One or Two: Seeing a World of Difference

One or Two, another important book by Peter Jones contrasts paganism with historic Christianity. Jones refers to these worldviews as one-ism and two-ism respectively.One-ism is the erroneous belief that all reality is one. One-ism believes "that all is one and shares the same essential nature."Two-ism, which describes the historic Christian faith acknowledges a Creator-creature distinction. "Two-ism believes that while all of creation shares a certain essence (everything apart from God is created), the Creator of nature, namely God, is a completely different being, whose will determines the nature and function of all created things." God is outside his creation (but is at the same time intimately involved with it) and is sovereign over all.The book is divided into three parts. Part One describes a church that desperately needs to return to the truth set forth in Romans 1. Jones describes two kinds of worship, one in which the creation is worshiped (which represents one-ism and is a lie). The other kind of worship, namely, biblical and God-centered worship is fixated on the Creator (which represents two-ism and is the truth).Jones warns, "Neo-pagans infects the church by dressing up as the Christian faith." The author clearly sets forth the purpose behind the book: "Only a clear understanding of the two worldviews based on either the Truth (Two-ism) or the Lie (One-ism), will open our mouths to speak the truth with love and courage that honors the person of the triune God."Part Two is an exposition of Romans 1 in light of the concerns raised in the previous section. The author skillfully contrasts the Truth and the Lie by pointing to specific examples. Three critical issues are contrasted, namely, the truth and lie concerning God, spirituality, and sexuality. Jones demonstrates how the three areas are interrelated. He argues, "Mess with your sexuality, and you will mess with your worship. Mess with your worship and you will mess with your thinking about God. Mess with your thinking about God and you will mess with your sexuality. No matter which exchange you make, you will begin to adopt a Oneist spirituality and ultimately expose yourself to the judgment of God."Part Three focuses on personal application. Jones challenges readers to soberly examine the choices that stand before them. He clearly describes the deception of One-ism: "One-ism exchanges the God of Two-ism for `the god of this world,' who is not a god but a creature, the epitome of Evil. Without the true personal God, without the heavenly Father, we creatures - lonely orphans in an impersonal universe, worshiping idols of their own making - are left to ourselves to devour one another."Once again, Peter Jones strikes at the core of neo-Pagan lie. He clearly and lovingly warns readers to steer clear of this diabolical worldview. But the warning also includes joyful proclamation, namely, the hope of eternal life found in Jesus Christ. Jones is a straight shooter. He combines an informed mind with a warm heart and sounds a necessary alarm in a culture that is growing increasingly secular and pagan.

Dr. Peter Jones with unique and precise clarity illustrates that the Triune God of the bible is a God of distinctions. During creation He made the waters to be separate and distinct from the dry lands. He separated the day from the night. He made the days of the week separate from the seventh day, and more importantly, God made man and woman to have distinction from one another. Important side note: God's redemptive plan is depicted in Scripture with the church being the bride, and He Himself as the Bridegroom.Dr. Jones explains that God made His creation, and is powerfully above and holy separate and distinct from it. This view and reverence of our Transcendent God is why the bible tells us His creation declares His glory, and is not in anyway a part of His divinity. Twoism recognizes this distinction, where neopaganism of today continually attempts to force these two spheres, and the gulf that separates them, together; all in the name of unity, harmony, and social and spiritual evolution.Dr. Jones convincingly depicts that this oneism worldview is attempting to bring about the same worldview that Paul the Apostle warned his readers about in the first chapter of Romans. It is just a warmed over, modern day telling of the same old time-trusted lie. Oneism, and its worldview is not only the ultimate expression of man suppressing the Truth for the sake of believing "the" Lie, but leads to a devolution of their spirituality, and eventually resulting in the devolution of their sexuality, just as it did in first century pagan Rome.Every Christ follower of today needs to be equipped with this understanding which exposes this devolution for what it is, and affords the believer today to combat the popular and palatable worldview of oneism. Oneism is not only making great strides in all parts of global society today, but it is encroaching at a rapid rate, the speed at which history has never seen before. I highly recommend this book to all, and I am presently in the process of reading it for the second time. I have thoroughly and passionately devoured it with great embrace. I have told my pastor about it, our youth pastor, and have recommended it to anyone who is just looking to gain a better understanding of Romans chapter one. This is one of those books that will leave a lasting impact on all readers. Dr. Peter Jones just gets it!

This book was published in 2010. What Jones was writing to warn us about has been more embedded in the trend now 12 years on. Often we are confounded by what we see but God’s Word illuminates our situation by providing us with the spiritual reality of our physical reality. It does make a lot of sense. There is comfort in finding our bearings in a lost world.Sexuality is such a heated topic these days. Governments across the world feel that schools must educate the children on sex and in the UK from age 4. I have wondered why a personal preference has gathered such momentum in a forceful agenda to change the society. Reading this book, I realise that it is more than personal sexuality; rather, it is about the underlying spirituality that is gaining way and homosexuality and gender confusion is a necessary expression of it. Jones identifies this spirituality as nothing new but ancient paganism. In particular this was what the backdrop of the Roman days when Apostle Paul was writing. This makes Romans very applicable to 21st century.Romans 1 is a familiar text but Jones has given me a new dimension that I have not come across before. It is quite a common practice these days to dampen the bluntness of the Bible by saying that homosexuality is one of many sins and should not be singled out as worse than others. Jones offers me a new insight from Romans 1 into the three exchanges that have happened and in sequence: people first exchange a knowledge of God, the Truth, for our futile thinking, the Lie. They then exchange the glory of the immortal God for images of His creation in worship, so that biblical two-ism (God is outside His creation) is replaced by pagan one-ism (God is the creation). It follows onto the third exchange whereby they exchange natural relations for those that are contrary to nature, more specifically same-sex relationships. Therefore our sexuality is affected by our thinking and spirituality. “Paul singles out homosexuality because it expresses, at the deep, personal, sexual and corporeal level, a worldview that has effectively eliminated God the Creator.” “[H]omosexuality flows directly from the One-ist worship of creation.” “Paul did not single out homosexuality because it was the worst sin but because it symbolizes a deeply embodied expression of the apostate worldview of One-ism.” “This desire for sameness is, on the sexual level, an expression of spiritual pagan One-ism…. A gay blog states that all homosexuals are forced to develop a spiritual philosophy of some sort, in order to survive the moralistic judgements handed down by the religious community” (Ch. 10). In other words, our thinking, our worship and our sexuality are fundamentally related.As a parent with children at school with a compulsory aggressive sex education curriculum, this is enlightening: “At a global level, The Earth Charter (a UN nature-worshipping document that intends one day to determine how we live on the planet), states the need to “eliminate discrimination in all its forms … including sexual orientation.” “Eliminate discrimination” is a weasel phrase for promoting and normalizing sexual anarchy and silencing all other opinions on the subject. During the summer 2009, two UN agencies [UNESCO and UNFPA] issued guidelines for sex education of children around the world.” These guidelines duly surface in our school curriculum.Jones also teaches that “the root meaning of “holy” is “set apart for a specific function in a rightful place”. God is holy because He has a distinct “place”, separate from the creation, with a very different form of existence…. This understanding of holiness lies at the root of biblical morality. Maintaining divinely ordered distinction is the sine qua non of a holy cosmos. The unholy appears when Adam and Eve attempt to cross the line between “Creaturehood” and the divine Creator… There are no holy distinction in a world of One-ism, Even good and evil cannot be distinguished, and we should give equal respect to both… we are left with pagan fantasies that promise a perfect world and wish away evil by redefining it as good” (Ch. 7). It all makes sense, doesn’t it?One more concept that I find rather arresting is that “In God’s crowning act of creation – the human couple, made in His image – the difference between male and female is underlined as an essential part of cosmic holiness… In Gen 2:24, God embedded in the structure of creation a proto-proto-evangelium [of Gen 3:15] that declares the essence of God’s recreative, redemptive purposes…. At creation, God gives us a structure (heterosexual marriage) that helps us understand the mystery he will reveal, namely that of Christ, who saves and loves the Church… Sameness will not work. Christ and the Church are not interchangeable... Built into creation is the good news of its recreation… a foretaste of the glorious transformed cosmos to come. Sexuality is the reflecting pool of the entire cosmos.”Here we are, a better understanding of the hidden agenda of the sexual revolution that is thrust upon us and why heterosexual marriage is holy and teaching us about the mystery of Christ and the Church. Jones writes with passion and urges us to heed and arm up to stand firm against the tides.