In the Vatican II document Nostra Aetate (NA), “Declaration On The Relation Of The Church To Non-Christian Religions,” birthed from apostate Roman Catholicism we can trace the very rotten root of the Ecumenical Church Of Deceit (ECoD) of postevangelicalism. And this document also spawned the current apostasy festering within evangelicalism as well.

For you see it was NA that would open the door for Trappist monk Thomas Merton, one of most highly prized Golden Buddhas of Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism, to openly pursue his own antibiblical interspiritual “dialogues.” As we point out below he wasn’t alone and, just as previously shown in the Apprising Ministries piece Doug Pagitt, Rob Bell, Dalai Lama and the Interspiritual Seeds of Compassion Event, this lunacy in the Lord’s Name is ongoing still.

…these men have set up idols in their hearts and put wicked stumbling blocks before their faces.
(Ezekiel 14:3)

Interspiritual Compromise In Christ’s Name

In part NA reads: “1. In our time, [1965] day by day mankind is being drawn closer together, and the ties between different peoples are becoming stronger, the Church examines more closely he [sic] relationship to non- Christian religions. In her task of promoting unity and love among men, indeed among nations, she considers above all in this declaration what men have in common and what draws them to fellowship.” (Online source) Obviously those of us who are Christians should immediately recognize that this is not the actual “task” of the Body of Christ. Our Lord told us to be a people set apart from the world unto Him to preach His Gospel and to make disciples (see—Matthew 28:18-20). And while we are certainly not opposed to “unity and love,” we can hardly expect this from the pagan religions around us who know not God.

Leaving all that aside for now with NA the Roman Catholic Church, which Dr. John MacArthur correctly labels the Satan’s best counterfeit of Christianity, opened the door for her apostate monks like Thomas Merton, the late “Spiritual Master” M. Basil Pennington, and “Living Spiritual Teacher” Brother David Stendl-Rast to begin their ecumenical quest to bring all religions together under Rome through Contemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP), which is really transcendental meditation in Christian terms. It’s this so-called “Christian” mysticism that has ultimately provided the spiritual methane for the increasingly accelerating apostasy now exploding throughout postevangelicalism. A blazing fire of spurious spirituality now being spread rapidly throughout virtually every mainstream evangelical denomination by the winds of rhetoric emerging from the growing postliberal cult of the Emergent Church.

The two misguided mystics in the above-mentioned trio of friends who are no longer with us, Merton and Pennington, have since become highly recommended sources for CSM e.g. by Living Spiritual teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster as well as by Emerging Church anti-theologian Tony Jones. For more on Thomas Merton’s own affinity for Buddhism and Sufism please see Thomas Merton And Mystic Apostasy. And just look at what Merton’s friend and meditation mate Basil Pennington, along with associate apostate Thomas Keating—yet another of these Living Spiritual Teachers—wrote about the true goal of CP:

In the course of the years, sitting in silent prayer, beyond where words can interfere, men and women of many diverse traditions have come together. In that deeper place a oneness is experienced that gives assurance and heart to our feeble ecumenical efforts and interreligious dialogues. Maharishi Mahesh Yogi has said that if one percent of the people would meditate we will have peace. Jesus spoke of the leaven that will leaven the whole. (Finding Grace at the Center: The Beginning of Centering Prayer, 10,11, emphasis mine)

Peas In A Corrupt Spiritual Pod

Indeed the Master did speak about the leaven of antichrist teaching such as we just read above. His point was if it’s left unchecked it will simply continue to spread throughout the whole of the Church. And why weren’t men with such a malignant message like Merton and Pennington, each flagrantly engaged in these neo-pagan practices rooted in Gnostic mysticism that would eventually lead both to deny the exclusivity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, expelled from the Roman Catholic Church? Because the apostate Church of Rome is itself as heretical as these ministers of hers were, and others right now still are:

3. The Church regards with esteem also the Moslems. They adore the one God, living and subsisting in Himself; merciful and all- powerful, the Creator of heaven and earth,(5) who has spoken to men; they take pains to submit wholeheartedly to even His inscrutable decrees, just as Abraham, with whom the faith of Islam takes pleasure in linking itself, submitted to God. Though they do not acknowledge Jesus as God, they revere Him as a prophet. They also honor Mary, His virgin Mother; at times they even call on her with devotion. (Online source)

Men and women, think about the horrid blasphemy we have just read! Are we really to believe that the genuine Church of our great God and Savior would regard “with esteem” a pagan religion offering its prayer and sacrifices to demons, not to God (see—1 Corinthians 10:20)? Not to mention one which rejects the atonement of Jesus Christ on the Cross and specifically teaches that He Who bought [the Church] with his own blood (see—Acts 20:28) is not God in human flesh. In fact, the false world religion of Islam evens blasphemes further and says that their own Muhammad is an even a greater prophet than Christ! And you should also know that it is absolutely impossible to “adore the one God” and not acknowledge “Jesus as God.” As it is written: every spirit that does not acknowledge Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming and even now is already in the world (1 John 4:3).

May God help us if the Body of Christ continues this despicable pilgrimage back into the slavish religious bondage of the long apostate Roman Catholic Church. Lord, please send this antichrist reversal of the Reformation now being led by leaders within the ECoD—her duplicitous daughter—like Purpose Driven Pope Rick Warren and Emerging Church spokesman like Doug Pagitt and his friend Rob Bell back to Hell where it belongs. And the vehicle through which this tridentine “transformation” is being accomplished is this supposed Spiritual Formation ala Richard Foster’s spiritual twin Dallas Willard, which is only neo-pagan CSM from the antibiblical monastic traditions of Roman Catholicism lightly sprayed with Protestant terms. Do not let yourself be fooled. Here this, and you’d best hear it good: God most certainly isn’t going to take lightly the skubalon of CSM now desecrating the precious blood of His Reformers.

See also:

EMERGENT INTERFAITH COMPROMISE

THE CORRUPT FRUIT OF ECUMENICISM