I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. (Acts 20:29-30, ESV)

Doug Pagitt And His Emergent Cohorts Found Among The Above

The other day universalist Emerging Church pastor Doug Pagitt, part of the Emergent Church trinity along with his progressive theologian in residence Tony Jones and EC guru Brian McLaren, seems pretty excited as he tweeted: 

I posted thoughts on 4 events (C21, Q, Sustainable Faith, Trnasform) through the lens of the enneagram http://bit.ly/dfjtrx (Online source) 

Alrighty then; the above link takes us to his latest post (as of this writing) Events Through the Lens of the Enneagram where he shares: 

I am a big fan of the Enneagram. It is one of those personality tests, but to me it more than a way to pigeonhole people. I find it to be helpful in understanding people and seeing things from their perspective. It helps me to find a deeper level of understanding of person than simply what we project. 

I like it because is gives access to desires and fears. It is honest, sometimes too much so. It doesn’t “sugar coat” our personality but gives us new categories for understanding ourselves… For the record, I am an 8. (A Social 8 with a 7 wing to be a bit more ennegramish about it.) 

In the last few months I have been to a number of church leader events and have been thinking about them in relationship to the Enneagram. I think events take on a temperament just as people do (maybe events receive their temperament from their organizers)… (Online source)

Here’s another example as to why the Christian community certainly doesn’t need “pastors” like Doug Pagitt anywhere near their younger, more impressionable, sheep leading them into things counter to Christianity and which are actually rooted in the occult. Far more than a mere “personality test” the Enneagram, which to no real surprise is also pushed by Red Letter Christian and Roman Catholic mystic Richard Rohr, originates in the mystical stran of Islam known as Sufism (see below). In Enneagram system: Alternative Health Dictionary on Enneagram system we’re told it’s a: 

System of spiritual psychology based on an ancient Sufi [Islam] typology of nine (ennea in Greek) personality types or primary roles (Online source) 

This is confirmed in The Enneagram where we read: 

The roots of the enneagram can be traced to two men: George Gurdjieff and Oscar Ichazo. Both men were involved in occultic pursuits. Guurdjiieff learned of the enneagram from a sect of Sufis (mystical Islam). The Sufis used the enneagram for numerological divination. Oscar Ichazo later developed a personality theory around the enneagram and added it. (Online source) 

In Sufism the goal is to use mystical practices such as transcendental meditation and altered states of consciousness to make oneself whole in union with God, which is thought to be “redemption.” And toward the path of this redemption, with its own version of “the true self,” the enneagram chart is thought to assist this process. Christian apologist Mike Oppenheimer of the fine online apologetics and discernment ministry Let Us Reason explains: 

The Enneagram symbol is a nine-pointed, star-like figure. The nine lines comprise a perfect triangle and a twisted hexagon contained within a circle. This is a New Age type mandala, a mystical gateway to personality classification. The drawing is based upon a belief in the mystical properties of the numbers 7 and 3.  

There are lines that connect some of the points on the circumference of the circle, an arrangement based on what are taken to be the mystical and cosmological properties of the numbers three and seven. Mixtures with numerically adjoining types are particularly frequent, called “wings.” A 5’s wing will either be type 4, or type 6 (or occasionally both). A 9’s wing will either be type 8 or 1. 

The Enneagram is chart or diagram with many points and lines inside and touching a circle. The enneagram symbol itself is a circle along whose circumference appear nine equally spaced points marked by the numerals 1 through 9 in succession. The chart purports to describe nine different personality types, and a automatic or mechanical response to life. (Online source)

By the way, the aforementioned George Ivanovich Gurdjieff (1866?-1949) was:

considered by some to be the greatest mystical teacher of all time, and by others to be a fraud. His liberation philosophy, commonly called “the Work,” set occultism on its ear in the 1920s and paved the way for now-conventional techniques of group and encounter therapy. [1]

And it’s little wonder considering the universalism of Doug Pagitt, and his own practice of  corrupt Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism (CSM), why he’d end up right in lock-step spiritually with Gurdjieff’s “work” of the Fourth Way where:

one may pass from the darkness of this world with its wars, hatred and confusion to the inner sanctuary of the heart where one can discover what Gurdjieff calls “Real I”, whereby a man or woman can develop the wish, as the Gospels instructs, to “Love God with all your heart, all your strength, and all your mind, and to love your neighbor as yourself.”…

If more of us could consciously live the ideas contained in Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky we would, indeed, guarantee entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven for every man, woman and child on the planet… (Online source)

Yet another reason to avoid practicing CSM , and its crowning jewel Contemplative/Centering Prayer, which actually a form meditation in an altered state of consciousness; in other words, CCP is transcendental meditation lightly sprayed with Christian terms. And, as I said in Evangelicalism Using Its Young As Spiritual Guinea Pigs, years of exposing its own youth to these emerging fools like Doug Pagitt is going to come with a heavy price; because soon squishy evanjellyfish is going to discover the hard way that its younger sectors are mostly contemplatives now who don’t adhere to Sola Scriptura.

HT: Lighthouse Trails Research

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Endnotes: 

1.Rosemary Ellen Guiley, Harper’s Encyclopedia of Mystical & Paranormal Experiences [Edison: Castle Books, 1991] , 247.

See also:

CHARLES SPURGEON: THOSE WHO BURY THE GOSPEL WITH TRASH

DOUG PAGITT, JOHN PIPER, AND KARMA KICK-BACK

THE EMERGING CHURCH AGENDA AND DOUG PAGITT

DOUG PAGITT AND ARROGANCE OF LIBERAL/PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIANS

DOUG PAGITT AND A “CHRISTIANITY” HE LIKES

DOUG PAGITT AND JOHN SHELBY SPONG

LIBERALISM 2.0 THE NEW PROGRESSIVE CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY