This is a companion piece to the Apprising Ministries post Rob Bell In A Nutshell: The Bible. From the article The Emergent Mystique which appeared in the November 2004 issue of Christianity Today:

Rob Bell: We’re rediscovering Christianity as an Eastern religion, as a way of life.

From an audio sermon on “Breathing” dated 5/29/05, 17:10-17:45, transcript on file at Apprising Ministries:

Rob Bell: Central to the Christian tradition, for thousands of years, have been disciplines of meditation, reflection, silence, and breathing. It was understood that to be a healthy person, to be fully connected with God, and fully centered (pause) you would spend significant parts of your day in silence–breathing, meditating–praying (pause) allowing the Spirit of God to transform you and touch you.

This is taken from The Parish podcast, 08:46-09:38, transcript on file at AM:

Rob Bell: [The Christian tradition]; It’s symbols, it’s rituals, I think that I want to be as traditional as possible, heh, the future is behind us. Um, there’s this beautiful rich tradition of sacraments and practices and disciplines and silence . . . it’s a beautiful, beautiful thing.

And the next section below comes from the Zachary Lind podcast at FindingRythym.com. What is important to note here is that Lind will speak of a book called Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer by Richard Rohr that ostensibly evangelical “Protestant” Bell “recommended” and gave to him for spiritual growth.

The website of the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC) tells us under the section Our Founder that “Father Richard Rohr is a Franciscan of the New Mexico Province.”

You should also know that this Roman Catholic priest also happens to be another Living Spiritual Teacher along with Contemplative Guru Richard Foster.

You may also recall that in that same CT article referenced above that Emergent Church theologian Brian McLaren himself said that Richard Foster and Dallas Willard were “key mentors” in this Emergent rebellion against the Bible.

Well, here is where the deception received through the practice of Contemplative/Centering Prayer has taken Roshi Rohr, whose “wisdom” in this so-called spiritual discipline Rob Bell recommends to his friend below.

In January of 2008 Rohr was a “presenter” at Jesus and Buddha: Paths to Awakening (Online source)—sponsored by his own CAC—where in true contemplative mystic theology he taught the equality of Buddha with Christ and the indwelling of God in all things:

The Four Noble Truths are the distilled essence of the Buddhist teaching. In this retreat, each of the Four Noble Truths will be introduced and explored, with emphasis given to the presence of each Noble Truth at the heart of Jesus’ call to awaken to God’s presence in every detail of our daily lives…

The teachings of both Jesus and Buddha call us to transformational honesty. They are both teaching us how to see, and how to see all the way through! They both knew that if you see God for yourself, you will see the Divine in all things. (Online source)

Now the following from the aforementioned Lind podcast:

Rob Bell: I stare at my wall. I stare out my window…

Lind: I don’t know what else but I mean…I just kind of find that and like the book you recommended to me a few weeks ago, Richard Rohr. It talked about contemplative prayer, and he talks about how, and didn’t really know what he meant by it, like you know…what is that? He doesn’t really…you read half of the book and still don’t really know what his definition of that is. But he starts getting into it. An’ he says, well you know you have to at least sit for you know…you have sit past 20 minutes.

Bell: Yeah, yes.

Lind: Because when you’re quiet and silent and you’re just trying to communicate with God and understand you know maybe what’s going on in your life at the time or whatever…

Bell: Yeah.

Lind: It takes a certain amount of time before you’re sort of selfish things get aired out. Like you might be all about you for 20 minutes, but then after that it’s like, you’re kind of a blank slate. You know…

Bell: uh-hum.

Lind: You’re kind of ready to intake anything. He talks a lot about in that book about a beginners mind, and you know being kind of like a child and coming up to Jesus, and really just ready to be written on. And you know, I don’t know…maybe I’m wrong, but I kind of feel like most from what I hear, it doesn’t seem like there’s a lot of that going on in terms of…

Bell: Yeah, well you have to essentially discipline your life around forming the depths and that takes just phenomenal discipline that I don’t even pretend to have. (23:43-25:14, transcript on file at AM)

And if there’s still any doubt that Rob Bell is involved with, and teaching, corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism straight out of The Cult of Guru Richard Foster one need only listen to the beginning of his October 18, 2008 sermon Beware the dogs. There Bell leads his congregation in prolonged meditative breathing in much the same way as his earlier sermon on “Breathing” referenced above.

See also:

KEN SILVA: FIGHTING FOR THE FAITH PODCAST ON ROB BELL

ROB BELL CONTROVERSY OVER DOCTRINE

IS ROB BELL EVANGELICAL?

ROB BELL RESOURCES FROM APPRISING MINISTRIES