from it. 

He encountered Jesus Calling when someone sought his counsel on the book. At first blush, he recognized the book as a specimen of mediumship practice, with the voice of a spirit posturing under the name Jesus. It was obvious, although camouflaged with the same deceptive use of Scripture that had duped him in A Course in Miracles. He is fluent in New Age occultism. He recognizes Jesus Calling for what it is. 

The 2013 edition of his “Another Jesus” Calling was the apex of published occult accusations in the three years preceding Thomas Nelson’s revision of Jesus Calling’s introduction. The 2016 expanded edition includes an appendix with a full examination of the revision’s “damage control.” It is a fine piece for a popular audience, explaining New Age concepts and practice in Jesus Calling and specifying various lines of criticism. Where evangelicals discuss Jesus Calling critically, you will find Smith’s book quoted or influential without citation.

Doreen Virtue

Doreen Virtue came to faith in Christ in 2017 and later graduated with a Master's in Biblical and Theological Studies from Western Seminary. She was a rock-star New Age guru, the kind who makes millions and spends millions on a hamster wheel of success—until you suddenly burn the whole thing down and have no way to pay the $2,000,000 tax bill. She is the earthly source of Angel Numbers (ask Lady Gaga, Kylie Jenner, and Jim Carey). Yes, she was on Oprah and The View. In various forums and with various practices, she channeled spirits, interpreted omens—and then repudiated it all at Christ’s call. (She couldn’t repudiate the tax bill. She’s still chipping away at it.)

One thing that stands out about Doreen is her casual mentioning of Trinitarian relations. When she mentions Jesus, she is likely to add “co-eternal and co-substantial with the Father” or “the only begotten not made.” She has a similar off-hand precision when mentioning the Holy Spirit. She doesn’t sound pedantic. She was accustomed to disembodied entities presenting themselves with the name “spirit” or “Jesus.” The Trinitarian specifics distinguish the true God from actual alternatives she has experienced. She is very specific about the true God and God’s Word with no admixture. She, too, heard lots of Bible verses from other spirits.

Again, she is fluent in the occult. On first reading Jesus Calling, she saw it was just like the 50 books which she produced through her own channeling work. Her channeling employed the same techniques evident in Jesus Calling. Hers was not a researcher’s conclusion. It is a certainty that comes from long and deep familiarity. She is an eyewitness behind the two-way glass at the police lineup. She also has the biblical and theological training to explain the wickedness that she formerly took for bread and butter.

Pause And Think

What did the PCA hear in the first decade of Jesus Calling? Outside the PCA, other serious evangelicals figured it out. They listened to the fluent critics. The publisher heard the buzz, and revised the introduction.

Surely, higher-ups at Mission to the World and elders of the Nashville Presbytery heard from the Youngs (colleagues and friends): 9 million copies sold in 26 languages during the first 9 years! Surely, some of the same ordained PCA men received gift copies (free to an author). Surely, some read the introduction, and saw the same red flags. How many Googled God Calling? What else did Google give them? The buzz? What did they dismiss?

PCA leaders had a targeted opportunity to hear in the second decade of Jesus Calling. How do you mail something to the PCA? You send a book and a cover letter to every stated clerk of every PCA presbytery, including the Korean Heritage presbyteries—including the Nashville Presbytery. You send the same to every General Assembly officer, including heads of institutions under the General Assembly.

Apologist Chris Lawson did just that in February 2019, mailing 100 packages with Brenna Scott’s ground-breaking 2018 monograph, “Striking Similarities Between God Calling and the Jesus Calling Series.” Under the handwritten salutation, the letter requested each recipient to examine the conveniently assembled evidence. Without bombast, respectful and restrained, Lawson asked for judicious consideration of the concern raised, given that Sarah Young was a career PCA missionary. It may well be the most presbyterian approach that has ever come from the orbit of Calvary Chapel.

He did not receive the courtesy of a reply from Stated Clerk Roy Taylor, Moderator Irwin Ince, Coordinator of the Committee on Discipleship Ministries Stephen Estock, Director of Mission to the World Lloyd Kim, or any other officer of the General Assembly. Nor did any Stated Clerk of any presbytery reply.

Concerned evangelicals tried to get the PCA’s attention, and fluent critics like Smith and Virtue ought not be dismissed. Their testimony calls for serious consideration of my thesis.

They ought not be dismissed any more than the slave girl with “a spirit of divination” in Acts 16. The girl was real enough to annoy Paul. The lost revenue from the spirit’s fortune-telling was real enough to provoke a court case. The spirit was real enough, that casting it out earned Paul a judicial beating and his feet in the stocks in maximum security. There was an earthquake and a near suicide, but the Philippian jailer’s household was baptized in the course of events. Great good can come—by God’s shaking-frightening-saving work—from a judicious consideration.

The PCA’s naivete persists, insulated by parochialism or chauvinism. I can remedy the first.

[If this strains your credulity, but you don’t want to dismiss it; take a break, listen to Doreen Virtue share her conversion testimony. It is just enjoyable for its own sake.]

℈ ℈ ℈ ℈ ℈

     We were good boys,

     good Presbyterian boys,

     and loyal and all that; anyway,

     we were good Presbyterian boys

     when the weather was doubtful;

     when it was fair, we did wander

     a little from the fold.

Mark Twain     

Benjamin T. Inman, Ph.D. is a member of First Reformed Presbyterian Church in Durham NC and a former teaching elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.