Undermining Lies // S08E10

As Paul urged Timothy, we must watch our doctrine carefully, making sure to continue in the ways God has set rather than those of this world. Today Marcia Montenegro joins us to discuss the Trojan Horses in our midst. Ideas and tools, such as Enneagram, that look good and promising on the surface, but in reality, stem from evil and have begun to invade many churches across the world. But as Marcia urges, we must stay firm in Christ, not turning aside to anything else other than what He has told us.

Guest Info:

Marcia Montenegro is the author of SpellBound: The Paranormal Seduction of Today’s Kids and founded the outreach ministry Christian Answers for the New Age (CANA). Before this, she practiced as a professional astrologer for eight years, including taking two years of course work and a 7-hour exam to become certified. She experienced and participated in many New Age, occult, and Eastern beliefs and practices such as inner light consciousness, meditation, psychic development, tarot, past life regression, numerology, spirit contact, seances, astral travel, and even received a spirit guide through a guided visualization. God has redeemed her extensive background in New Age and mystic ways of life so that she is able to minister far and wide

Marica’s Links:
CANA (Christian Answers for the New Age)
Perennialism Article
Enneagram

Verses from Trojan Horse:

2 Timothy 3:13, 1 John 4:1, Galatians 2:20, Romans 6:23, Romans 5:8, Romans 12:2

“Conformed to the image of Christ. This is our model and not some kind of thing with a category that is man based. You know, it is not an actually I think putting yourself into a category is such a bad idea because you really, you really start filtering everything through that identity. And it’s very limiting plus it’s false.”

Marcia Montenegro, The Pantry Podcast, Trojan Horse

“I’ve tried these things on the other side that don’t work. The only thing that worked for me was Christ. And I know that sometimes I, but he’s like, oh, that’s just so generic. And I’m like, well, no, but Christ is the answer.”

Shea Watson, The Pantry Podcast, Trojan Horse

“So we will gladly admit that we are wicked and wretched and need the Lord to come to Christ. But once we’re walking the walk and talking the talk, it seems like making a mistake. We forget that we are covered by grace and are more concerned with the outcomes socially of that repentance”

Michelle Watson, The Pantry Podcast, Trojan Horse

Annotated Transcript:

Intro

Shea: You’re listening to the Pantry Podcast, part of the spark podcast network. Now playing on the Edify app. Hey, I’m Shea  

Michelle:  I’m Michelle, and this is the pantry podcast. Season eight road to Revelation.  

Shea:  We’re here to help you crave a healthier spiritual diet by teaching you to ask the right questions, seek the right answers in the right place. God’s word and break free. The junk food. The world wants to shove down your throat. 

Michelle: We live in a broken world. We can fall down in despair or rise up for our wedding day. This season, we’re looking at what it really means to be the bride of Christ in the end times. And the many things we can learn from the book of Revelation that will guide us today, tomorrow, and to the end of time.

Shea:  Join us and fellow listeners in 47 states and 66 countries. As we marinate on the word of God, clear the junk from our pantries and feast on real everlasting food.

Michelle: Support the show by sharing this episode with two friends that need a godly snack and becoming a partner at patreon.com/thepantrypodcast for as low as $5 a month.  

Shea: And now let’s dig into the meal. 

Trojan Horse

Shea: Hey!  

Michelle: Hello

Shea: It is exciting to be here as always.  

Michelle: Yes. Yes. On a bright and sunny day as well. Not that anyone can tell, but  

Shea: So it’s always awesome. Hey, we got a new country, Austria. Welcome aboard Austria. It is awesome. Thank you for all of our listeners who constantly listen.  We’re  thankful for you. We’re thankful that your joining us. In today’s episode, we’re going to be talking about Trojan horses. It’s kind of cool. The episode title actually is Trojan horse, right, right. Real original there. But Hey, when I was looking up at Trojan horse,  I’m looking at a definition and, and I looked up the English definition. I just went a regular, “a program that appears desirable, but actually contains something harmful,” very, very important, important in this conversation today, a subversive group that supports the enemy and engages in espionage or sabotage, an enemy in your midst. I would, man, I would sit there right there and be like, Ooh, Satan, or, you know, or, you know, flesh or whatever, you know, world flesh and, and you know, the enemy. Right.  but when I really started thinking about this,  Matthew 13:25 came up and it’s,  but while men slept, his enemy came and so tares among the wheat and went his way.  There’s an infiltration of the church and there’s some things that I’ve been looking at there was laid on my heart about the Enneagram.  So, you know, ask God, pray about it, pray to God. And then, I mean, I’ll tell you, I feel like God brought our guest today.  

Michelle:  Yeah. So we have an amazing guests that we’re really excited. And as always, I will be reading the bio because it’s incredibly impressive and extensive. So Marcia Montenegro is the author of Spell bound to the paranormal seduction of today’s kids and founded the outreach ministry, Christian answers for the new age. But before this, she practiced as a professional astrologer for eight years, which included taking two years of coursework and a seven hour exam to become certified. So it wasn’t just a little hobby in the corner. She was very well-versed in that. And she experienced and participated in many new age, occult and Eastern beliefs and practices such as inner light consciousness, meditation, psychic development, terat, past life, regression, spirit, contact, astral, travel, and even received a spirit guide through a guided visualization. God has redeemed her extensive background in the new age and mystic ways of life. And now she’s able to minister and speak to it worldwide. So welcome Marcia. It’s awesome to have you  

Marcia Montenegro: Hi Michelle and Shea. It’s so nice to be with you guys today. Thank you for having me on your program.  

Michelle: Yeah, yeah. No, thank you. Because I think there’s other Trojan horses. I think anything that, you know, glorifies self and not the Lord Trojan horse, but this one seems to be, and we’ll let you speak to this, but it just seems to be so pervasive because of how many masks it can wear, you know, and how many different ways it can come in. And I mean, it’s pretty much, it’s, it’s very extensive. So can you start out by letting everyone know. Cause I didn’t even touch on everything that you were a part of or are familiar with, but can you let people know what made you leave all of that? Because even Christians will agree. That’s kind of juicy and tantalizing for the world, like before you come to Christ, but what made you leave all of that stuff and then go to the Lord?  

Marcia Montenegro: Okay. Well, yes, I was very deep, fully immersed and committed. I was committed to astrology for sure. And I was following, Eastern spiritual ideas as part of all of that new age. And I had no desire to, you know, find something else I wasn’t disillusioned or anything like that.  You know, it was, it was just clearly the Lord intervening in my life and he intervened in a very kind of unusual way. It wasn’t like somebody came up to me and started talking to me about Christ or anything like that. Now I had gone to church when I was younger, so I had been exposed to the basics of Christianity, but I never connected with it. It never made sense to me. And I began to question it, you know, around age 14, 15, question the Bible question, the whole Christian package, so to speak, which I didn’t, I didn’t understand. I never got the gospel that, that never got through to me for whatever reason. So I just rejected it all.  and so I wasn’t searching for something else and God intervened in my life. And it gave me this compulsion to go to a church, which I thought was very odd. Of course, I didn’t know God was doing this. This was just this compulsion to go to a church, which seemed extremely strange to me. And I just resisted it for months. I mean, for months, several months from like about April, till September.  and, and it just, it just wouldn’t go away. So I decided I would go to a church and I rationalized it in my mind that I probably had an unresolved issue from a previous Christian life. And that was my way…. I had to give myself a reason, you know, because I didn’t go to church, of course. And I’m like, here I am. I’m thinking of going to church. Why am I doing this? So I gave myself a reason and I thought, okay, I’m going to go there. There’s some kind of issue. I felt I had been a Christian in a few previous lifetimes. I should say, I believed in reincarnation. And that’s what I’m referencing here. I believed that after people die, they go somewhere and where they go and what happens. There’s a lot of different, different views on that. That is not, there’s not a consistent answer at all. It was very hard for me to do, but I went into a church and I sat in the back because I was planning to leave early. So see my idea was okay, I will stay here for 15 or 20 minutes and then I’m going to go out the door. So I was in the back at the edge of the pew. So I could leave, you know, very quietly and quickly the service began with music and with a procession from the back of the church led by a young boy carrying a cross. And as he came down the aisle and walked past me, I felt what I call a waterfall of love falling on me. And through me,  it was very powerful. I knew it was not the music. It was not the people. In fact, I knew this was from God, but not the God I believed in. And then at the same time, my belief is that God is like an energy that we all come from and go back to. So those two are not compatible. And so I didn’t know how to process this at all. And I just left. I stayed for the whole service, but I left very confused. But I decided that I wasn’t going to let anything take me off my spiritual path. And so I continued doing what I was doing, but I also went back to the church just because I kind of wanted to be there. And within a few weeks I got an impression from this same God that he didn’t like astrology now all this time, I know this is hard to explain because I wasn’t hearing a voice. It’s not like I heard this voice Marcia, you have to give astrology up. There was absolutely never any voice. It was an impression that’s the best word I know, but it was very, very clear and very strong after resisting. It just, I realized I just had to do it and I actually gave astrology up. And it was, as I was reading the Bible a few weeks later, right before Christmas, as I was reading up a portion of Matthew 8, that God opened my eyes. And I saw who Jesus really was. I saw that I had been separated from God, my whole life that I had been going on a wrong spiritual path and was against God actually against God. And I realized I needed Christ. I just knew I needed Jesus. Right. And, and so I just turned my life over to him. Now I found out several months later that a young man at a part-time job where I was actually working, doing astrology secretly,  which isn’t kind of a side story to this, but there was a young Christian man there who had been praying for me with his young adult fellowship group at his church all during that year when all of that happened, because that happened over a period about nine months there, what I just summarized. And when I tell this and people hear it, what I have found from people is that it encourages them to pray for people that they have felt very hopeless about. You know, somebody who seems very committed to their belief, doesn’t want to go to church with them. Doesn’t want to hear about, you know, the Jesus of the Bible. And they just feel like, what am I going to do, I can’t even talk to this person well, that God tells us to pray. And in Luke 18:1-8, Jesus tells a parable of the unjust judge and the widow who keeps coming to him. And Jesus says, I am telling you this so that you do not lose heart in praying. And so Jesus even says why he tells the parable, right. And so I think that, that my story fits in with that idea and people do feel encouraged about praying for people when they hear this. And I think, I mean, I, you know, I’m sure God has many reasons for doing what he did, but I just have to say that probably one of them is so that people who hear this will be encouraged to pray.  I think it’s an encouragement for prayer, so that’s, that’s what happens. So it was clearly had nothing to do with me.  

Shea: I’m listening to this and then I love this, you know, cause I, you know, first year talking about redemption and you’re like, well, hold on. But let’s back that up. I just need Jesus. And so what I’ve seen those, I’m seeing two contrasts here and, and you can, you can help me with this because I think it’s important to say, well, first of all, Jesus planted the seed. You know, he, he, he’s not a Trojan horse that dude just infiltrates. Here’s an impression, all right, now, now you just go about your business and I’ll just keep working on this. But there’s a contrast in here in the two things, you know, when you’re thinking of Eastern spirituality and stuff like that, or some of the other things are occult, you know, new age.  There’s two contrasts that I really look at here and I look at one and one is about how you do it.  And the other one is about how God does it. And in your story, we’re hearing that it’s like, okay, you were always like, I’m going to do astrology. I’m going to my spiritual, my spiritual, my spiritual, my spirits. And then all of a sudden God comes in,  my spiritual. And so, and so in that, in that idea though, we’re talking about infiltration and we’re talking about hint, subtle hints that are going into the church,  because it’s important for us as church people to recognize these things.  because they, they, they have an impact on us. And in fact, in the parable of the terror, you know, he’s like, well, Hey, should I go out and pull this up? No, no, no, don’t pull it up. You’re going to uproot some other things, but we need to recognize it. It’s there. And so what are some of the things that you’re seeing are being subtly brought into the church.  You know, how has that subtleness being done to where we’re starting to fall into these traps? Like I I’m, I’m gonna just say it out here right now, Enneagram. I, I see the church and not all of the churches. So some church rejects it, some churches really though taking it in and like accepting that as an identity. Like this is my identity. And to me, that’s a conflict again, like your story, you know, your spiritualness, my identity world telling me who I am or what is God doing? And so how do you see that,  the way that you roll

Marcia Montenegro: Exactly.  yes. And let me just say here, that’s really important to understand that the new age, a new age, things always appear helpful and positive. They don’t ever appear evil. And often they appear to be very spiritual in a way that will seem Christian or compatible with Christianity because sometimes, you know, the scripture is used. The Bible is used in new age endeavors, and this is just the nature of the new age. It is a patchwork of different beliefs and there’s a spectrum of beliefs in it that go from very Gnostic to what we call new thought, which is positive thinking. And if you think a certain way, you’ll make things happen with your thoughts.  You’ll attract good things with positive thinking and, and all of that kind of stuff, affirmations as well, new from new thought. And then you’ve got Eastern spirituality in their Buddhism and Hinduism and Taoism. And the new ages is this patchwork of all those things. So it’s extremely varied and because of that and because it melts things together, it’s hard for people to recognize because it’s not just one thing that you can describe. Like if I was going to warn you about the Mormons, I could tell you what they believe. This is what they believe. And they say things like this, and I could pretty much sum it up, but with the new age, just all over the place, you know, it’s all over the place. So you have to really be, as the Bible says, on guard and vigilant.  And this Enneagram, I think is a very good example of, of this kind of deception, because it appears to be helpful and positive, nothing about it initially seems bad. I mean, it seems like, oh, here’s this tool that can help us understand myself and other people. And this is how, this is how it has gained so much ground in the church. The Enneagram actually is not about your personality, the original Enneagram was a diagram of the laws of the universe from this man named Gurt chief in 1916. That’s the first known appearance of the Enneagram, contrary to what all the Enneagram books and teachers say, which is that it’s ancient. That’s not true. So it went from this diagram being used by this teacher in very kind of Gnostic esoteric teachings through his students. Then in the 1960s, this man named Oscar Ichazo got hold of the Enneagram. And he was an occult teacher. If he had a school in Yreka, chili, if you went to his school, you had to sign an agreement that you would not share anything you learned in his school. He taught it as an Enneagram, as a diagram with a nine sided diagram with nine points.  And he labeled each of the nine points with the seven deadly sins. And then he added two sins so that there would be nine, but now a lot of people just because of that, they try to trace it back to the fourth century monk named Evagrius Ponticus, who’s the first one who wrote about the seven deadly sins. And he used that label, but he didn’t do that. And yet granedt, he did diagrams of numbers, but not the Enneagram. And now they’re now. So a lot of people think, well here, he’s talking about the seven deadly sins, then that’s some kind of Christian influence, right? No, because think about it. He’s okay. He’s from Bolivia and he’s in the country of Chile and at that time, and it’s still true, although not as true as it was Latin America was a very heavily Roman Catholic country to everybody there gets exposed to the Catholic church. They all get baptized in the Catholic church. Now a lot of them later leave it and you know, or they, they go to church, but they aren’t really, don’t really know the Bible or anything. So that’s another issue, but you have all heavily Catholic country where people are just, that’s the normal thing. You’re Catholic, everybody’s Catholic. And all these people at his school, most of them are, are from the same culture. So of course it’s natural to use the spirituality. Not only that, but it’s a way to make it seem okay for people. It makes it seem biblical. Cause you’re talking about the sins. But what he taught was that these nine things around the Enneagram that were the sins, he called them ego fixations. And he said, this, you are a certain number here. Maybe your ego fixation is number three. That means that as you grew up and experienced life, you took in teachings from people. People told you who you were or how you should be, what you should be like. You were conditioned by the culture and by your parents and by the church to believe a certain way about yourself. Now, this is what he taught, I’m not saying this, this, this is what he said. Everybody’s born with a pure essence. And it gets covered up with all of this false conditioning. And then you think that’s who you are. So he said, you have to deconstruct that to uncover the true essence. Now this is a very typical occult and new age teaching. And this is your ego, your false self, but underneath is this true in the new age, they would say a true divine essence or true divine self, the inner self, the spiritual self or the higher self. So there all kinds of different terms in the new age, usually higher self is very popular. His, he had a student in Claudio Neronho, who was a Chilean psychiatrist and he was on a spiritual journey. After his only son had died. He went to a Ichazo’s school. He learned the Enneagram and then he went and started teaching it in California at this very edgy, edgy place called Esalen. If you Google that, you’ll find it’s history. It’s is very colorful, it’s colorful and edgy.  it was very, it was a wild place. I mean, I heard about this place, you know, it started, I think, and they started sometime in the sixties. It was a place for where people went with their experimental psychology and spirituality. So people that were, and at that time in the culture, all of this was kind of bubbling up. And Esalen was like a hot house for this. And the way he taught it was somewhat similar to Ichazo. He taught the nine types. He said the nine types and each type is a persona, but it is not the true you. You have to find a true self underneath that. You have to deconstruct that.  and he got into it in a more psychological way. Now I want to stop here because a lot of people heard me say it was a Chilean psychiatrist. So they’re thinking, well, there’s some kind of validity then to it. No, you know what his specialty was, wait until you hear this. His specialty was psychedelic drugs, that was his specialty. His specialty was looking at the effect of psychedelic drugs on the drink, but he didn’t just study it. He participated, he did drugs, both Ichazo and him also did spirit contact. Ichazo claimed that his school was guided by an interior master. Now an interior master is a reference to a spirit being a spirit guide. And there were two spirits that he claimed he got information from Meditron was the name of one. And the grencatube was the name of the other. The second one is a, is one connected to,  mystical,  I think either Islam or Sikh theism, but it’s connected to Islam, but not to the normal Islamic teachings. So Meditron was an Archangel and the Kabbalah I’ve read that each also had studied the Kabbalah, which is a very Gnostic type teaching. I have an article on it on my website and I have a published article on it in the Christian research journal. And so you have this guy, Ichazo talking about his spirits and then Neranho claimed that he got the most of the information for the nine types via automatic writing. Automatic writing is a form of spirit contact where you allow a spirit to control what you’re writing. So you have two men, Ichazo also did psychedelic drugs. He also did that two men who did the psychedelic mind altering drugs and it’s spirit contact. And that’s where most of the information about the Enneagram came from that’s how it was formed and taught. Now, there was a Catholic Jesuit named Bob Oaks who got the teachings from Neranho, who now I’ve read different accounts. I’ve read that he got from Ichazo , but I don’t think so. I don’t think they ever knew each other. So I think he got it from Nerhanho because Bob Oaks was at Esalenfor whatever reason. I don’t know why he took that back to a seminary in Chicago and started teaching at trying to make it compatible with, with kind of a Catholic, you know, veneer to it.  That’s where a man named Mitch Paquo learned it and a man named Richard Rohr learned it,  or that’s how they learned it. I’ve mentioned Mitch Paquo, who was a Jesuit because he actually started teaching the Enneagram and then he started investigating it and discovered its real origins and nature and started exposing it. As far as I know, he’s the first person that spoke out against it. And he did that in a book around 1994 called the Catholics and the new age. But I started around that time hearing about the enneagram and the progressive church. So these conferences for people like Tony Jones, Brian McLaren, Rob Bell, who were all used to be called the emergence. And now you can basically call them progressives. They were introducing enneagram at their conferences. And so I wrote my first article on enneagram in 2011. So now we’re like, you know, that’s like 11 years ago. And the reason the Progressive’s knew about it was because of their connection with Richard Rohr is Richard Ward is a Franciscan friar who runs the center for action and contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His teachings are briefly, I’ll just summarize them. Jesus and the Christ are distinct. They’re not one in the same. They have a problem right there. He talks about the universal Christ.  He used to call it the cosmic Christ. Now he calls it the universal Christ. He taught that the first incarnation of Christ was creation. Okay. Now think about that for a second. The first incarnation of Christ was creation. The second one was Jesus. No Christ is in creation. Christ is in creation and he taught Jesus did not die for sins. There was no need for anybody to die for sins because individual sin is not the problem. God does not see that as an issue. So already, I’m sure you’ve heard several heresies here.   

Michelle:  Just a smattering,  

Marcia Montenegro: Very small amount of major heresies! So this is why he teaches among other things.  Now, okay now did it get into these big churches, A lot of mega churches, some very solid churches that were very solid or still are considered solid conservative churches. It’s a book that came out in 2016 by Suzanne Stabile and Ian Cron called the Road Back to You. And that book, which I think is still the most popular Enneagram book in the church, kind of broke the ground open for the Enneagram. It really started spreading then. And then the following year, Chris Horowitz wrote the sacred Enneagram that came out from Zondervan. The authors of these two books are followers of Richard Rohr. So when you think about that after hearing what Richard Rohr believes that should be alarming to people, but people did not investigate. This took till about 2019.  I think till a large number of Christians know what it was or had come across it. And then people started defending it to me. And Christians are using it as a spiritual tool. They’re using it for discipleship. They’re using it for team leadership among pastors or just leadership. There are pastors who actually have become Enneagram coaches and are teaching it to other pastors. And I have not really seen it slow down. And we wrote our book came out in March 2020, Richard Rohr and the Enneagram secret. And then we got some people with a lot of credibility in the Christian world who endorsed our book and started telling others about it. And it gradually, the word started drifting out there. The word is kind of getting out there, but I’m still seeing Enneagram staying popular. And the thing is, some people know all of this that I’ve told you the history and they still defend it. And why is that? It’s because they’re invested in it, right? They have already been teaching it. They have already promoted it in their church to then to come up and say, well, I was wrong. I shouldn’t have been telling you guys to do this right. That takes a lot. And it very few people, or are a few people who are doing that, but not, not to the extent that’s needed. 

Michelle Yeah. I think, I mean, there’s so much to unpack,  but I’ve noticed some, several things in everything that you said, like some patterns, one being the one that you just brought up at at the end, this in the Christian, I’ll say Christian culture this time, I know we’ve kind of dissected what that even means. But within the body, the authentic body of Christ, at least in our country, we are not comfortable with repentance that happens post salvation. So we will gladly admit that we are wicked and wretched and need the Lord to come to Christ. But once we’re walking the walk and talking the talk, it seems like making a mistake. We forget that we are covered by grace and are more concerned with the outcomes socially of that repentance, you know, than anything. And I will even admit that because I was a psychology major and the Lord has been carving away all of the lies that come with that. But I was a sucker for Enneagram and all, anything that could help define me. And when I came to Christ, here’s the second pattern that I’ve noticed and what you were saying that it isn’t just, when you think of a Trojan horse, you think of the enemy coming in with a trip, with like a wooden horse, stuffed with bad stuff here, take this horse. But what I’m noticing in what you’re saying is those that don’t have a firm foundation in the Lord will create the Trojan horse for themselves and pass it off for them. They have to accept the Trojan horse they build themselves, and then they pass it off to others. And when I first asked the three years in, I think I was telling pastor, like, maybe we could do like a leadership Enneagram thing. And then within a year I was convicted against it, learned a lot about it. But even some of the top Christian podcasts out there bring up the Enneagram as part of their gimmick. And these people, it’s not like everything coming out of their mouth is a lie. And I don’t even for some of them, I don’t even doubt they love the Lord, but it’s one of those things where we’ve conflated. It helps it gets the job done with, is that what God actually wants?  

Shea: You know, it’s kind of interesting that you, as you put this analogy into play, right, they’ve become the wooden horse. They’re being stuffed with, with a false ideology and now they’re carrying out their being. Now they’re moving into the church and now releasing this false ideology, like a virus, like a virus. So it’s kind of interesting to see how this plays out. And we see it in so many different aspects from, Eastern religion, different things that people are adopting into the church. And, you know, and I mean, if I dropped like yoga, we’d be here for another hour  But, but I think that we have to really be careful and, and you know,  I like 2nd Timothy, 3:13, where, where it sits there and talks about evil people and imposters we’ll, we’ll go on from bad to worse. Right? And then it says deceiving and being saved. But what I really like about this, and this is for the believer, because we’re being told that this is happening. We’re being told that there is a deception that is being played out and that we need to be wise and we need to have more discernment. And where does it tell us to go? It doesn’t say go to that book about Enneagrams it doesn’t say go to that, that new book about yoga that was written by a Christian. So it’s called, I was going to try to come up with a cool slice name, but he says you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of knowing from whom you have learned them. Knowing from whom you have learned them. Right? And that from childhood, you have known the holy scripture, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith. Right?  I’m one of those guys too, that came the whole, my whole life. I was trying to be identified. You know, I needed identity. I needed a place to come to a conclusion and, and, and looked for it everywhere, everywhere, and always ended up short. But I’ll tell you what, like you, when that impression hits you and you know, I love that, that, that, that hit me the hardest out of all this, he implied, he just put his hands of love on you. And it was like, you couldn’t get rid of those hand prints. I was like, holy cow, what is this? I’ve done all of these things. I’ve studied all of these things. I’ve gone down all of these roads and here this, God, not my God, but this God, the true God has now imprinted his love onto me. I got to know more. I got an, and then you open the Bible, didn’t understand it, but you opened it. And the minute you opened it, he put his identity into you. And that is my biggest thing of these things that try to help us. Self-improvement, my improvement, I improvement me, me, me, me improvement. It’s like, I suck. I mean, not that to be, you know, I can say that to myself and be okay tomorrow. I’m telling you, but I just say like, I suck at that, but God is perfect and tells me who I am. And the Bible tells us who we are and who we should be.

Marcia Montenegro:  Yes, exactly, exactly. Conformed to the image of Christ. This is our model and not some kind of thing with a category that is man based. You know, it is not an actually I think putting yourself into a category is such a bad idea because you really, you really start filtering everything through that identity. And it’s very limiting plus it’s false. And you may think that it’s you, and there are lots of actually psychological factors. Why people believe they, that they are enneagram type seven or enneagram type four or whatever. And that’s the same reason that people believe that they’re in an Aries with their moon and libra and you know, Leo rising, you know, people were tote. My clients in astrology said how right on, an accurate, the chart readings were that I did for them. They were like, I’m amazed. This is so me and I thought my chart was so me and I was like, yes, oh, I know I’m a double Scorpio. And I’m, and I so identify with that. And that has completely, you know, with Christ that has gone away, all of those things are so superficial and so meaningless. And they’re really not true because really people are more complex. We are too complex to be put in a category. God is, this is a God who is just endlessly. There’s, you know, endlessness to God. He never can run out of anything. And so everybody he makes is unique in their own way. And at the same time, those in Christ are being conformed to the image of Christ, which doesn’t really change. You know, we’re still all unique and have our own little ways of doing things. Or if you want to call it personality, but we’re being conformed in this image. There’s some, there’s a pattern that God that, you know, we’re being shaped into and at which is a supernatural thing. And we, it’s nothing we can do. We can only yield to it. We can hinder it or yield to it. And so the Enneagram is going to hinder it big time. It’s going to hinder it and take you in another direction.  

Michelle: Yeah. So we’ve talked about too. You just talked about astrology. We talked about any gram and those are two that Enneagram. I still meet people who have never heard of it, praise God. But then, you know, I encounter it being in a lot of Christian spheres. It’s constantly there. We’ve talked about astrology and, and praise to God that, that one’s literally verbatim listed in the word because when it’s literally listed, people are like, okay, fine. But Enneagrams not really listed this. Isn’t really listed. And I’m like, okay. I always go back and forth. And I want your opinion on this. Because in Romans, I just went through Romans hitting me in some really great ways, but it comes down to, you know, don’t squabble over, you know, if this person wants to eat all the veggies and you eat meat, like if this one wants to esteem one day more holy than another to praise the Lord, they’re all praising the Lord, so go, and people will use that and say, well, that meant like, why are we all squabbling? Like if I want to use crystals, if I want to use,  Christian terat, I forget what it’s actually what they call it. But the people who use like cards like terat, they just slapped Christian on it. And I’m, I wanna know your take on where in your own life, because I think everybody has to, like the Lord has to work in each of us separately on, on where, when we speak, when we sit back, when we allow people to do it, when we, when we lovingly convict. But where do you find, like, what are some indicators of like, when it’s clear that this isn’t about how we’re worshiping the Lord, but this is how like Trojan horses are being brought in, and this is not worship at all.  

Marcia Montenegro: That’s a good point because people have brought up that meat offered to idols thing. And I actually did a Facebook post on why the Enneagram is not meat offered to idols. I said, the Enneagram is more like the idol, right? Not the meat offered to the idol because in that, you know, that account in the Bible, the meat is a neutral substance. It’s an object. It’s food. Food is not evil or, or, holy in and of itself. It’s just food. It’s just, you know, neutral. And, and so the issue, there was the people who had been pagans and had worshiped false gods, knowing that meat had been offered to one of those pagan gods that bothered their conscience. They didn’t want to eat that meat. And God said, that’s okay because it bothers their conscience. And it was actually offered to idols. And that bothers them for other people that it didn’t bother them. And so that was a, that was something they could, it was a disputable thing. You could have two views on because the actual object in question was neutral. But in this case, the enneagram is not neutral. It’s not a neutral tool. If it had come from psychology and had shown through some studies to have some merit, but then there were Christians who said, no, no, it focuses on the self. Or, you know, they, they sit psychology should be avoided. So I don’t want to use that. And another Christian said, no, but it has some merit it’s helping me. You would have more of a meat offered to idols issue with that. But in this case, the enneagram doesn’t have that validity. And it has no neutrality. It is a spiritual tool from the new agent in the occult. And that is just the bottom line. And Christians are trying to make it into a Christian tool, but that’s like trying to make an astrology into a Christian tool. It’s the same thing. And you can try it, but it’s your, if even if it looks like you’re succeeding, it’s not valid and it doesn’t honor the Lord. I think you have to look at, is this object and/or practice a result of spiritual beliefs, opposed to God, and is its purpose, a spiritual purpose that is opposed to God. So you also have to look at the nature of what you’re talking about.  the Enneagram as a tool based on all these spiritual beliefs, contrary to God and has no validity, yoga is a practice. So now here go from a tool to a practice. Yoga is not a neutral practice. Yoga is very, as totally aligned with Hindu beliefs, the roots of the yoga, which I’m reading in a secular book, by the way, by two yoga practitioners who are scholars, and they are giving all of the texts that go back some 2000 years. So I’m a little more on yoga. Yoga was, is, was, and is incredibly esoteric and spiritual. It was actually used by a cultist in the 1950s and 60s. They used yoga as a secret practice because that time, of course, it wasn’t very mainstream and it was considered this very esoteric practice. And it is. And even in India, they didn’t start teaching yoga to anybody. You had to go to a guru to learn yoga. And the only reason it kind of got out of that was when a lot of Westerners were going to India in the 1960s, and they were going to the ashrams and they were looking for spiritual teachers. And these gurus popped up. They either were already gurus or others came along to teach all these Westerners because here was this big audience for what they had to say. And they, so they started teaching yoga that way. And then yoga got a little more out into the mainstream, but it, it is not stretching. Yoga is very specific positions and done with a certain kind of breathing. And that’s all spiritual. The purpose is all spiritual. It’s all about the,  what they will, well, they have different terms for it, but the subtle body or the invisible body. And it’s so complicated when I’m reading is I cannot believe it’s so complicated. I can’t even summarize it except what I just said. And so all of these practices that came about the Hata yoga, which is the physical yoga that we’re talking about, has to do with regulating all of this invisible energy, all for a spiritual purpose and the different asanas are positions on are either Hindu gods or heroes from these Hindu mythologies, you have to stop and ask yourself, is yoga. the only way that I can exercise, get more flexible, get more limber, whatever your goal is with yoga, you can find another way to do it. It’s not like yoga’s the only thing out there that  

There’s dancing. There’s a bike riding, there’s swimming… 

Michelle: Right? There’s even alternative stretching. Stretching that doesn’t honor demon gods.,  

Marcia Montenegro: I’ve done some Facebook posts on that. There are some dancers, some women who are dancers who have CDs, and some of it’s on YouTube who are teaching stretching for your body. And it’s not yoga. They’re not teaching yoga. 

Michelle: I’ve heard about that. Yeah. Yeah, because I actually, again, showing my background, I went with a Christian sister to do hot yoga for several months and I had terrible, terrible. This was again, years ago, terrible, terrible muscle pain for most of my life. And it would relieve it for about a day, but it was the most relief I’d ever gotten from anything. And then all of a sudden, a few weeks in, I got really convicted. And like, you, it wasn’t like anyone said anything. It’s just instantly, I had that same impression. Cause I threw out my astrology books. I had invested in astrology books right before coming to Christ and I was reading them, pouring through them. And one day he just like, he, I could feel the hatred because he does hate things that are not righteous. I could feel the hatred toward those books. And I just got up in the middle of the night and I threw them in the trash. Wow. I was like, they don’t go to yard sale. And I don’t profit off selling lies. I throw them away. They’re trash to me and everybody else, even if they think it’s not trash. Right. And then with yoga, the same thing, like I just stopped going because I just felt so convicted. And I didn’t even look up the roots. I just was like, I know this feeling. I can trust this feeling and I don’t need justification deeper than God’s saying, like, just like the impression that you said, I liked that word of, he doesn’t like it and I walked away and now I’ve been mostly pain-free by eating better, stretching, you know, like you, you told me stretch every morning done. You know, it’s amazing how the Lord allows it. But then, you know, he then shows you that that’s, that’s not the way.  

Marcia Montenegro: And you know, Michelle, I’m sorry, I’ll just say this real quick. I’ve had several women tell me that they were doing yoga and became convicted. Just like what you said. They didn’t nobody said anything to them.  they didn’t read a book or anything, but they started feeling convicted about the yoga. They started feeling very uncomfortable with it. And I mean, a couple of them even came to me and said, I’ve been doing, you know, go, but I’m feeling real uncomfortable about it.  can you tell me, you know, right. I think that you probably know about yoga. Can you tell me why I’m feeling uncomfortable? And so that’s, that’s what you said. I’m sorry. So I cut Shea off.  

Shea: Your all good! I just sit here and I look at how things became adapted into American culture. And sixties was a huge dumping point for demonic impressions to make its way into either, you know, not just cause then it was all spirits. It was all like, I, you know, you hear stories about the sixties and then you, you know, in my day I’m that kid that wanted to replicate the sixties. So yes, I did all of those weird things too. And then all those drugs and thought that that is how I was going to be enlightened into the world. But it’s amazing how all of those demonic impressions made an impact into Western culture and then Western culture adapted them without really going back to the origin and just watching how this goes.  

And then now watching it from a Christian perspective, you know, I think maybe cause I walked into Christianity a little bit later in life. I’m like, no, this don’t no, this ain’t right. Like I’ve tried this on the other side. Like you, you know, you were on the other side, it’s like, I’ve tried these things on the other that doesn’t work.  The only thing that worked for me was Christ. And I know that sometimes I, but he’s like, oh, that’s just so generic. And I’m like, well, no, but Christ is the answer. And I think today, we’ve, we’ve really been able to sum that up and, and really hear some of the origin behind just one. I mean, look, you guys have to go out. She has tons of information on her website. She has all, and here at the end, we’ll let you tell us everywhere that you can go, but I want everyone, you know, 1 John 4 is very specific. It’s like, look, don’t believe every spirit, but test everything. Whether they align or from God for many false prophets, right. Have gone out into the world and see the whole point. Yeah. And the whole point of the enemy is to distract us. The whole point of the enemy is to put things that distract us away from the truth, which is God. And when we have those distractions, we don’t get to live in that fullness that he’s promised at. And so thank you so much for all of your knowledge. I’m so blessed to have even been able to sit down two times out and have these conversations. And I’m telling you, I’m walking away from it, edified with more information on some of these things that we can probably help other people with.  

Michelle: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that we’ve known we’ve unpacked some history to show just how convoluted it can get, but how at every, like everything you brought up was another red flag. It wasn’t like at any point that it wasn’t red, it just cut going and condemning itself that much more to be against the Lord. And I’ve been waiting to share this analogy since the podcast started in this episode is the perfect one. And it’s funny cause it’s, it’s from the little mermaid and I don’t even watch Disney like that anymore. That’s a whole other thing. But,  when I, when I planned to teach my daughter how to guard herself against these Trojan horses and also prevent her from becoming a Trojan horse herself, I think that was a really cool thing we uncovered. But in the little mermaid, Ariel falls in love with a guy on land. She needs legs. Her daddy won’t give her legs because he knows it’s not best for her. So instead she goes to a witch Ursula, everyone warns are against it, but Ursula can give her legs. There’s a trade. She can’t talk. There’s a time limit. There’s once she gets on land, Ursula pulls up all these things to kind of just set her up to fail. And at the end, she ends up a mermaid again, having lost all that she built and having to deal with all of the evil this whole time. But you could argue, well, she got legs, it worked, it helped her out. And yet at the end, her dad, after all the rest with grace gives her the legs that she asked for, but not just legs underwater, where now she has to nearly drowned to get to the surface. She shows up naked and has to wear scraps from a shipwreck.  

He gives her a glittery gown to walk out of the ocean in to meet her husband. And that is the difference between the new age and our Lord. Of course, that’s a cartoon. It’s not perfect, but our Lord gives us what’s best for us. And it might not always be immediate, but he does offer the help and the deliverance. We don’t need to turn to things that don’t have him in them just because they help. So thank you so much for being here. Let us, let us know what you’re up to and also how people can get in touch with you. And we’ll add all the links in the show notes.  

Marcia Montenegro: Okay. Thank you so much.  yes. Okay. My website is Christiananswersforthenewage.org. And if you go to the articles page, lots of articles on new age and folk topics, book on books and movies as well. I cannot cover them all.l people are always asking me, why should I have an article on this? Or do you have an artist? I’m like, oh, I would love to have an article on everything, but I’m just one person. I write one article at a time. So actually I’m working on another article that should be up soon on a new,  well not, it’s not a new age book, it’s by a Christian, but very problematic. And if you go to the schedule page, I have links to podcasts and interviews. I’ve done the link for this will be up there when, when that, when that’s ready and people can listen or watch programs there.  Then on Facebook I have a Facebook ministry page Christian answers for the new age. And that’s just the only Facebook page in existence with that name. It should be easy to find if you like and follow it, then you can keep up with my posts there.  And basically, I’m doing a lot of these interviews now. I’m not traveling. I did at one time travel a lot. I’ve spoken 30 states for my ministry and I conferences, retreats, churches, et cetera, et cetera. Now it’s, it’s youth virtually, but actually I have done so much in the past two years since COVID, it’s almost like those have been two of my busiest years of my ministry and I saw it. Everything’s going to slow down. I can’t travel, man. I’m telling you the was like, you know, Marcia, you just really, you don’t know yet what I can do. Right?  The Lore has been very gracious in giving me a lot of opportunities like this, and I’m more than willing to speak to churches via zoom or whatever. And I have done so, or, or groups.  And I’m writing. I, like I said, I’m working on this article.  then the latest book was Richard Rhor and the Enneagram Secret, right now, I’m not working on a book. And I don’t know if I will work on one again, that’s I really write, we’d rather write articles because you can get them out there faster. And my whole thing is I want to get the information out. I want people to know right now. I want them to know yesterday. So  

Michelle: I know, I know it’s like, it’s so much quicker.  

Marcia Montenegro:  Like I just want to get it out there. I mean, you know, a book is probably a bigger platform, but you know, then I do these interviews that helps. And I can’t obviously write a book on every, every topic. So I’m just working on that on writing and researching. And I have many new articles on my website I put up last year. So, and let me mention one real quickly. It’s about perennialism. I didn’t go into that. But Richard Rohr is a perennialist and if people would read that article, they will see that perennial wisdom is incompatible with Christianity.  

Michelle: We’ll link to that!

Marcia Montenegro: Oh good. Yeah. Thank you. I think something Christians need to know about, most Christians have never heard of it, but it’s something that people who follow it, don’t usually use that word. And so you don’t really know that’s where they’re coming from. And when I talk about that in the article.  

Michelle:  Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much. You have given us a wealth of information. So yeah, no for sure. So everybody remember thepantrypodcast.com. That’s where you’re going to get all of the show notes, get connected, find out how you can learn more and be able to easily share this episode. So until next time. Bye

Shea: Bye.  

Shea: Thanks for listening to the pantry podcast. Subscribe to the show, wherever you listen and check out other great shows on Edify app and eternity ready radio.