Conversations with God is the first in a series of nine books released in 1995 by Neale Donald Walsch. The original book stayed on the New York Times Best-Sellers List for 137 weeks and was made into a movie in 2006. One of this series of books, called Conversations with God for Teens, was released in 2001 and distributed through schools for a brief period of time via the Scholastic Book Club. The Scholastic Book Club withdrew the book from its distribution in 2002, although many email campaigns erroneously state that the SBC still offers the book to schools.
With all of the avenues of wickedness found in movie theaters, television, music, and the Internet, books have kind of been forgotten because they seem so “tame.” However, parents do not need to forget that books can be just as full of immorality as the worst sites on the Internet.
Mr. Walsch purports to answer various questions asked by kids using the “voice of God,” spoken to him during a “down” time in his life. Interestingly, in an interview with Larry King, Walsch admitted that he could not be sure that it was God speaking and that the books could have been the product of his own subconscious, but he said that he truly believed it to be the voice of God speaking to him.
I read this book several years ago, and the most serious problem with the books is that the “answers” that he gives are not what the Bible teaches. For example, when a girl asks the question, “Why am I a lesbian?”, his answer is that she was “born that way” because of genetics. He then tells her to go out and “celebrate” her differences. Another girl 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 full of false doctrine, but they also mix in various philosophical ideas from major Eastern and Western philosophies, all supposedly under the guise of instruction from God. The fact of the matter is that our children are under attack. The devil never rests, so you need to be sober and vigilant about teaching your children, and guarding their exposure to worldliness because Satan “walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8).
Kyle Campbell
