By Pastor Larry DeBruyn of Guarding His Flock Ministries, republished here with permission:

Contemplative Prayer and the Lord’s Prayer

“For if I pray in an unknown tongue, my spirit prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful. What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also.” 1 Corinthians 14:14-15a, KJV

Between contemplative spirituality and biblical Christianity there reside watershed distinctions between first, the definition, and then, the practice of prayer. Simply stated, prayer is talking to God. In speaking to God, believers are free to disclose their hearts’ deepest longings and vexations to Him, including their feelings, fears, secrets, sins, praises, petitions, doubts, complaints, thanksgiving, troubles, and more–the prayers of Jesus and the saints in the Bible providing example.

In openness and integrity of soul, our conversation with the Father, however limited by human language and self-interest, is mediated by Jesus Christ, and through the Holy Spirit, to the personal God who hears, sympathizes, and understands when by faith, and sometimes amidst life’s sorest trials, His children talk to Him (See Ephesians 6:18; 1 John 2:1; Romans 8:15, 26-27.). As the author of Hebrews encourages us,

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need(Hebrews 4:14-16).

Within evangelicalism, the contemplative prayer movement is affecting this mediated understanding of prayer. The narrator in the Be Still DVD states that, “Contemplation is different from other types of Christian prayer.” In explaining how this form of prayer differs from traditional prayer, Richard Foster says, “Contemplative prayer is listening prayer. It is attentiveness . . . It’s being all ears to what the Father has to say to us. He then quotes Nicholas Grou who requested, “O divine master, teach me this mute language which says so much.”[1]

In this manner of praying, the communication that transpires is unmediated. Contemplatives feel themselves to be contacting God directly. There is no need for the advocacy of Jesus Christ, or intercession by the Holy Spirit. The desired communication is soul to Soul, the human with the Divine.

But reflect for a moment upon this definition of prayer. Mute means “refraining from speech or utterance.” Language is defined as “communication by voice” with “conventional meanings.” This “mute language” therefore, seems oxymoronic and esoteric. Nevertheless, Foster and other contemplatives promote that to attain higher communion with God, Christians should engage in a form of speech which is no speech.

Yet other evangelical speakers, pastors, and authors are also embracing and recommending contemplative prayer with the goal of hearing God directly speak to them. One testifies:

And so I’ve just begun . . . to make a conscious effort to be in a time of prayer and, yes, to speak to him, but then to consciously say, “Okay, I’m done talkin’ now, because I’m just gonna sit here in the stillness and wait to see what it is that you want to say to me”.[2]

The question therefore arises, is contemplative prayer, or cultivating “the quiet,” supported in Scripture? Is it a spiritual discipline encouraged in God’s Word? Or, is this manner of prayer simply a device of human invention? We turn to Luke’s Gospel for insight.

Even in Jesus’ day the way to pray was controversial. Jesus spoke about prayer to correct the wrong methods and manners of prayer originating from and employed by men. Jesus taught against the publicity with which hypocrites pray and the repetition by which pagans pray (Matthew 6:5, 7-8). So after having heard Jesus pray, and on behalf of the others, one disciple requested, “Lord, teach us to pray just as John also taught his disciples” (Luke 11:1). To the request, Jesus replied, “When you pray, say . . .” (Luke 11:2a). The word to “say” (Greek, lego) means to carry on a logical and cognitive discourse, with the emphasis upon what is being, or is about to be, said. As opposed to silence, to “say” involves thinking and speaking. As is evident from the context and content of His instructions to the disciples, Jesus neither taught nor practiced prayer via mindless and “mute language.” Words are the lego blocks of prayer!

Neither can such language be discerned in the prayers of Abraham, Moses, the psalmists, the prophets (i.e., Daniel 9), and Paul. The Bible is filled with speaking, not wordless or mindless, prayers. Regarding his praying, the apostle Paul committed, “I shall pray with the spirit and I shall pray with the mind also” (1 Corinthians 14:15). Think for a moment about the implication of wordless praying. If Jesus or the biblical saints had engaged in the “mute language” of contemplative prayer, there would have been no exemplary prayers recorded in Scripture! The Bible would contain no illustrations of prayer to stimulate and instruct believers in the grace, knowledge, and practice of prayer.

Contemplative spiritualists suggest Jesus practiced contemplative prayer. Though the Gospels portray that Jesus retreated away from the crowds and into solitude to pray, they do not record that Jesus prayed in a “mute language.” Donald Bloesch points out that,

[A] close examination of the prayer life of our Lord would seem to indicate that His prayers were definitely petitionary and intercessory in nature. He withdrew from the company of men not in order to extricate Himself from the bonds of the flesh and become one with the Infinite but rather to bring His supplications before God and intercede for His fellow man in agony and sometimes in tears.[3]

The author of Hebrews confirms that,

In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety. (Hebrews 5:7, NASB)

At length, the words of one of Jesus’ prayers to the Father are recorded in the 17th chapter John’s Gospel.

It is not evidenced in Scripture that Jesus Christ ever prayed in a “mute language,” and if, in concert with the Father and the Spirit, He is our Spiritual Director, then why should we?
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ENDNOTES
[1] Richard Foster, “What Is Contemplative Prayer?” Be Still (DVD © 2006 Twentieth Fox Home Entertainment LLC).
[2] Ibid. Priscilla Shirer.
[3] Donald G. Bloesch, The Crisis of Piety (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1968): 109.

The original appears here.

See also:

RICHARD FOSTER—CELEBRATION OF DECEPTION

THE ORIGIN OF CONTEMPLATIVE/CENTERING PRAYER

ALABAMA BAPTIST CONVENTION (SBC) ENCOURAGES YOU TO LEARN LECTIO DIVINA FROM APOSTATE TONY JONES

By Apprising Ministries special correspondent Bob DeWaay

There are no extraordinary Christians; but being an ordinary Christian is an extraordinary thing. How I wish I would have understood that when I was a new Christian. But I didn’t. Soon after my conversion I began a quest to become the best possible Christian. In so doing I fell prey to teachings that promised me a Christian life superior to that of ordinary Christians. What I did not know was that I had embraced pietism. I didn’t become an extraordinary Christian and I did walk straight into error.

My journey into the “deeper life” oftentimes involved embracing contradictory teachings. For example, two of my favorite teachers in the early 1970’s were Watchman Nee and Kenneth Hagin. One taught a deeper Christian life through suffering [1]) and the other taught a higher order Christianity that could cause one to be free from bodily ailments and poverty.[2] The hook was that both claimed to have the secret to becoming an extraordinary Christian. I found out that they didn’t.

My dissatisfaction with the Christianity taught in Bible College[3] led me to join a Christian commune some months after graduation. That group’s founder taught that all ordinary churches and Bible Colleges were caught up in “religious Babylon.” He taught that the kingdom of God was to be found by quitting one’s job, selling one’s possessions, giving the money to the commune, and moving in together to be devoted to the “kingdom” twenty four hours a day. So in my search to become an extraordinary Christian I did what he said and joined.

By the time I had fully explored many versions of pietism seeking to escape the tainted Christianity found in ordinary churches, I had squandered the first ten years of my Christian life. I was converted in 1971 and by 1981 I had given up on becoming a superior Christian. I bought a house for my family and began a car repair business to pay the bills while I tried to figure out what to do with my calling to preach now that most everything I had been taught, practiced, and taught others had failed.

By God’s grace I went back to the Bible and determined to merely teach verse by verse from that point on. It took another five or six years to rid myself of the various errors I had embraced and then I taught Romans in 1986. Through that study I came to appreciate the doctrines of grace. That understanding opened my thinking and was the turning point for my ministry. I also came to realize that the wrong-thinking that attracted me to pietism was that I held to a theology based on human ability rather than grace alone. Once I grasped that, I never looked back.

If the “secret” to a higher order Christianity is based on something we discover and implement (the secret to the deeper life), then it makes sense that some Christians could achieve a higher status than others. But if salvation AND sanctification are God’s work through His grace, then we are all in the same boat, and there’s no higher order.

Pietism is difficult to define because it can be taught and practiced in an unlimited number of ways. Some versions appear to be innocuous while others are so radical that most people would see that something is wrong. I now know that no version of pietism is actually innocuous. If a teaching is called pietism but teaches no more than what God has always used to sanctify Christians, then it is not really pietism. Real pietism always harms those who embrace it.

The essence of pietism is this: It is a practice designed to lead to an experience that purports to give one an elite or special status compared to ordinary Christians. The Bible addresses this error in the book of Colossians.[4] The false teachers in Colossae claimed to have the secret to a superior Christian experience that would cause people to rise above the bad “fate” they feared. Paul went on to explain that they already had everything they needed through Christ and His work on the cross. Another way of stating this is: If after having fully trusted Christ’s finished work on the cross, you are told that you are still lacking something, you are being taught pietism.

Church history is littered with misguided pietistic movements. Many of them are linked with mysticism. I will give examples later in this article. Pietism can be practiced many ways including enforced solitude, asceticism of various forms, man made religious practices, legalism, submission to human authorities who claim special status, and many other practices and teachings. The fact that pietism has many forms can be seen by the litany Paul gives in Colossians:

Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day — things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head, from whom the entire body, being supplied and held together by the joints and ligaments, grows with a growth which is from God. If you have died with Christ to the elementary principles of the world, why, as if you were living in the world, do you submit yourself to decrees, such as, “Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!” (which all refer to things destined to perish with use) in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men? These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence. (Colossians 2:16-23)

Paul calls this approach “self-made religion” which is exactly what all forms of pietism are. They all suggest that having been converted by the Lord through the cross and practicing His ordained means of grace by faith are inadequate. They have discovered a better way that leads to a higher order experience. Paul says they have “the appearance of wisdom.”

His list includes ascetic practices. These appear to most poorly taught Christians to be what the Lord wants. They reason, “Of course God is happier with a person who sells all and moves into a convent where he takes an oath of poverty than He is with someone who goes to work forty hours a week and uses some of the money to buy things.” Is He? When I was a pietist, if someone told me he prayed two hours a day, then I had to pray three hours to make sure I wasn’t missing out on something. I reasoned, “Of course God is happier with a Christian who prays three hours than one who prays two.” Is He? When I was a pietist I would work on cranking up my desire for holiness because I reasoned that holiness is found through something in the person rather than through God’s grace. Based on sermons I’d heard I reasoned, “Christians are not experiencing a higher degree of holiness because they do not desire it enough.” Is that true? No, none of these pietistic statements are true.Such teachings lead to elitism and comparing ourselves to others. The Bible tells us not to do that. Paul stated that these practices “are of no value against fleshly indulgence.”

God is committed to the holiness of everyone He has redeemed. He makes them holy through His ordained means of grace. Paul warned both the Galatians and the Colossians against adding anything to the work of Christ: “As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him” (Colossians 2:6); “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3). This means that salvation is by grace through faith and sanctification is by grace through faith. There is no secret principle to be discovered that creates higher order Christians. Here is how it is explained in Hebrews: “By this will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. . . . For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (Hebrews 10:10, 14). Pietism is an attack on the scriptural truth that Christ has already done it all and that this is true for all Christians. I believe in progressive sanctification, but God is sanctifying all Christians by the same means.

Pietism in Church History

Since pietism existed in Colossae in Paul’s day it has always been in the church. But we want to analyze some expressions of it to see why it arises and how it works. Church historian Justo Gonzalez chronicles the beginnings of the monastic movement which was apparently a reaction to a perception that popularity and success had tainted Christianity after it was endorsed by Constantine.[5] The question they dealt with was how to overcome Satan (pietism often offers special protection from Satan) who was tempting people with success now that martyrdom was no longer available. Gonzalez writes, “Many found an answer in the monastic life: to flee from human society, to leave everything behind, to dominate the body and its passions, which gave way to temptation. Thus, at the very time when churches in large cities were flooded by thousands demanding baptism, there was a veritable exodus of other thousands who sought beatitude in solitude.”[6] This version produced the Desert Fathers as they have come to be known.

Some documents from the early church fathers describe the lives of “anchorite” monks who fled society to live in the desert. One was Anthony who gave away all his riches before entering his new life: “He then [after leaving his teacher] went to live in an abandoned cemetery, where he subsisted on bread, which some kind souls brought him every few days. According to Athanasius, at this time Anthony began having visions of demons that accosted him almost continuously.”[7] Ironically, fleeing the city to escape Satan’s temptations did nothing to actually deliver him from Satan.

The monastic movement led to the idea that one could become a higher order Christian and be more pleasing to God. The movement also introduced mystical practices that today are being brought back into the church under the guise that they came from a time when Christianity was pristine and not tainted by modernity.[8] What is really happening is a repeat of history. When Christians perceived that the success of churches in times of prosperity caused certain ills, they fled to solitude where they became mystics. This process is happening today again. But these pietistic movements did not lead to a more pristine Christianity in the past, nor do they do so today. They lead to elitism as Gonzalez points out: “On the other hand, this sort of life was not free of temptations. As years went by, many monks came to the conclusion that, since their life was holier that that of most bishops and other leaders of the church, it was they, and not those leaders, who should decide what was proper Christian teaching.”[9] Some today have determined that ordinary Christians[10] are so tainted by modernity that these elite ones refuse to be called “Christian” but rather prefer the term “Christ followers” because the elite deem themselves to be following Christ in a pristine way that is not true of the rest of us.

The monastic movement became more organized and still exists today. The Roman Catholic Church acclaimed their deeds done beyond what is required of ordinary Christians and developed a teaching called “works of supererogation,” a teaching rejected by the Reformers.

An example of the ‘works done beyond’ are the monastic vows taken by certain monastic orders: They are considered works of supererogation in Rome. Those who take the vows are deemed more pious than ordinary Christians.

Luther wrote a lengthy essay demonstrating that scripture rejects the validity of monastic vows.[11] His essay is also an interesting look into the issues that were debated at the time of the Reformation. One key issue for Luther was that the monastics went beyond the gospel and made commandments out of matters that God has not commanded and in so doing sought to achieve a superior standing before God. One such example was celibacy. Luther argued that vowing something that God had not commanded is sinful: “The very foundation of the monastic vows is godlessness, blasphemy, sacrilege, which has befallen them because they spurn Christ, their leader and light, and presume to follow other things they think better.”[12] They thought they could improve on the teachings of Christ and live a superior spirituality by swearing oaths to live pious lives beyond anything Christ required of His people. Luther condemned this as sinful. Luther wrote, “If you obey the gospel, you ought to regard celibacy as a matter of free choice: if you do not hold it as a matter of free choice, you are not obeying the gospel. . . . A vow of chastity, therefore, is diametrically opposed to the gospel.”[13] So in Luther’s day, he taught that Christians were in error and sin if they bound themselves by oath to a practice not required by Christ. Though they may think themselves more pious than ordinary Christians because of their special vows, Luther called them gross sinners…

Some of our Evangelical denominations have been pietist from their very inception. Charles Finney’s teaching in the mid 19^th century caused the problem. Finney’s teachings, as I have argued before, were heretical. He too taught Christian perfection. Wesley at least held to prevenient grace so as to avoid Pelagianism.[14] Finney was fully Pelagian in his approach to both salvation and sanctification.

[15] And his innovations permanently changed much of American Evangelicalism. After Finney other perfectionist movements arose. The Holiness movement, for example, came not long after Finney. Both the Holiness movement and the subsequent Pentecostal movement held to second blessing doctrines that by nature are pietist because they create an elite category of Christians who have had a special experience that ordinary Christians lack. The Keswick Holiness (also known as the “Higher life” movement) movement is an example of pietism and elitism as well. The Holiness movement in general is a pietistic movement that claims a special experience that creates higher order, (often supposedly perfected) Christians. They are in error. Ironically, the deeper life or higher order Christians do have something distinct about them—they have embraced error.

Today the largest new pietist movement is the Emergent Church. As I pointed out earlier, pietism often arises in response to the perception (sometimes warranted) that the church has become too worldly and it seems true once again today. Some now assume that since ordinary Christianity is compromised, they must discover an extraordinary way to become better Christians. One Emergent leader has even entitled one of his works, “A New Kind of Christian.”[16] But this movement really isn’t all that new. It draws on teachings and practices found in other pietist movements in church history. In fact, a recent Emergent book includes essays by those experimenting with communal living, something I tried in my pietist days![17]

Furthermore, the Purpose Driven movement is also a pietistic movement. Rick Warren claims there are world class Christians that are in a better category than ordinary Christians. He had his followers take a long oath at a baseball field to pledge themselves to serving his new reformation. I already mentioned the apostles and prophets movement that is pietistic. So ironically, three huge movements in American evangelicalism (Purpose Driven, Emergent, and C. Peter Wagner’s latter day apostles) are all based on pietism. The three movements seem radically diverse, but each one claims to be a new reformation and each offers a higher status than that of ordinary Christians. (source)

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End notes:

1.  Nee had an unusual anatomical sanctification scheme that requires distinguishing between body, soul and spirit with the spirit being the pristine source of sanctification and the body needing to be subdued as the soul learns to follow the regenerated human spirit.
2.  One thing Hagin and Nee had in common that probably attracted me to both of them was the idea of the primacy of the human spirit and the idea of gaining special knowledge by following ones spirit.
3.  Though the college had a pietistic 2nd blessing doctrine, my teachers were sound and pointed me in the right direction. I could have been saved from years of error had I listened more closely to some of them.
4.  See CIC Issue 69; March/April 2002 The Colossian Heresy Part 1 for a detailed, theological explanation of Colossians chapter 2. HTTP://CICMINISTRY.ORG/COMMENTARY/ISSUE69.HTM
5.  Justo L. Gonzalez The Story of Christianity Vol. 1 (New York: HarperCollins, 1984) 136, 137.
6.  Ibid. 137.
7.  Ibid. 140, 141.
8.  The Emergent Church movement is well known for doing this.
9.  Gonzalez vol. 1, 143.
10.  When I speak of “ordinary Christians” I mean those who are truly converted but claim no special or elite status. Nominal “Christians” who are actually unregenerate are not Christian at all in the Biblical sense.
11.  Martin Luther, The Judgment of Martin Luther on Monastic Vows from 55-Volume American Edition Luther’s Works on CD-ROM (Fortress Press, Concordia Publishing: Minneapolis, 2001) Vol. 44, page 243.
12.  Ibid. 260.
13.  Ibid. 262.
14. Pelagius was an early heretic, condemned by church councils, who taught that all humans have the ability to obey God without a prior work of grace.
15.  See CIC Issue 56 Charles Finney’s Influence on American Evangelicalism – HTTP://CICMINISTRY.ORG/COMMENTARY/ISSUE53.HTM
16.  Written by Brian McLaren
17. An Emergent Manifesto of Hope Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones editors (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007)

See also:

“DEAD ORTHODOXY” AND PIETISTIC MISUSE OF 1 CORINTHIANS

RICHARD FOSTER—CELEBRATION OF DECEPTION

MATT CHANDLER AND VILLAGE CHURCH PROMOTING CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY

By Apprising Ministries special correspondent Bob DeWaay

Church history tells us that the charge pietistic reformers level against the church is that the church practices “dead orthodoxy.” Some years ago I hosted a pastor’s meeting at which pastors could discuss theological ideas. Position papers were presented and then critiqued by the group. Some of the pastors came from the Charismatic movement (also pietistic). A common theme from the Charismatic pastors was their distain for doctrine. Because theirs was a reform movement, they were fighting “dead orthodoxy.”

I spoke after one of our meetings with a pastor who told me that when he was a Lutheran, reciting creeds and doctrines caused him to be spiritually dead. I responded, “So believing that Jesus Christ is God Incarnate, who lived a sinless life, who died for sins and was raised on the third day and bodily ascended into heaven killed you spiritually?” He said, “I didn’t really believe those things.” He had assumed that the cause of his unbelief was not sin, but a church that recited creeds. I believe that it is much better to preach those doctrines from the pulpit and call for people to repent and turn to Christ than to make recitation part of a liturgy. But nevertheless the creeds were not the problem, unbelief was.

Christian orthodoxy simply means holding to the true beliefs revealed in Scripture. These beliefs are often systematized as topical teachings such as the doctrine of Christ, the doctrine of the Trinity, the doctrine of justification, and so on. Genuine faith in the truth of the gospel is saving faith. No one having saving faith is “dead.” In Ephesians 2:1-8 Paul teaches that we were dead, but that God made us alive, and that He did so by grace through faith. It is also true that where genuine saving faith exists, it produces evidence in the lives of those who have it as Paul asserts in Ephesians 2:10. So when James says that faith without works is dead, he refers to something other than the type of faith that Paul says is a work of grace. It is the type of faith demons have (see James 2:17-19). In the gospel of John, John uses the term “believe” in two ways.[1] There are those, for example, who “believed” in John 8:30 but when confronted with their need to be set free began to debate Jesus and later accused him of sin (see John 8:31-47). Jesus told them they were definitely not from God. But in many other places in John those who believe are true believers who have eternal life.

My conclusion is that “dead orthodoxy” is orthodoxy that people might fight for because of parochial reasons (“this is our tradition and no one is going to change it”) but in which they put only mental assent faith. I gave mental assent to creeds when I was 12 years old because it was my duty to join the church at that age; but I was a dead sinner. But it most assuredly was not the truth contained in the creeds that killed me; it was my unbelief. Those “believers” in John 8 proved themselves to be unbelievers by refusing to become Jesus’ disciples, learn the truth, and be set free.

Pietism misdiagnoses the problem and creates a false solution. It sees a compromised church that is apparently caught in dead orthodoxy. The real problem is not dead orthodoxy but spiritually dead sinners who give mental assent to orthodox truth but show no signs of regeneration. If indeed such a church existed (if truth really is there God has His remnant there as well), that church would be characterized by worldliness and sin. This is the case because dead sinners do not bear spiritual fruit. There was a church in Revelation that Jesus called “dead.” Pietism that holds to the true gospel but goes beyond it imagining that the dead sinners who are church members are Christians. When some of them become regenerate through the efforts of the pietists, they assume they have now entered a higher class of Christianity. They posit two types of Christian: “carnal” Christians and “spiritual” Christians. But in reality there are only Christians and dead sinners.

Furthermore, pietism sees the lack of good fruit in the “dead orthodox” churches to be a sign that teaching doctrine is of no value and that what really matters is practice and not doctrine. So they gravitate to works righteousness. This is precisely the mode of the Emergen Church. It has been the approach of pietists throughout history. But works that do not result from a prior work of grace (which is the result of God’s work through the gospel to convert dead sinners) are in fact “dead works” no matter how pious they look. Mother Theresa did good works but denied the exclusive claims of the gospel. That “piety” is of no eternal value if those who were the recipients of the good works never hear or believe the gospel and thus end up in hell.

God’s revealed truth is never dead, but sometimes it falls on dead ears. In John 6 multitudes who were interested in following Jesus for bread left Him when He spoke the truth to them. The few who did not have dead ears were asked if they would leave too. Peter answered for the group: “Simon Peter answered Him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have words of eternal life. And we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God’” (John 6:68, 69). Genuine faith like that is not the domain of higher order pietists who learned the secrets of the deeper life, it is characteristic of every one of Christ’s true flock who ever exists. Pietists think that adding some man made process to what Christ has provided for all Christians throughout the centuries can cure a problem that never existed: being “dead” because of believing the truth. Instead of a cure, they create an illness as they lead people away from the finished work of Christ.

Pietistic Misuse of 1Corinthians

The favorite proof text for pietists of all sorts has been this passage: “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ” (1Corinthians 3:1 KJV). I cite the KJV because that is where the term “carnal” as in “carnal Christian” came from. In my early pietist days, as I said, I was influenced by Watchman Nee. He made a strong point about a passage just before this verse: “But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no man” (1Corinthians 2:14, 15). The word “natural” from the Greek is literally “soulish.” Nee used that as proof for his anatomical sanctification scheme. In that scheme, the spiritual man is one whose soul is inclined to the spirit (i.e. their spirit as joined to the Spirit) rather than to the external world through the body. My other early teacher, Kenneth Hagin, had a similar teaching but it was based on the idea of following one’s spirit rather than what he called “sense perception” (lying symptoms that you were sick when God said you were healed for example). The result of these teachings is a two tiered schema for the church: the carnal Christian and the spiritual Christian. In pietism there is always a process that leads to an experience that brings one into the more favorable category.

But was Paul teaching that some Christians are actually not spiritual but carnal or “soulish”? I used to think so until I read Gordon Fee’s excellent commentary on 1Corinthians. The “carnal Christian” teaching fails to take into consideration the larger context of Paul’s letter. The “natural man” who does receive the things of God on the ground that he thinks them “foolish” is not a carnal Christian, but a person who has rejected the gospel. This can be seen by Paul’s prior use of “foolish” in chapter 1: “but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block, and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men” (1 Corinthians 1:23-25). The lost who are not “the called” are the ones who consider the message of the cross “foolish.”

Furthermore, 1Corinthians 2:14 teaches complete inability, not merely a lack that is only due to not having the right teaching. In the pietist scheme of things, the carnal Christians could remedy their problem if they would only adopt the teachings and practices promoted by the pietists. But the Greek of 1Corinthians 2:14 literally says that the natural man is “ou dunatai gno_nai” not able (i.e. without power) to know. He cannot know because he is unregenerate, he does not have the Holy Spirit. Believers have the Holy Spirit, unbelievers do not. The natural man is an unbeliever, not a carnal Christian. Paul makes this clear in Romans:

For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so; and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. (Romans 8:5-9)

In Romans it is made explicitly clear that those who are “fleshly” and “without power” (the same word as used in 1Corinthians 2:14 – dunamis) to serve God, obey God, or please God are not Christian. They are not carnal Christians, they are lost in sin.[2]

Gordon Fee points out that this section in 1Corinthians has been subjected to misuse for a very long time:

This paragraph has endured a most unfortunate history of application in the church. Paul’s own point has been almost totally lost in favor of an interpretation nearly 180 degrees the opposite of his intent. Almost every form of spiritual elitism, “deeper life” movement, and “second blessing” doctrine has appealed to this text. To receive the Spirit according to their special expression paves the way for people to know “deeper truths” about God. One special brand of this elitism surfaces among some who have pushed the possibilities of “faith” to the extreme, and regularly make a “special revelation” from the Spirit their final court of appeal. Other “lesser” brothers and sisters are simply living below their full privileges in Christ. Indeed, some advocates of this form of spirituality bid fair to repeat the Corinthian error in its totality.[3]

The great irony is that those who find a hyper-spirituality doctrine in 1Corinthians are falling into the very error Paul wrote to correct, as Fee so eloquently pointed out. If you have been subjected to pietistic teachings of one form or another, I urge you to buy Gordon Fee’s commentary that I cite here and read it. It was very instrumental in helping me find my way back to the truth.

But you may be thinking, “Paul did call the Corinthians ‘carnal’ did he not? So how can you say there are no ‘carnal Christians’?” That is a very good question. The answer is found in Paul’s use of irony. Some of the most misinterpreted passages in the Bible are misunderstood when an ironic statement is taken to be literal. Another example is the passage in Revelation 3 where Christ is standing at the door knocking. This is an example of irony—Christ on the outside of His own church seeking to come in for table fellowship when the table fellowship of the church is supposed to be all about Christ! But not seeing the irony, people take this as an evangelistic passage and teach that the sinner has to open the door or Jesus will be stuck outside.

Similarly, when Paul says to the Corinthians that they are “carnal” (1Corinthians 3:1) he is issuing an ironic rebuke! They were the ones listening to the “super apostles” who suggested Paul was not spiritual like they were. The Corinthians prided themselves in their supposedly superior spirituality. Paul said that true spirituality was always centered on the cross, not the wisdom of men. The Spirit’s work in our lives is because of the cross. But the Corinthians were thinking and acting like unbelievers, i.e. the “carnal.” Again, Fee helps us:

First, picking up the theme of being “spiritual” from what has just preceded, Paul makes a frontal attack and pronounces the Corinthians as not spiritual at all. Indeed, they are just the opposite: they are “fleshly”—still thinking like mere human beings, those who do not have the Spirit. With this charge Paul exposed himself to centuries of misunderstanding. But his concern is singular: not to suggest classes of Christians or grades if spirituality, but to get them to stop thinking like the people of this present age.[4]

So Paul’s use of irony to rebuke the Corinthians is interpreted as literal in order to set up an elitist version of Christianity which is the very thing the Corinthians did that Paul was rebuking. (source)

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End notes:

1. Ryan Habbena’s article Formulating a Theology of pistueo_ (believe) in John’s Narative:HTTP://CICMINISTRY.ORG/SCHOLARLY/SCH007.HTM published at cicministry.org under“ARTICLES/SCHOLARLY.”
2.  See Gordon Fee, “The First Epistle to the Corinthians” in The NewInternational Commentary on the New Testament; (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 1987) 115 – 120 for an excellent scholarly discussion of what Paul means by the “natural man.” It is noteworthy that Fee is a Pentecostal and as such belongs to a denomination that tends to pietism; but Fee warns against such interpretations of 1Corinthians.
3.  Ibid. 120.
4.  Ibid. 122.

See also:

RICHARD FOSTER—CELEBRATION OF DECEPTION

MATT CHANDLER AND VILLAGE CHURCH PROMOTING CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY

HENRY BLACKABY’S MYSTICISM-LITE NEGATES SOLA SCRIPTURA

They did not destroy the peoples, as the LORD commanded them, but they mixed with the nations and learned to do as they did. They served their idols, which became a snare to them. (Psalm 106:34-36)

CSM Was A Core Doctrine Of The Emerging Church

We can point to Apprising Ministries articles Beth Moore The Mystic and Alabama Baptist Convention (SBC) Encourages You To Learn Lectio Divina From Apostate Tony Jones as I remind you once again about the growing acceptance of Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM) festering within e.g. the apostatizing Southern Baptist Convention.

Of course the Slowly Becoming Catholic, an allegedly evangelical Protestant denomination, is hardly alone in their re-embrace of this neo-Gnostic mysticism that originally flowered within the anti-biblical monastic traditions of spiritually bankrupt Roman Catholicism. For example consider new Acts 29 Network president Matt Chandler And Village Church Promoting Contemplative Spirituality.

Sadly, we watch this false version of Christian spirituality spreading apostasy throughout the professing Christian Church world-wide; so it seems good to give you a working knowledge concerning just where Contemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP) actually came from. CCP, which is the crown jewel of CSM, is meditation in an altered state of consciousness; transcendental meditation lightly sprayed with Christian terminology.

We begin with the incontrovertible fact that emphasis on some so-called “Christian” mystic tradition was a core doctrine of the warped and toxic theology of the Emerging Church from its very inception circa 1997. As such the Emergent Church has proven to be a very fertile ground into which mystics like  Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster along with his spiritual twin Dallas Willard  would plant their neo-pietism masquerading as Spiritual Formation.

Emerging Church Authorities Speak On So-Called “Christian” Mysticism

You also need to realize that this spurious CSM, with its spurious spiritual practices aka “disciplines,” is actually absolutely hostile to the historic Christian faith and still very much an integral part of the theology of the neo-liberal cult operating openly now within the Emerging Church. In laying out this case as would a prosecutor in a court of law I’ll call upon a couple of these leading EC authorities as expert witnesses concerning the origin of CCP, being its one of their core practices.

In an article from Christianity Today called “The Emergent Mystique,” Living Spiritual Teacher and EC guru Brian McLaren, who’s a most prominent theologian within “Emergent, the emerging church network that he and several other church planters and pastors lead,” names Dallas Willard and Richard Foster with their CSM “as key mentors for the emerging church.”[1] As a matter of fact the source link I’m using for this article actually comes from McLaren’s original website where he also provides a running commentary throughout.

Here following is exactly what McLaren says concerning Willard and Foster in the section of The Emergent Mystique, which I just quoted above:

“He cites Dallas Willard and Richard Foster, with their emphasis on spiritual disciplines, as key mentors for the emerging church. None of these thinkers has any inclination to throw out the baby of truth with the bathwater of modernity.”

I’m grateful to Andy for including the preceding, because many people doubt this.
(Online source)

Elsewhere on this McLaren website a reader asks the EC leader to tell him more about the subject of Spiritual Formation, which is simply another way to refer to the CSM of Foster-Willardism:

The reason I am writing you is because I am trying to better understand what spiritual formation is…I think it is important to seek the wisdom of today’s leaders. I have heard a lot on this subject from people such as Richard Foster and Dallas Willard, but I was wondering what Spiritual Formation is to you. How would you define Spiritual Formation and what kind of importance would you place on it with the current generation? I appreciate your time.

A: I hope to do some writing on this subject in a year or two. In the meantime, I have deep appreciation for what my friend Dallas Willard is saying. He, and those he points to, are great guides. (Online source)

And as evidenced by this answer to a reader’s question, Brian McLaren would also appear to have a deep appreciation for what Richard Foster is doing for the “Christian mystical tradition” as well. Please also note below, that in addition to Foster and Willard’s work, McLaren also recommends Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life (SW) by the aforementioned Tony Jones as a good resource on the subject of CSM as well:

In some of my readings, both of books authored by you and others, I have read about Christian mystics. Who are the predominant Christian mystic authors?

Answer: If you pick up Richard Foster’s “Celebration of Discipline” and his other work via Renovare, you’ll get a great exposure to the Christian mystical tradition. [Foster's] “The Spiritual Formation Workbook” is a great resource too. Tony Jones’ “The Sacred Way” is also a sturdy introduction to contemplative practices. (Online source )

Emergent Church Authorities Know Christ Didn’t Teach Contemplative/Centering Prayer

So, not only is Richard Foster a recognized expert on contemplative practices and the “Christian” mystic tradition, but now we have also established that he’s as a “key” mentor and a source of authority within the Emergent Church. In addition, we have also seen from a leading theologian in the Emerging Church that Tony Jones, heretical “theologian in residence” at the church of his universalist “pastor” Doug Pagitt, is to considered a “sturdy” authority on this so-called “Christian” mysticism within the Emergent Church as well.

Foster writes about “The Discipline of Meditation” in his book Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth, which is his classic dissertation on these so-called “spiritual disciplines” and key textbook of The Cult of Guru Richard Foster. But unfortunately Foster is guilty of using circular reasoning below when he laments:

Often there is a question as to whether meditation can be spoken of as Christian. Is it not the exclusive property of Eastern religions? Whenever I speak to a group on meditation as a classic Christian Discipline, there is the inevitable raising of eyebrows,… It is a sad commentary on the spiritual state of modern Christianity that meditation is a word so foreign to its ears. Meditation has always stood as a classical and central part of Christian devotion, a crucial preparation for and adjunct to the work of prayer.[2]

Don’t you find it odd that, as Foster goes around speaking to “a group” they are surprised how something that has allegedly “always stood as a classical and central part of Christian devotion” like meditation [read: CCP], always seems “so foreign” to these people to whom he is speaking in “modern Christianity.” And how do we know that, “Meditation has always stood as a classical and central part of Christian devotion”? Answer: We don’t. This is because CCP hasn’t ever even been a part of the historic orthodox Christian faith to begin with.

In his own mind Foster believes CCP/meditation is “crucial” to prayer; and so, therefore it is. But without any proof from history whatsoever he is simply begging the question when he states that, “Meditation has always stood as a classical and central part of Christian devotion.” Foster does go on to say, “Meditation was certainly not foreign to the authors of Scripture” and he then cites Genesis 24:63; Psalm 1:2; 63:6; and 119:148, which do use the word meditation in most translations of the Bible.

Unfortunately, it’s beyond the scope of this piece to go into this further at this point. However, suffice to say that Foster is clearly forcing his own definition of this mind-emptying Eastern-style meditation of CCP into these verses; because this type of meditation is absolutely unknown to orthodox Judaism. So just where did this Contemplative/Centering Prayer aka “Christian” meditation actually come from? Let’s now bring in Tony Jones our Emergent expert and Emerging Church authority on “contemplative practices.”

In SW Jones does give us an accurate historical background concerning this spiritual discipline of meditation practiced by apostate (at best) Roman Catholic mystics and Quakers like Richard Foster. In his chapter entitled “Centering Prayer” Jones tells us:

“Like the Jesus Prayer, Centering Prayer grew out of the reflections and writings of the Desert Fathers. John Cassian (c.360-c.430) came from the West and made a pilgrimage to the desert to learn the ways of contemplative prayer … Cassian was deeply influenced by his time in the desert, and he wrote his book The Conferences about his conversations with the Desert Fathers to acquaint Western Christians with their teachings.[3]

We can see in the above that “the Jesus Prayer,” as well as “Centering Prayer,” actually arose through “the reflections and writings of the Desert Fathers.” And further we find out that this type of mystic meditation of CCP was unknown prior to these apostate Desert Fathers circa the 3rd century. One might also observe here that Jones makes no mention whatsoever of this meditation of CCP being an Apostolic doctrine; nor is there reference to Christ or His Apostles ever employing these practices themselves.

This is for good reason; the simple fact is this CCP wasn’t taught by Christ, it was never Apostolic doctrine in the New Testament, and there is no evidence extant that the Master or His Apostles ever practiced this so-called Christian meditation. Please also note above that Jones equates “Centering Prayer” with “Contemplative Prayer”; it is really the same type of oxymoronic “wordless prayer.” You’ll often hear these mystics refer to the mediation of CCP as entering “the silence.” Hence all the talk of “silence and solitude.”

Let me also bring to your attention that history shows John Cassian would go on in his own contemplative version of mysticism to develop the man-centered form of semi-pelagian theology at the root of this whole emerging rebellion against sola Scriptura which is currently crippling contemporary evangelicalism. In closing this, for now, sadly this warped and toxic teaching would then be brought into the mainstream of the visible church through Zondervan, a publisher of CSM—as well as a financial supporter of Emergent Village (EV), at their 2006 National Pastors Conference (NPC).

You also need to know that this NPC 2006 was also sponsored by InterVarsity Press[4], another company publishing CSM and yet another financial supporter of EV. And it would be through NPC 2006 providing teachers of a counterfeit Christianity like Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt a legitimate forum that these leading purveyors of the Big Tent Circus Of Postmodern Liberalism in the Emergent Church would then go on to present this spurious type of Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism to your pastors and youth ministers. Tragically, it’s now corrupted virtually the entire younger sector of Christendom.

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End notes:

[1] http://www.brianmclaren.net/archives/000271.html, accessed 5/3/12.

[2] Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth [New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 1978], 14.

[3] Tony Jones, The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life [Grand Rapids: Youth Specialties and Zondervan, 2005], 70, emphasis mine.

[4] http://bit.ly/J4soJL, accessed 5/3/12.

See also:

KEEPING YOU APPRISED OF: CONTEMPLATIVE/CENTERING PRAYER

PSALM 46:10 DOES NOT TEACH CONTEMPLATIVE/CENTERING PRAYER

RICHARD FOSTER—CELEBRATION OF DECEPTION

By Apprising Ministries special correspondent Bob DeWaay

In February 2008, Christianity Today ran a glowing cover story about Evangelicalism’s recent embrace of medieval Roman Catholic mysticism entitled The Future lies in the Past.¹

The article traced the beginning of the movement as follows: “The movement seems to have exploded in a 24-month period in 1977-1978, which saw the publication of Richard Foster’s bestselling Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth and Robert Webber’s Common Roots: A Call to Evangelical Maturity.”²

The article views Foster as one who continues to guide the movement: “From Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, and living practicing monks and nuns, they [those going back to Roman Catholic mysticism] must learn both the strengths and the limits of the historical ascetic disciplines.”³ So Foster was instrumental in starting a movement that is still growing 30-plus years later.

The irony about this particular CIC regarding Foster’s 1978 book is that in 1978 I myself was living in a Christian community committed to practicing much of what he promotes in Celebration of Discipline (even though we had not learned it from him directly). So I am not criticizing a practice about which I know nothing (or one in which I have no experience). I am criticizing a practice I foolishly allowed to deceive me for a significant portion of my early Christian life. When it comes to being deceived by mysticism, I have had abundant involvement. The only way I escaped it was through discovering and adopting the Reformation principle of sola scriptura.

In this article I will show that Foster’s “journey inward” is unbiblical and dangerous. I will show that most of the spiritual disciplines that he calls “means of grace” are no means of grace at all—but a means of putting oneself under spiritual deception.

The Journey Inward

The Bible nowhere describes an inward journey to explore the realm of the spirit. God chose to reveal the truth about spiritual reality through His ordained, Spirit-inspired, biblical writers. What is spiritual and not revealed by God is of the occult and, therefore, forbidden. We have discussed this in many articles and have produced DVD seminars on the topic. But the concept of sola scriptura is totally lost on mystics such as Richard Foster. They, like the enthusiasts that Calvin and Luther warned against, believe they can gain valid and useful knowledge of spiritual things through direct, personal inspiration.

Foster describes the idea of the disciplines that are the topic of his book: “The classical Disciplines of the spiritual life call us to move beyond surface living into the depths. They invite us to explore the inner caverns of the spiritual realm.”⁴ So Foster has conceptually repudiated sola scriptura on page one to replace it with a journey inward to explore the realm of spirits. Something must have been seriously amiss in evangelicalism already in 1978 to render this book a bestseller! It ought to have been repudiated on the spot. In a footnote to that statement Foster writes, “In one form or another all of the devotional masters have affirmed the necessity of the Disciplines” (Foster: 1). The devotional “masters,” by the way, are mostly Roman Catholics who never were committed to the principle of sola scriptura. It is not surprising that they looked for spirituality through experimentation. But as an “inner light” Quaker, Foster never was committed to sola scriptura either.

Forgetting that the Bible forbids divination, Foster explains what he is after:

[W]e must be willing to go down into the recreating silences, into the inner world of contemplation. In their writings, all of the masters of meditation strive to awaken us to the fact that the universe is much larger than we know, that there are vast unexplored inner regions that are just as real as the physical world we know so well. . . . They call us to the adventure, to be pioneers in this frontier of the Spirit. (Foster: 13)

Realizing that his readers would likely take this as an endorsement of Eastern religions, he makes a disclaimer that it is not Transcendental Meditation (TM) or something of that ilk: “Eastern meditation is an attempt to empty the mind; Christian meditation is an attempt to empty the mind in order to fill it” (Foster: 15). But what Foster wishes us to fill our minds with are personal revelations from the spirit realm that we naively are to think are the voice of God. This sort of meditation is not meditating on what God has said, but uses a technique to explore the spirit world. In other words, it is divination.

What we learn about the spirit realm either is revealed by God (once for all in Scripture) or gleaned by man-made techniques. That distinction is the difference between Christianity and paganism. Only Bible believers know what God has said about Himself and what He wishes to reveal about the unseen spirit world. Foster’s material continues to be popular because we live in an age where being spiritual pioneers on a journey into the unseen realm of the spirits is the essence of popular piety. It is the spirituality of secular talk shows.

To fully understand the degree of Foster’s deception, he even calls these techniques to the inner journey “means of grace”: “They [the Disciplines] are God’s means of grace” (Foster: 6). As with all who teach spiritual disciplines, there are no boundaries to these false “means.” For example, consider this recommended practice: “After you have gained some proficiency in centering down, add a five- to ten-minute meditation on some aspect of the creation. Choose something in the created order: tree, plant, bird, leaf, cloud, and each day ponder it carefully and prayerfully” (Foster 25). This after he had just taught breathing exercises (a means of “centering down”). Then he makes a startling claim: “We should not bypass this means of God’s grace” (Foster: 25). And there we have it: meditating of a leaf can be a means of grace!

Foster’s journey inward is to discover a spirit world that is available for any who search for it: “How then do we come to believe in a world of the spirit? Is it by blind faith? Not at all. The inner reality of the spiritual world is available to all who are willing to search for it” (Foster: 18). He claims that this spiritual search is analogous to scientific experimentation. Never mind that every pagan culture that has existed has believed in the “spiritual world.”

Spirituality of the Imagination

The Bible does not have anything good so say about the imagination. For example: “Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘Do not listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you. They are leading you into futility; They speak a vision of their own imagination, Not from the mouth of the Lord’” (Jeremiah 23:16). A search of the KJV for “imagination” yields 14 verses, and in each case it is a bad thing. According to the Bible, the imagination is where people go when they do not want to listen to God.

However, for Foster the imagination is central: “The inner world of meditation is most easily entered through the door of the imagination. We fail today to appreciate its tremendous power. The imagination is stronger than conceptual thought and stronger than the will” (Foster: 22). Some of the authorities he cites on this point are C. G. Jung, Ignatius of Loyola, and Morton Kelsey. Jung is famous for his concept of the collective unconscious, and Kelsey was an Episcopal priest committed to Jungian principles. Kelsey wrote many books promoting mysticism. The advice Foster gleans from these teachers is that we must learn to think in images and take our dreams to be a possible doorway into the spirit world. Foster claims that dreams are something we already have and can help us develop the use of the imagination. He says, “Keeping a journal of our dreams is a way of taking them seriously” (Foster: 23).

There is, Foster warns, a danger to this process: “At the same time [that we ask for dreams to be God speaking to us], it is wise to pray a prayer of protection, since to open ourselves to spiritual influence can be dangerous as well as profitable” (Foster: 23). I would say that is asking God to protect us as we use various techniques to go where He does not want us to go (into the world of the spirits to gain information). The danger he warns of is far greater than Foster imagines. Those who take the journey inward will be deceived—every time! We are not equipped to gain spiritual information from that realm. That is why God speaks to us through His ordained mediators (the inspired Biblical writers); otherwise we would be fishing in the dark in a medium we are not suited for.

Foster teaches his readers to use their imaginations to experience Biblical stories with the five physical senses. Here is what he claims will happen:

As you enter the story, not as a passive observer but as an active participant, remember that since Jesus lives in the Eternal Now and is not bound by time, this event in the past is a living present-tense experience for Him. Hence, you can actually encounter the living Christ in the event, be addressed by His voice and be touched by His healing power. It can be more than an exercise of the imagination; it can be a genuine confrontation. Jesus Christ will actually come to you. (Foster: 26)

Showing that Foster’s ideas are still influential in our day, Greg Boyd cites some of Foster’s words here to support what he calls “cataphatic prayer” which uses the imagination and images as a means to contact God and gain spiritual information.⁵ Those who endorse this practice assume they are not being deceived by spirits, but I cannot see on what grounds.

Foster prescribes a practice using one’s imagination that mimics astral projection to the degree that he actually includes a footnote disclaimer stating that it is not astral projection (Foster 28). It begins by telling his readers to imagine themselves going out into nature into a beautiful place (Boyd describes how he practices this, as well as its results⁶). After enjoying the sights and smells (in your imagination) these are the next steps:

In your imagination allow your spiritual body, shining with light, to rise out of your physical body. Look back so that you can see yourself lying in the grass and reassure your body that you will return momentarily. Imagine your spiritual self, alive and vibrant, rising up through the clouds and into the stratosphere. . . Go deeper and deeper into outer space until there is nothing except the warm presence of the eternal Creator. Rest in His presence. Listen quietly, anticipating the unanticipated. Note carefully any instruction given. With time and experience you will be able to distinguish readily between mere human thought that may bubble up to the conscious mind and the True Spirit which inwardly moves upon the heart. (Foster: 27, 28)

I must ask how one knows whether “True Spirit” is not a deceiving one? Mysticism’s fatal flaw is that it naively assumes that Christians having subjective religious experiences must therefore be having Christianexperiences that are truly from God—even if the experiences were provoked through unbiblical practices similar to those used by pagans.

Mental Alchemy

Foster’s approach to prayer is laced with mysticism as well. He claims that prayer needs to be learned from people who have the right experiences and are “masters” who know what they are doing. Foster does not teach ordinary prayer, whereby we bring our needs and requests to the Lord and know that He hears us (because He promised that He does). Here is why he thinks such prayer fails:

Often people will pray and pray with all the faith in the world, but nothing happens. Naturally, they were not contacting the channel. We begin praying for others by first centering down and listening to the quiet thunder of the Lord of hosts. Attuning ourselves to divine breathings is spiritual work, but without it our praying is vain repetition (Mt. 6:7). Listening to the Lord is the first thing, the second thing, and the third thing necessary for successful intercession. (Foster: 34)

Of course this means we have to become mystics if we want to pray.

He teaches that we first must hear personal revelations from God, using meditation techniques such as he teaches, before we pray. He says: “The beginning point, then, in learning to pray for others is to listen for guidance . . . This inner “yes” is the divine authorization for you to pray for the person or situation” (Foster: 35). No! Foster is wrong! The only authorization we need to pray is the Biblical command to pray—not personal revelations.

For Foster, meditation (mystical style) is necessary but not sufficient. He also brings the imagination into the process: “As with meditation, the imagination is a powerful tool in the work of prayer” (Foster: 36). He credits Agnes Sanford⁷ for helping him see the value of using the imagination in praying. Foster writes, “Imagination opens the door to faith. If we can ‘see’ in our mind’s eye a shattered marriage whole or a sick person well, it is only a short step to believing it will be so” (Foster: 36). Sanford got her ideas from Theosophy, New Thought, Jung, and Emmet Fox. These ideas, echoed by Foster, come from the unbiblical “mind over matter” thinking of that era. That kind of thinking uses creative visualization to change reality or channel spiritual power. Foster suggests, “Imagine the light of Christ flowing through your hands and healing every emotional trauma and hurt feeling your child experienced that day” (Foster: 39).

In his 1985 book, The Seduction of Christianity, Dave Hunt labeled creative visualization such as what Foster promotes, “mental alchemy.”⁸ Hunt warned the church that Foster promoted such mental alchemy in Celebration of Discipline, and as we have shown, he, in fact, does. So how is it that 24 years after Hunt’s warning Foster is more popular than ever with Evangelicals? The answer is end times deception. Now, a huge movement that claims to be a reformation promoting Foster, Willard and their versions of mysticism does exist (i.e., The Emergent Church). Things have gotten so very much worse.

Spiritual Directors

Once mysticism and the supposed need to gain personal revelations from God are embraced, there arises a need for new “masters” who are better at navigating the spirit world. Pagan societies have always had such persons. They are called “shamans.” Eastern religion calls them “gurus.” Deceived Christians call them “spiritual directors.” Foster explains, “In the Middle Ages not even the greatest saints attempted the depths of the inward journey without the help of a spiritual director” (Foster: 159). The problem, according to Foster, is that the churches (in 1978) lacked “living masters”:

No doubt part of the surge of interest in Eastern meditation is because the churches have abrogated the field. How depressing for a university student, seeking to know the Christian teaching on meditation, to discover that there are so few living masters of contemplative prayer and that nearly all of the serious writings on the subject are seven or more centuries old. No wonder he or she turns to Zen, Yoga, or TM. (Foster: 14)

Foster’s dream has come true. Today people can even practice Yoga in a Christian church. We have Christian TM; it is called contemplative prayer. Yes, Eastern religion has come right into the church, and Foster has helped usher it in.

But what about “living masters” or spiritual directors? In 1972 Morton Kelsey lamented their lack: “Indeed I would suggest that everyone who is serious about relating to the spiritual realm find himself a spiritual director, if there were more men trained and experienced in this way.”⁹ That “problem” has been solved in a huge way. Evangelical theology schools are now offering masters degrees in “spiritual formation” in order to equip people to be “spiritual directors.” Here is what Biola University says about its program: “This degree is designed to equip men and women for the ministry of spiritual direction, discipleship, formation and soul care in the local church and for further academic training in spiritual formation.”¹⁰ Spiritual Directors International will help you find a spiritual director regardless of your religion.¹¹ Richard Foster’s own Renovare, which purports to “encourage renewal in the Christian church,” has a list of spiritual direction programs.¹²

Foster explains the purpose of the spiritual director: “He is the means of God to open the path to the inward teaching of the Holy Spirit” (Foster: 160). Apparently, in a full-blown rejection of sola scriptura where the Holy Spirit’s teaching is mediated to the church through the Biblical writers only, we need mediators for personal revelations beyond scripture.

Foster explains how spiritual directors lead: “He leads only by the force of his own personal holiness” (Foster: 160). In Roman Catholicism the Pope is called “his holiness” and in Tibetan Buddhism the Dalai Lama is called “his holiness” but now evangelicals are developing a class of people who evidently deserve the title. How exactly are we to judge when someone has gained “personal holiness” sufficient to be a spiritual director and mediate spirituality to others? Foster says, “Though the director has obviously advanced further into the inner depths, the two [master and disciple] are together learning and growing in the realm of the Spirit” (Foster: 160). Foster cites Roman Catholic mystic Thomas Merton about how this works: “The spiritual director was something of a ‘spiritual father who begot the perfect life in the soul of his disciple by his instructions first of all, but also by his prayer, his sanctity and his example. He was . . . a kind of ‘sacrament’ of the Lord’s presence in the ecclesiastical community” (Foster: 161).

End Times Delusion

When it comes to end times deception, Foster is on the cutting edge of embracing it. Consider what he wrote: “In our day heaven and earth are on tiptoe waiting for the emerging of a Spirit-led, Spirit-intoxicated, Spirit-empowered people. . . . Individuals can be found here and there whose hearts burn with divine fire” (Foster: 150). Such inclinations have led to massive deception. They smack of the Latter Rain deception, now embodied in such false teachers as Rick Joyner and Mike Bickle. They are elitist. They are in line with the beliefs of the Emergent Church as well. He also says: “Our century has yet to see the breaking forth of the apostolic church of the Spirit” (Foster: 150). Now we have the New Apostolic Reformation claiming to be just that. Foster’s ideas now embody the massive apostasy and end times deception that characterize our age.

Foster’s teachings have taken the church as far away from the Reformation principle of sola scriptura as the Roman Catholic Church ever was. The only thing left is for them to bring us all the way back to Rome.Christianity Today praises Foster for pointing us in that direction.

In early 2008 I wrote a CIC article about how abandoning the principle of sola scriptura would lead evangelicals back to Rome.¹³ It was partly a response to the CT article praising mysticism. The response I received was rather unexpected. I was contacted by former evangelicals who had rejected sola scriptura and had gone back to Rome! They wanted to debate me about sola scriptura. Sadly, my point was proven. As a response to their misguided challenge our church hosted a seminar on sola scriptura, called Faith at Risk 4. In the seminar Gary Gilley and I defended the scriptures as the sole authority for the church.¹⁴

The aforementioned CT article discusses a new monasticism, former evangelical leaders converting to Roman Catholicism, and mystical practices like lectio divina—and they call all of it a good and hopeful thing. Chris Armstrong, the author of the article, concluded, “That they [evangelicals] are receiving good guidance on this road from wise teachers [Foster and Willard] is reason to believe that Christ is guiding the process. And that they are meeting and learning from fellow Christians in the other two great confessions, Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox, is reason to rejoice in the power of love.”¹⁵

Who is left to defend the principles of the Reformation? One would think Reformed theologians are, but they aren’t doing their job. In the last CIC article we mentioned Reformed theologian Donald Whitney who wrote: “Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline has been the most popular book on the subject of the Spiritual Disciplines in the last half of the twentieth century. The great contribution of this work is the reminder that the Spiritual Disciplines, which many see as restrictive and binding, are actually means to spiritual freedom.”¹⁶That from a teacher in a Reformed seminary?

If a book that teaches Christian TM, Christian astral projection and mental alchemy by means of the imagination is a “great contribution,” then something is seriously wrong here. The delusion is so widespread that I see no other explanation for it than the end time deception predicted by Paul: “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons,” (1Timothy 4:1). Another passage warns: ”For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths” (2Timothy 4:3, 4).

That time now is here. We are accountable to God for what we believe and practice. Those who wish to persevere in the faith in this age of delusion must base their beliefs and practices only on the truths found in Scripture. Foster’s journey into the world of the spirits will deceive all who enter it.

Issue 112 – May / June 2009

End notes:

1. Chris Armstong, “The Future lies in the Past” in Christianity Today, February 2008.
2.  Ibid. 24.
3.  Ibid. 29.
4. Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth (New York: Harper & Row, 1978) 1. All subsequent citations from this book will be bracketed within the text in this fashion: (Foster: 1).
5. Greg Boyd, Seeing is Believing, (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2004). Boyd cites Foster to prove that the Lord will actually come to us through our use of “imaginative meditation.” I deal with this issue more fully in CIC issue 83 July/August, 2003: HTTP://CICMINISTRY.ORG/COMMENTARY/ISSUE83.HTM
6.  Ibid. 111-125.
7.  I write about Sanford’s inner healing theories in CIC Issue 96:HTTP://CICMINISTRY.ORG/COMMENTARY/ISSUE96.HTM
8. Dave Hunt and T. A. McMahon, The Seduction of Christianity (Eugene: Harvest House, 1985) 138.
9.  Morton Kelsey, Encounter With God, (Bethany Fellowship: Minneapolis, 1972) 179.
10.  HTTP://WWW.BIOLA.EDU/SPIRITUALFORMATION/PROGRAMS/
11.  HTTP://WWW.SDIWORLD.ORG
12.  HTTP://WWW.RENOVARE.US/WHATWEDO/TRAINING/SPIRITUALITYTRAINING/SPIRITUALDIRECTION/TABID/2384/DEFAULT.ASPX
13.  CIC Issue 105; March/April 2008: HTTP://CICMINISTRY.ORG/COMMENTARY/ISSUE105.HTM
14.  That seminar is available here: HTTP://WWW.CICSTORE.ORG/SERVLET/THE-60/FAITH-AT-RISK-4/DETAIL
15. Armstrong, Future
16. DONALD S. WHITNEY, SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES FOR THE CHRISTIAN LIFE (COLORADO SPRINGS: NAVPRESS, 1991) 23.

Republished with permission. The original appears right here.

See also:

“CELEBRATION OF DISCIPLINE” BY RICHARD FOSTER IS ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THEOLOGICAL ERROR

IS DALLAS WILLARD A CHRISTIAN?

MATT CHANDLER AND VILLAGE CHURCH PROMOTING CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY

It’s important here to keep in mind that Scazzero is a perfect illustration of the spiritual damage done by the cult of Foster-Willardism; CSM gurus SBC minister Dallas Willard and his spiritual twin Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster with their sinfully ecumenical Spiritual Formation.

No light matter when you consider what I showed you in Peter Scazzero Introducing Enneagrams Into Mainstream Evangelicaslism; not only has he all but left the Christian building, he’s making a train wreck of the theology of tons of evangelical pastors. Remember, guru Scazzero has long been partnered with the leadership of Bill Hybel’s warped Willow Creek Association (WCA).

WCA “is regarded as the most influential ministry to evangelical pastors in the U.S”[1] and Scazzero’s CSM materials are being used within WCA to teach Contemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP), which is meditation in an altered state of consciousness. Bill Hybels is so far off the rails now that Wednesday Heretical Shane Hipps To Speak At Willow Creek.

Scazzero’s also growing in evangelical influence because a couple of years ago SBC megachurch pastor Rick Warren also had him in to the first Radicalis conference to teach his CSM there as well. Believe it or not, guru Scazzero also comes highly in the New postmodern Calvinist camp as well, which you’ll see in Tim Keller Recommended Peter Scazzero Spreading Spurious Centering Prayer.

We have reason for serious concern here because therein you’ll see that Scazzero is pushing the exact same skubalon as CSM gurus like Living Spiritual Teacher and Emerging Church leader Brian McLaren.To paraphrase a famous line from the movies: Church, we have a problem. Now new Calvinists, evangelicals, and Emergents are beginning to go to the same apostate gurus; but here we are.

It’s not as if guru Scazzero even tries to hide his apostasy as he regularly tweets things like the below:

(Online source)

That’s right; prayer with, and recommending the work of Roman Catholic mystic Henri Nouwen (1932-1996) who died a universalist. But wait; I guess I need to cut guru Scazzero slack as a couple of high profile Southern Baptists are also being molded by Nouwen e.g. Setting Kay Warren Straight About Roman Catholic Mystic Henri Nouwen and Rick Warren Wants Us To Learn From Roman Catholic Mystic Henri Nouwen.

Well after-all, even highly respected evangelical apologist Ravi Zacharias himself has said, “One of the greatest saints of recent memory was Henri Nouwen.” Such is the sorry state of spiritually spineless evanjellyfish; so scared of its own spiritual shadow. Scazzero also tweeted about yet another upcoming conference:

(Online source)

Well, since the sappy sentamentalism and psuedo-psychology of CSM guru Peter Scazzero is becoming all the rage, let me give you a quick look at what its new leaders are being taught. The link takes us to:

(Online source)

You’ll be noticing an increase of pastries, this is a next wave that’ll be hitting the mainstream of the church visible, so the wording is likely intentially vague concerning the gender of “pastors and leaders” who’re embracing the “Revolutionary New Paradigm” of Scazzero’s Protholic disciples:

(Online source)

So our Emotionally Healthy Scazzero He/shes will seek a “deep interior life,” which is mystic-speak for the meditation in an altered state of consciousness of CCP. So, that’s why there will be a:

(Online source)

Points 2 and 3 are made up of more of the squishy psychobabble that’s at the heart of guru Scazzero’s centered on the self CSM stylings. However, what should make you stop dead in your tracks is Scazzero’s He/shes are out to spread as spores in the wind throughout Christendom “for the transformation of the wider church culture.”

And the truth be told, such as these have already captured more of the professing Christian community than you may even know. It’s well past time for evangelical leaders to take a break from their conference schedules and to finally make the time to examine the poisonous fruit being fed to so much of their spheres of influence…

___________________________________________________________________________
End notes:

[1] http://www.willowcreek.com/about/, accessed 5/1/12.

See also:

RICK WARREN WANTS US TO KNOW PETER SCAZZERO

MOODY PUBLISHERS PUBLISHES BOOK ON CONTEMPLATIVE/CENTERING PRAYER

GOSPEL COALITION CONTRIBUTOR MIKE COSPER DEFENDS RETREAT WITH ROMAN CATHOLICS

The following by Dr. Gary Gilley, pastor of Southern View Chapel, is republished at Apprising Ministries with permission:

(April/May 2012 – Volume 18, Issue 2)

Of all the spiritual disciplines the Spiritual Formation Movement promotes, none is more important than prayer and the intake of God’s Word.

On the surface we would expect little resistance to these two disciplines since they have been recognized as essential to spiritual growth by virtually all Christians from all traditions. Sadly, upon closer examination we discover that what is meant by most evangelical Christians when they reference prayer and Bible intake is not always what the leaders within spiritual formation mean. We begin with Donald Whitney, Associate Professor of Biblical Spirituality at Southern Seminary, who agrees with Carl Lundquist,

The New Testament church built two other disciplines upon prayer and Bible study, the Lord’s Supper and small cell groups. John Wesley emphasized five works of piety by adding fasting. The medieval mystics wrote about nine disciplines clustered around three experiences: purgation of sin, enlightenment of the spirit and union with God. Later the Keswick Convention approach to practical holiness revolved around five different religious exercises. Today Richard Foster’s book, Celebration of Discipline, lists twelve disciplines – all of them relevant to the contemporary Christian. But whatever varying religious exercises we may practice, without the two basic ones of Emmaus – prayer and Bible reading – the others are empty and powerless. [1]

In future articles on spiritual formation we will shine the light of Scripture on many of these disciplines, but it is only proper and wise to begin with the two universally recognized as most important. As Whitney and Lundquist state, without prayer and Bible reading, all the other disciplines are empty and powerless. We begin with prayer, for its place in spiritual formation teachings is even more prominent than Bible study. Of course the position of prayer in the life of the believer is without question and needs little defense. Prayer is taught, modeled and expressed throughout the Bible. After the disciples had been with Jesus for a while and witnessed His life and power, they brought a request to Him: “Lord, teach us to pray.” Jesus responded, not by giving them a rote prayer to repeat, but what we often call “The Lord’s Prayer” as a model. The need and command to pray are seldom debated. Why we need to pray in light of God’s sovereignty and omniscience and how we pray are two different things. We pray, not because we have unraveled all the mysteries of prayer but because God tells us to pray and somehow our prayers really do make a difference.

How to pray gets more complex and is at the heart of the subject at hand. Scripture does not dictate a set amount of time to pray, nor does it approve or disapprove of particular postures in prayer. It does teach the need for both corporate and private prayers and it does model and instruct us on reasons to pray: to worship God, to bring our requests to Him, to thank Him, and to confess sin. What is important to notice throughout Scripture is that the individual who prays is speaking to God. While God communicates to us through the Bible, we respond to Him in prayer. A biblical model of prayer is that of the believer approaching the Father in faith, through the mediatory ministry of Christ Jesus, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to communicate to God praise, thanksgiving, supplications and confession. While this paradigm, which I will call throughout this paper “biblical prayer,” is never denied by those in spiritual formation circles, it is usually not what they have in mind when they speak of the discipline of prayer. Biblical prayer is our communication with God. As the Lord speaks to us through His Word, we speak to Him in prayer. Such prayers are rational, intelligent and flow from our minds. Paul said that he would pray with his spirit and with his mind also (1 Cor 14:15), not either/or. When we pray we are making use of our God-given intellect as we worship Him in spirit and truth (John 4:24). We are to pray without ceasing (1 Thess 5:17) and in those prayers we are to make our requests known (Phil 4:6). In prayer we praise God for His known attributes. In prayer we confess specific sins (1 John 1:9). Unfortunately biblical prayer, as described above, is not what spiritual formation advocates mean by contemplative prayer.

We need to take a hard look at contemplative prayer and ask some important questions: What is it and how does it differ from biblical prayer? How is it practiced? What is its goal? What is its origin? And why does it concern us?

What Is Contemplative Prayer?

First, as is common throughout the Spiritual Formation Movement, the catalyst offered for investigating the disciplines, including contemplative prayer, is the supposed insipidness of biblical praying. Larry Crabb, in his book The PAPA Prayer, frames it this way:

[Biblical] praying to God is something like e-mailing a relative you’ve never met, who lives in a place you’ve never been. In return correspondence (to embellish the analogy), your relative never sends a picture of himself, never sends a picture of his house or land, and always writes a generic letter addressed to “My much loved relatives,” like the ones we receive every Christmas. His e-mails never come only to you and are therefore never addressed only to you. He never calls. And you can’t call him. He has no phone. [2]

Crabb contrasts this impersonal type of prayer (as found in Scripture) with a contemplative form he calls the PAPA prayer making a promise to all who will use it, “I am promising Papa will speak to you. He loves a good conversation.” [3] Who wouldn’t be intrigued by such an offer?

So exactly what is contemplative prayer? It begins with detachment. Richard Foster, in his original 1978 edition of Celebration of Discipline wrote, “Christian meditation is an attempt to empty the mind in order to fill it” (p. 15). Fill it with what? In Eastern religions a person empties his mind in order to become one with the universe (or the Cosmic Mind). In Christian mysticism one empties the mind in order to become one with God. Foster quotes a number of mystics to describe this experience. For example there is Russian mystic Theophan the Recluse who said, “To pray is to descend with the mind into the heart, and there to stand before the face of the Lord, ever-present, all seeing, within you.” ^[4] What Foster and Theophan mean by this is anyone’s guess, but it is a vital part of the mystical experience.

Following detachment is the step of illumination, in which the newly emptied mind and heart is filled with supposed communication from God. The primary means of accomplishing illumination is through the use of the technique we are discussing: contemplative prayer. Contemplative prayer is the constant theme of the mystic, yet it is merely a means to an end which is union with God. The ultimate goal of the mystic, no matter what religion or tradition, is union with God (or gods of the universe) made possible through contemplative prayer. Mystics often claim to find union with God deep within their souls. Teresa of Avila states, “As I could not make reflection with my understanding I contrived to picture Christ within me.” ^[5] She is quoted as also saying, “Settle yourself in solitude and you will come upon Him in yourself.” ^[6]

These types of experiences supposedly result not only in extrasensory contact with God but also communication from God. Richard Foster tells us, “We are to live in a perpetual, inward, listening silence so that God is the source of our words and actions.”^[7] Through these methods, especially that of contemplative prayer, a person is to empty his mind (detach) then fill it with imaginative experiences with Christ (attach) who he will find in the silence of his soul, resulting in God becoming the source of his words and actions. All of this unquestionably sounds attractive to many, even if no such teaching is found in Scripture.

The Goals

Digging a little deeper, there seems to be two overlapping goals to contemplative prayer. The first is to encounter God in an inexplicable way. Ruth Haley Barton, well-known in spiritual formation circles and formerly on staff at Willow Creek Community Church, describes this desire,

There are many terms that seek to capture this dynamic – silent prayer, centering prayer, contemplative prayer, interior prayer, prayer of the heart. Each carries a slightly different nuance, but they all are attempts to capture the same thing: the movement beyond words to an intimacy that requires no words. This intimacy is the kind that lovers know when they give themselves over to the act of lovemaking [8]

It should be noted that this type of erotic/romantic expression of the believer’s relationship with God is historically common among the mystics.

Ruth Barton gives more details. She quotes Carlo Carretto, a Catholic mystic living just prior to the Reformation, “Thus the time comes when words are superfluous…The soul converses with God with a single loving glance, although this may often be accompanied by dryness and suffering.” [9] Barton describes contemplative prayer as a “deeper level of intimacy that will move us beyond communication, which primarily involves words and concepts, into communion, which is primarily beyond words. If there are any words at all, they are reduced to the simplest and most visceral expressions.” [10] Later she writes, “You don’t think your way into your breath prayer; you discover it by listening to your deepest longings and desires in God’s presence.” [11]

Those promoting contemplative prayer are not particularly interested in the mind. As a matter of fact, the mind gets in the way. It is the experience of somehow encountering God in an indescribable way that is desired. This is the goal of all true mysticism no matter what religion, and contemplation is the primary means used to accomplish this goal.

The second goal of contemplative prayer is to actually hear from God. John Ortberg, a teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church, states, “It is one thing to speak to God. It is another thing to listen. When we listen to God, we receive guidance from the Holy Spirit.” [12] While many evangelicals talk about the promptings of the Holy Spirit, Ortberg seems to be going further when he explains,

I certainly have no way to prove it was God speaking to me. A few friends have told me that early in life they were given a clear sense of what God was speaking to them. They learned to recognize certain movements of heart and mind as being the voice of God the way children learn to recognize the voice of their mother…I must be open to the possibility that sometimes God does speak directly to me…We must learn to listen for the still, small voice…In fact, being open and receptive to the leadings of the Holy Spirit is a nonoptional part of transformation. [13]

Bruce Demarest writes, “Growing intimacy requires that I pay careful attention to the other person. When that other is God, it’s necessary to still my own voice and listen in quietness. Then I can detect the gentle whispers of the Spirit. Too often we fail to hear God speak because we are not attentively listening.” [14]

Richard Foster, the modern day authority most often consulted by contemplatives, wrote an entire book to convey this point. He opens Sanctuary of the Soul with these words, “Jesus Christ is alive and here to teach his people himself. His voice is not hard to hear; his vocabulary is not difficult to understand. But learning to listen well and to hear correctly is no small task.” [15] He continues two pages later as he reviews his own experiences, “Now, I am not speaking here of an outward voice that can be captured by electronic equipment. That no doubt is possible, as the Bible gives ample witness. But here I am speaking of an inward whisper, a deep speaking into the heart, an interior knowing.” [16] It is instructive to note that Foster does seem to recognize that this “interior voice of God” has no biblical base. When he speaks of the audible voice of God, Foster can point to chapter and verse to at least indicate that God spoke audibly on occasion in biblical times. [17] But he cannot do so with inner voices from God, for in fact the Bible never mentions this type of interior message from the Lord. When God spoke in Scripture it was audible and objective, not internal and subjective. Foster, the contemplatives, and many others aligned with evangelicalism have invented a form of divine communication never found in Scripture. Even the “still small voice” borrowed from Elijah’s experience (1 Kings 19:12-18) and used in almost all spiritual formation books was an actual voice, not an inaudible one heard only deep down in the interior of one’s soul. Yet so important is it to hear God’s voice in prayer that Foster quotes Elizabeth O’Connor saying, “This may be extremely difficult, for the churches have no courses on meditation, despite the fact that it is an art that must be learned from those who have mastered it, and despite the fact that the supreme task of the church is to listen to the Word of God.” [18]

There are a number of things wrong with this statement. Foremost, the author is equating the supposed inner voices, which are being interpreted as from God, as the very “Word of God.” This is important to note throughout spiritual formation literature. There are often disclaimers given by contemplatives to the effect that such revelations are not on par with the Scriptures, nor do these communications ever contradict Scripture. But the reality is that these perceived words are considered the very “Word of God” as O’Connor and Foster affirm. Tricia Rhodes writes, “Once I’m in that place of quiet, I often ask, ‘Lord, what would you have me know right now? What would you have me consider?’ Surprisingly enough, I often hear a specific word for that which lies in front of me.”[19] Former evangelist Leighton Ford states, “In helps me to think [20] of ‘abiding’ as a continual conversation in which I listen for God’s voice and speak back to him.” Larry Crabb tells us that “Prayer is more about us hearing God than about Him hearing us. We’re the audience.” [21] This idea that we will hear directly from God, deep within the recesses of our souls, and therefore have a far more intimate relationship with Him, explains the draw of contemplative prayer. And while attractive, we have to ask: Where in Scripture is contemplative prayer taught? And where in Scripture are we told that prayer is about God talking to us rather than us talking to Him? And where in Scripture do we find any reference to God speaking to us within our spirits in an inaudible voice?

Another flaw in O’Connor’s statement has to do with the idea that this form of listening to God must be taught by the spiritual masters (“those who have mastered it”). First, when the Lord spoke in Scripture, which was always audibly, no one had to teach the listener how to hear Him – they knew without taking lessons or reading books from anyone else that it was God speaking. Secondly the direct implication is that left to ourselves we will never be able to learn the art of hearing from God and if we don’t become skilled at this art, we will be deficit in our spiritual development. Spiritual formation stands or falls on one’s belief in extra-biblical, inner words from God that will be given only while practicing the art of contemplative prayer as taught by the “spiritual masters,” i.e. Catholic and Orthodox mystics and their disciples.

Larry Crabb assures us, “I’m hearing from God in a way I haven’t before. Sometimes, though never audibly, I hear the Father speak more clearly than I hear the voice of a human friend… Let me tell you this: once you hear from God, you’re hooked.” [22] But Crabb and other contemplatives are not learning these doctrines and methods at the feet of Jesus as revealed in Scripture, but from the ancient Desert Fathers and Mothers and Catholic mystics both past and modern. The reason these techniques must be learned from the “spiritual masters” is because the inspired authors of God’s Word said nothing about them, nor did Jesus. This certainly ought to say volumes to anyone truly wanting to know and do the will of God.

The Techniques

Speaking of techniques, just exactly how does one go about practicing contemplative prayer? Some of these have already been touched on above where the three-fold process of detaching, illumination and union are described. But let’s take a closer look at the actual practices. When we do, we find that the techniques used and promoted by Christian contemplatives are virtually identical to those of Eastern religions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism and Jewish Kabala, and so are familiar to most of us through media presentations of transcendental meditation (TM) and yoga. Gary Thomas gives these rather common instructions to those wanting to practice contemplative prayer with the goal of encountering God in mystical fashion:

Choose a word (Jesus or Father, for example) as a focus for contemplative prayer. Repeat the word silently in your mind for a set amount of time (say, twenty minutes) until your heart seems to be repeating the word by itself, just as naturally and involuntarily as breathing. But centering prayer is a contemplative act in which you don’t do anything; you’re simply resting in the presence of God. ^[23]

So, the repetition of words or short phrases, a mantra, is key to this experience. Barton agrees, but first she sets the mood: “Settle into a comfortable position that allows you to remain alert. Breathe deeply in this moment as a way of releasing any tension you might be holding and become aware of God’s presence, which is closer than your breath. Allow yourself to enjoy God’s presence in quietness for a few moments.” [24] Mark Yaconelli, in his book Downtime which is designed to aid teens in developing the contemplative life, writes, “I sometimes invite students to a time of prayer by asking them to focus on the very simple act of breathing…Close your eyes and simply notice your breathing…Imagining with each in-breath that you are breathing in God’s love, and with every out-breath you are releasing every distraction, every anxiety, every tension and resistance to God.” [25]

Once you are in the right frame of mind you are ready for a mantra. Barton writes, “Choose your favorite name or image for God as you are relating to him right now, such as God, Jesus, Father, Creator, Spirit, Breath of life, Lord, Shepherd…” [26]

What else? While Richard Foster suggests a number of methodologies, he says, “he finds it best to sit in a straight chair, with my back correctly positioned in the chair and both feet flat on the floor…Place the hands on the knees, palms up in a gesture of receptivity. Sometimes it is good to close the eyes to remove distractions and center the attention on Christ. At other times it is helpful to ponder a picture of the Lord or to look out at some lovely trees and plants for the same purpose.” ^[27] Brennan Manning gives these instructions in his book, The Signature of Jesus: “The first step in faith is to stop thinking about God in prayer…Contemplative spirituality tends to emphasize the need for a change in consciousness…we must come to see reality differently…Choose a single, sacred word…repeat the sacred word inwardly, slowly and often…Enter into the great silence of God. Alone in that silence, the noise within will subside and the Voice of Love will be heard.” ^[28]

Apparently the repetition of the mantra triggers the blank mind, or allows the mind and heart to detach. With the mind in neutral and the heart open to whatever voices or visions it encounters, accompanied with a vivid imagination, the individual enters into the mystical state. This is the state prized by mysticism and made possible through contemplative prayer. Concerning all of this Foster encourages, “Though it may sound strange to modern ears, we should without shame enroll as apprentices in the school of contemplative prayer.” ^[29] By contrast, we search in vain to find any such encouragement or instruction in Scripture.

One of the most important aims of contemplative prayer, as we have already seen, is to hear the voice of Jesus, not audibly (at least not as a norm) but as “an inward whisper, a deep speaking into the heart, an interior knowing.” [30] Foster assures us that many characters in the Bible had this experience, including Moses and Elijah. [31] What Foster and all promoters of mysticism fail to notice is that when biblical characters heard from God or angels they heard an audible voice, not an “inward whisper.” For that reason, rarely does anyone in the biblical accounts ever question that he or she had heard from God. Not so the mystic who must “learn to hear the voice of God.” [32] Foster assures us that in time we will be able to distinguish the voice of God from all others, including Satan’s and our own. One way to determine this, we are told, is to remember, “Satan pushes and condemns, God draws and encourages. You can tell the difference.” [33] Of course this is a gross over-generalization. We know, for example, that it is the Holy Spirit who convicts us of sin and judgment (John 16:8) and that God pronounces warnings and judgments throughout the Scriptures. Jesus Himself pronounced “woes” of judgment on the Pharisees who saw themselves as the spiritual leaders of Israel (Matt 22:13-36); He clearly called Peter “Satan” at one point and told him to get behind Him, for Peter was a stumbling block to Him (Matt 16:23). To characterize the Lord’s voice as only one of drawing and encouragement would mean we would need to ignore huge portions of the Word of God.

In his book Sanctuary of the Soul, Foster offers three basic steps for contemplative prayer: recollection, beholding and listening.[34] He defines these as follows:

• Recollection – letting go of all competing distractions, even good ones, until we have become truly present where we are. This can be done by focusing on a name, word or phrase.
• Beholding the Lord – “An inward steady gaze of the heart upon God, the divine Center…The soul, ushered into the Holy Place, is transfixed by what she sees.” [35] During this phase some have experienced intense heat around their hearts;[36] others speak in tongues. [37]
• The prayer of listening – it is at this step that God speaks to us and we enjoy His full presence [38] (pp. 80-88).

The ultimate goal of these techniques is union with God, or what Foster calls, borrowing from the Cloud of Unknowing, “the contemplative life.” Foster explains:

The highest level, the contemplative life consists entirely in learning how to live in the presence of God. There is darkness here, but it is not a darkness of absence, but rather a darkness of incomplete knowing. We are carried into the “cloud” by love and sustained in it by gazing on God alone. We shut out every other source of stimulation – sensual, intellectual and reflective – in order to focus on God alone. At this level, we even move beyond our thoughts of God in order to dwell in his presence without thought or distraction. Of course, no one in this life can sustain this level of concentration for long…But our calling is not to sidestep the opportunity but to recognize our own limits. [39]

This quote sums up both the methods and the aims of the contemplative life. Through various extra-biblical techniques, one enters into a sphere which is devoid of thought and feeling in an effort to experience the presence of God in an inexplicable manner. This is the union or ecstasy so prized by the mystic and found in all forms of mysticism. However it is not found or encouraged in Scripture. Contemplative life, as expressed by the spiritual formation leaders, put me in mind of something found in Isaiah in a different context. In Isaiah’s day the people were turning not to God but to spiritists for hidden information. Isaiah tells them,

And when they say to you, “Consult the mediums and spiritists who whisper and mutter,” should not a people consult their God? Should they consult the dead on behalf of the living? To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn (Isa 8:18-19).

I am not accusing the contemplatives of being spiritists, but much like the spiritists they are seeking experiences and knowledge not sanctioned in Scripture. Thomas Merton wrote, “The life of contemplation…is the life of the Holy Spirit in our inmost souls. The whole duty of contemplation is to abandon what is base and trivial in [your] own life, and do all [you] can to conform…to the secret and obscure promptings of the Spirit of God.” [40] When Christians begin looking “to secret and obscure promptings,” supposedly from the Holy Spirit, as taught by men and women of errant doctrine rather than Scripture, we are surely on shaky ground. We might do well to pay attention to the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah’s warning to the Jews of his day is applicable to us now. He tells Judah, if people do not speak “according to this word, it is because they have no dawn.” That is, the very ones who are claiming enlightenment and esoteric knowledge not found in Scripture don’t know what they are talking about—so don’t follow them. Instead turn to the law and to the testimony,” i.e. the Word of God, for our source of truth.

Examples

Many evangelicals are turning to spiritual formation and the spiritual disciplines. Here is a sampling: Leighton Ford, former evangelist associated with Billy Graham, is now a strong adherent of spiritual formation. He describes his practice of contemplative prayer in this manner, “Often in the morning I will sit in a favorite chair in my study with a cup of coffee, with classical music playing, not trying to form a prayer with words but waiting, listening, until perhaps I sense the Spirit bringing to the surface a word from God. Then I offer just a simple ‘Thank you.’” [41] Tricia McCary Rhodes draws on the fourth century Desert Fathers and Mothers to learn the art of “breath prayer” which is “to choose a phrase that is simple and heartfelt and can be offered to the Lord in one breath…Once we’ve decided on the particular phrase, this then becomes the focus of our communion with Christ for a season. Some people like to repeat the prayer numerous times as they breathe in and out, quieting their heart before the Lord.”[42] She tells us, “In this practice we take a few minutes to slow our breathing as we mentally inhale the reality of God’s presence and exhale the noisy clamor inside us. We inhale the peace of Christ and exhale the anxiety of the day. We inhale cleansing for sin and exhale guilt and condemnation.” [43]

On Rhodes’ first attempt at breath prayer she “almost immediately…heard the words, ‘Give me a heart for you,’ and I knew this was what I wanted and needed most – a renewal of yearning for the Lover of my soul.” [44]

One of the most popular forms of contemplative prayer makes use of the “Jesus Prayer.” Mike King, a pastor at Jacob’s Well Church in Kansas City, writes in his book Presence-centered Youth Ministry,

In the centuries after Jesus’ resurrection, his followers sought ways to commune deeply with God. One form of prayer [was] respiratory prayer…The most ancient prayer of this type is called the Jesus Prayer: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Living God, have mercy on me, a sinner…With the inhale, pray the first part, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God.” With the exhale, pray the second part, “Have mercy on me, a sinner.” [45]

A more extensive example comes from the pen of Ruth Barton as she leads a leadership retreat,

Recently our leadership community went on retreat to listen for God’s direction…Later on that day, one of the people who had heard about our decision [concerning a particular issue] sensed God saying, “You can help with that!” Having learned what the office space would cost, they sensed God’s prompting to contribute the funds that would enable us to take the space for the year…[In response Barton] sensed God saying very clearly, “You don’t know what your future holds, but I do, and I know what you will need for that future. That is why I am giving this to you.” [She then heard God ask], “What do you do with gifts?” “You receive them,” I heard myself answer. I heard God saying, “Stop your clinging and grasping, just receive what I am giving you and then build your ministry with that.” [46]

Professor Bruce Demarest points his readers toward two post-Reformation mystics to illustrate the spiritual riches of the contemplative life. [47] The first is Counter-Reformation nun Teresa of Avila whose “classic” book Interior Castle is a virtually incomprehensible description of mystical fantasy that spiritual formation disciples love. Having read the book, I seriously doubt that many have any idea what she is talking about as she describes her supposed visions from the Lord detailing seven rooms (or layers) of progressive experiences with God. Even more concerning is Demarest’s second hero, Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk from Kentucky who died in 1968. No modern mystic besides Richard Foster has had more influence on the Spiritual Formation Movement than Thomas Merton. His work and promotion of contemplative prayer cannot be overestimated. Yet even Demarest admits that toward the end of Merton’s life he became attracted to Eastern mysticism and believed that Zen meditation and Christian contemplation pursue the same goal. Ultimately he saw no difference between Buddhism and Christianity and once visited the Dalai Lama to “discover truth in dialogue.” [48] Demarest disagrees with Merton at this point; nevertheless, he and most contemplatives look to Merton as a spiritual master and a guide to spiritual formation.

Conclusion

Spiritual formation seeks to lure evangelicals into ancient Catholic and Orthodox contemplative practices in order to draw closer to God, experience His presence, and hear His voice apart from Scripture. In order to embrace this mystical form of spirituality, contemplatives are willing to compromise at virtually every turn. Central doctrines such as sola fide and sola Scriptura are shrugged off as secondary. Methods never found in the Bible as the true means of spiritual growth and of knowing God, are emphasized. And complete heretics such as Thomas Merton are seen as reliable spiritual guides to spirituality. The contemplatives have sold out to Catholic mysticism and abandoned the clear teaching of Scripture. Sadly, in the process many undiscerning evangelicals will follow suit.

[1] Donald Whitney, Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life, (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1991), p. 66.

[2] Larry Crabb, The PAPA Prayer, the Prayer You’ve Never Prayed, (Brentwood, TN: Integrity Publishers, 2006, p. 111.

[3] Ibid., p. 143.

[4] Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, (New York: HarperCollins, 1998), p. 19.

[5] Ibid., p. 25.

[6] Ibid., p. 96.

[7] Ibid., p. 166.

[8] Ruth Haley Barton, Sacred Rhythm, (Dowers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006), p. 68.

[9] Ibid., p. 62.

[10] Ibid., pp. 64-65 (emphasis hers).

[11] Ibid., p. 71.

[12] John Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted, Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), p. 140.

[13] Ibid., pp. 141-143.

[14] Bruce Demarest, Satisfying Your Soul, Restoring the Heart of Christian Spirituality, (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1999), pp. 108-109.

[15] Richard Foster, Sanctuary of the Soul, Journey into Meditative Prayer, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2011), p. 11.

[16] Ibid., p. 13.

[17] In all of the Old Testament fewer than 20 specific dreams to fewer than 15 people are recorded and only six in the New Testament. There are less than 25 visions to not more than 15 people in the Old Testament and even fewer in the New Testament. And none of these was ever given for mundane purposes (see The Master’s Seminary Journal Vol. 22 #2, pp. 160-161).

[18] Richard Foster, Sanctuary of the Soul, Journey into Meditative Prayer, p. 17.

[19] Tricia McCary Rhodes, Sacred Chaos, Spiritual Disciplines for the Life You Have, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2008), p. 65.

[20] Leighton Ford, The Attentive Life, Discerning God’s Presence in All Things, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2008), p. 92.

[21] Larry Crabb, p. 71.

[22] Ibid., pp. 8, 13.

[23] Cited in James Sundquist, Who’s Driving the Purpose Driven Church?, (Rock Salt Publishing, 2004), p.93.

[24] Barton, Sacred Rhythms, p. 28.

[25] Mark Yaconelli, Downtime, Helping Teenagers Pray, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008), p. 74.

[26] Barton, p. 76.

[27] Richard Foster, Sanctuary of the Soul, Journey into Meditative Prayer, p. 28.

[28] Cited in Ray Yunger, A Time of Departing, (Silverton, Oregon: Lighthouse Trails, 2002), p. 84.

[29] Richard Foster, Sanctuary of the Soul, Journey into Meditative Prayer, p. 15.

[30] Ibid., p. 13.

[31] Ibid., p. 18.

[32] Ibid.

[33] Ibid., p. 130.

[34] Ibid., pp. 62-88.

[35] Ibid., p. 71.

[36] Ibid., pp. 71-73.

[37] Ibid., p. 78.

[38] Ibid., pp. 80-88.

[39] Richard Foster and Gayle D. Beebe, “Longing for God, Seven Paths of Christian Devotion, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009), p. 252.

[40] Bruce Demarest, p. 157 (emphasis mine).

[41] Leighton Ford, p. 77.

[42] Tricia McCary Rhodes, pp. 106-107.

[43] Ibid., p. 64.

[44] Ibid., p. 107.

[45] Mike King, Presence-Centered Youth Ministry, Guiding Students into Spiritual Formation, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2006), pp. 121-122.

[46] Ruth Haley Barton, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry, (Downer’s Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2008), p. 64.

[47] Demarest, Satisfy Your Soul, pp. 269-277.

[48] Ibid., p. 276.

The original appears right here.

See also:

RICHARD FOSTER SAYS BIBLE RELIABLE GUIDE DESPITE “INCONSISTENCIES”

“CELEBRATION OF DISCIPLINE” BY RICHARD FOSTER AN ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THEOLOGICAL ERROR

IS DALLAS WILLARD A CHRISTIAN?

As a direct fruit of the the sinfully ecumenical Emergent Church aka the Emerging Church, a neo-liberal cult now operating within mainstream of the church visible, the heart of the evangelical community is fast becoming congested by pietism and superstition.

No doubt I’ve told you many times that a key core doctrine of this evil EC was corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM).

The truth is, it’s long been masquerading as spurious Spiritual Formation ala Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster and his spiritual twin Dallas Willard. So I present the following here at Apprising Ministries as further example that, even within the more conservative mainstream of ostensibly Protestant evangelicalism, highly subjective “experience” is now beginning to trump the written text of the Bible.

As an illustration let’s once again consider the 2009 post Non Sola Scriptura: the Blackaby view of God’s will — 1 from Dan Phillips over at the respected Pyromaniacs blog. First, as a Southern Baptist pastor, 1) I’ve personally been through Blackaby”s magum opus Experiencing God (EG), and 2) I can also testify that within the SBC he’s essentially considered a prophet of God.

It’s my opinion that Henry Blackaby laid the groundwork for the awful influx of CSM into the SBC. Here’s an example of just how bad it is; consider Alabama Baptist Convention (SBC) Encourages You To Learn Lectio Divina From Apostate Tony Jones. Secondly, just as Phillips, AM also wants you to know that what is written “is not about the Blackabys, but about the view they advocate in this book” which will be mentioned below.

Nor “is it about them as Christians or men.” With this out of the way, we will turn to the very serious point of contention that must be addressed within the evangelical community now that it has also embraced the so-called “Christian” mysticism of CSM; which was introduced into younger sectors of that camp by the EC. Actually, it truly is the next logical step down after Blackaby’s lite version of mysticism.

It’s important to remember that one of the goals of the EC was to drag ascetic and pietistic so-called “spiritual disciplines” into the Protestant community itself. Also note here that, in the aforementioned post at Pyro, Dan Phillips is reviewing a chapter of the book How Then Should We Choose?, edited by Douglas S. Huffman; Phillips tells us:

This chapter  [called the "Specific-Will" view...written by Henry and Richard Blackaby,] is just about the single most appalling trainwreck I’ve read in recent memory, whether viewed exegetically, hermeneutically, theologically, or pastorally. The implications, if taken and followed out seriously by anyone (—God forbid!), are absolutely catastrophic. (Online source)

The central issue with the Blackabys, as well as with gurus teaching the CSM of Foster-Willardism, is that their “experience” always ends up interpreting the Bible for them. However, this is absolutely backward—and sure to lead to spiritual disaster. In fact, this is really the exact same dead-end road that would end up producing the centered on the self (i.e. mankind) theology of apostate Roman Catholicism in the first place.

As I said earlier, I’m quite familiar  Blackaby’s EG program having gone through it when it was first a rage within the Southern Baptist Convention in the mid 90s. So, I can tell you that Phillips is absolutely correct when he says:

Non sola Scriptura. The insufficiency of Scripture is a major pillar to the Blackaby position. About this they are emphatic — in all but the use of that phrase. They do say many nice things about the Bible, allowing (for instance) that it is “the primary way God communicates with His people” (p. 55). “Primary,” but not nearly the sole way.

Language that the Bible reserves for binding, inerrant, verbal prophetic revelation is repeatedly applied indiscriminately to normal Christian living. (Online source)

As a matter of fact, what Phillips has just said above concerning Henry Blackaby is just as dead-on-target for a rapidly increasing amount of evangelical notables as well. Take for example Southern Baptist megapastor Rick Warren and wildly popular SBC Bible teacher Beth Moore who tell us on a regular basis what God has supposedly “said” to them personally.

To illustrate my point, let’s takee Moore, who is beyond question a major promoter of Henry Blackaby’s work. The video clips below come from my copy of Moore’s classic 2002 series Believing God (BG), which as you can see below, is still promoted by Lifeway—the publishing arm of the SBC:

(Online source)

So, this SBC LifeWay-sponsored BG Online Bible Study is important evidence and serves as representative of its own views. Moore will tell us:

tonight I’m going to do my absolute best to illustrate to you something that God showed me out on that back porch. He put a picture…I’ve explained to you before I am a very visual person…so He speaks to me very often putting a picture in my head.

And it was as if I was raised up looking down on a community, as I saw the Church in that particular dimension- certainly not all dimensions, not even in many, but in what we will discuss tonight, the church, as Jesus sees it, in a particular dimension.”
(Online source, emphasis mine)

This is Moore’s own testimony; these are her own words:

Now notice as Moore goes on to illustrate her vision in the video below, where God supposedly showed her the Church “as Jesus sees it,” she also includes the apostate Roman Catholic Church who long ago condemned the the very Gospel of Jesus Christ itself:

I’m not going to say Beth Moore didn’t have a vision; what I will say is, it wasn’t given to her by God Himself. As bad as this flawed mysticism is, the Emerging Church is even further along in their delusions. Space allows just one quick example. Former Emergence Christianity icon Rob Bell illustrates this well.

He has long practiced of the crown jewel of CSM, a form of meditation in an altered state of consciousness commonly known asContemplative/Centering Prayer (CCP). This would lead the highly influential Bell to say such stupid things as:

It’s interesting how many traditions (pause) When you read the great enlightened ones; meditation, centering prayer, reflection—in every tradition you can find the mystics—and what’s always at the heart of the spiritual lives, the everyday lives of the great ones was always a period of time.

Whether it’s prayers, chanting, meditation, reflection, study—whatever you call it—what is it essentially; it’s taking time to breathe. Because when you’ve been breathing, (slight pause) in a proper sort of way, you’re far better equipped to handle what life throws your way. (5:41-6:23) (I will say it again, and again, and again,  [5:41-6:23])

As I said in Through Rob Bell “The Great Enlightened Ones” Tell Us Man Has Divine Greatness, it’s my opinion that if one doesn’t recognize here Rob Bell is praising “the mystics”—of  [insert whatever religion here]—for their supposedly superior spiritual understanding, which is but a reimagined Gnosticism, it’s simply because they just do not wish to see.

But the truth is, this is the rancid fruit of “what does this verse mean to you” Bible studies. For years now evangelicals really have been steadily moving away from sola Scriptura and directly toward the more existential neo-orthodox view of Scripture. With all of this in mind, we return to the Dan Phillips post concerning this evangelical mysticism-lite.

He then asks the critical question:

How to divine the Divine? Say you are convinced that you must hear God’s voice, must receive this flow of extra-canonical revelation that the Blackabys say is essential for a relationship with God. How do you do it? How do you hear God’s voice? (Online source)

And as we close this for now, I point you to back to Beth Moore and another glaring example of just how deeply this negation of sola Scriptura has now slithered into the mainstream of evangelicalism. In How Would You Know Beth Moore?, I actually looked at the very question Phillps asks above.

There I showed you in a video commercial for her latest study at time that Moore has said: “Several years ago Christ began to place a tremendous burden on my heart for the people of God to know the freedom of God.” Really; do we now have a prophetess among us with special revelation from God concerning His “freedom” because the Word of the Lord came to Beth?

Just how will we know who’s really “hearing” from the Lord? Now suppose that I, as a pastor-teacher, was also to come forward with a Word from God. What if I now say that, “A couple of years ago Jesus placed a tremendous burden on my heart for the people of God to know the freedom of God.” Now what do we do with dueling revelations?

What is going to happen if I then went on to say, based upon Scripture, I believe the Lord says come away from false teaching advanced by all of these contemplative dreamers because the best way to embrace the freedom of God is simply to read the Bible; pray consciously, and then do what it says in His Word where we know He has spoken.

And as it concerns Henry Blackaby et al, in his Criticial Issues Commentary piece Unbiblical Teachings on Prayer and Experiencing God: How Mysticism Misleads Christians, Christian apologist Bob DeWaay issues a very needed warning when tells us that such as these are only leading us into the realm of subjectivity:

The flaws of [Henry] Blackaby’s subjectivism are rather obvious when you examine his claims objectively. God’s revealed will is not found by subjective experiences, but in Scripture. Looking around in the world hoping to discover “where God is working” is impossible since God is always working everywhere as He providentially brings history along toward His ultimate purposes.

We will be fooled by our own prejudices because we think “God working” must look something like whatever our religious inclinations tell us it will look like. Furthermore, he has elevated fallible words that may or may not be from God to the level of infallible Scripture and elevated every believer to the status of Moses and Abraham as recipients of special revelation.

Following his approach is not how we “experience God.” We cannot not know if we are experiencing God in any way other than to come to Him on His own terms, by faith. When we do, we are assured that God is with us no matter what experiences we have. (Online source)

See also:

HENRY BLACKABY AND “EXPERIENCING GOD”

JOHN PIPER, RICK WARREN & FOSTER-WILLARDISM

BETH MOORE AND JOHN PIPER LEAD LECTIO DIVINA-LITE AT PASSION 2012

The following by Dr. Gary Gilley, pastor of Southern View Chapel, is republished at Apprising Ministries with permission:

(February/March 2012 – Volume 18, Issue 1)

Almost everyone on the cutting edge of Christianity is talking about spiritual formation.  From books to magazine articles to sermons to seminary courses, spiritual formation is a hot topic.  What is spiritual formation?  What does it teach?  Is it something to embrace, ignore or fight?  With this edition of Think on These Things I want to begin an examination of these questions and more.  Lord willing, all of the TOTTs articles in 2012 will be devoted to detailing and evaluating some aspect of what some have called the “Spiritual Formation Movement.”  In this lead article I intend to offer a definition of spiritual formation, trace its origins, mention a few of its practices, illustrate its recent popularity, and briefly identify its strengths and dangers.

In Search of a Definition

When the average person speaks of spiritual formation they assume that it is a modern or trendy synonym for discipleship.  Throughout church history, in obedience to the Lord’s command found in the Great Commission (Matt 28:19-20), the church has dedicated itself to the task of making disciples, or followers of Jesus Christ. Perhaps growing weary of using the same word all the time, some more creative people have substituted other words such as mentoring, although that word is taken out of a secular context rather than a biblical one.  Mentoring usually implies a one-on-one effort in which a more mature Christian is training a less mature believer as in, “I was mentored by Joe.”  I think the word mentoring, simply because of its implications, common use, and background, is not the best word to describe what Scripture calls “making disciples.”  When we examine the New Testament we find that disciple making is not the prerogative of individuals only, but also of the church.  That is, disciples are made not by one-on-one relationships so much as by the ministry of the fuller body of Christ.  While we can all point to special people in our lives who have been instrumental in our spiritual growth, and while we should all be actively involved on some level in discipling others, and while most dedicate their discipling efforts to a few people, potential disciples need the balance of the wider membership of the church to become the followers of Christ that the Lord intends (Eph 4:11-16; 1 Cor 12).  It is best, it seems to me, to stay with the biblical terminology which serves us well in understanding the task before us.

While the term “mentoring” is still used by some, it would appear that “spiritual formation” has supplanted both it and “discipleship” in the vocabulary of many. However, spiritual formation is not equivalent to discipleship, or mentoring for that matter.  Some trace the roots of the Spiritual Formation Movement to 1974 when Father William Menninger, a Trappist monk, found an ancient book entitled The Cloud of Unknowing in the library at St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, Massachusetts.  This 14^th century book offered a means by which contemplative practices, long used by Catholic monks, could be taught to lay people.  As Menninger began teaching these contemplative practices, his abbot, Thomas Keating, along with Basil Pennington, another Trappist monk, began to spread the concepts Menninger was teaching.[1]  But it was Richard Foster’s 1978 book, The Celebration of Discipline, that launched the popularity and present interest in spiritual formation.  It was by this landmark book, described by Christianity Todayas one of the ten best books of the 20^th century, that Catholic and Eastern Orthodox disciplines, practiced by the Desert Fathers and Mothers[2] as well as monks and hermits, were introduced to evangelicalism.  These disciplines were not completely unknown to evangelicals who were familiar with church history, but they were now being repackaged and offered as a means of spiritual growth and maturity.  In fact, the implication was that without the use of these ancient contemplative methods true “spiritual formation” was not possible.  Long accepted biblical disciplines, such as Bible study and prayer, were framed as quaint and simplistic. Worse, believers were told that these biblical disciplines were forged from a Western “worldview of the head.”  If the believer wanted to move deeply into the things of God, such practices were not enough, for they never really reach the heart, leaving the unsuspecting Christian with little more than a superficial intellectual knowledge of the divine with no depth. Bruce Demarest, long time Professor of Christian Theology and Spiritual Formation at Denver Seminary states, “The heart discovers and experiences God; reason demonstrates and explains God.”[3]  The same author quotes Brennan Manning as saying, “The engaged mind, illumined by truth, awakens awareness; the engaged heart, affected by love, awakens passion.”[4]  The rather explicit implication throughout spiritual formation literature is that Bible study feeds the head, but if one wants to feed the heart they must turn to the spiritual disciplines.

As more and more authors, teachers, publishers and schools began to echo the same refrain evangelicals became intimidated.

They did not want to be left out of the newest, and supposedly best, means of discipleship and so they began to read and listen to these new contemplative teachers.  As they did so they found that almost every spiritual formation book and sermon opened by tapping into the innate dissatisfaction that all believers recognize.  It goes something like this: “Are you not tired of the Christian life you have been living?  Don’t you grow weary of reading the Bible, praying, and going to church?  Wouldn’t you really like to enter into the very depth of your soul and encounter God in indescribable experiences that will radically change you forever?  If so, then you must learn and live out the disciplines that have been used by the historic church almost since its inception. Read this book (or take this course or go to this renewal retreat or work on this degree, etc.) and we will teach you what the spiritual masters of the past knew but that we have long forgotten.”

On the basis of such promises the modern Spiritual Formation Movement was birthed and now flourishes.  It sometimes goes by different handles such as Contemplative Spirituality or simply the Spiritual Disciplines, but they all refer to the same thing. Bruce Demarest offers this definition in his book Satisfy Your Soul, “Spiritual formation is an ancient ministry of the church, concerned with the ‘forming’ or ‘shaping’ of a believer’s character and actions into the likeness of Christ.”[5] Richard Foster would agree, “Christian spiritual formation is a God-ordained process that shapes our entire person so that we take on the character and being of Christ himself.”[6] This sounds much like the definition of discipleship as found in Scripture, but before we relax let’s return to Professor Demarest, who tells us that spiritual formation is not only concerned with orthodox doctrine but with “many practices that open [us] up to the presence and direction of God.”[7]  This rather benign comment actually unlocks the door to the Spiritual Formation Movement and how it differs from biblical discipleship.  What distinguishes spiritual formation from discipleship is not in its basically similar definition, but its source, its practices, and its philosophy.

Source 

Perhaps one of the most important factors to understand when analyzing spiritual formation is its source or origin.  Its teachers are fond of stating that their disciplines have old roots, going back to the earliest days of the church.  Dan Kimble, in his book The Emerging Church, calls this the vintage church, while Robert Webber, author of Ancient-Future Faith, refers to it as the classic stage of church history (approximately the second through the sixth century).  Such men have grown tired of superficial church life that has dominated much of Christianity since the insurgence of the “seeker-friendly” model.  They desire something with more substance and more historical connection than what the modern church experience offers. They suggest we study the past and pattern our lives and churches after the rich and vibrant spiritual dynamics that we supposedly find there.

I believe these men almost get it right – almost.  In fact, we do need to look to the past to see how we should live and function in the present.  The problem is that the spiritual formation leaders do not go back far enough.  In their march into the past they stop at the classical or vintage age of church formation instead of returning to the New Testament Scriptures.  This is the fatal flaw in the whole movement.  The early church (post-apostolic, not New Testament church) did many things right and many things wrong.  Its pronouncements, views, rituals, organizations, and structures can be examined with profit, but they were not without error.  I recently taught a course on the history of Christian doctrine using as a textbook John Hannah’s excellent book Our Legacy.  In that course of study I found it most discouraging to discover how very quickly the early church departed from the teaching of the epistles. Both doctrinally and ecclesiastically the church, during the “classical” stage, moved beyond the inspired Word of God to establish its own views, doctrines, philosophies, rituals and formats.

On a doctrinal level all one has to do is read a few pages in the highly acclaimed (by those who promote spiritual formation)Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture series.  This 27-volume set (including the Apocrypha) is designed to enlighten this generation concerning the views of the early church fathers and theologians.  The need for such a series is stated in the flyleaf of each volume, “Today the historical-critical method of interpretation has nearly exhausted its claim on the biblical text and on the church.  In its wake there is a widespread yearning among Christian individuals and communities for the wholesome, the deep and the enduring.”  In other words, it is time to abandon the historical-grammatical hermeneutical method and return to the fanciful and allegorical methods of the early church fathers. When you read the interpretations found in these volumes, you begin to wonder if some of the early church fathers are even reading the same Bible.  Many (not all, of course) of the comments on the various texts are so whimsical and imaginative that any hope of a normal understanding of Scripture is lost.  What this commentary series demonstrates very well is why and how the church went astray early in its history.  When you twist Scripture to mean anything you want it to mean, where you end up can be quite bizarre.

A good example of what emerged from this type of hermeneutic is the monastic movement in which the so-called Desert Fathers and Mothers migrated to the Egyptian wilderness to live as hermits and supposedly contemplate God.  In misguided zeal (and without direction from Scripture) these men and women would often starve themselves, expose their bodies to the elements, go as long as possible without sleep and live isolated from civilization.  Under these peculiar and extreme conditions many of them claimed to have visions and encounters with the Lord that normal Christians did not have. As a result, some declared these individuals super-saints and their visions and dreams as revelatory words from the Lord.  They were elevated to the status of Christian celebrities.  These are the very ones that Richard Foster, Dallas Willard, and Bruce Demarest call “spiritual masters” and from whom they draw their understanding of spiritual formation.  As we will see time and time again, the teachings, methods, and concepts behind the Spiritual Formation Movement are drawn from these early contemplative hermits, as well as the medieval monks and nuns, principally from the Counter-Reformation period, not from Scripture.

It is absolutely essential to get this connection early in our study.  Many, if not most, of the disciplines and instructions found within spiritual formation are not drawn from Scripture; they are drawn from the imaginations of men and women passed along through tradition.  Demarest tells his readers that for help in spiritual formation we are to “turn to our Christian past – to men and women who understood how the soul finds satisfaction as we grow in God, and how His Spirit finds a more ready home in us.”[8]  And just who are these people to whom we are supposed to turn?”  Demarest suggests John of the Cross, Henri Nouwen, Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, the desert fathers and mothers, and the Christians mystics.[9]  Other highly touted mystics include Thomas Keating, Thomas Merton, Francis De Sales, Thomas Kelly, Madame Guyon, Theophan the Recluse, Ignatius of Loyola, Meister Eckhart, and Julian of Norwich.  Virtually every author who has written a book on spiritual formation draws his understanding of the Christian life, and especially Christian experiences, from this stable of mystics.  In other words, spiritual formation is not founded on the New Testament Scriptures but mostly on the experiences of Roman Catholic mystics, with a few Eastern Orthodox and Quakers thrown into the mix.  This is important to understand from the beginning of our study, so I will repeat: the Spiritual Formation Movement is not based on Scripture but on the experiences, writings, and imaginations of those who teach a false gospel and misunderstand the Christian life as detailed in God’s Word.

With this in mind, we need to turn to the practices deemed absolutely essential by the mystics for spiritual formation.  These are usually termed spiritual disciplines. What disciplines are we talking about?

Disciplines

John Ortberg, a teaching pastor at Willow Creek Community Church, describes spiritual disciplines as “any activity that can help me gain power to live life as Jesus taught and modeled it.  How many spiritual disciplines are there?  As many as we can think of.”[10]  Is this the case? Can virtually any activity be turned into a spiritual discipline?  Does God sanction all spiritual practices and endorse them as means of progressive sanctification?  Biblical disciplines, which are indispensable for spiritual growth and discipleship, are, of course, positive things.  But man-made disciplines are at best optional and are certainly not essential for spiritual growth, or else God’s Word would have commanded them and provided instruction for their use.  Scripture clearly speaks of the discipline of Bible study (John 17:17; Psalm 1; Psalm 19; 2 Tim 3:15-4:6) as necessary for sanctification.  Likewise prayer is mentioned as being a source of spiritual development (Heb 4:15-16).  And the need for the body of Christ, both in the teaching of truth and mutual ministry (Eph 4:11-16; Heb 10:24-25), can be clearly found.  But when we stray much beyond these we run into trouble.  Nevertheless, the Spiritual Formation Movement offers long lists of disciplines that are essential for spiritual development.

Foster, in his Celebration of Discipline, provides a chapter each on the following disciplines:  mediation, [contemplative] prayer, fasting, study, simplicity, solitude, submission, service, confession, worship, guidance, and celebration.  InterVarsity Press has a line of books it calls Formatio which offers individual books designed to teach each of the above disciplines plus the sacramental life, silence, journaling, spiritual mentoring, pilgrimage, Sabbath keeping, sacred reading (lectio divina), and the need for spiritual directors.  Thomas Nelson Publishing has recently published an 8-volume set they call “The Ancient Practices Series.”  The first book, written by Brian McLaren (which ought to tell the discerning reader something), is Finding Our Way Again: The Return of the Ancient Practices.  The other books in the series are: In Constant Prayer, Sabbath, Fasting, Sacred Meal, Sacred Journey, The Liturgical Year and Tithing, all teaching spiritual disciplines derived from the mystics rather than from the New Testament.  NavPress offers its “Spiritual Formation Line” to promote the spiritual disciplines.  Many other major Christian publishers are following suit including Zondervan, which links with Youth Specialties to offer books aimed toward teaching young people and adults the contemplative life.  Even from the pens of more conservative authors it is almost rare to read a recently published book that does not quote at least a few mystics.  Some of the more prominent authors in the field include: Richard Foster (of course), Dallas Willard, Phyllis Tickle, Robert Benson, Dan Allender, Scot McKnight, Nora Gallagher, Adele Calhoun, David deSilva, Ruth Barton, Jan Johnson, Lynne Baab, Diana Butler Bass, Helen Cepero, Leighton Ford, Larry Crabb, Calvin Miller, Tricia McCary Rhodes, Mindy Caliguire, Albert Haase, Eugene Peterson, M. Robert Mulholland Jr., Gordon Smith, Brian McLaren, John Ortberg, Mark Yaconelli, Brennan Manning, Bruce Demarest, and Kenneth Boa.  And this might be barely scratching the surface.

Future Think on These Things articles will directly address and critique many of these disciplines but for now it is important to note that Scripture does not teach that any of these (as defined in most spiritual formation literature) are a means of spiritual growth, sanctification or discipleship.  Some of the spiritual disciplines encouraged are mentioned in the Word, yet very little specific detail is given on how they are to be observed or their purpose.  Take fasting for example.  Every reader of Scripture knows that fasting is mentioned on numerous occasions, but few comprehend its purpose and function. At no point in the Bible are we told that fasting enhances spiritual growth, or produces spiritual formation, although it has spiritual implications (we will look specifically at fasting in a future article).

If the spiritual disciplines, as are being taught by the leaders of the Spiritual Formation Movement, are not actually found in Scripture, how can Christian authors be so assertive in recommending them?  They often do so because they are convinced that the human authors of Scripture were strong practitioners of the spiritual disciplines, but the disciplines were so much a part of first century life that the inspired authors saw no need to mention them in the New Testament.  Dallas Willard, the “mentor” of Richard Foster, writes that Paul, for example, lived out the spiritual disciplines but did not write about them in the epistles for, “Obviously…for him and the readers of his own day, [there would be] no need to write a book on the disciplines for the spiritual life that explained systematically what he had in mind…But quite a bit of time has passed – and many abuses have occurred in the name of spiritual disciplines [since that time].”[11]

What Willard is saying is that the only reason Paul and the apostles did not write about the disciplines is because they were already being practiced and modeled by the apostles to such an extent that no one at the time needed more information and insight into them.  This is of course not only an argument from silence but a bit ludicrous as well.  Did not the believers see Paul modeling prayer, preaching, body life and the study of Scripture?  If so, why did he bother to write about the importance of these while completely ignoring many of the disciplines about which spiritual formation leaders are excited?  The answer to this question is of extreme importance.  Willard believes that, if Christians today are to live as the apostles and early disciples did, it is important that they somehow share in their experience but since, of course, we do not live with them, all we can do is read about their lives.  This leaves us alienated from the lives of early disciples and therefore lacking in their spirituality. What can we do?  “The only way to overcome this alienation from their sort of life,” Willard suggests, “is by entering into the actual practices of Jesus and Paul as something essential to our life in Christ.”[12]  By this he means that we must engage in the spiritual disciplines that heassumes the early believers practiced (although we are never told so in the New Testament, nor mandated to do so).

This leads us to a fork in the road early in our studies.  Do we, as believers in sola Scriptura, take our marching orders from the written Word, or do we look to the “white spaces” in Scripture to determine how we live?  Do we actually believe that the Lord has given us in Scripture the teachings and practices He wants us to follow, or do we believe that we must supplement the authentic words of God with our imagination and traditions of men?  This is increasingly becoming an issue within almost all branches of evangelicalism.  Once it is accepted that we can enhance the Christian life by augmenting the inspired words of Scripture there is no limit to where we might end up.  Take Bruce Demarest for example. As a lifetime conservative professor at a strong evangelical seminary, when he was first exposed to spiritual formation he resisted but in time he claimed he got over his biases and accepted the teachings behind it.  He writes, “Admittedly I found that certain beliefs and traditions remained foreign to me, being based more on tradition than solidly on Scripture.  All denominations have their blind spots.  But I also found that, once I got past my old prejudices and misunderstanding, I accepted more than I rejected.”[13]

Philosophy

The Spiritual Formation Movement is concerned more about individual experience than biblical knowledge or truth.  This does not mean that adherents are totally uninterested in the Bible, and some would know it well. But the emphasis is on what a person experiences through the Bible more so than what they learn.  Contemplatives, such as Dallas Willard and Richard Foster, will strongly encourage Bible reading and prayer but they mean something different from what most Christians mean when they reference the same terms.  As we will see in future articles, contemplative prayer is not the same as prayer defined biblically; “sacred reading” (also called lectio divina) of Scripture is not the same as Bible study; meditation (mystically encountering God) is not the same as knowing God and so forth.  Many of the same terms are used, but as the classical liberals, and the more recent emergents, are fond of doing, they take our terms, including biblical ones, and give them new definitions and twists.

Many of the spiritual disciplines that are supposedly necessary for spiritual formation are either not found in the Bible, or have been redefined to mean something foreign to the scriptural meaning.  We are being told that disciplines such as silence, journaling, or observing the liturgical calendar will transform our lives even though God’s Word does not advocate these things as means of spiritual growth.  This puts the sincere Christian on the horns of a dilemma:  Does Scripture actually “equip [the believer] for every good work” (2 Tim 4:17) as it promises, or does it not?  If the Word is in need of being supplemented by the traditions, practices, and methods of people, which ones are we to choose – and, more importantly, how would we know which ones would be helpful?  Do we determine such things by looking to the past and decreeing a particular set of hermits or mystics, who claimed visions and dreams and supernatural encounters with God, as our guide?  And if so, which of the mystics get the nod as “spiritual masters” since many of their claims were mutually contradictory and highly fanciful?  Or perhaps we should look to pragmatism as our guide.  In other words, if it works for you then go for it.  This seems to be the collective wisdom of spiritual formation teachers – if it works it must be from God, even if not sanctioned in Scripture.

There are at least two ways spiritual formation leaders attempt to establish a biblical foundation for the disciplines.  The first has already been alluded to: ancient people were already practicing disciplines and so direct revelation from God was not necessary.  Willard writes,

Thoughtful and religiously devout people of the classical and Hellenistic world, from the Ganges to the Tiber, knew that the mind and body of the human being had to be rigorously disciplined to achieve a decent individual and social existence.  This is not something St. Paul had to prove or even explicitly state to his readers – but it also was not something he overlooked, leaving it to be thought up by crazed monks in the Dark Ages.  It is, rather, a wisdom gleaned from millennia of collective human experience.[14]

In other words, the wisdom of collective human experience has recognized the need for religious disciplines, therefore a word from the Lord was unnecessary in biblical times.  But the reality is that “collective human experience” and wisdom, especially in regard to religion, is self-deceiving (Prov 14:12).  Man cannot comprehend God apart from divine revelation.  The wisdom of collective human experience has resulted in every sort of human-created religion, all of which ultimately lead people astray.  The wisdom of man never draws people to God or His ways (James 3:13-18).  This was one of the key reasons that Jesus Christ came to earth; it was necessary for Him to “explain” God to us, otherwise we could never understand Him (John 1:18).

This takes us directly to the second way spiritual formation leaders attempt to lay a biblical foundation for what they teach.  They make the claim that spiritual disciplines were practiced by Jesus and the apostles followed suit, therefore we are to do the same thing.  Willard tells us, “The key to understanding Paul is to know that…he lived and practiced daily the things his Lord taught and practiced…Paul followed Jesus by living as he lived.  And how did he do that?  Through activities and ways of living that would train his whole personality to depend upon the risen Christ as Christ trained himself to depend upon the Father.”[15] What kind of practices does Willard have in mind?  Here is a sample, “It is solitude and solitude alone that opens the possibility of a radical relationship to God that can withstand all external events up to and beyond death.”[16] None of us would deny that Jesus went away on occasion to pray or rest, as did Paul and the other apostles.  Nor would any doubt the benefit of spending time alone with the Lord.  But when we are told that “it is solitude and solitude alone that opens the possibility of a radical relationship to God,” I think it would be nice to have at least one proof text that actually says this.  Where in Scripture does God make such a statement?  One of the problems facing the evangelical church today is that too many men and women are setting themselves up as the final authority on the Christian life. We need to remember that no matter how famous, successful or popular Christian leaders may become, their authority rests solely on the revealed Word of God, not their own personality or intellect.

One of the points that spiritual formation adherents miss is that the New Testament does address their approach to spirituality.  InColossians 2:20-23 Paul clearly tells us that many of the disciplines that were being promoted then, as well as today, have no spiritual value at all.  He asks the Colossians, “Why do you submit yourselves to decrees, such as, ‘Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch!’ (which all refer to things destined to perish with the using) – in accordance with the commandments and teachings of men?  These are matters which have to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of no value against fleshly indulgence.”

The essence of the Spiritual Formation Movement is that through the use of their recommended disciplines our fleshly nature will be tamed and we will grow to become like Christ.  Willard writes, “[Paul’s] crucifixion of the flesh, and ours, is accomplished through those activities such as solitude, fasting, frugality, service, and so forth, which constitute the curriculum in the school of self-denial and place us on the front line of spiritual combat.”[17] But the inspired apostle says the exact opposite.  Bodily discipline does not control “fleshly indulgence.”  Victory over sin and spiritual growth is the work (fruit) of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:16-26) which is cultivated when we make use of the means that Scripture specifically prescribes, not the practices that have been invented or distorted by men.

Strengths and Dangers

On the positive side, we applaud anyone who sincerely wants to become more like Christ.  The Spiritual Formation Movement has recognized a genuine lack in the spiritual lives of many who claim to follow the Lord.  Many have gone to church, read the Bible, spent time in prayer, and have a good handle on doctrine, but they have no quality of spiritual life.  Admittedly, all of us experience dry spells in our spiritual journey and at such times we are vulnerable to a charismatic speaker, a well-written book, or a moving retreat.  None of this is negative, unless what is being taught lacks biblical authority.  At times these dry seasons are instruments of God to prepare our hearts for lessons He will teach.  At other times we need to recognize that we may very well have left the path of true discipleship and need to return to the way laid out for us in the Word.  The real danger is that we will turn to the wrong sources for our answers.  This is what spiritual formation is doing.

Richard Foster wrote in 2004,

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.[18]

This demonstrates well the popularity and spread of spiritual formation.  Something that was only known in esoteric Roman Catholic circles less than 40 years ago is now demanding a front row seat in evangelical life.  What has changed?  The doctrines and teachings of Catholicism have not budged, but the willingness of evangelicals to compromise with the theology and practices of Rome have.  As a matter of fact, even those who are soundly in conservative evangelical camps are willing to ignore huge doctrinal differences in order to experience a vitality of life that they, for whatever reason, have come to believe the Catholic contemplatives have to offer. Yet I believe that Michael Horton is correct when he warned,

We want to have direct, intuitive supernatural experiences.  But God has determined that we derive all our knowledge of Him, not through direct encounters, but through the written Word, the Bible, and in the Person and work of His incarnate Son.[19]

What Scripture offers in the way of Christian experience and what spiritual formation offers are two different things, as I hope to demonstrate in the articles to come.

Conclusion

While some use “spiritual formation” as a synonym for discipleship, this is a mistake.  However spiritual formation is officially defined, the means of spiritual formation within the movement is always spiritual disciplines drawn almost entirely from Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox mystics. Some evangelicals attempt to clean the disciplines up and redeem them for non-Catholic use, but the fact remains these disciplines are not taught in Scripture as channels for spiritual growth and discipleship.

Many are turning to spiritual formation at this time due to their own disappointments with their spiritual lives.  When someone recommends the spiritual disciplines “which the church has always practiced throughout its history” (without mentioning that this is a reference to mystics within the Catholic and Orthodox traditions), some will naïvely jump at the opportunity.  But as John MacArthur warns in another context,

Lifeless, dry orthodoxy is the inevitable result of isolating objective truth from vibrant experience.  But the answer to dead orthodoxy is not to build a theology on experience.  Genuine experience must grow out of sound doctrine.  We are not to base what we believe on what we have experienced.  The reverse is true.  Our experiences will grow out of what we believe.[20]

Spiritual dry spells and dead spots are an inevitable part of the Christian life.  Sometimes they are just normal mood cycles, at other times they are rooted in true spiritual concerns and sins.  The disciple of Christ should pay attention to such times, for the Lord is at work.  But the solution is not to turn to experiences and methods springing from the traditions of the past; it is found in returning to Scripture and through the power of the Holy Spirit living out the revelation the Lord has given us.

I must caution that the position I take will draw heavy criticism.  Demarest attempts to ward off critiques of the Spiritual Formation Movement by saying, “The criticisms levied against the renewal of evangelical spirituality today reflects a lack of humility and charity.  The excoriation of many Christian movements and leaders communicates the message that ‘I alone have the truth’ and ‘the majority of faithful Christians today are wrong.’”[21]  But this constitutes no argument at all, rather it is an attempt to silence and intimidate those who challenge spiritual formation.  The proper rebuttal to Demarest is to argue that anyone claiming that “I alone have the truth” would be truly arrogant and lacking in charity.  However, to claim that the Lord alone has the truth and He has revealed that portion of truth He wants us to know in Scripture (Deut 29:29) is a different matter.  If in fact the Lord has given us the authoritative Word to teach us that which we should know and how we should live, it would seem the wisest, kindest and most God-honoring thing we could do to believe, teach and live exactly as He has instructed us. In fact, it is the height of arrogance to do otherwise.  Instead of chasing after the experiences and traditions of men we should rather delve deeply into the Word of God and live out the experiences He has designed for His followers.

[1]James D. Maxwell III, www.faith.edu/seminary/printerfriendly.php?article=./faithpulpit/2009_03-04.

[2] Desert Fathers and Mothers were hermits, ascetics, monks and nuns who lived in the desert of Egypt during the third and fourth century A.D.  There ascetic lifestyle was viewed as an alternative to martyrdom which previously has been seen as the highest possible sacrifice for the Lord

[3] Bruce Demarest, Satisfying Your Soul, Restoring the Heart of Christian Spirituality, (Colorado Springs: NavPress, 1999), p. 84.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Bruce Demarest, p. 23.

[6] Richard J.  Foster and Gayle D. Beebe, Longing for God, Seven Paths of Christian Devotion, (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2009), p. 12.

[7] Bruce Demarest, p. 26.

[8] Ibid., p. 23.

[9] Ibid., pp. 26-27, 34.

[10] John Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted, Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002), p. 48.

[11] Dallas Willard, The Spirit of the Disciplines, (San Francisco: Harper, 1991), p. 95.

[12] Ibid., p. 97.

[13] Bruce Demarest, p. 35.

[14] Dallas Willard, p. 99.

[15] Ibid., p. 106.

[16] Ibid., p. 101 (emphasis mine).

[17] Ibid., p. 109.

[18] http://www.theooze.com/articles/article.cfm?id=744

[19] As quoted in Demarest, p. 79.

[20] John MacArthur, Charismatic Chaos, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992), p. 65.

[21] Demarest, p. 89.

The original appears right here.

HT: Better Than Sacrifice

See also:

STRAIGHTENING OUT BETH MOORE ON DISCERNMENT

JOHN PIPER RECOMMENDS BOOK BY EMERGING CONTEMPLATIVE LAUREN WINNER

PETER SCAZZERO INTRODUCING ENNEAGRAMS INTO MAINSTREAM EVANGELICALISM

CSM is a repackaged Roman Catholic mysticism, taught by the dubious duo of Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster along with his spiritual twin Dallas Willard under the guise of so-called Spiritual Formation.

That’s why the below tweet a bit ago by Dr. John Piper caught my eye:

(Online source)

God be praised, AM also happens to be a leading work exposing the sinfully ecumenical neo-liberal cult of the Emerging Church aka the Emergent Church—with its circus “big tent” Progressive Christianity aka Emergence Christianity.

So, I thought you might want to be aware of this tweet from Dr. Piper. I told you via a footnote in Tony Jones Worships A Demon that Lauren Winner is teaching “The Doctor of Ministry cohort in Christian Spirituality” (i.e. CSM) at Fuller Theological Seminary.

As you’ll see below she’s doing so along with Jones and the Empress of Emergence herself Phyllis Tickle:

(Online source)

This earlier piece from FTS, Lauren Winner, Tony Jones and Phyllis Tickle Discuss Emergence Spirituality, shows you we’re headed directly into spurious CSM: 

Lauren Winner, author of Girl Meets God and professor at Duke University Divinity School, observed that in the last five years she has experienced in her own life and seen among many Christians an effort to achieve a balance between active and contemplative spirituality.

“I’m not sure I can say that’s a trend in North American spirituality,” said Winner, “but I hope that it is.” (Online source)

Any doubt concerning contemplative teachings from Lauren Winner, a professor at the liberal Duke University Divinity School, is dispelled from the very book recommended today by Dr. John Piper. Note her praise for the cult of Foster-Willardism:

The language of spiritual discipline, an ancient idiom of the church, has come into vogue again. In the 1970s and’80s, two books on spiritual disciplines, now rightly now rightly considered modern-day classics, were published: Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline and Dallas Willard’s The Spirit of the Disciplines.

Foster and Willard called readers to deepen their Christian lives by incorporating ancient practices of the church. These books struck a tremendous chord, and Christians of all stripes began exploring habits and structures like liturgical prayer, fasting, solitude, simplicity, and tithing. The spiritual disciplines are things that we do; they are things that we practice.

They are ways we orient our whole selves-our bodies and minds and hearts, our communities and rhythms and ways of being in the world-toward God. Thinking of spirituality as something we practice or do strikes some people as odd-isn’t the point of Christianity that Jesus saves you regardless of what you do?[1] 

That last sentence is unclear, at best, and smacks of the universalism of Emergence Christianity at worst. No, Jesus doesn’t save you “regardless of what you do.” The Gospel is conditional upon one’s acceptance of it; the Love Wins mythology of former EC rock star pastor Rob Bell is a fable.

In closing this, for now, Dr. Gary Gilley has rightly pointed out that “Celebration Of Discipline” By Richard Foster An Encyclopedia Of Theological Error. When it comes to Foster-Willardism, Christian apologist Bob DeWaay is dead on target when he says:

The spiritual disciplines are not taught in Matthew 11:29, 30 (Willard’s primary proof test), and even Willard admits they cannot be found elsewhere in scripture… As with most unbiblical approaches, the spiritual disciplines are based on the idea of innate human powers that can be harnessed for good. Holding a false concept of sin as a “disruption of that higher [spiritual] life,” Willard looks for a solution through finding our true potential, individually and corporately, through spiritual disciplines that will enable us to reconstruct the rule of God now…

These ideas are more akin to Eastern Religion than Biblical Christianity. Our problem is not the need to suck in more “unembodied personal power” by techniques to contact God. We are dead sinners facing God’s wrath unless we repent and believe the gospel. Willard’s concepts are foreign to the Bible… The idea of practicing spiritual disciplines was imported to the text, not found there. We live in an age of mysticism. People lust for spiritual reality and spiritual experiences.

The danger is that unbiblical practices will give people a real spiritual experience, but not from God. Deception is the likely outcome. God puts a boundary around the means by which we come to Him and grow in Him for our own protection. If we ignore the boundary set by Biblical guidelines, there is no telling were we will end up. If however, we come to God on His terms, knowing that we have a High Priest who is at the right hand of God, and that we have access through His blood into the holiest place, we can be assured we cannot be any closer to God this side of heaven. (Online source)

I talked about this earlier in John Piper, Rick Warren & Foster-Willardism. Yet right now in the library of Bethlehem Baptist Church (BBC) where John Piper is pastor we find Richard Foster, Prayer Finding the Heart’s True Home:

(Online source)

Here, from my personal copy, is a little sample of what we learn about “prayer” from CSM guru Foster:

Contemplative Prayer immerses us into the silence of God. How desperately we in the modern world need this wordless baptism… Contemplative Prayer is the one discipline that can free us from our addiction to words. Progress in intimacy with God means progress toward silence… It is recreating silence to which we are called in Contemplative Prayer…

A Warning And A Precaution

At the outset I need to give a word of warning,… Contemplative Prayer is not for the novice. I do not say this about any other form of prayer… Contemplative prayer is for those who have exercised their spiritual muscles a bit and know something about the landscape of the spirit. In fact, those who work in the area of spiritual direction always look for signs of a maturing faith before encouraging individuals into Contemplative Prayer…

I also want to give a word of precaution. In the silent contemplation of God we are entering deeply into the spiritual realm, and there is such a thing as a supernatural guidance. While the Bible does not give us a lot of information on that, there are various orders of spiritual beings, and some of them are definitely not in cooperation with God and his way! … But for now I want to encourage you to learn and practice prayers of protection.[2]

As I pointed out elsewhere, this couldn’t be clearer that what we’re actually dealing with here is a new form of Gnosticism; i.e. it’s hostile to the proper Christian spirituality of sola Scriptura. At BBC we also find the book Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives.

It’s Willard’s ode to asceticism and the very same book which DeWaay discussed above:

(Online source)

In the end, I think we need to ask a few questions. Why would Dr. Piper wish to expose his flock to sinfully ecumenical Foster-Willardism? Why would Dr. Piper recommend Lauren Winner’s book when it specifically encourages this Foster-Willardism?

Or are we to think that Dr. Piper didn’t know what was in Lauren Winner’s book when he recommended it?

___________________________________________________________________________
End notes:

[1] Lauren F. Winner. Real Sex: The Naked Truth about Chastity (p. 124). Kindle Edition.

[2] Richard Foster, Prayer: Finding The Heart’s True Home [New York: Harper Collins, 1997], 155, 156, 157.

See also:

IS THIS DOCTRINAL AND SOUND DR. JOHN PIPER?

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

DEBUNKING DALLAS WILLARD AND BEING WORTHY TO BE SAVED