As Apprising Ministries monitors the Net and social media one of the trends I’m seeing is postmodernism’s effects slithering more deeply into the professing Christian community. Combined with the sappy sentimentality spread by practice of Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism people are now deciding issues by their feelings.

My point being, it simply doesn’t matter one iota how we may feel about a given subject; it’s truth or falsehood is based upon factuality, not feelings. A case in point right now is Oprah Winfrey. Once again people are becoming convinced that the media mogul is a Christian. As a matter of fact, Winfrey even makes that claim herself.

The clip below is from Spiritual Lives – Oprahs Lifeclass a few weeks ago on April 24th 2012. At 0:26 you’ll hear Winfrey say, “I am a Christian; that is my faith,” and also says that she can show us how to be one:

You can also see Winfrey’s tolerant statement, “I respect for all faiths” was a real crowd pleaser. Of course we respect people of other faiths but with such as those as Oprah Winfrey those religions are actually irrelevant because, in their warped and toxic perceptions, the New Spirituality they espouse transcends these faiths.

What’s imperative in this tolerant time in which we live is to make people define their terms. If we hope to understand Winfrey’s claim we simply can’t let her go off-roading mentally into the mud of the postmodern Wonderland of Humpty Dumpty language where the meanings of words descend into its muck and mire.

So now, from her own—pardon the pun—words we’ll let Winfrey testify as to what she means by Christian. When we do you’ll clearly see she’s not a Christian despite her claim to the contrary. The following clips come from A New Earth Online Class which Winfrey did with Eckhart Tolle, a leading guru of the New Spirituality.

This was Winfrey’s first stab at webcasting while the two promoted the mythology in Tolle’s book A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (ANE). Following is Winfrey’s “Christian” testimony from her own lips; and keep in mind this is taken directly from the transcript of the online class, produced by Winfrey herself.

I want you to know that I purposely left the commercials in this opening clip to give you a better idea just how dangerous Oprah Winfrey really is. As you’ll see, she literally reaches, and impacts, millions of people around the entire world with her deadly spirituality; and with some heavyweight sponsors as well.

What we want to note in this first clip is that Winfrey calls Living Spiritual Teacher Eckhart Tolle’s ANE “one of the most important books of our time.” This is clearly an endorsement of Tolle’s spiritual mythology:

OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): Welcome to our very first live worldwide interactive event. We are here tonight breaking new ground. Nothing like this has ever been attempted before. Right now, you all are online with me from every corner on our planet. Places like Albania, Bolivia, Cambodia, Ecuador, Finland, Hong Kong, China, India, Zimbabwe, Australia, Canada, the UK and the rest of Europe. Along with, of course, all 50 states here in our United States of America. Over 139 countries are represented in our class tonight. Welcome to you all.

So I want to get started. This is the most exciting thing I’ve ever done. I’ve done a lot of things in my life, but I am most proud of the fact that all of you have joined us in this global community to talk about what I believe is one of the most important subjects and presented by one of the most important books of our time, “A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose.”

I don’t think there’s anything more important than awakening and also knowing what your purpose is. And for the next 10 weeks, author and spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle and I will be here in our virtual classroom here on Oprah.com every Monday, 8 p.m. Be on time for class—8 p.m. Central. (source, emphasis mine)

Here’s what Dr. Gary Gilley tells us about Tolle’s ANE in his review:

A New Earth is little more than the standard New Age (New Spirituality) fare which would be highly familiar to those having knowledge of this doctrine. What makes A New Earth unique is its adoption and promotion by Oprah Winfrey who has become perhaps the biggest cheerleader for New Age spirituality in modern times. Because of Oprah’s endorsement, millions of Eckhart Tolle’s books have been sold and New Age ideas have spread to a whole new segment of Western society…

Tolle believes that all things are one (monism) (pp. 4, 26, 106) with the universe. This Eastern pantheistic teaching ultimately leads to all things being God. We are not surprised when he tells us that, “we are light” (p. 28), we are “I Am” (pp. 57, 60, 64, 79), “you are the Truth” (p. 71), we have a “common divinity” (p. 74), “I am life…I and life are one…I Am” (p. 128), we are God, or Being (p. 220), etc. (source)

Obviously, this is not Christian theology and no genuine Christian would think ANE’s a most important book; we’d reject it as blasphemy. This next clip comes as Winfrey is praising an earlier book by Tolle called The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, which she says was a “book [that] was a life-changing book for me.”

Shifting back to Tolle’s ANE Winfrey then asks the guru, “How did this come to be? How did this come through you—to you?” Tolle tells her it was essentially what is known as automatic writing where the spiritual writer claims the work comes through them from another source:

Well, it comes out of the space of stillness, and that’s where all creative endeavor is born. So it’s getting in touch with the stillness within, where there’s no mental noise, and out of that stillness, when the time is right, sometimes an impulse comes. Something—a feeling, a strong sense that something wants to be born into this world…

I had the same strong sense before writing The Power of Now. That was 13 years ago…and suddenly this came. I bought a notepad, and suddenly the strong stream came through, and I wrote, “What is Enlightenment?” The beginning of The Power of Now. The moment I wrote that, I knew this is the book that wants to be born. So rather than me wanting to write a book, there was a book that wanted to be written. (source)

Winfrey wonders if Tolle thought it was “like Michelangelo” who said “the angel’s in the marble and he just cuts away the marble.” Tolle then replies:

ECKHART TOLLE (AUTHOR A NEW EARTH: AWAKENING TO YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE): Yes. So and I find—I’ll come back to that in a second—for most people that is the approach to “What is my purpose?” To look at what the greater purpose is, “What does the greater purpose want from me? What does life or God want from me?” Rather than, “What do I want from life?” So that’s the starting point. I know that sometimes in New Age you have the question, “Well, what do you want?”

It’s fine to ask that question, but a more powerful question is, “What does life want from me? How do I fit into the—what is the totality? What is my place within the whole?” So this is how it started, as knowing that this is what life wants from me. The book wants to be born. And the same thing happened later with the New Earth, again, a similar sense of “Oh, there’s another book that wants to come.” I didn’t know why because everybody told me, “Well, you’ve said it all in The Power of Now, why write another book?”

And I, intellectually, I couldn’t have answered, “Why am I writing another book?” And it happened.

OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): And it happened. Were you asking life, universal energy? I don’t know. What do you call that? As a word do you—I call it “God.” What do you, what word do you use for that?

ECKHART TOLLE (AUTHOR A NEW EARTH: AWAKENING TO YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE): Consciousness…

OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): Were you asking consciousness, were you saying, “What do you want from me?”

ECKHART TOLLE (AUTHOR A NEW EARTH: AWAKENING TO YOUR LIFE’S PURPOSE): Yes. (source)

Again, this impersonal, unknowable, ”consciousness” is a repudiation of the Christian position concerning the nature of the one true and living God of the Bible Who is Personal and known through Jesus Christ. If Oprah Winfrey was a Christian she would just not be endorsing and promoting this New Spirituality of Eckhart Tolle.

This next clip comes as Winfrey then opens the discussion to her online web class. It also gives you another peek at how Winfrey is now shipwrecking people’s faith:

This is classic New Age mythology aka the New Spirituality and actually couldn’t be further from a Christian testimony. Jesus didn’t come to show us some laws “to know that way.” No, Jesus is the way to the Father; and He didn’t come “to show us Christ consciousness because the Bible tells us God the Son is the Christ.

In this last clip Oprah Winfrey asks Eckhart Tolle “how do you advise people to reconcile this with their religious beliefs?” After his rather confused and conflicting foray into the doublespeak of the New Spirituality, finally, as she continues on with her answer to the caller she leaves no doubt that Oprah Winfrey is not a Christian:

OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): And how do you advise people to reconcile this with their religious beliefs?

See also:

CHRISTIANS DON’T DENY JESUS IS THE ONLY WAY TO GOD OPRAH WINFREY

MARCUS BORG AND CHRISTIANS WHO DON’T BELIEVE IN JESUS

WILL THE REAL JESUS PLEASE STAND UP?

See also:

OPRAH WINFREY SPEAKING AS A “CHRISTIAN”

OPRAH WINFREY, JOEL OSTEEN & CHRISTIAN POST

WILL THE REAL JESUS PLEASE STAND UP?

See also:

DOMYSTIC

RICK WARREN, JOHN PIPER & CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY/MYSTICISM

TIM KELLER RECOMMENDING ROMAN CATHOLIC MYSTICISM

MARK DRISCOLL, ACTS 29 NETWORK, & THE EMERGING CHURCH

DO MYS TIC (də mɪst’ ik) n.

(DOM, from DOMIONION n. – 1400–50; late Middle English  < Middle French  < Medieval Latin *dominiōn-  (stem of *dominiō ) lordship, property, ownership); (MYSTIC n. – 1275–1325; Middle English mystik  < Latin mysticus  < Greek mystikós,  equivalent to mýst ( ēs ) an initiate into the mysteries + -ikos -ic;  akin to myeîn  to initiate, teach occult practices or ancient religions). 

1. A person who uses mystical experiences for the purpose of achieving power, dominion or control.

      2.   A person who believes that mystical practices will result in dominion, particularly in the evolutionary sense of emergence theory.

      3.   A person who believes that mystical altered states of consciousness are an asset to furthering spiritual and/or tangible dominionism aims.

      4.   A leader who manipulates or promotes mystical experiences in order to further his power base.

See also:

PROTHOLIC

WHAT IS DOMINIONISM?

IHOP ENTERS DOMINION/CHRISTIAN RIGHT POLITICS

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth…

No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father’s side, he has made him known… Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (John 1:1,14,18; 14:6)

Oprah Now Takes Us Into The Wild Wonderland Of Humpty Dumpty Language

Here at Apprising Ministries I’m occasionally asked if Oprah Winfrey is a Christian. The short answer is: We have no real reason whatsoever to believe that she is. Consider the below from a respected mainstream evangelical apologetics and discernment ministry in their article The Gospel According to Oprah:

Clearly, Oprah Winfrey has been converted into the New Age Movement. And one of the biggest deceptions is that she apparently doesn’t know it. Many of her favorite guests are major New Age proponents and authors, and Oprah contributes to the enormous popularity and sales of their books.

Some of these New Age guests (and a number of them make repeat appearances) are, Marianne Williamson, Barbara DeAngelis, LaVar Burton, Richard Carlson, Betty Eadie, Dannion Brinkley, M. Scott Peck, Sophy Burnham, Marilyn Ferguson, Kevin Ryerson, Shirley MacLaine, Sara Breathnach, James Hillman, and psychic medium and best-selling author, James Van Praagh…

Oprah was raised in a black Baptist church in Mississippi. It is not known whether she had a healthy exposure to Christianity or a distorted one, but she is clearly in the process of deconstructing Christianity and reframing it into a New Age perspective…

Oprah, as with other New Agers, is not in pursuit and in communion with God but is in pursuit with the “image of God”-by elevating man to Divinity. The problem with this is the God of the universe has not called us to join ourselves to the creation but to Himself, “the Creator who is blessed forever” (Romans 1:25). (Online source)

As you may know Oprah has just ended her daily TV program; and as she discussed her career while doing the talk show circuit Oprah Winfrey thanked “Jesus” for making it all happen. On Good Morning America Winfrey said, “Nobody but Jesus could have made this happen for me.”[1]

The key question at this point is: You Love Jesus; Good For You, But Which One? Well, what follows from Oprah and Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth webcast classes should answer this question once and for all. Here is Oprah’s “Christian” testimony from her own lips.

Keep in mind this is taken directly from the transcript of her online class with Eckhart Tolle, a leading guru of the New Spirituality, as they promoted the mythology in his book A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose:

OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): And you know, it’s been a journey to get to the place where I understand, as I said on the pre-show here, that what I believe is that Jesus came to show us Christ consciousness.

OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): That Jesus came to show us the way of the heart and that what Jesus was saying that to show us the higher consciousness that we’re all talking about here. Jesus came to say, “Look I’m going to live in the body, in the human body and I’m going to show you how it’s done.” These are some principles and some laws that you can use to live by to know that way. And when I started to recognize that, that Jesus didn’t come in my belief, even as a Christian, I don’t believe that Jesus came to start Christianity…

OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): You have a rich array of gems from which to draw illumination. The world’s religious traditional, mythology, psychology, healing methods, scientific wisdom, your own experience and that you can begin to string a necklace all your own… And so it’s really a question of…this material [which] strikes a chord within you.

OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): Something in you opens up and wants, you know, feels alive and is awakened to that. And yet there is the ideology that says what to you…

OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): Well, I am a Christian who believes that there are certainly many more paths to God other than Christianity.

OPRAH WINFREY (HOST): I’m a free-thinking Christian who believes that, who believes in my way, but I don’t believe that it’s the only way, with six billion people here on the planet.
(Online source, emphasis mine)

Unfortunately for Oprah and all who believe her message, as you can see in Will The Real Jesus Please Stand Up, this is not Who Jesus is. The Bible clearly tells us that Christ Jesus of Nazareth is God in human flesh and the totally unique—one of a kind—Son of God; and further:

“let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by him this man is standing before you well.”

“This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:10-12)

________________________________________________________________________________
Endnotes:

[1] You can see the GMA video here: http://tiny.cc/45tq6, accessed 5/26/11.

See also:

NO BOUNDARIES IF YOU LOVE “JESUS”

THE EMERGING CHURCH AND THE NEW PROGRESSIVE THEOLOGY ON CHRIST

MARCUS BORG AND CHRISTIANS WHO DON’T BELIEVE IN JESUS

First, it is necessary to understand what sola Scriptura does and does not assert. The Reformation principle of sola Scriptura has to do with the sufficiency of Scripture as our supreme authority in all spiritual matters. Sola Scriptura simply means that all truth necessary for our salvation and spiritual life is taught either explicitly or implicitly in Scripture.

It is not a claim that all truth of every kind is found in Scripture. The most ardent defender of sola Scriptura will concede, for example, that Scripture has little or nothing to say about DNA structures, microbiology, the rules of Chinese grammar, or rocket science. 

This or that “scientific truth” for example, may or may not be actually true, whether or not it can be supported by Scripture—but Scripture is a “more sure Word,” standing above all other truth in its authority and certainty. It is “more sure,” according to the apostle Peter, than the data we gather firsthand through our own senses (2 Pet. 1:19). Therefore Scripture is the highest and supreme authority on any matter to which it speaks. But there are many important questions on which Scripture is silent. Sola Scriptura makes no claim to the contrary.

Nor does sola Scriptura claim that everything Jesus or the apostles ever taught is preserved in Scripture.  It only means that everything necessary, everything binding on our consciences, and everything God requires of us is given to us in Scripture.

Furthermore, we are forbidden to add to or take way from Scripture (cf. Deut. 4:2; 12:32, cf. Rev. 22:18-19). To do so is to lay on people’s shoulders a burden that God Himself does not intend for them to bear (cf. Matt. 23:4).

Scripture is therefore the perfect and only standard of spiritual truth, revealing infallibly all that we must believe in order to be saved, and all that we must do in order to glorify God. That—no more, no less—is what sola Scriptura means.

The Westminster Confession of Faith defines the sufficiency of Scripture like this:

The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from scripture: unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelations of the Spirit, or traditions of men (1:6).

The Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican Church include this statement on sola Scriptura:

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man, that it should be believed as an article of the Faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation (article 6).

So sola Scriptura simply means that Scripture is sufficient. The fact that Jesus did and taught many things not recorded in Scripture (Jn. 20:30; 21:25) is wholly irrelevant to the principle of sola Scriptura. The fact that most of the apostles’ actual sermons in the early churches were not written down and preserved for us does not diminish the truth of biblical sufficiency one bit. What is certain is that all that is necessary is in Scripture—and we are forbidden “to exceed what is written” (1 Cor. 4:6).

Scripture clearly claims for itself this sufficiency—and nowhere more clearly that 2 Timothy 3:15-17. A brief summary of that passage is perhaps appropriate here as well. In short, verse 15 affirms that Scripture is sufficient for salvation: “The sacred writings . . . are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” Verse 16 affirms the absolute authority of Scripture, which is “God-breathed” (Gk. theopneustos) and profitable for our instruction. And verse 17 states that Scripture is able to equip the man of God “for every good work.” 

So the assertion that the Bible itself does not teach sola Scriptura is simply wrong. (Scripture, Tradition, and Rome, Part 2)

John MacArthur

And the Lord said to me: “The prophets are prophesying lies in my name. I did not send them, nor did I command them or speak to them. They are prophesying to you a lying vision, worthless divination, and the deceit of their own minds.”

One River That Is God But Many Streams Back To Him?

Tony Jones is one third of the unholy trinity of apostates around the Emerging Church along with Living Spiritual Teacher and EC guru Brian McLaren as well as universalist Doug Pagitt, pastor of Solomon’s Porch where his friend Jones is the progressive “theologian in residence.” In hs 2005 book The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life (SW) wherein he teaches youth pastors and youth ministers about Counter Reformation spirituality i.e. Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism—also called spiritual disciplines— and about how to incorporate them into their “worship.”

As we look in SW, one of the recommended “Christian Spiritual Classics” for further study turns out to be Collected Works by the well known mystic Meister Eckhart. Jones tells us it is “a mystical treatise on the intersection between Greek philosophy and Christian theology with an emphasis on God’s indwelling of humanity[1]. So now we should be able to see that we’re already dealing with anitbiblical teachings because Scripture is crystal clear that one needs to be regenerated in Christ for God to indwell them.

Modern day mystic Matthew Fox discusses Eckhart’s theology indepth within his 1983 book The Coming Of The Cosmic Christ (CoCC). While Fox is definitely a wolf in sheep’ clothing, he is also an authority concerning the New Spirituality. He explains that through mysticism we will supposedly come to understand what it is to “reach what Eckhart calls the ‘great underground river’ of divinity”[2] said to be within each of us. That we are dealing with blatant heresy here is crystal clear because earlier in CoCC Fox himself refers to all of humanity as “other Christs.”[3]

Another time we’ll also be returning to this panentheistic world-view which eventually emerges from all those who practice this neo-Gnostic and Roman Catholic CSM long enough to receive the delusion whereby they plunge into that “great underground river” of deception. But for our purposes in this article I remind you that through e.g. Romans 8:8-11 we know that the Bible teaches us God only indwells the believer, who by His grace, is regenerated and places their personal faith in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross.

Yet in CoCC Matthew Fox, one who is very well experienced in Contemplative/Centering Prayer–the main vehicle for CCM, a transcendental meditation in an altered state of consciousness for the Christian–explains that the:

first meaning of mysticism is experience itself. As Kabir, the great creation mystic of India, put it in the fifteenth century, “I say only what I have seen with my own eyes–and you keep quoting the Scriptures!” He goes on, “Experience, O seeker, is the essence of all things.” The mystic is keen on the experience of the Divine and will not settle for theory alone or knowing about the Divine.[4]

Now you have just read where all of this CSM of the New Spirituality will always lead one who persists in it; and we’ve seen it in words which are eerily similar to those currently coming from guru McLaren and others among the spiritually corrupt leadership of the sinfully ecumenical neo-liberal cult of the Emergent Church aka the Emerging Church with its quasi-universalism in a new version of Progressive Christian theology under their spiritual circus “big tent” Emergence Christianity.

You’ll even hear this mystic-speak coming from people in the EC considered to be “safe” like Rob Bell as well. The following is from his October 2009 sermon I will say it again, and again, and again:

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)

If one doesn’t recognize here that Bell is praising “the mystics” for their supposedly superior spiritual understanding, which is but a reimagined Gnosticism, I personally believe it’s simply because they just do not wish to see. And a classic symptom of the deception one receives as they continue on in this unbiblical practice of meditation in altered states of consciousness is a distorted view of the actual nature of unregenerate mankind.

Then as we recall above how Matthew Fox, one who feels that he has personally reached what mystic Meister Eckhart called “the ‘great underground river’ of divinity” within each of us, now refers to all of humanity as “other Christs”, there comes emerging a very real source of serious concern for the spiritual direction of Foster’s Quaker “Christian” mysticism that long ago penetrated evangelicalism. And this all makes the following information from Ray Yungen in his book A Time of Departing even more startling:

It is not surprising to find those in the contemplative prayer camp who also subscribe to this view. Contemplative author John R. Yungblut, former Dean of Studies at the Quaker Meditation Center at Pendle Hill in Pennsylvania, echoed a similar notion:

But we cannot confine the existence of the divine to this one man [Jesus] among men. Therefore we are not to worship the man Jesus, though we cannot refrain from worshipping the source of this Holy Spirit or Christ-life, which for many of us has been revealed primarily in this historical figure. (114,115, emphasis mine)

Did you catch the denial of the uniqueness of Jesus Christ; this is exactly where the practice of CSM eventually leads everyone who persists in it. Note that even Rob Bell now acknowledges that “mystics” are experiencing God, which is patently false according to the Bible that he’s supposed to be so good at teaching. Jesus Himself tells us:

“You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins, for unless you believe that I am he you will die in your sins… I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” (John 8:23-24;  14:6)

And it should shock you out of your compliant complacency with heresy in the mainstream evangelical community when the words above from more and more of these pretending to be Protestant teachers of CSM now so closely mirror those of Deepak Chopra, one of the leading Gurus of this antichrist New Spirituality, in his piece Why We Need a Jesus:

it occurred to me that Jesus can be taken as a savior without being the savior… What this implies is that there was a third Jesus, a teacher of higher consciousness. He wanted to raise his followers to the same level of God consciousness that he was in… He quotes Psalms 82 to argue that if scripture makes everyone a god, he cannot be blaspheming to make the same claim for himself…

However, your personal vision must come from a deeper value structure — call it myth, archetype, or the wisdom tradition — and Jesus stands as one of the high peaks of that invisible structure. God-consciousness will never perish. Since Jesus once embodied God-consciousness, he is keeping it alive at this moment, offering to teach the way to anyone who wants to find it. (Online source)

You’d best make the time to listen closely because with CSM you’re being sold a new Gnosticism where we go beyond words i.e. Scripture into spiritual deception and the unity of an antichrist Global Family.

________________________________________________________________________________
Endnotes:

[1] Tony Jones, The Sacred Way: Spiritual Practices for Everyday Life [Grand Rapids: Zondervan/Youth Specialties, 2005], 221.

[2] Matthew Fox, The Coming Of The Cosmic Christ [New York: HarperOne], 230.

[3] Ibid., 130.

[4] Ibid., 48, emphasis mine.

[5] Ray Yungen, A Time of Departing [Eureka: Lighthouse Trails Publishing, 2006], 114-115, emphasis mine.

See also:

THROUGH ROB BELL “THE GREAT ENLIGHTENED ONES” TELL US MAN HAS DIVINE GREATNESS

PETER SCAZZERO RECOMMENDING CONTEMPLATIVE/CENTERING PRAYER

FULLER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY PROFESSOR TONY JONES AND CHRISTIAN SPIRITUALITY COHORT

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

SO YOU WANT TO BE LIKE CHRIST… DITCH THE DISCIPLINES OF DALLAS WILLARD

MOVE OVER PASTORS FOR SPIRITUAL DIRECTORS/GURUS

DONALD WHITNEY AND EVANGELICAL CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY/MYSTICISM

HT: Email Brigade

Religion is, shortly, the reaction of the human soul in the presence of God. As God is as much a part of the environment of man as the earth on which he stands, no man can escape from religion any more than he can escape from gravitation. But though every man necessarily reacts to God, men react of course diversely, each according to his nature, or perhaps we would better say, each according to his temperament. Thus, broadly speaking, three main types of religion arise, corresponding to the three main varieties of the activity of the human spirit, intellectual, emotional, and voluntary. According as the intellect, sensibility, or will is dominant in him, each man produces for himself a religion prevailingly of the intellect, sensibility, or active will; and all the religions which men have made for themselves find places somewhere among these three types, as they produce themselves more or less purely, or variously intermingle with one another.

We say advisedly, all the religions which men have made for themselves. For there is an even more fundamental division among religions than that which is supplied by these varieties. This is the division between man-made and God-made religions. Besides the religions which man has made for himself, God has made a religion for man. We call this revealed religion [Christianity]; and the most fundamental division which separates between religions is that which divides revealed religion [from God] from unrevealed religions [of man]. Of course, we do not mean to deny that there is an element of revelation in all religions. God is a person, and persons are known only as they make themselves known — reveal themselves. The term revelation is used in this distinction, therefore, in a pregnant sense [i.e. important meaning]. In the unrevealed religions God is known only as He has revealed Himself in His acts of the creation and government of the world as every person must reveal himself in his acts if he acts at all. In the one revealed religion [Christianity God has revealed Himself also in acts of special grace, among which is included the open Word.

There is an element in revealed religion [of God], therefore, which is not found in any unrevealed religion [of man]. This is the element of authority. Revealed religion comes to man from without; it is imposed upon him from a source superior to his own spirit. The unrevealed religions, on the other hand, flow from no higher source than the human spirit itself. However much they may differ among themselves in the relative prominence given in each to the functioning of the intellect, sensibility, or will, they have this fundamental thing in common. They are all, in other words, natural religions in contradistinction to the one supernatural religion which God has made.

There is a true sense, then, in which it may be said that the unrevealed religions are “religions of the [human] spirit” and revealed religion is the “religion of authority.” Authority is the correlate of revelation, and wherever revelation is—and only where revelation is — is there authority. Just because we do not see in revelation man reaching up lame hands toward God and feeling fumblingly after Him if haply he may find Him, but God graciously reaching strong hands down to man, bringing him help in his need, we see in it a gift from God, not a creation of man’s. On the other hand, the characteristic of all unrevealed religions is that they are distinctly manmade. They have no authority to appeal to, they rest solely on the deliverances of the human spirit. As Rudyard Kipling shrewdly makes his “Tommy” declare:

The heathen in his blindness bows down to wood and stone,
He don’t obey no orders unless they is his own.

Naturally it makes no difference in this respect whether it is the rational, emotional, or volitional element in the activities of the human spirit to which appeal is chiefly made. In no case are the foundations sunk deeper than the human spirit itself, and nothing appears in the structure that israised which the human spirit does not supply. (excerpt from Mysticism and Christianity, emphasis mine)

Benjamin Warfield

See also:

CORRUPT CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY/MYSTICISM GAINING GROUND IN EVANGELICALISM

DISCIPLINES TO DECEPTION IN SOUTHERN BAPTIST CONVENTION

THE TERMINOLOGY TRAP OF “SPIRITUAL FORMATION”

“INWARD JOURNEY” ESPOUSED BY RICHARD FOSTER IS A FORM OF DIVINATION

MEDITATING ON CONTEMPLATIVE/CENTERING PRAYER

KEN SILVA ON IRON SHARPENS IRON: EMERGING CHURCH GURUS AND ROMAN CATHOLIC MYSTICISM IN PROTESTANT EVANGELICALISM

THROUGH ROB BELL “THE GREAT ENLIGHTENED ONES” TELL US MAN HAS DIVINE GREATNESS