Apprising Ministries brought to your attention in posts such as Rick Warren Wants Us To Know Peter Scazzero that Purpose Driven Pope Rick Warren has actually been pushing the door open for corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM) ala Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster—and his spiritual twin Dallas Willard—within the mainstream of evangelicalism for quite some time now.

Which is precisely why Warren is going to feature CSM proponent Peter Scazzero to teach this spurious Spiritual Formation at his upcoming conference Radicalis, next month at Saddleback Church. I also pointed out in Peter Scazzero Promoted By Rick Warren that Scazerro heads up a group called Emotionally Healthy Spirituality (EHS), who tell us: 

We are excited to announce our partnership with the Willow Creek Association! Starting Sept. 15, WCA will begin to distribute the Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Church-wide study, which includes the kit, the EHS book, the EHS Group workbook, the teaching DVD, and The Daily Office. (Online source)

So as you can see, Scazzero and his Foster-like CSM shtick is already seeping into the bloodline of mainstream of evangelicalism through Bill Hybel’s church group, which is a major flagship of the semi-pelagian (at best) Church Growth Movement. With all of this in mind, the other day CatalystLeader tweeted:

Catalyst Voices – Pete Scazzero (part 1 of 2) http://bit.ly/91cmZa (Online source)

If you didn’t know, CatalystLeader—The Leadership Filter for What’s Next in the Church – and premier gathering of Next Generation Leaders—is the Twitter account for Catalyst which:

was conceived as a Next Generation Leaders Conference in 1999 by Andy Stanley, Reggie Joiner, John Maxwell, Lanny Donoho and several young leaders. Catalyst was created to meet the felt need that existed within the church leader space for a leadership event that was focused on a new generation of church leaders. (Online source)

Bottom line Catalyst is a major carrier of what Christian apologist Chris Rosebrough is talking about in informative article Ecclesia Immunodeficiency Heresy (EIH). The tweets I referenced above from Catalyst take us to the Vimeo channel Catalyst/Road Trip and the short video clip below featuring Peter Scazzero.

When asked to comment on “unaddressed needs among young leaders in the church”, but of course, Scazzerro tells us, “I think the biggest issue is spiritual formation.” Now to be sure, the problems Scazzero addresses concerning the CEO model of “leadership” so prevalent within the Purpose Driven/Seeker Driven megachurches ala Popes of the Carolinas such as Perry Noble and his disciple Steven Furtick are valid.

However, the answer lies in the proper Christian spirituality of the all-sufficiency of God’s Word i.e. Sola Scripura, which such as these do not have faith in. It is not to be found in having lukewarm pretending to be Protestants embrace ecumenicism and CSM, which was a core doctrine of the Emerging Church aka Emergent Church that morphed into Emergence Christianity (EC)—now a cult of a postliberalism firmly within mainstream evangelicalism. 

And the answer most certainly isn’t found in a monastery of Trappist monks with their apostate Roman Catholicism; yet at the 4:00 mark you’ll hear Scazzero tell us, “For example, next week I’m going for my—I’m going to spend a week with the Trappist monks.” When Scazzero said, “for my,” he was possibly going to say “for my annual weekly retreat.” You see, in his post Four Days with the Trappists: Part 1 Scazzero informed us:

Last Monday I arrived at the  St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer Massachusetts for my annual weekly retreat with the 70+ monks living there. It was probably my most significant retreat of the last seven years. (Online source)

You may know that the contemplative Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance (Trappists) of the Roman Catholic Church, so named for their strict adherence to the Rule of St. Benedict, produced the Golden Buddha of CSM Thomas Merton. Merton’s practice of meditation in an altered state of consciousness aka Contemplative/Centering Prayer—the main vehicle of CSM—had him so wacked spiritually that by the time he was tragically electrocuted far more like the Buddha than the Christ.

If you want to make the time you can see his nauseating idolatry for yourself from his own diary in Thomas Merton And The Buddhas. Still Scazzero goes on to tell us in the video that he engages in “monastic rhythms in my own life.” As pious as that sounds the question you need to ask is: If God led Martin Luther out away from “monastic rhythms” into the glorious freedom of the sons of God, why then would you want to let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery (Galatians 5:1).

The fact is, Luther had forgotten more about these pietic practices of asceticism-lite than Scazzero, Foster and Warren will ever know, and here’s what he said based upon his personal experience with them:

Idolatry is all manner of seeming holiness and worshipping, let these counterfeit spiritualities shine outwardly as glorious and fair as they may; in a word, all manner of devotion in those that we would serve God without Christ the Mediator, his Word and command. In popedom it was held a work of the greatest sanctity for the monks to sit in their cells and meditate of God, [solitude] and of his wonderful works; to be kindled with zeal, kneeling on their knees, praying, and having their imaginary contemplations of celestial objects, with such supposed devotion, that they wept for joy. In these their conceits, they banished all desires and thoughts of women, and what else is temporal and evanescent. They seemed to meditate only of God, and of his wonderful works.

Yet all these seeming holy actions of devotion, which the wit and wisdom of man holds to be angelical sanctity, are nothing else but works of the flesh. All manner of religion, where people serve God without his Word and command, is simply idolatry, and the more holy and spiritual such a religion seems, the more hurtful and venomous it is; for it leads people away from the faith of Christ, and makes them rely and depend upon their own strength, works, and righteousness. In like manner, all kinds of orders of monks, fasts, prayers, hairy shirts, the austerities of the Capuchins, who in popedome are held to be the most holy of all, are mere works of the flesh; for the monks hold they are holy, and shall be saved, not through Christ, whom they view as a severe and angry judge, but through the rules of their order. (Tabletalk, 1626 AD)

Catalyst Voices – Pete Scazzero (part 1 of 2) from Catalyst on Vimeo.

See also:

CALVINIST CONTEMPLATIVE/CENTERING PRAYER?

DONALD WHITNEY AND EVANGELICAL CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY/MYSTICISM

RICHARD FOSTER’S LEGACY ENDURES: CHRISTIAN LEADERS HELP TO MAKE IT SO

WHICH SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES?

THE TERMINOLOGY TRAP OF “SPIRITUAL FORMATION”

CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY OF RICHARD FOSTER ROOTED IN THE EASTERN DESERT AND THOMAS MERTON

DISCIPLINES TO DECEPTION IN SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION