ARTICLES REPUBLISHED FROM LIGHTHOUSE TRAILS RESEARCH:
http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletters/2014/newsletter20141008.htm
IN THEIR ENTIRETY UNEDITED:
EVANGELICAL CHRISTIANITY BEING CATAPULTED INTO
SEEING GOD WITH THE NEW EYES OF CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER
By Ray Yungen
Contemplative advocates propose that there has been something vital and important missing from the church for centuries. The insinuation is that Christians have been lacking something necessary for their spiritual vitality; but that would mean the Holy Spirit has not been fully effective for hundreds of years and only now the secret key has been found that unlocks God’s full power to know Him. These proponents believe that Christianity has been seriously crippled without this extra ingredient. This kind of thinking leads one to believe that traditional, biblical Christianity is merely a philosophy without the contemplative prayer element. Contemplatives are making a distinction between studying and meditating on the Word of God versus experiencing Him, suggesting that we cannot hear Him or really know Him simply by studying His Word or even through normal prayer—we must be contemplative to accomplish this. But the Bible makes it clear that the Word of God is living and active, and has always been that way, and it is in filling our minds with it that we come to love Him, not through a mystical practice of stopping the flow of thought (the stillness) that is never once mentioned in the Bible, except in warnings against vain repetitions.
Thomas Merton said that he saw various Eastern religions “come together in his life” (as a Christian mystic). On a rational, practical level Christianity and Eastern religions will not mix; but add the mystical element and they do blend together like adding soap to oil and water. I must clarify what I mean: Mysticism neutralizes doctrinal differences by sacrificing the truth of Scripture for a mystical experience. Mysticism offers a common ground, and supposedly that commonality is divinity in all. But we know from Scripture “there is one God; and there is none other but he” (Mark 12:32).
In a booklet put out by Saddleback Church on spiritual maturity, the following quote by Henri Nouwen is listed:
Solitude begins with a time and place for God, and Him alone. If we really believe not only that God exists, but that He is actively present in our lives—healing, teaching, and guiding—we need to set aside a time and space to give Him our undivided attention.1 (emphasis mine)
When we understand what Nouwen really means by “time and space” given to God we can also see the emptiness and deception of his spirituality. In his biography of Nouwen, God’s Beloved, Michael O’ Laughlin says:
Some new elements began to emerge in Nouwen’s thinking when he discovered Thomas Merton. Merton opened up for Henri an enticing vista of the world of contemplation and a way of seeing not only God but also the world through new eyes. . . . If ever there was a time when Henri Nouwen wished to enter the realm of the spiritual masters or dedicate himself to a higher spiritual path, it was when he fell under the spell of Cistercian monasticism and the writings of Thomas Merton.2 (emphasis mine)
In his book, Thomas Merton: Contemplative Critic, Nouwen talks about these “new eyes” that Merton helped to formulate and said that Merton and his work “had such an impact” on his life and that he was the man who had “inspired” him greatly.3 But when we read Nouwen’s very revealing account, something disturbing is unveiled. Nouwen lays out the path of Merton’s spiritual pilgrimage into contemplative spirituality. Those who have studied Merton from a critical point of view, such as myself, have tried to understand what are the roots behind Merton’s spiritual affinities. Nouwen explains that Merton was influenced by LSD mystic Aldous Huxley who “brought him to a deeper level of knowledge” and “was one of Merton’s favorite novelists.”4 It was through Huxley’s book, Ends and Means, that first brought Merton “into contact with mysticism.”5 Merton states:
He [Huxley] had read widely and deeply and intelligently in all kinds of Christian and Oriental mystical literature, and had come out with the astonishing truth that all this, far from being a mixture of dreams and magic and charlatanism, was very real and very serious.6 (emphasis mine)
This is why, Nouwen revealed, Merton’s mystical journey took him right into the arms of Buddhism:
Merton learned from him [Chuang Tzu—a Taoist] what Suzuki [a Zen master] had said about Zen: “Zen teaches nothing; it merely enables us to wake and become aware.”7
Become aware of what? The Buddha nature. Divinity within all.That is why Merton said if we knew what was in each one of us, we would bow down and worship one another. Merton’s descent into contemplative led him to the belief that God is in all things and that God is all things. This is made clear by Merton when he said:
True solitude is a participation in the solitariness of God—Who is in all things.8
Nouwen adds:
[Chuang Tzu] awakened and led him [Merton] . . . to the deeper ground of his consciousness.9
This has been the ploy of Satan since the Garden of Eden when the serpent said to Eve, “ye shall be as gods” (Genesis 3:4). It is this very essence that is the foundation of contemplative prayer.
In Merton’s efforts to become a mystic, he found guidance from a Hindu swami, whom Merton referred to as Dr. Bramachari. Bramachari played a pivotal role in Merton’s future spiritual outlook. Nouwen divulged this when he said:
Thus he [Merton] was more impressed when this Hindu monk pointed him to the Christian mystical tradition. . . . It seems providential indeed that this Hindu monk relativized [sic] Merton’s youthful curiosity for the East and made him sensitive to the richness of Western mysticism.10
Why would a Hindu monk advocate the Christian mystical tradition? The answer is simple: they are one in the same. Even though the repetitive words used may differ (e.g. Christian words: Abba, Father, etc. rather than Hindu words), the end result is the same. And the Hindu monk knew this to be true. Bramachari understood that Merton didn’t need to switch to Hinduism to get the same enlightenment that he himself experienced through the Hindu mystical tradition. In essence, Bramachari backed up what I am trying to get across in A Time of Departing, that all the world’s mystical traditions basically come from the same source and teach the same precepts . . . and that source is not the God of the Old and New Testaments. The biblical God is not interspiritual!
Evangelical Christianity is now being invited, perhaps even catapulted into seeing God with these new eyes of contemplative prayer. And so the question must be asked, is Thomas Merton’s silence, Henri Nouwen’s space, and Richard Foster’s contemplative prayer the way in which we can know and be close to God? Or is this actually a spiritual belief system that is contrary to the true message that the Bible so absolutely defines—that there is only one way to God and that is through His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, whose sacrifice on the Cross obtained our full salvation? In my book, A Time of Departing, I endeavored to answer these questions with extensive evidence and documentation showing the dangers of contemplative prayer.
If indeed my concerns for the future actually come to fruition, then we will truly enter a time of departing. My prayer is that you will not turn away from the faith to follow a different gospel and a different Jesus but will rather stay the course and finish the race, so that after having done all you can, you will stand.
Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. (Ephesians 6:13).
Endnotes:
1. Henri Nouwen, cited in Saddleback training book, Soul Construction: Solitude Tool (Lake Forest, CA: Saddleback Church, 2003), p. 12.
2. Michael O’ Laughlin, God’s Beloved (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2004), p. 178.
3. Henri J.M. Nouwen, Thomas Merton: Contemplative Critic (San Francisco, CA: Harper & Row Publishers, 1991, Triumph Books Edition), p. 3.
4. Ibid., pp. 19-20.
5. Ibid., p. 20.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., p. 71.
8. Ibid., pp. 46, 71.
9. Ibid., p. 71.
10 . Ibid., p. 29.
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NEW BOOKLET TRACT:
"IS YOUR CHURCH DOING SPIRITUAL FORMATION?" (IMPORTANT REASONS WHY THEY SHOULDN'T)
Is Your Church Doing Spiritual Formation? (Important Reasons Why They Shouldn’t) by the editors at Lighthouse Trails is our newest Lighthouse Trails PrintBooklet Tract. The Booklet Tract is 16 pages long and sells for $1.95 for single copies. Quantity discounts are as much as 50% off retail. Our Booklet Tracts are designed to give away to others or for your own personal use. Below is the content of the booklet. To order copies of Is Your Church Doing Spiritual Formation? (Important Reasons Why They Shouldn’t), click here.
Is Your Church Doing Spiritual Formation? (Important Reasons Why They Shouldn’t)
Is your church involved in a Spiritual Formation program? If so, you might want to ask the question, what exactly is Spiritual Formation? It’s a fair question, and one that, if not asked, could end up surprising you when your church changes in ways you never imagined.
A Christianity Today article states: “Spiritual Formation is in.” The article defines Spiritual Formation in this way:
Formation, like the forming of a pot from clay, brings to mind shaping and molding, helping something potential become something actual. Spiritual formation speaks of a shaping process with reference to the spiritual dimension of a person’s life. Christian spiritual formation thus refers to the process by which believers become more fully conformed and united to Christ.1
Such a definition would hardly send up red flags. But what this definition excludes is how this “process” of conforming and uniting to Christ takes place and who is eligible to participate in such a process.
The “how” is done through spiritual disciplines, primarily through the discipline of the silence. The silence is an altered state that is reached through a mantra-like meditation, breath prayers, or some other meditative practice. The idea behind it is that if you go into this silent state, you will eliminate distractions (thoughts) and be able to hear God’s voice. He in turn will transform you to be like Christ. The “who” (who can practice these disciplines and become like Christ) is anyone (according to Spiritual Formation pioneer Richard Foster and other proponents of Spiritual Formation). A Christian, a Buddhist, a Muslim, even an atheist—anyone at all can benefit from the spiritual disciplines and become like Christ (the question is which Christ?).
Richard Foster, the “Father” of the Evangelical Spiritual Formation Movement
Now many evangelical seminaries offer programs in spiritual formation. Renovare, which Richard Foster and others founded in 1989 to cultivate spiritual formation (especially among evangelicals), today offers retreats and resources worldwide.2
In 1989, Richard Foster began an organization called Renovare, but eleven years earlier (1978) his book Celebration of Discipline first came out, and that has been a Spiritual Formation primer ever since. The following quote by Foster, written in a “pastoral letter” sheds light on the roots of Spiritual Formation (the Catholic Church) as well as how prolific it is today:
When I first began writing in the field in the late 70s and early 80s the term “Spiritual Formation” was hardly known, except for highly specialized references in relation to the Catholic orders. Today it is a rare person who has not heard the term. Seminary courses in Spiritual Formation proliferate like baby rabbits. Huge numbers are seeking to become certified as Spiritual Directors to answer the cry of multiplied thousands for spiritual direction.3
Countless evangelical leaders have gotten on Foster’s Spiritual Formation bandwagon. One example is Rick Warren who considers the Spiritual Formation movement to be a worthy wake-up call to the evangelical church:
From time to time God has raised up a parachurch movement to reemphasize a neglected purpose of the church. . . . [the] Spiritual Formation Movement. A reemphasis on developing believers to full maturity has been the focus . . . authors such as . . . Richard Foster and Dallas Willard have underscored the importance of building up Christians and establishing personal spiritual disciplines. . . . [this] movement has a valid message for the church . . . [it] has given the body a wake-up call.4
There are some who are deeply concerned about this movement. Author and missionary Roger Oakland expresses concern about this supposedly “valid message” and says Spiritual Formation came upon the church like an unsuspecting avalanche:
A move away from the truth of God’s Word to a mystical form of Christianity has infiltrated, to some degree, nearly all evangelical denominations. Few Bible teachers saw this avalanche coming. Now that it is underway, most do not realize it has even happened.5
Oakland explains how this paradigm shift has come about:
As the Word of God becomes less and less important, the rise in mystical experiences escalates, and these experiences are presented to convince the unsuspecting that Christianity is about feeling, touching, smelling, and seeing God. The postmodern mindset is the perfect environment for fostering Spiritual Formation. This term suggests there are various ways and means to get closer to God and to emulate him.6
So exactly what is Spiritual Formation, and what is its premise? In this booklet, we hope to answer these questions.
Click here to read this entire article or to order the booklet.
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LETTER TO THE EDITOR:
SPIRITUAL FORMATION OVERTOOK OUR CHURCH
AND WE HAD TO LEAVE
Dear Lighthouse Trails Editors,
I recently found your website and have been glued to it everyday, reading all the articles. I admit, I have been in the dark about a lot of the information I’ve read thus far. My husband and I recently left our little country church in rural ________ about 6 months ago. The pastor there is practicing “Spiritual Formation.” He began as a co-pastor, but when the other pastor had to resign due to health reasons, it became evident something wasn’t quite right ever since the co-pastor assumed the position of lead pastor.
On the surface, everything seemed OK, but then we noticed some of the deacons resigned and left church. Some of these folks were friends, whom we had been in Bible studies with, small groups etc. At first, we thought they left because the pastor left. But there was something else we just couldn’t put our finger on. It was Good Friday, and we went to church that evening to be reminded of what Good Friday was really about and what Jesus accomplished on the Cross. Instead, the pastor asked the church a question, something like: “What does Jesus look like to you.”
I have never been at a loss for words and never shy about sharing my testimony. But this was an odd question. As folks around the room shared, I thought to myself, this makes no sense. Awaiting for him to get to the Good Friday message, he ended the service with, “that was great! You were the service tonight!”
After that first “flag,” another one popped up when the pastor introduced “
Breath Prayers,” going into the silence, emptying your mind, etc. I thought this sounded a lot like “vain repetitions” to me, and this is not quite right. In my years of sitting under expository preachers, I had never heard the term “breath prayers.”
Attendance was continuing to dwindle; we started to make some phone calls to the deacons who resigned. As our calls were returned one by one, the common thread was the pastor wanted them to read a book by Ruth Haley Barton. I am not sure which one it was, but from what we were told by these deacons, they thought it bordered on occultism.
One friend clarified what the problem was: She told us to look up
Spiritual Formation and
Ruth Haley Barton. Keeping in mind, the pastor, after being asked to leave a pastoral position at a local multi-site community church, opened his own Institute for Christian Spiritual Formation locally.
So we Googled “Spiritual Formation” and Ruth Haley Barton. The pieces of the puzzle came together quickly. I was referred to your website by a friend and and our eyes were opened, WIDE! The deacons addressed their concerns to the pastor. They felt it was like talking in circles with him. We phoned one of the current sitting deacons and explained the information we researched on Spiritual Formation, etc. He said they [he and the other sitting deacons] read the book by Ruth Haley Barton and loved it. We then told them we will not be attending the church anymore.
We received a phone call from the pastor on a Saturday evening; he was away leading an “SF retreat” and said he “heard” we had a problem. We explained our new found wisdom and told him we did not like his links to Roman Catholicism, Eastern Mysticism, Universalism etc.. that it was not biblical and was occultic. He asked us for a meeting. At first, we agreed but then he asked us not to speak to anyone about our findings before meeting with us. We told him we would not be silent and would share this new-found information with as many as we could. We stand on the Solid Rock, and we know the Truth!
He phoned my husband during the week and left a voice mail to meet. We waited to return the call as we needed time to think and pray about this meeting. A few days later, he called again, and we declined the meeting. After a few more calls to godly folks who had left the church who had tried themselves to convince the pastor of his erroneous ways, we thought our meeting would also be in vain and more like casting pearls before swine.
I have been sharing your articles on my Facebook, and some “church friends” e-mailed me and told me I was being divisive and stirring up strife. We wrote a letter to the current sitting deacons, stating our reasons for leaving and to withdraw our names from the membership. They responded with a letter that the pastor was teaching and practicing “Christian” Spiritual Formation, which is not the same as Spiritual Formation, and we were wrong in our assumptions.
We have been searching for another church in our area. Now that we are on our toes and know what to look for, it has become quite difficult to find a good church home. We are in an area with many churches including many Baptist and community churches and a large Baptist College nearby. Knowing what we know now about SF and Emergent, Contemplative etc., it has proven difficult to settle down anywhere. It’s like choosing the lesser of the evils. One multi-site church is seeker sensitive and Purpose Driven and offers Karate and Yoga. In the other community church, in the next county over, you are in a rock concert during worship, the lights down and the band on the stage singing “to” you not with you.
Anyway, that’s where we are at. I was thinking and praying about doing a Bible study on the Emergent church and SF and Contemplative. Folks in our area have not heard of this. We didn’t until six months ago, and it’s been a revelation. There is only a few of us here who are aware of this movement slithering into our local churches.
In Christ Jesus,
A concerned couple
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GUEST COMMENTARY:
THE TEMPTATION OF CONTEMPLATIVE PRAYER
By Phil Young, M.D.(Guest writer and missionary)
To grasp fully the temptation involved in contemplative prayer, one needs to go back to the beginning and look at man’s first temptation, that of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and its implications. In Genesis chapter one, we are told that Adam and Eve were created in the image of God. Theologians have argued just what is meant by “created in the image of God.”
Whatever else it means, it is an indication that Adam and Eve were meant to be God’s representatives on planet earth. Following the completion of creation, Adam and Eve were given dominion over that creation, over all animal life on the planet. The creation of Eve from Adam’s body further illustrates what is indicated by this idea of image. Before Eve was created, all the animal world was paraded before Adam, but no animal was found that was “suitable” to be his companion. The idea in the Hebrew word translated “suitable” is that Adam needed a companion who was created in such a fashion that if that individual was standing in front of Adam it would be just as if Adam himself was standing there. In other words, Eve, when she was taken and created from Adam’s body was created in Adam’s image, created as Adam’s perfect representative. Before the fall, one would have received the same answer if one asked the “image” question to either Adam or Eve. Just as Eve was to faithfully represent Adam when he was not present, Adam and Eve were to give a visible presence of God’s character to the creation that had been placed under them. They were to be the representatives of God on planet earth. The more they fellowshipped with God, the better representatives they would become.
Adam and Eve were not created in the image of Yahweh or Jehovah, the word for God that speaks of His essence, but in the image of Elohim, a word for God which hints of the trinity and the interrelationship of that trinity, their creativity and goodness. It was God’s character that Adam and Eve were to represent, not God’s essence. What Adam and Eve were meant to do is seen in the life of Christ. Following the incarnation, as He lived his life here on earth, he never used the power he had as God to meet any of his human needs. Christ used His power as God in His ministry to others. As we see Christ starting his ministry, He was tempted by Satan to change the very rocks in the wilderness into bread when He had been without food during forty days and nights in the wilderness. Satan was tempting Christ to use his power as God to meet his real human hunger. If Christ had done so, if He had used his power as God to meet his own needs, all that his life on earth would have proved is that God can live a life here on earth that is fit for heaven, not that any mere man can be good enough to live a life fit for heaven. Since God cannot die, there would not have been any perfect sacrificial lamb. In other words, Christ had to live as a perfect man to be God’s perfect sacrifice. He could not use His godhood to meet his needs. He answered Satan’s temptation by saying that man is not to live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Mankind is to be molded by every single word of God. Christ’s life was a life of complete obedience to God.
Christ as the second Adam was a perfect representation of the character of God. In John 14: 8 when Philip asked Christ to show us (the disciples) God the Father, Christ answered that he who has seen me has seen the Father. Christ, as He lived as a man, was the perfect representation of God’s character here on earth. And as Christians, we seek to be fit vessels to represent Christ to a fallen world to give a picture of God’s character though it is marred through our human weakness.
Look again at the temptation of Adam and Eve. The gist of the temptation was that Adam and Eve would become more like God by disobeying Him. “You shall be as gods knowing good and evil, ‘’ if you will just eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil which God has told you not to eat. Adam and Eve were already created in God’s image, in His character. How could they become more like God? By constantly walking in God’s will the character that God had given them would gradually truly became their own unshakable character. The temptation from Satan was to divorce themselves from God and to do just as they pleased–to live so that that they would ‘know both good and evil’ while ignoring all moral consequences. In the Hebrew Satan told them, “dying, you shall not die.” In other words, when separated from God due to sin, they would not die, they would continue to exist but they would just be divorced from the only source of true life, God. Hell, which is permanent separation from God, is a place of permanent gradual degradation: “Their worm dieth not.” The whole universe is gradually degrading, and in scientific terms, this is called entropy. This is likely because the universe is no longer connected to God in the same way it was before sin. The universe cannot create life and is not life or a living being, the thesis of many Eastern religions, a belief which is in exact opposition to this process of degradation which is seen taking place in the universe. In fact, any system that is degrading had to be created, had to have a beginning; so the universe cannot have existed forever.
We as Christians are sealed by the indwelling Holy Spirit, who gradually transforms us to be like Christ until the day, we, in character, will be like Christ, when “we see Him as He is” in heaven. The temptation of Contemplative Prayer is in a sense the same one that Adam and Eve faced–to be more like Christ, like God; to be more like Him in character by going outside the provisions of his Word. We already have been given God’s character as we are born again through the provision of Christ’s Calvary sacrifice and obedience to the Word of God. We have God’s character restored through our faith in the second Adam, Christ, and we grow to be more like Him as we are obedient to the Scripture He has given us. The temptation in Contemplative Prayer is to take a path not endorsed by Scripture, a path that ignores the provisions God has given in an effort to draw closer to Christ, an effort to become more like Him through disobedience to His Word. This is parallel to the temptation Adam and Eve faced. In both cases, the temptation involves a good goal—to be more like God. Unfortunately, the result is the same in both cases. We come under Satan’s sway, under his dominion.
We become more like Christ by renewing our mind through God’s Word, not by trying to empty our mind of all rational thought, not by following the same practices the heathen world has used for years. The very process they use involves vain repetition of words in prayer, repeating a word over and over again, a practice which is forbidden by Christ’s admonition to His disciples, not to use vain repetitions. It makes no difference if Christian words like “Jesus” are used. It is the practice of using repeated words to empty one’s mind that is wrong. It is evident this practice does not bring the heathen world closer to the true God, so how can Christians think that the practice will draw them closer to Christ? The false spirituality that results is based on an experience, which is divorced from God’s Word. A good goal “to be closer to Christ” can never trump obedience to the Word of God.
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EEvangelical Christianity Being Catapulted into Seeing God with the New Eyes of Contemplative Prayervangelical Christianity Being Catapulted into Seeing God with the New Eyes of Contemplative Prayer
