Bestselling author Kathleen McGowan is building a career writing novels that, going by the synopses on bookseller sites, are as wildly anti-Biblical as Dan Brown’s DaVinci Code. The Source of Miracles is her first non-fiction book. It is, unfortunately, a mishmash of Christian and New Age thoughts, and not anything I can recommend to devout Christians.

The book is about the Lord’s Prayer. The author describes the prayer, recorded in Scripture in Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4, as “the formula for manifesting miracles,” and declares that the words of the prayer, “when spoken with faith and intention…are literally magic words.” She also says that you don’t have to be a Christian to “use” the prayer. These, among many others I could quote, are alarming words, and a clear signal that Mrs. McGowan and I do not share a Biblical worldview.

To pray, according to Merriam-Webster’s tenth edition, is “to address God or a god with adoration, confession, supplication, or thanksgiving.” Jesus taught His disciples how to do this, giving them a sample or template in the brief but rich Lord’s Prayer. This prayer is indeed worth much study, being God-breathed. But its words are not magic words, that anyone may recite to get some predetermined result.

God is full of mercy, and desires for all people to come to Him for salvation. He is not in any way bound to answer the prayers of those who choose not to accept this gift and become children of God. In his grace, He surely does answer many prayers sent His way, when the person praying is truly seeking to know Him. But to assert that a Muslim or a pagan can gain anything from God by reciting the Lord’s Prayer as magic words, without seeking to be saved, is patently false. God is not mocked.

Mrs. McGowan doesn’t claim to be an orthodox Christian. Her personal spiritual experiences are steeped in mysticism, meditations while walking labyrinths, visions of Mary Magdalene, and the like. I was not able to find any mention in this book of her having a saving relationship with Jesus. In fact, chapter five is about faith, but contains not one word about faith in Jesus Christ as Savior. Add to that her frequent quotes from various apocryphal “gospels” that you won’t find in any Bible, and you have a young woman who has been blown about by every wind of doctrine until she is far from shore, adrift in a sea of false teachings.

This book was given to me by FSB Associates, a marketing firm representing Kathleen McGowan’s work.