CONTEMPLATIVE/CENTERING PRAYER TODAY AT CATALYST CONFERENCE

11a

In articles e.g. like On Contemplative Spirituality and Charismania here at Apprising Ministries I’ve been warning you about the very clear and present danger posed by the ongoing evangelical fascination with corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM) and its parallel arm of charismatic excesses.

Like I’ve said before, it’s important for you to remember here that CSM, which has been perpetrated throughout evangelicalism as so-called Spiritual Formation by Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster along with his late spiritual twin Dallas Willard, was a key core doctrine of the Emerging Church. ((e.g. Origin Of Contemplative/Centering Prayer.))

Up until now, we haven’t really seen too much of CCM, which is a repackaged form of Roman Catholic mysticism, out in the open in more mainstream evangelical circles. It’s been basically relegated to CSM being recommended by evangelical leaders; for example like Tim Keller and Contemplative Spirituality.

The fact is, as you’ll see in my 2010 piece Mark Driscoll and Neo-Reformed New Calvinist Contemplative Spirituality, CSM has already penetrated the charismania at the root of so-called New Calvinism. Driscoll is also a major member of what I see as an Evangelical Ecumenical Magisterium (EEM).

I’ve talked a bit about that EEM before in articles like Steven Furtick and The Second Great Embarrassment and Prophet-Leader Craig Groeschel and an Evangelical Gangsta’s Paradise. This EEM is largely comprised of charismaniac”vision-casting” mainstream evangelical megachurch prophet-pastors, ((I explained e.g. in Steven Furtick Debuts on Trinity Broadcasting Network amid Financial Concerns that the EEM seems to have sprung from the Elephant Room conferences of James MacDonald and his co-host  Mark Driscoll.))

The crown jewel of CSM is a form of meditation in an altered state of consciousness, i.e. transcendental, lightly sprayed with Christian terminology that originated with apostate monks and monkettes circa third century. ((These apostates left the Christian community and moved into the desert where they encountered Hindus and Buddhists, The so-called desert fathers and mothers then incorporated into their own prayer aspects of the transcendental meditation practiced by the Hindus and Buddhists they worshipped with, which those pagans also refer to as prayer.)) It’s known as contemplative prayer and sometimes as centering prayer.

Since the terms are interchangeable I list it as Contemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP). With all of this in mind, we really aren’t surprised then when we see CCP being taught and practiced today at the corrupt Catalyst Conference. The photo below was taken this afternoon at Catalyst in Dallas:

11b

Further reading