This piece from the Apprising Ministries Mailbag is published with the permission of its author. The article they refer to below is Who Is Henri Nouwen?:  

Ken, interesting informative article on Nouwen, thanks. I know you saw Phil’s post “streams of conscisness” with the Emerging Church commenter . Check out his profile, and favorite books. It sure seems like being emergent means you must practice this contemplative prayer garbage. I am a bit surprised that none of the pyro commenters picked up on some of his favorite books, etc.

Keep up the good work. Enjoyed listening to you on Crosstalk last week. Also enjoyed listening to Ray Yungen yesterday on Crosstalk!

AM Reader

Hello,

Thank you for contacting Apprising Ministries and for the kind word in the Lord. Yes, I have seen this Emergent Church commenter around though I haven’t had any dealings with them. You say: “It sure seems like being emergent means you must practice this contemplative prayer garbage.” Absolutely right in that most of them do as are more and more mainstream evangelicals as well through the corrupt spirituality taught by Richard Foster.

What many forget is that Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism was a core doctrine of the Emerging Church when it was spawned from the 1997 Terra Nova Project. Brian McLaren even told us in the “Emergent Mystique” article in Christianity Today, though very few “names” in the Church are listening, that Richard Foster and Dallas Willard are “key mentors” in the EC. What do folks think they “mentor” people in? Fantasy football? ;-)

I doubt many Team Pyro commentors even paid attention unfortunately. They are not alone as the mainstream evangelical community is rapidly embracing this Contemplative/Centering Prayer nonsense as evidenced by the seminary in my Nouwen article. The seminary is Bethel and it used to be much more solid.

But we’re seeing “spiritual formation,” which is another name for this contemplative stuff being taught in virtually every Protestant seminary now. True that many “sanitize” it removing the bigger heretics like Thomas Merton and Teresa of Avila but its roots remains the same.

We sure do covet your prayers my friend for God to broaden the funding base for me because this critical work here at AM is done on a fulltime basis. Even though the Lord has also entrusted me with the Christian Research Network even a year later this is still largely a step of faith because finances are not too steady yet. However, God has provided when we need it.

Also if you’d like to be placed on the email list we’ve putting together please let us know. The goal is to keep people informed as I begin later this year moving out into speaking and spreading the word about the dangers of the Emergent rebellion against the Bible.

Some of the other subjects I’ll cover would be the Contemplative issue and the evangelical reversal of the Reformation as well as their embracing apostate Roman Catholicism as a legitimate Christian denomination.

May the Lord richly bless you and keep you close as that Day seems to be fast approaching.

Blessings in Christ,

Ken