The following is from unsolicited email received from a brother pastor-teacher and is published with his permission. He was writing in response to the recent Apprising Ministries article Richard Foster A Reliable Source For Proper Christian Spirituality?

Sadly, Celebration of Discipline, a piece of spiritual skubalon by Living Spiritual Teacher and Quaker mystic Richard Foster, which Dr. Gary Gilley has rightly called “a virtual encyclopedia of theological error,” has been studied as a reliable source for Protestant spirituality in evangelical seminaries for years now.

You don’t believe me? Then why don’t you ask your own pastor; you might just learn something that you really need to know, before it’s too late:

I am an Independent Bible Church pastor and I remember being given the assignment to read Celebration of Discipline by Foster when I was 26 years old at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville KY. I got halfway through the book, because at the time, I just felt it was horribly wrong. I felt strange during this whole time while much older students around me gushed to the professor over what a wonderful book Celebration of Discipline was. I’m ashamed to say, I was too intimidated to speak up to my professor…being a young man and a fairly young Christian. I just sat there thinking something was wrong with me; or that I just didn’t get it because, I thought, surely the older students had to be more learned than I was.

At the time I felt like maybe I just was overreacting. However, years later now, I fully realize I “got it” just fine. It sickens me that Foster’s books are handed out in Baptist seminaries. I may only be a relatively young man, but I sure am smart enough to know that at one time God’s word was enough. The latest book by “so and so” didn’t matter because the word of God was sufficient. Today it seems the Bible takes a back seat and is read in light of the current bestseller instead of the other way around. I recently had someone give me The Shack for our church library. I’d heard of it but never read it. I tried to read it and got almost half way through and had to put it down.

It turned my stomach, literally. I felt like I was ingesting poison as I read it. I could not stomach it. I informed the church that book will NOT be on our shelves. It frightens me that professing Christians are taken in by such junk as The Shack or Celebration of Discipline. Both are just paganism loosely dressed up as Christianity. Thanks for contending for the truth and exposing false teaching like Foster’s.

See also:

EVANGELICAL RIP VAN WINKLES EMPLOY QUAKER MYSTIC RICHARD FOSTER FOR BEDTIME FABLES

THE TERMINOLOGY TRAP OF “SPIRITUAL FORMATION”

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

QUAKER MYSTIC RICHARD FOSTER: CIRCUMNAVIGATE INCONSISTENCIES IN THE BIBLE

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

CONTEMPLATIVE SPIRITUALITY/MYSTICISM (CSM) OF SPIRITUAL FORMATION IS RECKLESS FAITH

STAY AWAY FROM “THE SHACK”